The Missionary Review of the World — November 1932
1932
A Brahniin Who Sought Peace Glenn B. Ogden The Conquering Christ in·South America Samuel Guy Inman Religion-By Evolution or Revelation· Samuel M. Zwem.er A Pastor's Opportunity Francis Shunk Downs Missions to Indians-Yesterday and Today Thomas C.· Moffett Oases in the Good Earth G. Carleton Lacy
STANLEY HIGH Editorial Chat THE MISSIONARY
The New Crisis The demand for the July-August OF THE WORLD issue of THE REVIEW, on the Amerin the Far East ican Indian, exhausted the first edi- Delavan L. Pierson, Editor tion and it has been reprinted. Copies Christianitg and Opposing Forces may be obtained, if ordered promptly, Vol. LV Nov., 1932 No. 11 at 25 cents each, $20 a hundred. An indispensable handbook for those FRONTISPIECE ………. 578 who desire something more than a news- *** paper acquaintance with the world's TOPICS OF THE TIMES … 579 most serious international crisis. $1.00 The special Christmas offer of THE REVIEW appears on page 623. Don't Thanksgiving Under Difficulties The Uncut Nerve of Missions, miss it! This gives an opportunity to Laymen Appraise Foreign 'Mis- bring pleasure and help to pastors, by Cleland B. McAfee missionaries and other friends and at sions the same time to help the Cause of Where There Is No Missionary Dr. McAfee's latest book is for those deeply con- Christ whose coming to earth we are commemorating. Depression cerned as to what the future holds of duty and Sunday School Leaders at Rio opportunity in the Mission field. *** $1.50 A BRAHMIN WHO Read the comments on the Lay- SOUGHT PEACE ……. 583 New life Through God, men's Roreign Mission Inquiry (on page 580) and you will be convinced Glenn B. Ogden of Kasganj, India by Toyohiko Kagawa that the work of evangelical missions is not completed either at home or THE CONQUERING "If you're not too Western to take a good straight abroad. THE MISSIONARY RE- CHRIST IN SOUTH VIEW OF THE WORLD fills a more AMERICA ………….. 588 dose of Christian preaching from an Oriental, important need than ever. Samuel Guy Inman of New York you'll find, as I did, that it is a really powerful *** RELIGION – BY EVOLUbook. In Japan it is selling by the hundred thous- We have on hand some very at- TION OR BY REVELA- tractive colored Bible pictures (6 1,4 x TION ………………. 591 and."-Christian Advocate. $1.50 8% ) suitable for missionary use. These will be furnished free as long Samuel M. Zwemer of Princeton Religions of Old Korea, as the supply lasts. WHAT THE "MAN OF by Charles Allen Clark, Ph.D. * *' * HOPO" THINKS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH … 594 A II permanent contribution to the literature bearing READ WHAT READERS SAY on Asiatic faiths."-King's Business. A PASTOR'S OPPORTU- "There is no magazine that we en- NITY ………………. 595 Illustrated, $2.50 joy reading more than THE RE- VIEW. It fills a place no other mag- Francis Shunk Downs of Berkeley, A Jolly Journal, azine can fill." California by Isabel Crawford BERTHA M. LUCK, A JAPANESE ST. FRAN- CIS ………………… 599 Anyone who knows Isabel Crawford, author of Woman's Board of Missions, Nashville, Tenn. The Editor "Kiowa," etc., is well aware that she can never say nor write anything that isn't interesting, in- *** MISSIONS TO INDIANSstructive and entertainin~. YESTERDAY AND TO- Illustrated, $1.50 "I prize THE REVIEW more and DAy ………………. 601 more every year. The October num- The Course of Christian ber is great! Please send me an extra Thomas C. Moffett of New York copy and a Christmas Gift subscrip- Missions, tion to my daughter." OASES IN THE GOOD EARTH ……………. 603 by William Owen Carver, D.O. THE REV. L. B. WOLF, D.D., United Lutheran Church, G. Carleton Lacy of Shanghai A succinct yet comprehensive record, which traces Baltimore, Md. OVERCOMING 0 B S T A – the main line of the history and development of *** CLES IN CHINA …….. 606 missions down to the present day. $3.00 "The July issue of THE REVIEW Wm. H. Gleysteen of Peiping went like the proverbial 'hot cakes' at An American Doctor each of the conferences I attended and EFFECTIVE WAY S OF at Work in India, I wished for many more." WORKING …………. 609 by Sir W. J. Wanless, M.D. MRS. DAN BRUMMIT, Edited by Mrs. Estella S. Aitchison Introduction by Robert E. Speer, D.D. An Kansas City. WOMEN'S HOME MISSION BULLETIN …………. 612 important record of his own experiences by one held OUR WORLD-WIDE OUTin the highest regard by those familiar with medical LOOK ……………… 615 missions. $1.50 OUR MISSIONARY BOOK- SHELF •……………. 621 New Revised Edition Publication Office The Foreign Missionary, 40 S. Meridian St., Indianapolis, by Arthur Judson Brown, D.O. Indiana A new and thoroughly revised edition of a mis- Editorial and Business Office sionary classic by one who has been described as 156 Fifth Avenue, New York City "the highest authority on problems relating to Christian civilization in the Far East." Net, $2.00 Entered as second-class matter at Post-Office, Indianapolis, Ind., under HUGH REDWOOD :Act of March 3, 1879. G d · h' n t e O· I FIRST 25 cents a copy-$2.50 a year romON Foreign Postage 50 cents a year Shad0 ws FIFTY THOUSAND Published monthly-All rights reserved Copyrighted 1932 by the The author's "God in the Slums" has already sold MISSIONARY REVIEW PUBin the United States and Great Britian nearly three LISHING CO., INC.
hundred thousand. The new book is starting off with BOARD OF DIRECTORS ROBERT E. SPEER, President an edition of fifty thousand and should quickly take its WM. I. CHAMBERLAIN, Vice-President WALTER McDOUGALL, Treasurer place among the best selling religious books in two DELAVAN L. PIERsON, Secretary SAMUEL MCCREA CAVERT continents. $1.00 MRS. ORRIN R. Juno WM. B. LIPPHARD Fleming H. Revell Company ERIC M. NORTH MILTON J. STAUFFER New York ,. « 158 Fifth Avenue A. L. W ARNSHUIS SAMUEL M. ZWEMER
A. C. CHAKRAVARTI (WITH BABY) IN HIS CHRISTIAN ASHRAM, WITH HIS FAMILY AND CHRISTIAN
A RECENT PHOTOGRAPH OF HINDU GURUS, PRIESTS AND PANDITS, WITH CHRISTIANS, AT MR. CHAKRAVARTI'S ASHRAM Sweeper (untouchable) Christians are included in this Ashram, with Purdah women (behind the doors)', who have never before joined in any Christian meeting. (See page 583.) REVIB ORLD VOLUME LV AN INTERDENOMINATIONAL REVIEW OF WORLD-WIDE CHRISTIAN PROGRESS NUMBER 11 NOVEMBER, 1932 Topics of the Times THANKSGIVING UNDER DIFFICULTIES and difficulties; for the incentives to return to a Many may find it difficult this year to celebrate simpler, more healthful manner of life; for fam- the national Thanksgiving Day with the zest they ilies reunited through the new need for economy; have shown in prosperity. In America alone for public officials who are true to their trust and some ten million workers are out of employment; are seeking to serve with all their powers; for thousands have lost all their material possessions the example of nations like Great Britain and and multitudes are dependent on public charity statesmen like President Hoover; for schools, hos- for their daily bread. pitals, churches and other institutions that con- It is true that prosperity has led to thoughtless- tinue to build up character and life; for our in- ness, wastefulness and self-indulgence. Many heritance-individual, national, religious.
have thought that they could do without God and We may also give thanks for the true founda- have neglected His laws, His worship, His Word tions of society that are laid bare when the tem- and His service. Like Israel of old we have gone porary superstructure is laid low; for the love of astray and have turned everyone to his own way, family and friends; for our homes and children; rather than walked in the way of God. for the business man and teachers who remain Adversity has a sobering influence. Men see true in the midst of adversity; for the conscious- that money will not buy security or happiness ness that troubles come to pass-not to remain; and that human institutions are weak and apt to that the future holds larger possibilities of satis- crumble. Unless blinded by ignorance and preju- faction than the present; for God's good gifts of dice, we realize that the spiritual things are the sunshine and showers, of the many dependable things that abide and that we cannot truly live natural resources of earth and the heavens, of without God. Dr. J. Stuart Holden of London in- mind and spirit.
terprets the prophecy of Habakkuk as bringing We may well give thanks for God-given ability us this message: "Though all my profits be to learn lessons from past and present experi- swept away and I be left without a credit balance; ences; for the privilege of work and the opportu- though all my dividends be passed; and though nity to show kindness to others; for the many the value of all my securities disappears in the earnest endeavors to establish peace, righteous- economic blizzard, yet will I rejoice in God and ness and brotherhood among men; for the prog- joy that I am living! The world has lost noth- ress of Christian missions and the establishment ing till it has lost God ! " . of groups of earnest believers in God in all lands; When we set ourselves to thinking seriously we for the spiritual awakenings in Persia and Africa, find that we have many true reasons for thanks- in India and Burma, in Siam and China, in Korea giving in these days through which we are pass- and Japan, in Latin America and the islands of ing. Here are some topics for thought or for the sea, in the cities and towns all over North sermons. America; we give thanks that the mercy of God We may give thanks for the failure of folly to has not failed; that the eternal verities cannot satisfy; for the sobering influence of adversity; be swept away by material catastrophies; we may for the shattering of self-complacency and self- still rest confident in God as the all-wise, loving sufficiency; for new sources of help revealed; for creator, in Christ and His Way of Life, and in the the spirit of courage manifested by those who fulfillment of His promises.
suffer; for unselfish service rendered to those in In fact, when we compare our cause fordissat~ need; for many victories over discouragements isfaction with our reasons for thanksgiving, have [579 ]
we any reasons for discouragement or complaint? meantime extensive extracts have been given to There is good reason to make this season one the press. The "Appraisers" commend Christian of true thanksgiving to God; a season of hope missionary work as a whole and recognize many and joy; a time to mark new beginnings and a benefits that have come to humanity from the sinbrighter outlook. Let us think and thank God! cerity, courage and devotion of men ,and women who have given their lives and their money to pro- LAYMEN APPRAISE FOREIGN MISSIONS mote it. But they declare that "far reaching changes" must now be made if further support is In January, 1930, a small group of American warranted and if we are to expect success. Christian laymen decided to look into this Foreign Missionary business. This was natural and They summarize their view of the problem and right. Over $40,000,000 are contributed annually point out what they conceive to be the present to be spent by American Protestant mission weaknesses of the enterprise. They then make boards to promote Christianity abroad. Nearly general recommendations along the following 30,000 American and European missionaries are lines: giving their lives to this service. The work has not been without result, for forty thousand mis- 1. Mission workers should join with the Hindus, Mossion churches have been established in non-Chris- lems and Buddhists to counteract the growth of athetian lands and over eight million people are now ism, irreligion and materialism, rather than undertake allied with these Christian missions. But re- to combat the non-Christian religions. cently missionary contributions at home have been falling off. Travelers and others have criticized 2. Missionaries must make a sympathetic study of other the work. Some say that it is faulty and old religions to discover the points of agreement with fashioned; some that it is useless; others that it Christianity; they must present positive rather than is the greatest work in the world. 'Some hold that negative conceptions of life and religion. we spend too much for foreign missions, others too little. Some complain about the methods, 3. We should drop theological disputes and "separate others about the type of missionaries sent and Christianity from our Western history and agencies, the kind of institutions established abroad. Whom presenting it as a universal religion." shall we believe? 4. The missionary personnel must be more carefully se- When funds for an investigation were independ- lected by home boards, with a view to technical effiently provided, this small group of laymen decided ciency, discarding those of limited ability and narrow to look into the matter-not as opponents of the outlook. work but as friends. Seven large church boards agreed to cooperate, and sponsors, or "directors 5. The churches on the mission fields should take the of the inquiry," were selected from the cooperat- initiative in indicating how many and what kind of ing denominations. Three groups of specialists, missionaries they wish sent to their field. "Fact Finders," were sent in advance to India, China and Japan to gather material. Next fifteen 6. Sectarianism at home and on the mission field should men and women were asked to visit these fields to be discarded in favor of unity and cooperation-not investigate and report-all expenses paid. Before necessarily uniformity. they left America a year ago five volumes of the printed report of the "Fact Finders" were placed 7. Boards at home should unite to set up a general adin the Commissioners' hands. Then they set out ministrative board to promote and supervise the work to discover the answers to three main questions: of all the denominations. This super-mission agency should be made up of executives and of laymen out- 1. In view of present conditions is there need to continue side the boards. or expand foreign missionary work in non-Christian lands? There are commendable points in their recom- mendations. There is recognition of the value of 2. Are the present ideals and methods satisfactory; if the Christian message and the need for sharing not, what changes should be made? with others the values we have found in Christ; there is acknowledgment of the common need of 3. In view of modern conceptions of culture and religion, "salvation" from ignorance and failure. There is what should be the attitude of Christians toward those frank recognition of faults of the Christian of other religious faiths? Church and the need to correct them-sectarian rivalry, self-complacency and lack of appreciation The Appraisal Commission, after nine months of others. There is emphasis on the importance on the field, has recently returned and has pre- of sending only our best as missionaries, and on sented their report to the Directors of the Inquiry. the prime importance of a vital Christian life and Later this is to be submitted to the seven cooper- experience. The Commissioners realize that Christianity grows by "sharing" and that the ating boards* and may then be published. In the strength of the Church in the field is shown by its quality and influence rather than by statistical tables.
* The cooperating boards are the Baptist (Northern), Congrega- tional, Dutch Reformed, Episcopal, Methodist EpIscopal (North), Pres- byterian (North), and United Presbyterian. These boards have coop- erated only by conference with the Commissioners and by facilitating their investigation.
TOPICS OF THE TIMES
The personnel of the Commission* assures us of God as manifesting His purpose and power to- of an honest, courageous and intelligent piece of day in Christian missions; no recognition of the work. M.any of their criticisms seem justified. guidance and work of the Holy Spirit, or of the Any careful appraisal of their report must await importance of prayer. A humanistic philosophy its publication in full, but these advance instal- dominates the recommendations.
ments give grounds for some misgivings as to its 8. A super-board of missions will not be ac- real value and influence. ceptable to the Church at home. The Inter- 1. The report deals with generalities more Church World Movement brought catastrophe, not than with concrete facts as to methods and re- triumph.
sults. The Commissioners might almost have This report should not be taken to represent written it without leaving America. the judgment of the cooperating mission boards.
2. They conceive of missions from the stand- It will not be presented to them until November point of human philosophy, and on a cultural 18th. What are conceived to be weaknesses in basis, rather than as the fulfillment of a divine the report should not prevent acknowledgment of commission to spread everywhere the Good News its commendable features or hinder the correction of life through Christ. The Commissioners of weaknesses in missionary work as conducted clearly speak as philosophers and educationalists today. We need to reappraise our motives, our rather than as evangelists. personnel, our expenditures and our methods to 3. They apparently fail to see any vital dif- bring them into harmony with the Spirit and ference between "religion" in general 'and the standards of Christ. We believe that if the re- Christian religion in particular; between human port as it stands were adopted by the boards- ethnic beliefs and practices, and the revelation of which we doubt-it would weaken rather than God through His Son Jesus Christ. As a result strengthen evangelical missions ; it would reduce they suggest alliance with other religions to com- rather than increase missionary gifts; it would bat irreligion. This is unthinkable and unwork- lead to a greater division rather than greater able from a Christian point of view. unity in the churches. Christianity is not a phil- 4. Apparently the Appraisers have very little osophy of life. The essence of Christianity is understanding of the evils associated with Hindu- Christ. The only successful mission work is that ism, Buddhism and Islam or of their failure to which extends His rule over men who acknowl- make known God and victorious love. The New edge Him as Divine Saviour and Lord. Let us Testament teaches that the followers of these re- seek to make missions more Christ-like.
ligions have an equal spiritual need with atheists WHERE THERE IS NO MISSIONARY and materialists, that men are immortal souls, as DEPRESSION well as social humans.
5. The attitude of the report toward Christian It is an astonishing fact that the cooperating evangelism is unsatisfactory. The Appraisers missionary societies in the Netherlands are not recommend that medical and educational missions suffering from the present depression. The in- be separated from evangelistic work-the definite come of these societies in 1931 was F1.25,000 effort to win men to Christ. ($10,000) larger than in 1930; and in the first 6. There is a lack of any consideration of the six months of 1932 it was F1.70,000 ($28,700) comparative spiritual values and results of vari- larger than in the same period of 1931. Three ous types of mission work-educational, medical, reasons are suggested to explain this fact.
social and evangelistic. Apparently the Ap- The first is that these Christian people love mis- praisers are not very familiar with such remark- sions. The National "Mission-fest," held last July able spiritual awakenings and transformations as on the grounds of the palace of the Queen-Mother have taken place in North Korea, ,among the at Soestdijk near Amersfoort, gave ample evi- Telugus in India and in many parts of China. It dence of this. In spite of a rainy day, over three would be interesting to know how they would ap- thousand people were present. If the weather praise such work as that of the China Inland Mis- had been more friendly, from eight to ten thou- sion, the Japan Evangelistic Band and the Dohna- sand people might have been expected. From vur Fellowship. three platforms speakers gave addresses to peo- 7. There seems to be no adequate recognition ple sheltering themselves under umbrellas.
• The Appraisal Commission was made up of the following: Prof. There were many interesting features to this and Mrs. Wm. E. Hocking of Harvard; Pres. Clarence A. Barbour of "fest". In the program especial consideration Brown University; Edgar H. Betts of Troy; Pres. Arlo A. Brown of was given to the younger people. Popular ad- Drew University; Dr. Charles P. Emerson, University of Indiana dresses were interspersed among those of a more Medical School; Dr. Henry S. Houghton, University of Iowa M<dical solid character, required to satisfy a Dutch audi- School; Prof. Rufus M. Jones of Haverford College; Dr. Wm. P. Mer- ence. The varied and picturesque costumes worn rill, pastor of Brick Church, N. Y. C.; Albert L. Scott of N. Y.; Mr. and Mrs. Harper Sibley of Rochester; Dr. Henry C. Taylor, agricultural specialist; Vice-Pres. Woodward of the University of Chicago; and Miss Ruth F. Woodsmall of Indianapolis.
were evidence that the people came from all parts vidual giver is card-catalogued. Every gift is of the country and from rural classes as well as systematically followed up, and if it is not refrom the city. The Queen-Mother was there, but peated in due time the reason is sought. Here the Queen and her Consort were prevented by is a lesson for wasteful, inefficient Americans! absence from the country. The deep interest in What gains in economy and in effectiveness might foreign missions and the manifest devotion of the be made if our mission boards would seek the people to this cause was evident. What other largest possible cooperation in administration! purpose could bring them together on a rainy day for an outdoor series of addresses? A. L. WARNSHUIS.
A second reason for the steady support of mis- SUNDAY SCHOOL LEADERS AT RIO sions by the Christians in Holland may be found in the fact that the income of the societies de- While Brazil was experiencing a formidable repends not upon large gifts but on a multitude of bellion (which has since been terminated), Parasmall gifts. This means extensive and effective guay and Bolivia were contending for Chaco, missionary education, and a thorough-going culti- Chile was experiencing one political upheaval vation of individual givers and of pastors and after another, and Colombia and Peru were on church leaders. A detailed study of the methods the verge of warfare, representatives from thiradopted by these Dutch missionary societies in ty-three nations gathered at Rio de Janeiro in the cultivation of their constituency·would be the interests of world-wide Sunday school work. suggestive and stimulating. But the essential fact is that the base of missionary support is The number of enrolled delegates was 1,619 broad and wide as well as deep, and when the and one of the open air meetings brought together shock of economic depression comes the results some 10,000 people. Several hundred more were are not so destructive as when the opposite is prevented from attending the convention by the true. revolution which blockaded Sao Paulo.
A third fact to be noted is the extent of suc- This great international gathering represented, cessful cooperation in the work of the missionary as Sir Harold Mackintosh, the President, said, societies in Holland. Eight societies have united "the greatest and mightiest voluntary movement their administrative work. Each has maintained in the world, cooperating for the Christian eduits separate organization, treasury, and work in cation of the coming generation." The motto of the field, but the executive secretarial work, both the convention, "The Living Christ"-or in Portuas related to the cultivation of the home constitu- guese, 0 Christo Vivo-presented a striking conencies and the administration abroad, has been trast to images of the divine Babe and the dead united under one staff in the headquarters at Christ seen in the churches of Brazil and so uni- Oegstgeest, near Leiden. Instead of eight or pos- versally held up for worship in Roman Catholic sibly ten secretaries for these eight societies, countries. there are five-two for the homebase, two for the work abroad, and one general secretary. This One of the significant features of this convenunion has resulted both in economy and in effi- tion was the series of six seminar groups which, ciency. With separate organizations and one sec- under skillful leadership, discussed important retary, or in some cases two for each society, one topics connected with Christian religious educaman must spread his service over the whole field, tion and presented their findings to the convenboth at home and abroad, and can specialize in tion. The first session was opened on July 25th neither without weakening his effectiveness in one by Dean Luther A. Weigle of Yale University, or the other department. and the program was enriched by addresses by Christians from many lands. A chorus of 500 A visit to the Oegstgeest headquarters im- voices, an impressive pageant, "Christ of the presses one with the efficiency of the administra- Ages," and an educational exhibit were attractive tive organization, in the most improved machines features of the convention. Daily noon prayer and methods for their office work and in their meetings were held to seek divine guidance, felknowledge of missionary problems, always abreast lowship and power. The use of the large Municiof the best in the world. This effective coopera- pal Theater was granted by the Government free tion makes possible the successful missionary edu- of charge and many Brazilians united in offercation to which reference has been made. Summer ing generous hospitality. The convention made schools are provided to such an extent that every a profound impression on Brazilians and has pastor in Holland can attend. one every three or without doubt given a strong impetus to evangelifour years, and by the systematic working of the cal work in this great country which has now the home field every pastor has such an opportunity. strongest Protestant body in Latin America and The record of every congregation and every indi- where there are still large reaches of territory untouched by the Gospel of Christ.
A Brahmin Who Sought
By the REV. GLENN B. OGDEN Kasganj, United Provinces, India Missionary of the American Presbyterian Church. 1916- I T was a hot, sticky evening such as Calcutta came so fast and so easily? He had in a few produces in abundance during the course of years edited and sent through the press nearly all a year. A high caste Bengali business man of the ancient and best loved Sanskrit books of sat cross-legged on his floor mat, surrounded by the Hindus. Among his friends Chakravarti his ledgers, closing up business for the day. numbered outstanding men like the great poet "Just what am I getting out of all this sweat- Tagore, business men, professional men and land- ing over money? Who would pick up the lines lords. Houses he had, lands, country estates. A and drive on as I am doing were I to drop out hundred seventy-five miles from Calcutta, on the of the picture this night? Have I found heart banks of a stream chiselling its way through gran- peace-Shanti? Am I getting the best out of ite banks, he had built a country house in a de- life? Does the way I am going promise ultimate lightful garden, surrounded by mangoe, guava satisfaction? Will it bring me at last to peace?" and other Bengali fruit trees; there he expected Thus the soliloquy went on in his heart. to spend the latter years of his life in quiet devo- As a boy A. C. Chakravarti had gone to school tions, religious exercises and meditations.
in the city of his birth, Dacca, some two hundred This would be quite in keeping with the prac- miles east of Calcutta. All during his school days tice of Indian gentlemen. After money had been grinding poverty fostered within his young breast accumulated, and children grown to maturity and the determination to become a rich man when were able to look after the family affairs, then once school days were left behind. At last, with the father might retire from business and try to a capital of thirty rupees (about ten dollars), he find satisfaction in the consolations of religion.
started a book shop in the great University city. For years Chakravarti had been trying to find Such was his skill, application, and resourceful- the peace which the "world" gives. His last worry ness that within a year ten thousand rupees had would disappear when he had successfully comrolled in. Chakravarti began to acquire wealth pleted the marriage arrangements of his two and fame-but he forgot all about God and future charming and much-loved daughters. He thought life. that he was free from cares and anxieties and would be able to live on the income turned in by Some years passed, bringing us to the time his agents. when our story begins. Just why this Hindu should be talking thus to himself he did not know.
Ought not he of all men to be happy? He was Disillusionment a Brahmin of the Brahmins, having an excellent Sanskrit education; he was a writer of school But now something was disturbing him. He textbooks and a good enough salesman to per- was tired of this sort of peace, and disillusioned suade the Department of Education to accept his he gave himself to the study and practice of palm- books in competition with others. Money was istry and astrology. Again quick proficiency re- coming in, more money than he knew what to warded his efforts. He had been terribly upset do with-book seller, printer, writer that he was. by the horoscope of his elder daughter, for it re- He gave help to others with a free hand. The vealed to him that she was doomed to die within oGcasional wandering fakirs (out of the hundreds three months. Pain began to crush his heart.
of thousands of naked or half naked sadhus who The world had failed to give him peace and he wander over India in the name of religion) who resolved to seek it from some other source.
came to Chakravarti's shop found themselves well Then came this arresting, puzzling, gripping rewarded. For into the till would go his hand question: "Have you found God .?" The Hindu to gather whatever might come first, whether sil- has some conception of God even though it be ver or notes. Why bother to count it or account nothing more than that of the impersonal, un- for it when one had more than he needed, and it knowable, non-emotional IT, called Brahm. Being [583 ]
reabsorbed into this state, and losing one's iden- their stock of merit by casting coins or gifts of tity completely, is the Hindu conception of bliss. food before the holy man, he had abundance. If Chakravarti sat for a long time thinking. He lean days came he gave it little thought. He was had to admit that he was far from having found giving himself to the reading of the sacred scrip- Shanti, for which every devout Hindu longs most. tures of India, meditation, certain forms of Having everything that the world could give, he prayer, self-denial at every hand.
had with it all a heavy, burdened heart. Imagine yourself following such a course of "Well then," said he, "why not find? If the rigor for ten days. This man followed it for ten way you are following leads only to a dead end, years. He was in earnest; he was heart hungry; if it has not brought you what you most desire, he wanted something supremely. No cost was too why not set out and find? Why not act now? great if only it would bring the desired peace of Nothing is gained by delay. The present course heart. Then he began to evaluate the way he will never bring you what you want." had come since in the counting house at Calcutta But what would bring peace? Could one be he had made his great decision. Again came the sure of a way? He acted with firm resolve and questions: "Where has it brought you? Does it decided on the only way of which he knew-the hold out hope of ultimate finding? Have you way of the Hindu Yogi. It is the way of austeri- found God ?" To all of these questions, in all hon- ties, putting away of the world and repressing esty, he had to answer that he was precisely where all human desires. The trail of the Yogi leads he was ten years back. The practical mind of to the desert, the mountain cave, the grass thatch the business man could have but one reaction to by a river's brink. It means days and months this discovery. "If you have not found, if you and years spent in pious, rigorous devotions, see no hope of finding along this way, you are on meditations, exercises, with the hope that at last the wrong road. Try another."
one will be able to break through into the pres- At this juncture an old debt was paid by a for- ence of reality and find peace. mer debtor in Calcutta. This provided enough So it was that Chakravarti divested himself of to take him and his wife and daughters back to his business, turning it over to a company of men Dacca. Here he joined, first, the popular school who later ran it into the ground. With just of Vaishnavism and then, a reformed Vaishnav enough money to take him and his wife and two sect of Hindus, the "Chaitanya Math" or Theistic little daughters to Puri, he set out from the great Vedantist society. It is this society that sends city to take up his new life as a Yogi by the sea- the Hindu Swamis over to America to delude gulli- shore. Three hundred miles southwest of Cal- ble men and women with a plausible philosophy cutta, by Puri's sacred bathing ghat where every of Krishna. They have sloughed off much of the year hundreds of thousands of weary, heart- more crass elements of Hinduism. They consider hungry, yet hopeless, pilgrims come to bathe and the Bhagavata, the book of books. They hold and seek release from the burden of sin, he took up teach many noble truths derived from this and his abode. other of their sacred books.
Life as a "Holy Man" Chakravarti, leaving home and family and sev- ering all connections with those who loved him, Hair uncut, finger nails left to grow as they soon became one of the leading workers of this would, body neglected, trying ever to subdue the society. With a band of disciples he would go material desires, he lived the life of a "holy" man. about over Bengal preaching and teaching in her To a visitor, the love India still has for her villages and cities, collecting funds for his soci- "holy men" is phenomenal. Poor, ignorant, ety and furthering the interests of his mission.
yearning, wistful, hungry India all but worships To be a devotee one must leave home and love only at the feet of these men who have seemingly sac- the world of men.
rificed everything and who have, in popular esti- Finally his society determined to send him to mate, gone so much farther along the way to America to preach reformed theistic Vedantism release from the inexorable wheel of rebirths and (as contrasted with the pantheistic Vedantism the hopelessness of human existence. Pilgrims preached by Vivekananda). Though Chakravarti visiting the popular bathing places feel it a part speaks English fairly well, he did not have suffi- of their pious exercises to give gifts to these men cient command of a specialized vocabulary to en- who have made the supreme self-renunciation. able him to throw Sanskrit scriptural terms into Chakravarti and his little family, following the English in public address. He therefore set him- bitter and exacting road of the Yogi, sometimes self to the reading religious books from the West.
had an abundance, while at other times they went He secured, along with other books, a copy of hungry. If devout pilgrims, coming to bathe in the New Testament and began to read it for idio- the waters of the Bay of Bengal at Puri, added to matic expressions of spiritual experiences. His
A BRAHMIN WHO SOUGHT PEACE
note book contains the first eleven verses of the an Indian, lest I be tempted to say that his relififth chapter of Matthew. He eagerly read books gious genius accounted for what I saw, but let borrowed from a missionary in Calcutta. me find this even in a foreigner."
Chakravarti had not dreamed it possible that In Bindaraban there lives a woman sent out there could be other books so sublime as his by one of the great Christian Mission Boards, who Bhagavata and his Gita. These had been the for years has been finding joy and rich reward in source to which he had always gone for spiritual loving, sacrificial service for India's women and food. He had been a most enthusiastic promul- children. Her reputation as a "holy" person had gator of their ethical and philosophical teachings, spread among the Hindus of her community. She trying all the while to put into practice what he was not concerned about that, but the reputation taught. But as he read this other book he found she had. Chakravarti had heard of her and deit strangely fascinating. The Gospel, like his cided to go and see her for himself; to see if own scriptures in certain of its teachings, was he could find that which he sought in a human yet very unlike them in other ways. Here he life. found One who had Himself found peace and who offered it to all. Here was a strange new world which he discovered and which was stirring him to the depths in an inexplicable way. It haunted him, left him restless and uncertain. Could it be that he was to find that priceless peace here? He must find out. He must waste no time for ways that fail to give.
His society now asked him to take charge of their great temple at .Bindaraban, the very center of theistic, not pantheistic, Hinduism. Here, on the banks of the Jumna River, thirty miles north of Agra-most of India's great rivers have many places held sacred as bathing places for the seeking, yearning throngs who month by month flock thither for ablutions, giving gifts to the Brahmin priests, seeking release from the burden of sinstaking charge of the temple, arranging for its administration and the daily duties of temple assistants, Chakravarti reserved for himself a little room where he might give himself to the protracted study upon which he was resolved.
When the Light Broke Day after day, often eighteen out of the twenty- MR. A. C. CHAKRAVARTI AND HIS WIFE four hours, he gave himself to a most exhaustive comparison of New Testament and Hindu scrip- With doubts in his mind he went. He had tures. Reading, meditating, trying to pray, puz- heard that she wore decent clothing, ate ordinary zling over it all, he went on from day to day until food, lived in a comfortable little house, even wore in the third week the light broke. As the glorious shoes on her feet. How could this be a holy permorning sun shines through the clouds, so at last son, and so utterly unlike the typical Hindu holy the darkness gave way and light flooded his soul. man or woman who tries to deny himself all such In Christ was God revealed. He says, "I had be- worldly things? He did not tell the missionary fore heard a voice saying, 'Come to me my child why he came. But he was much impressed by and I will give you rest,' but instead of coming her spirit. Busy as she was, pressed upon by to Him I went first in this direction and then in duties from every side, she took time to sympathat only to end up in utter disappointment." thetically answer his questions and talk with him. Now he said to himself, "If Christ is more than Something indefinable about her he could sense historically a character who walked the paths of though not describe. He went away to think and Galilee two thousand years ago, if He is more than a beautiful dream, He must be living and contemporary, able to prove Himself to every heart that will open to Him. Let me see in some human life Christ reincarnated, preferably not in
read and pray. Again and yet again he returned our house again. We do not want you to ever for an interview. She was being read like a book, darken our door, you renegade." He did not by one who has an uncanny ability to read men. reply, but he could say, "Here is where Christ At last he said within himself: "I have seen it. must prove Himself and will prove Himself to That woman has what I most want; that life, that me." He prayed for these who had turned against peace, that love and power for living, which must him and he expected a positive answer to his be in Christ and is incarnated in a human life if prayer. He is still a contemporary reality." In order that Chakravarti might fit himself for At last Chakravarti told her why he had been a life of service he was sent by friends to a semicoming and that he was now ready to declare nary in central India. A few months passed; to the world his new found faith. He had writ- then one day there came a 'letter from hi.s wife ten over the door of his heart, as he puts it, "Let in which she said, "If you will come to get me, Him who can come in here and take possession. I will come back to live with you." I am through with the old self-life." He prayed with child-like faith, "0 God, if there be a God, The attitude of many of India's men is still such prove Thyself to me now." On Christmas Day, that it is not safe for her women to travel alone. 1926, he received baptism, thus openly declaring With joyful yet trembling heart Chakravarti went to all his Hindu friends that he belonged utterly to get his wife, resolved that he would not violate and forever to Christ. in any way her personality. He said: "You are my wife and I love you, but you are also a Hindu Made an Outcaste woman. I want you to take no step just to please me. Be your own genuine self. Never become With this step, peace and joy came surging into a Christian just to please me. Bring with you Chakravarti's heart. In his own Bengali vernac- everything you wish-this chain of beads, mala, ular he expressed in song the thought of two much and these utensils of brass, everything which you Joved Christian songs, without knowing that they use in your morning and evening worship. If you .had ever been written: "I Heard the Voice of discover the source of joy and peace that I have Jesus Say" and "Just as I Am." He knew well found I shall be glad, but until then be your own what would be in store for him when his family self, a devout Hindu woman." She returned with and his friends learned that he had become a him. Though he persuaded her to begin the read- Christian. The time has not yet come in India ing of the Gospels he carefully refrained from when one may be an out and out Christian and hurrying her pace, for he said to himself, "If I yet be allowed to remain in a high caste Hindu have found the secret of peace, my life must rehome. Prominent friends in Bengal, the family veal it." at Dacca, his brother priests and disciples at Bindaraban would turn their backs upon him, out- Nine months passed. One day she surprised iCaste him, hate him. He would be called upon to her husband by saying: itread the way of suffering and loneliness. But thad he not suffered much to find peace, building "Do you think I have further need of this chain Ion a false hope? Could he not now rejoice in of beads, this mala which I have used for so long ;suffering for Christ, the source of his new found in saying prayers ?" peace ? No need to wait now for ten years to learn whether his hope was based on reality. Each "Why do you ask me," he replied. "It is yours day was distinctly better than the day before. and I can not tell you what to do with it. When Each day marked progress in realization. you came from Bengal to live with me again I did not ask you to get rid of it. You must de- His wife in Bengal thought it her religious duty cide." to tell him how she hated him for having brought disgrace and shame upon their family, their reli- A Christian Ashram for Pilgrims gion and their caste. To her letter, which deeply wounded him, he wrote, "I am asking my heav- This brave, wise answer was made possible by enly Father to speak to your heart. He can and his unshakable, simple faith that Christ was provwill. When He does, all I ask is that you try to ing Himself each day. He knew that something listen. He has made Himself real to me and is was going· on in his wife's heart. He was not proving Himself day by day." surprised to discover a few days later that the mala had been thrown away. She too had made There -was no arguing, no defense, just this the great discovery and was ready to take her patient, loving reply to one who was on her side place by his side as a happy, convinced Christian. deeply wounded. The son-in-law, who wrote from Calcutta, "Don't ever show your face around When their years of study, growth, and prepa- ration for richer service at J ubbulpore were com- pleted, the question came, Where shall we plant our lives and share with others what we have found? The Bishop of the Methodist church
1932j A BRAHMIN WHO SOUGHT PEACE
'asked them to come to Calcutta to take charge of and finding. Former friends, who had turned a flourishing church. But another call was sum- against him, now welcome Chakravarti to their moning them back to a little house by the side homes and as disciples sitting at his Master's feet of the road in Bindaraban where they might be ask, "How did He open your eyes? Tell us that friends and helpers to pilgrims along the way. we too may find. What have you found in your Here was a wonderful place to fish when one was new religion that you did not find in your old sa- fishing for men. Men and women, with such need cred Hinduism?"
as only those may know who have themselves ex- To all he says, "I can not tell you what I have perienced it, are coming constantly to Bindaraban found. But I can tell you that you too can find.
as a place of sacred pilgrimage. Turning their Write over the door of your heart, and mean it faces away from a position that promised good utterly, "Let Him who can give peace come in salary, distinction and comforts, Chakravarti and here and take possession." Then see who re- his wife soon found themselves established in sponds to your invitation. See if Krishna or their little ashram, beginning a life which is prov- Buddha can meet your need. There is One who ing to be one of increasing usefulness and joy. has responded to me and has proven Himself over Here they are helping man after man, woman and over again. I call Him Christ. You learn after woman, to find God in Christ, and by find- the taste of a mangoe by eating one. Taste and ing Him to find peace. see, and then one word will be enough from me."
The story of their life and service is still being The Ashram of Chakravarti, by its unique suc- written. Scarcely six chapters are completed, if cess, has begun to stir up opposition among the each year be called a chapter, since that day when Hindu priests at Bindaraban. The orthodox con- .
Chakravarti stepped out into the light. Has servative groups have been pressing the landlord Christ proven Himself? After a five years' si- to drive Chakravarti out of the present Ashram lence that son-in-law, who so violently expressed house which is amidst temples in the very heart his helpless rage, wrote again, "I have everything of the place. A legal notice has already been that the world can give. I am at the head of my served and proceedings instituted. His word to profession as a doctor; I have money, houses, all his friends in America is: "The work is Christ's, that I need, but my heart is weary and I have not that of any particular mission. Are there not found peace. Can you help me to find God?" Christians who can build an Ashram house here '!Yes," was the reply, "if you will come to the and thus hold up Christ in Bindaraban? I believe ashram at Bindaraban I believe we can help you there are. Christ will find them out and inspire to find God." them. Let me see what He does for His own He came and spent six months there seeking work here."
The Miracle of Indian Missions An illustration of the miracle of Indian missions is found in the story of the brave and devoted missionaries who ventured out to that hostile country during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. Henry Martyn, a century ago, with mingled discouragement and yearning, declared that "to see one Hindu a real believer in Jesus would be something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything he had ever seen." The Abbe Du Bois, after a life-time of devotion, mourned that he had never seen one genuine convert. Looking back upon the great awakenings, and measuring the silent but sure interpenetration of India by Christian ideals, watching the indirect influence of the missionaries upon India's own reformers from Ram Mohan Roy to Mahatma Gandhi makes us marvel at the patience and the faith of men who toiled on through the darkness of those early days.
Could these men come back today and see the haughty Brahmin who has been led to Christ kneeling beside the despised Pariah, together partaking of the Communion Cup; could they listen to the record of the Travancore Mission, or hear the verdict of the centuries, what would they say? In India the Kingdom 'of God has come "without observation." The practical Christian of the West, in a hurry to "evangelize the world in a single generation," would do well to remember the lines of Kipling about the man "Who tried to hustle the East."
-Dynanodaya.
Conquering Christ in
By the REV. SAMUEL GUY INMAN, D. D., New York Secretary of the Committee on Cooperation in Latin America SOUTH AMERICA is the only continent that system. He distributed 400 copies of the Scrip- has so honored Christ as to erect a statue to tures during his first year in Argentina and en- Him. The world famous "Christ of the rolled 5,000 children in his schools. Argentina Andes," placed on the mountainous fastness be- was so impressed with his work that it conferred tween Chile and Argentina, commemorates the honorary citizenship upon him. In Chile and settlement by peace of their long standing bound- Peru he likewise had wonderful success and was ary question. Columbus on writing to King Fer- received most cordially by the leaders of the new dinand said, "In all of the countries visited by governments which had just secured their free- your Highnesses' ships I have caused a high cross dom from Spain. In Colombia he organized a to be fixed upon every headland." Balboa on dis- Bible Society in which leading evangelists and covering the Pacific, "looked toward the sun, saw government officials participated.
the sea and fell down on his knees and praised God who had granted him such a wonderful Not Interlopers sight." Evangelical missionaries are not interlopers in It is true that these early conquistadores often South America as some have indicated; in prac- treated the Indians in any but a Christian way, tically every country they have been invited by so that a Cuban chief, who was about to be burned government officials and leading citizens. In at the stake in 1511, asked his father confessor, 1888 President" Sarmiento, whom many regard as "Will there be Christians in Heaven ?" When the the greatest of modern South Americans, asked confessor assured him that there would be, Chief Dr. Goodnow of the American Methodist mission Hatney replied, "Then I will not confess because to secure a number of teachers to inaugurate nor- I have no desire to go where they are." It is mal schools and kindergartens in Argentina. As true that homage to Christ in South America has a result a dozen North American teachers had the too often been divorced from His emphasis on privilege of inaugurating a modern educational ethics and liberty; the symbol of His cross has too system in Argentina. A few years later the gov- often meant blind ecclesiastical obedience rather ernment of Ecuador invited the Methodist mis- than real sacrifice for the salvation of the people. sionaries to take charge of public education of Henry Martyn on arriving at the City of Bahia that country and to organize a modern educational in 1804, on his way to Persia, was so struck by system. One of the leading citizens of Colombia the immense number of ecclesiastical buildings in the early sixties invited the Presbyterian Board and the profligacy of the clergy that he exclaimed, to send missionaries to that land.
"Crosses there are in abundance, but who will In 1871 a group of Paraguayan gentlemen sent preach the true doctrine of the Cross?" On the an urgent invitation to evangelical missionaries other hand Padre de las Casas, who worked in Argentina to open a school and church in Asun- against the enslavement of the Indians, was one cion, promising a valuable property for such de- of the most brilliant reformers of all times. His velopment. The Methodists were not able to ac- enemies tried in every way to stop his work, cept and later asked the Disciples of Christ to which they claimed, as the enemy of modern take up work for the evangelical cause in Para- prophets often do, was destroying the economic guay. The President of Paraguay and many of development of the new continent. But the the leading citizens were eager for the Disciples Padre's fighting spirit continued unimpaired until to open their work in the City of Asuncion. From he died July, 1556, at the ripe age of ninety-two. the beginning of the establishment of the work in One of the first Protestant missionaries to Paraguay the leading citizens have been most cor- South America was James Thompson, who in 1820 dial. At the dedication of the new buildings of began a remarkable trip around the continent as the Colegio Internacional the President of the agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society Republic, the Minister of Education and the lead- and as a representative of the Lancastarian school ing educators of the capital were present. The [588 ] Minister of Education recently gave a lecture in than in the youth of Catholic blood who embraces atheism the new auditorium urging the necessity for put- with the furor of a Roman gladiator. Sooner or later, in ting religion at the base of all progress. This an hour of travail, the two branches of the faith of Christ is one of a series of lectures on religious and moral will come to understand that their fighting one another is the greatest misfortune for all the peoples of Spanish questions that have been inaugurated in the new America.
building. It is not too much to say that the open- Santiago College, the school for girls in Chile, ing of the Colegio Internacional has been the most recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary by lay..: outstanding event in the City of Asuncion during ing the corner stone for a new building. There the last year. All Paraguay looks with pride to were present the President of the Republic, the the developments of this institution. American Minister and a most distinguished The athletic program carried out both in Cole- group, including representatives of twenty-seven gio Internacional and Colegio Americano is at- classes in the institute. This college has educated tracting very wide attention as a promoter of in- many daughters of presidents, ministers and ternational friendship and as a developer of moral other distinguished Chileans and has furnished stamina and the principle of good sportsmanship a large number of teachers for that Republic. It in every department of life. Parents are deeply was founded as a school for American children impressed with the interest that missionary teach- but soon the distinguished families of Chile asked ers take in the moral and spiritual problems of that their daughters become students. One of their children. Public education in South Amer- these earlier graduates is now married to a lead- ica has gone to the extreme in secularization and ing business man of New York City, has contrib- often in universities and even in primary and sec- uted $150,000 for this school, and is giving prac- ond~ry schools animosity toward religion is deeply tically all of her time to its advancement. The inculcated. former editor of the Pan-American Bulletin re- Testimony of a Chilean POet signed that work to become the Secretary of the school, believing that thus she can give the largest Gabriela Mistral, the Chilean poet, who is prob- service to bringing together North and South ably the most widely read Latin-American writer Americans. of today, said recently: These schools really assist the conquest of In Chile there are many schools where the Lord's South America by Christ as well as contribute to Prayer is no longer heard. One night I found myself the general cause of education and better underwithout lodging in a southern city of our country and a standing. A thousand illustrations could be North American teacher took me to her home, a North given to show how deeply these schools impress American school. I accepted because of necessity, but the teachings of Jesus Christ upon the lives of with a questioning conscience. Did I have the right to partake of her table without partaking of her creed? The the students. following day, after breakfast, which was blessed with Former President Alessandri of Chile told us beautiful words revealing inward faith, I was invited to common prayer with the pupils. I entered the room with the story of meeting his little niece, whom he had hesitation. The Bible was given me to select the reading not seen for some time, and asking her how she for the day. I chose a psalm of David, the common ex- was getting along. He received such an enthusi- pression of faith. I read it, followed by the students, with astic reply that he inquired further. The little an emotion I have seldom experienced. There was the girl said: joy of being in a school where it is possible to study every day the Holy Book, where atheistic effrontery was not able "Oh, you ought to know my teacher in Santiago to cast out the author of Grace, who is superior to all College. She talks so beautifully and reads to us knowledge. Some day this example will be a revelation from such a wonderful book and then we all pray for my brethren in the faith, the Catholics. They will see together that God will help us to practice what that the materialistic movement is so great that now they this book teaches. Uncle, do you know I think have no closer brethren than those Protestants with whom it would do you good to read that book. Won't they are able to unite in the common struggle for Christ.
. . . The United States has in our country the unhappy you promise me to read it?" luck of being interpreted as utilitarian, as a work-shop, and not as a religious field, which it was, is and will con- The President made the promise if his niece tinue to be. would bring him a copy. The day he received it had been filled with the many struggles in the Continuing she speaks a word much needed both midst of which Chile's executives have been by Catholics and Protestants as to the necessity plunged the last few years. He forgot about his of ceasing mutual recriminations and endeavor- promise until he had retired. It suddenly came ing to center on Christ Himself: to him that his niece would be around the next The materialistic current in our countries is enormous. day and inquire· as to whether he had fulfilled his It counts as adepts the great majority of the educators word. He snapped on the light, took the little of our youth. Our Church should remember its essential Testament from his vest pocket and lay down to unity of interest with Protestantism and consider that it read. "Literally," said President Alessandri, "a loses infinitely less in the free-thinker who is evangelized
balm of healing was poured upon my weary spirit. half of these twenty nations have declared in For more than an hour I read the wonderful favor of constitutional separation of the Church words of Christ and every day since then I have and State, and others have granted equal rights read a part of that book." to all faiths.
The Evangelicals have been responsible for in- There is a new demonstration of interest in the troducing into South America many kinds of so- spiritual life given by many leaders in these cial movements. Dr. H. C. Tucker, who for forty southern lands. As the Minister of Education of years has been the agent of the American Bible Argentina expressed it: "Strange movements and Society in Brazil, was walking along the street awakenings are being felt among us. Men not one day and saw some old discarded rails where in the ministry of any church are beginning to the street railway repairs were being made. He write about Christ. There are signs that a need asked the superintendent of the road if he could is being felt and confessed and men are seeking use these in the development of some playground to have that need satisfied in the Divine."
material. The whole thing was so amusing that The present movement in the southern conti- when the mayor of the city heard about it there nent toward the integration of evangelical effort was a development which brought real playground on a basis of well-considered territorial division equipment from the United States, the first ever is due in large measure to the leadership and known in Brazil. In Uruguay the Secretary of counsel of the Committee on Cooperation in Latin the Y. M. C. A. introduced the playground idea America. The function of the Committee, cre- which has developed until Montevideo has a mar- ated by the Panama Congress, is purely advisory.
velous system of playgrounds. Composed of representatives of some thirty Mis- The evangelical movement has not neglected the sion Boards supporting Christian work in most of direct work of taking the message of Christ to the Latin republics, it has given constructive at- individuals and organizing converts into churches; tention to the whole problem of an effective dis- In Chile the first evangelical missionary began his tribution and correlation of Christian agencies work in 1845 under the auspices of the American and activities over the vast area with which it is Foreign Christian Mission. The Methodists concerned. Evidences are abundant that its serv- began work in Chile and Peru in 1877 under ices have been welcomed by Latin-American lead- Bishop Taylor. Permanent work in .spanish, in ers and churches. Elected and sustained by the Argentina and Uruguay, was established by the organizations it represents it has no ecclesiastical American Methodists about sixty years ago. control in missionary affairs, but its cooperative The first missionaries entered Brazil in 1859. influence is indicated by the statement that it has Today Brazil has its own Independent Presbyte- helped to effectuate in Latin America such appli- rian Church, with its general assembly, and its . cation of missionary statesmanship as may well own Independent Methodist Church that elects its attract the attention of the Christian world.
bishop and conducts entirely its own affairs. The many-sided evangelical movement operates under Faith That Will Not Shrink so many different conditions in various countries The fortitude, courage and patience of the and over such vast territory that results are often Chinese Christians should challenge our attention unseen and pervasive rather than concrete and and restore our confidence in the work of the misvisible. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to sionaries and their associates. Only God knows cite some of the statistics that were gathered to the sacrifices, sufferings and sorrows that are recompare the strength of the evangelical forces quired of those who call themselves followers of when the first Latin-American evangelical con- Christ in China. gress was held in 1916 at Panama and the second All the opposition does not seem able to scare men off. conference in Montevideo in 1925. The worst they can do is to kill and non-Christians get Another important effect of the evangelical killed just as readily. The heart seeks peace, and they movement is its contribution to civil rights and find it in Christ. So the government can legislate but religious liberty in South America. Fifty years people still turn to Christ. The Russian Government said ago not one of these republics had written liberty "As soon as we down capitalism the Church will vanish." Since this was not the natural consequence they began of worship into its constitution; the cemeteries to persecute in their indirect way, and would not punish were open only to those who had died in the faith those who persecuted the Christians. of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church, and the Let us thank God that Chinese Christians are marriage rite could be performed only by a priest ready to follow the path Christ trod to Calvary. of that communion: Even evangelical workers, This is the way we must go if we would own His marrying on the field, were obliged to have their cause, and become more than conquerors through union blessed by some friendly priest in order Him, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
that their marriage might be legal. Today nearly A .. R. BARTHOLOMEW in Outlook of Missions.
Religion-by Evolution or
Revelation* ..:{ A Review by the REV. SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, D. D. ): ..
Professor of the History of Religion and Christian Missions, Princeton Theological Seminary A N unaccountable omission from the pro- to the evolutionary hypothesis as the sole key to ~ gram of the Jerusalem Meeting of the the history of religion. Among them we may International Missionary Council in 1928 men t ion the late Archbishop SOderblom of was the consideration of primitive beliefs and the Sweden, Alfred Bertholet and Edward Lehman, presentation of the Gospel to so-called animistic Alfred Blum-Ernst, Le Roy, Albert C. Kruijt, but pagans. A careful and sympathetic study of the especially P. Wilhelm Schmidt, founder of the anreligions of these· primitive peoples discloses thropological review Anthropos and Professor of "spiritual values," in some respects superior to Ethnology and Philology in the University of Vi- those found in the ethnic religions, and brings us enna. The exhaustive work of this Roman Cath- face to face with the question of the origin of olic savant on the Origin of the Idea of God, Der belief in God. Ursprung der Gottesidee, is to be completed in Until recently the evolutionary hypothesis four volumes. In the three which have already seems to have had the right of way in every de- appeared, he weighs in the balance the various partment of science and religion. The first mod- theories of Lubbock, Spencer, Tylor, Andrew ern writer to emphasize the fact that monothe- Lang, Frazer, and others, and finds them all want- istic ideas were found among primitive races and ing. The idea of God, he concludes, did not come must be taken into account was Andrew Lang in by evolution but by revelation. his book, "The Making of Religion." In 1924 Redan delivered an address before the Jewish Anthropology and ethnology are also swinging Historical Society on Monotheism among primi- away from the old evolutionary concept as re- tive peoples, in which he rejected the evolution- gards primitive races. Dr. R.obert H. Lowie of ary hypothesis. the American Museum of Natural History; in his recent important study on Primitive Society, says, "Most of us," said he, "have been brought up "The time has come for eschewing the all-embrac- in or influenced by the tenets of orthodox ethnol- ing and baseless theories of yore and to settle ogy and this was largely an enthusiastic and quite down to sober historical research. The Africans uncritical attempt to apply the Darwinian theory did not pass from a Stone Age to an Age of Cop- of evolution to the facts of social experience. per and Bronze and then to an Iron Age " . . Many ethnologists, sociologists, and psychologists they passed directly from stone tools to the manu- still persist in this endeavor. No progress will facture of iron tools." (13th Edition N. Y., pp. :ever be achieved, however, until scholars rid 436, 437.) He concludes "that neither morpho- themselves, once and for all, of the curious notion logically nor dynamically can social life be said to that everything possesses an evolutionary history; have progressed from a stage of savagery to a until they realize that certain ideas and certain stage of enlightenment." concepts are as ultimate for man as a social being as specific physiological reactions are for him The American public is to be congratulated that as a biological entity."t the exhaustive work of Wilhelm Schmidt has now appeared in an abbreviated form, and translated It is encouraging to note that the tide has from the original German, is available as a study turned and that we have, especially on the Euro- textbook on the History of Religion. Whatever pean Continent, outstanding scholars in this field may be the reaction of students of anthropology who hold fast to supernaturalism and are opposed to a doctrine alien to the tradition still prevailing among many scholars, it will do no harm to face • The OrigWt and Growth of Religion: Facts and Theories. By the arguments here presented with such force and W. Schmidt. Translated by H. J. Rose. The Dial Press, N. Y., 1931. apparently so well documented. The London Pp. 297. $4.00. Times Literary Supplement, in reviewing the book t Primitive Man as Philosopher-po 373.
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at considerable length, does so under the title, itive culture is really the god of a monotheism, "Evolution or Eden." It is inevitable that Dr. and that the religion which includes him is genu- Schmidt divides investigators of the history of re- inely monotheistic-this is the position which is ligion into two classes-the believing and the un- . most attacked by a number of authors. To this believing. By the latter he means those scholars attack we may reply that there is a sufficient num- who have themselves repudiated all faith in the ber of tribes among whom the really monothe- supernatural, and "will talk of religion as a blind istic character of their SU,preme Being is clear man might of colors or one totally devoid of hear- even to a cursory examination. This is true of ing, of a beautiful musical composition." the Supreme Being of most Pygmy tribes, so far The work before us is divided into five parts: as we know them; also of the Tierra del Fuegians, The introduction deals with the nature, aim, and the primitive Bushmen, the Kurnai, Kulin and methods of comparative study of religion and the Yuin of Southeast Australia, the peoples of the history of the subject. Part Two sketches the Arctic culture, except the Koryaks, and well-nigh theories that were in vogue during the nineteenth all the primitives of North America."
century; namely, those that found the origin of Again, in massing the evidence for the charac- religion in Nature-Myths, Fetishism, Manism or ter of this Supreme Being, he says, "The name Ghost-Worship and Animism. Part Three deals 'father' is applied to the Supreme Being in every with the twentieth century, and sketches the Pan- single area of the primitive culture when he is ad- Babylonian theory, Totemism, Magianism and Dy- dressed or appealed to. It seems, therefore, that namism. In every case Dr. Schmidt gives an ex- we may consider it primeval and proper to the position of these various theories and a refuta- oldest primitive culture. We find it in the form tion of them based upon more accurate data from 'father' simply, also in the individual form ('my later investigations. father') and the collective ('our father'). So far, Belief in the Supreme God this name has not been discovered among the Cen- tral African Pygmies, but it exists among the In Part Four we have an account of the su- Bushmen and the Mountain Dama. It is lacking preme Sky-God whose existence was posited by also among the Andamanese and the Philippine Andrew Lang and others. It appears that during Negritos, but is found, although not commonly, the twentieth century there was a progressive rec- among the Semang. Among the Samoyeds we ognition of the primitive high God by European find the formula 'my Num-father,' i. e., sky-father.
and American students of ethnology and religion. In North Central California, the name occurs This protest against the evolutionary theory ap- among the Pomo and the Patwin; all three forms plies not only to the religion of primitives, but to of it are widely distributed among the Algonkins.
those who find the same development in the re- It is also widely current among the two oldest ligion of the Old Testament. Dr. Israel Rabin Tierra del Fuegian tribes, the Yamana and the has recently published an important treatise in Halakwulup, who use the form 'my father.'
which he enters an energetic protest against the Among all the tribes of Southeast Australia it is view that monotheism was a later development in in common use, in the form 'our father.' There Israel, and that it was preceded by henotheism, it is the oldest name of all, and even the women pol y the ism, and polydaemonism. "Not only and children know it; the oldest of the tribes, the Moses," he says, "but the patriarchs were already Kurnai, have no other name for Him. There is monotheists. The covenant idea is as old as Abra- no doubt possible that the name 'father' is intend- ham, and the covenant at Sinai is history, not fic- ed in this connection to denote, not physiological tion. The God of Sinai is no more mountain-god paternity (save in cases where the figures of the or local Kenite god. Monotheism is not the result Supreme Being and of the First Father have of an evolutionary process, it rests upon revela- coalesced), but an attitude of the greatest rever- tion and existed from the beginning of Israel's ence, of tender affection and steadfast trust on history as portrayed in Genesis; there is no bridge the part of man towards his god."
from polytheism to monotheism." The evidence for these astonishing statements Dr. Schmidt follows the historical method, and is abundantly given in the larger four-volume traces the belief in a supreme God across wide work, to which we have already referred. Not areas where primitive culture prevails, for ex- evolution, but deterioration, is found in the his- ample, among the Pygmies of Africa, the Indians tory of religion among primitive tribes and the of North America, and certain tribes in Australia. higher cultures that followed after their migra- The last chapter of this epoch-making book is en- tion. As Dr. Schmidt expresses it in the conclud- titled, "The Origin and History of the Primitive ing paragraphs of this most interesting volume: High God," in which we have the summary of the Thereafter, as external civilization increased in splendor argument. "That the Supreme Being of the prim- and wealth, so religion came to be expressed in forms of
RELIGION-BY EVOLUTION OR BY REVELATION
ever increasing magnificence and opulence. Images of by a number of German missionaries under the gods and daimones multiplied to an extent which defies all direction of Dr. Heinrich Frick of Marburg. In cLassification. Wealthy temples, shrines and groves arose; a recent number of "Africa," a journal of the more priests and servants, more s.acrifices and ceremonies International Institute of African languages and were instituted. But all this cannot blind us to the fact cultures (July, 1931) London, Professor Dr. K. T. that despite the glory and wealth of the outward form, Preuss of the University of Berlin, has a striking the inner kernel of religion often disappeared and its article on the conceptions of a Supreme Deity essential strength was weakened. The results of this, among primitive peoples, and his conclusions corboth moral and social, were anything but desirable, read- roborate those of Dr. Schmidt. ing to extreme degradation and even to the deification of the immoral and anti-social. The principal cause of this The evolution hypothesis in religion has been corruption was that the figure of the Supreme Being w,as overworked, and has seriously embarrassed stusinking further and further into the background, hidden dents of religion who have grappled with the beneath the impenetrable phalanx of the thousand new problem of sin, its universality, and the universalgods and daimones. ity of its correlate, namely, conscience that is a sense of sin as a subjective reality. In the history But all the while, the ancient primitive religion still of religion, and in the study of the origin of the continued among the few remainders of the primitive cul- idea of God, we may no longer neglect the early ture, preserved by fragmentary peoples driven into the chapters of Genesis and the statement of the most distant regions. Yet in their condition of stagna- Apostle Paul in the first chapter of his epistle to tion, poverty ,and insignificance, even there it must nec- the Romans. Revelation, and not evolution, is the essarily have lost much of its power and greatness, so key to the origin of the idea of God and of prayer that even among such peoples it is much too late to find· and of sacrifice. a true image of the faith of really primitive men.
It is of deep interest to note, in conclusion, that the question of primitive monotheism raised by Dr. Schmidt is now being carefully investigated One Hundred Dollars for Flow-ers-But By Robert E. Speer* The Rev. William Sidebotham, who died in Bay and Mrs. Sidebotham have made all their lives in City, Michigan, on February 6, 1931, was for over their children and in their prayers which, under half a century a most faithful, self-sacrificing and God, give to the missionary cause its glory and devoted Presbyterian minister. He had five chil- bring down upon it the blessing of Him who loved dren, and although he never lived where there was us and gave Himself for us. a high school until all of the children had passed high school age, everyone of them went to col- Now Mr. Sidebotham himself has passed on, and lege. Three sons became Presbyterian ministers; shortly after his death his daughter, Miss Emily one daughter a successful home missionary teach- Sidebotham, wrote to the Board in part as follows: er, and the other a public school teacher. One of the sons went as a missionary to Korea. When we opened my father's will we found a sheet of instructions. Among them was the following: When Mrs. Sidebotham died in 1929 her husband wrote to the Board of Foreign Missions: "After my funeral expenses are all paid, take $100 for flowers. Do not buy flowers, but send it to Dr. Speer, My wonderful wife died last night. The funeral ar- asking him to see that it is used for work in Korea in rangements are all made. For some years the money to memory of my son Richard." cover expense of funeral has been ready. Many times she has said: "Don't spend a cent for flowers when I die. So I am enclosing a check for that amount. I am glad Give it to Foreign Missions." Accordingly I enclose $100 father was able to do this, and that he commissioned me from her for the field in Taiku, in memory of our son. to carry out this wish. She has often wished she was rich, but never that she might have a better wardrobe, etc., but that she might During the last eight and a half years that I have been help the poor and help foreign missions. My salary was at home caring for my parents, I have realized how dear never more than $700 and manse (often less) till I was the work of His Kingdom was to their hearts. I have apsixty-four; never more than $800 and manse till I was preciated more than ever before the sacrifices they made over seventy, in 1918, never more than $1,200 and manse in their earlier years, that we might be educated, and I till I retired, and began to get $50 a month from the Board have come to understand a little more fully the joy they of Relief. Yet she uncomplainingly gave her children and had when we all entered Christian work. I feel as though rejoiced in our tithing until the end. I am, we had been left a great heritage, something that will be an inspiration to us all our lives. Your brother in the work, (Signed) WILLIAM SIDEBOTHAM. These letters illustrate the true basis on which the missionary enterprise rests, first, in the pur- It is such a gift as this and such gifts as Mr. pose of God with regard to His only Son, the Saviour of the world, and, second, in the pure love • Condensed from The Presbyteriwn. and sacrifice due to Christian spirit in such true and simple lives as this.
A BIBLE STUDY CLASS AT THE RHODA ROBLEE BARKER BOYS' SCHOOL AT HOPO, SOUTH CHINA What the "Man of Hopo" Thinks of the Christian Church T HE views of the "Average Man of Hopo" in is growing and meeting the needs of new condi- regard to the Christian Church are given in tions. As education has widened women's sphere, Missions by Arthur S. Adams, an American the Church has met the enlarged situation. Chi- Baptist Missionary in South China. nese say: "If the Jesus religion will do so much for the foreign wife and mother, it is worth trying Thirty years ago the Chinese soldiers tried to for Chinese women." The Mission hospital also prevent the Baptist Mission from building a has proved a blessing, which "Mr. Average Man Christian church in Hopo. The church won the of Hopo" can recognize. case, however, and the building was erected. It became popular both a3 a church and as a day Third-Because the Church shows power to school. In the meantime the military post which change broken and wrecked lives, to reclaim and opposed the building was abolished and the yamen remold them into something fine and good. An was sold. example is found in Mr. Liu, a scholar but an opium smoker, who had fallen so low that his Later when the church school outgrew its quar- wife turned him out. He was reclaimed by the ters the use of a Confucian temple was granted to mission and joined the church. Then his wife carry forward the work. Thus the missionary also came and said, "I can't come to church much, became guardian of the images. When the new but the Jesus religion has made my husband over, Rhoda Roblee Barker School was built, the temple so that I too want to join and be baptized with was returned in good condition to the Confucian him." This couple was not satisfied to keep to elders. These caretakers were less careful of the themselves what they had found in Christ. Three property and today it is a wreck. months later they had brought together their neighbors and had raised money to build a chapel Why is "Mr. Average Man of Hopo" impressed in their own village. with the Christian Church? asks Mr. Adams. The answers may be summarized as follows: Today Hopo Church has an ordained Chinese pastor and the people are making vigorous efforts First-Because the Church of Christ stands un- to put over the five-year evangelistic program. changing in the midst of change. The yamen and Good results are already reported. No wonder temple are gone, but the Church abides. "Mr. Average Man of Hopo" believes in the Chris- tian Church! Second-Because the Church changes in the midst of change. She is alive and not dead. She
A Pastor's
By the REV. FRANCIS SHUNK DOWNS, D. D.
Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Berkeley, California I s there any greater opportunity? A pastor month. If one cannot purchase sufficient books, holds his divine commission from the Mission- he can make regular visits to the town library. ary of the Ages. He specializes in the great- "Reading maketh a full man," Bacon declared, est missionary Textbook of all time. His parish and a wiser than he said: "Out of the abundance is not merely what he sees at some crossroads or of the heart (and mind) the mouth speaketh."
in some metropolitan center-it is the world. Personal contacts can also be made with mis- The opportunity is inescapable. His call to be sionaries today, if there is a will to prompt it.
a minister inevitably made him a missionary to Fellowship with these missionary spirits, whether all men. He is ordained an ambassador to the , in a church or at conferences, by correspondence whole world. His orders are clear, and he ful- or through first-hand friendships help a pastor fils his ministry only as he obeys them. mightily to keep fit for missionary leadership.
It is a privileged opportunity. Who would not The pastor who hungers and thirsts after mis- covet the privilege of walking with the Son of sionary food shall be filled. The pastor who takes God into the hearts of men? Who would not to his heart the whole world of God's needy chil- thrill to a place of service and leadership in the dren will somehow obtain the equipment that will Kingdom that embraces every race and that en- fit him for missionary leadership in his world compasses time and eternity? Who would not parish.
pour out his life for a Leader and a Cause that brings blessing to every life and to all of life? 2. To Train the Officers and Leaders.
1. To Equip Himself for Leadership. Blessed is the pastor whose elders, stewards'or deacons are missionary-minded. Some are and Many pastors must do this after they leave the theological seminary. But more and more the some are not. Some official boards are instruseminaries are recognizing their obligation, not ments for bringing the world to Jesus Christ. only to inform their students in the fields of mis- Others would keep Jesus Christ imprisoned in the sionary history, biography and comparative re- little world in which they live. ligion, but to give them the spiritual and practical equipment which enables a pastor to exercise wise A pastor has a wonderful missionary opportuand liberating missionary leadership to the church nity with his comrades of the official boards of which he serves. his church. He largely holds the key to their missionary sympathy and cooperation. A pastor The responsibility for a worth-while missionary whose heart is on fire for the evangelization of equipment, however, rests primarily on the pas- the world, whose head is level and equipped with tor himself. It begins in his heart, in the secret facts, whose will is girded to the purpose of Christ place where God and he commune alone. Not and the central program of the Christian Church only must a minister be sure of God's call but he and whose heart is warm with love for his commust clearly discern its missionary implications. rades and his church, can do unbelievable things Time and again he must go apart alone, see anew with ninety-nine per cent of his church officers. the vision splendid, hear again the unmistakable command to "go into all the world," and must One pastor in a small church, whose Session dedicate himself unreservedly to the world field felt that the church could give little or nothing and the world task. If the pastor regularly re- to missions and that even the little must be raised news his strength and refreshes his spirit at this through "fairs and bazaars," persuaded those men point, the battle will be more than half won. from the Word of God that they could support a missionary and through free-will offerings. As He should read the best missionary literature one of the elders put it: "It will ruin us, but the available. This means both old and new books. Bible tell us to, and we will be loyal, to our It certainly means at least one outstanding mis- Saviour." He'lived to see the plan succeed and sionary periodical coming to his study each learned from experience that God's way was the best way.
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One Session takes a half-hour of its stated under the pastor's wise guidance should find ex- meeting each month to study the work of the pression in a larger giving of the church's life church and the Kingdom and to unite in prayer with the whole world.
for specific objects and needs at home and abroad. Is it strange that those officers are all missionary- 4. To Release the Financial Resources.
minded and active missionary leaders? In days of financial stress, when there is much When a pastor trains his officers in missionary unemployment and a reduction in incomes, does leadership what a joy it is to see the missionary the pastor of the average church have a mission- policies and program of his church develop as the ary opportunity in the release of the financial re- product of their mutual labors and prayers. sources of his congregation?
3. To Educate His People. He does, because the principles of Christian stewardship are as binding and as applicable in John R. Mott once said: "To enable Christians times of financial depression as in times of pros- to realize the need of the world, missionary edu- perity. A faithful recognition and practice of cation is necessary. If the world's need is to be Christian stewardship, as applied to our money, met, Christians must know the need and be led to whether little or much, will release sufficient will to meet that need." funds for the missionary enterprise, will make People are most interested in that about which for adequate support at home, and will give God they know most. If there is little interest, it is the chance to open the windows of heaven and usually because there is little knowledge. We go pour out upon us such a blessing as there shall as we glow and we glow as we know. Was it not not be room enough to receive it.
Emerson who said that every great achievement The pastor must give the leadership that will in life is the result of some great enthusiasm? spiritualize the budgets of the church, that will Enthusiasm is generated when a personality put all giving of money by Christians on a spirit- strikes fire with irresistible facts. ual plane, that will call forth funds for real mis- The pastor's sermons should give his people a sionary needs and specific objects, that will cause vision of the world and their responsibility to the members of his church not only on Every meet its needs. Four or five missionary sermons Member Canvass Day but throughout the year to rooted in the Word of God and fruited with the hear the call of struggling men, the appeal of achievements of a marching Christ, should be crushed women, the cry of little children, and that given each year. Each Sunday, whatever the having taken from the Lord all that He offers subject of the sermon, a missionary illustration gives back to Him all that He asks.
can be used to advantage. The missionary spirit One pastor, before his church became self-sup- and the missionary thought will crop out in a porting, led it to give regularly to all benevolences missionary pastor, whatever the topic may be. of the church. Within three years after the I know a pastor who at the time of the "announce- founding of that church, by an act of great faith ments" gives five minutes each Sunday to the pres- and through tithing, that small congregation of entation of mission work in a different country. wage-earning people took on the full support of Missions in the Sunday School should have its a missionary to Africa. Another church, after place regularly in the worship program. A letter several successful Schools of Missions under the from the field well read, a little play, a brief talk pastor's leadership, took the entire support of by a missionary or by one who has visited the field two missionaries. In a third church sixteen quickens interest. There is no substitute, how- classes in a Sunday School took sixteen shares of ever, for persuading each teacher in teaching of financial support in sixteen mission fields in six- the Bible lesson for the day to bring out the mis- teen different countries. In this way not only sionary thought that is there and to apply it by was the giving of the boys and girls stimulated, some fresh and telling missionary illustration that but their imaginations were stirred and their spir- a boy or girl will never forget. itual responsibility was awakened.
Missionary education should have its place in It is true that today some must reduce their every organization of men, women, and young glvmg. But frankly, many could increase their people. We cannot discuss here the possibilities giving, not only because of the money with which in these fields. Every year a period of four to God has put them in trust, but because for the six weeks should be given to intensive mission- first time they yield themselves to the Lord and ary education through a church-wide School of begin actually to practice giving in a Christian Missions. Properly planned this will reach a big way. Some so-called large givers in the church cross-section of the men, women and young peo- are truly small givers, for they fail to give pro- ple of a congregation. The new knowledge and portionately. Some so-called little gifts are big interest gained through missionary education in God's sight and go far. "All dollars are not
A PASTOR'S OPPORTUNITY
alike." As long as the average church member influence. On the wall of the meeting room of gives only a few cents a week to make Jesus the Calvin Club, the Christian Endeavor Society Christ known to the world, the pastor of the aver- of the church for students of the University of age church, even in times like these, has a real California, there hangs a large missionary map missionary opportunity challenging him to release of the world. Lines stretch out from the First the financial resources of his congregation accord- Church to mission fields throughout the earth. ing to God's standards and in God's way. Around the edges of the map are cards bearing in block letters the names of seventy-one men and 5. To Recruit Young People for Life Service. women, members of First Church, who have gone as missionaries to every corner of the world. One of the greatest needs today is for more qualified young people to offer themselves for mis- 6. To Gear in the Prayer Life of His People. sionary service. We want young men and women who are qualified not only physically and educa- The day will not be won in this great cause by tionally, but spiritually, who throb with mission- human wits or human strength. "Not by might ary purpose and passion to share a Saviour, who nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." themselves have· had vital and satisfying expe- The prayer life of some churches must be very riences of Jesus Christ, who know Him personally ineffective for the simple reason that the pastor as a Saviour from sin and as the Lord of Life; and people are not obeying God's known missionwho have a message to deliver and who know why ary commands. Andrew Murray was right when it is a message; young people who, whether they he said: "God always gives His power to the go into educational, medical or evangelistic work, church that puts into practice His world prohave a passion to win souls to Christ, and who gram." are qualified through the Holy Spirit in personality, message and spirit to go forth on a spiritual There is no substitute for prayer. How may mission to the ends of the earth. the pastor lead his people in this respect?
To recruit such young people for the service of In his study, in his private devotions, he can rehis Master's world kingdom is a pastor's high member them in this way, even as he remembers duty and supreme privilege. The pastor's mis- the missions and the missionaries on the field. In sionary spirit will be caught even sooner than the public worship, he should carefully prepare his missionary instruction will be. assimilated. for his period of intercession, so that not only Faithful and wise contacts with parents will often general petitions may be made, but specific, fresh, yield results where least expected. Natural and and immediate needs may be voiced to God. The happy fellowship with young people, with the Church Year Book of Prayer should be used each word fitly spoken or an observation wisely used, Sunday. The objects for prayer should be briefly makes for life decisions. stated, with special reference to missionaries, phases of work or particular needs with which the A class on vocational guidance, held perhaps congregation has a point of contact. Churches in connection with the School of Missions, will set using a calendar may print from time to time choice young spirits to seeing visions of opportu- missionary subjects for prayer. Where groups nity. The knowledge that one is borne up regu- in the church meet only for prayer, the varied larly in prayer that the life may be guided aright and immediate missionary needs of the world that is indispensable. The Lord of the harvest Him- week as well as the more intimate needs of misself is hindered or helped in His call to the young sionaries and the missionary life of the home life in proportion as a pastor is faithful in his church should be taken to God in prayer. asking and in his faith. The Mid-week service where it is still alive has Many pastors find in young people's summer a large place for personal testimony and prayer. conferences the opportunity they covet for their It is an inspiring and dynamic meeting when a young people. Beside some lake or sea Jesus is dozen or twenty-five individuals remember in walking again, and when He calls youth today rise earnest prayer to God suggested missionary needs up and go after Him. and those which the Holy Spirit prompts. A pas- tor with missionary fire and purpose in his soul From the First Presbyterian Church of Ber- can enlarge and deepen the prayer life of his peokeley, during the past thirty years, there have ple for all the world. A church that prays through gone into the ministry and to home and foreign its prayer aims and goals, that links itself up to mission fields one hundred and thirty-seven of its world needs and opportunities, that asks greatly own members, many of whom took this step be- and expects greatly, will find God faithful who cause the pastor, Dr. Lapsley A. McAfee, was con- promised and will see that prayer is the arm that stantly faithful in prayer and approach to the moves the world. hundreds of young people who came under his
7. To Mould the Spiritual Life of the Church. little opportunity to suggest or to influence. The Begging on the floor of his Conference, Associ- . theoretical right is there, but in practice it falls ation or Presbytery, wherever he meets with his down. This is partly the pastor's fault, partly brother ministers and the laymen of the church the Board's fault, partly the fault of the denomiin ecclesiastical affairs, the pastor will have many nation in its procedure. Nevertheless, a pastor opportunities in committees, in public debate, in who has the facts, who has convictions, and who personal' contacts, to speak a word in season for exercises genuine sympathy with constructive the missionary enterprise. criticism, plus the perseverance of a real saint, will not only get a hearing, but will exercise a His reading should encompass the annual re- real missionary influence in the church at large. ports of the Mission Boards; he should be familiar with the personnel, policies and programs of these His most pervasive and farthest-reaching influ- Boards; he should see that the aims and plans of ence, however, is to demonstrate in his own the Boards become articulate in his Church, so church that spiritual obedience to the great Comthat they are truly interpreted and understood, mission along all lines makes for spiritual revival and so that they are so channeled to the individual in the home church. Many are praying for such congregation that they become effective in the life a revival today. Many factors enter in. But a of the people. revival that is not geared in to the evangeliza- tion of the whole world is not of God. When The Boards are helpless without the intelligent church members give Christ the pre-eminence in and devoted cooperation of the pastors. Mission- all things, God will open the windows of Heaven ary promotion should primarily be church-centric to pour out His blessing upon us. When the Holy and not Board-centric. If every pastor fulfils his Spirit is in complete control of the believer's life missionary responsibility, there need be no Home and of the church life, that believer and that Base Department in the Board, save a secretary church will be on fire for the world, and will trifor coordinating purposes. umphantly exercise power in the hearts of men.
Every pastor should exert his missionary influ- The winning of the world to Jesus Christ ence through his representatives or in person in largely waits upon what each pastor will let the larger gatherings of his communion. This Christ do with his life and with his ministry in is not easy, for the technique is such in most de- this day of the pastor's unparalleled missionary nominations today that the average pastor has opportunity.
An Old. Papuan Pastor Koani Miki of Port Moresby was the last of the old band of Papuan pastors. While still a lad, his life was saved by Chalmers and Lawes. One day, while a group of boys were play- ing leap-frog, a young man joined in, and as he reached Koani, he stopped, saying, "You are too weak to bear my weight." So he brought from a nearby house a broken length of a canoe pole and told Koani to rest on that. As the heavyweight jumped, little Koani bowed under the strain, and the broken pole pierced the leaper, so that the young man died shortly afterwards. The relatives of the dead youth carried him home, and armed themselves to attack Koani's section of the village and kill him. Lawes and Chalmers, from the mission house on the hill, heard the tumult and rushed down through the armed and noisy crowd in the village, up into Koani's house, and, seizing him by the hand, they walked him between them, daring anyone on either side to lift a spear. Lawes forbade Koani to leave the mission grounds, lest the aven- gers should kill him.
He grew up in Lawes's household, and on attaining manhood entered the college. In 1888 he was ordained and, with his wife, was sent to Porebada, about twelve miles from Port Moresby. When he went to this village it was comparatively small, but the virile people in- creased in numbers, and Koani's work bore fruit. When he retired in 1930, he had been schoolmaster, pastor, and friend to the whole village. Out of a total population of 550, 120 were. adult church members, and 108 more were in the day school under his tuition. Prac- tically all of the inhabitants are able to read the books published in their own vernacular.
Koani was one of God's gentlemen; courtly in manner and speech; and full of fire when preaching the Gospel he loved. He was a true friend and a father, beloved by his colleagues, Papuan and European alike. When Koani Miki retired as pastor, he was, at the earnest re- quest of the villagers, succeeded by his son, Gorogo.
-J. B. CLARK, in the L. M. S. Chironicle.
of Harper
TOYOHIKO KAGAWA WITH HIS "COMRAD OF "THE ROAD" AND THE LITTLE COMRADS A Japanese St. Francis* T OYOHIKO KAGAWA is one of the best Dr. Kagawa has a wife and three children WllO known men in the world and one of the most love him, admire him and sympathize with his useful. He is only forty-four years of age high ideals and sacrificial life. Although he re- but is making his mark in Japan as a Christian ceives many thousands of dollars in gifts, from social reformer, a politician and government ad- lectures and the sale of his books, this money all visor, a student, an editor, a novelist and poet, goes into the work to which his life is devoted. a philanthropist and philosopher, and an evan- Dr. and Mrs. Kagawa live as though poor, li,ke gelist. In the world at large ·he is known as the his Divine Master; he wears a $1.85 laborer's suit most famous Japanese Christian, as a popular and lives with his family on a budget of $40 a author and a lecturer on social and religious sub- month in a house that cost $80, and was made jects. The story of his inner and outer life gives from lumber salvaged from temporary shacks us the picture of a man of remarkable character, erected after the earthquake.
ability and achievement. He accomplishes the Whence comes this man-an intellectual giant work of four men, rising before daybreak for pri- but a physical weakling, a man with a great lov- vate prayer and Bible study, traveling long dis- ing heart, spiritual vision and close fellowship tances lecturing or preaching from once to five with God? He himself says that he is "a living times a day, conducting or supporting three so- miracle" of God's grace and power. He came, cial settlements. He is a leading spirit of the like a pure lily, out of the moral morass of an Kingdom of God Movement in Japan, and for a evil environment. He is the son of an unregen- time spent ten days a month reorganizing the erate father, born out of wedlock, the unsought Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare. This work is offspring of a dancing girl, was reared in an atin spite of the fact that he is frail in body~has mospher e where sensuousness, selfishness and had tuberculosis, and still suffers from serious eye self-indulgence held undisputed sway. Taught trouble, a weak heart and kidneys. from his earliest boyhood by precept and exam- * "Kagawa.·" By William A x ling. ple that wealth, position and power are life's goals, nevertheless Kagawa has grown into a pure H arper & Bros. N ew York. 1932. Illustrated. 8 vo. 202 PP' $2 .
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flower of manhood with honesty, love and serv- "God dwells among the lowliest of men. . . .
ice to God and man as his standard of life, and He throngs with the beggars at the place of alms.
literally following the example and teachings of He is among the sick. . . . Therefore let him Jesus as his one compelling aim. who would meet God visit the prison cell before Early in life Kagawa was sent to the Buddhist going to the temple. Before he goes to church temple to study. From Confucian classics he let him visit the hospital. Before he reads his learned filial piety and patriotic loyalty and from Bible let him help the beggar at his door. . . Buddhist teachings and ritual his mystical sense He who forgets the unemployed forgets God."
was developed, and he was taught the value of *** quiet contemplation. As a boy he came to have a passionate love for nature and his early suffer- "The civilization of steel and concrete separates ings at the hands of his grandmother led him to mankind from the soil. The soil is God's. footfeel deeply for all other creatures that suffer, stool. The scent of the soil heals me. I have no whether man or beast. desire to become a civilized man, living in luxury. I want to live close to the soiL"
In the providence of God t.llis lonely lad at *** school came into touch with Christian missionaries in Kobe-Dr. H. W. Myers and Dr. C. A. "Christ's fool! A public laughingstock! Truly Logan-who welcomed him into their hearts and that is myself. The world's so-called pleasures homes.. Here Kagawa became acquainted with have all slipped by me. I have not leisurely witthe Bible and learned of the loving God who cares, nessed even one cinematographic display. Tied and who offers life and joy to those who seek. up to society's rubbish heap I have passed half Under Dr. Myers' influence Kagawa learned to my allotted days. . . . I have been ostracized know and love Jesus Christ and cried out eagerly, as a heretic and a socialist but these things move "0 God, make me like Christ." After seeing the me not. I am Christ's captive, a slave of the degradation and sorrow so prevalent in Kobe Cross! The world's fool! I am determined to slums and after reading of Canon Barnett's work abandon everything that bears the marks of the in the slums at Toynbee Hall, London, Kagawa world and, naked, sally forth along the road which was impelled to dedicate his life to help the out- leads upward to the state of the sanctified."
caste and unfortunate in the name and spirit of *** Christ. "The religion of imposing edifices is a heart- The story of his life in the slums of Kobe is breaking affair. It is the soul's castoff shell. A thrilling. At the age of twenty-one, taking a religion that builds men rather than temples is room six feet square in the worst quarter of the much to be preferred. . . . Well would it be city, he shared this abode with beggars, criminals, if most of the world's temples and churches were diseased paupers or moral lepers who came to razed to the ground. Then possibly we would him. Though misunderstood, slandered, threat- understand genuine religion."
ened, attacked and imposed upon, he never retali- *** ated or sought police protection, but for fifteen years shared his meagre supplies with the needy, "He who calls evangelism antiquated is a novice and unfailingly showed the love of God to all with as regards life. When the destiny of mankind whom he came into contact. He not only lived as a whole is considered, we must acknowledge the Christ-life in the -slums but, in streets and that Christ made no mistake in His passionate factories, he went proclaiming the Good News of effort to save."
God and the offer of life in Jesus Christ.
The fascinating story is told in this volume only Some Financial Surprises in outline but it is the narrative of a prophet, a Dr. W. J. Dawson tells of seven surprises which missionary, a servant of Christ, a martyr. Dr. will come to the man who begins to tithe his in- Axling, who has been intimately associated with come: Dr. Kagawa in the Kingdom of God Movement, 1. The amount of money he has for the Lord's has given us more of an interpretation than a work.
biography. One of its most valuable features is 2. The deepening of his spiritual life.
the self-revelation of Kagawa as seen in the nu- 3. His ease in meeting his own obligations.
merous selections from his two hundred medita- 4. The ease in going on to larger giving.
tions and other voluminous writings that allow us 5. The preparation this gives to be a faithful, a glimpse into the workings of his mind and heart. wise steward over the nine-tenths that remain.
Many of these, like the following, have in them 6. That he did not adopt the .plan sooner.
living truth: 7. That every Christian does not adopt it.
to the Indians-Yesterday
and Today By the REV. THOMAS C. MOFFETT, D. D., ..:( New York }!: ..
Author of "On the New Indian Trail"; Secretary of ~he Indian Mission of America H ow much progress have our Protestant era-especially in the last two or three decades. churches made in their work for the Red- We have perceived more and more that the In- men of America, in their methods, their dians, a truly religious and spiritual race, must programs and plans? What have we learned, and be won to belief in Jesus Christ through our sym- how effective are the efforts to evangelize, edu- pathetic understanding of their natures and their cate and develop the American Indians in Chris- unmet needs, and through befriending of them in tian citizenship? the plight into which the white man's aggressions The work among the Navajos of Arizona ahd and conquering civilization have plunged them. If the Nez Per<;es of Idaho, for example, presents anyone doubts that the old order must perish, giv- some vivid contrasts in this year 1932 to the pio- ing place to new, and that "Indianism" must be neer labors of John Eliot supplanted by civilization, let among the Mohican and other Why have we not made more a representative of their race tribes of Massachusetts in the rapid progress in winning the speak the conviction which presevent~enth century. Though American Indians and others vails. Ruth Muskrat Bronson, the same Gospel is preached, to Christ? Is the fault with a talented Indian graduate of declaring that the Lord Jesus the message, or the messen- Mount Holyoke College, in an Christ is the only Saviour to- gers or the methods used? address at Haskell Institute to day and then, what we term the a thousand young Indian stu- implications of a well-rounded What has been learned about dents from forty-five tribes, and up-to-date Christian pro- better methods in producing said: gram present many adapta- results, even as farmers have The Indian race is now at the tions and methods of service learned better methods in greatest crisis in all its history! If which differ from the methods raising crops? Dr. Moffett we can prove our fitness to live, we of pioneer work among primi- gives us a glimpse of some shall survive as a race. You know tive Indians in the early dec- that the old life has gone. And you ades following Colonial days. changes in methods. know that already, whether we wish This change in methods arises it or not, a.new life has come to take its place. We have a greater task from the new appreciations of the message of ahead of us than any warrior kinsman of ours who ever Christ, from the changed conditions on Indian lived. If we would be a great race we must put our minds reservations, and the new order of things for the to the difficult task of living greatly.
Red Men in the complex civilization of twentieth We have learned or should have learned, neither century life. Three hundred and fifty thousand to try to make the Red Man an imitation "Pale- Indians in the United States of one hundred face," nor to discourage him by forced processes twenty million population must be approached of leading him out into the artificialities of the with the Christian Message and must "work out white man's life and civilization. The recent suitheir own salvation" under very different condi- cide of Buffalo Long Lance in California is a tions from those which Pilgrim Fathers found among "the low-browed forest rangers,"-aborig- tragic instance of the failure of a misplaced and ines of a great continent and from the environ- misguided Indian. Hugh Fullerton, the newsment which surrounded them in the two centuries paper columnist, wrote of him : following. We have traveled long distances in this machine age and in the new missionary Long Lance killed himself the other day, weary of try- ing to live the white man's life. A chieftain of the Black- feet, handsome,. proud, a man of extraordinary intel- [601 ]
ligence; and rare beauty of form and of mind, he at- methods of educational and industrial work in altempted the impossible-found the white man's life bitter most all of these church institutions have been ~and ended it amid the luxury of the Santa Anita ranch, greatly improved and modernized in recent years. California. The Blackfeet are the most proud of all the Secular and governmental leaders pay tribute to Northern Indians, and Long Lance had that shy, fierce pride of his people. He grew tall and strong at Carlisle the more intimate contacts and the superior serv- School and learned the acts of the white man. He performed heroic deeds in France during the World War. ice which these Christian schools are enabled to He wrote, he lectured, an~ he grew weary of it all and attain. went back to his tribe again. One day he declared he Vocational guidance is receiving attention of would lead the life of the white man. He said it bitterly, both Church and State in relation to Indian young and he did not mean the best of that white man's life, people in school and following their graduation. but perhaps the worst. He drank deep and seemed to The systematic efforts, recently inaugurated by find it more and more bitter. He was a very brave and a Mr. Wm. R. Johnston, who has given forty years very gentle man and, I think, a very lonely one, failing to of service to the Navajos of Arizona, to contact find that companionship for which he longed, either among his own people or those he adopted. every returned student on the vast reservation of More than this one, among the large company that tribe, is wisely planned. A bulletin is pub- of educated Indian students, have encountered lished, and by auto trips and visits, the boys and similar experiences. We have learned to deal girls are being followed up with personal and cul- more wisely, if not always effectively, with "the tural influences and linked to the mission centers.
returned student problem." St. Augustine's words A great adv.ance has been made in the rela- rise from weary souls of many Red Men: "Our tions of the government service and the mission- hearts were made for Thee, 0 God, and we are ary forces, both on the reservations and in federal ever weary and restless, till we find our rest in Indian schools. Some fifteen years ago a plan was Thee." To lead burdened souls to Christ, in wQrked out by the Protestant mission boards for whose service alone they will find the yoke easy religious work directors at boarding schools, and and the burden light, is the chief task of emis- suitable buildings have been erected at a few in- saries of the Church. stitutions, notably at Sherman Institute, River- The present-day program of Indian mission side, California, for carrying on united evangeli- activities includes evangelistic, educational, voca- cal services and church activities. The Commis- tional, industrial, medical and social service. sioners of Indian Affairs have repeatedJy ex- Racial characteristics, heredity, environment, pressed their appreciation of missionary labors reservation systems, pedagogic method, all are and have provided for due recognition of the studied, and plans are developed to cooperate church programs in the schedule of federal with the Indians themselves, with government offi- schools.
cials, with traders and with the surrounding white Hon. Charles J. Rhoads, himself a Quaker, sent populations, along all lines of Indian welfare. out a year ago to the superintendents and em- Some leaders of the Indian mission enterprise ployees of the Indian service the following in- realize that this is a racial problem and are de- structions : voting their energies not to a single tribe or par- No effort should be spared to encourage effective coish, but are viewing the opportunity in its larger operation and prevent misunderstanding and friction.
relations, studying the ethnological and national Religious education and character training are necessary sources of Indian life, and reaching out for con- factors in the development of the Indian. Adequate recogtacts with the neglected millions of Red Men in nition of the status and responsibilities of the missionary nineteen republics of Latin America. Among the as a part of the local program, independent and yet cor- Pueblos of New Mexico a returned missionary, related with the government program, will still develop and make efficient the personal friendship and mutual formerly in Japan, is devoting his full time to lin- good-will which should always characterize the relation guistic research and pastoral labors among these of missionaries and Indian service employees. We suggest Indians, whom he believes to be definitely linked therefore that our superintendents be responsible for with the Mongolians and the ancient Japanese calling group conferences to be attended by missionaries, Indian church workers and employees, for the purpose of culture. discussing the plans and lines of cooperative effort which The field of Christian education, and the schools will promote active participation in a common program.
conducted under the direction of mission boards, A half century ago under the old political spoils can only be briefly mentioned. Institutions such system of appointing Indian agents no such con- as Bacone College, Oklahoma, Santee Institute, structive proposal had been conceived.
Nebraska, and the American Indian Institute, It must be noted that Protestant undertakings Wichita, Kansas, carry forward the more ele- for the Red Men of the United States, while pro- mentary instruction provided for in many denomi- gressive and modernized in recent· years, have national day and boarding schools in various also been theologically conservative and strongly states. The teaching staff, the curricula, and the evangelical. The missionaries, especially on the
MISSIONS TO THE INDIANS-YESTERDAY AND TODAY
reservations and in their contacts with primitive tions. Associations, conferences, presbyteries of and pagan tribes, have realized the need of simple the various denominations are composed in some Christian truth, of earnest and practical work, instances entirely of Indian members. The native and of basic instruction and methods, rather than organizations are the fruitage of long years of controversial or "modernistic" trends. The true missionary service. Self-government of indigemissionary ever leads to Christ as Divine Master nous churches is the goal toward which the labors of the heart and life, and to the Bible as God's of the past have· always been directed. The Word. Sioux, Nez Per~e, Choctaw and Pima Indians probably represent the largest measure of self- The united strength of the denominations has support and of reliance on a native ministry. On been one of the causes of progress in Indian mis- the whole a definite expansion and up-to-date sions. Dr. Charles L. Thompson, as president of forward-looking policies have characterized the the interdenominational Home Missions Council activities and program of the evangelical churches more than a decade ago, stated that he regarded since the "President Grant system" allocated inthe work of the churches for the Red Men of dividual tribes to separate denominations for re- North America as furnishing the finest example ligious nurture. This plan did not prove wise or of practical comity and cooperation in missionary permanent, but it stimulated later activities. The service in the homeland. Neglected fields were Dawes Act, providing individual land allotments, allocated, rivalry and duplicating of effort by gave the Indians new dignity and opportunity for evangelical forces were largely obviated, and a self-support, also has the declaration of citizensolid front was presented which greatly strength- ship for the "native Americans," which had been ened the impact of Protestant Christianity in the so long deferred. Of the reward of faith and face of paganism and secularity. service for this Cause, the memorable words of John Eliot, Apostle to the Indians, may be re- Self-supporting Indian congregations, minis- called: "Prayer and pains through faith in Jesus tered to by native pastors, now constitute a large Christ will do anything." part of the organized religious life of the reserva- Oases In the Good Earth By the Rev. G. CARLETON LACY, D. D., Shanghai, China Agent of the American Bible Society in China EVERYONE who has read "The Good Earth," nese moved in he brought with his family retain- knows something of China's crying need of ers, bodyguard and secretaries, his Bible, family the Gospel of Christian love. To me the worship, and a personal life that together created book seems to ring-yes, and to wring-with this an atmosphere entirely different from that picappeal. tured in "The Good Earth." Here was a Chris- tian home in the midst of odd surroundings. Yet it must be remembered that there are spots in Chinese society that have been changed. There The story of my friend's conversion is a good are regions that have experienced a touch of God's illustration of what Christianity has done for love. There are lives that have been redeemed China. There remains vividly in my memory his by it. Here and there a new glory shines; some narrative of three incidents that turned him about rough places have been made smooth; some bur- in his life and in his attitude to Christ. They are dens have been made easy; some yokes have been typical of experiences that through the past one lifted. hundred years have been coming to very many others in less conspicuous places. Not long ago I visited the city in which Pearl Buck spent her childhood. My host was a high As a youth this young Chinese was a soldier government official. He occupied a big house such in the ranks. One day he went to his commanding as is so well described in the now familiar story. officer for permission to go into the nearby city. Its absent landlord preferred the luxuries of life "Young man," said the kindly disposed superior, with electric elevators and porcelain bathtubs in "when you finish your errands in that city and Shanghai. So for a nominal rent my friend, the have time left to play, there are just two places official, had taken over the rambling place, with where it is safe for you to go. Find either the its courts and gardens and inner rooms, to pre- Y. M. C. A. or the Methodist institutional church." vent the squatters from taking possession and The soldier boy heeded this friendly advice and ruining the premises. When this Christian Chi- went to the church. There he found decent read-
ing, wholesome recreation, and strangely enough, can to exalt Christ in his home and community.
on this first visit, a patriotic rally. He sat down But the influence of that Christian home is now in a back seat and listened with amazement. Al- exerted through a more famous home upon every ways before he had thought of Christians as trait- visitor to the great house at Yangchow. Scat- ors, "running dogs of foreign imperialism." Now tered all over "the good earth" in China are thou- he heard from their lips the highest ideals of na- sands of humble homes of peasants, merchants, tional loyalty and found them adding to their own teachers and laborers that have been illumined zeal an earnest appeal to God to do for China by the light of Christian love, where life has be- what human strength could not accomplish. come much more than the daily toil and the be- That was twenty years ago. In recent months getting of children.
this man, from his difficult position in govern- Late one Christmas Eve we landed in Nanking ment office, has been striving with all the clear- on a cold starlit night, and drove through the city sightedness and passion of a Jeremiah to turn in an open carriage to the home where we were his people to peace and to prayer, pointing out to be entertained. Here and there along the the insufficiency of human diplomacy and the fu- streets, and dotting the open fields like brilliant tility of civil war. The burden of his none too fireflies, was to be seen the flicker of little red popular prophecy is that "righteousness exalteth candle-lanterns. We asked what it meant and a nation" and that the faithful prayers of a few learned that each Christian home in the great city hundred thousand sincere Chinese Christians will had hung out this token of thanksgiving for the avail more than millions of dollars and lives spent birth of the Christ. There are now myriads of in fighting for "national defense." This at least such homes made glad by what Christ has done has Christianity done for China-it has raised a for the Chinese family.
voice crying, "Prepare ye in the wilderness the A third incident narrated by this official at first way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a sounded undramatic, almost prosaic, but it was highway to our God." When the nation is plung- significant in his experience and is typical of a ing blindly toward militarism and anarchy, great contribution which Christianity has made toward materialism and cynicism, one who has to Chinese life. A great national convention was led victorious armies on deadly battlefields now arn:mged in Tientsin by the Young Men's Chris- seeks with stirring conviction to lead the Chris- tian Association. My friend attended one day to tian forces to the victory of faithful prayer. Here hear a distinguished Chinese scholar speak. As is bright hope in the midst of dense gloom. some years before he had been surprised to dis- The second incident of which my friend told cover that Christians were loyal patriots, so now me occurred some years later when the young he was astonished to hear from this literary au- military officer had been entrusted with a secret thority that the Christian Bible was a classic of mission to rally military leaders against the usur- real worth. He himself had delighted as a boy in pations of the dictator Yuan Shi-kai. His duties the study of poetry and philosophy, and had ac- were taking him to many places, into the yamens quired a penmanship of some distinction. His .and the intimate presence of many powerful gen- pride in his own country's literary achievement erals and army chieftains. On one such journey was pricked by this master boldly urging his he came to a Yangtze river port and was enter- hearers to turn to a diligent reading of the Old tained by the Defense Commissioner. Instantly and New Testament Scriptures. His response he detected in the atmosphere and conduct of this was thorough-going. He became an earnest stu- household something he had never before known. dent, spending hours each day with his Bible. In For a time he could not analyze the difference, it he found more than "the greatest classic under nor define his experience. But when he sat at heaven." Here was spiritual food. Here was a meals· and heard his host offer thanks to God, lamp to lighten his way. Here was the priceless when at the beginning of the day he saw the fam- story of salvation.
ily and staff assemble to worship under the lead- One day in his headquarters at Tungchow I ership of this powerful general, and when he met picked up on the general's table a copy of the in the large family of children several orphans Bible. Its pages were heavily marked and lined.
who had been affectionately adopted into the home Verse after verse was emphasized in one way or in which they were receiving, not the abuse of another. A few moments later in another room slaves, but all the privileges of sons and daugh- I opened another Bible which showed the same ters, there stirred within his heart· a desire to signs of persistent scrutiny. When the matter share in that sort of Christian life. was mentioned to my host on his return from the The Defense Commissioner has now passed barracks he explained, "Without spending hours from the political stage and lives in quiet retire- each day in Bible study I could not carry the load ment at Kiukiang, still trying in every way he of heavy responsibility entrusted to me."
OASES IN THE GOOD EARTH
A few months ago at an appreciation dinner and the apostles had been degraded to the level given in his honor by Christian organizations in of the filthiest novels and obscene pamphlets Shanghai, General Chang Chih-chiang was pre- which till then largely held the field of vernacular sented a large family Bible and a framed certifi- writings. How different the attitude today! cate of honorary life membership in the Ameri- China's literary leaders now offer their tribute to can Bible Society. One of his chaplains made this the work of these foreigners who were most ably statement: "Through all these years I have never assisted by their Chinese colleagues. Dr. Hu known a day to pass when the general did not Shih has more than once praised the style of the find time to study his Bible. Whether on the bat- Union Version Mandarin Bible. Dr. Tsai Yuantlefield, or in the long weary marches through pei has given it as his opinion that Christianity's Mongolia, or in the midst of pressing duties of greatest contribution to China has been made in civil life, always he has found time for this form opening the way to popular literacy, chiefly of spiritual nourishment." From the richness of through disseminating the Scriptures in the his own experience he has donated thousands of spoken language of four hundred million people. Bibles and Testaments to personal and official In several dialect regions the colloquial Bibles friends, earnestly praying that to them as to him it might become a source of real blessing. GENERAL CHANG CHIH-CIDANG For more than a hundred years Christianity virtually created the written language and are has been contributing to the change and the en- recognized by students of philology as the standrichment of Chinese life through the circulation ard work in these fields. of the Scriptures. The American Bible Society, in its story of a century of work among the Chi- What all of this has done to the life of the nese, reports a circulation of approximately sev- nation is too long a story, even if it could be told. enty million copies. The British and Foreign It is of real significance that Bible translation and Bible Society began its work several years earlier distribution now makes it possible to reach diand has labored even more widely; and the Na- rectlya large part of China's vast population with tional Bible Society of Scotland and other organ- the Gospel message. Each year from ten to fifizations have added very largely to this growing teen million copies of Christian Scriptures are stream of religious influence. finding their way into the hands of Chinese read- ers, with the endorsement of their own leaders as A volume might well be written on what this "the greatest classic under heaven." The revolucirculation of the Bible has done for the language tion which has followed in the lives of thousands and literature of the Chinese people. The story of individuals and scores of communities is an inof the Bible in the Reformation of Europe, or of evitable result. the Tyndale translation made with a view to familiarizing even the humblest ploughboy with the sacred writings, is very familiar. Some day a no less thrilling romance may be told to show the influence of the Bible on the transformation of China. Last year Madame Chiang Kai-shek graciously accepted for herself and her distinguished husband copies of the Bible with this reference to her father, Mr. Soong, whose printing press years ago was largely patronized by the Bible Society: "My father established his press in Shanghai to print the revolutionary writings of Dr. Sun Yatsen when no one else dared to publish them. But he published not only Dr. Sun's works. On his press were printed also many thousands of copies of the messages of Jesus Christ, the world's greatest revolutionist."
The literary form in which these messages were published proved also to be revolutionary. When evangelistic zeal drove Bishop Schereschewsky and other missionary translators to put the Bible into the vernacular Chinese-the Mandarin and the colloquial dialects-the fruit of their labors was hailed with derision and protest. It was charged that the sacred writings of the prophets
Obstacles in
By the REV. WM. H. GLEYSTEEN, Peiping, China Missionary of the Presbyterian Church, V. S. A.
SOME wonder whether, with all the complex their influence through their organization. Choice, organization on the mission field, the most rather than compulsion, is the keynote. central need, namely, that of making Christ The Church in China is very much concerned really known, is at the center of the program. with Christian universities. It would be fatal, in Have we sufficient glow in our faith in Jesus an age so largely humanistic, for the youth of the Cb:rist, in His teaching, person and Way of Life Chinese Church who attend the university, to to.make us daily grateful for God's gift, and eager have to do their thinking in science, economics, to share with others this radi- philosophy, and history under alit faith? a the i s tic professors. The iInstitutions are meant to be Not all the obstacles to Chris- Christian university is price- tools for the master workman. tian progress in China are due less to the Church, but it is es- They are of use only if they to ignorance, poverty, revolu- sential that its universities be- enable him to realize his pur- tions, banditry, communism come fewer and better and pose. If he becomes hampered and idolatry. Some are due powerfully staffed with Chris- by the organization, then his to faulty missionary methods, tian professors who will adorn power is weakened by it. The mmChiesrssissiaotg.nearMieosrr. wGtihtlheeoyustStepaenirG,itowsphoeofl the class-room as truly as any most moving power in Christi- Christian preacher adorns the anity, outside of Jesus himself, has been twenty-five years in pulpit. We need an uncompro- is the individual Christian China, gives us a view of ·how mising Christianity in our preacher, scholar, merchant, these obstacles are being over- schools, and this may be farmer, artisan, housemaid, fa- come. achieved even with the restric- ther or mother. This is where tions which registration of the Holy Spirit of God resides schools with the government and operates. If the Holy Spirit resides in an insti- has placed upon them.
tution, it is only because He resides in the individ- The Church in America and Europe should send uals in it. Hence it is imperative that the Christian out youth in whom mingles the passionate love of must continue to function. There are not as many learning with the passionate love of Christ; let fiaming evangelists in the world as there should them go to the Christian colleges and universities be, and they are especially needed in Christian in- of China, work hand in hand with an increasing stitutions. The Christian leaders in these institu- number of choice Chinese Christian scholars. This tions must be free and determined to accomplish contribution to the Church will be second to none their great purpose through the organization. in all the land. The scholar class in China is still There is a girls' school in Central China, with her most promising and powerful group. Is approximately one hundred and fifty students. Christianity unable to grapple with this problem?
Ten American missionaries are giving themselves Does not her spirit .rise within her as she con- to this piece of work. Some are teachers of Bible fronts this opportunity?
and conduct worship; others are teachers of Eng- Then there are the Christian secondary schools.
lish and history and physical directors. These A few years ago, before Government registration, ten women and their Chinese colleagues, all focus all the students used to file into chapel every their lives on their students. Christianity to them morning, and most of the students took Bible is more than a creed and ritual, it runs through- courses. These were considered happy days by out the entire school life. The Church which many educators. But many of the Chinese lead- operates this school finds not only that the girls ers who were themselves students in those "happy become Christians, but also that when church days" are quite as certain that the method was leaders are needed, this is the best place to find not good for the cause of Christ in China. In our them. These Christian teachers have multiplied own school in Peiping, three hundred fine lads and [606 ] young men came to chapel regularly, but we knew, China is the conclusion to which many thoughtespecially in recent years, that this is not the way ful Chinese have come that Europe and America to a young man's heart and head'. Now the same are not measuring up favorably to the teachings institution has a beautiful chapel, the most at- of Jesus. In 1924 the Student Volunteer Movetractive room in the building. It overlooks the ment sensed clearly that the race problem in hills to the east and the west of Peiping, and such America and economic injustice were so menacing students and teachers as may desire, come to this that unless quickly remedied, they would cut the quiet upper room for worship. There is not a nerve of the Church in its missionary efforts. more worshipful service held in any of our Americans and Europeans cannot say to China. churches in Peiping than is held in this chapel. "Look at Jesus, do not look at us; listen to His In the final analysis, have we more faith in com- teachings on peace, do not pay attention to our pulsion than in the drawing power of Jesus armaments; read the Sermon on the Mount, do Christ? That, ancient summons "Come follow not consider our factory system." The fact is that me" still has its power. Christianity has one sure the Great War with its wanton destruction of life, guaranty that it will never lack devotees, and that and the hypocrisy which led the warring nations is the drawing power of Christ when He is "lifted each to pray for success, rather than a spirit of up." understanding and forgiveness, disillusioned the Orient as to the influence of Christ upon the West. If a teacher in a mission school really believes It has been said by not a few that Christianity that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the Life, even has not even been tried in the West. The fact is though he may not be free to discuss religion in that Christianity has not been applied to certain the classroom, his influence with his students areas of our social, economic and national life. will be in proportion to the love of Christ in his Our sins are finding us out. We must repent, or heart. The door of opportunity will' be wide we will find that our missionary force is spent. open. As Emerson said, if he has something to give which the world needs, a path will be worn Wu T'ing-fan, formerly Chinese Minister to to his doorstep. Winning men to Christ is largely Washington, said that he became a Christian as by personal approach to the will. In our mission a young man, but that he had returned to Conschools there should be an adequate staff not only fucianism as a more practicable religion. He for teaching, but also to give the Christian teach- thought Christianity too idealistic, too remote from the possible. Martin Luther did not feel disers time to win their students to Christ. mayed when he saw the Church and the priest- There is a Christian Fellowship in the Peiping hood corrupt and worldly-minded. He discovered and applied the dynamic in religion, the power of school. Two years ago, when the new term which we still feel. Shall we do less in such an opened, the members came together. We num- hour as the present? bered only forty-one, for the senior members had just graduated. As we were about to tackle the The missionary is not always the kind of man problems for the coming year, the Principal, a one would expect. Perhaps he has more of the Chinese, got up and said, "The only way to start marks of his civilization upon him than the stigthis year right is for everyone of us to go among mas of Christ which Paul carried about. The his friends, teachers and students, and each one missionary must make it unmistakably clear that to invite one other friend to unite with the Fel- he is dealing with vital experiences, and that he is lowship at the very beginning of the year." This an apostle of faith, hope, and love to the people was readily agreed to. One week later when we to whom he is accredited. These testify of Christ; met again, not one member failed to bring a friend these lead men to Christ, for they flow ever fresh with him. There were eighty-two present. It and full from his heart, and are the Living Water was an experience which I shall not soon forget. for which all men thirst. It revealed what purpose and prayer and personal work can accomplish. I went to the finest A situation which is causing strain in Chinese non-Christian student in the school and asked him Christian circles is as follows: Until recently, to become a follower of Christ and to unite with the Chinese Church was largely dominated by the the Fellowship. He asked for time to talk it over missionary. In trying to remedy this evil and to with his family. Later he came sadly and said, give Chinese pastors and workers and the Church "I should like to do so, but my father and mother itself its rightful place, a new menace to progress are opposed and I cannot disregard their wishes." has arisen. The churches are not self-supporting, Another strong young man in the senior class re- and self-propagating so that a new policy is dessponded immediately, "Yes, I am willing and glad perately needed. .Some missionaries feel that the to follow Christ and become a member of the best procedure will be for them to withdraw both Christian Fellowship." financial and missionary aid from these churches so that the fledglings may really learn to soar One obstacle to the progress of Christianity in
aloft. They have a new evangelistic program in When the rich treasures of human thought in which the mission work is generally independent China have been gratefully accepted at their full of the Church. value, the Christian missionary has best prepared The dominance of the mission over the Church the heart of the people for the reception of Jesus is unwise and the Church must in reality be inde- Christ, for He came to fulfill their incomplete- pendent of the mission. Left largely to them- ness, which many of them recognize. One does selves the missionary hopes that these new not find the cross of Christ in ethnic faiths. Nei- churches will avoid that same evil of developing ther does one hear that deep solemn note, "Ye along lines of Western pattern. One may fairly did not choose me but I chose you." One does not ask whether Western missionaries can found find anything comparable to the resurrection.
Christian churches without the cooperation of the Why be troubled over all that is noble in systems Chinese Christian Church. Might not the mis- not Christian? Rather let us believe more vitally sionary better ask the Chinese Church to be al- in Jesus Christ, and try to re-enact his experilowed to cooperate with her in the more extensive as well as immediate program of building the' ences in our own lives. China truly needs Christ. Church of Jesus Christ? The evils' of the past must not be repeated, but it must also be made There is in China a Church of Christ, composed clear that the mission is not a rival to the Chris- of several denominations, with over one-third of tian churches already existing. The missionary the Protestant Christians within its fold. One from the West can still make a spiritual contri- would not attempt to force the matter of union, bution to the more or less inarticulate Church of but the impression made on thoughtful Chinese the East. One does not need to develop this thesis by the great heterogeneity of Christian denomi- nationalism is distinctly unfortunate. A Christihere. anity which exalts division among followers of Christ, in a country where communism is making A wise Chinese Christian once remarked to the headway and where atheism is not uncommon, is writer: "Many of you missionaries seem to under- not apt to make a deep impression. Christian go a harmful change when you go home on fur- cooperation has added to the strength and dignity lough. When you first come to China you treat and power of appeal in the missionary message. us with great deference and affection. You have faith in us. We Chinese know full well that the There is some fear lest the Chinese Christian facts do not always accord with confidence, but Church become more ethical than religious. A still your fresh and living hope and your respect minister in America said to a Chinese student, and love grip our hearts and lead us into realms "I hear that Christianity is more ethical than re- where we have never been before. And then you ligious in your country." "Yes," was the reply, go to America and return to us 'enlightened.' You "that may be true. I have observed that in Amer- are no longer the same. You think you know us ica Christianity is more religious than ethical."
too well now. You become cynical, suspicious, not It is said that the Orient is fast discovering the really friendly. It is true you do know us better moral supremacy of Jesus. It is of great impor- in some of the superficialities of our life, but tance that the Christian Church in India and really you have ceased to know us and to move us. Japan and China relate l'eligion and ethics. The When you first came with your confidence and mystical, moral, and intellectual must be con- love, it was then you knew us most profoundly served and properly related.
and we longed to follow the Christ. Now often The supreme obstacle to the progress of the you antagonize us." How true this principle is! Kingdom of God in China lies in those who claim What trust Jesus reposed in the most unworthy to be His followers and messengers. It is so much persons, Peter for example; and how he won out easier to teach a doctrine than to practice it. Alwith his abiding faith. most everyone can say, "God is love," but how The Chinese sometimes feel that the missionary hard it is to manifest it in life; and yet, does any gives them what he wants to give rather than one suppose that by reiteration of this doctrine what the people most need, and what would best the hearts of men are changed? The missionary lead them to Christ. The missionary must offer must delight to follow the Master in his own liv- the Bread of Life, but he will be wise to move ing, and his heart must be aglow with joy and along the felt needs of the people and will surely gratitude to God for his unspeakable Gift. The come to the profoundest need of all., Teaching Christian often has cast a shadow upon Christ, English often discloses an attitude of service that but He is invincible, and the measure in which He is most compelling and leads students to inquire is allowed to have His way in the Church of the as to the sources of strength of this teacher's life. West will be the measure of the gift of the mis- Thus they are led into the presence of God. sionary from that Church to China.
Ways of
'fested Methods for Increasing Interest at Home I EDITED BY MRS. ESTELLA S. AITCHISON, GRANVILLE, OHIO ~,—====~-===-====-===–==–,~ SEASONAL PLANS A Look Into December dressed as angels, sing carols A Thank-offering Across the Where can the missionary responsively and read passages of Scripture referring to the Sea mood and motive be more at first Christmas; one or more brief talks are given on Holiday The Edinburgh Medical Mis- home than in the month wherein celebrations on the Home and sion Quarterly tells of a new Foreign fields of your denomiventure-a Thank-offering Day, we observe the birthday anni- nation, arranging them in geoin place of the customary sale versary of the author of The graphical rotation to follow the of work, in their Junior Auxili- Great Commission? The follow- sunrise around the earth; a ary. ing suggestions will be found tree ablaze with lights receives the gifts of the guests for some Acceptances for an "At adapt,able to various depart- definite missionary objective. Home" in a large hall were so numerous that the seating ac- ments of church activity. "The Old, Old Story." (1) commodations had to be in- A Christmas Manger Service. In Song: Begin by having concreased to the limit. Upon en- At the morning service on the Sunday before Christmas, a special program is rendered af- fording opportunity for all tering the hall, surprising classes to bring gifts for those gregation sing, as the request, scenes greeted the guests-an less fortunate than themselves, "Tell Me the Old, Old Story." African Hut, an Indian Bazaar, as well as a missionary offering Follow this by having one verse a Palestine Well, a Chinese for some designated object, all each of hymns in which the first Room and other attractions. these being placed in an impro- Christmas is described or -re- Members of the Auxiliary, in vised manger at the foot of the ferred to, by various persons appropriate costumes, took pulpit. who answer this request. This charge of the exhibits. The most A Good Christmas Program. may be done by a group behind delightful feature of the after- The roll call may bring re- the scenes, or by individuals noon was the reception of the sponses with Christmas quota- rising as if spontaneously in thank-offerings by a lad and a tions ; the devotional service various parts of the audience lass costumed to represent doc- may include a talk on "The (very effective), or by one tor and nurse, seated in front Birthday of the King," Scrip- woman if the musical resources of a large illustrated poster and ture passages, hymns and com- of the audience are limited. with a tray between them on ments; the special music com- Close this feature by congregawhich the gifts were to be posed of carols. From a huge tional singing of "0 Come, All placed. Later they headed a col- red muslin Christmas stocking, Ye Faithful". orful procession of Africans, hung up at the front, each per- (2) From the Book: Cut a Indians, Palestinians and Chi- son pulls out some part of the number of stars from pastenese as they passed up the hall ensuing program-letters from board, write on one side a to present the offering, salaam- missionaries telling of past cel- Scripture verse referring to the ing to the platform party after ebrations on their fields; one or Nativity, and tie a tiny green the special fashion of their re- two short Christmas stories; a candle to the other side. Darken spective countries. After a de- scrap book with a Christmas-y the room where possible. Have lightful tea, missionary officials cover and containing pictures the leader read her star-verse by and workers accepted and dedi- of Christmas celebrations and the light of its own candle cated the money and an address scenes cut from past December which she has lighted from a was given on "Pain, Its Problem numbers of THE REVIEW or Christ-candle on the table, then and Its Place in Life." Music denominational magazines; sev- nass the light on to the next was interspersed throughout the eral four-minute talks on woman's candle so that she may afternoon. Christmas in non-Christian read her verse, and so on until And now for the sequel: De- lands; an appropriate solo for a all the passages have been ren- spite the depression, the amount special singer; a tiny Perry Pic-_ dered. of this voluntary thank-offering ture of The Nativity for each (3) In China: Any other exceeded that from the sale of one present. country or group of countries work in the average of the past "Around the World with may be substituted, but China five years by £185! Christmas." A sextette of girls, is most appropriate in view of [609 ]
the study topic for this year…. ceive relief from friendly for- Hymn: "When I Survey the Live, concrete subject matter eigners; (c) Policy of soup Wondrous Cross."* should be handled by a good kitchen unwise. Chinese speaker. At its ~lose, have some one sing softly, "As with Glad- should receive aid which will VALUE OF LIVING LINKS ness Men of Old," the congrega- preserve stamina and morale tion finally marching past a of community. Digging of "Our plan for teaching mistree, manger or othe~ appropri- wells in past is a sample of sions has paid good dividends," ate receptacle for missionary sort of relief needed; (d) Ir- says the Rev. Frederick W. offerings as they sing heartily, rigation projects to help Backmeyer, pastor of the First "Joy to the World". large areas; (e) Motor roads Presbyterian Church of Gary, will help; (f) Properly man- Indiana. "In the beginning we Carrying Christmas to the aged, much money can be had a double motive. We want- Shut-ins. The Courtesy Com- raised in China for relief; ed our people to know our mismittee, Extension Department (g) With care and preven- sionaries and we wished to or other appropriate body in tive measures future famines vitalize our mid-week services. your church arranges to enliven may be avoided. The manse was opened on the sick rooms of invalids with 6. Hymn: "Break Thou the Wednesday evenings to groups tiny decorated trees suitable for Bread of Life." of forty or fifty persons, invited implanting in flower pots, a alphabetically. A special card group of young people singing Fitting the Eyes (Chapter IV) was sent out, neatly printed, carols at each place. Messages and in the year's time every one of love from absent friends, the Room fitted with charts, chair of the almost fifteen hundred individual's Sunday school class, and table as in oculists's office. members was reached." the missionary society or other Impersonator of woman doctor suitable group, may be neatly presents material in chapter to The plan, as explained by the two patients, one suffering from pastor, included a brief devo- written on tiny cards and at- eyes of Ignorance, the other tional service and special music, tached to the trees as gifts. from Indolence. First is cured by Informational glasses and followed by a social hour. A missionary was introduced for PROGRAMS ON second by Inspirational ones. an informative, heart-warming "LADY FOURTH DAUGHTER First patient can see China but talk. By scanning the itiner- only in peculiar way-much aries of those at home on fur- OF CHINA" farther away than it really is. lough and arranging a schedule She is particularly distressed weeks in advance, it was possible Chinese Witnesses (Chapter III) 1. Women witnesses sharing in about medical missions, thinks to have the church folk get acthe new social order. (pp. she sees clearly enough to know quainted with the workers in a 85-89.) that her denomination is doing home atmosphere-a very con- 2. Poverty in China with which too much of that work in China. siderable advantage.
Christian witnesses must She does not see why we do not "The fact that these were not deal. insist on their government at- church meetings gave the visit- (a) Struggle for exist- tending to it all. The doctor ing missionary an opportunity to ence. (pp. 89-94.) gives her diagnosis-terrible win individuals who would have (b) Politics. (pp.94-96.) disease called Ignorance. Shock been indifferent elsewhere. For (c) Sun Yat Sen's princi- and grief on part of patient. the listeners these talks had all ples. (pp. 96, 97.) Doctor tries on some glasses the effect of a personal touch.
(d) The Church and pov- and has her read something in Knowing the missionary they erty. (pp.97-111.) text. (Cover material on pp. wanted to know about his field.
3. Spiritual transformation. 115-138.) Patient's eyesight im- They asked questions. They re- (pp. 112, 113.) proves and she sees some things membered what the missionary 4. China today. See story of for herself. told them. To them -it was in- Mabel Lee, a Chinese wit- Second patient shows bad formation-news. They could ness in America, in Literary . case of Indolent eyes. Does not repeat to others what they had Digest for March 5, 1932, or know that the Chinese are learned from one who was actother down-to-date material bending every energy to get out ually engaged in the work. The of Salt Marsh of Ignorance, be- congregation, as a result of on topic. 5. China Famine Relief, U. S. cause her eyes are too lazy to these group meetings, became A., after careful study, laid look. The doctor dishes up In- more and more interested in the down these beliefs regard- spirational medicine (from pp. missionary work of our denoming economic situation: (a) 138-158). Patient at last gets ination, and the entire program Primary responsibility must up· energy to look; does not of Christian missions had a new rest on the Chinese people; want to stop looking; then she meaning for them." gives. When the second year opened, (b) Chinese need should re- China Today: Inspirational the meetings had to be taken to * Remaining program by Anna Canada the church because the manse talk on "The Great Physician could no longer contain them. Swain, as published by the Baptist Board of in China Today". Education. in next issue.
EFFECTIVE WAYS OF WORKING
A dinner was instituted. The the life and w<?rk of great mis- are discussed with the children and definite prayers are offered membership was divided into sionaries. groups which, in turn, provided Have a large poster sheet for on the basis of specific needs and served the meals. Twenty- each country to be studied, with shown in previous lessons. This five cents per plate was charged names lettered across the top- series, carried through sevento take care of the "overhead" "China," "Africa," etc. Place teen sessions of a Junior Chrisand to pay for the kitchen serv- these at the front of the room tian Endeavor, was described in ice so that the entire member- where all may read the inscrip- Women and Missions, of the ship might be included in the tions easily. As each child se- Presbyterian Board.
meeting. From an estimated lects the poster which repre- Books of Friendship seventy-five to one hundred, the sents such designations as those attendance grew up to two hun- below, he may stand at the These were made for the pur~ dred per night. front of the room and hold it: pose of interesting children con- This plan has been in use for "In the Dark Continent, our mis- cretely in missions–something three years and is still "going sionaries tell the story of Jesus, the the children might make for strong." Not only have the Light of the world"; themselves. The synthetic books church folk learned to know were headed: "When you come and love the missionaries, but "In the land of more boys and girls to see us," the idea being to than any other in the world, our misthose workers themselves get a sionaries are working while we are heart-warming, helpful reaction sleeping and sleeping while we are show what children of other from the church. When it occa- playing-;-all to tell those boys and lands would see if they visited sionally proves impossible to se- girls that Jesus loves them"; ours. The pictures included cure a missionary, a stereopti- those of the Goddess of Liberty, "In the land of a million idols, our con address on some field whose missionaries tell the people of that missionaries are already known land that God wants their hearts for the children themselves, their or are soon to visit the church His temple"; houses, streets, churches, etc. is profitably substituted. One of Thus was the World Friendship "In the land of flowers and parasols and pretty kimonos, the missionaries Contest born in the state of Pennsylvania, in the plans of are telling about Christ"; "In the land of jumping beans"
the best features of this plan . ';In' th~ land of jungles and golden the Children's Synodical Secreis its linking up with the prayer tary and the Young People's temples" . . . ; Secretary (Presbyterian) for life. On Sunday mornings and "In the land where Jesus Himself that commonwealth. It visual- Wednesday evenings, names of once walked" . . . etc.
missionaries for whom prayer When each poster has been izes imaginary visits of children is to be offered are read. "In claimed and all are lined up, of different foreign mission staour church," concludes the pas- sing "We've a Story to Tell to tions upon coming to America, tor, "the whole missionary pro- the Nations," and repeat, "Pray or of those in home mission stagram is a living issue. This ye, therefore, the Lord of the tions, coming to the community solves any problem of benevo- harvest," etc. Then suggest sub- in which the book-makers live. lent quotas."* jects for sentence prayers. Ask Leading questions are: the children to bring pictures Missionary Poster Studies of boys and girls of different To whom would you introduce countries to be classified, selec- them? The purpose is to. study the Where would you take them?
children's foreign mission ob- tions made and pasted on the What would you show them?
jectives. The aims of the post- posters. Then letter names of These books are entered in a ers are to create interest in the at least one missionary for each competition by their makers. countries where stations for ju- station, and as the children se- The rules require them all to be niors' benevolences are located; lect the corresponding posters of medium size-eight by ten to keep the people before the from such descriptions as the inches; all the work is to be children; to familiarize juniors following, they are allowed to done by the children. These with the names of stations and paste the right name on each books are sent in to headquartypes of work; to acquaint them poster and offer sentence pray- ters, each one accompanied by a with at least one missionary at ers for a blessing on the work- letter written by its maker to each station so that prayer may ers. For example, "Mrs. J- the imaginary child of the stabecome more definite; to lay the B- is the name of the mission- tion he had ih mind. After the foundations for confidence in ary who is taking the Gospel to announcements of the awards, the effectiveness of prayer by the Dark Continent. On which one book is sent to each station teaching Bible passages that poster shall we paste her it designates, inscribed with definitely state the necessity for name?" data concerning the junior prayer and the promise of its At subsequent sessions, have . group sending it. What are answer; to stimulate interest in a story told for each of the other states doing to introduce posters, life stories of mission- their juniors to young folks of • Copyright, The Duplex Envelope· Co., Rich- other races at home and mond. Virginia. Abridged. aries like Livingstone, Morri- t Adapted from Women and Missi""",. son, Carey, etc. These stories abroad?t The Council of Women for Home Missions ANNE SEESHOLTZ, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, 105 EAST TWENTY-SECOND STREET, NEW YORK ~'===============I~ THE NEW DAY HAS COME A Report of the World Day of Prayer, February 12, 1932 In these troubled times "more changes are wrought by prayer" than hurrying worried persons will believe. The source of endurance of many stalwart souls, courageous today for themselves and others is the same as with the Psaimist of old who sang of the help which came from "the Lord who made heaven and earth."
It is also true as someone said but yesterday, that "one does not stop the mouths of lions or of gossips and critics by argument, but by de"Inonstra- tion." The observance of the World Day of Prayer in Febru- ary, 1932, was a great demon- stration of the growing world afenldlowinshisphairningfaigthoo, dinnepwrsa,year~ WORLD DAY OF PRAYER MEETING AT WEIHSIEN, SHANTUNG well as earthly goods. the new day. February the Rico opened its doors that stu- "But the time is coming, it dents of any faith might unite has come already, when the real twelfth had been announced as with the Christian women of worshippers will worship the the Women's Day of Prayer in the world on this, their Day of Father in Spirit and in reality; Prayer. The program had been for these are the worshippers the vernacular mission paper. prepared by India and Old Mexthat the Father wants. God is It was an unheard of thing that ico. And Spanish voices bathed Spirit, and his worshippers must women should conduct prayer the shores of heaven with wave worship Him in Spirit and in meetings on their own initia- after wave of prayer for China; reality." (John 4 :23-24 Moffatt tive. In some cases, the native for the Disarmament Confer- Translation. ) ministers conducted the meet- ence now in session; for ex- ings. In one village the young ploited peoples; for cleansing Both the spirit and the real- men prepared refreshments for from all race prejudice; and for ity of the services held around the women-a strange reversal Christians everywhere 'that the world last February are of the usual order of things. . . they all may be one.' Every day evident in the nigh two thou- The Fijian women had a soul brings us closer. United, by sea sand reports received at the stirring time. They all felt that and cable, by radio aRd air; and Council headquarters. We know a new day had dawned for the now today it is by the mystery that many groups did not re- women of Fiji"-thus word of prayer. No use pretendingport to us. One scarcely knows came from Daviulevu, Fiji. our world has changed, and we how best to select from the in- pray for a cosmic consciousspiring accounts in order to And from Rio Piedras, Puer- ness; for Christian love infinite give a clear picture of the ex- to Rico, came the message now enough to keep up with the tent and significance of the ob- . echoing round the world, "Love aeroplane and the radio." servance of the Day of Prayer. from these palmy isles to the women of the world. It is only In Other Lands The Isles of the Sea on paper that we are divided. In the Belgian Congo, Wil- T.hi.s tropic sea must no longer dIvIde us. It must unite us with the ends of the earth. Today, "The day-line runs right February 12, 1932, a church helma J aggard, the missionary through Fiji; so we begin near the University of Puerto was called to the meeting for [612 ]
1932J BULLETIN OF COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS
prayer and praise at 5 :00 A.M., "over the combination of prayer money we told them to bring "although we had announced and food" planned for the same anything they had and we the meeting for the time when day. Many were the opinions would buy it from them. So the break of day awakens the pro and con, but the results they came with baskets of corn, birds which we hear sing usual- justified the combination. "The beans, corn meal, eggs, chick- ly at 5 :20 A.M. I found the women gathered at half-past ens, and a few brought money.
church well filled with men, ten at our house," wrote the We had several baskets and women, boys, and girls; and missionary. "There was a spirit boxes to hold these things but they lingered until 6 :30 in of deep concentration in the soon had to send out for sacks. prayer and worshipful hymns. meeting that day; the prayers When we had counted and There were 438 at the meeting were earnest and clearly measured everything we found and they went forth to invite thought out. One stranger gave they had brought gifts worth their friends to another prayer a remarkable testimony con- just ten dollars. Now I know service at the regular meeting cerning her conversion by one that ten dollars from a group of the Christian Endeavor at of the women of our little of two hundred and sixty wom- prayer group. She made us en does not seem much to you at 7 :00 P.M." In Persia, Rabi Lucy Shabag, realize the comfort of a religion home, but when you consider the wife of the Assyrian pas- that the weekly Sunday offering tor, was "the moving spirit in of about 500 people scarcely Kermanshah's first observance averages one dollar you can see of the Day of Prayer. Years how well they did do. During the ago when she was a school girl three services, two in the morn- in West Persia, one of the mis- ing and one in the afternoon, sionaries had arranged a local seventy-four prayers were of- day of prayer. Rabi Lucy never fered. During the first service forgot it, and the idea of a the women were rather hesitant World Day of Prayer thrilled about praying."
her. There were well over a hundred women at both the In Canada and at Home morning and afternoon services FIJIAN WOMEN GOING TO WORLD DAY "In Canada this year it is which she planned. At the close OF PRAYER MEETING certain that very many more of the services several women communities participated than asked that a kind of 'cottage of love. 'We are happy until ever before, and here and there prayer meeting' be arranged now thinking about it,' they say throughout Canada little groups where women living on one of isolated women, five or ten in street would meet weekly in number, met in homes, and here to me each Sunday." and there one woman followed From Angola, Portuguese the program through quite West Africa, we learn that the alone. This year with a program program "Hold F a s t in specially adapted for their use, Prayer" was translated into the scores of young women's groups, native language, Umbundu. The Sunday school classes, and Can- women came from eleven vil- ada Girls in Training groups lages nearby, Missao de Chiles- held their meetings-all follow- so, Caundi, Andulo, Lobito, An- ing, as far as we know, all de- gola (the address given) so nominational gatherings. On the that "the women could make Indian Reserve, Manitoba, men WORLD DAY OF PRAYER GROUP AT the trip and return home again came as well as women. The AI.EPPO. SYRIA the same day. Another year we prayer for peace rests too in the different homes 'to learn to shall give a general invitation heart of the Red Man." pray'." When the report was to all of our outstation women," The offerings have been more written such meetings had al- wrote Mrs. D. V. WaIn. She generous than ever-Christian ready been held. One is remind- continues in the same letter, literature for non-Christian ed of the disciples' request, "We were pleased with an at- lands was particularly cared "Lord, teach us to pray." What tendance of two hundred and for. The report says that there miracles might be achieved if sixty-one women and girls-the was "especial joy in the amount wherever Christians meet on youngest was a week-old baby. we were able to give to China, the Day of Prayer, they would He came on his mother's back since the loss in manuscript and resolve to continue steadfast just the same as his older and . equipment of the Commercial and grow in their prayer life. livelier cousins. We told the Press there, due to the recent From Aleppo, Syria, comes a women that an offering would military activities, has been incharming story that one of the be taken but knowing how diffi- calculable." The Kingdom of church elders shook his head cult it is for them to get any God Movement in Japan, and
Japanese Christian literature ings-one held by the young for so long that pea~e should were likewise cared for. people, one by women, and one come to the world and that In the U. S. A., cities and by the Negro Christians. In Japan be one of the nations to help establish peace, that we towns in forty-four states, Ha- Winnebago, Nebraska, Indian have no peace." waii, the Philippines, and the and white women met the sec- When in December, Mrs. C. District of Columbia, considered C. Chen of Shanghai, sent to ond year for meditation, praise, the American Committee for what it means to "Hold Fast in the World Day of Prayer the and prayer. "A small group as program which she had pre- Prayer." A student in the Ag- pared for us all to use in 1933, compared with meetings held in she wrote, "It is a very simple ricultural College, Laguna, P. I., program. The prayers are my where sixty college boys united larger places, but the spirit of own daily ones . . . China is in trouble. The troubles come one in the service of meditation and devotion, the earnestness of the after another. There is potent prayer, said that he appreciated power, intelligence, and energy being the one to offer the prayers, the sense of standing in the Chinese, but at present it prayer for "the churches in does not seem that we are using America." Some one from Uni- in the very presence of God it in the right way. I believe it versity City, .Missouri, gave as is due to the fact that we have her impression after the meet- were indeed great." American not enough Christ-like men and ing there, that "six hundred women to handle the present women in silent prayer gives Indian women ,prayed for wom- situation. Pray for us." spiritual power to each one present beyond words to meas- en in India, China, Japan, Af- ANNE SEESHOLTZ. ure." One place in North Carolina reported that "All the rica, and they knew that women NOT ONE DAY ONLY women of our town five miles away united in the service." in other countries were praying Not alone by word of mouth, "The Salvation Army attended dear Lord, this year," was the news from for-all one in Christ Jesus. a town in New York. From a Would I give thanks today- Kentucky town we hear "of the "So we were quite interna- My brothers and my sisters great difficulty beginning the Day of Prayer four years ago tional, interraCial, and interde- walk with me Along the broad highway; and today (1932) it is well es- nominational," was the concludtablished on a high plane." Ac- They are thy children also, cording to our records Penn- ing statement in the account of sylvania led with reports from union services in Philadelphia i n w h i c h "Episcopalians, Friends, Mennonites, Naza- renes, members of the Church of our Brethren, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Bap- tists, and members of the Re- formed Church joined in wor- ship. There were also some for- eign-language churches partici- pating." . .
The Next Observance 380 places; New York, 201; Il- In preparing for the observ- Lord, and I linois, 138; Ohio, 128; and so on ance of the annual World Day Cannot be clothed and fed, with a total of 1,836 places at of Prayer March 3, 1933, it is Then kneel apart to thank thee the last counting. Some states well for Christians everywhere while they go sent in fewer reports this last to remember our Lord's com- Their way uncomforted. year. Whether or not this means a lapse in observing the mand that we love one another I cannot thank thee only with my mouth, day, is not certain. The fact even as He loved us. In the Far East, Christians are troubled My heart and hands must that February 12th was a na- share· tional holiday and also that in because their governments are some parts of the country bliz- In service, and thus prove my hostile to each other. Last Feb- ruary in Tokyo, Japanese wom- gratitude zards and wind storms made en planned for morning and For thy great love and care. roads impassable may have re- afternoon sessions. A missionduced the number. However, women from Iowa, Nebraska, ary writes, "Coming together I would be kind-for there is so as they did not long after the much need and the Dakotas wrote that outbreak of the Shanghai Of kindness every day; when the weather made impos- trouble I was interested in the I would be wise-Oh, wiser sible going to town to the Union women's reactions to that ques- than I am; Services, they observed the day tion and the Manchurian one. Lord, make me wise, I pray. in their homes. "We shall not They faced the issue squarely expect a blizzard as late as and devoted a good part of the Not alone by word of mouth, March third," was written dear Lord, hopefully from North Dakota. morning to talks about it, and a long prayer service." One Jap- American men and women, anese woman said in a personal But that I too shall give, Not only on this one day set young and old, and children as conversation, "I can't sleep at apart, . well, kept the first Friday in night thinking of the whole Lent for prayer together. Ter- matter, and wondering why But every day I live. -Grace Noll Crowell. rill, Texas, reported three meet- when so many of us have prayed
AMERICA that Bolivian rights have been St. Paul's Cathedral fdr
Destruction in Puerto Rico violated, and her forts attacked. Church in India.
For the second time in four The war fever has run high in This outreach of Christian years Puerto Rico has heen visited by an intense tropical hur- both states. Forces are mobil- friendship, amid international ricane. The storm of September 26 this year wrought its worst ized and ardent youths demand- suspicion, carries with it the destruction in the populous districts of the island surrounding ed arms that they may rush to promise of fresh hope and love the capital, San Juan. The Roman Catholic Missions suffered the defense of their country's to the churches and through severely and the Presbyterian and other evangelical missions honor. The United States united them to the peoples of India. doing work in the eastern and northeastern part of the island with four South American gov- The following compose the miswill require funds for relief and for extensive repairs to their ernments in asking Bolivia (1) sion: property. Every mission is making an effort to respond to the for a suspension of hostilities The Right Rev. J. S. C. Banappeal of Governor Beverley for aid. Over two hundred peo- and (2) for immediate negotia- nerji, B.A., Assistant Bishop of ple are reported killed, one thousand injured, fifty thousand tion with Paraguay for the sub- Lahore (leader); the Rev. A. or more homeless, acres of coffee trees ruined and many mission of the controversy for RaIla Ram, B.A., Secretary of sugar plantations destroyed. The island was just recovering settlement by arbitration. Later the Student Christian Associafrom the effects of the storm of 1928. This coffee crop which nineteen American states united tion of India and a leader in the was just ready for harvest is ruined. Dr. W. R. Galbreath of in a similar protest, but peace United Church of Northern Inthe Presbyterian Hospital at San Juan reports serious dam- has not yet been established. dia; Daw Nyein Tha, B.A., age to the nurses' and doctors' residences. Japanese in Brazil Headmistress of the Morton Lane Girls' High School, Moul- The Chaco Conflict Scattered over the coffee plan- mein, Burma, and one of the Bolivia is a small country and tations of Sao Paulo are two leaders of the evangelistic Paraguay even smaller, the one hundred or more colonies of movement recently carried on with about 3,000,000 inhabit- Japanese, ranging from small by students in India and Burants and the other less than a groups of only a few families ma; and Mr. A. M. Varki, M.A., million. A dispute between to large settlements of a thou- LL.B., Principal of the Union them over the sovereignty of sand families, and aggregating Christian College, Alwaye, Trathe rich, undeveloped Chaco 25,000 families. In 1923, Rev. vancore, the only Christian colarea became so bitter that other J. Yasoji Ito, Episcopal mis- lege in India founded. controlled governments laid restraining sionary, undertook single-hand- and directed by Indian Chrishands upon the contestants, and ed to evangelize these colonists tians. put the world's peace machinery to a test. Paraguay's protest is and since then friends and helpsimilar to that of China against ers have come to his assistance. British Church Cooperation Japan in the Manchurian case, and the attitude of Bolivia is His present parish is seven hun- At the recent General Assemnot unlike Japan's. She claims dred miles long and extends bly of the Church of Scotland, that Paraguay is the aggressor, from Iguape, south of Santos, held in Edinburgh, the Arch- through Sao Paulo, and five bishop of Canterbury came to hundred miles west. To reach support the renewed invitation the twenty stations, where the addressed by him as president Gospel is now preached, takes of the Lambeth Conference to one month by train, steamer, the Church of Scotland to enter horseback, wagon and afoot. into unrestricted conference. These stations have 507 bap- The purpose of the conference tized members. Two churches is not immediate union, but is have been built and ten mission to map out a way by which that stations established. may ultimately be reached. The Archbishop maintained that EUROPE there is no such value in mere Mission of Fellowship identity of government as would make it worth while to face the Four Indian missioners have difficulties of history, law, char- arrived in Great Britain to un-· acter and of sentiment; and dertake a work of creating fel- there is no reason why the two lowship. The visit will conclude ecclesiastical bodies should not with a thanksgiving service in continue to be autonomous. The [615 ]
ideal which he held up is that Tent Evangelism in Saxony When I got to a group of people each can come into full commu- on the street corner I was stopped and nion with the other, enjoying Returning from 'Saxony, Dr. questioned. They were greatly interan unrestricted inter-commu- R. E. Diffendorfer brings an ac- ested in the message I gave, especially nion among their members and count of the tent campaign car- the Jews. They asked whether I could an unrestricted fellowship of ried on by Dr. Martin Funk give them some of my literature or their ministers. last summer in German cities. even the Book that I held in my hands He pitched his tent on the out- and preached from. Visit to Spain and Portugal skirts of industrial cities and preached Jesus Christ to people There was an old Jew, like a pa- Mr. and Mrs. Ralph C. Nor- more familiar with the Gospel triarch, so I gave him that Testament ton, of the Belgian Gospel Mis- according to Marx. Communists of four Gospels. Then trouble arose. sion, recently visited Spain and came to heckle and debate, and They began to argue and started to Portugal to look into religious throngs came to listen and fight. I left them in a warlike conconditions there. They write sometimes stayed to pray. Herr dition because everyone of them that the British and Foreign Funk gave communist spokes- would like to have a Book of God and Bible Society has been at work men a fair field and has won to search in it for the true Messiah, in Portugal for almost a cen- some great battles in this hand- our Lord Jesus Christ. tury; as a result, converts, go- to-hand fighting. ing to South America, have In the Balkans formed strong churches there. Children Journey to Russia The largest church in Portugal, A new missionary situation numerically, is the Anglican; The Evangelische Pressedi- has arisen in the Balkans. Three the largest congregation is the enst says in the August issue million Moslems in Albania, Presbyterian in Lisbon. The that the communist press is Yugoslavia, Rumania, Greece Brethren have work in 18 cen- again mobilizing the "mass of and Bulgaria, are open as never ters. A significant prison work all proletarian" for the journey before to Christian influencesis conducted in Lisbon and of a delegation into the "prom- especially in Albania. As the Coimbra. There .are approxi- ised land of the Soviet Union." Turks are repudiating Islam, mately 15,000 Protestant adher- This time 175 German children and reviving the traditions of ents in Portugal and her depen- will journey to Russia for a two their pre-Islamic Tatar and Tudencies, Madiera, the Azores months sojourn in "the only ranian civilization, so the Baland Cape Verde; and about land that knows no crisis, in kan peoples are harking back to 3,200 communicants. which there is no unemploy- the i r Christian civilization ment and in which the exploita- which Islam submerged in the In Spain, beside the British tion of children and need is un- early fifteenth century. The and Foreign Bible Society and known." The delegation of chil- Christian missionary would find several independent organiza- dren will be quartered in insti- a desire for teaching which has tions, the leading evengelical tutions where they will live to- been hitherto unknown. Albania groups are the Igelsia Espanola gether with the "liberated chil- wants her children educated, Reformada (Episcopal), the dren of the proletarians." More her women uplifted. Albanian Brethren, several independent than this they will hardly see, women are held in unusual Baptist churches, the Iglesias because a glimpse of the great honor, so that a woman's es- Bautistas, and the Iglesia Evan- sections of misery in the cities cort in the Albanian hills is gelica Espanola, the latter a in which there are yet children more effective to a traveler than federation of Presbyterians, dying by the thousands, would a troop of soldiers. Congregationalists, Lutherans probably work harm to the suand Methodists. Despite the perficial exhibition of the Soviet -World Evangelization. faithful work of all these agen- paradise. cies today there are only from AFRICA five to ten thousand evangelical A City Without Bibles believers in the land out of a Personal Evangelism in population of 23,000,000. Malech, a city in Poland . Cameroun Statistics for Italy about 45 miles from the nearest The students of Dager (Pres- byterian) Bible Seminary of The 1931 census for Italy mission station, has neither West Africa, Cameroun, spent gives 82,500 Protestants in ad- their month's vacation in doing dition to the Waldensians. They Bible nor Christian literature of personal evangelism in the nearembrace Methodists, Baptists, by villages. At a meeting held Adventists and Salvation Army. any kind. A small, Russian to hear reports on this work The Roman Catholic church many interesting stories were registers 41,060,963 members; Greek Orthodox Church has recounted. One worker was while 17,493 declared they were driven from a house by a without religious affiliation. been closed for three years; a heathen with a cutlass in his hand. In one district the peo- Hebrew synagogue may be ple said that they would be saved if the Catholic Father found with a handful of old permitted; the reason they be- came Catholics was because the people in it. A Christian work- etor~aJtaionn Wladysuk, tells in Res- Herald of a visit to this city.
OUR WORLD-WIDE OUTLOOK
Father allowed them to keep all for the past few months, and istered here, all the helpers and their fetiches and gave them all showed a deep desire to· be- loving givers. Knowing that a building and equipsome of his besides. come Christians. Most of these ment of itself is lifeless and unable The men brought a collection evidence genuine sincerity. This to aid any sufferer, of fetiches and medallions brings the number of accessions We now dedicate ourselves to be the which were surrendered by for the year to ninety or more." humble servants of those who come here in pain and need and seeking those who confessed. When re- Madagascar Slave Girl health, and thus, ports were all in it was discov- We dedicate ourselves to the service of ered that eleven hundred and Fifty years ago a Malagasy God in this place. five had confessed Christ as a woman bought a slave girl in result of this house to house Madagascar. In her loneliness New Work in Mesopotamia evangelism. the little slave found comfort in Iraq has recently been admit- -Harry C. Neely, reading her Testament. Then ted to the League of Nations- her mistress began studying un- a great step forward for the Lolodorf Cameroun.
Missions in Portuguese der her slave and learned to ancient land made famous by Territory read. She invited others to join Nineveh, Babylon, Ur and her and thus seed was sown. Baghdad. Portuguese East Africa has Realizing her need for help A new station has also been an area of 770,000 square miles and counsel, the mistress set out opened in the heart of Mesopoand a population of some 3,500,- upon a long journey of two or tamia, at Dier-ez-zore, on the 000. The northern two-thirds of three. weeks to the capital, Euphrates River and has been this area is practically un- where she sought the aid of the touched by Protestant missions, London Missionary Society. The thoroughly equipped with a hosand only two of its seven dis- next year a missionary went to pital and residences for what is tricts is adequately staffed. The make a survey and as a result a expected to be a great work six societies at work have a church was formed and a build- among the Bedouin of the des- Christian community of 17,290. ing erected. The missionaries ert. This work is conducted un- Difficult, though not impossible, died, but still the ex-slave der the auspices of the United conditions are laid down by the owner-she had freed all her Mission of Mesopotamia.
government. In the main these slaves-carried on and the Confession in Persia are: church grew. Now the London A recent letter received by the Church Missionary Society 1. All missionaries must have a Missionary Society has decided good knowledge of the Portuguese lan- to send a missionary to open a guage. station in this district. There from Persia shows what follow- 2. All schools and out-schools must will then be a church, a mission ing Christ means to men and be built of brick and must be in house and a missionary as the women in that country and charge of a native who has passed the result of the faithful witness of their fearlessness in face of second grade government standard. 3. No teaching in schools is allowed the little southern slave-girl and persecution. One man employed in any vernacular language, but it in a government office was must be wholly in the Porteguese lan- her Malagasy New Testament. transferred to another town in guage. WESTERN ASIA the hope that, away from Chris- 4. Churches and places of worship New Hospital at Talas tian influence, he would cease to need not be built of brick, though schools must be. preach; instead he is a fearless 5. The use of Bibles, etc., in the na- A new hospital of the Ameri- missionary. Another Christian tive languages is allowed in churches can Board at Talas, Asia Minor, employed in that some office and for worship. was imprisoned, but he took the 6. There shall be an absolute pro- was dedicated May 22. It was a opportunity of preaching to his hibition of reading and writing in the guards and fellow prisoners, native language. girls' school building, remodeled for hospital use. It has been and was released and trans- Many Baptized at Tunda running at full capacity with 24 ferred to the capital. Two men beds. The hospital was dedi- were thrown out of work. The E. H. Lovell, Methodist mis- cated in the following words: sionary at Tunda, Belgian Con- wife of one man was beaten in go, writes in the World Outlook To the glory of God, our Father, by the street and fell unconscious; (Nashville) : whose favor this hospital has been built; another woman was forbidden "On Sunday, December 20, a by her husband to read the To the honor of Jesus, the Great Phyvery large class was received into the church by baptism, sev- sician, whose living spirit caused Bible to the servants at home!
the erection of this hospital; enty in number. There were To the praise of the Spirit of God, INDIA twenty-five schoolboys, eighteen Christian Census Figures women and twenty-seven work- the source of life and light; men in this class. Of special in- For the healing of suffering . . .
For the children who suffer in inno-. cence, the mothers who so often terest was the baptism of eight suffer needlessly, the manhood of Census Tables for 1931, published by the husbands and wives together. the land, for the rich and the poor. Government of India Gazette, include Euro- These have been on probation peans and Anglo-Indians but not Burma. In grateful remembrance of all the Christians include Protestants, Armenians. doctors and nurses who have min· Greeks, Syrians and Roman Catholics.
Provinces Population Christians the cow; Moslems ceremonially of these schools have been held slaughter a cow at one of their with a total enrolment of 5,000 India's Total ………. 350,353,678 5,962,(89 great religious festivals. Hin- or 6,000 each winter. Thus, 3,531,702 dus love music and song when during a period of eight years (I) British India……. 271,273,107 they are at worship; Moslems nearly 40,000 have been en- 6,947 demand an austere silence for rolled. There are probably few Ajmere Marwara …… 560,292 1,461 the chanting of the Koran. It areas in China where greater 202,586 is the difference between the membership gains have been re- Andamans and Nicobars 29,463 8,044 jungle and the desert, between corded in recent years. Nearly 180,572 an elaborately organized society all these new members are Assam …………….. 8,622,251 341,710 and a simple brotherhood. From young and from progressive every point of view there is families. Baluchistan … . . . . . . . . 463,508 317,042 conflict. Chinese Evangelism Bengal ……………. 50,122,550 50,584 -Dnyanodaya. 3,450 The Executive Committee of Bihar and Orissa …. 37,676,576 Madura College Jubilee the National Christian Council 16,989 has issued a statement of the Bombay (including Sind 1,770,328 The American College at general objectives of the Five- Madura, founded by the Ameri- Year Movement as adopted in and Aden) ………. 21,854,841 12,213 can Board of Commissioners, 1929, followed by four objec- 414,788 has completed its first fifty tives to be aimed at by local Central Provinces & 205,009 years. It is now affiliated with churches during the next two the University of Madras. A or three years. These are the Berar …………•.. 15,507,723 2,430,786 scheme of extension and re- following: 46,660 search in the socio-economic Coorg …………..•.. 163,327 15 field, in cooperation with the 1. An individual approach 7,262 other missionary colleges of the to every church member in or- Delhi …………….. 636,246 2,768 south, gives this college a com- der to enlist groups for Bible 74,613 manding position. The vice- study, prayer, some form of Madras ……………. 46,575,670 16,011 chancellor of the University of church and community service, 10,476 Madras who is a Hindu paid a and evangelism. N. W. F. Province •.. 2,425,076 51,701 tribute to the work done by 1,198 Christian colleges. He referred 2. The establishment in each Punjab ……………. 23,580,852 to the apprehension existing in church of groups to train for 151,946 some quarters that nationalist parenthood and for leadership, United Provinces ….. 48,408,763 India might not look with kind- and to teach illiterates and en- 2,177 ly eyes on Christian missions, quirers; a Iso well-organized (II) Indian States and 334,870 and said that "educated India Sunday schools with work dur- Agencies ………… 79,080,571 1,604,475 would never permit the de- ing the week. struction of the great mission- Assam States ……… 625,606 19,466 ary institutions, which are 3. The encouragement of 87,538 among the most valuable edu- family worship in Christian Baluchistan State ..•.. 405,109 cational and moral assets of homes, the nurture of children 4,286 this country." in Christian ideals and the win- Baroda State ………. 2,443,007 4,565 ning of non-Christian members 5,778 CHINA of the family. Bengal States ……… 973,316 2,890 1,396 For a Literate Church 4. The observance of the Bihar and Orissa States 4,651,076 great Christian festivals and There is an inclination to seasons, and also of appropri- Bombay States …….. 4,468,343 make literacy a requirement for ate Chinese customs, to. which church membership, at least in end a church calendar for 1933 Central India Agency.. 6,615,120 the case of those between the is in preparation. ages of 15 and 25. Ten years Central Provinces States 2,483,240 ago Dr. James Yen organized Dr. Stanley Jones is now in a literacy campaign through China, conducting special evan- Gwalior State ……… 3,523,070 the use of the thousand char- gelistic meetings in ten centres acter system. For more than between August 16th and De- Hyderabad State …… 14,437,541 e i g h t years the American cember 15th. BO;1rd, through thirty evangel- Jammu and Kashmir ists in fourteen districts, has Missions in Manchuria States …………. .. 3,646,244 maintained village schools for Cochin State ……… . 1,205,016 which villagers provide places The Christian Century pub- Travancore State ….. . 5,095,973 and the pupils their own text- lishes a report concerning J ap- Other Madras States.. . 453,495 books. anese interference with Chris- Mysore State ……… . 6,557,302 tian activity in Manchuria. Each year from 150 to 200 N. W. Frontier Prov- Inevitably all Chinese organiza- tions, Christian as well as non-Chrisince …………….. 46,451 tian, are eyed with great suspicion. Any organization which appears to Punjab States ……… 4,910,005 Rajputana Agency …. 11,225,712 United Provinces States 1,206,070 Western States Agency 3,999,250 Immorality Entrenched The United Provinces Legislative Council has rejected a bill which sought to check "immoral traffic." The Government remained neutral when the final vote was taken and this made possible the rejection of the bilI by Indian members. Supporters of the bill criticized the Government and non-official votes might have carried the measure, but a majority of the Council did not wish to interfere in the present practices and customs that prevail in the United Provinces. It was evident that many of the members have no concern regarding the evil.
-Indian Witness.
Hindu-Moslem Differences A former resident of India, writing in the Manchester Guardian, declares that the differences between Hindus and Moslems are India's most critical problem. Their social and religious customs are antithetic; their good qualities as well as their bad are exactly opposite, and because each is too virile to accept a secondary position both are aggressive and afraid of the other. Hindus venerate
oppose the new regime will be of favorably granting your request. the Christian faith his son- crushed. Christian visitors to Man- This decision of principle does not who during an illness had been churia find themselves subjected to in- hinder the Cambodian Government studying Christianity. A minute quiry as to the purpose of their visit. and the French Protectorate tolerat- examination of the young man Some Christian organizations find ing until a new order those of your revealed genuine understanding conditions quite depressing. Detec- establishments which exist at the mo- of the step, so that Mr. Nishi- tives sometimes attend religious meet- ment, on condition that they are for- mura baptized him-in the tem- ings, and sit in on Bible classes. Sys- bidden all extension, all creation of ple and in the presence of the tematic searches by Japanese of new chapels, and all active proselytiz- priest.-The Omi Mustard Seed. Christian buildings are the order of ing among the Cambodian populathe day. tion." Buddhists Study Christianity Japanese Christian organizations JAPAN-CHOSEN Fukui, on the west coast, has have been trying to initiate coopera- been called "Back Japan." The tive undertakings with Chinese groups Some Recent Changes people are conservative; educa- in Manchuria. In both Japan and tion has been backward and it Manchuria funds are being raised to The Tokyo Trans-Pacific, an is a stronghold of Buddhism. assist Christian work and relieve dis- American-owned weekly, points In a population of 60,000 there tress, Chinese as well as Japanese be- to three typical Japanese in- are over 600 temples and a ing designated as beneficiaries. stitutions which appear des- large monastery just outside of tined to extinction. the city. Many years of pains- Gospel Work in Tibet taking work have been required They are the Yoshiwara, the to establish Christian w 0 r k A worker for the Scripture world-famous licensed quarter there. It is especially difficult Gift Mission writes from the of Tokyo; the Geisha, who is to find a point of contact with Tibetan border: "The people rapidly being displaced by the working girls, because they are listened attentively to Gos'pel waitress and dancing-girl; and so burdened with heavy schedstories, and often we found a the Kabuki drama, popular for ules in the silk factories. crowd reluctant to disband. In over three centuries, which is one village at the foot of the giving way to modern plays. But one feature of the situafamous 'Panch Chuli' some two tion is hopeful. Bud d his t hundred collected into a small All three have lost much of priests are less antagonistic and open space and asked each of their appeal and fascination for have stopped criticizing Chrisus to speak twice calling for the public, and particularly for tianity before their congregasong after song. We took a the youth of Japan. tions. They even asked to quantity of Scripture portions, study Christianity, and for a and thought we had enough for The disappearance of the Yoshi- year and a half the Rev. Matsuthe entire tour; but these were wara will automatically rid Japan of taro Okajima had a Bible class all gone before the tour was one of those institutions which, from for twenty-five Bud d his t half finished. Some wealthy the foreign viewpoint, has cast a stig- priests. Buddhism fails to Tibetan traders had come twen- ma on Japan's moral reputation. The meet the "dangerous thought" ty days' journey with 7,000 existence of a segregated licensed which Japan sees coming into Tibetan sheep to trade wool for quarter, the inmates of which were its ports from Russia.-Spirit Indian products. These said frequently sold into slavery, has long of Missions. that they had never seen a been condemned in the light of Westwhite face before.-Evangelical ern standards, and its elimination has Pertinent Facts About Korea Christian. been the object of an insistent mis- sionary campaign. Korea has had Buddhism for Anti-Missionary Edict in ages. Christianity came less Cambodia The closing of the Yoshiwara in than fifty years ago. Of Ko- Tokyo does not end the system, but it rea's twenty millions, less than In French Indo-China doors is likely that an institution which is four persons in every hundred have been shut repeatedly in unable to survive in the capital will can be counted as in any way the past to Protestant missions not long linger in other cities of the affiliated with the Christian but have been opened again Empire. Church. And yet the head of only after persistent prayer and the department of religions of patient effort. A recent obsta- Encouragement at Omi the government-general recentcle appears discouraging. Gor- ly told us that Christianity don H. Smith writes of this in Surprising things happen in operated 82 per cent of the World Dominion.: Omi every now and then. Re- church schools, 90 per cent of cently two events occurred that the Sunday schools, 87 per cent Since 1922 the Christian and Mis- bespeak bet t e r tolerance be- of the places of religious wor-' sionary Alliance has been tolerated in tween Buddhism and Christi- ship, and enrolls 85 per cent Cambodia, with much persecution and anity. One was the visit to of all the religious workers. restriction. Two years ago it was de- Omi Mission (Omi-Hachiman) creed that all foreign missionaries of a group of eleven Buddhist Christianity preserved and must be authorized by the govern- Sunday school teachers, seeking made popular the native Korean ment. Accordingly, request was made, improved methods of w 0 r k and the answer, translated, reads in among children. The second part as follows: was the request to Mr. S., Nishimura, of the Kat a t a "The Cambodian Government has Branch of the Mission, by the esteemed, after a minute examination Buddhist priest of a neighborof the question, that there was no way ing temple, that he baptize into
script which the old type schol- ed of roast chicken, pigs and native class drove thirty-five miles. At ars looked upon as too easy for wine. The main item on the altar was Carson City a confirmation a learned man. Christianity a pig's head. After most of this had class of 28 included 14 Indians. brought to Korea the first been eaten and only the skull re- -Churchman. school for girls, and at present mained, the priest swung the basket maintains the only college for with the "sacred head" slowly around Denominationalism girls. Christianity established the altar, howling prayers to the spirthe first modern school for boys its. This performance continued until Over against the wasteful use in Korea. Christianity has Sunday, with the worshipers intoxi- of energy and funds in small made it possible for the women cated, quarreling and howling. towns, where seven or more of of Korea to be freed from the the 191 denominations in the prison of the inner yard of the On Sunday morning quite a differ- United States struggle to surhome. Christianity is leading ent kind of service was held, conduct- vive, is the fact that no one in the fight against the evils of ed by the missionary, when the people state has all of the 191 denomidrink, social vice, intemperance. were directed to worship the one and nations. Illinois comes nearest only true God. After praying, singing with 144. New York lags, with "Pioneer Program" for Children and reading the Word, they gathered only 122. Nevada has only 15. in groups to study portions of the Less than half of all the bodies Dr. McCune and the Rev. Bible. listed have as many as a total Francis Kinsler are working to- of 10,000 members. Forty-five gether to interest "older youth" NORTH AMERICA have less than one thousand in winning children who have each. In general, the large dehad no chance to know God's Erasing the Color Line nominations are growing larger Word. After three years there and the small are growing are hundreds of such boys and The General Conference of smaller. Community churches girls meeting daily under the the Methodist Episcopal Church are increasing rapidly and leadership of college students. passed the following significant there are now more than 2,000 The "Pioneer Program" is used, resolution by an overwhelming in the United States.-Presbybased on Luke II :52, "Jesus in- majority: terian Advance. creased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and Whereas: "There cannot be Greek Nez Perces' Centennial man"; in the effort to develop and Jew, circumcision and uncircumthese children into a fourfold cision; barbarian, Scythian, bondman, Christian Nez Perc;es Indians Christian 1i f e : intellectual, freeman, but Christ is all and in all"; are this year planning an apphysical, social and spiritual. therefore, propriate celebration of the one At first much time was given hundred years since four Nez to primary instruction. Gov- Be it resolved: That the General Perc;es journeyed overland from ernment authorities, seeing the Conference of the Methodist Episcopal the Kamiah Valley in northern numbers grow to thousands, Church shall hereafter meet only in Idaho to St. Louis in search of made it impossible to continue. cities where hotels, sufficient in num- the "white man's Book of It was then decided to call all ber to accommodate its delegates, Heaven." They now number these gatherings "Children's shall in writing agree to meet the fol- about 1,400. About two-thirds Bible Schools." Textbooks in lowing conditions: of the tribe are Protestant reading, history, geography, Christians, or nominally so, etc., are now being compiled (1) No segregation of specific most of them being Presbyterifrom the Bible itself. groups in room assignments. ans. The other third are either Roman Catholics or heathen.- ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC (2) No discrimination against any Presbyterian Advance. delegates in the use of hotel entrances, Savage Tribes Hear the Gospel lobbies, elevators, dining rooms and New Japanese Church other hotel services or facilities. Henry DeVries writes in the The new building of the First Moody Monthly of pioneering (3) Specific instruction of hotel Japanese Baptist Church and the southern islands of the Phil- employees by the hotel authorities re- Japanese Chris~ian center, Sacippines. Thousands of natives garding the interracial character of ramento, California, was dediare scattered along the river the conference and the treatment of cated on July 10. More than 500 Giqua. The missionary gath- all delegates with equal courtesy. Japanese, Chinese, Russians ers them in groups for meet- and Negroes attended the servings which last all day, and the Federal Council Bulletin. ice. The property is valued at audience is constantly changing. $50 000, and is recognized as Parish of 46,000 Square Miles one' of the finest Christian cen- At one place we witnessed a pagan ter buildings of America. There service, lasting three days. The wor- In Nevada, Elko County par- are 8,000 Japanese in Sacrashipers built an altar in the center, ish is about 200 miles long one mento.-Watchman-E xaminer. decorating it with ferns and flowers. way and 230 the other, with a Their offerings to the spirits consist- popUlation of 9,000. Cattle and sheep raising and mining are the chief industries. Rev. Fred- erick C. Taylor, in charge of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, visits Wells, Clover Valley, and other points, involving motor trips of 150 to nearly 300 miles. Last winter the roads were blocked from December 1st until late in March. At Winnemucca four people came fifty miles for their confirma- tion. At Lovelock three of the
Missionary
Recent Boo~s Reviewed for the Readers' Information ~,======================-,~, The Republic of Brazil-A Survey of political power, has such a num- their problems and their unique the Religious Situation. Nine maps, erous following. He is a force Nationalist leader. His book is seven charts, eleven illustrations. to be reckoned with, not only described as the "story of an By Erasmo Braga and Kenneth in India but in the world. It experience and an attempt to Grubb. 8vo. 184 pp. 5s. net. is the belief of the authors of weigh Eastern and Western World Dominion Press. London. this book that he and the move- ideals, as well as spiritual wea- 1932. ment which he incarnates are pons and machine guns, in the not adequately understood in scale of practicability." Brazil is twice the size of Europe and America, and they India but with only about one- have endeavored to interpret Many will not agree with Dr. ninth the population of that him a.nd the Indian mind to Fisher in his estimate of Mr. great peninsula. The white in- Western readers. They are Gandhi and his philosophy but habitants number 51 per cent, members of a brotherhood the remainder being Negro, In- known as Christa Seva Sangha, all will be interested in his dian or mixed. There are in composed of Englishmen and story of the young Indian who Brazil immense natural re- Indians, living together accord- was educated in India and Engsources and unclaimed areas. ing to Indian customs, and land, practiced law and es- It is nominally Roman Catholic seeking to interpret the Chris- poused the cause of his fellow but its people are lacking in a tian Gospel to India in the ut- countrymen in South Africa, c I ear understanding of the most possible detachment from and returned to India to at- Christian message and life. purely European or British ele- tempt the release of his coun- ments. They are therefore try from British control and This survey is an excellent uniquely competent to discuss from everything non-Indianbrief study of the land and the their subject. The Archbishop a difficult, if not an impossible, people, the growth and influ- of York writes a Foreword in task. Dr. Fisher rightly comence of evangelical Christianity which he says that he neither mends Gandhi for his personal and the present tendencies and commends nor criticizes the self-sacrifice, his patience, modunfinished task. Six appendices contents of the book, but that deal with the statistics of evan- he commends it as a contribu- eration and opposition to armed gelical work, education and the tion to the English understand- revolution. This "fighting pacichurch. Thirty-five Protestant ing of the Indian mind, and as fist" set out to organize a peaceorganizations are at work in one that will give a truer ap- ful army to oppose "disciplined 153 stations. The ev.angeIical preciation of the Indian out- violence." He established his communicants number 135,390, look than many of us are likely Ashram at Ahmedabad in 1916 and the total adherents 702,377. to receive from either Indians and required all students who The largest evangelical com- or Englishmen who have not came there to take an eightfold munity is in Sao Paulo. The had this intimate association vow of truthfulness, non-vio- Presbyterians in Brazil number with the people of India. lence, celibacy, control of the about 30,000 and have their palate, non-stealing, non-possesown independent, self-support- A. J. BROWN. sion, swadeshi, and fearlessing church. The Baptist Mis- ness. sion (Southern Convention) re- That Strange Little Brown Manports 34,358 communicants and Gandhi. By Fred B. Fisher. Illus. Dr. Fisher recognizes that 103,074 in their Christian com- 8vo. 239 pp. $2.50. Ray Long Gandhi is still a Hindu who munities. One diagram shows and Richard Smith. New York. that less than half the organ- 1932. looks upon Christ as one of his ized churches have Brazilian ideal characters and teachers. pastors. Dr. Fisher, who was for ten He seeks to live according to years Missionary Bishop of the the Sermon on the Mount but Gandhi-The Dawn of Indian Free- Methodist Church in India, has denies the deity and atonement dom. By Jack C. Winslow and Ver- been a friend and admirer of of Jesus; he does not accept the rier Elwin. 224 pp. $1.50. Revell. Mahatma Gandhi for some fif- Son of Man as the unique reve- New York. teen years. He idealizes "the· lation of God and the Saviour Little Brown Man," but it is of men. The author seems to The eyes of the whole world worthwhile to see Dr. Fisher's think that a man can be both .are fixed on that extraordinary viewpoint of Indian peoples and Hindu and Christian. Gandhi, personality, Gandhi. Probably no other man of this genera- [621 ] on the other hand, says that he tion, without official position or is a Hindu and not a Christian.
We agree with him, though he Now he publishes some of the cient nation, tells the story of holds many things in common favorite scriptures of the Budd- his own adventurous journeys, with Christians, and though hist Zen Sect, which arose in describes unusual experiences Christians shamefully neglect to Japan early in the thirteenth in medical practice and his follow many of the teachings of century. It maintains that the contacts with the picturesque Christ and fail to live the state of enlightenment cannot monarch at dinner and at the Christ life. We can learn much be attained by external means. It coronation. He clearly reveals from Gandhi but it is difficult disregards ritual and empha- the great need for medical and to understand why a man of his sizes simplicity of life. The general health work and for ideals does not condemn the author admits that the "original giving the people the pure Gosevils of Hinduism such as are text of these Buddhist scrip- pel of Christ. The story of tures are very corrupt, disor- Blind Gidada is worth repeatfound in Siva worship. The Book has been banned by derly, and in places very ob- ing.
the Indian Government. The scure." We have, therefore, an The appendix includes a bibchapter on "Sex in India" is dis- interpretation, rather than a liography, and a suggested outappointing and we believe is er- translation. His sympathies are line for the use of the book by roneous and misleading. One not with Christianity but with mission study groups. This is worth reading is that on Buddhism, which he believes to the latest and in many respects "What's Wrong with Foreign be the most promising of all the the best and most comprehen- Missions ?" We should not be great religions. "Ch'an Budd- sive of the comparatively small too proud to learn, even from a hism in China and Korea and number of volumes on Abys- "Little Brown Man," who is a Zen in Japan, for a thousand sinia.
non-Christian and a Hindu. years, have been powerful in Charge That to My Account. By moulding the spiritual, ethical H. A. Ironside. 122 pp. 75 cents. The New Crisis in the Far East. By and cultural life of great na- Bible Institute Colportage Assn. Stanley High. 128 pp. $1. Revell. tions." Chicago. 1931. New York. The fruits of Buddhism as Twelve Gospel sermons of the The author is well known as seen in Buddhist countries to- passionate, evangelistic type ina Christian publicist, who be- day do not fulfill this promise: clude vivid word pictures which lieves that the war clouds have "By their fruits ye shall know tell the old Gospel story in a way never hung more ominously on them." that will hold the reader from the horizon in the Far East beginning to end. Dr. Ironside, than they do today. Russia has S. M. ZWEMER. the pastor of the Moody Memobeen trained for a decade and a rial Church in Chicago, sets half in the school of Soviet Na- The Rainbow Empire-Ethiopia. By forth the way of salvation in tionalism, and Japan is at pres- Stuart Bergsma. Illus. 8vo. 294 plain scriptural style. The first ent under the domination of a pp. $3. W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co. sermon, "Charge That to My Acmilitary regime. In the back- Grand Rapids. 1932. count," is alone worth the price ground is the colossal figure of of the volume. China embittered by her harsh Abyssinia-the ancient emtreatment at the hands of the pire of Ethiopia is, in a modern H. A. ADAIR. Japanese. The book is impres- sense, still an undeveloped counsionistic and undocumented, but try. There are only fifty miles Chief Men Among the Brethren. Comfair and Christian in its view- of good road in a total of 350,- piled by Hy. Pickering. 223 pp. 000 miles of nondescript roads 3s 6d. Pickering and Inglis. Lon- and mountain and jungle high- don. 1931.
point. Mr. High's conclusion is: ways. Banking, railway, manu- The personalities back of any "In the whole category of the facture, education, medical and religious movement are always forces that are now at work in sanitary work, courts of jus- a fascinating study. One can the life of Asia, it is only tice, modern science and inven- better understand the move- Christianity that, working close tion, public utilities and im- ment if he knows those who to the people, is laying the foun- provements of all sorts are in have been most largely used in dations for those convictions their infancy. its promulgation. "Chief Men and aspirations on which per- But Abyssinia is a unique among the Brethren" introduces manent peace can be estab- and interesting country and its one hundred of the leaders of lished." people have many fine charac- the Brethren Movement in a A Buddhist Bible: The Favorite Scrip- teristics. Most of them are most interesting and instruc- tures of the Zen Sect. 316 pp. Ed- nominal Christians but know tive way. The sketches are ited, Interpreted and Published by little of Christ and less of His necessarily brief and one finds Dwight Goddard. Thetford, Ver- Way of Life. Dr. Bergsma, a himself wishing they Were longmont. medical missionary of the er and more detailed. It will The author in his earlier United Presbyterian Church, have a special appeal to books on Buddhism expressed gives us an unusually graphic Brethren, but is a worthy adthe opinion that Jesus derived picture of the land and rugged dition to any library in which his teaching regarding God and people, recounts the peculiar biography is appreciated.
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ADDRESS……•…………………. ADDRESS.: …………………… ··· Book Review New Books Presbyterian Missions Life of Charles Albert Blanchard. By An American Doctor at Work in In- Are presented in novel and very his wife, Frances Carothers Blanch- dia. Sir William J. Wanless. 200 usable form, for Missiondry Meet- ard. 8vo. 220 pp. $2.00. Revell. pp. $1.50. Revell. New York. ings, as iliustrdtions for sermons dnd tdlks, or for personal inspir- 1932. America, the Philippines and the Ori- dtion, in ent. Hilario Camino Moncado. 214 Much of the material for this pp. $2. Revell. New York. The Presbyterian volume is drawn from the diary The Book of Daily Devotion. Edited BANNER and other writings of the late by Elmer T. Clark and W. G. Cram. President of Wheaton College, 400 pp. $1.50. Cokesberry press. A Church weekly modern in so that the work is largely au- Nashville. appedrdnce, eVdngelicdl in creed, tobiographical, rather than a progressive in contents, prdcticdl discriminating estimate of his A Century of Faith. Charles L. in help to ministers, ministers' character and work. The book, White. 320 pp. Judson Press. Phila. wives dnd other dctive Church nevertheless, has unique value workers; dnd prepdred with as the record of lofty purpose, Christ Finds a Rabbi-An Autobiog- specidl regdrd for the Idymdn dnd unflinching courage, and un- raphy. George Benedict. 399 pp. the Idywoman. Published by the Author. Bethleceasing industry. hem Presbyterian Church, Phila. A Christian Companion Succeeding his father in 1882 God in the Shadows. Hugh Redwood. For the home, the study, missionas president of a small and 127 pp. $1. Revell. New York. dry meeting, young people's struggling educational institu- meeting, SunddY school, dnd hour tion, Dr. Charles Blanchard Handmaidens of the King to Foreign of fdmily dnd personal devotion, lifted it to nation-wide influence Lands. W. Thorburn Clark. 129 its mdny Pdges of "News of the and established its place as one pp. Southern Baptist Convention. Churches Everywhere," dnd its of the strong centers of Chris- Richmond, Va. Pdges of vitdl editorials, dre tian education in America. His prepdred by numerous selected early training was in the Chris- Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret. Dr. Correspondents dnd tian ministry and, while he may and Mrs. Howard Taylor. $1 cloth; not be numbered among the 50 cents paper. China Inland Mis- Editorial Staff great educators, his contribu- sion. London. tion to the intellectual ideals of Including Willidm H. Boddy, his time were of no mean im- The Jap,anese Invasion and China's portance. His estimate was that Defense. Edited by Wong Chi-yuen Willidm E. Brooks/ Paul Patton "Life is ninety per cent educa- and Tang Leang-Ii. 80 pp. $1. tion," so that the opportunities Shanghai. Fdris, Rdlph Cooper Hutchison, of the educational sphere chal- Hugh Thomson Kerr, John A. lenged his full devotion. Early Norah-A Girl of Grit. Beth J. MdckdY, Donald Mackenzie, in life he determined he would Coombe Harris. 318 pp. 28. 6d. Joseph R. Sizoo dnd Jdmes H. not withhold his support from Pickering & Inglis. London. Snowden. any good cause and this creed led him to affiliation with a Outriders of the King. W. Thorn- SUBSCRIPTION RATES score or more of spiritual un- burn Clark. 153 pp. Southern Bapdertakings as well as moral re- tist Convention. Richmond, Va. $2.50 d year; to ministers, $2.00 forms, and though some were 1932. highly unpopular there is no Specid I Introductory Offers: evidence that he flinched even The Oxford Group Movement. J. C. Laymen, 6 months . . . $1 .00 in the presence of physical dan- Brown. 632 pp. 18. Pickering & Ministers, 8 months . . . $1.00 Inglis. London. ger. (Canadian and Foreign Postage Extra) Of s t r i kin g appearance, Miss Rosemary Mistary. Kate Mel- lersh. 205 pp. 28. Pickering & Makes a Splendid Christmas Gift marked dignity, a graceful and Inglis. London. Sdmple copy of THE BANNER persuasive speaker, Dr. Blanch- Sons. Pearl Buck. 467 pp. $2.50. free on request. ard was, nevertheless, among John Day Co. New York. Send your order to the most humble and self-effac- The Story of William Aitken Heighing of men. He was a man of way of Fiji. By His Family. 274 The Presbyterian Banner winsome personality, of simple pp. 48. Methodist Women's Auxtastes, and with disdain for iliary to Foreign Missions. 2007 Commonwealth Building everything that savors of the Pittsburgh, PI. artificial and insincere. These Talking with God-A Book of Prayers pages reveal the spiritual gran- for Many Occasions. Alfred Frankdeur of the man; not flawless, lin Smith. 151· pp. Cokesbury but each day of life reaching Press. Nashville. out for od's highest and best. Wondrous Love. D. L. Moody. 187 There is contagion, aroma, and pp. 18. Pickering & Inglis. Lontonic in such a life. don. HUGH R. MONRO. The World-Wide Christian Mission, 1922-1932. A Survey. 284 pp. $1.
1. M. C. New York. Wayfaring for Christ. A. M. Chirg- win. 160 pp. 28. Edinburgh House Press. London.
Ramon Lull. (The Bhaktas of the World, No.4.) P. G. Bridge. 107 pp. Re. 1.2. Christian "Literature Society. Madras.
Juveniles at the Cross Roads. Shin- taro Furuya. Translated by Shizu Hasegawa. 118 pp. Yen 1. Chris- tian Literature Society. Tokyo..
China's Own Critics: A Selection of Essays. Hu Shih and Liu Yu-tang. 188 pp. Mex. $6. China United Press. Shanghai.
Items "Ok
(Concluded from 2d cover) Give Me L1;:1£e.f" John Ellis Manley haS been chosen as the new General Secretary of the cries this homeless, despairing National Council of the Y. M. C. A. leper who waits at the gates of He succeeds Fred W. Ramsey, who a Mission hospital thinking, "If has held the position since the retire- I stay long enough, perhaps they ment of John R. Mott about four will take me in." years ago. Mr. Manley has been en- But THERE IS NO ROOM. gaged in Y. M. C. A. work for the last 30 years and has had a wide experi- He is typical of two million others without homes, health, liveli- ence in this field. hood, hope. * … * in 40 countries at 150 hospitals, the Mission to Lepers (cooperating with all denominations) ministers through medical treatment to Dr. S. G. Inman, Secretary of the lepers broken in body and spirit; while kindly care, Christian Committee on Cooperation in Latin teaching and useful occupation build their faith and morale. America, has recently returned to New York, having attended the Christ said "Cleanse the Lepers!" World's Sunday School Convention in Rio, and after visiting a number of Help in the modern fulRllment of His command by sending a South American cities, traveling by contribution today. ~irplane from Mendoza, Argentine, to Santiago, Chile. 55 feeds a leper for 2 AMERICAN MISSION TO LEPERS months. Room 1118.RW, 156 Fifth Ave., New York * … … Enclosed is 5 ••••••••to help save a leper's life. 510 gives weekly treatments Dr. William B. Lipphard is the wor- for 2 years. Name •••.•……………………… .• thy successor to Dr. Howard E. Grose, editor of Missions during the last 540 provides a year's com- Address ••••••.•••••••••••.••••••••••••• twenty-three years, who is to be pro- plete care. moted January 1, 1933, as editor emeritus for life. William B. Lipp- THE BIBLE T0 0 AY An evanselial che_brinser for hard has been associate editor since deprellion and other day., also 1922; associate secretary of the a visorous, popular, pertinent, assrellive, evanselistie and Bible.study magazine American Baptist Foreign Mission Society since 1919; and recording sec- DON O. SHELTON, LL.D., Editor retary of the Board of Missionary Cooperation since 1920. He brings to SOc a Year, Single Copy 1Sc the office a wealth of editorial ability and a background of missionary (Published by the National Bible Institute) knowledge and experience. THE BIBLE TODAY contoins strong, informing and stlrrlns articles, editorials and Bible expositions by Obituary Notes Christian leaders, and also mOVing accounts out of the thrilling life of the National Bible Institute which Is ensaged in a world-wide evangelistic ond Christian educational work. Lucy Hale Tapley, 75-year-old President-Emeritus of Spelman Col- Comins durins 1932·33: lege, died June 7 at McKinley, Maine. "Th. Men Who W.nt to Se. Wh.t H. Could Se.," by MELVIN GROVE KYLE, President Xenia During the 37 years she had served at Spelman College many thousand Theological Seminary, St. LOUis, Mo. young Negro women had been helped because of her radiant influence. "I•••'n. the Blbl…. by AMOS R. WELlS.! litt.D., Honorary Editor of the ··Chrlstlan Endeavor World." "An Inspi,ln. ContKt with. Spi,lt-lilied ..en….lily… by WILLIAM C. POOLE. successor to the late … lit … F. B. Meyer. former pastor of Christ's Church. London and now postor of the First M. E. Church. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Dr. A. F. Grant, head physician of "Tlln.n In War TI…… by CHARlES ERNEST SCOTIJ>'~'I of the American Presbyterian Mission. Tslnan. the American Mission Hospital in Shantung. North China, AND MANY OTHER INlII'IRING ARTICLES. Tanta, Egypt, died on July 4 while preparing to take up his customary Combination Offer Both SI.35 duties in the clinic. He went to Egypt Sev.65c in 1904, spending his first nine years THE BIBLE TO-DAY (bl-monthly)…………………………………. S.50 at Assiut Hospital. THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD (monthly) •••••••.••••.•.••• S2.50 … lit … AcIcIna Your Orden to Either OlJle. Th. Blbl. To-D.y Th. Mllllon.y R….w Publishln. Co.peny 340 West 55th Street, N. Y. The Rev. Dr. Alfred Gandier, of the United Church of Canada, died of 156 Fifth Avenue. N. Y. heart disease on June 12th, a few days after retirement as principal of Emmanuel Union TheolOgIcal College.
He was moderator of the Canadian Presbyterian General Assembly of 1923.
Dr. Gandier was born in Hastings County, On1., Nov. 29, 1861, a son of Joseph and Helen Eastwood Gandier. He was educated at Queen's University, Kingston, and Edinburgh Uni- versity, Scotlan..d. . … …
The Rev. N. E. Samson of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and stationed at Sironcha, Chandra District, Central Provinces, India, was found murdered in Jubbulpore after having been robbed.
Opposition Is Yield
Before Christian Testimony The Good News of Christ interpreted to Moslems through the Christian life and literature is winning a hearing for the Gospel in many lands.
Will you help to supply this much needed Christian literature for millions who have never heard this Good News-in E9ypt Syria Irak China Morocco PaJestine Persia Java Algiers Turkey India Sumatra Tunl. Arabia Malaysia South AfrIca Send your help to the missionaries in these countries through The American Christian Literature Society for Moslems Cooperating with Interdenominational Committees on the Reid.
BOARD OF MANAGERS William I. Chamberlain, Ph.D., President ••• Dr. Robert E. Speer, Delavan L Pierson, of New York, Viee-Pre$i~ats< Mrs. William Bancroft Hill, Honorary Vice-President Mrs. William Borden Mrs. J. M Montgomery Rev. Ernest W. Riggs Mrs. Finley J. Shepard , Dr. James Cantine, Cor. Sec. Mrs. E. E. Olcott, Treas. Rev. Robert W. Searle, D.O. Rev. Mills J. Taylor, D.O. Rev. Thomas S. Donohugh Dr. John H. Raven Rev. A. C. Snead Rev. S.M. Zwemer, D.O.
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DEPT. No. 20 ………. NEW YORK The BibUca. Seminary in New York DR. WILBERT W. WHITE, President The Department 01 Missions For the preparation and training of missionary candidates and for special requirements of missionaries on furlough.
Regular course has two years of required work in the Bible. Also required courses in History and Methods of Missions, Ethnic Religions, Phil- osophy of the Christian Religion, Phonetics, Home Nursing, and Fundamentals in Medil'ine and Hygiene.
Dr. Thomas E. Cummings offers courses in Phonetics, Urdu, and Language Metlwd.< Missionaries on furlough can be aided in mastering those things which have puzzled them in their vernaculars. An opportunity is offered for drill in the difficult sounds of all Asiatic and African tongues.
Send for Catalogue describing fully this Department and Department of Theology, Department of Postgraduate Study, Department of Religious Education, Depart- ment of Social Service.
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Publishers of The Biblical Review Please mention Tma MISBIONABY ltmVIBW or THE· WOBIJ) in 'Writing to advertiserS.: THE MISSIONARY FOR 50 YEARS! REVIEW OF THE WORLD DBLAVAN L. PIERSON. Editor Jubilee Number-December 1927 H A Missionary toMissionaries"
Page FOR HALF A CENTURY our Missionary Bureau has been THE WORLD'S Rm.IGIONS TODAY .. COVER ministering to the needs of Mis- WELCOMING FORE:JGNERS IN AMERICA sionaries in every country in the FIFTY YEARS AGO AND TODAY .• world – with Food, Clothing, Household Articles and Mission FRONT18PIECB Station Equipment-at a great saving to them in money, ex- EDITORIALS ……………………. 887 penses and worry.
AFTER FIFTY YEARS. New Missionaries will find it THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS PROGRESS. OUR MODERN MISSIONARY OBJECTIVE. DISUNION ~"'.D UNION IN CHINA.. A NEW UPRISING IN MEXICO. FREDERICK L. COLVER AT HOME.
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eign field. Workers in A Tale of India.
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Address Date…………………………………….."……..Sent by……. Please mention THt M1SSIONARY Rtvn:w OF THF; WORLD in writing to advertisers. Buy IncoDle! PERSONALS When one makes an "investment", what is DR. GOOB.GE S. McCuNE formerly of ?yeng. he actually doing? Just buying i'lcome- Yong, Korea, recently President of Huron that's all. The average "investor" buys only College, South Dakota, has resigned that temporary income. The investor in position to become President of the Union Christian College of Korea. He is now M. B. I. Life Annuities spending a few months at hinceton, N. J., preparing a book for publication and co· is buying operating with the New York Board of Trustees of the college. A Liberal Income for Life COMMANDER RwH.ARD E. BYRD carried with on his investment. The older you are. the him in his flight on the America a copy of more liberal the income. And you have no the Bible which weighed one ounce. On trouble in collecting it. Of course, you have his return the American Bible Society preprime securtiy; twenty years-and through sented to him and his crew a handsomelythe War-without a loss. "M. B. I. Life bound copy of the Bible, in honor of their Annuities" represent the higher thrift. having been "the fust to carry the Bible to Europe by air." This is worth considering. Write to * THE MOODY BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO REV. F. W. BOREHAM. minister of a Bap- The Moody 1I1bIe Institute. tist Church in Melbourne, Australia, and Bureau of Annuities Y121 author of many books, is planning for a 163 Institute PIa…. world tour early in 1928. in the course of Chicago. Illinois. which he plans to spend more than three months in the United States and Canada. Without obligation to me, please send full information 'Concerning HM. B. I. Life Annuities," and * quote rate on one life at age indicated. REV. ROBERT E. CHANDLER, recently ap- Name~._ ••••••…••. ~ ••••••••..••..••••.•••.••.. _ pointed a secretary in the foreign depart· ment of the American Board, is described as Street or R. F. D…..•..••….•…•…..•..••••. "the product of 117 years of continuous mis- sionary sevrice, ' , his grandfather having City •…•…•.••••••••••••• , ••• State ••.•••••••••• been the first to go out.
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Contracts may be issued to cover more than one life. REV. JAMES W. HAWKES. of Hamadan, Persia. who has been for forty-seven years Protect Yourself a Presbyterian missionary. is spending this Help Others year in Beirut. Syria, putting his translation of the Bible Dictionary through the Ameri- By securing Annuity Agreements from Methodist Mission Boards can Mission Press.
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depreciate. Investigation of the MISS GLADYS WOOD is the new field secre· security is invited. tary for young women's work for the J«l. OTHERS wiD hear the Chri!tian formed Church in America, succeeding Miss me!Sllge because of your generosity. . Evelyn Zwemer, who has resigned.
For F urtber information write: DR. ALBERT SCHWEITZER, for thirteen years medical missionary of the Paris Evan· Morris W. Ebnes, Treasurer. Boud of Forei~n gelical Missionary Society in French Equa. Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 150 torial Africa, and author of "On the Edge Fifth Avenue. New York, N. Y., or of the Primeval Forest," has returned to France on furlough.
W. J. Elliott, T …..urer. Board of Home Missions ** aud Church Extension 01 the Methodist Episcopal REV. LEONARD DANIELS. of Wilcannia, Church, 1701 Arch Street, Philaddpbia. Pa. N. S. W. has the first airplane constructed for missionary purposes. with which to visit his parish which is as large as England, Please rnllntloll 'fm: MISSION"IY REVl1'W 0.- ~H" Wom:'1> III wrltln~ to .dv"l'llsen. From a.n old OOpy of The Presbyterian HDme MiBtHonary.
WELCOMING THE IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA FIFTY YEARS AGO
Ml~'SIONARY
EVIEW'
VOL. JUBILEE NUMBER-DECEMBER, 1927 NUMBER L TWELVE AFTER FIFTY YEARS G REAT changes have taken place in the world in the past half- century. Many notable leaders have come and gone; influen- tial movements have been inaugurated; governments have arisen and fallen; there have been tragedies and triumphs.
With this issue the REVIEW completes fifty years of life as an independent and progressive missionary periodical. In these years many other magazines have come and gone but, while the REVIEW has passed through many changes in outward appearance, it continues to serve the cause of Christ by disseminating missionary information, stimulating interest and upholding spiritual ideals and methods in Christian service. The main purpose and the standards have been maintained.
In this and in subsequent numbers, a series of articles will rehearse the great events and signs of progress in the world of missions during the past fifty years. The survey is one of exceptional interest. It would be more so if we could see the half-century from God's viewpoint to discover what has been truly worth while' and is abiding.
Other notable jubilee anniversaries are coincident with that of the REVIEW. Approximately fifty years mark the life of the Livingstonia Mission on Lake Nyasa, founded by Robert Laws of the Free Church of Scotland. It was fifty years ago (in 1878) that Alexander -;fackay arrived in Uganda. It was fifty years ago that the American Presbyterian Board of Home Missions established work in what was looked upon as the ice box of Alaska. In the same year (1877) the women of the Presbyterian Church in America organized for Home Mission work on a national basis. The American Baptist women united for Home Mission work in the same year. In 1877 the Student Christian Movement was inaugurated in the colleges of America after a letter had been sent out by the Student Association of Prince- 887
ton calling for a conference in connection with the international convention of the Y. M. C. A. at Louisville, Kentucky.
The year 1877 was marked in China by the Shanghai Interdenominational Missionary Conference and the year 1878 in England by the International Protestant Foreign Missionary Conference in Mildmay Park, London. These events of historic significance will be referred to more fully later.
In our January issue-also a special Jubilee number-we plan to show the world situation in 1877 as it stands in contrast with conditions in various lands in 1927. The missionary progress in the past fifty years will be shown by comparing the number of missionaries, the stations, the converts from non-christian religions and the pupils lmder Christian instructions in non-christian lands, then and now. In those days there were reported at the London conference only sixteen Protestant Foreign Mission Boards in America, twenty-one in Great Britain and seventeen on the European Continent. Today there are 153 such societies in America, (not counting auxiliaries, educational boards and cooperating missionary agencies). British societies today number eighty and there are ninety-six Protestant missionary agencies on the Continent. There are also numerous missionary societies in Africa, Asia, Australasia and Latin America, where Protestant churches were weak or did not exist fifty years ago.
Home missionary work in America has increased and has changed even more radically than foreign missions. Frontiers have been pushed westward and northward and new problems have been presented by the influx of Orientals, Mexi(lfLns and other foreign elements. Former Home Mission churches have become towers of strength, while parishes in the eastern states, that were formerly Christian centers, have themselves become subjects for missionaryeffort.
The world and the Church have been moving generally forward, but at times they have gone backward. The reports and contrasts presented in our special articles are illuminating.
THE WORLD'S RELIGIOUS PROGRESS OUR cover plate this month represents the comparative number of the adherents of the principal religions of the world nine- teen centuries after the coming of Christ and His commission to His disciples to evangelize the world. The chart is drawn in correct proportions.
It will be a surprise to many that professed Christians in the world out-number the adherents of any other religion-Hindu, Buddhist or Moslem. All classes-Roman, Eastern sects and Protestant-number about 640 million, an increase of 60% in the past fifty years. Protestants are estimated to number 180 million, an increase of 80% in the last half-century. The Roman Catholics are estimated
1927J EDITORIAL COMMENTS
at 300 million (50% increase) and Greek and other Eastern sects 130 million (30% increase).
Of the non-Christian religions the Confucianists and Taoists are most numerous (if the former may be called a religion). They number together only about 300 million-a decrease of 25%. Hindu sects include 240 million-a 20% increase; Moslems number 240 million-a 20% increase (mostly in Africa); Buddhists and Shinto worshippers number about 160 million, an increase of 25%; and animists or spirit worshippers and various atheistic groups number 240 million, an increase of 20%. The strictly pagan or animists have, however, decreased thirty percent in the last fifty years so that the increase has come from the growth of atheism in such lands as Russia or the falling away from faith in other countries. The Jews are difficult to tabulate as they are scattered and many do not avow faith in the religion of their fathers. Those of the Jewish race are estimated at about 15 million-an increase of 15Q1% in fifty years, through their large birth rate.
The total population of the world has increased, in the last half century, from about 1,400 million to over 1,800 million or approximately a thirty percent increase. The Christian converts from other religions have grown from about one million to over four million-or a four hundred percent growth, not including those who have died. The Protestant converts in the mission field were estimated in 1877 to be about 300,000 but today the communicant Protestant church members in those fields number 3,600,OOO–over a thousand percent increase. The total adherents to Christian churches in mission fields are estimated at over eight million.
While these figures are not exact they serve as a basis for comparison and a long look backward is encouraging as an evidence of the activity of the Church of Christ and the work of the Spirit of God in the world. Yet there remains a vast amount undone of which we may well be ashamed. While nominal Christians have increased over 240 million in number, the non-Christians of the world have increased at least 130 million. Clearly the Christian Church cannot yet rest complacently from her labors. The world of men whom Christ came to save has not yet learned to know and follow Him even in name, much less in daily life and service.
OUR MODERN MISSIONARY OBJECTIVE I F OUR present-day missionary motives should be examined to see if they are Christian and adequate, it is equally important to examine our modern missionary objectives. Motives and objectives are vitally related but they are not the same. A desire for business advancement or for novel experiences may send a man to a foreign field to sell merchandise but his objective may be to sell goods so as to increase the company's business or to benefit the peo-
pIe. A ~oldier may be moved to enter military service from love of country, from a spirit of adventure or he may be drafted. His objective may be to win the war so as to gain military honors for himself, to enlarge national territory or to right a wrong. The missionary objective, as well as the motive, will largely determine the type of men and women who volunteer, the methods they adopt and the whole plan of campaign.
The response to a second questionnaire recently sent out to missionary leaders in America reveals as great a difference in missionary objectives as in missionary motives. Fifty years ago the prevailing motives were loyalty to the command of Christ and a desire to save heathen souls from eternal death. The objectives were to evangelize the non-Christian world, to win men from heathen beliefs and practices to Christ and His way of life, and to build up a strong, true Christian Church in non-Christian lands. These objectives naturally determined the methods adopted.
Have these objectives changed? If so, are the new objectives better than the old? In response to the questionnaire to pastors, missionary secretaries, teachers and other Christian workers, the objective that received the most votes was" The training of a native Christian leadership," second came "The promotion of universal brotherhood," and then" Sharing with others our personal knowledge of Christ," and the" Christianization of all aspects of national life." '1'he fewest votes were given to the objectives: extending dellominational beliefs, the evangeli'zation of the world in this generation, the salvation of souls from eternal death through faith in Christ and" the overthrow of false religions which cannot save and which blind men to the truth."
These answers are illuminating if they represent any considerable proportion of missionary workers and church members. Many other objectives were marked as more or less desirable but were not accepted with any unanimity even among these missionary workers. Among these suggested objectives were-character building through the Christian message, deliverance of individuals from the power of sin, building up Christian communities as a leavening force, extending the benefits of Christian civilization, helping other peoples to make their own interpretation of Christ and "fellowship with people of good will who respond to the Christian message."
Evidently there is a lack of any general consensus of opinion and of any clear understanding of the objective that Christ, the divine founder of the missionary enterprise, set for His followers. If a commercial representative is to look to his employers to understand the objective of his mission; if a loyal soldier is to take as his objective the carrying out of the program of his government or his commander-in-chief, must not the true Christian look only to Christ and His Word to discover and understand the objective that shall mark his or her missionary service ~
EDITORIAL COMMENTS
What is the objective set before us by Christ Jesus, our Lord 1 The New Testament clearly states that He came "to call sinners to repentance," to save men from sin, to reveal God the Father, to give the abundant Life. He commissioned His disciples to make Him known so that His objectives would be accomplished. With this in view His disciples are: 1. To lead men to repent of their sins and to carry to all man- kind (while they live on earth) the Gospel of life which Christ came to proclaim and whicp He made effective by His life, death and resur- rection (Matt. 24: 14, Mark 16: 15 and Acts 1: 8, 13: 32).
2. To teach the people of all lands and nations, races and condi- tions to know God as revealed in Christ and to understand and ob- serve the commands of Christ as He taught the ",Vay of Life and service. (Matt. 28: 19,20, Mark 1: 16, Acts 5: 42, Romans 1: 5.) 3. To extend the Kingdom of God-His sovereign rule-through- out the earth by pe"rsuading men to become loyal followers and serv- ants of Jesus Christ and by obedience to the laws of God, as inter- preted by Christ, in personal, social, industrial and civic life. (Luke g: 2, 11, 60, Acts 28: 31.) • 4. To teach and train the followers of Christ-to" feed the sheep and tend the lambs" of His fold-so as to build up a strong, intelli- gent Church, with a fulness of life so that young and old, by precept and example will be true, strong disciples and effective, loving min- isters to others. (.John 10: 10; 20: 21; 21: 15-17.) What other objectives characterized the ministry of Peter and the apostles on the day "of Pentecost and subsequently in Jerusalem and .Judea? What objective sent Philip to Samaria and to the Ethiopean on the way to Gaza ~ Were not these objectives before the apostle Paul in all his labors in Asia Minor and Macedonia, in Greece and at Rome ~ Examine carefully the objectives toward which other successful missionaries have m~ved forward in all ages under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1: 8). The blessing of God was on the labors of Raymund Lull, William Carey, Robert Morrison, Titus Coan, Henry Martyn, Bishop Valpy French, Robert Laws, Guido F. Verbeck, Adoniram Judson, John E. Clough, John G. Paton, Marcus Whitman, Sheldon Jackson and unnumbered others in home and foreign lands. Were not these their objectives in interpreting the message and program of Jesus Christ1 Has high secular educa- tion, or the increase of creature comforts, or the cultivation of na- tionalism, or even the effort to promote human brotherliness, proved as effective as the objective of leading men to know, love, trust and obev God as He is revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ ~ Such an objectiv~ is not selfish and does not appeal to selfishness. It deals with the individual first in order that he may be enabled to live a Christ-like life and may be more ready and better able to serve his fellow-men.
The missionary who truly takes Christ to the non-Christian may also take his books and his school, his surgical instruments and medicines, his gymnasium and his shop, his industrial betterment and his peace program, but he will not depend on these. They are important byproducts, not the main objective. "These signs shall follow them that believe."
With the missionary motive pure and the missionary objective clear, methods may change, but all factors will work together to save men by bringing them, individually and collectively, into harmony with God in the Way revealed and made possible by .Jesus Ohrist.
UNION AND DISUNION IN OHINA W HILE Ohina is being torn into fragments by domestic politi- cal str~fe, a dis~at~h reports that a conference of lea.d~rs in the Chmese ChrIstian Church has annoUliced the abolItIOn of denominationalism and the formation of a United Church of Christ in China.' There has been a movement in this direction for some years and the new organization does not reveal any radical or widespread change in the' situation. The conference in Shanghai, referred to in the dispatch, was made up of ninety-four delegates representing sixteen denominations-chiefly Presbyterian, Reformed and Congregational. The merger does not yet include Methodists, Baptists and others but involves over 1,000 churches in sixteen provinces, representing about one third of the Chinese Protestants who total over 400,000 communicant church members.
There has been formed a General Assembly for all Ohina, uniting the Congregational and Presbyterian Unions of Canton, South Fukien, Manch1,lria and churches of these denominations in other parts of the country. The first Ohinese Moderator of the new United Church is Rev. Cheng Ching-yi, a well known Christian leader. The organization carries a step further the movement for a united Christian Church for which missionaries and Chinese Christians have been working. Only a few strong denominationalists among the missionaries have desired to perpetuate 'Western ecclesiastical divisions and few Ohinese have been able to grasp the reasons for Christian sectarianism. With the withdrawal of many foreign missionaries it is natural that the Chinese should take matters more into their own hands. Let Western Ohristians pray that they may be guided and blessed in this undertaking to unite all true followers of Jesus Christ. If the Church of Christ in China is dominated by the Spirit of Christ and is true to His life, work and teachings as recorded in the New Testament, the Church will grow in strength and will be a blessing to China. The present turmoil and the withdrawal of missionaries may yet result in increasing the strength and purity of the Chinese Church, if the people realize that Christianity is not a for-
1927J EDITORIAL COMMENTS
eign institution and if they will accept responsibility for its support and promotion, and look to God rather than to man for guidance and power.
In the midst of the present disturbed condition, when over onethird of the foreign missionaries have been obliged to leave their stations, the Ohinese Ohristians have been faithfully carrying on the church work. One mission alone (the Ohina Inland Mission) reports 904 baptisms in the first five months of the year. A cablegram from Shanghai also reports that the "British Oonsul has given consent for the return of men to their stations at their own risk when permission is granted by local officials." Already some missionaries have left Shanghai for Hankow and other points in the interior. Encouragement is also gathered from the fact that the British have withdrawn over two thirds of their military forces from Ohina-a sign that much of the danger to foreigners seems to have passed. The outlook for peace between contending forces is, however, as remote as ever. The war lords cannot or will not come to an agreement. In the meantime the people sufter. They discount Nationalist promises since they find that the promises of the communistic army are not fulfilled. There is no hope for peace and prosperity in Ohina until selfishness is rooted out of national life and the laws of God, as interpreted by Jesus Ohrist, are recognized and obeyed.
THE NEW UPRISING IN MEXICO T HE present revolt against the Oalles Government and the exe- cutions of rebel leaders in Mexico have grown out of a bitter presidential campaign. 'fhe administration candidate was Obregon, and since he would continue the reform policies of Oalles, with probably a little more tendency to compromise with foreign and ecclesiastical opponents, many were ready to accept his imposition in order to continue order and progress. Others believed that they must "fight for their principles" and so the revolt was launched. Such armed protests always come in Mexico before the elections.
"General Oalles is facing a difficult situation. He had to choose between two courses. The one was to gain the friendship of the lower classes by carrying out a program of reform, distributing land to the peons, organizing large numbers of new schools, developing irrigation projects to help the farmers, and cutting down the national budget with the elimination of a large number of government and army officials. In this way payment of interest on the national debt and the salaries of public officials may be met continuously. His other course might have been to leave the army alone, to permit the budget to continue unbalanced, to court the favor of large foreign investors, promoting good business and forgetting the promotion of public education, land distribution, laws limiting foreigners, the development of public health and other social reforms that tend to stir
the opposition of certain vested interests. The President has chosen the first course.
"Undoubtedly many officials in the National army and the Ro- man Catholic Church, along with many foreigners and Mexicans in- terested in large property holdings, as well as a considerable number of Mexican liberals who resent the seeming approval of Obregon's candidacy by the present government, make President Calles' posi- tion a difficult one."
Dr. S. Guy Inman, who recently returned from Mexico,says: "Calles is a strong executive. He is putti~g himself enthusiastically into the educational and land reforms and has given a great deal of attention recently to balancing the nation's budget, to reducing the excessive number of employees both in the army and the civil departments of the government. No doubt he has used' strongarm' methods. Many believe that Mexico is not yet prepared for a democracy and the maintenance of peace is necessary while the educational processes are speeded up as rapidly as possible." The church question in Mexico remains about the same as since the beginning of the policy of the Roman Catholics to refuse to allow priests to serve in the churches if they must register with the Government. The Evangelical leaders, foreign and national, continue to obey the laws of the State in religious questions in spite of the difficult situations in which they are often placed.
FREDERICK L. COLVER-AT HOME O N ARMISTICE DAY, November 11th, Frederick L. Colver, who has been for nearly seven years a beloved and honored member of our Board of Directors, died at his home in Tenafly, New Jersey in the sixty-fifth year of his age. Like David, he "served his generation by the will of God."
Mr. Colver was a native of Milwaukee and moved to Brooklyn, New York, as a boy. In 1884 he and Edward W. Bok organized the New York Syndicate Bureau, chiefly to publish in newspapers articles by Henry Ward Beecher. From 1889 to 1906 he was successively advertising manager of the Frank Leslie magazines, then Treasurer and business manager, and finally President. In 1902, he established the first Periodical Publishers Association, composed of publishers of most of the larger magazines and weekly publications of national circulation. He was its Secretary for five years and succeeded Cyrus H. K. Curtis as President. In 1907-8 he was Secretary, advertising director and part owner of the Success Magazine and in 1913 he went to Philadelphia as advertising and business manager of Lippincott's Magazine, but returned to New York in 1914 to become business director of the National Boy Scouts of America. Mr. Colver is survived by his wife and son. He was, for some years, the efficient superintendent of the Sunday School of the Presbyterian Church of Tenafly, in which he was also an elder.
Early Days of the" Review"
Bemin,iscences of the Founde1', Royal G. Wilder BY HIS SON, REV. ROBERT P. WIT,DER, D.D., CAIRO, EGYPT l"l.A FTER thirty years of missionary service in Iudia, the Rev. Royal Gould Wilder r etired and went to live in Princeton, N. J., in order to make a home for hil'; two I';ons while they aUellded college.
For several years he had been colleeting material for a hook which he expected to write after his retirement from active service, and planned to publish under some such title as: "Kolhapur-the Kingdom and the Mission." The material for this book, as well as most of his library and other pos- sessions, were shipped in a ship sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to America.
'1'he s ail i n g vessel was wrecked off the African coast and everything on board was lost.
This was a great loss to the aged missionary, especially the precious material for the book-much of which had been secured from Brit- ish and Indian government offi- cials and could not be replaced.
In this book, he had planned to present not only the work of the mission which he had founded, but also to give some of his mature ROYAL GOUl,D WILDER convictions concerning the best way of carrying on the missionary enterprise, and the principles underlying effective service.
The publication of the book was necessarily abandoned, but after much prayer Mr. Wilder decided to start an interdenominational missionary magazine in which could be presented the work of missions in all lands as carried on by all branches of the Evangelical Church at home and abroad. N,! such periodical was then in existence. 'l'his magazine would give him a better opportunity than the book could have furnished to state the basic principles of missionary service and to voice his deepest convictions as to the policy which missionary societies should adopt.
One day in 1877 he surprised his wife by showing her the proof for the cover of a new magazine called THE MISSIONARY REVIEW on 895
which were the words Nil Desperand1tm Christo sub Dnce ("Nothing to be despaired of under Christ as Leader.") This motto represented the spirit in which the REVIEW was started and carried on for ten years until my father's death. It was no easy undertaking for a mission- ary, who had labored 30 years in a foreign land where his work was in a foreign language, to establish in America an English periodical without any editorial assistance. All the work of culling material from a hundred exchanges, all the editorials and proof reading were done by him. He even wrapped the REVIEWS and carried them to the post office. In those years I never knew him to take a holiday.
His table talk at home during . THE meals was most inspiring. At luncheon he might speak about the MIS SION ARY REV lEW. latest news from Central Africa.
At supper recent facts from China Nil DespmJ.ntlum, Ohnet. sub Duao. would be given. At breakfast In- dia's problems would be discussed.
No wonder that two of his children PUBLISHED AT PRINCETON, N. J. purposed to become missionaries as soon as their education could b I t d f th f t h f TERJiS…..$I.,so aJI"!"i11l1fitJtJnu, in U. S. and CanadtJ/ ~ s1UlI/ngr In e comp e e , o r e ac s e ur- E…'?_ro'lIi'li.8'…. s"'l"'.''',INlI•• Cl!,.•• Ajri"••NI nished thrilled, deepened loyalty SooJAA"'!ri'" Uocha'K,j"lmag'.
to Christ and fired enthusiasm for NEW Yoa", F. A. D. RANDOLPH & Co, evangelizing the world. His per- CHICAGO, ILL., sonal appeals to Princeton stu- W. G. Houllrs. dents and his editorials in the MIS- BOSTON, MASS., NoYES, SNOW & Co. SIONARY REVIEW were important T1Lthnmt & Co., Ludgate Hill. LoNOOJf: '.
factors in the f.ormation and VOLUME I. growth of the first group of Stu- dent Volunteers which was formed ijtUfUAkY, 18]8, to DECEMBER, 1878, INCLUSIVE.) in Princeton in the autumn of 1883.
TRE:NTON. N.l.: In the first number of the MIs- SIONARY REVIEW the editor pub- THE FIRST ISSUE OF THE REVlEW lished an article entitled" To Our Readers. " In this are given his reasons for starting the REVIEW. The following brief extracts from this article will be of interest: "First of all we ai~ to help develop an interest in foreign missions which shall speedily double the present amount of giving, praying, going and work- ing in this cause.". . . . . "We would supplant'no existing missionary periodical. Every society and board conducting foreign missions has its own organ, or keeps its patrons posted in church papers. There will be the same reason for these organs notwithstanding this Review." . . . . "We do not believe the church can hasten the millenium by abrogation of all de- nomi,national distinctions, and enforcing a rigid uniformity in the non- essentials of faith and practice. . . . Let every regiment fight its own battles, ready to help its neighbor as emergencies shall rise. Let each division
IP27] THE EARLiY DAYS OF THE "REVIEW"
move forward its own lines, in advance of all others, if possible, all provoking each other to love and good works, vieing with each other in self-sacrifice and love for souls, and in supreme love and loyalty to Christ, the great Captain of our salvation." "Very few of the most devout Christians of the church do at all grasp the magnitude of this work, and the immense resources in men and money which must be poured out at the feet of Jesus in obeying his divine command, 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.' And yet this command is binding. It has never been abrogated. Its obligation is imperative. It rests upon every redeemed soul with a solemn weight of responsibility which can be exceeded, if at all, only by the exceeding preciousness of the privilege of obeying it."
"Should we continue to climb till we reach a mountain' top high enough to command the vision of a world evangelized, we shall see the Presbyterian Church of America sending to this work not less than $25,000,000 every year, for a generation, and keeping in it not less than six thousand ordained mis- sionaries, and all other denominations enlarging their effort!) in like measure.
And to this we must come ere Christ shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. And then this, we fear, is not placing this work before the mind in its full magnitude." . . . .
"But how are Christians to be brought to understand and feel their. obligation and privilege in this matter ~ " .
"Let pastors look well to the spiritual life of their flocks, feeding them with the true bread and water of life, till devotion to Christ in their hearts be- comes a reality, love for souls a ruling passion, and this spiritual life flows out in currents full and strong enough ARTHUR TAPPAN PIERSON to embrace the world.. Where this true life exists, all that is needed to give its currents proper direction is infor- mation-facts as to the state of the heathen without the Gospel and facts as to the new life imparted to them by the Gospel, when it becomes the power of God to their salvation." . ' ,We shall aim, by diligent reading, research, and correspondence, to gather these facts from every heathen nation and tribe, and from every mission field on the globe, presenting them in suc- cessive numbers, and occasionally so generalizing facts and results, as to enable busy pastors and intelligent laymen most readily to grasp and understand them, and receive from them the convictions and inspirations inseparable from such knowledge. Of the value of discriminating notices of missionary bi- ographies, and of the many books latterly issuing on Oriental races and religions, heathen philosophy and mythology, and the various treatises bearing more or less directly on the work of missions, we need make here only the briefest mention."
Another reason for starting the REVIEW is given by him in these words: "To review the principles, measures, agencies and administrations of the different missionary boards and societies." Of this he wrote: "Some may fear lest criticism of the measures of good men may weaken confidence in them and do harm. Does not such a fear itself argue a lack of confidence in said men or measures? If they are perfect, the most searching scrutiny and criticism can but reveal and confirm their perfection, and secure to them more 2
absolute confidence. If they are imperfect, kindly criticisms and suggestions will improve them and make them worthy of more confidence then they now enjoy. " . . "There has been a strange omission, for the most part, of all public discussion of the ways and means employed for evangelizing the world. When have our religious papers and periodicals engaged in any search- ing investigation of the details of management by the different foreign boards 1 Or in a faithful 'comparison of the views and experiences' and results of our different American foreign boards, in comparison with those of the great foreign missionary societies of Great Britain and Europe?"
For ten years the MISSIONARY REVIEW was carried on in this spirit, during the last two years in spite of much suffering, since the editor was afflicted with a fatal and most painful illness.
It was on a Saturdav in late October, 1887, that the last number of Volume X was completed- all but a single page. That very day editorship of the MISSIONARY RE- VIEW had been made over to Rev.
Arthur '['. Pierson, D.D., and Dr.
James M. Sherwood. The old mis- sionary's quill was laid aside un- til Monday morning when he ex- pected to prepare the last page for the printer. On the following day, Sunday, he asked my sister and me to sing two of his favorite hymns: "I'm the child of a King" and "We've sighted the Golden Gateo "
JAMES M. SHERWOOD On Monday morning he entered the Golden Gate to see the King in His beauty and the Land of great distances. The unfinished page of Volume X of the REVIEW was used for a short obituary notice.
The aged editor passed away two days before the date originally set by him for his return to India where he hoped to spend his last days. 'When my brother said to him "You cannot live long enough to reach India," he replied, "Then they can bury me at sea-the waters of the ocean wash the shores of every land." His love and prayers went out to all lands and the REVIEW was founded and carried on to hasten the evangelization of all lands. He believed strongly in the watchword of the Student Volunteer Movement-" The Evan- gelization of the 'World in This Generation "-which he convlllcingly advocated in the pages of the REVIEW.
OF THE AMERICAN BOARD, BOSTON, IN l877
Mission Boards Fifty Years Ago A Half Century of Changes in M'ission~ry Adm,inistration and Or- ganizalionin the Home Boards BY ALLEN R. BARTHOLOMEW, PHILADELPHIA Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church in the U. s.
rt was a rare display of wisdom on the part of the Editor of the REVIEW tOo ask a man, j:'.mall of stat ure. to prepare an article in brief form on this very comp-Iex topi C. Without real1zing the task involved, 1 promised to prepare it. Lacking the necessary material, kind associates of other Boards came to Illy help, and to them the readers owe much of this information. A questionnaire was scnt to twelve secretaries , typical of all th e Boar ds of Foreign Missions tn the UnJted State'S. and their replies would fill a l2'ood!-sized volumc. How to perform thc feat of con.denf'.ation, into the given space, was the problem.-A. R. B.
F IFTY years ago practically every Mission Board had very inadequate secretarial staff and meagre office equipment. ·With the exception of the Moravians, all the denominatiOlls have ehanged the location of their headquarters. Some relocated in the same city, and a number report removals to other cities, all due, doubtless,. to the expanding work. Most of the larger Boards now have their headquarters in New York, but the old American Board still clings to Boston. The South and Middle ;West also claim a goodly share of administrative headquarters.
So far as one can gather the greatest changes are manifest along 899
material lines. Commodious buildings now shelter the larger Boards.
This indicates the permanency of the work, .and the liberal invest- ment of millions of dollars. A few of these buildings are revenue- producing. Fifty years ago most of the Boards occupied a single room with a desk and a few chairs; now many Boards occupy entire floors in large buildings.
Very meagre were the office outfits in 1877. No office had a typewriter, dictaphone, telephone or addressograph in those days.
The letter-press took the place of the carbon paper and the gelatine- pad was used in place of the mim- eograph. Perhaps quills and lead pencils were also used instead of the fountain-pen and eversharp pencil. In some offices, no doubt, sand instead of the blotting-paper was used to dry the ink. 'rhose were days of small things. Fortu- nately the men then did not feel the need of the many modern de- vices, so indispensable now, in the conduct of their work. It was not the age of mechanics. There were no taxi-cabs, no subways, no elec- tric cars and no sixty-mile-an-hour trains ! But the work at that time was in charge of men who were as capable, conscientious and cou- rageous as the men and women now. I add, "women now," for there were very few, if any ad- PRESENT HEADQUARTERS OF THE ministrative women secretaries in AMERICAN BOARD 1877. Strange to say, fifty years ago women were" the silent part- ners" in most of the church work. Experience has since taught the Boards that it was not good for man to be alone in the administrative work of Foreign Missions. The women today form a very vital factor in the conduct of the world-wide missionary enterprise, and we may well sing, "Blest be the tie that binds."
SECRETARIAL STAFF AND INCOMES The administrative staff then was small. One B oard that had only one secretary then has the same number now, but with" ten times as much work." Another secretary was also a pastor and editor. "In 1877," writes the secretary of one large Board, "the little work
1927J MISSIuN BOARDS FIFTY YEARS AGO
FRANCIS b'lELD ELLINWOOD ELDER RUDOLPH F , KELKER Secretary of the Presbyterian Board ()! Treasurer of Board of· Foreign Missions Foreign Missions, 1871 to 1908 ot the Reformed Church in U. S. 1877 that was required for the conduct of Foreign Missions was done by the officers of the committee elected by the general body." Lest the present Boards might be accused of a surplus of office force, a sage secretary says, "Considering the growth of the Board there is little difference in the staff now from what it was fifty years ago." To give a bird's-eye view of the progress made during the past fifty years, without partiality, the writer chose the Boards of the following churches to present a comparative statement as to secre- tarial staff (including women) and income: Secretarial Staff Income Denomination 1877 1.927 1877 1.927 Baptist (Northern) ………… Congregational .. "………… 2 9 $225,733 $1,436,124 Methodist Episcopal (North) …. Methodist Episcopal (South) ." 4 18 433,9179 2,137,371 Moravian ………………… Presbyterian Church (North) … 2 14 560,055 3,766,538 Presbyterian Church (South) ' " 2 11 114,000 2,500 Protestant Episcopal , … ,…… 1 1 13,054 68,017 Reformed Church in America. . . . Reformed Church in the U. S.. ,. 3 30 511,180 4,6'09,712 United Brethren …•… . …. . .. United Lutheran …..•……… 2 5 ' 59,947 1,220,635 United Presbyte:rian …….. . . , 6 11 114,976 1,292,553 1 3 58,152 510,977 1 5 200 463,355 2 7 9,027 212,889 3 25,000 985,000 1 3 77,028 1,062,199 Some of the secretaries and treasurers received no salary in 1877; a few received $2,500 and upwards; the salaries in 1927 range from $3,000 to',$8,OOO. "
REPRESENTATIVE LEADERS It would greatly enrich the missionary lore of the churches in America if the story were written of the lives and labors of all the leaders in Foreign Missions fifty years ago. Here is a rich mine of very choice material, and it is of too much value to the cause of Ch rist to let it remain hidden in the archives of the Boards. We can mention here only a few of the noble men to whom we owe so much for the deep and broad foundations laid i'ly them and upon which we have been building all these years. These saints will live on in the currents of the history of missions.
HEADQUARTERS OF .THE PRESBYTERIAl'< BOARD OF FOREIGN MlSSIONS IN 1877, 23 CENTER ST., NEW YORK Dr. John M. Ferris (Reformed Church in America) was a man of noble ability and peculiar effec- tiveness in bringing about the opening of Japan to Christian influence, particularly in promot- ing the coming to America of pronllsmg Japanese young men and their education at Rutgers College.
Dr. John B. Dales (United Presbyterian Church) gave the work of Foreign Missions a large place in the heart of the Church by his own vital interest in the cause and by his intelligent and interest- ing method of presenting the sub- ject through the pages of the Chr'istian Instructor and to church courts and congregations. FIRST BUILDING OF THE REFORMED Dr. J. Leighton Wilson (Pres- CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES, ARCH ST.. PHILADELPHIA byterian Church in the U. S.) greatly benefited the cause of Foreign Missions through his writings, having translated a number of the Gospels into African dialects, being editor of The Home and Foreign Record and The Missionary,
1927J MISSION BOARDS FIFTY YEARS AGO
and preparing many articles for the theological and literary reviews.
Dr. D. K. Flickinger (United Brethren Ohurch) was a keen and constant missionary promoter. He gave many years of faithful and efficient service to the cause of missions.
Rev. A. T. Twing (Protestant E pis cop a I Ohurch) was at first a traveling missionary agent, but from the very begin- ning he became a living and organizing power. His commanding presence was a fit expansion of his large heart and generous sym- pathies. He took special interest in the children, or- ganized the work among women, interested the sym- pathy of individual laymen in particular fields, and bound all the Ohurch to its missionary work by the strong and quiet influence of his catholic spirit and warm heart.
Dr. Robert L. Dashiell (Methodist E pis co p a I Ohurch) was one of the most eloquent advocates of missions. He traveled ex- tensively and labored ar- duously for the work. Dr.
John L. Reid of the same church was a very able ad- ministrator and 'left deep impressions on the mission- PRESENT HEADQUARTERS OF 'l'RE PRESBYTERIAN ary work of the denomina- HOME AND FOREIGN MISS'lON BOARDS.
•• . 156 FIFTH AVE.• NEW YORK h~ Drs. J. B. McFerrin and D. O. Kelly (Methodist Episcopal Church, South) were for many'years brilliant, unique, and very able leaders in the work of the denomination. There is nothing especially characteristic about their methods of work except the brilliancy and forcefulness of their addresses before the Oonferences and congre- gations.
CHURCH MISSION HOUSE, PROTESTANT PRESENT HEADQUARTERS OF THE RE- EPISCOPAL CHURCH, FOURTH AVE." FORMED CHURCH IN 'rHE UNITED . AND 22ND ST., NEW YORK S'fA'fES, AT PHILADELPHIA Few secretaries have been of greater constructive help than Dr. N. G. Clark of the American Board and Dr. Mark Hopkins, President, who is too well known among all classes of the present time to require any comment.
It was a great blessing to the cause of Foreign Missions that for so many years i t had identified with it men like the Hon. Walter . Lowrie, Dr. John C. Lowrie, Dr. Frank Ellinwood and Mr. William Rankin of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Of Dr. Lowrie, it is' said that he wrote letters to the missions with his own hand, scorning the modern innovation of the typewriter. He was a man Of great frugality, deeply consecrated to the missionary cause, and with absolute loyalty to Hie New Testament ideals. Dr. Ellinwood was a man of rare intellectual power-a true scholar in theology, philosophy and comparative religions, a courageous and honest administrator. Mr. RankIn, Treasurer, was a most picturesque and intelligent personality. He lived to be 103 years of age. When he was over 90 he used to slip away from his home in the suburbs and: come into New :york alone to visit the headquarters of the Board.
Elder Rudolph F. Kelker (Reformed Church in the U. S.) was treasurer of the Board for many years.. He did more than any other man to keep alive the missionary spirit in our church, and bring us into contact with, the representatives of other Boards. He was a gentleman of the old school in faith and morals and left a deep im- pression on many hearts. '
MISSION BOARDS FIFTY YEARS AGO
PROMOTIONAL WORK In 1877 the literature of missions was scant. Very few magazines were published, and but few books, pamphlets, leaflets and tracts. The stereopticon was as great a novelty then as is the airplane now. Imagine the surprise of an audience of fifty years ago to see the face of a dignified secretary thrown upon the screen by a motion picture projector, which in our day causes no comment.
'There were no interdenominational missionary agencies then, such as the Student Volunteer Movement, the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and the Missionary Education Movement. The Annual Foreign Missions Conference, the Ecumenical Missionary Confer- BISHOP BENJAMIN BOSWORTH DR. N. G. CLARK, Protestant Episcopal Church. 1877 Secretary of the Am erican Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions in 1877 ence of 1900, the WorId Missionary Conference of 1910 and the Foreign Missions Convention of 1925, the summer missionary conferences, missionary institutes, and schools of missions, all of these are products of later years.
The promotional work as now carried on through the educational and field departments was on a much less extensive scale. One secretary writes, "There was in those days less machinery and more direct contacts." Most Boards lay special emphasis on. the need of keeping constantly before the membership the scope and service of Christian missions.
A great deal might be said in commendation of the Boardmem bers and the Board officers Who are devoting their best thoughts and energies to the greatest of all' causes in (jurday~l:)1;J;twhyspeak about the living when their works do praise them 7 and Now LUCY W. PEABODY, BEVERLY, MASS.
SIXTY Years ago there was very little suggestion of any modifi- cation of the principle "woman's place is in the home." Her contribution to missionary work at that time was necessarily through the General Boards or the interdenominational organization known as the Woman's Union Missionary Society.
Fifty years ago woman's place and contribution were fairly well determined since most of the larger denominations had followed the example of this woman's union of '61 led by Mrs. Doremus. The Con- ~regational women were first to organize and were followed by those of the Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian and other churches. Women were learning that woman's place is also in the missionary society. With one exception, the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the ladies' societies were becomingly auxiliary to their General Boards, with varying degrees uf independence of action. Neither men nor women considered it quite safe for women to assume the entire responsibility of organization though the men were very willing that they should do the work of their societies. Some of the brethren felt that they would fail in the administration of funds and so kept a careful check on finances. The place of woman in missionary organizations -ras closely and safely allied to her place in the Church, which still continues to be her place. This morning's paper (August 16, 1927), referring to the Conference on Church Unity in Lausanne brings this question of woman's status vividly before us as a present-day question. Four of the seven women appointed to represent the churches of the world, with 400 men delegates, raise the inquiry as to why, with women in the majority as members and supporters of the churches, only a negligible number should serve as delegates and none be permitted to speak. At a great world council an English bishop stated as the ground for their position that there were no women among the apostles and none at the Last Supper. Yet our Lord was cradled in a woman's arms and women were, we recall, at the Cross, and "very early while it was yet dark" at the tomb. It was to Mary that the Risen Lord revealed Himself. So women were not left out of the divine plan and they have generally been found faithful in the dar;kest hours.
It has not troubled women very much that they are not officially recognized. It was not for that reason that they organized as women, but because there was special work for women and children which 906 men could not and did not do, which appealed to women and to many thinking men as important and indeed necessary. So they began 60 years ago and in ten years had made a good start in building organizations, publishing literature, collecting large sums in small gifts, and learning to "speak in meeting" which was, if not out of order in general assemblies, not possible for lack of time. They were usually allowed to meet at the noon hour alone while the brethren were finiHhing luncheon which was an important woman's contribution.
The early '70s, now derided as the sentimental decade by certain modern writers, seem to those of us who were close to that period new days of practical idealism for women. They stood then in relation to a devastating war where we stand today. Their reaction was spiritual, international, progressive and took concrete and practical form. They cleared away the ruins which war always leaves, healed the enmities and built new world foundations, and they builded well.
The Women's Mission Boards began in the early '90's to seek association with each other through an annual and later a triennial conference which grew in 1911, after the Jubilee, into a Federation of Women's Foreign Mission Boards. On the material side they have saved, earned and invested in 50 to 60 years approximately one hundred and fifty million dollars in the work in foreign fields. This has been accomplished with very small cost for home expenses since women were free to give voluntary service when few men were able so to give their time. Boards, like the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, with a present yearly income of two and one-half millions with an income of like amount for home missions, are the highest examples of efficient and economical business management. They could do this because they were free for the first time to work out their own ideas. Men had always had freedom to work out theirs and they chose to have their own organizations composed of men and managed by men for good and natural reasons. If women were to develop initiative and responsibility and train executives they could do it only in their own societies for women. They were needed also to select and send women teachers, doctors and evangelists to the Orient and South America. The great value of their organization at home was that it led to a remarkable education in prayer and in the study of fields with their various needs and types of work. This education began in the Cradle Roll and led up, with good grading, through Mission Bands and Junior Societies, Young Women's Societies and older groups.
Twenty-seven years ago the Women's Boards grew into a higher united plan of study through the group organized in 1900 at the Ecumenical Foreign Missions Conference. In these years they have published nearly 4,000,000 study books prepared by the best authors. Twenty-five years ago they inaugurated the Summer School of Mis- .sions at Northfield, Mass., which has been the model for some thirty
others throughout the country. The Federations of Women's For- eign and Home Mission Boards have general oversight of these schools, though each works under its own committee. During the year many institutes and study conferences are held, generally inter- denominational. Leaders are trained not only for teaching the text books, but missionary methods, and through the now popular Forum, allied questions of international relations and law observance have generally found their place in these conferences. Bible study classes for girls in camps and for women leaders, with opportunity to visit the literature exchanges, make the Summer Schools of great value to all Boards.
Seventeen year8 ago, in 1910 coincident with the jubilee of the first foreign missionary society for women, the Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions published a book entitled, "Western Women in Eastern Lands." The author, Helen Barrett Montgomery, gave here a remarkable picture of the work of women in foreign missions. Nearly 150,000 of these stUdy books were issued and studied by groups of women of all denominations. The book seemed to have come by a special act of Providence since it was written before anyone had realized its historical significance. It was the book of the Jubilee campaign and many eloquent addresses at national meetings and in the local "Jubilettes" which followed, were based on the material found in this volume.
On the foreign field growing demands of women, liberated from zenana and the limitations of illiteracy and the need for trained teach- ers and nurses, have made necessary a higher grade of work. Seven Union Colleges in Japan, China, and India entered into a successful united campaign for funds which resulted in the purchase of land and buildings which are the loving gift of American women to the women of the Orient, a proof of international friendship. In addition to the seven which shared in the three million dollar fund is the Shanghai Medical College of A grade which is going steadily on with its work in spite of war. There are other beginnings of colleges and a long list of normal schools, high schools, Bible training, kindergarten, and industrial classes and best of all the social settlement which is the fine flower of every mission station demonstrating year after year the Christian home. This training abroad is reflected here at home in guilds and leagues and other national organizations of girls who learn their first lessons of international goodwill through their study and work for their missionary society.
Just at present we are witnessing a transition. Several of the women's societies have been merged with the General Boards and most of the others have been affected by the trend toward such mergers and the pooling of missionary interests in the denomina- -tions. It is not possible.at present to determine just what-the effect -will be. – The experiment-i'S too new. The women –who -have g.one
WOMAN'S PLACE IN MISSIONS FIFTY YEARS AGO AND NOW l09
into the General Boards are women who received their training in the woman's missionary organizations and are their highest product. It remains to be seen whether the united' boards will train women who will measure up to these who have developed through responsibility and the power to initiate. It is hardly possible to think of the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A., for instance, being able to work as effectively in a joint way as they have worked in their own separate organizations. Weare not sure that the men, if they really gave women equal power as well as place, would not lose in their efficiency. On the whole women work rather better with women. While they can hold their own fairly well with individual man on most questions, collective man on a Board. is another and a modern problem, and the training of women has not yet fitted them to meet on an equality even if men were ready for full equal status.
We of the '70's were brought up on J. G. Holland's "Mistress of the Manse" and Tennyson's "Princess" which helped to form our feminine complex, inferior or superior as we choose to consider it.
Our place and contribution seem to be at this moment in question. Indeed the whole missionary situation is changing. It is difficult for instance to say what will happen in China. Many Chinese women, educated in our mission schools, are loyal and outspoken in their Christian devotion. They have caught the heroic spirit of their teachers and are realrzing, in this day of trial, all that their Faith means and must mean. Christianity is revolutionary in the highest sense and is the only hope for the women of any land. But revolution without the motive and the method of Christ is dangerous. The women of America have worked wisely under divine leadership for the women of the East. Out of their colleges and training schools are coming the leaders of the new world for men and women. What women have done seems to be fully justified. Already, with these strong groups of Christian leaders, we feel a fellowship with no hint of patronage. We are workers together with God.
The World Day of Prayer has become an i:qstitution and we pray with greater power here because we feel the presence of the Christian women of Asia and Africa with us. Our prayers are the same, our needs the same. And now we unite for the first time in our Study Around the World. Our study book for 1927-28 in Japanese, Ohinese, Urdu and Tamil, Spanish and Burmese, will gather groups of Christian women into one great world study class and we Itll thrill to the thought that after fifty years we Christian women of the wor.Id have achieved our real unity. In Mrs. Platt's book, "A Straight Way Toward Tomorrow," we shall study Child Welfare, The Christian Home, Religious Education, Christian Literature, World Peace and Social Service, great problems for all Christian women.
It is interesting to see that leaders in internationalism now turn to the women of the missionary societies for expert aid. The Vice-president of the League of Women Voters stated in a recent article that women are prepared for citi'zenship and political organization by their work in their women's missionary societies in the country churches where they learned to work together for a cause. Directly and indirectly women's missionary societies have made a great contribution to the world and have strengthened the Church by this contribution. If we separate from the Church the distinctive work of women in the missionary societies the Church wiH feel a great loss. The work of the women is less than sixty years old. There is still much to be done and in these days of consolidation and merger, it is well to remember that we need also to emphasize special· ization. No great plan of men which weakens or lessens this work of women or removes from them responsibility and initiative really marks a gain. To a certain extent some of the mergers have done their best to perpetuate the work of women and may prove to be a g-reat forward movement. On the other hand the Church must not forget that the very success of the organization of women's societies has led to many other organizations of women who offer to church women fields for womanly service which may appeal to them and lessen their service in the Church. Unless the Church has large tasks to assign to its women with the same freedom and representation given men they would better leave the women to their own methods, which are not exactly like those of men. This is especially true of the missionary task. It is a beautiful divine plan of selection that puts women in charge of children and builds up a sisterhood with other women. Some of us who have lived in this work for fifty years are especially thankful for that privilege and are hoping that all the best may go on. The glory of the work catches the imagination of the girl of today as it did that of the girl of fifty years ago. Bobbed hair and short skirts are externals. The girls of the world need the girls of America and the girlhood of our churches needs this appeal for world fellowship and comradeship and sharing of God's best gifts.
It does not matter so much about the older women who love the work enough to do it under almost any form of organization. Their place and contribution are less important than that of our new generation who must assume some share in the world task if it is to be completed and if they are to be complete as Christians. Will they measure up to the standards of fifty years ago? As we left the summer school at Northfield, last month, with the song of 600 camp girls ringing in our hearts, "Follow. follow the Gleam," we felt that we could "Trust all nor be afraid."
WOMAN'S PLACE IN MISSIONS FIFTY yEARS AGO AND NOW
Missionary History Test for December PREPARED BY BELLE M. BRAIN, SCHENECTADY, NEW YORK WHAT IS YOUR SCORE?
T HE following twenty questions may be used to test your knowledge of missionary history during the past fifty years. Grade yourself and your friends by the percentage of correct replies. Twenty cor- rect answers. score 100 per cent, ten correct answers fifty per cent, and RO on. The answers will be found on page 944, but do not consult '(hem until you have graded yourself on your answers. You will be interested to discover vour score.
1. Who'won great favor for missions in China by curing Lady Li, wife of the great viceroy, Li Hung Chang?
2. Whom did Henry M. Stanley pronounce" the greatest missionary since Livingstone"?
3. Who made the first tour of colleges in the United States and Canada in behalf of foreign missions in October, 1886?
4. Who introduced Siberian reindeer into Alaska ~ 5. Who was founder of the China Inland Mission and director of it for forty years?
6. What great mission was founded in Africa as a memorial to David Livingstone?
7. What agent of the American Bible Society gave fifty years to evangelistic work in Latin America, and was twice imprisoned?
8. What great mission was begun in Africa in the same year as THE MIS~.roNARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD was founded '!
9. What mission is farthest north of any in the Western Hem- isphere?
10. What young Moslem convert of Syria died in Arabia under suspicious circumstances that pointed to poisoning, after a brief period of successful work for Christ under Messrs. Cantine and Zwemer?
11. What notable Christian Indian woman founded the Sharada Sadan and Mukti, refuges for Indian widow~?
12. What English woman missionary made a heroic journey into Tibet and came within three days of Lhasa before she was turned back?
]3. Who were the founders of a Protestant mission to the people of Paris which now operates in many parts of France?
14. Who was George Grenfell and what was the name of his mis- sionary boat?
15. Who is Wilfred T. Grenfell and what is the name of his hos- pital ship1 16. Who founded, at Canton, the first asylum for the insane in all China?
17. What South Seas missionary earned more than $25,000 for mis- sions by writing the thrilling story of his life?
18. What native Japanese was educated by a Christian business man of Boston and became a college president?
19. What famous English world traveler became a convert to mis- sions and a large giver to the work as a result of what she saw mis- sionaries doing in non-Christian lands Y • 20. What event occurred in Korea soon after the arrival of Dr.
Horace N. Allen, the first missionary, that gave Christianity its first foothold in that long-closed land?
A MISSIONARY MAP OF CHINA MAD& FIFTY YEARS AGO-FORTY STATIONS
Fifty Years of Protestant Missions In China* A Bird's-Eye View BY REV. ARTHUR H. SMITH, D.D.
T HE seventh decade of the last century was a very unquiet segment of a very unquiet century. The war between France and Germany had set all Europe in commotion, with far-reaching world effects. The five years of civil war in the United States had recently come to an end. There had been discovered great undeveloped capacities for Christian work, more especially among women. In many of the leading American missionary societies, women's boards had been organized., Important changes had recently taken place in China, notably the suppression of the great Tai-ping rebellion, which lasted for fifteen years, devastating four- • In a sketch like this it is essential to take note of a long series of events covering practically the wbole perioo under review which constantly hampered and often stopped missionary work. Lack Of space forbids explanatory comment but a mere mention will convey to the, instructed reader something of the significance of th ese fncldents.- .d.. H. s. 912
<'I1<' TY YEARS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA
• RAILWAYS IN CHINA IN OPERATION • UNDER CONSTRUCTION • CONTRACTED FOR MIS SIO N ARY MA P OF CHI N A TODAY teen out of the eighteen provinces, incidentally destroying some of the finest cities in China and p erhaps twenty million lives.
In 1860 there were perhaps an hundred missionaries pent up in Shanghai awaiting permission to open mission work elsewhere. Some went up the great Yang-tze valley to Hankow, other s to the northern ports of Chefoo, Tientsin, (and Peking), as well as to Newchuang in Manchuria. One of the earliest anti-Christian outbreaks was the Tientsin massacre (June, 1870), when ten Roman Catholic sisters of mercy, two priests, the French consul,three other Frenchinen and three Russians were killed. This was due to malicious and libelous reports of the murder of infants.in an orphan asylum. The French consul unwisely refused to aHow an J
official Chinese inspection. The outcome was the wrecking by a mob not only of the Roman Catholic cathedral, but of eight Protestant chapels. For more than a year foreigners were not allowed to enter the city of Tientsin. This occurrence and other smaller ones of a like kind in other provinces, kept the Chinese mind in a condition of perpetual ferment. The audience question, involving the nature of the ceremonies by which the young emperor received the foreign ministers, was regarded by the Chinese as a matter of :first impor- tance, and until this was settled (June 1873) and for some time after, the air was thick with rumors of impending disaster. A visit to Peking by American scientists to observe the transit of Venus ended , in their precipitate retreat to avoid an "incident."
A CHINESE CITY IN 1877- CANTON In the summer of 1874 the whole empire was excited by the prospect of a war with Japan in consequence of the massacre of :fifty sailors in the Liuchiu (Riukiu) Islands, but this was adjusted by the good officers of the British minister, Sir Thomas Wade. In January, 1875, the death of the enfeebled young emperor from smallpox, and the irregular and arbitrary action of the Empress Dowager T:;ju Rsi placing her little nephew (who was of the wrong generation) upon the throne, caused general popular perturbation. In the same year the premeditated official murder (on the borders of Burma) of a young British consular officer named Margary, again brought Ohina to the verge of war with Great Britain, but the matter was at last settled, after some dramatic episodes, by a heavy indemnity (silver taels 200,000) and the compulsory opening of several new ports,. to the intense dissatisfaction of the Chinese intelligentsia.
In the autumn of 1877 the baleful shadow of famine was thrown
927] FIFTY YEARS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA
over several of the provinces of Northern China. Many missionaries and some other foreigners threw themselves into the work of giving local relief, but on a scale necessarily limited. The Chinese Government did practically nothing, some officials definitely forbidding foreign intervention, no matter how many died of starvation in consequence! The province of Shansi was the greatest sufferer. Millions of Chinese died of "famine fever" (often a combination of typhoid and typhus) till the population was visibly diminished. The fever was fatal to almost every foreigner who contracted it. Yet this great calamity though deeply disguised was a blessing to A CHINESE CITY TODAY-HANYANG NEAR HANKOW China, proclaiming in portentous tones the absolute necessity of introducing railways, but it was not until twenty years later that the first line was opened.
Floods of the great rivers in China have for ages been a destructive heritage from the past. One of the most calamitous overflows of the Yellow River (popularly known as "China's Sorrow") occurred in 1888, when the turbid torrent broke its banks rushing off to the south, as in ancient times. This event again brought foreign relief to the front on a large scale. The only radical remedy would be in scientific engineering of which China had then no experience and for which it had no resources, and no ambition. (The analogy between the problems of the Yang-tze and the Yellow River and the Mississippi and Missouri is at present very striking.) In the middle "eighties" there was a quarrel between FraI).c,e
and China, accompanied by much slaughter of unresisting Chinese although no war had been declared! This difficult matter was at last mediated (in 1885) by the aid of Sir Robert Hart. In the next decade there was the war with Japan, in which China was decisively beaten at Pingyang (Korea) and lost her navy, paying a heavy indemnity in addition. A little later came the spasm of reform in the young emperor Kuanghsii, his twenty-seven spectacular decrees followed by imprisonment for the rest of his life by his imperious aunt. Then followed in rapid succession the German sei'zure of Chiao chou, the ., Boxer" uprising in retaliation, the fifty-six days of siege of all the legations in Peking, the deliverance (Aug. 14th, 1900) by allied troops, the flight of the Empress Dowager, the slow settlement by A MISSIONARY BOARDING SCHOOL FOR BOYS, SHANGHAI, Il-' 1877 peace commissioners fining China four hundred and fifty million taels ($333,900,000) spread over nine and thirty years, with a view to preventing her fnrther effective antagonism for at least one generation. This was followed by the return of the Empress Dowager with the court, her belated adoption of the very reforms that she had suppressed, a national parliament, provincial councils, and somewhat later the doubtless prearranged death of the emperor, followed at once by the death of the Empress Dowager herself, removing the most prominent figure in contemporary Asiatic history. Then three more years of misrule, the premature and preposterous "Chinese Republic," the disappearance of China's one "Strong Man" Yuan Shih K'ai, the succession of military satraps, followed by the slow evolution under the lead of Sun Yat-sen of the so-called National Party determined to put an end to this ruinous tyranny at whatever cost. This is one of the main issues now turning China
FIF'l'Y YEARS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA
into an armed camp. The other and not less important one is escape from overt and covert foreign domination.
In a mere charcoal sketch of missions in China, only the most general outlines are admissible. Numerical summaries are particu· larly irrelevant and misleading, for in the crisis through which China is passing it is impossible to forecast the conditions of the next five years, or even two years.
F'ifty years ago the interdenominational and intemational China Inland Mission had but recently entered on its unique enterprise. At the close of the half century its workers, together with those of various affiliated missions, numbered more than a thousand, widely A .!ISSIONARY BOARDING SCHOOL FOR GIRLS IN 1927 spread over China. Almost every society of importance has ex· panded its work and increased its agents.
In 1876 there were in China twenty-nine missionary societies with four hundred and seventy-three workers. In the latest Christian Year Book (1926) there were 8,158 workers, who are connected with more than two hundred organizations of the most varied types. Some of the small societies are sponsored by single individuals, others by solitary churches. In such cases the death of a patron, a change of pastorates, 0" anyone of many other causes might easily result in the suspension of the work, or its submergence in some more stable body. In the Christian Year Book, it is shown tha t since 1918 eleven units have disappeared (seven having united wit.h others) but on the other hand twenty-one new ones have been listed!
The development of a new national consciousness in China has extended to the Christian Church, which is now effectively taking into
its own hands its complete administration. There are many indications that this means radical readjustments in Christian missions in that land. In The Chinese Recorder for May-June, 1927, there was published a Preliminary Statement of the Committee of the Hangchow Christian Union, composed of members of five different churches, that of the Church Missionary Society (low church Anglican), the China Inland Mission, the American Presbyterian North & South, and the American Baptist, North. (At the Edinburgh Confer- Gnce of 1910 one of the most outstanding Christians in China, Dr. Ch'eng Chingyi, gave as one of the "seven points" of his brief address: "Denominational distinctions do not interest us Chinese"). In view of their future importance it is necessary to quote these findings of this pioneer committee.
1. SEPARATE FROM THE WESTERN CHURCH. (Basis of freedom and independ- ence.) . 1. A Church with sovereign rights. ?. Independence in government. 3. Iniiependence in finances.
II. ELIMINATE DENOMINATIONS. (Discontinue those religious practices and customs that have been brought from the West which becloud the Christ that we know.) 1. Follow Christ. 2. Unify the creeds. 3. Unify forms and ceremonies.
III. ESTABLISH THE CHINESE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. (Take over church author- ity.) 1. The Chinese Christian Church should have a unified system of organ· ization. 2. It should meet the needs of the Chinese people.
IV. THE ATTITUDE TOWARD THE FRIENDLY CHURCHES OF THE WEST. (Ask them to assume the place of a guest.) 1. Foster the original friendship. 2. Do not interfere with their preaching the gospel, but they should not establish churches, give baptism, or compromise our sovereignty. 3. As to the control of schools and hospitals, we will leave those matters to the government to decide. 4. If the Western churches wish to help in the matter of supplying workers and money, the appointment and distribution of the saine must be left to us.
V. THE METHOD OF INAUGURATION. 1. This plan will first be tried in Hangchow. 2. The five churches in Hangchow will each announce their separation from their original relationships. 3. All five churches will unite and organize the Hangchow Christian Church. 4. The matters of creed, ceremonies, and the details of organization must be presented and discussed a month in advance, after which they may be passed by the whole body and put into operation.
It has been said that politically the Chinese have "hurdled a century." In view of plans like this (of which there are several) it
FIF'£Y YEARS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA
might be added that they are also planning to short-circuit Chinese history. If anything like this program is carried out instead of twohundred different Protestant bodies working in China there may be very few. Those which the Chinese can not or will not assimilate will be obliged to retire.
It is a perfectly rational question. What has the introduction of Christianity done for China '! What has Christianity done for any country~ What did it do for the Armenians, the first people to accept it~ vVhat for Greece, for the Roman Empire, for medieval Europe, for modern Europe7 Inquiries like these can not be answered offhand, nor without prolonged study, and a well balanced judgment.
The benefits of Christianity are not the less real because in every Prom an old copy of The PreSbyterian Foreign Missionary. MISSIONARY TRAVELING IN NORTH CHINA IN 1877 age they are ridiculed, undervalued, denied and despised, as perhaps they will be to the end of time. Christianity produces beautiful lives unmatched by anything found elsewhere. This it has done in China as in other lands, alike in the ancient Greek Catholic, the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant churches. It has taught a reasonable as well as a scriptural idea of God, quite new to China. It has given an explanation of sin of which China's religions took little or no account. It brings the news of Salvation, and of the indwelling and outworking Spirit of God in the soul of man.
Christianity has given a new conception of holy motherhood, of the beauty of childhood, and the worth of the individual as taught by the Master, never hitherto within the scope of Oriental thought. The Christian Church with its firm but gentle authority over the inner as well as the outer lives of men and of women, a weekly day of physical rest, mental recreation, and spiritual uplift, its regular
oral religious instruction for old and for young on life's duties and opportunities, opening to all men the spiritual inheritance of thousands of years of Christian and pre-Christian experience in sermon, story and song-all these are God's best gifts to a wearied and dis couraged age. Christianity has taught mothers how to care for their infants, and parents how to train their children, supplementing and vastly expanding and uplifting China's ancient system of education. It has taught China to care for her sick and disabled by the aid of modern appliances. It has introduced new therapeutic principles and practice on an unexampled scale. It has taught the importance and the necessity of universal education. Chinese educational ideals have always been lofty but limited. '1'here was practically no provision for teaching girls, the coming mothers of scholars and statesmen, although in a few exceptional instances women in China have attained scholarship and influence. The humble day-school for boys and girls, and also the Sunday-school have been the theory and the practice o,f each mission station in China, which has in reality been a dynamo radiating in every direction light, heat and electricity, and doing it all the time. The ,western-educated women in China, who have come in ever-increasing numbers, have been an object lesson, whether as wives, as educators, as physicians, or as trained nurses, wise and winning, strong and sweet, God's best gift to the twentieth century. Chinese girls, at first too shy to leave their humble homes, have now for decades been educated in Christian schools, have gone to foreign lands, and although relatively few in number have exerted immense influence upon their return to China.
The work of any earnest missionary" who seed immortal bears," is never easy. He has this treasure in earthen vessels. It is a truism that his real troubles begin with his first convert. He knows all too well what it is to have coming upon him daily the care of all the churches. He has longed for the time when that burden should be lifted by the evolution of an "indigenous church," now already well on the way to realization, but in widely differing degrees. The many bitter attacks upon the Church in China, and upon Christianity, are not so much due to dissatisfaction with its teachings, although that exists often upon a great scale, as to the behavior of those who have advocated it, but whose actions have not always squared with its precepts. It was once supposed that nations possessing and professing such a lofty moral teaching as Christianity seems to be, must be ideal. That superstition is extinct-extinguished by bitter experience!
The Christian Church in China will endure and come forth from its fiery ordeal purified and strengthened. But it is possible that large successes in Christian work in China will await the time when America, at least, has set her own house in order and has become in a more real sense a Christian nation. and Now BY REV. STEPHEN J. COREY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI Vice President of the United Christian Missionary Society I N ADDITION to the spiritual appeal to prayer for the mission- ary enterprise there has always been the two-fold appeal for life to be dedicated to the service and for gifts to support the cause.
vVhat were the fundamental factors on which the appeal for missions was based fifty years ago~ What is the basis of the appeal at the present time~ Some of the elements of the appeal were more clear cut a half century ago, than at present moment when the whol~ enterprise is passing through a period of change and readjustment.
1. PERMANENT ELEMENTS IN THE ApPEAL There are factors in the missionary appeal which are fundamental and unchanging. They lie at the basis of all sending of the Gospel. The emphasis may have shifted, but they endure in the very foundations of Christianity. These are: The compulsion of divine love, the need of all men for God, the inadequacy of the non-Christian religions, the power of Jesus Christ to save, the imperative call of the Great Commission, the inherent missionary principle of Christianity itself and the results of the missionary enterprise in individual redemption, in social uplift, in education and in the overthrow of human injustice. These permanent factors in the missionary challenge form a broad and enduring appeal. They cannot rightly be discarded because of any change which may take place in human conditions. When the Church came to a consciousness of its missionary responsibility, more than a hundred years ago, all of these elements of appeal were expressed except the last. When measurable results began to be recorded, this appeal for human justice and higher education began to emerge. In the new missionary era of the present day, it behooves us to hold fast the unchanging realities of our missionary faith and appeal. Important as are some of the new elements, here are factors which fit into all periods and all conditions. To abandon them would mean a loss of faith and would bring disaster to the cause.
There are, however, changing factors in foreign missions work, brought about by rapidly shifting world conditions, which not only alter the emphasis in the missionary appeal, but may even bring into it different elements.
Fifty years ago the missionary cause knew nothing of the following realities: the awakened self-consciousness and virile nationalism 921 of Oriental races; the world awareness of once isolated peoples; the rising indigenous church in mission areas; the emergence of native leadership to take many responsibilities once carried by the foreign missionary; the discrediting of Western leadership through the example of so-called" Ohristian" nations; the change from expansive to intensive plans on the fields j the active and virulent non-Ohristian movements in the Far East. No church constituency, no foreign board and no missionary, or missionary leader, can afford to ignore the problems and adjustments necessary because of these changes which are certain to influence the missionary appeal. Changing conditions do not alter the unchanging factors in Foreign Missions, but they supplement and expand the appeal, and affect its impact upon both lif.e and financial support.
II. THE ApPEAL OF FIFTY YEARS AGO The missionary challenge of half a century ago was more subjective and simple than the challenge of today. It reflected the theology and outlook of religious thinking and preaching in those days, just as the present challenge is colored by those concepts of today. Someone has wisely said, "Men did not analyze motives and were not as psychological fifty years ago as now." The preaching then laid more emphasis on the life to come, while today the preaching is largely concerned with the life that now is. The missionary appeal then, dwelt largely on the lost condition of non-Ohristian people, while today their present intellectual and social needs are emphasrzed. One of the oldest missionary leaders writes, "So far as J can recall, the prevailing appeal of the missionary meeting and Sunday school fifty years ago was: Far, far away, in heathen darkness dwelling, Millions of souls forever may be lost.
Behind it was the awful significance of the words lost and forever, and all that in the physical sense." He goes on to say that there was also present the higher appeal of our "marching orders." Some no doubt rose into such an intimate fellowship with the eternal Father, who is Love, that they were caught in that great stream of love for a lost world.
Another one of the older men, a retired secretary of one of the oldest Boards who was a missionary fifty years ago, says, "My own impression is that the great change, certainly in our own denomination, is from the emphasis on the future life, to emphasis on life today." He adds, " A secretary of the Board gave an address at one of our annual meetings, in which he pictured the non-Ohristian populations of the world passing in review for days and weeks, and dropping over a precipice into eternal damnation. It was a vivid picture and I imagine it made a strong appeal at that time." A general, interdenominational conference on Foreign Missions, held at Mildmay, London, in October 1878, with delegates from thirtyfive Boards and Societies, gave one whole session to the "Claims of Foreign Missions on the Home Churches."
The appeal as it was presented in that meeting revealed a number of outstanding elements. The most oft-repeated note was the Great Commission of Our Lord and its imperative obligation upon Christian people.
Next in emphasis was the millions of the lost, without hope, hurrying on to judgment, with the compulsion of the fact that out of every three persons in the world two had never seen the Bible or heard of heaven or hell.
Close to the above in emphasis was the assuring success which had already rewarded missionary effort. Then followed the spiritual need of the church at home for the unselfishness and Christ-like spirit which the missionary passion develops. Some other appeals em" phasized were: the duty of taking to others the blessings bestowed upon us;' the social and educational uplift provided by missionary effort; the unifying influence of the missionary task among Protestant Christians; the new means of communication and a more accessible world; our compassion for suffering humanity; our debt to the nations for past neglect. The duty was also emphasized of carrying the Christian elements of our civilization to the uncivilized and unChristian lands.
The literature of forty years ago had a strong element of the crusading spirit in it. 'rhe thought was that Christ's policy for His Church was not one of concentration, but diffusion and that the n regions beyond" should be our cry in a holy and enthusiastic crusade upon the kingdoms of darkness in all the earth. This was followed a little later with the electrifying call of the Student Volunteer Movement, "The Evangelization of the World in this Gener- ation. " III. THE ApPEAL OF TODAY The change of emphasis in the appeal from fifty years ago, as far as theological convictions are concerned, can be accounted for by the different emphasis in modern teaching and preaching, and by the changed views of child psychology. Most religious work today, both at home and abroad, emphasizes the proper training of the child, rather than the snatching of adults from the burning. But other factors in the relation of the missionary cause to a shifting world cannot be so explained.
Fifty years ago, and even in more recent times, the missionary task seemed relatively simple. It had to do with the conversion of, non-Christian people to Jesus Christ and its chief objective was emphasized as the winning of converts and adding them to His Church. 'rypes of missionary work not directly evangelistic, such as healing and education, were considered mainly as keys to unlock the hearts of people for evangelism. Today the work of Foreign Missions is decidedly complex. The closer contact of the East with the West, the presence of many foreign students in America, the nationalistic movements in nearly all mission fields, the handicap to the Christian appeal because of the unChristian political and industrial relation- ships of so-called Western Christian nations with the East, have all added to the problems of the work.
The missionary enterprise cannot longer be looked upon only as a crusade to bring the whole world in line with Christianity as interpreted in the West. It is now recognized as including the task of penetrating the Oriental world with the spirit and teaching of Christ, for both individual and social life. Its base line is the conversion of the individual to Christ, but its imperative circle includes the transformation of the entire area of Oriental thinking and living, through the cleansing power of the Christ life. This is a vastly greater undertaking than missionary work as conceived of by most people a half century ago. It demands a more comprehensive appeal that must challenge a consecration both in life and substance, commensurate with the larger undertaking.
Our Lord said to His disciples, "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he thrust forth laborers into his harvest." That call to prayer is as insistent today as in the first century, but we must pray wisely. Until recently most of our praying has been as though the laborers were all to go out from the home base. It is now evident that such is not the case. "While missionaries must still go to foreign lands, th,ey must be fewer and better equipped, and proportionately greater numbers of native leaders must take up the work. Perhaps the greatest challenge to our faith in missionary effort tod!lY, is for a new realization that our support must be invested more largely in the service performed by brothers whom we have not seen. Our giving for the spread of the Gospel must find its objective increasingly in the wise undergirding of native Christian work on the field. The major part of the enterprise can no longer center in the support of the foreign missionary. We should frankly face the issues involved. This is due the work itself, the home constituency, and the young American life which stands ready to go and serve in distant lands.
The major factors affecting the number of new missionaries needed at the present time for service abroad may be catalogued as follows: 1st. While the expense of carrying on missionary work has greatly increased since the "Vorld War, due to changed economic conditions throughout the world, missionary giving has remained very much at a level for the last six years. Missionary budgets have therefore either remained stationary, or have been cut-some of them drastically. As a result fewer new missionaries have been sent out. This decrease has also affected the native work on the fields. This cannot be longer endured if the work is to be preserved. Boards are, therefore, receiving the message from their fields, "Send us no new missionaries, except to fill emergencies, until our budgets can be largely increased for the regular work."
2nd. We formerly thought of missionary expansion hugely in terms of new missionaries, new fields occupied, and new stations opened. Most Boards and missions are now thinking of enlargement in terms of strengthening what has already been established. In other words, for the time being at least, the Foreign Missions program must be intensive instead of expansive. It is quite generally recognized that to put large additional sums of money into an enlarged staff of missionaries just now, would jeopardize instead of help the work.
3d. The prayers of the past are being answered. An indigenous church, self-supporting and self-directing, is arising. It is a slow prOCt~SS and foreign missionaries will be needed for many years, but the change is taking place. It is doubtful whether a largely increased staff of missionaries would help in this readjustment, even though the money was available to send them.
4th. Then we have Ohina and the great crisis in Ohristian missions there. Even at the very best, with missionaries invited back within a comparatively short period, it is evident that Ohina will nepd no increase in the present number of missionaries for years to come.
Thus the appeal for enlargement and more adequate support for Foreign Missions, cannot at present go hand in hand with a call for ~. largely increased missionary staff. This perhaps is the most vital change in the missionary challenge. What ever may be the reason, the call to "evangelize the world in this generation," which was the stirring appeal of thirty years ago, no longer successfully challenges the Ohurch to give, or its young life to go. Any such plan of wholesale evangelization seems now to be both impracticable and superficial. Evangelization does not go by generations even at home and the kingdom builds infinitely more slowly in non-Ohristian lands.
THE OHALLENGE OF THE HOUR What then must be the distinctive challenge of this hour1 From every side comes the answer, "It must be Jesus Ohrist Himself." This' is of course not a new appeal, but a re-emphasis in singleness of devotion and inclusiveness of purpose, of the fundamental call which is at the heart of all appeals. Our line of attack must be shortened and the diffused factors in our appeal must be brought to a focus. While retaining and proclaiming the majority of the elements in the challen,l('e of former years, we must make them all center in Christ. To live His life in America is the one great vindication for carrying His message abroad; to make Him known to those who know Him not is the one challenge and inspiration of the Christian missionary. Handicapped as we are by, the pagan elements in our Western civilization and revealed to the East more surely in our sins than in our grace, what have we to take that will endure the fierce fire of present day refining, other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the life of men~ The appeal to young life to go out to this task of revealing Christ must not be to a militant crusade, but to a supreme devotion to the living Christ who is indispensable to the West as well as tothe East. The appeal to the Church at home must be the same-the call to take Jesus Christ, the only adequate answer to fundamental human need and the only dynamic and apologetic for the missionary task.
We must emphasize this appeal. Here is where a crusade is in order. The mechanism of our budget systems is leaving a multitude of the Christian, people of this decade without light. In many churches no worthy appeal for missions is made whatever, and the fact that the Cause has tJeen written into the budget, is taken for proof that the problem of giving for missions is settled. No appeal is effective unless it is presented. Even the command of Ohrist to go into all the world finds its imperative obligation only in knowledge. In many a church a sermon on the Great Oommission and its adaptation to the modern missionary situation, would be a startling novelty. The budget system for missions is not an appeal, but a helpful mechanical device. It makes education even more necessary than before, because the sharp point of specific and definite appeal is largely gone. If the missionary banners ever needed lifting, the present hour demands it. A new crusade is imperatively needed at home to set forth Ohrist as the one Hope of all the world, and the universal penetration of His life and teaching as inherent in Ohristianity, basic in the teaching of the New Testament, and imperative in our Lord's command.
CHRIST CALLS FOR BOYS AND MEN Christ's plea as it was heard by J. M. Coon at St. Petersburg, Fla.
For My world task, greatest of all Men, true men like Paul, are sorely the tasks needed now Of earth, I need great men and gifts In this earth's crucial hour. Awake, to match. o Church and hear! Render unto God the men who are God's Send Me your men, your princely, venturous men; E'en though it mean a taking of the cross. Send men; for they give aU who first give self. I am ready, My great apostle said, 1 must have men-the Lindbergh Going the way of sacrifice and death; type of men; Nor counted he his life a thing tQ Only so can I win this lost world. spare. Now so in need of glorious achieve- ment.
Send men of prayer, obedience and towering faith.
Frr;rn The Presbyterian Home lJ-I1I.ssionarll
HOW MISSIONARIES TRAVELED ACROSS THE WESTERN PRAIR.lES FIFl'Y YEARS AGO Half Century of Progress in Home Missions BY REV.•JOHN A. MARQUIS, D.D., NEW YORK General Secretary of the Board of National Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.
I T IS difficult to distinguish between progress in Home Missions and progress in the Church at large. Home Missions is simply the vanguard of the Church. Its business is to introduce the Church and to so establish it that it will become self-functioning and self-sustaining within definite areas. This accomplished, Home Missions within these areas ceases. The height of progress in Home Missions, therefore, is to work itself out of a job, and this it has been been doing in one area after another from the beginning, and especially during the past fifty years. Its mandate is to furnish the privileges of the Christian religion to the religiously underprivileged communities and peoples of the home land. These privileges include t.he whole gamut of the service that the Gospel of Christ is intended to render to mankind, of faith and worship and welfare, and institutions competent to promote them. These are the mission of the Church to the world :-to call men to faith, to maintain worship and to advance the well-being of man in all the relationships of his life. ·When a community, or a people, have been brought to the place where they are able and willing to do these things for themselves, they are 927
no longer religiously underprivilege~ and pass beyond the boundary of Home Mission responsibility.
A study of the efforts of the Church within these fields, that is, in Home Missions, reveals lines of undoubted progress, among which we mention the following: 1. Placing the Chtlrch. During the fifty years just past the American nation has gone through one of the most remarkable developments of. history. Its population has more than doubled, for one thing, and for another, its people have penetrated to every nook and corner of its vast territorial extent. Still more, it has gone through an equally remarkable transition in type, and instead of be- HOW MISSIONAR~ES TRAVE!L ACROSS THE PRAIHIES 1'ODAY ing prevailingly agricultural and rural, as it was fifty years ago, it has become prevailingly industrial and urban. It has been the task of Home Missions to keep up with these developments and changes. New communities were created by the hundred almost over night, some of them of the old type of rural community, and in recent years there have been many of a new type of industrial community, peopled largely by immigrants of a class entirely unknown to America before. It has been the task of Home Missions to furnish these communities with churches and to maintain them until they were able to maintain themselves. In view of the magnitude and difficulty of the task it has been creditably done, not fully by any means, but it has been done as well as could reasonably be expected. Morerthan 90% of the new Protestant churches created to meet the growth and spread of the population during this period were organized})y
1927J HALF CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN HOME MISSIONS
Protestant Home Mission agencies and supported by them until they were able to go alone; not a few of them are now among the strong- est and most influential churches in America.
Unfortunately in many places the matter was overdone. Oom- munities that needed but one church were supplied with severalto the weakening of religion and giving occasion for ridicule by the ungodly. We may as well confess that much of this overchurching was due to sheer denominational rivalry-or if rivalry be an offen- sive term, call it denominational zeal. Each denomination was afraid to be left out. Expansion was a mania. Every little town on the prairie or in the mountains was sure that it was going to be another Ohicago or Denver. The land agents said so, the first settlers believed it, therefore it must be true. Few Home Mission superintendents were willing to take the risk of leaving their denomination out of the first grand rush. So they generally all entered on the ground floor- to discover later that it was a very small floor with slim prospects of its ever becoming roomier.
While- much of this needless multiplication of churches was due to miscalculation of the future, some of it, perhaps a good deal of it fifty years ago, had conscience of a sort behind it. There were then, and there are still, denominational representatives who feel it their religious duty to place a church of their persuasion in any com- munity, no matter how well churched it may be already, where a handful of its adherents call for it. They seem to be possessed of the notion that God is a member of their denomination, and will not enter a community unless it is represented. Happily such leaders are a diminishing element today, and ere long will doubtless dis- appear altogether j so we thank God and take courage. One of the big problems that Home Mission leaders are struggling with today is to rectify these mistakes, and they are doing it. Fifty years ago the statesmanship of a superintendent, and of a denomination, for that matter, was gauged by the number of new churches organized.
Our guess is that it will not be long until the test will be the number of needless churches closed and the amount of energy and money put into them that is transferred to places where there is both need and room.
Despite all this, the Home Mission forces during the past fifty years did a great piece of work in following the American people in their migrations with the Ohurch, including all that the presence of a church in a community means of religious instruction, public worship and evangelistic appeal. What the civilization of the new states in the West owes to this fact is beyond appraisal. It is worth noting also that it is from these states that our American civilization gets its. strongest Christian emphasis; We are thjnkingat this point, to be sure, only of what has been done during the past half century for what we may call people of our American stock, those who speak 4 .
/ the English language and generally cherish Protestant traditions. In the main, Home Missions has cared for them well as they have spread over the continent. When they have trekked to the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, or to the gold fields of Alaska, the home mis- sionary has gone with them and done his best to care for their souls.
2. M'inistering to the Diaspora. America has had many such during our fifty-year period, and has them yet, people so scattered on the prairie or the mountains that a church among them is impossible. In many cases they are so far apart that they cannot be said to have a community. Then there are those who live in temporary communities, such as lumber cutters, seasonal workers such as migrant harvesters and toilers in canneries, and the foreign-speaking immigrant, who because of his language disability is more isolated than any of them. Among these throughout the whole of the fifty years the itinerant missionary has been going, establishing Sunday schools, distributing religious literature and visiting them as he could. The achievements of these years could not have been won without the Oircuit Rider. He is still riding in widening circuits, and to remote corners, the mightiest kingdom builder the American Church has yet produced.
3. Collateral Service. From the beginning the Ohurch has carried educational and humanitarian institutions as a necessary part of her program. In the field of American Home Missions the establishment and maintenance of schools, hospitals, dispensaries, houses of neighborly service, etc. is almost wholly a development of the last fifty years. At the beginning of the period they were practically non-existent as Home Mission enterprises. Today they bulk large in all our programs. They are confined to communities and peoples who could by no sort of consideration support such institutions themselves. They are among the American Indians, in Alaska, in the mountains of the South and Southwest, in isolated immigrant communities and particularly among the vast Negro population of the South. They are rendering an immense humanitarian as well as religious ministry to the neglected and underprivileged peoples of the country. The evangelistic programs of the churches in the regions they serve are vastly stronger because of them. Hundreds of workers are employed in this form of Home Missions today, and millions of dollars raised and expended in its support, and practically all of it the contribution of the last fifty years. . Ooincident with this, and largely because of it, has been the emergence of organized Home Mission work on the part of the women of the churches. Perhaps the most outstanding and challenging mark of progress in the period under discussion is the educational and medical work carried on by the women's missionary societies. It has grown and prospered and served under their management in a way that has a right to be called providential.
HALF CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN HOME MISSIONS
From an olel OOIlJl of The Presbyterian Home Mia8kmary. MORMON FAMILY LIFE IN UTAH FIFTY YEARS AGO 4. Specialization. Another product of the fifty years in question is the development of specialized forms of Home Mission service, the discovery, to speak after the manner of scientists, of a new technique for attacking new problems. As already intimated the population of the country during the period has been in a state of flux. The American finds it hard to stay put so far as his place of habitation is concerned. The opening up of the rich agricultural lands of the West caught the imagination of the old type of farmer in New England and the Middle Atlantic States, and he took the advice of Horace Greeley and trekked westward by the thousand. Into his place, if his place was taken at all, there moved, in many localities, a man from Eastern or Southern Europe who knew nothing about, and rarely could be interested in, the church he found there. Along with this came the rise of industrialism. Factories and mining companies took possession of the corn fields and meadows and were manned nearly altogether by foreign labor.
This shift of population and occupation created two problems for the Home Mission forces: One to follow the old American to his Western home, and the other to take care of the new Americans who
swarmed in from Europe to take his place, or to work in the" infant industries." The former could generally be solved by the old methods, but the latter was impervious to them. It was, and is, a bewildering business, and it would be going afield to say as yet that any Home Mission leader clearly sees his way out. But experiments have been made and new met,hods of attack invented which have made some dent on the problem. Such ventures as the specialized rural parish plans and the community center projects in immigrant settlements have shown an encouraging degree of success where they have been seriously tried. At any rate there is now in process of development a technique for getting the old Gospel into these new situations which promises enough success to warrant a more vigorous trial than it has yet received. The Apostle Paul approached people with the Gospel on the basis of their psychological and sociological conditions, and the Mission Boards are simply trying to do the same thing in pursuing the new methods of which they are often suspected and for which severely criticised. Paul preached the same Gospel in Athens he did iIi Jerusalem but with a different approach. Our conviction is very deep that all this development, which is the product of the last few years, means progress for Home Missions and the Ohurch among the most difficult people they have to deal with.
Another progressive step of recent years deserves prominent mention, viz., the vastly more effective organization for Home Missions now obtaining in the cities of the country. In many of the major cities definite and well-manned church-extension movements have been set up which are attempting to deal with their problems in a scientific and thorough-going way. The modern city in America is a heart-breaking affair for Home Missions. It is a new phenomenon in both our church and national life. In most of the larger ones the foreigner and his children constitute from 50% to 80% of the population. They herd together in ghettos and districts which give them a solidarity of resistance exceedingly hard to break or even to crack. But here, again, the church extension agencies have made themselves real boards of strategy and are trying out every- thing they can think of to get the Gospel of Ohrist in all its fullness. before the polyglot minds of these dense populations.
5. Interdenominational Cooperation. This is the most hearten- ing and hopeful sign of progress above the horizon today in Home Missions. It is a conviction that year by year has been ripening into> a policy. Less than two decades ago there were formed the "Home Missions Oouncil II and the" Council of W Ollien for Home Missions, I ~ whose specific purpose it was, and is, to promote cooperation among the agencies at work. Today these councils comprise more than nine . tenths of the Boards and Agencies of Protestantism. They are weH organized and officered and well supported by the agencies which belong to them. Fifty years ago such an arrangement would not have
been possible, had anybody thought of it, which nobody did. In the short period of their existence these Councils have done some notable things. They have brought their constituent Boards, for one thing, to a knowledge and appreciation of what each is doing. If a stranger twenty years ago had read the report of anyone of the Boards to its denomination he would never have suspected that anything was being done by anybody else. Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and so on to the end of the list, each reported their own work without any hint that others were in the vineyard. This is all changed today. The reports without exception, so far as I have been able to examine them, contain sections devoted to cooperative work and agreements, together with statements of the amount of money appropriated to these ends.
To be sure competition has not been remedied, it has not been entirely prevented in new fields, but it has been abated. More than that, a new attitude of mind has been created toward it. Weare ashamed of it today, and when it occurs we hunt round for an excuse or somebody else to blame it on. The Home Mission agency that pushes into a field already occupied by other denominations is on the defensive, which is a new thing under the sun in interdenominational relations.
The movement toward mutual understanding and cooperation has gone much further in the large cities than elsewhere. In many of them there is what amounts to a contract that new enterprises shall be located by mutual consent. Inter-church federations have been formed to foster comity and united effort, and they are becoming increasingly influential and dominant.
A notable instance of effective cooperation is what is now going on in the Republic of Santo Domingo, probably the most neglected spot in the two Americas. About six years ago a proposal was made to go into the Island jointly. It was immediately accepted by five Boards: Two Methodist (men's and women's), two Presbyterian (now one) and the United Brethren. An independent Board, called "The Board of Christian Work in Santo Domingo" was chartered, the members of which are elected by the participating Boards. The participating Boards also furnish the necessary funds, but they do not administer the work; that is done entirely by the new Board. The enterprise is prospering under this arrangement, and no one concerned with it would think of going back to the old denominational way.
As a matter of sober fact denominational over-lapping is disappearing from the field of Home Missions. There is today far more of it among self-supporting churches than among those receiving aid from Home Mission funds. The remedy is public opinion within the churches. Due to the precedents set by the Home Mission forces such public opinion is rising and is already making itself felt.
These are some of the lines of progress that characterize the Home Mission work of the evangelical churches in America during the past half century. Others deserve mention and treatment did space permit; the contribution to evangelism, for example, and to the growth in church membership during the fifty years. While the population of the country has doubled the membership of the evangelical churches has quadrupled. ')'he Home Mission churches have led the procession in this gain, their percentage rate of increase on profession of faith being from two to three times that of the churches at large. Mention should also be made of the development of a body of forceful and well-trained Home Missions local executives, who are more and more being looked to for leadership within their From an vtd OOPJI of The Presbyterian. Home M0£8sWnary. MINNEAPOLIS A HALF-CENTURY AGO areas in all that pertains to the general welfare of the churches, such as evangelism and benevolence.
In a large sense these years in America, like the whole of the nineteenth century, bear a significant resemblance to the first year of our Lord's earthly ministry. They have been a time of preparation, a period granted us by the Captain of our Salvation to gird and equip ourselves for a vaster, nobler service to all mankind in the years to come. The whole history of America thus far means this if it means anything in the providence of God: getting ready for a planet-wide, human-deep campaign of redemption such as has been carried forward by the Christian forces of no other nation before us. Will the next fifty years see this campaign fully launched 1
®. ~hWU""B'UEWST
EFFICIENCY POINTS FOR A NEW YEAR'S WORK The Peace of Goodwill move" than in present-day activities The distinguishing note of Christ- of church missionary organizations.
mas is comprehended in the message "The faithful few"-all honor to that marked the advent of Him who their genus-are fast becoming ex- was born in Bethlehem-" Peace and tinct as we line up the whole church Good Will." Peace can come only lor missions and the recruiting goes from go~d will. III will produces dis- cheerily on, from the wee cradle cord, bItterness and strife. The rollers to their grandparents. Goose- world's yearning today is for peace. flesh sentimentality is being replaced Every experiment has been tried, by a sensible estimate of the mission- every nostrum suggested to effect it ~ry as a person of normal psychology, but it seems still an evanescent dream: In a gOIng concern, subject to the Perhaps that is because we have same l~ws a~ ~hose that r-overn any lacked the good will that alone can other hIgh spIrItual endeavor. "Fling produce it. Said the late President out the Banner" and "The Morning Harding to me on one occasion: Light is Breaking" have drowned "The Gospel of Understanding alone out certain oft-used old-time hymns will insure a tranquil world." The that used to die a doleful death alter Gosp~l of Understanding, yes, under- five or six stanzas of quavering pathos.
standIng that is based upon good will. " The usual monthly missionary meet-.
That is the Gospel of Christmas. ing" of twenty-five years ago was With an increasing desire fobrecpoemaicne~ often to be taken, like castor oil, not with world interests fast for the taste but for the effect. Now- more common and its relations more ada:ys missionary meetings are be- intimate, shall we not believe that comIng normal· and correspondingly through men and women of good will attractive. Speed the day when we ~ better and happier understanding shall have to hang outside the door IS presently to be reached? Better the sign, "Standing Room Only." On ~han all the gifts we give or receive J~n.uary first, resolve to bring your IS that sense of happiness and security mlsIonary department a step nearer that proceeds from the consciousness that ideal during 1928. The follow- that men all the world over are com- ing pointers are culled out of reports ing to a better understanding. Shall from some of our most successful mis-.
we not hope, as we enter into the sionary organizations: .
spirit of' a new Christmas day, that Gearing for Efficiency there shall come that reign Ol universal peace and good will of which Progress in any organized endeavor the heralding angels sang?-BrsHoP is marked by ever-increasing correIa, JAMES E. FREEMAN. tion of homogeneous parts, to con- serve power and eliminate lost m()tion. Proclaiming the Messa~~e through the 0 nIy t he most I.ncorrigible champions Local Church of "yesterday forever" still insist on Nowhere do we find more indis- making women '8 work in the local putable !widence that "the world do church an exception. Our ideal should 935
be the creation of a local Board of material to take back to their fields, Missions, with an elective or appoint- for use not only in their own families ive membership, this board to be the but among the native mothers. This general planning and promotional opens a realm of wonderful, world- body for all missionary endeavor in wide possibilities.
the congregation. By no other means "A third group, chiefly with a so- can we secure correlation of effort cial objective, was formed from among and unified, comprehensive planning, business and professional women thus ending the haphazard presenta- obliged to meet in the evenings. Still tion which has been called "the kan- a fourth group, which we like to think garoo method. " But our approach to of as auxiliary to the Women's So- this must be synthetic, building up ciety, consists of the King's Daughters bH by hit. The writer. has yet to of high school age–the chief timbers learn of one instance in which the from which we must build our future amalgamation of the Women's Home organizations.
and Foreign Missionary organizations "There was inevitably some over- and the Ladies' Aid Society failed to lapping, both of membership and in- accentuate the efficiency of all three– terest, with the same broad Kingdom after a reasonable period for convales· objective. 'l'actfully and carefully cense from "growing pains." The these groups were brought closer to- usual gearing provides for one presi- gether until finally they responded dent, with vice-presidents heading with a cordial affirmative to the ques- each subdivision of the work. Some tion, 'Would you like to be affiliated progressive churches have effected as a department of the Women's So- even a higher gear-and, mark you, ciety and make a report at its annual their number will increase. meeting l' Then it became almost a Mrs. Lathan A. Crandall, of the task for an efficiency expert to ar- Hyde Park Baptist Church, serving range the several group meetings to the University of Chicago, writes: avoid conflict of hours and to effect "Some years ago the young pastor's a mingling of the women from all wife became the leading spirit in or- the groups in programs, study and ganizing The Young Married Wom- business: but the growing spirit of en's Group, which afforded interest cooperation proved wonderful, and and work for the element not at- the work, though incomplete, is pro- tracted to the regular Women's So- gressing.
ciety. So successful was the venture "At present, the Women's Society that advancing years brought the has two meetings a month, at the first membership no inclination for pro- of which the women-mostly the motion. So, capitalizing her own ex- senior element-come together for a perience, the organizer in a master program at 2: 30, followed by after- stroke of diplomacy proposed that all noon tea. At the second, the Parent- who had been married ten years Education Group, meets at ten a. m., should voluntarily go into the senior and simultaneously another group society, not making age or motherhood (with time-honored 'Ladies' Aid'
or any of the usual talismans the functions) assembles for White Cross touchstone. or other benevolent sewing. At the "Later, certain mothers of adoles- ensuing luncheon these two groups cent children engaged a psychological are joined by the Young Married expert in child study to conduct a Women's Group, the president of the class, out of which grew a flourishing Women's Society conducting the Parent-Education Group that at- business before leaving the table, as tracted community women from all the relation of the entire gathering churches and no church at all. Re- to the financial budget entitles all cently-a new and thrilling feature– to a voice in the voting. After the wives of missionaries home on fur- luncheon, the Women's Society has lough have asked the expert for its mission study, and the Young Mar-
BEST METHODS
ried Women's Group its individual alone. This card contained the name program meeting. Improvements are of some woman not yet interested in in the air and we hope to be able to the work of the organization, who was report an even more efficient gearing to be wooed (but secretly) by every later. " possible legitimate means, through all Winning the Workers the remaining months. The wooer "Every able-bodied woman in the mailed unique and attractive invita- 'Church an active worker in the Wom- tions to all the meetings, sent Christ- en's Society" is the modern slogan, mas, Easter and, if possible, b~rthday and we may almost glimpse the day cards, signing one and all wlth the when it will be activated. A mission- curiosity-tickling non de plum.e, ary meeting, for instance, is not a 'Your Butterfly Friend.' Imagine thing set apart, a candidate for a the stress of keeping such a secret; modern miracle. It is subject to the and what a craning of necks and Sher- same laws of repulsion, attraction and lock-Holmesing there must have been neutrality as any other aggregation at the meetings. A Butterfly Lunch- of people. W ecannot rely to any eon at which all butterflies came out "'reat extent on "duty" to drive but of 'their cocoons, was the brilliant ;ather on "attraction" to pull. One roundup. It proved one of the most of the strongest lures is that of a successful rally functions ever held.
" job." The problem of attendance In charming invitations the Butterfly might be solved if we could command Friends lured their protegees to the the services of a vocational expert, to church parlors under promise of reye- assign each woman the task for ~hich lation of identity, and later sat beslde her tastes fitted her. To approxlmate them with said protegees as guests of this it is daeustiurmabnle(aatsuthpeer-fairtstt~amc~eievte- honor. The tables were beautifully ing 'of the decorated with flowers over which meeting heralded by personal mVIta- hovered butterflies of every descrip- tions) to pass out enlistment cards tion. Paper napkins bearing gay whereon each guest may check her butterflies were used. The toasts were preferences on a list of all possible all in terms of butterfly development activities, from passing the singing adenldighltiffe~l.anTdo tbe general effect was connect missionarf inbooks, arranging the room attractive- terest with attendance, the commIttee ly, preparing the light refreshme;nts plans presently to give each. wom;:n and serving as hostess, up to holdmg the name of a home or foreIgn mISan office serving on committees and sionary whose birthday falls on the taking a' part on a program. Active same date as her own, and to ask the brains sufficiently cudgeled can set the recipient to cultivate her missionary scenes for a much greater variety in every way possible. Thus what was than is usually afforded; and then at first a mere butterfly interest may with cards marked, the committee of develop into something perm.anen~ amateur experts may make their selec- and enduring 'Butterfly Fl'lends tions and adjustments, and follow up will become 'Birthday Friends.' " the enlistment vigorously b" assigning (Naturally this topic overlaps that of sucthe tasks and seeing to it that they cessful program building, wherein may presare attemped, Two mission circles ently be found more concrete plans for used very successfully "The Butter- solving the problem of church unemploy- fly Enlistment, " for recruiting. Here ment.) it is as described by Mrs. Lucy S. Sugar Coa.ting Mission Study Kyle, Redla'nds, California: '" At the first meeting of the mis- Meaty as our mission study books sion circle year-called 'The Migra- are, only high-class catering can make tion of the Butterflies'-each person them appetizinr>' to every member of was given a little card in a sealed en- the church family. But inasmuch as velope not to be opened until she was the best detached program is to the
study class as a "snack" to a square off in a missionary demonstration. One meal, the catering is well worth while. leader asked five successive questions, How is this for the triumph of a mis- the answer to one and all being' Bensionary chef, as described by Mrs. gal-Orissa,' all shouting the answer Stella M. Ogden of the First Baptist in unison until it took on the char- Church, Galesburg, Illinois T acter and enthusiasm of a college yell. At another table a young lady sang, " Our school of missions was a great 'In the Secret of His Presence'-a success, lasting six weeks with no hymn composed by a Hindu woman. diminution of interest. We began each evening session (which took the "After this the guests visited place of our mid-week prayer meet- elaborate booths which we had preings.) with a fifteen-cent supper, at pared in the Sunday-school class roms, each booth representing a misa quarter past six, and it would sur- sion field in India and their inspecprise you what wonderful meals can tion constituting a tour in miniature. be served at that price. Under a com- We had collected a great variety of petent permanent chairman, various pictures, curios and interesting bits group organizations or Sunday-school of visualized information, made colorclasses served suppers which proved ful posters, etc. ·Well-informed guides a marvel to everybody. There followed or demonstrators presided in the a fifteen-minute recreation period at booths. Thus a vast amount of otherwhich a ~imple group game, like wise 'dry' information was made in- 'buzz,' was played, and then the mis- spiring. I do not recall another sion study classes were held using series of missionary studies of as gen- 'The Christ of the Indian Road.' eral interest as the foregoing." Separate groups were formed for men, older and younger women and Successful PrograDl Building for young people in general, with a story-telling group for the younger Inspiration and information, mobilchildren. A different leader presented ized always by interest, must be the lesson chapter each week, and dis- balanced on effective programs. A cussion was free and animated. prayerful, consecrated spirit must be maintained throughout: but let no "Following this we were called to- one think the North Star will skid gether in the assembly room for a ten- from its course if the normal, wholeminute' pep period.' One meeting had some elements of humor, impersona- 'Peppy Pointers from Burma; an- tion and dramatization are in- troduced. Above all things, do not other, 'Some Pertinent Facts from the think a deeply spiritual leader must Missionary Quiz Book'; another was look like an undertaker or the chief a map lesson on the mission fields of mourner at her own funeral. No India, and at another, a returned mis- suspension of natural law is to be sionary and wife gave a Chinese fairy counted on inside a misionary meetstory, the missionary relating it in ing. People will be attracted only the native tongue and his wife trans- along the line of their natural interlating sentence by sentence. ests, and you may as well study and prepare to cater to these first :;s last. "We aimed to make our last night You are safe, however, in presupposa climax. The beautifully decorated ing a mixed appetite, even to the tables were designated for our several craving for a sprinkle of paprika or fields in India. The menu was, so far a dash of Lea and Perrins Sauce; but as possible, an Indian one-including first make sure that the food supplied rice, of course. Each guest upon ar- is worth the seasoning. Inasmuch as derival was furnished with pencil and sire for freshness and variety is nornaper and bidden to make a collection mal, keep the old-time traditionalists of forty facts from among those typed off the program committee. Make the and strewn over tables and church meetings short. Ordinarily a program parlors. Then the several supper tables were presided over by 'stunt leaders.' each responsible for leading
should be limited to an hour, exclusive "The letters may be collected at the of business (even that should be close and used again at subsequent "snappy"), and the participants meetings, possibly throughout the should be held to time though the year, guests drawing different letters heavens fall. "Talked to Death" is each time and thus getting the basal the unseen inscription on many a idea of universal service fixed."
mission circle monument. "The field A Unique Investment: "At any is the world"; but it is a mistake to convenient landmark of time-as the try to get it all into one capsule. Giv- first autumn meeting or the first one ing everybody something to do is a of the calendar year-give out num- sure appeal to natural interests. Here bered envelopes inscribed with the is an excellent suggesti()n from one following rules;- of our best known workers, Mrs. Helen Put me in a conspicuous plaee where you Barrett Montgomery; will SBe me every day.
"An Alphabetical Roll Call affords Get acquainted with me and what I am a pleasant variety in a missionary program. A scrambled alphabet is doing for the Kingdom. After knowing me for-months, come to the Woman 'B Missionary Meeting to be held passed around from which each per- on the lawn of Mrs. J– B- September oon draws a letter to be used as the 2d, and tell what you know abont me.
initial of some important qualification "Inside the envelope a daintily of a Chri&tian worker. If the size of decorated card bears the name and the audience justifies it, more than station of a missionary in present-day one alphahet may be given out and service, and the verse, called for as 'capital A and small a', etc. The leader should preface the roll When you Bee me day by day, call with forceful remarks on the im- Though my work lies far away, Learn about it all you may, portance of each member activating While for it and me you pray.
some quality of a successful worker, "The round-up meeting should be the variety rounding out the ideal attractively planned, with plenty of service that a church or a mission music interspersed among the timecircle should render. The letters are limited talks. Well-known hymns of then called for in rotation, their hold- which unannounced stanzas are ers rising and responding in some· started by a leader, serve excellently." thing like the following: -MAUDE A. BROOK, Fanny Doane A-Accept limitations. Home for Missionaries' Children, B-Be a Bible Christian. Granville, Ohio. C-Circle the globe by your prayers. The following program briefs sug- D-Don't pull down: build up. E-Eliminate non·essentials. gest plans for special occasions:- F-Follow Christ: fear nothing. Christmas: Carols, instrumental G-Give your best: get other folks' best. selections, stories and talks on the H-Have a well-made plan. observance of the season on home and I-Inhale power and exhale blessings. foreign fields; sketches of women and J-Joy and give thanks always. children in other lands not in the at- K-Kindly respond to letters, courtesies, requests. . mosphere of the blessed day; Christ- mas Hope-stories of schools and L-Let your love be genuine. hospitals built with offerings from M -Manage little: pray much. givers who have the Christmas spirit; N-Never give up. O-Obedience is the eye of the soul.
P-Pray your plans through. articles and stories from Christmas Q-Quality meallS more than quantity. numbers of missionary magazines; R-Respollsibility shared means development. plenty of holiday decorations, even S-Sincerity is the seal of power. to a tiny tree. If gifts have been as- T-Think things through before acting.
U-Uneeda vision. sembled for use among the needy, have V-Verify rumors before repeating. groups of w()men bring them forward W-Weights may be your wings_ -some in decorated baskets, some in Y"-X-cept your disabilities. huge tarlatan stockings carried, like Z-Zenith seers look upward.
the grapes ef Eschel, en a pole borne "ReDloving the Masculine Inferiority by two. wemen-each group display- CODlpIe","
ing its gift-effering with a merry, "Finally, brethren," let us return home-made jingle er song set to. to eur eriginal keynote, viz., lining a familiar air, as, up the whole church for missions. If "Christmas stockings, Christmas stockings, you can go no. farther at first, have an Filled with toys we bring"- open meeting with plenty of men en set to. the tune of the chorus ef the program, at least ence a quarter.
"Jingle Bells." But where possible, why net join Thanksgiving: After a hymn ef hands with churches whese Women's praise, ask each person to. give a Missienary Society is dropping its Bible verse of praise and thanksgiv- gender and becoming "common" ? ing or lead in a shert prayer ef grati- One such tells how the thank-offering tude (prime some beferehand fer meeting was ebserved as a Sunday definite themes). Then on blackbeard, merning service with address by the display causes for lecal, denemina- pastor and ensuing efferings; men tienal cr national gratitude, having cenducted the regular meetings frem members previously appeinted speak time .te time, ence having a free-forcne minute each, without anneunce- all discussion of Foreign Missiens by ment, en the themes. Close with men from a local club, these of indramatic sketeh 0.1." well-told stery. different interest having arguments assigned in favor of missiens and be- Summer Meetings: Fer a musical coming so enthusiastic that one porch meeting or picnic, have as The beught the l)ooks used fer reference. Air, a song; the Netes, secretary's re- another subscribed for THE MISSIONpert; the Staff', Scripture; the Key, ARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD frem praYN'; the Treble Clef, brief steries which he had culled his points (note ef eut;,tanding missionary wemen; the the strategy) etc.; debates were in- Bass Clef, steries ef missionary men; dulged in on such questions as, "Rethe Scere, a missienary contest or game; the Signature, names of very well-knewn missionaries pinned en selved, that industrialism has ren- backs to. be guessed by wearers from dered Africa a mere impertant mission answers to questicns they propound; field than those in Asia," and general the Rest, refreshments or dinner. subject matter was handled which A fagot meeting er missionary bon- commanded the interest of men and fire: Have either one leng story sub- women. It is simply a question as to.
divided, or a series ef snappy short whether wemen are willing to. sacri- ones, the narrators being previded fice something in erder to. extend to.
with fagots, each threwing her stick the whele church the good things to en the fire and continuing her nar- which they have long deveted them- ratien while it is burning. selves. Is it not werth while?
KATHARINE SCHERER CRONK. Sketches from her life by her sister, Laura Scherer Copenhaver. A charming story of our friend Mrs. Cronk, especially beautiful as a Christmas gift. 48 pp. Illuminated vellum cever. Price 25c. Published by M. H. Lewis, Box 4, North Cambridge, Mass.
Woman's Foreign Mission
EDITED BY MISS ELLA D. McLAURIN, 419 FOURTH AVE., NEW YORK THE TREASURE CHEST dren for stories, it seems almost un- The possibilities of this intensely forgivable that the children of India should so long have been deprived of interesting age in which we live are their birthright in this regard. It must always be remembered that if so startling as to be fairly breath- good people do not produce good lit- erature for children, bad people will taking. Through all the countries of produce bad literature. Fortunately, the forces for good have been the first the East today the fresh wind of free- in the field in India. For the past five years the Committee on Christian Litdom is stirring, and the hearts of men erature has supported the magazine, The Treasure Chest, now published in and women are opening to strange English and three vernaculars. The Methodist Board has sent· out three new influences. All of this awaken- women missionaries as editors of the English edition and provided an ing life in Asia makes a compelling editor of one of the vernacular edi- tions, while the Congregational Board demand upon us. For underneath all has furnished editors for two other editions. the unrest among the peoples of the The first edition was in English. East is a yearning for a spiritual There were two reasons for this, be- cause there were two classes of chilforce more powerful than any they dren to be reached. First of all the Christian children. The standa;d of know, a {orce that will transform hu- literacy in the Christian community is the highest of all. 'For Moslems the man character and give it "power to proportion is 8% among men and half become." of 1% among women; for Hindus it To make Jesus and His transform- is 1570 among men and 1%% among women; but for Christians it is 32% ing power the possession of all the among men and 1870 among women. And the standard is rising among peoples of the world is the passion of Christians more rapidly than in any other class. It is necessary, then, to all of us who have experienced that cultivate in Christian children a love of reading, as well as to provide them power in our own lives. Many differ- with good reading. If there are few Christian books the children will read ~nt agencies must be used for carry- whatever they can find, bad as well as good. mg our message, and among them one of the greatest is the power of the printed page. Literature opens up a neglected line of approach to the Hindu and Moslem heart, and voices a new challenge to us. We are only beginning to glimpse the enormous possibilities for good that it holds.
In India the way for a great work has been prepared by the system of education. There are 21,000,000 liter- ates, (half of whom are children and young people), a ntdhiasbonuutm3b0e0~00e0vearrye being added to year. But against this apparent prog- ress we must set the fact that 39% of the children of India who learn to ;e~dand write eventually lapse into IllIteracy for lack of reading matter after their school years. Non-Christian Children Perhaps it is indicative of the in- difference to children's interests in The other class of children for I~dia that in the bookshops of the na- whom The Treasure Chest is intended hon the only books for children are are non-Christian children, and to readers' and school textbooks. When them the English eliition generally we remember the hUl1ger of all chil- makes ,a greater appeal than one in 941
their own language. For educated its young readers in such a way as to non-Christians throughout India Eng- produce character."
lish is the language of approach. Dr. Rabindranath Tagore, whose name MacNicol, of the National Christian from the beginning has been on our Council, says" It is especially in Eng- subsc.ription list, supplied to the pa- lish that the battle of ideas is being per an original poem called "Time."
and will be fought out in Indian re- The majority of schools in India, of ligion, " and he quotes the fact that every faith-Hindu, Moslem, Brahmore editions of the "Bhagavad- min, Samaj, Arya Samaj, Jain and Gita,'" the favorite religious book of Parsee-subscribe to the magazine, Hindus, are appearing in English and many of the members of the Im- perial Legislative Council at Delhi as than in the vernaculars. well as those of the Provincial Coun- Believing that everything good in cils take it for their families. India's heritage should be conserved and ennobled, and that Christian lit- A very interesting class of suberature should deepen the love that scribers is made up of the rulers of Indians feel for their own land, the Native States, a number of whose magazine has put its emphasis upon names appear on our SUbscription list. national literature and biography, One of the Maharanis of South India, and has shown its sympathy with the now acting as regent for the co-wife's son during his minority, who has been best of India's aspirations. It has en- making a very courageous fight deavored to present ideals of social against "untouchability" and against service saturated with the spirit of oppression of the low-caste people, is Christ, and to interpret the social, na- reported to be a most interested tional and international problems now reader of the magazine. The Queen confronting India from the Christian of Bhopal,' the only Moslem woman point of view. ruler in India, the first in India to abolish the drink evil in her State, The present struggle of old and and very progressive in educational new, the struggle of heart and brain matters, takes the magazine for her that the new ideas are producing, the three granddaughters, who are three restlessness and ferment of young In- as charming little princesses as can dia, call imperatively for Christian anywhere be found. The Maharajah literature of the right sort. Many in of another State was (lUe of the earliest subscribers to the magazine, whose spirits is deep disquietude and and the English tutor of his son wrote questioning are likely to be reached by the editor that the young Prince was the quiet message of the printed page. a constant reader of the magazine, and especially enjoyed the articles on The weakness of India's national life social service. When it is remembered openly deplored by so many of her that this boy will some day be the leaders makes it necessary to show that character is the basis of aU national greatness, and that in J eSUB Christ can be found, as in no one ruler of several million peopie, the else, the power to transform char- extent of the influence of this silent acter. messenger can be the more greatly The cordial reception given The appreciated.
Trea<Jure Chest by a number of non- The Boards of Examiners of three Christian magazines and newspapers, of the universities of South India, and their frequent use of articles most of whom are non-Christians, from its pages are evidence that it chose this year as one of the textbooks makes a wide appeal. One of the for the Matriculation Examination papers not long ago gave a very fa- "The Golden Company." This book, vorable review of the magazine, end- consisting of biographical sketches ing with the word, .. The Treasure from The Treasure Chest, has been Chest is bound to mould the minds of published by the Indian Branch of
WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSION BULLETIN
the Oxford University Press, and to- a stamp on the outside requesting the day about 25,000 boys and girls in Post Office to deliver them to the several hundred high schools are Christian Church. Again quoting studying it. Mrs. MacGillivray, "We believe this will be done." In many places, grad- Christian literature in India is on uates of our mission schools are in the eve of a great opportunity, the charge of the post offices. greatness of which we have realized only in part. Wider ranges of view In December Mrs. MacGillivray are demanded in making the program wrote us that $5.00 would place the of the future, than were needed a Chinese Children's Bible-just off the decade ago. More thought and greater press-in twelve homes. An appeal liberality must be exercised towards to the Foreign Missions Conference literature. We cannot be sufficiently brought $50.00 for the purpose. On thankful that literature for children the day this money reached Shanghai, and young people in India is in Chris- in the midst of distress and confusion, tian hands. Only by a great output Mrs. MacGillivray addressed the 120 of energy can we keep this initial ad- Bibles and placed in each a little slip vantage, and also put Christian litera- saying that the Bible was a gift from ture far ahead of all possible compe- American friends to assure these tition from debasing sources. It is Chinese Christians of sympathy and for us to spend ourselves lavishly in friendliness in their time of trial. a program' of daring adventure. Later an order came from an in- RUTH E. RoBINSON, Editor. terior mission station for 100 or more India. copies of this book.
URGENT AND IMMEDIATE The Chinese Christians of the fu- ture may have to do without the per- These words represent the need in sonal help and inspiration of the mis- China. sionary and the spoken word, but a strong influence through the printed Many are thinking of China as page is still available, opening up a closed to our missionary approach, new path of development through and feel that we must wait for a fit- which we can be of service to the ting time to give her again the Chinese. greatest thing we know for her national and personal up-building, Are there a hundred women who namely, the Christian truths. will be glad to give five dollars each and put the Bible in twelve homes Y Today the printed page is carrying the message into many areas, from The LORD is good unto . …. . which missionaries have been with- the soul that seeketh him. Lam. drawn, and where the Chinese Church 3:25. is in need of a generous supply of the right kind of books and magazines. He who rushes into the pres- ence of God and hurriedly whis- The appeal comes from Mrs. Mac- pers a few petitions and rushes Gillivray, the editor of Happy Child- out again never, perhaps, sees hood, a magazine read in almost every God there at all. He can no province of China, by young and old, more get a vision than a disrich and poor, for us not to let this quieted lake can mirror the avenue of approach be given up. stars. We must stay long enough to become calm, for it is In this time of special need the only the peaceful soul in which magazine is being sent out, though in eternal things are reflected as in many cases no money may be received a placid water.-Arthur T. for' it. In the words of Mrs. Mac- Pi(Jll'son. Gillivray, "It is going, money or no money. We must venture and adventure in these days. Will you back us up T" The magazines are sent with
Answers to Missionary History Test (Questions on page 911.) 1. John Kenneth Mackenzie, the" Beloved Physician of Tientsin."
2. Alexander M. Mackay of Uganda. 3. Two Princeton students: Robert P. Wilder, son of Royal Gould Wilder, missionary to India and founder of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD; and John Newton Forman, son of Charles N. Forman and grandson of John Newton, both distinguished pioneer missionaries to India. 4. Sheldon Jackson, Presbyterian missionary to Alaska. 5. J. Hudson Taylor, a medical and evangelistic missionary. 6. The Livingstonia Mission of Central Africa developed by Dr. Robert Laws and now under the United Free Church of Scotland. 7. Francis G. Penzotti, a native of Northern Italy. 8. The mission of the Church Missionary Society to Uganda. The first missionaries arrived on June 30, 1877. 9. The station of the Presbyterian Board of National Missions at Point Barrow, Alaska. 10. Kamil Abdul Messiah, who was led to Christ by Dr. H. H. Jessup, Beirut, Syria. 11. Pandita Ramabai, founder of the Christian home for child widows, at Bombay, India, and later removed to Kedgaon (about 100 miles from Bombay). 12. Miss Annie Royle Taylor, author of "Pioneering in Tibet." 13. Dr. and Mrs. Robert Whittaker McAll. 14. A famous English Baptist missionary and explorer in the Congo country in Africa. The Peace. 15. A famous British missionary doctor who ministers to the fisher folk of Newfoundland and the Labrador. The Strathcona. 16. Doctor John G. Kerr, an American Presbyterian missionary. 17. Doctor John G. Paton, Scotch Presbyterian missionary to the New Hebrides. 18. Joseph Hardy Neesima who was educated by the Hon. Alpheus Hardy and became President of Dozhisha University. 19. Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop, author of books of travel on Persia, China, Japan and Korea. 20. An insur,rection in which a nephew of the king was badly wounded. He was so skillfully treated by Dr. Horace N. Allen that the superiority of western medical science was at once apparent.
Missionary Thoughts for the New Year A bold resolve to grapple with the whole of its task would signify a rebirth of the Church.
In recognizing and courageously accepting the whole of its task the church will discover anew the true meaning and riches of its own faith.
It cannot be expected that the faith of missionaries should soar far beyond the general level of the Church of which they are the representatives.
Only a church that has a passionate belief in its own principles and is thoroughly in earnest about their application, can hope to, evangelize the world.
: .. :"
Woman's Home Mission
EDITED BY FLORENCE E. QUINLAN, 105 EAST 22ND ST., NEW YORK ORIENTALS AND HAWAIIANS may be less adventitious and oppor- tunist and represent a scientifically By GEORGE W. HINMAN based and efficiently coordinated pro- One of the most important forward gram to cover the country. At pres- steps taken in years in the Christian ent there are areas of competitive program in Hawaii has been accom- work, areas of complete neglect and plished in uniting the Filipino work areas of unsupervised and misdirected of the Hawaiian Board of Missions effort. There are indications that and that of the Methodist Mission. volunteer workers who are carrying This if! not a mere federation of ac- on the large amount of mission work tivities but an actual uniting to carry for Chinese east of the Rockies would out a definite piece of work. Advance welcome suggestions about methods and development are reported even in and needs such as might come out .of work for Hawaiians, which many in- a true community study of segregated cline to regard as a closed chapter in Oriental groups in many Eastern missionary history. There bas been cities. Such a great volume of con- an encouraging start in church work seerated effort as is being put into in a new home colony of Hawaiians Chinese mission schools in the East on the sparsely-settled island of Molo- deserves the wisest guidanee and di- kai. For the first time last year a reetion by our boards even if they systematic effort was made to secure do not put a cent of appropriation in- contributions for missions fro m to such enterprises.
churches of Hawaiians and Orientals The work among Chinese in Can- in the Islands through the Every ada has been greatly strengthened by Member Canvass plan. the work of a general superintendent, The Hawaiian Board made a eom- born of missionary parents in Canton munity survey of typical interracial and speaking the language of the communities in its territory. One of special group of Chinese who have their secretaries says: "We are' be- come to America. The United Church coming aware of the increasing race- of Canada has transferred its Chinese consciousness of various people with missions in the home land from the whom we work and it will doubtless be Foreign Board to its Home Mission of great importance for us all to study Board, and has placed Rev. Wm. H.
the situation and analyze it without Noyes, of Toronto, in charge. Mr.
prejudice and with the highest type Noyes and Rev. Charles H. Shepherd, of scientific method of which we are of San Francisco, have done much to capable." Professor Romanzo Adams change the whole character of Chinese of the University of Hawaii has pub- mission work in the United States and lisbed very valuable studies of races Canada because they are able to give in Hawaii, which will help to supply time to development .of many scat- the basis for a better-planned Chris- tered and more or less independent tian program of service with Orientals Chinese misSions, and are also able to and Hawaiians. talk to the Chinese in their own Serious consideration should be dialect. .
given to the need for scientific surveys Nothing would mean more for of Oriental communities in mainland Chinese missioIiworkin the United United States as the Hawaiian Board States than the securing of a IlQ,U~ is attempting in the territory of sciousness of unity among Chinese Hawaii, so that Oriental mission work mission workers and Chinese Chris- 5 946
tians all over the United States. The limitations of economic oppor- Chinese tongs and other societies have tunity force Chinese in America into their national organizations and parasitic occupations, like running realize their strength. But there is disreputable hotels, mostly used as very little group consciousness among places to meet prostitutes, or chop Chinese Christians in America, even suey houses, which very often serve denominationally, with the result that the same purpose. It has been dis- the large number of units of Chinese covered that our religious work among mission work are pitifully conscious Chinese has had so little social power of their separate weakness. that a church deacon could run one of It is worth noting that city church the most notorious hotels and chop federations in places where there is suey restaurants in a large Chinese a considerable Chinese population are community. Why is it true that beginning to consider the problem of Chinese students are coming to their Chinese group as a whole, not America Christian and returning merely as denominational units (when without any faith ~ Partly because denominational missions have been es- many of them have to find employ- tablished), and are asking for counsel ment in places frequented by prosti- in meeting the whole situation. Sac- tutes who solicit them and take their ramento Church Federation, Chicago earnings. Ninety per cent of the Chi- Church Federation and Washington nese who come to one Chinese pastor Church Federation have given serious for medical help are diseased as a re- attention to Chinese work, either in sult of such' relations. It is hard to uniting existing missions or in supply realize that we have gone on for fifty of unmet needs, and have asked for years conducting missions for Chinese suggestion and advice. in America, without remedying the There has been very little study of intolerable social conditions of Chicommunity conditions among Orien- nese communities.
tals in the United States, though this Reports have come from Oakland ought to be a preliminary to any un- and San Francisco that determined derstanding of relations. efforts have been made to keep Chi- There are many reasons why special nese students out of higher public attention should be given now to schools, which, we are glad to say, Chinese in the United States: they principals and boards of education are all Cantonese and the Cantonese have steadily and strongly resisted. A are the dominant factor just at this contractor and builder in· the same moment in the struggle for a national section, to blackmail people from government in China; there is a re- whom he wanted financial help, put crudescence of prejudice against the up big sign boards advertising that Chinese; there is an increasing rec- fine residences in an exclusive district ognition of the social unsoundness of were being sold to Chinese.
Chinese community life in the United ll!foney made by Cbinese is being States, which our religious programs spent in their own communities in- have not considered or affected. Re- stead of being sent to China. Fine cently American·born Chinese made a new buildings are erected with Chi- strong appeal for relief from condi- nese funds. There are many more tions of the immigration law which social organizations.. One list gives make it impossible for them to seek one hundred and sixty-five community wives in China. If Chinese communi- organizations in San Francisco China- ties in America were normally con- town having their own headquarters, stituted, half male and half female, besides churches, llOspitals, public this would not be necessary. But in schools, theatres and newspaper of- New York and Chicago there is only fices, Large sums are paid to Chinese one Chinese woman of marriageable a('tors in theatres of the San Fran- age to fifteen or eighteen men. cisco Chinese community. The Ohi-
WOMAN'S HOME MISSION BULLETIN
nese in the United States are not poor press than do those who remain in and unable to support their own com- Japan. munity institutions. They have not been asked to do so in any effective It is evident that the migratory way by mission boards. seasonal Japanese laborer, living in rude shacks, is still largely unreached Mexicali is a remarkable example of by missionary agencies.. The effect of Interdenominational cooperation. The anti·Japanese legislation is to increa.<;e work was begun by Congregation- this class or else force Japanese into alists, developed by Presbyterians. and cities where often they must go into es.tablished by Methodists, with a parasitic occupations. in order to s.upthor{)ughly cordial spirit in all trans- port themseles. The employment fers of responsibility. The question problem is becoming serious since of union work in the San Francisco they have been shut out of farming Chinese community has been brought except as day laborers. to the attention of readers of the RE- VIEW. During the past year there has An exceedingly important work of been steady progress in development mission boards for Orientals is the of a union spirit among young people provision of homes for Chinese and in spite of some hindrances. The Japanese women and girls and for United Christian Missionary Society Chinese ooys, the latter a new depardecided to confine its Oriental mission ture by the Baptist board. The Methwork to Japanese and to sell its build- odists have important institutions in ing in San Francisco, which for more Honolulu, Seattle, San Francisco and than a year had been generously Los Angeles; the Presbyterians in granted to the use of the Chinese San Francisco and Oakland; the Bapy{)ung people's group for their lan- tists in Berkeley. In some cases the guage school and boys' and girls' club service of these institutions is changwork. It was. necessary to move the ing. work to new rented rooms, but the union work has gone on increasing in The Filipino work in Honolulu has interest and effectiveness, and now been mentioned. There is also an infour ooards are cooperating and have teresting work among three thousand appointed a specially trained Chinese Filipinos in New York City, as well principal of the school work. The en- as among those in California. If we thusiasm of the group for this coop- are to win and serve these large numerative enterprise is its biggest asset. bers of Filipinos in the United States, Among older Chinese there is still a it is pr{)per for administrators of misdivisive spirit. They are influenced sion boards to give sympathetic confurther by the fear that any union sideration to their aspirations for movement means cutting down appr{)- independence and to their passionate priation from boards. devotion to the memory of Rizal.
A prominent Japanese pastor, Rev. The second edition of the Oriental S. Abe, of Seattle, has given his im- Missions Directory" is an attempt pressions of some chief difficulties in to bring together names and adthe way of work for Japanese in dresses, without further statistical America. He mentions first, denomi- data, of all Christian institutions for national separation; second, the sup- Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, F'ilipinos posed identification of Christianity and Hindus in United States, Canada, with Americanism; third, the his- Cuba and Mexico. It has been pub- lished by the Councils and distributed toric prejudice against Christianity through mission ooards. brought from Japan; and fourth, the 'Obtain from Council of Women for Home fact that Japanese in America have less enlightenment and stimulus to Missions. 105 E. 22nd St., New Y<>rk City; 10 modern ideas through the public ~:~~~·t b~nD~~IH~~l:~~ o:n~o~':,".1~ ~~~~~ln~:sJ:~~ ary Information will be sent free for postage to anyone in the United States or Canada upon request.
World Day of Prayer, P'ebruary 24. 1928
fROM MANY
AFRIOA plored, much less civilized. Thousands Not Easy in the Nile Valley of square miles of territory have not been mapped and concerning the in- THE fourteenth annual report of habitants almost nothing is known. the Nile Valley Colportage Com- Needless to say the Gospel has never mittee quoted in Blessed Be Egypt, been preched in this great area. Many says of the qualifications of colpor- of the people are nominally Mohamteurs: "This work is, not easy. There medans. It is believed tliat this is one is not only a vast amount of illiteracy, of the largest if not the largest area so that very few of the hundreds can of like population in the world today read, and consequently have no use that is without a. single gospel witfor literature of any kind. There is ness. " also religious opposition on the part of most of the minorities that can Scriptures in Nigeria read. Of these, there is frequently as much opposition from the Coptic REV. J'OHN 'HALL, of the Sudan Christians as there is from the Mohammedans. A colporteur has, there- . Interior Mission, writes of the fore, to be not only a keen trader arrival at Kaltungo, Nigeria, of the among other traders, but he has also Gospel of Matthew printed in Tanto have much grace and spiritual in- gale: "This is the fifth book of Scripsight, as well as great patience, tact ture to be put into print in the speech and perseverance, to get his books of the tribe, which had to be caught looked at, at all. He has to have the from their lips, reduced to writing pleasant word that turns away wrath and made the vehicle of the message. and fanaticism, and to know very in- How does a reader, of the average timately the man n e r s and the type known here, act when a new book thoughts of the people, their sore like this comes his way 1 For one points and their weak ones, and how thing, he would sell nearly all he has best to induce them to buy." to have the wherewithall to buy it. He does buy it, not exactly at cost- covering price, yet with something AbYl8inian Frontiers more than a whole day's wage. His hands are out for it more quickly DR. TOM LAMBIE, formerly a mis- than you can take it out of its pack- sionary of the United Presbyte- age. Then all smiles, he fondles it rian' Church, and physician to the as a miser his gold. Presently, too, Regent of Abyssinia, and now field to protect and preserve the precious director for the new Abyssinian Fron- little volume, he begs from you a piece tiers Mission, writes of his new field: of stiff paper and, perhaps, a bit of ot"On the southern and eastern borders thread, with which he makes a per- Abyssinia and in Somaliland manent cover, Then, eagerly and (:French, British and Italian) and in faithfully, he seeks every possible op- northern Kenya, the southeastern Su- portunity to sit before you in a pew dan, there is one great continuous area or at desk and learn the golden teach- of country that has hardly been ex- ings of this book of God."
948 Stalwart Liberian Ohri.tians in the villages, and only by slow p1'oe- eRses of education can the necessary REV. WALTER B. WILLIAMS, of change of mind be brought about. Al- the Methodist Episcopal Church ready much is being done in this di- Mission in the Kru Coast District of rection by patients discharged cured Liberia, says that in the town of Sobo- from the leper colonies and settlebo there is "a splendid band of mature ments. They return to their own Christians, many of whom have suf- people with a wonderful message of fered great persecution in the past for hope, and the tendency to hide the their loyalty to Jesus Christ. They disease is being gradually overcome. have built up a fine Christian settlement where there is no drinking, no Whole Families at School smoking, no dancing nor Sabbath breaking. They will not allow anyone THE Congo Evangelical Training to pass through this town carrying a Institute at Kimpese was founded .load on his head on the Lord's Day. in 1908, when English and American These men at times have become liter- Baptist missionaries united for the ally saviours for their heathen breth- purpose of training teachers and evanren. When the flames of violence. are gelists from the areas covered by their at their height in a neighboring town, Congo-speaking work. From the comsome heathen woman is sure to run to mencement emphasis has been laid on the mission. town and beg these 'God the fact that the Institute received for men' to come quick and save the town training such as are actually engaged from slashing knives and flaming in and pledged to the work of educatorches. Our Christian men are big, tional evangelism, and this practical burly fellows, and quite without fear. aim has guided the entire work of the They grip hold of the contestants and institution. Wives as well as husrun them back to their houses; snatch bands are enrolled as students; that torches, knives, cutlasses from 'their in its turn brings many children to hands. The heathen chiefs curse and the mission station, and thus the struggle and fight, but to no avail. whole family becomes the unit in These Christian Krus of Sobobo save planning the training to be given. the heathen town again and again For the current year there are thirtyfrom bloodshed and destruction. five families in training at Kimpese, They force peace and quietness upon who live a natural community life the people, but without injuring any- Hharing a common weal and seeking a common good. The whole station asone. " sembles for public worship every morning. Leprosy Widesl>read in Africa. Rev. W. D. Reynolds writes: THE Secretary of the British Em- pire Leprosy Relief Association, All men students are required to under- Mr. Frank Oldrieve, has recently com- take manual work which comprises the fellpleted a tour of over 15,000 miles. in ing of trees and sawing the same into and around Africa, visiting leper set- planks, building in brick and stone, simple tlements. He reports that leprosy carpentry for house building and all houseexists practically all over the conti- hold purposes, and, to keep thell) in touch nent, and estimates that in British with common work, every student takes his East and Central African territories turu at digging, dearing, road work and there are at the present time some all the general upkeep of the station. 60,000 lepers. Mr. Oldrieve reports that the old idea of hopelessness still Missions in South African Ohurch dominates the native mind in innumerable instances, with the conse- FOR the first hundred and fifty quence that many victims of the years of its existence the Dutch disease fail to come up for treatment Reformed Church did very little misuntil too late. This is particularly so sionarv work. Like the Church in India "it was under the control of a company that had its first duty to the
white men in its employment. For Bible. Nor is the Bible lesson conthe last hundred years the church has fined to the schools, but the missionbeen missionary, and the sum of £80,- aries and Bible women visit in the 000 a year is raised locally in South homes, not in Tyre only, but in the Africa for the work of evangelizing neighboring villages as well. As a the inhabitants of South Africa. It rule, these visits are eagerly welcomed even extends its operation into the and sometimes the children have pre- Western Sudan. It has a definite pared the way. "I spent an hour in a policy, trains men and women mis- sailor '8 home at Tyre," writes the sionaries and educates native workers senior missionary. "It was evening, as pastors, teachers and evangelists. and the lamp was brought in. The The native churches cannot do much little daughter of seven, who has to contribute in their present condi- learned to read with us, read aloud tion of poverty to self-support. The clearly and accurately the tenth chaprecord of the Church during recent ter of St. John, and when I asked her years in dealing with the racial prob- who the Good Shepherd was, she lem proves that Dutch Christians are promptly answered: 'Christ.' ,And anxious that justice should be done to the natives. who are the sheep?' ' We,' she replied, pointing to herself. It is a Moslem THE NEAR. EAST home, but Christ is becoming known and loved there. The hymn book was Urges Work for MosleDlfl brought out, and we sang together. The little daughter was the first mes- T HIS statement by a pastor in Syria senger to that home." shows that some Christians in the Near East are obeying the command A Reading Rooln in Constantinople of Christ, "Love your enemies." He says: "The Gospel and the loving AMONG the newer types of service tidings of Jesus Christ must be being initiated by American mispreached to all nations. This is just sionaries in Turkey is that of providthe time to begin gospel preaching ing interesting and worth-while readamong the Moslems. The activity of ing matter through the mission press, missionaries is indispensable. Steel is the bookstore, and a reading room in warmed in the fire and is ready to be Constantinople. The Turkish manbe made into tools.. We should go ager of this last is, according to the near to them with a pure, Christlike Missiona;ry Herald, an interesting l:fe. The general attitude of the man, nominally a Moslem, who has a Christian churches in the Near East spirit of service and cooperation, and should be the attitude of Christ, that who prepares the ground for friendly of forgiveness, sympathy, love, prayer intercourse on the part of Americans and brotherhood. Every Christian with the people who frequent the readchurch that is conscious of her calling ing room. He writes: cannot stand aloof from this task but will be ready to cooperate and work This year we have succeeded in getting with prayer. I would like to have many new friends, who come daily to read some Turkish Bibles and pamphlets the various books and papers we are putting for distribution among Moslems." at their disposal. So the worth of the place is felt by the people on all sides. Not only A Mosleln Child'. Influence schoolboys but men of the IIrst rank in the city-judges, professors, doctors, engineers, THE British Syrian Mission has etc., come and read the books and papers, been at work since 1869 among the talk with us, and in terms of respect tell us Moslems and Greek Catholics in the how they regard this service with delight ancient city of Tyre. In the school, and pleasure. Our friends who come most which is largely in the hands of Chris- frequently are the students in the boys' tian Syrians trained in Beirut, first school. The reading room now is provided place is given to the teaching of the with eight Turkish daily newspapers, to· gether with some French dailies published in Oonstantinople, twenty-live Turkish weekly and monthly periodicals, and a·few English publications.
NEWS FROM MANY, LANDS
A Bethesda Scelle In Arabia quickly they notice the mighty dif- PAUL HARRISON, M.D., of the ference between the power of the liv- Arabian Mission of the Reformed ing God in Christianity and Islam!" Church in America, described in the November REVIEW one of his recent INDIA AND SIAM trips. How his work impresses a fel- Women Student. Win HonoN I low medical missionary is thus told by SABELLA THOBURN COLLEGE, Dr. Sarah L. Hosmon: in Lucknow, India, is not only one We were privileged to have Dr. Harrison of the Union Women's Christian Colspend a month at Muscat, though most of leges in the Orient, but is also the his time was really given to Mattra, where women's department of Lucknow he had a large house, empty as to furnishings except one little room in which he University. A member of the faculty operated, and that contained only a table writes: "We have won several aca- and a chair or two. On the shelves were demic honors this year, of which we a few drugs and some supplies. In a hall are quite proud. For the second time adjoining he had a "primus" stove, an oven we won the university gold medal for for sterilizing, some basins and instruments. the best essay presented in the final These were all, but I never saw such a sight in my life I The whole building was filled English examination, about one hunwith men and women everywhere lying on dred men and our ten or fifteen floors and verandahs, some were even outside at the front of the house. It reminded me women competing. One of last year's of the porches of Bethesda in Christ's time, class is studying for the M.A. in only there was no pool near by. The dif- English and she received the scholarference in the two crowds was that at Bethesda IIlI were anxious fearing there ship offered in the English depart- ment of the university to the student would be no one to put them in the pool, but the crowd at Mattra had received relief making the best marks in the first and showed contentment in spite of the faet term examination. We had never they had nO beds nor any of the comforts done anything in the way of public that are really necessary. Drs. Harrison and Dame are wonders in the way they can competition with men's colleges, but accomplish so much with nothing. this year we accepted an invitation to send two representatives to an inter- Life in a Kurdistan Hospital university debate organized by the I N SOUJBULAK, Kurdistan, where Moslem University in Aligarh. The the Evangelical J~utheran Orient question is not decided by judges here Mission Society has a hospital, Dr. as at home, but the judges indicate Herman Schalk is having some un- who makes the best speech-first, usual opportunities to compare Chris- second and third places. The univertianity and Islam. He writes of the sity had offered gold medals to the (',allousness of Mohammedan men to winners of first and second places and one silver trophy which goes annually the sufferings of their women folk, to the college gaining the highest agand their unwillingness to pay even a gregate marks. One of our girls won nominal fee charged for a necessary the first place, the other won second operation, and comments: "Of what and their aggregate marks won the value is a wife T If she dies, which trophy." seems right to the man, then he can obtain a young healthy wife ror 15 tomans. Oh, the sad lot or Moham- Shut Out from Hindu Temples O medan wives!" The hospital has NE of the movements which, in the opinion of Dnyanodaya,· is treated suceessruUy a number of opium addicts, and or them Dr. threatening the Hinduism of Western Schalk writes: "The happy men tell India, is the widespread angry pro- far and wide that they have been test of the Mahars and other so-called healed. This attracts others. How outcast classes against the preten- the poor invalids open up and tell me sions of a Hindu nationalism that can of their bondage! And when our exclude fifty-five millions of India's testimony' presents the Gospel, how 'untouchables' from the temples of
religion. Even Vithoba '8 temples are among the people. It was a joy to coming in for their share of this grow- find many women who could read. ing wrath of the common people. For The Punjabi women, especially, were although Vithoba is one of the most very friendly and many were the democratic of Hindu idols in that opportunities for conversation. I he receives all castes, high caste and was very happy to find many, many low caste alike, one has yet to learn men and women who knew the name of the first outcaste being admitted of Christ. There was some oppointo even Vithoba's temples. In a sition, mostly from the Aryas (a reletter addressed by Gandhi to Mr. S. formed sect of Hindus) but even D. Nakarni at Karwar, where an here there was room for encourageagitation has been going on for the ment. They feared the effect of past three months in favor of securing people reading the Bible. Sometimes admission for the depressed classes they would say to the women, 'Do you into Vithoba's temple at Karwar, he want to become Christians? If you says: "God will reenter our tem- don't, you should not read that book.' ples only when we have opened not Daily there was preaching at our merely our temples but our hearts to headquarters, which were splendidly these fellow-countrymen and fellow- located to get the people. The religionists. " preaching was all done by Indians, and good messages were given." General Bo';th's Leper Colony A Christian Temple in Slam A CABLEGRAM from London to SI.AMESE Christians have great re- n- the New York Times stated that a spect for their place of worship. So reports Rev. J. L. Hartzell, of Salvation Army leper settlement, Prae, Siam, who writes.: "The words nanced with American gifts to Gen- 'This Temple was built in 1927,' eral Booth, will be established on the are written on a board and nailed on a banks of the Ganges near Benares. small wooden building in a country The suggestion that the army should village in Prae Province, North Siam. establish leper colonies in India was Since returning from furlough in made to General Booth by King May, I have been hearing about the George. Writing from India the Gen- Christian community in this district. eral says: "The King, whom I saw The chapel is a rough wooden buildbefore I set out on my tour of India in ing without walls that would hold 1922, said: 'Can't you do something about thirty people. It is what would for the lepers of India such as you be called a shack in the United States, have been doing in the Dutch East but these Christian people have dig- Indies T' I am now beginning on thl' nified it with the name of Temple. banks of the Ganges. The expense of And it is so to them because they the initiation of the settlement will meet there to worship the Lord Jesus come from a portion of my seventieth and they have built it themselves birthday fund raised by my friends in without any outside aid whatever. To the United States. The greater part the missionary this humble building of the land necessary has been given looks better than many of the fine by the Maharajah of Benares. " churches built in Siam out of Ameri- can money." Arya. Fear Elrect of Bible Bible Read in Ceylon A RELIGIOUS festivale or meZa, at Hardwar in the Punjab which oc- O WING to the widespread knowlcurs only once in twelve years gave edge of English in Ceylon Miss Clara Lloyd, Presbyterian mis- workers of the Ceylon and India sionary at Saharanpur and her Indian General Mission have been able to dishelpers unusual opportunities for tribute thousands of English tracts, evangelistic work. She says: "We sold books and did personal work
1927J NE'W:S FROM MANY LANDS
Scripture text-cards and gospels, and first consideration centered on the minimum supply their native workers with wage and the principles for determining much helpful Christian literature wages, on hours of work and rest, child which is not availabie in the vernac- labor and women '8 labor. The rights of the ular. They also conduct an English worker were streaaed as it was clear that the day school and a night schooL The conference stood for these. But it realized latter is regularly attended by seven- that a sudden jump to ideal {londitions, teen Buddhist young men, who are such as an eight·hour day, would dislocate now reading the Gospel by St. John. industry and make more evils than it cured. In addition to this, various services The findings therefore claim the rights of are regularly held in English. Of one the worker while advising a gradual progress part of their work Mr. Ker writes: towards their full expression in industrial "One colporteur came to a village law and custom. where the headman angrily forbade him to sell. The colporteur, however, Chinese Home Mia,oionary Work was tactful enough to engage the headman in conversation about the GospeL DR. C. Y. CHENG, General Secre- So interested did the latter become tary of the National Christian that he finally bought several gos,pels Council of China, writes as follows of for himself and promised to read the loyalty and steadfastness of purthem. On it later day when the col- pose of the Chines.e Christians: " You porteur went that way again, the will be happy to know that, at a time headman himself went with him and when missionaries have evacuated helped him to sell the gospels." from their posts and much of the work of the Church has come to a CHINA AND TIBET standstill, the Chinese Home Mission- ary Society is planning to send out a A Christian EC(Jnomic Oonference new band of missionaries to Yunnan province. The seeretary of the So- FIFTY men and women, almost all ciety, Rev. C. K. Li, is going to ac- of them Chinese, and all actively company four or five new missionconnected with varied aspects of Chi- aries in starting for Yunnan this fall nese indnstrial problems, spent ten of after visiting such centers as Foochow:, the last days of August in conference Amoy, Swatow, Canton and Hongin Shanghai considering the general kong, visiting the churches and meettopic of how to Christianize economic ing church leaders in these centers in relations in their country. The the hope of rousing a greater measure conference was. preceded by investiga- of zeal for this missionarv outreach. tions of industrial and rural condi- We hope to have two medical workers, tions and their relationship to two teachers and one evangelistic principles recognized as Christian. worker among those who go to the Coming as it did at a time when China field. It is very gratifying to know is seething with economic ideas both that these people have decided to serve good and bad, and when international Christ and their fellow-men in that experiments in adjustment of econom- distant place, well-knowing that p<llitic conditions are being tried out, the ical upheaval and open banditry are conference had more than ordinary awaiting their coming. It is very insignificance. One of the most helpful spiring to read the letters these people visitors at the conference was Ka- wrote to us offering their services for gawa, the noted Christian leader of the evangelization of the Southwest." social and economic reforms in Japan. In rep<lrting some of the considera- Ohlnese Debt to Mission Schools tions and results of the conference Dr. Henry T. Hodgkin, secretary of the REV. E. N. FORSTER, of the Prot- National Christian Council writes: estant Episcopal Mission in Yang- chow, Kiangsu Province, writes of Three main divisions were followed, in· the government regulations regarddustry, agriculture, social thinking. Iu the ing religious instruction and services as "a deliberate thrust at the Chris-
tian schools." He continues: "They preached for three nights in Osaka to have no applicability to schools con- audiences which averaged three thou- ducted by Buddhists, Mohammedans, sand. Most of the Imperial household or Taoists, which do not exist so far is now Christian. There are 180 as I know. A great many of the Chi- Christians in the social service depart- nese who have studied abroad have ment of the Tokyo imperial govern- directly or indirectly benefited by mis- ment. The newspapers have become sion school education, so that they are as friendly to Christianity as to Bud- not pure products of their own civil- dhism. I am optimistic over the fu- ization, culture, and training, as many ture of true Christianity in Japan."
people in Europe and America who are fascinated by their brilliant intel- Won by Newspaper Evangelism lects and suave manners are fond of REV. HARVEY W. BROKAW, believing. Many of these young men D.D. and his wife have been misand women, though they claim that sionaries in Japan since 1896. Mrs. Christianity has no power in the West, Brokaw writes of two callers at their nevertheless know in their hearts that home in Kyoto one recent Sunday the thing which has given Christian afternoon-" a young man and womschools in China their preeminence is an, both school teachers but from diftheir Christian character: the integ- ferent places, both thirty to forty rity of those who have administered them, and the integrity of character miles out in the mountainous country districts of this prefecture. There is which they tend to develop in the stu- no church near either one of them. dents. There is a large group of sub- They had become Christians through stantial Chinese, merchants, gentry, newspaper and correspondence evanetc., who have no hesitation about ad- gelism. This is what Dr. Brokaw calls mitting this, and are anxious to send his specialty. But I think his real their sons and daughters to Christian specialty is getting land and church schools in preference to government buildings and manses, and pushing schools because the latter in many churches up to self-support. He says cases produce slipshod education, that is the most fundamental thing a morals, and character in the students missionary can do. Through this who attend them." newspaper evangelism, with its course JAPAN-KOREA of study leading up to baptism, these two fine young people had become Kagawa on Christianity in Japan Christ.ians and wished to be bap- AN INTERVIEW with Rev. Toyo- tized. " hiko Kagawa, Japan's foremost social reformer, has been reported in Building· a Japanese C.hurch T the Christian Century. When asked HE efforts that Japanese Chris- tians are making to build churches the Question, "What progress is Christianity making in Japan?" he made in their communities. are praised by the following reply: "Not a great Rev. Charles W. Iglehart, Metho- number of people are entering thc dist missionary in Hirosaki, who churches, but never before has the says: "There is a little town called spirit of Jesus been so widespread and Tanabu with .iust a handful of mem- powerful as it is now. The successive bers, who decided a year ago to have a misfortunes which have befallen church, and who came to me with the Japan have made her introspective request that I find a yen for every and humble. Weare dissatisfied with one they could raise. I never thought the philosophy of materialism and are they would get enough to build a turning to more spiritual bases of liv- church, but when they got through, ing. The writings of Emerson, Tho- more than two hundred non-Chris- reau, Tolstoi, Whitman and Dumas tians wert) signed up for the new are being widely read. I recently Methodist church! I dedicated the
NEWS FROM MANY LANDS
trim, pretty little building, when they Our leper congregation is a really good going Christian concern. Two read the financial report I learned Sabbaths ago I had the happy privithat they had actually raised double lege of admitting by baptism fortytheir quota-two yen for everyone four lepers to the membership after they had asked me for-and said about a year's probation as catechunothing about it to me. At that serv- mens. and a searching examination ice men from most of the best homes in essential points of Christian docin town were there to show their trine. Some of our discharged lepers, moral support of the Christian move- finding it impossible to get any other ment. I looked into their faces, won- place to live in, set up a village of dering which might prove to be an- their own about half a mile from the other Nicodemus, or Joseph of home, and one of the first things they Arimathea. "
did was to set about building a 'New Power for Korean Leaders church."
REV. W. SCOTT of the United ISLANDS OF THE SEA Church of Canada writes; "Un- Pioneering in Papua. til a few years ago all mission funds were administered by the missionary THOUGH the achievements in in charge without any reference to twenty-five years of Australian the autonomous Korean presbyteries. Methodist missionaries among the Then followed a period when the mis- people of the New Britain archipelago sionary sought the advice of the pres" were referred to in the October REbytery and its committees. Last year VIEW, Rev. J. H. Margetts of the same we took the further step of transfer- mission writes of "half-wild nomads ring all evangelistic funds direct to coming in from their mountain fastthe presbytery, to be administered by nesses. " A layman who is in charge that body, the missionary sitting in of the work on another island writes: the presbytery-as he does-.:.-on the " A number of new teachers from Mal- same basis as his fellow Korean pres- akuna and Raluana Circuits enabled byters. This year we have decided to 11S to open up the Kaiamo section with invite the presbyteries to cooperate three teachers, two of whom we with us in a general board which shall placed inland. As this section was deal with all matters relating to evan- practically unknown by the white man gelistic and educational work carried or any outside natives, we had to exon directly with mission funds. The plore 'for these inland villages. having duties of this general board will finally only vague details to go on. We have be decided in conference with the been pleased to discover twenty-five presbytery representatives, but we villages, one of over 300 population feel that it should prepare estimates and several of about 100 each….. for presentation to the home board. Many heathenish customs have been and "decide upon the distribution of discovered among these people, some all funds granted by the latter for of the worst known on the Gazelle general work purposes. The board Peninsula fifty years ago still existing will be composed of an equal number in the inland villages of Nakanai toof Koreans and missionaries." day."
Christian Zeal of Lepera Filipinos Great Bible Readers T HOUGH the leper home in Fusan, BEFORE ·the American flag flew Korea, has cared for five hundred over the Pilippine Islands, the lepers during the past year, the super- only way to get a Bible in, as one intendent, J. N. Mackenzie, an Aus- writer points out, was to smuggle it. tralian, reports; " We have never had The latest figures, however, compiled to turn away so many pitiful and by the PhiliPllines Branch of the helpless cases in any previous year … American Bible Society show that
there are more than 2,000,000 Bibles as one of the greatest steps made in in use throughout the archipelago. recent years toward unity between The Bible holds a 'unique place in the the two groups. The conference life of the Filipino people. Millions was part of the bi-centennial celebraof Filipinos seldom read any other tion of the founding of Log College, book and many of them believe the the original Presbyterian educational Bible is the only real book in the institution in the United States. Its universe. The annual distribution purpose was not the discussion of of the Bible in the Islands is greater church unity, but the singleness of than the' combined circulation of all purpose and cordiality of feeling newspapers, exceeding 125,000 copies which prevailed led the churchmen to annually. No other hook has attained remark that an excellent basis had a circulation in excess of 1,000 a year. been provided upon which to press More than one third ()f these Bibles for complete union. The meeting was are in English, the others being in the first of its kind held since the various native dialects. Most of them separation at the time of the Civil have been printed in Manila since the War. earthquake in Japan destroyed the plates, and the work constitutes the Missionary Furlough Cottages first publishing done in the Islands. SOME years ago a Pennsylvania NORTH AMERICA medical missionary society es- tablished some cottages at Ventnor, Aim. of Men's Church League N. J., near Atlantic City, for the US;) of missionaries, on furlough. The A CAMPAIGN to pledge 1,000,000 work was first undertaken thirty- laymen who are members of Prot- seven. years ago as an aid to medical estant churches of all faiths in the missionary students. In 1909 a cot- United States and Canada, each of tage was, bought for the use of mediwhom will promise to try to win to cal misRionaries returned on furlough the Christian life at least one other with no home in view. Other cottages layman every year "until the whole have since been added until now there world is evangelized," was launched are five. The missionaries are allowed in New York City September 15th by to use these for a month at a time in the Men's Church League at a session the summer free of rent or during the called to reorganize that body. The school period each winter. The chairoriginal organization was formed in man of the cottage work is Mrs. John 1924. A budget of $20,000 was W. Patten, 26 Pine Street, Philaadopted, of which $5,000 to $6,000 had delphia, Pa. The charge for upkeep already been pledged. Frank H. llilb- is twelve dollars a month per cottage. son, a New York business man, whose Their expenses are paid from volunhome is in Elizabeth, N. J., was elected tary contributions. Each of these cot- President. He is an elder in the West- tages is fully equipped and they are minster Presbyterian Church, Eliza- greatly enj()yed by the occupants. beth, where he has for a long time been practicing the "win-one-a-year" doc- Y. M. C. A. Foreign Work trine. Dr. J. Campbell White, Vice President of the Biblical Seminary, T HE wide interests of the Young was elected General Secretary. If he Men '8 Christian Associations of accepts he will resign the latter office. the United States were presented to the members of the National Council, Step Toward Presbyterian Unity at the fourth annual meeting held in Chicago October 24th to 28th. The A CONFERENCE, between educa- Foreign Division reported briefly: Continuance of work in China has . tional leaders of the Northern been difficult because of radical and and Southern branches of the Pres- anti-Christian attacks, while the Asbyterian Church held in Philadelphia on October 5th, was hailed by officials
sociation exists nationally as a prin- that though the authorized strength cipal stabilizing force; the.rapanese of the corps is 149, only eighty-four Association is heroically meeting earth- chaplains are at present in the service. quake rehabilitation and economic Only a few of the men come to church crisis problems; the Philippine Asso- on board ship because they desire to ciation has expanded beyond Manila to worship. Others come out of personal the provinces; a national Association loyalty to the chaplain or to hear a movement is coming in Egypt; in good sermon. 'L'he chaplain therefore, India the Association is increasingly limited as he is by the resources of commanding young men'8 confidence shipboard, must be an exceptionally religiously; the leaders of the move- good preacher or an exceptionally ment in South America are over- good friend, or both, in order to win whelmed with demands for extension the initial interest of men to the into new countries, while in Europe Gospel. Last year, statistics show, the Y. M; C. A. is spreading good 5610 divine services, were held by will. chaplains in the Navy, and 35,660 men at some time received communion; Radio Missionary in Alaska there were 22,000 attendants at Sun- day school, and 24,000 at Bible classes; THE farthest north broadcasting yet the total number of men from the station in America is at Anchor- Navy joining any church during the age, Alaska, and the generosity of a year was only 189. It is suggested group of people in the community has that in this year, when evangelism and made possible the broadcasting every evangelistic campaigns are being Sunday of the evening service at the urged by several denominations, Presbyterian Church. The pastor American Christians may well pray writes: "We consider our broadcast- for the Navy chaplains and the men ing program our main missionary to whom they minister. movement, the most effective thing within our power in this our great Negro Young People Teaching new day of development in 'the last frontier'-Alaska. Word has come BETWEEN four and five thousand from many places in Alaska, and far pupils of Negro Presbyterian beyond, that all of the programs schools in the South served voluntabroadcast by the station are heard rily last summer in teaching and orperfectly and are very much enjoyed. ganizing Sunday schools. Growth both I have met a number of people from in number and in quality of Sundaydifferent places in the territory who schools has been one of the most enhave remarked, 'We listen to your couraging developments in the colored church service every Sunday night, work of the Presbyterian Church durand we usually have our house full ing the past few years. "In North of friends listening with us.' They re- Carolina, " writes Rev. Frank C. port from many distant places, in- Shirley, Sunday-school missionary, cluding Hl1dsons Bay Company sta- "the next few years will show an untions along the Arctic coast ani! em- precedented growth of our schools in ployees in government and territorial Sunday-school e:ffi:ciency. The ~chool educational centers where no regular of methods conducted each summer religious services are provided." has given the people of the local churches a vision of the possibilities Ihriritual Need in the Navy of the local church parish. Calls are coming even now for the setting up of SPECIAL prayer has been asked by the' Presbyterian program for young a Home Mission Board secretary people,' and advice is being sought by for the men of the U. S. Navy and for those planning to build on how best the chaplains in the service. Recent to house the Sunday-school. Other communications from the captain of churches are asking for children's the chaplain corps of the Navy show
divisioM that will have the,ir own support of the church are actually worship services and a special place to themselves in need. This situation meet. This year has broken all pre- arises from the fact that Cuba is a vious records in daily vacation Bible country of one crop, sugar, and today schools. 'Five years ago we had to go the price is below the cost of produc- into the schools and virtually beg a tion. In Cuba at present it takes chance to do this or that; today they three pounds of sugar to buy one are begging us to come." pound of potatoes. Notwithstanding this discouraging economic situation, To Evangelize Navajo Indians the churches in Cuba are more and THE new program of evangelization more showing a truly evangelistic of the Navajoes which "finds its center in the Presbyterian Mission, spirit and are striving, so far as they Ganado, Arizona, contemplates the establishment of five new outstations. are able, to keep their work develop- In the district surrounding these ing. Fkequent services of prayer stations are one hundred trading among his people during the past stores to which the Indians go for summer have, Mr. Fuentes reports, supplies. It is the plan to bring the resulted in excellent church attendgospel message to the constituency of ance, despite the frequent rains which each of these stores once a year and usually detract from summer attendthus it is hoped in five years to evan- ance; and the Sunday-school which gelize the whole tribe of 30,000 Nava- during the best season of the year is rarely two hundred, reached that record for several successive Sundays.
joes. " Scores of Indian young people," says Rev. F. G. Mitchell, who Colombia's So-Called Prophet M directs this work, "come back from ISS MARGARET DOOLITTL,E, Presbyterian missionary at Carthe different non-reservation schools with eighth grade and high school tagena, Colombia, tells of a recent training to be re-submerged in heath- visit to a little village which had enism. The atmosphere into which sprung up only the year before, bethey return should be modified by the cause of an unknown man who mysestablishment of these community cen- teriously appeared and who was ters where they may keep in touch called "The Prophet." He bathed with the civilizing influences out of in a little stream in this remote rewhich they have come. They need a gion, and the people styled the water place to bathe and launder their miraculous, and believed that all who clothes have their hair cut and see a came to bathe in its waters would be magazine occasionally, use the sewing cured of their infirmities. Because of machine and other facilities which the superstiti{)ns of the people, its cannot be given them in their homes. " fame increased until, from a radius For this Navajo work the Presbyte- of many miles, came men and women rian Board of National Missions is suffering from all the ills of mankind. planning to devote $50,000 of the fund Houses were built rapidly, and the to be raised this year by the Presby- little village thus formed was called terian Church in honor of the 125th Santa Ines. A roof of grass covers anniversary of National Missions. the Roman Catholic altar, and there is a charge of twenty cents for every LATIN AMERICA candle lit and for" Our Father" said Faithful Oaban Christlans before the altar. " We parked our T HE -economic situation of the car near the stream, and in view of people of Cuba is, very pressing the altar, and there we had our right now, says the Rev. J. A. Fuentes, service, " writes Miss Doolittle.
pastor of the Presbyterian Church at "Many of these people are hungering Cabaiguan, Cuba. People who were for the bread of life; and oh, how formerly good contributors to the they enjoyed the simple preaching!
NEWiS FR.OM MANY LANDS
As one man listened, the tears ran off his debt. The administrator was greatly down his face, but his eyes shone as he surprised at such an unheard-of thing, and heard the good news." of course was delighted. Then Roman told him the thing which had made him return, Cuban Peddlers Gives Gospels of how .JeSUB Christ had come into his heart and had made him want to do the right P ELLON, formerly a soldier, but til ing. Upon being asked for permission to now a peddler of tinware in the hold services on the plantation, the adminis· city of Santa Clara, Cuba, is witness- b'ator readily granted it. ing for Christ in a unique way. It is the custom in Cuba for the mer- Peruvian Bible Students chant to give some trivial article to each customer who makes a purchase. ABIBLE Convention, held for four This is called the contra. Pelion has days in Lima, Peru, is thus deconsecrated this old custom to a mis- scribed by John R,itchie: "Several sionary purpose. When the woman native and foreign preachers and laywho has just bought a pan demands men took part in the varied program. her contra he gravely hands her a The 7 A. M. prayer meeting was held small gospel. If she protests that daily. The morning session was deshe has no use for that, he will voted to a series of Bible studies. earnestly say: "But you do not know Senor Aldama gave a course on 'Bible the value of it! This is the most Teaching Perverted by Romanism,' precious thing in the world." Down the writer, a course on 'The Gift of upon her doorstep he will sit, to show God: Eternal Life.' The afternoon her the exceeding great value of his sessions were given to methods of contra. So is the Gospel preached Christian work and problems of from house to house as PelIon sells Christian life, such as 'The Christian his wares to the housewives of Santa Conception of Woman and her place Clara. When Pelion was asked to in the Home, the Church, and Sopose for a picture with his little cart ciety' (a matter on which both sexes and donkey, he would not be content need education in our native con~re· unless he might have his hands filled gations), and 'Our Relations with with his tracts and gospels, for, said and Attitude towards the Anticlerical he, "This is my real business." Forces in the Country.' The evening meetings were mainly evangelistic. A GuateDlalan Onesimus On the next to the last evening eleven persons were baptized on confession ROMAN MACU, a new Guatemalan of faith in Christ. The closing Res- worker, is called "a modern sion was a call to personal effective Onesimus" by W. C. Townsend of consecration. " Panajachel, who thus tells his story: One of Venezuela's ProbleDls When he was converted he was a runaway , 'peon. ' , He owed money on two planta- A MISSIONARY in Venezuela reo tions and had run away from each. When ports the following conversation Christ came into his heart he couldn't with his Spanish teacher, who is also stand the thought of being a fugitive from a pastor: "He asked me, 'How do justice for fraud. He returned to the last you address a woman in your Sundayplantation from which he had escaped, and school classes in the States who is an gave himself up. When the debt had been unmarried mother ~ Is she milled paid he told his boss he was going to quit. "Miss" or "Mrs."?' When I told The man told him he was too valuable a him that we probably never have to workman to be spared. He even offered face such a problem, he could scarcely him a better job, but Roman refused it, understand it. At the Session meetsaying he would have to go and pay ing the· other evening three of the off another debt. Leaving his wife, he candidates for membership were journeyed to the other plantation. When young mothers of this type who, behe presented himself the administrator did cause of hearing the Gospel, have left not remember him, it had been so long the men with whom they were living. since he had run away. Roman told him that he was sorry for what he had done and said that he had come back to work
For a woman to set out by herself to give practical assistance to students in earn ,a living for her children is not need in any part of the world, irrean easy task in this country. But it spective of race, color, creed or nationcan be done if the Holy Spirit is pres- ality. Through its initiative a great ent in the heart. " many self-help activities have been promoted, such as clubs, hotels, refec- GENERAL tories and employment bureaus. Its annual conference held this year in World'. Week of Prayer Switzerland, brought together 150 students representing thirty-three na- T HE first seven days of 1928 will tionalities. be observed in more than fifty countries as a week of prayer. Since COMING EVENTS 1846 the World's Evangelical Alliance has sent out each year from its ON DECEMBER 2ND, in New York City, headquarters in London a call to the Trustees of the Near East Colleges wil'l united prayer by followers of Christ give a dinner at which President Augell, in every land. This year the Federal Dean Gildersleeve of Barnard, and Rev. Council of the Churches of Christ in Harry EmerB<ln Fosdick, D.D., will be among America has joined in the call, stat- the speakers. ing, "The supreme need of the hour is for a personal experience in the ON DECI!1MBER 4TH, Universal Bible Sunthings of, God. ' , The daily topics day will be observed as the 118th anniversuggested are: Monday, Thanksgiv- sary of the founding of the New York Bible ing and Humiliation; Tuesday, The Sunday. Universal Church; Wednesday, Nations and Governments; Thursday, ON DEcEMBER. 4TH Golden Rule Sunday Missions; Friday, Families, Schools will be observed by "frngal dinners" and and Universities; Saturday, Home contributions in the interest of the Near Missions and the Jews. For sermons and addresses on the opening Sunday, East Relief. .January ] st, the following texts are DEOEMBER 11TH-12TH the Lord's Day Alliproposed: ance of the United States will celebrate its "Incline your ear, and come uuto me: thirty-ninth anniversary. hear, and your soul shall Jive" (Isaiah 55. 3). "Let not your heart be troubled: ye DECEMBER 14~'H-18TH the Interdenomibelieve in God, believe also in Me" (John national Council on Spanish-Speaking Work 14: 1). "Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (John 15: will meet in San Antonio Texas. 14). ".Ve preach not ourselves, but Christ ON DEOEMBER 27TH-28TH there will be Jesus the Lord" (2 Cor. 4: 5). held in Detroit, Michigan, a National Con· International Student Service ference of Theological Stndents. The theme will be "Fellowship Among the Churches." THOSE who remember the early It is promoted by the National Council of days of the World's Student Chris- the Y. M. C. A. tian Federation which was founded in 1895 with the motto, "Ut Omnes DECEMBER 28TH-JANUARY 2ND the Student Unum Sint," may not realize that the Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions executive committee of the Federation will hold its tenth quadrennial convention in now has an American president; Irish and Indian vice-presidents; a Dutch Detroit. treasurer; Swiss, French, New Zea~ JANUARY 1 TO 7, 1928 will be observed a. land and American Secretaries; and Chinese,. South African, French, New the Universal Week of Prayer. Programs Zealand and American committee may be secured from the Federal Council of members. An important instrument of Chnrches, 281 Fourth Ave" New York. the Federation is the International Student Service, which is a sort of JANUARY 6-10, 1928 the Federation of "work-fellowship," a body ready to Woman's Boards of Foreign Missions will meet in Atlantic City, N. J.
JANUARY 10-13, 1928 the Foreign Missions Conference will hold its annual meeting in Atlantic City, N. J_ JANUARY 15-19, ]928 the Third Conference on the Cause and enre of War will be held in Washington, D. C.
JANUARY 20-22, 1928 a conference on "Comity and Cooperation" wit! be held in Cleveland, Ohio, under the auspices of the Home Missions Council, the Council of Women for Home Missions and the Federal Council of Churches"
JANUARY 28-30, 1928 will be observed ..
"Child Labor Day" for the twenty.first time. Posters and leaflets may be secnred from the National Child Labor Committee, 215 Fourth Ave., New York.
MISSIONARY
Any books mentioned in these Ilolumns will be forwarded by us on receipt of price- THE REVIEW. • Fifty Golden Years. The First Half Cen- viewpoint, and recognize the necessity tury of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society. 1877-1927. Bertha for corresponding changes in methods Grimmell Judd. lUus. 281 pp. 60 cents, paper; $1.00, cloth. New York. 1927. of work, yet fail to react to the same . ~his. record (Jf a half century is a situation from a missionary stand- VIVId pIcture of the labors and achieve- point. Some clear, up-to-date informents of hundreds of women. The story is. told topically and by fields- mation concerning these changing evangelism among Negroes, Indians immigrants, and in Cuba, Porto Rico: conditions with indicated changes or BanadptCiset ntMrailssAiomnaerryicaT; raeidnuicnagtioSn~h(tJhoel in Chicago in which many of the work- adaptions of policies, seems badly ers were prepared; Christian centers needed. This is provided in Miss neighborhood and community houses; Burton's missionary study book for 192.1-1928. The author is well able to present the new opportunities, ,new problems, new duties that must be met in the loving sympathetic spirit of the Master. M. A. L.
Christian Americanization; and the Nigeria, the Land, the People and Chris- tian Progress. J. Lowry Maxwell. 156 organization and history of each of the pp. 38 6& London.
organizations which have shared in This in the World Dominion Survey Series is a survey of an the financial support. important section of Africa. It's attractive type, and with proper The author has attempted to men- headings for all sections, help to make it a satisfactory handbook on Nigeria tion hundreds of missionaries and -The Land, the People, the Customs, the History, the Commerce and the scores of institutions of various gkoinudns~ Religion. Part II presents five short so that no faithful work shall chapters on the origin and problems of Protestant missions; the societies recorded. The effect is almost that of at work; a summary of the Christian forces; the occupation of British a catalogue, but so well has the con- Cameroons; and the facts about Bible translation and circulation. densation been done and so many are There are three folding maps, a the concrete illustrations and inci- dozen pages of statistical tables, and dents" that not only do the general a Calendar of Important Missionary Events. To carry the Gospel throughachievements of the Society stand out out the vast territory of Northern and Southern Nigeria, there are 525 misbut the reader is led to see how many sionaries, with nearly 5000 native workers, and there are 102,000 comdevoted, courageous lives have con- tributed to the whole and how the best results have been in thousands of transformed lives rather than in piles of brick and mortar or in bare statis- tics. K. S. L.
New l'aths for Old Purposes. Margaret E. Burton. 204 pp. $1.00. New York. ]927.
. "Protestant missions are experiencmg the most pronounced transition they have yet undergone." It seems municants. Protestant mission work strange that so many minds appreciate was begun in 1842 and there are now the marked and rapid changes among fourteen missionary agencies there.
the people of other lands from a com- We give thanks as we read: "The mercial, political or international rapid and striking progress in this 6 961
field constitutes one of the great tion, austerities and enlightenment; triumphs in the progress of Christ's the first preaching, spread of the doc- Kingdom. The fact that this great trine and legends of his twenty years'
work has arrested the advance of wandering; the rival .schools of Deva- Mohammedanism among the pagan datta and Ajatasattu; the last days; tribes is of great encouragement." and the establishment of the Order.
(Page 77) "The events of the past The chapters that follow are even twenty five years point to the con- more important as an account of origclusion that the hunger after God is inal Buddhism: Buddhism as a religincreasing. Its paganism is utterly ion, and as a philosophy.; Buddha and satisfying and its Mohammedanism myth; Buddha and history; Budis equally so. Although the primitive dhism and Christianity. In the ap- Moslem community in less advanced pendices, Dr. Thomas has done an districts, is more open to Christian unusually good piece of work in his propaganda than the pagan. God is annotations to the Buddhist Scripin our day calling the lands of West tures of the 'rheravad (Pali) canon, Africa to come and find in Christ the -235 in number-and in the refer- Bread of Life. It would be surpris- ence to works of other schools. But ing indeed if the experience of the even more helpful for non-Pali next few years does not surpass all students is the Bibliography of dis~ our hopes. and justify our wildest cussions and translations in several ventures of faith." European languages.
Two large provinces, and four While the main facts of Buddhist small ones, in Northern Nigeria, with history and doctrine are widely a total population of 2,750,800, are known, many of the items found in still unoccupied by Christian mis- Dr. Thomas's chapters upon "Budsionaries.-F. L. dha and Myth," "Budda and His- The Life of Buddha as Legend and History. tory," and" Buddhism and Christian- By Edward J. Thomas, M.A., D.Litt. ity" are out of the usual order and mus., map, XXIV, 297 pp. New York: deserve a careful reading, particularly Alfred A. Knopft'. 1927. the last chapter. In that he takes up While brief volumes on Buddhism, sixteen of the leading parallels be- written in a popular style by scholars, tween Buddhist legends and the fill a very important place, it is re- Gospel stories, and makes a fairly freshing to see such a work as this clear case against those who argue for which is one of "The History of the incorporation of these legends in Civilization" series. The tendency in the Gospels. This is partly due to recent years has been to depend upon the fact that Seydel's fifty "cogent Pali sources, neglecting Sanskrit, parallels" are reduced by van den Tibetan and Chinese translations. Dr. Bergh to nine, while Dr. Hopkins dis- Thomas pursues. the better plan of cusses only five of these, and Garbe combining with those canons the San- assumes direct borrowing only in the skrit works and to a less extent the case of Simeon, the Temptation, Peter translations of Tibet and China, thus walking on the sea, and the miracle proving that he i~ worthy of Mrs. of the loaves and the fishes, and Rhys David's dictum-" at last fit to Charpentier reduces the entire list to pull down the super-structure and Simeon as the only unobjectionable seek for the man." He has certainly example. Yet the reader, after com- found the man, in large part at least, paring the parallel with the Gospel and here we see his portrait in the story of Simeon in the temple, will original colors. probably agree with our author that The scope of the volume is hinted there are two considerations that at in such chapters as these: Buddha's might lead to a firmer ground, "first- ancestrY, home and family; birth, in- ly, whether there is enough reason to fancy and youth; the Great Renuncia- think that Buddhist legends can have
THB MISSIONARY-LIBRARY
reached Palestine in the first century Holy Spirit as her leader." P. 49.
A. D……,. (and second) the Gos- The book is interesting even to the pels all belong to the first century reader who does not agree with all .A. D. . ….. Even in this case the the author's views. H. A. A.
question whether Indian legends The Credentials of the Cross. N orthcote Deck. 133 pp. 3s. Glasgow. 1927. contributed to the resulting structure is a question of literary history that has never been convincingly decided, These deeply devotional messages and in many cases never seriously from the director of the South Sea considered. " He makes it clear that Evangelical Mission in Solomon we are not justified in holding to any Islands, show the place pf the Cross borrowing by Jesus. The volume in God's plan of the ages. They magnifies Buddhist character, benef- quicken one's faith and inspire one's icent deeds and helpful teachings. servic,e, and give a clearer vision of the meaning of the Cross of Christ H. P. B. and Calvary as revealed in the Bible.
Seven Sunday Night Talks. J. C. Massee. c. B. N. 124 pp. 25 cents, paper; 75 cents, cloth.
Chicago. 1926. The Christ We Know. Arno Clemens Op.e cannot get away from the three Gaebelein. 126 pp. Paper, 25 cents; major appeals of these seven sermons, cloth, 75 cents. Chicago. 1927.
namely, (1) the necessity of Christ as This is an effective answer to "The Man Nobody Knows." The twentythe only Saviour from sin; (2) the nine short articles originally appeared in Our Hope and are as spiritually danger of postponing open and public refreshing as a cool breeze wafted over desert places. The author of the decision for Christ; (3) the inade- volume "The Man Nobody Knows" may find much profit through a study ouacy of any philosophy or religion of ., The Christ We Know." People that discounts or ignores God as the cannot come to know Him by reading only Mr. Bruce Barton's popular source of soul life and soul satisfac- tion. This threefold appeal is stated in forceful language and is supportf~d by scriptural statements and striking experiences. J. MCD.
Pearls, Points and Parables. F. E. Marsh. book. c. B. N.
8 vo. 297 pp. 68. Glasgow. 19'26. The Magic Formula, and other Stories. L. P. Jacks. 367 pp. $2.50. New York. Over two thousand Scripture texts are illustrated or expounded in these 1927.
notes for preachers and Bible teach- Dr. Jacks, editor of The Hibbert ers. They cover some two hundred Journal and head of Manchester Coland fifty subjects and the viewpoint lege at Oxford, is one of the foreis thoroughly evangelical. Excellent most thinkers of today. This volume suggestions are given for Bible read- of twelve stories, selected for .Ameriings, comparing Scripture with Scrip- can readers, are those that he thought ture, and illustrating truths with "most likely, or least unlikely, to poems and anecdotes. have a human interest irrespective of The Letters to the Seven Churches. Jno. time and place." Gibson Inkster. 83 pp. 75 cents. New The opening story which gives title York. 1926. to the book, and which relates a The author's viewpoint is premil- charming discovery of the boy "Wil- lenarian, yet he is fair-minded. He liam X. Plosive," will perhaps appeal sees the Church today impotent be- to as large an audience as any of cause she has lost her first love. This them, and is as tender and elusive as greatest tragedy constitutes the theme Barrie or Hawthorne. The darker side of the book. One finds such striking of Hawthorne is suggested by some of statements as ' ,The Protestant the others. In none of them is the Church . . . never enthroned the love element developed unless in the whimsical Professors Mare and the VIew. For pastors and leaders in equally whimsical" Bracketed First. " schools of missions, this work should prove of especial value.' The general The English rustic, the canny Scot, reader will find in it a new panorama the mystic dreamer of Damascus, and of the world. While the book does others, all come in for their respective not attempt to startle, it does stimshares of the author's sympathy ulate. The task is put in fresh terms, and insight. Theology, metaphysics, and holds the attention by the strong primitive piety, the irony of fate and presentation of the issues and the circumstance, alike pay tribute to his real grasp on facts. discriminating pen.-w. G. H. The chapters are An Adventure in Missionary M.arionette Plays. Martha Rice. Fellowship; The Basis of the Ad- 8vo. 65 pp. Ill. $1.00. Boston. 1927. venture; The Enlarging Horizons of the Adventure; The Adventure in These four playlets, to be given by America; A World Adventure; An Adventurous Task for Our Generachildren, although intended for mar- tion. A carefully selected reading list is appended.-J. F. R. ionette production, could be adapted What Christ Means to Me. Wilfred T. so that parts may' be taken by the Grenfell. 82 pp. $1.25. Boston. 1927.
children themselves. The marionette Dr. Grenfell of Labrador is worthy of the honor conferred upon him as method, however, because of its nov- Companion of St. Michael and St. elty, would probably appeal to the George, for he is a slayer of dragons that menace human lives. Humanichildren .and would make a consider- tarian considerations alone would never be sufficient as a motive for able amount of memorization unneces- such labors. Dr. Grenfell shows that it is the love of Christ that constrains sary. Careful directions are given him. This little book awakens new hope, new faith, new courage, new for the making of scenery, costumes, purpose to live in daily practical fellowship with the Divine Son of puppets, and the necessary mechanism Man who went about accomplishing good.-w. G. IT. as well as illustrations of the stage with characters and scenery. Points Beyond Price-f,or Sunday-school Teachers, Busy Christian Workers, Bible The scenes are laid in India, China, Students, etc. John Gray. 194 pp. 28. Glasgow. 1927. the Philippines, and in Japan, and all are about children. A prayerful, thoull'ht-out compila- tion of illustrative helps and sugges- A friendly interest in the people of tions for Christian workers, whatever their sphere of service, made up of other lands, with a genuine desire to "brief records of servants of God, Bible class and home study subjects, be of service, is what leaders and eye-gate lessons for young people, original ideas for preachers, subjects teachers desire to see in the children for Sunday poetry and tales worth telling. " This attractive, handy-size with whom they work. M. A. L. volume is full of suggestive material for anv Christian worker. The bio- A Guide to the Study of the English Bible. graphi~ sketches of present-day serv- Spence and Cannon. 187 pp. $1.25. ants of God are especially worthy of Nashville, Tenn. 1927. note.
It is hard to become enthused over C. D. N. a syllabus. It is like getting excited about some bare bones. These outlines are an attempt to cover the entire Bible, and are as well done as could be expected in such an endeavor. The value of .such a book depends upon the personality of those who use it, or teach it. The maps are a real help.
– J . F. R.
The Adventure of the Church. Samuel McCrea Cavert. 25'6 pp. 60 cents, paper; $1.00, cloth. New York. 1927.
It would be easy to grow enthusiastie about this pungent little volume -an exeellent epitome of the general program of the Church, from an interesting and up-to-date point of
BOOKS 965 – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Are Missions a Failure. Charles A. Seldon. DRUMSiathe 270 pp. $2.50. Fleming H. Revell Co. New York. 1927.
Barak: The Diary of a Donkey. F. H. DARKNESS Easton. 90 pp. Hulbert Publishing Co. Ltd. London. 1927.
The Christian Approaoh to the Jew. Being By a Report of Conferences on the SUbject held at Budapest and Warsaw in April, REV. JOHNT.TUCKER, D.D. 1927. 203 pp. Ediuburgh House Press. London. 1927. T HE romance of the Dark Con- tinent graphically thrown upon Changing Foreign Missions. Cleland Boyd a back-ground of reality. McAfee. 288 pp. $2.00. Fleming H. Revell Co. New York. 1927.
The Church in the Changing City. Case A book which never allows the reader's interest to £lag. It supplies studies illustrating adaptation. H. Paul him plenteously with material on Douglass, 453 pp. $4.00. George H. Doran C(). New York. 1927.
Eradication of Leprosy from the World. native lore and custom, and stands K B. Steiner. 175 pp. $2.00. Orissa as a monument to the transforming Mission Press. Cuttack. 1927. work ofChristian missions in Africa.
Wilfred Grenfell-The Master Mariner. Illustrated. $1.75 Illustrated. A life of adventure on sea and iee. Basil Mathews. 178 pp. $1.50. Available early ill January: George H. Doran, Co. New York. 1924. LIBERIA OLD AND NEW. James L. Sibley. $1.50 The God of Gold. Arthur E. Southon. 183 • • • • .i THE GOLDEN STOOL. Edwin W. Smith. $1.50 pp. $1.50. Fleming H. Revell Co. New At :your religious bookstore York. 1927. 1.,!.1:11'~' ~!.:.) $11 • The Human Body-Its Source, History and l! Destiny as Told by Its Maker. F. C. Jennings. 206 pp. $1.50. Publishing Let Your GIFT Office "Our Hope." New York. 1927. to Foreign Missions In Storied Palestine. Along the Fascinat. ing Highways of the Holy Land. Rev. PAY YOU John R. Turnbull. 101 pp. Christian Alliance Publishing Co. New York. 1927. a Life Income Lessons from Moses lIible. Illustrations Do you know that you can contribute to the with over 200 engravings and blackboard support of Foreign Missions without sacrificing sketches. Alexander MacKeith. 80 pp. money needed for yourself or others? 28. 6d. Pickering and Inglis. London. 1927. DOl you know that gifts ranging 'from $100 to $65,000 and totaling more than one mil1ion two Overcoming Handicaps. Archer Wallace. hundred and fifty thousand dollars are now held 140 pp. $1.00. George H. Doran C(). by the Board as a reservf31 fund guaranteeing ana New York. 1927. nuity payments?
Pegs for Preachers. Subjects in outline for During the forty years in which the Annuity preachers, workers, students, teachers, etc. Gift Plan haf:: been in operation annufty paya Charles Inglis. 149 pp. 28. Pickering ments have always been made promptly. It guara and Inglis. London. antees the absolute safety of principal. rel1eves you of the uncertainty and worry of investment The Sacred Scriptnres. Concordant version. and provides a definite income of 383 pp. $1.00. Concordant Publishing Concern. Los Angeles. 1927. 4Y..% to 9% per year Stewardship Stories. Guy L. Morrill. 91 for the rest of your life pp. 50c. George H. Doran Co. New York. 1927. Protect YQurselfagainst loss from unwise invest- ments and at the same time send the gospel Truth and Tradition in Chinese Bnddhism. A study of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. to foreign lands. Karl Ludwig Reichelt. Translated from For further information. write the Norwegian by Kathrina von Wagenen Bugge. 330 pp. $3. Mex. Commercial Ernest F., /Jail, Sec,etary, DepaTime'nt 0/ Annuill•• Press Ltd. Shanghai. 1927.
lIaptist Missionary Society. Annual Report BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS and statement of accounts for the 135th year ending March 31, 1927. 195 pp. The .of the Pte,byterian Church. U. S. A. Carey Press.. London. 1927. liI a:Ii1::1_ _ _..1._S.6..F.i_ft_h_A_v_c_D_u_e_,_N_e_w_Y_o_r_k_ _ _ Please mention THJC MISSIONARY REvmw OF THE WORLD In wrltlni!' to advertlsel'll. Nelson Bibles to Meet Every Need T o choose exactly the right Bible for home, for school, for every purpose, you really should have a Nelson Bible Listover five hundred styles, with every variety of binding, all sizes and all styles of type.
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THOMAS NELSON &. SONS 38SP Fourth Avenue, New York City Please send me a copy of Nelson's Bible Catalog,and the "Wonderful Story of the Bible.') Nama_____________________________________ In addition to yielding you a dependable e Addus.,____________________________________ income, your money performs a great Chris- tian service. It helps provide Bibles to im- migrants in their own language, to seamen, to the sick in hospitals, to prisoners and to OBITUARY the needy blind in raised type. Your money DR. CARL PAUL, of Leipzig, the former goes on doing this good work on earth when director of the Leipzig Missionary Society, you are gone, bringing the Word to those died on October 11, 1927, at hiB home near who hunger for it but cannot get it other- Leipzig, aged seventy. He was one of the wise. most prominent and deserving missionary leaders of Germany, a scion of an old Saxon You can arrange to have your [ible ministerial family. As pastor, he gave his Annuity Bonds pay a yearly income durin'~ time to missionary studies in a way that the life of two people, such as husband and wife, mother and daughter. brought him into prominence in the mission work of Europe. He early succeeded in Find out mope about this Christian Servgathering a eirele of pastors which developed ice investment. Mail the coupon for free into the Saxon Mission Society now 40 years booklet and new rate schedule. old. He was the secretary of this organization until 1911, when he became the successor to Director Van Schwartz of the Leipzig Mission. Later he was appointed professor New York Bible Society of missions at the University of Leipzig, the first professor of missions in his native state. DEPARTMENT 34 In the severe b'ials of the World War, his wise gnidance benefited his own society and Ii East 48th Street, New York was for the advantage· of all German missions. He was also well known as a writer —~——————– on mission subjeets and was in demand as a lecturer on the theory and history of lJlis· New York Bible Society, Dep't. 34, .ions.–C. T. B. 5 East 48th St., New York City. DR. ORVILLE REED, the beloved Recording Gentlemen: Without obligation, please send Me Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of For- descriptive (}amphlets about your Bible Annuit} eign Missions, died at his home in New Bonds. York City on Thursday, November 3d. Dr.
Reed was born in Lansingburg, N. Y., in Name ………………………… Age •…•• 1854. He taught in Robert College, Con- Address ……… , …………•• '" •..•…..••• stantinople, from ]880 to 1883 and subse- City ……. : ……..•…….. State quently was pasta, of cHurches in Spring- field,Mass.,"·and ·Mont-clair. He became associated with the· 'Presbyterian Board in . -l913, –.." . ,….• "-_.,,.-………. -. :. "…… .
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The Missionary Review of the World — May 1907
ROBERT MORRISON AND HIS CHINESE ASSISTANTS TRANSLATING THE EIBLE
H U N DRED YEARS AGO
'The fMissionary '/(eview
of the World VOL. XXX. No. MAY, I907 VOL. XX. No. Old Series New Serits SIGNS OF THE TIMES THE DOWNFALL OF RELIGIOUS sad and tragical to be laughed at, yet DESPOTS too ludicrous to be thought of without a smile. Doctor Dowie was a remark- Several instances have occurred of a able personality, and his career had collapse of religious 'adventurers. In about it a romantic uniqueness that fact, to anyone who has read modern suggests sublimer possibilities but for history, the ruins of the schemes car- misdirected ambition and avarice. ried to partial completion and over- Some ten years ago he founded whelmed with sudden exposure and Zion City on the shores of Lake Michfailure, abound on all sides. igan, and the population swelled to near!y IO,OOO, with factories and other In London, at Stoke Newington, industrial institutions that promised Rev. Mr. Piggott's Agapcmollc, or prosperity. But, to-day, instead of Brotherhood of Love, has come to wealth, a pall of debt, estimated at over grief. A beautiful church is falling $6,000,000, casts a gloom over the eninto ruins, absolutely deserted, with tire enterprise and bankruptcy threatits cherubic figures standing on the ens. four corners of its massive tower. Mr. Piggott has vanished and left only this The turning point in this romance of trace behind. the monument ot silly failure was found in the invasion of women who were completely under ,few York City three years since. With his control, until the whole institution a great flourish of trumpets and disbecame a stench in the nostrils of the play of banners, these Illinois Crusacommunity and popular indignation, ders advanced on the metropolis, to aroused by the conviction or suspiciun convert "the wickedest city in the that Agapemone was only another world." Madison Square Garden, name for Seraglio, drove him and his with its immense auditorium, was the followers out of town. mission center. But after a series of tirades, low and coarse and offensive, DOWIE AND ZION CITY this costly pilgrimage was converted into a humiliating retreat, with only Then there followed the downfall of two results: popular contempt and a the American adventurer, John Alex- loss o'f nearly $5°0,000; from that day ander Dowie, ,vho is believed to have Zion City and its schemes went down accumulated wealth, squeezed out of until last Christmas, when the great gullible followers, to the total of $25,- Elijah "raved incoherently" before a 000,000. This self-styled "Elijah- few survivors of his great body of ad- :fessenger of the Covenant"-gro- herents and it became sadly evident tesque high priest of a modern Zion, that the end had come. –recently died, a mere wreck. His last appearance before a couple of hundred of his former adherents was too SANDFORD AND BEULAH HILL eluded investigation, and he had his Meanwhile another "false messiah" hoards in safe bank deposits, while his and arrogant pretender was coming gullible assistant and few surviving to grief in the State of Maine. Sand- followers still prayed day and night, ford had built his great Shiloh temple often on the borders of starvation. And on the sand hills near Durham, at a now Sandford and Holland become cost of $100,000, beginning in 1893 to admirals for a "Holy Fleet," and with lay its foundations with his own hands. seventy dupes put to sea, and go to He incited his followers-the famous Jaffa, there to settle down and await "Holy G~ost and Us" Society-to the Lord's advent! while at home the pray, and watch for the answers to Maine officials are trying to wind up prayer, while he carefully planned to the affairs of this "Holy Ghost and have remarkable answers come just at Us" organization!
the right time to keep up the sham, OTHER RELIGIOUS SHAMS and impose on a credulous band of adherents. What is worse, all of these are but specimens of many modern impostures Again, he succeeded in getting a which bear religious names. The few men and a lot of hysterical "Holy Rollers" in Seattle, the "Flying women to follow his lead. So com- Rollers" at Benton Harbor, Michigan, plete was his spiritual hypnotism that the "Sanctified Church of Adam and he got people to sell all they had and Eve" with its shameless nudity, the give to him, while he went around the "Golden Rulers" at Oklahoma City, world and spent the money as he the "Holy Jumpers" at Wankeshapleased. He sent agents abroad to these are a few of the modern abomigather men and women for a faith col- nations an·d monstrosities that parade ony. He imposed arbitrary fasts of in the name of religion. When will the long duration, and ceaseless vigils of human race–and even so-called beprayer, and pretended to faith cures, lievers-abandon the absurdities of and even to raising of the dead. When human leaders and come to Him who the people began to see through his im- alone is competent to guide men safepostures he posed as a martyr, and ly? Alas, that so many who "can not throve on persecution. His claims be- believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," as came more audacious when disputed Napoleon said, make up for their inaand he declared himself God's vice- bility to exercise faith in Him, by cagerent and ruled with an iron scepter pacity to believe and follow everything his half crazy adherents. Then again else! Those who tread in His footcame the tragical ending; in a .deserted steps, go from strength to strength and "Beulah Hill" with its great buildings joy to joy; until they appear in the very -rats made their nests in the prayer city of God to go no more out forever. minarets.
When the governor of the State JOHN R. MOTT IN KOREA ordered an official investigation, Sand- The Koreans are not far from the ford's assistant, known as "Moses" kingdom of heaven. Robert E. Lewis, Holland, with a few half-imbecile for- the general secretary of the· Y.M.C.A.
lowers, were all the remnants of this in Central China, writes that the evan- New Zion. Sandford's shrewdness had gelistic meetings during the recent
SIGNS OF THE
visit of John R. Mott were of remark- was manifested in great power by a'
able power. large number of earnest confessions A strenuous three days' campaign of sin. The evening meeting contin- was held in Seoul. Every hour of the ued for three and a half hours and a day from breakfast till midnight was great blessing was poured out on all marked out for fixt engagements. Six the churches.
addresses in the open air were not The winter training class for men enough to satisfy the people and one met from January 2 to IS, and Dr.
thousand in an overflow hall listened Howard Agnew Johnston's brief visit to Matt, Morse, and Brockman. In In- in September had much to do with the dependence Hall Mr. Matt spoke on preparing of the Korean Christians for the power of Jesus Christ, while H. E. the blessing. This winter class for Yun Chi Ho, ex-minister of education, men enrolled 940 from the various interpreted. Before them was a mass churches throughout the country cir- of men sitting on mats on the floor so cuits. Meetings for men only were close together that there was no room held in the Central Church every night to move or change position. The win- and congregations ranged from 1,600 dows were packed, and back from the to 2,000. The addresses and prayers three entrances large blocks of people had for their end just one purpose- were straining to hear. The short in- that the Holy Spirit would come in cisive sentences were translated into power in all their lives. The mission- musical Korean, the audience was a aries met every.-tlay at noon and sepa- sea of fast-fixt eyes, the speaker had rate meetings were arranged for the reached the conclusion of his powerful women in three places. On Sunday two hours' address; the appeal was night, January 12, a great many men made, reiterated, explained, empha- confest their sins, but not with thor- sized-and then one by one two hun- ough conviction that broke men up.
dred and more men rose and stood in There were wrestlings in prayer that the presence of their sitting nationals night.
as evidence of their desire to accept On Monday night the blessing came.
Jesus Christ. After a meeting lasting After a short service the whole con- three hours and a half the last group gregation united in audible prayer of the 6,000 men wended their way which rose and diminished in fervor back to the city. like the waves of the sea. Then the REVIVAL IN NORTH KOREA testimonies began to come. Men were serious now and would stand for hours Days of blessing have come in Py- awaiting for their turn to speak The eng Yang, writes Rev. W. L. Swallen, meeting continued without interrup- and we are overflowing with praises tion until 2 A.M. During that time and thanksgiving. First the blessing there was an uninterrupted series of came to the missionaries at the time confessions. Nearly every sin in the of their spiritual conference last Aug- category of wickedness and crime was ust. Then Bible classes were started confest under the deepest sense of in many congregations and on De- guilt. The next night was character- cember 16, at Chinnampo, fifty miles IZed by the same kind of proceedings, south of Pyeng Yang, the Holy Spirit only more intense. Nor was this mere
emotion; there was no excitement the Iiallan Official Gazette is hence- whatever. For two nights the after- forth to appear in the colloquial for meetings, which consisted of prayer "the benefit of the common people."
and confessions, continued uninter- This will have far-reaching conse- ruptedly for six hours. The next day quences. ,During'China's long past, men could be seen confessing to each education has been confined to the few.
other on the street. Stolen articles The native press in South China is were brought back; stolen moneys vigorously attacking idolatry and its were returned; debts of long standing attendant superstitions. It is being were paid, and the crooked ways were held up to ridicule, as stupid, expen- made straight. sive, and degrading, and the people a're The missionaries, too, have come urged to make a clean sweep of the under a wonderful power of the Holy whole thing.
Spirit. The Presbyterian and ~Ieth The'World's Chinese Students' Fed- odist missionaries in the city were all eration not long ago gave an entertain- together on January r6, and for two ment in the Town Hall, Shanghai, un- hours were under great conviction of der the guise of a love-story, entitled sin and unworthiness. All were con- "China Ten Years Hence." The play scious that the Holy Spirit was present showed how besotted China was roused in great power. It is to be hoped that to rid herself of opium, how she res- this work will extend out into the cued her women from the misery and country and throughout all others. helplessness of foot-binding, how she This is but the beginning. freed herself from absolutism, and CHINA. NEW AND OLD secured a constitutional government- and was happy ever afterward.
Many are astonished at the great po- These great changes are opening up litical, social, and educational changes to the Christian Church opportunities taking place in China. But history of service such as she has never had shows that when Asiatic peoples be- before.
gin to move, they move rapidly and in masses. Among other signs of this ADVAN€E AMONG CHINESE WOMEN movement Rev. George Owen reports Another remarkable sign of progress that compulsory education is to be in China is the awakening of Chinese tried in the province under Viceroy women. They will not endure much Yuan Shih-Kai, and, if successful, is longer to be slaves of the men, to hob- to be extended to the whole Empire. ble around on crippled feet, prison- Hitherto, only about ten per cent. of ers at home, denied education and the boys have ever learned to read even their great ambition to become a moth- the simplest book, and not one girl er-in-Iaw and so have authority over in a thousand has learned even so some girl who will tremble at her nod.
much. What a mighty power in the The day of emancipation for women in world an educated China will be! China is dawning.
Another notable sign .of progress is There are now at least ten schools the issue in Peking and other places of for girls in Peking alone. The lead- newspapers in the Mandarin collo- ers in this work are "the sisters of quial; and it is now announced that princes, the wives and daughters of
dukes, the families of some of the first effort was a "Book-lending Socihighest officials. A year ago there ety," for the loan of Chris.tian literawere only a few mission schools for ture. A colporteur was appointed, and girls. I t is one hundred years since in spite of many great discouragements Robert Morrison landed at Canton, has now over two hundred people the pioneer Protestant missionary, and reading his books. Services have been could only remain as interpreter for a started in three places, at one of which commercial company. What a marvel- nearly a dozen people have been bapous change is seen. to-day! tized. Two other colporteurs are now at work, and the whole effort is open- A VICEROY FOUNDS A GIRLS' ing up encouragingly. SCHOOL SOME RESULTS OF WAR AND The United States consul at Nan- FAMINE IN JAPAN king reports that the viceroy of the Kiangsu province, one of the most The annual report of the American progressive of the higher Chinese offi- Bible Society's agency in Japan shows cials, has recently founded a school for that the two recent calamities which girls in Nanking. At the opening the have afflicted Japan-war and famine viceroy delivered an address which im- -have resulted in an increased interest prest the people that this girls' school in Christianity. was no ordinary institution. It is supported by subscriptions from a num- One of the missionaries in Tokyo ber of the leading taotais of Nanking, has a correspondence list of more than who have raised $4,296, and the vice- a hundred discharged soldiers who are roy has subscribed $I,432 annually. seeking instruction, or are earnestly at Six women teachers have been en- work for Christ among their friends in gaged, three to teach English and three different parts of the country. Chinese. The opening of this school is .an important event in Nanking, as The money contributed by Chrisit is really the birth of female educa- tians in the United States and elsetion in that ancient city. The interest where has not only made a deep imtaken in this school by the leading offi- pression on the minds of the famine cials of Nanking indicates the dawn- sufferers, but also on the nation. One ing of freedom for China's women and of the residents in the famine region girls. For the last few years the mis- reports a deep and wide-spread intersionary girls' schools have been doing est in the teachings of Christianity, and good work, but this is the first school in numerous places there are now not established under the patronage of the only a goodly number of inquirers, viceroy. but also many true believers. At Iwa- numa, near Sendai, one hundred are SOME CHINESE HOME MISSIONS reported to have decided to become Christians. At one church in Sendai "The Hong Kong and New Terri- there have been forty-two baptisms. tory Evangelization Society" is a new Among these there were officials, organization in which Chinese and bankers, business men, and university~ Europeans unite in recognizing their college, and middle-school students. responsibility for extending God's There are still many earnest inquirers who are being instructed in the Bible. kingdom in their own district. The The work of Bible circulation during
the past year has been particularly en- visit to England Bishop Tugwell, of couraging. The agents of the Bible the Church of England Mission, Nige- Society find a real demand for the ria, exprest the conviction which subscriptures and a sincere desire to ex- stantially applies to all non-Christian amine their teachings. So general is lands-namely, that Africa can never this demand that in the principal towns be evangelized by' the Englishman. If the secular book stores keep Bibles on Africa is to be evangelized, it must be sale. In Tokachi prison, where crimi- by the African; and in the same way, nals of the worst type are confined, the the African congregations are to be officers in charge have purchased many shepherded. Bishop Tugwell believes copies of the scriptures because they that it would be a good rule to adopt find that the introduction of Christian- on the part. of all English societies ity is the most effectual means of pre- never to maintain native evangelists serving discipline. and never to support native pastors- that is to say, African evangelists METHODIST UNION IN JAPAN should be maintained by the Africans, and African pastors supported by the Bishop Harris, of Japan, writes that Africans. They make excellent evanthe Greek and Roman Catholics in J a- gelists and excellent pastors. Last pan number nearly 100,000, and Prot- year, when passing through territory estant Christians are nearly equally that he had not penetrated before, the numerous, all won froni non-Christian bishop found that a large body of peofaiths within less than a generation. ple were gathering together calling Most of the Protestant churches have themselves Christians; and they had become independent national institu- bt-en brought together and had been tions, and the Japan Methodist Church taught, not by Englishmen, but by is soon to be organized by the union their own fellow Africans. of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, WORK AMONG MOHAMMEDAN~ and the Methodist Church of Canada. IN HAUSALAND The new body will have a membership of over 12,000 and 128 organized In 1890 Bishop Tugwell led a party churches, 139 ministers, 62 Bible-wom- of four men to Kana, but only to be en, 14 boarding-schools for both sexes, expelled from that city. Now the first with 2,729 pupils, 32 day-schools, 2,- women missionaries are on their way 713 pupils, 2' theological schools with there. This is a striking evidence of 53 students, and churches and parson- the success of the political and adminages worth over $100,000. The new istrative changes made in the country church will begin her career rich in under the governorship of Sir Frederleadership, evangelical in doctrine, ick Lugard. boldly aggressive in spirit, and loyal to its mother churches. Two well educated Mohammedans in Hausaland have given up their NATIVE EVANGELISM IN THE sacred books, have liberated their DARK CONTINENT slaves, and have profest themselves as Christians. One of them came to The missionaries are more and more Doctor Miller, of the Church Missiondevoting themselves to the training of ary Society Mission, and said; "I see native evangelists. While on a recent from your New Testament that Jesus
OF THE
Christ does not allow slavery, so I first, and of course one finds plenty have determined to liberate my two of rebuffs and sometimes worse, but slaves." "What will you do?" "Oh, I the opportunity is there and it is won- shall take them to the court on Christ- derful. This does not .mean the people mas day and give them their papers of are ready to accept Christianity-far freedom. I choose Christmas day be- from it. From childhood they have cause on ~hat day our Great Deliverer been taught to believe Islam is the only came." truth, and proofs which seem to be en- BIBLE SALES IN ABYSSINIA tirely convincing to us slide off them like water from a duck. 'Nothing but Abyssinia is one of the lands closed God's Spirit can change them. But to the preacher of the Gospel. The it is great to have a chance to tell them first Protestant missionary who has plainly. been permitted for many years to make anything like a stay in Abys"sinia is the PROTESTANT OUTLOOK IN SPAIN Rev. Carl Cederquist, of the Swedish There are now fifty or more or- National Society's Mission in Eritrea. ganized evangelical congregations Four cases of scriptures sent from Al- in Spain, and questions which arise exandria did not reach Mr. Cederquist in connection with them give occaat Adis Abeba until nearly a year after sion for interviews with the auhe had written for them. A recent let- thorities in Madrid. This keeps beter reports that he has sold practically fore the public the growing element all the Bibles and New Testaments in of Protestantism'. The general feel- Amharic, and also most of the Psalters ing on the part of Romanists as well in Etheopic. Separate portions of the as Protestants is that, whatever the Bible will not be in much request un- formulas of renunciation Queen til schools are formed and school chil- Victoria Eugenia may have agreed dren want them as reading books, to, the effect of the king's alliance when Mr. Cederquist believes they will with that historical Protestant command a steady sale. More Bibles family will be to liberalize Spanish and Testaments in Calla are now be- sentiment and life. ing sent out to Adis Abeba. We trust that the way will soon be opened for No careful observer of events the free preaching of the Gospel in this during the last thirty years will land that is still in the shadow. deny that the Protestant element, with its churches, schools, colpor- THE PRESENT OPPORTUNITY , teurs, evangelists, and other organ- IN PERSIA ized activities, has kept before the In a Moslem land, to be able to go country and the government the daily to the bazaars and preach Christ question of freedom of conscience openly, unhindered, is a marvelous and the liberty of worship. This thing to one accustomed to the former subj ect, with its various problems of conditions when all work for Moslems marriage, baptisms, burials, the has to be indirect. The door is open Vatican, and the Concordat, is now in Persia, writes one of the mis- largely occupying public attention.
sionaries, if one only takes it for The mission of the American Board granted that it is open. I was timid at and other evangelical work have
prepared the way for religious and April 8, and Boston on April 29. Al- social reforms which are expected in tho this laymen's movement was only the near future. inaugurated last ~ovember, it has been developing with great rapidity. Thir- MISSIONS PROSPERING IN THE ty-six members have already sailed for PHILIPPINES the East to investigate missionary work. Twenty-four members of this During this first halt decade of the commission were present in Tokyo at century the Philippine Mission of the . the Conference of the World's Student Presbyterian Church (says the Assem- Christian Federation (April 3-7) and bly Herald) has made itself one of the will attend the China centennial cele- banner missions of the world. Seven bration in Shanghai April 25-May 6. years, passed before one convert was enrolled in Japan, fifteen in South Af- A Baptist Brotherhood was organ- rica, and twenty in Mongolia, but in ized at the men's conference in Boston, , the Philippines in six years from the January 17, and marked, it is hoped, landing of the first resident Protestant the beginning of a united movement missionary Presbyterians alone have among the men of Baptist churches, seventeen churches with 4,127 commu- similar to that in the other denomina- nicants. The net gain in this mission tions. The provisional plan adopted last year was thirty-seven per cent. at the Boston conference carried with it a "declaration of purpose": "That Many groups of believers are the object of the Brotherhood shall be springing up in towns which no mis- to orgat'lize the men of our congrega- sionary has ever visited, led to Christ tions with reference to spiritual devel- by some Filipino who has heard the opment, social fellowship, a closer re- Gospel at a mission station and carried lation to the church and a cooperating it to his distant village. In several in- sympathy with all Christian progress." stances the missionaries never heard The plan is "to bring all men's organ- of a church until they received an in- izations in Baptist churches into effec- vitation to dedicate a building which tive union without in any way im- the people had erected with their own posing upon them a definite' plan of hands. organization or method of work." t MOVEMENTS AMONG MEN In the Protestant Episcopal Church The laymen's movement* in the in- Easter offerings this year were, in terests of world-wide work of Christ some cases, for tHe Men's Missionary is extending north and south, east and Thank Offering. The entire amount west. The Southern churches are ta- contributed by men of New York is king it up and the Canadians are also in line. In Toronto the movement was likely to reach $250,000 to $3°0,000. launched on April 9, with a men's mis- Plans are under way for the raising sionary rally supper. The Canadian committee have wisely decided to in- of a missionary "thank offering" of clude both home and foreign work in $1,750,000 by the Protestant Episcopal their program. Baltimore held a lay- Church in gratitude for the three hun- men's dinner on April I, Chicago on dred years of Christianity in English- . speaking America. • The new offices of the Movement are now at NO.1 Madison Avenue, New York City. t Information can be secured from Rev. F. n.
Marble, Ph.D., Cambridge, Mass.
MORRISON. THE ·PIONEER
MISSIONARY TO CHINA BY EDWIN LESLIE Robert Morrison was born in a com- corridors owed nothing to him, but he fortable Christian home in Morpeth, was mighty in the prayer-meeting.
Northumberland, in I782. His Eng- Desiring to preach the Gospel to lish mother and Scotch father were those who had never heard it, he ap- hard-working people; family prayer plied to the London Missionary So- was observed, and a brood of brothers ciety and was accepted. Rowland Hill and sisters helped to keep each other was present at his examination and from growing selfish. asked him if he looked upon the Like some other famous scholars he heathen as the angels did. In the was a dunce at school in his early days, most matter-of-fact way, without a but when once his understanding be- suspicion of humor, he answered, "As gan to unfold he became a patient and I do not know the mind of angels, of earnest student. He developed a good course I can not say."
memory, and history says that at Morrison wished to go to Africa, twelve years of age he repeated the but was sent to China; Livingstone I I9th Psalm without a mistake. wished to go to China, and was sent At fourteen Robert entered his to Africa. Truly, "there is a divinity father's shop to learn last and boot- that shapes our ends." Solemn, se- tree manufacture. For two years he date Robert M<?rrison never could was an open and coarse young sinner, have won the love of the emotional swearing and even getting drunk. Africans as Livingstone did, and Liv- The father threatened and the mother ingstone, the active worker, who hated wept and prayed. The boy did some book-making, never could have sat serious thinking when he realized how cooped up twelve hours a day deci- far he had sunk and soon faced about, phering Chinese.
joined the Church, went to prayer- Morrison's father and family disap- meeting, visited the poor, besought his proved of his leaving home, and wrote unconverted relatives to turn to the summoning him back to Newcastle- Lord, and read devotional books until upon-Tyne. The father's health was 12 o'clock ilt night. It was not his not robust and the business missed way to cia anything by halves. Robert's clear head and strong arm.
George Stephenson, the father of' But there were other brothers at home modern railways, was a companion of who could carryon the trade, and his Morrison. Both were plucky men of kindred were not in need, so he refused about the same age. At twenty-one, to return. He must, and would, fol- with a view of preparing for the min- low his bent. He had for years se- istry, Morrison entered Hoxton Con- cretly desired to be a missionary. To gregational Academy. Night.and day prepare himself he had stolen time he pored over his books. His pur- from his sleep and his meals that he pose seems to have been to acquire the might learn; he ha4 read with aching greatest possible amount of knowledge head and tired body. Probably neither in the smallest possible space of time. father nor son realized the sacrifice He was a grave, prosaic, dignified they were asking of each other.
young man. The frolics in the college Morrison went down to London to
study medicine and astronomy. On to resp~ct and admire, rather than to his necessary walks he took a book love. and read. The sunsets, the sluggish Thames, the newsboys, the business Nevertheless, there were elements men, the dandies driving in the park, of greatness and even of rugged all the humming, struggling life of the beauty in Morrison. Through a whole metropolis was to him a shadowy lifetime he worked at the unselfish dream. His real life lay in his books. task he had set himself; he was up- With him "This one thing I do" shut right and conscientious; his duty was out all other concerns. his law; he had a Sco~chman's canni- ness, and an Englishman's firmness; A Chinaman of very captious tem- he was self-controlled, brave, generper but undeniable ability was in Lon- ous, and kindly toward children. don and became Morrison's teacher. In the British Museum a copy of the Pint Years in China larger portion of the New Testament in Chinese, made seventy years before, While Morrison was yet in the was found; this Morrison carefully Downs, a great gale blew which sunk copied. or disabled the whole fleet anchored there with one exception-the Remit- The East India Company's business tance, the ship on which Morrison had was trade. By their charter they were embarked. He wrote home an acpledged to hinder the evangelization count of his ~xperience. "Before dayof the world in their generation. The light our anchor snapt in two, our religion of foreigners was not to be mizzen and foresails split, and we interfered with, lest dissensions arise scudded down the Channel under bare Injuring commerce. They would not poles. The sea was mountains high and allow a missionary to sail in one of the atmosphere was so thick with snow their vessels, so Morrison was obliged to go to New York that an American [it was in February1 that we could ship might convey him to China. not see the length of the ship around Robert Morrison took himself seri- us, In the midst of our extremity an ously. Sprightliness was no more to alarm was raised that the ship was on be looked for from him than from one fire, owing to the bursting df some of the' Puritan Fathers. His letters bottles of vitriol. Happily, however, are as grave (tho less interesting) the men had courage enough to seize than "Pilgrim's Progress." He quotes the bottles and push them overboard. scripture as copiously as one of Jly mind, in the midst of this, was Cromwell's Ironsides. His manners, only exercised in casting my burden tho always respectful, were not win: upon the Lord." ning. Small talk he never condescended to, perhaps from inaptness. The gentleman with whom Morri- Beyond the weather, this self-con- son stayed in New York, gave, many tained man had few topics in common years after, an account of his visit: with others. The very intensity and unusualness of his aims made him sol- I shall never forget the evening on which itary. Take him all in all, he was one the missionary company was brought to my house. As the notice had been very short he was placed, for the first night, in our own chamber. By the side of his bed stood a crib in which slept my little child. On awakening in the morning, she turned, as
ROBERT MORRISON, THE PIO:-.JEER MISSIONARY TO CHINA
usual, to taJk to her mother. Seeing a Privilege to trade was accorded them (China held cheap those who soiled stranger she roused herself with a look of their hands in business), but any Ce- lestial found teaching the foreign alarm; but fixing her eyes steadily on his devils the language merited death. The literature of Confucius and Mencius face she inquired, "Man, do you pray to was not to be bandied about in barba- rian mouths. Nor was their religion God?" "Oh, yes, my dear," Mr. Morrison to be assailed. What could these igno- rant traffickers from the Outer Seas replied; "every day. God is my best friend." know of man's duty or his future state? She was a favorite with him ever after. Sir George Staunton was a lifelong There was nothing of pretense about friend of Morrison and procured him a teacher, Abel Yun, from Peking, Morrison. Nothing could be more plain, who had been educated by Romish priests and spoke Latin fluently. Causimple, and unceremonious than his man- tiously, little by little, Yun brought him paper and ink and books, and ne"rs. His fellow missionaries looked up cheated him roundly on the purchases. What Chinaman ever forbore to to him as a father (he was only twenty- "squeeze" his victim-especially when that victim was a tabooed foreigner? five) and took his advice in all their move- Finally another teacher was added, a literary graduate of the first degree. ments. He exhibited less of the tenderness Rent was enormous in the overof the Christian than they did. His mind crowded foreign quarter. Morrison hired some basement rooms, in which stood erect, self-determined; theirs clung he dwelt by day and by night. He was so fearful of attracting attention to it for support, and gathered under its and being expelled from the city that he never walked out. He adopted the shadow for safety. • Chinese dress of a scholar, wore a queue, let his nails grow long, and ate The captain of the Trident, the ship Chinese food with chop-sticks. He on which Morrison sailed, and who was as avaricious of his time as a miser knew something of the impenetrable of his money, and studied early and conservatism of the Chinese, said: late. Of course his body grew weak "And so, Mr. Morrison, you really and became so enfeebled he could not expect that you will make an impres- walk across his rooms. Headaches, sion upon the idolatry of the great to which he was always subject, tor- Chinese Empire?" "No, sir," returned tured him continually. Those whose Mr. Morrison, severely, HI expect God zeal leads them to endanger their will." health should remember Stanley'S words: "A dead missionary is of no He arrived at Canton on September more use than any other dead man." 8, 1807, and presented his letters of introduction to the American consul and to Sir George Staunton, president of the Select Committee of the East India Company. Both of the gentlemen showed him great kindness but were embarrassed at his presence. Foreigners, even the employees of the East India Company, had a very precarious foothold in Canton one hundred years ago. The Chinese, with the haughty contempt engendered by centuries of isolation, despised and hated foreigners. The restrictions placed upon them were very galling. (So are those to which the San Franciscans have since subjected the Cantonese.) They were allowed to reside and walk only in a limited and crowded area.
Morrison's physician advised change. son quaked, but worked on. "I must He went to Macao, discarded the Chi- go ,forward," he wrote, "trusting in nese dress and mode of living, and the Lord. We will scrupulously obey regained his health. He met Miss governments as far as their decrees Morton, a doctor's daughter, and mar- do not oppose what is required by the ried her. Almighty." The· Roman Catholic On his wedding-day the East India clergy were also his bitter enemies.
Company offered him a position as They informed on him and anathema- translator at a salary of $2,500 a year. tized his helpers.
This was afterward increilsed to $5,- Six years after Mr. Morrison had 000. He had been only seventeen reached Canton a Mr. Milne- was sent months in China, but by his unremit- to him as colleague. Mr. Milne had ting diligence had mastered the lan- been lowly born and in his youth little guage so as to be indispensable. Carey schooling had fallen to his share.
and Morrison were both refused a pas- His portrait repr.esents him as a long- sage on the East India Company's limbed, narrow-chested, thick-lipped ships and afterward were paid large plebeian. His face is positively ugly- salaries by the same Company for their that is, as far as features ill-assorted services. Morrison's position was now can make it-but the expression has assured, for he had a visible connection both strength and gentleness. When with trade. No more hiding in cellars he offered himself to the London Mis- and shrinking apprehensively from sionary Society he appeared so home- strangers. His wife became a penna- spun that the directors, looking him nent invalid and had to live at Macao, over, asked him if he would be willing but he spent his time about equally be- to go as a servant to a missionary. He tween there and Canton. answered eagerly, "Yes, sir, most cer- Pegging Away tainly. I am willing to be anything, so that I am in the work. To be a hewer When the London Missionary Soci- of wood and a drawer of water is too ety appointed Morrison to China they great an honor for me when the Lord's did not intend him to go and publicly . House is building." At college he was preach and pray. Such a thing was found to have fine abilities. That high impracticable, nay impossible. It I forehead of his, peaked like Sir Walter would have united Englishmen and Scott's, was an index to the brain Chinese in driving him out of the power behind. He married happily, country. His orders were, therefore, and for his wedding-trip, which lasted to translate the Bible and compile an eleven 1110nths, he sailed away to China Anglo-Chinese dictionary. But to do and landed in Macao in 1813. Mr.
even this would make him a marked Morrison received him with exceeding man, so that he was obliged to move joy.
with exceeding caution. Considering that he was a private, The Acts and Luke were translated and by no means a famous, individual, and published. An imperial edict Mr. Milne's arrival caused quite a sen- appeared "that to print books on the sation at Macao. The Roman Catho- Christian religion in Chinese was de- lics appealed to the governor, the gov- clared to be a capital crime." Morri- ernor convened the Senate, and, as a
~907] ROBERT MORRISON, THE PIONEER MISSIONARY TO CHINA
result, gave Mr. Milne notice that he His place was hard to fill. While they must leave, bag and baggage, in eight hesitated the Chinese Government and days. It was grievance enough to en- the Company got at loggerheads.
dure Mr. Morrison, who translated Lord Amherst was appointed ambas- scriptures and had unlawful dealings sador-extraordinary to adjust the diffi- with printing-presses. He was a nec- culty. Who was capable of being sec- essary evil; trade could not get on retary and translator in such delicate smoothly without him. But, be it well negotiations? Who, but Robert Morri- understood, no other Protestant mis- son, missionary and clandestine Bible sionaries were to De tolerated. Mr. publisher?
Milne then tried Canton, but was har- He accompanied the official suite to ried out of the city likewise. He found Peking. .Outside the capital there was rest at last in Malacca. an eight days' conference between Chi- Mr. Morrison dreamed dreams nese dignitaries and the embassy. If about Malacca. The climate was Lord Amherst were done the honor to healthy and the authorities friendly. be ushered into the august presence of That would be the fulcrum on which the emperor, the son of heaven, he his lever of Christianity was to rest, must kneel three times and knock his which would move all China. His head on the ground nine. Such hom- plans included a school for children, age is paid to the gods. How could a training institute for Chinese pastors, the foreign dogs be admitted to gaze a printing and publishing house, a bo- on His Serene Highness except in the tanical garden of all the plants of the attitude of worshipers? The English Eastern Archipelago, a home for sick dignity of Lord Amherst could not or worn-out missionaries and their submit to that. The whole party turn~d wives or widows, and a seminary to their backs on Peking, and gat them educate their children. He gave thou- homeward in wrath. One more offense sands toward the establishment and to Britishers by China was recorded on Milne worked faithfully and wisely. the slate and the unlucky nation's It did not realize all they hoped (for reckoning with John Bull came later.
it was a big program, and Mr. Milne That was Robert Morrison's only died early), but it accomplished much. trip in the flowery kingdom. He has Mr. Morrison published the New been called a prisoner with a chain Testament. The East India Company reaching from Canton to Macao.
in London heard of it and wrote, say- The Bible and the DictiollZlQ'
ing that, as this had been in defiance of Wherever Robert Morrison was, in the emperor's edict, they were appre- every spare moment he worked on the hensive that serious mischief might translation of the Bible and the com- arise to British trade in China from pilation of the Anglo-Chinese diction- these translations, and they wished ary. This monotonous grind was his Morrison to be dismissed; but because recreation, his entertainment, and his of their respect for his talents, char- amusement-at least it was the onlyap- acter, conduct and services, $4,000 proach to these things he ever allowed should be paid him. himself. He was much isolated, and The select committee in Canton those about him were suspicious of his were loath to carry out these orders. pursuits; many were openly antago-
nistic. He ran the gauntlet toward his the translation of the Old Testament, goal amid jeers, and scoffs, and jost- and in 1819 the whole Bible was ready lings, and hard knocks. Yet he is not for the press. The Bible Society gave to be wholly pitied. He was a lofty- $5,000 to print it and $10,000 more to minded, evenly balanced man who put it in circulation. Congratulations could live without sympathy. Student were now in order and they fell on Mr. work was no hardship to him. Like Morrison as thickly as rice on a bride. President Roosevelt, "he liked his job." Glasgow University gave him a D.D. When God gives a man a special task -a degree that was not as overworked to do He usually gives him also a one hundred years ago as it is now. strong inclination to do it. As a youth, when Morrison was poring over a Doctor Morrison disclaimed perfect Chinese manuscript in the British Mu- accuracy for his version, and wrote: seum and a gentleman asked why he was grappling with so difficult a If Morrison and Milne's Bible shall in tongue, Morrison replied, "All I know China at some subsequent period hold such is that my mind is powerfully wrought a place in reference to a better translation upon by some strong and indescribable as Wyclif's or Tyndale's now holds in reimpttlse, and if the language be capa- lation to our present English version, many ble of being surmounted I mean to will forever bless God for the attempt. make the experiment." It is not yet five hundred years since The superb hauteur of the Chinese Wyclif's bones were dug up and burned, toward Cliristianity weighed upon his chiefly because he translated the scriptures; heart. "My servants," Morrison wrote, and it is not yet three hundred years since "'agree in considering it altogether use- Tyndale was strangled at the hands of the less to be at any trouble to know any- common hangman and then burnt for the thing of foreigners. The Celestial Em- same cause; and it is but two hundred and pire has everything in itself that it is seventy-seven years since the English Pardesirable either to possess or to know. liament decreed that all manner of books As the most learned never acquire the of the Old and New Testaments, of the who·le of the literature of China, why crafty, false, and untrue translation of Tynthen concern themselves about that dale, be forthwith abolished and forbidden which is exotic? With regard to relig- to be used and kept. If such things ocion and morality, the depths of the curred so recently, more modern translaknowledge contained in the Four tors need not be surprized if their works are Books have never been fathomed; and, censured and condemned. King James' till that is done, it is folly to attend to translators were fifty-four in number and any other." rendered into their modern tongue in their native country under the patronage of their Every Sunday, behind closed doors, prince. Our version is the work of two per- Morrison held a little meeting with his sons-performed in a remote country, and employees; he reasoned and prayed into a foreign and newly-acquired language; with them, but it was seven years be- one of the most difficult in the world and fore he baptized the first convert, and the least cultivated in Europe. The candid when he died he could have counted judge of men's works will not forget these on his fingers all he had led to Christ. ci rcumstances.
Mr. Milne helped Mr. Morrison in To the task I have brought patient endur- ance of long labor, and seclusion from so- ciety; a calm and unprej udiced j udgrnent, with a reverential sense of the awful re- sponsibility of misinterpreting God's Word.
There were two babies in the Mor- rison family-bonnie bairns-whom
ROBERT MORRiSON, THE PiONEER MISSiONARY TO CHINA
Dr. Adam Clarke pronounced the fi- there was in all Europe no such col- nest he had ever seen. The mother lection as that of Doctor Morrison.
grew so frail it became necessary for He proposed to present it to some col- her to take the children to England. lege in England, but the government After five years she returned appar- claimed duty on the gift. Sir George ently restored in health, and fires were Staunton pled with the ministry and once more kindled on Mr. Morrison's had the tax removed.
hearthstone at Macao. He writes of It was arranged by his friends th~t the happy walks with his children on Doctor Morrison should be presented his terrace-garden which fronted the to George IV. that he might bestow a sea, and the long evenings _when they copy of the Chinese Bible upon His sat around the same table with the Majesty. Who would not have liked to mother near plying her needle. But witness the interview? On the throne he had only a few months of this, when sat "the handsomest prince in Christen- Mrs. Morrison died after two days' ill- dom, the finest gentleman of Europe"
ness. Her husband was stunned for a (so his courtiers told him), but whom time, and could do only his necessary Thackeray dubs "a monstrous image duties. Once more he had to kiss good- of pride, vanity and weakness," who by the beautiful, motherless children had lived sixty-two years and done and send them over the ocean. "I am nothing but invent a shoe-buckle; who going on mourning all the day," he had spent hundreds of thousands, nay wrote, "an unprofitable servant. Lord millions, on mere sensual gratification.
pity me." Fifty thousand dollars a year, we are The Anglo-Chinese dictionary was told, it took to clothe that royal back. completed in r823, and the East India To quote Thackeray again, "If he had Company published it at a cost of $60,- been a manufacturing town, or a 000. It contained 40,000 words, was populous rural district, or an army of an encyclopedia as well as a dictionary, five thousand men, he, one solitary and occupied six large volumes, each man, who did not toil, nor spin, nor the size of a modern encyclopedia. fight, could not have cost more." Be- With this, and with Morrison's gram- fore His Gracious Majesty stood the mar, the employees of the East India son of a farm-hand, Robert Morrison, Company might make some progress- twenty years his junior, who had lived in learning the Chinese language, and simply and given largely; who had thereby increase their usefulness. Doctor Morrison was now at the zenith found out a useful thing to do, and of his fame. Scholars all over Eu- had worked at it so faithfully that he rope poured their praises in his ear had raised himself to be the equal of and welcomed him to their brother- the greatest man in the realm. hood of learning. He took the only Robert bent the knee and presented furlough of his life and sailed for Eng- the Chinese Bible to h!s sovereign, land. which gift His Imperial Highness was Doctor Morrison accumulated a pleased to accept. But it is to be very rare library which had cost $10,- feared that His Imperial Highnesses'
000, and as the Chinese were forbid- morals were no more benefited by the den to sell their books to foreigners, Chinese than by the English version.
Doctor Morrison spoke many times viz: that he was not a university publicly in behalf of missions. He vis- graduate, but merely a self-instructed ited with his children, wrote articles scholar. The doctor made a spirited for magazines, founded a college for reply. "What good scholar ever ex- outgoing missionaries, and married the isted who was not in a great degree second time. These things made his 'self-taught'? There had been 'regu- stay in England a busy rush. – larly-educated' civilians, and com- He sailed for Canton in r826, taking manders, and chaplains, too, in India, the second Mrs. Morrison with him. and commercial agents in China, long On board ship the crew mutinied with before English missionaries were born, the purpose of murdering the officers. but had they learned, or had they pro- Shots were fired and a gunner's foot vided means to teach, the language?
blown off. Doctor Morrison went England had drunk Chinese tea and fearlessly to the forecastle and rea- raised millions of revenue from it for soned with the angry men and per- a century, but England had not fur- suaded them to get to their duties nished one page nor established a again. When one or two of the in- single school to teach Chinese till a surrectionists had been punished, the .'self-instructed' missionary did it."
revolt was quelled. The intervals of home 'life Doctor Back in Canton his activity was un- Morrison enjoyed were always brief.
ceasing. He translated as before for The house at Macao had been re- the Company; he helped in a home for opened and the happy walks amid the sailors, and in a medical dispensary; he flowering shrubs on the beautiful ter- held services for both Europeans and race resumed. But the second Mrs.
Chinese on Sunday, and began a huge Morrison grew enfeebled at Macao, as commentary on the Bible in Chinese. the first had done. She, too, was com- Some one once asked him if he were pelled to return to England.
not weary. "I grow tired in, not of, the The East India Company's charter work," he replied. A portrait of him expired and the trade was taken in painted at this time shows him a digni- hand by the English Government, and fied, curly-headed man with a comfort- Doctor Morrison was reengaged at a able double chin and the girth of an salary of $6,000 a year. -He had alderman. Diffusing his countenance served only a few days when he took a is an air of benevolence and purpose. high fever which his overtaxed consti- It was fashionable in those days for tution had no strength to withstand. It men of the clergy who stayed at home burned his vigor out, and in 1834 he to ridicule pioneer missionaries, es- died at Canton, aged fifty-two.
pecially if they did not belong to the Now, one hundred years since he Established Church. An attack was first hid himself away in the Canton made on Doctor Morrison in the basement, behold the mighty array of Quarterly Review which stung him in missionaries, not in one seaport only his vulnerable spot. Josh Billings has but all over China! Note the host of shrewdly remarked, "I notiz thet the Chinese Christians and the trans- '
man who hez made hisself is apt to be formations going on all over the Em- a leetle too proud of the job." The pire. If he, the forerunner of them Review sneered at Doctor Morrison all, is permitted to know, must he not for that on which he prided himself- rejoice?
GEORGE WILLIAMS-A MODERN KNIGHT*
EDITORIAL Sir George Williams was one of the bread-winning and money-getting, sunniest men that we ever met. He such concentration as is only another was one of the best rounded men of his sort of slavery. To many men a busigeneration, singularly well balanced, ness life is hardly compatible with real with an alert and fertile mind, a warm, generous heart, a sensitive conscience, and a resolute will, all modified and qualified by the rarest common sense, tactful judgment, winning manners.
Hi~ career ought to impart courage SIR GBORG& WILr..IAHS to the most obscure and humble man. It proves by the logic of example that honesty, much less spirituality. But no lack of natural advantages or of here is a man who is an unanswerable exceptional opportunities need prevent refutation of such positions-scruputhe average man from a life of high lously honest and honorable, "not attainment and large achievement. slothful in business," yet "fervent in Here i.s a farmer's son, born poor, spirit, serving the Lord." None will who never had any real chance of a charge him with ever neglecting his liberal education, and whose early in- work, whether as a humble apprentice fluences failed to mold him for even or the head of a great house; but as a high standard of morals-who, at surely none can charge him with either fifteen, was "a careless, thoughtless, slavish grind or sordid greed, with godless, swearing young fellow," but such immersion in' commercial cares by simple choice of Christ as both as drowned out unselfish ministry to Savior and Master, and by patient, humanity. Nor was he a sort of chadiligent effort, rose to the highest meleon, changing coat and color to rank, and died, at eighty-four, having suit circumstances, turning one eye to crowded into those nearly seventy earth while the other piously gazed years of service the work of ten men; upward. The two sides of a chamea knight by nature as by recognition leon's body lacking coordination, do of the crown, and buried in the great not move together. But Sir George cathedral as one of Britain's greatest- was consistent; whatever he did, he men. This is a life to be especially studied by young men of business. The learned professions, and especially the ministry, are supposed to be more favorable to spiritual work, and a socalled religious life; and the wealth that brings both large means and leisure is thought to afford ample opportunity for doing good. To most men, a trade or a commercial career means the grind of toil, close 'confinement to • I.1fe ot Sir George Willia_ By J. ~. Hodder wi1Iiam.s. A. C. Armstrong & Son.
did with his whole heart. Business with the shadow of it, and its boughs was to him a sphere of service to God are like the goodly cedars." Sir George and man-not a secular trade, but a has become omnipresent and immortal sacred calling. He would have left it, by his work for young men. As Britif he could only have kept it by tramp- ain could not limit or confine him, ling on the Decalog, sullying the dean- neither could his fourscore and four ness of his conscience, or stifling as- years comprize him. He lives, and piration after human uplifting. The will live, wherever young men live demonstration or illustration which and so long as time lasts; and there he furnished of the possibility and was in him, as a product of God's husfeasibility of a godly and useful life bandry, seed after his kind, which will in the midst of modern commercial reproduce the essentials of his characcompetition and the strenuous strug- ter in others who imbibe his spirit gle after mere mercantile and mone- and imitate his example; and the final tary success, is one of the most valu- harvest God only can measure or estiable lessons which biography leaves mate. In his business room, many of as a legacy to future generations. us have read that framed ilIumination: "GOD FIRST." This, his motto, was It is, to our minds, a poetically beau- not a mere maxim; it was his motiful thought that the last half century tive and method. He loved it and of this noble life should have been lived it. spent in "Paternoster Row," near "Amen corner"; and that his great He was an example of the security commercial house should have fronted of a saint who hides himself in that also on "St. Paul's churchyard," face secret place of the most High-the to face with the great cathedral. It Will of God. Out of his fourscore was a fitting expression of the prox- and four years, about threescore and imity and harmony of the two elements ten were years of steady toil-from that together make up his whole career morning to night, with body and -for, on the one hand, he built up a mind. His biographer says, without model drapery warehouse; and on the exaggeration, that he crowded into his other, his service to God and man life "the work of ten." That he lived stands like a cathedral, stately, sym- so long, and kept so well, must be atmetrical, and beautiful, uplifting the tributed to something beside scrupucross, and domed with golden radi- lous self-care; for while always a man ance. of temperate habits and clean life, and from conversion thoroughly religious This is no mere poetic figure; it is in the best sense, he never saved himfact, and thousands know it, not only self. No doubt his free open air, rural in Britain but throughout the globe. life, as a lad, put Iron and oxygen into His name is known, not only wherever his blood; but, as he was apprenticed the English tongue is spoken, but in to a draper seventy years before his all lands. The great association that death, his life of confining labor began he founded in 1844 for Christian early and continued late; for, even young men, like a Banyan tree, has after ample wealth and old age justisent out branches which, in turn, ta- fied lordly leisure, we find him, not of king root in other soil, have become necessity but of choice, the same indenew trunks for new ramifications, until bti<;able worker. the hills and valleys afar are "covered
GEORGE WILLIAMS
With the keys that unlock the secret thing for the seventy years following hung on that self-offering to God, and chambers of such a life we are all beginning at once to work for souls.
vitally concerned; and the first of them Another shaping influence of Sir George's life was the personality of is, of course, his early turning to God. two men of rhyming names-Finney and Binney-a curious combination, This was just seventy years ago, in these two. Finney the American evan- gelist, who was raised up by God to 1837, at the age of sixteen. The min- thrill the dead orthodoxy 'of his day with a new life-to break up the pasister's name was Rev. Evan James. sive inertia that waited for a resistless visitation of the Spirit, and teach men What he preached about, or from what to wait on God instead of idly waiting for Him-to bestir themselves and get text, is not known; but a lad in the into the way of blessing. George Wil- liams heard him, when in London, but back seat of Zion Congregational it was his pen rather than his tongue that inspired the young man. He de- Chapel in Bridgewater, like another voured his "Lectures to Professing Christians" and his "Revivals of Religlad-Co H. Spurgeon, at Colchester- ion," which were born from the press the very year that George Williams "looked and lived." That Sunday was born unto God. Finney's writings were, above all, practical. They innight young George began to live for sisted on hand to hand contact with souls-on systematic prayer to God God. From the chapel he went to the and equally systematic approach to men. They entered into no fine theoshop, knelt down there and talked to logical hair-splitting, and were un- tainted by any learned skepticism. God. Little did he know it, but that They had a positiveness that was like ozone in the air, and a practicality night he began to build his "ascent to that was like electricity in the dynamo. They just suited the simplicity of Wilthe House of the Lord," connecting liams' faith and the earnestness of his spirit. They drove him to prayer and his shop with the chapel, so that he urged him to testimony until both be- came natural and necessary to his could keep on the sacred level always, whole being.
and not go down to a lower plane Finney was, moreover, a man of common sense-and he taught his when he left the place of worship for reader tact-to consult fit times and ways of getting at men-to take them the place of work. as fish are taken, not by a bare, sharp On becoming a member of the church organization, he at once en- tered into active service and "not how little, but how much we can do for others," was henceforth the determin- ing purpose of his new life. He joined a few others in establishing a prayer- meeting in a room adjoining the busi- ness house, and soon became also a Sunday-school worker. / It is well to stop and fix a few les- sons in mind-two especially. First, no preacher of the Gospel should de- spair because large and obvious re- sults are lacking. Here is an obscure • man, whose seed was cast on the wa- ters, unconsciously to himself finding root in a boy who was to be God's apostle to a world of young men.
The second lesson is that a good begin- ning makes a good ending. Every-
hook, but by a bait. And to make soul- hence the naturalness and ease with saving-fishing for men-the business which he learned to get at young men's of life. inner life. To turn to a fellow clerk behind the same counter and ask, "Are But Finney had one lack. He had you saved?" or "Do you know the a legal, rather than a gracious spirit. Lord?" seems a very simple thing to He could thunder law better than do; but to that we owe George Wil- whisper love. He could wield the liams and the Y. M. C. A. It was wind, fire, and even earthquake, better easy and natural, when this question than use the still small voice. And, like was put, to follow it up; to draw a most legalists, he was intolerant, and soul a step further, to suggest prayer almost fatalistic. He denounced what together-then joint Bible study. It he disapproved. He judged others by was in the "apostolic succession" that his own standards-many things that any young man, thus brought to Christ, hinder sanctification were to him ob- should do the same for another fellow stacles to salvation, and inconsistency clerk; that the prayer circle and Bible was a damnable sin. study should enlarge; then that a lit- tle association should be formed for George Williams needed a mellow- mutual help and joint effort; then that ing influence to temper the teaching a mercantile house should feel a of Finney, and that he found in Bin- change in its whole atmosphere ney, the striking, winning preacher of through a change in individuals; then London, who was as conspicuous for that other mercantile houses should grace as Finney was for law, and for get blessing by contact, and similar toleration as the American evangelist work be done and like bonds be cre- was for denunciation. He was opti- ated among their employes; and then mistic, enthusiastic, liberally orthodox. that representatives from different and He knew how to preach the secondary kindred organizations should come to- truths of the Gospel as well as the gether for combination in one central primary-how to emphasize nobility association and a wider influence over of character, the dignity of labor, the other young. men. And just this is inherent royalty of true manhood. the history of that mother association What a providential combination- of London that has now so many and – these two men-to help a young man such vigorous offspring in all lands. to both the "strength and beauty" which became God's sanctuary! With- The radical transformations possible out Finney's influence, George Wil- in a great business house, and even liams' -might have lacked force and municipal community, by such simple, fervor; without Binney's, attractive- quiet methods, we are slow to recog- ness and amiability. When God would nize and realize. When that young train His workmen, He knows what man of nineteen entered the new dra- 'teachers to use. per's warehouse of Hitchcock & Rog- ers, it was almost impossible for a Na one secret of George Williams' young man employed there to live a life stands out so boldly as his habit Christian life. The time was full of of approaching men, one by one. This work-little respite even for meals- habit he formed from the first. Itwas no time over books, study, outside the earliest indication of his future career. All habit brings facility, and
pleasures, or social refinements; and to eminence by sheer industry, purity what little time could be snatched from of purpose, and unselfishness of ser- toil was naturally spent in those low vice. This, instead of detracting from forms of pleasure which are shortest- his life's record, adds to it beauty and lived and quickest in vicious fruits- glory. He was in the true sense a that make up for intensity by corre- self-made man. No circumstances of sponding rapidity of ruin. Hence the blood o,r birth, inherited genius or an- habits of drink and debauchery then cestral wealth lifted him to a social so common and so fatal. Three years plane of high prestige and influence. after George Williams began life in He rose because he set his; eye upward . London, it was almost as hard to and climbed with his feet; because he live without God in that warehouse as followed a divine leader and did not it had been before to live without sin. halt at pard places and self-denials. Even the winning traits which made Let it be 'written as on the firmament him like a beam of light and warmth in stars, that we may read it whenever wherever his personality shone were we look up. The whole of this great life largely cultivated. His faith in God history may be read in the light of disposed him to be cheerful and coura- four mottoes: "Put God first"; "Pray geous; his prayer habit gave conscious for definite results"; "SPeak to the hold on God's strength; his single aim man next you"; "Cultivate the bond made secondary things seem small, and of brotherhood." Not one rule here lesser trials insignificant; his success that any man can not adopt and fol- in soul-winning brought to earth the low. And yet these were the open purest joys of heaven. The man whose secrets of one of the grandest lives of face radiated sunshine on all who met our day and one of the world-embra- him, got his solar light from no natural cing movements of the ages! sunniness of temper or outward pros- perity. It was a reflection from the And one of the most notable facts Sun of Righteousness. Archdeacon in this whole constellation of starry Sinclair, in preaching the memorial verities is that the man, so privileged sermon, summed up by his character of God to initiate and guide to world- in these words: wide development this great work, was not what would be called an extraor- He was so direct, so straight, so unswervdinary man, either by nature or by ing in his faith, so serene in his courage, so culture. No one, not even his most ad- strong in his trust, that he had a remarkable miring friends, would lift him to the faculty for kindling enthusiasm. He had no pedestal of genius. He was not a man care for his own ease or enjoyment. He of the type of Burke or Pitt or Glad- was unsparing of time and money for the stone, of Newton or Faraday or Edi- benefit of all those who needed a helping son, of Liddon or Stanley or Spur- hand. His name stands for the abiding geon. Brilliant powers he had not. He truth that a simple, heartfelt faith in the belonged, to the last, to the uncommon power and presence of Christ is possible at rommon people-to the masses, rising any age, under any circumstances,. to any Christian man.
UNEVANGELIZED REGIONS IN CENTRAL
BY COLONEL G. WINGATE, C. 1. E.
Formerly in the Indian Army . Our Lord's command to preach the devotedly at work in India, on the left gospel to every creature, to make dis- there is not one missionary resident, ciples of all nations, has never been nor even a native catechist. The withdrawn. It presses upon the Lord's strongholds of Mohammedan fanati- people to-day with increasing urgency cism are far more in the hilIs than in and is leading many to look out over the plains, and could we win over from unoccupied territories as "fields white the crescent to the cross any consider- already to harvest." able number of the tribesmen with Recent British campaigns beyond their fine physiques and martial in- the northwest frontiers of India have stincts it would have great effect in brought to light the spiritual needs of lessening or removing opposition to those vast territories that lie beyond the Gospel on the part of weaker Mo- India and stretch away to the utter- hammedans in the cities of the plains.
most confines of Central Asia, an ex- Serious obstacles stand between the tent of continent considerably larger Gospel agent and entrance into Af- than half Europe. In the Tochi and ghanistan and the territory that sur- the Tirah expeditions of 1897-8, which rounds that country. There remains penetrated far into the border country, . much land to be possest. Habib UHah, it was observed that altho in the forti- the Ameer of Afghanistan, rules over fied villages captured and occupied by a powerful Mohammedan country.
the troops large numbers of copies of Afghans are Sunnis and as their leader the Koran and writings on the religion he is styled "King of Islam." The of Islam were found, not one copy power of the mullahs is great, fanatical of the Bible or any portion of it or any in its exercise, and opposed to the in- Christian tract was discovered. Altho troduction of ¥estern learning and Hindoo traders were resident in every civilization. Women are unfortunately place and there was idolatry tolerated situated. Custom compels them to lead by this Mohammedan population, yet a secluded life, and the sanction of re-'
no native Christian was met. There ligion to a plurality of wives results are none across the frontiers of India often in much domestic unhappiness- to-day and we must go back a thou- Habib UHah is credited with seven sand years to from the sixth to 1:he wives. Not long ag9 the principal tenth centuries, when the old Nesto- mullahs persuaded him to divorce rian Church set out to evangelize the three in order to conform to the ac- world, in order to find Christians in cepted interpretation of the Koran re- mid-Asia. What a sleep of centuries stricting the lawful number of wives it is from which the Church in Eng- to four, but the number of concubines land and America is lately awakened! is unrestricted.
To-day one may walk for hundreds North of Laghman are the moun- of miles from west to east along the tains of Kafi,ristan. In the deep val- northern boundaries of the great In- leys watered from the snows of the dian Empire and while on the right Hindu Kush the Kafirs dwelt secure, hand lie a large body of missionaries with Grecian features and household utensils, claiming pre-Hellenic origin, Christian Church: they asked that and clinging to an idolatry the source teachers might be sent to instruct them of which is lost in the ages. It was in the religion of Jesus Christ. It is a a sorrowful day for them when by a sad example of how an opportunity stroke of the pen in the British foreign may be lost, for to-day there is imoffice eleven years ago their country posed between the ambassador for was brought within the boundaries of Christ and the eager Kafir the hostile Afghanistan. At last the Kafirs were aggression of a Mohammedan power the subjects of the Ameer. In con- intensely jealous of the entrance of the sultation with Ghulam Haider, his foreigner-Kafiristan is now one of commander-in-chief, he determined to the two territories and the five prov- inces into which Afghanistan is di- GHULAM HAIDER vided. The other territory is Wakhan, in the extreme northeast, consisting COlllmander-in-Chief of the Ameer of Afgllanistan of a network of valleys inclosed by very high mountains. convert them and bring them into the fold of Islam. The distasteful offices It was a slave girl from Wakhan, of the mullah were offered at the Gulriz by name, who bore to the late muzzle of the breech-loader, the rites Ameer Abdur Rahman, possest of of the Mohammedan belief were en- some of the strongest characteristics of forced upon an- unwilling people, his grandfather Dost Mahomed, two mosques took the place of temples, the sons, Habib Ullah and Nazr Ullah, Koran and the traditions of the Cali- who to-clay confront the rising tide of phate would be the spiritual regenera- missionary endeavor with the -exclution of the pagan Kafir. Yet twenty- siveness of a country in which religfive years ago a message from the i:ms intolerance exercises a deciding Kafirs of the Hindu Kush stirred the voice in its affairs. Of the two broth- ers, altho Habib Ullah is Ameer yet N azr Ullah Khan is much the stronger personality. Appointed cOl11mander-in- chief of the Afghan army early in the reign of his brother he is also the trusted representative at court of the l11ullahs, and on the last day of the, Ramasan, the principal festival of the Mohammedan year, when the Ameer and his court are assembled in full state in the Idgar Mosque at Kabul, the prayers are read by Nazr Ullah in person.
The 'vVestern boundary of Afghan- istan is contiguous with Persia, and on the north the river Oxus separates it from Russian territory. The southern boundary stretches for eight hundred miles from the GOOl11u River on the
Indian frontier to Mount Malik-Siah tify the expectation that it will become where three empires meet-India, Per- again prosperous. The recent opening sia and Afghanistan. In this neigh- out of the Nushki-Seistan-Meshed borhood is Seistan, a country with a route will further this. It is 1,000 very ancient hjstory. Here arose the miles from Nushki in Baluchistan to founder of the powerful Achcemenian Meshed in Persia. The trade route dynasty which gave the line of kings passes through Nasratabad in Seistan, mentioned in the Bible-Cyrus, Darius, where there is a British consul and and others. Alexander the Great vis- other European officials and those enited Seistan on his way to India in 330 gaged in trade. It is one of the out- By pennl,.lon of Col Sir T. H. Holdich THE CITADEL OF HERAT, CENTRAL ASIA B. C. Up to the tenth century Seistan posts of Central Asia waiting to be was a rich and prosperous country, occupied by missionaries. but its wealth brought upon it the dev- The population of Afghanistan is astating hordes of Jenghis Khan Tim- reckoned at nearly 6,000,000, distrib- uted in towns and villages. A hunerlane and others. It has the only dred years ago when the traveler large river in Southern Asia between Christie visited the city of Herat, the Tigris and the Indus. The Hel- then the granary of Central Asia, the mand is six hundred miles long and population was IOO,ooo, but it has rises near the city of Kabul. The exist- greatly dwindled since those days and ing population is only nearly 205,000, is now only 20,000, mostly Shiah Mobut the fertile soil, the big rivers, and hammedans. The city of Kandahar, the importance which attaches to a with 50,000 inhabitants, is situated place where so many interests meet jus-
UNEVANGELIZED REGIONS IN CENTRAL ASIA
sixty:five miles from the terminal sta- aid he provides for Afghan women in tion of New Chaman at the end of his capital, and it is insufficient for the the Sind-Pishin Railway. New Cham- growing need. There is thus an opan is garrisoned by troops of the In- portunity to offer further medical help dian army and is reached by one of the on a missionary basis free of cost. great tunnels of the world through the Let us now turn to another of those Khojak Mountains, and offers the mis- large countries of Central Asia that sionary another unoccupied outpost in have so long remained unaffected by Central Asia. Kabul is 5,780 feet above the progressive march of missions, a the sea. It extends a mile and a half country which has perhaps no rivals in from east to west and one mile from its religious interests, and in the isolanorth to south. It has been twice en- tion of its national life, or in its unique tered by British troops, the first time government by a Lamaic hierarchy. under the leadership of General Keane Tibet may be said to begin in the Pain 1839 and the second time in 1879 mirs of Central Asia, where Afghanisafter the defeat of the Afghans at tan ends. It is the loftiest country in Charasia. There is a native resident at the world. VI!ould that its spiritual Kabul representing British interests, condition corresponded with its physand a number of Europeans have ical elevation. found employment there. That strong Lhasa, the City of the Gods, is situruler of Afghanistan, the late Arneer ated at an altitude of II,7OO feet. It Abdur Rahman, equipped his capital is the capital of the cults of Buddhism, with a magnificent arsenal requiring disclosing to the devout traveler a European supervision, and with other wonderful vision of gilded domes and industries also-the mint with an out- temple buildings, of the far-famed Boput of 20,000 coins per diem, the tan- tala, the home of the Delai Lama or ning yard, the candle factory where priest-emperor of Tibet, and of the 100,000 candles can be turned out huge cathedral of Tho Khang, weekly, and the soap works where ten containing the famous image of tons of soap can be made weekly. It Buddha. is not improbable that among Euro- The monasteries of Lhasa are vast pean agencies at Kabul the medical establishments, inhabited by many missionary may find a place. Into the thousand monks, and like the monastic close borough of Islam this appears to systems of Europe in the middle ages, be the best, perhaps the only door that they exercise an almost unbounded is open at the present time. It is the authority. The central government is, doctor who in oriental countries takes however, at Lhasa, and it is also the lead at the start in missionary mainly in the hands of the ecclesiaswork. He heals the wound and puts tics. One of the most potent ways by the pain to sleep, as the natives say. which the Lhasan Government main- He wins their confidence and gains tains its authority in localities which their affection.. The Ameer has just are a great distance from the capital, applied to the Government of India is by requiring the rulers or heads of for two more wornen doctors for medi- monasteries in those parts to reside cal work at Kabul. He has at present several years in the capital before they to meet all the expenses of the medical are considered fit to be appointed to
such posts. The authority of the three Monasteries cover the land; their total great monasteries of Sera, Debung, number is said to exceed 3,000. They and Gaden, which are to be found are to be found in every valley and near Lhasa, containing 20,000 monks, hillside. Even in the desolate region is said to rival in political questions of the Manasarowar Lakes, at an eleeven that of the Grand Lama. The vation of nearly 15,000 feet, and bemonks divide the government of the neath the lofty summits of the mythocountry with the nobility. There are logically sacred Mount Kailas, where thirty families of hereditary nobles who four of the mighty rivers of India-the are provided with good billets in the . Brahmaputra, the Indus, the Ganges, government service, and who are the and the Sutlej-take their rise, the By permission of Capt. C. G. Rawl1ng MONKS AND ACOLYTES OF THE SHALU MONASTERY CENTRAL .ASIA principal landowners throughout the Lamaserie is still to be found. There country. The monk officials are gener- are eight monasteries on the shores of ally scions of these noble families. this lake, and four on the mountain- When young they are entered on the side. The monasteries at Lhasa, Shigrolls of one of the big monasteries and atse, and Gyantse are collegiate institrained in a school at Lhasa to fit them tutions with 10,000 inmates. For their to fill various government offices. In support cultivable land is allotted, and a few instances the selection to fill a to such extent has this proceeded that government post falls on the real there is barely enough agricultural monk, who by superior intelligence and land left for the working population. strength of character has already made In addition to the proceeds of the sehis mark in his own monastery, and in questrated land the monks exact large such cases he owes his selection to sums in cash and kind in payment of proved ability. In Tibet one in every the religious duties they perform for five of the male population is a monk. the people.
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TASHI-LlIU}I.'TO-TBE MONASTERY OF 8HIGATSEI CONTAINING 4,500 MONKS The contrast between the home of The British occupation thus secured the monks and that of the Tibetan for the Tashi Lama the virtual govern- peasantry is striking. The latter is a ment of the country, spiritual and tem- small two-storied house built of stone poral, and in pursuance of that author- and mud and furnished in the plainest ify the Tashi Lama not long ago vis- fashion. The monastery is a large ited India to ratify the treaty made by building solidly built of stone and Great Britain with Tibet. But there mortar, crowned with a golden roof can be no finality in the form of gov- and adorned inside with decorations ernment temporarily set up by armed and hangings of silk and embroideries. interference, nor since it occurred has Exceeding all others in wealth is the the Tashi Lama ventured to proceed celebrated monastery of Tashi-Ihunpo, to Lhasa, the place of the gods. The , near Shigatse at an altitude of II,8so incarnation of the Bodhisattwa Chen- feet, with a world-wide celebrity and raisi, by name Tubdan Gyatso, is in long known to Europ~an savants. In exile, and in his absence the political it are to be found the regal and richly and spiritual power really lies in the ornamented tombs of the five previous hands of the three great monasteries Tashi Lamas. Each successive Tashi at Lhasa. When the news of the vic- Lama is held to be the ea,rthly mani- torious advance of the British troops festation of the fourth Dhyani Bud- reached the capital, the supreme pon- dha (Amitabha) and his spiritual rep- tiff set out upon his travels, leaving utation and influence are second only behind cathedral and palace, ministers to that of the Dalai Lama of Lhasa. and monks, for distant parts of the It will be remembered that one of the Buddhist Empire, where in safety as results of the recent (19°4) entry of regards his person he is free to main- British troops into Lhasa was the tain his spiritual ascendency over thou- flight of the Dalai Lama, who is at sands of Lamas and millions of peo- present residing in Chinese territory. ple. He appears to be a man of con-
siderable character and strong will, Whether the peculiar form of monand is the first of the Dalai Lamas for asticism to be found in Tibet to-day, more than one hundred years who extending to Mongolia and outlying has reached manhood. He is now parts of China, took its rise when the thirty years of age. His five immedi- wave of Buddhism was rolled back ate predecessors were all poisoned be- upon the Himalayas from the famous fore attaining the age of eighteen, temple of Bodh-Gaya, where Guatama which is the time prescribed for as- Buddha lived and taught in the midst suming the full powers of government. of his·chelas or pupils, as long ago' as the sixth century, B.c.; or whether it In respect to the form which prayer was largely influenced by the activities takes in this land of the Lamas it is of the Nestorian Church, which from invariably accompanied by movement. the sixth to the eleventh century, A.D., The prayer-flags flutter in the breeze. came in contact with Lamaism in Cen- The prayer-wheel is turned by hand tral Asia, and may have conduced to or water or ;wind. The largest prayer- the similarity that is to-day observed wheels contain the sacred mantra "om in the ritual and practises of the Lamani padme hun" repeated millions of mas in Tibetan lamasaries to those that times. The long approach to every prevailed in the middle ages in the monastery is lined with these prayer- monasteries of Eastern Christian wheels, to which the hand of the de- churches, it has to be reckoned with vout Lama imparts many revolutions in many plans that the Protestant misas he ascends the winding way to his sionary church may be making to-day cell. The small hand prayer-wheel is for the spread of the Gospel in Cena familiar object in many a home in tral Asia. It may be commended as a western lands; it was once in the subject for prayer to all prayer-unions possession of some earnest Buddhist interested in missionary problems. who turned it incessantly as his ordi- Here is one of the greatest. The connary means of. invocation, and the version of a Lama is almost unknown, Lama as he sits in meditation offering and any diminution of the number of up prayers with his lips. sways his lamaseries seems wildly improbable. body to and fro.
By permission of Capt. c. G. Rawling LHATSElI'ONG, CENTRAL ASIA
INCIDENTS OF MEDICAL MISSIONS AMONG THE LAOS
Yet nothing, certainly nor the strong- nor frontiers can exclude the pioneers holds of Buddhism which are more of trade or the artifices of workshops, assailable than those of Moslemism, or the physician and surgeon, how is too hard for prayer to accomplish. much less should such barriers avail It razed the walls of Jericho, and to shut out that Gospel which hath brought down fire from heaven at a pathway of its own across the Elijah's bidding, and overthrew the mountain ranges into forbidden terri- army of Sennacherib. Prayer is doing tory, moving from heart to heart, in wonderful things to-day. It has given a manner that rulers can not restrain, us a great cloud of witnesses in the. and bringing to the sin-sick soul peace mission fields of the world to gather and to the weary rest. The "Story* in the harvest. of the Central Asian Pioneer Mission"
"The golden harvest of endless joy, shows that God is even now leading The joy He had sown in weeping; some to attempt to reach these mid- How can I tell the blest employ, Asian territories with the Gospel. "All The songs of that glorious reaping!" the land which thou seest, to thee will If, as we have seen, neither treaties I give it."-Gen. xiii. IS.
INCIDENTS OF MEDICAL MISSIONS AMONG THE LAOS BY C. H. DENMAN, M.D., FORMERLY OF CHIENG MAl, LAOS The medical missionary's work has to withstand the solicitations of her a twofold value: first, it overcomes friends and that even her present husprejudice and brings people into con- band declared that he would forsake tact with the Christian religion; and her did she not leave the Christian secondly, it helps them to be stedfast. religion. We came away from that home feeling that Satan had gained a A Christian woman, all of whose re- victory, but we have not given her up lations are heathen, was ill. The mis- and trust that she may yet be brought sionary 'physician was called at first. back to Christ. But later,. the relatives who had long been anxious to have her come back to On the same day when this woman the spirits, saw their opportunity and turned back to spirit-worship a mesby rapid pressure brought to bear senger came ,from a Christian comupon the suffering woman, prevailed munity some twenty-five miles away upon her to accept heathen treatment. saying that two Christian women were The spirit-doctor was called and told very ill, and asking the missionary them that the disease was caused by physician to come at once. A trip of the spirit of her deceased husband. this kind means a night away from Two days later the missionary physi- home; this necessitates considerable cian, having heard nothing further preparation, for fhe missionary must from the patient since his first visit, not only take supplies but requires a found that Satan's· power was again small camp outfit, as the native beds dominant in that house. The sick one are not up to our standard of cleanreplied to our sorrowful appeal to come back to God that she was unable • Procurable at office of Central Asian Pioneer Mis- sion, 2 and 4 Tudor Street, I,ondon, E;. C. Price, 6d.
liness and their food is so coarse and are beginning to understand the aim poorly cooked that it is unwise for the of the mission, and are interested to Westerner to eat it even for a day learn more about the Kingdom of God. or two. The new dispensary in Lampun, tho A little before noon the pack pony but a modest building, is a great im- was loaded and we started; but the provement over former accommoda- missionary could go no faster than the tions and has led to increased patron- messenger could walk, for he did not age. Dr. C. H. Denman makes fort- know the road. After nearly seven nightly visits to Lampun, a distance of hours' travel over· the parched and eighteen miles, in the interests of the dusty rice plains the village was medical work, and usually finds the day reached. All the Christian families there a busy one. A few weeks ago, were very glad to see the missionary upon his return, he stopt over Sabbath but especially the two families where with the Christians of Bethlehem there was sickness. One of the ·sick Church. Arriving at the village just ones said: "Oh, how glad I am to see at evening he was asked to visit the you! It's like seeing the face of God!" husband of a woman who was once a Christian but had grown cold. The We took the opportunity to give man was unconscious as the result of 'some scripture instruction, warning maltreatment of a case of fever. His these people against putting faith in father, a native medicine man, insisted evil spirits, especially as we were told on his taking native medicines and the that relatives of the sick ones had sug- result was nearly disastrous. The gested a return to heathen charms. missionary doctor was anxious to cure Next morning, bright and early, we the man, hoping that it might be the were on the homeward march, after means of bringing back to God the finding that the sufferers were on the wife and her large family of brothers road to recovery. These two patients and sisters. He told the people that are now well and stedfast in the faith. only God could cure the man and urged them to put their faith in Him. Each Sabbath morning after service, But in spite of his efforts and prayers Christians from the villages surround the man died-murdered through the doctor like bees about a pot of neglect. honey, but they seek medicine. Dr. C. C. Hansen has been touching the During a visit of the Siamese chief, hearts of heathen people by means of Pya Surisee, to the Chieng Mai hosthe scalpel. A number of children pital, Doctor Denman called his attenfrom two to eight years of age have tion to the unfinished condition of the been operated upon for relief of cal- princess' ward. The chief promised culus of the bladder. This trouble to help raise funds for its completion, causes almost constant excruciating and later instituted a subscription list pain to these poor little fellows, for among the Siamese officials, which whom there would be no relief were it realized some nine hundred ticals. The not for the missionary hospital. The ward is now finished ~nd is proving hearts of the parents and friends have a great blessing to the hundreds who been influenced by the kind treatment are cared for there each year. and cure of their loved ones, and they
IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN*
BY REV. ANDREW WATSON, D.O., CAIRO, EGYPT Veteran Missionary of the American United Presbyterian Missions The Mohammedans under Amr from the life of the individual and Ibv-EI-As took Egypt in the Year of the services of the sanctuary; for, Our Lord 640. Egypt was then a without the indwelling Spirit in the Christian country ruled by Mukaw- individual and His guidance and do- kas under appointment of the em- minion in the Church, it becomes easy peror. There was, however, a divis- to change one system of outward rites ion among the' Christians, one party and ceremonies for another.
siding with the civil ruler, the other From the time the Mohammedans under the influence of Egyptian na- added Egypt to their conquests, the tional aspirations, was desirous for defection of Egyptian Christians to his overthrow. This division made Islam began, and it continued all the entrance of the Arab invaders down the centuries until the days of easy; indeed, it is generally believ~d Mohammed Ali; indeed, it can not be that the national party welcomed said to have ceased up to the pres- the Mohammedan leader 'as a means ent time, for no year has passed dur- of deliverance from the Imperialists. ing my residence of forty-four years If they did, it was not long before in the Nile Valley without my hear- they had abundant reason for re- ingof several instances of defection.
pentance. The causes are easily found, and were At the time of the Mohammedan chiefly the hope of worldly gain of invasion, the Egyptian Church had various kinds, severe and continued wandered far from the simplicity of persecution, exposure to the cruelty the Christian religion as taught in and rapacity of their neighbors, and the four evangels and the writings personal indignities as well as political of the apostles, and had practically disabilities of various kinds. Mrs.
adopted a method of salvation mani- Butcher, in her book on the Egyptian festly at variance with the doctrine Church, has told us some of the sad of salvation by free grace, as also and cruel experiences of the Christians was the case with nearly all the of Egypt under the dominion of Islam.
Christian churches of the East. Indeed, it is a wonder that anyone Doubtless the rise and extension of bearing a Christian name could have Mohammedanism were, in the prov- lived until the eighteenth century.
idence of God, intended as a punish- Before that time, no amount of ment on the Christians for setting Christian testimony could condemn a aside the true Gospel revealed in the Mohammedan. Christians were not inspired writings, and adopting the allowed to ride horses, or wear a doctrines and practises of human in- seal on their fingers, or wear a white vention, which destroyed the char- turban, and, in title deeds conveying acter of the religion of Jesus and His property from or to a Christian, he apostles, and drove away the Spirit was described as the "accursed one."
• A paper read at the Cairo Conference, 1906; published in "The Mohammedan World of 'To-dayo" Fleming H. Revell Co.
Number and Proportion then the women, and then the ser- vants. Outside of the family circle The population of Egypt at the there is no commingling of the sexes last census, taken some time after the above a certain age, at a common British occupation, was: meal or for an evening sociable. Even at funerals and marriages, the :lohammedans ……………. 8,978,775 separation is strictly observed. At marriages, both men and women Christians ………………… 730,r62 witness the same obscene motions of the dancing girls, and li.sten to the Jews …………………….. 25,200 same immoral chan ting, yet from different positions on the premises. Diverse ……………………. 268 Marriages are very often legalized This makes the percentage of Mo- when the bridegroom is less than hammedans 92:23, or about thirteen sixteen and the bride Jess than thirtimes the number of Christians. teen, and the arrangements are all The proportion must be much the made and carried out by their nearsame at the present time; any est relatives, and sometimes in spite change is likely to be in favor of the of the opposition of one of the Christians. The smallest proportion couple. At their first marriage they of Mohammedans is probably to be can, therefore, have no idea of the found in the cities of Alexandria and responsibilities and cares incident Cairo and the province of Assiut. to married life, so it is no wonder that there are so many unhappy in Social Conditions their homes. One reason, and per- haps the chief reason, for early mar- .Speaking generally, this is the riag~s is to preve~t the youth from saddest phase of my subject. With falling into vices which are very prevfew exceptions the women are either alent, and caused no doubt by the the slaves or the playthings of the reading or relating of vile stories in men, and oftenest by far the former. the hearing of the children, and the Excluding the highest strata of so- generally unchaste character of the ciety, a man generally marries in or- conversation of the people. Indeed, der to secure a permanent servant the subject of conversation in the for himself and his immediate fam- homes and in the cafes and streets ily relations; and if the wife does not is sufficient to corrupt the minds of fill the bill, she is either divorced to the youth and lead them to immoral make room for another, or a second acts of various kinds. wife will be added. In a conversation with a prominent lfoslem, he The causes of divorce may be anysaid that not more than five per cent. thing, and often nothing except that of Mohammedans in Egypt retain the man wishes to get rid of his wife their first wife to the day of her in order t9 be able to secure andeath. Divorces are as frequent as other. The legal allowance for dithey ever Were, but in fewer cases is vorced women for even the limited there a plurality of wives. legal time is often only collected In the homes, the women occupy one part of the house and the men another; generally the men eat first,
ISLAM IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN
from the man when the woman has der to carry out his ambitious de- powerful friends to plead her cause signs, and a debt was contracted before the kadi. One of the saddest which still weighs heavily on the sights in Egypt is the environs of people. But with all his tyranny the kadi's court, where divorced wom- and extravagance, he initiated enteren and' widows come to plead in vain prise and carried out improvements for justice. The jealousy of Moham- which have in no small degree benemedans for all that pertains properly fited the country. to their religious system, especially as regards the prerogatives of the men, Since the Occupation Islam has their authority over their wives and governed Egypt only indirectly, for other female members of their house- the real ruler has been Lord Cromer hold, has effectually preV'ented any with his staff of British officials, who reformation of the kadi's court. plan, direct, restrain, and control in all the departments of the government- The use of opium and hashish is finance, interior, justice, public works, widespread, and in the cities and and public instruction. Notwithstandlarge towns drinking Western intox- ing this, Islam has no little influenc~ icants is becoming more and more politically, exercised through the Khecommon, especially among govern- dive, his ministers, executive officials ment officials and servants. I have throughout the country, and the press. been told by well-informed Moham- The Khedive's ministers are aU Mosmedans that neither learned nor un- lems except one, and all matters of learned, nor rich nor poor, nor high importance are passed upon by them, nor low, regard it as a sin to take tho prepared and presented by British opium in some of its forms. officials in each department. Certain matters also come up before an ad- Islam and Politics visory assembly, very few of whose members are Christians. No little Tho Egypt is, and has been, nomi- power is exerted on the minds of the nally a part of the great Mohammedan British authorities by Mohammedan Empire under the Sultan at Constan- journals, some of which have a very tinople, and pays a heavy tribute to the wide circulation. imperial exchequer, yet she has been free to govern herself from the time of Of course, the ultimate authority Mohammed Ali until the British Occu- rests with the representative of the pation in 1882. During this inde- British Government, but it often appendence under the rule of this ener- pears to outsiders that he is especially getic prince and his successors, favorable to Mohammedan interests, Egypt was governed on Mohamme- and pays undue respect to their prejudan principles with a certain amount dices, at the expense of Christian interof European influence proceeding ests. The following item of recent hisfrom the Western officials in many of tory is an example: The public pleadthe departments of state. Arbitrary ings in the native courts were on Sunand unjust rule had full sway during day, which required the Christian lawthe reign of Ismail, the first Khedive, yers to be present and prevented them and the people were despoiled of from attending their church services. their money and their lands in or- A number of the Chl1istian lawyers
waited on the authorities and peti- the matter and found a case of gross tioned them to have these sittings on injustice, and after four months' imsome other day of the week than Sun- prisonment and ill treatment in prisday or Friday. The arrangement was on, a pardon was secured from the agreed to, and preparations were set Khedive, and the young man, scarcely on foot to carry it out, but the Mo- able to walk, was set free. Other cases hammedan papers made such a stir quite as glaring as this have come unover the matter that it was annulled. der my notice. It was represented as the Christian holiday and a step toward destroying It must be remembered, too, in orthe Mohammedan holiday, whereas it der to measure the influence of Islam was only a just arrangement to allow' in Egypt, that the executive part of the Christians employed in the courts the administration is in the hands of the opportunity of attending divine Mohammedans, such as governors and worship, without in the least interfer- deputy governors of the provinces, ing with the holiday of the Moslems. mayors of the chief cities, chief officers of police in the various divisions of the The influence of Islam is very great provinces, nearly all the umdas, and in the courts, as the majority of the sheikhs of the numerous towns and judges are in almost all cases Mo- villages. This gives Islam a mighty hammedans. The closest inspection power even under the Occupation, is necessary in the interests of justice, when we remember the amount of especially in cases where one party is prejudice that still remains, and the Mohammedan and the other of some fact that these Eastern people bring other religion. I have known several their religion into all the relations of cases of glaring injustice, to one of human life, and make it the chief reawhich I called the attennion of the con- son in the decision of all questions and trolling authorities. A young man'had the principal moving power in all acbeen accustomed to meet with others, tions. It is true that when any glarsome of them Moslems and others ing cases are brought to the notice of Christians, for friendly conversati9n the British authorities, they are not on religious subjects. As the Koran slow in righting the wrongs as far as was often referred to, the young man purchased a copy for his personal use it is possible, but, through fear, it is and made annotations on the margin. One one occasion, he left the book very seldom that Egyptians will dare for a little and it was picked up by a to complain of those who oppress Moslem, who took it to the kadi, who them. I do not hesitate to say that the advised that a case be presented Occupation instead of weakening Isagainst the young man for attempting lam has strengthened it. to change the Koran. The case was taken up by the court and the young Islam Intellectually man was found guilty and sentenced to one year in the penitentiary. He ap- It is generally understood that pealed the case and the court of ap- Christians and Jews, in proportion to peal confirmed the judgment. At my their numbers, stand higher than Moinstance -the authorities looked into hammedans ,in competitive examina- tion, perhaps because in the case of the 'former the stimulus is greater, and the hope of outside help less. There is so
much in favor of the latter-the influ- late intelligent Mufti to bring about a ence of their immense majority, and of reformation, and for a time great powerful friends, the expected favor hopes were entertained that a new of the British officials-that the young regime would be established, but jeal- Moslem has little fear of failure to se- ousy, prejudice, and personal antipa- cure a position or occupation, even if thy thwarted alI the best efforts of he does not obtain the best marks, be- this sincere reformer.
cause the Christian is not eligible to To complete a course in the Azhar many of the places in the government requires about twelve years. The service. curriculum includes the following Moslems as well as Christians have branches: Fikh, usul ed-din, usul et- greatly advanced in knowledge anq in- tafsir, nahu, sarf, bala,gha, mantak, tellectual pursuits during the last and the hadith. The late Mufti added twenty years. It is surprizing how geography, history, and chirography.
many newspapers, daily, weekly, and The first order of the learned men monthly, have been started, and the receive from £4 to £6 a month; the increase in these journals has been as second, £3; the third, £1 IOS.; all in great, perhaps, among Moslems as addition to their bread. The students among Christians. The M oeyyid, receive their bread, and some of them edited by Sheikh Ali Yusef, is a first- a monthly allowance besides, not ex- class daily, and has the largest circu- ceeding three shillings. The chief lation of any paper in Egypt. Its lead- sheikh of the Azhar receives £90 a ing articles do not equal, in intellectual month.
grasp, or sound reasoning, or useful The proportion of Moslems who can information, those in the Mokattam read and write was, at the last census, and some other papers edited by Chris- eight out of a hundred.
tians, which every Egyptian ought to Special Developments in Islam read. As far as I know, the Moham- The most notable development medans have no historical and scien- among Mohammedans in Egypt in re- tific monthly, and certainly none to be cent years is that which was initiated compared with the Muktatit, or the and carried on until his death by the H illal, or the M ohit, all magazines liberal-minded Mufti, recently de- conducted by Christians. Certainly ceased and greatly lamented. A man the Moslems are behind the Christians of scholarly intuitions and wide read- on most of the fields of literature. The ing, of broad sympathies and worthy reason may be found in their home . impulses, deprecating the widespread training, and especially in the methods ignorance of his coreligionists and of education, by which the memory their bitter hatred to all who are of and not the intellectual powers are de- another faith, he attempted in many veloped. It is notorious that the ways to bring about a reformation methods used in the Azhar, the great among them. He occupied various po- Mohammedan university, where thou- sitions of honor and responsibility in .
sands are yearly enrolled as scholars, the state and in his religious com- have been the very worst, calculated munity, and performed the dtlties of indeed to discourage and retard the these relations with faithfulness and learner. An attempt was made by the intelligence. In the great Moham-
medan university, he brought order Mission Work Among Moslems out of chaos, both in its material af- 1. The American Mission. The fairs and its administration, and the oldest Protestant mission in Egypt is matter and method of instruction. By the United Presbyterian Mission of his intelligence, simplicity, and ear- North America. Its first missionaries nestness he attracted many to his lec- arrived on the field in r854, a few tures in the university. He deprecated years after the C. M. S. had left it.
the ac-cumulations of tradition, and The purpose of the mission was not, as strove to lead the people to simpler has been reported in some places, to faith and a more humane service. labor among the various Christian Through his efforts, the consultative sects especially, but tQ preach and Parliament was transformed from a teach the pure Gospel of our Lord position of antagonism to the plans of Jesus Christ to Jews, Moslems, and the British administration into inore or nominal Christians where and when less friendly cooperation. During his opportunity offered. It so happened last days on earth he was engaged in that God in His providence opened an examination of the condition of the the door to the Copts, who, it would religious courts, arid in drawing up a be easy to prove, were at the time in scheme of thorough reformation great ignorance of the Word of God.
where corruption is rampant. Through Instead of beating at the bolted and him and others, a great impetus has barred doors of Islam, at a time, too, been siven to education. Societies when there was no religious liberty, have been formed and committees ap- the missionaries entered at the pointed in many places for raising open doors of "the lost sheep of Is- money to establish schools of various rael."
grades, partly to prevent the Moham- Yet from the very beginning of the medan children from attending Chris- missions there were many opportuni- tian institutions and partly from a ties of reaching the Moslems indirect- laudable desire to spread knowledge ly. Through alI the history of the mis- among them, and thus prepare them to sion, many Bibles and other religious improve their worldly prospects. So- books were sold to them, and for many cieties have also be<:n formed in the years past over 2,000 Moslem pupils interests of their religion, and books have attended its schools; last year and tracts have been published and there were 3,067, of whom 2.446 were circulated, some attacking the Chris- boys and 621 girls. Perhaps thirty years tian faith, and others in defense of ago the mission published one book on their own faith against the attacks of the Mohammedan controversy, called Christian authors. "Shahadet El-Koran/' and also a num- Contrary to what has appeared in ber of small tracts. When "El-Kindi"
some Western journals, I have not and "Mizan El-Haqq" were published been able to discover the existence of in England the ;nission circulated any Moslem society that has been many copies of both books in an unr formed in Egypt for the express pur- obstrusive way. During the more re- pose of sending men to the interior of cent years the four exhaustive volumes Africa or to other lands for the propa- of "EI-Hadaya" have been published gation of Islam. in reply to several books attacking the
19(7) ISLAM IN EGYPT AND THE SUDAN
Christian religion. During the last probably Egypt is as open as any Mofour years, two evenings a week in hammedan land in the world and the Cairo have been devoted to the public opportunities are obvious. The discussion of the various points of dif- methods have been sufficiently sugference between Christianity and Is- gested by the enumeration of the lam. These meetings have often been branches of work. It only remains to largely attended by large numbers of add that evangelistic work is carried Mohammedans and opportunity is on by preaching within doors, by visitgenerally given to one to reply. ing, by literary endeavors. There is also a book depot, from which books Our physicians at Assiut and Tanta are sold, and in which personal work have many opportunities in the homes is done. Tracts on a variety of subof the people, as well as' in the hos- jects are distributed, and a weekly pitals, to give important testimony to journal, especially adapted to Moslems, the saving power of the Great Physi- is published. cian. They are often called to treat the sick and suffering in Mohammedan . Direct results are the conversion homes. and baptism of some men and some girls-Hall too few," Mr. Gardner As to results, the mission report.s says. The indirect results are the nearly one hundred and forty converts gradual familiarizing of many people from Mohammedanism during its his- and many classes with the ideas of the tory. In 1900, there were six; in 1901, Gospel. there were also six; in 1902, there were eight; in 1903, there were four- 3. Dutch Missions. There is also teen; in 1904, there were. twelve. a small Dutch Mission, with its center Two of these have defected to Islam at Galloub, about eight miles north of through the threats of friends and Cairo. It has schools in several places Moslem officials. One of the converts conducted on mission lines and having is now a successful medical missionary pupils of various religions. Evangelin China. istic work is carried on in the villages around by means of colporteurs. 2. The Church Missionary Society. There is also an orphanage for boys, The C. M. S. Mission to Moham- in which the children of Mohammedans in Egypt was begun in 1882, medans, as well as children of Chriswhen Rev. F. A. Klein started work, tians, are received. chiefly educational and translational. A medical department was started in I might mention, too, the schools of 1889, in which year also, girls' school the Established Church of Scotland in work was begun. Alexandria, and of the German Church in Cairo, but there is no mis- During the last few years, four sionary connected with these efforts branches of work have been distinctly who knows the vernacular, and, therestrengthened-medical, boys' schools, fore, no direct work is done among girls' schools, evangelistic work in the the Moslems. city and in the villages, in which one station is about to be occupied. The 4. The Egypt General Mission. whole of this work is directly among This society entered Egypt in the year Moslems. 1898. Its chief object is the conver- sion of Mohammedans. It has its 10- There are no special difficulties, for
catiori in the Delta and Suez. It has the study of the Word and prayer.
boys' and girls' schools, not only for The missionaries have been allowed to teaching the truths of Christianity to make systematic visitation of Moham- the pupils, but also as a means of open- medans in the Protestant hospital in ing the homes for teaching the adults. Alexandria, and itineracy in the vil- .
It also employs itineracy and has reg- lages has been carried on for evangel- ular services on the Sabbath and dur- istic work and the circulation of the ing the week. Much good work has scriptures and religious tracts. Five been done in book depots, where there Mohammedans, having made a public is free perusal of Arabic books on profession of their faith in Christ, have questions concerning Islam, and where been baptized, while many have been there is the best opportunity for in- personally instructed in the way of formal meetings at night and for per- salvation, but have not taken a stand sonal work. Scores of Mohammedans for Christ.
have been dealt with in these depots, In Egypt proper there is only one tho but few have made a definite pro- special difficulty which confronts mis- fession of their faith in Christ. There sionary work, and that is to find em- have been several baptisms. The case ployment for the converts, as the Mo- of a Mohammedan sheikh from Mo- hammedan community always boycotts rocco, related in a small tract entitled the converts, and the family relations "The Story of a Moslem Sheikh," is disown them and cast tpem out of intensely interesting, and shows us their homes. Generally the relatives, how unexpectedly the Spirit some- however near, prefer to see their times moves upon souls and brings friends die rather than to see them them to the light and life which are become Christians.
only to be found in Jesus Christ. This. There are no certain data from mission has also a monthly paper, es- which to ascertain the number of Mopecially adapted to the needs of Mos- ha~medans in the Sudan; the num- lem readers and circulating widely in ber must be large considering the wide Egypt. extent of territory within the bounds 5. The North African Mission. of the Anglo-Egyptian possessions, This mission was begun in 1892, and limited on the east by the Red Sea and has for its special, tho not sole object, Abyssinia, and on the south by the conversion of Mohammedans. At Wade1ai. All missionary work is abpresent it has its centers in Alexan- solutely forbidden within the Anglodria and Shabin EI-Kom. Three mis- Egyptian Sudan and no fohamsionaries labor at the former place and medan can be a subscriber there for a two at the latter. The methods em- Christian journal without making apployed have been for the most part plication first to the central governschools for boys and schools for girls ment authorities in Cairo. The conin which the Gospel is regularly sequence is that no one has courage taught. Bible-women are also em- enough to thus put himself under govployed to visit the women in their ernment espionage. How long this homes and read to them, as oppor- tunity offers. There are also meetings state of things is to continue is for free in the evening during the week for England to say.
A BARRIO UNDER THE TREES IN
THE CHURCH IN THE JUNGLE THE GROWTH OF PROTESTANT COMMUNITIES IN THE VISAYAS BY REV. CHARLES W . BRIGGS, ILOILO, PHILIPPINE ISLANDS Missionary under the American Baptist Missionary Union The great Protestant ingathering of friar and all who stood with him as the Visayan peasants in 1900 was oppressors of the peasants, and became marked by frequent petition for mis- opposed to the church and the churchsionaries and manifest purpose of directed government. The friar regime these peasants to organize themselves with its feudal. tendencies also develunder mission direction into separate oped a class distinction which militated communities. The reason for this was against the social, political and ecodoubtless complex, Gombining both the nomic interests of the peasantry. The hopes of a people long opprest, and inevitable result was that the friars practical reasons rooted in the history and the mestizo Romanists came to utand evolution of the peasants. terly despise the peasants, designating them as Moros, signifying that they Before the revolution against the cohabited without matrimony; Babay- Spa~iard in 1896 the position of these lanes, or pagans and spirit worshipers Visayans had been growing more and with lewd rites; and Pulajanes, or more intolerable because of oppression fanatical law-breakers apd enemies of that came directly or indirectly from the Government and of the Church. the priests. The peasants had been too Instead of being true missionaries to poor to pay for papal sacraments, them and winning them to the church, which they doubtless valued as highly which might easily have been done, the as any ignorant proletariat under friars, who had become landlords and similar conditions would have done. car~less of their spiritual office, re- But they early came to consider the
pelled and embittered the peasants till late more or less clearly during the there was a rupture which could not years they had endured oppression.
be healed. That their hope was utopian was The days of revolution, the interim manifest in their utter failure to fore- between the driving out of the Span- see inevitable dissension and internal iard and the coming of the American, trouble even when they were isolated and even of the first year or two of from their former enemies. They American occupation, were times of looked forward to a community that great suffering and danger for the should realize their fondest dream of peasants. They had fought faithfully freedom from outer molestation, of in the revolutionary army under their education for their children, of exemp- Roman Catholic officers, but in return tion of their land and of the products for fighting in the front ranks and of their toil from taxation, of religious bearing most of the loss and suffering ministrations that they could afford of the campaign, they were hunted, and that should satisfy their souls, and raped, pillaged and murdered in all of protection under the guardianship parts of Panay Island. The manifest of the powerful Americana.
and deliberate intention of the upper- The missionaries were at first con- class Filipino, drunk with despotic servative in their attitude toward the power, was to exterminate. the hated Protestant community idea. Miny peasant. objections seemed forcible. It was This class hatred still exists unas- pointed out that under the new system suaged and resists both the democratic of government where the power was spirit of the Gospel of Christ and the in the hands of the mestizo Catholic movement for political equality of all class, even tho the American flag did Filipinos which Americans seek to im- wave over his office building, such an plant, and which they even presuppose isolated community would be an in- as already existing in much of their viting mark for all kinds of oppression legislation for the islands. under the subterfuge of administering It was while the peasants were in justice. Again, the suspicious nature these dire straits that the Gospel was of the Filipino was pointed out, and first preached to them. Small wonder it was shown that the Protestant that they accepted it almost en masse. Christians, if they lived beside their It is also but natural that from the first former neighbors, would not be mis- they proceeded 6n the conviction that understood and suspected; while their they must come out and be separate isolation would invite bitter misunder- from their Catholic neighbors and standings and all sorts of trouble from enemies. without. Again, the new regime was On the other hand, there was not very new, and changes in the sov- lacking a fond dream-a living hope ereign power might occur at any time.
"which would not down"-that they If the restraint due to American over- might establish a great town of their sight were withdrawn, it was feared own under American. protection where that the isolated communities of Prot- they could forget their hard lot of the estants would be exterminated on past and enjoy such rights and priv- short notice, or with no notice at all.
ileges as they had been able to formu- Lastly, it was again and again made
CHURCH IN THE
plain to the peasants that they owed a they found it best to begin, at least debt of gratitude to their Savior and temporarily, with several smaller commust evangelize their Catholic neigh- munities. The first one to take defibors and win them to the Gospel, both nite shape was in a site known as by word and by example, which would Bingowan and M aldespina respectivebe seriously hindered by their isolating ly, located in the northern part of Ilothemselves in exclusive communities. ilo Province near the trail between the But the project would not down. A REFORMED BRIGAND CHIEF The peasants replied tha~ if there were Now a Christian, living fn ba.rrio McKinley a change of government and American supervIsion were withdrawn, they towns uf Calinog and Tapaz. The would all be hunted down and killed site was propitious, the land fertile, anyway, no matter where they lived. the region but little troubled with brig- In this they appeared to be right. As ands, and the people who had tilled to suspicion, they felt that the new little plots of land there since the times community would be so successful that of distant ancestors, were now Chrisit would awaken envy and not suspi- tians. cion! As to furthering the Gospel and winning their neighbo~s, they main- Some twenty families founded the tained that Catholic peasants would wish to join them as they should behold their freedom and prosperity, and thus the Gospel would spread inevitably. While as to persecution at the hands of mestizo Catholic officials,-it would be the manifest duty of the missionaries to act as intermediaries and save them from all that!
In spite of our hesitation, the peasants prepared a map of a plot of land in a desirable location, far from any town, and on unoccupied government land. They were urgent in their petitions that we get the project authorized from Manila. But this was not done. Changes came about in the personnel of the mission. First one and then another of our working force had to leave on account of health, till finally the peasants saw that delays were not likely to end soon, and started on their own initiative to carry out their scheme.
At first they had planned for one large town that was to have several thousand charter residents. But now
Photo by C. W. Briggs BBV". 0 .. W. f.IDER ON TOUR lli ILOILO An Am,erlcln mi8sionary vfsltlng the "Visayan Protestant communities in the Philippines new community in 1902. They had headaches and alternating chills and to make humble beginnings but their high fevers, that were aggravated by hope and faith were not small. F rom the start they laid out a town with every effort to make aliving and clear wide streets centering about a plaza. One of the first buildings put up after up the jungle. But they won. Their some shacks had been reared fo r the ' first crops furnished relief, and they women and children, was a small could now invite others to come and chapel. Some of the wilderness was join the community. The new settlecleared up and the first crops planted; ment had two hundred souls at the and then began the struggle to see if end of the second year. they could live till the fir st crops should be harvested. They were sur- Then it was that the missionary first rounded on all sides by the j tingle, visited them in their new home. He retall, wide and rank in its tropical ceived an enthusiastic welcome such as growth. Roots and herbs and bam- isolated country peasants alone could boo-shoots, with fish and game, con- show. to one whom they loved and stituted their sustenance as they toiled, trusted and whom they had not seen planted and waited. Then came the for two years. Ten miles they came fever. The malarial-bearing mosqui- to meet him at the edge of the jungle, toes abound in the jungle, and jungle and carried him, protesting, in a hamfever is no plaything, even for a Visa- mock all that distance. Chickens, fat yan who is nearly immune by bearing pigs, choice fish, crabs and shrimps malaria in the system from childhood. from the mountain streams, snails, and Several died on short notice, some of all imaginable sorts of viands which them after only a few hours of illness. they count delicious, had been kept All the others had to suffer with the against his coming, and four times a day he had to sit down to a loaded table, and a fifth time it was spread and he was urged to "take a little."
THE CHURCH IN THE
1907] RIZAL, A VISAYAN PROTESTANT COHMUNITY, ILOILO In the chapel we listened together gle and with the fever, the largeness to the word of Life, and together wor- of their faith, the firmness of their shiped the God so manifestly leading . grip upon God, the contrast between in all this enterprise. New candidates them anel their neighbors who had for membership in the church were persecuted them and driven them forth examined e1uring the week, and more from lanel and home-in all these re- than a hnndred were baptized under spects they compared favorablY with the feathery-fronded fernlike bolo our own Pilgrim fathers whose excel- bamboos in the jungle stream. In the lent qualities made it possible for God chapel a score of weddings were per- to elect them to lay solid foundations formed, some of them old people, who for a great state.
had cohabited for decades, availing On this visit the elders of the com- themselves of this their first oppor- munity laic! before the missionary a tunity to be united in the Christian cer- diagnosis of their condition as follows: emony of marriage. ,Ve are far beyond the visits of your One of the results of that visit to the itinerant preachers; few of us can missionary was the forcible confirma- read at all, and no one of us is com- tion of what had long been a growing petent to explain the Bible to the oth- conviction with him, of the essential ers; now as our community enlarges worth and capacities of the Visayan we sorely need a head, a leader, a pas- peasant for Christianity, and for a tor, who shall teach us and lead us place in the modern world. The strug- and be our messenger to you and our gles of this community with the jun- spokesman before the provincial -gov-
ernment. They confest -frankly that developing feuds, was asked to become they would soon outgrow what little the head of the new community. He Christianity they had already been was a willing learner in the scriptures, able to absorb and revert to ignorance but knew practically no Spanish, very little Visayan, and had never met a missionary who could teach him in his own dialect. He was manifestly seri- ously handicapped. He could preach with some power already, and while but a beginner in Christian experience, he seemed to have all the potentiality and promise of a babe in Christ. He had fallen into sin after becoming a Christian, and had come forth with a sense of guilt and humility that seemed a possible earnest that in the future he would avoid such a course. He was but a dull tool, never yet ground to an edge, but the best there was at hand.
Under the influence of the person- ality of this man, named Amanda Za- mora, a relative of the martyred Za- mora of Manila, the new settlement which he named "New Boston," at once became distinctly stronger. He was a natural leader, and all accepted him as such. He settled their petty disputes in a wise way, represented )(ARTIN ABYSINO AND JUAN PORTEGO them before the provincial authorities, commanded from the first the respect Two itinerant pastors touring in the Jungle of Poney and superstition unless they were pro- of those authorities, and resisted every attempt to do the little colony any invided with a pastor. justice.' He enlarged the chapel, used Amanda Zamora it as a schoolhouse through the week, It was pointed out to them that the taught the children of the barrio the work was still so young that no pas- three "R's" and the New Testament.
tors had yet been qualified to lead On Sundays he preached the Word as such a community. But they were in- best he could. He toured the sur- sistent and a pastor had to be pro- rounding country, endured some per- vided. A Tagalog who had already secution, faced many dangers in bear- gathered about him a little community ing his message into hostile centers, of Christians at Janiway, fifty miles and won many converts and influenced away, and had there shown good qual- many of them to move to New ities as an organizer and leader, but Boston.
had also demonstrated a~ capacity for In every way he demonstrated fit-
ness for his position. He had been a by the community with seating capac- revolutionary soldier and officer, and ity for over a thousand souls, and was accustomed to give orders and every Sunday it is packed with people to see them fulfilIed. The essentially from New Boston and from the coun- dependent nature of the Visayan peas- ant craves such a leader. He organ- ized his growing community into wards 'with head men over each ward to report to him all cases for disci- pline and to maintain order. He sur- rounded the barrio with a high cor- ral of bamboo to pr6tect against ene- mies and thieves, and kept the gates closed from dark till daylight. He studied the reports. of the civil com- mission's enactments relating to mu- nicipal organization and organized New Boston on the lines there laid down. Eight young men were set apart as police to be on guard through the night, watch for jungle fires, and perform other police functions. Un-.
der the guidance of the missionary he organized a council comprizing all the adult men of the barrio, to discuss and plan for the general welfare. Ac- cording to a good Visayan custom the Photo by C. W. Briggs old men or "elders" did most of the AUNDA ZAMORA counseling, and Zamora and his po- lice administered the will of these try round about. One of the functions ,elders. Thus the community took a of Zamora's police is to see that all long step toward democratic self-gov- members and their families attend ser- ernment, and all learned to act and vice if circumstances permit!
think in the interests of the com- As the population increased and the munity. jungle near the barrio was cleared up, At the end of four years New Bos- misunderstandings arose as to land ti- ton must be pronounced a success in tles, and Zamora made provision for every way. The community now has the settlement of all such difficulties.
some eight hundred souls. New This land was alloted in severalty, and houses are being built and new fami- no man can hold more than one share lies continually 'being admitted to the against any other who wishes to work community by the council of elders it. To provide against unfortunate and general assembly. No thieves or years and to enable themselves to help other bad characters have been admit- other Protestant barrios that should be ted, and no one th<.twas not a hard in need, the council of elders have worker. A great chapel has been built elected a treasurer and trustees who
keep a community granary. When the The movement is still too young crops are good each man is solicited to talk about either its successes or to put as much rice as he can spare failures. No two of these communi- into this common treasury, and he is ties have grown up under similar congiven a receipt for the same. Any ditions, nor with the same problems Protestant who may be unfortunate, to work out. For example, one of or the council of elders in a neighbor- them is a barrio of reformed brigands ing barrio that may have been unfor- who were under the control of a chieftunate with its crops, can borrow from tain who was converted, and with his this common treasury at current rates men turned their arms over to the govof interest. The receipt holder who ernment on condition that they be perhas contributed rice receives his por- mitted to live in this barrio unmotion of the interest accumulated, and I~ted and without having to suffer the in due time his capital is returned to penalty for their misdeeds of the past him. Thus a mutual cooperative and while they here work for their living loan association was started entirely and are of good report. Two other upon the initiative of the peasants large barrios are not on government themselves; and later, under Zamora's land, but upon land owned by Protinfluence, the same plan was followed estant families who' invited opprest out by our other Protestant communi- Protestants in surrounding barrios to ties. Thus the humble peasants are come and live with then:, until now the learning to care for themselves, pro- two communities, Good Hope and Rivide against famine, fire and,.. other ::;al, have upward of two hundred fammisfortune, and are fulfilling the ilies each. They have both asked for prophecy of their spokesmen six years a pastor, but none has been forthcomago who first asked to be organized. ing. Each is under the charge of a Theyare already exciting jealousy and preacher who ministers to other barenvy on the part of their Roman Cath- rios near. at hand, thus including sevolic neighbors whom they are out- eral communities in his itinerary. In stripping. at least two of the communities the people were not so willing to work .as Under the American Baptist Mis- those who founded New Boston. Their sion in Iloilo Province there are now respective leaders had a very difficult nine communities of this sort, and task in making them provident and twelve others that contain both Prot- leading them into enough thrift to lift estants and Catholics, but each group them at all above the level of the poor living by itself with a high fence be- Catholic barrios near them. Both of tween the Catholic and Protestant sec- these leaders and preachers had to go tions of the barrio. The. reason for into the fields and do double work this arrangement was that the Prot- themselves in order to' arouse any enestant families owned land in these thusiasm among their constituency. mixed barrios and were unwilling to Both, however, attained a creditable leave it. Each half of such a barrio success. One of these preachers said has its own separate organization, and he had preached and taught faithfully, the Protestant sections have their own but that his people never did more chapel the same as those 111 an en- than idly listen till he stript and shoultirely independent barrio.
CHURCH IN THE
dered his hoe and led them into the du corps and a contagious enthusiasm rice-fields and stayed with them and that fires them with strength and conhelped them till the work was done. fidence-which half wins the battle. This man, Martin Abysmo, is a good And their democratic training in selfpreacher, and has won many converts administration of their own affairs, and built up the believers in the true which is a tremendous innovation into faith, but never did he preach more the essential feudal system of the bareffectively than while wading knee- rio country, will fit them to take their deep in the mud, planting his own place in the larger community life of , rice, supporting himself and even loan- the province and state later to be ing to the poor of his flock, and lead- evolved. ing them all to emulate their pastor. He is an itinerant pastor and does an A large share of the success or failaggressive propaganda work in the ure of these communities has thus far Catholic barrios. Without such men depended directly upon the capacity the separate communities would have and fitness of the man who has been proven failures. placed over them. Zamora is an ex- ceptional man. One other pastor, Mi- Thus our Protestant community ex- -guel, the head of the community of periment in so far as it has been tried reformed bandits, has demonstrated by the mission, and in so far as it has quite as much strength, with less tenhad a reasonable amount of care and dency to military arbitrariness. The oversight, has commended itself as a communities that are near the highsplendid means of more thoroughly way and so easily accessible to the misevangelizing a large mass of ignorant sionary, have prospered more or less peasants already Christians. The mis- under his personal oversight and cosionary and his helpers find the people operation: with the council of elders. together and easy of access for preach- This, however, would be utterly iming, teaching, oversight and disci- practicable in New Boston, which is pline. Their children, instead of being so far away and so poorly supplied scattered among Catholic and pagan with trails that it can be visited but' playmates, play together and study to- twice a year. gether and profit by thus breathing a more Christian atmosphere than they The separate community idea is would otherwise have. The Chris- commended to other missionaries tians, instead of being widely scat- whose aim includes the social regentered, are so grouped as to be strong eration and general welfare of a large enough to have their own chapel with- body of peasant people in conditions in easy distance of their homes, and that would render such organization can unitedly support their teacher and feasible. In Iloilo Province the move- ment is still gaining headway, and has pastor. They thus develop 'an esprit the promise of yielding large results.
AMONG
BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.O.
In the little walled city of Almora, and Hawaii to the territory of this a city some three hundred years old country greatly increased the number and long the capital of a province in of lepers in care of the American the Himalaya Mountains, I visited an Government. Since the lepers in the asylum for lepers which held at thai: world number nearly 1,500,000, there time three hundred of these sufferers. is serious trouble still facing us on this Liberty was given them in this institu- account.
tion to learn trades or, if possible, to The fifty-t~ree leper asylums in support themselves by agriculture or India are distributed as follows: In other means. These lepers sometimes the Northwest Provinces, nine; in the intermarry, and those born of these Province of Bengal, nine; in the Cen- marriages in some cases live to be tral Provinces, eight; in Bombay thirty or forty years old before the Province, seven; in the Punjab, seven; disease shows itself. Tho this disease in Madras Province, four; in Travan- is not exactly that described in the core, three; in Central India, two; in Old or New Testament, yet it has Ceylon and Raiput2..na, each one. Sit- enough of all that is disgusting to uated respectively at Mandalay and make it still God's parable of the loath~ Maulmain, in Upper Burma, are one sameness and the irresistible progress each.
of sin. It is to Christianity that we The men and women engaged in are indebted for the attempt to relieve this work do not represent any de- these sufferers and to make them a nomination or nation. The last De- self-sustaining community. In India cennial Conference of India passed these settlements are carried on at resolutions commending the feature several places, and others are found in which does not employ missionaries of China, Japan, Madagascar, Africa, its own in these establishments, but South America, the Philippines, Su- seeks the support and cooperation of . matra, and elsewhere. The Dutch the several societies. The men and have conducted work among them in women engaged in this work are from the Eastern Archipelago, the Mora- Germany, Switzerland, England, Scot- vians in South Africa, Surinam, South land, Ireland, Canada, the United America, and elsewhere. States and India, as well as from Aus- In India and the East the work is tralia and elsewhere. They extend carried on in seventy-eight localities, from Chamba and Chandag to Elich- by representatives of twenty-seven pur and Nasik; from Tarn Taran and different mlsslOnary org-anizations, Sabathu to Travendum; from Raipur eleven of them having their connec- to Colombo-in a word, from the tion with societies whose center of Himalayas to Cape Comorin.
operations is the United States. Those of China are not enumerated, Lepers are not confined to anyone as no census is taken in that country; country, for they are found in Great but from the estimate given there are Britain and in the United States. The as many found there as in India, tho annexation of the Philippine Islands mainly in the south. They do not s(~m to follow the heated districts, the the west coast. They are called damp region, or the country as related variously a settlement, a home, a col- to other sections, or in any other ony, a village, and a camp.
specific direction as yet pointed out. In Japan are tw()–{)ne at Tokyo, There are a dozen known efforts to the other at Kumamoto; in Malaysia relieve the cases of lepers well organ- are two and in Oceania two-these are ized and conducted in the most credit- inclusive of that at the New Hebrides able way. One of the most extensive and that at Molokai in the Hawaii.
and successful is the Society' for South America has been specified.
Lepers in India and the East. In Palestine and Persia each has one.
China, there are several under the That at Palestine was originated as Church Missionary Society. Of the the one in Cape Colony by the Mora- efforts at systematic relief five are vians. That in South Africa was located in Fuchau Province, three in known as "Heaven and Earth," not that of Chekian, two in the Canton from any moral quality, but from Province, and one each in Hupeh and physical conditions which allowed of Nganwhui. These are a small number these being alone visible in that local- among 500,000 subjects of this disease. ity. They began this work at that The segregation of the sexes and sep- place early in the last century and arate treatment of untainted children maintained it until recently all them- accounts for three at Chekiang, so selves. The Government has now un- that practically they are one in their dertaken it.
administration. There has been care There is a difference of opinion here to note the effects of these efforts among scientific men about the con- in the way of inducing the people to tagion and hereditary character of turn to Christianity, not only among leprosy. In Berlin in 1897 the lepers'
lepers, but of the country, who may conference said: "Leprosy is conta- learn of it as purely eleemosynary. gious but not hereditary." Mr. Wel- There are persons who will be affected lesley C. Bailey, Secretary of the Soci- by this side of work which will never ety for Lepers to India and the East, be reached by any other side of Chris- gives it as his opinion that leprosy is tian energy. contagious, tho not infectious. The Africa comes in for its share of National Leprosy Fund under the leprous cases. Madagascar alone has Prince of Wales says: "No authentic four leper asylums. The leper colony congenital case is known nor was one at Antsirabe counts forty houses, be- seen in this country (India)."
sides the church and hospital. The The percentage of children the re- three others have, like Malagassy sult of leper marriages who become localities generally, unpronouncably lepers is too small to warrant the be- long names to us. lief in the hereditary transmission of Six asylums are located on the the disease. It is said, that only five continent of Africa, scattered from or six per cent. of the children become the coast of Zanzibar to Lake Tangan- subsequently affected. Brothers and yika in the center, to Transvaal, to sisters may show a true or false Kaffraria, to Robbins Island at Cape heredity, so that it attaches little im- Colony, and to the Yoruba country on portance to heredity in the case of lep-
rosy. On the other hand, Dr. Eugene were I,I47 professing Christians. The Blumacher, American consul at Ven- results in government or municipal ezuela, made recently an exhaust- hospitals or asylums are very differ- ive report to the State Department at ent. Here of I,I30, only 434 are Washington wherein he affirms that Christians by profession. Miss Bud- leprosy is not contagious but is den says: "If you will understand the hereditary to a degree not reached in hopelessness in this life and the life any other disease. He has corre- to come in the case of the leper you sponded with the most advanced will know something of what it is to scientists in the United States and them to receive the Gospel cif Jesus Europe, and it was through his efforts Christ." She says anything we do for that the Tua Tua plant, now used in them is appreciated. She says their treating the disease, is planted in hearts are filled with gratitude. It countries which have leprosy. Mr. fills their hearts with a desire to do Wellesley C. Bailey, of the Society for something for others. They have even Lepers in India and the East, has for volunteered to give a whole day's food many years been making many efforts that they might contribute with others to save the children of leprosy patients. to help relieve the most needy. Miss He believes that if the children of Budden instances a Bible class which lepers can be separated from their she held once a week for leper women. parents early in life many of them can She says she has often heard those be saved. Many of these· children are women thank God for having made self-supporting and out in the world. them lepers, as without this malady In many instances they are married they would probably never have heard and have children of their own free of the Kingdom of Christ, and they from any trace of the disease. would probably not have accepted Him as their Savior. She quoted from The ultimate object of these mis- them as saying: "When we come to sions, however, is never overlooked, the other life, when we shall see Jesus which is, the Christianization of the as He is, we shall not be as we are leper. In India alone during I899 a now, shall we? We shall be like other total of I,320 lepers and I88 untainted people; we shall not take these bodies children of lepers were reported in 19 with us into that life beyond." 'Christian institutions in which there PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE ZULUS BY JOHN L. DUDE, OHLANGE, NATAL, SOUTH AFRICA Principal of the zulu Christian Industrial School The Zulu Christian Industrial School, times there being two hundred on the which is largely supported by funds roll. We have five buildings erected, from the United States, has been in but in order to afford further accomoperation for six years. In this brief modations a larger one is in course of period and in spite of adverse circum- construction, to cost $5,000. stances we have achieved a very large The school is proving a great inamount of success. The number of fluence for good among the Zulu pupils has gradually increased, at youths. The bell rings early in the
PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY AMONG THE ZULUS
morning, so that the boys at 6 o'clock peaches, and pineapples. This promare ready to begin their work on the ises to be a very useful industry for farm where they cultivate corn for young Zulus, as their land will protheir own food, or in the shops where duce many varieties of fruit for which they learn carpentry and make many there is always a good market in South useful things, such as bullock yokes, Africa. Cape Colony and Johanneswooden bedsteads: trunks, tables, burg are particularly good markets for benches, cupboards, and school furni- Natal and Zulu land fruit. ture. We also have a printing-press by means of which we are enabled to Some of our boys prepare the meals publish weekly the Zulu newspaper and wash dishes-in fact, do all the called Ilanga lase Natal, or The Sun housework connected with the boardof Natal. We also fill orders for print- ing-school. To have asked a Zulu ing missionary circuit plans, etc., the young man to do this in former days whole of the work in the printing de- would have been a great insult. He partment being done by the young would have said: "Am I a woman that men who attend our school. The man I should cook and wash dishes ?" at the head of this department learned But the white man's industrial educahis trade with us. We believe that this tion is rapidly changing this feeling. printing establishment will be the means of bringing into existence a After the first two half-hours' work new and enduring literature of the in the morning-that is to say, at 8.30 famous Zulu nation. -the scholars return for their break- fast, and after a good meal and a lit- Leaving the printers and proceeding tle recreation are ready for school at to the grist-mill, you find other pupils 9.30. Here they are joined by day engaged in grinding the corn grown scholars, induding girls, for whom so on the farm. The neighboring people far we have not been able to provide also come to exchange their corn for board and lodging. At 1.30 o'clock meal. The steam engine that runs the they are all dismissed for dinner, and grist-mill is under the supervision of in the afternoon work is again taken our. pupils, two of whom were for a up in farm and in the shops." Some of time under a white man who in- the older boys from heathen homes structed them in the use of the mill find continuous work very irksome in- deed, but after a term in the industrial and engine.* school they become accustomed to it.
We have a small blacksmith shop, Our success will depend upon the but are unable to make full use of it acceptance by the Zulus of the Chrisas we have not enough money to equip tian religion. If they are to become a it thoroughly or to provide a compe- truly great people, our first duty is to tent instructor. We have been able to impress the boys with Christian ideals, repair carts and plows, but as soon as endeavoring always to instil into their we have the funds we purpose extend- minds the Christian way of living, ing this branch" very considerably. and telling them to give their best Some of our boys have learned to service for those who have never heard plant fruit trees-lemons, oranges, the name of Jesus Christ.
• Both the grist-mill and engine were gifts of the My object in respect to the school Park Congregational Church of Grand Rapids, is to make it practical and capable of Michigan.
turning out first-class Christian agri- and lose his erroneous ideas 'Jf his owr culturists; for I am of the opinion that mental superiority. We can not hope of all industries, farming is by far the to raise the Zulu men to any very high most important for our people. They standard unless we show them that have the land, but unfortunately do they are not superior to the women. not know how to make the best use of If we succeed in getting money for the it. The Zulus have been born to agri- girls' dormitory we intend to teach culture, yet have made no progress in them domestic duties, such as cooking, this direction because they have dele- sewing, housekeeping, washing and gated to their women all of this im- ironing. If our educated young men portant work. The women were ac- are married to ignorant wives, they quainted only with the most primitive can not exp.ect to have happy homes.* methods of tilling the ground, while the only contribution made by the men God works through individuals and in the way of food supplies consisted through nations. We know how He in the meat which they procured in used the Jewish people to introduce the hunt. Now the white man's rifle Christianity into the world, and we and shotgun have killed the game and believe that He has a work for the the savage Zulu finds himself forced Zulus. Prior to the advent of the to accept the white man's civilization white man the Zulus were· the domi- or to give up his land and become the nant race south of the great Zambesi. practical slave of the more advanced To-day they are intellectually superior members of the human race. He can to many of the tribes of South Africa, no longer live by fighting, and as the but apart from being specially gifted Colonials are not much interested in they have been providentially watched his welfare, his only hope lies in the ever as their geographical position path of industry along which we are forces upon them an association with endeavoring to guide him. the white man and his civilization more intimate than that of any other The most pressing need at present native people in South Africa. The seems to be a dormitory for girls. Zulu is thus in the happy position of They have attended our classes as day being the first of the native races to , scholars, but this does not give us have civilization forced upon him in proper control over them. They con- anything like a wholesale manner. tinue under the influence of heathen Tho he must inevitably suffer during friends and heathen customs, and are the period of transition, he will be as subject to many temptations from surely rewarded, so soon as he is fitted which a more permanent residence in to receive the benefits which civiliza- a boarding-school would set them free. tion invariably confers. As the Zulus Woman has from time immemorial were conquerors and leaders of the been looked upon as inferior to man, native tribes of South Africa in phy.s- and in order to destroy this mischiev- ical warfare, has not God ordained ous idea we desire to have girls as reg- that they shall conquer these same ular boarders and to give them work with the young Zulu men and boys. • A friend In New York Citybas promised $500 The latter will then get an idea of the toward the dormitory for girls and a woman In New intellectual strength of womankind Hampshire has given $300; we trust otber friends will be led to give something to help the Zulu girls.
THE MISSIONARY AND HIS CRITICS
tribes by peaceful methods and lead pelon Sundays and will teach their them to industrial, intellectual, and converts to labor diligently and honspiritual advancement? estly during the working days of the week. The converted native will be Already the Zulu is throwing away taught to build a better house than the his assegai in order that he may speed hut in which he now lives and to make the plow and help the earth to bring the most of the land by the intelligent forth her increase. The Zulu Chris- use of modern machinery and up to tian Industrial School is fitting such date methods of farming. leaders-men who ~ill preach the Gos- THE MISSIONARY AND HIS CRITICS-II BY REV. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D Some of the more violent criticisms them and had visited and inspected are that "missionaries buy or kidnap Christian missions all over Asia, and native children for their schools." that he did not remember ever to have "They do more harm than good." seen comprest within an equal space "They are a positive evil." "They are so much ignorance, prejudice and misthe most futile and the most costly representation on the subject as in the failure in modern history." "Natives criticism referred to, and that it was who have never come in contact with amazing that a man claiming a modithe missionary are more honest and cum of American intelligence should moral than those who had been under be willing to set his name to a statemissionary influence." "Missionary ment so unfair, so misleading, so inteaching undermines the character of jurious. the African." "Foreigners carefully avoid employing native Christians, We shall not insult the reader's inhaving found by experience that in telligence by discussing separately such many cases he has only lost his native objections. They may be grouped unvirtues to acquire foreign vices in their der one head as being alike simply preplace." "The heathen native, who posterous. We might say of such a would live on forever if left in the na- critic what Mr. Dooley said of a certive state, is crusht under the wheels tain young man: "If he knew a little of our ever-increasing civilization." more, he'd be half-witted." It would "We should not deceive ourselves by be unkind to speak harshly of such attempting to believe that our religion critics. To borrow the words of Rusbenefits those who have not been born kin, "They dei;erve the respect due to to it." honest, hopeless, helpless imbecility."
Incredible as it may seem, these Other Religiolll Good Enough criticisms were made in letters that were actually printed in New York Those to whom Christ does not newspapers. A gentleman, not a mis- mean much usually object: "The resionary, replied a few days later that ligions of other races are good enough he had been a student of missions for for tnem and it is wrong to disturb nearly forty years, that he had read their faith." It is now too late to much in behalf of them and against urge this objection, as the political and commercial as well as religious forces of the· modern world have al- "to the viceroys, governors, an4 literready disturbed the religions of the ary examiners of China, in order that heathen world. Moreover, the best they may be extensively published and of the ethnic faiths have utterly failed widely circulated in the provinces." to produce high character or social purity. The people of India are un- Is it worth while to send foreign doubtedly the most religious of all teachers to supplant the old religions non-Christian peoples, but Kipling, by Christianity? Colonel Denby anwho knows the country as well as· any swers: white man living, says: "V,That's the matter with this country (India) is As Buddhism undoubtedly. exercises a not in the least political, but an all- salutary influence on the national life of round entanglement of physical, social, China, so the introduction of Christianity and moral evils and corruptions, all now will instruct, improve and elevate the more or less due to the unnatural Buddhists. The adoption of Christianity treatment of women. It is right here means to the Chinaman a new education. where the trouble is, and not in any He becomes mentally regenerate. He abanpolitical consideration whatever. The dons senseless and hoary superstitions. His foundations of their life are rotten- reasoning powers are awakened. He learns utterly rotten. The men talk of their to think. The world has not yet discovered rights and privileges! I have seen the any plan for the spreading of civilization women that bear these very men, and which is comparable to the propagation of again, may God forgive the men." Christianity.
The Chinese are justly considered It is difficult to understand how an among the very strongest of the non- American who inherits all the blessings Christian races, but Chang Chih-tung, of our Christian faith can deny those Viceroy of Hupeh and Hunan, in his blessings to the rest of the world. If notable book, "China's Only Hope," Islam and Buddhism and Taoism are speaks with sorrow of "lethargy" and not good enough for America, they of "sensuality and vice." He laments are not good enough for Turkey and the ignorance and corruption of many Siam and China, for the Turks and officials and the lack of anything to Siamese and Chinese are our brethren. stimulate the mind. He feels obliged The notion that each nation's religion to criticize the "bugaboo of custom," is best for it and should therefore not and the "conservatives stuck in the be disturbed is never made by th_ose mud of antiquity," and he frankly who have a proper understanding of adds: "Confucianism, as now practised, Christianity or of its relation to the is inadequate to lift us from the pres- race. It is based upon the old paganent plight. The Emperor himself ism which believed that each tribe had recognized the justice of this char- its own god who was its special chamacterization, for he declared in an im- pion against all the other gods. Such perial rescript that he had "carefully an idea is not only false to itself, but it inspected the volume" and that "it is in direct controversy with the teachembodies a fair and candid statement ings of Christ. of facts." Not content with this, His Majesty ordered that copies be sent The Small Results Another objection is that "the re- sults of missionary· effort are very small." This objection might fairly offset the objection that missionaries
THE MISSIONARY AND HIS CRITICS
are making revolutionary changes in But what are the comparative facts? heathen lands. Both can not be true. The average annual increase of the If missionaries make all the trouble Protestant churches in the United that they are charged with making, if States is less than two per cent., while they involve governments and cause the, increase in the foreign field is great national upheavals like the Boxer about fourteen per cent. Christianity uprising, they are. certainly a'mighty in America is just about keeping pace force. But critics are seldom con- with the population. But the governsistent. The fact is that missionary ment census in India shows that the work is remarkably successful and membership of the Christian churches more so now than ever before. An in that country is increasing three influential Chinese, Ng Poon Chew, times as fast as the population. says: Dr. James S. Dennis is authority The success of our mission work among for the statement that in a single year our people is not an open question, but is 100,000 people are converted in the an accomplished fact. Every earnest and foreign field. This number is out of fair-minded person who has given much all proportion to the missionary force thought on the subject and has investigated that is employed and so far in excess the same for himself would come to no of the results of a much heavier exother conclusion but that the work is a penditure of men and money at home splendid success, a success of which every as to make foreign missionary work Christian people should be proud. to-day far and away the most success- ful form of Christian activity and the The justification of foreign mission one which yields the largest results for effort is not dependent upon tabulated the expenditures made. It is a remarkresults, but it is nevertheless inter- able fact that in spite of the advanesting to note them. The natural pre- tages in the United States-historic sumptions would be that Christianity associations, favorable public opinion, would make very slow progress in a splendid churches, innnmerable workheathen land, for it is regarded with ers-Christianity is making more rapid suspicion as an alien faith. It is op- progress abroad than at home. We posed by a numerous and powerful have been working in heathen lands priesthood. It is at variance with long- only about a century and yet the numestablished customs and dearly-prized ber of converts is already greater than institutions. Family ties, social posi- the number of Christians in the Roman tion, caste prejudice, combine to keep Empire at the end of the first century. one from confessing Christ. In some fields the persecution of Christians is I grant that there are exceptions common and many converts can speak among mISSIOnaries. I am ina posiof dungeons languished in and point tion which enables me to see their to welts and scars which tell of agony weak as well as their strong points. I endured for Christ. Very few will suf- know that there are some foolish fer these things save under strong con- things said, some mistakes committed, viction of duty, particularly as the and that occasionally a missionary. present policy of pressing the native proves to be incompetent. But Dr. B. church to self-support lessens the L. Agnew, Secretary of the Presbymoney attraction that was formerly so terian Board of Education, Philadelpowerful.
phia, says that ninety-four per cent. the name of the missionary referred to of the business men of the United together with the particulars of the States fail at some time in their lives. charge. If he gets them, let him for- I can vouch for the statement that not ward them to the Board with which six per cent. of foreign missionaries the missionary is connected. The fail, tho they are held to more rigorous Boards have neither desire nor motive standards than hom~ pastors. to shield· misconduct and will prOIl1ptiy Many people base their poor opinion investigate. But we predict that the of missionaries on an alleged dull ad- reader will not be able to get partic- dress of a missionary on furlough. ulars. Critics usually can not give General Grant could not make a them. In the words of Canon Farrar: speech, neither could Admiral Samp- "To sneer at missionaries-a thing so son; but they did.pretty fair service for cheap and so easy to do-has always their country nevertheless. Some of b.een the fashion of libertines and our most useful men in commercial cynics and worldlings. So far from and political life are poor speakers. having failed, there is no work of God But they are not adjudged worthless which has received sg absolute, so un- on that account. Surely when so many precedented a blessing. To talk of mis- other people are making dull speeches, sionaries as a failure is to talk at once an occasional foreign missionary may like an ignorant and faithless man."
be allowed to do so. Even great ora- The unprejudiced traveler, who does tors are not always interesting.Mis- not confine his observations to treaty- sionary work for many years in an- port hotels or draw on his imagina- other language, and perhaps in a tion for his· fa'cts, but who really school or a hospital or in houpe-to- studies the work of the missionary house visitation or personal dealing with eyes to see and ears to hear the with individuals, does not tend to give mighty forces which are gradually in- a man fluency and eloquence in Eng- augurating a new era in Asia, reports lish before home congregations. Some that real missionaries are not idle, of the best missionaries on the foreign luxurious and mercenary, but are ed- field are therefore not always effective ucated, consecrated men and women, on the platform during their fur- the embodiment of the highest type of loughs. But the average missionary American Christian character and cul- has a story to tell that is worth the ture, who go among those superstition- hearing. curst people in the name and in the In general it may be fairly said that, spirit of the Master-healing the sick, while missionaries are not perfect, even teaching the young, translating the their critics are not; and while occa- Bible, creating a wholesome literature, sionally one is found to be unworthy, proclaiming, in season and out of yet taking them as a class they average season, those great truths of the Chris- so high that whoever attempts to de- tian religion to which Europe. and fame them as a body simply confesses America owe whatever of true great- his own lack of either intelligence or ness they possess, and, at the cost of honesty. If the reader hears criticisms toil and pain and loneliness and mis- that impress him as serious, his course representation, seeking to uplift a is plain-let him demand of the critic fallen people. THE OPINIONS OF A· BRITISH NEWSPAPER 'ORRESPONDENT BY F. A. M'KENZ1E The missionary is the man who be- inevitably means their death in cruel gan the work of awakening China. If and horrible form. Many of their col- you wish to learn the truth about the leagues have been killed during the missionary movement you must in- past six years, some of them dying quire not at the treaty ports but in the under torments so heartless and pun- interior. The treaty port trader ishments so degrading that we dare knows very little about the matter, and not think of them. Every missionary tells with glee hoary stories of "rice. in th~ interior of China to-day lives, Christians" that were familiar to our knowlllgly, on the edge of the crater grandfathers. of a rumbling volcano.
It is absurd to argue about the mis- Some time ago I hurried to a dis- sionaries from old facts. A generation trict in the north where an immediate ago there was no doubt some ground uprising was expected. A warship for suspecting that many so-called con- had been sent to the coast to take the verts adopted Christianity for what missionaries away, and I reached the they could get. The policy of making interior town where they had come "rice Christians"-to use the ex- together to settle what they would do.
pressive phrase which explains itself First a letter was read from the Amer- -was upheld by leading missionaries. ican minister, leaving the decision in • It has long since been definitely aban- the hands of the people on the spot, doned. A generation ago men were but strongly urging that even if the often sent out as teachers to the East men remained the women should be because they were not clever enough sent to the coast and to safety.
to work at home. In recent years, the Then one little women arose. "If wave of enthusiasm aroused by Moody trouble comes," she said, "my women the evangelist and Henry Drummond will be in great difficulties. I mean to the scientist has altered that, and has stay by them." Then arose a second given the work the pick of the brains "I remain with my husband," she said, of Scottish and American colleges. and she shot a smile, half laughter The movement was tested by fire and and half tears, at the man opposite.
blood during the Boxer uprising, and One after another said the same. As it stood the test. I listened to the serene and cheerful "When I first came to China," said declarations of one after another my one of the most famous living public- heart went out to them. They well ists to me, "I saw the odd side of mis- knew what might be in store for them, sions. I wrote accordingly. But since for some of them had cared for the I have lived and traveled in the land, tortured whites who escaped from the and have come to understand what Boxer uprising.
these people are doing, I have been The most remarkable missionary compelled to change my opinion. They movement to-day is to the northeast of are accomplishing a real, great work China in Northern Korea. There, throughout the cotmtry." communities are being turned almost.
There are to-day over 3,000 Prot- wholesale to Christianity. Four or estant missionaries at work in China, five young Americans settled at Sun- nearly all of them English or Amer- chon five years ago. To-day they have ican. Most of these are young people in their district eighty churches and in the prime of life. They have know- 12,000 adherents. Their converts ingly placed themsplves in positions build and pay for their own churches, where any burst of national passion and pay for their own ministers.
*From the London Daily Mail Towns in the region between Korea England, where he is backed up by all and Manchuria are being outwardly kinds of support. He can do nothing transformed, schools are arising, and but fail in China. All the missionaries the women are comi·,; from sub- I have known in the Far East who servience to a life of cJmradeship with have really affected the tone of the dis- their husbands. The men are learning trict in which they lived have been men courage and honesty. of education and of great strength of character, who would have triumphed Does the Chinese missionary live in anywhere. unnecessary luxury? According to some treaty port stories he is lapped One of the most striking things in in comforts that he could never hope the missionary position now is the way to enjoy at home, and his days are in which the confidence of the officials relieved by many holidays and long has been won. In Liaoyang, after the furloughs. I have stayed in many mis- great battle between the Russians and sionary homes in the interior in the the Japanese, I found that the chief ·course of my travels. I know only one Chinese magistrate had handed over which would be called really well fur- the work of relieving distress to the nished, from a middle-class English well-known missionary, Doctor Vest- point of view. In the others, every- water. The magistrate gave the build- thing showed that the housewife was ings and gave money, and the doctor attempting to make a brave show on did the work. "Why do not you Chi- very moderate expenditure. nese do this yourselves?" I asked. "The magistrate knows that if he gave The notion that the foreign mission- the money to his own assistants they ary should try to live all the time like would keep most of it themselves," a Chinaman is, I am convinced, a came the reply. mistake. His work, if successful, will compel him to be away for many For many years the missionaries did months each year, living in native hard pioneer work with very little to inns, exposed to all weathers, eating show. Less than seventy years ago what he can get. Unless, at the end they had only six converts. To-day of such journeys, he has a reasonably they have nearly 150,000 communi- comfortable home to go to, where he cants, which means nearly 600,000 adcan procure relief from noise, fair herents. But their work ·is not to be sleeping accommodation, and digesti- measured by their enrolled converts. ble food, breakdown is certain. The They have been the pioneers battering notion of many good people in Eng- down prejUdices and misunderstandland that the missionary should live ings. They have shown the people all the time as the natives live is what the West and what that Western wrong. It would be dangerous to his civilization means. They brought modhealth and fatal to his influence. ern medical knowledge to China, and China is now adopting it; they brought Economical folk want the mission- Western learning; they started and ary to be cheap. Cheap missionaries pushed the campaign which is abolcan be had, but they are never going ishing foot-binding; and they are reto do the work of transforming China. sponsible for the fight against opium. The half-trained man, the woman who They have been not only the teachers has had a few months in a medical school, the doctor who has taken the of religion but the advance agents of lowest degree, and the minister who civilization. has skipt the university are not wanted there. They are better at home. In To me it seems that in the mission- China they have to deal with the most ary movement in China to-day we astute brains, and with officials who have, despite mistakes, misunderstandhave made the thoroughness of their ings, and a proportion of unsuitable training their glory. The semiefficient men, one of the most splendid exhi- !nan may scrape through his work in bitions of Al1glo-Saxon altruism the world has ever seen.
EDITORIALS
AN INSPIRING PROMISE cover, the genius of missions is re- There is an Old Testament prom- vealed mainly in the man and his ise that, rightly understood, supplies the very basis of all mission work- message, and to some lesser extent in Isaiah' Iv. IO- I3. his methods. '
Here four grand statements are As to the man himself, the highest made: and truest success is marked by a 1. God's word shall never return void. 2. It shall work radical changes in the threefold passion-a passion for truth, human soul and society. 3. This result is the very "name" or fame for the Lord Jesus Christ, and for on which the Lord prides Himself. 4. This constitutes the moral miracle, the souls. The man must love the Gospel unchanging and unfailing "sign" through truth for which he stands. No par- rot-like repetition of the story of salvation will do. Men detect mech- anism nowhere so instinctively as in all ages. heartless speech on such great No such promise attaches to any themes. The preacher must believe other work done, even tho done from his message if he wants others to high and philanthropic motives. It believe, and feel it if he wants others is a promise attached not to man's to feel. Rev. W. L. Watkinson, in word, however wise and winning, his recent sermon before the Free but to God's word alone-and the Church Council in Leeds, gave a fine history of missions shows that, illustration from a Siberian winter, wherever this word of God goes where the return of the sun, alone, forth, as out of His mouth, as far as does not dissolve the icy bands; un- possible unmixt with man's word, til the soft south wind breathes, the undiluted and uncorrupted in its reign of the frost is unbroken. It is divine purity, the signs of the curse the warm breath we need, not the are displaced by the signs of bles- cold intellectual brilliance. Here is sing; the noxious growths of sin by where the melting power comes in- the plants of godliness. This result the passion for Christ and for souls the Lord guards as His own good gives warmth and glow. The name and reputation, and this is the preacher loses himself in his Master.
moral miracle that never fails. The cross means to him salvation THE GENIUS OF MISSIONS for himself and, as surely, salvation for every penitent believer; and he The forms of mission work, both is absorbed in bringing the cross to at home and abroad, are multiplied men, and men to the cross. He has and multiplying; and the sad fact is, a passion for souls. He loves men that many of them are either an in- as men. The caste lines which divide tolerable burden, or a comparative humanity into impenetrable strata- failure. Now and then we find a which build up a cellular structure man or woman who seems to have of society where the cells never prac- a gift, akin to genius, in other tically communicate-is abhorrent spheres, for carrying on philan- to him. He believes humanity is, as thropic and evangelistic schemes, a whole, lost, and the highest are like the late George Muller of Bris- equally in danger with the lowest- tol, George Holland of London, nay, oftentimes practically less salva- Dwight Moody, Thomas Barnardo, ble, as in Christ's day-while in the Miss MacPherson, and a few others lowest lie, as all mission history has equally well known. proven, the potencies of the highest From time to time it is well to in- sainthood.
quire into the communicable secrets of Such a man is bound to impart power as shown by such workers for power to his message and methods.
Christ; and, as nearly as we can dis- His personality invades them with
its own subtle charm. His single- and Indians. It will be a good invest- ness of aim gives them a simplicity ment if they leave some of their money which is higher than all art, itself there to help carryon the Institute.
the highest art. Such a man will ex- Among other missionary opportu- hibit sincerity-the genuineness nities will be the Baptist Anniversary which always wins and draws-and Meeting in Washington, D. c., May sympathy which, like a summer's 14-21, and the Annual Convention sun, melts and fuses. of the Southern Baptist Convention To those ~ho wish to study the in Richmond, Va., May 16-20. The best conditions of mission work in Missionary Convention of the Protest- the great cities, we can cordially ant Episcopal Church also meets in commend the grand and successful Richmond. The reports of work car- methQds of Rev. F. L. Wiseman at ried on by these brethren in South Birmingham, England, Rev. S. F. America, Africa, China, Italy, and Collier at Manchester, Rev. S. Chad- elsewhere will prove quite as interest- .
wick at Leeds, etc. Their "Central ing and inspiring as the exhibits and Missions" are known all over Britain naval parade to be seen in Jamestown.
and fast becoming known all over The spiritual wars of God are more the world. And the spirit in which momentous than the carnal wars of they are doing their work the above humanity.
line of thought indicates. We hope to have more to write of them here- PEACE OR WAR?
after. While the Peace Congress is about MISSIONS AND THE JAMESTOWN to assemble at the Hague, it would EXPOSITION seem on the other hand as tho there The three hundredth anniversary were not a few senators, military men, of the first permanent settlement on and editors of public periodicals and the North American Continent at journals, who are deliberately fan- Jamestown, Va., will be celebrated ning the fires of race animosity and by a great exposition April 26 to jealousy, and seeking to precipitate November 30. Already various war. A California senator forecasts Christian agencies have arranged to a clash between "two irreconcilable take advantage of the occasion to races"-Americans and Japanese. A promote the cause of Christ. captain in the navy thinks war is The Florence Crittenton Mission surely coming. Meanwhile, leading is planning to carryon a similar work to that which proved so effi- journals are prophesying the proba-, cient at St. Louis for the protection ble results of such a rupture, and picking: up every fragment of fact and rescue of women and girls who that can be manufactured into proof attend or are employed at the Ex- that, even now, Japan is making position. The Traveler's Aid Soci- preparations for the "irrepressible ety of the International Young conflict," as before the Russo-Jap- Women';,> Christian Association will anese War. Others tell U$ Japan is cooperate in this work. No one can not ready to fight the United States, doubt the need of such a movement but preparations must be made by in the interests of both American the latter to checkmate any hostile and oriental women at the Exposition. movement.
The devil's agents will be manv; let We deprecate any such talk or not the Lord's servants be idle. printed paragraphs, as not only We trust that many visitors to .needless but wrong and wicked.
Jamestown will plan to visit the Nothing more naturally brings war neighboring town of Hampton and than such war-talk between two examine the excellent work started great peoples. It cultivates ill feel- by General Armstrong for Negroes ing, if any exists, and creates misun-
derstanding, if there is none. When The fearful chronicle emphasized difficulties actually arise, they the cry of horror which Bishop Por- should be made as little of as pos- teus, of London, exprest in his poem sible, smootheu away by mutual on war: concession instead of rubbed the Ah! why will kings forget that they are wrong way into hostilities. It is true men? of nations, as of individuals, that "a soft answer turneth away wrath, bllt And men that they are brethren? Why grievous words stir up anger" (Prov. delight xv. I). Tn human sacrifice? Why burst the ties These days especially are days Of nature, that should knit their souls to- gether In one soft bond of amity and love?
when the peace spirit should be cher- Yet still they breathe destruction, still go ished, and all international controversies settled by arbitration. War on should be, at the very least, a dentier Inhumanly ingenious to find out New pains for life, new terrors for the grave, resort, when all other methods have Artificers of Death! Still monarchs dream been tried and failed, and when it is Of universal empire growing up the only way to "conquer a peace." The tribunal of love is on its trial. From universal ruin. -Blast ·the design, Great God of Hosts, nor let Thy creatures fall Amity and comity among nations Unpitied victims at Ambition's shrine!
should be the watchwords of the twentieth century. The weapons of THE MONEY CRAZE war have become so disastrously de- President Schurman, of Cornell structive that, if for no other reason, University, in a remarkable address war should be put among the impossi- recently referred to the universal bilities. craze for wealth. "Are we in this twentieth century to revert to the The scenes at Port Arthur remind- barbarous worship of mammon? Are ed us of General Sherman's words, Americans to renounce their Chris- '(TVar is hell." The reports were too tian heritage? Are they to repudiate shocking to record. A few broken the Hebrew law of righteousness? sentences are enough: "Furious fighting from noon till after Are .they to disclaim the Hellenic dawn on the following day, without ceas- call to reason and beauty? Are they ing." "A tremendous bombardment." "Del- to spurn the dignity and glory of uged for hours with heavy shells." "The mankind in order to concentrate all men went down in hundreds." "The forts their energies on the gratification of were belching forth smoke and bursting the acquisitive instincts which we shells." "The shells exploded on walls possess in common with brutes, and black with men, adding to the carnage." which, when exclusively followed "But still more came, charging over the bodies of their fallen comrades, and by and satisfied, only leave us more sheer weight of numbers they reached the complacently and more hopelessly trenches, which they captured at the point brutish ?" of the bayonet." "The shrapnel made a captured section of the trench a perfect in- The widespread passion for money· ferno." "The awful struggle continued till and whatever money buys is alarmtwo in the morning." "The thirty meters ing. It has been nourished by the colossal material prosperity of the between the opposing trenches were a veritable shambles." "The encounters were ghastly to the verge of madness." "The age. It has allied itself with the men were literally massacred." "Japanese ambition of the American youth to and Russians fought with terrible fury, succeed in the world. We naturally bayonets and rifles being smashed, men torn should expect it to meet invincible and lacerated, and hundreds blown to at- oms by the scores of bursting grenades that opposition from religion; but religwere thrown backward and forward. Even ion, already weakened by the decline weaponless and bleeding men killed each of positive faith, and falling back on other, till the rifle-pits became filled to an its institutions and organizations, impassable extent by the heaps of bodies.
itself has been tempted too often to the Lord has touched. Tho the out- purchase gifts of the Holy Ghost ward manifestations are not always with money. The craze may endure the ~al1!e ~s before there are equally for a season, but disillusionment is the mdicatlons that the Spirit of God certain. The cardinal maxim of is at work.
such an age is "Put money in thy INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY purse." And whether the money be thine or thy neighbors, matters little. There has long been a disposition It is a generation which has no fear in men to apologize for lack of reof God before its eyes; it fears no ligious life and church attendance by hell; it fears nothing but the crim- the fact that they look after worldly inal court, the penitentiary, and the matters, while the women, who are scaffold. To escape these ugly supposed to be more devout and to avengers of civil society is its only have more time to indulge their recategorical imperative, the only law ligious nature, do the church going for both. Dr. John Hall used to say with which its Sinai thunders. tha! he had many men in his congre- Let not the missionary cause be gatlon who were not church mem- bers themselves, but "brothers-intempted to overemphasize the value law." We heard, shortly since, of a of money in the work of preaching man who dreamed that he died and, the Gospel. If God's spirit dominates seeking admission to paradise, was the Church at home and the workers refused. He attempted to excuse his abroad, money-consecrated money lack of religious faith and fidelity by -will be given and its use will be the old pretext that, while he looked blest-to the salvation of men.
THE POWER OF PRAYER after worldly affairs, his wife went On one occasion when the late to church for both. "Well," said the Charles G. Finney was holding re- gatekeeper, "she has gone in' for vival meetings in a great city, and both!"
his work was seriously imperilled by THE ADVANTAGE OF FAMILY LIFE a gifted but heretical preacher who made every effort to defeat his mis- There is a movement in many sion, a few godly souls, meeting for quarters toward a celibate life, as promoting the independence of prayer, asked the Lord either to woman and the freedom of man. It change the heart of this opposer or is a revolt against God's order. He to .stop his mouth. A week or two "saw everything that He had made" later, his health gave way complete- and pronounced it "good," except ly, and he left his pulpit and the city, man, in his loneliness; and, of him, to die abroad. The prayer of the He said, "it it not good for the man Church (Acts xii) both delivered that he should be alone. I will make Peter and destroyed Herod. Is it him"-literally-"his counterpart"-" not legitimate to ask that "the mouths one, over against him, as a correof them that speak lies may be stopt?" spondent or complement. Each has REVIVAL SPIRIT IN WALES what the other lacks, and the pro- The movings of the Spirit are stili ficiencies and deficiencies of each conspicuous in Wales. The forms of correspond, and so mutually, by ap- manifestation are not the same as position, not opposition, each is before; but there is a marked ap- made complete by the other. Lord petite for the Word of God, and any Shaftesbury used quaintly to remark competent teacher of the Word has that "if the pope at Rome had been an almost boundless opportunity to married he would soon have found teach converts. There is a distinct whether or not he was infallible," a call for evangelical teaching to con- half-humorous way of hinting of firm and edify those whose hearts what use each can be to the other. MALAYSIA taken up was the education of Chinese The Work of &. N&.tive Missionuy Society boys, for out of a population of 230,- 000, 165,000 are Celestials. Dr. Charles Among the Christian Bataks upon Parkhurst, editor of Zion H eraid, has Sumatra, where the Rhenish Mission- recently seen the work and writes: ary Society has had its faithful missionaries hard at work for many ye~rs, Now behold this same school has just a native missionary society was organ- closed a term with an enrolment of 1,001. ized a few years ago. Its one purpose A boarding-house has been established and is to bring the Gospel to the heathen is so overcrowded that arrangements have brethren of its members, and ever been made for enlargement. But this fursince it was founded it has been doing ther marvel must be mentioned: Not a an excellent missionary work. At the dollar of missionary funds is required to present day it employs two ordained carryon this great school, for the entire native missionaries in the northern expense is met by the tuition fees gladly part of Sumatra and several native paid by Chinese fathers. Moreover, at Peevangelists who are engaged in work nang there is another school for boys with amopg Mohammedans and heathen. 800 in attendance, another at Kwale Lum- pur with 400, and yet another at Ipoh with 450, and these three are also self-sustaining.
The income of this native society, CHINA which consists exclusively of voluntary contributions of its native members,' A Novelty in the Celeatial Empire was $850 in 1905-a large sum for To an old resident in China nothing these people. The workers of the So- seems more novel than the sight of pociety are abundantly blest, and the an- licemen pacing the streets in their nual missionary meetings of the So- smart uniforms. During the millenciety held in the Christian congrega- niums of the past China never had any tions, are deepening the spiritual life police to maintain order or protect and the interest of native Christians. property. The people had to take care of themselves. Street fights flourished Motor-bo&.ts in Mission Service unchecked, and the robbed had to catch their own thieves. I t was no very The Rhenish Missionary Society unusual sight to see a thief running will have two fine motor-boats in the for all he was worth, pursued by two servIce of the Master soon. The boat or three vociferating men or lads. But Tole, provided by friends of the the crowd always made way for the missionary who is to use it, will be thief, and never a foot nor a hand was plying upon the waters of Lake Toba put out to stop him. "He did not rob in Sumatra, while the other boat is to me; why should I stop him?" navigate the mighty Kahajan River in Borneo. The name of this latter boat, How the Gospel Spreads in Chin&.
which is building in Germany, will be Another evidence of the influence of Siegeriand, because its donors came medical missions in extending the from that part of Germany. sway of Christ is given by Dr. M. D.
Missionary Education in Singapore Enbank, of Huchow, in the Baptist Missionary Magazine. He says: Twenty-one years ago Rev. W. F. One day there came to our hospital a lit- Oldham (now a Methodist bishop) tle boy nearly thirteen years old with a cut stood on the pier at Singapore. He on his arm-not a severe wound at first, was commissioned to establish a mis- but it – had been neglected and had besion in that land, but had neither funds come infected. This little fellow was lOr church property-nothing but faith in a bad condition, but in a few days he and the purpose to preach, teach, and was much improved, and later went home welL To this boy and grandfather the cure in other ways make known the Gospel was wonderful, for the Chinese doctors of Jesus. One feature of the work know but little about the treatment of such cases. Not many days later the boy was back at the hospital door with a number of ever toward the ministry as a profession, as compared with teaching, business, offiCial his neighbors. He had told his story and or public employment, etc. But there are now they had come to see the foreign doc- young men in the Church who hear a call to the ministry; and if we do our share in tor. Among them there was one poor wom- the preparation and furthering of these an who was suffering with ulcers on her men, we shall have done the most effective mission work possible at this important arm, and also from some internal disease. crisis. She was full of fear, superstition, prej udice Christian Growth in Korea and darkness. She was afraid to let the foreigner touch her lest her eyes or heart go The Christian Observer says edi- torially: from her. The first day we simply rubbed some harmless ointment on her arm, and Sixteen years' ago Doctor Moffett began a mission in the city of Pyeng Yang where turned her loose in the hospital for the pa- there was not a single Christtan. The tients to tell her the story and take her fear Christian community now numbers over 5,000, and last June, as he departed for the of the "foreign devil" from her. They did United States, more than I ,000, including the work well, and in a few days this poor 50 theological students, walked three miles to the station to bid him farewell. In the deluded countrywoman and the foreign doc- northern part of the city a recently Oftor were on good terms. She got well, and ganized church has erected a building which will seat 400. The native converts, most Qf went back to her village to tell the story of them converts from heathenism within the her experience to her curious fellow vil- last year, furnished the money; some in- dividuals gave half a year's income. At lagers. this city and Seoul there were 2,000 confes- Now from this village from which these patients came there has come on three different occasions a deputation to ask me to come to their place and open a dispensary.
Will it not be easier to preach in that village now than it would have been before?
Have not these people a different idea of our mission in China?
Chinese Girls' Strategy sions of faith during one month of last year. What cities in our favored land can At Chentu, West China, a missionary of L. M. S. found I I ,000 students make a better showing? The church in Pyeng Yang has its wide-awake Brother- in various schools and was aston- hood which is erecting an association build- ing, with reading rooms, committee rooms, ished to see that on many coat col- study classes, and missionary agencies. lars the silver medallion which indi- cates each student's grade bore the Korean Girls as Entertainers character for "woman." Then he dis- Korean girls in the advanced covered that young women of well- school at Pyeng Yang gave a New to-do families were attending girls' Year's reception to their mothers schools, and, as they could not go on and grandmothers, for which they the street in their own dress, they decorated the front porch, cleaned were disguised in garments closely resembling those of men. One wore rooms, and provided refreshments top boots! This missionary phophe- of persimmons, tea, and sponge cake sies a "reaction" because there are baked in the missionary's kitchen. "not enough competent teachers to A gramophone also entertained the meet the need." guests and, when they were gone, the girls fell to playing simple Amer- The Union Theological Seminary. Nanking ican games with ardor. It was, for Under the auspices of the North- most of them, the first time in their ern and Southern Presbyterian mis- lives that they took part in any sosions in mid-China this seminary cial event.
was opened in October last with Mr. Ellis Conceming Missionaries over twl!nty pupils, with more to William T. Ellis, who is pursuing come. Rev. J. c. Garrett writes: his investigation tour of mission fields on behalf of a syndicate of We are already unable to give room to American newspapers, has spent all who desire to come to us. If the Church at home will give her missionaries the ~a cilities for training men for the Gospel mm- three months in Japan and presents istry, the men will be forthcoming. There the result of his inquiries in very readable letters. He says: are not as many as we need; there are few of the best educated and more talented seek- I have met personally 250 missionaries, of ing this work; there is no inducement what-
GENERAL MISSIONARY
all creeds, stationed in every part of Japan. General Kodama's Religious Belief I have seen them at work and at play. I have sougHt all the criticism against them . General ,Kodama's eldest son says and their work that could be heard. Wher- ever I have learned of a critic or antag- hiS father s regular habit was to onist of the missionaries I have tried to get the worst he had to say. From scores stand in some retired place for about of Japanese, Christian and – non-Christian, I have gleaned opinions of the missionary an hour. every. morning after rising, force. Summing all up I am bound to say that the missionaries as a whole grade and, whtle facmg toward the rising higher than even the ministry at home. Their devotion to their work and to the sun, to utter some words in a low welfare of the Japanese is unquestioned. The results of their labor are beyond doubt tone. In reply to the question what really great. To say that their r::onverts ar~ not genuine and their work superficial is this act meant, he said: "When man simply to betray a lack of knowledge of conditions that are apparent to any un- has done ~verything in his power, biased observer. there remams nothing but the help Once Buddhist Priest. Now Evangelist of God [the Gods]." Commentin.g One of the most successful of the Japanese workers connected with the on this, the Nippon says that such Baptist Mission was until recently a has been always the creed of the Buddhist priest. One of the representatives of that mission was ask- bushi. In the very forefront of the ing him, not long ago, how he became a Christian, and the reply was doctrines laid down for guidance, ap- that he happened one day to go into peared the rule, "Have faith in the the church in Kobe and heard Doctor DeForest preach. Doctor De- Kami and the ·Hotoke." Thus men Forest told the story of Horace Pit- like General Kuroki and Field-Markin's death in the Boxer massacre at Pac-ting-fu, and this man was so shal Nozu always 'asked heaven's deeply moved by it that he studied into Christianity and became a aid on t.he eve of great enterprises, Christian and an evangelist. I had this directly from the missionary, and haVing put up the prayer, issued Mr. Wynd. orders with absolute confidence.
-REV. D. W. LEARNED, TOKYO. "The bushi may be said to have de- The Japanese and the Bible Society rived his negative fortitude from The Bible in the Warld has this in- Buddhism and his positive from teresting note as to favors shown by the japanese authorities toward its Shinto. His God of War tHoachhiimmahn~ was a Shinto deity, amt' work in Manchuria: prayed on the inception of vital proj- For many years the Bible Society has enjoyed the privilege of free passes for its ects, while. from the Zen sect of agents and books over all the lines of the Russian Empire, the same favors being ex- Buddhism and its practise of zazen tended to it over the railways in Manchuria. This recently became known to the he acquired the negative courage of Japanese authorities, who at once (according to the Times correspondent) generously meeting any vicissitude with comgranted the same advantages, so that the Society should not suffer through the placency." change. The Society has also received donations from Japanese individuals (one All this is another illustration of heading the list with 500 yen-£so), who have joined with Europeans and Chinese in m~n "feeling .aft~r God, if haply they raising over $2,000 toward the building of the new international Bible depot for Man- mlght find Him. What a joy to the churia at Niuchwang. herald of Christ to bring to such the satisfying tidings of the God whom in ignorance they worship!
A Japanese Cornelius When the Rev. A. D. Bryan of Ja- pan, visited Manchuria recently, he was much imprest with the splendid work carried on by the Japanese Christians at Dalny. The leading spirit in the Japanese church is a lieutenant-colonel, who was the head of the commissariat department dur- ing the war. All the army divisions in Manchuria were supplied through him, and altho he handles millions of yen, his accounts were perfectly square. He led the strenuous life during the war, but on Sunday
drove to his church and preached, if A Centennial in South India there was no one else to do it. All his spare time now he gives freely A hundred years ago the London to the work of the Japanese church. Missionary Society began work in Through his influence, a house rented as a beer hall and restaurant South Travancore among the Pawas secured, rent free, for Mr. Bryan to speak in, tho the rent formerly riahs. And as Rev. J P. Jones writes· paid was $75 a month. Mr. Bryan says: ";Vhen I first called on this man, I in the Missionary Herald: had to wait an hour before seeing him. Even then, telegrams were Among the bare statistical facts of the coming in and messengers from dif- century stand prominently the following: ferent departments were bringing There are now, as the result of the labors papers for his inspection. Finally, of the Society, 8 mission districts, extending he pulled out his watch, excused from Cape Comorin to Quilon, 354 churches himself, saying he had to attend a and 71,023 adherents (of whom 42,59<5 are funeral. I found out afterward it baptized and 9,626 communicants). Sevenwas the funeral of a girl who had teen of the churches are self-supporting, died in the rescue home. He had and are, with few exceptions, in charge of charge of the services." ordained native ministers. The schools of the mission number 394,' imparting Biblical India's Unique Place in Re1igious Hiatory and secular instruction to 16,299 scholars. Nine hundred and nine native agents are Those who know the religious employed by the mission as evangelists, struggles of India for the past 3,000 teachers, and Bible-women. The contriyears and the immense sacrifices bution of the churches amounted last year made in the cause of religion can to 28,288 rupees (nearly $9,500). well imagine with what luster India will shine when it is rejuvenated A strong deputation was sent from Engwith the power of Christ. Of the land to attend these festivities. There four contiguous countries, the cra- were also ten delegates present from as dles of world-religions-Palestine, many sister missions in South India, and Arabia, Persia, and India-the latter they brought the hearty greetings of their occupies a unique place in the his- constituencies. tory of religion. When the lore of the ancient Rishis is poured at the A Roman Catholic Prediction for India feet of the Great Master, when that self-sacrifice manifested in the his- Miss Clementine Butler, daughter tory of the different ascetic orders is of the late Bishop William Butler o( sanctified for the cause of Christian- India, calls attention to the work of ity, when the Indian Pharisee be- the Roman Catholic missionary, Abcomes transformed and consecrated, in short, when the unparalleled relig- be Dubois, and the estimate which, ious instinct of India is made captive by the Federal Head of our race, In- at the end of thirty-two years' serdia will shine gloriously. It will vice, he placed upon his work. "In then be the "brightest gem" in the crown of our Divine King. The fu- fifty years," he says, "there will reture achievements of India will not main no vestige of Christianity be in martial valor. But when it becomes the temple-keeper of God, it among the natives." Here is what will teach again the nations of Asia he has to say about his own labors: and will raise the admiration and respect of the Christian nations of the During this long period, I have made, West and the Further West.-Indian with the assistance of a native missionary, Witness. between 200 and 300 converts. Of this number two-thirds were Pariahs, or beg- gars, and the remainder were composed of Sudras, vagrants, and outcasts of several tribes, who being without resource, turned Christians in order to form new connec- tions, chiefly for the purpose of marriage or with some other interested view. I will declare it with shame and confusion that I do not remember anyone who may be said to have embraced Christianity from convic- tion and through quite disinterested mo- tives. Among these new converts many apostatized and relapsed into paganism, finding that the Christian religion did not afford them the temporal advantages they had looked for; and I am verily ashamed to make the humiliating avowal that those who continued Christians are the very worst among my flock.
A Protestant Forecast for India systems: Buddhism, Hinduism ,and Mohammedanism. All three have The Morning Star of J affna reports large and costly places of worship and the Bishop of Madras as prophesying hosts of worshipers. And, besides, that within fifty years there will be the Chinese have a Joss house, the in the Telugu country, India, alone a Parsees a fire temple, the Jews a synlarge and vigorous community of agog, the Roman Catholics four 2,000,000 Christians. The bishop says churches and a cathedral; and finally, further: the Church of England has a cathe- dral and three churches for Europeans Among the converts from the lower and Eurasians, a mission church for strata of Hindu society the effect of Chris- Tamils and Telugus, and two mistianity is remarkable; scores of Christians sions for Burmese. whose fathers were Pariahs, living as serfs, without hope in this world or the next, are Fruit of the Revival in the Khassia BDb now self-educated men, fit for positions of trust and highest responsibility, and bright During the last two years frequent examples of Christian faith and conduct. I and glowing accounts have come of have visited village after village where the the remarkable work of grace in Christians of Pariah origin are the best progress in the Khassia and J aintia educated and most moral class in the com- Hills, lying to the northeast of Calmunity. I feel sure that when the whole cutta, and a field occupied by the 2,000,000 Pariahs are converted to Chris- Welsh Calvinistic Mission. In a poptianity they will be raised from the bottom ulation of 250,000, the number of right up to the top of the social scale and Christians has already reached 28,000. form a marvelous witness to the power of In 1905 the number received to the Christ, such as no age has seen since the churches was 5,100, and last year was days of the apostles. We see now the be- 2,771. But besides this, the entire ginning of a mighty movement that will Christian community has been raised revolutionize the whole fabric of Hindu so- to a higher standard of Christian livciety and Indian thought. It is no vain ing. A revival thanksgiving fund has dream that within this present century In- already reached 10,000 rupees and dia will become a Christian land, inspired much more is expected. This sum was by Christian ideals and dominated by Chris- collected at a time of great scarcity tian principles. bordering almost on famine in many parts of the Hills. A Woful Lack of Missionaries An Earthquake in Bitlis. Alia Minor The Baptist Missionary Magazine for March pictures to the eye how A dispatch from Bitlis, dated April poorly supplied with workers is the 3, from the Rev. Royal M. Cole, head great Ongole field, covering 42,000 of the American Mission at Bitlis, square miles (equal in size to New Asia Minor, says that at IO o'clock in York or Pennsylvania) and a popu- the forenoon of March 29 there burst lation of 7,500,000. Each missionary unannounced the worst earthquake endeavors to cover the area included witnessed in forty years in these or in a circle 24 miles in diameter; and the Erzerum volcanic regions. Such even then more than half of the field was its force that the city seemed to is untouched. At least 100 more be in the jaws of some monster who workers are .sorely needed. One would shake it into shreds, as a masman has a territory 80 miles square tiff does his game. Down came the and a population of 1,500,000. In plastering, the furniture was over- Madras, with 100,000 Telugus, there turned, cracks were opened in strong is no missionary able to preach to walls, roofs were shattered, and rain poured in. During the first day there them in their own tongue. were fourteen shocks, and they still continue. There have been, alto- Rangoon as a Religious Center gether, twenty-eight shocks.
This city, the capital of Burma, has a population of nearly 25Q,000, and Mission Field says of it: Here, perhaps, more than anywhere else Christianity is face to face with the three most powerful non-Christian
Of the 4,000 houses there, over 300 alone?" Mika Sematimba answered, have fallen and half the remainder "When you were shot, did we not pick have been seriously damaged, about you up and carry you home? Did you $50 to $500 being needed to repair then think we hated you? You are each house. The officials report that shot now, and we want to carry you eight persons were killed by falling home. Do you remember when we walls, but they are al: unknown in Bit·· were carrying you, how you said, 'Let lis. Many persons were wounded and me walk; 'your carrying makes the churches, mosques, and government wound hurt me?' We didn't let you buildings were damaged. walk. We knew you could not walk, but that you would faint on the road; The foreigners at Bitlis are the Rus- and now we know you can not keep sian consul, the American Board mis- sober, and we want to help you. You sionaries, Charlotte E. Ely, Mary A. say, 'Leave me alone,' but we won't C. Ely, Royal M. Cole, Mrs. Lizzie leave you alone. We know you will Cole, and Miss Nellie A. Cole. Fam- get worse if we do."-Christian Herine prices prevail and there are great ald. poverty and extreme suffering. A Bible with a History AFRICA It was on New Year's Day, r828- Bishop Tucker on Uganda the day having been specially chosen as a hallowing of the year-that the After some months of ill health in early missionaries to Madagascar put England, Bishop Tucker has returned to press the first sheet of the Holy to his field in East Africa. "It is dif- Scriptures which, a~ is so usual in forficult to believe that less than seven- eign missionary work, consisted of the teen years have passed away since his early portion of the Gospel according consecration and starting off the same to Luke. In r830, besides many other day to lead up his fated party through books, 5,000 copies of the New Testa- German territory in r890, and to .find ment, and 2,000 of single Gospels had the country unsettled and the church been printed. The translation of the consisting of only some 200 souls. Old Testament, altho portions had Now over 60,000 baptized Christians been printed, was not finished until the of many tribes and nations look to him missionaries, directing their undivided as their bishop and friend, and the first attention to it during the last sad years effort that awaits his return is to com- of their stay, were able to leave with plete a constitution for the church. He the people a completed Bible. So told the committee how encouraging great had been the eagerness of readto himself had been some informal ers, that some had walked many miles synods that he had already held, how for copies—60, and in one case even intelligently the Baganda Christians roo miles being spoken of. had grasped the import of the problems discust, and how admirably they Altho many copies had been circuhad borne themselves throughout the lated there were still 20 bound volsessions."-c. M. S. Review. umes remaining, which, when the mis- sionaries had finally to leave, they A Great Wound In His Soul gave up to the care of the Christians. It was some of these that were buried Some of the Christians in Uganda in the ground that they might be hidare very faithful in pleading with oth- den from the queen's officers, and ers to give up their sins. One man, taken up and read together in secret named Matayo, was giving way to meetings. It is one of these Bibles drink. His Christian friends reminded that has recently been presented to the him of his wound in the war.- "You library of the mission house. Only a have a big wound in your soul, caused few copies, variously estimated from by drunkenness. Give up drink, or 6 to 10, are known to exist. The assuredly the wound will get worse original Bible, as was the sad yet and kill you eternally." Matayo replied: "Why can't you leave me bright custom of the dark days, was possessions which could be sold and out of evidently taken to pieces, and distrib- their poverty they gave about $40. In the uted among the Christians, not only evening there was an evangelistic service for the sake of easily hiding them, but led by four deacons, each giving an account that they might reach a larger num- of some event connected with the birth of ber of readers. The refastening to- Christ. gether of these portions is quite perceptible in this volume, and at times A more fitting close to this inspiring the portions have seemed to consist conference was the sending forth of 18 of only a single sheet. As distinctly evangelists and teachers to evangelize the showing that the volume has been neighboring tribes. rebound, and the many fragments brought together again, there is the Advance in East Africa noticeable omission of some portions, probably lost or torn.-Bible in the The German East Africa Mission- World. ary Society is preparing to enter Di- goland, between Tanga and Usam- An Inspiring C~tmas bara, in German East Africa. Digo- land, tho situated quite close to the From Bolengi, the mission of the coast, has remained untouched by Foreign Christian Missionary Society missionaries hitherto. Now, however, on the Kongo River, comes the news Mohammedanism is threatening to of a notable Christmas celebration. bring its missionary workers among its heathen inhabitants, and the East Mrs. Royal J. Dye writes an interest- Africa Missionary Society is almost forced to prevent this by sending the ing description of scenes which might heralds of the Gospel into the land.
well set an example for the celebration ISLANDS OF THE SEA of Christmas in our own land: A Novel Use for a Bible When the native eval1gelists returned to Bolengi in December the church would not A colporteur of the American Bible hold the people, and we decided to build Society in the Philippines, in company a temporary place which would accommo- with two priests of the Independent date the hosts who were sure to come at Catholic Church, reports a significant Christmas. It was 6oXlOO feet, a real incident. In confirming the many tabernacle, high and broad. (The natives candidates who presented themselves, asked if Europe had any larger.) The week the bishop handed each one a copy of before Christmas the 18 native evangelists the Gospel instead of the usual canand the teachers had come home bringing dle used upon such occasions. The about roo people with them, all seeking sal- people paid for the Bible what they vation. would otherwise have expended for the candle, and at the end of the tour At the close of the dedication service, 30 the colporteur found that there were people came forward to confess Christ. left but few of the 18,000 Bibles with Never before had we witnessed so impres- which he was equipped at the besive a sight, for among them were six ginning. very old women, previously the very bulwark of fetishism and superstition. The Bible.bunting in Madeira Islands same hour the whoLe congregation went to the river where the 30 were baptized. The opposition of Roman Catholic priests to the study of the Bible is All day Monday the Christians were difficult to understand. The British cooking and preparing for their feast to be and Foreign Bible Society of London, held on Christmas Day, all the mission recently sent a colporteur from their girls helping. The food was brought to the central depot in Lisbon, Portugal, to tabernacle where the feast was spread, and sell Portuguese scriptures in Madeira. nearly 400 people were seated to partake He was there two months and a half, of it. One of the unique features of the and during that time sold 120 Bibles, feast was to see the wives eating with their nearly 200 Testaments and 355 porhusbands, the native custom being for all tions of the scriptures. Rev. W. G. the men to eat first and then the wives and Smart writes that he advised him to children to take the leavings.
That afternoon a special service was called for Christians only. It had been decided to make Christmas a day of special offerings. to the Christ. Some who had no money to give brought one of their few
go to Sancta Cruce, nine miles from ply of cultured leaders for a genera- Funchal. He went and sold several tion reared amid the unfavorable con- Bibles there. A priest followed him ditions of a colony in the wilderness. to the steamer and gave him a severe Likewise, the purpose of the later reprimand. The next day was Sun- founding of Yale was to train men for day, and after mass, the priest, having the service of Church and State. The gathered together the Bibles which type of Christianity which created the had been sold, burnt them in the pres- early American college is now estabence of the people, and many of them lishing in many non-Christian lands applauded the act. colleges for the fertilization of the minds into which the seeds of spirit- The Portuguese Protestants in Fun- ual life have been dropt, thus to raise chal are full of indignation at this up men and women capable of religvandalism and intend to write about ious and social leadership among their it in the local Portuguese papers. countrymen. This has proved re- markably effective in Japan. Large Are These " Rice Christians"? sums have thus been productively in- vested in other lands also. What was The first missionaries to New Guin- done for the emancipation of Bulgaria ea were natives who had been trained by men who had studied in Robert in the London Missionary Society'S College is a well-known instance. In Institution at Tahaa, one of the So- China there has just been opened at ciety' Islands. But they were followed Changsha, the capital of conservative almost immediately by eight teachers Hunan, a province of 20,000,000 peofrom the Loyalty Islands, taken out ple, an infant Yale, sustained by the in 1871, and to them really belongs the Yale Foreign Missionary Society, great honor of being the first Chris- broadly unsectarian, its officers mostly tian teachers to do regular missionary graduates of Yale.-The Outlook. work in New Guinea. From that date to the present time there has been an Gifts from EpiscopiU Sundll7-schools unbroken succession of Polynesian missionaries to the big island. As of- Thirty years ago the Sunday-schools ten as the John Williams has voyaged connected with the Protestant Episcofrom the islands of the Pacific to New pal Church contributed only $7,000 a Guinea, so often has it carried Pacific year for missions. In 1888 the amount Island missionaries. They have many rose to $29,323, in 1898 to $82,070, difficulties to meet and dangers to face. and after a steady annual increase They go to a land 2,000 miles or more reached $135,293 last year. The entire away from home. They have hard amount contributed during this period and strange languages to learn. They is $1,715,508. The Women's Auxilrun the risk of catching the terrible iary is to have the credit for the steady New Guinea fever. They have to agitation which brought about such leave their little children behind in very gratifying results. Samoa, because the climate is so bad. The peoples among whom they live " Our Own Missionary" Movement Growing are savages and cannibals. Many who have gone have died at their work; Says the Missionary Herald: some have been cruelly murdered. But the supply has never failed. A friend in Connecticut sends $1,000' for work under Rev. H. G. Bissell, of India, AMERICA having been deeply stirred by his address at the annual meeting. The money had Harvard and YiUe in the Orient been set aside for a pleasure trip, but was given up under the conviction that it could It is noteworthy that American better be used in the Lord's work in India. churches are repeating in the Orient One of our corporate members agrees to the policy which nourished Christian assume the entire support of two missioninstitutions when first planted here. aries, including not only salary but expense Harvard was founded to secure a sup- of outfit and journey to the field. It is a very unusual offer; but perhaps the most delightful thing about it is that the mission-
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE 39
aries will be his own children, a daughter agement can comply with the terms to go out under the Woman's Board, and of the bequest. a son under the American Board. In all, six persons have recently offered to sup- A School for Our Foreign-born port one or more missionaries. The American International Col- Wanted by the American Board lege in Hartford, Conn., appears to be eminently worthy of its name, if This very specific and earnest call judged by the polyglot character of appears in the Congregational papers: its students. Of the 84 in attendance, 30 are Italians, 21 are Greeks, 12 Ar- WANTED menians, 5 Bulgarians, 4 Cubans, 3 French, 2 Assyrians, 2 Macedonians, BY THE AMERICAN BOARD besides a Chinaman, a Syrian, a Swiss, Support for three new missionaries by in- and a Jewess from Siberia. Of the dividuals or groups of individuals entire number 30 were born outside These missionaries are all married of the United States, 19 were reared men of splendid promise, one for In- in the Greek Church, and 17 in the Rodia, one for China, one for Africa. man Catholic Church. Recently we have secured from individual donors the support of nine new The Tract Society and Our Foreign-born missionaries, in most cases the entire cost being covered, including salary, The American Tract Society, acoutfit and traveling expenses. These cording to its eighty-first annual reoffers have ranged from $500 to $2,- port, just issued, is steadily pursuing 000 per year. This is bringing great its work and meeting its needs in a joy into the lives of these donors. way impossible to any save an inter- There is no finer use of wealth than denominational society. It has rethis. Here is a chance to establish a cently added 87 new publications, in beautiful relationship with some of 14 languages, and is now publishing the choicest workers God ever sent to literature in 30 different tongues. Imthe American Board, and' to make an migration is now largely of Iberic, investment which will count for time Slavic, and Hebraic origin, and so and eternity. Thousands of people large and varied is this part of our will be brought into the kingdom by population that America may be these missionaries and great progress spoken of as the home and foreign be made through them in establishing missionary field of the world. The Christian civilization. Correspondence Society makes every effort to deal is solicited with persons who can con- with this class of the population. tribute sums of $500 and upward per Three colporteurs, who al'e conspicyear, and who are willing (D.V.) to uous as linguists, distribute literature continue this support for a series of at Ellis Island in 30 different lanyears. guages. Some 95 colporteurs are in all employed, and last year visited Bequest for Doctor Barnardo's Home 279,480 families, distributing 63,520 copies and portions of the scriptures. Mr. Fulford, of Brockville, Ontario, Canada, proprietor of several pat- What. Most Surprized a Chinaman ent medicines, died last August, leaving an estate sworn to be worth 11,- When "benighted" visitors from 300,000. He left a will directing the non-Christian lands first visit "Chrisconversion of the business into a joint tian" countries, what they particularly stock company, and that to Doctor notice is not always to our credit. Barnardo's Homes should be left But we can read the following without twenty per cent. of the profits annu- a blush or regret: ally. It may be said that this is shrewd advertising, but it is likely to be a A Chinese diplomat, when asked what valuable aid to the Homes if the man- surprized him most in America, said: "State care of insane, the Y. M. C. A., and
the lady in Chicago"-meaning Miss Jane Gospel wagons, with two or three mis- Addams, who, besides founding and con- sionary workers in each, cover the ducting Hull House, lecturing, and ma- whole of this territory-a region three king books, finds time to be superintendent times as large as the State of Ohio. of streets and alleys in her ward.
_The Foreigner and the Church The workers converse with the people and hold meetings in the villages There are many tokens of an awa- wherever an opening can be found. kening of interest in the foreign-born During the year 11,689 calls were citizens among us. Our religious ex- made in 170 settlements, containing changes contain much more material 65,000 people. The meetings held on this subject than they did several numbered 223, and 16,000 persons atyears ago. Recently in Boston an all- tended. Of the 65,000 among whom day meeting of Methodists was held, these missionaries worked, probably at which definite movements now un- not one in fifty came under any other der way were passed in review and a Christian influence. Since 1901, some dozen men and women of different na- 448 settlements have been visited, and tionalities engaged in work for their in less than 100 of them is there any local Christian service, and even to fellow countrymen told what they are these the Mormons do not go. The trying to do. The Methodists in New workers serve without salary, and the England have already a creditable rec- expenses of the work are met by doord of work among immigrants and nations from all parts of the country. it is bound to increase if the counsel of such leaders as ex-President Warren ~sb~erian lVork for Indians and Mr. Bronson, the newly-elected secretary of the Methodist City Mis- Scattered through 15 states and sionary Society, is followed. Profes- among more than 40 tribes, for years sor Steiner of Iowa reports that ev- the Presbyterian Church has qeen lay- erywhere he goes people are asking ing foundations and building for the what can be done. He was at the State Gospel. The number of ministers now Y. M. C. A. Convention in Pennsyl- at work is 27 white and 31 native; vania the other day, which appropri- the number of teachers in the schools ated on the spot $5,000 for work is 72 and 24; of churches 10 mixt and among immigrant classes, and it has 85 native; with 355 and 5,333 mem- asked Professor Steiner to give a por- bers.
tion of his summer to investigating The Gifts of it. Church to Porto Rico conditions throughout the State. This is one of the first undertakings on the Not long since the Presbyterian part of the Protestants in Pennsylva- Home Mission Board sent out an apnia where the foreigners are numer- peal for $12,000 to build a ·church in ous, especially in the mining districts, San Juan, Porto Rico. On a recent Sabbath Rev.. ]. Ross Stevenson, of and the fact that the Y. M. C. A. is the Fifth Avenue Church, New York undertaking it is fresh evidence of its City, appealed to his people in behalf aggressiveness.-·T he Co ngregational- of this case with such good effect that zst. $18,000 was at once sent in, of which $12,000 came from one person, who is The Utah Gospel Mission The annual report of the Utah Gos- to build the church alone.
pel Mission, of Cleveland, Ohio, shows Roman Catholic Opposition in Bruil that 4,500 miles by wagon in Utah and Idaho were covered by the missiona- An article appeared in one of the ries during 1906. daily papers of Rio de Janeiro since This Society exists to carryon the the Pan-American Congress, written urgent work of acquainting the Mor- by a monk in the Sao Bento Convent mon people scattered throughout Utah near at hand, denouncing in unsparing and Idaho, with the Gospel. For the terms all the American Protestant min- prosecution of the work three large isters as impostors, and particularly
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
the audacity of the Bible societies. number of their communicants, 2,479 The colleges of the "Seminary of the to the number of their Sunday-school Protestant Poly-Sectarian Propagan- teachers, and 34,953 to their Sunday da" are, of course, the source of apos- scholars. The Free churches are di- tasy both from the faith and Brazil- viding with the Established Church the ian patriotism. Such outbreaki of fu- responsibility of ministering to the re- rious hatred are perhaps natural when ligious life of England. They provide we consider the conditions which pro- sittings for 8,403,819, while 7,270,000 duce them. They impose on the mis- are provided by the Church of Eng- sionaries a heavy burden, which the land. Non-conformist communicants Church at home ought to help them number 2,201,829-slightly fewer than carry. It requires the finest quality of those of the Established Church. On Christian patience to endure with the other hand, Free Church Sunday- much long-suffering the misunder- school teachers number 4°3,617, and standings and bitter aversion of such those of the Church of England are opponents. At the same time their only one-half as many. Sunday-school very fierceness is testimony of the scholars in Non-conformist churches great success of Protestantism in exceed those in the Church of Eng- Brazil. land by nearly 500,000, the former numbering 3,500,000. A Sample of Catho1iciam in Cuba Rome Losing Ground in Great Britaiq Bishop Galloway, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, has been Comparing 1906 with 1879, there visiting his church work in Cuba. In has been an increase in the United an interesting article contributed to Kingdom of 6 Roman Catholic bish- the Nashville Christian Advocate he ops, 1,849 priests, 890 churches, ana reports some observations as to the 634 religious houses. But what about hold Roman Catholicism still has up- the people? In 1879 the population on the public mind: numbered 35,500,000, and the Roman Catholics claimed 6,000,000 adherents. I made a test on Sunday morning-the Now the population is nearly 50,000,- first Sunday in Lent. Certainly the faith- 000, while, according to the Roman ful would be at their devotion that day, Catholic directory, there are only 5,- if ever. We went to three different churches, 625,000 Roman Catholics. Had their one the largest and most popular in the numbers kept pace with the increase city. In one, where a number of gor- of population, they should have num- geously robed priests officiated and one de- bered 7,700,000. Rome can not make livered a philippic in Spanish against the progress among the people where the Protestants, there were less than 75 peo- truth of the Gospel and the liberty of ple, and most of those of the lower classes. life in Christ are commonly known. In the other two we found not more than 25, more than half of whom were negroes. Do Foreign Miasions Receive an Undue From visitors to other Catholic churches . we had similar reports. But that Sabbath Share? afternoon we saw the real Havana, when the carnival procession, up and down the The C. M. S. Gazette recently pub- Prado, was on. Thousands of people were lished a most suggestive article upon out, some wearing masks and all in gay at- "How to Use the Annual Report," and tire, hilariously and furiously driving in by quotations from that document pro- vehicles of every character and automobiles ceeded to r~ply to divers stale objec- of every size and shape. tions, and this one among the re- mainder: EUROPE So much needs to be done at home. We Eng&h Free Churches Gaining Ground find that while the total voluntary contri- butions of the Church amounted in 19i:>4-5 Not counting the work of the Es- to over £8,000,000, those to foreign mis- tablished Church, the various other sions were under £775,000. We therefore leading Protestant bodies last year reply that a great deal is being done at provided additional accommodation for home, and, bearing in mind some familiar II3,63~ persons in their church build- ings They also added 65,582 to the
figures, we represent that the Church gives during the summer and, if possible, annually £775,000 for the work among 42,- make arrangements for steady work 000,000 nominal Christians at home, and there. £775,000 for work among 1,000,000,000 heathen and Mohammedans abroad. Or, German C~tianl Cooperating with the we find that the population of the United Provinces (India) is larger than that of American Board the United Kingdom; we see that the S. P. G. has some, but apparently not very exten- The Missionary Herald gives these sive work in that part of India; we learn details: from the report that the C. M. S. has 38 clergy in the mission in question; in a lib- Two significant movements toward sub- eral frame of mind we double that number stantial and effective cooperation with the so as to allow for S. P. G. clergy, and we Germans in mission work have been put in- call the number of Church of England to operation during the year. These are in clergy laboring among the 48,000,000 Turkey and Micronesia. Soon after the Ar- heathen and Mohammedans in the United menian massacres German friends became Provinces 80. interested in the efforts of our missionaries to care for the many orphans left destitute. Mislion Colleges of the Scottish Free Money was raised in Germany and sent to our missionaries in Harpoot, Van, Marash, Church and other places for that purpose. When the task of caring for these orphans be- This vigorous body of Scottish came too heavy for our missionaries to saints sustains no less than IO institu- bear alone, German assistants were" sent tions of higher learning in the foreign out, in some cases, to cooperate. Cordial field, scattered through Asia, Africa, relations upon the field were established beand the West Indies. These are the tween our missionaries and the German honorable names: Duff College, Cal- workers. Out of this has grown an agreecutta; Wilson College, Bombay; Mad- ment, entered into this year, by which it is ras Christian College and Hislop Col- expected the "Deutscher Hiilfsbund" will lege, Nagpur. In China, Moukden send into different parts of Turkey care- College. In Africa are Lovedale, fully selected German missionaries to co- Blythswood, Overtoun at Livingsto- operate with our forces in aggressive evannia, with the Hope-Waddell Training gelistic, educational, and medical work. Institution at· Old Calabar. And fi- The principle of cooperation is as follows: -nally one in Jamaica to train men for the native ministry. 1. The Germans are not to enter upon work within territory now occupied by the Mildmay Mission to the Jews American Board without the approval of the missionaries of the American Board on The founder and director of the the field. Mildmay Mission to the Jews, Rev. John Wilkinson, having departed this 2. If the Germans enter upon such work, life on February 12, his son, Rev. just what they will do and in what place Samuel Hinds Wilkinson, has become they will begin operations shall be decided his successor as director of the mis- by the German and the American missionsionary work of the mission. Mr. S. aries on the ground in conference and by H. Wilkinson has been his father's mutual agreement. assistant for many years, and he directed the work almost altogether 3. Armenian teachers, preachers, etc., diswhen his father began to suffer from missed by one body shall not be employed. the weaknesses of old age. The new by the other unless the approval of the disdirector announces that there will be missing body is secured. no change in the policy of the mission and that Russia, with its multitudes of 4. The amount of salaries to be paid to Jews, will be extensively entered by the Armenians shall be agreed upon jointly, the workers of the mission as soon as so that there will be no disagreement in quietness begins to prevail in the un- that line. happy land. One of the workers of the mission will make a trip of investi- 5. The Germans will not found separate gation among the Jews of Morocco congregations, but t11ey will join in the church work of existing Protestant-Arme- nian Church.
Since we are not able to provide either the missionaries or the money necessary to push the work in Turkey as it ought to be pushed, we gladly welcome the coopera- tion of our German brethren.
The 0ther movement in this direction is that of the National Young People's So- ::iety of Christian Endeavor Union of Ger- many, which has already sent, at its own
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
charges, three trained and consecrated Ger- man New Guinea. In Kiautschou, man men to cooperate as assistants with our the German possession in China, missionaries in the Caroline and Marshall missionaries of Berlin 1., and the Islands. Another man is expected to be General Evangelical Protestant Misupon the way in a few months. This method sionary Society, Berlin, are at work. of cooperation promises to meet fully the The reports of all these societies demands of the German government in the show that in all German colonies the islands regarding the use of the German congregations gathered by 208 orlanguage. dained missionaries had nearly 70 ,- 000 native members a year ago, and A short time ago the German that nearly 45,000 children attended the different missionary schools. Young People's Association for During the year 1905, 3,717 heathen Positive Christianity (J ugendbund were baptized, while more than 10,- fiir Entschiedenes Christentum), not 000 adults were receiving instruc- tion preparatory to ~aptism. a missionary association, also sent out a missionary and a Christian Brief Items of Mission817 New.
lay helper (a practical farmer) to the Caroline Islands to assist the Amer- ican missionaries in their work, which is threatened by the aggressiveness of the Roman Catholic missionaries.
MisaiOD817 Work in German Colonies In Saxony, Germany, last year 5,171 Roman Catholics became It is little known that the German Lutherans, while only 250 Lutheremperor rules I4,000,000 heathen in ans became Roman Catholics. the colonies of the Empire. Little missionary work in these German In a number of strong Protestant colonies is done by English, Amer- cantons of Switzerland. the separaican, and other non-German mis- tion of Church and State is being sionary societies. In German West vigorously agitated, owing largely Africa we find the Finnish Mission- to the aggressiveness of the Roman ary Society; in German East Africa, Catholic party. the Church Missionary Society and the Uuiversities Mission; in Kam- The United Norwegian Lutheran erun, the American Presbyterians Church in America has elected Rev. (North); upon the Caroline and P. C. Halvorsen, president of the Marshall Islands, the A. B. C. F. M. ; Theological Seminary in St. Dauupon Samoa, the L. M. S., the phin, Madagascar. The United Seventh Day Adventists, and the Synod raised $40,000 for the work Salvation Army; and upon the Bis- on this island in 1905. marck Islands, the Australasian Methodist Missionary Association. Missionaries of the Rhenish Mis- The German missionary societies, sionary Society upon Sumatra baphowever, are quite active in these tized 153 Mohammedans during the German dependencies. Thus we find last year. Especially in Si Manoson, in German East Africa Berlin 1., the principal station of the Moham- Berlin IlL, the Moravians, and the medan district, Christianity has be- Leipsic Missionary Society at work. come a power, tho only five years In Kamerun the German Baptists ago the chief affirmed with an oath and the Basel Evangelical Mission- that after five years all native Chrisary Society are engaged in mission- tians should have disappeared. In ar): work. In German Southwest the district of Si Pirok a native Africa the Rhenish Missionary Soci- Christian has become chief in place ety preaches the Gospel, which soci- of a Mohammedan. ety, together with the Neu Dettelsau Missionary Society, provides also The missionaries of the Leipsic for the heathen inhabitants of Ger- Missionary Society baptized 43 heathen some time ago in Mamba, East Africa, and 29 two months later in Mwika, another station of the same district.
Albama to Have the Gospel 053,998 for fortifications. Italy will It is announced from Boston that spend $55,107,650 for the army and "two friends offer a handsome sum nothing for new fortifications.
for instituting new work in Albania. Oppression and Revolt in Roumania The fund will cover the entire ex- pense for five years. For over a year Interpreters of history who insist we have been telling of the extraor- t~~t behind many of the political up- dinary opportunity in this country nsmgs of the past which are credited which lies just north of Greece. Al- to personal ambition or dynastic tho under the sway of Turkey, their jealousies really stood the masses of interest in Mohammedanism is very the people nominally hostile to men slight. They can not read the Koran or reigning families but actually in Arabic, and their Mohammedan- fighting for their own economic bet- ism is more nominal than anything terment, may turn to the present else. They are a hardy European situation in Roumania as proof of stock, and h;ve maintained their what they mean. Approach the strife virility· since the days when they from one side and it is a people's furnished Philip and Alexander to revolt against the king, with the the world. They now number 750,- usual accompaniment of fleeting 000. Representatives of this nation success for crudely armed mobs in have been beseeching us to send the first engagement and then sub- them missionaries and teachers, and sequent triumph of the trained sol- we have regarded it as one of our diers using artillery. Viewed from most hopeful openings. Now at last another standpoint, it is the uprising they are to receive the Gospel, since of an exploited peasantry chiefly we have in sight both the money against land owners and syndicates and the missionaries." whom the dynasty has permitted to What War Costs "Chriatian" Europe grind the poor. Already the king has granted concessions to the peo- Protestant Christendom altogether ple clamorous for access to the land contributes nearly $20,000,000 annu- and for lessened taxation; already ally for the diffusion of the Gospel in the economic appeal has triumphed, all unevangelized countries. But from if the resort to arms has failed. In- the publication of the appropriations cidentally the Jews have suffered made for the armies of Great Britain, from the· irate Christian peasantry, France, Germany, and Italy, it appears not always because they are of a dif- that France and Germany for the year ferent religion or race, but because, 1906-7 have appropriated nearly the as in Russia, they have aided in ex- same sum for their respective army ploitation of the masses.-The Con- establishments. France's appropria- gregationolist.
• tion is $156,614,380. Germany ap- The Outlook for Work in Russia proaches this amount, with $156,- 608,043. Germany, however, ap- The American Board already oc- propriated $1,631,593 for fortifica- cupies the Russian frontier, from tions, in comparison with $1,158,000 Persia on the east to Austria on the which France will apply to this form west, and under the edict of tolera- of national defense. Great Britain tion has begun missionary opera- will spend for the year $144,987,336 tions on a modest scale, from both for army maintenance. This includes ends of the line, especially from $II.435,S80 for forts, an amount Austria as a base. Under the leader- which makes the German and ship of Dr. A. W. Clark, of Prague, French appropriations for this pur- work has been started in Lodz, Poland, pose seem diminutive. The United by a young man who went there as a States has appropriated for the fiscal clerk. He was formerly a member year $7,817,165 for the army and $5,- of the Y. M. C. A. in Prague, and
after giving up his clerkship to de- must inevitably consider problems of vote himself entirely to evangelistic the gravest moment. These relate to work, he was supported by a Scotch the wisest and most efficient way in lady. Now friends in St. Petersburg which to meet the greatest opportunity 'are helping, and last spring he ever presented to the Church of Christ started a paper for Bohemians in in all its history. Russia. -The conversion of these Bohemians in Russia is looked on as In view of the supreme il11portance likely to have a very important in- of this Conference, the Committee on fluence not only among their own Reference and Counsel of the Foreign people, but on account of the similar- Missions Boards in the United States ity of the languages and their Slavic and Canada earnestly asks that spesympathies, also in the evangeliza- cialprayer be made for it-that there tion of the Russian people. Three may rest upon it, and all its memberyears ago a young man came from ships, through all its sessions, "the Russia to Bohemia in search of em- spirit of wisdom and understanding, ployment, and was invited to the the spirit of counsel and might, the Gospel services. Last May, learning spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord," that it may be enabled to that a colporteur was wanted, he felt accomplish the duty placed upon it by so great an opportunity, and that, if that this constituted a call to go God so will, the Conference which back to Russia to circulate good marks the end of the first, may also books and to labor for Christ among mark "the beginning of the last hunhis own people. In this wayan dred years of missionary work in opening is being made in the once China." exclusive empire. -ARTHUR J. BROWN, Chairman. MISCELLANEOUS An Old StOl'7 in Modern Dreis A Call to Prayer for China Joses Barnabas lived at Cyprus, 45 On September 7, 1807, Robert Morrison, the first Protestant Missionary miles from the base of operations, to China, landed at Canton. From when the forward movement for for- April 25 to May 6, 1907, a Centenary eign missions first began to go away Conference will be held at Shanghai from Jerusalem. He owned land, and to commemorate this event and to cele- was probably wealthy, altho a Levite. brate the completion of the first cen- There was no law or social regulation tury of Protestant missionary effort in enjoining communism, but in the exthat Empire. This important Confer- cess of his goodness he cared not fOF ence of some 700 delegates will repre- precedent. He had faith in the entersent the work of nearly 80 mission- prise and, being a landowner, knew ary boards and societies and 3,832 values. Being full of the Holy Ghost missionaries, men and women, who are he knew enthusiasm as well. – So he now laboring for the evangelization of sold his land and brought his money from one-fourth to one-third ot the hu- and laid it at the apostles' feet. (Afman race. It wiII review the growth terward he became his own missionof a movement which, beginning with ary and had a parish in Asia.) . . . one convert in 1814 atfd six in 1842, Barnabas stuck to the forward movenumbered 150,000 communicants or ment all his days. In 1 Cor. ix: 6 Paul more in 1906, and has extended its mentions him and implies that he was churches, schools, and hospitals to still at work, unmarried, and toiling everyone of the eighteen provinces of with his own hands. But he could China. ~ot have missed his farm much, for tradition relates that "he became The Conference comes at a critical bishop of Milan, preached in Rome, time in the history of China, and converted Clement, and died a martyr in Cyprus." He was a man who es-
teemed the interests of the cause spends $7 for beer alone, and $12 for greater than his personal interests. wine, whisky, and beer together.
Who follows in his train? What a pitiful state of affairs!
-REV. s. M. ZWEMER. The total incomes of British mis- sionary societies is nearly $9,000,000, What a MissionllJ')' Must Know which represents less than 25 cents A missionary must be at 'least as each of the population. It is stated many-handed as the Hindu gDd whom that the people of Great Britain lav he goes to combat. He must be like aside in savings $5,000,000 a day. the bronze Livingstone of Princess Thus more is accumulated and not of Street Gardens in Edinburgh, hatchet, immediate use in two days than is Bible, and all. He must know how to given for foreign missions in a whole sew garments for heathen nakedness, year. as did that glorious high churchman, Bishop Selwyn. He must lead in in- The whole Christian world of 150,- dustrial education, as did the great de- 000,000 contributes only some $17,- ceased of 1906, Doctor Stewart, of 000,000 for missions. The State of LDvedale ; or be to another nation what New York, with a population of nearthe peerless Duff was to the educa- ly 8,000,000, pays nearly $17,000,000 tional system of the Indian Empire. every year in licenses for the privilege He must be able to make bread pills of selling liquor, not for the liquor itfor Africans, or to set a broken limb self. The liquor dealers must make with nothing but the limb of a tree, considerably more than this amount in order to pay the license tax.
a jack-knife, and part of his wife's OBITUARY skirt as adjuvants. He may need to speak with tongues, like our old hero, Kali Charan Banurji. of India Doctor Riggs, who had a working knowledge of 20 languages and spoke News has come of the recent death fluently in 12. He must understand of one of India's leading Christian conthe religious beliefs of his chosen peo- verts from Hinduism. Kali Charan Baple as fully and as sympathetically as nurji was born in 1847 and came of he knows Christianity. He should a respectable family of Khannyan near learn what pedagogy can teach him Pandra in Hooghly. He was a disconcerning the child mind projected tinguished student of the Duff Colon into the decades following adoles- lege, whence he took his M.A. degree cence; for he, like his Master, is al- and the gold medal' of his year. He ways the teacher, the teacher, the belonged to the younger generation of teacher. He must know the principles the converts of the celebrated Doctor of national evorution and be prepared Duff, having been baptized in 1868. to guide in the transformation of races In his last years he was no less than the registrar of the University of Caland nations. He must be in a human- cutta. This wide-renowned orator, divine way a Jesus, a Savior to the one of the foremost few of the politpeople. ical leaders of the National Congress, was held in the highest esteem by Mone" for Miasion.
The inhabitants of Germany spend the Christian public of the Indian and 'annually $50,000,000 for eggs, $60,- European communities of India. He 000,000 for cheese, $100,000,000 for was a born minister of the Word of coffee, $105,000,000 for sugar, $120,- God, full of missionary zeal and evan- 000,000 for· milk, $125,000,000 for gelistic fervor; the founder and pro- wine, $175,000,000 for whisky, and moter of many Christian movements $394,000,000 for beer. On an aver- and the acknowledged leader of the age every German contributes annu- Indian Christian Community in North ally 4 cents to foreign missions and India,. if not the whole of India, is IX cents to home missions, while he now "Safe in the Arms of Jesus."
THE MISSIONARY
EGYPT AND THE CHRISTIAN CRUSADE. By of the problem of how to' teach mis- Rev. Charles R. Watson. Illustrated. sions in the Sunday-school. With the I2mo, 288 pp. Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 35 help of others who are interested in cents. Board of F. M. of the United the subjects and who have had prac- Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 1907. tical experience in Sunday-school work, he has prepared these excellent Here is an excellent mission study courses of study for the guidance of volume on Egypt, cheaply published in teachers. order to bring the price within reach of all. It is a comprehensive and in- The first series takes up six subjects telligent survey of the social, political, in a series of studies-the Southern and religious conditions in Egypt, as mountaineers and foreigners in Amerwell as of the great missionary move- ica, Wm. Carey, David Livingstone, ment in this interesting country. The John G. Paton, and John Kenneth author was born in Egypt and writes MacKenzie. The second series of ten in a clear and forceful way of the studies furnishes chapters on John history, people, and missions. Eliot, David Brainerd, Marcus Whit- man, and Egerton Young, of America; METHODS OF MISSION WORK AMONG Mos- and on the Dark Continent with biog- LEMS. Papers read at the Cairo Confer- raphies of Robert Moffat, Samuel ence. Privately printed for the use of Crowther, David Livingstone, and Al- missionaries. 12mo, 238 pp. $1.00 net. exander Mackay. The third series de- Fleming H. Revell Co., New York. 19Q6. votes four studies to foreigners in America, and six to India, the land, This volume, in which is described people, religions, and individual misthe technical side of missionary work sionaries who engaged in various for Moslems, shows the missionaries phases of work. The matter is preto be sane and sanctified statesmen. sented in slightly different form for Recognizing the many good features senior and for intermediate and junof Islam and the difficulties which one ior grades and the questions at the encounters who seeks to lead them to close of each chapter are suggestive faith in Christ as the Divine Savior, and adapted to the grades for which these men and women set themselves they are intended. The chapters are to their God-appointed task. With- very brief and can not be much more out ranting at Moslem believers or than suggestive, but they are written using stock cant phrases these dis- in a bright, interesting style, which cussions take up the questions of how can not fail to hold the attention of to reach Moslems, high and low, with scholars. the Gospel of Christ. The work among illiterate and educated classes We welcome these text-books as a is described; the character of medical distinct step in missionary education and literary branches of mission work in Sunday-schools. They are excelis set forth; conditions of baptism, lent either for use in summer sessions controversy, backsliders, women's or to supplement the regular Bible work-these and other topics are ably study courses. The material furnished treated. It is a volume of great value could often be used to great advanto students of the Mohammedan prob- tage in illustrating the missionary lem. It is indispensable to workers truths of the Bible. It would be an among Moslems. advance step if the senior, intermedi- ate, and junior studies, respectively, MISSION STUDIES FOR THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. were prepared by men and women Three series. For Junior, Intermediate, who make a specialty of work in those and Senior Grades. By Rev. George H. departments. The method of presen- Trull. IS cents to 25 cents each. The tation might in this way be more par- Sunday-school Times Co., Philadelphia. ticularly adapted to the age for which it is intended. Mr. Trull, the assistant pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, has made a careful study THE STORY OF THE CENTRAL ASIAN PIONEER NEW BOOKS MISSION. Illustrated. 8vo, 45 pp. IS. EGYPT AND THE CHRISTIAN CRUSADE. By Rev. Charles R. Watson. Illustrated. Morgan and Scott, London, England. 12mo, z88 pp. Cloth, 50 cents; paper, 35 cents. Board of F. M. of the United 1906. • Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. 1907.
This mission was founded by Rev. EASTERN MISSIONS FROM A SOLDIER'S STAND- W. S. Norwood in 1902 for the pur- POINT. By Col. G. K. Scott Moncrieff pose of carrying the Gospel to the CtE. 2s. Religious Tract Society, Lon~ tribes living beyond the frontier of In- don. 1907.
dia. This small volurhe describes the DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGION IN JAPAN. By occasion of its beginning and method Dr. G.- W. Knox, author of "Japanese Life in Town and Country," etc. 8vo. of its growth. Mr. Norwood i!! now $1.50 net. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New in Hoti-Mardan, North India, seeking York. 1907.
to reach those who are beyond the RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN SOUTH AMERICA. By reach of other missionary agencies in the Rev. Dr. John W. Lee. I2mo. $I.OO net. Jennings & Graham, Cincinnati. 1907. India. The f;«.tfl<: and field are more .. fully descri~4)~:n another page.
C.; TaR<lIf~!rJ;{E HEART OF BM21L. By Fred THE AWAKENING OF CHINA. By Dr. W. ~.s.s. .Illustrated. Svo, 136 pp. A. P. Martin. Geographical Library. Il- . C!9~1.,Socertt~; paper, 35 .ce~ts. S~:)Uth lustrated. 8vo. Cloth, $3.80 net. Doub- . AtfileWc.m·· EvangelIcal MIssIOn, Llver- leday, Page & Co., New York. 1907.
.p06I, ;.itsdloGlts R Witte, East Northfield, HISTORY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. With ~s~·)[JH~~.• Descriptions of Japan, China, and Adja- cent Countries. By Dr. Antonio de Mor- Mr'.~ ~~ has been for fourteen ga. Translated, edited, and annotated by E. H. Blair and]. A. Robertson. Il- yeats~' IrMsslonary in Brazil and here lustrated. Two volumes. $7.50 net. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland an records .Wifgrrdiary of adventures dur- 1907· ing expedition of some 5,000 miles COREA: THE HERMIT NATION. By William by river, rail, and road through Bra- E. Griffis. Revised and enlarged edition. Illustrated. $2.50. Charles Scribner's zil. The bOok contains interesting in- Sons, New York. 1907.
formatiori about the Brazilians and ILLUSTRIOUS CHINESE CHRISTIANS, BIO- the Indian tribes. Many of the per- GRAPHICAL SKETCHES. By W. P. Bentley. sonal items are interesting to the gen- 248 pp. Illustrated. Standard Publish- eral reader, but the picture of the so- ing Co., Cincinnati, O. 1907. cial and religious conditions should stir Christians to action. POWERS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, Con- gress, President, and Courts. By Masuji FOREIGN MArL ANNUAL, 1906. Pamphlet. Miyakawa, D.CL., LL.D. 8vo, 260 pp. International Committee of the Y. M. C $3·00 net. N. Hayes, Washington, D. C A., New York. 1907· Here are some stirring accounts of THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE OF KENTUCKY. By the progress of work for young men Wm. H. Honey. Illustrated. 8vo, 196 pp. $1.50. Robert Clarke Co., Cincinnati. 1906. . in foreign lands during the year 1906. LITTLE BOOKS ON MISSIONS: "The Way of Six new mission posts have been occu- the Lord Prepared," by A. B. Leonard; pied by American Y. M. C. A. secre- "Malaysea," by Bishop Oldham; "Mex- taries-Peking and Chenter, in China; ico," by John W. Butler; "Korea," by Nagasaki, in Japan; Manila and Ja- Geo. Heber Jones; "India," by James M. malpur, in India. The work has ad- Thoburn; "China," by Bishop Bashford; vanced in every direction, and the "South America," by Bishop Neeley. story of the progress is well told in 16mo, 107' pp. each. 35c. net per volume. these 77 pages by the men who have Jennings & Graham, Cincinnati. 1906. done the work. It is well worth read- ing. ILLUSTRIOUS CHINESE CHRISTIANS. By W. P. Bentley. I2mo, 250 pp. $1.00. Standard Publishing Co., Cincinnati. 1906.
The Missionary Review of the World — June 1895
ARCHITECTURE OF THE
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVIII. No. 6.-Old series.-JUNE.-VOL. VIII. No. 6.-New Serie8.
THE INDIANS OF AMERICA: THEIR CURIOUS CUSTOMS, WEIRD WAYS, AND STRANGE SUPERSTITIONS. 'I< BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Fact often outruns fiction in novelty and romantic interest. The ab- original tribes of this Western Hemisphere bear study. No people on earth are so reticent and reserved. Beneath an exterior imperturbably placid, features that never betray changing emotions and are almost frigidly rigid, they hide even from acute observers their inner secrets; and their whole personal and social life is a veiled chamber of mystery, behind whose curtain very few outsiders ever penetrate to the arcana.
A book has recently appeared which will be to most readers a revelation, not only of marvellous" wonders of the world" to be found within the Continent of North America, but of unsuspected mysteries of Indian life and character. Its author has spent years in Isleta, New Mexico, Arizona, and other parts of the Southwest, living among this compara- .tively unknown people, studying with rare penetration and patience their curious and occult history and habits. He has not contented himself with any superficial glance or hasty impressions, but seems to have persevered in cultivating such friendly and intimate relations, and in gathering such trustworthy information as might serve to supplement his own kElen observation, and enable him to reveal to the general reader, more fully than we have ever before seen, the real life of these" native" Americans. From his fascinating book we cull a few facts which especially bear upon Indian notions of religion, etc.
The somewhat amazing disclosures of Mr. Lummis have to do particularly with the Pueblo cities of Moqui, well into the edge of the Arizona Desert, and remote from civilization and Spanish influence, like the inaccessible mesas on which they are built.
of • 80me Strlnge Corners oC Our Country. By Charles F. Lummis. New York: Century Com- pany, 18112. T~e a~thor cauti,?ns the writer this article and hill readers, to "discriminate care- ;tully between the ClaSHes :of Iudian.mentioned In • Strange Comera.' 'rhe Puebl08, of course, are Christiana, ·end very .arne8ton~s,though superstitious,"
THE INDUNS OF AMERICA
Pueblo marriages show unique customs. To the groom is given a blue ear of corn, and to the bride, a white ear, because woman's heart is supposed to be the whiter. They prove their mutual devotion by eating every kernel. Then they run a sacred race, and the issue gives to the winner a certain ascendancy or prestige. If neither outstrips the other, the match is annulled as of bad omen. Pueblo etiquette forbids familiarity between the unmarried youths and maidens, under penalty of a whipping. Casual glances and greetings must take the place of walks and talks together. Marriages must have parental consent; and, in fact, the parents do the " courting" in behalf of the suitor.
Three hundred and fifty years ago the Pueblos had a strict separation of the sexes and community houses. Women, girls, and children lived in tlte dwellings, while men and boys slept in the estufa (or sacred room), to which the women brought their food. There was no common family life until the Spanish missionaries introduced it. There is still existing a peculiar fabric of society. The woman has rule in her own home, and to her belong the children, whose descent is reckoned from her, and who take her name and not the father's. The husband and wife must be of different divisions of society. The basis of social life in the twenty-six Pueblo town-republics is the clan, or cluster of families; and there are from six to sixteen such clans· in each of the towns.
The Pueblos have their children baptized in a Christian church, and give them a Spanish name. Some of the more conservative have also an Indian christening, which is performed by some friend of the family, taking the babe to a dance, selecting a name, and putting his lips to those of the child to confirm it; or the intimate woman friend of the mother takes the child at dawn on the third day of its life, and names it after the first object on which after sunrise her eye faIlIl. Hence the poetic and romantic Indian names. Mr. Lummis has a little girl thus named by an Indian friend, " The Rainbow of the Sun," and for a month this "adopted child" received from her Indian friends gifts of eggs, chocolate, calico, pottery, or silver.
After the birth of a child among the Pueblos, the father for eight days must see that the sacred birth:ftre in the fogon, or adobe fireplace, goes not out day or night, and as it can be kindled only in the sacred way, so only can it be rekindled if it does go out. He must smuggle a live coal, it may be in his own bare hand, under his blanket from the cacique's own hearth; otherwise the fire of the' child's life goes out also within the year. The Pueblo fathers, grandfathers, and even greatgrandfathers, and even the chiefs themselves, are not above carrying the babies on their backs and dancing to quiet them when there is need. Pueblo parents are gentle yet not over-indulgent, and the children show obedience to parents and respect to old age.
The death customs are equally unique.· Food is made ready for the four days' journey of the disembodied soul, and a " good start" provided for the unseen world. Some of his horses and cattle are killed for his use there; his weapons of war and chase, etc., are" killed" by burning or breaking, and so he is made ready to carryon his occupations beyond. Hence near every Pueblo town is the "killing place," apart from the graveyard, where the ground is covered with the various remnants of all manner of articles useful or ornamental.
The funeral pyre is not unknown among the tribes of the Colorado desert, and with the body the property of the dead is consumed, with treasures contributed by the mourners. No Navajo will ever again enter a house which death has invaded; hence come hosts of abandoned huts. Nor would he ever, after marriage, look at his. mother-in-law; even an accidental glimpse must be atoned for by fasting and prayer_ To most aboriginal tribes the feather is sacred, and is not only used in decoration, but in all religious rites. A white or bright-hued plume is of good omen, the gay parrot feather being specially valuable; and as to peacock plumes, they are beyond price. Without eagle feathers sicknesli could not be cured, or even witches exorcised, and the Indian religion would have no "prayer-book." Dark feathers are correspondingly of evil omen, particularly those of the raven, owl, woodpecker, and buzzard. To have these in possession is proof of evil designs or of witchcraft, and provokes summary punishment. The Pueblo" prayer stick" is chiefly of feathers, and corresponds to the Thibetan and Burmese" prayer wheel." Over three thousand of these prayer sticks have been counted in a day's ramble, stuck up in the ground as invocations, whittled sticks with downy feathers bound to the top in a tuft.
The Pueblo medicine men not only doctor the sick, but" doctor the year," prescribe for the seasons, and feel the pulse of the corn-fields. Wahr (the Tiguan word for medicine) includes almost all influences affecting humanity. To the Indian all influences, good or bad, are medicines and are spirits, good or evil. The medicine men must, therefore, be endowed with supernatural powers adequate to cope with the hostile spirits and coax the good. The witch is virtually a medicine man, only the power is used harmfully.
The two important doctorings of the year are in the spring and autumn -one to insure, and the other to acknowledge, a prosperous harvest. The spring medicine making is about mid-March. Every detail is not only sacred, but secret. The chief captain of war and his seven sub-captains lead the way, and each branch of medicine men sends a delegate to a common meeting. Chosen messengers-usually the war captain and his next of rank-present the sacred cornmeal to the two heads of all medicine, the offering being prepared by certain women of the family of the senior ambassador, out of the best ears in store, and with much care and prayer after sundown, this meal, wrapped in corn husk and tied with a string of the same material, is carried to the house of the great medicine man, the" Father of Here." After a sacred smoke and prayer to the Trues on all sides, the sacred parsel is handed to the august" doctor of the year," always using only the right hand. Next morning both the heads meet before sunrise at an appointed rendezvous, and as the sun appears, holding the meal in the left hand, and with the right taking pinches, breathing on ,it and then tossing it toward the sun, they meanwhile pray to the Sun Father for rain, grass, crops, and general prosperity.
On their return to the village they summon their medicine orders. Four days of fasting and preparation are" outside days," when the medi- cine men may move ·about keeping faRt; but the four" inside days" whi~h succeed are spent within the medicine house in ri~id fasting, as elsewhere described un,der the " praying smoke." Noone must enter the room or evcn call at the door but themselves, save the ",ife of the head of all, who sweeps it, brings water to fill the tirwja (jar), and tobacco for cigar- · ettes. ·Day and night they sit and smoke, the veterans reciting traditions , .of the order, that the younger may learn them by heart.
On the morning of the last day four pairs of marshals go on their mission in different directions. Once outside the village they cast off their blankets and run swiftly, carrying the" prayer sticK," a small bit of ·wool with certain magical feathers bound to it in a peculiar fashion; ·these prayer sticks to be planted in some sequestered spots at the four cardinal points outside the village; and after praying over them they run wildly over the country, blowing away witches and tossing up all evil spirits with long feathers, to be borne away on the wings of the wind.
Medicine-making must be done only i.n the dark blue breech-clout and with faces painted after a certain fashion; and the two forerunners are indicated by lightning marks on the legs.
The" dance" begins in the room of the fasters, and when the door is opened the people outside stand with bare feet, motionless. Every detail , o{ the performance is relfgiously regulated, and the seats are in the order of · rank~ . In front of each medicine man is the" mother," the ear of .white : com with its feather tuft and turquoise ornaments; and in front of the ; father of all is the cajete (earthen bowl) of sacred water, the mirror of all the world and its events.
The sacred cigarette or weer is used to wreathe the magic mirror in , smoke, when the shaman (medicine man) would foretell the year, or watch ·.the witches in their tricks, or see what is going on in the world, and to blind •-the eyes' of game during the sacred hunt. It is the fee for the services of · the shaman when there is sickness, and is used to cover the trail.of the departed soul, that the witches and evil spirits may not trace its path. •.:The weer is never to be lit at a common fire or with a match, but only "from the sacred fire in the estufa-a coal from the hearth of the cacique '- (chief-religious official), a flint and steel, or the unique old fire-drill, a dry round stick fitting closely in a cavity, and turned very fast, always from right to left.
The iacred song is sung, a rude ode to 'the "mother" of the crops,
PUEBLO INDIANS. AlII INDIAN BABY
THE INDIANS OF AMERICA
then the pinches of sacred meal are blown toward the father of all medicine and the mother-corn,and the eagle feathers are crossed and snapped. The wonderful sleight-of-hand follows, which perpetuates the awe in which the shamans are held.
When the medicine-making is done the sacred "going.out·for-theyear" follow!!, with equally rigid and religious rites. The father of all wears on his left hand and arm a gauntlet of skin of a bear's foreleg with the claws on, and on each foot a similar skin from the bear's hind leg, and in the glove he sticks the eagle plumes. Then the song is twice sung and the sacred mirror is looked into, and three shamans run to the Rio Grande to bring back auspices of plenty, or omens of drought and famine.
The sacred water-giving is the distribution from the cajete of a mouthful to each person, with prayers to the Trues, the recipient blowing the water on his hands or rubbing it on his body in token of strength to be given him, etc. The" mother-shaking" is done by the father of all, who mysteriously rains down on the heads of the audience a shower of seeds from the tufted ears, each kernel being eagerly picked up as a token of a large crop.
After the final benediction abundance of food breaks the long fast. The ceremonial paint is washed off, the ordinary clothing resumed, and the year is now safely begun at least. So curious and complex are the religious customs attached to some of our Indian tribes.
The cigarp.tte, and not the calumet, is the true ,. pipe of peace" among the Indians of the Southwest, and figures conspicuously in religion, wat', and the chase, and more than Arabian salt in its power as a bond of hospitality. The sacred cigarette is, however, a different thing from the familiar object that goes by that name in the East. It is a pinch of granulated tobacco wrapped in a bit of sweet corn husk or a special sort of brown paper.
The sacred smoke is everywhere found among the Pueblos. It hallows birth and death and every experience between. It secures f~om drought and all malign spirits, and makes. every rite and even prayer itself more holy. Its use is rigidly restricted. An Indian woman is not to think of smoking; a slit in the tip of the tongue may be the penalty. Nor dares the Pueblo lad smoke before he is twenty-five, unless he earns the privilege by prowess, or is a member of the medicine men's order, and even then not in the presence of seniors or superiors.
The cigarette is at once a bond of friendship and a flag of truce. The first act of a Pueblo in meeting a heathen Indian is to toss him the tobacco and corn husk for a cigarette, never handing it. To pick up the offering is accepting a peace covenant, and the bitterest enmity must be put aside.
The smoking anteceded the discovery of tobacco, and was then confined to certain aromatic herbs. Ceremonial cigarettes (the weer) are still made as before corn husks were used, by removing the pith from .a reed and filling the hollow with certain sacred weeds or tobacco. The Indian, on lighting the cigarette, sends each of the first six puffs in a contrary direction, but in such a sly way as to elude a stranger's opservation. This is a religious ceremony which reminds one of the Jewish "wave offering," waved toward the points of the compass to declare in pantomime that "the earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof. " Thus the smoker propitiates the Trues and exorcises the witches.
In the spring of the year the medicine men shut themselves up for from four to eight days, smoking weer, to assure rain, and during all this time they neither leave their seats nor eat. They are compelling, by clouds of smoke, rain clouds to yield their moisture.
Scalping is not merely a savage custom of cruelty, but a sacred rite. Among the Tigua tribe the scalp is known as the "sacred hair," or " bark of the oak." In the secret niche in the wall of the estufa the sacred "barks" are treasured and taken out when the season for the " dance of the sacred bark" comes.
The scalp has been snatched from the victim not only as a trophy, but because its possession was believed to imply a transfer of the skill and valor of its previous possessor. It is removed hy a rough, circular sweep of the knife, and a tearing of the skin from the skull. The trophy must be carefully" cured" by the taker himself, for even an accidental touch on the part of another conveys away its magical virtues, at least in part.
A Pueblo party coming back with scalps could not come into town or be met by their flmilies. They must camp outside at a distance and send forward one half of the war party to report to the cacique. After a fortnight the warriors leave the confinement of the estufa, and go to meet and relieve the other half of the party guarding the scalps, while they come to fast in the estufa ; after another fortnight the two parties meet half-way and enter the pueblo, singing war songs and bearing the scalps to the cacique and the estufa. Then another period of fasting and purifying extends from eight to twelve days, every detail being scrupulously regulated.
The estufa is a round, low structure, with a diameter of from forty to fifty feet, with closed sides entered by trap-doors from the roof. Within it has bare walls, the round room having no ornament but antlers or rude representations of sacred animals. Even the mode of entry i~ prescribed. Mounting the ladder, one must approach the trap-door from the west side, back down the inside ladder, and turn to the right at the bottom and make.a circuit of the room a foot from the wall, and then take his seat in the semi-circle around the sacred fire. To turn to the left would be fatal, for the ghost of the scalped victim would chase him with a lasso and touch him with the death to~ch! So when they make their exit from the estufa they approach the inside ladder from the left, on the roof turn to the right, m~ke another circuit, and come down the outer ladder backward. The seat of the cacique is at the west side of the fireplace, and the semi-circles which front the fire are all arranged in rigid order. . All turn backs to the fire until the cacique speaks, and then they rise and face it through the session. The sacred fire must be lit only by the Hoo-mah- Kom, and only in the sacred way.
The Tua-ju-ar, or mad dance, near the estuja, commemorates the victory after all these punctilious preparations. Strangers must not even look on.
The dancers, with men and women alternating, form in two lines facing each other, the men in war-paint, with bows and arrows held in a pre- scribed fashion, and the women gayly dressed, but with nothing in hand.
The chant to which they move is a metrical account of the fight and its issue, droned to the thump of the drum.
At a given time the" bending woman, " or official keeper of the scalps, brings them from their sacred niche, and walks solemnly up and down between the lines of dancers with her buckskin bag, bowed down beneath the burden of her awful responsibility. The dance lasts four days, con- cluding with the Khur-Shu-ar, or round dance, with its ehorus of yells and doleful wails. Sunrise ends the ceremony. All then return to the estuja, where the scalps are again deposited in their hiding place and the slab that closes the niche is sealed with mud. Then the chief gives the signal and the company disperses.
All Pueblos count themselves Christians, and it is a long time since they have taken a scalp ; and it is said they never were wont to scalp any but heathen savages, and even in their case they took scalps from no women.
(To be continued.) FETICHISM IN AFRICA.
BY REV. JOSIAH TYLER, D.D., ST. JOHNSBURY, VT.
Fetich is from a Portuguese wordjeiti20, meaning a charm or talisman. Portuguese settlers in Western Africa, observing that the natives tied to their heads and necks a variety of articles to which their imaginations ascribed magical power, regarding them with superstitious awe, named them jetichists, or fetich worshippers. Long before this occurred in Africa, fetichism, or a form of worship closely allied to it, prevailed in other lands. Indeed, we may call it the oldest and most widely spread religion of the world, having co-existed with every pagan belief of which we have any knowledge.
An investigati<l'n of this subject, though sad, is not devoid of interest, for it helps solve a problem deemed by some insolvable-to wit, "Has a tribe of men ever existed wholly destitute of the idea of a supreme being f" Does it not illustrate in a striking manner a "feeling after
FETICIDSM IN AFRICA
God," which is characteristic of unevangelized millions ~ Herbert Spencer thinks that" if we will lay aside the idea of God and man in which we have been educated, and study the aboriginal ideas of them, we shall see some probability in the hypothesis that they have a conception of a ' supreme being."
Fetiches are supposed to exist in both animate and inanimate forms. If the former, worshippers may punish them, provided they do not favor their wishes. If the latter, they may destroy them. This superstition has dominated for centuries the Ainos of Japan, the wild woodmen of Korea, and the inhabitants of the island of Formosa. It prevails now in China, despite the doctrines of Confucius.
It is often sllid that Buddhism is the religion of China, but if we investigate carefully the subject, we must see that it is the worship of ancestors. Chinese fetiches are tablets, or slips of wood, on which are inscribed the name, rank, age, dates of birth and death of departed relatives.
In all this we observe that there is " a kind of incorporation of the spirit in the tablet as its visible home." That is the" refined idolatry" of the " celestials. " It has an amazing power over them ; hence, when a Chinese is asked to abandon ancestral worship his religious instinct is wounded and scandalized. Buddhism he will abandon much more readily.
In India fetichism is widely spread, notwithstanding the teachings of the Veda. The late Dr. Edward Lawrence, having carefully examined the faiths of that country, remarked, " Under the veil of Hindu similarity there exist all the varieties of fetich worship."
Although we class fetichism among the world's idolatries, it is not confined to the .worship of images made of wood and stone. The same superstitious element underlies and overshadows it, but instead of gorgeous temples and pagodas, noted deities, well-fed priests and costly offerings, it pins its faith to inferior objects, some of which are fearfully disgusting, and to a priesthood extremely revolting.
The prevailing form among Africans is spirit worship, their fetiches being serpents or other reptiles, the bark of trees, teeth of elephants and panthers, various kinds of medicines, etc. We have a survival of it in the legends and songs of negroes who came to America in slave ships, and the frightfnl stories told about the pine log-fires in the cabins of Alabama and other SORthern States. A form in which it prevails is called" voodooism." The voodoo or " conjure doctor" is supposed to be able to cast an evil eye upon a person, causing mysterious pains and diseases. By certain incantations, evil spells can be removed. The hind foot of a graveyard rabbit is supposed to be especially efficacious, and if carried in the pocket iii a perfect protection. If a person has reason to suppose he is face to face with a " conjurer," who is trying to cast an evil spell upon him, he instantly produces his rabbit's foot (if he is so happy as to possess one), and the conjurer is powerless. Voodooism is closely allied to witch- 1895.] FETICHISM: IN AFRICA. 409 craft of old New England days. Before we the sons and daughters of the Puritans, ridicule fetichism, let us bear in mind that some of our ancestors may have been tinged with it or something nearly allied to it. Among the personal recollections of the poet Whittier, we read: "III the days of witchcraft I had an ancestor who helped to k~l1 a witch. She and another woman got a lock of the witch's hair and put it in a hot oven and closed the oven door. Presently the most dreadful moans came from the oven and repeated knocks and thumps against the door, but the good dames stoutly resisted the attack with poker and tongs, keeping the oven , tightly closed. Finally the sound ceased, and in due time news came that the witch had died."
A close examination of African worship shows that objects used as fetiches are vehicles or abodes of the spirits, which they profess to wor- ship. They call them" representatives" .or "messengers" of the spirits. Ask a Zulu man why he supplicates the aid of and sacrifices to a serpent, and he replies: "I do not worship the serpent, but the spirit of my dead grandfather, who comes to me in the guise of a serpent." His faith receives confirmation from the dictum of his priest or "spirit doctor," who tells him that his grandfather is angry and must be appeased, which can be done only by the slaughter of a large fat ox. Thereupon the ox is killed, some of the blood sprinkled on the man (without shedding of blood is no remission), and a part of the beef placed one side for the spirit's use, which soon after' goes down the throats of the natives, the priest having appropriated to himself the lion's share.
Among the Matabele people crocodiles are the representatives of the spirits, hence those reptiles are never killed, any more than the Zulus kill certain serpents.
Fetichism is emphatically a religion of fear. Its poor victims are all their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death as a result of insufficient propitiation. Evil spirits they think are more numerous than the good, and are constantly plotting mischief against them. Remove from the African his faith in and blind subjection to the unprincipled 'and cruel" priest" or " spirit doctor," and you remove the keystone of the arch of his religion.
An account of the cruelties flowing from adherence to African super- stition would fill a bulky volume. Among the worst are infanticide, kill. ing one of a pair of twins, lest, if it is allowed to live, some calamity may befall the father j sending into the enemy's country before a battle, to steal a child, and sacrificing it to the shades of the departed to make the raid successful (the custom of various tribes) j dividing the body of an enemy after victory with the conquered, and performing over it certain ceremonies, after which the combatants may visit each other in peace (as among the Barwe clan) j cutting off the finger.s of a chief's son and pre- lierving them as charms in a war drum, that the royal kraal may escape fire (as in the Mauritsi country) j flaying a child and placing its body in the
41() e.rune
path, that the warriors may step over it on their way to battle (as among the Baganda). . Temples of fetichism in Africa are not common. Paul Du Chaillll speaks of "devil houses" in Central Africa, into one of which he looked, but saw no idol. Among the Ashantees and Baganda are what are called the abodes of spirits, but no care is taken to make them attractive. Mis- sionary Walker describes a" spirit doctor" among the Pongwe, in West- ern Africa, as marching through a village clad most fantastically and carrying a mirror in which the natives may see the faces of witches, 'who are bound and led out to slaughter. A booth is made for the priest, in which he seats himself, growls like a wild animal or hisses like a serpent.
Among the Ashantees every family is said to have its domestic fetich, to which yams and other fruits are offered. When they drink, they spill a little of the liquor on the ground as an offering to the fetich, and when the master of the house leaves his seat, a servant hastily removes it, lest an evil spirit slip into the master's place.
The Dahomeyans attach great faith to a serpent which they keep in a temple served by priestesses and supported at the expense of their king. At Aniambia, chief town of a tribe in West Africa who call themselves " Gommi," Du ChaiIIu visited two fetich houses; they were said to be the abodes of powerful spirits, one evil, the other beneficent. In one of these houses he saw only a large chest, on the top of which lay some white and red chalk and some red parrot feathers. The chalk, he was told, " is used to mark the bodies of the devout on certain occasions when vows are made. " In Guinea, around a sacred tree called the " tree of the fetichl " festival ceremonies are performed, singing, dancing, beating of drums, etc. A priest is in attendance, who offers up sacrifices. The people of Benin use as fetichcs elephants' tusks, claws of animals, bones and human skulls, and offer up to them boiled yams mixed with palm oil. Du Chaillu counted in West Africa numerous skeletons of slaves who were killed and buried with their kings that their majesties might not go into the other world unattended. Among the Pongwe there is a saying: "The largest tree in the country must not fall alone." This is of fearful import, implying that the servants of the king, on the occasion of their burial, must be strangled and buried with him in the same grave. This was customary among Kaffir tribes till white men went among them.
Since writing the foregoing, a volume has come to me cailed " Demon Possessions and Allied Themes," by the lamented Dr. Nevius, of China. The reader of this volume, if acquainted with the developments of African fetichism, will see a remarkable correspondence between cases adduced in China and India, and those with which he is familiar, all going to show that demonism now exists in Africa as in Old and New Testament times. Indeed, throughout the Dark Continent, as in India and China, the great mass of the people are life-long victims of a mental disease called" demonphobia." But enough on this gloomy and repulsive theme. How strong an argument it presents for Christian missions! And how earnestly we should pray that Divine light may shine in those dark places of the earth, . now filled with the habitations of cruelty !
THE FORERUNNER OF MOFFAT AND LIVINGSTONE BY REV. JAMES I. GOOD, D.D.
An almost forgotten missionary is Theodosius Vanderkemp, yet he laid the foundations for missions in South Africa. 'Vhat a wonderful apostolic succession there was there: Schmidt, the Moravian, then Vanderkemp, then Moffat, then Livingstone-all modern apostles. Vanderkemp was a modern Thomas It Kempis (both names are derived from Kampen, in Holland)-that is, he was just as pious, yet differed from hi~ in being far more practical. His fruits were not a book, "The Imitation of Christ," but living books, souls dedicated to Christ and living in imitation of Him.
Vanderkemp was born. in Rotterdam in 1747. He was finely educated as a physician at the university, and then became a soldier under the Prince of Orange, although he returned to the practice of medicine ; but in religion he was a rationalist until forty-four years of age. Then came the call of God that changed this modern Saul of Tarsus into a Paul the mISSIOnary. While sailing on the river near Dort a water-spout upset his boat. He saw his wife and daughter drown before his eyes, and he himself was saved by a special providence, for the storm drove a vessel from her moorings, floated it to him just as he was sinking to death, and its sailors dragged him from the water. This strange providence led to his conversion; his conversion led to his becoming a missionary. He offered himself to the London Missionary Society, although he was over fifty years of age. They were very glad to get so finely educated a man and polished a scholar in their employ, and appointed him. He was ordained November 3d, 1797, and the next year sailed to South Africa. Before he left Holland he left the missionary influence behind, for his efforts led to the formation of the Netherlands Missionary Society. Without waiting until he ,reached the heathen he began missionary work among the convicts on board his vessel, and a number were converted. When he arrived at Cape Town he was sent as a missionary to the Caffres, a brave race, but as yet dangerous to the whit@S; yet he boldly went alone out into the wilderness to their'chief Geika, and lived among them for sixteen months, although in cOllfiMnt danger of his life from them or from whites, who looked on him with suspicion, because they felt he would break up their evil trade with the natives. More than once was his life attempted, but the Lord preserved him. Thus, on one occasion a Boer farmer poisoned the mind of the chief against him, saying that Vanderkemp would poison him by giving him brandy. The chief came to his hut and waited for him to try to poison
THE FORERUNNER OF MOFFAT AND LIVINGSTONE. [Jun~
him. After waiting a long while he finally asked Vanderkemp for brandy, but the missionary replied he had none. Then the chief made known the secret as he said, "They have deceived me. You do not wish to kill me." Vanderkemp was, however, finally compelled to leave the Caffres, as it became too unsafe for him to remain there any longer. His work seemed to have produced no results j and yet thirty years after a woman was admitted to the Church who received the Gospel from his lips. Nor were his labors lost. The London Missionary Society said he had done more in sixteen months than many missionaries had done in a lifetime, for with his wonderful linguistic skill he had prepared a Caffre dictionary for his successors in missionary work among them. His fame remained among them, for up to a few years ago all Cafi'res who became Christians were called by the name of Ma Yankana, which meant" the men of Vanderkemp."
But Providence shut one door to open another. Like Paul, who turned from the Jews to the Gentiles, he turned from the Cafi'res, one of the best of the South African races, to the Hottentots, the lowest race among them, the" dogs" and" black' cattle" of the Boers, the nearest approach of humanity to the ape. Schmidt, the devoted Moravian missionary, had begun his work among them in 1738, but had been compelled to give it up six years later. A half century later Vanderkemp comes to take· up the work again. He collected a colony of these poor people, numbering about 200, at Graff Reinet. Finding, however, that they would be safer if separated from the whites, he led a colony of them to near Algoa Bay, where the government gave him land. The governor on one occasion visited the colony, and was so impressed with the good it was doing that he ordered them to occupy the vacant Fort Frederick. This he did with 300 Hottentots. When the colony passed into the hands of the Dutch their governors gave them a station which they called Bethelsdorf, which they founded June, 1803. Here his work began to produce wonderful results. The desert land blossomed as the rose. Twenty-two were baptized during the first year. In 1807 they added an out-station at Steurmann's Krall. By 1810 Bethelsdorf had a population of 1000. Vanderkemp became deeply interested for the welfare of these poor Hottentots. With Dr. Phillip he became their champion in South Africa against the oppressions of the whites. He went twice to Cape Town to testify in court for them. Within three years he spent $3000 to redeem slaves. He even went so far as to marry an ignorant Hottentot woman, hoping thereby to be able to identify himself more fully with them, and thus to gain their confidence and bring them up 'to a higher standard of life. He was a thoroughly consecrated man, sacrificing everything to win souls to his Master. A beautiful story is told of him, that when he was on his travels and the oxen were unyoked and the men were preparing his supper, he would go and seat himself among the bushes at some distance j and when anyone passed by they would hear him say as he read his Bible, " Lord, I do not understand this point, this word. Enlighten me." Soon after he would be heard saying, " I see it a little better. I thank Thee, Lord." Then he would begin to write, and his pen would fly over the paper, though darkness began to fall. He was 80 devoted to the cause as to become eccentric. He held that the missionary should live as the natives did; that to lift them up you must go down to their level. This idea has been proven false. The missionary should bring them up to his standard, not lower himself to theirs; but even this eccentricity only revealed the more his entire devotion to the Lord. Only the few missionaries who sold themselves as slaves in order to ga~n access to the heathen have given up more than Vanderkemp did, who sacrificed everythiug but freedom. He was frugal and economical in his habits. He insisted that the London Missionary Society ought to allow only $150 a year to a missionary. He gave up wearing a hat, and on one occasion when he visited Cape Town he had to buy one, but instead of putting it on his head he held it in his hands behind his back, and some street boys, taking advantage of his absent-mindedness, amused themselves by filling .it with gravel. His last act was, at the advanced age of sixty-four, to set out for Madagascar to begin a new mission under the London Society, but Providence called him to a better land than that island. As God called him to Himself his last words were, "It is all good."
One soweth and another reapeth. The ignorant Hottentots under the influences he set at work have developed into noble men and women. From a colony of heathen, Bethelsdorf has become a large congregation of 6000 souls, and raised up more than a hundred preachers. Instead of Hottentot hovels there are· neat 'houses, a church, a school, a printingpress, and all sorts of mechanics. The Hottentots, from being the lowest of humanity, have been developed into the equals of any. No less an authority than Dr. Moffat pays this tribute to him: "He came from the university to teach the alphabet to the poor, naked Hottentot and Caffre, from the society of nobles to associate with beings of the lowest grade of humanity, from stately mansions to the filthy hovel of the greasy African, from the army to instruct the fierce savage in the tactics of a heavenly warfare under the banner of the Prince of Peace, from the study of medicine to become a guide to the balm of Gilead and the physician there, and finally from a life of earthly honor and ease to be exposed to perils of waters, of robbers, of his own countrymen, of the heathen in the city in the wilderness." He was a faint type and an eloquent copy of .his Master,who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor. And when the thousands of those black Hottentots, washed white in the blood of the Lamb, shall come to take their place around God's throne, they will be, as the Caffres said, " Vanderkemp's men," trophies of the man who, like his Master, gave up all that he might win some to Christ. U They that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever."
ARABIA AND THE ARABIAN MISSION
ARABIA AND THE ARABIAN MISSION.* Arabia has the shape of a man's boot, even to the hole in the top, for it has no northern boundary. It is somewhat stub-toed, though the toes are nearly 400 miles long. That part of the United States which lies east of the Mississippi River might be laid down inside the boundaries of Arabia, and still one third of Arabian soil would be uncovered. Following the course taken by mi&sionaries, and sailing down the Red Sea, we find on the western coast of the peninsula an almost unbroken range of precipitous mountains, barren as the sides of a volcano, and seldom more than 2000 feet in height, yet, owing to their rugged, character, and the refraction caused by the heated atmosphere, appearing much higher than they really are. Aden, in Southwestern Arabia, is a city of 30,000 inhabitants nestled in the crater of an extinct volcano, the black mountainsides being utterly without, vegetation. Near this city is the Keith-Falconer Mission (Scotch). Sailing onward along the southern coast for 1400 miles the view is about the same as before. The eastern coast is less dreary. The mountains of Oman are sprinkled with forests, and the' country is fertile and fairly well cultivated.
Muscat, on the eastern coast, is first sighted. The splendid harbor is protected by dark mountain walls, utterly bare and scorched with the sun, and apparently rising right up out of the sea. The first sight of the city IS Imposing. A Portuguese cathedral, a palace, and a few large buildings, with towers and minarets, are all that are seen of this city of 40,000 inhabitants, with its narrow, crowded streets, its filthy bazaars, tumbledown houses, and palm-leaf huts. The surrounding mountains, like a' concave mirror, focus the sun's rays upon the city, and the heat is intense. The shade temperature in March sometimes rises to 120°, and in summer it may be necessary for the missionary to live in a palm-leaf hut on the beach.
The Bahrein Islands, half way up the Persian Gulf, is a station occupied' by Rev. S. M. Zwemer. The islands are quite fiat, but with a range of hills about 800 feet high. Dr. Wyckoff reported the temperature in April as rising to 117° in the shade. The 50,000 inhabitants of these islands are devoted chiefly to pearl-fisheries. Bahrein supplies the finest pearls in the world.
Busrah, the headquarters of the mission, is at the head of the Persian Gulf, and about 70 miles up the river Shat-el-Arab. This city is a great emporium of Indian commerce, being the terminus of the highway of commerce between India and Europe. The trade is carried west and north by caravans. The surrounding country is fiat. Palm-trees are the highest objects in sight. Busrah is a cosmopolitan city of 60,000 inhabitants, and is in the midst of many large outlying towns. The heat here • An acconnt of the Arabian mission of the Reformed (Dutch) Church and condensed from The MiBsi&n FieJtl for December, 1894. The accompanying map and illustration are kindly loaned'by the same magazine.
is intense and constant; the nearest escape from it is found in the moun- tains of India.
Another voyage will take us to the heart of Arabia. This time it is over an ocean of sand, and embarked on the ship of the desert–the camel. The pitching and rolling, and the corkscrew motion of the ship, are all understood by the camel, and the great waves of sund, piled in huge hills by the winds, and seen through the trembling heat, present the appeara.nce of a storm-tossed sea of fire. Few travellers have the courage to pass through the dangers and horrors of such a desert; but once in the land of Nejd, what a sight is prepared for the eyes! Great and beautiful oases rise up out of the ocean of sand, like islands from the .sea. It is a land of wonderful natural scenery, rich in products of the soil, a land of gardens and flowers and streams, and waving with the finest date-palms in the world; this, too, is the land of the Nejdee horse, the pride of the Arab race and the envy of other nations.
The People.-The population of Arabia is about 11,000,000, chiefly Arabs, but with a good sprinkling of Turks and Jews. The Arabs are descended from Ishmael, son of Abraham, and are therefore coeval with the Jews. They are in many respects a noble people, naturally religious, but not righteous. Physically they have few equals among the unevangelized peop"'les of the world. Trained to temperance and hardihood by their religion, and from time immemorial brought up to generosity and hospitality, they are easily loved for their own sakes. About 2,000,000 of them are Bedouins, sheltered only by tents, dwelling chiefly in the desert, and moving from place to place as they can find pasture for their camels, horses, and flocks. Living by warfare and plunder, they yet will seldom take the life of their victims. Claiming ownership of all their desert habitations, they believe they have a right to strip all strangers of their possessions, unless by passport such· persons are entitled to their protection and hospitality.
Religion.-Arabia is the home of the Mohammedan religion. While there are nearly 200,000,000 Mohammedans scattered over the world, they all turn their faces in prayer toward Mecca, and hope to make at least one pilgrimage thither. This shows what a strategic point Arabia is for missionary work. The fall of Mohammedanism in Arabia means the fall of Mohammedanism in the world. Once convert a Mohammedan, and he is likely to prove a good missionary of Christ, as he has been of Mol1ammed. He is naturally religious, naturally generous, and naturally a wanderer-three great missionary qualifications.
Owing to opposition and prejudice there are few opportunities for street or public preaching, but Bibles are gladly purchased and medical assistance is eagerly sought. The work of the Arabian Mission is therefore pushed along those lines.
Bible Work of the Arabian Mission. – The Bible itself is a missionary in Arabia. Its Oriental character makes it acceptable. Books are greatly valued by the Arabs, and the Old Testament, with its stories of Abraham, Ishmael, and Job, is particularly pleasing. The New Testament is acknowledged as God's Book, as having come down from heaven, and the inevitable result of an honest study of the Gospels by the Mohammedan is at least a logical conviction that the prophet has fearfully misled his followers.. Nothing can be ·more encouraging, therefore, than the fact of continually increasing Bible sales. An example of the Bible's work is given in the following words from Bahrein: "A Moslem who came to us one moonlight evening, said, 'The old man' (i.e., myself) 'feels the sting of death is sin, and then I bought this book, and now I believe that Jesus is the Son of God.' "
The sale of books during the year ending June 30th, 1894, was as follows: tur_e._s_'I~ligiOU~ ___S_T_A_TI_ON_S_'___I__sc_n_.p__ Educational. ~otal._ –=alne~ Bu.rah …………… '" 1,139 306 786 2,231 $313.70 Bahrein …………….. 494 1,185 123.87 339 302 Muscat* …………… .. 521 36.74 300 60 71 —– —————1—– Total… ……. ………. 2,023 705 1,159 3,887 $474.31 * For seven and a half months only.
Rev. Mr. Cantine says: "In our book work the sale of Scriptures is'
the primary object. The religious books have a value of their own, while the educational are kept mainly because we consider them to be a help to the sale of the others. Religious and educational books are nearly all Arabic; as are three quarters of the Scriptures, the remaining one quarter being mostly Turkish, Persian, and Hebrew. As to our Scriptures, they are all 801d, and not given away. These sales have nearly doubled in the past twelve months, being for the previous year 1055, and for the year just closed 2023. Of the total sales of Scriptures seven eighths are to Moslems, at Busrah, while at Bahrein and Muscat they· are almost exclusively so. Three qnarters were sold outside of the book-shops by our colporteurs. All the larger towns on the entire coast, from Muscat to Busrah, and up the Tigris and Euphrates, together with Hassa in the interior, have received in some measure the Word of God. It is our aim to cover as much of this territory as our funds will allow, at least twice a year, and also to seize any opportunity that offers for touring inland."
Medical Work.-In proportion to the need of medical assistance is its power for good. There is great suffering in Arabia, and no native skill to relieve it. The so-called medical treatment by the natives is cruel in the extreme. Burning holes in the body to let the disease out, branding sick children with red-hot bars, chopping off wounded limbs and sealing them with boiling tar, are only an illustration of their methods. They go blind in the fierce glare of a tropical sun, when simple eye-water would save their sight. The medical missionary, therefore, is as a messenger from God. People will travel great distances to meet him, and he is thronged with patients. Relieved or cured, they return. with a Gospel
HOUSE AT BUSRAH
18~5.] AlUlIIA AND THE ARABIAN lIUSSION
message and a portion of Scripture-thus, in a small sense, becoming mis- sionaries themselves and preparing in the desert a highway for our God, where as yet no Christian missionary can go.
Perhaps no testimony of the influence of the Arabian mission can be stronger than the fact that before Dr. Wyckoff had spent two weeks of his first visit to Bahrein Island, and a part of that time on a sick-bed, he had treated about three h.undred patients, " some of them requiring very particular operations." He said: "One can hardly believe the tremendous impression these three young men (Revs. S. M. and P. J. Zwemer and James Cantine) have made in so short a time. It seems as though the whole of Arabia had come under their influence. "
Scarcely any Protestant missionary effort was made for Arabia until within eight years past. In 1882 a colportage station of the Church Missionary Society was established at Bagdad, and in 1887 a medical and Bible mission was organized near Aden, by the Hon. Keith-Falconer, of the Free Church of Scotland. But little aggressive missionary touring, however, had been done, and the interior of the country had not been entered or even attempted. 'Under these circumstances, and this need, the Arabian Mission was fully organized in August, 1889. Although it was deemed best to organize the work on an undenominational basis, its missionary staff and a large majority of the number of its supporters, the Arabian Mission has from the first been the child of the Reformed (Dutch) Church. The actual parentage became apparent and confessed when, by the concurrent action of tile General Synod and the mission, the latter, in June, 1894, was formally placed under the care of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church. The first missionaries were Rev. James Cantine (sailed in 1889) and Rev. Samuel M. Zwemer (1890). In 1892 they were reinforced by Rev. Peter J. Zwemer, and in 1893 by J. Talmage Wyckoff, M.D., who, however, after less than a year of faithful and efficient service, has been compelled to return home.
The headquarters of the mission are at Bus1'ah, "a city more commlmding than any other in Arabia from which to carry a missionary work into the interior and up along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates and along the coast." The work here is in charge of Rev. James Cantine, with three native helpers. At the Bahrein Islands is a station in charge of Rev. S. M. Zwemer, with two colporteurs. These islands form an independent state under British protection, and thus afford unusual opportunities for evangelistic work. Muscat is in charge of Rev. Peter Zwemer, with a native colporteur. It is the chief city of Oman, and, in common with Bahrein, has the great advantage of being under the protectorate of Great Britain. The Scriptures may be freely read in public, and open discussion and preaching are allowed.
Each of these stations has been a centre for evangelistic tours, more or less lengthy and successful according to the freedom allowed, or restric-. tions imposed by the government. From Busrah Mr. Cantine and his
THE OPENING OF EFFECTUAL DOORS
colporteurs have made tours down the Shat-el-Arab and up both the Tigris and Euphrates, Mr. Cantine going as far as Bagdad. Many points were profitably visited, and at least three towns to the north of Busrah were fonnd-one on the Tigris and two on the Hai'-':'which could be immediately and profitably occupied were funds for this work at hand. From Bahrein, Rev. S. M. Zwemer has recently made two tours, one in October, 1893, and the other in July, 1894. This last tour was toward the interior from Aden to Sanaa, but was suddenly interrupted at a point twelve miles north of Sanaa, and by the connivance of the Turkish officials the missionary was subjected to "so much delay, robbery, and extortion," that he was finally compelled to relinquish his purpose and return to Hodeydeh, and thence home. Since this the movements on the mainland of all the missionaries have been more restricted. Tours have, however, been made with some freedom among the towns of the Bahrein islands.
The villages in the neigHborhood of Muscat have been frequently visited, a recent tour along the coast by Rev. P. J. Zwemer proving, first, the possibility of reaching at least the coast of Oman with the Gospel j and, second, that in Oman naught opposes the Gospel but Islam itself.
Finally, of the results of this mission and its work for the past five years it can be said, in the words of one of the missionaries: "An entrance has been made into the very heart of Islam. In faith, Arabia has been pre-empted by the Church, Itnd though fanaticism scorns and ignorance misjudges, the seed is being sown, and the questions of the kingship and sonship of Christ are being discussed by the Moslem pilgrim on his way to Mecca."
Is)t not ours then to do what we can to lead the multitudes of Arabia to acknowledge" that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, that believing they may have life throngh His name" ~ • THE OPENING OF EFFECTUAL DOORS.
BY REV. T. D. WITHERSPOON, D.D., LL.D., LOUISVILLE, KY.
The miracle of all history is the evangelization of the old Roman world in the first century of the Christian era, and almost within the limits of a single generation. The little company of disciples in the upper chamber after our Lord's ascension had no doubt as to the terms of His great commISSIOn. The Church, in its very organization, was a missionary church. It recognized from the beginning the whole world as constituting its parish. Every member was understood to be, by 1;he terms of his enrolment, an evangelist. Every place wl,.ere two or three could be gathered together in Christ's name was to constitute a sanctuary of worship. No rest was to be expected, no halt contemplated until the Gospel had been preached to every creature and all nations discipled into the observance of Christ's commands.
With incredible swiftness, by land and by sea, the messengers !'Iped. Over obstacles seemingly insuperable, through hardships apparently insuf. ferable, they pressed on, until, before the century had closed, the Gospel had been preached and the Church established in every province of the Roman Empire. Had the work gone forward with the same celerity for a century or two more, the Gospel would have been preached to every creature, the Saviour's commission would have been fulfilled, and the way opened for His coming in all the glory of His millennial reign.
But just here emerges a question that calls for profoundest thought. Why did the work not go forward with the same enthusiasm and success ¥ What causes intervened to lay an arrest upon this first great missionary movement~ Why did the beginning of the nineteenth century find !'IO little more of the world evangelized than in Ute middle of the !'Iecond ~ This question is one of the highest practical importance, because of its relations to the spirit and work of nineteenth-century evangelism. Now that the Church has received,as it were, a new Pentecostal baptism, and has set forth again upon the great mission of conquering the world for Christ, the question becomes a grave one whether the present movement shall expend itself as that of the first century did, and whether there must intervene another long period of inaction followed by a third effusion of power from on high, before the Gospel can be preached to every creature.
The reasons usually given for the arrest of the great work of evangelization begun in the first century have always seemed to the writer unl!latisfactory. Church historians are fond of telling us that the Christians began to dispute among themselves over differences of doctrine and of polity, and that, in the wrangles of the various theological schools and parties, the heathen were forgotten, the Spirit was grieved, and so the great work came ignominiously to a close. Was it not rather true that the suspension of the aggressive work of the Church, from whatever cause it may have arisen, rendered inoperative those motives to Christian unity which come from the consciousness of co-operation in a great common work, and that the energies formerly expended in missionary effort, in this time of comparative inactivity, busied themselves, for want of better employment, with wranglings over points of doctrine and discipline ~ Was not the inaction the occasion of the divisions and strifes, rather than the result ~ Do we not find in our day that when the hands and hearts of the people are full of aggressive work for the Master there is little either of time or occasion for church quarrels ¥ May we not then seek the causes of the arrest of the great evangelistic movement of the first century in something less discreditable to the zeal and consecration of the infant Church ~ May it not be that this tide of evangelization, as it swept onward, encountered barriers such as in the earlier. stages had not opposed its course ¥ May not the Church of the • !lecond century have found itself under conditions and limitations different from those of the .first century 1 With the great and effectual doors opened to missions in our day, may we not be in danger of misjudging the early Church and measuring the responsibilities of that age by those of our own ~ It may be well, therefore, to indicate some barriers to mission work in the second century, some seemingly impregnable walls, through which God in His providence has opened for us great and effectual doors.
I. And first there was the barrier raised by the poverty in material resources of the early Church. During the first century the work of evangelization lay largely in those provinces which were in direct com- munication with Rome. For commercial and military purposes there were Roman roads on land and Roman ships on sea that could be brought into the service of the missionaries. At various points along the route of travel were Jewish synagogues in which they could preach without charge, and Jewish communities where hospitality and opportunity of remunera- tive labor awaited the toil-worn travellers. But little money, therefore, in the earlier stages of the work was necessary. But when the effort was made to press the work into the byways and hedges, when, among aliens and strangers, everything must be purchased, and often at exorbitant rates, larger supplies of money were needed, and these the mother churches at home were unable to supply. Indeed, such was the poverty of these churches in this early day, stripped and peeled by persecution, that instead of the missionaries, as in our day, relying upon the churches at home for the means to carry forward the work, one of the first and most sacred duties imposed upon the new converts was that of sending back money to the" poor saints in Jerusalem." The poverty of the early Church, there- fore, constituted the first barrier to work in the remoter and more inacces- sible fields which must be occupied before" the end" shall be. What a " great door and effectual" God has opened for the Church of our day, I need not stop to argue. Look at the wealth of Christendom to-d~ !
Look at its wanton waste! If only one tenth of all that Christian nations spend in tobacco and rum could be poured into the treasury of missions, with the blessing of God" the end" would soon be here. If we fail of our great responsibility of preaching the Gospel to every creaturE!, we cannot measure our failure by that of the early Church. The men of that day will rise in judgment against us to condemn us, for if they had pos- sessed the boundless resources of the Church of to-day, the results would doubtless have been far different from what they were. .
II. A second wall of opposition to the progress of the Gospel in the second century arose from the barbarousness of the tongues that confronted the missionaries as soon as they passed beyond the limits of the territory that had come under the influence of Roman civilization. So long as the work of the missionaries lay where either of the three languages inscribed upon the cross-the Hebrew, the Greek, or the Latin-was understood, or even where languages cognate to these were spoken, the work of evangelization was not difficult. As long as the miraculous gift of tongues continued, there was of course no difficulty, but with the close of the apostolic age all miraculous gifts seem to have ceased. Weare scarcely in position now, with the results about us of the great work of comparative philology and comparative grammar, to understand the difficulty of mastering these barbarous tongues in that early day. To men of those times the true Chinese wall was not the one of massive brickwork that stretched over hill and vale, but the one of a language so foreign in all its elements and characteristics to auything they had known before. Truly, for us to-day a great door and effectual has been opened. The missionary goes forth now with the results in his hand of a literary work that could have been possible in no century preceding our own. The most barbarous tongues of earth have been mastered. With incredible patience and skill their elementary forms have been distinguished and analyzed. Their rude sounds have been represented in a system of vocalization by written characters. The principles of construction have been systematized in grammar and manuals. Spelling-books, primers, readers, etc., have been prepared. The Bible and other needed books have been translated into these tongues. By means of the printed page a missionary may begin to preach as soon as he disembarks from the vessel in a foreign port. By means of the printed page he may multiply indefinitely his' labors, as he scatters far and wide leaves from the tree of life for the healing of the nations. So far has this work of Bible translation been carried that to-day nine tenths of the human race may read the Word of God in " that tongue wherein they were born." What a great and effectual door this is ! Surely if with such facilities as these we come short of the evangelization of the world in our day, we cannot in excuse plead as a precedent the failure of the early Church.
III. One more of these barriers was found in the insecurity of life and property in those remoter regions where the power of the Roman Government was not felt. It might be supposed that to men with the spirit of the first witness-bearers for Christ, who "loved not their lives to the death," and who often inordinately craved martyrdom, the insecurity of life would present no obstacle. But while a man might have a high and holy ambition to offer, if need. be, hi~ life upon the altar of devotion to Christ, he would at the same time desire that some work should be done, some testimony borne, some result accomplished before he passed away from the world. The man who before a Roman tribunal witnessed as a Christian, and was condemned to death as a Christian, had made a testimony for Christ; and even the cry of " Christianos ad leones," that rang upon the air as with his fellow-confessors he was led into the arena, was sweet to his ears, because it published the name of Christ, and identified him as a Ohristian witb the Crucified One; but that was a very different thing from being murdered by savages who knew nothing of him or his
THE .. MOUNTAIN WHITES" OF. AMERICA
religion, and who felled him with a club, or assassinated him with a spear before he had even once spoken in their ears in their own tongue the name of Jesus. The age in which we live is one in which commerce has carried the name and fame of the great Christian nations of this day, where even the name of Rome was never heard. Far out amid the jungles of equatorial Africa and in the remoter isles of the sea, through commercial relations, and the softening influences of systems of barter and trade, the way has been opened for the missionary, so that with comparative safety he may go with the message of salvation. And although in many of the most interesting fields he bears the spirit of the true martyr, for he knows not when he may meet a martyr's death, his situation is immeasurably beyond that of the early missionary, because he knows that if he should be cut down, through the words he has already spoken and the printed pages he has already distributed, seed have been sown which shall only germinate the more surely if watered with his blood. The missionary, therefore, who goes abroad to-day, whatever field he may choose, has reasonable ground to hope that his life will be spared long enough at least to lay foundations upon which others may build after he is gone, and in this respect the door is open for the evangelization of the world as it has never been before.
If there were time, attention might be called to doors of facility and convenience in the accomplishment of the work-facilities for reaching the remoter fields by means of railways and steamship lines, facilities for communication with home by postal service and by telegraph, facilities for comfort in the field by the erection of mission houses, the presence of medical missionaries, the receipt of supplies from home, etc.
Enough has been said to show the marvellous adjustments of Providence .for throwing open " great doors and effectual," for putting it within the power of the men of this generation to win the whole world for Christ. Will the Church of God enter these open doors ~ Shall the evangelization of the world be effected in our day? These are questions that demand immediate consideration. On the answer to them hinge responsibilities such as never rested upon the Church of God in any previous epoch of its history. Never before did the command come more imperatively, " Arise, shine j for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. "
THE "MOUNTAIN WHITES" OF AMERICA. * Professor Austin Phelps remarks that "five hundred years in the salvation of the world may depend upon the next twenty-five years of United States history." So vast is our land that Montana alone could accommodate the entire population of this country, and give each man, woman, • Outliue of an address by Mrs. S. M. Davis, reported by the Editor-in-chief. and child one and a half acres, or take in the world's population, and yet have but fifteen souls to the acre; yet California contains 12,000 square miles more than Montana; Texas, 107,000 more than California; and Alaska is twice as large as Texas. 'Within one year as many strangers flocked to our shores as there are people in Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, and Washington.
In the South there are 5,000,000 whites who can neither read nor write. They are in three classes-" bankers," "crackers," and " mountain whites," often called "Scotch-Irish heathen." There are perhaps 4,000,000 of these in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, etc. They arc of Scotch.Irish ancestry, utterly illiterate, and their condition, intellectually and morally, it is difficult adequately to describe. Crimes committed by them put to blush the enormities committed in the worst districts of our great cities.
As to the history of these people: about 1740 there was a large influx of Scotch-Irish blood into our land. These people were driven here by persecution at home; but they would have no complicity with slavery, and hence the slavocracy would have nothing to do with them, and consequently they were crowded into the mountains, which became their fastnesses. They had no teachers nor preachers, and sank into dense degradation. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of them fought their way through obstacles, making a path through the mountain wilds, and settled in and about Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, where their descendants may now be found. Who knows whether these people be not a reserv~ force that God will bring out of these mountains, saved by Christ, for the coming crisis of conflict, a stalwart band to stand with us in defence of Protestantism !
The visitor among them seems transported backward to the Elizabethan era. The quaint and curious in the language of the mountaineer is the.survival of good old Elizabethan English ; his roads are a fit setting for the polite Sir Walter Raleigh ; his code of honor a f,uvi val of the old feudal, lordly ideas of her reign. Tobacco, as in Elizabth's day, is almost deified; the looseness of morals finds fitting parallel [,t her court, while the position of the woman and girl is identical with the woman of Queen Elizabeth's era.
They who were thus stranded in the mountains had a fearful combat for life. With no adequate means of support at command they were embarrassed by extreme poverty. They had no schools; for of conrse there were no public schools in those districts, and the public school is a slowly growing institution in the South to-day. The monntains are almost destitute of schools. Occasionally there is a so-called schoolhouse of logs, with the primitive floor of native earth, and the "teacher.~' with bare feet and calico gown, and the universal" snuff stiok" in her mouth, knows little more than those she teaches; and as to morals, it were better for~ her pupils if there were no teacher.
A Newcastle pastor, who in one of the cabins of these mountain whites took refuge from a storm, met a young woman-a teacher—-"and having occasion to speak of the" United States," was asked by her, " Whare be the United States 1" He asked her if she did not teach geography, and she replied, " What is the use of that sort of larnin' 1"
Yet of this same stock came heroes in the time of our civil war. Large bodies of volunteers were recruited from these mountain whites, from the first and second districts of East Tennessee, more than from any' other twp Congressional districts of equal population. And however they have forgotten their Bibles in these hundred and fifty years of degradation, they seem not to have forgotten Rome and the papacy. A young woman went there to teach them, and sought to make them learn the Creed, but when she came to this, " I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," they sent her home j no explanation that the word catholic meant" universal" would be received as an apology.
Their ignorance is deplorable. "Who be that man; that Mister Jesus, you be a-talkin' to and talkin' about 1 Is He a-comin' here f' was the question asked by one of them of a religious worker. , Woman's condition is fearfully degraded. She has perhaps a sunbon- net of calico and two calico dresses, one to be worn while the other is done up j a pair of shoes to be worn in meetin' and on state oC<lasions j a shawl for winter wear. In the field it is woman who ploughs and hoes and plants and gathers harvest, as well as cooks at home j and sometimes YOll may see her not only splitting wood for the fire and carrying water, but hitched tQ the plough and driven like cattle, while her husband or son loafs, smokes, and indulges himself, caring no more for her than for a dog or a slave. Elsewhere you find a chivalrous preference and defer- ence exercised toward woman, but none here.
They marry at from twelve to sixteen, have a dozen children and some- times twenty, and are old, worn-out hags at thirty, and consumption commonly carries them off, few of them living beyond forty or fifty_ There is on their faces a hopeless look that cannot be described. It is the hopelessness of despair, more and worse than apathy or lack of intelli- gence j it is the index of a heart in which is no life or hope. Perhaps that woman you meet has never been off that mountain or known an uplift- ing thought. They are like the log-cabins they dwell in-dark, rayless j there is not an attempt at a window in them, not a place to admit a ray of sunshine lest it let in also the cold wind and the rain. When the door is shut you are in the blackness of midnight, and here you find from six to twenty human beings huddled promiscuously together. What delicacy or decency can be nurtured in such a home ~ Such women have no "to-morrow." The vitality is all gone out of the blood j and-what most hurts the heart of a true woman-after all this life of burden-bearing there is no hope beyond-no knowledge of a Saviour.
There is, of course, the comical side even to this degraded life. You meet with children, dirty, forlorn, and half naked, but they have wonder- ful names. In one cabin were two children, "Jim Dandy" and" Stick Candy;" in another" Ruly Trooly, " " Wolfer Ham," "Aristocracy"
and ., Ayer's Sarsaparilla," "Carrie Lee, Bessie See-who but she?"
" Mary Bell, arise and tell the glories of Immanuel," etc.
Dr. W. J. Erdman tells a story from personal knowledge. He says an evangelist in the mountains asked an old woman if there were any "Presbyterians" around there. Her answer was, "Ask myoId man.
He be a powerful mighty man in huntin', and kills all sorts of varmints.
You might go and see them skins a.hanging up yonder, p'raps you'd find some of them Presbyterian critters among 'em." .
They have their own code of honor. Their family feuds last for generations; they feed fat the ancient grudge, until one or the other of the contending families is utterly exterminated. You enter a cabin, and the gun hung on the door is for ordinary hunting; but the bur- nished pistol is kept for murder, it is reserved for killing men.. They have a chivalry of their own. One man who had killed twenty-five others in family feud warfare would yet fight to the death to shield a woman who comes there to teach them, from injury or insult.
The hopeful sign in these people is a longing for betterment. In their very songs is a pathos as if pleading for help. In their degradation, which defies description, they yearn for schools, for some uplifting influence. In a cabin a traveller met a boy of ten, who caught a glimpse of a newspaper in his pocket, and who showed so strong a desire to learn that the traveller taught him the first three letters of the news- paper heading. As the boy went by himself and repeated over and over the name of the letters, who, thought the traveller as he resumed his journey, will ever teach that boy the fourth letter?
At Asheville, N. C., is a school for these classes, and five hundred girls were turned away in one year for simple lack of room. Yet in that same school might have been heard from these very girls from the mountains, one of the finest reviews of the life of Christ, from the manger to within six months of His passion, every question correctly answered; and yet some of these girls'had not been six months out of their cabins.
They are also singularly responsive to the Gospel. They are sin-hard- ened, indeed, but not Gospel-hardened. An evangelist in a. village in these mountains found one who seemed to know something about Christ; but every person in the settlement attended the meetings and manifested interest in the Gospel, and many professed to find salvation. An old man, familiarly known as "Old Man Kline," was very angry at a young fellow for carrying off his daughter. Determined to kill him, he hid near the place of a "gathering" which the young man would be sure to attend. While lying in, waiting two little girls from a day-school under the care of our Board went by singing the couplet, " Jesus died for all mankind, Jesus died for me. "
The old man had perhaps never heard of all mankind, but accustomed to the sobriquet " Old Man Kline," mistook the words, and thought the children were singing, "Jesus died for Old .J.Van Kline," etc., and as an arrow of conviction the truth reached his soul, and instead of the double murder (for had he killed the young man, in turn the young man's relatives would have probably killed him) this man found a saviour in the Jesus who l.ad truly died for" Old Man Kline/' Are these people not ripe for the Gospel when so small a bit of truth will accomplish so much?
These mountain whites will be met not on the open mountain roads, but in secluded places. The moonshiners, or illicit-whiskey distillers, especially, hide. in the more retired nooks and valleys. One party travelled eight miles along the Blue Ridge and saw not a cabin, yet found 3000 people assembled to hear the annual sermon from an old man, who could not read a word, yet who was so godly in life and character that he was an epistle read and known of them all. .
These people have customs quaint and curious, elsewhere obsolete. Their moral looseness is dreadful; but what can be expected where sometimes three generations live, eat, and sleep in one small, windowless cabin. .A bed of boards nailed against the log wall of the hut is almost the only furniture. Everybody uses tobacco, even the babies. Through considerable sections there is practically no law: everyone does what is right in his own eyes. There were seventy cases of murder, only one out of them all being brought to justice. Might makes right, and this is the only law known. In one case of a jury, when a peacemaker had interposed between contending parties and been shot, the juryman delivered his opinion thus, "If he hadn't wanted to be killed, he had orter kept himself out of the fight."
These mountain people are our kiusfolk, of the blood that gave us our Revolutionary heroes, that constituted more than half of vVashington's Cabinet. Even in their destitution among the mountains they sacrificed heroically and fought right manfully to save our Union. They are of Presbyterian ancestry, and yet to-day they are without the Gospel or a knowledge of the Christ. Their very preachers and teachers are so illiterate that in many cases they cannot read a word. One man with the Bible in his hand said to his people: "Now, see yere, between these two lids somewhar you'll find these words, 'Every tub must stand on its own bottom,'" and from those words as text preached his sermon. Is it strange a young fellow-Tom Baker-speaking out in meeting, said to one of these preachers: "See here, the Bible says you uns are to feed my sheep, and you hain't doing it. You fellows are just tolIin' of me around through the woods, and you make a powerful heap of noise rattling your corn in the measure, and just a-shellin' now and again a few grains, and you never give us a decent bite, and we uns be mighty nigh a-sfarvin' " ~ Think of it, 0 Christian child of God, kinsfolk in our own land starving for the Bread of Life!
CONDITION OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IN FltANCE. –
CONDITION OF RELIGIOUS LIFE IN FRANCE."* BY PROFESSOR JEAN C. BRACQ.
Mr. Spuller, the Minister of Education, spoke recently in the French Parliament of " the new spirit" animating the present government. One may with more propriety speak of the new religious spirit manifested everywhere in France. Among Catholics it has taken the form of greater earnestness and of renewed efforts to recall the churchless to the ·churches. Ecclesiastical ministrations are of a more evangelical character, and there is a fairer uuderstanding of the stupendous dangers which threaten Catholicism. Protestants have to a greater degree been affected in the same direction. Their activities have become less literary and theological, and more practical. They have a truer sense of the purpose of the Gospel. As a consequence their own life has become more real, their works better organized, and their preaching more ehristological. While this improvement has taken place within, a great change in their environment, very favorable to their growth, has taken place without. Much of the former hostility and prejudice against them has disappeared. The great organs of the press no longer hesitate, in their own way, to do them justice. Among the Free Thinkers there are many who are still most violent in their antireligion. The intensity of their opposition indicates their consciousness of the importance of religion, and their rites, such as the" civic baptism," which they have inaugurated, show the recognition of something which is religious. The scientists who, only a few years ago, were attempting to substitute science for religion have modified their. attitude. There has been among cultivated Free Thinkers a visible recoil from materialism. Compare, for instance, the scientists and the novelists of to-day with those of twenty years ago, and the difference is amazing. Characters, the embodiment of religious perplexities and struggles, are frequent in novels and upon the stage. The publication of "Jesus Christ" by Pere Didon, and of the" Vie de S. Franc;ois d' Assise," by Paul Sabatier, both representing the evangelical spirit, have excited an enthusiasm in the secular press without parallel in France since the publication of " La Vie de Jesus," by Renan in 1863. The same ncw spirit is manifested in the mystical and religious language wtlich has come to be used even by the materialists themselves. 80 generally has the new spirit spread that on March 25th two hundred lodges and groups of Free Masons held a great meeting in the Salle de l'Harmonie to protest against the invasion of the new religious spirit. A thorough study of the facts bearing upon this interesting sub. ject would reveal the prevalence of this new spirit among the men trained during the early days of the republic. The older men have been affected * We find thiB admirable estimate among the recent iSBnes of the McAll Association. It is too good to lie withheld.-En. only in so far as they were influenced by the new men. The experience of freedom in life, in education and in religion has produced results the opposite of those anticipated by alarmists and pessimists. Religion has regained its dignity and popular favor in the measure in which it has lost its dangerous State protectionism. Negation has come to be adequately gauged. Educated young men have shrunk from VoItaireanism as heartless and shallow. Emile Faguet, a young popular critic, said: "Voltaire has no soul. " These words became the formula of the popular judgment of young" men upon France's most brilliant sceptic. Anatole France exe1aims with sadness, as he is a militant follower of the author of the " Henriade" : "Our young men have ceased to be Voltaireans." Religion is no longer the butt of jokes and witticisms of hostile writers. Almost all the young popular writers have become friendly to the ideals of Christianity, some have expressed beliefs that are the faith arising from honest doubts, the stronger and the purer on that account. Paul Desjardins, Edonard Rod, Melchior de VogUe, Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Wagner and Paul Bourget, to mention only the best known of young French writers, represent a religious attitude that has never been known in Freuch history. Believers and unbelievers alike are compelled to recognize that ours are times of peculiar religious inquiry. The religious question is at present forced upon all. "Since the time when religion departed from the temples, it has been running the streets," says Charles Morice. "Life has no meauing except for those who believe and love," says Jules Lemaitre. Edouard Rod concludes his beautiful novel "The Meaning of Life" by putting upon the lips of, one of his charact€rs who is grappling with the wrecks of scepticism..and sin the following words: "And in the double effort to revive in my mind lost formulre, and to shake from my thought the yoke of negation, I began to murmur-with my lips, alas! with my lips only, ' Our Father which art in heaven.'" This alas expresses the longing for the presence of the faith which makes this prayer of the lips the deepest prayer of the heart. This new attitude of a large number of Frenchmen is not pre-eminently the outcome of soul searching or of the consciousness of sin. It is the result of investigations and studies showing the ethical and social value of Christianity. " In all lhings, " says Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, the celebrated economist, " we are brought back to 1he same conclusions, that there is nothing truly efficacious, nothing solid and lasting for onr democratic societies outside of the Gospel, outside of the Christian spirit and outside of Christia.n fraternity." The young men of the institutions of learning share the same convictions to a large extent. Professor Lavisse, the most distinguished professor of history in France, said : "Our young men have the nostalgy of the Divine." 'The common schools have replaced the former insipid teaching of the Roman Catholic catechism by moral instruction. This instruction contains a part devoted to the duties of man to God. Even a most sllperficial survey of the principles 1aught wpuld reveal that, though deficient i~ some respects, they are identical with tha1 part of
THE PRESENT ASPECT OF MISSION WORK IN lIADAGASCAR
Christianity which refers to conduct. These morals are, after all, Christian morals. Such teaching is admirably favorable to Christian work; if nothing more, it is, at least, a powerful ally. The young men of France not only offer a most promising field on account of their religious attitude, but also because the work has been prepared by the common schools and the spirit of the times. Moreover, we must remember that the young men whom we reach now will be the leaders of France twenty years hence. If one wishes to understand the character of the public men of the Third Republic. one has only to study the moral and religious characteristics of the students of the Second Empire. Ten years ago Dr. Wyckham, of Leipsic, prophesied that when the students then in the schools should come to manhood the character of Frenchmen would be greatly modified. Facts have more than justified his utterances. The McAll Mission should be able to take advantage of the present opportunities by adding to its work, and in harmony with it, specific organizations for young people. Such work is demanded (1) by the above considerations; (2) by the Sunday-schools whose oldest scholars are often lost by the lack of such provisions; (3) by the necessity of drawing the youthful converts from dangerous amusements and from bad company; (4) by the need of trained young workers; (5) by the successful experiments which have been made in some of the salles where the juvenile work under Mr. Greig has given great encouragement. The only hindrance to such imperative work is the lack of funds. Will not generous Christians take this work in hand, and furnish the means to carry it on as one of the most important departments of the McAll Mission ~ Shall we not make great efforts to form for Christ the generation which will soon be the manhood of France 1 Such a departure would not only bring large and immediate returns of its own, but it, would greatly help the larger work and intensify the power of the Mission Populaire.
THE PRESENT ASPECT OF MISSION WORK IN MADAGASCAR.
BY JAMES SIBREE, MISSIONARY OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY AND SENIOR TUTOR OF ITS COLLEGE, ANTANANARIVO, MADAGASCAR.
In attempting to give a very brief sketch of mission work in Madagascar as it appears to-day, I shall, for the present at least, leave out of view the .difficulties and hindrances which seem imminent in the near future, arising from'the political action of foreign powers, and shall endeavor to show the position of mission work in this country at the beginning of 1895.
It may perhaps be well first to remind the readers of this REVIEW that Protestant missions in Madagascar date from the year 1818, at the close of which year the first missionaries of the London Missionary Society landed at Tamatave, the chief port of the east coast. Interrupted for some months by the death of most of that pioneer party, the mission was recommenced in the year 1820, in the capital city, Antananarivo, in the interior highland, and was carried on with much success until the year 1835, when the persecuting queen, Ranavalona I., began severe measures against Christianity, and all the missionaries were compelled to leave the island. But during that period of fifteen years of steady labor, the native language was reduced to a written form, the whole Bible was translated into the Malagasy tongue, a school system was established in the central province of Jmerina, many thousands of children were instructed, and two small churches were formed. About 200 Malagasy were believed to have become sincere Christians, while several thousands of young people had received instruction in the elementary facts and truths of Christianity. That was the period of planting in Madagascar.
The second period in the history of Malagasy Christianity was that of persecution, and continued for twenty-six years (1835-61), during which period persistent efforts were made to root out the hated foreign religion. But the number of the" praying people" steadily increased, and although about 200 of them were put to death in various ways, the Christians multiplied about tenfold during that terrible time of trial.
In 1862 the mission of the London Missionary Society was re-established, and then began the third period in the religious history of the country, emphatically that of progress. From that date until the present time Christianity has steadily grown in influence, so that now about 1400 congregations and. more than 280,000 people are more or less under the influence of its missionaries. These churches and adherents are found to some extent in all parts of the island, but are chiefly massed in the central provinces of Imerina and Betsileo.
A great outward impetus was given to the spread of Christianity in the early part of 1869 by the baptism of the late queen, Ranav:Uona JL, and her Prime Minister, and the subsequent destruction of the idols of the central provinces, and still more by the personal influence of the sovereign in favor of the Christian religion.
In the year 1864 missions were commenced on the eastern coast, both by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (Anglican) and the Church Missionary Society (Evangelical). The latter of these was eventually withdrawn (in 1874) j and in the year 1872 the former society commenced work in the capital, and subsequently appointed a bishop to superintend its mission, its chief field, however, being still on the eastern coast.
Two years later (1866) the evangelical section of the Lutheran Church of Norway also commenced a mission in Madagascar, which was gradually increased, so that they have at the present time no fewer than 60 missionaries, including ladies in the country. (Eight or nine of these are now supported by the United Lutheran Church of America.) The Lutheran mission work is concentrated in the district of Valrinankaratra, from 60 to 80 miles southwest of the capital, and also in the southern central province of BetsiIeo; and they have also a. number of stations on the southeastern and a few on the southwestern coast.
The last Protestant society to undertake work in Madagascar was that of the Friends (the Friends' Foreign Mission Association). This was commenced in the year 1867, and differs from the others in having formed no new church organization, but in working in close connection and harmony with the London Missionary Society. The Friends' Foreign Mission Association have a press and excellent high schools in the capital, and take charge, as regards teaching and guidance, of a city church with its large district of 140 congregations, which stretches away for many miles to the southwest of Antananarivo. To the Friends' Mission is also mainly due the support of the large medical mission of the two societies, with its spacious hospital, medical, and nursing staff, numerous students, and dispensaries. Besides several missionaries stationed in the capital itself, the Friends have three different centres of work in their own district, with resident missionaries; but all the churches under their supervision observe the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, and are closely united with those under the care of the London Missionary Society.
It will be seen from what has been already stated, as well as from the tables appended hereto, that the London Missionary Society, to whom the planting of Christianity in Madagascar is due, has by far the largest number of adherents of any Protestant (or other) mission in the country (or indeed of any field in any other part of the world) ; and it has naturally had, and still has, the greatest influence upon the religious and social life of the Malagasy. But this large following has brought its difficulties and disadvantages; and the progress made has been greatly hindered by the large number of congregations under the nominal charge of one missionary, and the impossibility, with the present staff, of exercising sufficient influence, in the way of leadiug and guiding large masses of still ignorant people.
For many years past the London Missionary Society has maintained a staff of from 35 to 40 missionaries, including ladies, but not including missionaries' wives. Of these 20 are stationed in and around Antananarivo, 10 in the Betsileo province, and the others in the Antsika.naka district and on the eastern coast. And when it is remembered that most of these missionaries have, on an average, from 50 to 60 congregations to look after, and that many of these churches are scattered over a large extent of country, some at distances of three days' journey from the station, and in a country where no wheeled vehicles are available, it will be seen how difficult it is to give these numerous congregations the help and guidance they so much need.
To supply as far as possible the lack of European teaching, a college for training native evangeliilts has been carried on for more than twentyfive years; and from this institution nearly 300 men* have been sent out, * Exclusive of about 100 secular students in addition. after receiving from three to four years' training, including, in 'later years, a little medical instruction. These men ha"'e been stationed in various parts of the central provinces, and also in the more heathen districts, as assistant missionaries, each having a small sub-district with from 6 to 8 congregations under his charge. Numbers of these men have done good and faithful service j many of them, after several years' work, haye been taken by the native government and appointed to various positions as governors and other official posts, and about 120 are still at work. From 40 to 50 students are usually under instruction ; and the college building is a large and substantial structure" and one of the most prominent in the capital.
High schools, both for boys and girls, have also been at work for many years, and in the former of these, lads receive three years' training as teachers, in order to supply the needs of the country schools, which num- ber many hundreds. .
Since the re-establishment of the London Missionary Society mission in 1862 a press has been constantly at work, and from this, as well as from that of the Friends, a considerable amount of literature in the native language has been issued, including monthly periodicals, school-books, science handbooks, theological and biblical works, medical books, and others of a more general character. These would amount to nearly 60,000 pages, or, say, 400 books, averaging 150 pages each, a fairly good com- * mencement of a native ltierature. The average issue of various publica- tions-large and small-from the presses of the two societies is about 120,000 copies annually.
But it will probably be asked, What are the spiritual and moral results of the work of so many missionaries laboring for so many years past 1 These are more difficult to gauge aright, and it is not easy to give a satis- factory answer to such a question. So much, however, may be fairly said: The idolatry of the central provinces, as regards any open practice of it, has been swept away, although it is quite true that at times of epidemic disease or any other calamity, there is a tendency on the part of the more ignorant people to practise heathen customs more or less secretly, although all such are prohibited by the native laws. There is a vast advance in education and enlightenment, and probably not less than 150,000 people are able to read and have acquired some familiarity with the main facts and truths of Christianity. Several editions of the whole Bible, besides large numbers of the New Testament, have been put into circulation, as well as a considerable amount of literature in the Malagasy language. Many hundreds of congregations have been formed and meet regularly for wor- ship, and while in all of these a considerable proportion are merely hearers, in almost every case probably there are a few earnest and sincere Christian people, and in the longer established churches these form a much larger * These figures inclnde books from the other mi.sion presses. proportion of the whole 'number, of attendants. We have large numbers of earnest young Christians in our congregations, and these have shown much zeal and interest in the carrying on of Sunday-school work and in the management of societies of Christian Endeavor, many of which have been formed during the last three or four years, since a revival movement passed over our city churches. As already pointed out, some 300 young men have received regular and special training as Christian teachers and leaders; and, in a less systematic way, many hundreds of others have been taught more or less fully, so as to fit them for preaching and teaching the truths of the Gospel. A missionary spirit is being gradually aroused in the Malagasy churches, and from both the central provinces a number of men have been sent to the outlying heathen tribes as native missionaries. Every year more and more money is being raised for religious and benevolent objects, and considerable sums have been expended in erecting substantial (sometimes handsome) church building9; and funds are not wanting to carryon orphanages, auxiliary Bible, tract, and temperance societies, as well as associations for supplying preachers to destitute and ignorant congregations. A number of young men have also received systematic training as doctors and have obtained diplomas, and a number of young women have been taught scientific nursing of the sick. It has always been the aim of our missionaries to develop the self-help of the Malagasy Christians, and to train them to carryon their own church organization and work. For many years past the churches, both of the Imerina and Betsileo provinces, have been banded together in two strong and influential unions for the discussion of church matters, discipline, teaching, etc., and these larger unions, as well as the smaller organizations -a kind of presbytery-have gradually trained the Malagasy Christians to think and act for themselves in all matters connected with their religious life and activity.
Such are some of the many cheering features of our work, on account of which we have to thank God and take courage; but the other side of the picture must also be mentioned very briefly.
The chief blots which characterize ~falagasy society, and show the imperfect hold which Christianity yet has upon the people, may be described under three heads : First, there are the abuses which, markedly in later years, have grown' up in the administration of government, from the oppression of the lower classes by those of higher rank and especially by government officials; This is largely due to the system of janompoana or unpaid service in lieu of direct taxation. This inevitably leads to an immense amount of injus. tice, and nothing but a greatly higher tone of morality, and especially of moral courage on the part of the people generally, will effectually put down this crying evil.
Second, there is the system of slavery; and this, although of a family ,and patriarchal character, and not often showing, to Europeans at least, its most repulsive aspects, is essentially evil and brings much evil to families and to the children of the slave-owners. Almost every family of free people, except the very poorest, possesses its slave or slaves, who, however, are usually treated kindly, as there is little color prejudice. It may be questioned whether fanompoana is not a greater evil than slavery itself–indeed it is slavery under another name.
Lastly, there is the low state of morality, especially as regards marriage, divorce, and the relations generally of the sexes. This is an evil heritage from long ages of heathenism and ign'orance, and while great advances have been made on the former state of things, very much remains to be done to raise the moral tone of native society even in our own congregations.
Much more might be said, but probably the particulars here given are sufficient to show what are the discouraging as well as the cheering prospects of mission work in Madagascar at the present time j and I cannot but remark, in conclusion, that the prospect in the immediate future for our people and our work is now very dark and threatening. A foreign invasion seems imminent in two or three months' time, and how it may affect our work God only knows. When we remember how much injustice has been done by similar influence on our missions in various parts of the Pacific, we cannot but feel much sadness and apprehension for the future; but still of this we may be sure: God will not forsake His people here or allow His work to be destroyed. If the little band of Christians in Madagascar in the time of persecution were enabled by Divine help to hold their own for twenty-six years, and to constantly increase in number against the whole power of their sovereign and the dislike of the mass of their fellow-countrymen, we may be sure that now, with its immensely extended influence and much larger following, Christianity will prove that it has built up in Madagascar a church which shall never be overthrown, and has lighted a lamp that shall never be put out.
PROTESTANTISM AND UmIANIS.f IN MADAGASCAR.
BY REV. GEORGE COUSINS, SECRETARY OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.
To understand the present position of affairs in "the Great African Island," as Madagascar is sometimes called, it is necessary to revert to a somewhat remote chapter of history. As far back as 1642 France made her first attempt to colonize the island. In that year the Societe .de l'Orient was formed for that express purpose, under the direct patronage of Cardinal de Richelieu, and in spite of COBstant disaster the work of colonization was persisted in for thirty years. It was then for many years abandoned, but by an order in council dated June 4th, 1686, France asserted her claim to Madagascar as a part of her dominions. This claim was formally repeated from time to time, and in the eighteenth century fresh attempts at colonization were made and persisted in for upward of fifty years. War with Great Britain and the rise of the Hov& power greatly m0dified the situation, but the island of St. Marie on the east coast and of NosiM on the northwest remained permanently in French posses- sion. Not only so, but failure to maintain their position on the mainland notwithstanding, France still regarded Madagascar as her own. Prior, however, to the signing of the Franco-Malagasy Treaty, in December, 1885, her claims had never been recognized by the Hova power, but the cession, under that treaty, of Diego Suarez Bay as a French naval station, and the clause recognizing the government of the Republic as the repre- sentative of Madagascar in all her foreign relations, did undoubtedly confer upon France special and peculIar rights.
Throughout this long connection with Madagascar, France has had valuable allies in the persons of Romanist missionaries j and to the honor of the Catholic Church be it said that, long before the Protestants of Great Britain turned their attention to the island, Dominicans, Lazarists, and other religious orders of the Romish Church had toiled and' suffered and died in self-denying efforts to Christianize some of the coast tribes. They accomplished but little, it is true, and after twenty years abandoned their difficult task, leaving few traces behind them, but a few pages of a cate- chism. Their converts lapsed into heathenism, so that when, in 1818, the London Missionary Society commenced 'operations in the island not a vestige of anything Christian was to be found, nor did any Roman Catho- lic missionaries follow them or attempt to interfere with their work. The solid foundations of native Christian churches were laid by British Prot- estants acting as a strong united band, nnchecked by the rivalry or oppo- sition of others. Then came the break-up of the mission and dark days of persecution, during which for a quarter of a century foreigners in gen- eral, and missionaries in particular, were kept ont of the island. A few succeeded in effecting an entrance, one or two permanently to settle, others as passing visitors only. Conspicuous among the former was a Fre~ch IlIan named Laborde, a man of considerable natural ability, who gradually acquired immense influence over the queen and her officers j while among the visitors were one or two Jesuit priests.
In 1861 Ranavalona I., the persecuting queen, died, and her son came to the throne with the title Radama II. His accession secured liberty of worship to the native Christians and brought foreigners back to Madagas- car. To missionaries he at once granted full permission to prosecute their labors witholit let or hindrance. A few dependants of M. Laborde ex- cepted, the entire native Christian community was at that time Prote!'!tant, and when the London Missionary Society resumed operations, its agents were welcomed by the Malagasy Christians as their recognized spiritual guides. But they were no longer the sole occupants of the field. Con- , current with their own arrival came a large staff of Roman Catholic mis- sionaries-Jesuit Fathers, teaching Brothers of the Order of St. Joseph and Sisters of Mercy-and from that day onward Protestant and Romaniat teachers have worked side by side. Even during the· Franco-Malagasy War, when the European staff (which was almost exclusively French, by nationality, and wholly so in political sympathy) was for the time expelled, native Catholic congregations still assembled for worship, and their liberty to do so was in no way interfered with by the Hova Government.
Meanwhile other Protestant missions had been established in the island -viz., that of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, of the Church Missionary Society, which, however, was soon withdrawn, * of the Norwegian Missionary Society (Lutheran), and of the Friends' Foreign Mission Association. Further a remarkable tribal movement in favor of Christianity had carried the Hovas forward on a new pathway, and a& the result of their religious awakening some hundreds of native churches had been erected, congregations for them had been gathered, schools had been established, and throughout the central province, and in one or two outlying provinces, a large proportion of the people had become nominally Christian. Though this was mainly a Protestant movement, the Romanists succeeded in securing a fairly large share of its harvest, especially in districts remote from the capital. Roughly speaking, at the end of 1883, after twenty- one years of continuous missionary labors, there were about 300,000 Malagasy connected with Protestant missions, and from 8000 to 10,000 under the care of the Jesuits. The fignres are only approximately correct.
The Franco-Malagasy Treaty materially affected the political situation; nor can it be denied that many feared that it would have a like influence upon the religious situation. When leaving Antananarivo, on the outbreak of hostilities, the priests boldly aRserted that they would soon return as conquerors, and that, backed by the power of France, they would in future be able to carry everything before them. ~luch of this could of course be set down as idle vaporing; besides which our knowledge of the unique position, which, thanks to the years of persecution, the Bible holds in the est.imation of the Malagasy people was in itself enough to rob the languagp. of much of its force. Still there did seem to be ground for grave concern, and the outlook was for the moment overcast.
More than eight years have gone by since the treaty was signed, and thus far none of the fears entertained have been realized. Protestant missionaries continue their work on the same lines as before; in several districts they have greatly extended their operations; in all they have striven to consolidate and mature their organizations, and the proportion of the population that willingly follows j,heir lead remains what it was before the treaty came into operation.
Two things have directly contributed to this result. The chIef reason * Rarely, if ever, has there been a brighter example of the" Comity of Missions" than this with· drawal, which was due to an unwillingness to intrude upou ground occupied by the London Missionary Society on the one hand, and an equal unwillingness on the other hand to countenance any_ thing like a schism among representatives of two Church of England- Societies.
iS95· THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATUS OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 43'7
is th03 failure on the. part of France to make good her political claims. From the first there has been a double reading of the treaty. Great Britain, for a time wisely neutral, in 1890 accepted the French reading, an4 formally signified it by means of the Salisbury-Waddington Convention. But even this cynical and short-sighted act of a British statesman has not yet sufficed to give the French anything approaching an effective control of the Hova Government j indeed it is difficult to see how the Republic can secure such domination of Madagascar as her heart seems set upon, unless she is prepared to make large sacrifices of money and men to achieve her purpose.
The other thing directly contributing to the maintenance of the status quo ante as regards religious liberty, and the strength of Protestantism in the island, is the fact that the French officials do not seem in any way to have threatened it. ·Whether lack of power alone does not account for this, may by some be doubted j but there is another explanation, and one worthier of the French. There is reaRon for thinking that their experience in the Pacific has taught the French Colonial Office the folly of attempts to coerce native Christians brought up under the instruction of Protestant missionaries. They no longer seek to force Polynesians to become Catholics, and one would fain believe that the lesson learned in the Society and Loyalty Islands is serving to check the natural tendency of the French official abroad to pose as the patron and supporter of Romanism.
Quietly, patiently, faithfully our Protestant brethren and sisters are building up the native Christian communities in an intelligent, sincere, and consistent love of the Scriptures and of the simple church life which the Scriptures have given to them, and in doing so they, the workers, and we, their sympathizing friends, may confidently rely upon the promise, "My word shall not return unto Me void."-The Mi38ions of the World.
THE DEVELOPMENTAL STATUS OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO.
BY GEORGE R. STETSON, WASHINGTON, D. C.
The great majority of the American negroes are of the so-called Bantu and Nigri~ic stocks, the lowest and the least developed of the great African races. Their anthropologic relation is above the Australian and below the Tauranian, the Hindl and the Caucasian. It is this nearness to a barbarous ancestry which determines so emphatically their religious, moral, mental, and physical character. This proximity is especially indicated in the negro of unmixed blood, by his vigorous constitution, his acuteness of vision, * his quickness of hearing, his keenness of taste, the delicacy of ,. An examination of 420 white and 420 colored minor school children of Washington, by Dr. Belt, gave these results: Normal acuteness of vision-white, 'i'{ per cent; colored, 90 per cent. Myopicwhite, 16 per cent; coillred, 6 per cent. Astigm[ltlc of all degrees-white, 25 per cent; colored, 10 per cent. Diseased eyes-white, 10 per cent; colored, 4 per cent. Choroidal atrophy-white, 5 per cent·, colored, 1 per cent. (Vide Ophthalmic Record.) his sense of smell, his insensibility to pain and ordinary remedial agents, and to danger-characteristics common to all primitive and unde'Cloped races. The faculty of memory is remarkably developed, and in children is superior to that of the white child of the same age. Sir Spencer f't. John speaks of the Haytian negroes as "having most extraordinary mem- ories j" and the fact that native Africans have memories of remarkable tenacity is conceded by all anthropologists.
The negro's environment in this country, especially in the "black belt," tends to strengthen this faculty, as well as that of observation, and because of this heredity and the more perfect development of these facul- ties, the negro child learns much more rapidly by the ear, or by rate, and 'by keen observation than the white. These faculties are, however, not accompanied by a corresponding development of the understanding, which is in great part due to bad instruction and ignorance of the vocabulary of our language.
The imitative faculty in the negro is remarkable and is very largely developed. To conform exactly to the habits, customs and dress of the all whites in phases of society-to imitate their religious, moral, social and humanitarian organizations to the extent of their means, and fre- quently beyond their ability to appreciate or comprehend-is the great aim and solicitude of the negro man, woman and child. The grotesque incongruities resulting from the attempted adaptation of all the social machinery of an advanced civilization emphasize his inferior development. This faculty, which if properly directed and governed would prove invaluable in a well-adjusted educational system, is now a great moral danger, as well as a hindrance to his symmetrical development. Leading men of his race consider the" incubus or imitation a fatal drawback," as " imitators see only results and never learn processes." His superior memory and remarkable imitative faculties are naturally but unfortunately coupled with weak assimilative and imperfectly developed logical powers; and his great advantage in memory and observation is lost in his logical deficiency. In his present status he lacks a high power of continuous logical thought, of sound reasoning, and of persistent, careful application in mental and physical labor.
The negro child, in pursuing at puberty, studies requiring the exercise of reason, has a limited capacity in applying the knowledge it so readily memorizes. Of this difficulty in mental application and digestion, a Northerll. teacher says: "The time required to fix an idea in the negro's mind is far in excess of that spent on the white child of equal age ;" "their mental horizon is narrow." Mr. Greenwood, some time Superintendent of Schools in Kansas City, Mo., has reached a similar conclusion. It will be remembered that Kansas was an objective point in the so-called "negro exodus" from South Carolina several years since, which fact gives Mr. Greenwood's experience especial value, as it relates more nearly to the pure negro. In his experience, he says, " The negro or colored child is apt in imitation. . .. All studies requiring memory are easy for them j but those requiring considerable skill in the use of the reason are the most difficult, and are those in which the least progress is made."
This deficiency in the reasoning ahd logical powers is first observed at the age of puberty, or when before that age he is put to tasks requiring their exercise. This observation of the negro's mental deficiency at puberty is not new, although independently noted. It was remarked many years ago by Filippo Manetta, an Italian author, who, during a long resi- dence on our Southern plantations, observed that the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in j the intellect became cloudy, animation gave place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. "We must," he continues, "necessarily suppose that the development of the negro and white races proceeds in different lines."
Practical observers substantially agree in this opinion, and it is confirmed by my own experience and observation, that while under the limitations of social conditions and ignorance already stated, the young negro child is quite as quick and intelligent as the child of a more highly developed race, and excels them in the technique of memory and in observation, yet on reaching the adult age his progress is suddenly checked. A distinguished educator writes : "I note no broadening of the mental faculties at the age of puberty, such as you commonly see in a bright lad, or even the average lad, of white blood." "Reason in man is not an innate endowment, primitive and enduring, but a tardy acquisition and fragile composition," remarks Mr. Taine. Dr. Blyden, who by his education, observation, and experience is, perhaps, better qualified to judge of his own race than anyone else, declares it to be necessary" to develop in the negro the thinking faculty-to strengthen his brain-to develop and strengthen his reason, and at the same time to govern his imagination by common sense." These observations upon the negro's mental development are generally applicable only to those of unmixed blood.
Of course, no hard and fast line of demarcation or differentiation in mental development can be laid down between those of pure and impure blood. We have many instances of the possession of rare intellectual gifts by negroes j but the exceptions tend to prove the rule, for it is generally ·conceded that in whatever proportion his blood may be mixedgriffe-quarteron or quinteron-his development is superior to that of the pure negro, and his physique and peculiar miasma and disease-resisting power correspondingly impaired. I understand, of course, that these views are directly opposed to those of Blumerbach and Gregoire, as well as to those of more modern theorists, such as Dwight, Garrison. Phillips, and others, but they are not only the result of personal experience and observation, but have the valuable concurrence of the educated negro himself, which is an important point gained.
The negro in America has by no means outgrown the feebleness of the moral sense, which is an inheritance from his ancestry, and which is common to all primitive and partially developed races. He is still too much in bond to the superstitions which enslaved his ancestors, and cannot fully comprehend the. moral and spiritual basis of a highly developed,unemotional, non-imaginative, a!ld impersonal religious faith, and because of his weak initiative, a power which is one of the first conditions of intellectual progress, he fails in the capacity to organize, construct or maintain a high civilization or thrifty economic conditions. His crude physiologic development carries with it a natural deficiency in technic skill, and, as I have elsewhere said, he retains many ancestral peculiarities belonging to a climate in which there was no impulse, and an environment in which every ambition and desire was limited and controlled by his imperative physical needs. In his industrial progress he is hindered by his ignorance of advanced and scientific methods in agriculture, by his imprudence, his thriftlessness, his simplicity, his wastefulness, and improvidence.
The comparative failure of our attempt to properly educate the negro is in great part due to the obstinacy with which a majority has blindly "T maintained the theory of his equality in mental endowment with the race with which he is in contact. e have spent and are spending enormous sums annually in elaborate systems of education ~or the negro without giving the least consideration to the differences in climatic origin, to the consequent variation and differentiation in mental character and development, or to the great chasm of heredity which separates the two races and which can never be bridged. I repeat that a system of education to be of service to the negro must honestly recognize this difference in development along the whole line. It is a common and very unreasonable error to suppose that those who philosophically recognize this separation of the races are inimical to the negro; on the contrary, they are his best friends, for while they recognize his deficiencies they do not in the least impeach, or prejudge, or in any way qualify the possibilities which under favorable conditions the future has in store for him. They demand, and in this demand are in accord with the most cultivated of his own race, that the educational system employed shall be adapted to the idiosyncrasies of his mental, moral, and physical needs.
It is a mild criticism to make, that the education hitherto given him has resulted in imparting false ideas of life and labor. His industrial training has been that of the treadmill; he has, because of his deficiency in mental and physical dexterity and technic skill, been an ignorant hewer of wood and drawer of water. He requires to be led out of this chronic condition by an intelligent, industrial training, which will impart a dexterity of hand, implant a love of and respect for labor, develop his mental and moral character, and train him in atteution, industry, and perseverance. "What the negro needs at once," that great apostle to the negroes, General Armstrong, emphatically declared, "is elementary and industrial education and moral development. "-Public Opinion.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTlImNT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Beginnings of a. Young Mission in than if Christ had never come 1 But the Province of Honan, Ohin&. when they sl1id to the Church of their choice, " Will you not scud us to pro- BY REV. J. FRAZER SMITH, M.D., HAM- claim the Gospel among the millions in the dark regions beyond 1" the Church ILTON, CANADA. too often answered through its Foreign Mission Committee, " We would gladly :Much has been said during the past do so, but all our available funds are few years about the large number of required to support the men who are stndents who have intimated their will- now in the field." As the interest in ingness to engage in foreign mission foreign missions thus increased, some work. Having this fact In mind, it of the studeuts in Queen's College, was thought by the writer that a short Canada, felt that they could not any acconnt of a well-equipped mission, longer stand idly by waiting for the composed entirely of young men fresh movillg of the waters, but that necesfrom college, planted in a new and very sity was laid upon them to. make an difficult field, and almost entirely cut effort to send out at least one man from off from intercourse with other mission- among themselves to proclaim the glad aries from whose experience they might tidings to the heathen. have hoped to derive advantage, might not only prove of interest to the general Consequently, on' January 30th, 1886, reader, bnt also might stimulate student after careful thought and prolonged volunteers to try a similar experiment. discussion, the following resolution was elsewhere. adopted by the University Missionary Association; "That as soon as a mem- The inception of this mission was ber of this association, in connection unique in many respects, snd because with the Presbyterian Church in Canit was, in one feature at least, a new ada, offers himself as a missionary to departure in missionary finance, a re- the foreign field, this association undercital of the facts may prove all the take to support him, and that such more suggestive at the present time, support take priority to all aids to home when so many mission boards are call- mission work." Afterward, however, ing loudly for more money to enable the association, recognizing the importhem to carryon theil' usual work. tance of home mission work, especially in the Northwest, decided to continue In the eady "eighties" an awaken- their endeavors in that department of ing missionary zeal among the students the Lord's work, with the result that of our theological halls was one of the since engaging in foreign work the asmost significant signs of the times. sociation has nearly doubled its con- Numbers of students, as they looked for- tributions to the home field. ward to the life for which they were preparing themselves, began, for the In the following October the students first time perhaps, to ask in earnest it and alumni of Knox College, Toronto, it was right for them to spend their entered into a similar scheme, and very lives competing with half a dozen min- soon they had raised a sum of money isters of their own and other Christian which was strength to them and a denominations for the privilege of healthy stimulus to Queen's. preaching to a handful of people, who already enjoyed all the advantages of a In Knox College Mr. Jonathan Go- Christian community, when two-thirds forth had all through his college course of the population of the entire globe, in looked forward to a missionary career ; this nineteenth century of Gospel light, while J. Frazer Smith, of Queen's Colhad not one single ray more of this light lege, had for years earnestly desired to ties. Some of the lessons learned on go out as a medical missionary to China, this trip, however, were most helpful and with this end in view had combined in many ways, and if the young mis- a full medical course with his theologi- sionaries afterward avoided some of cal work. It was natural, therefore, the more common mistakes of all new that Mr. Goforth should have been ap- missionaries, it was due to the fact that pointed the first foreign missionary of they profited by the good advice given his college association, and that Mr. by their experienced companions on Smith should have had the same honor that occasion. conferred upon hilll by Queen's Uni- versity Missionary Association. In due The kind friends at Lin Ch'ing and time these two gentlemen were pre- P'ang Chuang, 100 and 150 miles re- sented to the Foreign Mission Commit- spectively from the borders of Honan, tee, with Ihe request that, if possible, extended a cordial invitation to the they sho.uld be sent to labor together in memberH of the new mission to move China, the field of their choice. Con- inland and reside at their stations until sequently, the Presbyterian Church in they would succeed in gaining a foot- Canada, which for many years had hold for themselves in Honan. This conducted a most successful mission kind invitation was gladly accepted, in the northern part of the island of and some of the members moved inland Formosa, resolved, at its General As- as soon as possible. sembly in June, 18t!7, to commence a new mission on the mainland of China. In December, 1889, three additional The province of Honan was chosen be- gentlemen with their wives and two cause it was considered one of the most single ladies arrived inland to reinforce needy provinces in the whole empire at the young mission. There they were, that time. Although Honan was con- fifteen souls all told, upward of 100 fessedly one of the most difficult fields miles distant from their chosen field of in the whole of China, neither the For- labor, and as yet not a single place to . eign Mission Committee nor the young call their own. missionaries were at all discouraged, but went bravely forward, trusting in Of the above missionaries two of the the promise, "Lo, I am with you al- married gentlemen, as already stated, way." It was not until March,1888, were supported by the students and that the first party belonging to this alumni of their respective colleges, and mission landed in Chefoo, but by De- had been landed in the field, one of cember of the same year two gentle- them with a complete medical and sur- men and their wives, two single I!;entle- gical outfit, without any additional ex- men, and one single lady were all in pense to the Foreign Mission Commit- China, and hard at work studying the tee. Two other married men and one language. single gentleman were supported by separate congregations, while the two In October, 1888, two of the gentle- remaining married gentlemen were each men, in company with two members of supported by one individual member the American Board, residing at P'ang from two different congregations. The Chuang, a station about 225 miles in- understanding was that these individ- land from Tientsin, made a tour of in- uals and congregations should continue spection through part of northern Ho- their usual contributions to the general nan. The young missionaries returned missionary fund of the Church. At from Ihis tour with many of their pre- the present writing the salaries of the conceived ideas, as to the country, the missionaries concerned, with one ex- people, missionaries, and mission work ception, which was limited to three in general, to say the least, rather upset, years, are still being paid from the from coming in contact with the reali- same sources, and the general funds of the Church have not suffered in the least thereby. The first tour for work was made in were posted up in conspicuous places, October, 1889, when Dr. McClure and charging the foreigners with all sorts Mr. Goforth, accompanied by two na· of wickedness, and for the first time the tive Christians from the stations where missionaries began to fully realize that they resided, visited four or five large they were destined to have a hand-to· cities in North Honan, and spent from hand fight with the devil for possession three to five days in each place, dis. in Honan. The opposition drove us to pensing medicine and trying to preach seek for all our help and strength from the Gospel as opportunity afforded. our great Captain, at whose command On this tour the missionaries were well we had gone forth. We continued to received wherever they went, and one move about from place to place, and at mandarin, more friendly than the rest, ti~es we were very hopeful that prop· invited the foreigners to dine with him. erty would soon be secured. We were When these brethren returned and reo offered suitable property on several oc· ported their phenomenal reception, the casions, but often, when all arrange- hopes for the success of the mission ments seemed about completed, the ran high, and we need not be surprised whole affair would suddenly collapse, if the young missionaries looked for· and a whisper would go around, " The ward to a speedy and peaceful settle· gentry have intimidated tho man, and ment in that hostile province. Our he dare not rent or sell his property to missionary friends with a longer ex· the foreigner." After many disap· perience were not so sanguine, and pointments, in. October, 1890, our pray- when we enthusiastically voiced our ers were answered, and we secured our expectations, they merely cautioned us first property in Ch'uWang, a market not to put too much confidence in Chi· town, about 10 miles from the border nese mandarins, even though they gave in Honan. Two of the brethren moved banquets. in and took possession and commenced Early in 1890 we adopted the Gospel work, and all were happy. Our joy method anq went touring, two and two, was destined to be of short duration, a doctor and a minister, each foreigner for about a month afterward, during a supported by a Christian native of some fair, an angry mob rushed in and loot- experience in his particular line. On ed the entire compound, but fortu- reaching a town of considerable size we nately the missionaries were not in- endeavored to rent two rooms in an jured. Redress was sought from the inn, in some central place; one room local officials, but to no avail, and as 8 for dispensing medicine, and the other last resort an appeal was made to the for the purpose of preaching and sell· British Consul at Tientsin. Through ing tracts and portions of ~cripture. the intervention of the noted Viceroy We remained, if possible, in each place Li Hung Chang, contrary to all expec· from ten to fifteen days, and after hav- tations and to the previous history of ing made an appointment for a future such cases, the whole affair was favor- visit, moved on to the next town. Each ably settled inside of four months.
doctor treated on an average upward From that time to the present, work has of 80 patients per day, and the writer, been carried on at Ch'u Wang with on his first tour, during thirty days of the ordinary difficulties and interrup- such work, performed 105 surgical tions incident to pioneer work in the operations. interior of China.
The so-called gentry or literati were In May, 1891, property was secured at first rather surprised, then they be- at Hsin·ChIln, another market town, gan to look, "with scornful eye ask- some 60 miles farther inland than Ch 'u ance," and very soon they began to Wang. In October we were forced to threaten in order to frighten us away. commence repairs on the houses to reno At one end of the field vile placards der them fit for foreigners to live in. No sooner were the necessary repairs his son were studying the Word of GOO on the houses hegun than the people with delight, and were daily praying, on the street commenced active hostili- not"only- for themselves and the mis- ties against us. Day by day we were sionaries, but also for their poor, be- reviled and our workmen threatened, nighted countrymen around them.
while groups of men assembled to bom- Why this great change? In March, bard our gates. As time went on they 1890, old Chou was led to the inn by became bolder, and soon personal vio· his son totally blind. The old man had lence was attempted. On two or three been a heavy burden to his family for occasions a mob of several hundred six or seven years, and he came to the men assembled around the mission foreign doctor anxious to be cured.
compound and threatened to break in The writer operated on both eyes for the gates, tear down our houses, and cataract with excellent success, and drive us out or kill us. At such times, from that time forth both he and his in vain was the help of man, but our son took a deep and abiding interest in trust was in .Tehovah, God, and He it the Gospel. It was a great joy to the was who mercifully protected His ser· physician to thus restore sight in his vants during all these trying months, first operation of the kind in Honan, and we were brought to realize, as but this joy was as nothing in compari- never before, the full meaning of the son to his joy when, on June 26th, words of the Psalmist when he says: 1892, the privilege was accorded him " God is our refuge and strength, a very of baptizing these two men, our first present help in trouble." converts in Honan. At present we Notwithstanding the continued and have some fifteen baptized adults, with bitter opposition of our enemies, we upward of thirty candidates on proba- endeavored to carryon our work in the tion.
dispensary and street chapel, and the All candidates for baptism, after pass- daily attendance was far above our ex- ing a satisfactory examination before pectations. two of the members of the mission, are During our first year of residence in put on probation for at least one year Hsin Ch~n at least 10,000 people visited before being baptized. This is to pre- the street chapel, and listened to the vent unworthy candidates, of whom, preaching for a shorter or longer period alas! there are very"many.
of time, but, probably, not one dozen For six years now the Gospel has of that vast throng took any interest in been proclaimed far and wide, and we what was said, or inquired with any thank God that here and there we find desire to know the Gospel for its own a few who are willing to listen with sake, or because they felt the need of some degree of interest, and who in- living a purer and better life. Ninety- quire with some appearance of real nine per cent of all who came were ut· earnestness. Last spring, before the terly indifferent. There are people writer left Hsin CMn, day after day who speak of the Chinese as waiting, from 50 to 100 people visited our chapel ready and willing to receive the Gos· and dispensary, and from three to five pel, but if 5 per cent of those who hear persons each day listened to the preach- had any desire to listen in order to know ing of the Gospel with more than ordi- the Gospel, our work would be com- nary interest, and were willing to be paratively easy. Through all these instructed-as many in two days as we trying days God had given His ser- had the whole first year at that place.
vants one little bright spot in that dark In JUly last a valuable property was land as a token of His love, and to purchased in Chang-te-fu, about 30 keep them from becoming discouraged. miles west of Ch'u Wang, and the most In the little village of Ho-tao, about 17 important city in that part of the dis· miles from Hsin CMn, old Chou and " trict. The work in North Honan, however, is scarcely yet begun, and we in China there are over twelve hundred must not expect too much, nor should missionaries, and the annual expenses any person be discouraged even if the of these missions would amount to results are not as good as might be more than one million dollars. Yet in expected. The difficulties to be encoun- the last Whole year the whole number tered are stupendous, and when we take of Christians who have joined ch~rches into consideration the character of the in all missions in China, I believe, does people with whom we have to do, their not exceed two thousand. You would pride and prejudice, their ignorance say one human soul is worth the whole and indifferec.ce, their idolatries and world, and cannot be valued in gold superstitions, their apathy in regard to and silver; and you would say also the everything in the way of improvement indirect influence exerted by mission- or reform, and, above all, their utter aries over the country at large cannot lack of honesty and truthfulness from be measured in pounds or ounces. All the highest to the lowest, we may well this I concede; but I question, as a thank God for what has already been Japanese Christian, whether you are accomplished, and, with renewed en- making the best use of men and means ergy and ~eal, press on in the great -that is, whether there is no room for work. improving missionary methods.
It seems to us that there is no definite The Missionary Problem: from the idea amon~ both missionaries and their Standpoint of a. Japanese Ohristian. home churches concerning the true aim of missionary work. Some seem to lay BY PROFESSOR H. KOZAKI, DOSHISHA great stress on the testifying work of COLLEGE, TOKYO, JAPAN. missionaries, and if they preach and Most of the missionary societies of testify the Gospel of Christ to all crea- Europe and America arose in· the end tures, whether they are converted or of the last century or the beginning of not, then they think their work is the present one. They have achieved done Then, again, others seem to de· the conversion of many tribes and peo· pend solely on the intervention of the pIes. The history of the conversion of Divine hand for the conversion of the the Hawaiian Islands, Madagascar, and people, thinking as though all other some islands in the Pacific Ocean, is as works are not Divine, regardless of hu· wonderful as the Acts of the Apostles. man means or methods. God forbid But when we come to see missionary that I should in any way disparage work in civilized or more or less civil· the work of the Holy Spirit in mission ized countries, such as India, China, work, but to believe that the conver· and Turkey, it seems that they are sion of the world will be done by the making very little progress compared Divine intervention, without human with the number of men engaged and means or methods, seems to us to be the amount of means expended. That dishonoring God and man. Hitherto Christian missions in these countries the most of missionaries seem to have are making some progress, I do not gone to the fields without any settled question. But when we compare the idea of missionary methon or plan, sim- number of men engaged and the amount ply trusting on the Divine power and of means expended with the small reo support. This may do in the conversion suIt of their work, we often wonder at of savages and barbarous peoples, but the patience and faith of missionaries, In dealing with civilized or more or and at the disinterested magnanimity less civilized nations this will not do.
and large heart of Christians; and we I believe in the missionary work of civil· cannot help questioning whether there ized nations there must be some defi- is not room for improving the methods nitely undel'stood method of the work.
of Christian missions. For instance, You have been lately paying great attention to the scientific study of so- 3. Because foreigners as such make cial problems, and found out that an. more mistakes in dealing with the peo- indiscriminate charity or philanthropy ple than the natives themselves.
without any plan or method would do 4. To these causes I must add one harm rather than good. The problem which is little understood by Christian of Christian missions needs similar solu- people in all countries. Every nation tion with that of social evils. I believe has what we may call national spirit or there is at present urgent need of sci- patriotism, which raises more or less entific study of missionary problems. suspicion on the part of the natives We are in the most fortunate time to th!!t the missionaries come to make do such work. The experiences of mis- conquest over the faith of the people.
sionaries in the last hundred years- Thus we often find good and patriotic their failures and successes-are all men among the opponents of mission- most profitably to be studied. aries, which we think is the most un- I have great interest in this problem, fortunate thing in any country.
and hence have been paying some atten- If the foregoing remarks are true, tion to it. The truth yet partially under- the first object of missionary work stood in this latter part of the century by must be to raise up able native wQ1'kers missionaries as well as by churches is, and help tltem do tlte work by tltemael'lJe8, that no civilized nation can be converted and thus educational work in its full solely by foreigner8 __ or, in other words, meaning will become a chief work of that the conversion of a nation mU8t be mIssIOnaries. The missionary may done by ita own agency. I need not enter preach, but he will never be as efficient into details to illustrate this principle, as some of the native preachers. He but I will simply note some of the potent may write books, but he will not be facts in our own country. You see, able to write such able books as some while in India membership in Christian of the native authors do. But he can churches in the last ten years has gain- raise up able native workers much ed only 30 per cent, in Japan it has more efficient than he is. He can give gained more than 300 per cent-that is, good counsel to the native workers, tripled in ten years. In different de- and thus help them in various' ways.
nominations of Japan some of them I can name some missionaries, or rather have gained in membership tenfold in some foreign educators in my own the last ten years, while others have country who did great work in such a gained only two or threefold in the capacity. Among many such workers same period; and here we see clearly two men may be mentioned-namely, the denominations in which mission- Dr. Brown, of the Reformed Board, aries have prominent part are making and Captain L. L. James, who was not smaller gains, while those in which the connected with any missionary board, native Christians take responsible posi- but a zealous worker in Christ. Most tions are making greater gains. of the intluential workers in the Pres- The reason for this state of things is byterian body, which is called the not hard to find. " Church of Christ in Japan," are pu· 1. Because foreigners as such cannot pils of Dr. Brown, and similarly most understand the character of the people, of the intluential workers in what is and thus cannot sympathize with their called the "Kumiai churches," cor- thought and feeling, the difficulty of responding to the Congregational learning the language being not the churches, are pupils of Captain James.
least impediment. To do such work we need the best 2. Because they can hardly get such men as missionaries, first-rate men in confidence from the native people as every way. There is no more false the native people have among them- notion than that any mediocre man with selves, and thus cannot command re- ordinary education can make a good spect of the people. missionary. Such men may do good work in' their own country, but I can- heretofore, and so the evangelization not believe they can do much good in of the world will be very much has- the missionary fields, especially in civ- tened. ilized countries. Of course there are not many such first-rate men to be The evangelization of the world is found in any country, but we do not a great work-nay, the greatest work ask you to send us many such men. the Christian churches have ever come to undertake in the history of man- Now the most of Christian men are kind. It 'is not easy work ; it cannot disposed to believe that if they can send be done in any unsystematic and dis- many missionaries into all parts of the orderly way. It is the problem which world, the evangelization of the world demands to be solved by devout and will be easily effected. We hear a wise men in true, scientific method. great deal of such plan as sending a The evangelization of the world is also missionary to every fifty thousand peo- the great obligation of the Christian ple in the whole world, so as to inun- churches. It is Paul who said that date the whole world with an army of "I am debtor both to Greeks and to mIssIOnaries. I do not believe in such barbarians, both to the wise and to the an easy method of evangelization. It foolish." The Christian Church is now is my firm conviction that the number debtor to the whole unevangelized of missionaries does not count much in world. May the Christians in all lands the missionary work. I believe a Paul feel the same obligation as the Apostle or a Luther is worth tens or even hun- of the Gentiles felt, and execute their dreds of ordinary missionaries. duty as the Christians in the apostolic time did. And the greatest cOIisolation If the work is once started in any we have in this work is the rememmagnitucfe among the native Chris- brance of the promise of our Lord, in tians, it is the wisest policy for mission- gi ving His final commandment to His aries to devolve as much responsibility apostles and others, "Lo, I am with as possible on the native Christians, you always, even unto the end of the and help them in such a spirit as Lafay- world. " ette helped Washington in his War of Independence. It is not only wise for The General Mi8sion~ Oonference at missionaries to help native Christians with counsel and good words, but Toluca, Mexico. I think you can safely help them with some material means in such a BY REV. JOHN W. BUTLER, D,D., CITY spirit as the Christians of Philippi help· OF MEXICO. ed those of Jerusalem, because the native churches have not only to support I send a few notes about the Toluca themselves, but also do aggressive Conference. work in various ways, and thus need very much your helping hand_ Where Toluca is the capital of the State of there are already many independent Mexico, and a pretty city of some 30,000 churches, it is better for you to help people. The governor of the State is them indirectly, doing the work through a pronounced liberal, and in many ways them, rather than to help them directly shows his sympathy with our Protesby sending many missionaries to them, tant cause. He sent words of salutaand thus the work will be done more tion and welcome to the conferenc4i. speedily and more efficiently. We had 141 workers representing the I believe if the Christian churches 12 different missions. The prime adopt such a policy in the future as I mover was the Rev. W. D. Powell, have imperfectly indicated above, they D.D., for fourteen years a Baptist miscan accomplish. even with present sionary in this country. He resided means, ten times greater work than first along the frontier, hut came to Toluca about three years ago. He has acquired considerable influence with er," and stirred all hearts with his tell- the natives in general and with the au- ing stories and practical exhortation. thorities in particular, many of whom are his personal friends, and it was fit- While these two sessions were being ting that he should deliver the address held in the hotel attended by foreign of welcome to the workers in the open- missionaries, similar sessions were held ing session, which was presided over in the Presbyterian chapel, which was by the Rev. T. F. Wallace, a veteran attended entirely by natives. That of over thirty years' standing. He night the natives and foreigners all worked under the Presbyterian Board united together, and the Rev. M. Gassa- for some years in Colombia, and came way presided. The Rev. II. P. Ham- here about fifteen years ago. His son, ilton, agent of the American Bible So- a most promising young man, has reo ciety, read a paper on the Word and cently entered the field. the Spirit, prepared by the Rev. H. B. Pratt, who recently translated the en. After Dr. Powell's welcome address tire Bible into Spanish. This was fol- came the responses from the Rev. I. W. lowcd by another paper by the Rev. Boyce, of Saltillo, and Rev. I. N. Steel- W. H. Sloan, of the Baptist Mission, man. of Orizaba. Then followed a real on the Effects of the Holy Spirit. treat in a half-hour talk by Mr. D. L. Moody, and Mr. Sankey singing" Hllve Thursday morning session was pra. You Sought fer the Sheep 1" in a man· sided over by H. P. Webb, Esq., audi- ner that moved all hearts. It is really tor of the Mexican National Construc- a wonderful thing to see the largest tion Company, a lay worker who is and best hotel in this old Roman Catho· very highly esteemed in this city, and lic town, and to which no Protestant a favorite with the missionaries. He minister had ever' come until about was assisted by our Quaker friend twenty years ago, almost entirely given Purdy, referred to above, and a very over to such a gathering as this; the earnest paper on the Indwelling of the billiard-tables cleaned out, and the Holy Spirit was read by Mr. E. G. large room full of evangelical workers, Taber, associate of Mr. Purdy. And all earnestly seeking a fresh baptism of he was followed by Rev. A. B. Rudd, the Holy Ghost for the great work be· on the Fruits c;>f the Spirit. Then came fore them. an uplifting address by Mr. D. L. Moody. The second session was presided over by the Rev. W. D. King, a presidiug In the afternoon Rev. T. F. Wallace elder of the Methodist Episcopal presided, and one of the best papers of Churoo, South. An excellent paper the entire conference was read by Rev. was read by the Rev. John Howland, H. P. McCormick, on Spirituality the of the Congregational Mission, on the Supreme Need in our Work. Mr. Dispensation of the Holy Spirit. This McCormick is comparatively a young was followed by a paper on the Person- man connected with the Baptist Mis- ality of the Holy Spirit by the writer, sion, and living in Morelia. He is an which produced a very animated dis- enthusiastic and successful worker. A cussion. The first to take part in this very profitable discussion followed the discussion was our esteemed friend, Mr. reading of this paper, during' which the . Samuel A. Pllldy, of Indiana, the old· workers were drawn voery closely to- est Quaker missionary in this country. gether. He fairly electrified the audience by his warm approval of the paper, and At night a large meeting was held in the assertion that his society now fully the theatre. On Friday the morning accepted the doctrine of the Personality session was presided over by the Rev. of the Holy Spirit. Mr. Moody fol· W. C. Evans, of the Methodist Episco- lowed with his" Ten Points on Pray- pal Church, and a paper was read by Rev. J. G. Woods, of the .Presbyterian Mission, on the Spirit's Work as Shown in the Acts of the Apostles, which was Our Mail-Bag. followed by another one of Mr. Moody's characteristic addresses. BIBLE DISTRIBUTION IN NAGOYA.- The missionaries and native Christian The afternoon session was presided workers in the city of Nagoya have over by the Rev. W. T. Green, of the long felt the importance of placing the Baptist Mission. Rev. F. P. Lawyer, Word of God in the hands of the 200" 000 people in this great city of the inot the Cumberland Presbyterian terior, but the undertaking is so great, Church, read a very thoughtful and and the number of workers, and, in devout paper on How May we Have fact, of the whole body of Christians, so More Power with God and }Ian? This few, that until recently the work has not been undertaken on any large scale. brought out a very earnest discussion, It has just been determined, however, and while heartily joining in the'sing- to begin the work at once. Fifty thouing of some of our old familiar hymns, sand copies ot the Gospels are being printed for this express purpose, the there came down upon the assembly cover bearing a. list of all missionaries one of the richest baptisms of the Holy and their residences in the city, of all Ghost it has ever been our privilege to preaching-places and the pastors of the experience. During the singing of a respective churches, a copy to be offered, with brief comment, at each house in second hymn, without any indication the whole city. The Christians have from anyone in the room, people began raised 250 yen with which to begin the to shake hands and speak words of work; pastors, missionaries, and mem- personal encouragement to each other. bers .of churches have met to arrange for systematic work, and have resolved The Baptists, the Congregationalists, to carry the work through to the end, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, though it may take several months to and others aU seemed to be free and complete it. The following were happy as it in attendance upon an old- chosen as an Executive Committee to have charge of the work-viz.: David fashioned camp· meeting. It was the S. Spencer, H. J. Hamilton, A. R. Morunanimous opinion that that meeting gan, W. C. Buchanan, 1. Hayashi, H.
alone was worth travelling a long dis- Yamaka. C. Maruyama, and K. HOBO· tance to attend. In the evening a large kawa. Under their direction the whole city will be systematically mapped out, company gathered in the National The- and workers Indicated for the different atre. Many public men from the city sections.
were in attendance, and a great many Without a doubt this work will draw people also came out of curiosity, but out strong opposition from the Bud- dhists, and the Christians will likely be were treated to one of Mr. Moody's subject to increased insult from the op- plain spiritual sermons on the Way of ponents. These workers need the pray- Salvation. Of course Mr. Moody was ers of all Christians for the success of at the disadvantage of speaking to the this adva::lCe movement in this Budaudience through an interpreter, and dhist centre. yet he seemed to hold the people with- REV. D. S. SPENCER.
out any trouble. Then followed an earnest address by a converted French THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS-SYSTEM- priest, and a most excellent though ATIC GIVING. – Mrs. Esther Tuttle brief address by the Rev. P. F. V!llder- Prichard has been eminently active for rama, of the Methodist Church, and several years as one of the missionary thus eBded this most delightful and workers in the Society of Friends. She successful Holy Spirit COIiference, at- founded and for Ileveral years success· tended by so many workers from all fully edited the paper of the Woman's over the country. Men were there Missionary Society, Friend8' Mi.8ionarV from the Rio Grande on the north, and Advocate. For a few years past she from Puebla and Vera Cruz on the has concentrated her energies on the south, and I believe that they have all development of systematic giving, as returned to their work 'With new life Superintendent of the Department of and inspiration, Proportionate and Systematic Giving of the World's and National Christian AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE KOREAN Temperance Union, as weIl as for the GOVERNMENT AND THE PAl CHAI COL- Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of LEGE.
Friends. Mrs. Prichard sends the fol- 1. The Korean Government will send lowing note : to this college 200 students who are to observe strictly all the rules and regu- " As 1 read the notice of the work of lations of the institution. the Canada Methodist Women's For- 2. The students are to receive instruc- ~ign Missionary Society in the April tion in the English language, geognumber of the REVIEW, I was led to raphy, arithmetic, the sciences, and in compare statistics with the late annual such other studies as may be deterreport of the Woman's Foreign Mis- mined on by the teachers III charge of sionary Union of Friends, and am con- the school.
strained to send you our figures. I 3. The reception, dismissal, and disthink our receipts are exceptionally cipline of the students are entirely engood for the membership. We have trusted to the foreign teachers. 202 auxiliaries and 3562 members, and 4. Beginning with the first day of the support 41 missionaries, the receipts second moon, the Finance Department for last year being in round numbers will transmit $200 to the Board of Edu- $35,982, These receipts include over cation, whence 'it is to be seHt to the $9000 of legacies, but deducting these college for books, stationery, etc., for there is an increase of over $3000 above the pupils. Should the full number of that of the previous year. If we have students (200) fail to attend from the a dollar of indebtedness I am not aware beginning, the sum of $50 is to be paid of it. and we have no salaried officer at once. When the number reaches 50, except the editor of the Advocate. One then an additional $10 is to be added for hundred and fifteen Bible readings, every 10 students, up to the full quota. sermons, and addresses on proportion- Japanese silver or paper money may be ate and systematic giving are reported sent at the option of the government. for 1894, and the returns, which are by 5. On the last day of every month a no means complete, give us 1449 pro- correct and complete list of the stuportionate givers. The latter depart- dents in attendance for that month is to ment gaius new strength, and is doing be seut to the Foreign Department, and much for us. The Oregon superinten- from thence to the Board of Education. dent addressed a large audience re- 6. Students, unless dismissed for incently on the subject, and in conclu- abilit,Y to pursue the course of study or sion, to her surprise, 104 were won to for VIolating the rules and regulations, these methods. The general movement must remain in the college for a period for the advancement of this cause of three years. among woman's boards has had a year 7. Foreign teachers, whether three or of marked progress. We now have four are req uired to teach the 200 stufourteen organizations of Christian dents. are not ~o receive remuneration. women all told committed to the pro- One Korean tutor is to be employed for motion of the reform, among whom every 50 students. The selection of twel ve are missionary societies. One tutors is to be made by the foreign of the latest to come over is the Des teachers. The tutor is to receive from Moines branch of the Methodist Society, the Korean Government a salary of $20 and as nearly as I can judge no society a month for the first year, and an addihas thus far entered upon this w0rk tional $5 a month for each succeeding year. Should the tutor fail to attend under more favorable conditions. diligently to the work, he shall be dis- " KOKOMO, IND." charged by the government.
8. Five copies of this agreement are THE KOREAN MOVEMENT.-Mention to be made: one copy each to be placed was made last month of the interview with the Board of Education, the For- eign Department, the Finance Departof Bishop Ninde with the King of ment, the United States Legation, and Korea, and reference to the proposal of with the authorities of the school. Done in the 504th of the Dynasty, the government to place Korean youth first moon, twenty-sixth day, by under instruction of the Methodist mis- HYEN CHAI, sion. The following document binding 8em·etary Foreign IJepartrrumt, the Korean Government to this course who, having received authority from is not only significant, but will be his- the Foreign Department, entered into toric, and we therefore print the entire this agreement.
text: On behalf of the Pai Chai College.
SEOUL, February 16, 1895.
1895.J FIELD OF MONTHLY BURV:EY' 41)1
III.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
Afrioa,* Madagasoar,t the Freedmen,:l: NOTES ON AFRICA. Roman Catholics in Africa are se- verely criticised by Rev. Henry Row· The Dark Continent presents a much ley, of the Society for the Propagation more diversified character in races and of the Gospel. After speaking of the nations and languages than is generally ignorant and immoral priests among supposed. Among the 160,000,000 to the Portuguese, he goes on to ascribe 210,000,000 inhabitants scattered over the utter relapse of native Christians an area of 11,556,600 miles, Dr. R. N. into heathenism to the following fea- Cust enumerates six distinct groups of tures of what seemed three hundred languages: The Hamitic of the north; years ago to be successful missions: the Semitic, spoken in North Africa reckless and wholesale baptism; unholy and Egypt; the Nuba Fulah of the accommodation of Christian tr.uth to Eastern Soudan, the negro of Western heathen superstitions and customs; negand North Central Africa, and compris- lect of education of the young; pre· ing 195 languages and 49 dialects; the tended miracles to strengthen waning Bantu, spoken south of the equator in influence; cruel punishment for break· 168 languages and 55 dialects; and the ing church rules; and the countenanclowest in the scale, that of the Hotten- ing of slave trade. Papal missions hav· tots in the south-a total of 438 lan- ing failed in Africa, the duty rests the guages and 153 dialects,of which only 66 more heavily upon Protestants to carry have the Bible translated even in part. them the pure Gospel. The Abyssinian and Coptic Christians are dead spirit· There is not only great variety in the ually, and have departed from their character of the country and in the original faith, if indeed they ever really languages spoken, but in religions also. understood the truth as it is in Jesus. They are approximately as follows: Mohammedans .,. .. ………… .. 77,000,000 The missionary work in Egypt is chiefly Pagans………………………. . 95,000,000 among the Copts; Abyssini!l- presents Christians ……………………. .. 7,600,000 little opportunity for evangelical work.
Abyssinian Christians………… . 5,000,000 It is the hermit nation of Africa. ProtestantS. .. .. .. .. . . .. .. . … . .. . 1,100,000 Islam is one of the most serious ob. Roman Catholic ……………… . Coptic, etc.. …. … ………. .. 900,000 stacles to missionary enterprise in Afri- Hindus ……………………… .. 600,000 ca. This religion permits and encour- 250,000 ages sensualism, thereby permitting * North Africa is considered in our October Africans to remain pagans while nomi- issue. On CentrlLl and South Africa see also pp. nally Mohammeda,ns; in addition to 19 and 47 (January); 327,355,359 and 381 (May), this the converts are gained by force and 407 and 411 (present issue). Literature: where persuasion fails. At Cairo, ~'Africa," KeithJohnston; '~AfricaRediviva," Egypt, is a college where more than R. N. Cust, LL.D.; .. Missionary Landscapes 10,000 are in training to convert Africa of the Dark Continent," Rev. James Johnston; "The New World of Central Africa," Mrs. H. G. to the religion of the False Prophet. Guiness ; "Garaganze," F. S. Arnot; " St9ry of . The pagans are mostly fetich-wor- Uganda," Sarah G. Stock; .. Forty Years shippers and sunk in deepest degradaamong the Zulus," Rev. Josiah Tyler, D.D.
t See also pp. 429 and 484 (present issue) and tion, though occasionally tribes more ., Story of Madagascar," Rev. J. W. Mears; .. Madagascar and France, " George A. ShlLw. English and Dutch, aud are largely confined to :): See also pp. 327 (May), and 422 and 438 (pres- South Africa. The remaining 400,000 have been rescued from paganism by the 'bearers of glad ent issue). tidings from Germany, Britain, and America.
S More than one half the Protestant Christians, Or about 700,000, are European colonists, chiefly Somewhat over 1oo,()()() art) comlIluniclluts, civilized are· found in the interior. France, England, Germany, Belgium, Woman is, as a rule, lightly esteemed Portugal, Italy, Turkey, and Spain, all and readily exchanged for beads or have large possessions or protectorates cattle. Cannibalism is by no means a in Africa; time will reveal whether or thing uncommon. Dr. S. L. Hinde, a not it is to the interest or detriment of member of the Congo Medical Service, their subjects. says of some parts he has visited: "At N'Gandu, the headquarters of Congo Not less than 60 missionary societies Lutete, we found that chief had gath. are uuited in the herculean task of conered together about 10,000 cannibal quering Afrios for Christ. Of these brigands, mostly of the Batatela race. 24 are British, 16 American, 10 Ger- Through the whole of the Batatela man, and 7 are Scandinavian, etc. country and from the Lurimbi north· About one third of the number have ward, for some four days' march, one entered recently, consequently their sees neither gray hairs, nor halt, nor harvest does not yet appear. But in blind. Even parents are eaten by their spite of the seemingly large number of children on the first sign of approach- societies employing about 1200 mising decrepitude. N'Gandu, I may tell sionaries at nearly 1000 stations, many you, Is approached by a very handsome parts of the continent are as yet entirely pavement of human skulls, the top unreached. The Soudan, stretching being the only part showing above across Africa just north of the equator, ground. I counted more than a thou- is one of the most needy and neglected sand skulls in the pavement of one gate dark spots on the Dark Continent. alone. Almost every tree forming the Two societies in England and two in boma, or fortification, was crowned America have lately becn organized to with a human skull." evangelize this country. The Soudan may be roughly divided into three parts Captain Maloney, lately returned -the Western, watered by the Niger; from the Niger, says: Eastern, watered by the Nile; and Cen- , "The Brass natives on their return tral Soudan, comprising five Mohamtook with them about 100 prisoners, medan States lying around Lake Tchad. bound down in their canoes. All of These five States have a population of these, it is believed, were tortured and about 60,000,000, without one ChriBtian killed, and in some cases eaten. A miB8ioitary, though some are preparing scene of a shocking kind was witnessed to enter the field. A pioneer party unat Brass, when the natives, headed by der the Central Soudan Mission (St. King Koka, who had led the attack, Martin's House, 1 Gresham Street, returned to their town. It is related on London) is entering the State of Sokoto the authority of French missionaries via Lagos and the Yoruba and Niffe that the religious festival of 'Ju Ju' country. At present for five months was held. ,Some of the participators in you may walk across this great counthis ghastly rite suspended around their try, and not meet one worker Cor Christ, bodies the limbs of the slain, and danced not a native Christian, nor one who has until exhaustion rendered them incapa- heard of the way of salvation. These ble of further exertion. " people are living and passing away in darkness. One could not describe the If we wait for evolution to lift these spiritual condition of the people more poor people up, we shall wait forever. accurately than in the language of the In a generation the Gospel has changed first chapter of the Epistle to the Rosavages quite as fierce into gentle. mans. The darkness, the sin, the supious Christians. Some Moffat or perstition they live in is in every way Mackay is wanted in these dark places. as dark as that of the heathen of St. Paul's day. The great difficulty in The natiGns of Europe have parti- reaching them is that they have, as I), tioned Africa between them; only a tew trilJes maintain their independence. rule, no sense of sin, becausc they by the Christians of England and think forgiveness is se> easily obtained America. Uganda is now a British by some ceremonial act. protectorate. The native king, Mwan- The Central Soudan Mission is now ga, wavers between Christianity and faithfully trying to reach these people; paganism. The power of sinful habits others luive worked there; Wilmot asserts itself again and again, and for a Brooke, Robinson, Ed ward White, and time he seemed to have abandoned the others have laid down their lives at strng/!;le as hopeless. When he learn- Lokoja and other places on the Niger, ed, however, that if he persisted in the one of the gates of the Soudan; they degrading sins to which he has for were hoping to get into it, but God many years been addicted, the mis- called them ere they succeeded. There sionary would discontinue his visits for are two American brethren seeking also instruction, because there was a danger to get into the country across the Niger. of such visits being regarded as a coun- The Central Soudan Mission has two tenancing at the king's sins, he was training homes, one at Tripoli and one deeply affected, and he invited one of at Gabes, w!th the object of enabling the Christian teachers to dwell in his men to get well acquainted with the house, to be near him and help him language, and to some extent with the and guard him from doing evil. This characteristics of the Mohammedan re- was in lIlay. At the end of July ligion, the obstacles they have to meet, 1IIwanga declared himself a Roman and the prejudices that exist against Catholic. A few days afterward, how· them, so that after eighteen months or ever. he visl.ted the missionary and told two years a man will be well equipped him he had decided not to join the to enter the country. Roman Catholics. The king's insta- Lake Tchad is a fresh-water lake bility necessarily affects somewhat the about 200 miles IOl'.g and 100 wide; attitude of his subjects toward Chris- here are found elephants. lions, hippo- tianity.
potami, crocodiles, deer. fowl, and all Connected with the Uganda Mission kinds of vegetable products. The five of the Church Missionary Society are kingdoms around the lake are ruled by the Sesse Islands in Lake Victoria.
Mohammedan Sultans. Polyg~my and On fourteen of these twenty·seven isl- slavery prevail everywhtre. The clio ands there are churches: one each 9n mate is dry and invigorating-there is ten, two on three, three on one, making little fever. Emin Pasha lived here for nineteen churches in all. The popula- twelve years. The temperature varies tion of these islands is estimated at from 6;j° in winter to 1000 in summer. about 75,000, of whom over 5000 are The great ad vantages of this field returned as .. readers." There are lire: the character of its people, who twenty·one native teachers working on are not savages. hut are fairly civilized these islands. The reports from vari- and courteous; the climate gave rise to ous out-districts of Uganda are most the proverb, "When a man goes up encouraging.
the Einue he lives forever;" the means G. L. Pilkington gives some interest, of transportation via the Niger steamers ing Uganda proverbs, illustrative of the are also advantageous. Against these mental characteristics of these people helps must be put Moslem fanaticism and showing their intellectual kinship an,1 law which decrees death to con- to English brethren. Among others verts from Islam. The Soudan pioneers are the following: claim our men, our mOney, aud our .. Bakusera" iakwazika. (He who prayers. says) .. 'rhey are swindliug you." doeRn't lend you (anything). Cf. Uganda has been a field of especial .. Words are easy as the wind;" interest ever since the thrilling story of "Faithful friends are hard to find ;" Mackay'S heroic labors there was read " Fine words butter no parsnips," Namakabil'11e affl, enjala. The man ism, and witchcraft is fully believed in who has two homeR dies 'of hunger. and is accompanied by much cruelty. The cook at each of the two homes ex- The people believe in an aIter life and pects the master to dine at the other, in a supreme God, the sender of raln, and so he ,. falls between two stools." but know nothing of Him as a God of love. The Baptist Missionary Society, Obutamera kirevu njuba 1/a kikome. the American Baptist Union, the Swe- Beardlessness Is a cloudy day. As on a dish Society, the Congo Balolo Mission, cloudy day you can't tell what time it is (in Africa), so you can't tell the age the American Presbyterians (South), of a man who has no beard. Many Bishop Taylor (American Methodist Africans seem unable to grow beards. Episcopal), and the International Mis- Ekifanan1/i ki'sa ensekere. Resem- sionary Alliance are aU working in blancc is the death of the louse. The this field. Roman Catholics ha ve six lonse you kill is probably not the one stations here. The field is great, but that bit you; for one louse is not dis- the laborers are few. tinguishable from another. This proverb is an indication of the abundance in South Africa covers an area greater Uganda of this pest, only surpassed by than that of British India, 1,250,000 ficas, and lately, alas, by jiggers! square miles. Gold and diamonds have " Naflra ku kinene," ensanafu ku gel'e thus far attracted more men than has a saja. "I'll die for a big thing" (as desire to give the degraded Hottentots says), the biting ant on the big toe. The ensanafu is the fierce, dark-brown and warlike Zulus the Gospel. Conant with huge mandibles, that travels siderable progress has been made, howin vast numbers, and is dreaded by man ever, since Bartholomew Diaz first and beast. "In for a penny, in for a doubled and named the Cape of Good pound." "You may as well be hung Hope, in 1486. The Dutch East India for a sheep as a lamb." Company was established on Table Bay in 1652 ; in 1688, 300 refugee Huguenot Bugubugu si muliro. Splutter, splut· families arrived, bringing Protestant ter isn't fire. Cf. the Irish saying, " Take it 'asy, and if ye can't take it Christianity. The estimated popula- 'asy, take it as 'asyas ye can ;" and, tion is now 4,250,000, mainly composed .. I:!till waters run deep." of aborigines (Hottentots and Bushmen) and Bantus (Kaffirs, Zulus, Matabele, The Oongo Jilree State (under Belgian Bechuanas, etc.), who are fetich-wor- rule) is another field that is of immense shippers; Dutch descendants of Hugue- nots and emigrants, Who are mainly importance and interest. A million but nominal Christians; East Indian and a half square miles is made accessi- and other emigrants, unchristian and difficult to reach, being mainly Mosble by the Congo and its tributaries. lems. Khama and other notable con- verts are examples of What the African .. White man," said a Congo native to native may become. Drink is as usual a missionary, "my heart is hungry for the greatest curse of the country, and something; r don't know what." He stands opposed to the church and school, which seek to lift the degraded savages. was converted, and afterward said: Pray for the colonial churches, that .. Yes, it was hungry for salvation." they may be endued with missionary " Africa's heart" is truly hungering, or zeal; for the schools and colleges, that they may be filled with student volunrather famishing. Its area is 1,508,000 teers; above all. for the outpouring of the Spirit on missionaries themselves. square miles (thirty times larger than and the deepening of the spiritual life of native converts. With these petitions England). The people number over granted, the Word of God will have free course and be glorified in spite of all 40,000,000,* of various tribes, but all obstacles and opposition.
of the great Bantu race, Tattooing is practised largely as a tribal mark; can- nibalism is practised to some extent; liquor is working sad havoc among these people, and the drinking habit is bound to lead them into every depth of abomination. Slave exportation is abol- ished, but domestic slavery is practisE'd to a fearful extent. Polygamy, of course, abounds. The religion,is fetich- * Stanley's estimate. The Freedmen. 30,000 pupils taught by colored teach- ers. They have 1,500,000 children in The total c'olored population in the the common schools, and 24,000 teach- United States, as given in 1890, was 7,- ers. More than 2,500,000 of the race 470.040. The four years' increase would can read and write. There are 21,000 about bring them up to about 8,000,000. schools for negroes in the South, with These negroes, if distributed exactly in 1,357,000 pupils. The number of col- numbers corresponding to the density leges for them is 25; law schools, 5 ; of the population of the States, would mediCftI schools, 5; normal schools, 52, more than cover Maine, New Hamp- and theological seminaries, 25. There shire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode are in our midst 7~0 colored physi- Island, Nebraska, North Dakota, South cians and 250 lawyers; 250 newspapers Dakota, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and 3 ma~azines are owned. edited, and New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, published by negroes. These people Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, also own half Ii million acres of land in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Cali- the Southern States.
fornia. The proportion of colored peo- These are encouraging facts, and they ple in the South varies from one tenth cannot fail to deepen the interest of the to two thirds (South Carolina) of the friends of good government everywhere whole population. . in the educational work which is achiev- We arll accustomed to think of them ing such large results. With fair play as having doubled in number, and there- and justice on the part of the whites, fore doubled in power. But the 4,000,- nothiug will contribute so much to the 000 that were set free were poor ilIiter· solution of the negro problem along ate slaves; the 8,000,000 have all either right lines as the diffusion of intelligence been free twenty-nine years or are free and Christianity among the masses of, born. With this increase of numbers the blacks and the demonstration of has come also increase of knowledge, their capacity for the duties and re- increase in intelligence, apprehension of sponsibilities of citizenship.
surroundings, of wrongs, of rights, of The late Frederick Douglass's re- limitations, of pOssibilities; increase marks about his race give his view of also of material wealth to no inconsid- the negro problem: erable degree; increase also of moral " It is sometimes said that the comli· power and force twice as strong as they tion of the colored man to-day is worse were. The power is not only growing, than it was in the time of slavery. 'fo but is massed together. The very limita- me thi'! is an extravagance. We now tions of this power prevents for the pres- have the organic law of the land on our ent its scattering, and compels it to act side. We have thousands of teachers, in bulk. 80 great a mass of human and hundreds of thousands of pupils at· beings anywhere is a menace to the tending schools; we can now count our peace of the country, where they are friends by the million. In many of the not restrained by the fear of God and States we have the elective franchise; the controlling influences of the religion in some of them we have colored office· holders. It is no small advantage that of Jesus Christ.
Great possibilities for good and for evil we are citizens of this repub:ic by spe- lie in this large element of negro blood cial amendment of the Constitution.
in our midst. But progresii has already The very resistance that we now meet been made toward turning this stream on Southern railroads, steamiloats, and into the desired channels. Where- hotels is evidence of our progress. It as twenty-eight years ago not one in is not the negro in his degradation that 10,000 of the blacks in the South could is objected to, but the negro, educated, read. now there are 25,000 colored per- cultivated, and refined. The negro who sons who are either professOls or teach- fails to protect himself, who makes no ers in colleges and schools. Three col- provision for himself orbis family, and lege presidents were born slaves. At is content to live the life of a vagabond, the close of the Civil War the negroes meets no resistance. He is just where had not a single church among their he is desired by his enemies. Perhaps whole people. In the past twenty-five you say that this proves that education years they have built 19,753 churches, will do nothing for the negro; but the with a seating capacity of 5,818,459, at answer is that' the hair of the dog will a cost of $20,323,887. Their parish cure the bite' eventually. All people registers now show 2,316,785 communi· suddenly springing from a lowly condi- cants in their own churches, all of tion have to pass through a period of whom are of their own race. They probation. At first they are denounced snpport 7 colleges, 17 academies, and as 'upstarts;' but the 'upstarts' of 50 high schools, in which there are one generation are the elite?f the next. "
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
AN ApOLOGY.-The first article in the war as a trophy of their success.
the May issue, on Siam and the Laos Now the best steamers of the Japanese country, was from the pen of Rev. Government are put at the service of Chalmers Martin, of Princeton, N. J. the Red Cross Society. and as much By some unaccountable omission his care is taken of the Chinese sick and name failed to appear in connection wounded as of the Japanese. What with the article. He and our readers has caused the change but the power have our humble apology. of the Gospel of Christ I A new treaty with foreign powers is The March of Events. in process of negotiation, which if rati- fied, will bring most important results A!ter a long and hard struggle, all to China and Japan, and indeed to the the island forts in the harbor of Wei- world.
Hal·Wei surrendered to the Japanese.
Five of the largest of the remaining The Report of the Third Oonference warships of the Chinese northern naval of the officers and representatives of squadron were sunk by the Japanese the various foreign mission boards, fleet, by means of torpedoes. Of the etc., in the United States and Canada thirteen battleships forming the Chi· has reached us. It is a very attractive, nese Navy at the beginning of the war, interesting, and suggestive pamphlet, five were lost at the battIe of the Yalu of nearly 70 pages. This conference was and five at Wei-Hai-Wei. The Japa- held in New York City, in the Church ese, in spite of the intense cold and Mission House (Episcopal), Fourth Aveviolent storms that drove most of their nue, corner of Twenty-second Street, ships to shelter; stuck magnificently to February 14th, and was attended by their work. From Manchuria came over fifty representatives. who appeared the sad news of the death of the Japan- in behalf of twenty different denominaese General Noqzu, chief in command tions and societies. What an exhibithere, after the retirement, on account tion of mutual confidence, co-operation, of sickness. of Field Marshal Count amity, and charity was such a confer- Yamagata. ence! and what hope it encourages for According to the London Times cor- the future!
respondent in Shanghai, "Li Hung The subjects discussed indicate the Chang's son-in-law telegraphs that the range of discussion and the practical treaty of peace was signed In Shimo- character of the council: The Japan- China War, and its strategic relations noseki, April 16th, and the terms are: , to missions; industrial missions and "First. The independence of Korea. their development in foreign lands; "&cond. Japan's retention of the self-support in mission churches; the conquered places temporarily or per- proposed national church in India, and the proper attitude to be assumed towmanently. ard it : motive in foreign missions, and ! " Third. Japan's retention of the ter- the true point of emphasis.
ritory east of the Liao River. These are vital topics, and they were "Fourth. Permanent cession of For- discussed in a manner that became liv- ing issues. No note of inharmonious mosa. utterance or feeling marred the meet- "Fifth. Indemnity of $150,000,000. ing and the whole proceedings are "Sixth. An offensive and defensive wo;thy of a wide reading and study.
alliance betweeu China and Japan." Dr. Smith's discussion of the war be- Three centuries ago, when the Japan- tween Japan and China is especially pertinent just now. He caUed attenese had won a victory in Korea. they tion to the new conditions which en- sent home the ears of 3600 victims of tered into this modern Oriental conflict, and showed why Japan had so easily made peace with the enemy, and }'fr. Zwemer has returned to Muscat to re- won the supremacy. China clings to sume his work. the past, and is anchored to custom and tradition. Japan is aggressive and pro- The Oongo State, gressive and takes on every modern The proposal to the Belgian Cham- .equipment. China is humiliated but bers for the formal annexat~'on of the Oongo Free State accords with the drift not conquered; is too vast for con· of events for some years. Under the General Act of the Berlin Conrerence quest, but will be compelled by this of 1884-85, the territories of the State are the personal possession of the king series of defeats to abandon her con- of the Belgians, who was one of the servative and defensive policy. Dr. first to interest himself in geographical discovery and commercial development Smith affirms the need of missions in in Africa, having, during Mr. Stanley's progress up the Congo in 1876, founded both fields to be undiminished; he the International African Association.
prophesies China's forsaking of her exclusion and seclusion, and a great enlargement of missionar; opportunity in this last stronghold 0 Oriental suo perstition, and, as to Japan, the aboli- tion 'of existing restrictions upon for- eigners, and the opening of the whole empire to the Gospel.
Other matters embraced in this report, which space forbids us here and now to review, we may advert to in subseq uent issues.
The formation of the International News has just reached us from Per- C<>ngo Association, some three years sia, that the German missionaries from later, and the opening up the Congo Delitzsch's Institution Judaicum have valley by Stanley, suggested the foundbeen ordered to leave the country, on ing a great African State, free to the the ground that they contemplate work trade of all nations. and operating as a among Moslems. They arrived only a civilizing force in the Dark Continent. few months ago. It indicates an atti- The Berlin Conference of 1884 was held tude of the government toward such for the adjudication of all African work. The order was based on state- questions, and the Congo State was ments in their publications at home. formally recognized, and a few months later its sovereignty was vested in King The sad intelligence reaches us by Leopold. Since then the king haa cable that Dr.' Cochran, of Persia, is largely borne the cost of administration dead-a great loss to missions. out of his private fortune, having ex- War a.nd the Gospel in Arabia. pended not less than $8,000,000,; but the annual revenue being less by $200,- There appeared in the daily papers 000 than the expenses, he is no longer in the latter part of February, a Lon- able to meet the deficit. A proposal don telegram of the 25th, that the city is, therefore, to be made to the Belgian of Muscat, in Arabia, had been captured ParIhment to annex the territories, and. by Bedouin rebels, the Sultan having it is believed, it will be accepted. tied from the palace, but eventually reo gained part of the town. Muscat is the station occupied by the' Rev. P . •T. Russia attempts It gigantic rndertak- Zwemer, of the Arabian Mission of the ing to unite het·. European domi~ions Reformed Church. Letters previously with her Pacific Coast. The great received from him had foreshadowed Siberian railway is now approaching the outbreak of Sl1ch hostilities. Later completion, over oue fifth of the entire tidings from him have, therefore, been distance having been laid with rails.
anxiously awaited. A letter, recei"ved Large quantities or plant and material on April 4th, gives information of his are being sent forward both from Eu- personal safety, and still later intelli· rope and from the Pacifie port of Vladi- gence reaches us that the Sultan has vostock. The vessels which leave Odessa, during the spring and autumn, their mission. Their staff consists of are laden with railway materials, and carry engineers and other skilled work- Mr. Hodberg, a Swede, an Armenian men to aid in the construction of the great railroad. Some writers in the caUed Aveteriantz, two Swedish ladies, Russian press prophesy that the last rail will be laid before the summer of 1896. and two native assistants. This mis- They say: ""When the line is opened, the golden Orient will pour her treasures sion is likely to have an important bearinto the lap of Russia. Japan, China, and the isles beyond India will send ing on mission work in Western China. their ships freighted with spices and tea and rich merchandise into the Its headquarters will be Kashgar, a crowded havens of Siberia. The Thames and Mersey, Amsterdam and most important meeting-place of vari- Hamburg, will sink into third-rate importanee; even San Francisco will be ous nations, where in the bazars may sacrificed when Russia has obtained the practical monopoly of Eastern trade." be seen Turkish Sarts, Kirghiz, Mon- HAWAII HAS BEEN MAKING HISTORY gols, Chinese, "Thibetans, Jews, and RAPIDLY.-Ex-Queen LiIiuokalani was Hindus. The Chinese in authority are " arrested and guns and bombs found in her house. 'l'his news was swiftly fol- tolerant, and the Sarts or Turkish lowed by the announcement that she had formally resigned all claims to the townspeople kindly and well-intention- Hawaiian throne, and tbat her abdication had been followed by her taking ed, among whom European or Amerithe oath of allegiance to the repu blic. The reasons for this extraordinary ac- can missionaries must exercise large intion are very clear. The searching of her house not only revealed a large fluence. God bless the new pioneers! quantity of warlike material, but by the seizure of numerous documents it As to Korean affairs. the Christian was discovered that the ex.Queen was Intetligencer says, referriug to a prethe inspiring cause of the recent un- vious account of leaders called back to successful revolt, that she had ordered Korea: "Our Church has a special the arms, and had already made ap- interest in them through their conpointments of Cabinet officers. nection with representative pastors. Now the Rev. Dr. J. B. Thompson The Swedi8h Mission A8sociation has writes us that an unsuccessful attempt struck a field of work hitherto untouch- was made to kill Pak Yong Hio, on his ed. Beyond the Thian Shan llioun- return to Korea from Japan. He and tains, separating Russian from Chinese his associate, Soh Kwang Pom (for. territory, lies Chinese Turkistan, merly members of the Liberal Cabinet stretching from Kashgar to the table- of Korea), have both been formally parlands of Thibet. For the most part doned, and their rank restored by the this is" a desert, but has such oases as king, and they have again been made Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan. The in- members of the Cabinet. Pak Yong habitants are mostly of Turkish origin, Ilio is Minister of Home Affairs, and Mussulmans, and speaking a Turkish Soh Kwang Pom, Minister of Justice. dialect. Here the Swedes have planted Both these men learned the principles of Christianity from Dr. Thompson, and Soh Kwang Porn was for years un- der the training of our Dr. Corwin. The opportunities for usefulness before these men can hardly be estimated. The present counsellor to the Korean Cabinet is a Japanese Christian. It is the Lord's (loings, and it is marvellous in OUf eyes."
'Ihe Thibetan Pioneer Mission.
Mr. Polhill Turner, at Gnatong, found Mr. Jensen very ill with typhoid- fever, from which two days later he died. Pon(so was also ill with the same fever; Miss .Taylor herself was weH, though tired with nursing.
Mr. Polhill-Turner will undertake the sole trainin~ and leadership of tbe men. while Miss Taylor continues alone with Pontso at Gnatong watching for any opening into Thibet that may occur. The band will henceforth be known ary without delay, provided the funds simply as .. The Thihetan Mission," and secured do not trench upun the ordinary consists of Mr. Polhill-Turner as leader, sources of the B.lUrd's income. Mr. and Mrs. Evan i1a~kenzie and two children, Messrs. William Soutter, J. " 3. The Board reserves to itself the Johannsen, T. Sorrensen, E. Amundsen, H. M. Stumbles, James Moyes, and right of making exceptions to the gen- James Neave, twelve in all. eral line of policy above indicated in cases where very special reasons may ,Mr. Polhill-Turner has made a good warrant a departure from it." impression; he finds the men have been making good use of their time in study This action affects 13 young men and of the language, and in taking oppor- 10 young women, 2 of whom are phytunities of speaking to meetings of sicians, and will necessitate leadng va- Thibetans when possible. He feels Kalimpong more suitable for present cant some posts where physicians and purposes than Darjeeling or Gnatong. missionaries are urgently needed. The They have a house placed at their disposal, where they can all live together, recording secretary states that. even with Mrs. Mackenzie as housekeeper. with this retrenchment, the work on There seems some likelihood of the the foreign field will be limited and door into Thibet opening in the course hampered more than at any time for of the year. many years. . Amid its troubles Madagascar is ask- The Presbyterian Board is $250,000 ing the British and Foreign Bible So- behind; the Baptists, $125,000; the Methodist Episcopal, $440,000; and ciety for more Bibles. Ten thousand the Congregationalists are also largely copies of the Gospel of St. Luke have in arrears.
been sent to the Northern Committee in What is involved in a foreign mission- .
Madagascar, and five thousand more to aTY society's being encumbered with a serious deficiency at the close of the the Southern Committee. The society year's accounts? "A debt will mean reduced appropriations, the shutting has just now under consideration a re- up of schools and chapels, the forcing queat for a reference Bible in Malagasy. of the missionaries to bear burdens which are alrer.dy breaking their hearts, and the leaving ot fields unoccupied which will cry to heaven against us."
,Retrenohment in Foreign Missions. The week beginning April 7th, 1895, was observed as a special season of The Presbyterian Board of Foreign prayer for foreign missions. to be ob- served in the closet, in the family, and Missions has felt constrained to take a in the usual public and social religious services of the Presbyterian churches backward step. On April 4th it was and missionary societies, and that it was affectionately urged upon the peodetermined : ple to mingle self-denial with prayers, and to present the fruits of this special " 1. In view of the serious financial self-denial as an offering to the Lord on embarrassment of the Board, because Sabbath, April 14th, 1895. of the heavy deficit with which the fiscal year opened and the entire inad- The Ohristian Workers' Oonvention equacy of receipts during the year, met at the Baptist Temple in Philadelami in view of the Board's recent action phia, Pa., on March 21st. There was a fixing the limit of the total appropria- large gathering of those engaged in vations for the fi~cal year beginning May rious sorts of Christian labor from all 1st, 1895, at $900.000 as against $1,1115,- parts of the country. The addresses 000 for the present year, involving an were uplifting, and the conferences on almost disastrous curtailment of the the topics introduced most profitable. work, Dr. 'f. M. Pierce welcomed the Con- vention to the" City of Homes and of " ReMlved, To notify all missionaries Churches." lIe stated that while under appointment that the Board does not see its way clear at present to send them to the field.
"2. Should special funds be secured by or in behalf of any missionary under appointment sufficient to meet the expenses of outfit, travel, and the pro rata salary to May 1st, 1896, the Board will gladly consent to send such a mission- Brooklyn has 382 churches, Chicago Wilbur Chapman, Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler. D.D., Ht. Rev. Arthur C. A. 500, and New York 534, Philadelphia ~Eall. Bishop of Vermont, Mr. Robert· E. Speer, Mr. Frank Anderson, of Oxhas 634. The arrangement and opera· ford University, Professor W. W.
tions of the various organizations con- White, President Patton, of Princeton, Professor James McCoDaughy, Mr. W. nected with the Temple Church were H. Sallmon, and Rev. H. P. Beach are explained by Rev. Dr. George A. Peltz, to make addresses or conduct classes. the associate pastor. Different phases From Saturday, July 20th, to Tues- of church work, the sufficiency of the day, July 30th, will be held the Young Gospel to meet the needs of the people, Women's College Conference, and from Saturday, August 3d, to Thursday, Authe pre-eminent need of personal ser- gust 15th, the General Conference of vice and kindre'd SUbjects were spokeJ;l Christian Workers. upon by Rev. Dr. W. II. Hubbard, Jllr. D. L. Moody will be present,and Rev. Dr. A. G. Lawson, and others. personally conduct many serVICes, preaching from time to time. On the evening of the day of meeting a Between the conferences in July, Prosermon was preached by Rev. Dr. T. fessor W. W. White, of the Bible In- De Witt Talmage. stitute of Chicago, will give Bible read- The Christian League of Philadel- ings or lectures. After the General Conference. Dr. R. A. Torrey, of Chi· phia, recently formed, announces its cago and Rev. H. W. Webb·Peploe, purposes as follows; of London, will conduct similar ser· 1. To organize and carry forward vices. with vigor and enlarged power, in the The Northfield Echoes, which last year city of Philadelphia, the great work committed in common to all Christians, reported these conferences, and was in co-operating therein with other soci- such demand that sufficient copies could eties wherever practicable. not be had, will be issued again, under 2. To confer and act in concert Witll the editorial care of Delavan L. Pierson, the civil authorities of the city, in all matters which may promote the moral as before. and physical welfare of ~he peop~e, especially in the suppressIOn of vice Rev. Dr. W. B. Boggs writes, in reand immorality, in public and in pri· vate. ply to certain strictures upon his for- mer communication, as follows; 3. To provide increased facilities, and secure Christian workers for carrying " I notice in the April MISSIONARY on the work of the League in those parts of the city where the need is the REVIEW OF THE WORLD, page 297, greatest and the laborers are few. Lord R–'s criticism of my article on 4. To provide proper homes, especially in the country, for children sur- the Outlook in India, in the January rounded in the city by the most depraving influences. REVIEW.
5. To devise ways and means where- " I have again carefully read what I by to assist in the preservation and ob- wrote in the article complained of, and servance of the Sabbath or the LOI'd's Day;. to discourage the liquor traffic I cannot see in it anything false or misand mitigate its evils; to prevent the publication of impure literature and leading. I wish Lord R– bad pointthe exhibition of demoralizing pic· tures ; and generally 10 promote sl~ch ed out definitely and particularly the measures as will make aud keep Phlla· statements which are considered false delphia a Christian city in name and in fact. and slanderous. A general contradic- At Northfield, Mass.. there is to be a tion is point1ess~ .
series of con ventions Ihis summer, of "Let us go over the statements In which a partial programme is pnblished. my article and see if they are not true.
From Satnrdav. June 29th. to Tue~ " 1. There i8 a contlict between the day, July 9th. will be held the World's Student Conference, where Hcv. J. a(lvocates of purity and righteousness and those of the opposite party. That cannot be successfully denied. "2. Mr. Dyer and a number of mis- sionaries wel'e imprisoned. That also is lIDdeniable, " 3. I think I have correctly stated the real cause of t('ir imprisonment.
Ost.ensibly it was for defamation. iu re- spect of the business of an opium con- tractor, but anyone conversant with alfair~ in India can see the real cause behind that, "4. As to the connivance of the po· . difficult to find such an a&,ent as the lice at the abominations in that horri· latter.
ble street in Bombay, and the brutal .. The great financial depression still treatment of the midnight missionaries tells upon our funds here, but the Lord there, and the protection of their assail- is,blessing the work, and the missionary ants, I have no reason to doubt the spirit is spreading.
veracity of the repeated reports which .. P.S.-Our Corean }1ission has SUB- have been published. Of course the tained another serious loss in the death enemi€s of the Bombay Guardian and of Mr. Sim Sye Bang, the teacher of of the Banner of Asia and of the mis· our ladies, and the first convert of our sionaries will say that the reports are mission. He spoke 'four languages, false ; but there is abundant reason to was clever and really earncstly Chris- believe them true. tian, and died suddenly. His consistent "5. That the government in India life has made a deep· impression on manufactures and sells opium, and dis· some of his kinsmen and fellow-coun- tills and sells intoxicating liquors, on an trymen. I am not quite sure whether enormous scale, is simply afact. Mr. Adamson's name is Alexander or " 6. In the evidence taken by the reo Andrew, but it is A. Adamson. Our cent Opium Commission in India, it is mission to the Queensland aborigines a well· known fact that the great. ma- at Mapoon, Batavia River, has also jority of non-ojJicial witnesses testified lost its admirable head, Rev. Mr. Ward, against opium, and the great majority Moravian missionary, who died after of ojJicial witnesses testified in favor of twelve days' illness (fever), and about it. It was, indeed, humiliating to see two years of splendid service."
most of those witnesses who are in the government employ giving the evidence which they knew the government According to a census of Great Brit· wished them to gi ve. ~ ain, lately published, the population of .. I think the above six points include her African colonies and dependencies all the statements in that section of my is 4,035,669, while that of her protecarticle which refers to these matters. .. Possibly I used one expression torates, or spheres of influence, is 25,- which is a little too sweepiug-viz., 504,374, making a total of 29,540.043. • Those whose living comes from the government are, almost to a man, apol- In Central Africa, 4,000,000 square ogists for and defenders of these abomi· miles of territory are at present unoc- nations.' But I have seen so much in cupied by civilized people. India, these twenty years, and hllve talked with so many officials of various Of the 202 medical missionaries in grades, and have so long marked the tone of the press which is supposed to the foreign missionary field, 101 have ret:lect official opinion, that the state- been trained in Edinburgh, and in the ment seems to me substantially correct. I have seen but few officials in India Medical Department of the famous uniwho would not try to defend one or versity. It is not the unskilled, or the other or all of the evils referred to. medical adventurers, who are going on .. So, in view of all the facts, I do not missions to the heathen world. Gifts think that I misstated the case in the article referred to." and acquirements which would com- mand fine positions and large pecuniary returns at home are freely consecrated Rev. Andrew Hardie writes from to the service of Christ in the healing Richmond, Victoria, February 15th: of the bodies and the guidance of the .. I notice on page 69, of January souls of men, and this as freely by number, re Corea, • the Australian young women as by young men.
Presbyterian Church with one man and The best explorers are missionaries, eleven 'l/JOmen.' I think I have seen the as Dr. Livingstone demonstrated in himself. Lately two Scotch missionmistake before, though I do not know aries, Dr. Laws and Dr. Elmslie, went out into the wilderness from their stahow it has arisen. We have only one tion on Lake Nyassa, and found II country almost depopulated by the man-a married missionary-Rev. Alexander Adamson, and three lady mis· sionaries as yet. With Mrs. Adamson there may be said to be four women.
We hope soon to send out another lady, and if possible a medical doctor (male) beside. It has, however, been very slave raiders, and so bereft of all sub· New Books. stance, that 'the lions attacked them at night, driven by hunger. They saw A new book of extraordinary impor- one caravan of slaves, bearing ivory tance to the theologian, physician, psy- tusks, and all bound together in one chologist, and all persons interested in group by ropes; man's inhumanity mythology, folklore, witchcraft, and everywhere visible; sin dominant, and .spiritualism has been issued, its lament- the misery which follows it. ed author being the late John L. Nev- ius, D.D., for forty years a missionary to the Chinese. "Demon Possession Efate. and Allied Themes" is an inductive study of phenomena of our own times.
From a private letter received from The introduction is by Rev. F. F. Ellin· Rev. J. W. McKenzie we learn that he wood, D.D. It was edited by Henry had been laid aside by a severe attack W. Rankin, Esq., of East Northfield, of bronchitis and influenza, but at the Mass., who also added some chapters, time of writing was able to resume work. The majority of the natives with extensive bibliographical notes had also been ill with influenza. He and various indexes.
was rejoicing in the prospect of seeing "This book," say the publishers, his children back from the colonies for "is based upon no speculative premises, some weeks at Christmas. The mis· but upon a large collection of thorsionaries had shown their esteem for the late Mrs. McKenzie by erecting a oughly sifted and authenticated facts, beautiful marble monument to her showing tha. d~mon possession is a memory. As to his work he says: common experience of our own day; " The good work is making fair prog- that the modern instances can be clearly ress at our station. It was a happy day distinguished from cases of insanity, for her when I admitted some natives epilepsy, and other forms of disease; from Mele to tbe church. Several that they present twellty.four points of more are attending the candidates' class." As to the other missiouaries, he. exact correspondence with the New mentions that Mr. Watt was not feeling Testament cases; that the demoniac very strong, that he had just returned and the spiritual medium, so·called.
from a visit to his nephew, Mr. Leg. differ only as voluntary and involun· gett, missionary on Malekula. While he was there Mr. Leggett formed a tary victims of possession. " church and four members sat down at the Lord's table for the first time. This It is issued b! Fleming H. Revell Company, of ChICago, New York, and Toronto, at $1.50 a copy. We have been greatly interested in its perusal.
island is, except Santo, the largest Lorenz & Co., music publishers of in the New Hebrides. Mr. Gray, Dayton, 0., send to the REVIEW editor who has been laboring for twel ve years in the field. is about leaving for a copy of "Missionary Songs" and the sake of his family. In regard to " Missionary Treasury." No doubt our the volcanic eruption on Ambrim, he readers will be glad to know of these pUblications. "Missionary Songs," so writes: " The missionaries on Epi and Malekula were somewhat alarmed about a fortnight ago by a succession far as we know. is the only collection of violent earthquakes, and now it of the kind that has ever been issued, turns out that the volcano on Ambrim has burst out in four places, and that and the price is but 20 cents per copy, several natives have lost their lives by or $2 per dozen. The" Missionary it. In one place there is said to be a Treasury" is 15 cents per copy, or $1.50 stream of lava 12 miles long. This is per dozen, and is meant to aid those said to be in the vicinity of Dr. Lamb's station, and will be very discouraging who are preparing for missionary con· to him. When on the island, his premo certs, etc. All such literature we weI· ises were laid waste on two occasions. come as helpful to the great cause of first by hurricane and then by fire. At missions, and from such examination present he is away in Scotland. This as we have been able to give we judge is the second time that that volcano has broken out during the last five or six these cheap books :well adapted to their years. " purpose.
EDITORIAL
The Congregational Year Book for cial Programme of the Evangelical 1893 has been subjected to interesting Church" and" What is Christian Soanalysis, by W. H. Rice, of Chicago, cialism?" Some of his utterances have Ill., showing what was given and who been considered even by the Reichstag. were the givers. The followin&, is one of his utterances: "I am convlllced that if Jesus w;ere A summary of the contributions of among us now He would deal less with the Congregational churches of the the blind than with the unemployed, United States to foreign missions in for the misery of the workless is greater than the misery of the blind_" This 1893 is presented with the following re- German pastor feels that the Church suIts: Total number of churches, 5213 ; has not in the past discharged its full total membership, 561,631 ; number of obligation to the poorer classes, but churches contributing to foreign mis- that it is waking up to its responsibili- ties and taking hold of its duty in a sions, 2783; active membership, 406,- genuine and commendable way. He 518; total contributions, $410,070. urges ministers to make a profound study of industrial questions. He says Of the amount ($410,070) contributed that dislrust of progress is want of faith bl the Congregational churches of the in God. He is not detftructive, but United States in 1893 for foreign mis· seeks the solution of the terribly presssions, nine States gave a total of $338,- ing social problems by bringing to bear upon men in a vital way the great doc- 861, or 82t per cent of the whole contri· trines of the Christian revelation. He bution, distributed as follows: says: "We must be in Christ before we can work with Christ… Mem- Per We gladly print a brief communica- bers Gave cent. tion, revealing the means whereby was Connecticut …. with 50.459 .. $65,333.00 or 15!u forged the living link between the Illinois……. ….. 20,692.. 34,271.00" 8% Iowa ………… " 21,720.. 11,285.00 ,. 2~ Montclair Methodist Episcopal Church Maine …. , " … " 13,658.. 11,9~1.00" 29 and the world field: 10 Massachusetts .. " 102,644.• 139,208.00" 34 "The missionary revival had its in- New Hampshire." 14,097.. 10,926.00" 2% ception in the conviction of the pastor, Rev. J. A. Owen, inwrought by the New york…….. 31,437.. 37,862.00" 9l Spirit, that the Christ-life of the Church, as well as of the individual be- Ohio………… " 25,488.. 12,852.00" 3 liever, is 10 be found in the willing Vermont. .. • …." 15,083. • 15,113.00" 3!1i death of the self-life. The relation of the believer to the Son of Man, in re- The active membership of these spect of loyalty, submission, joyful serchurches was 304,827, making an aver- vice, and patient waiting for the' bless- ed hope' of His appearing. was preachage for each member of $1.11. These ed for two years before it bore this fruit. nine States constituted 75 per cent of the contribnting membership. The re- " To the church-members the story reads like a new chapter of the Acts, maining membership, amounting to an inevitable outcome of the' preach- ing of the kingdom of God, and the 102,231 in number, contributed $71,209, teaching of those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confior 17-1 per cent of the whole, an average dence,' for the factors which combined of 71 cents per member. to do His good pleasure were chosen. empowered, sustained, and made fruit- The total contributions to all causes, ful by the same risen Jesus. This exclusive of legacies ($947,311). amount- church had been accustomed to the. methods which prevail with other ed in 1893 to the large sum of $9,408,- churches, and had similar relations to the boards and the apportionments, 017. Of this and those relations were considered sat- isfactory and praiseworthy. The an- Avera~e nual mIssionary sermon was endured with good grace, and brought in about per active $1000 per annum. lllcmber.
Home expenses re- ceived…………. $7,065,338.00. . …. $17.23 Home benevolences received ……….. 1,992,609.00……. 4.90 Forei~ missions re· celved………. '" 410,070.00…… . 1.00 These figures, if not mathematically correct, are very nearly exact. Cer- tainly, in the Congregational denomi· nation there is little opportunity for fault-finding because so much money is sent abroad.
Friedrich Naumann, pastor at Frankfort-on-the-Main, has during the last three years come into much promi- nence and power. lIis two books have awakened much thought-" The So- 464 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT. [JuDe " But with the inspiration of a wider "Just at this time the Missionary horizon, a clearer view of God's pur- Committee of the Montclair Church poses in and through believers, they decided to emphasize the appeal of had begun to feel that. instead of an their miRsionary circular, and the pas- annual tide of sentiment, missions were tor preached upon the subject, Feb- intended to be a necessity of church ruary 19th, 1893. The Drew Quartette life; not a mere addendum, but a test from the Seminary were present, heard of loyalty to the risen Lord; and that the explanation and vindication of the the assurance, • Lo, I am with you al- proposed new departure, and one of way,' was coupled with the only com- them reported the matter to Mr. Schill- mand He ever gave touching active ing, knowing his anxiety to enter the duty, • Go ye into all the world.' fQreign field. The outcome was an .. The first crystal of the new method agreement that Mr. Schilling should be formed around a suggestion of the pas- at the missionary service on the follow- tor, that the Committee on l1issions ing Sunday as the church's candidate, propose to the church the' living link and adopted as their missionary in case idea ___ and after careful consideration the church responded financially to the the committee acted upon the sugges- appeal of t)le circular. This arrangetion, and at their request the pastor ment was carried out. Rev. J. H. sent to every member of the church a Pyke, of North China, at home on leave circular letter, setting forth the ' great of absence, preached and Mr. Schilling command' in its relation to the Great told the simple story of his Divine call.
Commander; the abundant capability The offerings of the people aggregated of the millions of Christians to fulfil $2300, more than $1200 over the mis- the commission within the next twenty sionary offering of any previous year I years; the unprecedentedly great op- And this was the gift of tlUJ wlwle portunity of the present age, and he church, not of a few, the two largest then outlined the plan substantially as offerings being $2(;0 each. The mem- follows: bership at this time numbered 340.
" lie counselled the church to adopt " But the increased offering was the as special representatives in the world smallest result of that day's new de- field two missionaries already in the parture. More vital than that was the work, one in the home and the other in new conception of the great commission the foreign field, becoming responsible which took hold of the people. Giving for their financial support as part of money to missions became only one the church's working force; to corre- form of • going into all the world.'
spond regularly with them, and thus .. Mr. Schilling married Miss Eliza- know the work and learn at first hand beth Bull, of New York City, and a its opportunities and needs while mak- short sojourn in Montclair enabled the ing mention in prayers of these living church to become persollBlly acquainted representatives. with their representatives, and on July "The plan being approved by the 1st, 1893, they took their departure for Missionary Committee, the pastor for- Rangoon, Burmah.
mally presented it to the church for "Letters have been passing to and adoption or rcjection. The Lord's fro ever since. Photographs of their hand now became plainly manifest. surroundings, their associates, and their Four years before a young German, a converts have come, bringing even commercial agent in Bombay, India, closer than words could bring the liv- had been converted under the preach- ing realities in the experience of those ing of Rev. J. E. Robinson of that sta- who ' go into all the world,' and im- tion. His house, manufacturers of pressing more deeply the blessedness of specialties in Bohemian glass, seIi't him a vital relation to the evangelization of a consignment of glass idols which he the world.
refused to sell, and a prompt dismissal "Nobody was surprised when the followed. At the suggestion of Bishop total missionary offering of the second Thoburn, Mr. Gerhardt Schilling turned year of the' living.link ' method was toward the mission field. He worked found to aggregate the sum of $4363, his own passage to New York, there to an increase of about $2000 over the fit himself for the service by a course offering of the year before.
of theological training. ' Four years at " This stor! of a missionary revival Drew Seminary brought around the is made public in hope that the results time for beginning his life work, when accomplished by this new method in it was found that the Missionary Board one church may lead to the adoption was without means to send an addition- of similar methods in all other chnrches.
al missionary into the field. It looked that the wealth of spiritual blessing as if Mr. Schilling must walt a whole which followed may be speedily claim- year before he could return to, India. ed by other believing brotherhoods."
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONAllD.
Extraots and Transla.tions from Foreign of intruding. However, a Boer named . Periodioals. Greiling lately urged the Berlin mis- sionary During to baptize two of his BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, children, in a protracted absence of the MASS. Reformed pastors, which finally Mr. During consented to. Not long after, The March number of THE MISSION- however, Greiling's neighbors" who had stood sponsors for his children, ARY REVIEW contained in this depart- came to Mr. During, insisting that he should strike their names out of his ment some severe criticisms upon Herr baptismal register, 'that they might not be disgraced by standing in the Marensky, of Berlin, one of our highly same book with a lot of negroes. ' Greiling complains that since the bap· esteemed editorial correspondents, from tism his neighbors call him' The Caf- fre, , and will not shake hands with him. the pen of Rev. C. C. Starbuck, and And yet these people call themselves Christians, and pride themselves on based upon statements found in Mis- their doctrinal soundness. Evidently Matt. 25: 31–46 is not found in their sionsblatt, the missionary periodical of Bibles. What multitudes of Christians there are of us who have occasion to the Moravian Church, relating to his dread the Saviour's simple rule of final juagment I We can stand almost any alleged views of missionary policy. test better than that." -From Berliner Missions- Berichte. Mr. S. properly waxed indignant that – This society has suffered a great a word should be said in favor of the los8 in the death of its venerable and able director, Dr. W ANGEMANN. conception held by divers European -A Miss Rosa Dietrich, of Erfurt civilians in higli station concerning (famous in Luther's life), dying in June, 1894, has left the Berlin Society missions, to the effect that they may be a legacy of 300 marks, the interest of whicll: is to continue the payment of her employed to almost any extent for the yeart;j contribution.
furtherance of schemes of state. But such perversion and profanation Herr M. also holds iJl abomination, as he vigor- ously protests in a communication re- cently sent to this office. Nor would he reproduce Germany in auy foreign territory. And, further, while his con· viction is that the German churches are under obligations peculiarly solemn and urgent to evangelize the heathen found under the rule of the empire, and pos- sess peculiar advantages for the per- formance of this task; if they are un- able or neglectful, he would welcome missionaries of any country or denomi- nation. D. L. L.
AFRICA. -A young missionary of the Berlin Society had, after the country fashion, -" The Dutch Boers of South Africa slaughtered an ox and invited a great begin to show some faint signs of a thiong of Caffres to his wedding-feast. change of mind for the better toward " After it the Christians march home the colored population, but they are singing, heartily thanking us for the still very deeply involved in unchris- delightful feast, which we have made tian prejudices. It is known that they ready for them. I also rejoice. My belonged to the Reformed Church, into feast-ox also delivers his sermon; he 'whose exclusive rights of pastoral care diseourses of the untroubled joy of the our Lutheran Mission is very careful Christians. Heathen feasts mostly end in wailing and woe. The Christian en- nor yet the pastor, nor even the sum joys himself before, during, and after of acquired theological knowledge, use- the feast-that is, if it is really cele- ful as this is; it is the spiritual energy brated in the Lord. The heathen also and the personal consecration to God, openly declare so many men they had then the call of the Church, which never before seen eating together. And alone make the ministers of Jesus what astonished them most, all, they Christ."
said, had been so joyous and like mind- Professor Kruger, lamenting the ed. One heathen does not trust ao- death of Bishop Charles A. Smythies, other, not even him who has bidden says: "His episcopate was marked by him to the feast. Therefore when they an apostolic zeal whose ardor, pru- slaughter, the flesh Is divided and dence, and perseverance were never re- shared out, and everyone cooks and mitted." A Catholic missionary says eats at home. Th()re with us now all of him: "An angelic character I"
the flesh was cooked at once and con· -King Lewanika, of the Barotsis, sumed in brotherly fellowship. One with whom the heroic Coillard is labortrusts the other. Even the heathen ing, shows as yet no sign of spiritual forget with Mynheer their fear of the awakening, but has become at last atfood of strangers, and eat and trust tached to the missionary, and, in a cer- Mynheer and his Christians. Whoever tain sense, to ,his message. He never, has eyes to see, may see that God's if well, fails at a Sunday service, and Word is something that has a working has lately given forth a formal ordiof its own; whoever has ears to hear, nance, de par le roi, the terms of which, may hear what a cooked ox has to to our uninstructed ears, appear to depreach." nounce capital punishment against any _" In 1898 a Hamburg firm had the parents who shall neglect to send their audacity to export, in chains, hundreds children to the mission school. We of slaves from Dahomey to the Congo, presume the sense of the edict is nO.t under the name 1)f 'free laborers.' "- quite so sanguinary as the sound. At Allgemeine Mission8-Zeitschrijt. the recent dedication of the new church -which in Barotsi eyes is a miracle of -The Germans seem now ambitious architecture-the king made a little to equal the bygone wickedness of na- speech, in which he said: "Where are tions that led in commerce before them. the white Illen that before this have ever taken the pains to construct build· -Professor Kruger, in the Journal ings like this, not for their own exclude8 Missions, comments approvingly on sive use, but for us? Do you not see, the synodical action of the Universities' then, that there is something in the Mission, in determining that the native breasts of these men, the missionaries? converts should understand it to be What do they make by fatiguing themtheir duty to support the native c1ergy, selves so for us? Tell me! And you, and that to this end the latter should Barotsis, who despise their instructions be decisively discouraged from affect- and refuse to send your children to ing the more complicated and costly their scho~l, are you then so wise and European ways of living. Profes;or intelligent? Perish our customs and Kruger remarks: "There seem to be our superstitions! They hold us envery few who foresee the difficulties chained in darkness and conduct us to and future complications which we cre- ruin. I see it, I !" ate, and which are sure to paralyze the Let us pray that Lewanika, now a life of the native churches, when we friend of the missionaries, may soon be undertake to cut out the native pastors .a friend of their Master. on the pattern of the European clergy.
It is not the frock. that makes the monk, -The brethren of the Rhenish Mis-
EXTRACTS .AND TR.ANSLA'l'IONS
sionary Society in Namaland (South- seems to have gone by. Let us pray western Africa) have at last the great for theae brethren, who have been 80 comfort of reporting that the rebel long prophesying in the valley of dry chief, Hendrik Witbooi (we believe a bones, and at last see bone coming to half-breed) has definitely made his bone, and the reanimated frames be- peace with the German Government, ginning to stand up on their feet, the which has acknowledged the surrender first-fruits, we hope, of an exceeding in fiattering terms, expressing the con- great army.
fidence in view of his well-known stead- fastness of character, that as he has al- – " The use of alcoholic drinks among ways been an honorable foe, so he will the converts of the American Baptist henceforth be an honorable friend. and Missionary Union at its station of Ban· a helper for the good of the people. za-Manteke, has been made the subject It is reported that the government, of severe prohibitive measures, applywhich has already restored to him his ing alike to imported brandy and the ancestral seat, and confirmed him in the palm wine manufactured in the country chieftainship of his own tribe, has also itself. Total abstinence is found to assigned him a salary sufficient to se- offer the only efficacious barrier against cure him against the straitnesses which excess, and its compulsory observance first tempted him from being a church has materially increased the infiuence elder, to become a plunderer of the of the Church. The mission stations, neighboring tribes, He seems to be a 10 in number, extend chain-wise along man of remarkable intelligence and en· the Congo's course, from Matadi, situergy of character, and to have retained, ated at the mouth of tM river, to Bo- amid all his aberrations, deep traces of lengi, lying beyond Equatortown. The Christian instincts. Besides his dis- converts at the Lukunga station give tresses, he seems to have been led astray cheering evidence of their sincerity in' by the hope of securing a sovereignty the readiness with which they contribover the whole Nama people. Now ute toward the pecuniary expen~es of that he is restored to the ways of peace, the work. A seminary here supplies a we join with the Rhenish brethren in home to many a native Congo pastor in hoping and praying that he may be re- embryo, while printing, carpentering.
stored to the ways of God. and the cultivation of the sugar cane have been introduced.
-After the ycars of weariness and "With such facts before us one is discouragement, neglect and hardness somewhat struck by the renewed ad- of heart, which have weighed down mission of a Roman Catholic missionary the hearts of M. Coillard and his breth- on the French Congo, that the conver- ren of the French Zambesi Mission. the sion of adult and aged natives is a harvest seems to have burst out into practical impossibility. Children alone sudden fulness. Sixty conversions at repay the toiler. "-Church Mi88ionary , Sefula, 37 at Kazungula, a number lnteUigencer .
also at Tealuyi and at Shesheke, and everywhere the awakening advancing. INDIA.
Litia. the king's son, who was for awhile a zealous Christian, but then -" A Brahmin gentleman, Mr. V.
relapsed into heathen ways (never into Nayan Aiyar, has compiled a report on formal heathenism), shows great inter- the recent census of Travancore, the est in the work, and has taken the first value of which the Maharajah of Tra- step toward return by dismissing his vancore has recognized by presenting second wife. Many others will doubt- him with an honorarium of Rs. 2000.
the. less fall away, at least for a time, but The following remarkable testimony to the season of deadness and indifference the work of missionaries among de-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTBLLIGll)NCE
pressed classes is quoted from this reo English Noteso port: 'By the unceasing efforts and self-denying earnestness of the learned BY JAMES DOUGLAS.
body of the Christian missionaries in Ohurch Mi88ionary Society.-A prom. the country, the large community of inent feature this month is the general native Christians are rapidly advancing report of the Persia and Baghdad Mis- in their moral, intellectual, and mate- sion for the year 1894, together with rial condition. . :. Those who have extracts from the pri vate letters of directly come under their influence, Bishop Stuart, of Persia. The general such as n3tive Christians, have nearly account is strongly confirmatory of doubled the number of their literates what the Master has said concerning since 1875. But for them these humble the mode of the kingdom of God's ad- orders of Hindu society will forever re- vance. No startling note is sounded- main unraised. ·Their material condi- the Divine kingdom has not come tion, I dare say, will have improved " with observation"-but signs of prog- with the increased wages, improved ress are widespread wHhout. bulking labor market, better laws, and more large in the public eye. From the generous treatment from an enlightened biShOp's letters in particular many facts government like ours: but to the Chris- can be gleaned which, as seen in their tian missionaries belongs the credit of setting, have quite an idyllic character, having gone to their humble dwellings, and show the simplicity and fervor of and awakened them to a sense of a bet- Gospel principle in a pastoral light. ter earthly existence. This action of Man y of the inquirers are in reality dis- the missionar'ies was not a mere im- ciples who keep up Bible·reading and provement upon ancient history, a kind prayer among themselves; and to of polishing and refining of an existing whom, as the bishop observes, Christ's model, but an entirely original idea, teaching as to the world's hate of His concelved and carried out with com- people comes feelingly home. Those . mendable zeal, and oftentimes in the who at heart or avowedly are the teeth of opposition and persecutiou. I friends of Jesus and His missionaries, do not refer to the emancip[ltion of the are, for the most part, from the two slave, or the amelioration of the labor- heterodox sects, the Bilbis and Behais. er's condition, for those always existed No true-hearted Christian can read this more or Iffis in our past humane gov- report without gratitude to God for the ernments. But the heroism of raising gracious results which have accrued the low from the slough of degradation from the sowing of the Gospel seed in and debasement was an element of civ- these lands. The best part of service, ilization unknown to ancient India. statistically speaking, is in this case un- The Brahmin community 01 Southern derground; but undoubtedly the Lord India are not doing to the lowcr classes Jesus is calling ont a people for Himwhat the casteless Britisher is doing to self in Persia and Baghdad, and that them. The credit of this philanthropy manifestly to an extent which far exof going to the houses of the low, the ceeds the baptismal roll. distressed, and the dirty, and putting the shoulder to the wheel of depraved The Mission in Mombasa.–The Rev.
humanity, belongs to the Englishman. W. E. Taylor's annual letter concern- I do not think the Brahmins, or even ing"the progress of the work in the isl- the high-caste non-Brahmins can claim and of Mombasa, East Africa, speaks this credit. It is a glory resorved to of growth of aggressive effort and of this century of human progress, the the wane of the scoffing element by epoch of the bappy commingling of the which it was largely met. While there civilization of the West with that of the is more now of the private" tolerance"
East.' "-Ohurch Mi88ionary Gleaner. of the Word, but few as yet, through
ENGLISH NOTES
grace, have given it any real" accept· and while thousands of heathens have ance. " An interesting account is gi ven been won, the great attractive force has of the Lanue people, whom l-Ir. Taylor been the organized churches themselves.
visited, and who, while of a more po- To-day Christianity is the great out- lite and intellectual cast than are the standing force in the island, and no- people of Mombasa, are more deeply where is the fact more patent than in degraded in sins. Among them Mr. and around the capital, Antananarivo.
Taylor inaugurated market services, " Anyone standing," says Mr. W. E.
which have since been continued by Cousins, "on the higher parts of the the Germans conducting the German .city may count well-built village chap- mission there, but who, prior to Mr. els by the dozen. Indeed, almost every Taylor's visit, had conducted opera- village around Antananarivo has its tions on the "private reception" sys- Protestant place of worship." Then, tem at their own houses. These breth- schools of all kinds ha ve come to the ren expressed themselves as consider- front -medical, normal, colleges, etc.- ably cheered by the visit thus paid to and are important factors in the moral them, and especially at the new way of and spiritual elevation of the people.
"reaching the masses" in which they In view of the baleful shadow that now had received their first object·lesson. lies athwart this island, let all who can pray remember Madagascar.
London Missionary Society.-A spe· Presbyterian Ohu1'ch of England.- cial number oC The Ohronicle was is- The Swatow missionaries are rejoicing sued in April, devoted mainly to Mada- in a very considerable increase during gascar. A melancholy interest at- 1894 in the membership of the churches taches to this great island in view of under their care. The gain, as shown the French expedition which bodes in 120 adult baptisms, is the largest ingravest disaster alike to the indepen- crease of any year in the mission's hisdence of the Hovas and the future of tory. A further encouraging fact is Protestant missions. In the latter, the that of 25 lads in attendance at the London Missionary Society has a large grammar school of the mission, nearly stake. It is not too much to say that 20 are applicants for baptism. "the moral and spiritual progress of an intensely interesting people, the pros· Formosa.-The Formosan member- perity of hnndreds of native churches, ship stands at fully 1400, whose con- the religious education of many thou- tributions for all Christian objects sands of Malagasy children, the rever- amounted during the year to $2140. A ent observance of the Lord's day, the cheering growth of interest in the truth freedom enjoyed under the Hova Gov- is reported in the northern part of the ernment by Protestant as well as Catho- Formosan field. In the city of Chiang- lic missionaries, and a very extensive hoa a genuine spiritual work is going and varied Christian work, are all im· on under the guidance of an earnest perilled by this crisis in the island's young preacher, Lan Bo-khun. Here history." Hitherto Madagascar has Mr. Campbell recently examined no been one of the most fruitful fields of fewer than 28 catechumens, of whom foreign missionary labor, and one can- he was able to receive 14 into the mem- not contemplate, save with deepest sor- bership of the church. In this district row and indignation, the almost certain there are now 10 c~ngregations, with overthrow of a liberty-loving race and an aggregate membership of 345. A the disruption of existing Christian or- book that promises to be of great ser- ganization and work. vice has been prepared by Mr. Ede, Since 1862 the work of the London Presbyterian missionary teacher in Missionary Society has been essentially Formosa. It is a "three-character the care and guidance of converts j classic," or Christian commentary on
GENERAL :MISSIONARY INTEJ,LIGENCE
the tirst reading book generally put -Bishop Goodsell writes: "I am into the hands of young Chinese read· among those who expect to win this ers, combining the Chinese text with world for Christ. I have no sympathy sound and meaning of each character, with those who look merely to the herand also a translation of each· clause alding of Christ everywhere, and then into the Formosan vernacular, followed expect His second coming to set up His by a commentary which is especially kingdom by an act of power in the full in the historical parts. The work new heavens and the new earth. This is unique, and in addition to its service is not the parousia I look Jor. I bein schools it will be found a useful lieve that the winning of hearts to Him manual for any missionary beginning in a life of love and sacrifice, the penethe study of the Chinese character. tration of international and commercial relations by His Spirit, the assimilation Wesleyan Missionary Society.-An ac- of all natural forces to the sustentation count is to hand of the Mysore District and development of His kIngdom, will Synod, which was held early in Jan- bring His millennial reign. Even the uary and continued for nearly twelve dark forces of greed and war are undays. For the tirst time in the history consciously driving his chariot wheels." of this mission. Seringapatam, with a population of over 12.000, is to tind a -" The first thing the Protestant place in the list of stations. Judged missionary does among the heathen is by the inadequate test of numbers, the to establish a home," says Rev.. E. A. report for the year leaves, as is con- Lawrence in his" Modern Missions in fessed, much to be desired. There has the East." "He approaches them not been a net gain of 58, which brings up as a priest, not simply as a man, but as the membership of the district to 1477. These form the inner circle of the the head of a family, presenting Chrischurch, but what may be regarded as tianity quite as much in its social as in the wider circle of professed Christian i1 s individual characteristics. The adhesion numbers 4072. Christian home is to be the transform- ing element in the new community. Badulla, Oeylon.-An encouraging Into the midst of pagan masses. where report of work done in this circuit is society is coagulated rather than reorsupplied by the Rev. E. A. Prince. ganized, where homes are degraded by During 1894 there is about a 20 per parental tyranny, marital multiplicity cent increase in membership. The re- and female bondage, he brings the sults of past efforts are seen in what is leaven of a redeemed family which is believed to be the genuine conversion to be the nucleus of a redeemed society. of some of the native village Singhalese. Fruit has been found, too, in connec- -Dr. Griffith John has declined the tion with the English-speaking popula- invitation of the London Missionary tion. On the other hand, Buddhist op- Society to come home this year, alposition has never been so strong as it though it is the society's centenary; is at present. "Our work," says Mr. he has .thus also declined, for a second Prince, "is delayed at present, but we time, the honor of being made chairare certain, of ultimate triumph." man of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. He feels that his THE KINGDOM. duties in China have the tirst claim. This example of steadfastness will be a -" Let this mind be in you, which gospel in itself to the Chinese, and a was also in Christ Jesus." If all Cllris- stimulating force among missionaries. tians had in them the mind of Christ they would cease to think of missionary -Here, too, is a case of heroism. work as an abnormal service. Rev. J. E. Abbot.t, when written to by the American Board about the need of retrenchment by the closing of schools and the dismission of teachers and bring upon Japan any such tidal-wave preachers, replied: "I do not propose of nominal Christianity.
to trouble the treasurer to draw more -" Forget that he is an Indian and than I am allowed, or to complain or remember that he is a man." This is ask you or others for exceptional help. the theory on which Captain Pratt, I accept the situation cheerfully antI, Superintendent of the Carlisle Induswith trust in God, shall go on as if trial School, deals with the 750 Indian there was no such thing as a word of youths under his care. And the sugreduction. Every teacher and preach- gestion is just as pertinent if we insert er will go on with their work as bereto- instead African, Eskimo, Chinese, Mafore, until a louder voice than I now lay, etc. hear tells me that the Lord wants less effort put forth to bring men to the -On the face of the whole earth, knowledge of His power to save." when Christ and Paul were here, there was not one single humane institution -According to the Intelligence?', there devoted to the purposes of our modern has been growth in good sense and hospitals. Such institutions are dis- Christian charity within a generation or tinctively the outgrowth of the lesson two, and the late Rev. J. Y. N. Tal- of the good Samaritan. There is truth mage, missionary in Amoy, was in au- and beauty in these words of a patient vance of his time, for it says: "To in a Chicago hospital: • I never again him more than to any other it is due, expect to experience the feeling of conthat the Reformed [Dutch] Church, tent with which I fell asleep the first which at first and for years refused to night there, whispering to myself: yield to the representations and pleas of • This is my Father's house, and I can its missionaries, now stands prominent rest now.' "-Hm'ald and Presbyter. if not foremost among the advocates and asserters of that true, scriptural, -Though not always infallible in the divinely inspired, and divinely bleilsed realm of fact, probably Joseph Cook is policy of missions which seeks, by not far out of the way when he affirms union of effort and co-operation on the that nine tenths of the contributions to part of missions of like faith and order, missions come from one tenth of the at once to diminish the number of members of our churches.
competing denominations on mission -A rector inquires: "Can I have ground, sink out of sight the non-essen- our Lenten offerings go to any partials (often distinctions without a differ- ticular work I may designate 1" To ence) which separate them in Europe this we replied: The voluntary prinand America, and hasten the establish- ciple in missions is sacred, and any ment of churches native to the soil, one may designate where his contrigrowing to strength anti independence bution shall be applied; but if the trom their own root. principle of designation were thor- -Editor Dana is no doubt a wise oughly carried out there would be man after the fiesh, but according to no use of a society or board of misthe Gospel standard he goes far astray sions, and there could be no appropriawhen, in the New York Sun, he ad- tions.-Spirit of Missions.
vises the missionaries to convert the -When the first missionary society Mikado, and "that 50,000,000 of his was started in Tahiti, a rule was made people will follow him out of the pagan that a subscriber was one who gave camp into the Christian camp." We every year a bamboo full of cocoanut of course should pray and hope for the oil, or 3 balls of arrowroot, or a hog, or conversion of the Mikado as well as of 4 baskets of cotton. At Griquatown, any of his subjects; but it would be a South Africa. the first contributions more than doubtful blessing if it should were .30 pounds of elephants' teeth, 1 ox, 9 young bulls, 23 sheep, 4 heifers, woman in the country, where there and 5 goats. were few white people-and heroically -If proof were needed that THE served Christ as a minister, teacher, MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE 'WORLD magistrate. nurse, and undertaker.
is read and highly esteem.ed, the same -Every way worthy to stand with would be found abundantly in the fact that of Mrs. Mary R. SchaufHer. lately that it is so extensively quoted. For deceased, is the name of Miss Jane S.
example, the April Ohunh at Home Williamson, also recently called from and Abroad reproduces (with due ac- labor to reward, at the age of more knowledgment) not less than 12 items. than ninety-two years. Minnesota was the scene of her missionary service, WOlIAN'S WORK. which began in 1843. She was in ac- tive work teaching the Indians at Lac -This is the queer way t1J.ey do in qui Parle and Kaposia (now West St.
Egypt: "A woman outside who knew Paul) and Yellow Medicine for nineteen ihe doctor called him to come and see a years, until the massacre of 1862. At sick child. We went into a dark room Kaposia the mission house was more with no window,and only a tiny door; than once assaulted by drunken Indians as soon as I got accustomed to the dark- with clubs and knives. From Yellow ness, I asked where the child was. Medicine the missionaries fied for their 'In the oven,' was the reply. Hurned lives at lhe time of the massacre.
to the'large mud oven and stretched " Aunt Jane" with her brother and his out my hand to feel for her. To my wife wcre tbe last white people to flee, horror I found the oven was' hot, and going alone hours after the rest had the woman calmly told me that they fled.
had been baking in it that day, and that there was fire underneath I We . -Dr. Mary Pierson Eddy, of Sidon, exclaimed, but they said, as if it were in the Star in the Ea8t, gives this acthe most natural thing in the world for count of herself: "A year ago, after people to live in hot ovens, that there receiving the first license to practise were two children in there, and that medicine and surgery ever accorded that was where they lived, and would to a woman in the Turkish Empire, I not come out as it was so warm in- returned to Syria from Constantinople side !"-The Gleaner. to begin a new departure in missionary -And this statement from the same medical work. My aim being to reach source well sets forth a phase of life in the Orient. A missionary writes from the women of non-Christian sects the land of tbe Nile: "I often ask the mainly, I decided upon itinerating half women if they ever pray. Most of the year among the villages in the them laugh at the idea, and say, ' We mountains, the other half among the pray I We do not know how to pray; cities along the coast. 'fhe number of only the men pray. Do you pray?' our patients is limited only by my When I say, 'Yes,' they say, 'Truly, strength. Monday, Wednesday, and truly, how wonderful! Teach us to Friday I receive pay patients. Satur· days and Wednesday, anyone who prlLY.' " brings a sealed paper testifying to her poverty is treated free. My clinics -Through the efforts of the Rev. average 40 daily, about 200 new pa- Sheldon Jackson, the first of the 9 Pres- tients every week. The sad part of my byterian missions in Alaska was estab- work is that I cannot give more time to lished at Fort Wrangel in 1877. Mrs. each place I visit, for each has features A. R. McFarland, upon five days' no- of special need or peculiar interest.
tice, accepted this post, where she was The other saddening spectacle is the .
willing to remain alone-the only white many who have to be sent away. They sit for hours on ihe stairs awaiting their colored population of 265,000, 80,000 turn; some return three and four suc· are Roman Catholic.
cessive days before they can get in. -The United States supports in Others come from distant villages, and return without seeing me. Alaska 14 day schools, and there are 15 mission schools, while the Greek Church of Russia maintains 6 additional AMERICA. schools. The great drawback to the higher advancement of Alaska is the United States.-The. Chu1'ch Mis- hold which the liquor traffic is gaining. sionary Intelligencer, a most competent Efforts to suppress it have met with English authority, says: "America is little success, and liquors are imported, providing for us almost all the books landed, and sold without stint in every that treat of the principles, objects, and white settlement. In many cases this history of missions on anything like a evil counterbalances the results of mis- reasonable scale. Weare far behind sionary work.
our brethren in the United States in -A missionary at Point Barrow rethe systematic study of the subject. ceives mail !JUt once a year, and it Our American cousins give us hand- sometimes occurs that the ice pack prebooks of missions, not necessarily ele- vents the revenue cutter from getting mentary, but in the best sense educa- so far north, so that letters are nearly tional. Such are the works of Dr. two years old when they reach their Pierson, Dr. Gordon, and Dr. Dennis." destination.
-Of $50 lately contributed in Provi- -The Presbyterian native church at dence, R. I., for the relief of the suffer- Sitka is now ten years old, having been ers in Eastern Turkey, $20 were the organized in September, 1884, with 49 gift of Chinese who have been associ- members, and now numbers 483. Mr. ated with some of the Armenians in Austin reports having baptized 951 perthe same Sunday.school. Certain Uhris- sons. Services are held in a commoditian Chinese in San Francisco gave last ous and attractive edifice, built by the year for the support of the Gospel boys of mission training school, among themselves and elsewhere at the under the direction of the carpenter. rate of $8.62 each. And at the Santee Agency a number of Indians gave $5 -Of the 300 native residents of Fort and $10, and many gave smaller sums Wrangel over 80 are members of the to assist in paying the debt of the Presbyterian Church. Since Dr.
American Missionary Association. Thwing took charge of this station two -The annual report of the mission years ago, 46 new members have been work of the Roman Catholic Church added, just doubling the membership. among the negroes and Indians shows About 20 neat new cottages have been that the collections for this work dnr- erected, and a substantial plank walk ing 1894 amounted to $57,840. The constructed by the natives along the total number of Catholic negroes was water front for a half mile. Improve- 156,683; the number of pupils in ments in the way of paint and new roofs schools was 8610; the number of bap- have also been made on 9ther homes.
tisms during the year 4394, of which -Mr. Albert J. Nathan, a Christian 3760 were of children. The negro Jew, who some time since left this Catholic popUlation is strongest in country for Morocco, as the representa- Baltimore and in New Orleans. In tive of the Friends' Society, to preach Baltimore out of a colored population the Gospel to his own brethren in that of 218,000, 36,650 are Roman Catholic. land, has nt!lw reached his field. Says They have 5 churches ministered to by The Friends' Missionary Advocate.- 14 priests. In New Orleans out of a "Ilis large endowments, natural and spiritual, give promise of a future of churches with 4462 communicants and great usefulness. The momentum of 1221 pupils in schools, a theological spiritual power that moves through seminary and a mission press. The . him it! resistless." City of Mexico alone has 7 Presbyterian churches, all in charge of native -A Carleton College Asiatic Club preacheli. was recently formed at Marsovan, Tur- key. It is intended to keep the repre- -The Episcopal work in this repub- sentatives of the college who are en- lic, under the direction of the Cuerpo gaged in missionary and educational Ecclesiastico, 90nsists of 30 congrega- work in sympathy and communication tions, served by native 'workert! as fol- with one another. The membership lows: presbyters, 5; deacons, 2: stu- embraces not only alumni, of whom dents for holy orders, 3; readers, 11; there are 9 or 10 in Asia, but anyone teachers: male, 4: female, 6. The who has been connected with Carleton communicants number about 1350; the for one year or more, and has been for members about 2500, and adherents a year or more in the field. The total about 4000. There are 10 mission number will be 15 or 16, residing in schools, with about 375 pupils, nearly Turkey, Persia, China, and Japan. A equally divided between the sexes, and club letter will be kept in perpetual in addition the Mary Josephine Hooker circulation.-Advance. Memorial Orphanage and Church School, employing 1 American and 2 -Oberlin is pal' excellence the mis- native teachers, and lIas 38 boarding sionary institution.. Not including and 11 day scholars. those at work among the freedmen in the South since the rebellion, among Greenland.-It is a common impres- the Indians and in the foreign field sion that the Christians of Greenland nearly 250 of its students have done are mainly under Moravian care. But yeoman's service. About 50 children the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift gives of missionaries are usually to be found the whole popUlation (except on the in attendance in the various schools of thinly peopled east coast) as now Chris- the village, and it is common for a half- tianized. Of these 8175 are under the score of missionary families at a time care of the Lutheran Church of Den- to be making this their headquarters mark. There are 3 Danish and 4 native during their furlough. pastors, working at 12 stations. There is at Godthaab a semiuaryfor the train- Mezico.-A. Catholic gentleman who ing of native teachers and preachers; is quite intelligent said to one of our the latter, mostly half-breeds, complete missionaries: .. The Catholic Church their education in Copenhagen. The made a very poor showing in its three Moravians at their 6 stations have the hundred years' dealing with the Mexi- care of only 1591 Christian Greencans. You look for education and you landers. In Labrador there are 1329 do not find it, you look for intelligence Eskimo, all under their' care. and you do not find it, you look for industry and you do not find it, you look. EUROPE. for morality and you do not find it. This Church has had the sole chance to Great Britain.-During the twentymake the Mexican people, and they eight years that have elapsed since Dr~ have failed. If they lplve done noth- Barnardo began his work he has resing in three hundred years, what would cued, trained, and placed out in life they do in three thousand 1"- 0 hUTch some 27,000 children; he has educated at Home and Abroad. and partly fed and clothed in free day and night schools children not actually -There are now under the care of destitute to the numl>er of 63,000; he the Presbyterian Church in Mexico 93 has provided outfit, passage money, and one, if the following statement in the effectual supervision for 7200 emigrants New York Sun is correct: "Peter's to the colonies; he has established 4 pence in France used to be 3,000,000 free lodging·houses, and given home· francs a year. In 1893 the sum con- less women and children 200,000 free tributed was 1,800,000, and last year it quarters and 560,000 free rations; he was less than 1,000,000."
has established four industrial brigades, -From Constantinople comes the and aided to an independent livelihood good news that after waiting in vain 6200 of the boys who have passed through them. He has spent on build· for about tbree years and a half for ings £200,000, and in addition to this has freehold land and buildings in permission to publish a new edition of Canada to the value of £22,000. the Albanian Psalms, during which time repeated but fruitless efforts were made through Her Majesty's Embassy -A work quite similar to that done to obtain the necessary sanction, a fur- by Dr. Barnardo is carried on in Man· . ther petition was presented a few weeks chester, and dates from 1870. when a since, which has resulted in permission door was opened in a poor street near being granted by the Turkish Govern- a leading thoroughfare for the immedi· ment not only to publish the Psalms, ate and free reception of homeless and but the whole Bible in the Albanian destitute boys. Says the London language.-The Ohristian.
ahristian: "That single house, with its 30 hammocks, was soon filled, and ASIA..
has been the precursor of a work which Palestine.-Behold, how good and for thoroughness, completeness, and pleasant, etc. Says the Free 0 hurch manifest tokens of God's blessing, has Monthly: " The cradle of Christianity had few equals in the annals of Chris· promises to be the nursery of Christian tian and philanthropic enterprise." co-operation, so far as Scotland and Since that date a great institution has Presbyterianism are concerned. Dr. come into being with no less than 18 Carslaw of Schweir has charge of varied departments, to supply all sorts of needs for all sorts of people, and schools which are supported by an unamong them a prison-gate mission, where last year 10,724 discharged pris· denominational Scottish committee. oners received a free breakfast, and Dr. Vartan, of Nazareth, and Dr. Macwhile appeasing their hunger listened kinnon, of Damascus, representatives to the glad tidings. of the Edinburgh Medical Mission, are in closest alliance with our missionaries. -The Primitive Methodists have re- Dr. Webster, at Haifa, from the Cancently commissioned 5 missionaries for ada Presbyterian Church, is so identi· Africa, 2 of them men with wives, di- fied with our agents that the two misviding them between Fernando Po and sions present themselves to the commuthe trans-Zambesi Mission. nity as one. Dr. Torrance is called the" Charles Russell missionary," be- The Continent.-The distribution of cause his salary is provided by a memprinted sermons in Berlin has reached ber of the Australian Presbyterian 130,000 copies a week. Some of them Church, in memory of a beloved Bon. go to Russia, Egypt, America, and The Rev. John Soutar represents at many other countries. Ou the last Tiberlas the United Presbyterian Sunday in the church year 450,000 Church, by whom his salary is paid. copies were distributed. At its last meeting our committee ac- cepted an offer of service from the Rev.
-Peter's pence is falling off, and the J. E. H. Thomson, a probationer of the revenues of the Vatican are shrinking United Presbyterian Church. His wife in prop'brtion, The process is a rapid is to be the honorary agent of the Glasgow Ladies' Society. Their sphere is windows, two chairs, and about 20 girls, Safed, and they are to live at their own from six to twenty years old, sitting on charges, with the exception of travel· the floor. Each rose and said, first to ling expenses and house rent. The Mrs. Ewing, then to me, Salaam. share of the sister church in our Galilee They then all began in a perfect jabber Mission will thus be increased." to ask about me. 'Is she Miss or Mrs. ? '
-A lady missionary of the Church 'Has she children r' 'What Is she Missionary Society in Palestine writes to The Gleaner to correct the opinions here for?' When told that I came to of those who regard Palestine as an un- help they all said, ' Good, good.' They fruitful field. She states that the peo· were dressed in calico of the loudest pIe themselves bear witness to the im- colors, and wore only waists and drawprovement, telling how different it was ers. The streets are full of women in twenty-five or thirty years ago, when the same costume. Everyone had on no one could read or write, and hardly anklets, several bracelets on the left a Bible was to be feund anywhere; arm, big toe rings, 5 or 6 rings in the whereas now a large proportion of the nose, and in the left ear 10 or 12 rings men can read, and in the towns many all around the rim and so heavy that women also; and anyone, if he wants the ear lopped over. Mrs. Ewing said : it, can get a Bible for a small sum. 'You must come with me Friday. The people where she lives used to They have their bath, wash their hair, shoot at each other from their houses; put on clean clothes and wear all their now one feels as safe as in England. jewelry Fridays.' I thought if what they had on was not all I should like -Rev. Selah Merrill most emphati- to behold the Friday parade. They use cally denies that there has been any boards for slates, write with a pointed considerable increase of Jews in Pales- stick dipped in ink, and clean the tine during' recent years. Jerusalem boards with mud." has but 27,000 ina population of 47,- 000, and the whole land but 42,000. -It will be welcome news to many He affirms that the reports of a rapid that the Pashtu Bible-the gin of Enginflux of the seed of Abraham originate lish Christianity to Afghanistan-is apin the minds of good people in America, proaching completion. The New Tes- Great Britain, and Germany, who judge tament was issued in 1889. that from prophecy thus it ought to be. -The Rajah of Sirmur is eager to India.-In British India there are have a Christian mission established at something like 500,000 of blind people. Nahan. He has promised the same lib- How are they to get the Word of God ? erty to carryon work and to preach as Well, Mr. Knowles, a missionary, has is enjoyed in British territory. He has invented an alphabet for them, in which offered land and timber for building, 87 of,the languages spoken in this penin- and is willing to remit the duty on sula may be printed. It is proposed to limestone. He will give 400 rupees a found an institute at Bangalore, where year toward repairs, and 2000 rupees the blind will be taught to read.- toward the building of a church. He Re'lJU(! des Mi8sions Oontemporaines. is particularly anxious to have a lady physician stationed at Nahan, because -Mary C. Bandy, of Lodiana, in so many little children, and women Woman's Workfor Woman gives a racy also, have died, whose lives he believes account of her first visit to a school in might have been saved had there been that city, which is in part as follows: a qualified physician to attend them.- " After winding through narrow, badsmelling streets we went into a mud ahurd. at Home ana Aln·oaa. hut. Room 15 by 18, ceiling low, two -An interesting movement has been started by the students of Girton and Newnham colleges, England." It is proposed to form a missionary settle- opinion: "There are at present In ment in Bombay, in which women China about 55,000 communicants, from the universities may live together which shows a remarkable increase and unite in educational, medical, and since 1889. There can be no doubt as evangelistic work. to the marked increase of these five years. If the next five be as prosper- -The Baptist Telugu Mission, noted ous, our China communicants will, at for its sudden and wonderful growth, the close of 1900, number not tar short has found it imperative to provide for of 90,000. We are on the eve of great 'the training of the native Christians. changes, and great changes for the bet· While new converts continue to be ter also." made, the chief attention of the missionaries is now turned toward the es- -It is said that there are 120 Budtablishment of educational institutions. dhist temples in Canton. They are A college has been founded at Ongole, mostly dingy in appearance, the chose,n and now it is decided to establish a abodes of bats and of spiders, whose medical training institute and hospital webs are black with the smoke of the for wcmen at Nellore, and a technical ever·rlslDg incense. In the courtyards institute at Ongole. outside congregate fortun£-tellers. huck- sters, and beggars in sackcloth full of -So various is the nationality in sores. Even gambling.booths are not Singapore that the city has been called forbidden in the temple precincts. a bundle of samples. The Methodists have a school which contains Chinese, -A Chinese official of a certain dis· Japanese, Siamese, Malay, Tamil, Eu- trict in the city of Canton had been ex· rasian, English, these seven divisions amining and reading Christian litera' of the human family. ture, with the result that he was favor· ably impressed with the truth. Being China.-Says Rev. A. H. Smith: desirous of benefiting his people mate· "The entire freedom of the Chinese rially, he asked t~e missionary in charge classical works from anything which of the mission work in his district to could debase the mind of the readers is devise a scheme to aid the people to de· a most important chRracteristic which velop their agricultural resources. has often been pointed out, and which When the plan had been properly de· is in the greatest possible contrast to vised he invited a number of the gen· the literatures of India, Greece, and try, a Berlin Chinese profess:>r and the Rome. 'No people,' says Mr. Mea- missionary to a dinner, at which the dows, 'whether of ancient or modern whole scheme was discussed. After tio;1es, has possessed a sacred literature some deliberation three of his friends so completely exempt as the Chinese offered 1000 taels or $1400 apiece, while from licentious descriptions and from the mandarin himself pledged 3000 every olIensive expression. There is taels, or $4000. to the work. When not a single sentence in the whole of the the officer said something about the sacred books and their annotations that benefits of Christianity, they replied may not be read aloud in any family that they wished this scheme to have circle in England. Again, in every no connection with it. To this the offi· other non·Christian country, idolatry cer responded by saying: " You may has been associated with human sRcri' devise the best of schemes, but it will fices and with the deification of vice. fail unless you adopt Christianity."- accompanied by licentious rites and The independent. orgies. Not a sign of all this exists in China." -Charles Denby, Jr., secretary of the United States Legation at Pekin, -Dr. Griffith John, one of the great· says of that city: .. It is without water· est of living missionaries, expresses this works, gas, or electricity, and yet every· body likes to live there, this being espe- Dr. Dale, one of the leading Congrecially true of the Chinamen. Pekin gational ministers of England, whose has but an imperfect sewage system, death has recently been announced, reand the sanitary conditions are very lated, in one of his sermons, an incibad, yet there 'is little disease there. dent as to a Japanese gentleman of edu- Pekin is at the same time one of the cation, a man of force and thought, dirtiest and healthiest cities in the who sat in his house one night and world. In striking contrast to Tokio, talked with him of many things, chiefly Japan, where there are water-works, of the hopes and joys which had come gas, electricity, and modern improve- to them both through the faith of ments, with good sanitation, yet which Christ. Dr. Dale asked his visitor how has frequent cholera epidemics, and is he came to leave the religion of his famfar from being healthful. " ily and his country and become a Christian. He replied: "The Bible -Half a century ago, as one of the came into my hands through a friend, results of the opium war, a small tract a Japanese friend, and by chance I of land just north of the native city of read, first, the chapter in the Epistle to Shanghai was set apart for the resi- the Corinthians in which the excellendence of foreigners. It was not antici- cies of charity are set forth. I was pated that this tract would be occupied fascinated; there was a morality taught in any part by the natives, but 200,000 therein with which I was unacquaintof them have settled within it, and vol- ed. I turned back the leaves, seeking untarily submitted themselves to the other parts as novel and striking, and jurisdiction of the "foreign devils." read the Gospel of John, and then I Here some 5000 Europeans enjoy the was subdued. The words and the ch~r highest fruits of Western civilization acter of Jesus compelled II surrender of under a government founded on a writ- my heart, and won my faith. " – tell constitution. It would be difficult to find a city of the size anywhere in AFRICA. Europe or America possessing in so high a degree as Shanghai the manifold -Mr. E. H. Glenny, secretary of tte elements of civilization.-1vI. B. DUN- North Africa Mission, properly finds NELL, in Overland Monthly. occasion for thanksgiving in the fact that, whereas fourteen years ago not a -The Christian press is a tremendous missionary to the Moslems could be power in the Celestial Empire. Thus found between Alexandria and Gibralfrom the Methodist publishing house at tar, there are now 120, of whom some Foochow were issued 26,600,000 pages 70 belong to his society. This same orlast year; from a similar Presbyterian ganization has 7 medical missions and establishment in Shanghai, 82,000 hospitals in which about 30,000 were coyies of the Scriptures and 36,700,000 treated last year. pages of other books, tracts, etc.; and the Central China Religious Tract So- -Rev. Jean Paul Cook, writing to ciety issued about 1,000,000 copies of the London Christian from the French publications. mission house, II Mathen par EI' Kseur, Kabylia, says: "Eight years ago the Japan.-A Japanese foreign mission French Methodist Conference decided board has been organized, with the aim to start a mission in Kabylia, and sent of working first in Korea. The presi- out Mr. Thomas Hocart, a young and dent and one of the treasurers are of the zealous pastor. After staying two Church of Christ, the vice-president is of years with his wife at Bougie, to learn the Methodist Church, and the secre- the language and get" knowledge of tary and a treasurer are of the Kumi the country, he came to take up his ai chnrches. abode in this place. It was thought best to begin with the young, and sev- • eral Sunday and Thursday schools have new Training and Industrial Institu- been established. In this way are gath- tion which the Livingstonia 'MIssion ered together, in 5 different villages, intend starting in British Central Afri- about 120 boys and 30 girls, who are ca. The place chosen is in the neigh- taught to sing hymns and to repeat borhood of 'Mount Wallen, not far verses from the Scriptures. He has from the Deep Bay Station, Lake some knowledge of medicine, and in Nyassa, and it is possible that the Brit- one month treated 654 patients; in one ish South Afdca Company will assist day 107. the Livingstonia Mission by a grant of land. One of the chief objects of this -Rev. A. W. Marling, going out to Industrial Institution will be the train- the Gaboon Mission, has this to say of ing of natives in large numbers to dif- one feature of his journey: "What at- ferent trades, such as carpentry, black- tracted our attention more than any- smithing. printing, and bUilding. thing else among the passengers ~as a band of 24 French Roman Catholic Madagascar.-When in the Norwe- missionaries, of whom 7 fathers and 1 gian Mission recently all salaries had to brother landed at Dakar (Cape Verd), be lowered and work to be cut down, to join the mission in the French prov- the missionary was disheartened, and ince of Senegal; 4 fathers and 3 nuns said so before his helpers. But a na- disembarked at Cape Coast Castle, to tive pastor reminded him of the state of go thence to the Niger, far np which is things on his arrival twenty.seven years their mission. One father is to land at before-no helpers at all, the natives Libreville, to join the mission of the indifferent, hardships and difficulties at Holy Spirit and the Holy Heart of every step. Now the mission has 250 Mary; 3 fathers are to land at Loango, helpers and some 10,000 converts. near the southern limit of the Congo " Let us thank God," said the grateful Fran9ais on the coast, where they will native pastor, "for His mercies, and be appointed to their stations by the if our salaries have to be reduced, we Bishop of Loango; and finally, 3 fa- hope that the work will still go for- thers and 2 brothers are to land also at ward, for this work is laid upon us ; Loango, but to go thence overland to we have chosen it out of full hearts. Brazzaville on Stanley Pool. where they May the Word of God have full course, will receive appointments to their sev- and the Church of Madagascar soon be eral stations from the Bishop of Uban- able to support itself." gi." -The London Missionary Society's -" Rhodesia" is a new name in ChronicZe for April gives an account of geography. It describes a great Afri- the "Christian interests in the island of can territory which will bear witness to Madagascar," and states 'hat there are the work of Mr. Cecil Rhodes. The 2000 Protestant churches, with more capital of the country is Buluwayo, in than 300,000 adherents. More than which so lately Lobengula ruled. The 1300 of these churches are connected city has already undergone a transfor- with the London Missionary Society, mation. One hundred brick houses and have 280,000 adherents and 60,000 have taken the place of the Matabele church-memhers; 803 congregations huts, and nearly 2000 white people are are in the central province of Imerina, settled in the neighborhood. Dr. Jame- where Christian work was begun in Bon; who took so prominent a part in 1820. the war, gives a glowing account of the agricultural and mineral capacities of THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA.. the region.-Jilree Olturch Monthly. -" What a difference between now. -Dr. Laws has fixed on the locality and thirteen years ago " says the mis- suitable for the establishment of the sionary of the Rhenish Missionary Society from the Toba district in Sumatra. communion. They were all very at- Then everything was unsafe: no one tentive and reverent; and a solemn still- dared to go half an hour's distance ness fell upon all as they took in their from his village; war, robbocy, piracy, hands the symbols of their Saviour'S and slavery reigned everywhere. Now dying love. I don't think many of us there is a free, active Christian life will forget the scene-the little table in everywhere, and churches full of atten- the centre with the bread and wine, the tive hearers. We have 8 head stations missionaries at one side, and round the and 30 off stations, more than 30 evangel- other side of the square the dark faces ists, and many active elders and Sun- of our people and teachers, while, all day-school teachers. And the faith of round, seated on the earth or on fallen our young Christians is seen in their logs, were the rest of the people. It was deeds. They have renounced idolatrous quite interesting to think of the differ- customs; they visit the sick, and pray ent nationalities who sat down togeth- with them; they go to their enemies er-Australian, Scotch, Eromangan, and make conciliation with them. This Ngunese, Emai, Efatese, and Maleku- has often made a powerful impression Ian from Anlua, Pangkumu, Urupio, on the heathen, because they saw that and a man from one of the Banks the Christians could do what was im- group." possible to heathen-they could forgi ve injuries. Many heathen have been so -For half a century after white men overcome by this conduct of the Chris- had made acquaintance with the fierce tians that they came to us and said : and murderous disposition of the Sa- "The Lord Jesus has conquered 1"- moans, the island of Samoa was left to Herr Pilgram. itself. Traders shunned it. Yet within twenty.eight years of the landing of -In the New Hebrides" pigs are the the missionaries the islanders were im- great commercial commodity, and a porting goods from England, Austra- wife is valued by her husband accord- lia, ~nd America valued at £35,000 per ing to the number of pigs he gives in annum-not a bad market for so small exchange for her. One morning, while a community. busily engaged at his desk, :Ur. Armaud was called out to an adjoining room, -Speaking of Methodism in Fiji, the where his wife sat sewing, to see a man Recorder says: "Now you may pass who had urgent business with him, who from isle to isle, certain everywhere to was uneasy and impatient to make find the same cordial reception by known his errand. He was a man of kindly men and women. Every village great influence among his people. Tak- on the 80 inhabited isles has built for ing Mr. Armaud one side that his wife itself a tidy church, and a good house might not hear, he said in an undertone, for its teacher or native minister, for 'Missy, I thought I should like to have whom the village also provides food a white wife, and have come to see how and clothing. Can you realize that many pigs you take for Mrs. Armaud.' " there are 900 Met.hodist churches in Fiji, at everyone of which the frequent -In the Australian Weekly Rev. services are crowded by devout congre- T. W. Leggatt tells of the first com- gations; that the schools are well at- munion on Malekula, one of the New tended, and that the first sound that Hebrides: .. We found a shady spot on greets your ear at dawn and .the last at the beach in quite a natural temple, night is that of hymn-singing and most overshadowed by three' birinber ' trees. fervent worship, rising from each I spoke from the words, 'I am the dwelling at the hour of prayer?" bread of life,' and dispensed the ele- . ments. Mr. Gillan gave the address -A Micronesian convert employed . before, and Mr. Paton that after the on the missionary ship Robert w: Logan has left $700 to the American Board.
The Missionary Review of the World — May 1893
MISSIONARY MEMORABILIA
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVI. No.5.-0ld &riu.—MAY.—VOL. VI. No. 5.-NeIII &rie8.
MISSIONARY MEMORABILIA.
BY A. J. GORDON, D.D.
As we take a text from which to preach a sermon, so we take a few good thoughts from master missionaries in order to draw out the lessons which they suggest. No one is so wise that he does not speak more wisely than he knows. And in these texts, gathered from several devoted workers for Christ, we shall no doubt find more than their authors ever intended j but we may find helpful suggestion and wholesome instruction, and on this we are especially intent.
Mr. S,wan, a pastor in Birmingham, who knew William Carey intimately, said of him, in an address after his decease: "If he had any defect in his character, I should say that it was that he was too easy. He once said to me, 'Brother Swan, I am not fitted for discipline ; I never could say no. I began to preach at Moulton because I could not say no; I went to Leicester because I could not say no; I became a missionary because I could not say no.' "
Would that a multitude of disciples might be found with this infirmity of being unable to say" no" to the great commission! The power of weakness is often more serviceable in the kingdom of God than the power of strength, a~d man's cannot more useful to the Lord than his can. Of God this great thing is written, that He " cannot lie." What a security for our faith is found in this omnipotent inability. Carlyle, tracing the etymology of the word " king" through the German " konig" back to its root, concludes that the king is simply" the man who can"-the one who, being the strongest of his tribe or nation, has seized the reins of power ap.d constitnted might the synonym of right. But He to whom belongs the title of " King of kings" once said to a servant of His: "My strength is made' perfect in weakness." His worthiness to be crowned King of saints lay quite as much in Hil:! divine inability as in His divine ability. He could not say" no" to His Father's will. "' I have power to lay down My life, and I have power to take it again," He said, thus claiming for Himself what no human being ever assumed before. But He immediately adds, "This commandment have I received of my Father." Because of this commandment He was under Divine necessity, and said: "The Son of man mud be lifted up." He could not withhold Himself from the cross. And the more His life prevails in us, the more His will asserts itself in us, the more unable shall we be to decline any service which He enjoins upon us.
Therefore, we believe that in this time, when the Lord is so powerfully reaffirming His great commission through the Holy Ghost, and when He is calling so loudly for men and money to· execute that commIssion, the greatest demand is for Christians who cannot say" no." Not a grudging " can," but an irrepressible " cannot" is most urgently required. It is the Holy Spirit's office to create a divine impulse, an irrepressible spontaneity in the hearts of Christians. With singular aptness the inward operation of the Holy Ghost is compared to the working of wine. When the outburst of Pentecostal fervor was witnessed by the spectators, they exclaimed in mockery, "These men are full of new wine." St. Paul, in the Ephesians, uses a figure of speech embodying the same idea: "Be not drunken with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit." " God·intoxicated men" are what is wanted j the Spirit impelling Christians with the same spontaneity as the intoxicant iinpels the drunkard who is filled with wine. That wine is very stale and flat which cannot throw out the cork when the restraining wires are cut. And the effervescence of the Spirit is not powerful enough which only impels Christians to dutydoing and divine drudgery, when God calls for irresistible being and doing and giving.
" The prospect is as bright as the promises of God, " was the answer of Dr: Judson to one who, in his impatience for results, had asked him what were the prospects on his field. Admirable reply! To build on the promises of God is the mark of the highest missionary wisdom. A calculating age, reckoning evermore on numbers and size and visibility, puts a great tax on those who work by faith. " Show us your success and we will give you our money" is the constant challenge of worldly prudence. Nowhere have we seen missionaries more deeply wounded than at this point. " Exhibit the results of your labor, count up your spiritual assets, give us a catalogue of your converts," is the demand of a prudential Christi· anity. If these are not forthcoming, then the laborer is discredited, however faithful he may have been on his field.
The promises of God are certain, but they do not mature in ninety days. " Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," saith the Scripture. As the hank-bill stands for the coin wl:ich constitutes its specie basis, so the promises of God stand for the sure and certain performances of God j and we want men on our missionary boards, at home and on the fields abroad, who shall consider God's promises" as good as gold," and accept them as collateral for any loon of men and money, however large, which the cause may demand. The counterpart of an unripe scepticism, which denies before it has even doubted, is a precoeious faith which demands the settlement in full of God's promises before the first instalment of the taxes on the same has been paid in patience and prayer and self-denial. A laborious and highly qualified missionary was recently justifying his conduct to the writer in having withdrawn from his board and gone back to his field in sole dependence on the Lord for support. "God can wait j boards cannot," he said in substanee. " Because my field has proved unproductive after many years of hard labor, they have abandoned one of its most important stations. I am not on the field for fruit alone, greatly as I long to see it, but in obedience to my Master's commission j therefore I cannot withdraw." Is there not substance for serious reflection in this remark ~ Is it not the barren field that needs a missionary quite as much as the fruitful field ~ It should be ever borne in mind, moreover, that the final award reads, "Well done, gool andfaithful servant," not " good and luccessful servant." An ambitious zeal has given out the watchword, " All the world for Christ," and many would insist on indications and guarantees that all the world is coming as a ground for unstinted outlay. No doubt God in His own time will give the h~athen to His Son for an inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession j but meanwhile our business is to carry Christ to all the world, to carry Him into the barren fields as well as into the fertile fields. How slowly the seed of life germinates and brings forth! The kingdom of God is not a mushroom, springing up in a night j we may rejoice if it is even a century plant, blooming at the end of a hundred years. But the promises of God cannot fail j all that He has spoken concerning the triumphs of the Gospel must come to pass j and it is for us to labor on in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ.
It is only in this thought-faithfulness, not fruitfulness, the criterion of reward-that we seem to get any light on the sorrowful mystery of premature missionary graves. The young and gifted and consecrated servant, who has sacrificed everything to obey the great commission, falling almost as soon as he has reached his field! How can we justify the ways of God in permitting it? Does the Lord really choose His workmen, assign them to the work that is dearest to His heart, and then have no care that they fall ere the work is hardly begun? What if we answer that the obscurest missionary tomb is just as precious in the sight of God as the most illustrious missionary triumph ~ There it stands, before the eye of the Master, as a certificate of obedience to His great commission-a testimony of faithfulness unto death for Christ's sake. " Thou shalt rest and stand in thy lot at the end of the days." It is everything that the fallen missionary shall be able to stand up in the heathen country where he laid down his life, and at the sound of the resurrection trumpet to say to his Lord: "Here I am, just where Thou didst send me, ready for any further service or reward which may be assigned me." . " If God were to grant me the POW,?' to work miracles, I would only ask that 1 might exhibit the miracle of a holy life." Such was the reply of Auskar, missionary to the Scandinavians in the ninth century, wh8n asked by the heathen whether he could work miracles.
How can we overestimate the value of this miracle for impressing those whom we would win to the Gospel? To jive Christ is the most eloquent way of preaching Christ. And yet we need to explain what is meant by living Christ. The copying of the mild and amiable virtues of Jesus is not enough to fiU out this divine ideal. To a Unitarian, who was com- placently affirming his confidence of being saved by imitating the life of Christ, one sternly replied, "Will you be crucified, and rise from the dead, and ascend into heaven 1 Only thus can you copy the example of Christ." There is more of truth in this answer than one might think at first. According to the constant teaching of Paul, it is the post-crucifixion and post-resurrection life of Jesus which we are caUed to exhibit. The great apostle strongly declares that he knows Christ no longer " after the flesh." It was not the Galilean man, but the heavenly man, concerning whom he said: "For me to live is Christ;" and in order to be united to this man, we must have passed with him in a spiritual and mystical sense through his death and resurrection. It was a very beautiful comment which we recently heard from a missionary secretary. A young man, going into the heart of China to carry the Gospel, had adopted the native costume in order to come nearer to the people. His photograph, repre- senting him in his changed habit, had been sent home to his sister, who on seeing it fainted from the shock, exclaiming, " What a gulf has been made between me and my beloved brother!" The young missionary's friend replied, "Yes, and what a gulf was placed between God and His beloved Son when that Son put on our dress by assuming the lowly garb of flesh and blood." And as we heard the remark, we thought, "True; and as Christ crossed this gulf to come to us in His incarnation, we must cross the gulf of His death and burial to come to Him in His glory. " His humiliation is the measure of our privilege. He assumed our nature, and now we are permitted to assume His. "For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ httve put on Ghrist." As Luther exultiDgly puts it, , , We, who were clothed in the leather coat of Adam, are now apparelled with Christ." It may be an open question whether the missionary should . put on the Chinese costume, but there can be no question whether he should put on the vesture of Christ. And the Christ whom we are to wear is " He who liveth and was dead, and, behold, is alive forevermore." The miracle of a holy life is the re-living of the Saviour's risen life and the daily dying of His crucified life-the life-life and the death-life exhibite( in one and the same example. Surely it was not for himself alone that Paul prayed, "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings being made conformable unto His death." It is by way of the broken heart of Christ that we come nearest to the broken heart of man. Therefore our sermon must evermore exhibit these two heads: Christ's death for the world and our death to the world.
We do not presume to recommend at this point what we ourselves have failed to fulfil j but the study of the question from missionary history is at least interesting and instructive.
" He made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a slave," is the apostle's story of the Saviour's condescension. An artisan missionary, Leonard Dober, the Moravian, said :. "I determined if only one brother would go with me to the West Indies, I would give myself up to be a slave, and would say to the slaves as much of the Saviour as I knew myself." It does not appear that he ever carried out the resolution so literally as to become a bondman, but he did so enter into fellowship with the slave as to be one with him in his servitude and trial. He and his fellow-laborer, David Nitschmann, shared with the bondman his hut and his crust, and when the governor of the island, moved with admiration at his self-denial, invited him to make his home in his mansion, he accepted, only speedily to abandon his comfortable quarters and well-spread board and to return to the cabin and the crust, saying, "If I am to win these people, I must live as they live." Noble instance of condescending to men of low estate! Until we are ready to live in a hut and to feed upon crumbs at home we shall not have the impertinence to recommend such a course to missionaries abroad j but we may cite such instances as the above, and, marking the vast results which follow the labors of this lowly missionary, learn how powerful becomes the influence of those who literally copy the condescension of Jesus Christ. "That the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." This is the only sphere in which that life can be now revealed to human eyes, "our mortal flesh." The medium is a dull and uncouth one, and the divine has ever to struggle painfully to make itself understood through it. Yet this should be the constant effort of those who preach-to manifest the Saviour's glory through the servant's form.
That eccentric but devoted missionary, Samuel Hebich, used to labor very hard to make his dull Hindu hearers understand the mystery of Christ's divine humanity. His biographer says that he hit upon this device for accomplishing this end : He would hold up a copper coin behind which was concealed a silver rupee of the same size. When he had made his hearers state the value of what he held in his hand, then he would slip out the more precious coin to show them how much greater was that value than they had supposed. The silver was Christ's divine nature hidden behind His human, to give it infinite worth. Such an object-lesson must the preacher, whether at home or abroad, be ever exhibiting. The silver of Christ's divinity must ever and anon be revealed behind the baser metal of our humanity-silver indeed, but stamped with the image and superscription of human woe and want and pain, that so it may pass current among men. The life of Christ lived out patiently, literally and humbly-
A PRIESTHOOD A:ND SACRIFICES AMONG THE fiLL TRffiEI!! OF BURMA
Of the "signs and wonders and divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost," which are to accompany the preaching of the Word, none is greater than this.
A PRIESTHOOD AND SACRIFICES AMONG THE HILL TRIBES OF BURMA.
BY REV. ALONZO BUNKER, D.D., TOUNGOO, BURKA.
There are several tribes in Burma, and report says in other provinces as well, which have a priesthood and sacrifices more or less developed. This priesthood is always hereditary, so far as known to the writer. It is found especially among the Red Karens, a numerous tribe on the Salwen River, and which is independent.
This tribe is one of the oldest of the Hill peoples, and has traces of the worship of Jehovah.
Within the yard of the priest's temple, which is a nouse made some- what better than the houses of the common people, is erected a pillar of wood sacred to the great" Nat," or Spirit who is over all things. Unlike other spirits, he is regarded as beneficent and kind; but men having become sinners, he has turned away from them and left them a prey to demons, whom they are always trying to propitiate. This pillar is four square, and about fifteen feet in height.· It is covered with hieroglyphics, which are also found on an ancient plate and a few coins peculiar to this people; the plate having, according to their traditions, been given them from heaven. These characters also are found on rude carvings, with which they adorn the graves of their chiefs. This plate is also covered with a writing in a strange language, which has not yet been deciphered.
Once a year a festival is held about this pillar, over which their priest presides. Young girls are selected, to whom new bamboo buckets, never before used, are given. These girls take these bamboos to a spring of clear water, and, having filled them, return with them, singing and dancing along the way, and pour out the water at the foot of the pillar. Offerings of goats, pigs, and cattle are often seen exposed on rude altars, of which there are several before every village, but especially so before the priest's temple. This people have also, as have most of these Hill tribes, a custom of divining with a chicken, which partakes of the nature of a blood offering.
Perhaps, however, the best illustration of the office of the priesthood among these JIill men is found among the Mopgha tribe, in Toungoo. This tn'be was among the first to embrace the Gospel, and is now wholly Chris_ tianized. These people have, from the first, been the most substantial helps of the missionaries. They give them a large number of their preachers and teachers for the tribes beyond. I give the following account of a sacred festival, substantially as received from one of the most intelligent native pastors from this clan: The Mopgha nation is divided into two parts, under two priests. Each division had a hereditary priesthood before the Gospel reached them. The full number of priests was four, of whom the eldest was high priest.
If anyone of the priesthood Rhould die, his place was filled as follows : The elders of the people assembled to determine to whom the office left vacant belonged by right of inheritance. Those who had married into other tribes were considered as well as those who had not. When it was decided who was entitled to the vacant office, the elders prepared earrings, a head-band of silver to go over the forehead, a Karen tunic, and a sword as richly made as they could command. Then a committee of the elders was chosen, who took the articles to the neighborhood of the house where the candidate for the priesthood lived. One then goes forward to see if he is at home. If so, they surround his house, and one takes the articles prepared and casts them down before him, and he is, whether he will or not, henceforth the priest of the people. If he is unwilling to become priflst he may, if forewarned, escape; but when once the prepared articles of his priesthood fall before him there is no escape.
If he is not at home the committee prepare to give him a surprise. Sometimes one of their number hides himself in the roof of the candidate's house, and when he returns, the prepared regalia of his office fall suddenly from the roof at his feet, and he is caught.
Once in three years a great feast is held by this people. The elders appoint the time for this feast, and send messengers to all the surrounding tribes, to notify them of the fact. If, after this notification is sent and the roads are closed. anyone ventures to enter the conntry ruled by a priest, it is counted lawful to put him to death or inflict any other penalty the elders may decide upon.
A place is now selected for holding the meeting at some distance from any village in the jungle. It must have a large tree standing in the middle of it. A small bamboo house is erected near the foot of the tree. The villagers also build booths from the branches of trees about the clearing, which they occupy. No women are allowed within the clearing, but they may stand on the hills about and watch the proceedings if they like to do so.
The young men go to the forest and select a bamboo, one for each village. It must be the tallest and most beautiful one that can be found. Great care is bestowed on its selection. When found, it is carefully cut and borne on the shoulders of fifteen or twenty men, so as not to ~eceive the slightest bruise, to the clearing already mentioned, and placed near the great tree. These are then erected about the tree with shouting and dancing.
Meanwhile a great basket is woven by some one of the elders. The weaving of the basket is a hereditary office. This is placed at the foot of the tree. A mat of the finest pattern is also woven. The office of the weaver is also hereditary. This mat is placed in the small house before mentioned.
While these preparations are being made, the elders have been in con- sultation about the victim for a sacrifice. It must be a black pig, without spot or blemish, perfect in every part, and a male. When they have de- cided on the offering, nothing is said to the owner; but a party chosen for the purpose seize the animal and bear it to the place of offering. There he is bound and placed on an altar before the small house above mentioned. It is now supposed that all the elders and males of the tribe have assembled. The priests have arrived, but not of their free will ap- parently. They are brought on the backs of young men from their places of pretended concealment. There has also been some !!trife among the young men to see who should carry them to the feast. The four priests have now been brought and placed on the mat in the bamboo house, before which is the altar with the bound victim. Proclamation is then made to the assembled multitude, that if there are any of the elders of the people, who are conscious of having lived without sin since the last feast, they are to come forward and stand by the priests and help judge the people. After these have t~ken their places, if there be any such, the judgment of the people begins. The high-priest takes a sharp knife and places himself before the bound victim and harangues the multitude. He threatens the sinners with dire punishments, illustrating them on the poor animal before him by cutting off an ear or the tail, or other punishment. Afterward the animal is slaughtered and his blood poured out on the altar, and this illustrates what will happen to the most incorrigible sinners among them if they do not repent. Then there follows a confirmation of what the priest has said, in the shouting and dancing of the multitude. The people have come provided with fowls and other eatables. Families-that is, the males-now retire to their booths to kill the fowls. When they have been killed the head of the family cuts off a bit from the beak, toes, and tips of the wings, and takes these rolled in leaves to the high-priest, who puts them in the large basket before him. When all the offerings have thus been brought in and gathered in the basket, the high-priest offers a prayer. Then the people, having prepared themselves with new bamboo water buckets, go to the brook and dip up clear water. One of the priests also goes along, borne on the shoulders of the young men, to dip up the water for the people. He stands in the water and dips for each man, who returns to the feast ground. When all have thus returned, the pig is cut into small pieces and each one receives a portion and returns to his booth, and directly the assembly is dismissed, the priests being carried to their homes as they were brought.
The people now prepare the flesh with a little rice and herbs at their homes, the women joining, and all eat of the flesh and must say it is good, 'no matter how unpleasant it may taste. Meanwhile the priestli go into
BRAHMANISM PAST AND PlmSENT
hiding, and after the feast the young men search for them. When found, they are seized struggling, and apparently resisting with all their might, and are carried back to the feast ground, before mentioned, and placed in the little bamboo house as before. Meanwhile all the people have assembled again, each one bringing a small stone, which are piled together be. fore the altar. The high-priest then arises and harangues the people again. This time he calls out individuals and rehearses their sins before the multitude, and unmercifully scores all sinners, from the greatest to the least. He says, " You have forced me to come here ; I came not of my ftee will, and now you must hear the truth." Addressing each sinner by name, he pronounces dire judgments upon him if he does not reform, and he calls upon the stone, added to the pile before him by the one addressed, as a witness against him, to follow and punish him the whole year if he does not repent. Slanderers, the lazy and thriftless, undutiful children, as well as larger sinners, come in for his denunciation. The basket containing the offerings is then hung to the limb of the tree, the stones are also left, and the people quietly disperse to their homes.
Similar ceremonies are observed by some other tribes, though not by any means so elaborately, so far as they have been studied; but a large field yet remains to be explored among these interesting Hill men of Southern Asia.
BRAHMANISM PAST AND PRESENT.-II.
BY PROFESSOR T. M. LINDSAY, D.D., GLASGOW, SOOTLAND.
In a former paper I described briefly Brahmanism as that appears in the ancient religious books of India. I showed that it was a practically consistent scheme of social life, ritualist observance, esoteric doctrine, and popular theology. It included a fourfold distinction among men based on creative selection : worship, which centred in the sacrifice of oblations in fire, culminating in the last giving of one's body to be burned after death; a pantheist doctrine of the universe, which, after many struggles to explain the origin of all things on a monist basis, had to content itself with a confused dualism, and a theology which taught the people that every god was an emanation from the one Supreme EDstenee. This paper, perhaps, ought to relate how, according to later religious literature-the Puranas and Tantras-Hinduism resulted from throwing into the melting pot the old simple beliefs of the Veds, Brahmanism as described, the mild doctrines of Buddha, and the savage rites of the non- Aryan races, until the whole could be made· into one amalgam under the superintendence of the Brahmans, the hereditary religious guides of the Hindu race. My readers will, perhaps, pardon a brief recital of personal experience in justification of abandoning this common form of exposition. _ A few years ago I was commissioned to visit and report upon the mise sions of the Free Church of Scotland in India. My duties kept me twelve months in the country, and frequently led me to spend days in villages away from roads or railways. I had previously read what ancient religious books of India could be found in translations,.and such expositors of Indian religions as Professor H. H. Wilson, Dr. Max Muller, Professor Monier Williams (perhaps the safest guide), Sir W. W. Hunter, and others. I went to India with the results of this reading in my memory, ready to apply the instruction received, expecting to see what I had heard or read. What was apparent, on the contrary, was a wonderful religious confusion of worships in ~lJhat was called Hinduism, a heterogeneous, almost fortuitous conglomeration of religions, and the universal prevalence of worships, continually fed by new shoots from a living, germinating polytheism, quite distinct from that of the deities of the Hindu pantheon. Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Cresarea, to say nothing of the Prophet Isaiah, seemed to me to give the descriptions of eye-witnesses as compared with most of the above-mentioned authorities. The result was bewilderment, and the mental conclusion was that one Brahman doctrine appeared to be true-the doctrine of Maya or Illusion, and that I had fallen a victim to it. Soon, however, I got hold of men who were seriously striving to see the natives of India as they are, and not as the Brahmans describe them, members of the Archreological Survey of India, contributors to the Indian Antiquary and publications of a like kind in Calcutta and Madras; above all, minute descriptions of the habits of the people of the various provinces, such as may be found in the volumes of the Bombay Gazetteer, or generalizations from long personal observations, such as those of Sir A. Lyall in his" Oriental Studies," and the invaluable MS. folios of Mr. Buchanan- Hamilton in the India Office. They all told a different tale from my previous authorities. Let me, therefore, in this paper give the results of personal observations rather than of reading.
If W!l take the census of 1881 as a basiB, the non-Christian population of India may be roughly divided into Hindus, aboriginal tribes, Moham. medans, and certain miscellaneous sects, including Jains, Buddhists, Parsees, Sikhs, etc. The miscellaneous group includes about six millions of people, the Mohammedans about fifty millions, while the Hindus and aboriginal tribes amount to about two hundred and six millions. Of these two hundred and six mIllions probably over twenty millions have no relation to Hinduism at all, and belong to the Santals, Gonds, Khasis, and to the Hill tribes of portions of Bengal. Among the remaining one hundred and eighty-six millions, who may be called Hindus, there are multitudes variously classed under the name of out-caste or depressed castes. These may be estimated at from forty to sixty milIi~)Ds, leaving about one hundred and thirty millions of caste Hindus. Caste Hinduism rests on a basis of depressed castes entirely outside of the Brahmanic division, and these are again surrounded by a fringe of aboriginal tribes. This has an important bearing npon Christian mission work. Those missions which have hitherto
BltAHMANISM PAST AND PRESENT
secured large numbers of converts have mainly concentrated their efforts on the depressed castes or on the aboriginal tribes. Caste Hinduism has hitherto yielded few converts, but those few have usually been men of large influence. Out-caste and aboriginal Hinduism has yielded a large number of converts, but these have not furnished many men able to make much impression upon the public life of India. This fact is apt to be con- tinually forgotten when results are tabulated, and still more when they are commented upon in American and European journals. The depressed castes and the aboriginal tribes have their rules about food and intermar- riage as well as the caste Hindus, but in both, though not with the same strength, the feeling of family seems to be stronger than the feeling of caste. It is regarded as an inevitable fact that when a caste Hindu becomes a Christian, he has to give up everything for Christ-father, mother, wife, children, goods-and what is more, that no further impres- sion has been made than the detachment of this single individual, and that no breach has been made in the smooth hard wall of Hinduism.
The individual is simply thrown out, and has no influence on the circle among whom he lived. On the other hand, among the Santals and other aboriginal tribes, each conversion is a breach made in the heathenism of the tribe, and the one convert is sure to bring many others, perhaps his whole village, to Christianity. Among the depressed castes, the Mangs and Mahars, of the Deccan, if one convert be gained for Christ, the prob- ability is that in course of time other members of his family will also become Christians. The Hindu counts family life as important as the depressed castes or the aboriginal tribes do, but with the caste Hindu the tribe which surrounds and encloses the family has crystallized into the caste. The tribal life which is seen among the Santals and the Bhils presents the features of rude, undeveloped, and uncivilized society every_ where. It existed among the tribes crushed into uniformity under the Roman Empire, and among our British and German ancestors. Caste seems to me to be the crystallization of a rude and primitive state of living together. Hinduism, in the strict sense of the term, is a cellular system of society, where the walls consist of an elaborate method of boycotting in food and marriage, fashioned and maintained by an elaborate ritual.
" Caste gives its directions for recognition, acceptance, consecration, and sacramental dedication of a human being on his appearance in the world.
It has for infancy, childhood, and manhood its ordained methods of suck- ing, sipping, eating, drinking, etc.; of washing, rinsing, anointing, and smearing; of clothing, dressing, and ornamenting; of sitting, rising, and reclining; of moving, visiting, and travelling; of speaking, reading, listening, and reciting; and of meditating, singing, playing, working, and fighting. It has its laws for social and religious right!!, privileges.
and occupations. It unfolds the ways of committing what it calls sin, accumulating sin, and of putting away sin. It inter- feres, in short. with all the relations anq. {'I'cnts of life, and with what precedes and what follows. It reigns supreme in the innumerable classes and divisions of the Hindus, whether they originate in family descent, in religious opinions, in civil or sacred occupations, in local residence." And the elaborate rites differ in the different castes. It furnishes the wedges which have riven asunder and are keeping separate the general mass 'of the Indian people. Society is united out of tribes by intercourse, intermarriage, and the sharing of foqd; caste is the stereotype mould which h88 preserved the ancient prejudices which savage tribes have against each other, and which have been worn away in almost all countries of equal and inferior civilization. It is the disorganization, not the organization of the Hindu people ; the contradiction of the claims of a national congress ; the permanent prevention of an Indian public opinion.
Nor is there any organization of society under the Brahmanic ideal of a fourfold classification of men. The census returns, indeed, reveal that men 'claim to rank as Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras ; but look beneath the surface, and you find over a hundred Brahmin castes, separate from each other as rigidly and by the same principles of boycotting as they use to keep themselves separate from the lower castes. Brahmans are not the universally recognized priests and teachers; some castes within the pale of orthodox Hinduism have aiways insisted on having priests of their own caste. And the Brahmans themselves follow every employment, "from the calm pundits of Behar, in their stainless white robes, and the haughty priests of Benares, to the potato-growing Brahmans of Orissa, half-naked peasants, struggling along under their basket of yams, with a filthy little Brahmanical thread over their shoulder." Nor is there any uniform order in the other castes according to the ancient Brahmanical rule. The Rajputs of Rajputana are Kshatriyas; men of the same descent in Gujerat are low-castes. The Gond princes of the Central Provinces are Kshatriyas, and their kinsmen are outside caste limits altogether. Instances might be multiplied almost indefinitely to show how little the facts correspond to Brahmanic theories. The disintegrating influence of the idea of caste may be seen in one of the ways in which new castes come into being; its true character as the stereotype mould of a barbarous and primitive stage of society in another. Caste is fissiparous,. it can fall into fractions, each of which retains its power of life separate from the once whole organism. If a few families belonging to one caste migrate to a distance and lose touch with those who remain at home, they tend to become a separate caste, which in time boycotts and is boycotted by the parent organism ; and almost all Hindu reformers who have courage to separate themselves from Hinduism end in becoming founders of new castes. Again, the Brahmanic prohibition against admitting low castes to share in the Hindu religious life is continually disobeyed by Brahmans themselves. "The system of castes," said the late Sir George Campbell, in 1871-72, in reporting upon his government in Bengal, " gives room for the introduction of any number of outsiders; so long as people do not
BRAH1rlANISM PAST AND
interfere with existing castes, they may form a new caste and call themselves Hindus; the Brahmans are always ready to receive all who will submit to them and pay them." This formation of a new caste does not mean that the mode of life is much changed or that the worship is greatly altered. The tribal customs are crystallized into caste rules, and the tribal deities may get a Brahmanic pedigree manufactured for them. Their crude primItive tribal life becomes stereotyped in a caste-and that is almost all.
Let us turn now to the religions of Hinduism. It must always be remembered that Hinduism is of the old-world, pre-Christian type, somewhat difficult for us in these days to conceive. It is not a great state institution like Islam, nor even like the early Roman paganism. Still less does it resemble Christianity, which is a brotherhood of worshippers having a common creed, the rationale of their faith. I remember asking a learned Vedantist, who had spent two days in teaching me something about his beliefs-a man who had read Spinoza, Berkeley, and Hegel (in an English version)-whether he could give me any definite preposition which all people who were Hindus could accept. He very readily said, "That woman is a wicked animal," " That the cow is a holy animal," but he could add no more univer8ally accepted truths! Hinduism is " a scheme of living interwoven into the whole existence and society of the worshippers, and placing every natural habit or duty on a religious basis as the immediate reason and object of it." Weare not to look for a common creed j but if the old Brahmanic popular theology has sway over the one hundred and thirty millions of Hindus, we may expect that the chief deities of the Brahmanical pantheon are universally worshipped in every-day life, and that these deities are worshipped with the idea that they are the higher or inferior emanations of Brahm, the Supreme Selfexisting Essence. This is exactly what we do not find. .Brahma:, the chief emanation of Brahm, is scarcely worshipped at all. You will read in an authoritative book that there is no temple raised to Brahma in all India. Sir W. W. Hunter says that there is but one. There are three, I believe. I was in the best known at Pushkar, near Ajmere, built of beautiful pure marble, but the courts were empty, and not a worshipper appeared during the few hours I spent there, while other temples had their crowds of devotees. The Smarta Brahmans are, I am told, the only representatives of the old Brahmanic theology. Vishnu and :)iva are worshipped all over India, but not in the old Brahmanic way. They are worshipped each as the supreme existence, and not as emanations. Even these two popular deities are worshipped in Ihany places, because they represent what were formerly and are still in the minds of most of their worshippers striotly local deities-departed heroes, sages, etc.-and the local name is still added to the Brahmanic title.
Moreover, the Brahmans themselves continually choose as objects of their family devotion gods whose names are not in the old orthodox Hindu
PAST AND PREiENT
pantheon. Take the list of such deities for the Khandesh and :Poona districts, and you find the deities Kajabai, Ramabai, Khandoba, Shankar, Maruti, Bhavani, Balaji, Vithoba, Dattatraya, Annapurna, and a host besides. Ask a Brahman why he worships Khandoba. He will tell you thli.t Khandoba was an incarnation of Siva, and he thus attaches him to the official Hindu pantheon, finds a pedigree for him, as the Herald's College finds one for a newly knighted banker or physician in England. But if you pursue your inquiries a little farther, and get the priests at the shrine to read the sacred book relating their god's career, you will find that Khandoba was a popular hero, <;>f the aboriginal race, who lived a fighting and thoroughly disreputable life-first a man, then a hero, then worshipped, and lastly supplied with a Brahmanic pedigree.
Vitoba and Dattatraya were Brahman sages, and their Brahmanic pedigrees are through Krishna to Vishnu. The great seat of Vitoba's worship is Pandharpur, about one hundred miles southeast of Jejuri, where Khandoba's huge shrine stands. There at pilgrimage time caste seems forgotten, which is explained when antiquarian research has shown that . the place was an old Buddhist shrine. Balaji was a hermit who lived near the hill Sheshadri; he is now called an incarnation of Vishnu.
I found that Mirabai was a very popular divinity in Udaipur, in Rajputana; she was a poetess or hymn-writer, who sung in the reign of Akbar; her pedigree is through Krishna to Vishnu.
These pedigrees are afterthoughts; what we have is the worship of a popular man or woman, common in paganism all the world over. The Brahmans invent the story of an incarnation after the worship has become an established fact; but the worship would remain if the pedigree were not invented. The living, sprouting polytheism of India, which is quite independent of Brahmanism, is continually creating new gods, and the process can be seen going on at this present moment. Some Hindus in the Punjab constituted themselves into a sect which worshipped, they said, Nikkel Sen. This Nikkel Sen was General Nicholson, whose unexampled bravery was thought to be an attribute of divinity. The good general used to argue with his worshippers, beat them with his bamboo, lock them up in jail-but the sect throve under persecution. Tukaram, the Marathi poet, a Sudra by caste, who lived two hundred and fifty years ago, is worshipped by thousands at Dehu. Tukaram's palanquin has during the last ten years become a god. M. Raymound, the French general who commanded at Haiderabad, is worshipped by Hindus there. The traveller can see Hindus in the early morning worshipping at Colonel Wallace's grave at Sirur. I have been told that on high occasions they offer brandy and cigars, which they fancy was their deity's choicest viands, but I did not see these offerings. Rice, and a little incense burnt in cocoanut shells are the common oblations. Brahmanical pedigrees have not yei; been manufactured for those deities, but they will come in due course.
In my former paper I gave a list of objects whioh I had seen wor-
BRAHMANISM PAST AND
shipped, culled at random from my notes. The limits of this paper pre- vent my speaking about them in detail, though the subject is a tempting one. It could be easily shown that tJJ.ey prove that Hindu polytheism is no amalgam of creeds, wrought up into a system according to past or present Brahmanic ideas, but a free, vigorous living thing, making its new divinities day by day, unfettered by any rule. It is not specially Hindu i what is going on in India is to be found flourishing in Central Africa, in the New Hebrides, in New Guinea-in short, all over the pagan world. Brahmanism has been powerless to guide, still less to restrain this lawless, ever-young polytheism. Its impotence can, I think, be explained, but space forbids.
Where, thm:, can we see the power of Brahmanism in Hindu religion? It is there, strong, living, real. It must be rem.mbered that, speaking generally, the Brahmans represent the Aryans, or the race long dominant in India. They are an aristocracy of over two thousand years' standing i nor have they been an idle, useless aristocracy. They work hard, and all people know it. They are an aristocracy of birth and brain and work, and all this goes for a great deal. They have been for twenty-two centuries the practical rulers of India-those in power who have stood nearest the people and whose hand has been most felt by the ruled. They have been the ministers of Hindu Rajas and princes, often secretaries to Mohammedan rulers, officials under English rule. One conquering race after another has swept over India. Greek, Saracen, Afghan, Mongol, and Maratha have come down from its mountains i Portuguese, Dutch, French, Dane, and English have come up from its seas, and set up their successive dynasties in the land, and most have disappeared j but while they have come, remained, and gone, the Brahman has, in subordinate place, but in most real power, ruled, " swaying the minds and receiving the homage of the people, accepted by foreign nations as the highest type of Indian mankind." They have been not only the theologians and philosophers, but the lawgivers, the administrators, the men of science, and the poets of their race. They have been the Levitical tribe in India. They preside at the great festivals, serve in the massive temples, deliberate as the supreme theological faculty all over the land. The Hindu ins~inctively refers his theology to Brahmanic scriptures and traditions, which he personally does not care to examine or know for himself i he takes care to pay reverence at some time or other, in his polytheistic way, to Brahmanic gods and their incaruations j to all but a trifling number of the ordinary middle-class Hindu the Brahman's presence is necessary at all essential rites of their every-day family life. The Hind~ is excessively superstitious: he fears the gods and demons and all manner of occult agencies in this visible universe, and the Brahman is master of the spells and charms which can control these agencies. A saying is current all over India: The whole universe is subject to the gods j the gods are subject to the Mantras (spells or charms) j the iJfuntrus to the Brahmans j therefore the Brahmans
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT
are our gods. They are the medicine-men for India. The Brahman is supple, his religion is not a matter of creed, but of customary practice.
He can open his pantheon to every new deity which is presented to him for registry. He can and does act the part of Herald's College to all worships and tribes, and provides Hindu pedigrees both for the clan and for its gods. Aboriginal tribes pressing into the civilization nearest them are taken in hand by the Brahmans, and through them introduced into better society. This is the missionary side of Brahmanism, not sufficient.ly attended to by us in America and Great Britain, which is yearly sweeping into the Hindu fold thousands of converts, greatly outnumbering, close observers tell me, the converts of Islam and Christianity put together.
And, lastly, the Brahmanic philosophy formulates with sufficient precision for the Hindu mind that latent pantheism which seems inseparable from Oriental thought even in its crudest state. This influence of Brahmanism is not on the wane; it rather seems to increase year by year; for India is slowly becoming educated, and as education advances a crude polytheism must disappear. Lucreatius translated the coarse, obscene rites of his countrymen into a thoughtful recognition of the mysterious reproductive power of nature; the Brahman philosophy has that translation ready made for the educated Hindu. It has one foe to fear, and Brahmanism knows its danger. Polytheism and pantheism require no necessary alliance between religion and a pure morality. English rule has taught and is teaching with a strength and' rapidity which we at home have no idea of, that power, justice, and mercy should go together; Christian missions all over the land in colleges, schools, preaching stations, and medical dispensaries show that religion and a high moral standard are inseparable things. The Brahman will tell you contemptuously or sympathetically, as he may be in the mood, that your Christianity is all included with a great deal more in his Vedantism ; he will take the Westminster Assembly'S Shorter Catechism, cut out all that concerns a personal Christ and His atonement, leave only the metaphysical framework, and publish it as an Aryan Oatechilm (this has actually been done) ; but the personal Christ, with His pure morality and His Divine love and His allsufficient atonement, is beyond him; and he knows it.
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT.
BY REV. JOHN L. NEVIUS, D.D., CHEEFOO, CHINA.
Few religious movements of the present day have excited a deeper and wider interest than the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. Commencing with the Summer School at Northfield, as its influence spread from institution to institution, and the increasing number of volunteers was heralded in our religious newspapers, its rapid advance was hailed with rejoicing and thankfulness by all who love the cause of missions. It is due largely to the influence of the volunteers that the attention of the Church, and especially of young men and young women, has been roused to consider the prominence given to missions in the Bible, and to understand more fully the responsibility resting upon all Christians of giving the Gospel without delay to unevangelized nations. Of the devotion and abil-' ity of the young men who inaugurated this scheme we can hardly speak too highly.
Now that this movement has been in progress for five years, it is not too soon to inquire how far it has realized the expectations of its friends, and what modifications in methods may be suggested by experience. In an enterprise so new and so complicated it would be strange if mistakes had not been made. This would be natural even in the work of more experienced heads. I may, then, without hesitation offer some kindly criticisms and suggestions, hoping that they may be of use in furthering the cause which we have at heart.
On inquiring what results have been effected by the Volunteer Movement thus far, it is obvious to remark negatively that it has not increased the number of missionaries actually going to the field to the extent the reported number of volunteers led us to expect. Some of us, looking forward from our mission fields to efforts for obtaining recruits on returning home, expected to find a large number of ardent and well-equipped young men ready to leave at orce for the mission field. We have been disappointed. The needed recruits during the last two years have been obtained with great difficulty. While some of the seminaries have furnished their usual quota, others have fallen far behind the average of the last forty years.
It might have been expected that there would be special interest in missions in the Presbyterian Church, as it was with it that a large proportion of prominent workers in the volunteer movement were connected. In this church, however, the difficulty of obtaining recruits has certainly not been less than elsewhere. From Princeton there went out to the foreign field last year three men-only about seven per cent of the graduating class. Union and Chicago sent out about the same number, if I am rightly informed, while Auburn, Allegheny, Lane and Danville furnished none.
Turning to the summary of statistics of the Student Volunteer Movement for the past year, we find that one tenth of the whole number have applied to mission boards and been either sent or rejected, while one tenth have" renounced" and two tenths have been " hindered." It thus appears that as many have renounced as have applied, and the number of the renounced and hindered is three times that of those who have applied. These are not the results which were expected. There has certainly been great lightness in assuming or renouncing the pledge.
It should be remembered also that of the one tenth who have applied, a conlliderable proportion have not been accepted, and of those who have actually gone abroad, many had determined to be missionaries independently of the mo,-ement. Others, too, who have been nominally introduced into the missionary ranks by it, would probably have been missioll&- ries without it. We had every reason to expect a constant increase in the number of missionaries from the greater interest of pastors, of churchmembers generally, and especially of women's missionary societies. We can, then, hardly resist the conclusion that, so far as appreciably adding to the number of those entering the foreign mission service, the Volunteer Movement has disappointed the hopes of its friends.
Another cause of disappointment which returned missionaries have met with in visiting the students in our theological seminaries is an evident estrangement, amounting in some casel!l almost to antagonism, between those who expect to go abroad and those who do not. In former years interest in missionary addresses was general. Now, in many of our seminaries at least, missionary addresses are attended only by a portion of the students. When asked the reason for this want of sympathy, the reply has been made that it is the natural result of unwarranted assumption and too much pressure on the part of the volunteers. This feeling is shared in by undergraduates in our colleges who are earnest Christians, including sons of mIssIOnaries. It found expression last year at a missionary convention in Union Theological Seminary, New York, in a severe arraignment of the Volunteer Movement by one of the students of that institution.
No doubt much of the dissatisfaction referred to above is due to rashness on the part of some of the younger and less experienced volunteers, which is by most of them discouraged and deprecated. I think, however, that some of these unfavorable results are directly attributable to the avowed principles and methods of the volunteers.
The movement assnmes that, unless there is sufficient reason to the contrary, every suitable person fitted for the work ought to go to the for. eign field, because the greatest need is there, and he can there accomplish the most good. This is by no means necessarily true. Many able and conscientious men can do more for the cause of foreign missions by staying at home than by going abroad. Believing this, they have acted accordingly. We must not put a stigma on such men as wanting in conse· cration or inferior in piety or devotion to others. This question is, of all others, a personal one. The responsibilities and risks connected with it are too great for any but the one chiefly interested to assume. I have been in the United States on furlough three times, an4 paid many visits to theological seminaries, with a view to gaining recruits for foreign missions, but have never dared to use the least pressure in urging a student to be a misslOnary. We may present the claims, the privileges, the pleasures, the encouragements and rewards, the difficulties and trials of missionary work, but the final decisi9n should be left to each man's conscience in the fear of God Young men may be and no doubt have been unduly influenced to become missionaries in various ways-for instance, by appealing too strongly and too exclusively to their sympathies and imaginations. Some years since one of OUT prominent and honored missionaries, who had to a large extent the gift of enthusiasm and personal magnetism, succeeded in obtaining an unusually large number of recruits to go back with him to China. Only two or three remained to work. The others discovered before they had reached the end of their voyage that they had made a mistake. They went out under the influence of a temporary enthusiasm; they had not looked at the matter in all of its bearings j they did not know themselves or to what they were going; they had not counted the cost. It is well on every account that many volunteers have relinquished their pledge before going to the field j it would have been better not to sign it at all. I have conversed with some of these men and tried, at the request of others (perhaps I should not have done so), to strengthen their wavering purpose. Perplexed and annoyed, they sought to find reasons satisfactory to themselves and others for regarding themselves as providentially hindered. I could not help feeling sorry for them. It is a serious question with regard to many who are marked "hindered," whether they should not rather be classed with the " renounced."
Young men may be unduly influenced by falsely applied logic. A person may be addressed thus: "Have you not devoted yourself unconditionally to the service of Christ ¥ Is it not evident beyond question that the Church is not doing what she ought for the cause of foreign missions!. Should you, then, not go 1 What reason have you for not going' How can you conscientiously refuse now to give yourself to the work of foreign missions~" A person without deep convictions or a settled purpose, who is induced to go abroad in some such way as this, soon finds himself in a very awkward position. Arrived on the field, he discovers that his heart is not in the work, and that he is not fitted for it. Consistency, self-respect, and duty urge him forward in the task he has undertaken j but he finds himself with regret and mortification thinking of plans to get home, or grieving over the useless expense incurred in sending him out. Such cases, which are not imaginary, may well lead us to hesitate before we assume the responsibility of urging anyone to devote his life to missienary service.
In order to secure larger numbers for the field, we may be tempted to influence men unduly by presenting the missionary work in a way that is partial and misleading, giving only the bright side of it. Our Saviour bas given us an example to guide us in tbis matter which should not be disregarded. When individuals and multitudes followed Him to be His diseiples, in His desire that they should not be deceived or disappointed, He told them plainly all and the worst that they :qad to expect. He said : " Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service," adding, "but these things have I told you, that when the ~ime 8h~1l come, ye mar remember that I told you of them," lIis la~- guage almost seems harsh and repellent. It was, however, dictated -both by kindness and wisdom. Such language never repels the right kind of men. It is intended to keep back those who are not. In accordance with the example of our Saviour, while we may gladly dwell upon the privileges and joys of the life of a missionary, we should not fail also to speak of the lifelong expatriation, climatic disadvantages, the work of acquiring difficult languages, the contempt and opposition of the heathen, the possible uncongeniality of missionary associates, the trial of years of labor without converts, and the " care of all the churches" when converted and multiplied. The question of duty should be decided in view of all these conditions and emergencies.
We may further inquire whether the pledging of young men and young women three, four, or five years before they are expected to enter upon their work is not premature and ill advised? The time may not have come for such a decision. Who can tell what changes may take place while a young man is in college or the seminary which may necessarily change the whole course of his life? God, who sees the end from the beginning, may call and does call some persons to the missionary work when very young. For us to do the same might possibly result in positive injury to the individual in question and the cause we wish to serve. Many who have thought that by signing the pledge early and using their utmost effort to induce others to do so they were doing a great service to the mission cause, have found that their zeal was little more than a temporary sentimental enthusiasm, expending its force long before the time came for commencing the work. A few years since a little company of student volunteers in one of our seminaries earnestly and almost reproachfully besought a fellow-student to sign the volunteer pledge, but he could not think it his duty to do so. That student is now a missionary in China, but the volunteers remain at home.
As might necessarily be inferred from the course pursued of urging all students indiscriminately to sign the pledge. a divine personal call is not deemed necessary, and the lack of such a call is not regarded as an excuse. On this point the leaders of the movement are clear and outspoken. The outward call is deemed sufficient and authoritative. It is said : "When you hear an alarm of fire you do not wait to inquire whether you are called, but respond without hesitation and do what you can." We must, however, perceive that the reasoning by analogy from a fire alarm to the call from unevangelized nations is by no means conclusive ; and this illustration might be differently regarded by a person who had responded to a fire alarm, but been told by a policeman to keep out of the way, as he would hinder rather than help.
The question, "Is a special divine call necessary 1" is of the first importance. In even the smallest matters a Christian should inquire, " Lord, what will Thou have me to do f' How much more so in a question which determines his life-work and is so vast in its scope and far-reaching in its
TIlE 81'Ul>BN'r VOLtTN'rEER MOVEJrfBN'i'
results! Dr. Charles Hodge, in a letter to theological stnd611ts on the sub-ject of " The Can to Foreign Mission Work," says: "When a man has become a minister, the next question is, 'Where is he to go ?' This is not a question for him to decide. Hi!! position in this respect is analogous to that of an officer in the army. Such officer cannot say, 'I will go to such a post, because it is the most important or the most desirable. ' So it is with the minister. . • .
" In the apostolic age some were sent to the Gentiles, some to the· Jews (Gal. 2 : 9). So now it is the duty of some ministers to preach the Gospel at home, and of others to carry the glad news to the heathen. How is any man to know to which of these classes he belongs ~ Just as he was led to knf)w that he is called to the ministry at all."
The external call was never presented with greater force than when our Saviour directed the attention of His disciples to the "sheep without a shepherd," and to "the fields white to the harvest." He did not say, however, "Go to work at once and induce as many to go with you as possible j" but what He said was, "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest that he send [or thrust] forth more laborers into the harvest." Those whom God will use in the evangelization of the world must be men of His own choosing and His own sending.
It may be said, What, then, would you have earnest Christian young men who wish to serve the foreign mission cause do' I answer, I would have them do just what they are doing, and with ever-incrp,asing zeal and assiduity, but with one exception.
The principal measures which have hitherto been used by the Student Volunteers, and which cannot be too highly commended, are, first, summer schools and Bible classes for the purpose of presenting and emphasizing Bible teachings on this subject j second, the disseminating of a missionary literature; third, missionary lectures and conferences with returned missionaries. These are all efforts in the right direction. There can be no mistake about them, and they cannot be too vigorously made use of. The one exception which I would make is that of urging individuals to pledge themselves. The objections to this, some of which have already been referred. to, may be summarized as follows: Fir". It is unnecessary and gratuitous. The pledges of discipleship and of the Gospel ministry, which are of Divine appointment, are sufficient and have no need of being supplemented by further pledges. All actual duties are included in them, and the presumption is that additions to them will prove to be not only needless, but harmful.
Second. The wording of the pledge does not give due honor to God. As has already been stated, it makes very little of the internal Divine call. Its language is not, " As Thou wilt," but, "I will, if Thou permit." It gives to man the power of determining and to God that of preventing. Its tel1UiJ, ., I am willing and desirous, God permitting, to be a foreign missionary." might perhaps be construed to mean only that the one subscrilf-
TO IiITUDEN'I' VOLUNTEEB MOVEMENT
iug this form of words is willing to be a missionary if God should 80 direct. But with this construction it would be a misnomer to call these words a " pledge," or one signing them a " volunteer."· As a matter of faet, the volunteers have not put this possible construction upon it, but regard the signing it as an expression of a determmation'to be Ii missionary, God permittlllg.
Third. The pledge is answerable for injurious consequences which are distinctly traceable to it. Alienation and opposition as a result of unwarranted assumptions and undue pressure have already been referred to. More than this, volunteers who are rejected for reasons which existed when they signed the volunteer pledge, and should have prevented their doing so, are subjected to needless disappointment and chagrin. Renounced volunteers must always look back to their assuming the pledge with regret, perhaps with a Bense of injury in having been lllduced to do what they should not have done. The broken vows already reported mean consciences wounded, character deteriorated; it means lowering the public cohception of the solemnity of a vow, and in the Church at large disappointment and doubt.
In the place of the" pledge" I would submit, for those who are laboring for the mission cause, the following propositions and snggestions, which embody some thoughts presented or at least hinted at above: 1. It should be assumed,. emphasized, and reiterated that every mini.- ter of the Gospel is by his being such necessarily pledged to the cause of foreign mis.ions, and also pledged to be a foreign mitlsionary if the Lord will. The Gospel which he preaches is a proclamation to the world, and those whom God has called to preach it are, or at least should be, ready to go to any part of the world to which the Master may assign them.
2. The interests of the foreign mission cause require that a great work be done at home-a work no less difficult and important than that in: heathen lands, and demanding in those who prosecute it the same profound interest in foreign missions and the same gifts of mind and heart as are required by the foreign missionary. The command to evangelize the nations is given to the Church as a whole, but few comparatively of her members have as yet begun to appreciate the full measure of her privileges and responsibilities. She must be roused to a realization of her actual relations to the heathen world. All believers should know and acknowledge that they are personally responsible in this matter as well as those who go abroad, and that to be identified with thc cause of missions is a necessary part of Christian discipleship. They must realize that in the Divine ordering God-chosen and God·sent laborers are to be obtained in answer to the prayers of His people. Before the Church as a whole can so join in this common prayer that it shall be intelligent, sincere, and acceptable, they require more Scripture teaching; more of the worldo'lmbracing love of our Saviour; a new baptism of the Holy Spirit.We must conclude, then, that one of the &Teatest needs of the time is that of men fired with missionary zeal, making their influence felt in our theological seminaries, col~ leges, churches, Sunday-schools, and editorial chairs.
3. It is by no means certain that all who wish to serve the cause of foreign missions will accomplIsh most by going to the foreign field. Wellknown names of men who have exerted a world-wide influence for foreign missions while remaining at home will at once be suggested in this connection to the minds of all who are familiar with the history of missions itt recent years. There can be little doubt that God will choose and use sneh men in the future for the same work. This work, however, will not be done by those who are unwilling to go abroad and wish to compromise with duty by doing what they can for I'oreign missions while at home, but by those who are in thorough sympathy with the Master and count it their joy to do whatever He bids.
4. God will determine our field, of labor if we truly debire to do Hi, will. He sees the gifts developed or undeveloped, known or unknown to men, of each of His servants, and He knows in what part of the world is the place and the work in which their special gifts are to be exercised. We are not to expect that He will reveal His will to us in any startling or miraculous manner, but rather in the ordinary course of His providence, and in a great variety of ways. The Spirit may use the written word, or facts relating to the heathen world. or the appeal of a human agent, written or verbal. The call may come in an early or an advanced period of one's history. It may come in a desire implanted by God's Spirit, leading one to say, " I delight to do Thy will, 0 God, ,. or in a stern sense of responsibility, of which the natural expression is, " Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel to the heathen !"
5. All ministers of the Gospel, whether located at home or abroad, are united as fellow-laborers in promoting the interests both of home mis_ sions and foreign missions. A minister at home, by urging upon his flock the claims of foreign missions, is benefiting them as well as the heathen. Only by doing this can he give to those to whom he ministers those broad, elevating, and Christlike conceptions of the Gospel which are necessary to their full spiritual development and greater usefulness. On the other hand, the foreign missionary, by devoting his life to the heathen, is not a loss to the home Church, but an important object lesson, a much-needed stimulus and inspiration.
There should be, then, perfect sympathy and a profound sense of unity among all Christ's fellow-workers. The terms home missions and foreign missions do not represent separate, much less rival interests, but are only convenient 'distinctions between different departments of the same work. In this world, redeemed by the blood of Christ, and in every part of which Christ's power is exercised and His power may be felt, there then is no place which we may regard as literally foreign, no place where we may not feel at home.
AND CO·OPERA-TIO. IN MISSIONs
* COMITY AND CO-OPERATION IN MISSIONS.
BY REV. W. J. TOWNSEND, D.D., BIRMIlfGHAM, ENGLAND.
One hundred years of miBllionary enterprise by the Free Churches of England have come and sped. It is impossible to attempt to fully estimate what has been accomplished thereby for the welfare of mankind and the glory of God. A passing moment may well be spent in recalling the fact, so that our fervent thanks may be rendered to 'God for the results of such effort, and to help us in considering how to make the enterprise more fruitful in the future. All the romances of modern history, real Acts of the Apostles, which are included in the names of William Carey, Robert Morrison, John Williams, Thomas Coke, Robert Moffat, Barnabas and Samuel Shaw, William Knibb, Alexander Duff, William C. Burns, John Hunt, William N. Hall, David Livingstone, Charles New, Samuel Mars· den, and many similar, are the outcome of that enterprise. As to the work accomplished, it has touched all departments of human life and progress. Languages have been constructed and systematized, industrial arts and habits of civilization have been introduced, untold abominations of idolatry and licentiousness have been driven out, vast districts of country have been reclaimed and cultivated, commerce and national interchanges have been promoted j but beyond these secondary results, nations have been placed upon a higher moral plane, and untold millions have been translated into the full salvation which the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ bestows upon the believing soul. As a faint indication of the present position of the movement, we present the following statistics of the missions now being conducted by the Free Churches of England, not taking any account of the missions which have resulted in the formation of free and self-supporting churches in various parts of the world. The present missions stretch from the Indies in the West to Japan in the East, and from Westphalia in the North to the New Hebrides in the South. They comprise 6000 stations, 560 foreign missionaries, 26,500 native agents, 160,000 communicallts, 163,000 children under Christian training, and include about 600,000 adherents.
But our outlook in relation to missions should not be backward, but forward. We have not to " rest and be thankful," but to seek a wider extension of the movement. This can be done mainly by seeking a new baptism of the Divine Spirit upon our churches and missions, which will in itself result in the mUltiplication of agents and agencies, in an enlarged liberality, and in the perfecting of our machinery. This is a matter for the profoundest attention of our committees and societies. But there i.e a subject of immense importance to all the missions here represented, which demands our patient and prayerful consideration. This is the inter-rela- • A paver read at the Free Church Congress, Manch~8ter tion and inter-communion of our various societies with each other in order to avoid unhealthy rivalries in certain localities, overlapping within narrow districts j and to promote a spirit of Christian union and co-operatioa, that resour~es may be economized, and the possibility of a narrow sectarianism springing up in heathen lands may be effectually prevented and destroyed.
The first thing to be aimed at ~s to resolve that among the missions represented here there shall be no interference with each other's borders. It is futile to say that one denomination has as much right as allOther to enter certain districts. Conceding this, it must be remembered that sometimes it is infinitely nobler to forego a right than to claim it. Rival ass0ciations on the same ground are needless when there are immense territories of the heathen and Mohammedan worlds either altogether unoccupied or but sparsely cultivated. Such room, indeed, existing that, if all the forces in the field to-day were re-distributed, they might each occupy spheres which would employ all their available agencies without touching those filled by others. Two societies need not tread the same ground while there are regions beyond quite untouched. As a general rule it may be laid down that where a society has priority of occupation, and is doing its work with faithfulness, another society shall not intrude upon the same ground, but shall go further afield.
Doubtless there are many cases in our history where a noble magnanimity has been exercised by one society toward another. Dr. Duff only voiced a sentiment which has had practical application in several directions when he said, in relation to the successful work in Tinnevelly, " I would as soon leap into the Ganges as venture to,go near Tinnevelly, except as a brother, to see the good work which is going on." But, on the other han4, all societies have had occasion to sorrow that their work has been marred and their usefulness lessened by other societies entering the field in too close proximity to them, and carrying out their programme in apparent rivalry.
This may not be avoided in all cases. Some societies may be impt.acticable in the matter, but as to us, bound together by common sentiments and principles, and only separated on subjects of secondary importance, we can and ought to come to a clear understanding, that so far as we are concerned the heathen world shall have no spectacle of a divided Christ or a divided church presented to it, but that our sphere of operation shall be chosen with due regard to mutual courtesy and real brotherhood. It must, however, be borne in mind that there are cases where this rule cannot strictly by observed, as in great centres,of population or strategw importance, as Shanghai, Pekin, Calcutta, or Cape Town j but such.exceptional cases are no argument against the adoption of a general COUl"ll8 of missionary comity. And here it would be improper not to notice the magnificent offer made the other day by Mr. Robert Arthington, of Leeds, of £30,000 toward the equipment of new missions, provided steps were take» toward a readjustment of present boundaries, so as to avoid overlapping and the consequent waste of energy and resources thereby involved. The offer should be accepted if possible, but if not it shows the drift of opinion in the right direction.
Closely related to this subject is that of receiving members from neighboring missions and of employing the agents of other societies without due examination into character or brotherly communication with the officials of the societies concerned. Native converts are subject to strong temptations from a habit of insincerity, which has become a second nature, and from inducements to profess Christianity in the hope of thereby securing an easier lot in life. Therefore they are sometimes led to exchange from one church to another, because discipline has been exercised or offence has been taken, or some advantage may be obtained. On the other hand, the missionary is laudably anxious to be able to return an increase in the membership of the mission, and may receive the proselyte without sufficient care being exercised or inquiry being made. Friction between the societies has thus arisen, and in many cases lamentable results have ensued to the mission, which has gained only unworthy adherents.
Then, as to the employment of native or other agents who have been in the service of other societies. There is a higher rate of payment offered by some mission boards than others, and where this is the case, agents are under inducement to transfer their services from the Church which has been the channel of salvation and the training medium to them for the sake of the higher stipend. Then, on the other hand, the missionaries of some societies may be more than willing to engage agents ready trained, and whose power for good work has been proved. What is common in some churches at home in this respect is quite as common in some missions abroad. But we can come to a determination that Christian charity shall never be outraged by us in this respect. Our managing committees 'can arrange that, as to converts, none shall be allowed to pass from one church to another without due caution, nor without full inquiry by friendly correspondence being insti.tuted. So also as to the employment of agents. It should be required that they should bring with them an unblemished reputation, and that they should not receive a higher stipend than that of which they had already been in receipt. In localities where several societies are working side by side, one uniform rate of wages for native agents might be adopted. This rule is carried out in a few cases with excellent results.
What has been advanced shows that it is becoming increasingly important that the spirit of Christian union should be cultivated in the mission field. The object of such approximations should be to attain organic union where that is possible without sacrifice of truth, or federation against a common foe and in favor of common interests where union is not feasi- ble~or co-operation in a kindly and helpful spirit where federation may not be convenient. There are already .iQm~ delightful approaches made in these directions with the happiest results. In Amoy, missionaries from two hemispheres and two societies began to work simultaneously. They associated together, interchanged appointments, and their stations grew as one church. Their converts knew no difference between one society and the other. They could not have conceived the ground of any differ- ence. But one home committee became afraid, and issued instructions that there must be a separation of interests. The missionaries frankly said they dared not take the step, and offered their resignations. The order was cancelled, and the churches have continued together and prospered greatly. So also is it in Japan; several churches have united and now labor as one with a sense of breadth and freedom which is a great inspira- tion, and we know that the success of the Gospel in Japan is one of the glories of our modern missions. The same spirit is operating in China among the Methodist denominations. There the China Methodist Union has been formed for the purpose, as far as possible, of assimilating forms of worship and church government throughout the empire. It is proposed to have a common hymnal, common class-books, one form for examining native students, a common literature and one mode of receiving or exercising discipline on members. Thus a common Methodism for China is being cautiously arrived at. Who does not perceive the importance of seizing present opportunities for such a purpose, when merely initial work is being done and when the ground is mainly unoccupied ; and indeed to aim in all desirable and possible ways not at one Methodism or Presbyterianism or Congregationalism, but at a common glorious Christianity, that the infinitely comprehensive prayer of the Redeemer may be fulfilled, " that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me."
Missionaries in the neld feel the need of such approaches more than we can realize. Some of the most sagacious and experienced do not hesitate to declare that by the present method of working in separate and apparently rival denominations the conversion of the heathen world is practi. cally impossible, or must be indefinitely deferred. To take one field as an example. There are twenty-seven societies of as many denominations reproducing their separate organizations, customs, articles, creeds, and polities before the people. One great denomination has eight subdivisions, and several others have three or four. These generally have churches in the larger cities. In one city there are seven different missions, in others four or five. Not a word can be said against these denominations. They can all justify their existence at home on grounds at least satisfactory to themselves. But in heathen lands the casus belli is not known, and if known could not -now be appreciated. The various conflicting statements put forth in the mission literature of the various societies, without any idea of controversy, are unspeakably confusing to the mind of the native convert. The Roman Catholic Church presents the front of external unity, and the Evangelical churches one of endless division. The result is .that intelli~ent native pastors are even now reproachin~ missionaries that ~hurches bearing the naine of the same Christ should be kept apart one from the other. One of the most .eminent and experienced missionaries in the field says on this subject, " We !fe doing the native conveI1s a great injustice in keeping them isolated from each other; we narrow their sympathies, we create controversies and bickerings, we deaden their Christian instincts, we positively retard vital religion among them." The dangers and difficulties to missions from this source in the future cannot be exaggerated. These dangers and difficulties are as yet in embryo. But with every advance of missions they will develop and strengthen, so that ~ur societies may well consider whether they will not seek to minimize this evil-nay, to forestall its growth by such timely and careful measures as are possible in the direction of charity, co-operation, and eventual union.
A few words must now be offered as to practical steps which may be taken to promote the ends indicated as desirable. (a) A representative missionary board, composed of specially experienced men from the societies represented here, might be appointed to meet occasionally, to which all projects for entering new fields or extension in old ones might be submitted for friendly consideration, and which should have the privilege of recommending, counselling, or arbitrating, as might be required. Such a committee or board need not be large, but it should be influential and representative. Very happy relations now exist between some English societies, the secretaries of which meet together monthly for prayer and counsel. The plan might be extended as now suggested, and the societies might thus be united in closer bonds, and friction in the future avoided. (6) So also in the various fields in heathendom the agents of our societies might be instructed to hold at least quarterly meetings within convenient limits, to take counsel as to plans of work, .and especially as to means of mutual accommodation and co-operation, so as to present to the heathen world the appearance of what we are in reality–an united church. The more general holding of united missionary conferences on the plan of those recently held at Shanghai and elsewhere will prove of immense benefit to our common enterprise, by uniting as in solemn league and covenant the agents of our missions in happy combination against the forces of evil. The early victories of the Gospel, when the gods of paganism were demolished and the splendor of Rome, festering with shameless licentiousne88, was dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, were won by an united church; and the more signal and rapid will be our conquests as we approach more closely to that model. (c) One crying want of our mission enterprise is an organ somewhat resembling the MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD, issued in. New York, or on the plan of the Review of Review., which shall be pan…missionary in its scope, catholic in its spirit, wherein news of all missions can be reported, plans of extension discussed, candid criticism indulged in, and fresh enthusiasm kindled in the heart of th~ Church. It should- become the most popular magazine of the day; certainly none would. be. able to compete with it for freshness, romance, or inspiring
189lt] PROBLEMS OF JEWISH GOSPEL WORK
power. A few wealthy laymen could surely be found to provide theeapital for such a venture.
These matters, with others which may' be suggested by the mention of them, are important, because the present moment is a crisis in missions. They have obtain~d a lofty vantage ground, they have won a splendid moral position, the whole world is open and is ripe for the harvest, and the opportunity for a universal diffusion of the Gospel is presented to us. A great extension of the sphere in all heathen lands is imperatively 1Iemanded j a bolder front of aggression should be presented in all lands where Mohammed usurps the place of Jesus. The supreme demand of the hour is a more ardent and continuous missionary spirit in all our churches, which mean!'! a deeper piety, a profounder sympathy with the perishing, and a loyal appreciation of the mediatorial glory of Him who came to seek and to save the lost. Out of these will come larger gifts, vaster hopes, victorious faith, and prayer which gives God no rest, and will not keep silence or is silent only from its intensity, and in response to these will come from the throne in the heavens the answer, " I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground."
PROBLEMS OF JEWISH GOSPEL WORK.
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, o.
In this, the greatest missionary century since the Apostolic era, there is probably no problem in ·the Christianization of the world more vexing and perplexing than reclaiming the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is a singular fact that the interest in this special kind of gospel work does not command the general interest of Christians that is enjoyed by the evangelization of the heathen world. The zeal for Israel's spiritual welfare is confined to particular circles, who have, however, done nobly in .this eause. According to the rece~t statistics of Dr. Dalman, of Leipzig, doubtlessly the best authority on this subject, there are no fewer than 55 Protestant societies for the conversion of the Jews. Under their auspices 399 missionaries are at work at 127 stations all over the globe. The annMI income of these societies is nearly $500,000. Of course these fignres are small compared with the statistics of mission societies for heathen work, which are given at 264 associations, with 4495 male and 2062 female missionaries, and an annual income of more than *11,000,000. Bnt when it is remembered that the Jews number only about 7,000,000 souls, it is seen that there is one missionary for every; 20,000 Jews, while there is only one missionary for every 1,500,000 heathen. Jewish mis&ion work has been able to enlist the keenest sympathies and co·operation of not a few prominent scholars. We need recall here only the name of the late Professor Delitzsch, of Leipzig, who saw in his Hebrew translation of the New Testament, which Wa!I done entirely in the interest!! of go!!pel work in Israel, and not for literary or learned purposes, and to which the great scholar devoted nearly half a century of his busy life, the QPU8 magnum of his scholarly career, the monumentum rere perenniu8 of a life devoted to Christian research. Then we recall to mind also the name of the recently deceased Professor Caspari, of the University of Christiania, Norway, who, unlike Delitzseh, was himself a convert from Judaism, and who was the leading scholarly authority on the early history of Christian confessions, notably the Apostles' Creed and the Baptismal Formula. It was he who for decades was at the head of the work in the Scandinavian countries and made the cause there even more popular than it is in Germany. Other names in the Fatherland to be mentioned with honor in this regard are those of the late Professor Cassel, of Berlin j of Dr. Strack, the editor of the Nathanael, the ablest and most thorough journal devoted to the cause of Jewish missions j of Faber, who for seven years was actively engaged as Delitzsch's right-hand man in Eastern Europe in the Jewish settlements there, who, with Delitzsch, founded the seminary in Leipzig for the education of young men for this work, and now, with Dr. Muller, edits the quarterly Saat auf Hoffnung in Leipzig, issued by Delitzsch for a quarter of a century. The most widely spread interest in the cause is found in England and Scotland, where fully three fourths of the funds are collected j but in neither of these countries have any names become specially prominent in this work. A friend of the cause has three times given thousands of pounds for the spread of Salkinson's Hebrew translation of the New Testament among the Jews of Eastern Europe and Africa j but this work has not always been wisely or well done. It is true that in this way some two or three hundred thousand copies of the translation have been scattered throughout the Jewish Diaspora, but many, if not most of these, have been wasted. Of Delitzsch's version, some seventy or eighty thousand copies have been used in this cause j but as a rule these have been ·sold, although at a nominal price, or have been given only to those asking for them. Nearly all of these copies have gone to the East, and this fact, together with the further fact that these books are wanted there, indicates both the best place and the best method of modern gospel work among the people of the house of Abraham.
Mission methods have in recent years been discussed more lively among the friends of the evangelization of the Jews than they have among the friends of foreign missions proper. That the work is a department of Christian gospel activity all for itself, requiring a different preparation on the part of the missionary, presenting entirely unique problems and perplexities, and accordingly demanding a method of its own, is recognized at all hands. It is, further, being accepted on all sides that the proper place for Gospel work in Israel by the representatives of the mission societies is the East, where the Israelites still retain the characteristics of a nationality and where they have been true to their historic trltditio{ls and instincts. The Western Jew differs toto C(1!ZO from the Oriental Jew. The former has become thoroughly modernized. In his determination to strive for the commercial and financial leadership in the West he has compromised with 'Vestern civilization and thought, and as a result has given up the landmarks of his fathers. Under the leadership chiefly of the philosopher Mendelsohn, Western Jewish thought has been entirely revolutionized, with the result that nearly the entire Jewish contingent in Western Europe and America belong to the " Reformed" class, which practically means a rationalistic, or, at least, rationalizing school of religious thought. The leaders of Western Jewish thought are in close touch and tone with the Unitarian system of theology. Add to this the further fact that they see in Jewish monotheism the highest religious ideal, in the acceptance of which lies the spiritual redemption of modern society, and it will become apparent what an arduous field of labor for Christianity Western Judaism is. The Jew does not regard Christianity as a superior type of religion to that of his oW)l, but sees in the New Testament covenant a retrogression, not an advance, upon that of the Old. Not he, but the Christian, is, in his eye, the backslider and the one who has departed from the landmarks of Moses and the prophets. To convince him of this cardinal error is a herculean, task; and it is only in natures peculiarly spiritual that this work can be accomplished. It is true that throughout Europe, and in America too, each year witnesses the conversion of hundreds of Jews to Christianity; but it is also true that in proportion to the time and labor applied the harvest is very small. The dictum current among the Jews that a Jewish convert to Christianity is by that very fact a hypocrite is, of course, a base slander. Some of the brightest stars in the theological firmament of the nineteenth century are converts from Judaism. We need mention only such names as Neander, the father of church history; Caspari, already named; Philippi, the greatest conservative dogmatician of the Lutheran Church in Germany in this century; Kalkar, the Danish historian of Jewish mission work, and the first presiding officer of the Evangelical Alliance at its sessions in Copenhagen. In Pastor de la Roi's new work, in three volumes, on the same subject, just cQmpleted, there is given in historical order the lives and labors of hundreds of prominent Christians who have been converted from Judaism. This new work is a revelation in its Jine. Yet comparatively the harvest has been small, and that chiefly because of the utter perversion of modern Jewish ideas and ideals.
Yet this is not the reason why the leaders in this work regard it as the part of wisdom to turn their attention to the Eastern Jew. They very properly regard it as the duty of Western Christianity to look after the spiritual interests of the children of the house of Israel who live in their midst. To do this is not a part of foreign but of home missions, and should be classed with' the work among the churchless and Christless masses in our great cities. This is regarded as a fair demand of ration,al mission methods. The Eastern Jewish communities present an altogether different field of labor. Especially in Northern and Eastern Austria and Southern Russia there are entire districts almost altogether inhabited by Jews, and these are the traditional Jews-the modern representatives of the Pharisees of Christ's day. For them the history of the past eighteen hundred years is practically a blank j it has passed by them without influencing them in a partiele except to make them more determined in their formalism and stereotyped Talmudism. All contact and touch with Western thought or culture is avoided as they avoid the pest. While they all speak a jargon -i.e., a German dialect, or, rather, a middle high German dialect inter- larded with Hebrew and other words by the hundreds, the only literary language used among them is the Hebrew. Their ·newspapers-the Ham- meliz and others-are all written in classical or jargon Hebrew, and the average schoolboy learns how to write a Hebrew modelled entirely after that of an Isaiah or the Psalmist. It is for this reason that the worker among them must be a fine Hebrew scholar, and that, too, not only in the biblical idiom, but must also be thoroughly at home in post-biblical Hebrew -in the Talmuds, the Midrashim, and other literature of this kind-for it is in them that the Eastern Jew lives and moves and has his being. From this it appears that the equipment of the gospel workers in Israel has preparatory work to go through of which his brother laboring in a heathen land has no idea. The Talmuds are a labyrinth the intricacies of which only the greatest of industry can master even relatively.
Only recently the courts of Austro-Hungary brought to public notice a state of affairs characteristic of the thought and life of Oriental Judaism. It was a suit tried for the purpose of collecting back taxes from the socalled miracle-working rabbi at Sadagura, a short distance from Czerno- ."itz, the seat of a new university. There, in a grand palace, surrounded by guards and courtiers of his own, revelling in wealth, the gift of the faithful, sits enthroned the" Jewish Pope of the East," the highest authority among the Chasidim, or Pious party of Oriental Judaism. The dignity is hereditary in one family, and the rabbi has the reputation of having superhuman power and wisdom. As a Gonsequence, his intercession and help iS80ught on all occasions by confiding thousands, to whom, in mysterious form· and words, he renders answers, but only for cash. Practically he is the spiritual head of Jews as much as the Pope is of the Roman Catholics. His " cherem," or curse, or excommunication, which always brings with it an absolute boycott, socially and commercially, by all the Jews, is feared even by the State officials. Recently he almost ruined Baron von Mustaza, the leading Christian at Sadagura j and the fear of his spiritual power has prevented the government officials from claiming taxes due them, until recently patience had ceased to be a virtue.
While it is true that the Pope of Sadagura is not recognized by all the Eastern Jews, the blind and fanatical adherence rendered him is typical and representative of the spiritual condition of the Jews of the East as a whole. In recent years our information on this subject has been greatly enlarged, chiefly through the publications of the Instituta Jttdaica, of Leipzig and Berlin, associations of theological students under direction of prominent professors, the object of which is to study the Jewish mission problem, particularly post-biblical Hebrew, and to enthuse young men for this work. The authorities and agents of these societies, especially Faber, Lhorsky, and Vollert, have in these reports given vivid descriptions of what they saw and heard. Probably the most interesting among the articles and reports in Nathanael, Saat auf Hoffnung, and the Instituta pUblications are the accounts given of the spontaneous Christward movements among the Eastern Jews, of which there have been three. The oldest and most promising is that headed by the Jewish lawyer Rabinowitz, of Kishnef, in Bessarabia. By the study of the New Testament he, a zealoRiI worker for the spiritual welfare of his people, came to the knowledge of the truth that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah of the Jews, that in Him the promises and predictions of the Old Testament had been fulfilled. He inaugurated a movement proclaiming this news, and has, since 1885, been preaching the Gospel to his people in the jargon, as also publishing sermons, addresses, and the like. He was baptized severa) years ago by Professor Mead, of Andover, Mass., in the American chapel in Berlin, and the English friends of the cause have built for him a church. His movement does not receive the general sympathy he had expected, because it is his purpose to establish a national Jewish church, in which Jewish peculiarities claimed to be consistent with the adoption of faith in Christ-such as observance of the seventh day, circumcision, and the like -are to be retained, on the ground that these are traits of the Jews as 11 nation and not as a religious communion. The latest public utterances of Rabinowitz are found in Saat auf Hoffnung, 1892, heft 1, in which he deplores the anti-Semitic agitation in Russia, as also the fact that the progress of his work among the Russian Jews is exceedingly slow, although he himself is as firm as a rock in his acceptance of the New Testament as the fulfilment of the Old. Somewhat similar in character is the movement inaugurated independently of him in Hungary by the Rabbi Lichtensteill. He too accepts in Christ the promised Messiah, but rejects characteristic and fundamental doctrines of Christianity, such as the Trinity. Liohtenstein until lately was determined to remain a Jew, but now· has been baptized. Whether these movements can yet be purified and be made subservient to genuine mission work remains to be seen. The same is true of the similar movement in Tomsk, Siberia, headed by a Polish exile, of which Delitzsch reported in Saat auf Hoffnung several years before his death, but of which little further has been heard.
These movements throw a strange light on the state of the Jewish mind and soul in the East. For them the Messianic prOInises and hopes are not dead and dry traditions, but are living realities. The Eastern Jew is strongly religious, and yet longs for the deliverance of his people by the
PI.OBABLE FUTURE OF BUDDHISM
Messiah. If it can once be shown to him that the traditions of centuries are in error, that the Talmuds are false, and that Jesus of Nazareth in this person and work really fulfilled the predictions of the Old Testament, then is he eager to accept this Gospel. That such things are not only not impossible, but that labors in this direction are blessed by the God of the mission cause, is abundantly proved by thc experiences of laborers in that field in late years. MiraclQs of missions are being performed there, too, and in the Jewish heart, too, the Gospel is the power unto salvation to all those who believe. Recently Faber made a journey to the Jews of Persia, and in his report speaks enthusiastically of the prospects of the work. It is a well-known fact that the Falashas, or Black Jews of Abyssinia, are more ready to yield to the Gospel than are the Abyssinians themselves. Never before has there been such a wide-awake interest in the cause nor such eager discussions of its problems or such activity in the work as is the case at present in Jewish mission work. The first-fruits are being gathered. May the full harvest be abundant.
PROBABLE FUTURE OF BUDDHISM.
BY REV. E. TRIBOLET, BASSEIN, BURMA.
Paul, preaching at Athens, the intellectual centre of the ancient world, declared that God made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and that they should seek God if haply they might feel after Him and find Him. Human nature being the same in all ages and all climes, forces us to the belief that Buddhism too is seeking after God, if haply it may feel after Him and find Him. The belief so prevalent during the last century that all non-Christian systems are absolutely false has, during the last generation, given way to more tolerant views. The infinitely merciful God has never left Himself without a witness in every human heart. "Christ enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world." No creature endeavoring to follow his little, feebly flickering light will be kept aloof from the ever-yearning Father's heart. This feeble light even is part of the same light which we enjoy, for all truth and goodness, wherever found, comes from God. We therefore believe that every religion is inspired of God and not a product of Satan. From a reaction against this belief the Christian world is suffering to-day, and some men would have us believe that Christianity is no better than other religious systems. All religions are efforts of the human mind to explain the mysteries of life, to pierce through the thick veil that obstructs our vision of the infinite realities. Every religious system has its mission; if it were otherwise, what should we think of the providence of God ~ Whatever has transpired on this planet has been divinely decreed or has had the Divine permission. History is simply the setting forth in time of God's eternal purposes. God must educate the world; it is His purpose to establish a heavenly kingdom on this earth; the heavenly Jerusalem is to be let down into this world. Christ's business is to save not only our souls, but our bodies 88 well; yea, even the whole unintelligent creation is to share in this redemptive work. To educate the world, the Almighty must step down Himself into the world and identify Himself with ita inhabitants j this is the most distinguishing feature of Christianity; this is what makes it superior to all others, for in all other systems man struggles upward to find the Absolute, the Infinite. Man, in order to reach the highest perfection, must have a perfect pattern constantly before him. Only Christianity has set before men this goal. Man craves an incarnate God, and however his brains may stagger underneath this majestic problem, his homesick heart knows no rest till it rests upon the bosom of the Man divine. " Man craves a deity embodied in human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross." In these words Macaulay voices the sentiment of the race. The severe monotheism of Islam can only hope to compete successfully with Christianity if it recognizes this stupendous mystery. But the infinite God cannot make Himself known all at once to finite man; for that purpose millenniums are required, and different races require different methods to bring them to the fullest perfection. Fifteen centuries passed bybefore the Jewish race could grasp the divine attributes, such as justice, mercy, holiness, fitting them thus to become the educators of the ancient world. Christ could not come any sooner than He did, for the world could not have understood His doctrines any sooner. A character like Paul was the result of these fifteen centuries' teaching ; and God, sending this fairest flower of Judaism into Europe, reclaimed that continent for Christ after fifteen other weary centuries had worn away. God first trained a man, then a nation, then a continent j now the hour for universal knowledge of divine things has arrived. The Christian nations of Europe and America are to be the world's educators; the time when they shall possess the whole world seems not very distant j they are fitted to undertake this difficult task to-day; they can demand respect from all non-Christian nations; they were not so fitted two hunderd years ago. This nineteenth century is one of preparation; the twentieth will rid the world of a vast amount of superstition by the revelation God is giving us through science j the twenty-first will see nations born in a day. All the signs of the times seem to indicate that God has chosen the Anglo- Saxons to be the world's religious teachers. We need not be alarmed about Rome's pretensions, her day has been. Latin 9hristianity was preparatory to Anglo-Saxon Christianity. Latin Christianity is Petrine; Anglo-Saxon Christianity is Pauline, becoming all things to all men in order to save all. The dominant Christianity of the day is broad enough to recognize some phases of truth in all religious systems. Other religions generally emphasize only one side of the truth at the expense of the other. Brahmanism loses the finite; Buddhism, the infinite j Islam emphasizes God's sovereignty at the expense of man's free agency. Christia.nity invariably gives due credit to both hemispheres of divine truth-is, there" fore, the full-orbed truth. J udai~m was preparatory to Christianity; so likewise are Hinduism, Isiamism, Buddhism. All these systems are necessary training-schools for certain branches of the race, to lead them up t.o the highest spiritual conceptions-Hinduism for the Malay Dravidian aborigines of the larger part of India; Islam for the Shemitic stock; Bpddhism, with its human teaching, for the fierce Mongolian. With the probable future of this latter system, overspreading Eastern Asia, we are specially concerned. Is, then, Buddhism likely to be the much·talked-of religion of the future? Its founder, as well as its past history, prohibit us from entertaining any such view. In its onward march of twenty-five centuriElS it has stayed within certain geographical parallels and meridians; it has made conquests only among Mongolian tribes, seems only adapted to them, because of their deficient sense of the supernatural. Buddhism to.day marches nowhither, fights no battles, wins no victories. It is ill adapted to the pushing, vigorous, practical natives of the modern world; its morality may have been capable of conserving Asiatic society for centuries, but it could never hold together young nations like America, Australia, South Africa for even a generation ; the result would be universal anarchy, ending in a deluge. The whole teaching of Christianity, as well as of science, is that man should love his neighbor as himself; the whole teaching of Buddhism, although it may do this undesignedly, is to make man supremely selfish. Every Buddhist individual and nation is supremely selfish and infinitely conceited. We do not wish to speak evil of Buddhist morality, for we believe Buddhism to teach the best ethics outside of Christianity. We believe Gautama to have been one of God's saints, one of the purest, noblest souls that ever lived. It is the best system ever invented by man (Islam being simply a mixture of Judaism and Christianity, both divine), breathing a lofty spirit of tolerance and righteousness, obedience to parents, mercy toward the brute creation, boundless charity to man; yet Buddhism lacks the motive power to make its votaries live out these splendid cthical teachings in their every-day life. Judging Buddhism by Christ's maxim, that all things are to be judged by their fruits, we must confess that Buddhism has failed to bring its- adherents to a high plane of perfection. It concentrates all man's activities on himself ; he is only busied about himself, and thus forgets his surroundings; it forever rings the changes on " work out your own salvation," "be your own Saviour," "expect nothing from a Power outside of yourself;" it deifies the human self, seeks to annihilate the craving of the human heart for a Redeemer, a Burder-bearer, a world Father Confessor. Its heavens are brass. The reason why there are no progressive Buddhist countries is obvious enough. The real motive power of Christian civilization is the contemplation of an Infinite, Eternal, Holy God, who il5 our Father and Friend, and who has commanded us to be holy as He is holy. This takes our thoughts away from us and fixes them on the Divine Goal before us. This is the spring of hope and forward movement. Buddhism keeps be- fore its votaries the contemplation of evil instead of good. Man, earth, univerlile-all is vile j the result is universal scepticism j God, man, life, death, eternity are nothing. Man is in the grasp of dead, cold, cruel, piti- less, inexorable law j the only hope is to get out of the grasp of this law, this endless cycle of births aud re-births j hence the inability of Buddhism to found a tolerable social state or a good government. Another cause of this inability to fouud a tolerable social state is its depreciation of woman, that coming factor in the world's progress. No religion struggling for supremacy in the human heart can safely ignore woman, for she is half the race. When woman shall have obtained her full rights many of the world's evils will be remedied and Lhe millennium brought nearer. A man who could forsake his wife and only child, however lofty his purpose in doing it, and however peerless his morality, will never be able to win the mother-heart of the human family.
Such, then, are some of the reasons which debar Buddhism from be- coming a world-wide religion. Yet to the coming world religion it has and will continue to add very important elements toward the complete understanding of what that religion really is-just as Hinduism and Mohamme- danism are doing and will continue to do more and more in the future. It might not be out of place to mention briefly some of these elements: (1) Strange as it may sound, Buddhism is nevertheless the" Protestantism of Asia." It is outwardly formal, its cultus, especially in the Northern Church, so much resembling the cultus of the Church of Rome. Yet in spirit Buddhism is thoroughly democratic j all distinctions of class and rank are obliterated j it knows nothing of priestly castes and assumptions j it stands up for the individual rights of man. Buddhism might well be called the religion of individualism. It encourages learning and scientific inquiry-is, in fact, a synonym for knowledge, investigation, criticism. Its gospel, its central idea is salvation by obedience to natural law-know these laws and be saved. All war and misery are the result of ignorance, all evil the result of error j it is simply mistake, and may teach us to do better in our future births. Buddhism will thus powerfully aSsist Christianity in its struggle with caste and priestcraft. (2) It is essentially tolerant. It never relied· upon the sword for its propagation j won its adherents by persuasion j knows nothing of the fierce fanaticism of the Shemitic religions, thus mightily enforcing the great doctrine that every man is to worship God as his conscience dictates. (3) It preaches with all its might against the use of all intoxicating beverages, thus marshalling all its forces against that deadliest human foe, the drink traffic. 'We might 'well praise God that all the isms of Asia set their face strongly against this stupendous evil. The Christianity which preaches total ab!'tinence will be triumphant over Asia. (4) Its humane teaching with regard to the animal creation is truly wonderful. Surely Buddhism will powerfully contribute toward the fulfilment of such passages as Isa. 11 : 8-10 and Rom. 8 : 19-22. Isaiah and Paul both interrupt their magnificent odes on the outpouring of the Spirit to remind us that the benefits of this will be shared by the brute creation. Our first parents are not recorded to have partaken of animal food. It was only after the Adamic sin that God slew an animal, teaching Adam that without shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. It was only to Noah (Gen. 9 : 3, 4) that God gave distinct permission to eat animal food. Why should we need to fight with or destroy any of the happy life the Lord has created? (5) Its doctrine of transmigration is quite peculiar to itself, and distinct from the Hindu conception of the same doctrine, metaphysical Buddhism not acknowledging a soul. This whole question of transmigration, so widely believed both in the Nile and Ganges valleys, with strong hints of it in Plato and Pythagoras and in a modified sense in some of our English poets, is a very profound one. It is a system of penal retribution, belief in hereditary depravity being the chief source of this migration. Another cause for this peculiar doctrine may have been the belief that animals too have souls, only in a lower stage of development. From a Christisn standpoint it may perhaps be best explained as an imperfectly understood version of our Christian doctrine of progressive sanctification, a sort of moral evolution. It is perfectly plain that man at death has not yet reached the height of perfection ; we are not believers in a magical transformation at death. One stage of perfection will be reached at death, another at Christ's coming and the re!mrrection, and there may be other stages for aught we know. The heavenly life will be endless, but undoubtedly ever new panoramas will unfold themselves before the soul; it can never exhaust heaven throughout the ages of eternity.
In the mighty endeavor of the human race to know its Creator, Buddhism will thus contribute its due share. It will endure until it has laid the proper stress on some now almost dormant Christian doctrines. It will, in its powerful conflict with Christianity for the possession of Eastern Asia, adopt Christian methods of warfare-go back to its primitive method of propagating its doctrines by preaching, circulate its scriptures, remove from them all extraneous matter, all untenable, unscientific, with human nature, discordant elements j revise its dogmas and accommodate them more and more to the spirit of Christianity. The bald atheism of the sage of Kapilavastu and of the southern section of the Buddhist Church will gradually disappear. Northern Buddhism has long ago reinstated the Deity into His proper place. It could not get along without some object of worship. Gautama was no longer, so they began to worship the future Buddha under the name of Maitreya and other names, and pursuing the same idea as th9 expression of a felt want. Northern Buddhism elaborated its triad, a doctrine found in all re1igions. Orthodox Buddhism could not resist this incoming tide of supernaturalism which it had vainly striven to expel from the human heart. Amitabha, to whom most of the cli'rille attributes are ascribed, is to-day worshipped by the most progressive Bud. dhist sects, Sakya-Muni being more and more looked upon as the prophet, the interpreter of this Lord of lords. Most modern types of BuddhistTI arc steadily departing from the essential teachings of its founder, the whole drift being toward Theism. The Yedo sect, found both in China and Japan, has come already very near the fundamental principles of Christianity by its doctrine of justification by faith-yea, even the germs of the doctrine of substitution are discernible, both of these dogmas ·being diametrically opposed to orthodox Buddhism. Progressive Buddhism will thus, step by step,· approach Christian doctrines, will elaborate its trinity, will proclaim Gautama as a teacher sent out from the Supreme God, like Mohammed or Christ, as taught by Unitarians, its preceding Buddhas as prophets sent out from time to time to educate the race in things spiritual, the future Buddha, Maitreya, as its Messiah. That" desperate expedient of a my~ tery," the law of Karma, will be declared a non-existent fiction of the brain. Man's personal identity through the ages will be held as axiomatic. Nirvana, that much-puzzling word, will be explained as a conscious, calm, happy, sinless state, where the human soul will be one with its Maker and abide with Him forevermore, the same as the Christian doctrine of one- Ress in Christ, the old self being annihilated. This seems to be the real meaning of Nirvana. Having, then, in its endeavor to prolong its career dropped one by one of the fundamental doctrines of its original founder, its real truths having been accommodated to and ennobled by the all-sided, all-inclusive Christianity, a resting-place will no longer be found for Buddhism in this world. Christianity touches Buddhism in all its truths, accepts the Buddhist doctrine of rewards and punishments, of law, selfcontrol, humanity, charity, and equality of man with man. It fills Buddhism with a living God, makes life worth living, turns its sadness into fulness of joy, establishes a heaven on earth, gives us the divine as well as the human, the infinite with the finite. . . . Buddhism will die slowly j it will seek to combine all the truths of all the isms of Asia before it will yield to its powerful, well-organized foe; but this new Brahmo-Buddhism will share the fate of the early Neo-Platonism. Christianity is the religion of civilized man, the religion of the future. "Let not your heart be troubled, 0 ye of little faith. The Lord reigneth j let the earth rejoice." The sons of God will again shout for joy when the moral cr-eation of this world shall have rcached its consummation.
M. Schreffler, missionary to Cochin China, popularly executed at Sontay by order of the Grand Mandarin for preaching Christianity, such being pro· hibited by the law of the country, died May 4th, 1851. This was the last execution in China for preaching the Gospel, and marks a new era in Chinese evangelization.
BoMBAY DECENNIAL CONFERENCE. '
BOMBAY DECENNIAL CONFERENCE.
Devotional Meeting'. * BY REV. ROBERT P. WILDER.
The first meeting of the great Bombay Decennial Missionary Conf8rence, which has been the centre of so many hopes and plans and prayers for months past, was, of course, a prayer-meeting. "This conference should be begun, continued, and ended in prayer," said our leader (Dr. T. J. Scott, of the American Methodist Episcopal Mission), and he seemed to voice the earnest desire of all present. There was a similar meeting at the same time and place every day.
After the reading of the second chapter of Philippians and a part of the fifty.second of Isaiah, and singing of the hymn, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun," Dr. Phillips, of the American Baptist Mission, and another missionary, brought us to the foot of the throne and kept us there while they pleaded as only strong Christians, who know the source of their strength, can plead, for God's blessing on the conference. Other hymns, which were prayers, and pralers which lifted us into an unusual nearness to God, followed in quick succession, and prepared all hearts to receive from Dr. Scott what he and all present seemed to hope would be the keynote of the conference, " Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory. " Said Dr. Scott: "Let us not suppose that because others are working in a different way from ourselves, that therefore this work is not approved of God. There is one master mind which directs us all, and neither advance nor retreat is made without His knowledge. Missionaries are fighting in different columns of God's great army against a common foe; and it is quite certain that our Leader is directing the column next us as well as our own. Let us not, therefore, feel that a method is good merely because it is ours, or that another method is poor because it is not ours." We came away feeling that the Spirit of God had indeed been with us.
On Saturday morning Mr. Eugene Stock, an honored visitor, led the meeting. It was the last day of the year, and after singing " Stand up for Jesus" the one hundred and fifteenth Psalm was read, and our thoughts and prayers were directed to the year so nearly completed. In very many brief, earnest prayers mention was made of the sins, the failures, the mistakes, and the numberless mercies of the year. Then we were reminded, by the reading of the ninth chapter of Numbers, that the children of Israel journeyed at the commandment of the Lord, and at the commandment of the Lord abode in their tents. The season of prayer for God's blessing on our work during the coming year was closed by Mr. Henry Varley, the eminent evangelist, now laboring in Bombay, by a prayer, in which he .• Mr. Wilder sends us an account of the morning devotional meetings, which,he says, were the beat of the conference. The Sunday morning meeting is reported by himself; the others by Mia. Brown, of Kob6. We append also a criticism by Mr. Henry Varley. We regret that this was nee. euarlly crowded out of onr last issue. expressed the thought of all that our chief need and our greatest desire for the year before us is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
The Sunday morning meeting was a consecration service. The leader began by saying: "Last Sabbath we thanked God for the gift of His Son -our Father's great Christmas gift. Shall we not, on this New Year's Day, thank Him for the other great gift-the gift of the Holy Ghost ~ "In the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we read of Philip's work in Samaria. 'The people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake.' 'There was great joy in that city.' 'They were baptized, both men and women,' and yet the Holy Ghost' was fallen upon none of them. '
" Is it not possible that some of us have joy and true faith in Christ without knowing what it means to be full of the Holy Spirit ~ "When Peter and John came to Samaria as a deputation from the apostles, they may have emphasized methods of work. But there is no record of it. They may have preached do~trinal sermons. If so, theJ have not been recorded. One thing they did : they 'prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost.' However much we discuss methods in this conference, whatever be our views on points of policy, let us give the chief attention to the question: 'Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed ~ , "
The leader spoke of the two conditions for receiving this gift: First, letting go of self in all its forms; giving up our theories, our preconceived ideas, our love of popularity, our wills. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." But one says the wind always goes toward a vacuum. If our hearts be emptied of sin the heavenly breath will come in.
A most solemn season of prayer followed. Many petitioned for a divine emptying in order that the divine filling might be realized.
'1'he leader then said: "If, so far as we know, everything is yielded, then let us by faith claim and receive the gift. We received Christ by faith. Let us receive the Holy Spirit by faith.
Many prayers followed-prayers of consecration and faith. The leader gave' as the verse for 1893 : "If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that, ask Him ~", God was with us in this solemn service.
The spirit of prayer was very manifest on Tuesday morning, and our wise leader (Rev. G. Kerry, of Calcutta) did not interrupt it by "remarks. " He read that beautiful and wonderful story in the eighteenth chapter of II. Kings, of the fire which descended from heaven, at the prayer of Elijah, and consumed the sacrifices. The closing words of that story, " And when all the people saw it they fell on their faces, and they said, The Lord, He is the God; the Lord; He is the God," were followed by many and earnest prayers that a pentecostal power from heaven might fall upon India, and that all His people might be led to confess that "The Lord, He is the God." Then Mr. Kerry read the passage from the fourth chapter of John's gospel, which contains the words, "Say not ye there are four months, and then cometh the harvest," and the ripe harvest-fields of this great empire were prayed for. The missionaries who could not come to the conference-the wives who were staying in the lonely stations during their husbands' absence-and others, the workers of the other end of the line, the house boards and givers, and those in authority over us, our rulers, were all remembered, not once, but many times. It was exceedingly good to be there.
Our friend, Mr. Henry Varley, writes to us somewhat criticising the conference ; and we make a few extracts, not pronouncing any judgment on the matters at issue.
At the opening session the large hall of the Wils(ln College was crowded to excess, and the early morning meetings for prayer proved refreshing seasons, and many workers were endued with power from on high.
Few things were more remarkable than the diverse testimonies as to work. Some illustrations of success were astonishing, others told of great difficulties, small results, and of the terrible failure caused by the immediate pressure of the intense heathenism which surrounds the converts.
The varied papers (more than forty in number) were published, taken as read, and distributed. The range of subjects was wide, and scope for the best thought of the Conference was given; the papers disclose very considerable intelligence and a grip of the facts which augurs well for the future. The bulk of the meetings was permeated with a spirit worthy of the occasion. Thousands in England, America, Scotland and India looked forward to the discussion upon " Education as a Missionary Agency" with great interest.
The education given in such institutions as the Madras Christian College and the Wilson College, Bombay, has not shown results in the regeneration and conversion of the students, nor their desire or training for the native ministry. These institutions have been a great power in years that are past. The memory of Dr. Wilson is fragrant to-day, and the fruit of his consecrated life was seen in those days in the salvation of numbers of the native students. Education with him was indeed a missionary agency. Spiritual teaching was not crowded out by a secular curriculum. The strong incentives now held out to excel as scholars, to possess fellowships, and obtain degrees have wronght disastrously, so far as spiritual life is concerned. Certain missionary colleges in India receive large sums of money given for direct Christian work, in England and elsewhere, but fail to produce the results for which they are primarily designed. It was hoped that this vital question would have had the best attention of the Conference. Instead of this, its discussion was in the main prevented. Dr. Mackichan, President of the Wilson College, in his printed paper does not face the vital question. He writes as though education had been urgently assailed. But it is recognized as a most important factor in the civilization and development of the Indian peoples. What is deprecated is that the results for which the Christian missionary colleges were designed are not seen as a distinct fruit of the institutions. Cases of real conversion to God are rare, and training in order to pastoral position or work is scarcely known. No greater mistake could have been made than for this Decennial Conference to have separated without dealing fairly with this important subject.
Dr. Mackichan writes in his paper: "Christian colleges as they now exist are fitted to me'lt the highest requirements of the Christian community. " If so, how is it that there are no native pastors being trained for native Christian assemblies and churches, and that there is scarcely a case of professed confession of faith in Christ ~ The importance cannot be overstated that really converted, intelligent native ChrIstian pastors and teachers should come out of our missionary colleges in order to minister the Word of Life. India needs native Christian men full of faith and the power of the Holy Ghost in order to Christianize India.
The natives in the cities do not fraternize largely with the Europeans. In Bombay there is strong oppOSItion on the part of the 'educated natives to go into the churches, or even into the Young Men's Christian Association building. They would much rather gather among themselves in some publIc hall. There has been an assumption of superiority on the part of thousands of Englishmen, Christian and otherwise, and the results are what might have been expected. Large numbers of the missionaries felt rightly that these questions had not been fairly dealt with. As the veteran missionary, the Rev. G. Kerry, stated that it had been named to him, there had been manipulation on the platform.
The Conference was dumb on great moral questions. The Conference Committee passed a resolution to place on record no motion or resolution not carried with practical unanimity by the Conference. In this way they silenced the voice of the assembly in regard to the practical legalization of immorality by the Government. The opium traffic was prevented from being condemned by the voice of the Conference, and the Government's grant of licenses to sell intoxicants in the cities of this vast empire. Many Europeans here who go to the churches are connected in one way or another with the Government. They receive Government pay, and this causes silence. No man could speak out persistently and courageously on these questions without running the risk of social ostracism. The voice of the" social set" in Bombay is in favor of a conspiracy of silence. Certain missionaries, ministers, and principals and professors of certain Christian colleges simply do not speak out. These institutions receive Government money, and they cannot consistently do this and then take a strong stand against the wrongdoing of the Government.
3M 0 CANADIAN MISSIONS TO TRINIDAD
At the meeting on "Public Morals in India," Mr. Alfred S. Dyer stood alone and was printed as the only speaker, and one of the committee present at the meeting took great pains to make clear to the missionaries " that that assembly was not a Decennial Conference meeting."
Large numbers of the missionaries know the true character of these fearful scourges, and would have been glad to place on record their testi- mony against them. This was denied them, and by the Conference reo ports they will be represented as being so indifferent to these vital ques- tions that they did not even think it worth while to utter a word concerning three forms of evil which are not only cursing these people, but which threaten the physical, moral, and spiritual health of untold millious in India. A minority of the missionaries, by apologizing for, practically sustain the policy of the Government in poisoning the people with opium for the sake of revenue.
If, in years to come, another Decennial Conference is prepared for, power should be vested in the hands of a really representative and responsi- ble body, who will see to it that a fair and honorable platform for discus- sion shall be maintained, and the voice of the Conference be heard' on great vital questions such as those which have at this time been denied a hear- ing. I have not reflected upon the missionary colleges of India as a whole. Some of these are doing a very important educational work. They are distinctly Christian colleges, however, and show it in the Christian char- acter of many of their students.
CANADIAN MISSIONS TO TRINIDAD. * BY MOLEOD HARVEY, LITTLE HARBOR, NOVA SCOTIA.
Twenty-six years ago a Presbyterian clergyman of Nova Scotia, the Rev. John Morton, in search of health, visited the island of Trinidad. and seeing the spiritual needs of the coolies, persuaded his home church to support him there as a missionary. The coolies are Hindus taken there by the government of Trinidad, and engaged for a term of five years to work on the sugar plantations. At the end of their period of engagement those who wish are taken back to India, though not a few prefer remaining and engaging in business in Trinidad. At present they number about 80,000.
Two years after Dr. Morton began work among them another missionary was sent there, and from that time until the present Trinidad has formed one of onr most interesting mission fields. At present this chlirch has there fil'e ordained foreign missionaries, two ordained natives, four foreign teachers, 45 native catechists, 52 schools, with 4324 pupils enrolled. Last year a college for the training of a native ministry was opened with 39 students in attendance. About £600 sterling ($3000) was contributed last year by the native church. The number of communicants enrolled is 573 ; and last year 192 adults and 166 children were baptized.
* In tbe March number of THB MI!SIONARY Rl!IVIBW 011' THE WORLD reference was made to the East Indians of Trinidad. conveying the impression tbat tbeir cendition is that ohew-slavery, and that very little is being done for tbeir spiritual welfare. This is not correct.
INTERNATIONAL
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
BDIT.IID AND OONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Gospel in Portugal. doxy. It was during and immediately after these struggles that Portugal's star BY OA.STELLANUB. shone the brightest. The Reformation Let us premise. Three times has Por- came, and with it the wars and condiots tugal been prominent before the gaze of by which the Protestant nations had to Christendom: First, in the fifteenth save themselves from annihilation, and and· sixteenth centuries as the nation the Romish States to suppress the prin- of the foremost navigators, discoverers, ciples that threatened to overthrow the and conquerors of lands and seas hith. Pope's supremacy and the tyranny of a erto unknown to the civilized world- few over the many. Spain, Italy, and in Africa, America, Asia, and Australia. Austria had. to make great efforts to Then, in the latter half of the eighteenth expurge or quell the ferment of reforma_ oentury, as the victim of the famous tion. France tried in vain to expel it Lisbon earthquake, and the home of the completely, and has ever felt Hs benefi- more famous Marquis of Pombal, the cial influence even against its own will.
iron ohancellor of his time, who would In Switzerland the prophetio miniature have proved the Hercules of that gigan. of Europe, the four gloriOUS cantons of tic hydra, the Jesuitic order, had not the forests, passed (by sticking to the Protestant 'Prussia and schismatic Rus- old faith) from the first to the last rank,.
sia given it a safe refuge. Finally, in and vice-versa the weakest cantons, yea, '
our days, very much like the dying man those that were not, passed, by the adop- of Constantinople, as the moribund and tion of the Reformation, to the front in insolvent heir of a great name and rich material, political, and military as well estate, around and above whose tottering as intellectual and moral development.
manor the creditors, like. ravenous vul- Thus in the rest of Europe, in the same tures, are circling, screeching, and get- proportion as they have been true to ting their claws ready to pounce upon the essential Christian principles vindi- the spoils of the impenitent and friend- cated by the Reformation, England, less prodigal. _ Holland, Prussia, and Scandinavia have What has brought this proud nation risen to what they are; founded the to this lamentable state? The mon- North American Union, Australia and archy, say the repUblicans. The stupid- South Africa, and are now transforming ity of the people, say the monarchists. Asia and Africa. If France has almost But both are wrong. Neither the mon- kept pace, and if Italy is regaining a archy nor the people are the ohief cul- prominent place, the fact is due to the prits. Portugal is the victim of papal presence of the Protestant leaven, and Rome. It should stand forever in his- to the exertion and emUlation produced tory as a monument of what the popish by the contest of infidel and Roman system oan do for a naturally gifted and Catholic ideas of State snp Churoh.
promising oountry and nation. Portugal, in the bliss of its Roman Of all European countries, Portugal Catholicdom undefiled by the admixture is the only one that was never touched of one drop of heresy, and unrent by by the Reformation. Strength is the schism, not even disturbed by internal result of effort, and without a struggle dissensions of Church and State, an with obstacles there is little effort. Pre- ideal Roman Catholic State, has 80ft- vious to the Reformation Portugal made ened down to a boneless maS8 of jelly.
. great exertion to rid itself of or to sub- Having the nose brought to the grind- due the Moors, and to quench, in aBort stone of bankruptcy and famine, the of St. Bartholomew, the Jewish hetero- urban public of Portugal haB,£ol' twelve_
INTBlUfATIOKAL DEPARTJIIlB'I'
month. been whipping itself and the the country, knowing DO bcok Of D……
inm rural masll, through the press, to a paper, no history, no geography, no reo IIflnllfl of the reality, and to the needed ligion except what oral legendary tradi- "new Ufe," but the moral nerTe is tion may impart, are lltill religious, broken; bet,ween the word, the resolTe, and good.naturedly beliel'e what their anel the deed there is a gnIf. The Cu. priests, but a trifle lesl ignorant, hue rari poison of Rome has permeated the taught them and their lathen. The nation, and now it pays the penalty of bulk of the urban population, readiJig ht.nng abjured the inbom right and newspapen and translations of French duty of fJTery human being to think and novels, are infidel, republican, but gil'en chOOlMl for himself, and to act according to pleasure. The theatre is their church to hi. convictions. and school ; a heroic IIpeech far exoeecIl.
The whole press Is unanimous in in their opinion, a heroic deed; preaching the immediate need of a and a wordy negative critique is the moral, not merely of a political revolu. logic of science. The villagen identify tion. Now, a moral revolution means a the Protestants with the Jew, the Moor complete change in principlel and cus· (Mohammedan), the heathen, and are toml; means, above all, a religious highly amazed when they see a rational revolution. The eternal life· giving, being with normal limbs, some oiviliza- miraole.working principles of the Refor. tion, and a decided love for Christ's reo mation can alone infuse new life into ligion, profeas to be a Protestant. Hal'e Portugal, stop the process of disintegra. they not been taught that the Romanists tion, and save the nation from utter are the only Christians, and the othen ruin. have either black skins, or horns or Is there any hope of Portugal accept. tails? They show reverence for any- ing the Gospel, at least to some extent? thi.g they believe to be Christian, and To thi. we answer by another ques· will earnestly resist anything their tion : Can one accept or refuse what priests tell them is anti.Christian, and has never been offered? and has the Gos- fight as patriots what is against their pel ever been adequately presented to State Church. The oity people, on the the Portuguese people? The following contrary, puffing their epiourean and sketch of gospel work in Portugal will, sceptio cigarette, hold the Protestant, we believe, show that the Portuguese as well as any other religion, to be a have not yet been placed in a position tedious superstition or a foreign politi· to reject the Gospel, and that where they cal machine. They smile contemptu- hal'e had a chance they hal'S given en- ously at the Bible, and abuse the hum- couragement to it. What our account ble Portuguese Protestant as a traitor to should make plain, too, is that Euro· his country. The principle of the in- pean and American Christians have not fallibility of the Pope, which ill now the fnIft11ed their duty toward Portugal, and cardinal doctrine on which the whole that before God they are, perhaps, more Catholic edifice is built, bas scarcely guilty in this matter than is Portugal any adherents in Portugal. The offioial henelf. representative of Portugal at the Coun- Before we proceed to the historic and cil of the Vatican, the Bishop of Viza, descriptive part of our paper, we mnst after deolaring that his vote had been remOl'e a few milBpprehensions which falsified at the Counoil, fled from Rome we know to be prevalent among our back to Portugal, where his great popu- readen. larity shielded him againet any papal t.Portuguese Catholicism is not at exoommunication. The oelibacy of the all1ike that of Protestant or semi.Prot. priestll is not believed in by the people elltant countries. It is less rigid, less or by the priests, who oft legally recog- ultramontane, but also far less moral nize and cherish their illegitimate oft- and edueated. The illiterate mall in spring, Nor has Portugal ever acmowledged the temporal supremacy of the the "forties" in thil oentur)'. in D. Pope, nor .has the latter ev.r seriousl,. attempted to force it in Portugal. Pom- Maria II.'s time, that, as far as we have bal, with the assistanoe of the Pope, found out, the Gospel wu for the 1m drove out the Jesuits for oonspiring time persistently announ.oed in Portuagainst the throne, and they have never gal, and even then how timidly I Keetbeen tolerated until reoentl,., and then ings were oomm8IJoeci almost simulta. iUegaIly. Owing to the union of Church neously in Lisbon and Oporto. In Li.. and State, and to the fact that sinoe bon it was Mrs. Helen Roughton, wife of Portugal is a oonstitutional monarohy anEnglishmerohant, who, withherhUi. most statesmen have been avowed scep- band's assistanoe, held private meetfDp tics or inddels, the State Church has in her house and established a school. often been administered by men who The Roughtons belonged to the Church had a hundred times beoome liable to of England, but a few years before her exoommunication as free thinkers or decease Mrs. Roughton adopted the Free Masons. news of the Plymouth Brethren. She died about eight years ago. The Angli. While the constitution mentions the can Churoh of the Taipas. Lisbon, may liberty of conscienoe, speech, and press, be ooDsidered a concrete result of this eparste laws oircumscribe these liber- personal effort. ties within the boundaries of the State Church. These intolerant laws, how· At Oporto, about 18'5, Miss Fred. ever, are conllidered by liberal cabinets erika Smith, born in Oporto, of Englilh 81 a dead letter, and evangelical propa- parenta, and later on married to Mr. ganda has never been systematically or J. S. Fletcher, United States Consul " eft'ectually interfered with from head- Oporto, seems to have beeu the 1lrBt quarters, though ignorant or bigoted evangelical worker. Rev. A. de Kattoll, officials, the priests, and the mob give one of Dr. Kally's oonverts, born in Ma. trouble enough. This somewhat illegal deira and a naturalized American, was tolerance is not only due to the liberal probably the 1I.rst Portuguese preacher dispositions of the respeotive ministers, in Portugal. He began his work in but alBO to the presence and occasional Oporto, and died a few years ago while remarks of the British, German, and serving as translator of the United Statel American legations. Legation at Lillbon.
In its widest sense Portuguese gospel We cannot here give a historio acooun' work would inolude thft missions in of the origin and development of every Brazil, the Azores, Madeira, the Cape missionary agency. A review of their Verde Islands, the Portuguese provinces present condition will be sumcien' for in Africa and those in India. The work our purpose, the intervening period of of the Presbyterians, Southern Baptista trials, difficulties, encouragement and and British Christians in Brazil is pretty disappointment, unlearning and learn. well known in America. That of the ing, growing up, down, and sidewa1l. Azorea, under Mr. Maxwell Wright, and whioh are oommon to all undertakings the story of the Madeira Protestants, of that sort, can easily be supplied by under Dr. Xally, have also found able ex· those who have some experienoe in luoh positors. Nor shall we dwell OR the Protestant miasions among the heathen of work.. Portugueae.Angola, in West Africa, for Representing the union of Proteatant. they are fully illustrated in the missionary journals of their societieain Amer. ism, the great British and Foreign Bible ica. Society and Religious Traot Society have done and are doing the widest and We shall limit our observations to deepest, though least apparent, gOlpe1 continental Portugal. work. Their general agent, Rev. Rob.. ert Stewart, has from six to eight col. Descriptive Sketch.-It was not before porteurs oanvassing constantly the dif. ferent provinoes and citiea of Portugal,
mTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
selling or distributing Scriptures, tracts, gathering. God will Burely withhold- and Christian literature, and accom· neither sun nor showers of blessing panying the written with the spoken provided we do our part. The strong.
Word. There is probably no publish- est evangelical church in Portugal is the er, or but one, in Portugal that turns Anglican, under the guiding hand of the out as large editions as Mr. Stewart. clear-headed and warm-hearted Canon He has no press of his own, but patron- Pope, of Lisbon. In this capital they izes the best Portuguese printing offioes. have three or four churches, with four His headquarters are in the former con- ordained ministers. I do not know how vent of the " Marianos," a vast stone many schools. At Oporto they have building with adjoining, ohurch, which three churches with a8 many ministers.
were purchased some yoars back by the The Presbyterians have one Church Presbyterian Churoh of Lisbon; there at Lisbon, and the British Wesleyans you can now see piled up tens of thou· one at Oporto ; the latter is in charge sands of Protestant books in the Portu. of the Rev. R. H. Moreton, who has ac.
guese language. From there, too, is quired a thorough knowledge of Portu.
issued the Amigo da Verdade (" Friend guese.
of the Truth"), a monthly illustrated The Plymouth Brethren have two paper for young folks. meetings in Lisbon. The work of the As only one-tenth or flO of the Portu- venerable Manuel S. Carvalho is unsee- , guese popUlation oan read, and only one tarian and purely Portuguese; it has part of these do read, and still less will three meetings in Lisbon and several buy Protestant religious books, it will schools, and a number of soattered be readily understood that the work of bands through the kingdom receiving the Bible and tract societies is mainly periodic visits from that devoted work.
one of oharity. A grand preparatory er. At Portalegre there is a churoh work has been done by them, and it which was in oharge of young Mr. Rob.
ought to be followed up by the more inson, whose recent decease the Portu.- direct missionary ~Jndeavor of schools guese Protestants still mourn. Born in and regular meetings. The translation Portalegre, son of a wealthy English of the Bible hitherto used by the Bible cork merchant in that town, equally Sooiety is that of Figueiredo, which is popular, modest and devoted, he was the Romanist and olassical version in giving the brightest promises of a long Portuguese. Now a committee of the and useful oareer when it pleased the ablest Protestants is at work making a Lord to remove him from his family new translation, and the gospels have and the work. Another independent already been published as a result of church is found at Oporto ; here too is this work. Independently of the Bible the church of Father Geulhenna Fer· Society. Mr. Herbert Cassels, of Oporto, reira, who had a name as an eloquent has undertaken the pUblication of a Roman Catholio preaoher before he took popular but splendid edition of an illus- to preaching the pure Gospel. No ac· trated Bible; the cost of the whole count of Protestantism in Oporto would work will amount to about $12,000, and be complete without making special it will take the enterprising publisher mention of the Cassels family, most of many years to reimburse his outlay in whom were born in Oporto, of English this great and good work. parents, and give the best of their tal.
Allover Portugal there are little bands ents, influence, and means to the fur.
of believers without a shepherd, and therance of the Gospel caulle in their eaoh of these, with an able pastor at its native city. One of the difticulties the head, could become a centre of widely work in Portugal has to contend with radiating influence. The oolporteurs is the strong emigration to Brazil, and are sowing the good seed, other laborers the tendency of Protestant workers to ought to do the watering, W6!lding, and take the same route, the fascination of Brazil a1fecting even eTangelists and ing Christ A9 the only way of salVA. preachers. tion.
In Lisbon and Oporto together the Concerning an indepencient move· Protestant schools number about ten, ment at Setubal and other places, we being almost equally divided as to num_ can do no better than quote from letters ber; &II to success and efficiency those of Rev. Manuel S. Carvalho. of Oporto seem to be decidedly superior. " I am now at Portaiegre holding meet- ings after a visit to Lisbon. I propose The. Protestant papElls are four, two to take up Southern Alemtijo and the being published in Lisbon: the Amigo province of Algarve. While the people da Verdade and the Voz do Evangelho, of Lisbon and Oporto are mostly inand two in Oporto, the R40rma and the different, the people of the provinces Luz do Mundo. are hungering for the bread of life, as is clearly shown by the constant appeals Quite recently the ranks of Portu- addressed to us. guese preachers have been strengthened by the remarkable conversion of a "On January 3d, 1892, a gospel hall young priest. Of him the Rev. R. H. was opened in the city of Setubal, a Moreton gives the following account: seaport south of Lisbon. This event at once roused the indignation of the Born at Coimbra, in January, 1865, he Jesuits established in that city, and made such rapid progress in his studies they requested the authorities to have that he was admitted to the seminary in said hall closed, saying that the Bibles 1881 to study for the priesthood. A used in the same were false and offen- Bible, however, handed to him by an sive to the State religion. elder sister with great caution, as being a garbled Protestant edition, and with " The opposition movement, however, an injunction to destroy it, first opened did not stop with civil processes. The his eyes; for on comparison with the Jesuits urged upon the Setubalenses to· passages quoted in the Rom-ish text- burn all Protestant books, threatening books, he found that nothing had been their holders with excommunication. suppressed. Later on Adolphe Monod's They organized a week of prayers in St. .. Lucille" fell into his hands, and Domingo's Church to ask God and the greatly cleared his spiritual vision, as Virgin Mary that the Protestant heresy did other evangelical books. He was might be quenched in the city of Setualso advised by an eminent physician bal, which was threatened with ruin. who had once studied for the priest. hood to look around him and attend a " In Lisbon we now have four housell Protestant service, where he would find of prayer: at Cascil.s, Rua Monse a simpler and more attractive form of d'Albuquerque, Santa Catharlna, and worship. Failing in an attempt to find at Chilla8. We also have six scaools, one, he finished the prescribed course, all gratuitous, because the people are and was ordained under a special brief very poor. Four are daily for children, from the Fope, being under age. A one is a night school for adults, and the two-years' curacy in an important par. sixth a Sunday-school for all classes, ish convinced him tbat the Church of the attendance from 200 to 240. Dur- Rome waR not his'place, and early in ing November, 1891, I visited the prin- 1890 he turned to teaching for a living; cipal cities and towns of Algarve, in December following he came to Opor- preaching the gospels and distributing to for fuller light, and two further visits 86 Bibles, 2 Testaments, and 3470 leafdecided him. In March, 1892, he joined lets. The teaching of the Bible hal the Methodist Church at Oporto, and been introduced into a girls' school of since then has witnessed a good confes· LouIe," sion, iiving evidence of spirituality and love for the truth, and faithfully preach. One of the great drawbacks in the evangelization of Portugal is the deep- seated traditional antipathy of the Portuguese for the English. Hitherto all sionary, and as United States consular the gospel work in PortugBl has been agent at Loanda. His report in this directly or indirectly by Englishmen. latter capacity, published in " Reports of Americans are as popular as English- the Consuls of the United States, No. 147, men are the rel"erse; against them and December, 1892," is one of the most their money there would be less or none comprehensive and painstaking docu· of the foolish suspicion of political pur- ments which we have studied in a great poses. A school at Lisbon, like that of while. We would much like to BUm· the American Board at San Sebastian, marize it for our readers, and may do Spain, would be a great blessing and so hereafter. Just now, however, 'We give form the nucleus of the much-needed others than the original inquirers the seminary for Portuguese preachers and benefit of Mr. Chatelaine's reply on the evangelists. The large colonies of Por- questions above referred to. J. T. G. tuguese in New England, TIlinois, Texas, California, and the Sandwich Islands Mr. Chatelaine says: "The pla.n of could furnish some of the workers. It establishing a Christian colony in Africa is remarkable that wb ile all our large de- I consider practicable-never profitable nominations-the Baptists, Methodists, -provided a great many conditions be Presbyterians, and Congregationalists- complied with. Some of these condi. are doing direct or indirect mission tions are: work among the Italian and Spanish nations, Portugal should have been ut· "1. The locality mnst be by its cliterly ignored by our whole American mate adapted to the propagation of the Christendom. white race. It must have perennial water for irrigation, and must not be too If no teachers or missionaries be sent far from the coast. It must be among from America, some funds for the differ. peaceful tribes, or within reach of milient agencies, or for the independent, tary protection. unsectarian, and purely native work of Manuel S. Carvalho should establish a .. 2. The leader of the colony must link of fraternal relations between our have spent not less than five years in rich and strong churches and the infant Central Africa and have been successful church in Lusitania. in what he undertook there. He must be obeyed by the members of the colony, The American Sunday-school Union even in apparently unimportant details. has already made a beginning by grant. There should be cheerful submission to ing a small subsidy for the dissemina- discipline, and a clear contract made tion of the Amigo do Verdade as a Sun- with each member of the colony before day.school paper. starting.
A Ohristian Oolony in Africa. .. 3. The colonists must be of both sexes, able to do hard work, modest in PBACTICAL CONDITIONS. their aspirations, of the quiet plodding sort, not spasmodic, free from fixed no· A party having solicited answers from tions, and anxious to promote the gen. us to inquiries about establishing a eral welfare more than their own. Christian colony among the Bantus in some part of Africa, asking as to the "4. There must be sufficient funds, feasibility of forming a joint-stock com- or guarantee of funds, to insure the llany, the building of a missionary ship, adequate equipment of the colony and and other matters, we took occasion to their partial or complete support for submit the whole matter to Mr. Heli three years, and the equipment must be Chatelaine, just returned from Angola. of the required sort. Otherwise the Mr_ Chatelaine has given years of study whole undertaking will be a failure. to African problems as linguist, as mis· H 5. The party must not go out all to. gether, but a few at a time, at intervals of six or nine months.
"6. Of course every member must be known to be a tried and common·sense pIished. Without native aid the work Christian, having no idea to improve his could not be successfully carried on. material condition by the change, will. 'l'here is a weakness in the native char· ing to live in Africa at least five years acter which occasions disappointments, but we hope the Lord will give grace before coming back on a visit, willing and strength to overcome. The finan· to endure privation and hardship, free cial problem is one of difficult solution. from color or race prejudice, being Our church'members are mostly very moved by a feeling of ·duty and not of poor, and although willing, cannot give much. Their smallest payments de· self·chosen ambition. mand self·denial. Ministerial salaries "Anyone of the above conditions can be raised without great trouble; but all extra expenses, such as building, failing, the undertaking is bound to repairs, etc., cause great anxiety to prove a failure. A missionary ship those brethren upon whom the burden would be a waste of money. A stock of raising the means for such work is laid. Comparing the churches of free company would be a dishonest piece of men of to-day with the heathen bond· business, unless it be clearly stated that men of 1732 should silence every doubt.
the shares are simply given with meagre er of the value of f<>,reign missions.
prospects of ever returning to the hold- "On February 17th, 1892, at about ten o'clock in the morning, the church ers, Rnd then it is no use having a com- bell at Emmaus rang out wildly, and pany. As everything depends on the those who looked to see the cause of climate, do not forget that nowhere commotion beheld clouds of smoke and north of 140 south latHude has the white tongues of flame rising high and fast above God's house. The church was on race a chance in the struggle for life. fire; and in two hours the building, In the district of Mossamedes (Angola) which had been enlarged and rebuilt alone of all West Africa can sites be over the foundations of the first church found which are suited for white colon- by the late Rev. Ziock, in 1861, was nothing but a mass of rnins. Two ization. Going anywhere else is march. benches were dragged out of the fire ing to the grave or to misery." and are now in the new place of wor.
ship, but all else was food for the flames. Only the four walls were left The Mora.via.ns in the West Indies. standing; they were injured in places, but had been too thick and strong to be The Rev. Samuel S. Warner, conuect. much affected by th-e fire. This was a ed with the Moravian missionary work sad and distressing occurrence. The among the Cherokee nation and the new church which replaced this is a stone structure 40 X 60 feet, with ac· West Indies for thirty.six years, writes, commodation for about 300 people.
giving an account of the dedication of It was dedicated January 11th, 1893, by a new Moravian Church at Emmaus, Bishop Weiss. Chairman of the Mora. St. John, D. W. I. : vian ProviBcial Board, who had come from Antigua for the purpose.
"The United Brethren's Church be. " The consecration service was inter- gan their missionary work on St. Thomas esting and impressive, and many more in 1732. The negroes were heathen and people than the church could hold were slaves. In 1882 we celebrated our third present. One of the most pleasing jubilee, and then the negroes were free featurell connected with the event was and all nominal Christians. Truly, the presence on the platform of minis- what hath God wrought I In 1882 the terial representatives of every Prot- churches were striving to become self. estant denomination in the neighboring supporting, and to continue the work island of St. Croix. The much-regretted as a province of our church. The work absence of any such representatives from of educating a native ministry was de- St. Thomas was not due to a lack of in.
cided upon, and preparations for a be- terest or brotherly sympathy on their ginning were soon after begun, and in part, but solely to the unfortunate lack due time the first class entered upon a of sufficient wind to propel the schoon- three years' course of studies at Nisky, er, by which they had taken 'passage on the island of St. Thomas. Two from St. Thomas. Bishop Weiss, who classes have now graduated, and if had accompanied them on the schooner, much remains to be done we feel deep- had been compelled to embark in a lit.
lr thankful for what has been aCC0Il!- tIe boat which only reached Emlllaus a~ 4;30 P.M.; and thus while the consecra- Mrs. Amelia S. Quinton, and ·:&Ii88 tion service was proceeding the cler~ Mary C.Collins; (c) "ImmigtlUits,"
of the Anglican, Dutch Reformed, and European. Also an addreBll by -Mias Wesleyan -bodies were miles away at sea Sybil Carter on "Woman's Work in endurillg considerable diaoomfort in Mission Fields."
their attempt -Co be present at the ser- Wednesday, October 4th, in the morn- vice. Had this not beQn the case, a ing an addre88 will be delivered by-Hiss rare but beautiful example of Christian Ellen C. Parsons, editor of Woma,,~. unityw_ould have been presented by the Work for Woman, in the" History of PreMDC8 on the platform of the new Woman's Organized Missionary Work church, of clexgymen from all the Prot- as Promoted by American Women," and ea&aut _churches in the Danish West Mrs. Moses Smith, President of the In(li¥. It is at any rate pleasing to Woman's Board of Misaions of the In- reeord the faet that all the clew were terior, will speak of "Women Under the doubtless present in spirit though not Ethnic Religions."
in the fresh." Wednesday afternoon will be devoted to addresses on the following Bu·bjoots: Of Women Under Jewish and Christian Woman's Bl'IUloh of the World's Mis- Religions," by Mrs. Elizabeth Charlljs, lIionary Oongress. author of "Schonberg Cotta Family;" "Science and Christianity,"" Place of In connection with the World's Mis- Woman's Mi8sionary Work among thll sionary Congress mentioned last month Evangelistic Forces of the Church."
is to be a meeting of the women mis.
sionary workers. On Mondav, October CENTRAL AMEBIC'&' ITDIB.-Rev. C. M. 2d, Mrs. Franklin W. Fisk will preside; Wilb1ir writes from San Jose, Costa the devotions will be led by Mrs. S. B. Rica, March 6th, 1893: Capron, of the Bible Institute, Chicago, formerly for thirty years missionary in In the five republics of Costa Rica, India. Mrs. Benjamin Douglass, of San- Nicaragua, Salvador, Honduras, and ta Barbara, Cal., will deliver an address Guatemala at present there are labor- on" The Reason Why." MissCharlotte ing, so far as can be learned, the follow- M. Yonge, of Winchester, England, will ing: present a historical paper on " Missions Nineteen Moravian missionaries as Promoted by Women in Great Brit- among the Mosquito Indians in Nica- ain."Miss E. Jane Whately, of Lon- ragua. No work yet opened to over don, England, will deliver an address, 200,000 Spanish-speaking natives in this followed by two other speakers. In the republic.
afternoon Professor Henry Drummond, In Costa Rica, Rev. J. H. Lobey, of University, Glasgow, will speak on the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Union, Of The Power of Scripture put into the has been laboring at Port Limon for :five Hands of the People alone Influencing years, and as a result a church number.
the Mind in Conversion.' , Mrs. Isabella ing 72 Jamaicans has been gathered, a Macdonald Alden (" Pansy") will pre- station opened among the East Indian sent a pen picture of" The World a coolies on the sea beach, and much Hundred Years Ago and Now," and Mrs. evangelistic work pushed along the line Alice Freeman Palmer will deliver an of the Costa Rican railway.
addrells on" Work of Woman's Schools Two years ago W. W. MoConnell and and Colleges in Missions." .. wife, from St: Paul, Minn., were sent Tuesday, October 3d, the morning out by the Centml American Mission of session will be occupied with an ad- Dallas, Tex., to the Spanish-speaking drf!S8 on the" Salvation Army," by Mrs. natives of Costa Rica. They were Ballington Booth, followed by an ad- joined in February, 1893, by C. M. Wil- dress from Lady Henry Somerset. Mrs. bur and wife, of Abilene, Kan., and J. O. -Robinson, of Detroit, Mich., will Mis8 Margaret Neely, of Dallas, Tex.
present a paper on "Deaconness'Work," Meetings in Spanish have been held and Mrs. J. T. Gracey one on .. Medical for over three months, and the Master's Missions;" also an address by Miss 8eal of approval has been placed on the Frances E. Willard. mission by the salvation of some..
In the afternoon of Tuesday papers Messrs. Norwood lind Penzotti. sent will be read on "Woman's Work in out by the American Bible Society,8ra Solving the Racial Problems of North now making a tour of the republics, and America;" (a) "The Emancipated or in Costa Rica sold over 2000 oopies of Anglo-African," by Miss Mary G. Bur- Bihlps, 1'estaments, and gospels. Sare.
dette, eilitor of Tidir',,_~, ObicRgO; (b) lythis Word of the living God will bean "The Indians," by Bishop Whipple, c>pen door to future evangelistic den. In Sal"ador, with over 700,000 natives Several missionaries have 't'isited the speakin, Spabish, midnight gloom is unbroken, no-voioe orying to the wioked islands sinoe I opened the work, inelndand idolaieIB to receive the Gospel. In ing Bishop Biokersieth, of the Eagoliah Guatemala, with over 1,500,000. only two miBBion. mi8fi0naries are laboring-MeBBrB T. Iddingll and John Haymaker, at a Pres. I was down tllere last spring, awl byterian mission in Guatemala City. spent o"erthree weeks holding m~ nearly every evening. Many of the In Hondurasall is dark; no ray of light to bell8eD by 250,000 of redeemed ones. native young men understand Japau.e, Re". C. T. Scofield, Seoretary of the and 80 were able to listen understand. Central American Mission, DalI88, Tex;, ingly to all that was said. We aave will be glad to learn of-any who believe had quite a number of baptisms aIDOBg the coming King would have them wit· nees to these people. the Japanese, but as yet none of the DA- Rev. Robert A. Thomson, Amerioan tives have been reached. I hope to visit the islands soon again, as the work seems very encouraging, Bnd I may be able to give you some notes on what is being done.
Baptist miBBioll1U')" at Kobe, Japan, MIsSIONARY TROUBLES IN TtluEY.- The correspondent of the New York writeB·to us as follows: I notioe in the November issue of Tribune, writing from Washington, the MIssIONARY REVIBW OF THE WORLD a Maroh 19th, made mention of the "isit letter from Mr. Loomis on mission work of representatives of the American in Japan, in which he giveR an account Board the week previous, and of· their of a visit of Mr. Correll to the Liu-Chiu interviews with Josiah Quincy, Acting Islands, and speaks of his glowing re- First Assistant Secretary of State. The ception there and the good meetings visitors were Dr. S. Judson Smith, Jr.• held. At the olose of the paragraph, Secretary; Dr. Edwin Webb,. of the Mr. Loomis says" the BaptIsts have a Prudential Committee, and Rev. C. C.
native worker there now." This would Tracy, missionary of Marsovan, Tur- very naturally lead most readers to key. The Tribune said: "They told think that the Baptists followed up Mr. Mr. Quincy that Turkish offioials ilMer- Correll, whereas it was exactly the op- fered with the correspondence of the posite. The American Baptist Mission- that the miBBionaries in that country ; ary Union was the first mission to open that the missionaries were subjected to Christian work on the islands since Dr. much ill-treatment by the natives, who Bettelheim gave up the work there over were not restrained by the authorities, forty years ago. He was supported by and that meBBages from United States a few English naval officers when Liu- Minister Thompson to the State D…
Chiu was frequently visited by war ves- partment in Washington had never 86ls, but becoming disoouraged, he re- reached their destination, from whioh tired. fact the minister inferred that hi. mail I had two Japanese evangelists at was tampered with. Their stat8Dlents work in Napha when Mr. Correll visit- were so positive that investigation of ed the place, and the meetings held by the reoords of the department was or· him during the week he stayed there, dered to determine whether or not the were held in the house rented by my correspondenee on lile substantiated evangelists for their meetings and where the 88Bertions. This investigation is they were at work; not yet complete, but it is nnderstood Of course they, with the other Japan- that the allegations made by MeBBrB.
ese in Napha, were glad to see a foreign Smith, Tracy, and Webb will be shown miSSionary, and gave him a warm wel- to be fully sustained.
come. It is just as well that it be "The question of dealing with ,the re- known now, to save any question whieh lations growing out of the presence of migM arise afterward, that the Baptist missionaries in Turkey has ah,aysbeen miBBion was the first to open work in a perplexing one to the officials of the that field. I do not for a moment State Department. The missionaries think that Mr. Loomis would or did have a legal right to a domioile in the wittingly convey the wrong impression Ottoman Empire, but it is evident that oontained in his letter. He simply did they are unwelcome guests. Their renot know all the faots in the OBse, as he lations with the ArmeniBns, who Bl'8 had just recently retumed from Ameri- more or le8s engaged in politieal move- 08, and he had only taken his informa- ments against the existing authority, do tion from other sources. I trust this not tend to oommend them to the good oorreotion will not be considered out of will of the Turks.
place. "The cons(lquence is that the cor. respondence between the governments verts; and there is a Russo-Greek misof the two countries to a great extent is devoted to a discussion of complaints sion in the north, which some years ago by missionaries of assault and other illtreatment. It had been hoped that a had baptized more than 3000. better condition of things would be reached within the last year. The Porte The progress .has, indeed, been made prompt reparation for the destruction of the school property of an Ameri- wonderful ; and although a Christian can missionary named Bartlett-a gratifying departure from the ordinarily community of (say) 150,000 in a popudilatory course of dealing with these matters. But more recent develop- lation of 40,000,000 is far away from a ments, as intimated, show a serious condition of affairs." Christian Japan, yet great hopes of the Ohristianity in Japan-a Resume. speedy triumph of the Gospel were per- We make room for the following from haps not unnatural. They certainly the Monthly Messenger of the Presbyte- existed. It was even rumored and be- rian Church of England: lieved that the government was disposed The period of missionary activity, to adopt the Christian reli~ion as that from 1872 onward, coincided with an astonishing movement of the Japanese of the State. mind toward everything Western. Western languages, customs, dress, Two or three years ago the outlook furniture, politics, literature, railways, were sought after and adopted, not only began to change. An anti-foreign feelwith readiness, but with enthusiasm. Japan was in a hurry to become Euro- ing had always existed, and now it bepeanized or Americanized-many Japanese young men were educated in the came bolder-strengthened by various United States, and then went back to high office in their own land. The re- causes. The new institutions and ways ligion of the West shared in the general favor. The country was opened up had not caused a golden age; foreign freely to the missionary. Churches and societies poured in workers. The Meth- powers refused to alter treaties humiliatodists and Baptists, the American Congregationalists, the Scottish United ing to Japanese pride; the priests of Presbyterian Church, the Church Missionary Society, the Society for the the old faiths were alarmed at the Propagation of the Gospel, a German Swiss Evangelical Society. the Society spread of Christianity, and did what of Friends, all entered on the work, and converts were multiplied. In 1872 they could to excite popular 'animosity. there were 20 church-members; in 1875, 538 ; in 1876, 1004 ; in 1883, 2500, with A new Buddhist sect was formed, ina Christian community of 13,000. In 1891 there were 33,390 adult members tended to revive and reform Buddhism; of Christian churches, which probably means a Christian community of nearly adopting Christian morals, as the Arya 150,000, The Presbyterian missions have united to form the Church of Somaj has done in India, and seeking to Christ in Japan, with 13,000 members -the Church which had almost re- rally round the ancient faith thus purisolved to adopt our Artides of the Faith as its doctrinal standard, but finally fied the educated intelligence of the took instead (as being less detailed and elaborate) the Apostles' Creed and two country. And so the eager interest in or three appended doctrinal paragraphs. This is the-largest church in Japan, but the Gospel first slackened and then the Congregational churches (American) .. passed into hostility. are also numerous-lO.OOO members. * * Besides Protestant missions, the Roman It is evident that the hope of gain_ ClLthgiio proplLganda cllLims mllny oon- ing Japan for Christ by a rush must be abandoned. It would have indeed been strange if ., the carnal mind" had in this fair land, and among this bright peo- ple, refrained from" enmity against God." The work is suffering hin- drances ; the converts are being tested here as elsewhere. It maybe best so !
The faith which is strained either breaks, and so proves itself to have been without real life-and that has happened with a good many Japanese Christians in these times of popular and priestly opposition, and it is every way better that this useless faith should be discovered-or, strained, faith holds fast, by taking a firmer grasp of Christ and the Gospel; and then it is a happy and mighty witness for Jesus. So it is already in Japan. The work is not slackened anywhere, the workers are harassed and saddened, and only driven closer to the Master; and conversions do not cease, and they may be trusted with more confidence than can be al- ways felt in sunny days… Japlln is not a Jericho already taken by blowing rams' horns. She will yet be taken, in a steady, brave siege, by means of the Sword of the Spirit,"
DEPA.RTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
I1I.-DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR.
CONDUCTED BY PBOFESSOB AMOS B. WBLLS.
One of the commonest experiences of idiom exactly expressing his idea, but missionary life is that of speaking dismisses it as untr!nslatable into Japthrough an interpreter. Dr. Clark, anese. Then he remembers an Ameriwhen in Japan on his Christian En- can colloquialism that has done good deavor tour around the world, had ,to service on the other side of the Pacific, make forty-five extended addresses to but is sure that if translated into Japan- Japanese audiences. He gives the fol- ese it would be Hat as the traditional lowing graphic description of his expe- dish·water. Then he remembers a tellriences: "The speaker begins, 'It ing story that illustrates the point to gives me great pleasure, my dear perfection; but alas! it involves an orfriends, to be present at this meeting der of life that is utterly unknown in and address you for a little while this Japan, and would give the impression, afternoon.' Then, if he is a green hand if translated literally, that the speaker at speaking through an interpreter, he was a harmless lunatic just escaped stops, while the Japanese speaker;trans. from some trans-Pacific bedlam. So he lates, the ' foreigner' all the time think- dismisses that idea. By this time the ing what a Hat and inane remark he has interpreter is through with his previous just made, a remark not worth making sentence, and in as plain and matter-ofin the first place, and surely not worthy fact a way as possible the American exof the dignity of being translated into presses his thought, all the time conanother language. However, it takes vinced of his failure to make what one the interpreter but a little while to re- of my friends at home calls a ' palpable peat this stale introduction, and the hit,' The hour progresses, until at last , foreigner' must brace himself for his the speaker sits down, chattering and next effort, which is very likely a lame shivering with the cold (for these stoveattempt to condense into one paragraph less Japanese churches are often' colder something about the rise .md recent than all out doors '), feeling that he has rapid growth of the Christian Endeavor made anything but a brilliant exhibition Society. Then he stops for another of himself, or a lucid explanation of his long minute, while his interpreter puts subject. However, as time goes on, and this into Japanese ; and all the time the he learns the secret of speaking through first speaker is wishing he had said an interpreter, this task at last becomes something else, and had puthisthougbt comparatively easy; and. as he gets acin a more sharp and pungent way. A customed to this new exercise, he even thing that does very well to say once, enjoys this style of oratory. He learns sounds exceedingly Hat when you pause to trust the prodigious memory of the to have it said after you, and when you Japanese interpreter, and comes to have realize that from six to twenty English a profound respect for his skill in renauditors are listening to your lame and dering colloquial English into colloquial broken efforts at condensation. But Japanese. Though the interpreter often the speaker has not long to think of his begins where the speaker left off, and own misery, for he realizes that the in- goes backward, Japanese fashion, he terpreter is getting through what he has gets it all in, and often with much more to say. Pretty soon the interpreter will eloquence than that with which the stop sbort, and • Xuraku San' (Mr. original was uttered. A good interpre- Clark) must then take up the strain ter will put fire and fervency into a once more. So he CBstS about in his speech, will gesticulate freely, and talk mind for a happy way of phrasing his with eyes, head, hands, and his whole next thoughts. He thinks of an English body, Instead of giving a lame aud paltry sentence at a time, the wise speak. many of the leading Japanese pastors, er will continue talking until he hBs ut- professors, and evangelists; among tered his whole thought, even though it them, President Kozaki, of the Doshtake five or six minutes to do it, feeling isha; Rev. Messrs. Yokoi, Harada, and immense confidence in the orator by his Honil.a, and Professor IshimMo, of side. At first I felt timid about long Tokyo; Rev. Messrs. Miagowa and sentenoes, not realizing the wonderful Miyake, of Osaka; Rev. A. T. Fuwa, memory and oratorical powers of my in- of Kyoto; and Rev. MellSrs. Homma terpreter; but before the forty. five Jap- and Osada, of Kobe, and many others ; anese Christian Endeavor speeches were and I have been BllSured, over and over over, I took much delight in relying on again, by many such men, that there the gifts of my friend, and never found are many features about the Society of him wanting. Evide~tly the Japanese Christian Endeavor that admirably fit it interpreter needs no course of memory- for growth in Japanese soil. Some of training under Professor Loisette. On these features are: 1. Its insistence on one occasion I remember speaking some· the supreme religious idea and the highthing like five consecntive minutes, est Christian motives commends it to when Professor Ishimo.o, whose fame the Japanese churohes. Many of my as an interpreter is in all the churches, Japanese brethren have told me that was putting my remarks into Japanese. they have had enough of mutual im- In the middle of my fi ve·minute address provement societies, debating clubs, and I had ocoasion to tell about the glorious literary guilds, and that they want a scenA in Madison Square Garden when CHBlBTIA.N Endeavor society. 2. Its the Canadian delegates and the United States delegates joined in singing' God plans for service rejoice their aearts. Save the Queen' and' My Country, 'tis of thee' to the same tune, and then told The fallt that the Society stri'fes to reholV we all stood together and sung that duce noble theories to nobler practice ; hymn of Christian brotherhood, so dear to give to every man his work; to solve to every Endeavorer's heart: the problem of the unemployed, whioh is pressing on the Church as well as on , Blest be the tie that binds the State; in short, the fact that it is a Onr hearts in Christian love.' Christian ENDEA.VOB Society makes them like it. S. Because it centres itself in I wondered how my friend would trans- the Church they like it. The Japanese late English poetry into Japanese churohes, like others that I might men· poetry, whether his resources would tion, have had enough of organizations be quite equal to this strain. At once that dissipate and fritter away the ener· I saw him .grasp the hymn-book on the gies of the young disciples, without table between us, and open to the concentrating and focalizing them for hymn; and when it came his turn to the building up of any partiCUlar church. translate, as he came to that part of the They like Christian Endeavor becsuse addres., he simply opened the hymn- its motto is, • For Christ and TBB book and read the poetical Japanese CHURCH: 4. Because it is a self.goTtranslation of the far·famed hymn. erned, independent organization they This is only one instance of the quick- are interested in it. Because it acness with which Japanese interpreters knowledges no authority outside of it. grasp the thought and translate it faith- own church and denomination ; becsuse fully and strikingly into the idiom of it is ruled by no foreign pope, or bishop. their own·tongue." or central board of authority; in other words, because it is under Oh.'I'ist and After his four weeks' Christian En- for Ohris! as well as the Ohurch, deaTor campaign in Japan, Dr. Clark they like it. 5. Once more, many have thus sums up the results: •• I have had exprellSed an interest in the movement he plellsure of an aC'luaintance witb because it l,lromotes Christian feUolDshiP. If there is any place where sectarian talk with 4im about the glorious new rancor is out of place, it is on the mis- work.
sion field. If there is any place where From Ohio comes news of a Christian a fratemal, and not a divisive, society Endeavor society that actually did what is needed, it is on foreign missionary the old-time critics of the movement ground. All the churches of the difter- said it would do-founded a church.
ent Presbyterian boards-Cumberland, It was a very innocent proceeding, how- Northem and Southem Presbyterian, ever. The old church had died, and Dutch Reformed-have united in through lack of old people, five years Japan. A little while since, a move- before. These young Endeavorers sim- ment for uniting in one body all ply organized, worked awhile, and then the Presbyterian and Congregational refounded the old church. Suoh in- churches only just failed-more's the stances come quite frequently to our pity, me judice. Any movement like notice.
Christian Endeavor, that brings to- An Endeavor society of forty-five boys gether disciples of all creeds, without has been formed in the Christian Boys'
sacrificing any fundamental principle, High School of Ludhiana, India.
is welcomed by intelligent. large-mind- Rev. T. Richards, of Shanghai, has ed Japanese Christians. I am glad, written and compiled a booklet giving, also, to record that one of the most in_ in Chinese, the facts and instructions ll.uential Japanese pastors, Rev. T. Ha- necessary for the formation of Christian rada, who has translated and published Endeavor societies. It will be printed a booklet on the Society, has promised by the Presbyterian Mission Press, to look after its interests in Japan until where there is already a Christian En- a convention can be held and officers deavor society among the printers.
chosen to take the matter in charge. Christian Endeavor literature has now Four weeks ago there were, to my knowl- been translated into two of the Chinese edge, only four societies in Japan j now dialects.
there are at least a score, and many Lutheran young people have now more in prospect. " raised $2300 for the young people's New societies are reported from Natal, memorial Lutheran church to be erect- South Africa. ed at San Diego, Cal.
One of the latest Christian Endeavor At Bangkok, Siam, a recent deepen- ideas is a .. home department" of the ing of spiritual interest among the stu- society, for the benefit of the sick, and dents, and the conversion of one of those who are obliged for other reasons them for whom his brother-students to remain away from the meetings, but were praying, has brought about the who might help greatly. and receive formation of a society of Christian En· help, by sending messages, and main- deavor. Christian Endeavor literature taining contact with the society. is being translated into Siamese.
One entire day and part of another Last fall a Chinese Christian En- has been set apart in the programme of deavor society was formed in t;he Pres- the Parliament of Religions at the byterian mission at Oakland, Cal. This World's Fair at Chicago, for the pres- society is greatly interested in mission entation of the work of Christian En- work, and last year gave for this pur- deavor societies. The time will be well pose the amazing sum of $936.80. One occupied. member gave two months' wages, an· Rev. G. H. Krikorian sayB that while other one month's, and so on.
he was intrbducing the Christian En- Macedonia has now a Christian En· deavor Society into Turkey, so great deavor society, for which the pledge 'lVas the interest that native Christians and constitution have been translated 'Would travel from three to five days to into Bulgarian.
EDITORIAL l>EPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Wa.tchwords of Missions. one of comparative insignificance and poverty would all the more be felt. There are certain great watchwords Doubtless if he adopts the latter plan he that should be before the Church in unquestionably will receive an especial her mission work: Here are a few·out blessing from God. of the many that deserve to be·en· graven as on the very palms of our W. D. Rudland, of the China Inland hands and on the door·posts of our en- Mission, writes from Tai-Chall as fol. terprises : .. Open Doors," "Fulness of lows: Times," " Fitness of Times" " WorId Wide Witness," .. The King';Business," "The past year has been the most " Serving Our Own Generation," "The encouraging we have yet seen. While Regions Beyond," "The Field is the others in other provinces have been World," "The Prayer of Faith," "War turned out of their stations we have After the Spirit," "Cheerful Giving," had the largest ingathering we' have ever " Prevailing Prayer… seen, more than three times the number of any previous year out of the twenty_ Letters from Ohins. a.nd India, two we have been here. My young col- league and myself have had the joy of Mr. Adam, the missionary in charge baptizing 141 persons, and still there at the station of Ngan-Shun-Fu, about are more in.:;,oirers than there were at three years ago helped a military man- the beginning of the year. The num· darin-whose Tank is equal to an hon- ber of hearers is also continually on the orary mayor-to break off opium smok- increase in our ten stations and out·staing, Which, I am thankful to add, was tions. This is the week of prayer, and done most effectually. At that time, we are having daily native prayer.meetbesides opium smoking, he very freely ings, and seeing that God has blessed indulged in wine drinking, and his tem- us so during the past year we have made per was ungovernable. Now he is quite bold to ask Him for 500 additions this a changed man,; opium smoking broken year. But we do not wish to limit God off and craving gone; wine drinking to that number, but shall be prepa1'ed ceased; and temper perfectly under his for the 'more abundantly.' This control. We have no doubt he is a sin- means a lot of hard toil for us in our cere believer in the Lord Jesus, though scattered work; but if He gives the con· not at present baptized. His position verts He can give all the strength need. is a trying one. As you may be aware, ed. We have adopted no new plans, it is the custom in China that periodi- nothing but the old Gospel has been cally all the leading officials go to the preached, and it is still the power of temple to worship. Our mandarin God unto salvation to everyone that be· friend, being in attendance upon the lieveth. Yes, even the heathen Chi· T'i T'ai-this rank being equal to a nese! I often wish some of the idle commander-in-chief-he has also to go Christians at home only knew the joy in company with the other officials to of leading a soul to Christ. They would the temple. This is very distasteful to not likely be satisfied with one." him. but doubtless if he absented him. self his position would be forfeited. If Dr. Jacoo Chamberla~n tells us of he loses his position all his means of sustenance will be gone, for he, as far having met, on the borders omfiTsshiiboent~.8 as we know, has no private means to remarkable Roman Catholic fall back upon, Now he all his life has been used to every comfort ; and the He had for thirty-six years been trying change from official dignity and ease to to carry into that dark kingdom the light of the Gospel. Hitherto every. effort of his had failed to secure a permits, to become a foreign mission- settlement in the country; but he has ary." No pledge is intended, but sim- hung about its frontiers, and many of ply the signification of 'a purpose.
the Thibetan youth have received in- There are many reasons in favor of such struction from him. "He brought," a formal declaration; among them are writes Dr. Chamberlin, " and laid in my these: 1. It forms a basis for definite lap the fruit of twenty years' toil-a organization, and consequently for pow- Thibetan Latin dictionary of seven er and progress. 2. It helps to bind hundred pages of manuscript in his more closely together for study and own handwriting, saying that this was prayer those who look fdrward to this the fifth and final revision. He was work. 3. It makes the "Volunteers"
now going to Hong.Kong to carry the better known and their influenoe in be- book through the press. But best of half of foreign missions more decided all, he had also in manuscripts perfect- than if their purpose were less definitely ed translation of the Gospel of John, stated.
which he had been putting into such An early decision is urged on the clear and idioma.tic language as to be ground of greater influenoe on others, understood by all the people; and this longer time for study, and better op.
he was going immediately to print;so portunities for loosing from old and that if he could not go into Thibet him. forming of new ties of affection; but self, he could send Gospels into it by while an early decision may have its return traders. What s lesson," Dr. advantages, who can say that God's Chamberlain exclaims, "to some of us kingdom will be best served by its being who complain of slow wOl·k and little always in the affirmative?
success. Thirty.six years of foiled We believe that the Movement will in- effort, and yet enthusiastic and hope- crease in usefulness and that the leaders ful as ever!"-liree Ohurch of Beotland will aocept every suggestion and oppor- Monthly. tunity by whioh its principles and meth- The Volunteer Movement. ods may be perfected and its results made more lasting for the advancement In our present issue Dr. Nevius gives of the Master's kingdom.
some kindly criticisms and suggestions for the benefit of Student Volunteers. British Notes. That this movement has done much for the canse of missions in awakening in- BY :REV. JAMES DOUGLAS.
terest, spreading knowledge, and press· On January 31st, 1893, commemora- ing on individuals their personal priv- tive servioes in connection with the an.
ilege and responsibility in reference to niversary of the lamented death of C. H.
the work in the foreign field, is heartily Spurgeon were held at the Metropolitan and thankfully acknowledged; hut it is Tabernaole. morning, afternoon, and equally true that their methods have evening. It is extremely diffioult hold been open to criticism to some extent ing suoh large meetings in a manner from the nature of the arguments used befitting the solemnity of the occasion.
and the amount and kind of pressure It is within the heart rather than in brought to bear upon those interested large assembly, where ever and anon to lead them-almost to compel them- laughter and applause strike a jarring to sign the" pledge." note, that the true commemoration is The leaders of the movement have kept. Still Spurgeon's life was emi- sought to remedy the defeots as far as nently lived in the open, and thus far possible. One notable improvement is the commemoration of it is in the open the change from the term" pledge" to unavoidable.
. that of" declaration oard." 'This card We shall ever remember him, having now reads: .. It is my purpose, if God seen much of him in private and talked together of the things dearest to his quainting his grace with what had been heart, by two points in particular: his done, and expressing the hope that he deep sense of the reality of truth, and, might "favorably regard this attempt second, his resolute aversion to philoso. to extend the benefits of Christianity." phize thereon. Much more might be Later on Mr. Wilberforce supports this said, and has been said; but these appeal in a personal interview, and reo points, if grasped, lay bare bis very ports: ., The archbishop was very can· soul. It WIIS not simply that be held did, and appeared to be favorably dis· the truth because he believed it, and posed ; but, as might be expected, he had been taught it by the Spirit of God, was cautious not to commit himself but he had such a penetrative sense of till he was more particularly acquainted it liS filled his mind with light and fired with the subject." For a time progress his heart with love. is very slow and labored. Three com· mittee meetings are mentioned in sue· And then he was a simple believer. cession where no business was done be· He did not think he could dovetail and cause no quorum. More than a year has tum into a philosophy the verities of the elapsed, and the hierarchical oracle has truth of Which he was assured. Heheld not spoken. It seemed as if the new the balance of truth, and that without society for missions to Africa and the striking a balance. He left the harmony East had entered a deadlook. The crisis to God. He delivered his message and may be judged from the secretary's would be no party to the adjustment of words to hi.9 son in a private letter sent Divine things to suit the puny meas· him on July 12th: "The missionary ures of man's understanding. society lies off The Bishop and his Clerks, where, if not wreoked, it may rot, for In England we do not believe in what I can see. They return no answer, saints' calendar days. Our business is and, as I foresaw, we are all non· with the living and for them. The plussed." Mr. Hole, whose narratIve justification of yesterday's proceedings is to be continued, somewhat sensa. is that they were live. It was no figure tionally breaks off here. in wax commemoration. The hospital ship Albert has lately An article of great historic interest visited Hopedale, an Esquimaux Mora. on the" Early Days, Friends, and Lo. vian station. Dr. Wilfred Thomas Gren. calities of the Church Missionary So· fell, the surgeon on board the Albert, ciet~" appears in this month's (Febru. writes, " We have just spent eight days ary) MissiO'llllrY Intelligencer. The writer in Hopedale, a station of the Moravian is the Rev. Charles Hole, B.A. Like missions. It has done us all good to most things which have grown great, come in contact with such good men, the spring of this movement was small who have given up everything we hold and humble. It had no official start. dear in life to live always banished to Sixteen clergymen and nine laymen these bleak, icy hills for Christ's sake. were present at the first meeting, which The Esquimaux, too, I have taken a was held at the Castle and Falcon, on great fancy for. They are a most affec- the east side of Aldersgate Street, and tionate people, and our men seem scarce· some little distance northward from the ly able to see enough of them." At general post.office. The date is April leave-taking" they sang, 'God be with 12th, 1799. Of those present, two names you till we meet agt:lin,' and then we IDay be mentioned-the Rev. John sang, •Farewell, faithful friend.' .. Venn, who presided, and the Rev. John 'Newton, whose wondrous career it is We conclude our notes with a quot.a.. impOIIIIible the Church militant can ever tion from Miss Lucy E. Guine~s's arti· forget. On July 1st, 1799, a letter is cle, entitled ., Via Sacra Via Dolorosa i . sent, signed "John 'Venn, Chairman," to the Archbishop of Canterbury, ac· or, Lost -Lives." .. Lost lives? which missionary subjects, courses of study, are they? Lives spent on self, wasted news and notes, and a directory of mis- in pleasure, fretted on vanities, livedfor sion,ary boards and of speakers who may time 1 Ambition may be gratified, aims be procured for addresses before so- achieved, honors won ; but when earth cieties. Its prioe (25 cents) bri~ it is left behind, what remains for such? within reach of all.
Their grace and triumph will have van- -Missionary Map of liree (]hurch. of ished. self-consumed. . .. Lost lives! Scotland, by George Smith, LL.D., As the words re-echo I see the saints of F.R.G.S. This is a very valuable map, God, who from of old, declaring plainly and is the result of some of Dr. Smith's that-they seek a country. have cheerfully most careful study of the distribution gone forth on pilgrimage' Bot knowing of religions in Europe, Asia, Africa., whither they went.' Abraham is among and Australasia. This distribuUon -is them, Paul is among them, and the represented in colors most definitely heroes of our century of missions-Liv- and accurately. The mission stations ingstQne is there, Krapf is there, and of the Free Church are also designated. William Oarey ; Allen Gardiner, starved We wish that every society could pubto death on the desolate Fuegian shore ; lish a similar map. The size is 4 X I) James Gilmour, tramping with bleeding feet. feet frozen Mongolian uplands ; Graham Brooke, dying alone on the Upper -Map of Japan, by C. H. Kajiwara. Niger; John McKitterick, sleeping in Size, 52 X 54 inches; price, $6 mount. the first white man's grave in distant ed. Mr. Kajiwara, a native of Japan Lololand-they are all there, all part and a student at Princeton College, has of the Eternal. And Jesus' life is there." endeavored to .how in his map and ac- companying diagram and statistical Oross-Beare1'8' Missionary Reading Oircle, tables the relative strength of various Christian denominations and a com- Oourse of study for this year as fol- parison with other religions. It is more lows: I. Biographical-l. "Life of comprehensive and accurate than any James Oalvert," 75 cents; 2. "Mackay. of the maps of the kind, and is recom· of Uganda," by his sister, $1. II. Travel mended by all the best authorities. -3. "Lands of the Orient," by Rev. -Memoir -qf Margaret Kennedy, by M. B. Chapman, D.D.• $1. m. Phil- osophical-4. "The Divine Enterprise James Kennedy, M.A. (James Nesbit & of Missions," by Rev. A. T. Pierson, Co., London). Mrs. Kennedy was for D.D., $1:25. IV. Periodical-5. THE nearly forty years a missionary in India, MIBBIONABY REVIEW OF THE WOBLD- and the account of her home life and her work among the women of Benares Funk & Wagnalls Co., to C. M. R. C. is well described by her husband. The members, $1.50. For further informa- book is a missionary biography, with all tion address Rev. Z. M. Williams, St. that that term implies. Joseph. Mo.
Publica.tions Noticed. -The Great Oommission, by Rev. M. T. IJamb (published for M. T. Lamb, Dav- -The St'fliknJ, Volunteer, the official enport, 180., 40 cents). The subjeot is organ of that well·known movement, treated in relation tQ both the home and makes its first appearance in February, the foreign field, and with much force. edited by the Executive Committee, The information which Mr. Lamb gives from 80 Institute Place, Chicago. It in the form of statistics and other facts will be helpful to many besides volun- is very valuable. The book,is calculatteers, for it will contain in every num- ed to interest, instruct, and influence its ber articles by prominent writers on readers.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
Siam and the Laos, Burma*-Buddhism,t RECENT MISSIONARY PROGRESS IN SIAlII. particularly in the Laos provinces, For, as is generally known, Siam is divided BY BEV. CHALl!IlEBS MARTIN, PRINCE- politically into two portions-a South. TON, N. J. ern, which constitutes Siam proper, and a Northern, made up of the tributary It is one of the admirable purposes Laos provinces; and corrAspondingly served by THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF the work of the Presbyterian Church is THE WORLD that it tends to make the carried on by means of two missions, interest of its readers in foreign mis. the Siam Mission and the North Laos sions a catholic interest; to make real Mission. Students of missions will feel and vivid what all profess-the belief no surprise to be told that the story of in a " holy catholic church." As we fol- missionary advancement in the past low through the pages of the REVIEW few years relates chiefly to the second the trials and triumphs of the noble of these fields and the work of the secarmy of missionary workers we forget ond of these missions. The causes to ask of any man or any company, underlying missionary success are com- "Does he-do they-belong to my plex and subtle ; they take in earth and ohuroh?" It is more and more becom- heaven. How often has it happened ing evident in missions, and by means that of two fields, contiguous it may be, of missions it is being made evident at any rate, similar in the difficulties to with reference to the Church as a whole, be overcome, occupied by bodies of that if one member suffer, all the memo laborers nearly equal in number, and bers should and do suffer with it ; if exhibiting the same measure of ability one member rejoice, all the members and devotion, one has been rejoicing may and ought to rejoice with it. It is with the joy of harvest, while the other in the faith of this truth that in the forces its toilers to sow in tears, or, at month of May the directors of the RE- ~est, to wait in patience for the early VIEW ask its readers to tum their and the latter rain. thought not to one of the great fields, occupied in common by the missiona. The Laos Mission is organized at ries of many churches in many lands, present in three stations: First, Chieng but to a field in which a single church Mai, the capital of the Laos provinces, is at work. That field is Siam, with its occupied in 1867; here are stationed ten or twelve millions of Buddhists and four ordained missionaries and a mis. spirit worshippers; that church is the sionary physician, with their wives and American Presbyterian Church (North), four unmarried ladies. Here, too, is a with its band of 45 missionary laborers. boarding-school for girls and one for In this department of the REVIEW for boys, a hospital and dispensary, and May, 1892, Dr. Ellinwood gave an ad- the mission press. Second, Lakawn, 75 mirable historical sketch of missions miles southeast of Chieng Mai, occupied in Siam ; to that article and to that on in 1885; manned by three ordained Siam in the "Encyclopllldia of Mis- men, a physician, and four ladies; here sions" the present writer begs leave to are a hospital and dispensary, an indusrefer his readers for general information trial school for boys, and a school for as to the field, while he devotes this girls. Third, Lampoon, 18 miles south article to some of the more recent events from Chieng Mai, occupied by one orin the history of missions in Siam, and dained missionary and his wife; this is the headquarters of the theological * See pp. 210 (March), 261, 303 (April), and 326 training class, numbering about thirty xp.eI!lbers, With this brief statexp.eJ;lt o~ (present issue).
t See p. 354 (present issue). the situation in mind, let us turn to D. B. Bmdley, M.D., one of the first three or four matters of recent interest missionaries to Siam, one who "as in the work of the Laos Mission. preacher, teacher, author, translator, and printer labored for thirty-eight First, the Successful Inauguration of years" in behalf of the Siamese people, the Mission Press.-While the spoken and that she has as her chief collabora- tongues of Siam and the Laos provinces teur in her literary work her son, Rev. . are, respectively, not very different dia- Evander Bradley McGilvary, who, like lects of the Bame speech, the written his mother, was born in Siam; like her, characters by which they are visibly also, adds to a natural capacity for lan- expressed are wholly dissimilar. For guage the inestimable advantage of twenty-five years the missionaries among childish familiarity with the tongue in the Laos have depended upon a litera- which he now preaches the Gospel? But ture somewhat different in its vocabu- to return to this first tract; see what lary and idiom, and entirely different Rev. W. C. Dodd, of Lampoon, says of in its written form from that with which it in a letter: the people were familiar. This meant that each new adherent must be in- "We have now a Laos tract printed. structed in the use of a new alphabet. Through the school more than three The knowledge of reading and writing. hundred copies have already been dis- so widely diffused by means of the tem- tributed, und it is going daily into new ple Rohools, went for nothing so far as homes. It has made many intellectual Christian instruction was concerned. It converts, and we believe some heart is testimony to the unwearied zeal of converts. It is popular not as the the misijionaries and the eagerness of Siamese Scriptures or Catechism were the native Christians for knowledge that popular-simply as reading books-but in spite of this disadvantage the Laos on account of what it tells intelligibly. Church may be said to be a Bible·read- Of conrse I do not mean to say that ing people. But this disadvantage is there are not plenty of Laos Christians now soon to be a thing of the past. In who read the Siamese books with a sin- 1890, by the energy and skill of Rev. cere effort to understand them; but S. C. Peoples, of Lakawn, then in this their pOl'ularity with outsiders is largecountry, a font of beautiful type in the ly as text-books from which to learn to Laos character was cast in Philadelphia. read. I did not know beforehand how Then the mission press, that for years mnch more useful we shoul(l find the had been lying in the basement of a LflOS."- The Church at lIomeand Abroad, missionary's house in Chieng Mai, broke January, 1893. its rusty silence. and now there lie before me as I write the clean pages of the first Other works are ready, or almost Christian tract ever printed in the Laos ready, for the types-Matthew's gospel, character. the Acts, an urithmetic, a geography. All over Siam the Buddha tree is shed- .. 1'0 all men," so it runs, .. greeting ding its white petals; how long before of peace! This book will tell how men the white blossoms of the tree of life may go straight to the place of happi. shall be faJling softly upon a hundred ness. For everywhere in this world Laos villages, t.en thousand Laos hames ? men are seeking happiness, and yet they experience wretchedness and an The Beginning Among the Moo Surs.- anxious heart." And then follow twelve Another recent development in the work pages of simple but solid statement of of the Laos Mission is the beginning the Gospel answer to our human need. made among the Moo Surs. The Siam- Is it not something more than the" ro- ese and Laos are plain-dwellers; they mance of missions" that the author of will not li ve where the staple varieties this first printed evangel in the Laos of riee cannot be grown. The mounton~ue and character is the daughter of tains in which their land abounds they give up to wild be!l.stl;! and the hill tribes. These tribes are numerous- chapel at their village for daily use. sixteen at least, says Dr. McGilvary- On Sabbaths they go down to the plain the well-known Karens of Burma may to worship with the Laos ChristilloDs. serve as a type of them all. The Moo We visited them on Saturday. On Sars 811"e one of these tribes. Their ex- Sunday, of the twenty-three persons istence was scarcely known to the mis- now composing the families, twentysionaries ten years ago. In 1886 the two were present. Two had been bapfirst visit was made by a missionary to tized last year. Of the remaining a Moo Sur village. They are a nomadic twenty, seven children rl'ceived infant people. They build their rude villages baptism, and thirteen adults were rehigh up in the mountains, burn off a ceived into full church-membership. I tract of jungle, take a crop or two of have never seen a grander sight than mountain rice from the virgin soil, and that-these twenty persons standing up then move on. Their traditions all to receive the seal of God, the patripoint to the fact that they have come arch of the village acting as interpreter from the North. They are not Bud- between them and Dr. McGilvary." dhists nor idolaters, but worshippers of Does this world show any grander sight? spirits. Their government is patri. archal, ~nd each village is independent; Famine- Work in Lakawn and Praa.- ~nd naturally they are very clannish. A third matter of recent interest in con- They are addicted to the opium habit, nection with the Laos Mission is the and are perhaps even more intensely work of famine relief carried on during superstitious than their Laos neighbors. the past year in the provinces of La- But the Gospel has gained a foothold kawn and Praa, and to a much smaller among them. extent in Chieng Mai also. For several years past the rice crop has not been a Two years ago two men of this race full one ; but last year the deficiency of were baptized by Dr. McGilvary, the rainfall in the two provinces first named pioneer missionary to the Laos-more was so excessive that the crop was al- "romance of missions" that the man most II total failure. It was the old who made a journey of six hundred story with which India and China have miles into an unexplored country made us familiar-the increasing scar· twenty-five years ago to seek out the city. until rice sold for sixteen times nnknown Laos should now be found its usual price, the exodus of great numforcing his way on foot over the jungle. bers of the able·bodied to more favored clad mountains to search out the Moo regions, leaving the sick, the aged, the Surs and give them the Gospel. A year crippled, the leprous to carryon the after his first visit, Dr. McGilvary reo unequal struggle; the desperate enturned to look after his converts. This deavors to make roots and grasses take time Dr. McKean, of Chieng Mai, was the place of rice, the whole staff of bread with him. The latter writes: "In this for the Laos people; the horrors of the village there were twenty-two people starving left to die, and the dead left last year. The two fathers seemed to unburied. These are the scenes through embrace the Gospel from the first, and which the brethren of the Lakawn staafter three months of instruction were tion have passed. They sent home their baptized." (These are the two referred appeal for help, and a sum approaching to above.-C. M.) "One of these men $10,000 .was speedily contributed and was a confirmed user of opium. From sent out to them, and by them carefully the 'time he became a Christian until dispensed. The effect of these works the present he has not used opium at of mercy has been marked. Muang all. What was our joy on visiting them Pra, the province adjoining Lakawn on in their mountain home to find tllat they the east, has for several years seemed all desired to be baptized. Although there specially open for the entrance of the are but two families, they have built a Gospel. When the missionaries have passed through it on their tours they desired as an outpost toWard the north, have found kind welcome and eager as Raheng toward the south and' Pri listeners ; they have been urged to re- toward the east. It would supply a main, and on their departure been base from whioh to work the northern begged to return. But those who went tier of the Laos pro't'iDoea, where al.
to this province in the work of famine ready four 1l0urishing ohurohes han relief were besieged with a newearnest- been established; from whioh also to ness by the call for a missionary. They push the work among the Moo Surs and returned with the conviction that the other hill tribes, and to reaoh out to the time was ripe for taking possession of Independent Shan States, whioh lie this province also in the name of Jesus, between Siam and China, and are peo.
and the whole Laos Mission unite in an pled by a race praotically identical with appeal to the Church at home for the the Laos in origin, language, oustoms, opening of a new station in Muang Pra. and religion.
li'urther Expansion Planned -Nor is These are some of the recent devel.
this the only direction in which these opments in the Laos provinoes whioh brethren feel that the voice of unmis- at once make glad the hearts of our takable providences is calling the Church brethren there and fill them with a sol.
to an enlargement of the work in the emn sense of responsibility. Speaking Laos country. Two other points they of the last annual meeting of the mis.
urge upon the attention of the Church sion (December,1892), one of them sa,. : as places to be occupied at once by .. As the olaims of one new field after mission stations. One of these is the another were presented, the solemnity important river town of Raheng, the grew. We felt that a orisis had been half-way point on the long river jour- reached. At the suggestion of the ohair.
ney from Bangkok to Chieng Mai or man, we stopped our business disous- Lakawn. This midway position of Ra- sion and stilled our souls while Dr.
heng, together with the fact that it is McGilvary led us in prayer for orden accessible from Burmah by an easy pass from our Commander." Referring to over the mountains, has made it a great the large demands made for the coming meeting-place for Siamese, Laos, Bur- year, demands including the sending mans, Karens, Chinamen. Here the out of eighteen additional laborers, the coinage of Siam proper is exchanged opening of three stations, and the ex.
for the rupee of India, in common use penditure of perhaps *25,000, the mis .
among the Laos. Here is transacted a sion says: .. We make no apology for large part of the great teak timber busi- the large things asked. One of our ness, one of the chief industries of Siam. number has thus voiced our unanimous From Raheng a stretch of three to four feeling. I believe that God has awak.
hundred miles of riverway, lined every- ened us 8S a mission, and woe be to us where with villages, would be easily ao. if we allow this awakening to go no fur- essible. The Gospel prllached in Ra- ther than our own hearts. I believe we heng, whether by lip or printed page, ought to shout this call-shout it until would be. carried north, south, east, the Church must hear I"
west along established channels of trade What will the Church do ?
and travel. Hence the call of these missionary strategists" Seize Raheng !"
The other city upon which they have -The latest estimatell give tbe ~u. set covetous eyes is Cheung Hai, a walled town about a hundred miles lation of Siam in round numbers as 6.- north of Chieng Mai, on the rivar Maa. 000,000. Of this number, 2.000,000 are Koke, a tributary of the great Maa Kong Siamese, 2.000.000 Laosians, 1,000,000 or Cambodia River. Cheung Rai is Chinese and 1,000,000 Halays,
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [~
VI.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEY. D. L. LEONARD, Extraots and Tranala.tiona !'rom Foreign and we refuse to accept the present de- Periodioals. cision as one which God will allow to stand. Our appeal is to Him. It oon- BY BIilV. C. C. STABBtl'CK, ANDoVlllB, lIIA.8s. oems a grievous sin on our part 'as a people, and that indeed might be met MEDICAL MDsIoN8. with sore jUdgments, but it goes further than that. The opium traffic is II sorll _cc Sometimes the question is put: hindrance in the way of the Gospel of Wherein does a medical mission hos- Ohrist, and we may and must plead with pital differ from other hospitals? The God for its removal. Let none who IInswer is simple. A medical mission pray about this matter be disoouraged, hospital is one in which:all the workers, or cease to ory to God about it. The and the medical officers and lady super- refusals of man and of earthly govern. intendent in particular, regard their ments are mountains which must be patients as claiming not only all the brought low, that' all flesh may see the physical but also all the spiritual help salvation of God.' " they can bestow upon them. • Healed by and for Ohrist' is what the workers -" It has been said that' Healing would like to be able to write against was the keynote of Messiahship," and the name of every one who leaves them. Dr. Livingstone exclaimed fervently that If the Lord enable them for nothing , Ohrist was the :first medical missionmore, they will gladly do all they can to ary.' Dr. Neve, in Medical MissilYTl8 at lift from the sufferers the burden of Home and Abroad, claims that' there is bodily pain or mental care; but they something essentially divine in the phyhope for, ask for, and work for results sician's calling; not merely because it which shall abide through all eternity. is II study of the highest forms of life, Would that all our hospitals in Ohris- its most complex organs and highly tian England were pervaded by this evolved functions, but because it is spirit !"-Medical Missions. learning more and more that health is only to be kept or regained by harmony -" It is right that all our readers with the great environment. And that should realize that the answer of Lord environment is God. The offices of the Kimberley t. the anti·opium deputa- healer and of the preacher are thus comtion on November 10th was distinctly bined; for the former discovers and adverse to all its proposals. Beginning applies those laws in the sick which the with the promising admission that the latter exhorts the sound to obey, lest use of opium was, of course, associated they also fall victims."-Bend Me (Hot with muoh evil, and that in Burmah it Springs, Ark.): was peculiarly destructive to the people, the Secretary of State for India de- Bend Me long ago made a oordial acclined to admit that anything further knowledgment, hitherto overlooked, of oould be done at present for either obligations owing to this RlIlVIlIlW. Ohina, Burmah, or India. Lord Kimberley spoke, there can be no doubt, not I:sDIA. only his own opinions, but those of the Prime Minister. The outlook, human- -The Leipzig Mission in the Madras ly speaking, is dark. We are to go on, Presidency has ordained its :first pait seems, adding evil to evil. The riah. The ord'ination roused sharp opmoney involv.ed is too weighty to be position at first, which, however, lIeems touched. Righteousness and meroy to have soon died down. must kick the beam. Happily there is One who is higher than the highest; -" With Ohrist preached, sung, and read into the hearts and minds of the
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
people of India, we need say nothing as sake all the coarser forms of religious to the power He must exert on their worship, and deny all the coarser rehearts. Perhaps those most deeply ligious books, and pin their allegiance affected would be the last to admit it, to the Vedas they have never read, but however. The prevailing sin of India only know of by hearsay. to-day is pride; it stands out more prominent than her Himalayan moun- "Speaking the other day with a tain chain. It has swollen her oheeks young Hindu, I asked him, 'Do you till her very eyesight is obstruoted and still believe in idolatry?' 'No.' 'Do she cannot see herself. India acknowl· you still believe in the religious char. edges the beauty, the grace, the sover· acter of the Hindu Pantheon_uch, for eignty of Christ, but she will not bow instance, as Krishna?' He replied, 'I to Him because He was not bom a Brah· don't believe in the licentious Krishna man nor inaugurated his religion in of the Premsagar, but in the pure Krish- India. na of the Bhagawadgila.' This is cer- tainly one of the best of the Hindu sa· "But, bend or not, she cannot but ored books; but the young man con· give way to an overwhelming force, and fessed he had never read it. What does BO she has compromised with her pride all this mean? The sons of those who and adopted a religion that is half way. held the licentious Krishna as a god Christianity has acted on India as the and worshipped him now abjure the law did on Israel-it has been her god of their fathers for a mythical but schoolmaster; it has revealed to her purer character in the Vedas. It seems her sin. A confession such as the fol- that the force of Christianity has been lowing from a recent Hindu writer is so strong in giving India higher ideals not uncommon. He says: 'Have we and purer ambitions that its people are got in Hindu society that blunt hon. gradually being driven from the morass esty, truthfulness, independence of of licentiousness and idolatry to the spirit evidenced in impatience with in. purer heights of the' Hill of Righteousjustice and indignation at tyranny, that ness.' The silent effect of Christianity profound sense of individual responsi. has already demanded many reformsbility in the collective which character. the salvation of widows, the doing away izes the English? I say, we have with ohild marriage, eto. Caste will go not. . " We have a convenient next, as it has already with the Scmaj theory of predestination to account people. for all that we are and everything that we do. We may do any wrong, but our " Moreover, India cannot remain long conceit, slavish conceit, is such that we in its present condition. The orthodox are ready to find consolation in the ex- young Hindus talk of believing in and cuse that fate has so decreed. . . . We following the Vedas, but though I have may recognize the evil influences at talked with many of them, I have never work, eating into the very vitals of our found one of them who had read even society, but we are too cowardly to lift one book of the Vedas. They oannot our hands to stay them, much less to reo rest satisfied thus. They will be forced move them.' Such are, confessedly, the to read, and to read will mean to be feelings ofmanyHindusupon thesubject. unsatisfied, for only Christ and His reo ligion will satisfy the people of India. " The whole Somaj movement, how- The oourse of true righteousness in ever unwilling they may be to confess India is slow, but it is sure. It may it, has been bom of contact with Chris- mean much perseoution, even bloodtianity, and is no! due to any innate shed ; but before this century oloses in goodness in the Hindu religion or its fol- on us the universal verdict will be ' The lowers. Even the orthodox Hindus, who Nazarene has oonquered.' "-Rev. NORsoorn being held as in anyway indebted MAN H. RUSSELL, in Presbyterian Record to Christianity, have been forced to for. (Can. Pres.).
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
_If There are times when we seem to the kings Rnd rulers were in se,.eral inbe just on the eve of great events in the stances the first to embrace Christianmission field. The time for the caste ity. Ethelbert, King of Kent, and ten people to yield and come over the line thonsand of his people were baptized to Christ and His kingdom seems to be within a few months of the landing of close at hand. And we say, • They Augustine and Edwin, King of York, surely csnnotresist much longer; there and more than three thousand of his are indications which show clearly that people were baptized by Panliua a few they are about to come in by thousands. ' years later. And yet a full century But as we advance that expected time passed (and there were repeated aposrecedes. As the years :flyaway that tasies of whole kingdoms) before hea. great awakening of the Hindus still thenism finally yielded. keeps backing off into the future. We hope that certainly in another ten years .. The conversion of the German peowe shall see mighty changes in this re- ples was also very slow. Although the spect, caste breaking down on every Gospel was planted among them early hand, the idol gods almost abandoned, in the Christian centuries, it was not and the people yielding all through the till the time of Charlemagne, A.D. 800, country. But the decade passes, and we that their tnrning to Christianity was are still confronted by the towering complete. The Gospel had among them wall of caste and the gigantic system or a long and bitter struggle century after Hinduism. century, and a century was just as long in those days as it is now. .. There is danger of becoming impatient. because 'progress seems so slow, ,. The Scandinalian nations were also and so many bright hopes have not been by slow degrees, and in spite of great realized, and because their realization opposition, won to the Christian faith. seems at times as far off as ever. The work occupied two hundred years.
U The grem corrective for this impa· .. Let us not chafe and fret, then, or tience and perturbation of spirit is • the grow weak in faith, because the Chris· sure word of prophecy,' the' exceeding tianization of India seems so far from great and precious promises.' By the completion. Tribes like the people of mouth of His holy prophets Jehovah Fiji or the New Hebrides may soon be has declared and reiterated the declara- won, but in a country like India the tion again and again, that Christ shall superstitions and prejudices and rehave universal dominion His king- ligious tenets of the people are so andom shall embrace all nations and reach cient and deep rooted that every inch to eternal ages. On such promises let of headway is contested. us rest, and in the increasing brightness of that coming day let our faces become .. The day of triumph is coming, that cheerful. is su"e. When, 'We know not. Our im- mediate successors in the work and " Another thing that will help us to those who come after them may haft be patient is a study of the evangeliza- their patience sorely tried by hope detion of those nations and races which ferred, but the final outcome is certain. form what is now called Christendom. For that let us be willing to toil on, Take Britain for instance. Even its whether the complete victory be far or second evangelization-i.e., the conver- near. God's purposes have • the ages sion of the English incomers, com- to come' for the time of their develop. menced by Augustine and his companions in A.D. 596 (and principally con- ment."-W. B. B., in Ltm8 Star (Telugutinued by the Irish monks from Iona) took more than one hundred years for land), its completion. And this, too, although the country was so small,and though -The following deacription of the late excellent Ram Chunder Bose is quoted by the (Jhurch MISsionary Intclli- gencer from the North India Gleam,,:
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
"Mr. Bose's oharaoter struok us as a forget it again.' I WBB glad to see singularly interesting one, and it was of her earnestness to remember that Name a type perhaps not very oommonly which is above every name, and prayed , found among Bengalis. Its main traits that she might soon know more of its were independenoe, a restless craving sweetness and preoiousness. for truth, downright honesty, moral oourage, and candor to a degree which "The two last Sundays but one she made friends as well as antagonists bas spent most of that day with us, sometimes wince; but combined with eagerly desiring to learn more about this was a beautiful, transparent sim- Him. I should like to ask prayer for plicity and unworldliness, and a humil- her as well as for the other women who ity and self-depreciation which were oome so regularly twice a week to the very touching in one so undoubtedly Bible.cIBBs. "-Ohina' s Millions. possessed of intellectual gifts of a high order. His candor and simplioity were _" One old man with a well-preserved perhaps sometimes carried to exoeSll, faoe listened, and expressed his belief and led him to proolaim his opinions to that if a man did good he would receive the world while they weUl still in a orude pardon of his sins. I showed him and half-formed stage. It is no exag- that all men's hearts had a root of evil. geration to say that the Indian Church Could we ourselves oure it? 'No,' he suffers a serious loss in the death of said, 'we cannot cure the evil root.' Bam Chunder Bose. But we may not We pointed out that God oould do so." grudge him his rest, though meanwhile -Presbyterian ReCO'T'd (Can. Pres.). we have no olle who takes his place." -It is a common notion that popular CHIN.&.. education is widely diffused among the Chinese. But we must remember that -" An old nun, from a temple two half the population (the women) are not miles away, came one afternoon illto taught at all, unless, as the Rev. Arthur the guest hall. This was her first visit, Smith says, an occasional schoolmaster, and she said she had come to hear the having a daughter, and few pupils, Book. After listening earnestly for chooses to give some of his spare time some time she seemed much touched by to instructing her. Of the men. some the story of JESUS, and admitted that missionary says that about thirty per all the years she had worshipped Bud· cent have a slight knowledge of the dha she had not had peace or happiness written character. How slight it is may in her heart. I Then,' said she, • I did be judged from the faot that twelve not know of your JESUS; now I will years',schooling sometimes gives a man pray to Him every day and ask Him to the knowledge of about half the char- wash away my sins and change my acters used in a hospital card. The heart.' Rev. Murdoch McKenzie, writing in the Presbyterian ReCO'T'd from the province .. A. week later I visited her in the of Hoan, says that nine tenths of the temple, and met with a warm welcome. people there appear unable to recognize I asked her if she had remembered her a written character. promise to pray to JESUs; she replied brightly, I Yes; but I oould not remem- Mr. McKenzie remarks that few of ber the name JESUS, so I said Son of the Chinese he meets seem to oare God-would that do?' After a little enough about the Gospel even to ask further teaching she was called away ; questions respecting it. It is not one presently she passed the door saying of the three accredited religions of , JESUS, JESus' over and over again. I China, and that is enough for them. looked up, and she said, •Oh, I am only "They do not desire the Gospel, and trying to remember that Name; my fail to see what advantages it can give memory is so bad, and I don't want to them. If it gave more money, food, and tobacco it might be more deserving
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
of attention." The present work is to Christians largely aid them."-Gospel gather out the elect remnant. M'Ulsionary.
-" Speaking at a meeting of the Col- -" In a Chinese tract the following Jege of Medicine for Chinese, Hong comprehensive objections are urged Kong, in July, Dr. Cantlie, dean of the against Christendom : college, said: • Anyone who knows the Chinese even but slightly is well aware " 'It is presumptuous in the barbarians that steadiness of purpose is, perhaps, to endeavor to improve the inhabitantsof their most constant characteristic. In the Celestial Empire, inasmuch as they their national history, be it in the over- themselves stand so sorely in need of throwing of usurping rulers or beat- improvement. They have shown a lack ing forth their enemies, their constancy of BENEVOLENCE by importing among of purpose has always prevailed. Time the Chinese a poisonous drug, and thus shakes them not from their intent, nor injuring others for the sake of personal weakens the ardor of their understand- gain. They have sent fleets and armies ings. The passing away of one genera- to bereave other nations of their possestion but endows the theme with the sions, to which they have absolutely no sacred fire of heredity; the register of right ; therefore they cannot lay claim a century past in any attempt but affords to be regarded as upright. They allow time for its development and growth, men and women to associate together and brings it into fuller £mition and and to walk arm in arm in the streets; purpose. It is with the sons of such a therefore they condemn themselves as people that we have to do, and having falling short in a sense of prcrpriety. By once taken up a subject, be it science rejecting the ancient doctrines they have or war, it is not in their nature to re- shown themselves to be posseBBed of tract.' ..- The Chronicle. little wisdam. Veracity appears to be the only good quality which they can FORMOSA. in any: measure boast of. Therefore, lacking as they do four of the five ear- -" Dr. Mackay reports: 'Fourteen dinal virtues, how should they be able years ago I arrived here. All was dark to improve others? Besides, they have around. Idolatry was rampant. The shown lack of reverence for the inventpeople were bitter toward any foreign- ors of the art of printing by recklessly er. There were no churches, no hos- treading on printed paper, while others pitals, no students, no friends. Year have spent much money to circulate after year passed away rapidly, but of books for the amelioration of the age. the persecutions, trials, woes; of the Moreover, these self-constituted emortsleepless nights; of the travelling bare- ers of the world are void also of filial foot, drenched with wet ; of the nights piety. They forget their ancestors as in ox stables, dram huts, and filthy, soon as they are dead, put them small, dark rooms; of -the days with into simple boxes, which are only an students in wet grass, on the mountain inch thick, and do not sacrifice to their tops, and by the seaside; of the visits souls; nay, they will not so much as in a savage country among the aborigi- bum a strip or two of gold foil for their nes, you will never fully know. Four- future welfare. Finally, they admit perteen years of toil have passed away. sons that have the advantages of weoJth Yesterday 1273 rejoiced in singing and rank to office without examination, praises to the Lord God Almighty. and do not leave open the way for the There are now hospitals as well as promotion of the poor and lowly born. churches, native clergymen as well as On all these acc~unts these foreigners teachers, colleges as well as primary appear to be inferior to the Chinese, schools in Formosa, and the native and, therefore, in no way competent to instruct them in better ways.' "-Dansk Missions- Blad. THE WORLD AT LARGE. loyalty to everything French is equalled only by their subjection to the Roman -Dr. John G. Paton recommends that Catholio Churoh. Thus far nothing has a young man intending to become a for- produoed so good results as the house- eign missionary seC1;l,re the fullest possi- to-house visitation of Bible readers and ble preparation, and insisted that his evangelists. II own son should take full oourses of study, olassioal, theological, and medi- -John S. Kennedy, a well-known oal, before entering upon his labors. New York banker, has recently given a This opinion is the more signifioant building. seven stories high, and coating sinoe he has not been engaged in mis- upward of $600,000, to these four char- sionary work among eduoated peoples, itable organizations: the New York City but among savage cannibals, who were Mission and Traot Society, the Cbarity without even a written language when Organization Sooiety, the Children's he went among them. Aid Society, and the Assooiation for Improving the Condition of the Poor. -As signs of growing interest in mis- The first floors will be occupied by these sions, it is pleasant to call attention to sooieties, and are all rent free. The the fact that the children and youth of rooms above will be left to other char- Christendom are banding together more itable organizations at a reduction of and more to pray and to give; and also twenty per oent on the regular rates. that most excellent as well as interest- and for 'other general purposes. The ing biographies, and other books relat- building was given outright to nine ing to the spread of the Gospel into all trustees. , lands, are ooming forth from the press by the score and hundred. -The twenty-sixth annual report of the New York State BOard of Charities -Aooording to Dr. Dalman, of Leip- shows that the total amount expended zig, there are 55 Protestant missionary during the past year was $18,228,712. societies for work among the Jews, with A oomparison for the last twelve years 399 missionaries, and an inoome of shows a steady increase. The inorease $406,000. During this century about over 1891 was about $1,220,000. Among 120,~00 Jews have received Christian the 76,807 ministered to last year were baptism, and about one fourth at Prot- 23,732 dependent children, 16,647 in- estant hands. sane, 10,637 ordinary poor.houle in- mates, 5048 hospital patients, 7464 aged " '. The healing of the seamless robe and friendless persons, and 1471 idiotio Is by our beds of paiD ; and feeble-minded. The number re- ceiving publio out-door relief was 131,- We touch Him in the throug and presl, 439. And we are whole agaiu. -According to the .&aminer, the vari. AMERICA. ous denominations of this country, with an aggregate membership of 11,889,427, United States.-There are 1,000,000 gave to home missions in 1891 the lIum French Canadians in the United States of $6,717,558, and in 1892 to foreign scattered from the Atlantio to the Paci- missions, $4,986,516. The Congrega- fic, 450,000 in New England and New tionalistll, with 491,985 members, oon. York, 30,000 in one valley of northeast tributed to home missions $1,365,507, Conneoticut. Says the Massachusetts and $840,804 to foreign; the Presbyte- Home Missionary Society: .. A settle- rians (North), with 753',749 members, ment of them numbering 400 or 500 is contributed $1,137,205 and $93],292; found in Ohio, near the oity of Colum- the 780,000 Baptists (North) gave $633,- bus, that has held for thirty years as 267 and $569,172 ; The Methodist Epis. distinct and separate an existence as copal Church {North), with 2,336,463 though it had the entire occupancy of the state. Their language is French, their oustoms Frenoh, their patriotism Frenoh. All through New England this members, gave $573,750 and $725,367 incapable of exercising a bit of faith or (besides $315,342 from the Woman's So- comprehending what was said; but ciety and for Bishop Taylor's work); when we would get down on our kneea the Southem Baptists, numbering 1,100,- before God, somehqw the day begaD to 000, gave $244,334 and $114,325; the break, and they would feel their load of 1,161,666 Southem Methodists gave sin and cry to Jesus for help." S245,836 aDd SS04,917 ; and the 1,188,- 876 Lutherans gave $268,358 and $55,- -When, February 16th, Rev. Cushing 676. Eells died at Tacoma, Wash., another honored miesionary pioneer went to his -The ProtestaDts of the world num· reward. His birth year wes 1810, and ber about 137,000,000, says James Croll, after gradua.ting at WillilUlls College of Montreal, and may be claesified ap- and H..rtford Seminary, in 1838, he set prodJDately as follows : out with his bride for Oregon, a journey of five months, and there expended his Lutherans…………….. 35,000,000 energies to the utmost for upward of Methodists .•……..•….. 25,000,000 half a century. To Whitman College, :Episcopalians………….. 22,000,000 of which he was the founder, he gave Presbyterians………….• 20,000,000 some $11,000. Baptists………. " ….. '" 17,000,000 Congregationalists……. … 6,000,000 -The Wesleyan Home at Newton, All other denominations…. 12,000,000 Mass., is now ready to receive the chilo dren of the missionaries of the Metho- -England will send a commission to dist Episcopal Church. this oountry to inquire about our experience in Russian.Jewish immigration. -The children of the Presbyterian Since 1891 about 200,000 of these refu- Church (South) have undertaken to raise gees have landed in England, while but $10,000 for a steamboat to run on the 180,000 have come to this country. The Congo, one half for the cost of construecommiesion will ask how the Russian tion, and one half to meet the expenl8 JeWfJ have behaved here, how our im. of transportation past the lengthy rapids migration laws tend to protect us from to be left behind before Lulbo, on the e:lll8aive indues, and what our public upper river, can be reached. An iesue opinion holds on the subject generally. is to be made to the Sunday-schools of 10,000 shares of stock. -San Francisco has 35 kindergartens, with 3108 children enrolled, and an in. -At Seattle a letter has been received oome of ,43,732. In the 13 years since from New Metakahta, Alaska, known aa the work began. over $400,000 have Father Duncan Mission, giving particubeen given for endo"ments, and 14,346 lars of a fire, February 7th, by which 28 children have received training. houses were destroyed in two hours. The people were suffering for want of -Twenty years ago Jerry McAuley clothing and shelter. The fire destroyed started a rescue work at 316 Water about a quarter of the town, entailing a Street, New York. It was looked on loss of $12,000. No man can be named all an experiment then, but is now ac- in the mission field more enterprising cepted .. one of the permanent reo and heroic than William Duncan, and ligious inatitutions of the city. The at- no doubt the money needed to repair tendance last year was larger than for this loss will be forthcoming. manyyearB : 34,957 people came to the meetings, nearly all either drunkards or -A missionary among them writes: lAved drnnbrdlil; 2475 have knelt for .. I notice that the Alaskan children prayer; 5000 were helped to lodgings, learn English more easily than Indians at a ooat of 15 cents per night; 10,000 do, but they know so little of the world WeN helped with a meal. 'rhe annual except their own mountains and the report ..ya: .. Hnndreds who came in sea. One day some of the very little were 10 nearly dead they seemed almost ones were looking at an illustration of the parable of the sower, one of them off with little trouble. For instance, said. ' I guess he is feeding the chick· begin with John Eliot, something in ena,' and another, 'No, they are birds; this mannel" : ' The :drst Protestant mis- he ill going to kill them with a stone.' sionary who ever left Britain. He was They had never seen a deld, nor even a called " the apostle to the Indians." He grain of wheat, and so we began with was the drat to translate the English the bread and had the story backward; Bible into a heathen tongue. He w..
but they have to stretch their imagina- born in 1604, and died in 1690. His tions for everything except water and favorite saying was: "Prayer and pam..
mountains and the few things that live through faith in Jesus Christ, can do in them." anything." , Next may come Allen Gar.
WOMAN'S WORK. diner: • An English naval olJicer, who went as a missionary to Patagonia about -The 5rst woman who went to the 1847. It was said that the people in foreign :deld as a medical missionary this place were less civilized than those stayed her soul upon this verse of Whit- in any other part of the world. He and tier: six companions died there of starvation .. That holy Helper liveth still, in 1851, but his friends in England reo My Friend and Gnide to be. solved that the misaion should never be The Healer of Genu_et given up. Over his grave were inscribed Shall walk the round. with me." these words:" Wait, my soul, upon God, for all my expectation is from -This is how one woman gets on : Him." His initials were A. Go''' .. Mrs. Lizzie Young, a colored woman of Jacksonville, Fla., has established a -Not a few of the names of miBBion· draying business in that city. She ary periodicals isaued by the women'. owns 3 drays, and employs from 20 to societies are excellently chosen. Take 30 more when occasion requires. At these as specimens: Heathen Woman's present she is employed in hauling away ..liHend, Helping Hand, H'I8sionary Link, the sand from the excavation on the Life and Lightjor Women, Women's Work government lot, and so far has sold for Woman, Baptist Basket, The King's every particle of sand dug out. But Messengers, .Missionary Leaftel, Woman's draying is not her only business. For J!Jvange~ The H!.8sion GZw,ner, Woman's six months every year she runs an ex- .Missionary .Advooate, The Missionary tensive wood yard at North Springdeld, Helper, etc. and 4 or 5 teams are kept busy deliver- ing wood. Besides this, she sells many -Missionary librarios for the use of hundred dollars' worth of pork every auxiliaries are coming to be deemed a year, and does a good trade in poultry necessity. At the last Christian (Disci.
and eggs."-Head and Hand. pIe convention a committee reported as -In the Buwlay-8chool Times Martha follows: " That each auxiliary be urged Burr Banks suggests this as o.n excellent to proceed at once to the collection of method of iIl:teresting children in mis- a library for the use of its own local sionary meetings: field, and that the missionary library in every auxiliary be henceforth estab• .. Prepare a short sketch of some one lished as a permanent feature of our missionary or band of Christian work- C. W. B. M. work." And the MIBsJONerI, writing upon a scrap of paper a few ARY REVIEW oJ' THE WORld> was nsmed details in regard to dates, places, cir- in the list of works which ought to be cumstances, work, or character, closing read. with some exprelsi~n that has become in a measure identided with this special -Among the missionaries of the man or body of men. With one of the Methodist Woman's Foreign Mill8ion.
simple copying-tablets any number of ary Society who relinquish half their copies of these statements may be taken plary in order to send out more lab~rere are: Miss Isabella Thoburn, found· eral account had fallen off £457 during er and principal of the first women's the year.
college in Asia; Miss Phcebe Rowe, and A noble friend of this SOCiety" Sir Miss Fanny Scott, all of Lucknow, Charles Wathen, has recently died.
India. Miss Scott was bookkeeper in These are 'some of the gifts beatowed the Cincinnati Methodist Book Concern by him. In 1877, £500 were secnred by when she offered herself as a mission. him for the work of exploration upon ary. Miss Kate A. Blair, in Calcutta, the Congo. In 1879 he gave .£700, half and Miss Fannie B. Perkins, in Ran. the cost of outflt and passage, for 12 goon, are also on this roll of selC·sacri· missionaries, 8 for India and 4 for fice. Each of these five receive $325, all China. In 1883 he gave half of £2100 giving annually to the treasury the sum to send 140 to China. And finally gave of $1625 in cash! £500 for the constrnction of an iron -The sum of $3980.01 was brought school building on the Congo with acinto the treasury of the Me~odist Wom. commodations for 120 boys.
an's Foreign Missionary Society in the -The Balolo Mission on the Congo northwestern branch last year through mourns the loss of three missionaries the mite boxes, showing we must not within a few weeks, and all from the despise even the penny. And no small terrible African fever. But neverthe- part of the success of women in raising less, with due care for health, Melville money for the Lord's work results from Cox spoke the language of genuine having a system of giving, and gather- Christian faith and love and venture.
ing regularly, in small BUmS, from a great someness when he said: "Let a thou. many. As the elevated railroads in New sand fall before Africa be given up."
York last year collected $30,000,000 in amounts of only 5 cents from each pas- -The Christian Literature Society senger for each trip. (formerly Vernacular Edncation Society) -The Woman's Foreign Missionary is in the midst of its thirty·fourth year, Society of the Presbyterian Church has and represents a quasi.union of 10 mis· prepared an extensive and most excel. sionary bodies. It trains Christian lent assortment of literature for the teachers for village schools in India, of use of circles and bands, consisting in whom more than 1000 have been sent part of leaflets full of information, nar. out, and are now teaching from 40,000 ration, and other food for enthusiasm to 50,000 children, while 6 times as and Christian zeal. Also a series of neat , many have been underinstluction. Bepamphlets of about 20 pages each relat· sides, over 8000 are gathered in circle ing to all the countries in which their schools in Bengal. This society issued work is performed, in the form of ques- 1,:100,090 volumes of all kinds, in 18 tions and answers. And besides, a vol- languages, one third being school books, ume of historical sketches of Presbyte. and from the beginning has sold at a rian missions. And what a multitude low price, to meet the poverty of the of consecrated brains are kept busy de· people, 17,034,741 volumes of Christian vising ways and means for furthering bookll.
the mission of Him who came to seek Russia.-It is stated by a correspond.
and to save the lost. ent of the Ohristian (London), who EUROPE. speaks from personal knowledge, that .. There is no man living who is causing Great Britain. -March 1st the Bap- so much suffering and sorrow as M.
tist Society had received £110,118 for Pobedenostzeff," the political head of the centennial fund, with a month reo the Greek Church in Russia. He is maining for further increase. But as largely responsible for the severe meas.
~n offset, the cash receipts to the gen- ures adopted against the Protestants, Jews, and all others who will not unite at the end of ihe nineteenth century, with the Greek Ohurch. In a recent there should exist a city of about 200,- report he urges the Ozar to adopt 000 inhabitants-and that the oldest stronger measures to suppress the city in the world-without, a hospital Stundists, as he finds that "confisca· for its sick 1" And yet ex-Ambassador tion of their property, imprisonment, Webb would convert us all to Islam I banishment to the mountains of the Caucasus and the wilds of Siberia" have -It is profitable sometimes to see failed to induce them to join the State ourselves as others see us, and it iswis- Church. dom to be taught even by a foe. The Sierra Leone Weekly News published an ':"'There are three groups of Protestant article lately on " The Future of Islam," churches in Russia, entirely distinct in by a Mohammedan, a traveller, intelliorigin and history. St. Petersburg gent and well educated. He hopes that contains upward of 90,000, mostly Ger. "at no distant date the sweet cry of man and Lutheran. In three of the the Muezzin will call the faithful to the Baltic provinces are found some 200,. worship of Allah in the great cities of 000 of the same class, largely intelligent the West." He builds this expectation and well.to-do, and the remaining 1,800,. on his contention that Mohammedans 000 of the population is also Protestant. are greatly superior to Christians in On the Volga about 200,000 Protestants morality and in regard for God. "In reside, 150,000 in the districts to the Christian countries," he says, " while a southeast, and in all the provinces small proportion of the people is very of the interior about 1,000,000. And good and very religious, the masses are all these, it seems, are to be harried, practically without the knowledge of dragooned, and otherwise kept in tor. God. Their moral actions are not conment " for the glory of God." trolled by any sense of God's existence. Public opinion is a restraint upon ASIA. many, but their actions are not ordered by a desire to obey God. The immoral- Mohammedan Realms.-Quarsntine ity of Naples far exceeds that of Luck. appears to be an expensive lUXUry in now; the open prostitution of London Turkey. Dr. Reynolds, of Van, was at is far worse than that of Calcutta and Erzrilm, late last fall, but befor!! cholera Bombay; divorce and violations of the had reached there. He returned to Van marriage contract are far more common before there was any quarantine upon in Christian Chicago than in Moslem the way. Some days after his return he Cairo." He describes the Roman Cathowas ordered back upon the Erzrilm lic worship of images and saints, the road three days, to take his quarantine. atheism lind materialism abounding in He objected, and the officers finally de- Europe, and urges that the hope of the cided to quarantine him in his house, world lies in its conversion to Islamism. which they proceeded to do. Soldiers camped in his garden, and horses trod -It must be hard for His Serene (1) down everything. For ten days he was Highness, the Sultan, to sit still and see a prisoner in his own house. At the the dynamite unceasingly carted into end of that time he received the follow· his dominions in the shape of churches ing bill : 25 persons, 5 days, $25 ; drugs and schools. But how can he prevent and guard for 5 days, $12.50 ; 2 persons it 1 is the question. No doubt he for 10 days, $6; 5 horses for 5 days, mourns and rages by turns, but then he $5. Total, $48.50. stands in mortal fear of divers Christian govemments, with Great Britain at their -The Damascus Mission of the Edin- head, and is at his wits' end. In due burgh Medical Society, in its appeal for SeBSOn the cataclysm will befall, and a £5,000 to build a hospital in that city, better age will begin, says: "Is it not almost incredible that, IDcHa.-Be~. E. W. Parker went out drunkards for each convert won by in 1859, and has :recently taken the jOUl"' Christian missionaries." ney again after a visit to America. He thillb the world has moved during the -A newspaper in Calcutta has long 33 yeuswhich have intervened, and seen that something serious is the mat· says: "Then Dr. Durbin came to Bos- ter with womankind in India, and has ton and put us on board an ice ship, been able at length to locate and define whioh was to sail around the Cape to the root of the evil and peril. He says: OalcuUa, and we were nearly foUl" and .. It is the lady of the Zenana Mission, a half montha confined to that little inotfensive in appearance, who introahip, not touching at any port. Now duces herself into the apartments of oUl" we sail away from New York on a women to turn their heads upside down. commodious steamer for Liverpool, The mistresses of the zenanas reoeive travel by rail via Paris, to Italy, and go them with eagerness. If these mis· aboard another steamer bound for Bam· sionaries succeed, it is all over with bay. Had we met with no delay, we Hinduism." They are, therefore, be. could easily have made the passage from ginning an agitation on the subject, and New York to Bombay in 30 days, saving are entering into leagues to banish the OTer 100 days over the first passage. missionaries from their zenanas. What a change from the little sailing ship driven by the wind at an average -An English missionary gives this rate of perhaps 5 miles an hour, to the narrative from his experience: "A steamer of 10,000 tons driven by the Brahmin boy came to me one day and power of steam at the rate of 20 miles ssid : 'Sir, I want to tell you about an hour I Then a few ice ships, a few something which has been troubling me tea ships, and a few others went to lately. We heard at prayers, not long China and India, while now in a single ago, about its being no use to hear the month 424 vessels passed through the truth without doing it, and that idea Suez Canal. " fastened itself in my mind. I was going home a day or two afterward, and I saw -According to present appearances, a little pariah (outcast) boy in the road trial by jury in Bengal has been weighed trying to get a bundle of sticks on to in the balSllCe and found wanting. The his shoulder. When I got near he called constitution of the Hindu mind is such out to me and asked me to help him. I that this mode of meting out justice is knew at once that I ought to, because I inferior to that of leaving questions of believe that we are all brothllrs, and guilt and of the magnitude of penalties, must do to others as we would they not to twelve men, natives and peers of should do unto us. 80 I looked up and 'he accused, but to a single trained, in. down the road, and, as I did not see corruptible English judge. anybody coming, I was just going to help him when the old caste spirit rose -1I18s Gordon Cumming writes in in my mind, and I said to myself, " Why .. Two Happy Years in Ceylon" : "It should I defile myself by touching this is a BOre subject that, whereas Hindu, pariah 1 I shall only have to purify Mohammedan, and Buddhist conquer. myself when I get home, and what is he ors ha~e ever abstained from deriving to me 1" So I tumed away and left him, any revenue from the intoxicating spirits and I have felt so ashamed of myself which are forbidden by each of these ever since. Will you pray for me that religions, a Christian government should I may have strength to do what I knOID 80 ruthlessly place temptation at every to be right 1' , , And 80 it is tllat the oomer both in Ceylon and in India, Holy Spirit works righteousness, where, as has been publicly stated by an archdeacon of Bombay, the British -Two of the daughters of Dr. Clough; Gonrnment has created 8 hundred the great Baptist missionary. will return to the mission work in Ongole,India, -,rhere their father has labored so long district on the borders· of Siam. He and has been so much blessed. found the people very well~to-do, lOme having as many as 120 elephanu. .The1 -Bishop W. F. M811alieu justly ex· had built for themselves large Buddhilt c1ai!lls: "How strange it seems that in temples and monasteries. When the 35· years from the time when Dr. Will· prescher asked them if they understood iam Butler planted the banner of our what they worshipped, they said the1 church in the valley of the Ganges, such did not, and listened -,rith great uten· eminent success should have crowned tion while he unfolded the dootrineof our efforts, and such answers to our the true and living God. That night prayers been vouchsafed that now in their Buddhist priest ran .-,ra1. _ing India we have 5 annual oonferences, that his ocoupation was gone, and the ·.besides a mission and much growing people asked the preaoher to remain in work in and about Singapore, and open his place, and agreed to give up the-,ror. doors and Macedonian cries on every ship of idols and send their children to hand." his school if he would stay. He re- mained for a time. and at last reports -An English traveller, Mr. H. S. 200 were asking baptism. Hallett, in a recent volume published by Blackwood, entitled "A. Thoullllnd China.-Rev. Dr. Griffith John tells Milejl on an Elephant," describing his an interesting story of • young conTen journe1 through Burmah, Laos, and who died recently while on missionary Siam, largely with a view to commer- work far from his home. He entered oial affairs, dedicates his book to the the service of Christ more than a dozen miBSionaries in that region, as 110 mark years ago. The faithfulness and con· of "The high esteem in which I hold sistency of his new life were testiJied to the noble work they are accomplish. by his native friends, who said of Mr. ing." And then he adds:" I never Wang, .. There is no differenoe between understood what 110 great boon Christian- him and the Book." What testimony ity was to the world till I recognized better than that could be given? ",hat heathenism was and how it acted on its victims in Indo-China." '-The Shanghai Journal, quoted in the London Time8, tells of a man who for -The missionary in Siam has con- eeven months has been engaged in ful. stantly to meet the danger of lepr081 in filling a vow that he would -,ratoh three its most loathsome form. There is years at his mother's grave. He b1li1t a practically no quarantine placed upon little hut a few feet longer than him. the lepers except in the matter of dwell- self, but not high enough for him to ings, and they are permitted to go about stand erect in. The man's condition the streets begging for food. There are was foul beyond description, since duro ClOD88quently hundreds of ways in which ing his vigil he does not wash himself the disease is spread, and the authori- nor remove the straw upon which he ties do nothing to prevent it. The lies. The people bring him food and money which is given as alms to the honor him greatly. If he survives the lepers findl its way into everybody's three year&, it is expected that the offi· hands, and the coppers of the realm are cials will go in state and receive him, l¥oua coppers. This is only one of the reporting the matter to the throne, and diBheartening and dangerous evils which he will receive from the emperor'l hand our miBBionaries must encounter, yet a board containing f~ oharaoten laud. they say repeatedly it is forgotten in ing his virtue. their great love for the work. -Dr. Anderson, of the Taiwanfoo -The early triumphs of the mission Hospital, Hainan, says that poor people among the Karens in Burmah are re- pawn articles of olothing and jewelry called by the story of a visit of one of that they may come for treatment. One the Baptist preachers to a remote Karen sick man, long llnable to work, had -Says Rev. J. H. Pettee: II The raised money for the joumey by the Japan (Congregational) Mission, in all sale of his wife to another man. One probability, has sent its last appeal for young man, having been unable to work a large body of new recruits. This for for some time, had been dismissed by several reasons–the expense involved, his wife, who then married some one the new era opening here, when the else. She had been honorable enough, work must be turned over more and he said, however, to give him back the more to our Japanese brethren, and the $15 he had paid for her, and with this growing conviction that China, India, money he was able to live at the hos- Africa have the first claims. Much pital while the doctor sought to effect a money will still be called for, and occacure.-London Presbyt6rian. sionally a man. to fill a vacancy or lead , a new movement; but if I am aDY – A Chinese official in the Asiatic Quar. prophet, loud calls for bands of men to wly for January, writing of the opium help save Japan will no more sound traffic, says incidentally : "Missionaries through Congregational churches." complain that the importation of opium under the auspices of a Christian gov. -Two new centres of work are reportemment-or rather by traders who hap- ed in Southern Central Japan. During pen to profess some form of Christian. the last year the Congregationalists enity, as they would Buddhism if they had tered two important cities, Fukuyama been born in Thibet-impedes the and Hiroshima, having a population of growth of the religion of Jesus. I do 16,000 and 88,000 souls, respectively. not find much similarity between the doctrine and practice of European -The Tokyo Runner, a leading Japan- Christians and those of that great Ori- ese journal, is much alarmed at some of ental leader. Were missionaries to the results upon Japanese girls flowing understand and appreciate the basis of from the schools filled with Western Chinese morality – filial piety – they ideas and influences, which many of would make more converts. But a Chi- them attend: "Practices hitherto unnese must first blunt his sense of right known in Japan have become fashion· and wrong-with or without opium-. able among them. Some girls of good before he can accept Christianity, as families are living alone in lodgingtaught, with some exceptions, by mis- houses ; others walk unattended in the sionaries. Were they to become good streets after dark; and groups of five or Chinese citizens, instead of being causes six school pupils are to be seen drinkor excuses for foreign intervention, their ing sake or playing cards together at propaganda would not be objectionable tea-houses. In the matter of female deto the popular mind." portment Westerns have nothing to teach, and in many cases a great deal Japan.-Rev. A. D. Hail, of the Cum· to leam from Japanese ladies." berland Presbyterian Church Mission, gives these a8 the statistics for 1892 : AFRICA.. The missionaries number 604, an increase of 78 during the year. The net -Cecil Rhodes, the Afrtcan eIr.pire gain of church-members is 2144, and builder, blOS proposed to erect a tele. the total membership is 35,534. Of graph line from Cape Town to Uganda these 20,250 are men, 14,923 are wom- at his own expense, amounting to $7'50,- en, and 361 are children. So the men 000 ; and ultimately the wires are to be outnumber the other sex by 5284! Be- extended to Khartoum and down the. sides, there are 44,812 Roman Catholics Nile to Alexandria. After the wires the. and 20,325 members of the Greek steel rails will presently follow from one Church, making a total of 100,671 end of Africa to the other. Christians. -The Wesleyans did apparently fruit- less work at Cape Coast, Africa, for
GDBBAL 1Il1SS10~ABY mTBLI,l~BNCJl
many years. Only a few years ago they new missions have been founded within were giving $10,000 a year to the work a year, prominent among which is one there, but now the 8000 members con· by the Church of Scotland known as the tribute $lIO,OOO. Who will say that the East African Scottish Mission, with a Baptist Mission investment in Liberia centre at Kibwezi on the high road from has been too large? They have 30 Bap- Mombasa to Uganda. tist ch1l1'Ohes, and the president of the republic is a Baptist. -Africa has some 3750 miles of com- pleted railroads, about 400 under oon- -Rain has fallen twice in 29 years at struction, and surveys are being made Aden, Africa. The last rainfall occurred for twice as much more. But not all in 1888 ; previous to that there was a the lines have attained to great speed. For example, 13 miles of railroad extend period of dry weather which lasted 26 toward the interior from Bengnella, and one of the missionaries states that two years. hours is the shortest time yet made, and that more frequently five or six hours -The Free Church rff BcoUand Mrmthly are consumed. On one occasion Ben- gnella was left at four P.lII., and the contains quite a remarkable account of train did not reaoh Catumbella· till one the dedication of a church-sehool in o'clock the next morning. The busi- Kaffraria, South Africa. The service ness agent of the American Board-Mr. lasted fOJ: :five hours, from 10.30 A.lIl. Kamerman-often rides out to meet the until3.30 P.lIl. The building had cost train if it is delayed; and one evening, about £80 ($400), and the Kaifrell raised as he was aocompanying the train on the the entire amount then and there-£36 road whioh ran parallel to the track, he in money and £44 in ca*lile, sheep, goats, asked the engineer not to whistle, as his pigs, chickens, etc. The same number horses might be frightened. The enof the Monthly contains a valuable map gineer replied : •• We can't Whistle ; we of the Lake Nyassa region, which indi- have not enough steam." When Mr. cates the territory occupied by the and Mrs. Stover were at the coast and Ohurch of Scotland, the Shire highlands were starting homeward, the engine left lying to the seuth, the Free Church Liv. the track, and word was sent back that ingstoniaMission to the west, the Uni- it was .. laid up with fever." versities' Mission to the east, and the new Moravian and Berlin Sooiety's missions to the north.
-A chain of missions has been estab· -A missionary tells tbe following lished aoross Central Africa from ocean story: .. One day all old chief came to to ocean, and aU in eighteen years. The me, with two wives, one old, the other Church of England mission took the young. and wanted to join my ohuroh. country around Lake Victoria Nyanm, I told him we didn't allow 8 man to have the London Missionary Society took more than one wife. He went away, Lake Tanganyika and the neighboring and the next week came back with the country, the Baptist missionaries estab- young wife, both of them smiling, and lished themselves on the Congo, two said: • Now me join church; me all Presbyterian missions went to Lake right now.' •Where is your old wife?' NyassB, and the Universities Mission I asked. • She all right, too; me eat took Zanzibar and the country inland her up,' plaoidly answered the old sava8 far as NyasB&, on which they have a age. I postponed the deoision as to his good-sized steamer. The London Mis- application for admission to a more consionary Society has one on Tanganyika, venient season." and the Baptista and the Livingstone Inland Mission-an American Sooiety- -Sechele, the chief of the Bakwena have steamers on the Congo. And a tribe, whose name is so familiar in conrailroad is oertain to follow. Several nection with Dr. Livingstone, has re-
GENERAL 1IIIBBIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [May
cently died. He was aged, had long of 300,000 square miles, oceupied by been friendly to the missionaries, was a nearly 1,000,000 of souls, lamentably very regular attendant upon religious degraded types of humanity. Minions services, ., had an intense and never- were commenced in 1872 by the London ceasing desire to be a member of the Society's missionaries, Murray, Macfar. Church, but was hopelessly entangled lane, and Gill. There are 53 stations with heathenism even in its worst forms. on the southeast coast, and a dozen It seemed impossible for him to refrain churches with about 500 members, and from dabbiing in superstitions and some 2000 children under instruction. pagan ceremonies as long as any physi- This great fteld has the superintendence cal strength remained." of 6 missionaries, aided by 30 South Sea Islanders and 20 New Guinea teachers. ISLANDS OF THE SEA. Six of the languages have been reduced to writing, and books published in these -From Fiji a missionary writes : .. I tongues, crowned with the translation had 80 miles of a march last month, of the New Testament into Motu, the through the Namosi and Wainimala re- speech of the most vigorous trading pe;,. gions. It rained almost every moment pIe on the southeast. during the trip ; indeed, I was only dry when in bed, or perhaps when preach- -" The hell of the Pacifto." Suob is ing. I crossed 70 fords one day, and the name given to the port of Apia, generslly had 30 to 40 to make daily. Samoa. And it is not created by the Those mountain fords are not to be cannibals. For nine months of the year laughed at during heavy rains. To be that harbor is full of all kinds of ves· swimming for life, with boots and sels, and every third building is a grog- clothes on, in the middle of a torrent shop. An attempt is now on foot to full of great rocks, is more interesting raise some £100 to establish a sailors' than comfortable." And it appears that rest, with coffee-room, reading.room, all the troubles there are not from the etc. floods or the cannibals, for .. the Roman Catholic priests have recently been -The remnant of the Maori race in through NS8&ucoko, exhibiting pictures of Methodist missionaries falling head- New Zealand numbers about 38,000, of ftrst into InflJ'Nlo, where Mephistopheles is represented as waiting for them with whom 18,000 are under the care of the . pitchfork, horns, tail, and all. They (the priests) frightened one old. woman Church Missionary Society, while of the into • Mother Church,' and then nolens volens baptized a dying youth who could rest half are Wesleyan or Roman Catho. not prevent them… lie, and half in a state of semi.heathen. -From Tahiti and adjacent islands a band of not less than 190 evangelists ism. The class last mentioned is com. have goue forth, carrying the message of salvation to other benighted tribes, posed of such as never embraced Chris· and yet less than a century ago the an- CleIItors of these evangelists were living tianity, or else apostatized in the dread. in the grossest darkness and supersti- tion. ful wars between the natives and the -Situated to the northeast of the Aus- English settlers. There are some 30 tralIan continent, New Guinea has a length of 1400 miles, a breadth reaching Maori clergymen left out of 50 who haTe at certain points to 500 miles, an area been ordained. '
-The Netherlands Government has deolared that, in view of the high im. portance whiob attaches to the ben.ft. cial results of missions for the advanoe- ment of oivilization in the Dutch East lodies, it shall hold it&eU bound to see that the forces of missions are not weak· ened by the oompetition of various so. cieties in one place. The Dutch are a – sensible race, if there is no other w"T to put an end to sectarian divisions.
The Missionary Review of the World — October 1891
'722 THE COMING AGE OF MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL.,XIV. No.lO.-OldSeries.–OCTOBER.–VOL. IV. No.lO.-Nc'W Series.
THE COMING AGE OF MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL, A. '1'. P.] We stand on the threshold of a new century of missionary enterprise. The time is coming when the Church of God will look: back to the present age of missions as we now look back to the feeble beginnings of a century ago, with astonishment and shame that believers in Christ could ever have stood on so Iowa plane in respect to their debt and duty to the lost.
We now marvel that William Carey should have met persistent and even malignant opposition from professed ministers of Christ, and even from brethren of his own denomination, in his scheme for a world's evangelization ; and that for ten years his own enthusiasm and consecration should have been so nearly stifled by the atmosphere of indiffereFlce and resistance which he was compelled to breathe. We read with surprise the assaults of the Reverend Sydney Smith; we see him sharpening most keenly the arrows in the quiver of his wit, to shoot into that" nest of consecrated cobblers" whom he meant to " rout out" by the sting and smart of his unsanctified ridicule; we hear him, with a sarcasm and irony that verge on profanity and blasphemy, mockingly portraying the heroism that lcd holy mcn and women, of whom the world was not worthy, to seek a home amid cannibal savages; hinting that they might, at least, furnish for travellers, stopping at thol'le " hospitable shores," a "slice of cold missionary." We read with amazement the speech of Charles Marsh in the House of Commons, remonstrating against the sending of missionarics to India, lest thcy should disturb thoso beneficent systems of religion and morals devised by Providence for the welfare of the people of Hindniltan ; and we rccall with even greater surprise the arguments of an orthodox ecclesiastic in the Houso of Lords, who undertook to demonstrate that the command of Christ did not apply to the evangelization of India! We cannot understand now a condition of things a hundred years ago, when there was scarce a missionary soeiety in Protestant Christendom, and when the Church of God doubted if it did not deny the obligation to go into all the world with the Gospel witness to all nations; when scarce a thousand pounds a year were Bpent upon all the missions of the Reformed churches, and a mere pioneer band of workers, mostly Moravians, made up the entire mission force; when there were no missionary periodicals j when the" Monthly Concert" was but eight years old j when no entrance had been made into Japan, China, Siam, Africa, Burmah, Papal lands, or Mohammedan territory, and when there was so little interest in foreign missions that the task seemed hopeless of making even a beginning.
We are far ahead of the starting point of a century ago. We have left away behind Widow Wallis's little parlor at Kettering, with its dozen humble Baptists and their dozen pounds sterling j and great Exeter Hall is too small for the monster meetings of one society, and the Crystal Palace has been talked of for the great anniversaries. But we are far from the goal, the reasonable goal, toward which we should promptly press; and if we grow in grace and knowledge as we ought, no goal that is now in sight will satisfy us j it would only become a new starting-point for a new goal, as yet too far off to be visible now.
We have been long meditating upon the coming age of missions, and looking forward hopefnlly to see in the immediate future some radical changes made in the methods of prosecuting missions j and, at risk of seeming visionary, chimerical, or even fanatical, we boldly outline on these pages some of the features which we believe we discern in the future prosecution of a world's evangelization. Once more we write large that word ENTERPRISE as the true motto of the Church of Christ. The world ought not to put us to shame in manifesting more zeal for that which perishes than we do for the unfading crown and heritage. Obviously, if we are to make any approach to the ideal age of missions, all real radical advance must begin with the individual disciple. We can never convert or consecrate people in the mass j souls come one by one into the kingdom, never two at a birth j and so also is it that saints climb to loftier heights. When every true believer regards himself as one with his Lord in the enterprise of missions j when he seeks to inform himself thoroughly and constantly of the needs of the world and the progress of the work j when he follows for himself the great campaign, notes the strategic points and the position of the forces j when he studies to keep tra~k of the world-wide field as he would trace day by day the movements of his country's forces in an enemy's territory-then the first granite block will be laid for the coming structure of a thoroughly organized work for God. The ignorance that prevails begets indifference as its natural offspring. Yherever there is true piety, knowledge will kindle zeal.
Then we need individual and systematic prayer for missions j definite prayer that has alio individual objects, that takes up one field at a time and one missionary at a time, and intelligently pleads with God for that field and work and worker. We knew a devout reader of the Missionary Herald who was wont to make every p'articular missionary thus a subject of prayer by name, and who read that nohle record of events that he might follow the development of each laborer's work by intelligent supplication. Nothing gives the China Inland Mission more strength and heroism than the knowledge of its hundreds of workers that, each week in the mission rooms, every scattered member of that great band is remembered by name in prayer, and with mention of any circumstances that specially environ him or her.
From such intelligence and prayerfulness in the individual every other result which is needful will naturally develop. The man that knows the field, and prays for the workman, is the man that will find hiB alms going out as his prayers go up. It will be natural to give and to give systemati- cally, liberally, and proportionately, when mind and heart unite to unloose purse-strings. And so will come family life pervaded with the missionary spirit. Children will be begotten for God, and suck in missionary mIlk, and learn missionary prayers, and talk the dialect of missions; the divine alphabet will be among their first lessons, and self-denial for Christ and souls will be among their earliest habits. We shall have consecrated cradles, family altars with fires kindled from above, family boards where simple diet displaces extravagant luxuries, and family life where the spirit of missions is cultivated for Christ's sake and in Christ's name.
And so, likewise, must we have a new church life when the individual and family life is renewed and quickened. It will be easy to give, and . pray, and send laborerll forth, and go forth ourselves, when the training that begins at the cradle, and gets iti true bent even before birth in a con- secrated parentage, prepares the church-member for co-operation in missions.
But in this editorial it is our desire to hint at least a few directions in which church enterpri&e may push the work of missions. Looking back- ward and then forward, it would seem that now, on the eve of William Carey's centennial, we might expect greater things from God and attempt greater things for God than even Carey dared expect or attempt. Worldly enterprise combines" dash" and" push," and on a bold scale of daring ven- ture undertakes colossal schemes for worldly profits. Why should not the Church take a risk, if such it be, and venture somewhat for her Lord?
1. If we discern rightly, the coming church will be essentially a mis- sionary church distinctively, educating its membership to intelligent and systematic participation in the work of witnessing to all men. To give and to pray will be as much a part of church life as to go to church meetings or the Lord's table. No member will be in good standing who takes no part in this loyal obedience to Christ's last command.
2. Every church, in the coming age of missions, will have a distinct field to culti~ate abroad as well as at home, and a double pastorate, a minister or missionary on the foreign field as well as for the home church, &nd the support of both provided for as equally a part of the financial administration of the church. It would not be surprising if there should be an apportionment of missionaries to each church on the basis of its numerical and financial ability, so that for every fixed number of members a missionary should be sent forth. It will then be reckoned, a reproach to any church to have three hundred communicants without at least one laborer representing them abroad. We have long believed that a living link between the home church and the foreign field is an essential condition of true missionary zeal. It brings the two closer together, and supplies a bond of mutual sympathy; and so far is it from diminishing interest in the general work, it rather increases it. In our own pastoral experience we have found that to have a missionary supported by a church in a particular station makes every other missionary and his work dearer, and helps the whole cause. But we look in the coming age of missions to see the churches united in great enterprises for God.
1. For example, why should there not be a grand Society for Regions Beyond, representing all denominations, whose office would be to explore new territory, to apportion laborers to unoccupied fields, to act as a eommittee on comity, and interpose to prevent friction, overlapping of work, and clashing between societies and workmen ~ 2. Why not a Pioneer Bureau, to receive and guide newly arriving missionaries, instruct them in the peculiarities of climate, local diseases and their preventives and remedies, and, in brief, prepare wurkers for intelligent occupation of new fields, and so prevent needless waste of life, and hundreds of serious blunders ~ 3. We look for a great .Education and Sustentation scheme, which shall provide for the training and support of missionary candidatel, and which shall provide for a part of their training on the field. As it is, no doubt time and strength are wasted in part in the curriculum of study. There ig a general preparation which the college and seminary can give; but there is a specific preparation only to be had on the field itself; and some of the wisest missionaries have said that if the latter half of the candidates' training could be had where he is to labor, under control of resident missionaries, they could secure greater fitness for the work to be done.
4. We see no reason why there might not be a Millsionm'Y Transportation Society, owned and supported by the Church, to transport without cost missionaries and supplies, and become a means of mutual communication, as well as to furnish passage for workers who need rest. If Pastor Harms's poor people at Hermannsburgh could build the Candace to carry their workers to the field, cannot the whole Church provide transport for its mission band?
5. Why might we not have a great Society for Christian Literature, providing not only Bibles, tracts, and religious books, but setting up pnnting presses wherever needed, and supplying in the vernacular the needed helps to popular education ¥ 6. We look, in the coming age, to see godly women representing the (Jh~rch upon our great Boards of Missions, partly for the infusion of their counsel and spirit into the work, and partly for the quickening of their own interest in the general prosecution of missons by a personal participation in its conduct. At present we have women working on their own boards, but in separation. 'Vill not the time come when there will be no separatc women's boards, but instead a union of men and women in the adminiRln.ttion of the whole work Y 7. We look lor a more thorough trial of missionary colonization as a means of evangelization; iamilieli going in a group, representatives of arts and trades establishing a Christian community in the midst of papal, pagan, and Moslem communities for mutual encouragement, protection, and co- operation; where the main business shall be proclaiming the Gospel, but where, as with Paul, the trade shall be the means of support.
8. Volunteer missions will form a feature of the coming missionary age. ' Men and women will go at their own cost to labor for a longer or shorter time in the field in co-operation with the missionaries, assisting in estab- lishing 8('hools, dispensaries, hospitals, preaching stations, and printing presses, and giving personal aid and comfort so far as they may, gathering facts and receiving inspiration from personal contact with the work and workers; and then returning to give intelligent, sympathetic aid in the support and advocacy of the enterprises of the foreign mission field.
9. We look for systematic and practical co-operation between all denomi- nations on mission fields, the elimination of unnecessary doctrinal and ecclesiastical differences and peculiaritieli, the avoidance of all needless waste, whether of men or money, and the presentation of a united front before the great mallses of unsaved souls, as another of the features of a greater missionary epoch, if it shall ever come.
These are some of the features of that nobler and more consecrated church activity in behalf of a dying race for which we look and hope in the near future. vie can see no reason why every evangelical church should not regularly IlIlpport at least one preacher, teacher, or evangelist on the foreign field ; and include in current annual outlay the estimate of the cost of the support of such worker, thus having a local field outside of the home church, and a living link with the great body of the unevangelized. We can see no reason why there should not be an accepted basis of apportionments and proportionments; every church upon a certain basis, agreed to as equitable, appointing one man or woman to go to the field, who shall be morally bound either to go or to furnish a substitute. The Church thus becomes a recruiting office, and drafts for ,the Master new soldiers to serve in the army. VIre see no reason why denominations should not act in concert to promote great common ends, and save all the needle8s outlay now involved in separate action and adminiBtration. While not jealous for any particlllar modo or plan, w feel very deeply 80licitous to see the spirit of holy and consecrated enterprise infused into all our missionary work; to seo the Church .taking up the causo of the Master as though there were faith in His leadership and confidence in the ultimate triumph of the Gospel. This result, we again affirm, with unalterable confidence, can be reached only by a searching self-scrutiny and a devout and most prayerful fellowship with Him whose we aro and whom we serve. The world waitS and He waits for a new spirit of thorough surrender to His will, and for a new epoch of enterprise in missions. How long shall this waiting of ages be in vain ~ THE FAITH ELEMENT IN MISSIONS.
BY A. J. GORDON, D.D.
This subject, so admirably treated in a recent article in this REVIEW, may' be worthy of still further consideration. No doubt the work of the Gospel in foreign lands is exposed to the same danger as that work at home -the danger of becoming mechanical and perfunctory. One of the most alarming symptoms of our nineteenth century Christianity is the secular symptom-the tendency to substitute other forces for the original motive- power of the Church, the ever-present Holy Spirit. Faith is the coupling by which we become attached to this Divine motor, and unless we are abso_ lutely sure of our spiritual connections, we cannot be certain of our spiritual successes. We accept the sentiment which the editor of this REVIEW quotes from the Bishop of Ripon: that" the story of Modern Missions is a con- tinuation of the Acts of the Apostles, with all its essential supernaturalism." But there could have been no Acts of the "Apostles without the faith of the apostles j it was because they wrought in God by the IIoly Ghost, that as they went forth and preached everywhere the Lord worked with them j and since what gave them pOW1lr can stiII give us power, therefore we urge more faith.
As to men.-Where can we get the missionaries to occupy the fields now white to the harvest ~ We find but one direction in Scripture con- cerning this question, " Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers into His harvest." The choice and commis- sioning of His evangelists the Lord has reserved entirely to Himself. Woe to the Church if she shall rashly undertake the enterprise of manufacturing missionaries either by her sacerdotal or by her educational machinery. Mere hand-made ministers, thrust forth from under the fingers of the bishop, and mere school-made ministers, fashioned by the training of the college, are alike inadequate for executing the great commission.
Without the call of God vain is the culture or the consecration of man. Unless, therefore, we can be assured that the Holy Spi1'it is really 1'ecruiting, the Students' Volunteer Movement may prove injurious. We strongly believe in this movement j but the very enthusiasm and magnitude of it constitute such a call to prayer as has not till lately been heard-prayer to the great Head of the Church that none shall be suffered to go without His appointment. Would it be rash to say that the deficiency of missionaries is due most of all to the deficiency of prayer in the Church, that the Lord will send forth laborers ~ And not only the deficiency of missionaries, but the maladjustment of the ministry to the needs of the world. The same constituency which has seven thousand ordained missionaries on the foreign field has a hundred and twenty-seven thousand ordained m£nisters on the home field. While many a labOler in CLina and India has a parish of millions or hundreds of thousands, three or four pastorR are often found in a single little New England village, jostling and elbowing one another in their attempt to do a work which is only sufficient for oue. All this indicates but too clearly that the" Shepherd and Bishop of souls" is not haying sole direction of the diocese of the world. 'What humiliation and prayer to God this unhappy state of things calls for! Certainly, if the Saviour bids us pray that the Lord will thrust forth laborers, He binds Himself by this very injunetion to send laborers and to place them where He would have them.
Here then is a large demand for faith j not only in asking, but equally in recelvmg. The same Scripture which enjoins us to ask, reveals the ascended Lord as bestowing. "When He ascended on high . . . He gave so.ne apostles, and some evangelists, and some pastors, and some teachers." But what a fine spiritual discernment it requires to recognize His gifts when He has sent them! Natural sagacity and business prudence are not sufficient here. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the hcart." It requires a very diseriminating faith to read the Divine credentials of applicants for service. vVe have often thought that the history of rejeeted missionary candidates would make a most interesting book j not lcss interesting than the history of rejected manuscripts, out of some of which such literary fortunes have been made. A venerable secretary opened this subject slightly at a recent conference, touching on it just sufficiently to remind us that some of the most eminent and successful laborers on the foreign field were at the outset refused a commission by their boards. It is a historical fact that William Milne was denied an appointment as a missionary, and was !lent out to China only as a servant to Dr. Morrison, asking that he might be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, if only he could reach his longed-for field. And yet Milne, from being a servant, became such a master-missionary that history speaks of him as .. that excellent man, whose talents were surprising, whose labors were incessant, whose whole life was devoted to his Saviour." We could mention several missionaries of the very first rank in our day whose experience has been similar-rejected once, twice, or thrice before getting their appointment. Nowhere is the discernment of lin cnlightened faith more demanded than in the examination of candidates. The prayer, "Lord, send forth laborers into Thy vineyard," needs to be supplemented by another; "Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show us which of these Thou hast chosen." In this important decision there is great danger that the physician's certificate may outweigh the Master's credential, and the college diploma outrank the Spirit's call. Experience proves that the decisive qualific'!ltion is not to be found in cultul'e or in the absence of culture j in physical health or the absence of physical health j in great natural talents or in the absence of great natural talents. Probably the truest criterion is in the deep, serious, unshaken conviction of a Divine eall in the heart of the candidate himself. With such conviction the most unprepossessing applieants have often proved mighty under God as missionaries of the cross; without it those of the highest talent and culturc have proved a failure. Who can deny, then, that it is a real test of faith, whether one can recognize God's gifts to the Church when they are bestowed ~ Businesll sagacity may discern the marks of sound common sense j culture may discern the marks of sound learning. But with both these eyes wide open, one may be unable to recognize a missionary whom God has sent, unless there be also the vision of an anointed faith. We remember a candidate who came before a certain board five years ago, confessing that he had neither academic nor theological training, but requesting that he might occupy some subordinate place, if only he could satisfy his deep sense of duty by going to the foreign field. When asked what qualification he had in the absence of those above-named, he replied that of one thing he was sure, that he had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It must be confessed that this last remark was deemed by some an evidence of eccentricity, which rather damaged than helped his case. By the closest squeeze, however, he was passed. He is now in charge of an important station, and such a missionary that during the first four months of the present year he reported three thousand converts baptized at his station. Such instances should admonish us to join prayerfulness to discretion and faith to prudence, lest haply we be fonnd rejecting those whom God has ~hosen.
As to money.-Thc problem whieh so taxes and tries our missionary boards-that of getting the money to support the work-may have a relation to faith of which we have little thought.
Christ is the Chief Bishop, who appoints the missionary evangelists and pastors j is He the Chief Treasurer, who supplies the missionary funds ~ Practically there is a very wide difference of opinion upon this point. " And Prudence sat over against the treasury watching the expenditures, to see that Faith did not overdraw her account, " would fairly state the financial method of many missionary committees. "Faith in the work of preaching the Gospel, indeed j but in administering the missionary exchequer, sound business principles if you please!" So have we often heard it ; and we do not dispute the wisdom of the saying.
TIut here we are conducting the King's busiuess, let it be remembered; and iu its transactions are no over-drafts of faith ever allowable ~ May the promises of God never be taken as collateral in this business ~ Is the Lord's Rervant forbidden to hypothecate the bonds of the everlasting covenant as a security for a missionary contract when he has no funds in the hank ~ The enterprise of missions is peculiarly the Lord's work, and as such has guarantors and guarantees back of any human. He who says, ., All power is gh'en unto Me in heaven and in earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations," by the very act of sending us binds Himself to support us. Rev. John Wilkinson, who as a missionary to the Jews has" purchased to himself a good degree and great boldness in the faith," states it thus: "If we allow the Lori! to do what He pleases with us and by us we shall get the greates~ blessing and He will get the greatest glory, and He will bear all the expenses of His own work. If a master send a servant to a shop for a shilling's worth of anything, he makes hiIr!self responsible for the shilling; and shall it be thought for a moment that God will not pay for all the work He acknowledges as His 1" If, then, we are assured that the Head of the Church has committed a certain piece of evangelizing to us, is it presumption for us to draw on Him at sight for the funds to accomplish it ?
We are not dealing here with a sentimental theory, but with a most practical question. Is a missionary board justified in enlarging its work to the extent of many thousands of dollars when it has not the money, either in hand or in sight, for meeting the added expense? Sound commercial prudence would answer most emphatically, "No! determine the Elxtent of your business by the amount of your capital." But desiring the opinion of experts on the question, we consult a few eminent spiritual financiers to get their opinion: Pastor Fliedner, of Kaiserwerth, gives us an inventory of his vast workorphanage, seminary, deaconess' house, asylum, etc.-and when we ask how he manages to support it all, his answer is, " We live by grace; and the gracious Lord of the heavenly treasury knows how to furnish us every year with so many under-treasurers of every rank and age that to the question, , Have you ever wanted?' we must joyfully answer, ' Never.' "
Pastor Gossner single-handed scnt into the field 144 missionaries; including thc wives of those married, 200. Besides providing outfit and passage, he had never less than twenty missionaries depending directly on him for support. How did he raise the necessary funds ¥ Read his life and learn. The answer can be best given in a ~entence from the funeral address spoken over his open grave: " He prayed up the walls of an hospital and the hearts of the nurses; he prayed mission stations into being, and missionaries into faith : he prayed open the hearts of the rich and gold from the most distant lands."
Pastor Harms and his single church of poor peasants at Hermannsbnrg did a foreign missionary work almost equal to that of any of our largest societies, sending out and supporting 357 missionaries in "thirty years. We read the story with astonishment, and ask again, " And how did you get the money for all this 1" His reply tells us only that the Divine draft, " My God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory," was promptly cashed whenever presented. It is so artless, the way in which he jots down his busine~s transactions with the Lord. " Last year," he writes in 1858, "I needed for the mission 15,000 crowns, and the Lord gave me that and 60 over. This year I needed double, and the Lord has given me double and 140 over." "I needed," and" my God shall supply all your need /" No mention of what he had as a basis for his enlarged undertaking, but only of what he mUlt have, making that the schedule of his expectation from God.
These noble lives constitute a kind of latter· day exposition of those memorable words, " When I Rent you without purse, and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything 1 And they said, Nothing" (Luke 22 : 35). "But remember," we hear some one say, "that our missionary boards are not operating under the commission in Matt. 10, with its command to provide neither gold nor silver nor brass in the purse, to heal the sick, and cast out demons. Very true. Nevertheless, there is a lesson for us in that Scripture, and there is instruction to be gained from these histories just cited. In the missionary enterprise let our prudence at least be "mixed with faith." Tax the .churches more, but trust God a hundred times more. Carey's maxim is right in the logical order of its clauses: " Attcmpt great things for God, expect great things from God."
We believe that when God, by a clear providence, opens some" wide and effectual door" before a missionary society, it is not presumption to enter it, though there be not a penny in the treasury for meeting the expenses. It is sad to think how easily we shelve great missionary demands which come before us with the concession that they are reasonable, but with the conclusion that they are not practicable. We hear that call of the Shanghai Conference of 1890 for 1000 men and women immediately for China; the importunate request of Dr. Clough for 25 men and $50,000 at once, that the nnsurpassed opportunity in the Telugu land may be embraced; the stirring appeal of Bishop Thoburn, made at Northfield and elsewhere, for a mighty lift on his field in India, that the present emergency may be met; and we cheer the missionaries for the heroism of their demand without blushing, as we ought, for our cowardice in counting those demands impossible. The paradox, Verum est quia impossibile, which Tertullian uttered concerning doctrine, it is time for us boldly to apply to action, saying, "It is practicable because it is impossible ;" for uuder the dispensation of the Spirit ollr ability is no longer the measure of our responsibility. " The things which are impossible with men are possible with God," and therefore possible for us who haye been united to God through faith. Since the Holy Ghost has been given, it is not snfficient for the servant to say to his Master, "I am doing as well as I can," for now he is bound to do better than he can. Should a New York merchant summon his commercial agent in Boston to come to him as quickly as possible, would he be satisfied if that agent were to arrive at the end of a week, footsore and weary from walking the entire distance, with the excuse, " I came as quickly as I could?" ·With swift steamer or lightning express at his disposal, were he not bound to come more quickly than he could? And so with the power of Chlist as our resource, and His riches in glory at! our endowment, we are called upon to undertake what we have neither the strength nor the funds of ourselyes to accomplish. The enterprise of evangelizing the world is peculiarly the Lord's. Therefore in the crisis of missions which is upon us, is it not time that we cease to layout God's work according to our ability, and begin to layout God's work according to God's ability?
The one consideration that the Lord is rich, and that in the work of the world's redemption He has taken us iuto partnership with Himself, so affects the missionary problem, that what were the height of folly in secular business may be the height of faith in Divine business.
We have watched with the deepest interest an experiment of enlargement which came under our own observation. A missionary treasury taxed to the utmost for years to meet. the demands upon it was assessed at one stroke an extra $50,000 annually for a new work which the providence of God seemed to enjoin. Seven years have passed since the un· dertaking, and yet the treasury has kept just as full through all this period, notwithstanding the extra draft, as during the seven years previous. Certainly this outcome does not seem like a Divine admonition not to do 80 again j but rather like a loud invitation to repeat the experiment upon the first new call. And now, when the bugle is sounding for an advance along the entire line, we do well to mark the significance of such experiments.· Our Lord does not say, " Be it unto you according to your funds," but, "Be it unto you according to your faith." If He sees that we trust Him for large missionary undertakings, He will trust us with large missionary remittances. If, on the contrary, we demand great things of God as a condition of attempting great things for God, we shall be disappointed; for that is not believing, but bargaining. "Said I not nnto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God f' (John 11 : 40.) Shall we reverse this ord.er, and believe only according as we have seen the glory of God ~ If so, He will give us little credit for our faith. Most significantly is it written, " Many believed on His name because they saw the miracles which He did j but Jesus did not believe in them" (John 2 : 23, vd. Greek).
As to methotls.-Tn the naturalistic drift which is now sweeping the Chnrch into its current, we cannot emphasize too strongly the supernatural elements in the work of missions. If the preaching of the Gospel shall make a powerful impression upon the heathen, it will not be by what is human in it, but by what is superhuman. There has been no change of method since the day of Pentecost. The Gospel is still to be preached " with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven;" and the Lord is pledged still to work with His servants, " confirming the Word with signs following." Therefore all supernatural phenomena appearing in connection with the missionary's work should be emphasized, not ignored. There are few minds so stupid that they do not reason from effect to cause. If the effects attending missionary effort are only such as can be traced to natural causes, the mind is very likely to rest in such causes without being carried further. Teaching, doctoring, civilizing, mechanical and agricultural training are all good, and not to be depreciated in connection with missions to the heathen. But the evidential value of such works is very slight, unless acc6mpanied with miracles of regeneration and wonders of moral transformation.
Of this question of the supernatural in connection with evangelical labors among the heathen, we have space to speak only of a single phase-viz., the one about which thete has recently been considerable discussion in missionary magazines.
The late Professor Christlieb, of Bonn, in hill powerful chapter on miracles, after defending their perpetuity and present possibility, says: " The work of missions is outwardly, at least, more extended than it ever was before. In this region, therefore. according to our former rule, miracles should not be entirely wanting. Nor are they. We cannot, t.herefore, fully admit the proposition that no more miracles are performed in our day. In the history of modern missions we find many wonderful occurrences which unmistakably remind us of the apostolic age. In both periods there are similar hinderances to be overcome in the heathen world, and similar palpable confirmations of the WORD are needed to convince the dull sense of men. We may, therefore, expect miracles in this case." * He then cites many instances from missionary history in confirmation of this view, especially instances of bodily healing in answer to the prayer of faith.
Is there anything in this paragraph of Professor Christlieb which is worthy of our consideration ~ Hostility to his view is sufficiently pronounced at the present time not only in such conservative and guarded criticisms as those of Professor Tyndale on the Prayer Cure, but especially in the severe animadversions of some high evangelicals upon the same point, whose motto seems to be, " Allopathy or homreopathy. as you like, but no theopathy. " "Palpable confirmations of the Word are needed to convince the dull sense of the heathen." It is the palpable confirmations that are most direct and obvious. Something must be done to persuade the heathen of the beneficent character of Christianity, as well as mnch said. Hence medical missions, hORpitals, surgery, nursing. Blessed and true servants of Christ are they who go forth to the heathen with snch ministrie(! as these. If only as they are bestowed npon the hlind, and the lame, and the leprous, they do not take their eyes from Christ, and fix them upon human benefactors or benefactions. At home or abroad this is the difficulty with all secular helps to Christianity.
An eminent missionary lady in Burmah recently gave us the following chapter from her experience. In one of her tourR she came upon a village where the cholera was raging. Having with her a quantity of the famous antidote, Perry Davis's Pain Killer, she went from house to house administering the remedy to the lick ones, and left a number of bottles to be Ilsed after she had gone. Returning to the village some months after, the missionary was met by the head man of the town, who cheered and delighted her by this intelligence, " Teacher, we have come over to your side; the medicine did us so much good that we have accepted your God.' , Overjoyed at this news, she was conducted tc the house of her informant, who, opening a room, showed her the pain-killer bottles solemnly arranged in a row upon a shelf, and before them the whole company immediately … Modern Doubt aud Christian Belief," p. 332. prostrated themselves in worship. This apotheosis of mustard and pepper does not move us violently to denounce the nse of all medicine as tending to idolatry. W 0 believe that all the help possible should be derived from medicinal remedies. But the instances are numerous enough in which medicine can go no further, and the doctors surrender the case with the confession that they can do no more. In such instances God no doubt often interposes in answer to believing intercession and restores the sufferer. Here is the peculiar sphere of the prayer of faith for the sick, in which, we boldly say, the healing ministry of Jesus Christ should not be despised. For now it is possible, since the hand of man bas failed, tbat tbe hand of tbe Lord should be recognized, and glory won for ilis name. Missionaries are naturally shy of revealing their experiences in this field, if they bave snch, owing to the opprobrium attaching to so-called "faith-healing." But the writer, from the fact of his views on this subject being known, has had the honor to be much confided in by missionaries, especially those of the China Inland Society, who have made successful use of intercession for the sick. Their testimony as to the impression of supernatural cures upon the heathen is very strong.
May the writer be allowed to give two illustrations out of many from his own experience! An opium-eater of the most desperate stamp came into Mr. Moody'S evangelistic meetings in Boston in the spring of 1877. His case was one of long standing, in which the coils of habit had closed about him tighter and tighter each year, every medical help, every human remedy having utterly failed. None present will forget his pitiful cry as he rose up in the meeting, and begged to know if there was any hope for him in Christ. Prayer was offered in his behalf, and he was led to accept Jesus as his Saviour and Healer. He came the next day with the glad tidings that his appetite was gone. Mr. Moody, knowing how much more powerful is experience than assertion for proving that Christ is " mighty to saye," put this man upon the platform night after night, to tell the story of his healing. It was "a palpable confirmation of the Word," not to be gainsaid, and the effect was irresistible upon the great audiences who listened.
The other case was almost identical. A stranger, rising up at a revival meeting in our own church, the marks upon his person confirming the testimonyof his lips, confessed that he was a long suffering victim of the opium habit, who bad spent all his living upon physicians, and was nothing bettered but rather made worse. Here also, upon the offering of prayer and the surrender of the sufferer to Christ, the cure was instantaneous-at least, so t.he patient has al ways claimed. Fifteen and ten years have passed since these respective experiences. The men on whom the cures were wrought are exemplary members of the church, with whom we have maintained a conRtant acquaintance, and they solemnly testify that from the moment of tllCir appeal to the Great Physician they have been absolutely delivered from their former plague.
MISSIONS THE TRUE PRAYER·GAUGE
Now in a great missionary field like China, where the victims of the opium habit are numbered by millions, why should not such demonstrations of the risen Saviour's healing power be frequently witnessed ~ And why should the testimony of such occurrences to the supernatural character of our Gospel be ruled out of court by evangelical Christians ~ We have given this one line of illustration of the faith element in mis. sions for a purpose. Is it not possible that the Lord, in self-defence, may be reyiving His supernatural working in the Church ~ When, in modern times, has there been such a widespread tendency among Christian scholars to eliminate the supernatural from Christianity as now ~ A few more conquests of advanced thought, and God will have been abolished from His Word and from His work. We do not speak unadvisedly. In the doctrine of inspiration, in the doctrme of miracles, in the doctrine of prayer, in the doctrine of prophecy, in the doctrine of regeneration, and in the doctrine of resurrection, how, more and more, in the teaching of the learned, is the Divine element minimized, and these transactions reduced to natural processes! The tendency is so quiet as to be ignored by easygoing optimists; but it is so unquestionable as to occa..ion serious alarm among thoughtful observers. If it shall be so that the doctrine of the supernatural shall cease to have a home among high scholars, then, as has been the case constantly in the history of the Church, it will find a domicile among the unsophisticated and simple-hearted Christians, who, because they know no better than to believe the vVord of God, will make bold to pray for rain in time of drought, to pray for healing in the time of sickness, and to pray for regeneration in time of ruin. And because our de- 8upernaturalized Christianity is likely to be transferred to the foreign field, there is so much the more reason why missionaries who hold to the simple Gospel should appreciate and emphasize the Divine phenomena of our holy religion.
MISSIONS THE TRUE PRAYER-GAUGE.
BY REV. CHAUNCEY T. EDWARDS, COUDERSPORT, PA.
" I do desire to say. gravely and earnestly, tltat my missionary life has been successful so far as 1 have been prayerful, and non·,uccessful so far as . I have been lax in prayerfulness." -A Missionary of the American Board.
" Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee." This is a true missionary incident. The friends of the paralytic were, in fact, missionaries. The best .r thing they could do for him was to bring him to esus, and the faith which led them to do this be(ame instrumental in his saving and healing. Just so the Church's best work for the world is intercession, and the Church's best years have always been years of prayer. As the Gospel more and more affects politics and all progress, the eye of faith can trace in everything the influence of prayer. From the breaking down of the East India Company to the founding of the Congo Free State-two events that enlisted the mightiest intellects and interests of this generation-the spirit of gracious supplications, it is hardly too much to say, has been more plainly the ruling power than in any other thirty years of history.
That rare little book, " The Still Hour"-which is, perhaps, the richest work of its lamented author, Professor Austin Phelps-quotes a letter of Sir Fowell Buxton's on a parliamentary vote important to West India emancipation: " ·What led to that division? If ever there was a subject which occupied our prayers, it was this. Do you remember how we desired that God would give me His Spirit in that emergency j how we quoted the promise, , He that lacketh wisdom, let him ask it of the Lord, and it shall be given him j , and how I kept open that passage in the Old Testament, in which it is said, ' We have no might against this great company that cometh against us, neither know we what to do j but our eyes are upon Thee '-the Spirit of the Lord replying, 'Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's'? If you want to see the passage, open my Bible j it will turn of itself to the place. I sincerely believe that prayer was the cause of tkat division j and I am confirmed in this by knowing that we by no means calculated on the effect. The course we took appeared to be right, and we followed it blindly."
To be sure, these are not testimonies of missionaries, but they are none the less missionary, and all the weightier as being from outsiders.
Mission work brings out the fact that many more events are answers to prayer than we commonly believe. For instance, an English missionary (Rev. James Main, quoted in the Foreign Missionary, January, 1884) thus describes the look of a Chinese audience: " When I used, at home, to speak of ' the heathen,' I meant by the word men who had never heard the Gospel. The look in the faces of the Chinese crowd made me realize for the first time that it meant mnch more than this. In consequence of their not hearing it they have lost all capacity for understanding it. That look made mil feel that to the heathen the Gospel is not only a new, a strange sound, but that it is an unintelligible sound, and that every conversion will be a miracle. " If we believe thus, we may be ready to head the column of converts in mission reports, Answers to Prayer; for every convert is a Samuel (1 Sam. 1 : 27), a paralytic who has been carried by true friends into the presence of Jesus.
1. Dr. A. J. Gordon's remarkable book, " The Twofold Life," is full of testimonies to the power of prayer. Passing by the witness he quotes of Christmas Evans and W. C. Burns and Jonathan Edwards and a host of others, let us hear him tell (p. 37) of David Brainerd: "Brainerd had many seasons of this uncommon renewing of his spiritual life through prayer and fasting; and, in summing them up, President Edwards records this noteworthy conclusion: 'Among all the many days he spent in secret prayer and fasting, of which he gives an account in his diary, there is scarcely an instance of 01'1,6 which was not either attended or soon followed with apparent success, and a remarkable blessing in special influences and consolations of God's Spirit, and very often before the day was ended.' .And we may add yet more. The record of these fastings and prayers of Brainerd, and of the power of God which followed, written only for himself, but wisely published by Edwards after his death, has brought rich blessing to the world. William Carey read it on his shoemaker's bench, and asked, 'If God can do such things among the .Indians of America, why not among the pagans of India ~' Henry Martyn, the thoughtful student in Cambridge, England, read it, and was moved by it to consecrate his life to missionary service in the East. Edward Payson pondered it, and when twenty-two years of age wrote in his diary, 'In reading Mr. Brainerd's life, I seemed to feel a most earnest desire after some portion of his spirit.' Considering the vast results which have followed the labors of these servants of God, who shall say that Brainerd has not wrought more since his death than in his life ~ And who, looking at the great sum total, can question whether or not it is profitable for one to wait upon the Lord with prayer and fastin~ and intercession for the renewal of his spiritUal strength ~"
II. At the London Missionary Conference it was told that Toronto Methodist women had a weekly prayer-meoting, where a record was kept of special petitions and their answers; and, said the speaker, Mrs. Blackstock, "I am afraid that some of you would be astonished to find how many answers to prayer are recorded in that book." vVhat associations connect with the name of the China Inland Mission but those that belong to the glory shadowing the mercy-seat!
The story of the recent experiences of the Church Missionary Society of England is well known: "Its first Day of Intercession was appointed for December, 1872. The day was spent in prayer offered distinctly and definitely for more ruen." It was followed by more offers for service than it had ever received. In the five years following" it sent ont 112 men, whereas in the five years preceding 1873 it had sent out but 51." In 1880 special prayer was offered for money, for which there was great need. In a few months $135,000 was raised" to wipe off the deficit; and this was followed by $150,000 specially contributed for extension, as well as by other special gifts and a substantial advance in the ordinary income." In the latter part of 1884 men were sorely needed, and a day was appointed to pray for them. The previous evening Mr. Wigram was summoned to Cambridge" to sec a number of graduates and undergraduates who desired to dedicate themselves to the Lord's work abroad." More than a hundred university men met him, and he returned to the prayer-meeting next day to prove to his colleagues the promise, " Before they call, I will answer."
III. If this is true at home, much more, or at least more plainly, is it true in heathendom, where" night brings out the stars." If a topical index were wanted for that lively little monthly, Brazilian Missions, it could almost be found in Paul's phrase, "the Word of. God and prayer :"
for the stories that fill it belong to one or other of these closely lelated topics. This is largely true of the great missionary magazines whose view is wider and more varied.
In the week of prayer in 1887 native Christians in Campanha (Brazil) are I:Ipecially earnest in praying for the rapid progress of the Gospel. Be- fore the week is out the fanatical town of Canna Verde, eighty miles away, sends for a preacher; and the article (in the first uumber of Brazilian Missions) telling of it is headed" A Whole Village Becoming Protestant."
In 1872 missionaries and English residents in Yokohama and the very few interested Japanese kept the week of prayer with great solemnity.
English and American sea captains who were present wrote, "The prayers of these Japanese take the heart out of us." As the result the first native church was organized March 10th, 1872, the beginning of Japan's marvel- lous Christian history. * Who has not read the" White Fields of France"? Every record of the MeAll Mission cannot help showing how the work is all in answer to prayer, and so pervaded by the spirit of prayer that the converts at once form the same habit; witness the pathetic testimony t of that Lyons woman, seventy-five years old, and no longer able to work, who said she prayed God" 80 much, so violently, and without ceasing that He would cause her to be received into the hospital for aged persons, that He an- swered her."
IV. It is part of the blessed simplicity of Christian life in heathen lands that everything, little and large, is made a matter of prayer. In the last of November, 1887, a Brazilian boy presented by his brother anxious re- quest for admission to the Sao Paulo Presbyterian School the following term. No money was available, and the missionaries could only exhort all parties interested, to believing prayer. "Day before yesterday (January lIth)," says Brazilian Missions, "came a letter dated November 21st, from a Christian lady, who, unsolicited, sends $200 to ' support a student'
in our schools. " I A Presbyterian missionary, Miss Thiede, writes from a village in India:t "I trust the Lord will allow me to build a school-house and a house for the catechist, though I have no means for them. He kindly enabled me to build a small house which shall accommodate the missionary when he visits this station, but will now be a shelter for me. . . . The ~ord wonderfully helped me, though I had to pray most earnestly for everything-for workmen, for wood, for bricks, for money. I got it all !"
The very next letter in the same magazine is from Miss Edith Blunt, who writes: " A few new doors have been opened to me in direct answer to * Foreign Missionary, Sept., 1885. t American McAli Record, Oct., 1888.
~ To Winnan'8 Workfor Woman, Oct., 1886., prayer; that is, while going toward my field of labor I have asked the dear Lord to take me to some house where they have never heard the truth, or where He would want me to go; and invariably a pressing invitation has come, and the vVord has been sung and expounded. "
At the May anniversary of the China Inland Mission, in 1883, Dr. Mackcnzie told how he and his colleague, Bryson, prayed day after day for two months fqr a hospital in Tient~in; and then, by means of a remarkable cure wrought through prayer by skill for the wife of the Viceroy, Li Hung Chang, that statesman was led to offer a temple and an income for the now successful hospital.
At the annual meeting of the American Board in New York (1889), Secretary Alden presented a paper on the place of prayer in mission work; a paper which for varied interest and suggestiveness is remarkable even in missionary literature. It includes the testimony of twenty-six missionaries as to their experience in this matter. The words quoted at the beginning of this article are from one letter. Another, writing of all sorts of work in Constantinople, adds, " But the point I wish to emphasize is thi8-it is my sincere conviction that opposition was overcome and the fruits of labor bestowed in answer to prayer-persevering prayer-offered in faith by the ladies of the executive committee in Boston, and by our constituents in New Britain and New Haven." Another writes of apparently fruitless prayer for revival offered in the Doshisha (Dr. Neesima' s school in Kyoto) from the week of prayer to the middle of March, when the praying band had decreased to half a dozen. Then" on Sabbath, March 16th, 1883, in the afternoon and evening, an invisible influence struck the school. None of the teachers knew of it till next morning. But of about 150 young men then in the school, very few closed their eyes in sleep that night. Almost every room was filled with men crying to God for mercy."
V. Let us turn to" darkest England." Not milch is said in public of the work of the late John Ashworth and his" Chapel for the Destitute" in his town of Rochdale, Lancashll'e. Yet his" Strange Tales from Humble Life" have been circulated by the million, and for simple, heart-reaching power are hardly excelled among the records of Almighty grace. The characters with whom he dealt may be imagined from the fact that a drunken, dirty fellow, who had been persuaded by his wife to attend the chapel, began swearing at her for bringing him to such a place, for" all the scamps in the country were collected together, and it was a disgrace for anyone to be seen among them !" ""Ve could as soon have thought of old Nick going to chapel, as Niff," was said of the villain who became the subject of the story" Niff and his Dogs." Drunkards and rogues, the despairing and the destitute, infidel and invalid, men, women and children were reached and brought into marvellous light.
Says the biography, " Mr. Ashworth commenced the work with a firm conviction that God would open up his way, and send pecuniary help to [.ny amount or aIly extent that might be required, withot+t either ilnniversary sermons or public collections. He belip,ved in answers to prayer, and had good reason for so doing j and to him it was at all times in his arduous undertakings a great source of strength and comfort to know that hundreds throughout the land were daily remembering him and the Chapel for the Destitute in their petitions at the throne of grace. The very thought of it gave him joy j and for sixteen years, without any solicitation on his part from any human being, the necessary funds have been supplied. " The prayer of faith, rather than the disbursing of fundi, was the power and characteristic of all his work. It is the atmosphere, tho spirit of all his" Strange Tales." In the prefatory note he writes, ., I am a tradesman, and make no prett<nsions to literary ability. If He whom I desire to serve condescend to use me as a medium of good to others, my earnest wish will be realized. To Him my prayer has been, ' Hold Thou my right hand.' "
One of these tracts is entitled" A Wonder j or, the Two Old Men i" and this is the story of it: "An old man of eighty-three, only twelve months a pardoned sinner, earnestly, and in the best way he could, urging an old man of eighty-five to trust in Christ, is such a wondC!' as falls to the lot of few to witness. Here knelt two men whose lives had been one long course of open iniquity, producing untold misery, sorrow, and suffering in their families, and, probably, by their example and precept, having been tho direct cause of many going down to the regions of despair. Yet these two have fonnd mercy and forgiveness! 'Ve repeat, It is a Wonder /" Not many months afterward Mr. Ashworth was the means of saving the older man from the home and th;l dread of the pauper-the workhouse. " When the old man saw the money paid down, and heard my promise to find him another home, he lifted up his head and gazed in my face with a look of inexpressible thankfulness. He wept like a child. exclaiming, 'God has done it! God has done it! He yeard me pray et neet, and sent yo to help me awt 0' me tronble. He's done more nor I expected i aw'l praise Him as long as aw live! ' "
It would be hard to say how many such records of answered prayer are to be found in Mr. Ashworth's writings. In none are they more frequent or striking than in the testimony of six pauper invalids, of whom he says (" My Sick Frier,ds"), " I leave them with a conviction that though they have unitedly been in pain, affliction, and helplessness for one hundred and sixty-five years, yet they are among the happiest creatures in this world. They may go down to their graves in silence, but they have taught a lesson to thousands i and that lesson is, that IIeaven's brightest beams can pierce the darkest cloud."
VI. In a region in England, missionary enough to be the diucese of Bishop Selwyn, the Christian genius known as Sister Dora lived her devoted life. Not more nurse than missionary, not less heroic than any other missionary, through fourteen years she kept her consecration unbroken, her chcerfqlnesR qndaunteq, her strong will alwals ~entle! her faith always tri· umphant by personal communion with her Lord_ Of all the saintly biography with which the Church has been enriched in the last ninety years, no life is more fascinating, none more redolent of the heavenly" vials full of odors" than the life of this hospital nurse in the" black country." Says her biograpber, " She spoke unreservedly to ber householu upon the absolute necessity of constant private prayer, and expressed openly her own strong conviction that no blessing could attend the hospital unless those who worked in it fulfilled their duty in this respect. It was literally true that she never touched a wound without lifting up her heart to the Giver of all virtue, and asking that healing might be conveyed by her means. . . . The striking feature of her prayers was the strong faith which animated them. . . ' At night, when the ward was quiet, she might often be scen kneeling by the bed of some . • . sufferer." Once she undertook to save a young fellow's mangled right arm when amputation had been pronounced necessary to save the patient's life, but when amputation mcant paupeIism to his family. Night and day for three weeks the case was in a suspense that was terrible. But she saved the arm; and the surgeon, who had been in no good humor over the case, but" without whose leave, be it remembered, she could not have done this, . . . brought the rest of the hospital staff' to show them what. might be done,' as he said." '" IIow I prayed over that arm!' she used to say afterward." "Vhat wonder the man went by the name of " Sister's arm."
Lnther draws a beautiful parallel between Paul's entreaty with Philemon for Onesimus and Christ's intercession with the Father for us, adding, " For we are all IIis Onesimi, to my thinking." The great Missionary " who went about doing good" is the great Intercessor; and from Pentecost down He has stamped that characteristic on His work. If a man believes himself Christ's Onesimus, he will have no doubts about prayer in His name. If one prayer ill answered, every prayer must be. Whether we can trace the answer or not is of small importance. If, however (and this with reference to the controversy suggested by the title of this paper), we can historically connect the providence of God, and the promise of God, and the prayer to God, who can reasonably doubt THE POWER OF GOD IN ANSWER TO PRAYER?
" 'Tis the fire that will burn wha+ thou canst not pass over, 'Tis the lightning that breaks away all bars to love, 'Tis a sunbeam, the secret of God to discover, 'Tis the wing David prayed for-the wing of the Dove."
THE following letter cannot fail to interest sincere and prayerful disciples: DEAR DR. PIERSON: I thank you very earnestly for your words in the March number of the MISSIONARY REVIEW concerning prayer. You seem to feel your way into II world wl1erein manl hav~ b~e~ trying to enter.
PROPOSAL FOR A PRAYER UNION
When I was in the north of England ag deputation for our London Missiouary Society, pleading the claims of China (with which I have been connected for twenty-five years), consultation and prayer were carried on in a friend's house up till midnight, and a written agreement was entered into to pray God to raise up one hundred of the best missionaries for our society. Since then ProfeRsor Armitage, along with other leading ministers, has been led from on high to bring out a solemn appeal for consecration and personal service; and there is a great spirit of waiting on God concerning this matter. You will thw; see that the point I now wish to submit to .you is not one which I dare approach lightly. A leader in one of our largest London churches lays down very solemnly this position: that any amount of good preaching is insufficient unless there be some definite action taken. I venture now to plead for a part of your REVIEW definitely devoted to forming and encouraging a prayer union, so that any of God's people, upon whose hearts it is laid to pray very specially for any great public matter concerning His kingdom, might have an opportunity of stating their case, giving their reasons, encouraging each other in a conquering faith, waiting for and recording answers j and, in general, dealing with God in a direct and definite manner. Your editorial wisdom wou!d direct how far it would be well to go into particulars.
But, for the sake of an illustration, let me refer to the opium traffic. At the present time throughout England the hearts of God's people ar& being moved as perhaps never before, so that the will of God may be thoroughly known and carried out. It is believed that if the Christian conscience were once thoroughly aroused, it would prove to be such a power as no government could resist. The first important matter is to spread information, and, as a matter of fact, information has been widely spread. But gain seems too much for godliness, and the flesh too much for the Spirit, so that individual and national sin, according to many, cannot be put away. In fact, there is, in some minds, a complete despair. Surely if " the regions beyond, of prayer," once became a part of common Chris· tian life, there would be such a keen sensitiveness to God's touch that the opium victims would startle men's minds j fearful prejudices against the Gospel, created by the traffic, would bring us down in humiliation, and the fact that a shadow between God and His people exists, would rouse to such concern as would give no rest till the evil was put away. Such a matter might well be a subject for definite believing prayer. Christians are, perhaps, a feebJe folk in regard to "orldly power, but this may drive them the more earnestly to seek God.
Some who are of little usc otherwise may at least prove the power of prayer. God can use tools of the poorest nature to spread abroad impressions of what is right.
This matter is one which may possihly receive more attention in China. The same request has heen made so' that missionaries and native converts may. be united in this hallowed bond. The more such ideas can gain
MOHAMMED AND MOlIAMMEDANISM
ground, the more help we shall have against the materialism of the age; and there may be some very great matters cODcerniDg God's will which may become clear as we agree to pray about them-e.g., how far mission- ary work !Should be evangelistic, missionaries only settling down as far as is really necessary; and whether fixed salaries are wise or unwise, etc.
The proofs of prayer given in the China Inland Mission and in the move- ments of the C. M. S., which began in prayer at Keswick, might be more definitely known than they are; also the proof of God's hearing prayer in the progress of woman's work, of which the foreign secretary of the L. M. S.
lately made a striking utterance at the monthly meeting for prayer held at the mission house. Yours faithfully, LONDON, April 7, 189l. J. SADLER.
MOHAMMED AND MOHAMMEDANISM.
BY REV. HENRY RICE, MADRAS, INDIA.
For the last twelve hundred years or more that struggle between the East and West which has ever been the centre of all history has takeu the special form of a struggle between Christendom and Islam. There is not a nation in Europe or Asia which has not had its share iu the great conflict. The struggle still goes on. The more we feel the prominent palt which the struggle between Christendom and Islam has borne, and is bearing, in the general history of the world, the more deeply we feel the importance of a right understanding of Mohammedan history. In considering the life of Mohammed and the effects of Mohammedanism, one cannot help touching on questions which are theological. Through the whole history, both of the man and the nation, the religious element underlies everything. Mohammed was a conqueror and a ruler, but he was such only because he declared himself to be a divinely commissioned prophet. His immediate followers founded the vastest empire that the world ever saw, which, though it soon split asunder, has maintained a theoretical unity ever since. But that empire was not, strictly speaking, the dominion of a nation or of a dynasty, but of a religious sect with which the acquisition of political power was a religious principle. In the Mohammedan system there is no room for national distinctions; religious belief stands in the place of nationality. Every fellow-believer is a fellow-countryman. There is no dis~inction between Church and State. In Islam the Church comes first in fact and in idea; the State is simply the Church in its unavoidable temporal relations. In every Mohammedan country the whole civil and social fabric rests on the groundwork of a divine law once revealed. In everything the spiritual element comes first, and the temporal element is a mere appendage.
The primary faet, then, to be ob~erved is that Mohammed was a man who founded a temporal dominion, but who grounded his temporal domin- ion solely upon his claim to be a divinely commissioned teacher of religion. He taught a doctrine; he founded a sect; and the proselytes of that sect went forth, in the name of their new faith, to conquer the world. Every Moslem was, as his first duty, a missionary; but he was an armed missionary. In this the religion of Mohammed forms a marked contrast to the two religious systems which had gone before it. Judaism proclaims itself as the divinely given code of a single nation, a system which does not refuse proselytes, but does not seek them. Christianity proclaims itself as a divinely given system of faith and morals, addressed to all mankind, content to make its way among mankind by moral forces alone, leaving the governments of the world as it finds them. Mohammedanism also proclaims itself as a divinely given system of faith and morals addressed to all mankind, but to be enforced by the sword. It is a system which, in its perfect theory, would require all mankind to be members of one political society. Each, again, of these three great monotheistic religions has its written revelation. Herein consists one of the most marked distinctions between the three. The Mohammedan accepts nothing as of divine authority except the personal utterallces of his prophet, taken down in his lifetime. With the Jew and the Christian the actnal discourses of Moses and of Christ form only a portion of the writings which he accepts as the sacred books of his faith. As to the main facts of Mohammed's life there is no reason to detail them, for they are well known. But we think there can be no doubt as to his sincerity, and as to the honesty of his fait1:l in the truth of his own mission during the early stages of his career. It is impossible to conceive any motive, except faith in his own missior , which conld have borne him up through the contempt and persecntion whlCh he underwent as long as he abode at Mecca. The mere fact of his lapse, followed as it was by his recantation, seems decidedly in favor of his sincerity. It is the act of a man, believing in himself and in what he taught, but whose faith failed him for a season in a moment of temptation. But his mere belief in his own mission would not prove that mission to be divine; it wonld not cven prove the work which he undertook to be a work tending to the good of mankind. That the early teaching of Mohammed, in the days of his first preaching at Mecca, was directly for the good of the men of that time and place there can be no doubt. His moral and religious teaching was imperfect, but it was a measureless advance on anything which his hearers had heard before. Whatever Mohammed may have been to the world at large, to the men of Mecca of his own time he was one who spake of righteousncls, temperance, and judgment to come, one who taught in the midst of debasing idolatry that there is one God, and none other than He. Every man who at this stage accepted the teaching of Mohammed was at once raised to a higher level in the scale of moral and religious beings. The strivings of heart which led Mohammed, in the face of 8corn and persecution, to preach to an idolatrous city the truth and unity of God could never have risen from any low personal motive. We may even venture to say th!it it Was a move- ment from God Himself.
One of the most difficult thillgs is to find out the exact amount 01 knowledge of Christianity which Mohammed had at any time of his career. It is certain that while still at Mecca he Was oil frielldly terms with thll Christian King of Abyssinia; and it was in his domilliolls that his early fol. lowers sought shelter from persecution. Some means were, therefore, clearly open to him of gaining a knowledge of what Christianity really was j but it seems likely that he never came across the genuine text of the New 'Testameut or its genuine teaching in any shape. The one Christian doctrine he seems to have thoroughly grasped is that of the miraculous birth of Christ. But on all other points Mohammed's notions of Christianity seem to have been of the vaguest kind. His ideas of the life of Christ are borrowed from the stories of the Apocryphal gospels, and he emphatically denies the reality of the crucifixion. When he confounded the Angel Gabriel with the Holy Ghost, and represented Christians as looking on the Mother of Christ as a person of the Trinity, he must surely have misconceived what Christianity was even in its corruptest form. We cannot wonder that. he cast away such doctrines as these with indignation, nor that he confounded the Christian doctrine of the Divine sonship with the idolatrous belief in the danghters and other satellites of God which it was his special mission to overthrow. We cannot blame Mohammed for rejecting Christianity in the shape in which it seems to have appeared in his eyes j but we cannot acquit him of blame for rejecting Christianity through not taking pains to find out what it really was. If this neglect was owing to spiritual pride, to an overweening confidence in himself. as not only a divinely commissioned, but an absolutely infallible teacher, we may see in this failure to seek after the truth with all his heart and with all his strength tne Drst step in a downward career. The flight to Medina was the beg~nning of Mohammedanism as part of the history of the world j but it was aho the beginning of a distinct fall in the personal character of its founder. The preacher of righteousness now appealed to the sword. Had he not done so, it may be that his religion would have died out. But, looking at the man's own moral being. from the moment of his appeal to the sword he fell away from the righteousness of his earlier days. lie stooped from the rank of a religious teacher to the rank of one of the ordinary powers of the world. He put on the character of a statesman and a warrior j he exposed himself to the temptations which beset either character, and he learned to practise the baser as well as the nobler arts of both. IIis policy was now of the earth, ~arthy; in becoming a ruler and a warrior he became a man of craft and of blood.
One aspect of the prophet's life we cannot pass over without notice. What Fronde says of Henry VIlt is yet more truly to be said of Mohammed, that he ought to have lived in a world from which women were shut out. It is useless to defend the sexual laxity of Mohammed by saying that he was neither better nor worse than the usual morality of his age andl country. The preacher of a religious reform ought to rise above·the usuali morality of his age and country j and Mohammed, at one time of his life" showed that he could rise above it. The youth of Mohammed, according: to all evidence, was a youth of temperance and chastity, and not a breathl of scandal rested on his married life passed during twenty years with Ii woman old enough to be his mother. The manners of his country allowed both polygamy and concubinage j but no rival, whether wife or slave, ever disturbed the declining years of Kha<!ijah. A man who had so long lived a chaste life could surely have prolonged the effort, if only for the sake of keeping up his own dignity a~d consistency of character, and should not have proclaimed for himself exemptions from the laws which he laid down for others. Yet in Mohammed's relations to women we cannot but see a distinct fall, both from the standard of the Gospel and from the standard of his own early life. One of the oldest charges against Mohammed is that he promised his followers a paradise of sensual delights. Nowhere is the contrast between the Gospel and the Koran more strongly marked than in the veil which the Gospel throws over all details as to the next world, when compared with the minuteness with which the Koran dwells on its, rewards and punishments. And this charge of holding out sensual promises; to his disciples is one that cannot be' got over except by the startling apologetics of certain Mnssulman doctors, who assert that the" houris" of Paradise are to be taken figuratively.
We hold, then, that Mohammed, from the beginning to the end of his career, was honestly convinced of the truth of his own mission, but that he gradually fell away through not taking due pains to find out the real nature of the Christian revelation. When the first downward step had been taken, the other steps of the downward course were easy. The prophet of truth and righteousness, the assertor of the unity of God against the idols of the Kaaha, sank to the level of an earthly conqueror, extending the bounds of his dominion by the sword. He died while waging war to force his own imperfect system on those who, amid all the corruptions of Christianity of those days, still held truths which he had rejected and blasphemed. The real charge against Mohammed is that, after the Gospel had! been given to man, he fell back on the theology and morality of the Law. The effects of his life and teaching on the world at large have been in close analogy to his own personal career. In his own age and country he was the greatest of reformers. He founded a na~ion, and gave that nation a religion and a jurisprudence which were an immense advance on anything it had as yet accepted. He swept away idolatry j he enforced the practice of a purer morality ; he lightened the yoke of the slave ; he even raised the condition of the weaker sex. If he had done nothing else than remove the frightful practice of burying female children alive, he would not have lived in vain in his own time and nation. But when his system passed the borders of the land in which it was so great a reform, it became the greatest of curses to mankind. The main cause which has made the Mohammedan religion a blighting influence on every land where it has been preached is that it is an imperfect system standing in the way of one more perfect. Islam has in it just enough of good to hinder the reception of greater good. When Mohammedanism is preached to a tribe of savage heathen, its acceptance is in itself an unmixed blessing. But it is a blessing which cuts off almost all hope of the reception of a greater blessing. The heathen, in his utter darkness, is far more likely to accept the faith of Christ than the Mohammedan in his state of semi-enlightenment. In all lands wherfl Islam has been preached it has regulated and mitigated many of the evils of the earlier systems; but in doing so it has established them forever. The New Testament nowhere forli>ids slavery; it can hardly be said to contain any direct prohibition of polygamy. Preached as the Gospel was to subjects of the Roman Empire, among whom frightful licentiousness was rife, but among whom legal polygamy was unheard of, there was no need to enlarge on the subject. The principles of Christian purity would of themselves, without any direct precept, hinder polygamy from beeoming the law of any Christian land. But Islam,by the very fact of restraining and regulating the license of its own native land, has made polygamy and its attendant evils the abiding law of every Mohammedan people. As Professor Fairbairn has well said, " A religion that does not purify the home cannot regenerate the race; one that depraves the home is certain to deprave humanity. Motherhood is to be sacred if manhood is to be honorable. Spoil the wife of sanctity, and for the man the sanctities of life have perished." The Gospel nowhere forbids slavery; but it lays down precepts whose spirit is inconsistent with slavery, anll which have, after a long struggle, succeeded in rooting out slavery from all European and from most Christian lands. But Islam, by the very fact of enforcing justice and mercy for the slave, has perpetuated the existence of slavery among all its disciples. Christianity, by giving no civil precepts, has remained capable of adapting itself to every form of government and every state of society. But Islam, by attaching the civil power to its religious head, has condemned all Mohammedan nations to abiding despotism; and by enjr)ining the toleration of the unbeliever on certain fixed conditions, it hinders the e~tab lishment of religious equality in any land where it is dominant. "Christianity waged no direct war against these social evils of antiquity, but it killed them much more effectually by breathing into the conscience of the world truths which made their continuance impossible. It girdled the tree and left it to die. Change the climate, and you change the vegetation. "
Let it be granted that, in all heathen aI?-d even in some Christian lands, Islam in its first and best days appeared as a reform. Still it is a reform which has stifled all other reforms. It is a reform which has chained down every nation which has accepted it to a certain stage of moral and political growth. As such, this system of imperfect truth must ever be the greatest hindrance in the way of more perfect truth. Because Islam comes nearer
THE ARMENIAN PROTES'],ANT ORPHANAGE OF BROOSSA
to Christianity than any other false system, for that very reason it is, above nil other false systems, pre-eminently anti-Christian. "It has reformed and lifted savage tribes; it has depraved and barbarized civilized nations. At the root of its fairest culture a worm has ever lived that has caused its blossoms soon to wither and die. Were Mohammed the hope of man, then his state "rere hopeless; before him could only be retrogression, tyranny, and despair." The life of every great Mohammedan nation has died away. ·Wherever Mohammedanism has come into contact and conflict with Christi:m civilization it has succumbed. It is incapable of progress beyond a certain point. It has lost the" dew of its youth," and is destined to wane before advancing light and growing knowledge. In India we may look forward to the time when the bigotry and fanaticism of its sixty millions of Mohammedans will melt away before the warmth and genial influence of Christianity.
TIlE ARMENIAN PROTESTANT ORPH.A.NAGE OF -BROOSSA, IN ASIA MINOR, TUl~KEY.
BY M. BAGHDASARIAN, SECRETARY OF THE PROTESTANT ORPHANAGE.
Asia Minor is the fairest portion of Turkey, and one of the finest countries of the world. It is a peninsula, and is bounded on the north by the Black Sea, on the south by the Mediterranean, on the west by the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles, on the east by Armenia and Koordistan.
The country is very mountainous, and many rivers pass through the most picturesque valleys, flowing into the Black Sea as well as the Mediterranean. The soil is very fertile, and produces every kind of vegetables. fruits, and corn. Asia Minor is considered the or(~hard of Constantinople.
The prcsent condition of this vast country stands in frightful contrast to its great and glorious past. It was once the seat of riches and learning, and some wonderful events in secular and church history happened here. The still remaining ruins of the ancient cities of Nicea, where the Nicene Creed was composed in the year A.D. 321), and of the seven churches testify of the splendor and wealth of its former inhabitants. Desolations, storms, and terrible judgments of God have, however, converted that dear country into a great wilderness.
The population of Asia Minor consists chiefly of Turks, Armenians, Greeks, and Jews. The Turks are the most unchangeable people of the world. Their habits, customs, dresses, manners, character, ideas, and aspirations are almost the same as they were centuries ago. when their ancestors came to conquer the country. They always think of a general massacre of all Christians existing in Turkey, and blame their fathers for not having accomplished it in the early era of the empire, while nobody would have interfered with their destructive work. The Armenians are a people spoken of very often in the Bible. They have a glorious past recorded in the history of the ancient world and nations, and belong to the first Oriental Christian Churcll, which is, un- fortunately, fallen to decay, and represents now but a very low form of Chris- tianity, being entirely deprived of the influence of the evangelical prin- ciples of the Gospel. Pomp, ceremony, and priestcraft support the religion, which exerts very little influence over the daily lives of the people, and can afford little or no comfort, in their experiences of privation, suffer- ings, and toi!. But they are good farmers, prosperous merchants, and able professional men, and have a great future. Being very religious, and having always an open heart for the Truth, the Armenians accepted with great pleasure the Gospel when it was sent to them in the beginning of the present century from the Christians of the New World. My father, Bagh- dasar Russian, of Bithynia, was one of those Armenians who at once converted themselves to the Protestant faith, and leaving everything, like the apostles, on they went as the first Armenian missionaries, preaching the Gospel in the towns and villages of Asia Minor and Armenia, and establishing the first Armenian evangelical churches, and that, of course, amid great and continual persecutions and sufferings.
" By their fruits ye shall know them" is the divine criterion given us to be used whet we jndge those who profess the true faith of the Gospel j and, guided by that principle, you can judge of the Armenian Protestants of Turkey. When we adopted a scriptural creed, it would have been ground for a serious imputation against the sincerity of our Christian profession had we looked with indifference on the many objects around us that -called for active self·denial and the persevering labor of Christian love and .charity. But such was not the case; and among the fruits of the Reformation in Turkey will, no doubt, be reckoned the Armenian Evangelical Charity Mission of Broossa.
Broossa is an ancient city and the capital of Asia Minor, only a round ihundred miles from Constantinople, nestling at the foot of snow-capped lIount Olympus. Its population is about 80,000, of whom 20,000 are Armenians, GOOO Greeks, 4000 Jews, and the remainder Turks.
It has passed through many political changes, and has been nearly destroyed at various times by fire and earthquake; but it has survived all these disasters, and is, with its fine climate, hot and cold springs, large Oriental bazaars and beautiful marble tombs of the sultans who resided there from 1825 nntil the capture of Constantinople, one of the most important cities of the East.
During 1874-75 Asia Minor was the scene of a terrible famine, caused by a long continued drought, and many thousands of peoplo starved to death. When the calamity was at its height, the city of Broossa was filled with refugees j and seeing the terrible condition of the little children who {)ame to the city in search of food, the heart of the writer's brother, Gregory Baghdnsarian, who then was professor in a seminary at BrooBsa, was moved to gather in these poor little orphan children; and this was the beginning of the Armenian Evangelical Charity Mission at Broossa. A HQme for Orphan and Destitute Children was at once established, and hundreds of poor children who had beeu bereft of horne and parents have lbeen since received in its sheltering arms, and trained for Christ and useful IJii.ves. Later on a boarding and day school, too, were added to this institution.
The Tnrkish Government recognized this Armenian Evangelical Orphan Asylum, with its educational branches, and sanctioned it by granting the usual Rukhsatname-permit-in which tbe title" Dar-ush-Shefakai Sharikiye"-Oriental Charitable Institution-is attached to it.
A committee composed of Protestant brethren, with the resident American missionary keeping the treasnry, is, ever since its establishment, ,duly guiding this good work. The late B.ev. Sandford Hichardson was the ;first treasurer of the orphanage; and in his last statement he says, ,. You ·can say to your friends that we regard the ~rphanage as eminently Chris- ;tian, and auxiliary to our evangelical work."
The Broossa Orphauage is now fifteen years old; it has been established °iby entirely voluntary contributions, the first donation of $300 being gen- ,erously granted by the late Rev. Adolf Sarasin, of Basel, in Switzerland. :Later on a few German and Swiss prominent clergymen and editors, the Basel Mission Society, and the London Turkish Missions' Aid Society have ,espoused the cause of the Broossa Orphanage, and recognizing it as a neces- :sary 'and usefnl institution in the East, recommended it warmly to the sympathy and support of the benevolent throughout the world, and helping hands were stretched toward us to carry out the work. More than six hundred children, coming from fifty different parts and places of Turkey, and belonging to different religions and nationalities, have been admitted into the orphanage during the last fifteen years, and many others passed through tha boarding and day schools, enjoying a strictly evangelical education.
The Broossa Orphanage was often inspected and illl'estigated by competent hodies, one of which was composed of the Revs. T. W. Brown, D.D., Secretary of the Turkish Missions' Aid Society of London, Alexander Thom- :son, D. D., agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society of Constantinople, :and Joseph Greene, D. D., one of the veteran missionaries of the American Board in Turkey, and two Armenian Protestant pastors of Constantinople. 'They were much pleased with what they saw, and gave a long report, in 'which they say, " We have great pleasure in bearing our testimony to the perfect discipline of the schools, and to the thoroughly intellectual training, both in general knowledge and in Divine truth. Mr. and Mrs. Baghdasarian seem, indeed, to have succeeded to no smail extent in attaining their high ideal of so conducting the orphanage as to render it a pure and happy Christian home." Another official inspection took place last year, in September, when the Twenty-fifth Annual Assembly of the Evangelical Pas- .
tors of the Bithynian U uian W&s held in Broossa. In th4;)i. statement they say, "We have carefully inspected the whole establishment, and are much pleased with the order and th'l excellent training of the children. We with fuJI confidence say that the whole orgal)-ization of the institution serves one distinct purpose, which is to impart to the children the love of God and the truths of His salvation."
Charity is an indi8pensable branch of the grand work of the Christian Church and her mission in the wide, wide world. The Roman Catholic Church uuderstallds this well, and domg accordingly, their mission is very successful and prosperous in the East. Actually, they possess in Turkey, comprising Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, Armenia, and Koordistan, 12 hospitals with dispensaries treating yearly 100,000 people, 30 orphan abylums and other charitable institutions, fiO boarding and as many day schools, with 20,000 pupils belonging to all nationalities and religions of Turkey.
The Gospel is to he preached to all creatures, but especially to the poor, because they need it the most, hear its good tidings gladly, and accept willingly the com.fort and consolation it offers them through Jcsus Christ, the only Saviour of the world_ Though there are so many colleges, high schools, and seminaries in Turkey under the care of the American Doard, yct in and for the whole of Asia Minor it is the Broossa Orphanage as a Protestant charitable institution that receives homeless and destitute children irrespective of creed and nationality j and we could admit hundreds of them at once if we could only feed and dress them; but we at present are hardly in. a position to care for those who are already under our shelter, for whose sake the writer is in America, endeavoring to awaken the sympathies of the philanthropists and the benevolent Christians of the New IVorld in 1>eha1f of our charity mission in Asia :Minor j and in case that my humble " voice from Mount Olympus" would reach some noble hearts to move them in our aid, we intend to erect a large chapel in the orphanage, and to establish a small hospital with dispensary, as we most indispensably need these three things, which will, no doubt, be a means of great blessings to the country. We are convinced that no more effective means can be employed for the extension of the Redeemer's blessed kingdom and the temporal and spiritual welfare of the vast population of Asia Minor than the establishment of such charitable institutions. Only Christian, active, energetic, and sacrificing love will be able to conquer the hearts of the people, making good all their damages and healing all the cvils occasioned by misgovernment and oppression.
We need to conceive of mlSlllOns as pre-eminently God's work; and, therefore, as ours only because it is God's, and we are HIS co-workers, permitted to share with Him in this supreme privilege. The power and energy are, therefore, not human. but Divinc, and in any and every cxigency we have only to appeal to Him, take new courage, and gather new confidence, and take steps, never baokward, but always forward, for God never calls a r(!trellt.-[En. ]
THE WHITE FIELDS
THE WHITE FIELDR.
BY A. WOODRUFF, ESQ., FOREIGN SUNDAY-SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, BROOlrLYN, N. Y.
A look at them retrospectively and pruspectively, through the'medium of the Sunday-school movement of the nineteenth century, presents gratify- ing signs of promise to the intelligent beholder.
All along the line of history, from the time when the churches of Asia Minor received St. John's admonit.ion, to that of the introduction of the Hobert Raikes period, near the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was a rising and falling, an ebbing and flowing, of spiritual life and pros- perity, answering to the faithfulness or unfaithfulness with which the youth of nations have been tanght in the truthR of revealed religion. The Sun- day-scllool ml)vement has lifted the pall of unbelief that hnng heavily over the English.speaking nations at the commencement of this century, and although recent awakenings have begotten a religious liberty that has given birth to countless religious organizations, each one of them will, if we are faithful to the teaching of the inspired record, prove a strengthening timber in the one Divine edifice.
It will be the aim of this article to describe the methods by whieh the Foreign Sunday- school Association seeks to reenkindle these spiritual fires, faintly glimmering from previous centuries, and in our own times so rapidly spreading as a ground of future hope; /lnd, to show their fitness, to prevent relapses, and assure a near future and one more permanent and enduring than any that has gone before.
The Foreign Sunday-school Association is a growth, not a formation; an influence more than an organization; a power rather than an instrument. The interested inquirer who accepts these definitions desires to know, then, by just what means it accomplishes results.
It may not be easy to exactly separate influences so subtle as the spiritual fruits of religious education and labor, and we may not be able to say just what has been accomplished in the past twelve months; but we can tell what has been done in connection with it and as a part of it ; what results are transient and belonging to the past, and what, are promising to be permanent for the future. How to bring revealed truth into sanctifying contact with the masses of mankind, especially children, is the question of questions, and will continue to be such until the stream of time shall be lost in the ocean of eternity.
The field is boundles~ and ready for reaping; and the reapers, whom we will call letter-writers, must be indefinitely multiplied until the ground is covered. Our association comprises about forty-would that we eonld say four hundred 1-of these workers, and divides them into four parts or groups, each of which takes a quarter for investigation. This investigation is aided by mi~sionary reports, travellers' letters, magazines, colporteurs, 13ible agents, streams of commerce, etc., and by it they are enabled to dis. cover somehow and somewhere an indefinite number who will accept from strangers a friendly greeting, and respond to their letters if written in the ,spirit of the Master who· commands, "Go ye to every creature."
Once a week one of these committees meets to report how their letters 'or IDessllges have been received, and to prepare again others, with small gifts and helps, hoping always for better and better success, the results showing generally that the seed has fallen upon good ground.
Once a month the four committees meet to show to each other the aggregate of results, and vote supplies as they are recommended by the different committees. It is not our purpose to establish schools that shall be called our schools in the sense of depending permanently upon us for support; we seek rather to lead the Christians living in those countries to engage in Sunday-school work.
We try to have the schools as rapidly as possible pass even beyond self-support, and become themselves propagating centres of religious influence, The help we give looks forward to that goal.
As a slight illustration of this correspondence, we subjoin the following extracts from two or three letters received from Austria, China, and Madagascar: Pastor Daniel Nespoe, of Nesslau, Moravia, Austria, writes as follows: " I am glad to tell you about my Sunday-school, for one likes to speak and write about that which he loves. I will give you the lights and the shadows, the advantages and the needs. " We can show but little spiritual life. Rome, the dark power, exercises everywhere a dreadful influence. If it should be Letter in our parish, the Sunday-scho,o,I must help us. About twenty years ago I saw that in our scattered parishes only a well-o,rganized Sunday-schoo,l could help us ;and bring an inner spiritual life in our families, and so into, our congregation; therefore I did not delay, after I knew the benefits of the Sunday- :scho,o), and foundlld first a Sunday-school in Nesslau; to-day we have 6 schools in our parish, with 21 teachers and 325 scholars. " In all our Sunday-schools not only children attend, but all grown-up youths and maidens; in short, all sons and daughters, without distinction of age. They go to Sunday-school until they are married, and the sons come after they have served their threc years in the army. All our Sunday·schools are held in the afternoon between two and four o'clock, and are everywhere well attended; in some the parents come with the children~ and listen attentively as the 'Vord of Life is explained by the teacher$, We use the International Lessons in all our schools. But now I will' .101~ you of the needs of our Sunday-schools. First, we have so few whole :Bibl!~ f. we need more. . . . Then we need hymn-books-the poorest chi~d Q,ugh,t to, have one. One of the chief needs of the Sunday-schoo,l is that the necessary means are lacking for me to visit each of the six Sunday-schools at least once a month; to be present at the instruction, to incite the children" 1.e ~a.t:~l),ts~ al.ld tei«hers ~hm:ns~)ves, and impart the neceRsar.y adv~c~ and instruction. Can you help us in any way ~ Pray do; but, above all, I ask you to pray to the Lord, our true Saviour, for our congregations in Moravia and Bohemia, and bear also our Sunday-schools on praying hearts. "
The Rev. William Key, of the China Inland Mission, in the province of Shansi, north China, thus writes: " When your letter came we were at one of our out-stations, of which we have six. You will be pleased to know that the Lord is blessing our labors, and we have had the joy this year of baptizing twenty-nine con- verts. I am sure your' Sunday-school Guide and Hymn-Book' would be II great help in the out-station work. In a new district like this, that has only been opened four years, the teaching of the converts partakes more or less of the Sunday-school line of things.
"Here at this station we have II Sunday-school, where, as a rule, we have about a dozen men. My wife has a class with the women, in a separate room, at the same time.
" Although our scholars are men and women, we ha"e to treat them in much the same way as home children. We get them to repeat hymns and verses of Scripture, and then tell them some simple Gospel story.
" Here in China, as at home, we find the Gospel is ' the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.' r know casefl where the bare 'Vord has been blessed in leading souls into the light. " At S–, one of our most promising stations, the leading elder, who is to be made pastor shortly, was converted through reading the Gospel of Mark. He was then a. Buddhist priest in a temple!
.. I would ask your prayers for the work of this dist!ict, especially for the native workers, that they may be all taught of God, and thus be able to teach others."
Mis~ Mary T. Bliss, of Faravohitra, Antananarivo, Madagascar, recently wrote the following letter: " I am interested in your society, and I should think it may do a good work in stirrirg people up to realize the great importance of Sunday-school work in all its branches.
" When I first came here fourteen and a half years ago there was only one Sunday-school in Antananarivo; it was held in a central place, and children from all parts of the city were welcome. I do not quite know why, at that time, there was not a Sunday-school in connection with each church; perhaps it was felt to be scarcely necessary, as, of course, Scripture forms the basis of much of the teaching in our mission schools, and so many Bible classes are held dtuing the week, some by ladies for women or children only, others by gentlemen for men and youths, or for any who choose to attend.
"Then another difficulty in those days arose from the fact that there were so few Malagasy suitable to superintend and carryon such a work ; the missionary gentlemen have to be away in the country preaching, their wives are often prevented by family reasons from undertakiug Sunday work, and the single ladies were very few at that time. About ten years ago though the churches were suddenly roused to take an interest in Sunday-school work, and one by one they formed their own schools, 80 that now each of the ten city churches connected with our society has its own school, and, I believe, all the .suburban churches and those of the nearer villages also. Then away in the country districts, schools (no doubt many of them very small and feeble) might be counted by the score; and even in far-away military stations and out-posts, Christian commanders, or governors, or their officers form Sunday-schools and do what they can for the families of their followers and the heatben tribes around them.
"Quite recently I heard from an officer who was formerly one of the best teachers in the' school I superintend, and he tells me that they have succeeded in gathering together four hundred Lakalana children from the thoroughly heathen tribes surrounding their military post on the southwest coast. Again, I am to-day sending off a parcel of testaments and hymnbooks to help in the work being done by a young friend who was also connected with me in Sunday-school work here, but a year or two ago he llad to accompany his father, who was appointed as governor, to a place in the northeast. They at once began Christian work, and built II church at the cost of $700 ; but, unfortunately, it has lately been destroyed by fire. I mention all these facts to show you how this work is spreading in Madagascar. We formed a Sunday-school Union a few years ago, but the Malagasy never seemed to care for it, so it has gradually died II natural death. We were premature, I fancy, though we hoped it would have strengthened the schools.
" Two or three of the schools here are held in the afternoon, but most of them immediately after the morning service, lasting from an llOur to an hour and a half. Primary classes properly conducted are unknown here; little children are among the scholars, but I fear the teaching is beyond them as a rule. For one thing, we have no pictures or anything to make the teaching attractive to them, and we have no suitable teachers; the little ones are obliged to be left to the native teachers, and they do not understand the art of instructing the little creatures. Few of our schools have more than one European to help them, and the large majority not even that one; so, you see, we are crippled, however good our intentions may be. I often wish I could turn my attention to the' tinies,' but then I have to teach their mothers and grandmothers, who think themselves above being taught by any but the missionary. Our school is exceptionally favored though in the kind of teachers we have, many of them having been edncated in our L. M. S. College; they are men of good family and position, too: one tbe Foreign Secretary, another the Minister of Educas tion, and three others members of the Cabinet.
" I see you ask for the number of Sunday-schools we have here, but I think you will understand that I cannot answer the question. As to methods of working, they are of thc most simple kind. I fancy most schools have two adult classes, one for men and one for women, and the children are divided into classes according to their number and the teachers available. The session opens with singing, reading, and prayer; then about half an hour is allowed for the teaching, and afterward all are assembled and questioned on the lesson taught, and a short address is given. Outline lesson helps are published, monthly magazine-Good Words-and are pretty generally used, I think, except in the distant places. Lesson helps for translation and Scripture pictures especially would be most valuable to us if your society can give any assistance in this way. I should not ask for them, only you request a statement of our needs.
"In conclusion, may I ask your prayers for our work here ~ We so long for a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all churches and schools here; and sometimes we think our prayers are to be answered, for among the young people especially there has been a decided work going on during thc last two years or so.
"I shall be very glad of any hints and suggestious as to the better management of our schools."
To quote from Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs, in his speech in behalf of our society at the reccnt State Sunday-school Convention in Brooklyn: "A Sunday-school is an eminently practical institution; it is not ornamental, it is not formal, it i& a working instrument for the purpose of teaching Christian truth, and to inspire Christian usefulness." And again, " It is not altogether for the direct benefit conferred upon others, but partly for the reflex influence upon those who perform the work, for we always gain by giving; and where we are sending good influences upon others, they come with redoubled influence upon our own hearts, so that we desire to send the Sunday-school into foreign lands where it is not."
In this connection a member of our society writes: " We have urged these Christians to start mission schools wherever a place could be found to hold one; and the idea has been so carried out that it is no longer an experiment. "
" From year to year the importance of this kind of Gospel work among the children has grown on the part of our correspondents all over the world; their letters have bronght accounts again and again of whole families brought to Christ through the influence of a child, who first learned of Him at Sunday-school."
"These schools are held in many places in private houses, and are under the superintendence of a colporteur or Bible-reader, in some cases under that of hard-working miners; and in some they are carried on by ladies." In the past year, by diligent inspection of the ground, earnest co-operation and ceaseless letter-writing, we have received 80me six or seven hundred letters from correspondents scattered in different parts of Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, and Mexico.
Our association has assisted in organiz!!!.g and sustaining Sundav.schools in many conntries, and distributed 180,000 Sunday-school papers in differ- ent languages, and over 45,000 books for Sunday-school libraries.
During the past ten years we have translated and published" Christie's Old Organ," by Mrs. Walton, in some fifteen different languagcs, and " Saved at Sea," by the same author, in nearly as many. while such books as" Tip Lewis and His Lamp,"· ': Alone in London," and" A Candle Lighted hy the ·Lord," etc., have each been translated and printed in one or more foreign languages, making altogether an aggregate of 45,000 volumes.
We have had such frequent. reports of blessing through the reading of these books and papers that we are convinced that the money spent in their publication has been most wisely expended. Sunday. school statistics of 1889 show in continental lands, in Asia, Africa, Mexico, South America, and the West Indies, about 20,000 Sunday-schools, with between 70,000 and 80,000 teachers, and over 1,300,000 scholars.
If we add to these figures a percentage for the ten years left to this century, the year 2000 will dawn with a world sprinkled with Sunday-schools, giving cheerful promise of coming triumph, and a shout of harvest home!
As it has been successfully contended, the Sunday~8chool has been the spring of all this lay activity, this activity which has made possible the gigantic mil!.sionary movement which characterizes the times in which we live; and is it not clear that in this movement around us there is signified a permanency that has not pertain.ed to any that has gone before.
But although we point to 18,000,000 of English-speaking people as the force now gathered in this department of labor alone, to say nothing about those that are marshalling in outside fields, we wish to point to an element of power in it which no previous pp.riod of the world's history has even surveyed, much less enumerated.
Stupendous as these movements are, the last half of this century has given birth to a sign of the times which as a star of hope already begins to shine brightly above and around the whole spiritual horizon.
Wherevcr we turn our eye of faith, it is woman who dissipates the darkness still remaining, and sheds no flickering light upon the future of our race. Modestly unpretending, but nobly strong, her banner points steadily forward to the day when the promise shall be fulfillcd that all shall know the Lord, from the least to the greatest.
In her lies a source of strength which, when united with missionary assistance at home and abroad, forbids the sceptic to doubt that there is a consummation at hand and almost in sight which assures that our harvest shall not be uncertain or endlessly distant. Not uncertain if our cherished institution shall retain the characteristics which a hundred years have given it, and an its lost spiritual life be revived with a Heaven-in8pired ardor; not distant if the churches continue to send forth the right leaders in a genuine spiritual crusade to rescue the sacred soil from the deadly pollutioll '. of sin, unbelief, and death.
SUMMAS MEEKHA OF MOSUL
[The preceding article was written to follow another, " Sunday-school and Lay Work in the Nineteenth Century," printed in the REVIEW, December, 1888, page 910. We regret that the publication of this was so long delayed, that it borrows little light from the former article.-ED.] SHEMMAS MEEKHA OF MOSUL.
BY REV. T. LAURIE, PROVIDENCE, R. I.
If the tree is known by its fruit, then we may learn the value of missions from the character of their converts. It has been the privilege of the writer to enjoy the acquaintance of a number of the converts in western Asia, Tannoos el Haddad and Rahil Ata in Beiriit, Pastor Apisoghom and Der Vartaness in Constantinople, and others elsewhere, but with none was he brought into such intimate relations as with Shemmas (Deacon) Meekha of MOBUL Yonan, a Jacobite millwright of tllat city, had a son born to him in 1816, and when the plague carried off nearly 40,000 victims there in 1828, Meekha, the son, recovered from it to find that the same disease had made him fatherless. He sought relief from the burden of his sins through faflting and confession to the priest, but with such small success that he was led to study the truth for himself. This was not so easy,' for at sixteen years of age he could not read; and when he sought to learn, his associates mocked him, quoting the proverb, " Baad rna sar shab, yereed yikra el kelab" (" After he grew up he wanted to read"). Yet he got the son of a priest to teach him the Syriac alphabet, and after his day's work was done, spelled out by lamplight a tolerable knowledge of ancient Syriac, while thus blindly groping after truth. God sent to Mosul Rev. Joseph Matthew, an evangelical graduate of the college at Cottayam, in southern India, on his way to Mardin to be ordained as bishop, and from him Meekha received such help in the Syriac that he was soon able to interpret his friend's sermons in that language into the vernacular. Dr. Grant was sent at the same time to Mosul, and aided both Meekha and the bishop after his ordination as Mutran (Metropolitan) Athanasius. Meekha was teacher of Arabic to Rev. A. K. Hinsdale, and was as earnest in learning the English as he had been in mastering the old Syriac ; so that when, after the death of-Mr. Hinsdale, he became the teacher of Arabic to the 'writer, he was able to derive a good deal of help from the English library of the mission.
One Sabbath, as we sat alone in the upper room conversing of Christ and redemption, he moved his seat nearer and nearer, till, grasping my hand, he said eagerly, " Do come with me and repeat these good words to my people, and I will interpret them, for they never heard truth like that !" It was delightful to see his Christ· like interest in the good of others. The result was a Bible class every week in that same upper room, where numbers were brought in by him to hear the truth that he enjoyed so much. If from that class came several members of the little church formed November 3d, 1851, it was through the loving labor of him who knew so well how to set it before those who had been brought up under the same influences that had moulded him till then.
May 26th, 1844, the lesson was the close of Matt. 12 : 46-50, and as he said, "How would Christ be grieved to-day to see you turning from Him to other intercessors. He would ask you, Did you think that I did not love you, or that I could think more of my mother than of you when you come to Me for salvation ~ Did Mary die for you, or the saints give their life fQr your redemption ~ Why, then, do you doubt my love, or bold back from the welcome with which I long to receive yOll~" the class swayed like a field of grain before the wind, and even gray-haired men were in tears.
Some charged him with introducing schism into an ancient church, be- cause he preached the truth, and offered to double his wages if he left the service of the mission j and when afterward we increased those wages a lit- tle, his voice choked as he asked if we doubted his devotion to the Gospel.
It was a great sorrow to him that our mission was withdrawn from Mosul in 1844, but 8till his lamp shone brightly at home, and his letters witnessed for Christ as far as Aleppo and Beirut. From the first he was the leader in the little church j and when the Assyrian Mission was also broken up in 1860, the church was able to stand alone through the grace of God so manifest in him. 'fhe Papists have made the most strenuous efforts to crush it out. All that money, French political power, splendid church edifices and pretentious schools could do has been done to drive out the truth from Mosul, but the little church stands like a rock through the firm scriptural faith of this one man. Two at least of the hymns in the Arabic hymn-book published by the Syrian Mission are from his pen, and he left among his papers an unfinished Syriac MS., whether a translation of Bun- yan's "Pilgrim's Progress" or an original work of the same sort, I am unable to say.
Re had long been in feeble health, and suffered from the great heat of Mosul, which rises in July to 117° in the shade. One needs to keep this fact in mind as he reads in one of his letters, " Pray that God wonld keep me from sloth, and make me perfect in His service. I long to impart to . others that knowledge of an atoning Saviolir which God has given me. How can I describe the greatness of my obligation for this grace! I grieve to see so many without Christ. Pray that I may have grace to instruct and they to believe j and yet, should I bring the whole world to Him, that would be the work of His power and grace, not mine. Of Him and to Rim be glory forever."
In another letter he says, "I think I know something of that sweet word of John, there is no fear in love j and I know that nothing can
1891.J 'fHE :BRAVE MOUNTAIN GIRL
separate me from His love. I try to lead men to Christ. Some aprrove my words, but yield no fruit, yet I hope that if the grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it will not remain alone."
These last words he once repeated to the writer after one of our repeated bereavements in MOBul, half afraid to renew grief, and yet longing to console.
He wrought at his old trade till the gift of a set of watchmaker's tools from Mrs. Thomas A. Davis, widow of it former mayor of Boston, enabled him to change to that business, for which he harl such an aptitude that after cleaning an old brass clock for another, and I think without knowing that such a thing existed, he made a wooden one for himself, and so prospered in his new calling that he was known in his last days as Meekha el saati (the watchmaker) and no longer as Meekha el nakkar (the millwright), his former occupation. This fact sheds light on the origin of our family names in all languages.
-He became constantly more feeble, till he peacefully fell asleep June 14th, 1881, and the church, deprived of its living leader, insisted that he should be buried in the church building that they might be constantly reminded of the Gospel he taught them while alive, though he would never consent to be pastor of the church. He left a widow and nine children, several of whom are church-members. One of his six sons is a manufacturer of watches in French Switzerland, and another is in the same eity with the writer, while two are in the old shop in Mosu:.
Rev. D. W. Marsh, D.D., who belonged to the Assyrian Mission, writes of Meekha, "His mind was clear, with splendid acuteness and strength, and was very receptive of truth. He was a thinker rather than an actor j but by unswerving probity among a most dishonest people, Christ-like gentleness among violent men, and steadfast loyalty to Christ and truth, he bore testimony for God."
It will be a long, long time before the memory of his intelligent and consistent piety ceases to be a mighty power for good in all that region. .
THE BRAVE MOUNTAIN GIRL.
Rev. John C. Mechlin, Salmas, Persia, writes concerning Mrs. J. N. Wright, of whose death our readers have heard: " At one time a missiop.ary party had been into the heart of the moun- tains of Koordistan, and returning, had brought with them several families of their helpers and several boys and girls who were coming down to the- plain to attend school. Among this n~m her was Shushan Oshannah, the – daughter of one of the mountain kashas (or pastors). Somewhere on the way down to the plain the muleteers made a plot to plunder the party. The time came, the signal was given, and the people, finding that they were unable to defend themselves, fled and hid bebind the rocks, leaving their baggage to tbe tender mercies of tbe muleteers. But they did not all flee. One brave mountain girl stood by tbe mi!'sionary, and did not quail before tbose wild, rude men. She stood ber ground; she shamed them; she argued with them; she pleaded with tbem until they gave up tbeir plan to rob and leave the party tbat they had promised to carry safely to the plain. Gradually the rest of the party came forth from their hiding-places, and in course of time went on their way. But the courage of that brave mountain girl had saved the party from robberJand perhaps from much suffering. And when we realize the rudeness and wildness and lawlessness of those people, we can then understand how much bravery it required to meet them and to thwart tbeir wills.
"Her bravery and beauty made ber famous among the mountain people, and a nepbew of the Nestorian patriarch asked for ber for his wife. She refused, as she was afraid to trust berself in the hands of such a lawless man. She did. not love the man, and that was reason enough for her; but they brought such pressure to bear on the parents that they were compelled to flee to Persia for safety. Their flight being made known, forty horsemen pursued them to the Turkish frontier. But they made good their escape, and reached Oroomiah in safety. But the danger and the trouble connected with this offer of marriage broke down that wonderful nerve, and she was never so brave as in her girlhood days.
" In Oroomiah she met kind friends, and was also at one time a teacher in the Tabriz school.
"Iu December, 1885; she was married to Rev. J. N. Wright, of Salmas, Persia. She was a loyal, devoted wife, and tried with all her soul to fill her difficult position. She bad just returned from her first visit to America (less than seven months), and she had, seemingly, a brigbt, happy future before ber.
"But one black eloud was hovering over her. Why she had such a fear none ever knew; but she was full of fear for the life of her husband. She felt that some one wanted to kill him. No attempt was ever made, and we know no reason why she was so afraid. But many a time, when some stranger came to see Mr. Vright, she would enter the room, lest some harm would come to Mr. Wright. It was with this same purpose that she was in the room at the time when she. was so brutally assaulted. She feared the boy whom Mr. Wright had dismissed would take revenge on him for his dismissal. But she was the object of his hatred and of his revelige, though she had done him no harm, nor had she personally rebuked him for his sin. Mr. Wright did that. Mrs. Wright only rebuked the sin-abetting woman, and she fired the wrath of the boy against Mrs. Wright.
" After Mrs. Wright's return from America, the rumors of approaching cholera reached us, and it was remarkable the depressing effect that it had . on her. She seemed to see in that disease some great evil for her.
" She was frequently speaking of the precautions necessary to ward off
1891.J EXTRACTS FROM LETTER FROM HASSAN BOTAN
such a disease. She told several of her friends, and also her husoand, that ,he would not live until another winter came. She did not know how this death would come, but she believed she would die erelong. Her great fear was death from cholera, but she never dreamed of such an awful death as was in store for her. And when she was struck down by the murderous knife, she then felt that she would not recover. This presentiment came many weeks before her death, and she firmly believed that her days were few.
" Several times she had said to near friends, ' How nice it would be to die at the age of thirty-three, the age at which Christ died! I do not want to live past that time.' She had expressed herself in similar manner to her husband some time before her death. She said she loved her home and her children, and did not want to leave them; but still it would be so nice to die at the same age at which her Saviour died. And, strange to say, she was in her thirty-third year when she died. The Lord had need of her, and called her home."
TRACTS FROM LETTER FROM HASSAN BOTAN.
BY REV. F. G. COAN, TURKEY.
There is certainly enough in the ignorance, cruelty, poverty, and wickedness of this people to call for faith-an unbounded faith in the power of God and His Gospel that can reach even such as these. If there is a needy field in the world it is here. The power of Rome has been supreme here for centuries, but it is on the wane. Even this people cannot always be duped, and they long for something better.
One thing that impresses one out he·re is the collapse of the Government. It has lost its hold and forfeited all right to its privileges.
The country is a fine one, with splendid resources; Persia is poor in comparison. The mountains are well wooded and fnll of coal, silver, and iron.
At times one feels that if once he got out of here nothing would ever indnce him to come in again, and again is ashamed of such a thought, and feels as if he mnst cast in his lot with these wretched creatures, and could never leave them groping without a ray of hope save in the blessed Gospe.
We are never idle. Crowds are always here for medicine or from curiosity, and at morning and evening prayers. Alexander, who seems greatly changed, usually gets a crowd about him at noon and preache8. Individuals can always be seen and a seed sown. Then there is the visiting of the sick.
Of one thing I am certain : any labor e~pended here is going to give fully as good a return as in Oroomiah. Josip, son of Malip Pettoo, in Tiyari, who is true blue, and a splendid specimen of a man every way, is a
7G2 '1'WEN'ry "EARS OF REPUBUCMHSM tN FRANCE
Christian; and Berkhoo in Dihi and Hannoo in Botan are Christians who would honor any church, men of deep piety and consecration. Alexander has been, in regard to cholera, as abject a coward and great a fool as one could find-perfectly terror·stricken when the word is mentioned. He came near" lighting out" the other day when he heard a man was sick in Hassan. Well, Hannoo, who is a splendid fellow, got hold of him (after all we could say that was like water spilled on a goose's back), and in an hour had so impressed him that he came smiling to the tent and said he was ready now to die, and had no more fear. Poor fellow! when he-Hannoo -came in Wednesday night, bareheaded and barefooted, black and blue with the cruel beating he had received at the hands of the ruffian Roords, and with arms and feet swollen with their tight bands, it broke me all up. " Why," he said, " it is nothing j wasn't it au' for Christ 1" He sat there and preached to those Roords, who were there to slay, in such a way as would melt a heart of stone. I don't wonder Sherroo said, " You had better pray, Hannoo." He did pray, and, when through, the robbers slunk off and left them. W ell, you can see what material there is here j can we refuse them the Gospel ~ Dr. Wishard may go as far as Vau or return to Mardin and take up Arabic, but he has given up Oroomiah. It is now eight months since he has slept in a bed or sat down with ladies; and I don't wonder he is ready to settle down. It has been a great pleasure as well as of great benefit to be associated with him.
TWENTY YEARS OF REPUBLICANISM IN FRANCE.-Rev. J. C. Bracq, from Paris, now at Philadelphia, in his address, in New York, February 16th, said: "We suffer from being seen by you through English eyes. It is practically impossible for Englishmen to understand us, and fairly represent our condition and prospects. Then we suffer from misrepresentations through that syndicate known as the Associated Press. Amerieans have been told that the hybrid republic is a failure, that we have shown fickleness, incapacity, and corruption. Look at the facts calmly. You will see that the work of the Republic has been constructive and beneficent j first, of organization, prosecuted in face of foreign jealousy and clerical opposition. The civil and military service was reorganized, forts built, arsenals filled with the best materials j a navy only second to England j territory doubled through colonial extension j 7500 miles of railway and 10,000 of canals constructed; art, science, agriculture, and education extended j common schools furnished with better buildings and teachers, the expenditure raised from 24,000,000 to 140,000,000 francs, ·and illiteracy reduced from one thirteenth to one twentieth j higher schools and universities enlarged, and women put nearly on apar with men; sociological questions considered, and not a little accomplished in the better housing of the poor, in political equality, and in establishing the freedom of the press. We have had to contend against the earnest and honest opposition of Legitimists, who hold to the divine right of kingly rule j Orleanists, or constitutional monarchy, and Imperialists of Jerome and Victor Bonaparte types. Those who lived formerly on court favors have opposed us. Specially we have had to contend with the clerical party, demanding privilege, while the Republic advocated equality. Ignorant friars who had taught in schools after old, traditionary methods, were angry when required to submit to examinations the same as other teachers. Crucifixes, pictures, prayers, and Romish worship were no longer tolerated. As here to· day, so there, the cry of " godless schools" was raised. There is really more of the ethical element there than in American schools. Over-zealous nuns were removed from hospitals. The Romanists have compared their condition to that of the Christians under Nero. Opposition against the government increased. After a little General Boulanger came to the front and waxed bold in his attacks. His groundless calumnies at last were exploded, and his unprincipled associates exposed. The success of the Exposition showed that France was not powerless. The vindication of the ministry restored quietness, and France, for the fifth time in nineteen years, expressed confidence in the Republic. Some monarchists, and eveI]. priests, became moderate republicans, convinced that this form of government had a permanency and value. Carnot is a noble, patriotic man, and Madame C. an excellent woman.
" France has passed through a more radical change the past two decades than did England in the seventeenth century. It now has a government , of the people, by the people, for the people.' Woe to them who stem its tide ! We have made mistakes. We have shown unwisdom, at times, in finance. We had 20,OQO,000,000 of francs debt after the Pru8sian war. Six weeks ago, when a new loan was called for, the people were ready to take si xteen times the amount. We see real estate depreciate, so does England and New England. The virgin soil of Western wheat fields floods ns with products at cheaper rates than we can fix. The phylloxera has devastated our vineyards and· enemies have said it was a scourge for our sins. Is it a fair generalization ~ " France tires of abstract discussions which crowd aside practical, urgent needs. The Monarchists have had three factions in parliament. Moreover, the common people did not understand the real significance of the political abuse ventilated freely in the press, which before had been gagged. They are learning that' thief' in popular and political parlance is not the same word.
" Our great danger now is that of materialistic infidelity and its legitimate outcome, not from Roman Catholic democracy-a contradiction in terms. There is improvement in thought. Students are no longer Vo"Itaire followers. The McAIl Mission and similar agencies more carefully guarded than mission work here are reaching the creedless and churchless. Christianity will be the salvation of France."
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FORELGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-At a meeting in London, reported in the Anti- Opium News, Donald Matheson, Esq., president of" The Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade," remarked: "As regards China, the opium vice seems to have settled upon the vitals of the people, and it will be most difficult to break it off. A great authority has stated that if this goes on for fifty years the empire will be in ruins. As the Chinese emigrate largely, wherever they go-in the straits about Singapore and in the South Sea Islands -they carry the vice. According to a recent issue of L'Eglise Libre, of Paris, the French colony of Tahiti has become infected, and the ravages have been terrible both there and in the Marquesas Islands. There have been various edicts forbidding the trade, but smuggling is only too easy, and the natives seem unable to resist the deadly influence of the drug. The French Government, however, has now absolutely prohibited the introduction of opium. Surely we will not allow France to put England to shame 1"
-" A recent census of church attendance in Aberdeen showed that there were present at the morning services in the city 26,785, being over 1000 less than the attendances on a similar occasion thirteen years ago, although the population has meantime grown from 95,000 Ito 122,000."- The Ohristian.
– " The Irish Presbyterian Church is now in a very satisfactory condition. It has 558 congregations, with 81,716 families and 102,725 communicants. It has also 1008 Sabbath-schools, with 8909 teachers and 103,255 scholars." -The Ohristian.
-The Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer for June says: "Was the hundred and third psalm the right passage of Scripture with which to open the annual meeting of 1891? One might easily have thought the fortysixth or fifty-sixth more suitable. Many grave anxieties had marked the year to be reviewed that day; and we have by no means come to an end of them yet. But there is nothing like the anniversary to put things in their right places. In the preparation of the report, in the arrangement of the speakers, the work as a whole, at home and abroad, has to be considered and its progress set forth ; and then our controversies and perplexities are seen in their true proportions. They are not small, nor light, nor unimportant; but other things are seen to be larger and weightier and more important. We can conceive of a friend coming to Exeter Hall on May 5th, 1891, full of thoughts about a certain bishop and the sources of his income, and wondering what could induce Mr. Fenn to choose Psalm one hundred and three at this particular moment j and we can imagine him listening to the report and the speeches until he is constrained to cry, , Yes, that is the right psalm-" Bless the Lord, 0 my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name !" , " It is seventeen years since that psalm was read at the anniversary. The immediate cause of its being then chosen was, as in the present year, an unprecedentedly favorable financial account. But there were other special causes for thankfulness. Henry Wright had been a year and a half in office, and his ardent spirit had already set the society's feet upon the path of development and extension. ' The coming year,' said the annual report of 1873-74, , presents three special directions for expansion-Japan, Northwest America, and Ea~t Africa' -all three of them fields that had specially enlisted Mr. Wright's Rympathies. It is worth while comparing those three missions in 1873-74 and 1890-91. At the end of 1873 we had three missionaries in Japan, two of them just arrived j three missionaries in East Africa, two of them just arrived j and seven in the Northwest American territories just referred to-i.e., beyond the province of Manitoba-thir- teen in all j and now we have in the same fields ninety-seven missionaries. The expenditure in those fields was then about £6000 a year; it is now over £30,000 a year. Again. in that same report, the committee' rejoiced to announce' that eighteen missionary candidates had been accepted. In the past year the number has been eighty. Of the eighteen, six were University graduates, and the committee' could not refrain from express- ing their deep thankfulness to Almighty God for that indication of increasing interest in missionary work in the universities.' In the past year the university graduates accepted have numbered twenty-four. Then, if one glances over the pages of the detailed reports on the missions for 1873, one is struck by the absence of name after name which now enlists all our sympathies. No Frere Town j no Chagga, or Mwapwa, or Usambiro; no Uganda; no Cairo, or Jaffa, or Gaza, or Baghdad; no Calcutta or Allahabad Divinity School j no Gond Mission j no Bheel Mission; no Beluch Mission; no Sukkur or Quetta j no K wan-tung, or Fuh-ning, or Chu-ki ; no Fuh-chow or Ning-po College j no Osaka, or Fukuoka, or Tokushima, or Tokio, or Hakodate j no Ainu Mission j no Blackfoot Mission; no Eskimo Mission j no Hydah Mission j no Kwaguth Mission; one medical mis8ionary in Kashmir and one in China j no Christian sisters laboring in East Africa or Palestine or Japan. Truly if the one hundred and third psalm was suitable in 1874, how much more in 1891 1"
Yet" we feel that our gratitude is due to the Archbishop of Canterbury for taking occasion, in his speech on the 5th of May, to remind us how little we had to boast of. The spirit which had dictated the thankful language of the report, and had led to ihe choice of psalm oue hundred and three for reading, was, it is true, not one of vain-glory, but of heartfelt gratitude for mercies felt to be nndeseryed. But still the archbishop did well to remind us that although the 230 missionaries of 1874 had grown to be 440 now, they ought to be a great many more. 'I am thankful,' he said, 'to that meeting which lifted up its voice and said suddenly, Youmust send out a thousand more.' The moral of the report, he reminded us, was not, What a splendid game we have played! but, Follow up, or you will not win the goal."
As to the controversy which has lately agitated the society, the Intelligencer says: " Now to us it seems that if ever stress was laid upon trifles in controversy, it is laid upon them in a recent document entitled the Primary Charge of a Certain Bi8hop in the East, and that if ever sound principles were being contended for, they are being contended for by the Church Missionary Society in the country to which that charge calls attention. Bnt yet, even in a controversy like that, and still more in the minor differences that arise from time to time among onrselveR, we do need to stand, as it were, upon Olivet and watch the ascending Lord, and fix our eyes ou His returning, which, as the archbishop. says, ' will come some time, and may come any time,' and thus to put ourselves into the right attitude for judging what are absolutely essentials and what are relatively trifles. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not the only one among us who i~ conscious of ' a sharp pang going through him' when he reads of Chinamen observing that Christians abuse one au other, and saying, ' We can do that without becoming Christians.' . . . The archbishop gave the society not only his own presence and countenance j he brought with him an unexpected visitor, the Bishop of Minnesota. We imagine that this was Bishop Whipple's first appearance at the C. M. S. anniversary j but the greeting he received told him of the honor in which we English churchmen hold the' Apostle of the Indians,' as our president termed him. "
EAST INDIES.
–Periodical A.ccounts for June introduces the valuable testimony of Mrs. Bishop (formerly Miss Bird), given publicly in London, to the value of the Moravian work in Tibet. She records her earnest conviction that on no account should any thought be entertained of giving it up because of present apparent paucity of results.
"Leaving Kashmir, Mrs. Bishop went eastward into Ladak or Little Tibet. Hcre she found Mr. and Mrs. Redslob and Dr. and Mrs. Marx at Leh, the capital. She pitched her tent in the mission compound, spent the nights in it, and by day enjoyed the hospitality of our missionarieR. We do not wonder that their letters tell us that to them her visit was an intellectual and spiritual treat. They showed her everything connected with their work-the church, the little hospital, which is the centre of Dr. Marx's mission work, the large school for boys, and the small one for girls.
"Mrs. Bishop spoke very appreciatively of Samuel, one of the most advanced of the Christians. He is a man of noble birth, who has suffered much for his adherence to Christianity. His ancestral castle near Leh was razed to the ground. By all manner of inducements he has been tempted to renounce his faith, but remains firm. 'I do not know anyone anywhere,' said Mrs. Bishop, 'who follows the Lord Jesus more devotedly than Samuel.' She described the converts in general as ' quality, if not quantity.' Owing to the pains taken by the missionaries to instruct them in the Scriptures, they show a striking enlightenment. They are able to reason with and confute Buddhist adversaries, who bring all manner of objections to their faith. The)! are still a semi-nomad people, but in winter they settle in their houses near the mission compound, and have the advantage of seeing the simple, godly lives of the missionaries.
" No gulf of caste, or wealth, or luxurious living divides these from their converts. She said the missionaries' wives are saintly ladies whose godly example the Tibetan women see and follow. Noting their high tone of spirituality, she asked the missionaries how, seeing they were so cut off from Christian privileges and so surrounded by the evils of Buddhist heathenism, they maintained their spiritual life. They answered that they founel it necessary to spend an unusual amount of time in the reading of God's Word and in prayer. To the question how they managed to be so cheerful and hopeful, though seeing so little tangible result of forty years' sowing in tears, Mr. Heyde of Kyelang replied in similar terms to his colleagues at Leh: 'Weare where the Lord has placed us, and it is all right, and that keeps us cheerful.'
" From Leh Mrs. Bishop accompanied Brother Redslob into Nubra, a mountainous country to the north, through which the NuLra and the Shayok rivers flow down to the Indus. Crossing the Dega Pass, 18,000 feet high, the two travellers descended 5000 feet iuto a lofty, populous valley, full of villages along the banks of the streams. Here and there along the steep sides of the valleys almost inaccessible rocks are crowned by monasteries. These are Buddhist, of course, for the whole of Nubra is Buddhist. Mrs. Bishop had ample opportunity of observing how re- spected and beloved was her travelling companion. Both in the villages and in the monasteries they were warmly received j in the latter, indeed, their welcome was often deafening j for the lamas would go to the top of the highest towcr and blow their six-foot silver horns, which can be heard three miles off. So noisy in its heartiness was their reception, that they had occasionally to request a cessation. EI'erywhere, as is the invariable custom on such tours, tracts and portions of Holy Scripture were given to the people. While crossing the broad Shayok, Mrs. Bishop made painful experience of the perils which attend ~hese journeys. Her horse fell, and she was not only plunged into deep water, bu~ had a rib broken. She attended to the injury herself, and did not even let her companion know its extent. .
"Between Leh and Kyelang she travelled over the de~ert plateau of Rupchu with only one or two attendants. Though the region is traversed by wild Tartar nomads, she was not afraid, for she bore a letter of intro- duction from Brother Redslob, and its fame preceded her. For his sake she had the wildest welcome. Now and then horsemen would come dash- ing up to inquire about their friend. How is he? When is he coming?
His name seemed a talisman far and wide ; and Mrs. Bishop had ample proof of the influence exerted over a large area by our missionaries, and of the respect and love borne to them by the people.
" Truthful, hospitable, independent, kindly and helpful, these Tibetans are, next to the Japanese, the most pleasant people Mrs. Bishop has trav- elled among. But pleasant as they may be, their morals are so terribly corrupt that nothing but the cross of Christ can sweeten the auominably bitter fountain of their life. Like her friends the missionaries, she longs for the time when the welcome and the love accorded to them and to her for their sake shall extend to their message, and to the Master and Lord whom they are serving in those Buddhist lands.
" She found Kyelang an oasis in a moral desert. She briefly described the missionary compound, with its friendly church, mission-house, its guest chamber, surgery, library, and the printing-room, whose little primitive lithographic press is always hard at work sending forth the Scriptures as fast as they can be translated. A tract on sin, a very necessary subject for a Buddhist population, was passing through the press during her visit.
In summer the converts are away during the week, high up the mountain slope, 13,000 feet above the sea, attending to their agricultural and pastoral pursuits j for the winter they come down to their houses near the mission compound.
"She was present at the Tibetan service. It was attended by about forty people, some Christians, some heathen, and she noted with approval the loud responses and the hearty singing. She found she was able to fol- low the liturgical parts of the service in the English Moravian hymn-book.
Even at Kyelang it is still sowing-time. There are not many Christians yet. A Buddhist abbot remarked to Brother Heyde, • I will tell you what you have done here j you have given Buddhism a resurrection. ' So it is ; all religion had almost died out j but the coming of the Christians has stirred up even the Buddhists to zeal. Brother Heyde considers this a hopeful sign.
.. In conclusion, Mrs. Bishop pleaded warmly that there might be no thought of giving up the mission, which, she said, was one of the noblest she had seen. It may be expensive, but the expense is warrantable. The results are indeed at present apparently small i but she shared the faith that this work of hope would yet bear abundant fruit. As already stated, there is an encouraging side. The converts gained are' quality, if not quantity. ' The language has been acquired; both the learned and the colloquial Tibetan are now doing service for Christ. The written Word has preceded the spoken Word on the highways of Central Asia, and when Chinese Tihet is opened to foreigners, as assuredly it will be some day, the Moravian Mission is ready with all appliances to enter in the name of the Lord. "
-Mr. Shawe, on his way to the mission, passed through ~rinagar, the capital of Kashmir. He thus describes it: " We entered the city at sunset, the best possible time for seeing what has been termed the Venice of Asia. The last rays of the sun glancing 011 the picturesque houses, with their windows of lattice-work and many-colored balconies, and on the silver and gilt roofs of mosques and palaces; the heavy wooden bridges j the river itself covered with boats of all sorts j the throngs of people in their brilliant cloaks and white turbans engaged in eager conversation or noisy bargaining-ail this formed a scene of dazzling brilliancy, which made a lasting impression on me. "
-The Sailors' Magazine for July reports from Karachi (at the mouth of the Indus) through Mr. D. A. Lukey : "The ~eamen's Rest in Karachi is situated near the quay, and is only about five minutes' walk from the steamship landing. The building erected this year is in dimensions 80 feet in length, 22 feet wide, with an eight-foot veranda all round. The building site was gi'en by the Karachi Port Trust, and the building paid for by public subscriptions, costing about 3000 rupees. The Rest has been newly furnished with 55 new arm-chairs, six round tables, two long tables, three new hanging lamps, also new organ and new furniture for the supcrintendent's apartments. Bishop THOBURN came to Karachi and formally opened the new Rest in March.
" Already llIany evidences for good have been witnessed from time to time, and very many testimonies of the saving grace of God could be mentioned. One night a sailor came into the meeting, and by his manner showed that he was unaccustomed to such gatherings. He, however, took a seat, and not long after tears were seen falling down his cheeks j his heart had been touched into tenderness by the Word of God. This sailor repented of his sin that evening, and gave his heart to God. He became a leader among his comrades on board 8hip, and taught them the best he could the way of salvation. On his return to England he gave himself up entirely to the work of the Lord, and is now leading men to Christ. Every sailor conve~ted removes a stumblihg-block out of the way of the heathen."
-The Rev. Arthur W. Prautch, American missionary in Bombay, says, as quoted in Devastation of India's Millions: "It has been remarked to me by strangers, 'How very quiet many native children are!' Yes, they are very quiet j but what will the harvest be ~ Of course these drugged European aud native children will grow up with an awful craving for opium and stimulants, and will soon make shipwreck of life. "
-The Annual Report of the Malayalan Mission, Trevandrum District, Travancore (S. W. India), connected with the London Missionary Society, says: "One Brahman lady said, 'The Brahmans also will become Christians; the time for that is approaching.' "
The report considers at length in an appendix the question of the recent republication of an antiquated prohibition against the erection of churches near native shrines. It remarks that scarcely a site could be found in the kingdom which might not be forbidden on that ground. If the Maha- rajah perseveres we should suppose it probable that the intervention of the imperial government will be ultimately invoked. The right of a native prince to favor his own religion will never be disputed, but his right to persecute the religion of the empress is not likely to be long allowed.
-The Missionary Intelligencer for June continues Sir Bartle Frere's article on the adaptation of Christianity to all forms of civilization. We quote the following: "You have in India a great civilized population, four times as numerous as that of Christian America, as numerous as all the populations of Europe, excluding Russia. They are quite as advanced in all the arts of social life-I may say they are more advanced-than were the populations of Europe in the time of our grandfathers, before the great French Revolution and the outburst of modern mechanical invention. They have practically had nothing to do with Christianity till within the last half century. But every other religion in the 'world is there, and has been long represented on the grandest scale-idolatries more varied than the popular superstitions of Greece or Rome; a full third of all the Mohammedans in the world, and every form of esoteric religion, philosophies, mysterious and secret creeds without end.
" How does Christianity fare in the face of all these powers of the air? Is it forced to give way? Is it silent-inoperative? Is it powerless, or put to shame?
" I speak simply as to matters of experience and observation, and not of opinion; just as a Roman prefect might have reported to Trajan or the Antonines; and I assure you that, whatever you may be told to the contrary, the tcaching of Chrililtianity among 160,000,000 of civilized, industrious Hindus and Mohammedans in India is effecting changes, moral, social, and political, which for extent and rapidity of effect are far more extraordinary than anything you or your fathers have witnessed in modern Europe. Presented for the first· time to most of the teeming Indian communities within the memory of men yet alive-preached by only a few scores of Europeans, who, with rare exceptions, had not previously been remarkable among their own people in Europe for intellectual power or culth'ation, who had little of worldly power or sagacity, and none of the worldly motives which usually carry men onward to success-Christianity has, nevertheless, in the course of fifty years, made its way to every part of the vast mass of Indian civilized humanity, and is now an active, operative, aggressive power in every branch of social and political life on that continent.
" We hear continually of the ambition and rapacity of Russia; but we are apt to forget that there is a power urging Russia on to subjugate and civilize her barbarous neighbors which is more potent and more persistent than worldly ambition or cupidity, and that is the religious duty of Christianizing and civilizing. Anyone who, in estimating the forces of Russian aggressive movement, left out of view the impulse derived from religious convictions among the leaders of national thonght-that it was a national religious duty to extend to all barbarians around them the blessings of being within the pale of the Russian Church-would leave out of calculation the most energetic element of the motive power. This notion of doing good to the conquered is, moreover, an element not traceable among the motives of Assyrians, Romans, Saracens, or other conquering non-Christian nations.
" We are not now arguing an abstract question of right or wrong. The d(lsire of con~uest is probablr one of the most powerful 311q universal o~ human instincts. 'Vhat we are now considering is how this universal instinct is modified by peculiarities of religion; and what I wish you to note is, that in the case of our own nation and of the Russian-two of the great conquering Christian nations of modern days-considerations of which we can distinctly trace the origin to ChTisti~n morality add greatly to the effective force of the natural instinct, while they elevate and humanize it in a manner of which no trace is to be found in the action of the great conquering nations of other ages and creeds."
INDIA.
-The Marathi Mission laments that, just as cheering prospects for the work are opening, there comes (as reluctantly given as received) an order for heavy retrenclment, for a reduction of 25,433 rupees below indispensable necessities. " Our hearts are saddened as we look upon the fields white for the han'est, while we are not able to thrust in the sickle, and to listen to calls from every quarter to which we are in nowise able to respond. Will not the friends of mission work in India help us in this emergency? Donations, large or small, will be thankfully received by any member of the mission."
-It will be remembered that in the High Court of Travancore judgment has been given in behalf of Mar Dionysius as metropolitan of the Syrian Church against Mar Athanasius, who has considerable sympathy with Protestantism. The two majority judges are Brahmans; the minority judge is " Mr. Ormsby, a European barrister and a doctor of laws, possessing many years' experieDce as an appellate judge in Travancore." He seems, as a Christian, more likely to have an interior sense of the case than his colleagues, nnless, indeed, his Protestantism may have been thought to incline him to the Athanasian side. The .Madras Christian College Magazine thinks that the majority decision has a rhetorical warmth which hardly speaks well for its impartiality. Perhaps, however, it is only the difference of national temperament.
-It appears that all the Hindus have not been included in the opposition to the bill raising the age of consent to twelve years. Two or three enthusiastic meetings of natives have given emphatic approbation to it.
-The Indian Witness of April 11th, speaking of Manipur, says: " The political development of the Indian Empire has not yet altogether passed out of the period of upheavals, submersions, and catastrophes. V{e are hardly established in what geologists would call the tertiary period, and affairs have not yet become so stratified and settled that we may rest entirely free from fear that some unexpected rift in the surface formation may set free a flow of lava from the subterranean sea that will bury all the moral, intellectual, and political deposits of the nineteenth century."
The comforting reverse, "The native Christians of India are so increasing in number that they begin to feel each other's presence," of which it gives various examples.
– " Delhi itself is," remarks the Calwer Missionsblatt, " a striking in- stance of the desperate reaction of heathenism in India." Many such sad- dening experiences probably await us in the immediate fnture. " The lion is stung at last," says a Hindu. "If he did not feel your darts he would still lie dormant." On the other hand. a fakir alld saint near pelhi have pecll baptize~! .. …. . -The Canadian Baptist brethren among the Telugus mean work. They lay upon the conscience of their home churches the immediate duty of sending out 52 men, and lady missionaries as the work demands. They also ask if Canadian Baptists cannot raise $2.50 a member, seeing that the so much poorer Moravians raise $7 a member. Those provoking Moravians! It is plain that we shall either have to massacre them or imitate them.
-The North India Methodist Episcopal Conference reports for the last year 980 full memb(Jrs added, 2935 probationers, 1256 adult, 1051 infant baptisms, 28,400 Sunday scholars-au increase over the previous year of 3367.
-During the Baptist Quarterly Meeting of December, 1890, at Ongole, Teluguland, 363 were baptized. At the final Sunday meeting 1671 were baptized.
– " Of every six infants in the world, one is born in India; of every six orphan girls, one is wandering in India; of every six widows, one iii mourning in India; of every six men that die, one is passing into eternity from India. Think of it, and give India a part in your prayers. "-Children's World (C!. M. S.).
-All the Irish Presbyterian missionaries in India have thus far been university men, drawing a salary of £350 each. Now (says the F. C. J£onthly) it is proposed to begin the" Jungle Mission, " employing lay agents paid something more than £117 each.
-The Missionary Record (U. P.) for May has a communication from Rajputana: "The Pr lsbytery on Thursday spent a long time in considering the basis of union for the proposed United Presbyterian Church of India. A large number of Presbyterian missions are at work in India, and there has been a growing feeling at home and here that the churches created by them should be united into a comprehensive whole. The difficulty lies, not so much in differences among themselves, as in the tremendous size of the country and the great variety of languages in use among its 250,000,000 of inhabitants. Presbyterians are to be found from the extreme north to the remotest sonth, and how they are to be united into one well-nigh passes the wit of man. The proposals of our Presbytery are practicable, and remove 80me of the greatest difficulties which the scheme of the Presbyterian Alliance creates. It was decided to recommend the formation of four great Presbyterian churches-for Bombay, Madras, Bengal, and North India respectively-between which there might be a federal union. • . . We should belong to the North Indian Church, and should have, among others, as sister presbyteries, the American Presbyterians of the Punjab and Northwest Provinces, the Canadians of Central India, and the Ohurch of Scotland working among the Santals."
-The Rev. T. It. Waltenberg, in the C. M. Intelligencer for May, describes a movement in Madras, whose object is " the preaching of the gospel of Islam and the conversion of Hindus, and, if possible, Christians, to the faith of Mohammed. The young men who go out preaching are, on the whole, very friendly toward us, and try to live lives-at any rate, aa far as we can see them-akin to those of Christians. They are free fro~ the prejudices of the old-fashioned Mohammedans, and practically preach a Mohammeda~ism w~ic4 is uearer Ohristianity thiltll. was preay"~q by their co-religionists heretofore. To say the least, the sword has been cast aside for the word, though not the Word of God. They claim to be at one with the Unitarians of America and England." It must be, then, that they explain away the sensual paradise of the Koran.
-The Rev. Ernest Droese, quoted in the Ohurch Missionary Gleaner, says: "If the missionary dwells on the love of God as seen in the Atonement of Christ, the Moslem will listen with an expression of cuntempt, and his features will seem to say, , Nonsense! blasphemy!' the Hindu with a sceptical smile, as if to say, ' Who will believe that ~ There is no such love to be found, either with man or God.' But the hill man will listen with awe, as if he were about to exclaim, ' What do I hear ~ 0 God ! is it thus that Thou lovest man ~ , "
-The Indian Witness says: " We hope to see the day when the ordinary' Mission Report' wiU be an extinct form of literature, found only in museums or on the shelves of archreological societies. But that day has not yet dawned; and since it is still the fate of unfortunate missionaries to prepare annual reports, we commend the Report of the American Marathi Mission for 1890 as a model worthy of imitation. The report gives that broad, general, and well.arranged presentation of the work which meets the requirements of the statistician, while it is not wanting in detailed accounts, showing the various processes by which the mission docs its work. . . . The most encouraging item in the report is that which shows that the rate of increase is rapidly rising. The report laments the necessity for retrenchment, occasioned by reduction in appropriations from America. But less money sometimes means more work done and of a better quality.
" The mission occupies six districts in the Bombay Presidency. There are 113 out-stations, in which 323 native agents are at work. The entire Christian community numbers 3826 ; there are 134 Sunday-schools having 4836 scholars, 2865 of whom are non-Christian. The mission began its work in 1813.
"The Marathi Mission is one in that bright circle of missions with which what is commonly caIled ' The American Board' has encircled the world. When the religious history of the nineteenth century is written, the sacrifices and achievements of this great societv will form one of the brightest chapters in the record. "
M·ISCELLANEOUS.
-Rev. De Lacey Wardlaw reports from Brazil, with just satisfaction, that most of those clauses of the new constitution persecuting the Catholics, and especiaIly the priesthood, against which he had energetically protested, have been struck out.
-The Oanadian Church Magazine remarks that the Good Friday offerings are now very largely devoted to the work of evangelizing the Jews, " That they may be saved among the remnant of the true Israelites."
-The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention complains that, for the year ending April 30th, 1891, it has received from the churches $33,000 less than its disb.usements~ and $76,955.96 less than i~s. lleeds, -The Christian states that six Swedish officers of the Salvation Army have been detailed to work among our Scandinavians.
-The Rev. William Howell, commissioned by the S. P. G., has labored for eleven years at Sabu, Borneo. The number of baptized persons has increased from 70 to 790.
-Mr. Ziock, Moravian mlsslOnary in Mosquitoland, was lately visited by an Indian named Kaila, of a neighboring tribe, on the Kruta River in Honduras, noted, even among the heathen, for their singularly evil characters, especially as poisoners. Kaila declared that Divine visions had warned him to solicit the preaching of the Gospel, under the threat that if the people did not give up their evil ways the whole country should be laid waste. Mr. Ziock sent Christian companions back with him, but the people refused to hear him, and repaired to one of their profligate funeral wakes. Raila followed them, but being driven away by jeers, retired with words of warning. The lightning falling on the house, scattered the guests and consumed the building. Soon after a vast tidal wave swept the whole coast, and blotting out Kaila's village, destroyed every place in it except his own. The fame of this Divine visitation, it is hoped, may result in wide opportunities of evangelization.
– " Being very tired, I went up to my room about a quarter past nine; and, as Thimann tells me, the conversation turned upon me, and he remarked that I was very happy in this work. 'Yes,' replied our Jewish infidel host, 'I have noticed that he is a happy man, and that all pious Christians are happy. 1 wish I could believe and be so.' "-Mr. S. VIL- KINSON, lJantzig, Service for the King.
– " One day the officials of the Canadian Government summoned the Indian chiefs, David Landon among them, to meet on Sunday for business. David replied, ' No ; the Head Chief in heaven says no, and so do 1. ' "~ Children' 8 World (0• .M. S.).
-The New York Sailors' Home, 190 Cherry Street, belonging to the American Seamen's Friend Society, has had, during the forty-nine years of itl existence, 115,443 boarders, and during the past year 1364. During the past year the society has published 56,400 copies of the Sailors' Magazine, and 118,200 copies of the Lifeboat for Sunday-schools. The seventeenth annual presentation to the cadets of the Naval Academy took place on Sunday, June 1st, 1890. In a class of thirty-four men, twenty-five chose the Bible out of the four volumes submitted to them. Of Mr. R. W. Ropes, president of the society, who died October lOth, 1890, it is said: "He Was simple in his habits, wise and generous in his benevolence, sincere in his faith, useful as an officer in the Church and in several charitable organizations. As the president of this society he was punctual, earnest, and faithful, always showing a deep interest in its work."
-" Much has been done of late for the intellectual and spiritual improvement of the men on our naval vessels. Twenty years ago the library of a man-of-war consisted of a Bible, a prayer-book, an almanac, a dictionary, . and one or two works on navigation. Now many of our ships have a library of a thousand or more books. Libraries of 300 books have been ordered for each of the new vessels now in process of construction."
'1'74 tNTERNATtONAL nEl'ARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Lapses in Mission Lands. lJ. T. G.] Once Christian always Christian ease. Some of the people blamed him seems to be a foregone conclusion in for doing a good deal of harm in this the minds of many people about com· way, saying they still believe in such munities converted from heathenism. things.
They do not bear in mind that human Another case is given of a youth of nature essentially tends toward the eighteen years of age, son of an elder in moral and religious attitude which we the Church. from whom were recentl'y mean by heathenism. Away on the taken sections of bamboo filled with frontier, in the sparse settlements of the charcoal of certain leaves, used formerly wilderness, or in the worse atmosphere to bewitch young women for the pur- of the mining or lumberman's camp, we pose of seduction, and he was using know how those sharing the heritage of them for a similar purpose. A recur- centuries of Christian influences find it renee of hef1then dancing and singing difficult to maintain spiritual life, and among young men who never knew real how frequently, as communities as well heathenism also has become prevalent.
as units, they lapse into superstitious Reviewing all this, the missionary beliefs or outright disbeliefs. What says:" It seems quite evident to me wonder, then, if there should be an ag- that each generation of these natives is gravation of this tendency in native born with a strong heathenish tendency, Christian communities who have a her- and it needs wise dealing to counteract itage of uncounted centuries of supersti- this, and instruct them in the principles tion and low morals in their veins. But of the Bible." Some of the missions this is not enough reckoned with, as an in India have found their native Chris- essential part of the foreign mission tians secretly obstrving the heathen work. Even when peoples fire convert- ritual of marriage, and also prematurely ed, they will long have need to be kept marrying their daughters. The very in touch with the most vitalized Chris- heart and soul of Hinduism is in this tians of the home lands. They cannot child-marriage custom. The Baptist be left to isolation. They must not be Mission in Delhi hf1s had the discourag- abandoned. The brain and heart of ing experience of seeing a large part of these Christian communities may, for a their convert~ of recent years. who have hundred years to come, be in the been baptized from the Chumar (leath- churches of the Christian lands whence er-workers) caste,lapse into heathenism.
the Gospel was sent to them. The work The whole body, a thousand or more, of caring for these native communities have been lpd away by a wily ascetic, is not one that can be finished as a con· who first induced them to merely in- tract job. dulge in some innocent observances Take two illustrations. The New without giving up their Christianity.
Hebrides islands have seen Gospel tri- When he had gained influence over them umphs, and have long been recognized he led them back to Hinduism. The as Christian. But the old sediment of Society for the Propagation of the Gos- heathenism is not easily got quit of. pel had a similar experience the year An illustration is given in the Free before. ,Cases of individual defection Church of Scotland Annual Report of a of a prominent character have elsewhere man who died last year, who had pro- stirred whole communities of late in fessed Christiani.ty for several years. It India.
was found afterward that he had reo Turning from this to "Greenland's tained three sacred stones wherewith to icy mountains," the Moravian missiona- raise storms, make rain, and bring dis. ries are depressed with the condition of things among a people who" have borne form of organization, its establishment the name of Christian for more than a of missions, the extension and conduct- hundred years." They say that the ing of its operations, its preservation Greenlanders live ~he old thoughtless, from dangers which were often im~i thriftless life, thinking only of the pres· nent and great, Ilnd to be in its pres~nt ent, while the" distrust so deeply root· circumstances an(l prospects, eminently ed in their nature sometimes makes a child of Divine Providence.
them look on Christianity itself in the Very interesting is the stor.yof the light of a European importation whose way in which young men were led to adoption on their part tends to the ad- consecrate themselves to personal work vantage of the foreigners living in their for the heathen, and seek guidance and land." They are not so conscientious as help in the enterprise; the steps were they formerly were. The seal fisheries taken for giving them that which they have greatly failed them. Sealing de- sought; great encouragement came from veloped robust character. Fishing is responses to appeals that were made; their substitute, and European luxuries the churches were stirred as by a breath have come in. They grow indolent. from heaven when the first missionaries They arc obliged to wander far from and their heroic young wives were sent home to gain a livelihood; but this seat- forth; Mrs. Norris, of Salem, made her tercd and even isolated condition does contribution of $30,000 to the founding not foster their spiritual training, ann. of foreign missions, and the opposition the missional'ies' influence is more diffi- to a charter of incorporation for the cult to maintain. The people lapse in Board was finally overcome in the Massa- moral qualities. The men are less care- chusetts legislature.
ful about maintaining their families and The form of constitution given to the aiding relatives. They fall into distress Board was providentially the best th[t and increasing dependence of missionary could have been adopted in the circum- assistance. They will not all remain stances of its origin. It is, by its char- Christian under present conditions. ter, a self.perpetuating corporation (now They will lap3c. It may require more of 241 members), and thus possessed of wisdom than has yet been evolved to great stability; but, dependent upon keep them from becoming paupers or the contributors to its funds for all its pagans. means of action, it is amenable to pub- Thus much have we written to call at- lic sentiment, which finds expression tention to the fact that the most intelli- not only in contributions and the press, gent and vital Christianity of the world but also in the public meetings of the will not have got quit of the responsi- Board, in which thousands of honorary bility of leadership and supervision for members constituted by donations have generations among peoples who have all rights of discussion, making proposi· only half a century or so of Christian tions, acting on committ(les, etc., equal· inherited tendencies and appetences in their make.up. The very methods of the Eighth Annual }leeting of t.he International earning a livelihood among a semi- Missionary Union. The plan of the Union nomadio people are against their deyel_ meetings inclndes one historical or other exopment in civilization and Christian position of some of t!w general missionary culture. societies. The first was that of Dr. Mudge on the Methodist Episcopal 1IIissionary Society.
Notes on the American Board.* The second was by Rcv. J. Hamilton Taylor, treating of the Jioravian Missions. They were BY REV. GEORGE w. WOOD, D.D., GENESEO, presente d t.o the rcoders of the REVIEW in 188V, 1890. This is therefore the third in the series. N. Y. Ve arc sorry to be OJJigcd to omit some points of the able opening of the sketch, as pre- 1. The history of the American Board sented by one who, besides being long in active shows it to have been in its origin,_ its service abroad, was for eighteen years one of the * This paper was presented and read before secretaries of the Society. Iy with corporate members. The annual speech, nowhere else surpassed, is oftell meetings lasting through three days, de- heard on its platform j and the spiritual voted exclusively to the interests of the atmosphere was frequently such as for- Board and of foreign missions, and held merly to have given rise to the saying in different parts of the country, have that "no place or occasion takes one been ror many years usually the most quite so near to heaven as an annual largely attended of religious or benevo. meeting of the American Board." Marlent assemblies in our land, and most vellously has it been guided and guarded successful in arousing enthusiasm. Itis in times of great public excitement, believed that no decision has ever been and steadily, amid all drawbacks and voted by the corporate members that was changes, it has been carried forward in not in harmony with the feeling of the an ever advancing work. large majority of honorary members and friends of the Board present at the meet· Eleven years after its formation the ing, and also throughout the country. first corresponding secretary, describing the sending forth of the first missiona- The executive administration is com· ries, when eight or ten thousand dollars mitted to a Prudential Committee of ten were needed within a fortnight, and but or eleven members, partly carefully se- five hundred were in hand, pictured the lected clergymen, but more than one perplexity of the new Prudential Comhalf consisting of eminent laymen. mittee in that day of small things, and These serve without pay (except from their resolution, after hesitancy, to go the Head of the Church), devoting sev- forward trusting in God, and added: eral hours to a regular weekly meeting " Upon the principle then adopted-of (on Tuesday at 3 o'clock P.M.), and often following as Providence leads-trusting to to occasional meetings, giving careful the same sovereign Providence, with assiduconsideration to all matters coming up ous attention to the proper means for the now from missions in all parts of the needed supplies, have the operiltions of world, as presented by secretaries, the the Board ever since been conducted." treasurer, and the editor, who are pres· From this princi~e the Board and its ent, but without a vote. The pressure executive administration have never deupon them is often very onerous, but is parted; and wonderfully has it been cheerfully borne. When, from want of justified in so doing. means to meet the exigencies of the missions, it is needful to make special ap- 2. Omitting other references to provipeals for aid to the treasury, it is their dences of far-reaching significance, let privilege, often grandly exemplified, to me invite attention to the Divine leaderset an example of large personal offer- ship in the choice of fields for its misings. What wisdom is required in deal- sions. The first missionaries were sent ing with questions at home affecting the in the directions to which the Spirit of work abroad, and the many that arise in God in their hearts drew them, and an the foreign fields, only those intimately unseeing hand by new events guided acquainted with the missionary work them. In the first decade the special can duly appreciate. If a missionary or responsibility of American Christians other person feels aggrieved by any for evangelization of the aborigines of action or non-action of the Prudential our own continent was practically ac- Committee, he can take an appeal to the knowledged. The conversion to Christ Board, which elects the committel' and of Obookiah and three other waifs who executive officers at its annual meetings, had drifted from the Hawaiian group to and reviews their action. The reports this country was a call from heaven to made to these meetings, and special care for the lowest condition of humanpapers read to them, embody discus- ity as found in the beautiful islands of sions of missionary principles and prob- the Pacific. Marvellous were the effects lems of the highest value. Eloquent of missionary exhibition of the Gospel of love there. Naked, brutish, warring, pagan savages were reached and elevat- favored with high qualities of character ed into peaceful, decent, orderly, read- in the first missionaries and the directing Christian communities; thus dem- ing agency at home. Of its distinonstrating the moral unity of the human guished foreign secretary at that date, race, and that barbarians are not to be the venerable senior secretary of the Christianized by a method of previous Church Missionary Society in England, civilization, but are most easily civilized Henry Venn, said to me in London in through an awakening of their moral 1863. " To no other human source am I nature by the power which is found indebted for so Illany valuable suggesalone in the Gospel given to them. The tions in respect to missions as to your picture of such moral and social trans- secretary, Dr. Anderson." The latter formations as were wrought not only was indeed not at all points infallible; against greatest difficulties from the but what other name is there in the natives, but also from opposition and history of modern missions to place vices of ungodly agents of foreign com- above his as an adept in the science of merce, fascinated many Christians, who missions and a leader in conducting became supporters of these missionary them? The missionaries of this Board, efforts while they were less interested in being the earliest, also set a standard other missions. In this way important for others, so that American foreign help was brought to the general mission- missionary character in general comary treasury that would not have been mands throughout the world the highreadily given if sought only for the work est confidence and respect for its energy, undertaken in fields which yielded less purity, and practicalness, as, in the striking results, and these gained at a words of the late Earl of Shaftesbury much greater cost. But other classes of often repeated by him, " a marvellous mind had a special interest in the his- combination of piety and common toric and Bible lands of the East, and sense." in a conflict of the Gospel with the mightier forces of ancient compacted 4. By the system of mission organizasystems of false religions which reign tions which has been wrought out, unity, over the vast populations of a heathen, stability, and safety are in a high de- Mohammedan, corrupt Christian and gree secured, with freedom of personal Jewish civilization. Thus step by step action under its proper responsibility the Board was led on by a wisdom not to associates in the field and the direct. its own, and sustained in its diversified ing power at home which furnishes the work of blessing among barbarous tribes means for needful approved expenditure of Indians on this continent, savages of of money appropriations; and by keep- Polynesia, Micronesia, and Africa; in ing in view the spiritual aim as supreme, the missions beyond sea since trans- and harmonizing as far as possible differred to other missionary agencies, and ferent views in regard to methods of the widely extended and gloriously suc- gaining it, the missions of this Board cessful system of operations which it is have a high repute for wisdom and sucnow carrying on in 80utheastern Eu- cess in their plans of evangelization_ rope, Asia Minor, and ancient Assyria; Aiming so to deal with native agencies in India, China, and Japan; in Austria as to develop self-support, self-governand Spain and Mexico; and which it ment, and self-propagation in the Chrishas enlarged in Africa and Oceanica_ tianity which they seek to establish, they are among the foremost in the ex- 3. In the development of its missions hibit which they make of attainment in it has providentially been given to the this regard. The Board does not admit American Board to take the lead among an obligation resting on it itself to American organizations in grappling carry the Gospel to all dwellers in the with difficult questions of missionary fields to which it conveys the light of policy. In doing this it was singularly Divine truth; it recognizes time as an essential element, and fields for occupa- Girls on the two shores of the Bosphorus ; (the Presbyterian inRtitutions at Beirut tion at home and abroad by native con- and in Persia); the Central College at verts as an indispensa.ble factor in the Aintab, und the one for girls at Marash, solution of the great missionary prob- in the Central Turkey Mission; Eulem. Hence the Board has urged on its phrates College and the Mardin School missionaries the ordination of native in Eastern Turkey; Anatolia College pastors, and arrangements to draw in ancient Pontus ; the Samokov School churches formed at chief centres of in Bulgaria; the College at Honolulu in population into active evangelistic the Pacific; the Doshisha in Japan; operations as early and widely as possi- the Jaffna College in Ceylon, and the ble. Thus in concert with the Hawaiian high schools or call eges for both sexes Board it extends its operations over the in all tl,e missions, and at nearly every North Pacific; and we have the pleasing station occupied by resident American spectacle of lately Christianized savages mlsslOllaries. It is now settled that by giving nearly $1,000,000, of which al- the preaching of the Gospel in the vermost $200,000 has been directly for for· nacular languages, and by Christian eign missions; and who have sent more schools and colleges adapted to the peothan seventy. five of their church·mem- ples and the times, is the world to be bers as foreign missionary laborers saved. among other peoples who are such as they themselves or their fathers were. 6. When, in 1857, the Reformed In other missions the same principle is (Dutch) Church, and in 1870 the New exemplified to the great benefit of the School Presbyterians withdrew from the churches adopting it, even when very American Board, they declared it to be weak. from no dissatisfaction, but under a constraining sense of duty for the greater 5. Discussions and experience have advancement of the cause for which the brought nearer to each other some who Board exists. In mutual love and conwere once far apart in their judgment as fidence a partition of missions and to the place to be assigned to education property in them was made. In estiamong missionary agencies. It has been mating results of the work of the Board, abundantly proved that while merely account should not be overlooked of the secular education' awakens mind and Amoy Mission in China and the Arcot overthrows confidence in false religions, in India, belonging to the Reformed it fails to reform morals, and generally Church; of the West Afric~n, the Syria makes infidels, not Christians. Left and Persia, and several North Ameridestitute of education, a Christian com- can Indian missions transferred to the munity is unstable, always in danger of Presbyterian Board; the Indian misfalling into grievous error, and with too sions, from which the American Board little power of influence for good. There withdrew in the Southwest, now cared is need of common schools for all, and for by the Southern Presbyterian of higher schools for limited numbers; Church, and the Dakota Mission, which but these all thoroughly Christian, and, the American Missionary Association as far as possible, at native cost. The received in exchange forits field in West church, the school-house, and the col- Africa. lege must be seen together in their true order and proportion. The press m'lst 7. The achievements of the missions find and create readers. The Bible and of the Board, in the value of results ale.n intellect – awakening and guiding ready attained, and especially in the re- Christian literature must go into all lations of these to the future, who can habitations. Hence have grown out of adequately set forth? Twenty.five unthe missionary enterprise the Bible written lauguages reduced to writing; Rouse on the Golden Horn; 'Robert the Word of God and a considerable College and the American College for Christian literature given in these to barbarous tribes; and the same, and ennobling motives and action, which far more, in the tongues spoken and read transcends in value all the cost of carry- by the great nations-Mohammedan, ing it on. The. gain in its gifts back to pagan, and nominally Christian, for the its supporters and to the home interests evangelization of which its missionaries of our own land is too various to be labor; the influence of 33,000 communi- here specified, and exceeds any measure cant members in 360 churches, and more thl1t can be made of it. ths.n 100,000 attendants worshipping statedly at about 1200 preaching places 8. The history of the American Board, (exclusive of Hawaiian churches and as of all missionary organizations, is a congregations, which would add several continual proof that growth is the law thousands more), and of a missionary of life, and that, as in the family. in- force of 195 men and 313 women in the crease necessitates augmentation of ex- 22 missions, occupying 1116 stations penditure, while further progress brings and out – stations, co – operating with help. Thus while the total expenditure whom is a nati ve force more than four last year was $762,946, the sum of native and a half times this number, and em- contributions for all purposes is report- bracing 694 native pastors and preach- ed as $117,494. The receipts from all ers ; the value of the educational sys- sources enabled the treasurer at the an- tem, which includes 82 training and nual meeting to announce a balance in theological schools, in which 4325 young hand of $848.44. men recei ve instruction, besides colleges mentioned above not under the care of When comes the need, then comes, in the Board; girls' high schools, 52 in answer to the cry of God's people, the . number, enrolling 3218 pupils; common providential supply. A mark of prog- schools numbering 930, and having 34,- ress is seen in this, that wh'3reas in 500 pupils, making a total of 43,000 per- years gone by a legacy of $60,000 was sons under Christian instruction (not followed the next year by a large falling including additional thousands in the off in receipts, lately a $1,000,000 be- Hawaiian Islands) ; the worth to human- quest, wisely appropriated, has stimu- ity, science, material interests of society, lated to increase of contributions from and the kingdum of God throughout the the churches, and a second one from world of this agency of Divine power another wealthy friend, which has yield- and grace for blessing to the world ed over $600,000, is producing the same abroad and at home, is beyond the com· effect. Embarrassment from an en- prehension of a finite mind. The Ely larged work now ceasing to have this volume on " Science and Missions," by Apecial source of support, and the de- Dr. Laurie, is a rich treasury of illustra- mands of success, appeal urgently at the tive facts; the pages of the Journal of present moment for a new standard of the American Oriental Society frequently general giving, which. it is hoped will be present striking evidence; the annual adopted. reports of the Board, the Missionary Herald, Life and Light, and other publi- The gratifying advance which signal- cations, are filled wHh instructive and izes this epoch in missions is due large. thrilling narrations; special presenta- ly to the remarkable uprising of women tions, like those of Dr. Andrew P. Pel1- in their behalf. Of the income of the boJy, in extended magazine articles, and Jast repOl'ted year more than $169,000 speeches of Drs. Mark Hopki:ns and was given to mission work for women R. S. Storrs have exhibited wHh sur- by the three Women's Boards auxiliary passlllg eloquence the indebtedness of to the American Board. The new con- our age to the missionary enterprise in secration of women in all forms of ser- especial connection with this Board, for vice in which they can be useful to the high ideals of character and impulse to cause of foreign missions, and home evangelization as well, is a peculiarity and wonder of this, the new missionary age. Is it not one of the brightest. signs of promise for the speedy triumph man with ample means, who might of the kingdom of Christ in all the have lived comfortably at' home, moved earth? by the inspiration received from the life One other point must not be passed of Henry Martyn (God's leagues are unnoticed. It is the providential as- linked), without companionship or hu- signment to the constituency of the man support, he plunges among fanatio American Board and to American Pres- Arabs to lift high the banner of the byterians of the greatest, most difficult, Cross, till by sunstroke, which came and, in some aspects, most glorious of more like the kiss of God than His curse, missionary achievements to be accom- the banner falls from the dying hands plished-the conquest to Christ of the which had borne it through forty years wide domain which is under the present of apostolic ministry. It falls a chal- political domination of the Moslem. lenge to all Christendom to take it up Why is this? Is it because in the Con- and carry it farther, till placed where gregational and Presbyterian American this great leader would have chosen to traits of character are found those which plant it. We pause for breath in this can wait as well as work, can hope kodak glimpse at so splendid and so '.mder disappointment, patiently endure 'saintly II career. We must, however, and persevere under heaviest discour- admit the following from the Punjab agement, conciliate and win when open lIfission News: attack would be madness, and by weak- " His is a memorial that will not per- ness can be made strong? God knows. ish, for the heart holds on to it as well But how great is the honor, how mo- as the mind; his is an example that mentous the responsibility, which are cannot cease to stimulate, for it makes put upon those who have been thus se- its appeal to what in men is highest and most enduring; his a friendship lected! based on foundations and bound with cords which last forever; and his a work that must go on, and in which all Christians must bear a part till the re- Bishop Thomas Valpy French. [.T. T. G.1 turning Master Himself proclaim it fin- ished. He was a teacher as ready to Bishop French died at Muscat on learn from his pupils as to instruct June 14th, 1891. That consecrates them; a general now strenuously fight- afresh the Arabian peninsula to Christ. ing in the dusty ranks, now beckoning Following the Keith Falconer alabaster the whole Church forward to scenes and box, it lends an aroma to the east shore deeds of arduous heroism; a man whose firm convictions left the widest Christian of the Red Sea sympathies unchecked; a bishop who . "More fragrant than Arabia sacrificed, magnified not himself but his office, yet never abated his loving interest in And all her spicy dcserts in a flame. " Christian work and in workers on lines Bishop French was born the first day not identical with his own; a Highof the year 1825 in an English rectory. Churchman in the truest sense of the word, he kept clear himself, and strove Educated at Rugby side by side with to keep others clear, of Romanizing and Sir Richard Temple; gaining honors sacerdotal entanglements. His preachthere, and later at Oxford University; ing was of the Head of the Church, whom founding a missionary college at Agra, he adored, not of the body of the Church, which he loved. The Church, in the India; heroically defending native Chris- • Punjab at any rate, can never forget tians during the Sepoy rebellion ; found- him."
ing a frontier mission at Dera, and then a divinity college at Lahore; and agli.in, Fifty Years a Missionary Secretary.
in 1877, founding the bishopric of La- -The Society for Promoting Female hore ; remaining Bishop of the Punjab Education in the East in England is the for ten years; resigning this position, oldest organized society for carrying on while beloved and never more effective, work among the women of the Orient.
an old man at sixty-six years of age, a It commenced its work in India as early liB 1834, and its work now extends to province of Satsuma, compelled the Ceylon, Japan, Straits Settlements, South Koreans to make the china and to inlind West Africa, the Levan~, Egypt, the struct the Japanese in its manufacture. Holy Land, Turkey in Europe and Asia. Thus it is to-day-electric lights and Miss Webb, the corresponding secre- telegraph, foreign ships and war tactics tary of the society, has given fifty con- foreign postal and school systems for~ secutive years to the work; and we be- eign dress and wines are readily adopt- lieve this is an event for which there is ed. And the world looks across the no parallel in any society. Wisely has water in amazement" and exclaims 'Be- hold, a miracle! A nation is ch~nged she administered its affairs, giving al- in the twinkling of an eye from a state most II lifelong devotion to the blessed of semi-barbarism to the full splendor work of helping to uplift the women of of civilization! ' the world. She has seen wonderful "But the nation has not changed. changes. From a few gathered in the New clothes don't make a new man. schools at first, she can now look at II Social life is just as impure, the mar. multitude of 20,000 gathered in the riage laws as loose, passions as unvarious schools, with a multitude hav- bridled, and their beautiful etiquette ing gone out, etc. covers as many sins as of yore. The The society is celebrating this her whitening of the outside of the sepulfiftieth anniversary by presenting her chre does not prove that it is not full of with a token of their personal regard, dead men's bones and all uncleanness. and also making special effort to in- No longer do the people ook on the crease the society's funds by raising a adopted things as foreign. They have worthy jubilee offering. become Japanese. They are an intelli- MRS. J. T. GRACEY. gent and keen-sighted people. Love Is Japan Fickle ?-Miss Susan A. Searle furnishes, at our request, the fol- of country is strong in them, and, lowing ,. Few facts about Japan" : readily recognizing what will benefit " During the last thirty years no one country has been so ceaselessly under Japan, they adopt it. Just as quick to the public eye as has Japan. And yet very few people understand the Japan- see what will weaken her, they will have ese. The first Mikado ascended the throne 660 years before Christ, and from none of it. This is the reaBon that the that time to this there has remained an unbroken succession, though what may , treaty revision' has been so unsuccessbe called the war of the roses threatened at one time to break the direct line. ful. The people understand that the Never has Japan been conquered. Never has any nation so nearly obliterated basis on which foreign nations mean to Christianity within her borders as did Japan 200 years ago. Catherine de revise is pure selfishness, and they will Medici. in the fearful massacre of St. Bartholomew's Eve, signally failed as not consent to become the prey of forcompared with them. eign avarice. In the seventeenth cen- "Quick to see the advantages that would accrue to them, they employed, tury, when Romanism was introduced in A.D. 287, Korean teachers to instruct them in Chinese literature anc11anguage, by the Jesuits, it found a ready hearing, and to-day Chinese is the classical language of the people. From Korea also and gained many friends. Notunaga, they learned the use of the potter's wheel. The art of making Satsuma the greatest of the Japanese lporrodps~ ware is a lost art in Korea, because when favored them. They were given the Japanese conquered Korea they brought all who understood the art to erty at Kioto. At one time in Nagasaki ~a.pan, and, .plantin~ a colonr ill. the there was not a heathen temple. AI.
ready the eyes of the Jesuits gleamed exultingly as in imagination they SIIW these beautiful islands under the con- trol of the Roman See. But the dream was never realized. Seeing the danger, those in authority so quickly quenched the fire and so effectually removed the traces of it that to all outward appear- ance it were as though it had never bcen. Do you censure Japan?
., But it is an uneasy hour. The crisis is upon them. About three fourths of the people are Buddhists, and the priests are trying to strengthen themselves."
The American Board Mission in Japan.-Miss Abbie M. Colby, of Japan, kindly favors us with the following about the Japan MissioD: of the A. B. Q. F. 1:,[. i " Probably no mission has called more Japanese call it the best meeting ever loudly for re-enforcement than this. held. Certainly it was the best one of And because of this earnest appeal, it recent years. was felt best to be exact in the require- ments. A paper was prepared by the 0< , During the meeting It serious ques- chairman of the Mission Committee on tion about raising $GOO came up. Sev- the kind of new missionaries needed. eral plans were proposed_ Among the It reads: • The main requirements of a delegates present was a 74 inch man in candidate for work in Japan are (1) his stocking feet, " the tallest ChristiRn spirituality; consecration to the point in Japan," who led a movement to raise of self-sacrifice_ (2) Ability to get along the money on the spot; and in thirty minutes $528 had been obtained. It is with a sensitive and patriotic people. hoped the rest will be given by some This means willing to help, and not who were not present. This represents anxious to be bosses; no forf'igner can much self-sacrifice.' drive the Japanese. (3) Intellectual strength. Of course health and com- " I have also had news from the anmon sense are of prime importance. nual meeting of the Women's Mission- ary Society, held in Osaka, in the Y_ M. " 'In some respects foreign work C. A. building, which holds about 2000. grows harder in Japan each year; and This was well filled. The women wastthereforeforeign missionary service here, ed no time, two or three starting to pray to be economical, should be immediate.' at once." 1 have a report of this year's annual meeting of the native Congregational Church The Rev. Wellington J. White, misin Japan, extracts from which will be, sionary, of Canton, China, was killed by perhaps, interesting: accident at Elmira, N. Y., July 27th_ " 'In addition to the business sessions, Rev. Mr. White, Mrs. White, their intensely interesting meetings of various three daughters, a little girl friend of kinds were held-one theatre meeting the children, and a nurse girl, were ridand two private sessions of the workers, ing in a carriage in Elmira, N_ Y. While Japanese and foreigners, to tell each crossing the Erie Railroad an express other how to work more efficiently. train struck the carriage, instantly kill- Great plainness of speech marked these talks, but all in the best of spirit. Those ing Brother White and the oldest daughmissionaries who display the most sacri- ter, Lillian, the little friend, and also fice, especially in touring, and who live the nurse girl. Mrs. White was SIIPmost like the Japanese, were held up by name as models. posed to be fatally injured, but is still alive, with a bare possibility of recovery. " 'A few of the points elaborated The two girls, aged three and seven, are were: We ought to have more faith in our talents as God-given. We should doing well. We have no words for our give ourselves to men as well as to God. own feelings, much Jess to voice the gen- Preach the simple Gospel; not envy eral wave of grief that this event has scholars, nor be abashed before them. caused to swell over this land and other Keep out of debt. Keep in the spirit of prayer. Let there be greater frank. lands. ness between missionaries and Japan- All those who were at the last annual ese. Let the missionaries do only those kinds or that kind of work which each meeting of the International Missionary can do best. Some evangelists (Japanese) are too lazy. Be a magnet. Let us Union will recall the ability with which have individuality based not on one's ],fr. and Mrs. White contributed to it. own wisdom, but on allegiance to Christ. Let us evangelists (Japanese) who re- Cheery, practical, consecrated. they lent ceive $10 salary a month live on one an inspiration by their personal preshalf that amount, and give the other half to the work. Then ask the mis- ence and their platform power. Little sionaries to make further sacrifices in thought Wflg there that these gladdening order to get nearer the people. Work and helpful ones were so soon to enter with, as well as for the poorest. Bring your baggage to my house and stop with into a cloud-even the cloud bright me when you come to my city. I,et the with the presence of the Lord_ living God into your hearts. Keep your faces turned heavenward. From the secular press we Jearn that Mr. White was forty-one years of age, a " 'Prayers were earnest, speaking, forcible and practicable. The spirit all aon o~ A1?ne. White, chief of the Eri(j ~4rough Was moat e~cellellt~ Some Bridge builders. He was graduated at Holy Virgin, Queen of Apostles, and Amherst College and Union Theological Succor of Christians." The brief has Seminary. Tho New York Tribune said: been fcrwarded to Brussels, accom.
"Mr. White and his family had been punied by a special letter from Leo XIII.
home on a year's vacation from their. to the King of the Belgians, couched in work in China. nnd W81·e about to re- terms of the warmest affection and adturn for another period of ten years. miration. They had had httle rest during the year, as both were in great clemand all over the country to leeture upon mission work, and they became unusually popular in their line of lectures. Mrs. White was an -That is a very true remark in the especially interesting talker, and bad ad- Seventy-fifth Annual Report of the dressed churches, Sunday schools, mis- American Bible Society that "the resion bands. and other societies as far west as Minneapolis, all through New Eng- ports of this society present a most im- land, and in Maryland and Washington. pressive history of missions. We have She made her lectures brilliant with anecdotes and personal experience~, and tried to find time and space for a proper never in a single instance posed as a review of this grand society's work, and martyr to seclusion in the mission field. to express our congratulations on the She and her husband had made them- occasion of its diamond anniversary. It selves masters of the Cantonese dialect, works so quietly, with such dignity, and were especially fitted to do prac- avoids all sensational presentation of tical Christian work among the Chinese.
They had had several tempting offers to itself, that its vast enterprises do not remain in the United States, but Mrs. become as popularly known as they de- White said, , Our hearts and souls are serve to be. There lies before us the Gospels in the language of the Sheetswa, committed to tbe missionary field, and we must go back.' "
They were to sail for China from San which they have just completed, trans- Francisco September 10th. lated by Rev. B. F. Ousley, of the American Board Mission in ED.st Cen- tral Africa, a language never written be- -The Rev. Dr. John Inglis is dead! fore 1885, allied to the Zulu, but with Who that knows what missionary work peculiarities of its own. This will open means will not be sadly intere~ted? the evangel by text to some 200,000 or Thirty-three years "In the New Heb- more of people in tbe Dark Continent."
rides /" What a fascinating book, the -Mission work among the boys of story of his life, as told in a volume London is being carried on by the bearing the title we have emphasized. Rugby School Mission. It takes the The Free Church of Scotland has a roll form of furnishing homes and institutes of grand missionary names, but that of for these boys. The field of activity is John Ingli~ shines with a lu~tre all its mainly in the west London district. own.
-In spite of the breezy discussions -And now, 10 ! the Congo Free State of the past year, and the omens of evil has been "consecrated to the, blessed which many discern, foretokening great- Virgin Mary." This is done to rescue er contentions, it has been a good year the millions of AfricD. "from the dark- for Presbyterian foreign missions. The ness and superstitions of paganism." grand total of the gifts of the Church This is the way the papal brief reads: for this cause stands at $942,690.64, the .. It is in response to the petitions of largest sum ever given for foreign mis- eminent Belgian Catholics, both clerical sions in any year since the reunion of and lay, that the Pope has taken the the churches. The various organiza"
step now announced, by whi~h his holi- tions of the women of the churches con- ness places the entire State of the Congo tributed $336,224.78, more than one !.luder the special pr~tectiou of the Most third of the whole sum.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The following letter is from a beloTed These men go out three Sundays in friend, who accompanied Dr. Gordon every month and preach in surrounding and myself in the brief tour of missions villages, where there are either Chris- in Great Britain in 1888. Her ad- tians or inquirers, so that there are eight dresses, so simple, unaffected, childlike, services held each Lord's day in villages moved the great audiences everywhere distant from three to fifteen miles.
with unique power. Though not meant These preachers willingly give their for publication, we cannot withhold this time, and are often out three days at a charming letter from our readers. time. I pay their travelling expenses.
C. I. M., WENCHOW, CHINA, Jan. 20, We meet once a month, when they re- 1891. port and change districts. The Lord is blessing their labors.
My DEAR DR. PIERSON : It has been on We have just suffered a heavy loss in my heart for a long time to write to the death of one of our most earnest and you, and only pressure of work has pre- faithful evangelists. He came in from vented; for I have often thought of you his district last Thursday suffering with and dear Mrs. Pierson, and have follow· bronchitis. He would not rest until his ed you in your tour of 1889-90 through son had gone off to take his place, say.
my native land with much interest, and ing that, as there were many who were was often reminded of that blessed and calling out for the Gospel, some one remarkable missionary tour which we must take it to them. The son, who is made together in 1888. one of our unpaid local preachers, had Alas! how much has happened since gone but a few hours when he said to then-that little company scattered and his youngest son, ,. The Lord is calling divided. One, my dear husband, rest- me home. I see heaven open; oh, so ing from his labors, and now in the lovely! You have not been earnest presence of the Lord; another, Rev. enough; you must be warmer-hearted, James Scott, of Impolwene, witnessing and live n.earer to God." He then said, for the Lord in South Africa; you and " Sing a hymn;" and as they ended the Dr. Gordon continuing your labors on hymn he quietly breathed his last, only behalf of missions; while I am here, one day after his return from his sta- trying, however feebly, to do the will of tion. We mourn his loss, for it is to my God. such men that we owe in large measure The past year has been one of many the prosperity of the work. We can do trials. So much of persecution, sick- but little compared to them; and if we ness, and death has surrounded us that are only permitted to train one such at times the heart seemed almost faint, worker for the Lord, our life would not and one was often tempted to think the be in vain.
road too long and the burden too heavy. A few weeks ago we had our preach- And yet the Lord was ever nigh and ers' quarterly meeting; and as I looked ready to help in every hour of need, so upon the twelve native preachers pres- that when troubles pressed, one had but ent, only four of whom were paid, and to lean the harder to find out how strong two of those supported by the natives He is. "Not one good thing hath failed themselves, my heart welled up in praise of all which He hath promised." to God as I thought of now and the day During the past year we have made when we first entered this city. Then steady but slow progress, for many new not a soul had heard of the God who doors have been opened to the Gospel; made them.
and I hflve been able to form a band of In one district about forty miles from seven unpaid local preachers, who have here a number of bright, earnest lads ~l,~red so~e of t4ese oven doors, l1~vEl bEletl COBVer~ed~ a~il, ~t has b!le~ laid upon our hearts to try and do some- they naturally look to me for guidance.
thing to fit them for future service. We The church is under the care of a native took the matter to the Lord and asked pastor, who was brought up in our boys'
Him to provide the needed funds for school years ago, and is a very earnest, their support. He has sent the answer godly man.
in l gift which enables us to begin with' Yours very sincerely, five boys. Our pll>n is to give them two GRACE STOTT.
years' education and Bible training, and then let them return to their homes and It is true, undoubtedly, that the Hindu their farm worK, and, while earning converts to Christ have as yet come their own living during the week, preach almost entirely from the humbler and in the villages on Sundays. Miss Bards· micl.dle classes, so to ~peak. But, as we ley, who accompanied me to China last contrast the two Brahman's prayers that year, will take up this branch of the we here present, we can perceive eyiwork, while Miss Whitford, another dence that the Christian spirit has beyoung sister who accompanied me, takes come, in a measure, pervasive of the entire charge of the girls' school. We moral atmosphere, even of the highest stj.J.I keep up th(, uumber to twenty. five, caste. and for everyone who is married out, there are three or four applications to The Brahmans have been in the habit fill her place. of offering the first prayer of the two for ages: "May humanity fare well! We have a small home for poor old May the lords of the earth rule the same olind Christians. There are ten at pres. in the ways of justice. May Brahmans ent, besidelil two old widows; and duro and cows ever prosper. Mayall relig. ing this cold weather one feels very ions become bappy. May the rains fall grateful to be permitted to help these in· season. May the earth be fruitful. POM of the flock. May th~ country be without troubles. May Brahmans be without fear." There is a good work going on at a place twelve miles from here.' One of The second short but remarkable our Christians, a silversmith by trade, prayer was offered by a well-known who was once an opium smoker. opened orthodox but liberal-minded Hindu on a shop there last year. Wherever he an occasion when he was about to degoes he must preach; and as his own liver a lecture on Marriage Reform in a shop was a small one, he rented a place Christian church: "Our Father, we be. at his own charges, where he conld seech thee to teach us the truth, to help preach on Sundays. He does all the us to love and wor!!hip the truth, and preaching himself. and now there are to walk according to the truth, for Thou about thirty persons who attend regu- art the truth. " larly. This man has been very much used of God in opening up work in sev- -By way of in81igurating the eff?r~ eral places, and spares neither himself nor his means. which has been resolved upon to raIse A good deal pf my time during the $500 ~0e0n0teansarav special fHud to celebrate last three months has been spent in vil. the of the English Baptist lage work, where we have had many op. Missionary S(~ciety, the treasurer of the portunities of spreading the Gospel. At society, Mr. V,'. R. Rickett, ~f Lond?n, has just intimated his intentIOn to give $25,000.
one place, where we spent a week, there -In 1890 there were 494 American are six or seven families seeking after M E foreign missionaries who had the truth. Indeed, we find it difficult ~apdolo~Syetoa~ftuettshferooWfmowmthhaoenmc'sh1nF2ro2crhea~ergseninMintihsteshieoUnenamirty– to enter all the open doors. Society. These show an lllcreas~ of 86 American missionaries and aSSIstants, Will you ask disciples to pray that milch wisdom may be given to me? or nearly thirty per cent. There is no male missionary here, and
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Persia, Arabia, Turkey, Mohammedanism, and the Greek Church.
These words stand for what an infini- west and the borders of the Tigris val.
tude of facts relating to the history of ley, to the remote frontiers of Afghan- the human race, as well as to the istan and Beloochistan. The surface is chances and changes which have be- largely a plateau with high mountain fallen the kingdom of God upon earth! ranges, but the southern portion is a And, taken together, they are fairly plain, and upon the southeast is a large representative of all the events which expanse of desert. The population is have transpired in Bible lands not only, heterogeneous, exhibiting thc effects left but, with an exception or two, of those behind by the multitude of masters, but connected with the course of all the the bulk is composed of Turks, Persian great empires of antiquity. And to Mongols, and Arabs about the Persian think that over all the vast area they Gulf, besides Koords, Armenians, Nes- cover, for long centuries the Cross as a torians, Jews, etc. Nearly 2,000,000 are symbol has been supplanted by the wandering tribes. Of courqe Islam is crescent! the ruling religious force, but some PEIRSIA. 70,000 nominal Christians are found.
In order to kindle our interest it is The Nestorians, in particular, gathered only necessary to recall that this is the about Lake Oroomiah, are a feeble rem- land of Cyrus and Darius, of Ahasuerus nant of a church which once numbered (Xerxes?) and Esther, and of Susa, millions, and with wonderful zeal car.
Persepolis and Ecbatana, and that the ried the Gospel throughout Central Asia early inhabitants were of Aryan stock, and to India and China. But there fol- and so in origin related to the Greeks lowed degenerate days, as well as perse- and Romans. Zoroaster and the fire- cution from the Moslems, by which they worshippers were Persians, and the were well nigh annihilated.
Wise Men who came to worship the in- As far back as 1742 the Moravians fant Saviour, while Parthians, Medes, sought, though in vain, to carry into and Elamites were present in Jerusalem Persia the light of evangelical truth. In to behold the wonders of Pentecost. 1811 the sainted Henry Martyn pene- This people rose to fame when Cyrus trated the country from India, bearing captured Babylon, and his successors his Persian translation of the New Testa- pushed their conquests to the lEgean ment, but died within a year. In 1834 and beyond; but in later days it was the American Board opened a mission their hard lot to be subjected in succes- among the Nestorians which, since 1870, sion to the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Sel- has been in Presbyterian hands, and has jukian Turks, Mongols, Tartars, Af- grown to 6 stations, 65 out-stations, 55 ghans, and Ottomans. The ruling Shah missionari'ls, of whom 20 are ordained, feels the touch of modern ideas, gov- and 243 native helpers; 31 churches erns, for an Oriental, fairly well, and with 2267 members, 188 added last through a ministry on the European year; 283 schools with 3290 pupils.
model, and has introduced banks, gas, Upon this Persian mission $83,662 were telegraphs, street railways, etc. expended last year. In 1869 the Church His dominions cover ahout 700,000 Missionary Society sent Rev. R. Bruce square miles, and his subjects number to begin work, and now has Ispahan not far from 8,000,000. From the Cas- and Baghdad as main stations. The.
pian modern Persia extends to the Per- Propagation Society sent its agents to sian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, and from Persia in 1882. Within a half century Ararat as a bulwark at the extreme north· not less than 75,000 Bibles, or portions thereof, from the press of the American time within the scope of their opera.
Bible Society alone, have been distribut· tions was embraced the entire known ed. and in these 6 languages -Persian, world. Mohammed died in 632, and Turkish, Arabic, Syriac, Hebrew, and two years later Damascus fell; Alexan- Armenian. dria in 640 ; Persia the year after, with ARABIA. Baghdad in due season reaching the With this name are indissolubly linked zenith of its gloi'y under the Caliph Edom and Uz, Ophir and Sheba, the Haroun al Raschid (immortalized in the Wilderness of Wandering, eighty years " Arabian Nights," which, if Persian in of the life of Moses, and two years of literary origin, are intensely Arab in in- Paul's life; but most of all the region spiration and spirit), and by 711 Spain for which it stands holds the site of had become Saracen, to remain such Mecca and Medina, and gave birth to nearly 800 yeal's, or until delivered theFalsePropbetand his Book. Itsarea under Isabella. During those halcyon is some 1,200,000 square miles. and con- years the Arabs were among the fore.
stitutes a vast peninsula. extending into most in the civilized world for knowl- the Indian Ocean. After 4000 years of edge of medicine, mathematics, gram.
travel, trade, and warfare this land is mar, and rhetoric, and various useful but little known, and yet the fact is well arts, such as the tempering of steel.
established that it is not all a barren And hence it would seem to be a gross waste, as we are wont to think. About mistake to ascribe Ara.b dominion wholly 'one third of the surface lies upon three to the sword as a cause instead of. in sides next to the sea, and consists of a great part at least, to the wondrous plain varying in width from a few miles power of mind, of intellectual genius.
to one hundred, and then a long stretch As yet next to nothing has been ac- of mount1tin ranges which rise abruptly complished, or even been undertaken, from the coast side. Another third lies for the redemption of Arabia from the toward the southeast and is desert in- degrading thraldom of a false faith.
deed, with surface divided between The country is inaccessible, the climate drifting sands and rocks. But in the is torrid, and Oriental ideas and prac- centre and farther north is found a large tices with the lapse of the centuries be.
tract fairly well supplied with streams come strangely fixed and unsusceptible and fertile soil, and able to sustain to change. And besides, as everywhere, quite a population fixed and residing in so also here, the combination of truth villages and cities. Of the 8,500,000 or and error fashioned by Mohammed easily 9,000,000 inhabitants, not more than one gains a giant grip upon a certain quality fifth are nomad Bedouins. of mind and hea.rt which it is difficult Arabia made her capital impression exceedingly to shake off. Mr. and Mrs.
upon human history through the tre- Keith Falconer projected, under the mendous and unsurpassed and really auspices of the Scottish Free Church, a sublime enthusiasm and zeal and daunt. mission to South Arabia in 1885, and less vigor with which her sons took up two years later Aden was occupied by the teachings of their greatest repre- them with combined Bible and medical sentative, and in two or three genera- work, but a few months after he laid tions carried the Koran from the Atlan- down his life a sacrifice to his faith and tic to the Indus, and made an impres- zeal. Other toilers have followed since, sion so deep and so broad that after 1200 and the mission is maintained. A second years their language is spoken by 80,- undertaking in the same region was set 000,000, and the cry, Allah Akbar, is on foot in this country not long since echoed by one eighth of the earth's by Professor J. G. Lansing and others, population. Arab merchants penetrat- and tW() missionaries have been dis- ed to China and interior Africa, to the patched thither, and a third, by the Eng- Baltic and northern Siberia, and at one lish North Africa Mission, has begun labor for the Bedouins in the extreme Asiatio Turkey. Though themselves north, with Homs as a oentre. So, not stalwart Moslems, it has always been yet has" the gold of Sheba" been given their policy to tolerate other faiths, and to " Him," not yet have" the kings of not less than 13,500,000 in the empire Sheba and Seba" offered" gifts." are nominal Christians, and principally TURKEY members of the Greek and Armenian ohurohes.
brings us yet nearer to Bible lands What was sorrowfully said of Persia and themes, since it covers among the and Arabia must be repeated here, that rest Palestine, Phmnicia, Syria, Asia hitherto upon the Mohammedan part of Minor, and Babylonia, with ita Ur and the population but a slight impression Haran, and hence was the home of every has been made. For a follower of the patriarch, prophet, or apostle named in Prophet to abjure his faith, even yet, Holy Writ. It was nearly 700 years ago after all the reforms, is to sign his death.
that the Ottoman Turks began to make warrant; aud therefore missionary toil their prowess seriously felt in the oivil. has been expended almost entirely upon ized world ; in 1452 Constantinople fell the ohurches whioh name the name of before their vigorous assault; the olimax Jesus, but whose truth is so lamentably of their power had been reached when mixed with error, and whose religious under the walls of Vienna, in 1683, their praotice is so remote from the New hosts were utterly routed by John So. Testament standard. When these have . bieski. Ever sinoe the decline has oon· been reformed and their spiritual life· tinued, aooelerated in this oentury when thoroughly quickened a beUer chance Greeoe oonquered her independenoe, by will be found to catch the ear and win the results of the Crimean War, and the the heart of the Turks. The first mis.
various aohievements of diplomaoy and sionaries entered the Ottoman Empire arms in days more recent. There is a in 1823, when Goodell and Birrllanded larger and a lesser Turkey, and henoe at Beyrout under commission from the the boundaries are not easily defined Amerioan Board, and later followed with acouracy. Thus Tunis is a de- others to occupy Constantinople and pendent'yof the Porte; Egypt pays trib. western, central, and eastern Turkey.
ute; and though in Arabia a long, nar· Upon thisfieldthisSooietyexpended up· row strip lying upon the Red Sea is ward of $207,000 in 1890, and has gath- politioally Turkish, the vast interior ered to date 117 churches with 11,709 owns no outside ruler. Acoording to a members (1367 added last year), 46,000 medium estimate the Sultan is civil and adherents, 464 schools of all grades, with religious lord over about 1,500,000 20,226 under instruction. The native square miles, and a population of 35,. contributions have reached $43,474 an- 000,000. And these may be divided nually. The principal stations are 19, thus: Europe, 100,000 square miles with with 311 out·stations. The missionaries 10,000,000 inhabitants; Asia, 700,000 number 177, with 791 native helpers as square miles with something more than auxiliaries. In 1870 the Syrian field 20,000,000 inhabitants, and Africa (in_ oentring in Beyrout was transferred to cluding Egypt and Tunis), 600,000 the Presbyterians, and is now held by square miles and 6,500,1100 inhabitants. them at 20 points with a force of 3ll And this same monarch, whose magnifi. American and 205 native toilers. The cent seat is upon the Bosphorus, sways churohes are 26; the members, 1658 ; the the sceptre over a mixed multitude of additions last year, 103; schools, 130 ; jTurks. Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, soholars, 6214; native oontributions, Arabs, Roords, Ciroassians, SyJians, eto. $7658. The Beyrout printing.press is Of these the ruling race constitutes but a mighty instrumentality for the Gospel.
a minor fraction, numbering, say. about From it issued in 1890 in A.rabic and 1,500,000 in European and 4,500,000 in other languages 76,000 volumes and 23,. 746,000 pages, of which 14,217,000 were members of the human family who hold leaves of the word Of life. During the that" God is God, and Mohammed is year 31,000 copies of the Scriptures, his prophet. " complete or in parts, were distributed. In all Syria, with Palestine, some 30 The astonishing successes and vitality societies are engaged doing preaching, of the religion of the Koran may well be teaching, and hospital work at 150 deemed the scourge of God upon His points, with 200 missionaries and 600 people in the Oriental churches and native helpers. Palestine is largely left their successors ever since, in Asia and in the hands of British societies. in Europe, visited because they lost the spiritual power of the Gospel, and had MOHAMMEDANISM. but a name to live in Jesus Christ, be- cause they fell into such grievous follies The three countries which have passed and sins, suffering the pure Gospel to in rapid review, covering in the aggre- be 110 grossly defiled with doctrinal error gate an area about equal to that of the and heathenish practice, expending United States and containing about the their strength not upon the spread of same number of inhabitants are, of the kingdom to the ends of the earth, course, overwhelmingly Mohammedan. but in endless disputes and quarrels and But the spiritual domain of Islam is schisms among themselves. But though vastly larger both in territory and ad- thus far effort for the conversion of Mosherents. This form of faith, once ag- lems has been, upon the whole, quite gressive beyond precedent, is not yet by barren of rf'sults, yet genuine converany means effete or eTen in decrepi. sions haTe by no means been unknown. tude, but is still steadily enlarging its In India in particular and in Africa boundaries, especially within the Dark and even in Persia scores and hundreds Continent. The northern half is al- have heartily embraced Christianity, ready overrun, a territory 2000 X 3500 and in Turkey, too, a few have faced miles in extent. death for Jesus' sake. Christian schools contain thousands of Moslem children From the Straits of Gibraltar almost and youth who cannot but be largely to the mouth of the Kongo it holds the leavened by the truth. But probably Atlantic coast and upon the eastern side the Bible printed in languages which to Zanzibar, with centres of influence Mohammedans can read-the Arabic yet farther south in Mozambique and more than any other, their sacred even in Cape Colony. Thus over two speeoh, in which the Koran is given-is thirds of the periphery of Africa the the mightiest leTerage yet employed. Prophet of Arabia is re'l'erenced, and The preparation already made is so 70,000,0(10 appears to be a consenative manifold, so extensive, and so thorough estimate of the number of his followers that great things for the Gospel may any found dwelling between the Mediter- day occur within the realm of Islam. ranean and the equator. But Queen And for this grand consummation let us Victoria is monarch over more Moslems diligently labor and fervently pray. than the Sultan himself, since in her Indian Empire alone she has 50,000,000 ! THE GREEK CliUBCH, Add to these the hosts of others of the same faith in Siberia. Central Asia, called also the Eastern Church. This Afghanistan and Beloochistan, Western is defined to be the church of the coun- Ohina, the Malay Peninsula, and the tries which were formerly Greek-speakvast Indian Archipelago to farthest Java ing, or which were comprised in the -distant 1000 of longitude east of Mecca Greek, GrIDco-Roman, or Eastern Emand 1600 east of Cape Verde, the latter pire, as well as of the countries evangela vast stretch of almost 10,000 miles- ized from it, as the Russian; or the and a total of 200,000,000 is not too large Church. or group of local and national to name as denoting the sum of the churches. which accept the See of Con. stantinople as their ecclesiastical head, guages !tre spoken. The various" Chris. like the Armenian, etc. The full name tian" sects are full of bitterness and is "The Holy, Orthodox, Catholic, hate each toward the other, and are kept Apostolic, Oriental Church." Its begin- at peace only by Turkish force. The ning dates, at least potentially, from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is divided founding of Constantinople, in 326 A.D. off into several sections, and these are A rivalry soon sprang up between the parcelled out among the Copts, Greeks, two cities, and also naturally betw3en etc. their bishops. The breach was widened by differences of language, and more, by For many centuries the Armenians the division of the empire into the were either independent or, at least, a Western and Eastern. In due season distinct people, fixed within definite followed the Great Schism, and finally boundaries; but in 1604 they finally from Rome came the act of excommuni- lost, like the Jews before them and the cation. Poles in later times, their national ex- istence, and ever since have been scat- The differences of doctdne and prac- tered far and wide through all the lands tice existing between the Greek Church of the East. and its rival, the Roman, are fewer and less fundamental than the resemblances. One peculiar phase of Christian phil- The former rejects the idea of the Pope anthropy is exhibited at Aden by the as universal bishop; in Russia the state Keith Falconer Mission, in the fact that and the church are in closest union; last year not less than fifty African slaves the ofliciallanguage is Greek instead of were rescued by purchase from their Latin; the priests may marry, though Arab masters and adopted, and at a cost but once, and only upon bishops is celi- of £1650. bacy obligatory, and the people may receive the wine as well as the bread at The University of the Great Mosque the sacrament. But the ruling spirit is of EI Azar, in Cairo, i!l resorted to by substantially the same; the departures more than 10,000 Moslem students, not from the simplicity and purity of the only from Egypt and Turkey, but from Gospel are fully as many and as serious, Algeria and Morocco, the Soudan, Darlike worship of images, asceticism with foor and Zanzibar, Arabia, Persia, Turmonastic vows, the necessity of confes- kestan, India and Malaya. Nothing is sion and penance, and the dogma, ., No taught except the Koran and the literasalvation outside the Church." And lit- ture relating to it. tle prospect appears of its further sprClld except as Russian arms or diplomacy The number of adherents to the varimay extend the area ruled by the Czar. ous minor bodies in the Oriental Church is stated to be as follows: Armenians, The number of adherents of the 3,000,000; Abyssinians, 1,200,000; Nes· Greek Church is notfarfrom 85,000,000. torians, 300,000 ; Copts, 200,000 ; Jacob- Of these about 58,000,000 are found in ites, 300,000 ; Maronites, 200,00 the Russian Empire; in the Turkish Empire, 10,000,000, consisting of Greeks, -Among the most teIling speeches at Bulgarians, Armenians, Nestorians; in the late meeting of the Church Mission- Roumelia, Servia, etc., 6,000,000; the ary Society was that of the Episcopal United Greeks of Austria and Poland, Bishop of Minnesota, who said that he 4,000,000; the Church of Greece, 1,300,- was .. glad to notice that the report 000 ; Russian Dissenters, 1,000,000 ; and said not a word about the hardships of various smaller sects. miRsionaries. It is no harder to go to Africa to preach the glorious Gospel It is stated upon good authority that than to dig for gold." in Jerusalem over forty different lan-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELUGENCE. '791
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Organized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O.
-The Anglican Communion embraces about 6000. The nation is responsible all Christians in full communion with for 105 tribes and fragments of tribes, the Church of England, and so is com· but in 17 only does it supply accommoposed of these parts: The Church of dations for all the children of school England proper, with its 38 biRhops and age; in 52 one half are stilI schoolless ; 24,090 other clergymen; the Protestant in 24 about 90 per cent are neglected; Episcopal Churoh of the United States, while in 16 no provision at all is made. 61 bishops and 38000lergymen ; Church of Ireland, 13 bishops and 1807 clergy. -The Young People'S Society of men; Church of England in Cllnada, Christian Endeavor is evidently, in its etc., 24 bishops and 1300 clergymen; origin and surprising growth, in the best Church of England in Asia, 13 bishops sense providential. It meets a spiritual and 713 clergymen; Church of England need widespread and deeply felt. It in Africa, 13 bishops and 350 clergy. numbers 16,274 local societies at the end men; Church of England in Australia, of 10 years, and a host of 1,008,980 21 bishops and 269 clergymen; Episco. members, a growth in" year of almost pal· Church in Scotland, 7 bishops lind 350,000 members and of 5261 organiza. 266 clergymen; scattered, 9 bishops and tions. No less than 30 evangelical de· 120 clergymen: a total in round num- nominations are represented in it ; the bers of 200 bishops and 32,600 clergy. Presbyterians havi.ng 4019 societies; tho men. Congregationalists. 3545 ; the Baptists, 2381 ; the Methodists, 2860 ; the Chris· -The Church of England must be set tians (Disciples), 801, and so on. Sodown as one abundantly blessed with cieties exist in almost every State and material resources. For, ·according to territory; 768 in British America, 120 retUl"llS recently presented to Parliament in England, 82 in Australia, 30 in India, by the ecclesiastical commissioners, the 12 in Turkey, and 7 in China; in all in aggregate income of the establishmAnt is foreign countries, 307. And, best of all, £5.753,557, or $28,767,785, of which from its members 82,500 last year joined nearly the whole is derived from endow· the churches represented. ments antedating the beginning of the eighteenth century. And to thIS must -According to these figures, Cape be added the enormous sums expended Colony is heathen and barbarian no in the construction and repair of longer. In size it is equal to some 5 churches, etc. The membership of this States like New York, and holds a popu· church cannot be far from 15,000,000, lation of about 1,500,000, of whom about and the gifts for foreign missions ap. 350,000 are Europeans. The Dutch Re· proximate to $3,000,000 annually. formed Church naturally leads in num· bers with a membership of 203,776 ; the -Though by no means so much as we Wesleyans follow next with 110,250 ; the could wish, Congre8s is doing something Church of England, with 79,126; the Insubstantial toward solving the Indian dependents, wit.h 39,829 ; Presbyterians, problem by ar::propriations for schools, 23,786 ; Moravians, 14,012 ; the Rhenish which have steadily grown from $20.000 Society, 13,159, and Roman Catholics, in 1877 to $1,842,770 in 1891. Of this 14,012. The total church-membership sum the contract schools (under the care is nearly 528,000. The mission stations of the churches) receive $570,000. In are 621, and the out·stations 1744. the government schools are found pro· vision for 17,000 childrAn, soon to be – The Chinese in America are not en· increased to 20;000, and in the others tirely forgotten as to their spiritual well being. In Boston, for example, as far back as 1876 a school was opened for the fourth time' for $100,000 to be paid their benefit, and the work has grown in five annual installments. until now 8 large ones are f(mna; in them at least 600 of the 1000 Chinamen . -General Booth lliakes the announce· receive instruction, and 50 have bll€n ment that he has already received $50,. received into the Boston churches. And OUO more than the $500,000 he asked for, then, in return, one school for 3 years and besides, has a pledge for $50,000 has given annually $125 to support a additional, and so is at liberty to begin mi~sionary in Hong.Kong ; and recently the execution of his colossal social.re· a special offering amounting to $114 was form scheme in behalf of the poor of the made to maintain a native preacher in cities of England. that same city. -The principal missiop.lI.ry work in -·The Wesleyan churches of England Palestine is done by the English Church have a membership of 424,303, and the Missionary Society, which has a Euro- Foreign Missionary Society, at the las; pean force consisting of 9 ordained, 3 annual meeting, reported expenditures lay, and 7 female missionaries. The last year of £132,885. Work is carried native clergy number 8, with a total of on in India, China, West Africa, the 72 lay helpers. The stations are Jerusa. Transvaal, British Honduras, the Ba· lem, Jaffa, Gaza, Nablous, Nazareth, hamas, as w!)ll as in Europe. The prin. and one east of the Jordan. The num. cipal stations are 363; out.stations, ber of baptized is 1428, of whom 455 are 1572 ; missionaries and assistants, 338 ; communicants. A little over 2000 pupils other paid agents, 2163; and unpaid are in the schools. The Society for agents, 4334. The chUl'ch.members are Promoting Christianity among the Jews 34,772 ; the probationers, 5250 ; and the also has stl/otions at Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Sunday.school scholars, 65,083. Safed, with a force of 4 ordained mis· sionaries and several assistants, about -·The Missionary Society of the 20 of whom are Christian Israelites. Primitive Methodist Church (England) reports an income of £11,099, and an -Friends of Italy will hear with de· expenditure of £10,477. Aside from light of the diffusion of the Scriptures this there was the special income of the in Rome. It is said that during the African fund, amounting to £3313, with first six months of 1'890, 21,000 copies an expenditure of £2263. The work of of the pUblications of the Bible Society the society is carried on entirely in Af. were sold in Rome and its environs. An rica in the Kaffraria Mission at Aliwal, especially encouraging circumstance is North. An increase of 150 members the introduction of the Bible into Ital· is reported. The Zambesi Mission had ian schools. Schools where other Ian. entailed considerable cost, and some guages are taught have, it is stated, reverses have had to be encountered; adopted the New Testament as a read· but the party sent out by the Board ing book. have croBsed the river, and are now en· gaged in real missionary work. -Offerings are asked by the Prot· estant Episcopal Church to sustain mis· -The Livingstonia Mission of the sions in 13 missionary jurisdictions and Scottish Free ChUl'ch (the first one 34 dioceses, also among the Indians and founded in Central Africa) dates from among the colored people in our land, 1875 ; and now, at the end of 15 years, as well as missions in China, Japan, about the three great lakes, Victoria, Africa, Hayti, and Greece; to pay the Tanganyika, and Nyassa, Protestant salaries of 16 bishops and stipends to chUl'ches alone. have 44 stations, 121 1000 missionary workers, and to support missionaries, and 1800 adult converts. schools, hospitals, and orphanages. The Free Church alone is expending Five hundred thollsand dollars are asked $20,000 annually, and this year asks for for this year. -The Presbyterian Church of Canada is held by 21 men and 31 women-52 in reports a membership' of 160,102, and all-with the aid of 68 ordained and 144 additions upon confession last year of unordained nati ve preachers -a total 10,128. The receipts for home missions force of 439. Of its 75 churches 18 are wer.e $142,000, and for foreign missions self·supporting, and in them are 41,841 $115,525, of which latter sum $40,000 members-an average of 550 and over- were from the woman's societies. In 6 of whom 6113 were received last year.
missions (New Hebrides, Honan, For- The principal stations are 14, and the mosa, Central India, Trinidad, and ou t·stations 534. In the 422 schools among the Indians in Western Canada) 5292 ara taught. Out of the depth of are found 31 ordained mIssionaries and their poverty the natives contributed 22 teachers; 9 women (in all 7 trained $1048.
for medical work), 2 ordained native -The Baptist Burman Mission will pastors, 52 native preachers, and nearly always be linked indissolubly with the 100 other native helpers-a total force name of Judson, and only God can say of 216. The churches are 65, with how much of its prosperity is the fruit 3950 members, and the schools 98, with of his prayers. and toils, and pains. It 3800 pupils. is composed of 21 stations and 614 out· -The Presbyterian Church (North) stations. The working force includes reports 12 missions in foreign lands, 134 missionaries (of whom 88 are worn· with 108 principal stations. The mis· 'en), and 530 native preachers (141 of sionaries number 598, of whom 348 are whom are ordained), a total of 763. Of women. These are assisted by 1228 na- the 542 churches the surprisingly large tives, 193 of these being ordained; and number of 44'7 are self.supporting, and thus a total force of 1826 is found. Of they have a membership of 29,666, 1976 churches there are 377, with 28,494 joining last year. The contributions members; and the additions last year were $48,499. The schools number were 2875. In the schools 27,813 pupils 466, and the scholars 12,250.
are instructed. The native contribu- -The Methodist Episcopal Church tions amount to $49,423. (South) expended last year upon its for.
-This same branch of the Presbyte- eign missions $219,940, which amount rian Church has in West Equatorial Af· was divided as follows: Mexico, $93,- rica what is known as the Gaboon and 676 ; Japan, $48,822 ; China, $46,056; 'Corisco Mission, extending along a and Brazil, $30,936. In these lands it coast line of 250 miles, and at one point sustains 76 missionaries, 26 of them into the interior 210 miles. Within this women, as well as 99 native preachers.
area are contained 7 stations and 15 out· The membership of the mission churches stations, a missionary force of 8 ordained is 4944.
and 4 unordained men, with an equal -The Churchman accounts for the number of women (24 in all), 7 native prominence of the work of the American preachers, and 17 other native helpers; Board in Japan by saying that Congre. 9 churches, 1147 members, 108 additions gational churches, with a membership last year, and 1158 children in Sunday. about equal to that of the Episcopal schools. The 7 day schools are much Church, send annually to foreign mis_ hindered by the civil authorities, who sion fields twice as much money as Epis. compel the exclusive use of French. copalians send to the foreign and do- mestic taken together. -·The American Baptist Mission to the Telugus can no longer properly be termed the Lone Star, but has become -In Utah there are 85 mission schools the bright and morning star among all in 78 different tOWIM!, employing 172 mISSIOns. In it the wonders of grace Christian teachers, and educating 6500 continually abound more and more, It pupils, three fourths of whom are from MOl'mon families, The Young People's $25,000,000, while the regular receipts Society of Christian Endeavor is repre- and expenditures of the l<lst five years sented in Utah by 23 organizations, have averaged not far from $700,000 a representing 750 members, of which 11 year, exclusive of native funds received are in Salt Lake City, containing 350 and expended in the field; 475 churches members. have been organized, into which have been received on confession of faith not – Of the 1,100,000 Lutheran communi- far from 110,000 souls. cants in the United States, about three fourths are Germans. The remainder –The Society for Promoting Female are Scandinavians, English, etc. In no Education in the East was formed in fewer than 12 languages do Lutheran 1852, and combines Zenana schools with pastors preach the Gospel in this coun- medical work. Its income has now try. The total number of ministers is reached $55,000 ; the number of Euro- 3692 ; .:Jhurches, 7948. pean agents is 70 ; the schools are 66 ; in them 4000 receive instruction, and in -There are 92 Chri8tian churches and 3 normal schools 130 more are trained chapels ,in the city of 'Tokio, Japan. The to teach. In 1889 there were 283 infirst one WaS erected only 25 years ago. patients and 18,782 attendances at the hospitals; and 932 were visited at their -This example of growth from a homes in part by 12 female physicians, small and "accidental" beginning made with 180 native workers, of whom a large in 1869 is not so very unsatisfactory. proportion are excellent Christian As far baok as that, in Madura, India, a nurses. city of 60,000, two lines of Zenana work were started-the educational and the British"Poreign Missions. By Rev. James medical-and at the close of 1889 there Johnston, Bolton, England. were found engaged in service at the ditferentstations, 40 Bible women; 1438 China Inland Mission.-In celebratnat,ive women under instruction; 3890 ing recpntly its twenty" fifth anniversary, houses had been visited during the year; the total force of missionaries and IIBSOand 71,929 persons had heard the Gos- ciates in Cbina on January 1st was repel message from these native Christian ported at 409, since augmented by 70 women. Thus we are beginning to real- more work.ers. From the time of the ize the import of that verse in the mission's inauguration, 4500 natives Psalms, .. The Lord gave the Word, and have been baptized and 93 mission stagreat was the company of the women tions opened, Last year the income who published it." amounted to £28,361. The beloved founder and director, the Rev. J. Hud- -During the 81 years that have Hon Taylor, is at present in China, elapsed since its organization, the where, says his deputy, the Rev, J. W. American Board has sent out 651 or- Stevenson, it is computed 900 large dained missionaries, 48 physicians un- cities are yet untouched by the heralds ordained, and 151 other missionary as- of faith. sistants-a total number of 850 men, During the same period it has sent out PrimitiTe Methodist Missionary 1233 women, of whom il91 were unmar- Society.-For its African Fund the ried-a total of men and women of 2083. year's income has been £3313, and the The force now in the field numbers 200 receipts for other branches of foreign men and 333 women distributed over 22 missions £11,099. The nobly conceived mission lields-4 in the Turkish Empire, Zambesi Mission undertaken by the 3 in British India, 4 in China, 2 in Japan, society is thus far crowned by the ar- 3 in Africa, and 4 in papal lands, The rival of the pioneers, who hope to begin receipts into the mission treasury from active operations in October next. donation~ and legacies aggregate about Moravian Missions.-By the rescue tive ordained missionaries, 1202 ; and of 1500 souls from heathenism in the native preachers, 4365. Church·mem.
conrse of the past year, the nnmber of bers are given at 67,797 ; native adher.
converts reaches nearly 90,000. The in. ents, 276,521 ; with 377 Sunday.schools come was £8866 in 1890. There are 135 having 22,881 scholars; also 1643 day stations of the missions in Greenland, schools, attended by 63,873 scholars.
Labrador, among the North American The year's income from the mission Indiang, in the West Indies, America, stations, including school fees, was South Africa, Australia, Northwest In· £22,433. A bright feature in the so- dia. Thibet, and Alaska; the congrega. ciety's record was the intelligence that tions numbering 87,263, of whom 40,000 its agen La preach the Gospel in no less are British subjects; of European and than 1200 Malagasy churches. In con- native missionaries, 355 are employed tn gratulatory language the Rev. R. Ward· the several fields. In 113 Sunday· law Thompson, foreign secretary, spoke schools are some 15,000 scholars, and in of the distinct growth of Christian charac.
the 235 day schools 20,629 children are ter seen in the converts, and likewise of under instruction. Four young Mora· the resolve of the directors to maintain to vian missionaries are on their way to the the uttermost of their power the stations newly established station on Lake occupied. Before the centenary of the Nyassa. society' B foundation in 1894 the directors hope to send out 100 additional mis· The London Missionary Society.- sionaries. In this wish they seem to At the annual meeting of the Ladies' have been anticipated by four promi.
Auxiliary for Foreign Missions the year's nent ministers in the younger ranks of receipt of £7293 was announced-an in- English Congregationalism issuing a crease of 2582 over the preceding year. missionary manifesto, in which th.. con.
The auxiliary has 39 lady agents, 19 of stituents of the society are entreated in whom are in India, 15 in China, 3 in earnest terms to dispatch 100 more Madagascar, and 2 in Samoa. Upward laborers into the harvest field without of 8000 scholars are taught in their 150 waiting for the guaranteed fuuds. This day and boarding schools. with which appeal, exhibiting a spirit of enterpris.
288 native agents, chiefly belonging to ing courage, ought to command prayer- India and China, are connected. The ful thought. To realize it, something entire school attendance in British India like £40,000 of an increase per annum was represented in 1888-89 by 2,901,160 will be necessary, which means thor.
girls snd 5,580,996 boys. A glorious ough.going liberality if the funds of ex· future was predicted for China by Miss isting institutions remain uninjured.
Mann, from Swatow, if the women of A telegram reporting the death of the that land could be won for the Master, Rev. James Gilmour, M.A., at Tientsin, in effecting which, women doctors and the devoted superintendent of the Mon· native Bible women were the principal golian Mission, has caused widespread need. regret. By his charming work " Among The ninety-seventh anniversary of the the Mongols" he was endeared to a large society has been held in Exeter Hall, section of the Christian public.
when it was stated that the year's in- come realized £114.293, an encouraging London Society for Promoting growth on the receipts of the preceding Christianity among the Jews.-It ap- year, though behind the current expendi- pears that the society has 130 agents, of ture by a sum of £14,597-a deficit whom 78 are Christian Israelites. The partly due to the rise in the value of silo stations are 38 in number; 6 being in ver in India, and a decrease in legacies. England,. 18 in Europe, 6 in Asia, and 8 The society's English missionaries num· in Africa. By the society's aid the Jews ber 159 ; female missionaries, 39; nil.· have the Scriptures in their own hand, together with a Hebrew translation of Baptist Missionary Society.-Markthe New Testament. It has circulated ed vigor has characterized the anni- 170,809 complete copies of the Old versary proceedings of this venerable Testament; 415,896 parts of the same, society. in spite of a debt of £10,500, and sold or given away 221,112 copies which stands against it. The honored of the New Testament. In the United secretary, the Rev. A. H. Baynes, is not Kingdom there are about 5000 Christian easily daunted. Lack of means rather Israelites. Last year's income was than of men is the regretted difficulty.
£36,768. The Rev. T. Lewis and R. D. Darby, of the Congo Mission, delivered thrilling British and Foreign Bible Society. addresses, illustrative of the power -No less than 4,000,000 copies of the which the Gospel is exercising over the Scriptures, whole or in part, were cir- tribes along the Upper Congo. United culated last year by the society-an in. preparations are being made for the crease of 130,000 over the year 1889. celebration of the society's centenary, Though the total income was £217,148, next year, which will doubtless bto sig- the expenditure exceeded it by £14,435. nalized by memorable gatherings. The Altogether the society has issued 95 ver· society's treasurer, Mr. W. R. Rickett, sions of the Scriptures and circulated of London, has just contributed £5000 120,000,000 copies in 300 languages. to open the subscriptions toward the On account of the enlarged openings for sum of £100,000 which the Baptists have the distribution of the Bible. a strong pledged themselves to raise. An in- endeavor is being made to improve the come of £7992 was received in 1890 for society's returns. the Ladies' Zenana Society, whose staff is shortly to be enlarged.
Church Missionary Society.-Never has this great organization had more The Wesleyan Missionary Society.
prosperity in all departments of its -In the mission districts occupied by operations than in the course of the past the society, the secretary says that the year, notwithstanding the occurrence joy of harvest is almost overpowered by of some vexed questions of mission- the loud calls for reapers. Reports of ary policy on the Niger and in Palestine. growth come from France, Germany, The Divine blessing reached a climax in and Austria. Ceylon afforded proof of the historic meeting.place in the Strand, aggressive Christianity, taking hold of London, in May last, on the occasion of thousands of the natives. From the Ind- the ninety·second anniversary. Over· ian field rose a note of sadness on ac- flowing audiences assembled. The year's count of limited resources, preventing income was £247,737, and the payments the missionaries grappling with the de- £239,208. Missionary achievements in mands for the message. South Central East and West Africa, Mid-China, South African missions had been much dis- India, the Punjab, and other fields were turbed by the rush to the gold.mining narrated in glowing terms by missiona- regions. Stations on the coaRt of West ries on furlough. As the writer hinted Africa were happily in a flourishing con_ in the June number of the MISSIONARY dition. Progress was announced in the REVIEW, Bishop Tucker is making a hur- Honduras district of Central America ried visit home from Uganda. A pub- lind in the Bahamas. The year's income lic reception has been accorded to him, was £122,072 against an expenditure of in which he graphically stated the obsta- £132,885, making a total debt with that cles in the way of direct progress in of 1889 of £19,377, mainly due to the Uganda, and spoke of the methods about increased cost of sustaining existing sta- to be pursued in extending the Master's tions. In an optimistic vein the chair- kingdom and glory throughout Mwan- man remarked on this discouraging ga's dominions. statement, that he preferred success, in face of a diminished income, to a large- the sixth annual report of this noble ly increased income coupled with barren organization every proof is afforded of missionary labors. The Rev. John Wal- the philanthropic aid, admirable manton, Senior Secretary of the Wesleyan agement, and progressiveness achieved Foreign Missionary Society, has just re- by its founder and controllers. The tired on a supernumerary grant, after a statistics are astonishing. In 1890 upworthy career of ministerial toil, half of ward of 411,691 women were treated by which was spent on distant shores. the lady staff, as compared with 280,694 in 1889. More surprising was the pro- Zenana Bible and Medical Mis- portional increase of in.patients in the sion.-The supporters, chiefly ladies, hospitals, represented by 8159 women, are rejoicing over a year of progress over against 3603 in the previous year. marked by total subscriptions amount- This is an unmistakable sign of the aping to £17,500, the largest sum received preciation in which the fund's endeavors since the formation of the society in are held by the native women. The 1852 : 260 missionaries and assistants medical staff consists of 13 lady doctors, (an increase of 16), 2120 Zenanas under 27 assistant surgeons, and 204 pupils at visitation (an increase of 740), 73 the various medical colleges and hosschools (an increase of 10), and 29 sta- pitals. It is strange to hear of a school tions. Pupils in the schools and Zena- of medicine having been opened for nas numbered 6034, having increased Hindu women to study anatomy and by some 1800. Bible women visited in kindred subjects. The charitable fund 939 villages (an increase of 534), and in in England has not commanded the as- 2789 houses, making 1600 of an addi- sistance which it demands, and, on the tion. There were 2 hospitals and 5 dis- other hand, the liberality of wealthy pensaries, with five lady doctors in at- Hindus requires to 'be cultivated in tendance. The in-patients for the year order to make so worthy an institution had been 326 (an increase of 43) ; out- a national blessing. patients, 6963 (an increase of 1300); and dispensary attendances, 22,056, Mission to Lepers in India.-In an showing an increase of 1274. At Ben. effective, economical, and devoted manares the foundation of a new hospital ner this British Society is extending had been laid (the gift of a lady), and its operations. It has in India over 20 another at Lucknow, as a memorial of centres of activity. It asks but £6 a Lord Kinnaird's mother. Miss Leitch year to support one leper, and £20 for has made an eloquent plea to British the same period to furnish a Christian ladies for more sacri fice, stating that if teacher to any of its asylums. The outthe natives of India are to hear the Gospel side cost of building a home is estimat- 'in the present generation, not less than ed at £:110. It is said that the lepers 5000 additional missionaries are needed, are touchingly susceptible to Gospel inwhich the society sustained by appeal- fluences, lind lately a Burmese mising for £30,000, that its income and work sionary remarked that their conversion might be doubled. The Misses Leitch, was the best means of propagating the recently accepted for service abroad by Gospel throughout India, inaf'mueh as the mission,have doubled their subscrip- the example of the patience under suftion of £200 this year. Of the 140,000,- ferings of the victims to leprosy every- 000 women and girls in India (according where producecl a strong impression. to the last census), only a very few have been reached by the missionaries of the The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.-Among crOSR. its special features during the past year, besides the splendid income, are the Lady Dufferin's Fund for Medical extensicn of the episcopate by the con- Aid to the Women of India.-From secration of the first Bishop of Chota India has resulted in the adoption of a Nagpur; the actual commencement of minute which recognizes the undoubted -the mission to New Guinea, and the value of educational institutions, in- Bishop of Bloemfontein's enterprising cluding the need of a visible connection operations in the enormous tract of between these and evangelistic labors. country opened up by the British South It further recommended that, in view of Africa Chartered Company. With the evangelical benefits not keeping pace eight bishops there are 660 ordained with those following the departments of missionaries on the society's lists. education, there was a loud call to give These embrace 127 natives, laboring in the former more time and energy than Asia, and 29 in Africa. At the various previously. A limited sum was voted missions were about 2300 lay teachers, for education, beyond which any funds 2600 students in the society's colleges, received were to be apportioned to evanand 38,000 children in the mission gelization. Both vernacular and medi. schools in Africa and Asia. At the cal mission work in India were reOf- 190th anniversary of the society, the ganized and extended in 1890. Bishop of Derry observed, in his sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral, that in British Very gratifying accounts were given India 40 years ago there were 113,000 of the six missionary colleges in India followers of Christ; some 20 years later and South Africa. At Lovedale and 318,000; and now over 2,000,000. At Blythswood, in Africa, the buildings this rate of progress, he surmised there were about to be enlarged. Free Church would be from 36,000,000 to 40,000,000 missions are being commenced in East Christians in India in 2091. Central A1:rica by the inauguration of a New Lovedale in the country, lying be- Anglo-Indian Temperance Associa- tween Mombasa and Victoria Nyanza, tion.-This vigorous agency, helpful in the funds for which are contributed by many phases of Hindu life, is better Scotch directors of the East African known in India than abroM. In the Company. The results of mission work last winter campaign above 100 meet- in 1390 show that 523 adults were bap. ings were addressed, attended by aggre- tized, oi whom 95 were in India, 229 in gate audiences numbering 200,000 per- Caffraria, 184. in Natal, 12 in Li.vingsons. It is rejoicing in the decreed stonia, and 3 in the New Hebrides, and abolition of the out-still system, the 173 admitted on profession. The chilclosing of 10,000 liquor shops in Mad- dren baptized were 731, and the candiras, and their diminution in the Pun- dates for baptism or full communion jab. The evils of the traffic in India numbered 1788. Students and scholars were lamentable and a great hindrance in the 6 colleges and 307 schools were to mission work. Connected with the returned at 22,131 ; of these, 1275 are association are 77 temperance societies, university undergraduates. There were 32 of these being officered by missiona- 26 stations and 198 branches, G895 naries. The young Indian gentlemen tive communicants, 67 ordained misstudying in the English universities are sionaries, of whom 52 were Scottish; 7 reported to be abstainers. licensed native preachers, 11 medical missionaries, 58 European professors The Free Church of Scotland's and teachers, and 439 native teachers; Foreign Missions.-Most encouraging 217 artisan catechists and Bible women, reports were presented to the Assembly making a total Christian agency of 799. in Edinburgh on the position of its mis- Probably the Free Church has no equal sions in Europe, the British colonies, in the number of missionaries which and foreign landlil, to the latter of which she supports or sends forth. The area our present referenco is confined. The and stations over which her flag is unstorm of a year past respecting the al- furled include India, with 7 principal leged failure of educational effort in and 75 branch stations; Kaffraria, with 9 principal -and 63 branch stations; but on this point Captain Lugard speaks Natal, with 3 principal and 24 branch loss hopefully_ He apprehends that the stations; Livingstonia, with the famous intrigues of the Roman Catholics for Bandawe headquarters, to which 23 court favor may provoke disturbances branches are attached; New Hebrides, eventually. For the safe navigation of with chief stations at Aneityum and the great lake, the committee of the Futuna, having 6 branches; Syria, with Church Missionary Society have dis- principal Etation at Shweir and 7 patched a steel boat. It is expected that branches; South Arabia, with the a larger craft will be sent on in a few Sheikh Othman station. In the course months.
of the past ten years the sum raised for A Loss to the Niger Mission.-News mission work outside the United King- to hand of the death of the Rev. J. A. dom has increased from £38,735 to £94,- Robinson, a co-leader with Mr. Grah_am 385 per annum-a bright index of the Wilmot Brooke, of the recently underconsecration of the Free Church to mis- taken mission to the Upper Niger and sionary obligations_ the Soudan, will be received with regret, Baptist Missions in China.-Dr. mote especially following the serious Glover, of Bristol, and the Rev. T. M. troubles in connection with this hazard- Morris, of Ipswich, have returned from ous enterprise. He lent much assisttheir miilsionsl'y tour through China. ance to' the Church Missionary Society They speak in glowing terms of the in their late Niger inquiry. For the character, magnitude, and success of tbo cause of Mohammedan missions in that work of missions in that empire, and part of Africa, Mr_ Robinson gave up a particularly of the flourishing Baptist brilliant career and a large income at centre at Shantung. Their appreciation home. His attainments as a Cambridge of the worth of missions had been graduate were unusually promising. heightened by the visit. Here and there His personality recalled the figure of were failures, which only had compara- that scholarly and saintly missionary, tive significance in face of the promis- the Rev. Marsham Argles, who died a ing outlook of Chinese missions. Dr. few years back in the service of the 0;- Glover urges the importance of occa- ford Mission to Calcutta. Mr. Robin_ sional visitations to the stations abroad son was a man of inexhaustible energy, for mutual encouragement. and yet of such modesty that it-was with difficulty he could be persnaded to ac- The Call to Uganda.-Gratifying cept the post of joint leader of the misresults are attending Bishop Tucker's sion.
flying visit to this country. The 40 Ngamiland.-Now that this large termen required for Uganda and interven- ritory is under British protection, a ing mission stations are forthcoming. fresh opening ill offered to missionary Gifts are as freely being made. With' enterprise. Since Moremi s death, last the aid of the missionaries the native November, the government of the coun- converts of Uganda may become as use- try has been in the hands of Dithapo, the ful in spreading the faith as the possi- chief headman, as a kind of regent, as- bilities of the country are illimitable. sisted by other headmen. His weak- The sacrifice of the lives of Hannington, ness and unpopularity have been detri- Parker, Mackay, Hunt, Dunn, and like mental to the interests of the Towana.
heroes is bringing forth fruit~not im- nation, in consequence of which the probably the story of the Madagascar natives have begun to lean on Mr.
-mission may be repeated on the shores Strombone, of the African and General of Victoria Nyanza. Bishop Tucker Exploring Company. He is an oracle states that the quarrels of the Protes- to the natives, who take no steps of im- tants and Catbolics have ceased to exist; portance without his counsel. Very shortly Techome, a youth of 16, will -There is no marked decline in the come to the throne. In character he is African slave trade, according to current shy and unprepossessing, though cred- blue books. It seems to be diverted ited wibh ability, and may possibly fill rather than reclutJed.
the position in a satisfactory manner. E very missionary tells us that no He is a half-brother to Moremi, being a peril that beset him was half so great Bon of Leshulatebe by Khama's sister. as the chilling influence of surrounding He is not a Christian, but, like Khama, heathendom. We should pray that in a strong teetotaler. For two or three that stifling atmosphere they may be years his reign will be subject to the kept in the fresh air of the influence of guardianship of Ditha{lo and the head- the presence and power and peace of men. The company alluded to, repre- tho Lord Jesus Christ.-Rev. H. G. sented by Messrs. Rtrombone, Hicks, Moule. and Nicolls, has obtained valuable con- cessions, and may not unlikely urge the Rev. Dr. Narayan Sheshadri, tho friends of missions to extend their in- famous East Indian convert and preach- fluence in that <uarter. In the vicinity er, whose turbaned head and imposing of Ngamiiand are the wild tribes of the presence in his native Indian dress Namagua._ Dltmara, Bakwena, and others. attracted so much notice in tho Evan- The company's agent, Mr, H. O. 'Buckle, gelical Alliance, etc., died on the Circas- is due in England. sia on July 21st, atsea, on the passage to Miscellaneous. – The North African Glasgow, and was buried at sea. Tho Mission funds are much below receipts loss of this man will be very keenly of the corresponding period last year.- felt in the missions in India. Dr. She- Grave charges of mismanagement have shadri was a very keen-minded Brahman been mad'e against the directors of the priest, who, when converted, became Baptist Congo Mi8sion.-It is contem- the founder of a community of native plated by the LOllllon Missionary So- Christians, and has done as efficient work ciety to dispense with their district .as any maninHindustan. Hehad such deputation agents. The society is sec- a command of English and. was so highonding a pri vate appeal for a re-enforce- ly educated thab both in his own eountry mento! 100 mi~sionaries.-TheRev. Sil- and in Great Britain and the United vester Whitehead, formerly of 'China, States he was among the most eloquent has been appointed a secretary of the of men.
Wesleyan Missionary Society.-Thrill- It is a highly creditable fact that the ing accounts have arrived of the extraor- contributions of the Methodist Episco- dinary hardships endured by the mis- pal Church for Home and Foreign Mis- sion party of the Primitive Methodists on sions have during the last ten years an- their journey across the Zambesi, and of nually increased about $50,000. This M. Coillard's timely SUllcor of the gallant is separate from the income of the little hand. Work has been initiated at Woman's Board. The increase over the station. Strange to say, this new the corresponding eight months of last missionary campaign is causing a revival year, to July 1st, is $124,000. There is of home missionary work.-Messrq. Har. little doubt but thatthe$1,250,000appor_ ris and White, of the mission to the tioned will be raised this year, and the Central S:Judan, have completed a pre- Woman's Society will add a quarter of liminary missionary trip on foot from a million or more for foreign missions !Tunis to Gabes, a rlistance of 200 miles. to that.
They write of the hospitality accorded Out of Debt- Let us Keep Out.-For to them by the Arabs; who are in great the second time in a quarter of a cenneed of the Gospel and medical skill. tnry-once in 1887 and now again in The two friends are at Tripoli making 1891-unlesB all signs fail, the Missional'rangoments for an early march inland. ary Society will be out of debt on No- vember 1st, 1891.
The Missionary Review of the World — February 1890
PROTESTANT MISSIONS A Ht:NDRED YEARS AGO AND NOW
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XIII. No.2.-01d Series.–FEBRUARY.–VoL. III. No. 2.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. PROTESTANT MISSIONS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO AND NOW RESPO:NSIBILITY AXD ENCOURAGEMENT. BY REV. JAMES JOHNSTON, F. S. S., LONDOX, E:NGLAXD.
In our pamphlet, "A Century of Protestant .Missions," we fixed ou the year 1786 as the period of their commencement, and. we have seen no reason to alter that date as a fair approximation. Foul' of the greatest missionary societies ill the world can trace their 'origin to within a few months, if not to that very year; not in the formal organization of their outward framework, but to what is the true birth of missions, the union of spirit for prayer on behalf of the heathen, and the earnest desire for their conversion by the preaching of the Gospel. Not only the fathers of the Baptist Missions, but the founders of the Church Missionary Society, and the London Missionary Society, had their spiritual birth at that time; and the Rev. Dr. Coke was sent out to found missions among the heathen in our colonies in the West Indies that year by vVesley and his fellow laborers.
Missions, like their ~Iaster, are born f!'Om above. . Born of the Spirit, and that was the period of the Epiphany of the missionary spirit, which is ever latent in the Christian Church, though it may long lie dormant, and even seem to die. .
It has often been in my heart to follow up that pamphlet, "Century of Protestant Missions," which was of set purpose written to arrest thought on the great work which still remains to be done in the vast unoccupied fields of the heathen world, by another, showing the means for a much greater work in the future, and the encouragements to prosecute it with new vigor and hope. "A CentUl'y of Christian Progress," which came ont in an ill complete form, owing to the pressure of other duties, was confined to oue aspect of the subject; and the limited time at my disposal will ollly allow me now to put together a few facts, which may, with God's blessing, stimulate aud strengthen the Churches of Christ; in the words of Carey, "to attempt great things for God, and to expect great thing~ from God." I.-THE lI11SSlON ~'IELn.
Let us glance at that field, which" is the world." The first thing that strikes us is the great increase of our knowledge of the world and its inhabitants. A hundted years ago the vast regions of heathenism were comparatively a blank to the minds of most Christians. Of the hundreds of millions in China, we knew little beyond the meagre inf()rmation to be gathered f!"Om the journals of The Polos, and of Roman Catholic Missions, and from a few traders on the coast, ignorant of the language of the people. Vast tracts of India were untrodden by the feet of our countrymen, whose almost sole concerns were trade and conquest. Africa was a terra incognito beyond a few miles from Egypt and the Cape, except for a few bold but imperfect explorations up the Nile and the Niger. Our maps of the interior were either a blank or a blunder-deserts and plains, wbere lakes and rivers, a~d mountains ha,'e been discovered, with a teeming population and fertile soil.
This vast increase of our knowledge acts ill a two-fold way on the Christian Church. First, it excites interest in, and sympathy for, the poor and the perishing; and second, it awak.ens a sense of responsibility for those with whom we seem by our knowledge to be brought into personal relations. The qnestion, ""Vho is my neighbor?" acquires a new meaning and a wider scope. Our fellow man who has fallen among thieves, is now found by the Samaritan spiI"it in the Church, not on the way down from Jerusalem to the neighboring city, Jericho; he is found wounded by sin".and robbed of his Divine inheritance by the idolatries of heathenism and the deceptions of the false prophet in all lands.
This feeling of sympathy and sense of responsibility are greatly intensified by the facilities for eagy and rapid communication with all parts of the world. It makes us realize that we are now in that period of prophetic history, when "many shall run to alll~ fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The whole world is now at our door. It is only a few weeks easy travel by land or sea to reach the most distant parts. By post and telegraph we know daily what takes place in the most remote regions. ';Ve seem to hear the sounds of sorrow and woe in the dark places of the earth, and to feel the anxious beating of the hearts of the thousand millions of the world's inhabitants wh'o are ignorant of God and of His Christ.
n.-THE OPENINGS IN THE MISSION FIELD.
If we compare the world a hundred years ago with what it is now, the calls to work and sense of responsibility will be intensified a thousand fold. When our Protestant missions began China was hermetically sealed. It was death to preach the Gospel in Japan. India was closed against all missionaries; even our own countryman, Carey, had to seek shelter on a little plot of ground owned by a foreign power. South America was tabooed by the Church of Rome. T~e difficulties experienced by African travelers were enough to deter the most adventurous, and Asia Minor was inaccessible, while Mohammeda.nism stood in its pride and independence.
These countries from which the missionary was thus excluded were peopled by the highest and most advanced races outside the pale Qf the Christian Church. Almost the only peoples accessible to the missionary were the inferior and debased races, inhabiting the soft and enervating islands of the South Seas, or the freezing latitudes of the Polar regions; races living under conditions inimical to a high development, and, in most instances, races which were dying out under the double pressure of native vices and the evils attendant on modern «ivilization. Along with these, missionaries had access to certain tribes of Africa, on their native soil, or transplanted to America and· the 'Vest India Islands, under the degrading influence of slavery.
These were not the races whom the wisdom of man would have selected, and but for the overruling providence of God shutting up the new energies of the awakened Church to the degenerate and apparently hopeless specimens of the human family, they would proba.bly have been thought beneath or beyond the reach of the Gospel remedy. That such beings have not only been delivered .from idolatry by the simple prea'ching of the Gospel, but made to shine with the beauty of holiness, giving all the evidences of a nature regenerated by the spirit of God, and abounding in the fruits of righteousness; the strongest proof of the Divine origin and power of Christianity on the one hand, and the clearest demonstration of the disinterested character and aim of Protestant missions on the other. There was nothing to be gained by the churches from conquests over such as these, save the blessing of the Lord on those who obey His commands, and thus enjoy His favor.
But now the whole world is open to missionary enterprise; we can not even name the countries which have been thrown open. It would occupy too much of your space. There is only one isolated little nook from which missionaries are absolutely shut out-the one exception which confirms the rule, and, if we mistake not, even that one exception is likely soon to cease to be one. By her insults to Britain's power and attacks on British interests, Thibet is preparing the way for the overthrow of her clerical exclusiveness.
There is one feature of the great change which has come over the world during this last century, for which the Church is not sufficiently grateful; of which, in fact, no one seems to take note, viz.: that among the nations of the earth thet'e is not one Kingdom ruled over by an independent idolatrous Ruler. The small States in India, under Hindu Rulers, are no exception. They are all under British dominion or influence. EYen .Assam, Tonquin, Corea, and such like powers, are directly uuder the influence or control of the Briti~h, French or Chinese governments; and even the last is monotheistic in its national worship. Thibet, the one apparent exception~ is under Chinese protection. The tribes under the yoke of naked savages we do not reckon among the nations and kingdoms of the world. This overthrow of idolatrous rulers is not the work of Christian missions; but it has been chiefly brought about by Christian powers~ and is surely a part of the Di vine purpose for preparing the way of the Lord. 'l'hat the rulers of all civilized or semi-civilized nations- ill fact, all nations with anything corresponding to or resembling civil government-are monotheists, is well fitted to encourage the mission- ary spirit, and the hopes of the Church. He who has put down the idolatrous power will fulfill His prophetic word, «the idols he will utterly abolish."
HL-THE ENLARGElIIENT AND INCREASED RESOl7RCES OF THE CHURCH.
The altered position of the church in relation to the heathen world, is a cheering fact, and should be a powerful factor in the future. A hundred years ago the numbers of professing Christians of all the three great sections of the Christian Church, were less than 200 millions, now they are over 430 millions; and of this great increase in a hundred years, by far the larger share falls to the Pro- testant Church. vVhile the Roman Catholic and Greek churches only doubled their numbers, the Protestants multiplied nearly foul' fold.
The numbers, as given in our" Century of Christian Progress," stand thus: 1886, Increase 4 fold. less than 2 fold', 1786, 137,000,000 205,000,000 2 fold, Protestants. ' …..•…. 37,700,000 89,000,000 Roman Catholics …… 117,000,000 Greek Church, … , …. 46,000,000 200,700,000 431,000,000 In our brochure, "A Century of Protestant Missions," we called attention to the fact, that while Protestant missions had gathered three millions into the fold of Christ ill a hundred years, the heathen hall increased, by the ordinary birth rate, by 200 millions, in the same time. But if we take the entire increase in the nominally Christian population, which was in the same period 230 millions, we alter most materially the relative numbers, and find that the Christian is rapidly overtaking the heathen and :Mohammedan popUlation of the world. . In 1786 the entire population of the world was probably about ·1,000 millions, of which profesl'ling Christians were 200 millions, forming 20 per cent. of the whole, and 25 per cent. of the 800 millions of heathens and Mohammedans. In other words, the Christians were 1 in 4 of the heathen and Mohammedans. In 1886 the population of the world was estimated at 1450 millions, but the Christians of all ~enominations had risen to 430 millions, that is, 43 per cent. of the 1000 millions of the heathens and Mohammedans, or about as 1 in 2, .or more nearly 1.02!-.
If we take only the Protestant population at the two period,s, the relative change is more striking still. In 1786 the 37 millions of Protestants were to the 960 millions of heathen and Mohammedan population only 4 per cent., or as 1 in 26. In 1886 the 137 millions were to the 1313 millions, 10 per cent., or as very nearly 1 in 10. But the gain is not only in numbers; in learning and science, in wealth and power the gain is greater fat·.
Take this rapid and great increase in the nnmbers and resources .of the church in connection with the opening up of the whole world to evangelistic enterprise, and have we not a clear instruction of the ~esign of God? The one condition, without the other, would have had little significance. If the world had been open, but the church poor and weak and few in numbers, there might have been an excuse for indolence, although the memory of Pentecost and the little company in the upper room, might have inspit'ed even a feeble few to sttempt great things in the name of a risen Redeemer. If the church had been large and strong, but the world closed, she might have taken it as a plea for attempting little. But when we see an open world, .easy of access, and a church so prosperous and powerful, there is not the shadow of an excuse for idleness. There is every encouragement, snd the loudest call to a supreme effort for the evangelization of the world. The heathen are calling, God is commanding His people to srise in His might, and to take possession of all nations, in His name. It is at her peril that the church of Christ neglects the call of Provi- (lence, which is the voice of God.
IV.-FACILITIES FOR lIUSSION WORK NOW, AXD A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
The advantages for a new crusade are inconceivably greater in .our day, as compared with what they were in the days of our fatherR. Then the work was new and untried. The few specimens of work (lone were not models of wisdom, or examples of success. Some were .of value as a wal'l1ing, rather than encouragement. Everything was new and strange, all had to be built up-the very foundations had to be dug. Can we wonder that mistakes were made? It would haye been a miracle if they had not. The condition of the savage tribes smong whom they began was so entirely different from anything in bome experience, we can only wonder at the co.)urage, and faith, and wisdom, of the early founders of our missions.
The tools with which they were to work had to be invented and nlade. Languages had not only to be leal'l1ed, they had to be fashioned and clothed in the forms of written speech. The fleeting sounds from the lips of savages had to be coined into visible words, snd construed in harmony with the strange usage8 of people innocent of grammatical rules. Dictionaries had to be made out of the crude materials of these hitherto unformed tongues, requiring the greatest nicety of ear, and the utmost accuracy in reducing sound to its equivalent in words; and last, but not least, the translation of the Word of God had to be made unto these newly formed languages, and fickle and restless savages had to be taught to read the sacred page.
The amount of this kind of work that has been accomplished is. almost incalculable and incredible. All this is clear gain, which does not need to be repeated in these languages, which now number probably 400, in all parts of the habitable globe. New missionaries, going to these nations and tribes, find their work in acquiring the language of the people comparativaly easy-a clear gain to the church in time and money and men; making spiritual results, under God, more easy and rapid.
Compare also the present with the past in respect of the numberof laborers with which we start this new era in missionary effort. Our fathers had to begin with a mere handf~l of laborers, untrained and inexperienced, with no knowledge of the habits and customs and modes of thought of the various peoples among whom they werll to· work. They had no native helpers or preachers to assist them in theirwork. Everything was against them. The possibility of the preach· ing of the Gospel saving and sanctifying such depraved natures as· those of cannibals, was an untried problem. The natural way would have been, like the first Moravian missionaries, to prepare them by education and civilization for the Gospel message. But, with a sublime faith in the Divine commission to preach the Gospel to ever.1f creature, they went forth with no weapons of modern science or learning, but with the sword of the Spirit, and with that they fought and conquered.
Now, how different are the conditions in the mission field, with 7,00(} European and American missionaries at work, half the number ordained ministers, and nearly all of them educated men and women, acquainted with something like 400 languages, or distinct dialects. But what is a greater advantage than these for aggressive work, ~re the native evangelists, now making little short of 30,000, and of these, nearly 3,000 are educated native pastors, placed over congregations of their countrymen. Greater than even these advantages, arc the three million of converts, two-thirds of whom are either active or passive witnesses for Christ iu the midst of their heathen countrymen -lights, all the more conspicuous from the darkness which surrounds them.
Take in connection with these advantages in the mission fields of the world, the vast increase in the number and resources of missionary societies at home, with the augmented means, their more complete organization, their knowledge and experience of the methods.
DR. PIERSON'S JIlISSIONARY CRUSADE IN SCOTLAND
which have heen lllostowned of God for the conversion of the heathen, their closer touch with the churches, the increase of missionary spirit in England and America, the great wealth in the hands of Christian men, the favorable disposition of most of the ruling powers of the world,-and we have a condition of matters such as could not have been dreamed of a hundred ycars ago, and which lays an immeasurably greater responsibility on the Christian conscience and on the churches of Christ; while they are fitted to put doubt and unbelief to shame, and to inspire the greatest courage and hope in the breast of missionaries abroad, and Christians at home. Surely God is speaking loudly to all, to seize the present opportunity, and make a supreme effort for an advance along the whole line.
We close with a word of wal'lling. There is a danger of trusting to the great increase of knowledge, and numbers, and wealth, and :power. We do well to remember the words, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." We have enough to h-Jmble us in looking to our sinful neglect in the past, when we tr.ink of the generations of men we have allowed to go down to the grave in darkness, while we had the light. We have enough to Bol.emnize us, when we look to the work which lies before us in the future; not only the one thousand millions of heathen and Mohammedans, Christless and hopeless, but the hundreds of millions of the Greek and Roman Catholic churches, corrupting the truth of God and dishonoring the Lord who bought them. Let our attitude be that of humble, earnest, prayerful effort, and devout, hopeful expectancy, trusting "in the living God who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
DR. PIERSON'S MISSIONARY CRUSADE IN SCOTLAND.
[It is known to most of our readers, that in compliance with the earnest request of the leading friends of missions in Scotland, our Associate has gone there to complete the work he began after the rising of the London Conference on Missions in 1888. We give below the first of a series of letters on his mission and its results, which will appear in successive numbers ·of the REVIEW. If all of them shall possess the extraordinary interest of the first, they will surely be read with heartfelt interest and gratitude to God. We invoke the prayers of our readers in behalf of Dr. Pierson in this mission of love, for such it is, May the reflex influence of this mighty wave of missionary interest on the other side of the ocean reach our shores, and mark a new era in the history of the cause among us !-J. lI1. S.] Jfy Dear Dr. Sherwood: EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, Nov. 27, 1889.
There was no need of coming to Scotland to " kindle the flame of a Missionary Revival," as the brethren of the Committee were pleased to suggest. It is quite obvious to me that a revival of missions is already in progess, and that all I can hope to do will be to feed ancl fan a flame already burning.
The good ship Etruria had a very rough passage, through a very "choppy" sea. 'Ve were rolled to and fro, and tossed up and down, and found it quite har.} to keep ollr.~elvei> in 0111' berths at night ,or maintain our standing, or even our sitting, on deck by day. N evertheless we landed at Liverpool quay at about 7 o'clock on Saturday evening, November 16th. The brethren came to meet and greet Ufl, and bid us " Welcome in the name of the Lord," and cheered us as a similar embassy comforted Paul at the "Three Taverns." There is no disposition either in England or Scotland to allow our sojourn to be one of idle lounging or pleasure seeking. Ve found arrangements made at Liverpool for a series of meetings, beginning with one on the very night of our arrival. In fact, no time could be spared even to attend to "customs," and so leaving our kind host with }frs. Pierson to look after the luggage, I was hurried off in a cab to Gordon Hall, where a large and select company of the Christians of Liverpool were gathered to offer a cordial welcome. Canon Burbidge was in the chair, and the familial' face of ~lr. Reginald Radcliffe beamed close at his side. At this meeting I made a brief address on the "Present Aspect of }fissions," and was greatly cheered by observing a very manifest spirit of prayer prevailing. This was my first impression, and that impression has been constantly emphasized and intensified during these eleven days.
As I intimated, my sojourn on this side of the water is not likely to suffer by lack of employment. I left Liverpool for Edinburgh on Wednesday morning, November 20, having already held in that city seven meetings, closing with a grand and enthusiastic gathering in great George Street Chapel, which will hold easily two thousand people. The attendance at all these meetings evinced an intelligent and hearty sympathy with the }fissionary cause, and furnished an auspicious forecast and foretaste of the gratifications in store. In Edinburgh, on the night of OUI' arrival, a marvellous assembly convened in the Hall of the Church of Scotland, Principal Cairns in the ohair. Rev. Dr. Lowe, Chairman of the Committee, having direction of the meetings, remarked to me that no more significant gathering had ever met in Edinburgh. The various denominations, which have been divided by conscientious differences of opinion, and have sometimes waged wars, not without much bitterness, came together with a profound and sincere sympathy, to further the common cause of a world's Evangelization. }fen that had met in the arena of theological and ecclesiastical controversy, and engaged in fierce conflict, came into that Hall on a common footing of cordial good will, rallying around a humble advocate of world·wide missions, forgetful of all past issues and minor differences in the one absorbing object-giving the gospel to tMs generation.
The Chairman was Dr. Cairns, a very proper man about whom to gather; It has been said of him that "no man carries under his hat, through all Scotland, a bigger brain." Eminent as a preacher, a writer, a teacher, an ecclesiastic, he is eyen more conspicuous as a. Christian. His charity is pre-eminent, and in the atmosphere of its gentle glow, the ice of antagonism and apathy may well mdt away. The students made a sort of cartoon, not long since, in which they represented "Principal Cairns' introduction to the Devil." He is made to say to his Satanic Majesty, that he has "heard very unfavor- able reports touching his moral character," but that he has "no doubt these reports are very much exaggerated, and that on furthel' acquaintance they will be able to get on together very well." The jest, as Horace intimates, hides behind a laugh a serious truth; for the dear Doctor is always looking for and hoping for the best from everybody.
The object of this first meeting was to express a hearty welcome from all the bodies represented, and to assure me of the most cordial co-operation in the purpose of this Mission Tour of the (;hurches. The welcome was given with all the enthusiasm of true Scotchmen. These people are not so easily moved as some, but when they do move it is with great momentum. Meeting after meeting followed, the details of which space does not allow m.e to give; suffiJe it to say, that, as in Liverpool, they have followed each other in quick succession, on Thursday in the great Synod Hall, on Friday in the Free Assemhly Hall, mainly for )Vomen, on Saturday morning in Moncrieff Hall, fO!' the students, when even the standing room was all in demand; then after two sermons on Missions, the Sabbath evening found me confronting an immense audience at the U. P. Synod Hall, where the most marked movement of the Spirit of God which I have ever witnessed in such a gathering, subdued and melted all hearts. My subject that night was" Individual Responsibility with reference to Missions," and as the duty and privilege of individual giving', and especially prctyill[J, was urged, and the grand promises to prayerful souls were arrayed before us, a sudden hush fell upon the whole assembly; there was a. painful silence, and many bowed in tears before God. As fOI' the speaker, it was with him as with Daniel, when, in his vision beside the Hiddekel, "there remained no strength in him." (Daniel, x :8.) The sense of the divine presence was positively overwhelmillg; no man could produce such an impression; it was manifestly of God, and all felt it to be the gateway of Heaven.
Such a meeting has but one explanation. Ever since it was known that this Mission Tour of the Churches was determined on, and that arrangements were definitely made, there has been an unusual spirit of prayer. Those who on their hearts bear the precious interests of God's kingdom, in this land of Martyrs and Missionaries, began praying in secret and praying in little circles, for a mighty manifestation of God's presence and power. Instead of looking to any man, there has been a disposition to fix the eye of faith and prayer on God alone, and those that honor Him, He will hOllOI'. Of all the meetings I have ever attended, I remember not one in which God more plainly set all human instruments aside, to speak for Himself in the language that has no human speech as its expression and can be heard only by ears open to the still small voice. Some persons were so moved that they had to leave the hall. When the meeting adjourned all left in silence, and since then, token after token of the blessing keeps coming to our knowledge. The next day we received a note in a lady's hand, enclosing the money which would buy "one pail' of four-button kids," in response to an appeal which I made to Christian women to forego luxuries for the Lord's sake, and turn the money to His treasury. The same day brought a half sovereign, the expression of like self-denial; and a letter, enclosing two pounds, ten shillings, the proceeds of a bracelet, sold for the I"ord's sake. These are but a few signs of God's presence and of a coming harvest of missions. Every day brings increasing encouragement. "Ye can only praise God, and give glory to Him.
With Sabbath evening's meeting the series of gatherings in Edinburgh closed for the present, fifteen meetings in all since the Etruri(t anchored in the Mersey River, eight days before. 'Yith Monday we began, accompanied by Mrs. Edge, recently returned from Canton, China, and Rev. Henry'Rice, on a furlough from: Madras, India, to visit cities and towns in the neighborhood of this Scotch Athenl'l. On Monday we held two meetings in Leith, on Tuesday in Peebles and bnerleithen, and to-day in Dalkeith. The afternoon meetings are principally for the women, and the evening assemblies, held in the largest available places, are crowded to overflowing. 'Ve were told yesterday that meetings so large have not been known even in times of great political excitement. Surely God is marching on, and a new departure in missions is at hand.
'Ve cannot bring this letter to a close without remarking upon the grand men and women who in this great Scotch metropolis are arrayed on the side of Christian faith and Christian Missions. 'Ye seem to be back in the times of old when there were "giants on the earth in those days." Think Qf a series of meetings in the interest of }Iissiom~, held day after day, with such men as Principals Cairns and Rainy, and Sir 'Villiam Muir, in the chair; when such men as Rev. Dr. Andrew 'l'hompson, George Smith,LL.D., Dr. 'Velsh, Professors Laidlaw, Blaikie and I.indsay, and 'l'homas Smith, D.D.; Reverends 'Vm. Balfour, tVm Stevenson, 'Vm. Robertson, John McMartrie, Dr. Norman McLeod and Dr. Alison; Duncan McLarew, Esq., and John, Smith, Esq., Professors Calderwood and Johnstone and A. R. Simpson, M.D.; with Reverends W m. Grant and R. Craig, and I . ord Kinnaird, from I"ondon, Principal Simon, Mrs. ,Jane .Millel', representing the Friends, and a host of others, came together to OffCl' the right hand of fellowship in behalf of all branches of the Presbyterian Church, the Baptist~, Episcopalian~, Friends, etc. The Committee having in charge the details of my Tour of the Churches have made singularly complete and satisfactory arrange- ments. They have secured one or two 1'Iissionairies, now at home from their fields, to accompany me. Mrs. Edge is a ready and accomplished speaker and gives vivid glimpses of Chinese home life and sociallif~, showing the marked influence of the gospel in modifying and transforming especially the women and girls of the Celestial Empire. Rev. Henry Rice is one of the most fluent, intelligent and strik~ ing speakers on Missions that it has been my good fortune to hear. He touches with rare skill the salient points of Missions, and gives both picturesque and impressive views of East Indian religions and customs. His book, recently published, on " Native Life in India," printed by the London Religious Tract Society, compresses into a brief Rpace an immense amount of interesting and instructive matter. He is full of missionary zeal, and zeal according to knowledge. It is with not a little gratification that we add such a man to our REVIEW list of Editorial Correspondents, and announce a series of articles as ab.out to appear in these pages from his instructive and attractive pen.
The details of these meetings we have given to some degree, because these pages will be read not only in Great Britain and the United States and Canada, but in far off lands where Christ's Godly messengers are telling the old, old story. Such a movement at the great centers of Christendom will be felt at the outermost bounds, as a mighty heart throb pulses warm life blood to the extremities of the body. And we bid all missionaries in God's name, "Be of Good Cheer." There is a revival of missiollary knowledge and zeal at home, and it means blessing abroad. The key note struck at the opening meeting was" the gospel to be published through all the world in this generation," and this thought seems to be taking possession of the most earnest, prayerful and consecrated men and women on both sides of the sea. God has given us a thousand facilities unknown to our ancestors. lIe has thrown open the doors to the nations and challenged us to enter in and possess the land. "Vhat are we waiting for? AU things are now ready. A united movement all along the lines-more men and women to the front, and the Church of God backing them up with more money and prayer and sympathy; more Godly parents giving their children to God and to Missions from the cradle; morc enterprise for God, pushing the conquests of the cr08S as we push seculal' and scientific endeavor for objects infinitely less i~portant – who can tell what glorious and speedy results may follow a true awakening of the Church of God to the duty and privilege of proclaiming the gospPl to every creature!
THE CHARITIES OF GERMANY
THE CHARITIES OJ!' GERMANY.
BY REV. A. n. BRADFORD, D.D, ~rO~TGLAIR, X. J.
[We offer no apology for embracing "C'harities" in the gospel of Missionary work. The mission of the Master did not overlook them-nay, specially honored them. The Church of Christ has ever been foremost in this work, The true Missionary will find work to do wherever the poor, the suffering, the unfortunate and criminal classes are found, and they are found in great numbers in, Christian lands as well as in heathen. We are sure this paper will be read with ini!erest,-J, M. S.] I Christianity has been called "the romance of the poor." What- ever controversies have marked the history of the Church, and how- ever deeply stained its pages may be with tears and blood, from the first its progress may be traced in the development of charities. It created charity. Paganism had no place for the aged, the infirm, for children without friends. It peopled its schools of gladiators and houses of prostitution from those who, in our time, are beautifully called "the children of the public." Charities are the necessary fruit of Christianity. ,'rhe world has not yet grasped the significance of the incamation-God entering into human conditions to save the outcast and the sinful. 'Vherever Christ has been preached, instantly there have arisen institutions whose object has been the amelioration of human suffering. Philanthropy and Chl·ist.ianity are inseparable.
Lecky, in his History of European Morals, says: "The high conception which has been formed of the sanctity of human life, the protection of infancy, the elevation and final emancipation of the slaveclasses, the suppression of barbarous games, the creation of a vast and multifarious organization of chllxity, the education of the imagination by the Christian type, constitute together a movement of philanthropy which has never been paralleled or approached in the Pagan world." * One form of Christianity devotes its energies to making conver- sions; another form seeks by Christian nurture to place around the children of the poor and vicious such conditions as shall make the new life a second and better nature.
Dr. Channing, in an eloquent passage, says: " Society has hitherto employed its energies chiefly to punish crime. It is infinitely more important to prevent it. And this I say not for the sake of those alone on whom the criminal preys. I do not think only or chiefly of those who suffer from crime. I plead also, and plead more, for those who perpetrate it. In moments of clear, calm thought, I feel more for the wrongdoer than for him who is wronged. In a case of theft, incomparably the most wretched man is he who steals, not he who is robbed. What I want is not merely that society shall protect itself against crime, but that it shall do all that it can to preserve its exposed members from crime. It ought not to breed monsters in its own bosom. If it will not use its prosperity to save the ignorant and the poor from the blackest vice, then it must suffer, and deserves to suffer, from crime. If the child be left to grow up in utter ignorance of duty, of its Maker, of its relations to society, in an atmosphere of profaneness and intemperance, and in practice of falsehood and fraud, let not the community complain of its crime. It has quietly looked on and seen him, year after year • '.,1. II, p,lUO, arming himself against its order and peace; and who is most to blame when at last he deals the guilty blow?"
The conception of Christianity which recognizes in it a gospel for the whole life of man, for man physical as well as spiritual-this gospel of a healthful environment as well as of free forgiveness-is day by day coming into fnIler recognition.
The subject of Charity in Germany is too large for one paper, and. therefore this is chiefly limited to those forms of philanthropy which are known as "Child-saving." 'rhe one exception is that universal chai'ity at Kaiserswerth which could not, with propriety, be classified in any department of philanthropic work but seems rather to embrace them all.
The work of child-saving was begun in Germany in 1695, by August Hermann Franke, in the city of Halle. Franke was a German minister and teacher, and Professor in the University of Halle. "He commenced with a capital of three dollars and a half. ,Vhen he received it, he said: 'With this I must do a great work.'" Halle is a beautiful city of about 70,000 inhabitants, ill N orthel'l1 Germany. It is best known as the seat of one of the largest German Universities. It has always been a center of evangelical theology. It must be rememc bered, however, that that term is more inclusive ill Germany than in America. The University has been a favorite with American students, especially in its theological department. Halle is distinguished not only for its institutions of learning, but equally for its orphan asylums, which Ol'iginated as fullows: It was the custom for beggars, on certain days, to seek alms at private houses. Not satisfied with merely giving them bread for their bodies, Franke began to catechise them, both the old and the young. He discovered among them such utter ignorance of religion that he began to think of providing a school for them. "He opened a little school in his study; in less than a year he found the place too small. He was pained, however, to see that the children's home-life destroyed what his school had builded up. He therefore formed the idea of taking the entire training of a few children upon himself. A house was purchased for this school; twelve were received into it. The next year a new house was purchased."
Rapidly the institution grew. There was no capital, and yet the work flomished. Faith and prayer were his capital. Franke himself said: "From week to week, from month to month, has the Lord crumbled to me, even as one crumbles the bread to little chickens." A Home for Unmarried Women followed the Orphan Asylum; then a Home for Widows. Around these centers schools were founded in which students of the University became teachers. One curious means of help was devised by an eminent physician who gave the institutions the receipts for some very valuable remedies. The sale of the medicines added greatly to the revenue of the charities. They were widely sold in Germany, and even in America and Africa. Another auxiliary enterprise was the Orphan House Book Establishment, conducted by a man named Elers, who put his income at the disposal of the Orphan House, and was content to receive clothing and food. The work among the orphans and the poor at home was followed by Missionary and Bible work in Germany and foreign lands.
There is little about the managem'ent of these charities to distinguish them from others. Dormitories, laundries, school rooms, and play grounds are everywhere the same. The difference between institutions of this kind is chiefly in the system. The congregate and the cottage systems both have their advocates. The Asylums at Halle belong to the former class. His friend Elers once asked Franke as to who had taught him this work. His reply was, "My mother's love." The secret of his marvellous career is in that answer. When King Frederick William first saw the Orphan House, 1713, and was conducted through the book-stores and the warehouses, he was amazed; and he asked Elers how much he got out of all tIllS r " Your Majesty," replied Elers, "only just what you see." Then the King clapped Franke upon the shoulder and said, "Now I see how he accomplishes so much. I have no such servants."
The establishment still remains, and its influence is boundless. The buildings are a quarter of a rile in length, and six stories high, built around an oblong court-yard. In the court-yard is a bronze statue of Franke, by Rauch. In the Asylum are sheltered about 500 children, while schools, a labratory, a printing office, and many charitable associations find a home under its hospitable roofs. If Franke had been a soldier and displayed such courage and zeal, his country would have built him a splendid monument in the capital. If he had been a Romanist, he would have been enrolled among the saints. He was both a soldier and a saint, but he needs no monument and no canonization, for his works do follow him.
The ancient city of Erfurt is picturesque and quaint. It is chiefly celebrated because of its connection with the history of Luther. There he was a monk and a professor. There he had that terrible inward conflict which ended with his discovery of the Bible in the library of his monastery. In that old church he preached. There are still the cells in which he lived and worked. '1'he very place where he found the Bible is still in good preservation. If you would find that old church and monastery ask almost anybody for the "Martinstift." The monastery has been born again. It is now a school, and a home for poor children taken from the streets and prisons. The principle of management is not different from that of other institutions of the kind, and the advantages offered are not so numerous as in some other homes. As in the asylums at Halle, the congregate system is in uSe. Two things especially distinguish this home and school. First, it is not only for children from the street, but from the prisons also. A prison with children in it is a school where criminals are trained. This was clearly recognized by Rector Charles Reinthaler, who founded the Martinstift in 1819. The second fact which distinguishes this institution is that it is the noblest monument to Luther in all Germany. Germany honors Luther as Scotland honors Bruce; His figure in the attitude of a preacher, or a doctor of philosophy, is at Eisenach, at Eisleben. at Erfurt, at Wittenberg; but this home for the homeless, which is nobler than any bronze, is his most appropriate memorial; for it is an unfailing benediction to those who are as desolate as he was in Eisenach, where Frau von Cotta was charmed by the sweetness of his voice, and divided with him her living.
Vienna is, in many respects, the most beautiful, and I think in all respects, the most corrupt capital in EUI·ope. Its buildings surpass even those of Paris. St. Stepheu's is hardly inferior to Notre Dame, and the Votive Church is, in its way, quite as wonderful as La Made- leine. The University buildings are the most splendid for the.purpose in the world.
Two facts conspire to make "child-saving" especially imperative and especially difficult in Vienna. It is imperative because of the vast number of illegitimate, and consequently neglect.ed children. There are about 50,000 women in Vienna licensed to lives of shame, and, perhaps, as many more who are not licensed but whose lives are equally illicit. The number of homeless children where such moral conditions prevail is always large; and to care for them without increasing vice or diminishing the con- sciousness of responsibility on the part of those who bear children, is always difficult. The difficulty is increased by the poverty of the lower classes. There are rumors of dynamite conspiracies in Vienna. They were to have been expected. People who are oppressed, as the poor are there, . will sometimes break their chains and rebel. Women who work all day on buildings, doing what we call hod-carrying, get 40 cents; masons get 75 cents a day. Women who make shirts get 75 cents a dozen. Farm-laborers are cared for, and get from ten to twenty cents a day for doing what, in this country, in harvest time, a man would get $4 for doing. Meat costs about the same there as in New York, but meat is not for the poor. Nowhere in the world is woman's labor so poorly paid. Women in the postoffice and telegraph departments get from $5 to $7.50 a month, and "find themselves." They never have a home furnished with their work; that favor is only for men, and rarely for them. On the other hand, there are numerous day-nurseries, or creches, provided by the government, where the children of the poor may be placed while the parents are at work. Crime and suffering are compulsory where such wage~ are paid.· When pe0ple thus treated learn their power, the existing social order always trembles. That time has already come in Vienna.
Seeking what was being done in that city of splendor and infamy to relieve or to prevent pauperism and crime, I was directed to the Waisenhaus, a Roman Catholic institution, under the direction of " The Brothers of Christian Love." This, in its equipment, is the most complete institution of the kind I have ever seen. It is supported by its endowments. The congregate system is in. use. It has four dormitories, and provides a home for three hundred and sixty boys. After the uniform excellence of the appointments, that which especially distinguishes the institution are the facilities afforded for education. For instance, in the musical department I counted six pianos and three organs, in as many rooms. In other rooms were other instruments. The Museum of Natural History, one of the best equipped in the city and filling a;n immense space, is in daily use. The wash rooms are as interesting as the school rooms. Each boy has his towel and his box: of toilet articles, and the neatness and order are perfect. The older boys rise at five, and those younger a half-hour later. Their study-hour is from quarter before six to quarter before seven. A very large proportion of these boys are waifs. They have no idea of any other home. No motives of love inspire them. The poorest learn trades, and the higher class prepare to be clerks or to enter the army. The fact that they do not know their parentage does not indicate that their parentage is unknown; on the other hand, it is often known, and it is no contradiction to speak of waifs of "higher" and" lower" classes. The order and advantages of the institution were well nigh perfect. The Brothers were exceedingly courteous, and yet there was something about them which was positively repellant. I left the place feeling that it was not good to be there. "The Brothers of Christian Love" are evidently affected by the moral atmosphere around them. The Superior, for instance, spoke of woman, and of unfortunate children, lightly and flippantly. He seemed to have no profound appreciation of the misery he was seeking to relieve. I may do him injustice. Individuals often receive the censure which belongs to the social order. The Waisenhaus is a wonderful institution, but splendor of equipment and perfection of organization can never compensate for the absence of moral earnestness. Thus one of the most splendid charities in Europe made on me the impression of being simply a great machine for providing for illegitimate children. "The Brothers of Christian Love" may be the noblest and most self-sacrificing of men, but the environment of corrupt social life seems to have affected their ways of looking at things. if not· their characters and principles of work. It could hardly be otherwise.
The location of Hamburg is as beautitul as are the buildings of Vienna, and its residences, especially around the Alster Binnen, are worthy of this location. It is the commercial center of Germany, to that Empire what Glasgow and Liverpool are to Great Britain. A few miles out of Hamburg, at Horn, is the Rauhe Haus, which divides with Kaiserswerth the glory of being the most prominent charitable institution in the nation. It consists of a series of buildings around a small park. Each house is a home by itself. The dor- mitories and school rooms have nothing peculiar about them. "Vhat especially impressed me there was the attention given to industrial training, and to the religious nurture of the children. There is a ~ystem of mutual education going on all the time. The teachers, ", Brothers" they are called, who have charge, a,re preparing for other work. They are to be city missionaries and are serving their apprenticeship with children from the lowest and vilest city wards. A man who knows a street boy knows a city's darker side. The boys are training the men and the men are trainiJlg the boys. The " Brothers" remain, I think, for three years.
Three characteristics distinguish the Rauhe Haus. It is a congeries of families, each with its 110me and home-life; it provides industrial education of a very thorough kind; and is a place for the training of city missionaries as well as outcast children. It has it higher department called the Pensionate, where those fitted for it receive the same instruction as in the best German Gymnasia. This institution was founded by Dr. John Henry Wichern and his mother, in November, 18;:13. Dr. Wines says: "The fundamental idea of the Rauhe Haus is that of the famil:y, and it is the mother of all those child-sa,ing institutions, of which the number is continually increasing, that have since been organized on the family plan." Perhaps the finest example of the perfection to which this plan may be carried, is the village of Girls' Homes, at lIford, Essex, neal' London, which is a part of the wonderful sPl'ie~ of charities founded by Dr. Bernardo. There are thirty beautiful brick houses built around a small park, each with its own "Mother," and family from the London slums. But the Rauhe Haus antedated Dr. Bernardo's Homes by at least forty years.
Some one asked Dr. ",Yichern how he was able to produce such wonderful changes in the conduct of children under his care. His reply reveals the secret of his success: "By the word of God and music." The religious training of the children is given the first place. Everything is made bright and beautiful. When possible, each child has its own flower bed; flowers help in the work of educa-. tion. Dr. Wichern once said that "the man who cannot play and enter into the plays of chhhood with his whole heart, is unfit to be an assistant in a child-saving institution." I cannot better describe the spirit of this institution than by quoting words spoken at a public meeting held in Hamburg prior to its opening, by Syndic Sieveking. He said: " The children's institution was not to be a workhouse, nor an orphanage, nor a place of punishment, nor a house of correction; but an institution that allied itself to the family, to the gospel, to the forgiveness of sins, to the first and last thought, that is to the essential nature and work of Christianity." * It is impossible even to mention all the names of the distinguished workers in the field of Charity in Germany. Pestalozzi, the founder of the Kindergarten, did a noble work, but in it the religious element was lackin£,. "At the age of eighty he saw for the first time what he had been striving for for his whole life, when, in 1826, he visited the institution of the venerable Zell'er at Beuggen. When the children of that institution presented him with a beautiful wreath, as they sang one of their sweet hymns, Pestolozzi said.to Zeller: 'This is what I wanted to accomplish.' His mistake was that, in his school at Stanz, there was no place for religious instruction." t In these child-saving institutions in the German Empire, there are' fewer girls than boys. Some of these Homes are managed by the State, and children are sent to .them as punishment; but these must not be confounded with what is done by individuals. There were about three hundred and sixty of the institutions in 1880. Wurtemburg leads all the German States in this work.
" The Deaconess Institution of Rhenish",Yestphalia," at Kaiserswerth, is the most remarkable charity in.Germany, if not in the world. On a dismal day in August I visited Kaiserswerth. The ride from Cologne by train is about one hour to Calcum, and then about a halfhOllr by carriage. The country around is flat and damp, like most of • Wines' State Prisons and Child·Saving Institutions, p. 74. t Wines' Child-SaVIng Institution, p. GOO. that along the lower Rhine. We were set down at the post-office, and then sought the institutions. We could find little besides; they make the town. There is a famous Roman Catholic church, but it attracts little attention. But first, how did we come to be interested in Kaiserswerth? By reading the lives of Elizabeth Fry, Agnes Jones, and Florence Nightingale. Elizabeth Fry unconsciously inspired its ol'lgm. Florence Nightingale and Agnes Jones both resided there and received the instruction and studied the examples which were to stimulate their lives of heroism and sacrifice. A young German pas- tor, Fliedner by name, was settled in Kaiserswerth about fifty years ago. A period of financial depression compelled him to seek foreign help for the continuance of his work. He went to England. He met Elizabeth Fry who was in the midst of her career in the London prisons. From her words and example, Fliedner was moved to go home and attempt the same work. Soon after his return a degraded woman, named Minna, a discharged prisoner, came to him for help.
There was no room in his own house, but there was a little summer- house adjoining. He gave her a home in that, where she could be under the watchful eye of his wife. Soon another homeless and abandoned woman came to him. She, too, was sheltered in the sum- mer-house. There was no place for them to sleep except an attic in the same building, to which they climbed by a ladder. When they reached this place of rest the ladder was removed. That was the beginning of the Deaconess Institution at Kaiserswerth. Now it contains the following departments of philanthropic work: The Mother-house and Hospital where the deaconesses chiefly reside; the Penitentiary where women discharged frolll prison find a home until they can get a new start for a better life; the Training College for teachers, with an infant school; the Orphanage; the Lunatic Asylum for women; the House of Evening Rest for deaconesses no ionger able to work; Paul Gerhard's Home for women, chiefly invalids; a school f()r the training of deaconesses; a school for girls; numerous hospitals, etc., etc.
The exterior of the buildings is severely plain and simple. Many of them are connected. The halls are apparently endless. All is quiet, cleanly and cheerful. In one room children are taught; in another, babies are tended; in another, the sick are nursed; in another, girls just out of prison are trained to industrious and virtuous habits; in another, surgical operations are performed; another is a chapel; another is a parlor for old women; all around are little bed-rooms; and in all is the appearance of a charming and beautiful home. Our guide through these institutions was Sister Charlotte Drude, a tall, gaunt, angular, but exceedingly attractive German woman who has been long in the Sisterhood. Her hospitality and enthusiasm were boundless, and her love for philanthropic work an inspiration. The present Director at Kaiserswerth is Julius Disselhoff, a son-in-law of the founder; and a son, a second Pastor Fliedner, is the chaplain.
Kaiserswerth has literally reached around the world. It is now fifty years old. The Training-school for Nurses, at Salem, near Rati- gen; an Orphanage at Altdorf; a Boarding-school at Heldern; the :Martha'sJIome at Berlin, with infant and elementary school attached; the :Martha's home at Dusseldorf, with infant school; the Home for Prisoners, and the Asylum at Brandenburg; the Convalescent Home for Deaconesses and Children at ""Vallbaum, are all owned by the same society and managed and served by these Sisters. Outside <>f Germany, there is the Talitha-cumi Hospital and School at J erusalem; the School and Orphanage at Smyrna; the Hospital at Alexandria in Egypt; the Orphanage and Boarding-school at Beyroot, in Syria; a Boarding-school in Florence; and minor stations in almost all lands. The Deaconess work of modern times was begun at Kaiserswerth. It has increased marvellously. In 1880 there were fifty-three Central Deaconess institutions, with more than forty-eight hundred Deaconesses working in more than fifteen hundred different places. They were like angels on German battle fields. They nurse, and they preach; they bind wounds, and tell "the old, old. story." For both <>ffices they are trained. No vows are taken. At the consecration to the office, the new Deaconess _promises to be true to her calling, and to live in the fear of God and according to His holy Word. They nurse over 50,000 patients annually, and consequently preach Christ to at least the same number. Theyare the most persuasive preachers, for their message goes to hearts already opened by gratitude. They can leave when they choose, to go to their friends, to marry, to do what they will. Few choose to return to society. Those who wish to become Sisters pass through a course of preparation extending over five years, under the direction of those with whom they are later to be associated. They can be sent anywhere, but may decline any service. N one do decline. They realize that their place is in the midst of the world's suffering, and they covet the hardest posts, like soldiers in battle.
The rooms for the Deaconesses are plain, but comfortable. One into which we were shown was decorated with flowers for a Sister who was, in a few hours, expected home from work in a foreign land. She was worn out and sick, and was coming home to rest; and it was a place as sweet and inviting for one weary with anxiety and labor as the most exacting could desire. The Sisters receive no pay fOJ: anything they do. Their only reward is the consciousness of serving Christ and humanity. They are cared for while they live, and buried when they die; God takes care of the rest. Some belong to the nobility, some to the middle classes, some to the poor, and all to the Kingdom of God.
This Deaconess institution has started others like it in different parts of the world, and thus its work is both direct and indirect. In England and the United States similar Sisterhoods are already in operation, and the sphere of woman's work in the amelioration of human ills is without discernible limit. The seed sown by Pastor Fliedner has grown beyond his most sanguine dreams. Incidentally he came in contact with Florence Nightingale and Agnes Jones. The
THE JUBILEE OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION
former has revolutionized the war-hospitals of England and all the colonies, and effected sanitary reforms wherever the English armies have gone. The latter, in a few short years of service in the Liverpool workhouse hospital, effected reforms among workhouse hospitals hardly less remarkable in their way than those of her more illustrioU'S sister. The influence of these women is felt in almost all institutions for child-saving and for the alleviation of pain, and the reform of criminals in Great Britain and America. The mustard seed which Fliedner planted is already a great tree whose branches reach into all lands.
No attempt has been made in this paper to compare the methods of charity in Germany with those among English-speaking people. In many respects they are radically different, but in more respects alike. It is enough to say that charity is the expression of love, and love is not limited by social or racial distinctions. Its forms of manifestations are everywhere the same, and so charity employs substantially the same methods and works toward the same ends among all people.
THE JUBILEE OF THE NEW HEBRIDES MISSION.
BY REV. ROBERT STEEL, D.D., SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WAI~ES.
In November, 1839, fifty years ago, the" Apostle of Polynesia'~ -John Williams-gave his life in an eNdeavor to pioneer the gospel of Jesus Christ in the islands of the New Hebrides. He had heard of the savage cannibals of Eromanga, and of the many atrocities committed by them; but as he knew the effects of Christianity on some of the Polynesian isla-nds, he was anxious to extend its blessings .to other groups. He had awakened an immense interest in South Sea Missions by his visit to England and by the publication of his "Missionary Enterprises." No book of its class ever created so great a sensation. The Archbishop of Canterbury, after perusing it, declared that it read like a new chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Peers and Peeresses not only read it, but sent their donations to aid the work of evangelization in Polynesia. The press reviewed it with favor. In a few years 40,000 copies were sold. John 'Villiams became the hero of the hour, and many sympathizing friends breathed their benedictions as he sailed away on his new mission for the extension of the gospel among the isles of the Pacific. It was not long after his return to the scenes of his triumphs in Raratonga and Samoa that he set his heart on a visit to the New Hebrides. It had been one of his philanthropic utterances: "It is our duty to visit surrounding islands. For my own part, I cannot content myself within the limits of a single reef." He, therefore, took twelve native teach('rs as pioneers and sailed in the Oamden, under Captain Morgan, for the New Hebrides in 1839. As the vessel neared the group he was all anxiety as to whether the savages would receive him in a friendly spirit, and allow the landing of a few of the teachers to prepare the way of the Lord. The first island of the grOtlp at which the vessel touched was Futuna, a huge rock which rises up 2,000 feet above the sea. The natives there were friendly, but there was not opportunity for making arrangements to locate teachers. It was otherwise at Tanna. The harbor of Port Resolution was a safe anchorage, and had been visited by European traders. The chief promised protection to the Samoan teachers, and three were left. To Mr. Williams this was a notable event. lIe wrote of it in his journal thus: "This is a memorable day, a day which willbe transmitted to posterity, and the record of the events which have this day transpired will exist after those who have taken part in them have retired into the shades of oblivion."
He little thought that the very next day would be rendered still more memorable, not indeed by the landing of teachers, but by his own martyr death at Eromanga, on the 20th of November, 1839. He landed, along with Mr. Harris, a young man sailing in the Camden, and seriously thinking of giving himself to missionary work. CaptainMorgan and Mr. Cunningham also landed. All seemed pleasant at first, and the party proceeded inland along the banks of the river at Dillon's Bay. Suddenly a shout was heard. The natives became hostile, and it was necessary to seek safety in the boats. Captain Morgan and Mr. Cunningham were nearest to the shore and got into their boat. Mr. Harris was struck and fell into the river. Mr. 'Vil- Iiams was clubbed just as he reached the bay. No help could be given, and their friends in the boat saw the natives spear and kill both Williams and Harris. Arrows flew around the boat, and the men had to pull for their lives. The bodies of the martyr pioneers were dragged into the bush by the infuriated cannibals for their horrid feast. When the vessel reached Samoa great sorrow was awakened by the heavy·tidings of the death of John ·Williams. From island to island the wailing cry arose, "Aue Williamu! Aue Tawa!-Ala~, Williams! Alas, our Father I"
But as of old, "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the <lhurch." It was at once resolved by the mission brethren in Samoa that another effort should be made to place Christian teachers on blood-stained Eromanga. The Rev. T. Heath offered to lead the forlorn hope on the condition that if he also fell, another man should take the colors. He succeeded in his effort, and in 1840, six months after the death of 'Villiams, two Christian Samoan teachers were landed. A veteran survivor of that eventful period, the Rev. A. ,Yo Murray, author of the "Martyrs of Polynesia," "The Bible in the Pacific," and other works on missionR, visited the island in 1841, when Mrs. Williams was on boanl the mission vessel on her way to England and saw the scene of her devoted husband's death in the cause he loved. The teachers were fOl:nd alive, but they had a tale of living martyrdom to relate, and had experienced so many sufferings and hardships that they had to be removed. In England, after the sad intelligence of the death of the heroic vVilliams, it was also resolved by the directors of the London ~lissionary Society to· endeavor to plant the standard of the Cross at once as near as possible to the spot where the apostolic pioneer had fallen. Two young missionaries, with their brave wives, were forthcoming, ready to take their lives in their hands and go on the perilous enterprise. Messrs. Nisbet and Turner reached Tanna in June, 1842, and got what seemed a hopeful reception from the chiefs and natives of Port Resolution. "But," Dr. Turner says, "we had not been twenty-four hours on shore until we found that we were among a set of notorious thieves, perfect Spartans in the trade, and like the ancient code of Lycurgus, the crime seemed to be not the stealing, but the being found out." For seven dreary months the little mission party tried all their arts of conciliation in vain. Difficulties increased, and their lives were in imminent danger. At last, in dead of night, they had to seek safety in an open boat, but they were driven back. It was a critical condition for them to occupy; but providentially a trading vessel called the next day, and they got a passage to Samoa, where for many years they rendered fruitful service to the work of missions, and in the closing years of their residence trained many native teachers ana pastors and aided the work of translation and revised translations of Scripture, till thcy carried through the press an edition of the whole Bible with references in the language of Samoa. The London Missionary Society'S vessel from year to year sailed through the New Hebrides group, and the deputies on board, as Mr. Murray minutely testifies, watched for opportunities of locating teachers on several islands. Much is due to the brave enterprise of these devoted brethren in connection with the New Hebrides .Mission, and it becomes us, as we recall the work of fifty years ago, to record the fact that it was the London Missionary Society that pioneered the gospel to these islands where, in subsequent years, the Presbyterian missionaries had their trials and triumphs. It was their vessel that conveyed the first Presbyterian missionary. It was one of their missionaries that stayed with him during his first year. By their deputies he was visited and cheered from time to time. The Jubilee honors and rejoicings of the mission mu~t, therefore, be shared by that great society.
The first resident missionary on the New Hebrides was a Presbyterian-the Rev. John Geddie. He was a native of Banff, in Scotland, but had been taken in his infancy to Nova Scotia, where he became, in course of time, a student for the ministry. He was licensed to preach when he was only twenty-two years of age, and was ordained as a pastor at Cavendish, in Prince Edward Island, within a year thereafter. He was connected with a church compara- tively small and poor, and unable to afford more than a scanty income, often much in arrear', to its ministers, yet he had the courage to pro- pose that a Foreign Mission should be adopted. It is recorded that when he made known his views" there was not a man in the church who thought it practicable. Many looked upon it as utterly chimeri- cal, and were ready to pour contempt upon it as folly, while even his f~iends received the proposal with a smile of incredulity." The Church had in all only thirty congregations in the Provinces, and most were poor and str·uggling. Mr. Geddie, however, persevered, and in the course of a few years, carried his motion in the Synod. Vhen the proposal to seek a missionary was made, it was carried only by a majority of one! The attention of the Board was directed toward the islands where John Villiams laid down his life, and at length it was agreed that New Caledonia should be the field of their mission. That island had been named by MI'. Villiams to the Secession Church in Scotland as a sphere that might be occupied by their agents. Mr. Geddie belonged to that branch of the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia. He offered himself to the work~ and was accepted. He knew how little could be expected in the way of support; but he was not to be daunted. After visiting all the congregations of the Synod, and endeavoring to excite a prayerful and liberal. interest in the mission, he stw.died medicine for a time. In November, 1846, he sailed along with his wife and family. He was detained at Boston for two months before he found a vessel sailing for the Pacific, and even then the port to which a passage could be got was Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands, far from the contemplated sphere in the South Seas. Six dreary months were spent in rounding Cape Horn ere they reached Honolulu, and seven weeks passed before a passage could be got to Samoa. Mr. Geddie had, however, an opportunity of seeing the working of the IIawaian Mission, and afterwards that of Samoa. Vhen he reached the latter place, he found that no opportunity could be got to reach New Caledonia 01' the Loyalty Islands for six or seven months, when the mission vessel John TVilliams wottld call. Besides, there then seemed no opening in these islands, as the energetic Bishop of New Zealand (Dr. Selwyn) had expressed a wish to conduct missionary work there. One of the islands of the New Hebrides afforded a single gleam of hope, and Mr. Geddie, with the advice of brethren at Samoa, agreerl to undertake a mission there. The venerable MI'. Murray, who still sllrvives, was a chief adviser and helper of Mr. Geddie during this period. It was proposed that one of the Samoan missionaries should accompany Mr. Geddie for a year, and the Rev. Mr. Bullen was chosen to do so, but amidst preparation for the expedition Mr. Bullen died. The Rev. T. Powell at the last moment offered to go with Mr. Geddie, and they left in July, 1848., They reached the most southerly island of the New Hebrides-Aneit- yum-where some native teachers had been settled, but what was the surprise of the mission party to find eight Roman Catholic priests and eight lay brothers already established in the island! The mission vessel then cruised throughout the group, calling at the stations where native teachers had be~n left. It was hoped that Mr. Geddie might find a home on the island of Fate. An awful tragedy had, however, taken place there the previous year when the British Sovereign had been wrecked. The crew were all saved with one exception. The natives appeared at first to treat them kindly, but it was only to allay suspicion. The whole of the survivors, twenty-one in number, each being placed between two savages in a march, on a given signal were brutally massacred, and their bodies, divided among the villages, were cooked and eaten by the cannibal people. It was selfevident that a missionary could not at that time be safely settled in that quarter. The mission vessel returned to the South, and Mr. and Mrs. Geddie, with an assistant, found an opening at Aneityum, where they settled under the protection of the chief at the harbor. The Rev. 'r. Powell remained with them for a year. The Roman Catho- lic priests and brothers left soon after and never returned. The Geddies had to pass through a hard and trying expet:ience in dealing with a people so low and savage. Their property was stolen, their hollse threatened with fire, and their very lives imperilled. Meantime the horrid custom of strangling widows on the death of their husbands continued. Inter-tribal fighting was chronic, and people wel'e afraid to go from one side of the island to the other for fear of being killed, cooked and eaten. There was little to encourage the mission party. They were, however, cheered by a friendly visit of Bishop Selwyn, who remained a fortnight on the island, and traveled on foot with Mr. Geddie to see as much of native life as he could. He kindly offered the use of a cottage at Auckland to Mr. or 1'lrs. Geddie should they need a change for a few months to recruit their health. On his voyage in 1852 the Bishop conveyed the Rev. John Inglis and his wife, with all their furniture, house and luggage, to Aneityum. Mr. Inglis was a minister of the Reformed or Covenanting Church in Scotland, and it was a pleasing circumstance that an Anglican prelate thus aided the Covenanter. Bishop Selwyn ever after kept up this friendly relation, and also introduced Bishop Patterson to these brethren. He even asked Presbyterians in·New Zealand to contribute, and on one occasion brought over £100 to Messrs. Geddie and Inglis.
By the time Mr. Inglis had settled on the opposite side of the island, the tide had turned in favor of Christianity at ~fr. Geddie's station. Fifteen had been baptized, and the I.ord's Supper had been observed on the visit of the London Missionary Society's deputation that year iu the John Williams. The two missionaries occupied different sides of the island, but labored with equal zeal and great cordiality. They preached, taught in school,., translated Scriptures, composed, and Mr. Geddie printed a class-book, built premiseA, and exercised an influence for good all over the island. Young people were all taught to read and write, congregations were organized with elders and deacons, fifty day-schools established, and over 2,000 persons admitted into the visible Church by baptism. The whole people were evangelized. It was a marvellous change in a degraded and cannibal people. At length the whole Scriptures were translated, and first the New, and ultimately the Old, Testament were printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, but paid for by the contributions of arrowroot from the Christian converts. After a visit to Nova Scotia in 1863, where he got the translation of the Book of Psalms printed, Mr. Geddie returned with the honorary degree of D.D., from the Queen's University in Canada, to resume his labors. But he had to retire in 1872, prematurely aged by his toils and exposures. He died at Geelong in the end of that year, leaving a widow, one son and four daughters. Two of the latter were married to missionaries on the New Hebrides. He was a noble, self-denying pieneer, and led many into the fold of Christ. He had a happy way of dealing with the natives, and was also very handy in work. It was my privilege, by the kindness of a few friends, to place a wooden tablet to his memory on the wall of the stone church he had erected at Anelgauhat, Aneityum. The record of his labors, inscribed on it in the native language, concludes with these words, " ,Vhen he landed here in 1848, there were no Christians, and when he left here in 1872, there were no heathens." Since first published, this inscription has gone round the world, increasing in value, as it was retold, until the latest account makes the tablet marble and the letters gold!
Mr. Inglis continued at his station till 1877, and then retired to carry the Old Testament through the Press in London. He also published his translation of the Shorter Catechism and Mr. Geddie's abridged translation of the first part of the" Pilgrim's Progress," and some hymnl'l. He added a Dictionary of Aneityumese. He received the honorary degree of D.D. from the University of Glasgow, and in a green.old age still served the mission both by speech and by books in Scotland. His patient toil, his wise management, his clear style of instruction, and his benevolent life, aided by his late excellent wife, did much for the Christianity of Aneityum. It is meet that both Dr. Geddie and Dr. Inglis should be held in grateful remembrance for their successful efforts in bringing a whole island of cannibal people into the peaceful fold of the Good Shepherd. Ainidst a decreasing population the cause of Christ has flourished on the island, and the contributions ot
"TO EVERY CREATURE."
arrowroot from the Christian church at Aneityum nearly supported their resident minister-the Rev. J. H. Lawrie. 'fhis church was the first of the Papuan race embraced within the visible kingdom of God, and it became the pioneer of others among the thirty islands of the New Hebrides.
"TO EVERY CREATURE."
BY REV. J. HUDSO"Y TAYLOR, OF THE CHINA I"YLAND MISSION.
We are nearing the close of another year, and of an important decade in the history of Missions. In our own Mission the last ten years have been specially important; at their commencement the pioneering journeys of ~fr. (now Dr.) Cameron and others of our brethren were not yet completed; woman's work in inland China was barely com- menced, and not at all in the western provinces; during this period the number of our stations and out-stations has been about doubled, and the number of missionary workers more than trebled, for in the year 1880 we had but 91 missionaries, including wives, while now it considerably exceeds 300. This decade has witnessed the out-going of the 80 missionaries whom God gave us in response to our prayers for the 70, and in the following year of 40 others, among whom were the well-known Cambridge band; many prophesied the early return of the members of this band, but we are thankful to know that they are all engaged in diligent service in inland China, and that each one has been blessed and made a blessing.
Then we have to praise God for the 100 missionaries given us in 1887, and for the more than fifty who followed them last year, including the first American party. 'Ve rejoice in first fruits gathered in many of the more recent stations, and that over 1,000 were added to our native churches by baptism during the years 1887 and 1888, with continued additions during the current year. 'Vhile some converts have undoubtedly been received prematurely, causing subsequent trial and disappointment (a result which the experiencc of the oldest missionary cannot always avert), a large proportion are showing by the fruit of the Spirit that they have really been born of God. For the 80 little missionary churches now connected with the C. 1. M., we give to God unfeigned thanks, as also for all those gathered in other districts by His honored servants, the missionaries of the various European and American societies.
When we turn, however, from the total number of Protestant communicants-under 40,000-to think of the population of China, the contrast is appalling; double, treble this number to include adherents, and suppose each adherent to be a centre of light to ten of his countrymen, and you reach but 1,000,000 of China's vast population. The Master's words are" to every creature;" how far we are from fulfilling them! In 1877 thc Confercnce of Missionaries assembled in Shanghai appealed to the Christian Church to evangelize China in the present generation, and many hoped it would be accomplished within the present century. More than half the time before the close of the century has passed, and not one-hundreth part of the people have been reached, y~t this generation is the last of sixty since our Saviour gave the command, which, as Dr. Pierson has well pointed out, has laid the responsibility on the church of each successive generation to give the gospel to each individual living in its own period.
How are we going to treat the Lord Jesus Christ in reference to this command? Shall we definitely drop the title Lord as applied to Him, and take the ground that we are quite willing to recognize Him as our Saviour Jesus, so far as the eternal penalty of sin is concerned, but are not prepared to recognize ourselves as bought with a price, or Him as having any claim to our unquestioning obedience? Shall we say that we are our own masters, willing to recognize something as His due, who bought us with His blood, provided He do not ask too much; our lives, our loved ones, our possessions are our own, not His; we will give Him what we think fit, and obey any of His commands that do not demand too great a sacrifice? To be taken to heaven by Jesus Christ we are more than willing, but we will not have this Man to reign over us.
The heart of every true Christian will unhesitatingly reject this proposition when so formulated, but have not countless lives in each generation been lived as though" it were a proper ground to take? How few of the Lord's people have recognized the truth that Christ is either Lord of all, or is not Lord at all! If we can judge God's Word instead of being judged by the "Word; if we can give to God as much or as little as we like, tlien we are lords, and He the indebted one, to be grateful for our dole, obliged by our compliance with His wishes; if, on the other hand, He is Lord, let us treat Him as such. "Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?" "If ye love Me keep My commandments." Thank God, an increasing number of His children are truly seeking to crown Him Lord of all, and are searching the Scriptures daily that they may know His will, in order to do it, praying continually, "Teach me, 0 Lord, the way of thy statutes, and I shall keep it unto the end."
To all such the Master's command, "To every creature," will come with great power; knowing it to be His will that every living human being shall be evangelized, everything that prayer and effort can do towards its accomplishment will be felt to be a privilege as well as a duty; each will ask himself, "What wilt Thou have me to do?" Will not the very youngest believers pray and give, and interest their young companions? and what mighty power there is in the simple, trustful faith of a little child who believes in Jesus! Will not those who are older recognize the probability of their being personally called to missionary labor and make definite preparation for it, that if pcrmitted a share in this holy enterprise they may be the better fitted? Shall it not become a holy ambition to all who have health and youth to court the Master's approval and tread in His steps, in seeking to save a lost world? and shall not Christian parents encourage their enthusiasm, feeling that they have nothing too precious for their Lord who gave himself for them?
There is no impossibility in our Master's command. Were the Government of England to determine on the conquest of a distant land, they would think it a small matter to land 10,000 troops in any part of the world's circumference; and the Church of God to-day could easily, within the next five years, effect the evangelization of everyone of China's millions. No very great effort was needed in America to secure the signature of over 3,000 college students to a pledge that if God opened the way they would devote themselves to missionary enterprise. Were the enthusiasm and devotion of all our churches aroused, and not merely that of a few individuals, more than that number of effective workers might easily be found on each side of the Atlantic for China alone. But no such numbers are needed in order that every man, woman, and child in China should hear the gospel once, at least. If, in addition to the workers now in the field, one thousand whole-hearted evangelists, male, and female, were set free and kept free fur this special work, they might reach the whole number of China's millions before the e::rd of the year 1895, and this allowing two years of the five for study of the language and preparation for the work. Estimating the population of China as we do at 250,000,000, there will be about 50,000,000 of families; if fifty families were reached daily for one thousand days by each of the one thousand evangelists, every creature in China could be reached in three years' time, leaving the evangelists two or three Sundays for rest each month. If it be said that unexpected hindrances would be sure to arise, it should be noted that this calculation takes no account of the help to be given by the one thousand missionary workers now in China, mainly devoted to pastoral work, to shepherding and feeding the converts; and it takes no account of the help to be given by native Christians, which would, of course, be immense and invaluable. Shall a work which one thousand workers might accomplish in three years of steady work, after two years of preparation, be thought of as chimerical, and beyond the resources of the Christian Church?
But is it reasonable to suppose that a missionary evangelist could reach on an average fifty families a day, and this all over China? In reply we may draw attention to the fact that a large proportion of thc Chinese live in courts or quadrangles containing from four to ten families each; were five the average, then to take the gospel to ten such courts would accomplish the necessary task. And this would llOt nee<1 to be uone unaided, for each missionary evangelist would easily secure the companionship of one 01' more .native Christians as helpers. There are, it is true, a few (though but a few) parts of China where the people are so hostile that we can scarcely' call them now open to this kind of effort; but it must not be forgotten that the Opener, who still holds the key of David, has given His word of promise to be with such workers "all the days." And no such effort could be made without an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church universal, which would include the native Christian churches of China, and make the tens of thousands of native Christians, apart from the foreigner, a mighty power for the evangelization of their .own people. God gives his Holy Spirit to them that obey Him. Even if the churches were unwilling to take it up, are there not 500 Christian workers in Europe who might go out at their own charges and do this grand work? But shall we suppose that the Episcopalians of England, and the Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland, have. not each among them 100 men and women fit for this glorious enterprise? that the Methodists of the United Kingdom could not provide another 100, and that Congregationalist and Baptist churches could not each supply a similar contingent? VlTe may feel well assured that the United States of America and Canada would not be behind, and thus the 1,000 evangelists might easily be forthcoming.
How shall a project like this be translated from proposition into practice? First, by earnest, believing prayer; this was our Saviour's plan, and it has been left on record for our guidance: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send fOl·th laborers into His haryest." 'Vhen we sought for the C. 1. M. the 70 and the 100 in prayer, and accepted them in faith, we received them in due course from His mighty, loving hand.
Then, if there is to be the fullest blessing, there must be the united simultaneous action of the whole body of believers; it is by "the effectual working in the measure of every part" of the members of the whole Body that its growth and building up are to be effected.
Third, There must be intelligent co-operation and such division and sub-division of the field that one part have not an undue share of workers while other parts are neglected.
Fourth, There must be Christly giving on the part of individuals and churches of their real treasures to the Lord for His service, and Christly service by those who go forth in His name. By Christly giving and service, we do not mean that which is done for Christ's sake merely, but that which is done after Christ's pattern. His service began with emptying Himself, involved toil and suffering all along the line, and enrled only with the perfect accomplishment of the object for which lIe came iuto the world.
THE CREDULITY OF SKEPTICISM
Fifth, There is no time to lose, for if we commence at once, millions of those now living in China will have passed away before the message can reach them.
Will each of our readers join us in prayer that God will send out 1,000 evangelists for China very speedily, and personally ask Him the question: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" Let us not forget that to preach the gospel to every creature, is not a mere human project, but a divine command.
THE CREDULITY OF SKEPTICISM.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
The credulity of unbelief has become proverbial. There are instances which would be amusing if the subjects were less serious, and their treatment less bitter. Almost as a rule the wildest and most preposterous theories are held by men and women who have made shipwreck of faith. They above all others are ready for a seven-fold possession.
A remarkable instance of excess of faith was brought to myatten- tion not long since, in a book entitled" The Bible in India." Looking on the title page for the authorship, I at once recognized the familiar llame of Louis J acolliot, an intense French infidel whom Professor Max Muller had mercilessly ridiculed in his lecture on "False Analogies." The book was published by a well-known firm in New York, and has doubtless given great comfort to many a foe to Christianity_ M. J acolliot, while acting as a judge in the Courts at Chandel' N agore in the Madras Presidency, warmly embraced the idea that all the religions of Western nations had been derived from India, and that a little searching would find the sources of the Old and New Testaments in the Sanskrit manuscripts. He gave his leisure hours to Sanskrit. He found pundits who were even more ready to promote his purpose than he had imagined. They produced manuscripts, he translated, and the bonanza which he had struck well nigh turned his head. He had not learned, as had others who had preceded him, that a two-fold appeal to the race pride and the cupidity of the impecunious pundits would bring forth Sanskrit treasures of any desired variety or extent.
The essential history, the ritual, and many of the important prophecies of the Old Testament, were found in a Hindu mould, and the god Krishna, 01', as Jacolliot spelled it for greater effect, "Christna," was clearly foretold. New Testament parallels in abundance were also produced, and the mercurial Frenchman was in ecstacies. He could not satisfy his enthusiasm with a plain statement of results; he must work off his overpowering emotion by the following apostrophe to India: "Soil of ancient India, cradle of humanity, hail! Hail, venerable and efficient nurse whom centuries of brutal invasions have not yet buried under the dust of oblivion! Hail, fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry, and of science! May we hail a revival of thy past in onrWesternfutnre. I have dwelt midst the depths of yonr mysterious forests, seeking to comprehend the language of your lofty natnre, and the evening airs that murmured midst the foliage of banyans and tamarinds whispered to my spirit these three magic words: Zeus, Jehovah, Brahma! ..• "
"How often have I heard on the evening air, hoarse moans, wailing complaint that seemed to rise from desert marshes, sombre pathways, rivers' banks, or woody shades, etc.! Was it the voice of the past returning to weep o'er a lost civilization and an extinguished grandeur ? Was it the expiring groan of Sepoys mowed down pele mele by grape, with their wives and, children, after the revolt, by some red-jackets who thus revenged their own pain? "
. . . " Then it was that I sought to lift the obscuring veil from the past, and backward trace the origin of this dying people, who, without energy for either hatred or affection, without enth~iasm for either virtue or vice, seem to personate an actor doomed to act out his part before an audience of statues. How glorious the epoch that then presented itself to my study and comprehension. I made tradition speak from the temple's recess, I inquired of monuments and ruins, I questioned the Vedas, whose pages count their existence by thousands of years, and whence inquiring youth imbibed the science of life long before Thebes of the hundred gates or Babylon the Great had traced out their foundations . . . "
"And then did India appear to me in all the living power of her originality -I traced her progress in the expansion of her enlightenment over the world- I saw her giving her laws, her customs, her morals and her religion to Egypt, to Persia, to Greece and to Rome. I saw Djenimyand Veda-Vyasa precede Socrates and Plato-and Christna, the son of the Virgin Devanagny (in Sanskrit created by God), precede the son of the Virgin of Bethlehem."
J acolliot's theory applies to the Greek and Latin classics as well as to the Old and New Testament Scriptures. The civilization of Egypt has also been borrowed from" the fatherland of faith, of love, of poetry and of science." The Justinian Pandects of Rome were traced to the Laws of Manu, and all the best institutions known in Europe were shown to be parts and parcels of the one great heirloom.
The facile adaptation of derivative names was enough to astonish the most learned philologists. They are generally thankful for slight analogies between European and Sanskrit roots, but no sooner had J acolliot's pundits been made acquainted with the renowned names of the Greek classics, and furnished with some historic clew, than they brought forward original Sanskrit counterparts whose verbal resemblances and whose meanings were startling.
Hercules was derived from Hara-Kala, Rhadamanthus from Rhada manta, Andromeda from Andha ra meda, Centaur from Kentura, Minerva from Mana rava, J upitel' from Zupitri, Pythagoras from Pittia-guru, and Pl'otagoras from Prataguru. Otber nations of Europe had been favored with vocabularies, and had dared to make only the slightest possible changes. Odin came from Yodin, Swede from Suyoda, Scandinavian from Scanda-nava, Celts from Kallata, Gauls from Galota, Baltic from Bala-taka. Philologists have found in true Sanskrit abundant resemblances to roots of European languages. Each branch of the race developed many changes, but that one of them furnished names to order for all the others is a unique hypothesis. It is to be regretted in the interest of the theory that the resemblances had not been toned down to fainter lines; the average credulity of readers is ovel·taxed; the clever work is over- done.
After witnessing the completeness of this linguistic performance no one will be surprised to know that the leading New Testament in- cidents are reproduced almost entire. 'Vhat is known as the" Krishna Cult" is worked to the greatest advantage. Nothing of originality is left to the Christ of Judea.
Among the demigods of the Hindu mythology Krishna figured as a good-natured and rollicking Bacchus. Nothing is known of him in the earlier Sanskrit literature, but in the epic known as the :Mahab- harata and in the Vishnu Pm'ana he appears· as an incarnation of Vishnu. After the rise of Buddhism, Hinduism had discovered its lack of a more sympathetic being than had yet appeared-a god among men who should unite with the powers of deity something like the Buddha's sympathy and pity.
Around Krishna, therefore, there grew up an increasing interest- not that he furnished an ethical model, for his history corresponded very nearly with that of the lascivious satyrs of the Roman mythology, but because he was warmly and sympathetically human. The Krishna Cult was not fully developed until the early centuries of the Christian era, and it pl'Oceeded along two lines. In its popular aspects it kept pace with the growing corruptions which appeared in the Tantras, and were illustrated in the immoral orgies of Siva worship. The festivals in honor of Krishna were, and to a very recent date have continued to be, occasions of unspeakable vice.
The other line of development was theoretical; Krishna was treated as a Divine Counsellor and friend in the Bhagayad Gita, whichthough embracing older materials-was probably composed about the fil'st or second century of our era, and the Bhagavad Gita has, in its. high ethics, often been compared to the New Testament, though falling far enough below a parallel. But the legends by which Jacolliot matches "Christna's" life with leading incidents in the life of Jesus were partly the growth of those later centuries in which Hinduism was brought in contact with Christianity in Southern India, and partly the probable work of our author's own subsidized pundits. Even if the scholarly criticism of Max :Muller had not befaJIen this unfortunate author, the Frenchiness and pruriency with which he clot{led the story of Adam and Eve (" Adima and Heva") ill the Garden, as well as the general extravagance of his statements, would have aroused suspicion. The learned Oxford scholar seems to have felt that some sort of apology was necessary for treating with seriousness so absurd a case of pedantry, and he found it in the fact that so much credence was given to the book. But he proceeds to say that" many of the words which M. J acolliot quotes as Sanskrit are not Sanskrit at all, others never have the meaning which he assigns to them, and as to the pas- sages which he assigns to the Vedas, they are not from any old Sanskrit writer, they simply beloJig to the last half of the Nineteenth Oen- tury." lIe regards them as "simple in:ventions of some slightly mischievous Brahman who took advantage of the zeal and credulity of his employer." And he adds" that such is the interest, or rather the feverish curiosity, excited by anything that bears on the ancient religion, that J acolliot's book has produced a very wide and very deep impression. .In fact, 'if anytldng were wanting to show that a general knowledge of the history of ancient religions ought to form Ct part of our education, it was tlie panic created by tlds book."
But there had been earlier instances in which zealous opponents of Christianity had sought and found the evidence which they desired to prove that Christianity was a plagiarism upon the Sanskrit literature of the Hindus. Voltaire was carried away with enthusiasm when some one presented to him a copy of a portion of the Veda which corresponded in a remarkable degree with the teachings of the Bible. No time was lost in turning this new evidence against Christianity to the best possible account.
But after a time it appeared that an overzealous Jesuit missionary, thinking that the end would sanctify the means, had written certain Sanskrit texts designed to convince the Hindus that the Bible and the Vedas were to a large extent in harmony. This very immoral and fallacious project, however, proved most futile, and the only result was to dupe the arch infidel, Voltaire.
Some years ago Lieutenant "Wilford, who had read Sir ·William Jones' theory that Greek mythology was largely borrowed from that of India (a theory which Sir William finally abandoned), conceived the idea of tracing the teachings of Christianity from the same source. He proceeded to persuade the Brahmans that a thorough search among their ancient records would disclose not only the Greek mythology, but the Old Testament history. He was persistent against their reserve and reticence. He related to them the principal events of the Old Testament record, and at the same time promised ample rewards for their labor. At last the pundits yielded. They resolved that what he so eagerly sought should be supplied. 'faking his stories from the Pentateuch, they adapted them to the Sanskrit style, and brought forth astonishing results. Even Sir ·William Jones was COI1vinced, and congratulated Lieutenant vVilford on his success. The story of Noah was reproduced with a truly Indian picturesqueness. But when at last it was found that a forgery had been committed, that upon leaves which had been inserted in the ancient manuscripts the pundits, under pressure, had rendered in correct Sanskrit all that thev had heard about Adam and Abraham, Lieutenant Wilford did n;t hesitate to confess publicly that he had been imposed upon; yet, as Professor Max Muller says in his account of this matter, the mischief had in the meantime been done. Lieutenant vVilford's Essays had been read all over Europe; they retained their place in the volumes of the" Asiatic Society," and to the present day some of his state· ments and theories continue to be quoted authoritatively by writers on ancient religions.
Speaking further of J acolliot, Max Muller says" he has no doubt found out by this time that he has been imposed upon, and if so he ought to foilow the example of Colonel Wilford, and publicly state what has happened. Even then I doubt not that his statements will continue to be quoted for a long time, and that Adima and Heva (supposed Sanskrit for Adam and Eve), thus brought to life again, will make their appearance in many a book and many a lecture room."
The whole theory of those who would make India <, the source of all faith and love anu poetry and science," rests upon an erroneous assumption as to the antiquity of Illdian chronology. Sir VilIiam Jones was among the first to fall 11I1~ler this errol', and all his dates have been rectified by the consensus of later scholarship. As for the position assumed by Jacolliot, that Egypt b01'ro"ed her faith from India, it need only be said that the chronology and the monotheistic faith of Egypt can be traced from a period at least several hundred years earlier than any well esta.blished date of Indian history. There is ]]0 certain evidence that either the Yedas or any national records were committed to writing much earlier than 300, B. C., and it can only be a matter of conjecture that Europe or Palestine possessed any extended knowledge of India before the invasion of Alexander and the revelations concerning her institutions which were made by IVlegasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucos, his successor.
It may be said, with great propriety, that Christians,' as well as skeptics, have sometimes been very sanguine and even credulous in regard to those phases of heathen faiths which seemed favorable to their views. Max Muller mentions some instances among the earlier Jesuit Missionaries in China. 'l'here were certainly some serious mistakes of the kind on the part of the early Spanish Padres, who fancied that they found many elements of their faith in the traditions of the Aztecs of Mexico. Within our own generation illusive hopes were very generally entertained in regard to the Christian tendencies of the Brahma Somaj in India, and especially the remarkable utterances of Cheshub Chunder Sen. But no such elaborate theories as those of J acolliot have been built upon these fond hopes, which were "too
THE MORAVIAN MISSION ON THE KUSKOKWIM
good to be true." The persistency and intensity of such illusions can be found in full force only in the minds of those who are too wise and cautious to believe the Christian revelation. Any misrepresentation of missionary enterprises, or of the truth which missionaries teach, has always a charmed vitality.
A malicious story which I found more than a dozen years ago in Japan in relation to the building of a Missionary chapel, has been refuted at least a hundred times only to spring up with fresh life again and again. The scene at first was laid in Japan and concerned the Reformed Mission in Yokohama, but I have since seen it re· produced in new dress, located in Shanghai, and published with great particularity as an incident in the American Episcopal Mission of that city. Two years ago my attention was called to an ar~icle in a sporting paper in New York, entitled "Outing." There I found the same old story with the scene laid in Chefou, and given with all the gusto of some ignorant and conceited globe-trotter who had probably either I forgotten where he had heard the story, or where it belonged, or who had located it where he was more familiar with the ground or could present it with the most picturesque effect. The story, though false to the core, is annually heard by hundreds of Pacific steamer passengers who receive it as a clear, straightforward record of truth and verity.
THE MORAVIAN MISSION ON THE KUSKOKWIM.
BY REV. PAUL DE SCHWEINIT.
A lady missionary, returning from China, says: "One does not to have to be a hero any more in order to be a missionary; one goes forth prepared endure all things heroically, and finds that friends at home have so thought of and cared for every want that there is scarcely any call for heroism at the station." That is as it should be. Those who remain behind by " the stuff" should bountifully supply every need of those fighting at the front. But there are fields of labor, which, even in this day of easy and rapid communication and transportation, and in spite of the warm love of Christian friends at home, remain heroic in every sense of the word. Let the following simple historic narrative of one of the newest of the missions undertaken by the Moravian brethren witness to that. Missionary heroism is still extant among these pioneers of modern missions.
In the winter of 1884 Dr. Sheldon Jackson, of the Presbyterian Church, appeared in Bethlehem, Pa., to plead for a missionary to the Eskimos of Northwestern Alaska. He presented the oouse to the Moravians in this wise: That these Eskimos were so degraded, so debased; that the conditions of missionary labor among them were so severe, so dreary, so cheerless; that these forlorn people were literally so God-forsaken, that he could find no one who was willing to carry the 116 THE MORAVIAN lIIISSION ON THE KUSKOKWDI. [Feb.
gospel message to them in their inhospitable regionR, where they dwelt in unspeakable degradation. 'As a last reso~·t he came to the Moravians. No man cared for the souls of these degraded heathen savages-would they have mercy upon them? That was an appeal which the Church that had sought out the Hottentots of Africa, and the Innuits of Greenland and LabradOl', could not resist. Five of the students who were to graduate from the Theological Seminary that year expressed their willingness to go. Two were afterwards chosen.
First an exploratory tour was undertaken by a veteran missionary, accompanied by one student. They found, as is usual in such northern climates, the Eskimos living o~ly in small groups here and there, scattered over a wide stretch of country. The description of their degrada~ion had not been exaggerated in the slightest degree. Filthy and disgusting in their habits, to an extent that forbids description in public print; their morality at such a low ebb that they may practically be said to have none; parents willingly making prostitutes of their daughters from nine or ten years on, ruthlessly taking their daughter from one man and giving her to another, if they thought they could make more by it; the related crimes of killing off helpless aJ;ld old people and unwelcome infants being considered the incontestable right of the persons otherwise responsible for their support; and so on through the revolting catalogue. Their form of religion was so low that it could scarcely be dignified with the name. Priests they had none-only "sachemR," i. e., medicine men. They live principally on fish, of which, in the short summer, a sufficient quantity must be caught to last through the dreary winter. However, they met the missionaries in a friendly manner, and the latter felt justified in selecting a site on the Kuskokwim river for a mission station.
Now that it has become fashionable to run summer excursions to Alaska, it no longer seems so out of the world; but these excursions run only to Sitka. Few have any clear idea of the extent of the territory. Roughly speaking, Alaska is as large as all the Northern lakes east of the Mississippi; and the Moravian mission station on the Kuskokwim is as far from Sitka as Baltimore, Md., is from Minneapolis, Minn. There are no means of communication with the station, except once a year, and then only through the kindness of the Alaska Commercial Company. When once there the missionaries are absolutely separated from all civilization, from all help, from all supplies, for a whole year. Everything must be taken along, as nothing but fish and some game can be procured there.
Nothing daunted by this report, the little band of missionaries prepared to start. On account of the low moral condition of the people, and the unfortunate relations existing between the few white traders and the natives, in order to avoid all possible suspicion of evil, as well as for many higher and nobler reasons, it was absolutely necessary for the missionaries to go out married. They were all young people-the men just a year out of the seminary-and all leaving the refinements of civilization for a desolate country, where they would first have to build a house with their own hands before they would have where to lay their heads. The ordination service of these two devoted young men was impressive beyond description. Their names are worthy of record: The Rev. "William H. Weinland and his wife, Caroline Yost; the Rev. John H. Kilbuck and his wife, Edith Romig. The former had been on the exploratory tour. The latter is a full-blooded Delaware Indian, the son of a chieftain. He had received a full course collegiate and theological education. He is probably the first Indian ordained by the Moravian Church. Now he, as a representative of the Church which had reclaimed his people from heathenism, in turn went forth as an apostle to a much more for- saken and degraded people. There is a true apostolical succession! "He had served one year among his own people in Canada in the ab- ,sence of the regular missionary upon the exploratory tour mentioned before. His wife is an American, who married him in the genuine old- time Moravian spirit, being filled with an unquenchable zeal to serve the Lord in this forsaken corner of the earth. One lay brother, Hans Torgessen, leaving his family behind, accompanied them, in order to help them in building a house.
June 19, 1885, the little band reached the Kuskokwim. Battling their way up the river in a violent storm, Hans Torgessen fell overboard and was lost! A year must elapse before help could reach them, yet strong in the strength of Christ these young men, fresh from college though they were, girded themselves to erect a house, and with their young wives prepared to face the unknown horrors of an Arctic winter, ill provided, on account of the loss of time caused by this accident, both in provisions and in shelter, for its hardships. 'rhe Church at home waited the outcome in dread suspen,se-a year. Then came the heroic message: 'Ve are, thank God, alive; and we will·remain. Send us help and we will start a second station! The history of that and succeeding winters was full of thrilling incidents -lack of space alone forbids their narration. There was no wood at hand, the woodland beginning far inland, and laborious journeys up the river had to be undertaken ~o gain fuel as well as !ogs for building purposes.
In 1887 a second station was begun at Nushagak, and in 1888 an assistant sent to the Kuskokwim, but the two stations afforded little companionship to each other, as nearly 200 miles of almost impassable ~ountry lie between them. That on the Kuskokwim has been christened Bethel; that near Nushagak, Carmel.
In spite of tremendous obstacles missionary work was at once begun. Of course, in order to gain the adults, the language had first to be learned, but for the children a school was at once opened. Only the history of the station on the Kuskokwim can be followed. The missionaries were not in a populous country, as China, Japan or India; the children had to be laboriously sought from village to village, and the only way to teach them was to keep them at the Mission House. That meant to board them, to clothe them. The task thus set the noble wives of the missionaries can scarcely be appreciated by us dwelling amid the conveniences of civilization. All were thus brought into constant personal contact with the most disgusting features of the most degraded heathenism. The work, however, went bravely on.
But, alas! the vessel which brought the new missionaries to Carmel, to the consternation of the Church at Home, was compelled to bring Mi~sionary Weinland and his family back to the States, completely broken down in health. (He has since undertaken a mission among the Indians of Southern California, in the San Jacinto Valley, made famous by H. H.'s "Ramona.") The Kilbucks heroically resolved to remain alone and hold the post until re-enforcements came, or death called them away-Mrs. Kilbuck the only white woman in that desolate region among degraded heathen.
The next year brought electrifying news. Scarcely two years had the missionary been there, and he could but imperfectly stammer forth the message of the cross in that uucouth language of the North, when its stolid people awoke, and the bleak and desolate land began to blossom with the fruits born of such self-consecration. The simple yet wonderfully impressive Moravian Christmas, and especially the Passion Week services, made a deep impression on the natives. From far and near they gathered, besought the missionary to come to their villages too; that they would build chapels for him; that they "wanted a share of the blood of Jesus to take away their bad" (sins). In Greenland the Moravians labored five years before they made a single convert. When Karjarnak was baptized the hard-tried missionary sent the message home: "Sie wollen nem "-they want to be saved now. And when this historic message was sent from bleak Alaska, after two years' labor, the Church was thrilled with holy joy. The appeal sounded forth for re-enforcements, for aid for the noble woman, who, alone of her kind, was battling for the Lord in the stronghold of Satan in the North. Eighteen responded-four single sisters, three single brethren, one widower and five married couplessome of the latter volunteering to leave their children behind. But before the chosen ones could be sent, a terrible winter had to intervene. Mrs. Kilbuck became sick. It was evident that she would have to go back to the States, or an experienced nurse be sent to her. Think of the dreary months of waiting! This noble couple resolved to separate. The wife would travel as soon as spring broke to the
TRANSLATIOlS FROM FOREIGl :lIISSIONARY :lIAliAZDIES
States, with the children. The husband would not forsake the post, but labor Oil alone. Heroism has not died out, and the Moravians are still the gens eterna! This resolution had to be, if possible, communicated to the church. They heard of Lord Lonsdale coming down from the Arctic regions, and in the midst of winter Missionary Kilbuck had to start out to meet him. Seventy-three days elapsed before his return to his sick wife, left alone with the assistant. Terrific storms, temperature 59° below zero, tell the story. He was given up for lost. His noble wife resolved then, if the Lord gave her strength, to remain herself alone with Assistant "Veber at the post! But her husband, miraculously preserved, returned, the message brought by Lord Lonsdale reached the States in time. But there was no time for a new call for volunteers. Aid had to be sent at once. A person of experience was required. The heroine was found. The official item, without any ostentation, simply announced in Moravian style: "Sister Bachman has received and accepted the appointment to Bethel, Alaska, for one year"-that was all. But those who knew, knew that that meant that the wife of the presiding bishop of the church had been willing to leave her husband and family to serve the Lord among the Alaskan Eskimos!
The re-enforcements are now there. The last message proclaims Mrs. Kilbuck's recovery. With characteristic Moravian caution, only 22 converts have been actually admitted to church membership, but the awakening still continues. Another year must elapse before new information can be received.-So ends this narrative. It has been simply told. Lack of space forbids dwelling on single acts of heroism. All that must be read between the lines. But it shows that Mi8sionary heroism has not yet gone out of date; that there is no nation so degraded that the Lord cannot find some who will go as His apostles; and where His word is proclaimed, there it never returns void unto Him!
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
More and more it impresses itself on the minds of missionaries, how much less competent they are than the native helpers to reach the inmost minds and hearts of the heathen. These words of a native preacher give us a glimpse of this: "Agreeably to our missionary duty, we go so often as opportunity offers into the various villages and houses and preach Jesus Christ, the crucified. But the manner of preaching, as it is used in the ordinary congregations, does not please the Hindus. They are not accustomed to listen attentively to a continuous and somewhat lengthy discourse. Therefore, it is hard to obtain an auditory for such a sermon. And if any means are resorted to of enforcing attention, they endeavor to disturb the preacher by all sorts of objections. .At such times they all talk in a body, to no intelligible effect. Therefore, it is very useful to proclaim the gospel with intervals of hymns and psalms, sung to native melodies. All Hindus are delighted with such songs, even when they do not understand their purport. For the Hindus hold noth- ing so high as song. So often, therefore, as we go out to preach to the heathen, we first sing to the accompaniment of violin, cymbals, kettle-drum, and other musical instruments, hymns of our native composition, and thereupon we preach." It seems that in the Madura district the native helpers of the Leipsic mission go through the heathen villages three days in every week, preaching three times every day, relieving each other in turn. The presence of a white missionary, however, they say is a great additional attraction. "On one occa- sion, when a great idol feast was in progress, and we had {;:ome into the neigh- borhood with music and song, there appeared the priest of the pagoda with his son. They not only urged the nume;ous company of hearers to be seated and listen quietly, but made us sit in the veranda before the pagoda for three hours, sitting themselves as hearers. Finally the priest despatched his son to perform the ceremonies before the idol, and said: 'All that we do is only for our belly's sake. We know that all that you say is true, and that your Veda (the Bible) shows the way of salvation. Come back here every year, and teach the true religion.' As a farewell honor he offered all of us the usual tribute of betel and areca nut." .
-The Berichte of the Rhenish Missionary Society remarks, in speaking of the first Christian Chinese family at Bandjermasin, Borneo, of whom it gives a very interesting picture taken from a photograph: "The first Christian family in a church to-be newly established is of great significance. Even in the Acts we find names of the tlrst families tbat received baptism. So long as only men and youths become believers at a station among the heathen, the Church has no thoroughly constituted existence.. There is lacking to it its nerve, the family with its family worship, Christian training with prayer, in brief, Christian domestic life. "
-A Missionary of the Rhenish Society in Southwestern Africa, remarking that under the influence of Christianity the natives and half-breeds are becoming weaned from their nomadic ways, and are settling into more steady labor on their stations (aided of late by providential affluence of rains), adds: "That Christianity brings also earthly blessing is plain to be seen in the case of our Church, especially with those who have learned not only 'Thou shalt hallow the Sabbath day,' but also, 'Six days shalt thou labor.' He who learns this with us may assuredly hope for earthly blessing also."
-In view of the terrible increase of necromancy inour own country, thefollowing words of Missionary Fehr, of the Rhenish Society, on the Island of Nias, SJimatra, have more than a far-off interest: "The fact that, in all the sicknesses and distresses prevailing among us, no one of our Christians has allowed himself to be misled into sorcery and sacrificing, is a cause of thankfulness to the grace and protection of God. In such times of trial the thoughts and hearts of men are wont to be revealed, and it then appears whether or not the faith of Christ has already struck abiding root in them. And in truth it does require an energy of faith and no common confidence in God, for people who have grown up in heathenism and idolatry, when they see their nearest and dearest at death's door, to remain steadfast, and to refrain from resorting to any forbidden means of help. Herr Fehr says: "When people pass over from heathenism to Christianity they commonly suppose that the good God must now be especially gracious to them and bless them, because, they say, he is surely stronger than our idols. And how glad the missionary would often be, if, to such young beginners, especially in cases of sickness, the Lord would give experience of his especial help and kindness, that in this way, too, they might experience and learn that the Lord is the true Helper. But in many cases the Lord does the very opposite of this, that no one may flatter himself with false hopes, and thereby be misled into crooked ways. Here in Lololofaoso, for instance, there was a leading family, which, after long gainsaying, had tlnally inclined to Christianity, and had begun to visit the public worship. Soon after, however, their little son was taken sick, and, in spite of all medicine and all our prayers, died. Almost at the same time the child's grandfather was attacked by a very long and painful eye-trouble, so- that he was almost beside himself for pain. Under these circumstances the confidence of the family in the cause of Christianity suffered a great shock, yet thus far they have continned nniuterruptedly faithful in coming to church. How earnestly, in such cases, one is tempted to wish that he had the apostolic gift of healing."
-It is sometimes said that in Greenland the Danish Lutherans and Mora- vians have haptized the last heathen Esquimaux. This, 1 believe, is true as to the natives of the West Coast. But lately the natives of the East Coast have been coming across to the Moravian brethren. This inaccessible region was once far milder in climate, and was, as we know, the seat of a flourshing Danish colony, from which Eric the Red, or his son (1 am not sure which), is said to have come down along the shore of New England. But some 600 years ago a sudden lowering of the temperature took place; long piles of icebergs began to line the coast; the last bishop of the colony consecrated at Trondhjern, in Norway, set out for his diocese, but ~either he nor his people were ever heard of again. Whether these Eastlanders that are resorting to the Moravians are a mixed race of Eskimos (Esquimaux) and these old Northmen, or pure Esquimaux, 1 do not know. It is said that a European has lately made his way across Greenland from east to west. If so, we shall know more about the region so long mysteriously secluded. Missionary A. Riegel, in t¥ CalweJ' Missionsblatt of June, 1889, writes: "Having been able in my last report to give account of 6 newly baptized Eastlanders, this letter will report 50 additional baptisms of heathen. The first family dwelt very quietly among us, and we took a good deal of satisfaction in them, although they were little enough advanced in Christian knowledge. The man had a boat, indeed, but got little by it, so that the family was none too rich, especially as in the winter the man fell sick. The sickness increased till spring, and then the Lord took hhn to Himself. He felt disquieted in view of his family, but was glad to go home. The countrymen of this man, who had returned to the East Coast, kept their word and came back. In September they came to this station and made ready for living here by putting up three houses; expressing the desire to become Christians, they received catechetical teaching, and at Easter were baptized.
'Unhappily they were very sick and wretched, and several died; nor did they earn any too much, for there were fewer seals and birds than usual. As this naturally implied a scarcity of winter provisions, it came sometimes very near to famine with them. Since Mayall the people, the newly baptized among them, are at the summer-grounds, that is, the seaward islands; yet unhappily we only hear of a very scanty take of seals. This raises forebodings for the coming winter, yet the Lord may secure them an ample autumn fishery. How these neophytes will develop' spiritually, remains to be seen. We cannot expect that all will turn out to be of the best quality.
" You believe that there must come a time when the Greenlanders can maintain their churches and their Christianity without European pastors, even though under European oversight, 'and with European money.' If you had added this last, 1 too should not doubt of the possibility. That the Greenlanders will themselves voluntarily meet the costs of their churches and schools, only he can believe who does not know the Greenlanders. But it will be practicable to maintain paid catechists, upper and lower, at the different settlements, to work under Europear. direction. 1 believe that is the aim of the Danish Mission, because they can secure hardly any pastors or missionaries for Greenland. "
There we see Christiauity struggling to live, chiefly because the race that professes it is struggling to live. -Primitive, uncivilized natures, in whom self-control has never been devel- oped, are subject to very extraordinary mental affections, which, it is true, are sufficiently common among ourselves. In Amalienstein, South Africa, there lately died. aged 71, a cripple, Elizabeth Klaasse, doubtless a Kaffir or a Hottentot, who, in consequence of a church quarrel, in which she had taken part, had sunk into melancholy, and for nearly twenty years had only jumped along like an ape, muttering unintelligibly, and repelling all pastoral attention, until finally Missionary Schmidt succeeded in inducing her to pray with him, and to come to church once more. Thenceforth she was never seen sitting in the church otherwise than with a radiant face; "she followed the preaching as a bird of prey does his quarry, nodding in smiling assent to all that was said."
-Missionary Bieger, writing in the Mededeelingen of the Dutch Missionary Society, gives, in a single sentence, a powerful impression of the deadness of soul engendered by Mohammedanism, which knows absolutely nothing of inward spiritual experience, takes absolutely no account of it. Herr Biger has labored in Java, where the people are almost all Mohammedan, but has lately gone to the little island of Savoe, where they are or have been heathen. He remarks: "What I have not seen in Java in fourteen years, I have seen here in four months-a tear; the genuine witness of the fertilization of the sinner's heart by the seed of the gospel.·'
-Christianity in the East Indian Islands has the greatest prevalence in the Minahassa, the northermnost of the three eastward stretching arms of the island of Celebes. Heathenism being largely overcome, at least in various districts of the Minahassa, of course the number of adult baptisms will be apt to diminish. In 1887 there were in the Minahassa: Adult baptisms, 476; infant baptisms, 5,021; communicants received, 1,182; school children, 7,240; Christians on the Island of Savpe, 3,783.
-M. Duvoisin, of the French Basuto Mission, speaking of finding himself overwhelmed, in addition to all his evangelical cares, with the labor of building, says: "I have already passed through trials of many sorts, but there is one of which I had not yet had experience, that of feeling one's self overwhelmed on all sides, and of finding one's self anew, day after day, in presence of a task for which one is not made, and from which, on the other hand, he cannot withdraw himself. But I have found that this also is good. I have understood better than hitherto this word of St. Paul, • Cast down, but not destroyed,' and I begin to realize the fact that when the Lord invites us to cast all our cares on him, he doubtless means all, the task of building not excepted."
-The extensive awakening among the pagans of the Basuto country has declined, although not until after large additions to the churches. M. Duvoisin remarks: "The outward circumstances were only too favorable. In the Lexuto–as elsewhere, I imagine-temporal and spiritual blessings are a little like the two buckets of a well. Now the late harvest has been most abundant, there is in the country a great number of mabele; that is, for the pagans, numerous and riotous gatherings around great pots of yoala, gatherings which, too often, take place on the Sunday; and for Christians, leting, that is, mild ale, at discretion. Unhappily these latter have not yet learned to use all things as not abusing them." "Yet, if there is in our churches a current of evil which draws away more than one, others again yield to the attraction which draws them to the feet of the Saviour, and these latter, I will believe, are the more numerous."
-" The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty."
OUR VOLUNTEER MISSIONARY STUDENTS
This is painfully illustrated in the description given by M. Louis Jalla of the Barotses, the heathen dwellers on the banks of the Zambezi. "These people are children in many respects, but they are true savages, cruel, ferocious, even in every direction. Their pleasure lies in witnessing suffering. It is very hard to bring our boys to kill a hen before plucking it. How jolly it would be, said some men one day, if we could flay an ox all alive! When a man is condemned to death, they do not give themselves the trouble to kill him. They only half strangle him, fixing their nails in his throat, and then conduct him to an islet in the river, leaving him to die there of hunger."
Yet these same people, who are very fond of receiving visits, are, at home, polite and affable. The women also, at least those of the higher ranks, making an ambition of keeping their houses neat and in good order. They esteem themselves much honored by receiving visits from the missionaries, who seem to be slowly, but surely, weaving a network of Christian influences around them, in a dreary, unwholesome region, one of the most ill-provided in the world with the means of enjoying even common comforts.
-Our French Protestant brethren have a mission in the French possession of Senegambia. The following, by M. Escandre, is a lively description of the }fohammedan negroes, the chief part of the population of the town of Saint Louis: "A new comer recognizes them at once; you see them pass in the streets, furnished with enormous rosaries, which they are telling in a very absent-minded manner. Then, women, babies at the breast, all are loaded with gre-grees (amulets), enclosing fragments of the Koran, which, it appears, possess marvellous properties. Then, when the hour of prayer is called at the corners of the streets, on the square, and chiefly along the river, you perceive files of natives bending to the ground, like a thicket of reeds before a breeze. Take care not to enter one of their shops at this hour, for, in the very middle of your purchases, you would see the merchant leaving his business in the lurch and begin his interminable genuflexions, your objurgations not being of the slightest avail. You needs must summon up your best patience, or walk off, until his salaam is at an end. The other evening, from my balcony, I noticed a woman making ready for these exercises, and stationed myself to observe her. You would scarcely believe it if I should tell you that having had the curiosity to count on my fingers the number of times that she kissed the ground, I arrived at the respectable figure of thirty-one. Her salaam had lasted twenty minutes by the watch! She must have been, doubtless, a great sinner, some penitent Magdalen, or possibly she had terrible arrears to wipe off, for you are aware that the Koran authorizes such adjustments."
OUR VOLUNTEER MISSIONARY STUDENTS.
" Upon the young men of this generation God lays a responsibility never before known." Who are the responsible young men of this generation? They are to be found in our educational institutions, and they represent a host. Two million young men will graduate from our schools and colleges in this generation, and, surely, we ought to be able to give one per cent. of this number to Foreign Missions, which would mean the "evangelization of the world." It does not seem possible that there could be 20,000 young men "willing and desirous, God permitting, to be foreign missionaries;" but the fact is, if the number increases as it has since this movement was inaugurated, it will not be long ere the pitiful cry that is coming from across the seas from the millions in darkness and death, will be heard by thousands of our best educated young men and ,,·omen. The number of ,olunteers up to the Northfield meeting was 3,847, of whom at least 1,000 are young women. Since that time, through the aggressive efforts of leading volunteers, the number has increased 500 more. Volunteers may now be found in nearly every country in the world; 195 have already sailed for the foreign fields. These 195 volunteers settled as follows: 29 in Japan, 28 in India, 12 or 13 in Africa, 46 in China, being distributed in 21 different fields, and representing 25 different organizations. Forty-nine institutions in the United States and 5 in Canada are contributing , to send out or support their representatives, pledging last year between $26,000 and $28,000, of which amount all but about $3,000 was pledged by students.
A remarkable fact, to be especially noted by those who are wont to criticise the movement in thinking that it is opposed to our Missionary Boards, is that, with the exception of five or six institutions, which are State institutions, and hence undenominational, all the money has been sent to the several Boards, and the missionary sent out is connected with the Board representing the church of which he is a member.
This, in general, is a bird eye's view of what is being accomplished by the movement. In particular, the work of Mr. R. E. Speer, the present traveling secretary of the movement, is very interesting and profitable. He has been speaking since Sept. 4 in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and is now about to enter upon an active campaign in Ohio. During that time over 500 volunteered, and about $4,000 were pledged either to the support of some alumnus in the field, or to swell the funds for the Young Men's Christian Association building that is to be erec- ted in Tokio, Japan. Up to November 9, Mr. Speer had visited 27 colleges, 7 city associations, 17 churches, besides attending 5 State conventions. Among the colleges visited were 5 State universities and 4 normal schools, where the religious life is very low. In spite of this drawback, in these 9 institutions there were 65 new volunteers, an average of 7. At a normal school at Fort Scott, Kansas, there were 15 volunteers and $364 pledged, and at the State Normal School of Missouri, they intend to raise $500 for the Tokio building, three college professors have volunteered, and the Secretary of the St. Paul Young Men's Christian Association, who has a burning desire to.go to the Soudan, when he told his wife of .his intention, she answered, "Go! I'll go with you." A missionary of the Presbyterian Sunday School Union volun- teered, giving this as his reason: "The fact that the heathen could not get the gospel now even if they wanted it, was enough to call him fron: a field, needy, to be sure, but where the people could have the gospel whenever they wanted it." A lady physician, whose daughter had already volunteered, offered her services at a young woman's convention in Nebraska. Can any more beautiful sight be imagined than to see mother and daughter ready to leave home and friends for the sake of their dying heathen sister! At the Kansas young women's convention, the whole delegation, consisting of 36, vol- unteered before they returned home. St. Paul had so many volunteers, 26, that they intend to put some of their business enterprise into missions, by sending a Golony to the Soudan, and one gentleman showed a determination to have his representative in the field by signing the following paper: "I am willing and desirous, God permitting, to support a missionary from St. Paul." Minneapolis, St. Paul's great rival, has raised a large sum for the Tokio Young Men's Christian Association building. At a meeting in Iowa, an incident occurred which may affect not a few Christian parents. Mr. Speer was teil- ing the story of how an old l.o.linister appealed to an audience to make a per- sonal consecration of themseh-es to missions. When he finished speaking his
GENERAL ~IISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
own daughter came forward and knelt before him, but raising her the old man said: "I did not mean you, my daughter." The next day, after relating this in(:ident, an old gray haired man came to Mr. Speer, and said: "You have hit me. My daughter wished to go out from the Methodist Board. and they wanted her, but my wife and I held her back," and then he added signifi- cantly: "We have not felt so well as before." How many parents there may be who are thwarting the will of God and are saying in their hearts, "vVe have not felt so well as before."
It will no doubt be interesting, now that so many volunteers are in the field, to hear what they think of the battle while they are at the front.
Mr. F. W. Brown, a volunteer from Hillsdale College, Michigan, writes from India, while on a mission boat on the Byturney river, near Orissa. He says: "How goes the work? Here I am in this hot ]jed of idolatry. We feel that we are on the eve of a big break here, and are looking for it soon. The Lord hasten it on. I went to Puri to the Ratti Jutra; I saw enough to tire my soul. They stoned us while preaching. I have the stone that a wall opposite me kept from hitting me on the head." Mr. S. R. Gulick writes from Japan calling for 34 volunteers to go out under the A. B. C. T. M. He says the movement is an inspiration to the soldiers in the front, and they are looking b~ R~R n.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
ACrica.-Mr. Stanley has emerged in his path, and which to the average on the western shore of the Indian man would have seemed insurmount- Ocean from his marvelous mid-Afri- able. True, he is as yet his own hiscan march, the most successful ex- toriographer, but there is no reason to plorer in the world. It would be diffi- doubt a narrative the very simplicity cult to imagine a narrative more and modesty of which gives it the wonderful or fascinating than that of stamp of tJ,"uth, and in which the his journey from the Aruwimi to the humblest of his followers is made to Albert Nyanza, through a forest larger share in heroism with himself. There than France, and through the matted is no attempt at advertisement. "Nothundergrowths of which the starved ing happened," he writes in his acand dwindling column crept at the count of the march from the Albert rate of less than three miles a day. Nyanza to the coast, "save a fight or That awful itinerary, filled with fever two with theWanyoro," though on that and fighting and hideous sufferings, march he discovered that the Muta continued for more than five months Nize was the source of the White Nile, before the hundred and more thin a discovery which other men would skeletons emerged into the plain re- have deemed glory enough for a life gion; and with food and plenty about time. And yet there is a full apprethem, began to take heart and hope. ciation of the horrors of the journey, But more fighting awaited them, with and of the importance of its results, the dreary counter-march back to the as well as the expression of a reverent Aruwimi, disappointment and waiting and unfaltering faith in God, who had and horrors on end, consuming nearly led him on his way, and turned what a year more, until, in February last, seemed defeats into success. No other the explorer met Emin and forced his explorer has endured and overcome reluctant consent to be relieved. Dur- so much, adding to his own burdens ing all this time Mr. Stanley never lost responsibility for others and for rehope or changed his tone, or permit- sults, and yet has so steadily grown in ted himself for a moment to be over- himself and in the estimation of the come by the new obstacles that rose world. Great cities vie for the honor of entertaining him, and nations, with the journalistic reporter who went to find Livingstone at Ujiji in 1872, and African possessions to develop, are the wise, hardy, heroic, broad-minded and indomitable rescuer of Emin bidding for the assistance of the boy Pasha and discoverer of the heart of Africa, is far greater than usuaUy befrom the Welsh poor-house. For he longs to human life. Few men so distinctly find their mission, or reis pre-eminently a man of action, ceive such enhancement of personal power and character from rendering with a genius for the government of the service to which they are called. We may well enter his name in the barbarous peoples, and it is on the list of providential men, like Colum- bus, William the Silent, Washington organization and government and de- and Livingstone, raised up for a i7eat purpose and divinely guided till their velopment of the black races that the work is done. It is not the least strik- ing part of our first messages from world must rely if anything is to be this man, as he emerges again into the light of 'blessed civilization,' accomplished in Africa. But while that he recognizes the divine' hand in the thrilling experiences and delivermankind will not withhold its meed of ances of these three memorable years. And it is an eminent sign of the place praise from Mr. Stanley, there is a he has won in the popular judgment that the secular press, no less than the darker side to his success-the fact religious press, takes note of this de- vout acknowledgment and justifies it. that in its first great contest with the "For the moment the withdrawal of Arab for control of the Dark Conti- Emin Pasha leaves the vast and popu- lous territory of the Soudan stripped nent, Europe has suffered defeat. of every civilizing, restraining and uplifting influence from without, and The gallant explorer has survived the opens the way for the Moslem faith and the accursed slave trade to revive march through the tangled forests of and flourish in that imperial domain without let or hindrance. But this the Aruwimi, but the darkness of situation cannot long continue. Stan- ley's exploit has powerfully drawn night has closed in behind him, and the thoughts and interests of the civ- ilized world to this great center; and of aU that Europe has won in the past it is next to impossible that some one of the great powers should not assume ten years, nothing remains but Egypt, the responsibility of giving order and stable government and protection to the scattered stations on the Congo, the native tribes, and access for for- eign commerce and missions, throughand a few points on the shores of the out this splendid country. It will be thought an intolerable thing that the Indian Ocean. Wadelai, Darfour and path thus first broken by this intrepid explorer should be closed up as soon Khartoum are garrisoned by Arab as it has been opened, and one of the richest and most populous parts of the armies, as are the Central Soudan States; and encouraged by their recent successes, they are bent on the con- quest of Abyssinia, and the re-conquest of Egypt. The tide will turn, of course, for Africa will not be aban- doned to barbarism, but more vigor and means will have to be put into the task, and the fact brought home that civilization can march only where there are highways.-The In- terior. I -" Stanley and Africa."-Dr. Jud- son Smith, in the Oongregationalist, writes most intelligently on this sub- ject. We have space for only his closing words: "What results may we expect from this great expedition? It is too soon to ascertain all the facts, or to draw aU the inferences. Without doubt this brilliant and heroic exploit will distinctly add to Stanley"s steadily rising repute as a man, a philanthro- pist, a scientific explorer, and a mili- tary leader. The contrast between whole continent left to fall back again the Arabs were up in arms. The into primeval barbarism, or the deadly blockade of the coast maintained by blight of Mohammedanism and the Germany infuriates the rebels because infamous slave traffic which it fosters. it stops their traffic, and they will, it The challenge to the Christian world is feared, massacre all the missionaries to enter this fair domain, and fill it on whom they can lay hands.
with the Christian faith and the benefi- Missionary interests have become cent institutions which flourish wher- very extensive in East Africa. The ever that faith holds sway, is as bold Church Missionary Society and the'
and inspiriting as we can well con- Universities Mission, of the Church of ceive. England; the Established and the "Almost the last word which we Free Church, of Scotland; the London have from Stanley declares his convic- Missionary Society, the United Meth- tion that the mantle of Livingstone has odist Free Churches, and the Church fallen upon him, and his purpose to of Rome, all have missions on the devote his life to the exploration of coast or in the interior. The Church Africa. We would fain believe that Missionary Society has two distinct above this man's thought presides the lines of missions-one with its basis same divine purpose which controlled at Mombasa, in the English Sphere of his predecessor's life and shapes the Influence, with eight stations, some fortunes of the nations and the ages, of which are on or near the coast and and that through all his varied and some in the interior. One is in the heroic efforts that which was the in- neighborhood of Mount Kilimanjaro.
spiring aim of Livingston's marvelous The second line of stations is that career-the evangelization of Africa- which stretches from Zanzibar to shall be hastened apace. May the. Uganda. There are nine stations in Church of Christ, in all lands, give this line. The Universities Mission heed to the solemn and imperative has twelve stations, one ~ Zanzibar, call of the hour, and see to it. that four in the Usambara country north along the track which has thus been of Zanzibar, four on or near the River broken the light and freedom and Rovuma, and three on the east shore heavenly hope, which are the one of Lake Nyassa. The two Scottish priceless treasure of history and civil- Churches have the Free Church five ization, shall press in with resistless stations on Lake Nyassa, the Estab- power to scatter the darkness and lished Church one on Lake Shirwa, at redeem the nations !" the south of Lake Nyassa. The route -Missionary Interests in East to this region is by the Zambesi and Africa.-The massacre of German Shire rivers. The London Society missionaries at Dar-es-Salam, on the goes further west than any of the East African Coast below Zanzibar, other societies, and plants two sta- has been followed by the massacre of tions on Lake Tanganyika. The an English missionary named Brooks, United Methodist Free Churches have with sixteen of his followers, at Saad- two missions in the Mombasa region, ani, a point nearly opposite Zanzibar. and one in Gallaland. Three German These massacres, committed by the Protestant Societies have five stations Arabs and natives under their control, -three in gaIIiland, one in Zanzibar in the rising against the Germans, and one in Dar-es-Salam, where one were not unexpected. The course of of the massacres took place. It is the the Germans, who had no experience Berlin Society which maintains the with African Arabs or natives, was last two stations. These are all the Pro- such as to provoke hostility. They testant missions between Wito and the established their commercial enter- Rovuma River; but there are German prise last August, and in a few weeks and French Roman Catholic stations. In all, there are 13 missions-six congregation also was urged to estab- British, four Germans, and three lish a fellowship meeting for the study French. One society, the Church of Scripture on Sabbath morning. A Missionary, alone has spent $500,000 proposal to visit every household in in the last 30 years in East Africa.- South Formosa was well received.
Tlw Independent. • With. a view to its being carried into China.-One of the most success- effect, it was resolved that each ful of the Chinese Missions is that con- preacher on his return to his station 'ducted by the Canada Presbyterians should make out a list of the towns and the English Presbyterians in the and villages in the neighborhood; that Island of Formosa. Mr. Mackay, of the preachers should bring these lists the Canadian Mission, has been from to the next meeting of preachers in the first as one of the people, and has May, so that the field may be divided taken a wife from among them. He out among the various churches. The is a man of apostolic devotion and subject of self support was most ear- simplicity, and has wrought a great nestly discussed, and a determined work among the Formosans. The effort to increase the number of self- English Presbyterians occupy a dif- supporting churches was agreed to.
ferent part of the island, that to the To this end the church where the con- south. They, too, have made large ference met agreed to help out a use of native talent in the spreading neighboring church at Kio-a-thau by of the gospel. Recently they held a contributing what it lacked. After conference of preachers and office- the conference, when the preacher bearers, all the preachers except one for that station returned to his work, being present. They were examined he told his people that it had been carefully, and good reports are given arranged that for the four months.
of them. In the conference these they were short they were to look, native preachers spoke earnestly in not to the home church, but to the favor of self-supporting churches, and church in Taiwanfoo. This caused stated that they would rather receive them to reconsider the matter-it their salary from the native brethren seemed a shame to get money from a than from the Missionary Board. neighboring congregation; and they Though the money comes to them sent back WOl'd that they would not more promptly from the Board it need the money, that they would be often subjects them to the taunt, responsible for the whole twelve " You preach the foreigner'S doctrine months themselves. This released the because you eat his rice. " Each church at Taiwanfoo, and it gave the church represented in the conference help it had offered to Kio-a-thau to sent a dollar toward the expenses. another struggling congregation.
The missionaries gave a dollar each -Uneasiness at Pekin.-We learn for the preachers, and the balance, from Pekin that there is a feeling one dollar, was contributed by the there of great uneasiness as to the sta- church where the conference met. bility of things in China, The young The conference agreed to recommend Emperor and Empress are believed to each congregation to follow the ex- be unlucky, as there has been nothing ample of one station, where the but disaster since their accession.
worshippers are classified as readers There is no loyalty in China in our and non-readers, and one of the for- sense of the word, and there are great mer told.off to teach one of the latter. fears that troubles will arise from the In this connection the importance of general distress inevitable in this com- a large-type Romanized New Testa- ing winter; and if there were any man ment was mentioned, for which ar- of eminence who saw any advantage rangements are being made. Each to be gained from raising a rebellion it would go haru with the present dy- hope that this mission would be auded nasty. The misfortunes which have happened since the present Emperor's to the other missions carried on by the accession have revived the discontent that was felt at the irregularity of his Reformed Church. Owing to its large succession, which found its expres- sion at the time, as will be remem- and growing indebtedness, however, bered, in the suicide of one of the Cen- sors. We would earnestly echo the the Board of the Church felt com- remarks of our New Chwang COlTe- spondent, and impress upon the naval pelled to decline to assume this new authorities that no treaty port in the empire ought to be left without a man- responsibility, while at the same tllle of-war this winter. There is no special antipathy to foreigners; but expressing a great interest in it. their safety may easily be involved in some tumult that has arisen from Hence the present character of this causes entirely unconnected with their presence.-North China Herald. miSSIOn. The funds for its support Egypt.-The Rev. James Cantine, are contributed upon a syndicate plan.
the first missionary of the recently or- The mission has found a number of ganized Arabian Mission, sailed on the City of Rome last month. He will warm friends and supporters in vari- . spend the winter in Syria carrying on his Arabic studies. In early spring he ous denominations, and the work is will be joined by Mr. S. lf. Zwemer, of the Theological Seminary, New progressing in a very encouraging Brunswick, N. J. The two will then proceed to their field of work-South- manner. J. G. L. western Arabia-in connection with Keith-Falconer Mission of the Free Eng-Iand.-Letter from Bishop Church of Scotland. The chief object of this mission is to do pioneer work, Taylor.-" I have just arrived from and especially (i. e., not exclusively but equally) in behalf of lIoslems and the Congo. My principal business, on slaves. The brief history of the Keith- Falconer Mission shows alike the great a hasty trip, to return to West Africa need and great encouragement for undertaking this work at once and in a few weeks, is to complete ar- carrying it forward vigorously. This mission is for the present, at least, in- rangements with the builder of our dependent, in the sense that it looks for its support to any without refer- steamer to send a master builder from ence to denominational adherence. This was not the prefelTed way of his yard to put her together and see founding anu carrying on the mission, but it was the way to which the found- her afloat as quickly as possible. Hap- ers were shut up if the work designed and desired was to be accomplished. pily, delays are not always failures, It was hoped that this mission would be founded by and under the charge but often essel1tial conditions to ulti- of the Reformed Church. The action of the last General Synod led many to mate success. I believe it will be so in regard to our unexpected delays with the steamer.
" The teaching force of all the facts in the case brings us clearly to the conclusion that the planting of mis- sions extensively in the great and populous countries of the upper Kassai and Sankura, requires that we have a chain of missions, and a transport agency and facilities, extending from the sea to the centre of the Con-· tinent, giving us, by the way, a neglected, densel}: populated region, belonging to the Congo State, on the north side of Lower Congo,100 by 250 miles in extent. The older mis- sions are working on the south bide of the Congo, so that we shall in no way encroach upon them. So, as a part of these foundation alTange.ments on the Lower Congo, essential success on the Upper Congo waterways, "'e find that our steamer is needed, by twenty to one, more on the Lowpr Congo than upon the Upper. We shall build her at Vivi, to carry mission- tricts they come after, but often asso- ciate with the mayor, the doctor and aries and mission goods from ship'il the priest. The Sta,te considers them to be of such importance that it frees side at Banana 100 miles up the river them from military service, pays their salary, and at the age of sixty grants to Vivi. them pensions. The number has be- come so large that some have asked if "In connection with this we will the work of the Normal schools should not be suspended. At this time, when build a steel launch, to be propelled the enemies of the Republic try to underrate the services she has renby oars and sails, to carry up river dered to France, I feel it a duty to vindicate the good work she has done. ' cargoes through the middle passage Her efforts to raise popular education have not only been great, but very of Congo, 88 miles, from Isangila to successful. "
Manyanga. When this is developed, India.-A Hindu Lady Reformer. -During Bishop Thoburn's recent then we shall require a small steamer visit to Bombay he caned on the Pan- dita Ramabai at her own home. This for the Kassai and the Sankura. vVe lady's name is almost a household word in England and America; her needed such a boat in 1886, when we devotion to the women of her country is well known. He thus describes his had a force waiting at Stanley Pool, visit: "I found her busy, but not care- worn, in the midst of her various who would have met Dr. Summers, projects for elevating her race, and especially those of her own sex. One who entered by the Angola route, of her cardinal ideas is that the status of Indian women must be raised to at Luluaburg, but we could not on the level of true womanhood. Her little daughter was in the room, and any of the five little steamers on the I asked her name. ' I can her Mano- ram,' she replied. 'The birth of a Upper Congo, about the time of his daughter is considered a great ca- lamity in India, and so I named her arrival, get a passage for one mission- " Heart's-delight " as a protest against the bad notion.' The Pandita is giving ary. Now there are a dozen little special attention to temperance re- form, and I was only too glad to steamers on those waters. and we can promise her whatever assistance I might be able to render her in her get passage to take up a successor to good work. She is I;>eginning to real- ize that her work will encounter diffidear Dr. Summers and others also, culties in its progress, but thus far she shows no sign of discouragement. to keep our promise to the Bashalange Her chief enterprise, that of founding a home for Indian widows, has not people and other nations beyond, till yet passed beyond the experimental stage, but she seems satisfied with the we can complete arrangements below, success thus far achieved."-The Har- ~'est Field. as aforesaId, for planting of missions in those far interior countries on a broad scale. WM. TAYLOR."
France.-Rev. J. C. Bracq says: "The public 8chooois of France have never before approached their present state of thoroughness and efficiency.
It i8 to the credit of the Republic that she has made greater efforts in that direction than in any other. She has increased her war budget only two- thirds, while that of popular educa- tion has risen from 24 millions of francs to 130 millions. The teachers have better preparation in the Normal schools, larger salaries, better houses to live in, while their school buildings form a pleasant contrast with those of the past. They have also large as- sociations for mutual improvement and for the defence of their interests that could not have existed under former governments. Their social position is equal to that of teachers in the United States. While they are much respected in cities, in rural <1i5-
MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
South America.-The Ameri- fact that during the past ten years 264,542 copies have been circulated, can Bible Society reports that Bible of which 90,484 belong to the first distribution was fifty per cent. larger half of the decade, and 174,038 to the last year hi South America than in last half. These figures are exclusive any former year. The number of of the work of the Valparaiso (Chili) Bibles, New Testaments or parts dis- Bible Society, which sold during the posed of by sale or gift (mainly the year 4,563 copies, and during its exformer) was 51,862. That this large istence of 28 years has distributed increase was not the result of mere 54,417 copies in the Republic of Chili. spasmodic effort is evident from the I1I.-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Brazil. candidates for the Gospel ministry. To the churches of this Presbytery were added during SAO PAULO, Oct. 17, 1889. the last year 133 infants by baptism and 187 DEAR DR. PrERSON: Knowing you to be an on profession. Permission was granted to ardent friend of foreign missions, I take the organize two new churches. The reports of liberty of sending you an item of news. all the pastors were very cheering; each one reporting fields much too large for one man During the late sessions of the Presbytery to occnpy. of Sao Paulo, its licentiate, Senior Benedicta Ferraz de Campos, was examined for ordina- This Presbytery, in harmony with the Standtion. His final examinations and sermon gave ing Committee on Home Missions of the evidence of 'Very fine talent. His knowledge Synod, is seeking for means to sustain and in Greek was especially noteworthy. A very teach a class of eleven young men, married large congregation assembled on a Monday and single, for a year, in purely Biblical innight to witness the ordination, when the struction, and then send them out to occupy pastorof the church, Rev. E. Carlos Pereira, the many places where the good seed of the preached the sermon, and Rev. Carvaihosa Word has been planted and is bearing fruit. gave the charge to the candidate. Both sermon and charge were especially appropriate Yours truly, to the occasion, but the crowning act was the . J. B. KALa.
final setting apart of the candidate by the Ohina. laying on of the hands of the Presbytery. By invitation of the Presbytery, the repre- [Do not fail to read this letter from sentatives of other Presbyteries and of the a remote corner of this vast empire. Methodist and Episcopalian Churches, were -EDS.J invited to take part; so that upon the head of SINING, &AusUH PROVINCE, N. W. CHINA., the young candidate were laid the hands of Sept. 24, 1889.
different representatives of the Christian DEAR EDITORS: Your April number of THE Church. 'Twas a beautiful sight and one MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLn contained which made a solemn impression upon all: an article on "The China Inland lIiission, " by that union of sympathy and brotherly love, ( Prof. Hulbert)in which are a few statements which could lay aside all differences and ..nite which require some modification.
in so solemn an act. The candidate was very He says:" Wben I say the work is compre- deeply affected. We certainly have reason to hensive, I give no idea of the vast area covered believe that" the laying on of hands" in this by the Inland lIIission. Its laborers may be case brought with it the blessing of the pres- found from the borders of the Mongolian desert ence of the Holy Spirit. Wbat an inspiration and the boundary line of Siberia on the north, our newly ordained brother has received! to the banks of the Bramapootra river and "May the Holy Spirit ever bless his ministry." the valleys of the Himalayas on the south; The two young men, Messrs. Morris and Kin- from the Pacific ocean on the east to the solineg, sent ant from the seminary at Alexan- borders of Tnrkestan and the unknown pIa· dria, Va., are winning for themselves and the teau of Thibet on the west." Mr. Stevens, of church they represent golden opinions. They this Mission, is located at Bhamo, on the banks expect to accompany the newly ordained min- of the Irriwady, in Burma. 1111'. Geo. Parker ister, Mr. Benedicto, to his field of lahor, and has recently returned from a journey across there study the langnage, after which they the desert of Shamo to Hami, Urumtsi, and expect to choose for themseh-es a good wide Iti, making only a few weeks' stay there, and field of labor, of which there are many. then returning to Lanetes. He also visited The Presbytery of Sao Paulo recei,ed three KokomoI' with a Russian exploring party. With others he crossed the border and entered into Turkestan, as far as Kashgal' and Yark, Jllongolia for a few days, from Ninghia amI and a fourth to Kokonor and Tsaidami. It Rweihaachenj, in N. Kausuh and N. Slausi. matters not which side of the Atlantic you live, come and be spent for Jesus, and take pleas- Possibly the Mission may be contemplating ure in ,', necessities" for Him. Sell all you further extension. But at the present I be- have, if needs be, to pay your passage out lieve I am right in saying that, with the above here, and what you haven't got ask God for, exception, the work of the Inland Mission is and tell his people. Get one of these places entirely confined to the provinces of China right down into your heart, find out every properl I suppose it takes as long to get to scrap of informa(,!on you can about it, wrestle Sining as to any place in China-four or five in prayer for it night and day, aud the proba- months' journey from the coast. Coming here bility is that every obstacle now in your way we crossed no excessively dangerous moun- will be removed, and you'll be out, where your tains, and no burning deserts. I have not heart has been already, before many months heard of any brethren of this Mission who had have passed. That is something like the way I came to China, and now am being drawn to· any experiences very much out of the com- Thibet. mon, though we settle often in teeming cities. I have not heard of any member of the Mission For Thibet, lIIongolia and Turkestan, the attaching himself to Nomadic tribes of Chinese language would be almost an essen- Mongol Tartars, living in miserable tents, and tial, for they are a part of the Chinese em- roving from place to place, with no fixed home, pire. The Turkestan party might commence no familiar fireside, but wandering over the in the Mohammedan towns of this province Tartar plains at the will of wild chieftains, or (Kausuh), getting their Chinese education as the scantiness of pasturage for flocks de- while picking up useful hints for Mohamme- mands. dan work. 'Ve have Turks, called Salah, within four days of Siuing. A knowledge of There are members of the Mission on the Arabic would be useful. Persian is more use- Chinese border of Kokonor, and let us pray ful in Turkestan. Mongol could, I fancy, God that before long Christianity may be easily be picked up here. knocking at the doors of Slamaistic faith; but though in many cases the Slamas are friendly For Thibet, at present, the Indian door and and kind, I have never heard of any workers Sychnan are closed to us. To work Thibet any- of the Mission having had the opportunityoffer- way, will require much prayer; the Chinese ed to them, by Thibetan officials, of entering are very suspicious of us; but this Kausuh the country of the grand Slama quietly amI border appears the most open, Passports without danger of molestation. lIfr. Gilmour. would be required for all these, and we must of the London MiSSion, is pioneering in Eastern pray hard that that difficulty may be removed. Mongolia; haven't you got a score of young Don't let us mind about fixed salaries. Get fellows wishing to join him? Then the Mora- the money to bring you out, and then look to vian Mission at Leh, and a Bible agent at God for the rest. 3Iarried or single, come Iskutsk in S. Siberia. With these exceptions, along. £100 per man should bring you from am I not right in saying the whole of Thibet, England to this corner of the empire, and Mongolia, Turkestan and Siberia are without give you a bit in hand. Look all the difficula Protestant missionary. "There remaineth ties well in the face, and then make up your yet very much land to be possessed; let us go mind. If you can't trust God, don't come. up at once and possess it, for we are well able, because the Lord of Hosts goeth forth with Yours, in the Lord's service. our armies." We haven't got to wait for orders to go forward; they were given more than CECIL POLHILL TURNER. 1800 years ago. When acting in obedience to Him, t~e power of God, the Holy OPENING OF WORK IN KIRIN. Ghost, is upon us, and then there is no room Our work gradually grew and people begun for failure. You will probably receive this to see we had not come to do them harm, but letter as the new year opens. Suppose all who good, One little boy, whose parents were read it pray for at least 20 workers each for dead, had for some time been troubled with Thibet, Mongolia, and Turkestan-in all 60- sore eyes. He spent nearly all his spare before the close of 1890. Let us ask for men money (3s. or so), a great deal for him, upon full of the Holy Ghost; men willing to rough native doctors. to no avail. By God's blessing it for Jesus; men who don't mind being cold, on our treatment, he was soon made all right. hungry and wet, and robbed, and, if need be. He, of course, could not k""p the good news to <i¥ing, because death brings glory. himself, but published it abroad, and soon Dear brother, who reads these lines, come great numbers came thronging to us to have out and join our band. Then let us go two by their eyes cured. We were very closely two through Thibet, to Slaosa, and on to watched by government officials in every Rashmir; along the high-road through Kausuh thing we did. Soon their favorable report to Hami, Urumtsi, Iti; another lot branching brought us invitations from Mandarins and off to the north to Kobats, Uliasutai; It third gentlemen of all ranks. Thus did God open up our way befon' 1)S. 'Ve then sought and gained an interview with July 9. -At evening service the church and one of the chief magistrates, and through yard were so full the pulpit was placeq in the him got permission of the Governor·General open door that all might hear. The Lord to come and establish a Mission and hospital. helped while preaching from "What shall I do to be saved?" All who were seriously After spending a few days longer looking thinking about their souls were asked to raise out for a suitable house, which, however, we hands; nearly 100 responded. did not find, we again returned to Monkden. Thus, through the Divine blessing, the way July 10. – A meeting for men only, but about seems clear for our going up, perhaps early 200 women came begging to stay; talked next year, and establishing ourselves in this about "Saving faith:' Two young men, large city of Kirin, the capital of the northern doubters for two years, de<'ided to serve and province of Manchuvia. confess Christ.
A RESIDENT MISSIONARY. July ll.-A mother's meeting; 400 present; many remained for inquiry meeting; over 20 Turkey. took part; earnest prayers in Turkish, Arme· nian and English, offered with tears of re- THE GREAT REVIVAL AT AlNTAB. pentance, reminded us of "Pentecostal Days. " I too could not keep back tears of joy; 35 [So remarkable a work deserves the arose, giving themselves to Christ. "Not unto fullest information. Although we us, not unto us, 0 Lord, but to thy name give have given some account of it already, glory." P. M.-Another woman's meeting. To we are quite sure our readers will be my surprise the church and yard were full; greatly interested in this detailed 1,600 to 2,000 present, most of whom were record of it, taken from the diary of Gregorians; 8 Mohammedans-a large gather. Rev. H. G. Jenanyan, of "St. Paul's ing; pulpit moved to the door so all could Institute," Tarsus, who took an active hear. part in the revival. We are indebted to his wife for this graphic view of the July 12.-The Holy Spirit's work among inmemorable scenes.-EDs.] dividuals is wonderful. Thus I am taught W/Ult and how to preach. Henceforth our serv, Aintab, July 2.-Having an urgent invita· ices will be union in the First Church, which tion from the pastor of the Third Church, the holds 2,000 to 2,500. The women's side is smallest one, with a congregation of about smaller, but to-night they filled their own and 200, to hold special service, this evening I one-third of the men's. " Not by might, nor preached my first sermon; only 150 present. by power." 'Text, "To think of latter end." July H.-At morning, in the Third Church, July 3.-Preached to about 300, one half of two new Sunday-school classes organized. whom were Gregorian Armenians. All listen- Church members promised to visit two by two oed attentively to, "Son, give me thine heart,~' the neighboring houses. Evening service in ~nd the Lord gave the words to speak; hoping the First Church. From 300 to 400 could not for great results, I pray and believe. enter the full house, but crowded near win- dows and doors. "Almost persuaded" was July 5. -This evening preached from, "Thy my subject; asked those who would like to sins are forgiven." God gave a blessing to have a prayer meeting to remain; only a few -over 500 present. My heart is rejoicing. An hundred left, but their places were at once inquiry meeting, 22 decided for Christ; 15 filled by the waiting throng outside. In this backsliders returned to the Lord; an infidel meeting over 100 rose deciding for Christian youth is earnestly seeking the light. life. This was the largest congregation to which I ever preached. I better realize the July 7, Sabbath. -Morning preached from power of simple gospel preaching. "Christ our pattern;" over 1,000 present; church full; hundreds in the yard. Evening July 15.-Much time is occupied with callservice in First Church; 1,600 present, one-third ing, conversation, preparation and preaching. of whom were Gregorians. "Jesus" was the Morning scrvice for women in Second Church: theme, and the eagerness with which they lis- 60 remained for inquiry, most of whom gave tened was an inspiration to me. "O! Lord, good proof of conversion. Afternoon met bless, encourage, and fill me with thy Holy with Christian Endeavor Society, giving a Spirit." Bible reading, "Christ our example. " These are good workers among the women, and their July 8.-Went to church one hour before numbers are now doubled. The following day service-was surprised to find both men and I preached in the First Church to a full house; women's side filled with women coming early 30 arose for prayer. to find room, thus crowding ant the men. At once began preaching; dismissed the meeting July 1/.-Morning held a service in the Grethat the women might go and the men come gorian house in the city suburbs; over 300 in; but most of them kept their seats on the present; every corner full; a few Protestants, :IIoor; the men were obliged to stay in the yard several Mohammedans. Afterward called on while I preached a second sermon for all. two palsied women confined to their beds for The need, desire and interest is wonderful. years. Among those who called. one man July 26.-Rev. T. D. Christie, of Marash, said: "I have done all known wickedness, hearing of this revival, came to help us. We been in prison three times-one Sunday I are very glad, for there is great need, and he heard you preach, since then I am surprised has large experience, and is very valuable in at the change in me; can't tell what and such work. Ever since the Adana revival, where I am-never prayed before, now pray- where we were together, I have greatly ening always; would like to tell others of this joyed working with him. He will give much change but fear they will not believe, but will of his time to personal work among new contry and show them by my life." Evening verts and inquirers. A large gathering in the meeting with young people; two pastors and First Church, Mr. Christie taking part; 45 exone college professor took part-it was a pressed desire for salvation. To-day a youn", season of great blessing. man came to a missionary, returning several small articles stolen at a fire eight months July 19.-Many young people come for per- ago. He confessed his sin with tears, saying sonal conversation-three boys and two girls he could not rest till his conscience was clear, earnestly pleading to be taken in our Tarsus he having recently given his heart to Christ. school. Thus far 17 applications from this city, and if we only had accommodations it July 28, Sabbath.-Morning attended First would be a grand thing to give a Christian Church Sunday-school; found 26 children had education to these young converts, who could decided for Christ; their tearful confessions be the means of blessing to their people. and simple faith was such that I went to the " My Lord, thou knowest and seest the need, adults, related the fact, while Pastor Mardagive opportunity as thou givest desire, grant ros earnestly spoke on "Where art thou ?". enlargement and blessing to St. Paul's Insti- The meeting was very solemn and blessed;' tute, take away all obstacles for its progress." many hard hearts were melted. Afternoon Evening meeting, where the three pastors Mr. Christie and I preached; at the close' took part. Their faith has been greatly nearly 500 remained for a testimony meeting; strengthened by seeing what the Lord has 28 took part, giving interesting accounts of done in our midst. their conversion. All hearts are grateful for such an outpouring of the Holy I::lpirit. July 21, Sabbath.-After Sunday-school and a good prayer meeting, a woman came, say- July 29.-By invitation, went to an Armeing, "Here are three Mohammedan women who nian meeting; was permitted to speak some would like you to talk and pray with them." words of truth, to which all listened atten-' I gladly responded, going to where they sat, tively; 5 priests expressed interest. Afterlith faces veiled; knelt down and prayed. noon 22 children and 14 young men came to I Evening, large meeting in First Church, more inquire the way of salvation. Missionaries, Gregorians came than ever before. Previously and native pastors are working heartily and they besought their priests to invite me to in full sympathy. preach in their church, but a few wealthy members objecting, the people came to our July 30 to Aug. 3.-These days have been church to hear the tl"".1th. This has been a especially devoted to church examination. day lonj:( to be remembered for its fullness of Preached only once; in the three churches 267.' blessing. came forward. So many interesting facts and testimonies, I cannot begin to write them. July 22.-Women's meeting. Holy Spirit, at Enemies are reconciled, notOrious crinlinaIs the close of sermon. asked all who wanted to converted, drunkards reclaimed, parents re-' come to Christ to arise; 22 responded, one of joicing over wandering children, whole famiwhom, 80 years old, was a great opposer to lies coming together to unite with the visible the truth, but now her groans and tears melt church. Said Pastor Mardaros: "I have been many hearts. Afternoon, 11 callers, compan- here thirteen years, and can it be possible ions in wickedness, now Christ's followers. that this great blessing has come to this city, Said they: "A month ago if anyone would even on Aintab!" "Yea, this is the Lord's tell us of such a change we would not believe, doing and wonderful in our eyes." now we tell others but they believe not." Aug. 4, Sabbath.-This is the crowning day July 24.-Children's meeting; 500 present. of the revival. At morning, by invitation, Theme, "Christ and the children;" 150 re- went to Episcopal Church; small congregamained for inquiry meeting; many prayed, tion; large building; unfinished for lack of confessing their sins. We hope all these are money. I preached, •. Fear not, little lIock." accepted by·the dear Saviour. Union service at noon; large attendance. I preached to those who will to-day join tl,e July 25.-Missionaries and natives urge me church, .. Lovest thou me?" (We all felt the to remain that these services may close with Holy Spirit's personal presence.) The reply a communion season and accept new converts. on hundreds of faces was, "Thou knowest that We all hope for a grand harvest. Evening I love thee. " After the sermon those who will service for new converts; 400 present. The unite with the church arose, 248, a large band prayers and testimonials were very interest- ready to serve Christ. They all repeated ing: over 25 took part, even 4 women ventured together after me the three verses beginning, to pray. "Who can separate us from the love of for inquiry, most of whom found salvation.
Christ1" Any who were seeking Christ were Among the new converts are several who invited to remain after service; 140 respondAd lately mocked at religious things.
-22 by words and 83 by rising expressed Aug. 21.-Temperance day; I preached their new decision; among them were 20 from, "We will not drink wine." Reading a children, whose deep conviction was very few passages at the close, asked- those who, Dlanifest. Evening there was communion in like the Rechabites, would promise thus, to the three churches-new members accepted; express it publicly. Over 1,000 arose. What an former members more hmnble and grateful. encouraging sight. Next day, in the Women's It was a day of holy consecration for us all. meeting, Mr. Christie preached; 45 remained Aug. 5 to n.-The work is so interesting, for inquiry; many blessed prayers and con- the plea so urgent, we have decided to remain fessions. During these two weeks 365 came two weeks longer. This week I preached five for church admiSSion, far more than we, in times to full congregations; many new con- our weak faith, expected. The Lord is work- verts-one a noted gambler, another an infi- ing mightily.
del, whose public confession was touching to Aug. 25, Sabbath.-Union service at noon for many. I visited 20 houses with Pastor Gara- missionary cause. After preaching I asked bed. The pastors have decided to have the people, as a slight token of gratitude to another comnlunion soon. This gives me God, to organize a Missionary Society and hope that Vartina Bajis's (a good mother in support some preachers in needy cities. Mr.
Israel,90 years old,) expectation will be ful- Christie also spoke encouraging words. All filled. One day in church she said, "I am responded well; a committee was organized, a praying for 500 new converts." A good brother collection taken amounting to 2.400 piastres said, "You are expecting too many, mother.~' ($95); during this week the gift of 600 piastres "I have prayed for them, and they are sure to to Third Church poor pastor, 1,400 piastres come. " I quoted, "According to thy faith be debt to First Church pastor; and this contri- it unto thee." bution is, for these poor people, about the Aug. 12 to 17.-Examinations for church ad- same as $5,000 in Ami'rica. Can we ask a mission; a new children's society (Zion'8Mes- better proof of revival work?
sengers) organize(!; their work is to visit Evening communion in each church; 286 houses each morning and hold half-hour new members accepted, hearts glad, families prayer-meetings with the children; they also happy, and the day blessed, to be long, long collect money to purchase Bibles for needy remembered..
Sunday-school classes. This week I preached During this revivai 534 new members were four times and gave a Bible reading; 31; newly added to the three churches on confession of decided for Christ. Now I am preaching on faith, while many are secret followers, not the various dnties of church members. The quite ready to come out now. Such an addi- evening of the 13th the theme was, "Seek tion to the awakened churches will no doubt the peace of Jerusalem." At the close, asked prove a great power and advance Christ's all who would vow anew to fulfill their church kingdom in Aintab and vicinity. "So then duties, to rise. All members solemnly respon- neither is he thatplanteth anything, neither he ded, a sight that gladdened our hearts. We that watereth, but God that gi11eth increase."
hope, after this, the weekly meetings, which, The two following days I preached to many before the revival, were attended by from 10 hundreds.
to 20, will be crowded, and instead of a few, The sermOD, Aug. 27, "Go forward," was scores will take part in the blessed prayer- my last charge. I did not tell the people of meetings as they do now. A deacon said, "I our departure, that we might leave quietly.
have complaints to make against you preach- Next day we left Aintab for a season of rest ers; before this I could pray ten minute. and among the mountains near Marash. I am speak as long as I wanted in prayer-meeting, glad Mr. Christie could remain and carry on not taking anyone's time, but now so many are the good work. The pastors are working ear- ready and waiting to take part, I cannot find nestly, and we hope and pray that a greater even one minute to thank God for all he has bleSSing is still in store for Aintab. "0 Lord, done." carryon Thy work; visit the needy, hungry Aug. 18, Sabbath.-Two more new Sunday- churches, and glorify Thy almighty name."
school classes organized in the Third Church. TARSUS, Nov. 12, 1889.
Our teacher of St. Paul's Institute has been much blessed in his efforts to work among WORLD'S CO)l'VENTIO)I' ON MISSIONS IN young people. He preached weekly in a Gre- 1892.
gorian Society of 200 young men; his visits LETTER FROM REV. WM. 11. M'CAUGHEY, PHILA.
and conversation brought many into these DEAR DR. PIERSON: With regard toa World's new Sunday-school classes and the church. Convention on Missions in 1892, there is a Union service at noon. I preached to a full movement on foot looking in this direction.
house. The following day after the sermon, In the Central Presbytery of Philadelphia Rev.
H Now is the day of salvation," 250 remained R. D. Harper moved that a committee of five
I~TER~ATlO~AL DEPARTMENT
be appointed to confer witll a committee of return you to your native land. I am, yours the Baptist brethren on this subject. The committee was appointed, and I have the honor truly, W. H. MCCAUGHEY. to be one of the five. The first meeting was held early in October. The Baptist brethren Rev. L. S. Tugwell, of the Spanish and were Russell·H. Conwell, D. D., Geo. C. Bord- Portuguese Church Aid Society, writes us to man, D.D., and John Peddie, D.D. Dr. Harper say: "You will be glad to hear that we are was made chairman and Dr. Conwell secre- receiving enconraging reports of the work in tary; and these were empowered to call a meet· Spain and Portngal from the Rev. H. E. Noyes, ing of representative men of differentdenomi- the editor of Light and Truth, who is now just nations. Such a meeting has been called to concluding a visit to our brethren of the meet at the Baptist Rooms Nov. 11th. Per- Spanish and Portuguese Reformed Churches. haps this is all known to you, but if not, I He has been greatly cheered by all he has know it will be a real pleasure for you to hear seen, and his highest expectations have been it. The plan, as projected, is on a large scale. Calling, as it does, for special buildings, it exceeded. One of the most hopeful features will require a great deal of expense and hard in this movement is the self-denying zeal, earwork; yet, with you, I feel that it would be nest devotion, and patient perseverance of the one of the grandest movements of the century. pastors, evangelists and teachers in their ardu- With an earnest prayer that God may bless ous but blessed work for the Master." your work while abroad, and in his own time [Dr. Gracey, in sending us this item, says: "Tugwell deserves encouragement, for he has had a long, hard pull. All the work of this society originated with him. "-J. M. S.] IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Our Relations with Latin America. It affords more miles of navigation than all The meeting of the Representatives the rivers of Europe combined, and more than the Mississippi with its several tributaries. of the Republics of the Three The tide from the Atlantic reaches two hun- dred and sixty miles up the stream, and ocean Americas-North, Central and South -in our national capital, forces to ships of twenty-four feet draught can find the front questions about the duty water enough the year round at a distance of which new conditions promise to a thousand miles from its mouth. Vessels impose on the Protestantism of of from sixteen to twenty feet draught can go 'twenty-seven hundred miles into the interior the United States toward the fifty of the Continent, and a comparatively small ,millions of people in Spanish America amount of money-a mere fraction of the -a population numerically about sum that has been spent upon the Mississippi- equal to our own j just below our will furnish a path for a four thousand ton horizon, Latin America contains vessel from New York or Liverpool to the very heart of Brazil, by way of Buenos Ayres. "
some three thousand natives of the The vast resources of these Southern United States and about ten millions Republics are certain to tempt Euro- of European subjects, the nucleus of pean immigration as well as com- the forces which are to make a new merce. The Italian Government sends world out of the " New World " Co- a steamer every month from Genoa to lumbus revealed four centuries since; Montevideo and Buenos Ayres, and for the Americas are being re-dis- another to Valparaiso, Chili. There covered. are five French lines of steamships If the reader has doubt of that, let connecting Marseilles, France, with him try a geographical study of South ports of Brazil, Uruguay and the America, and test whether he has Argentine Republic; and a line from realized its physical conditions. We Havre to the North and East Coast of venture to assign one lesson as a sam- South America. There are German ple, taken from a government docu- steamers running from Hamburg to ment: the West Coast of South America as " The Rio de la Plata, or the River Plate, as far as Guatemala. Belgium has a it is commonly known, offers a more extensive semi-monthly steamship service to system of unobstructed navigation than any Brazil and Argentina. The Pacific river in the world, and, with the exception of Steam Navigation Company has rethe Amazon, pours more water into the ocean. cently latmched four magnificent artificial land transportation, present steamers for England's South Ameri- and prospective. A railway from can trade, t,vo of them being larger Boston to Buenos Ayres seems vision- and faster than any hitherto in that ary perhaps; but it is worth fixing commerce, being of 6,500 horse power our thought on. Within three years and 6,000 tons capacity. past railroads have been actually built, and routes surveyed, for at least Of course, the concomitant of all one-third of the distance between this is an influx of Europeans into Buenos Ayres and Bogota-one-third, South America and Central America. and that the hardest one-third to con- The Argentine Government pays the struct, has been actually completed pasmga of the immigrant, keeps him or is constructing. for days after arrival, and forward:; him atgovernment expense by steamer There are two lines built, and two or train to the farms of the interior, lines for which concessions have been gives him land and seed, and six dol- granted, which, with shorter ones allars a month for the first year. This ready in operation, leave but about Republic received more European im- 2,000 miles of road to be constructed migrants in the first six months of to make the chain complete. That is last year than in twelve months of the no such task as was our Pacific Railprevious year. The Mexican Govern- road. The Republics along the line ment pays the steamship companies are anxious for its construction, and sixty dollars per head for each immi- are ready to guarantee five to seven grant landed in the next five years, per cent. on the capital invested. Some and an average of forty-five dollars five distinct routes are proposed for each for the succeeding ten years. this inter-continental railway, one of which leaves 3,252 miles to be built, These facts, and vastly more of the another 2,616, and two others, roundsame genus, plainly indicate that the ly, 2,000 miles. The route which immediate future is to bring new con- leaves the least mileage to be conditions to us on the south. It seems structed runs from Buenos Ayres to just as plain that America is to be Jujuy, thence to Bogota, and about evangelized by Americans. Protestant 1,000 miles are now operated. The Europe evidences little interest in the lines would pass throughout its whole spiritualizing of these newly-rising length through countries teeming people, and we have been laggard and with the most valuable articles of half-nerved in what we have done. commerce. These are the EI Dorado It is not an easy thmg to kindle enthu- regions of the ancients. "Stripped siasm about Protestant work in South of all poetry," says the Report of the American fields, though we do warm United States Government, "immense up a little more readily of late to work mines and deposits of precious metals in the Republic of Mexico. If the do exist in Bolivia, though too remote contact of steamer and rail accounts from highway and habitation now to for this it may not be long till we have be explored." largely similar conditions with the more southern States. The Director of the United States 1tfint said that under favorable cir- "Ve cannot enter into the political cumstances Chili, Bolivia and Peru question of the duty of the govern- might add fifty million ounces of silment to improve our ocean highway ver to the world's stock annually. conditions to South America; but, " Every spade that turns the clod rethat aside, the overland communica- veals the silver" in the basin of the tions are, prophetically at least, in Cerro Pasco in Peru. The region sight. At the risk of dropping some through which this proposed road of our readers at this point, we ven- would pass, when the other twoture to present something about the thirds are completed, yields even now, When a body as representative as apart from gold and emeralds and that sends out a manifesto, it should, diamonds, six hundred million dol- at least, secure the attention of the lars' worth of commerce annually. Christian public. It deals with some of the more recent criticisms on Mis- With the celebration in 1892 of the sions, and we may assume it, therefour hundredth anniversary of the fore, to be of wider interest than the discovery of this continent, we will circle of patrons of those specific be face to face with problems of pro- missions. They first emphasize the foundest importance in reference to fact that India is not one, but many this Western Continent. Whether we countries, with many languages and are to have a World's Missionary Con- an extensive literature, but partially ference at that time does not yet ap- explored. Omitting Moslems, the bulk pear, but that the Protestants of North of the population about Madras as a America ought to face calmly at that center are non-Brahmanical. But time the question whether the Ameri- Brahmans have grafted the Hindu cas are to be evangelical, we do ear- caste system on to Dravidian ancient nestly believe. It is sad to think of tribal systems. After describing modthe multitude to the south of us, weary ern Hinduism (the indescribable) they and sick with Popery and Jesuitism say that with the people about them to the edge of revolt against all truth, all thought is contemporary, presentand certainly against all ecclesiasti- ing an epitome of all thought, ancient cisms. This four hundredth anni- and modern, that of the West with versary ought to see the broadest and that of India 2,000 years ago. The best minds of Protestantism ready old social order has been infracted, with great schemes for the religious and hence disturbance and disintegrauplifting of those Republics, whether tion, and a social freedom without by missionary or merchant, by teacher, internal standard. Altogether they mechanic or farmer. A great upris- are in the midst of intricate condiing might be inspired, and a move- tions, and feel called to every possible ment organized for aggressive work. sacrifice. They then name the forms Hundreds of Protestant mechanics, of missionary agency which they Use. we are assured, can find a field where they may make a good living and find They venture to defend such of opportunity to help evangelize those these measures as have been recently lands. A council of eminent leaders and widely criticised. They say of should prepare for at least an Ameri- Higher Education that "the withcan Missionary Conference in 1892. drawal from the mission field of this agency, which, after all, absorbs but a Missionaries Answer the Oritics on small fraction of our numerical Mission Economy. strength, would leave a blank, for the filling up of which no hostile critic The Missionaries of the several Pro- has yet made any practical suggestestant churches in Madras, India, tion." have sent out "An Open Letter to the Churches," which is signed by four Referring to the question of Missionmissionaries of the Church of Eng- ary Economies, they say the salaries of land Society, four of the London So- European Missionaries have not been ciety, six: of the Englis~ Wesleyan, six questioned in India, and they think of the Free Church of Scotland, three them fairly reasonable, no class of Enof the Church of Scotland, one Ameri- glishmen, not even artisans, receivcan Baptist, two American Methodist, ing so small allowances as Missiontwo Danish Lutheran, nine represent- aries. ing'the Madras Christian College, and one the Bible Society-38 in all. • The Salvation Army has been much lauded as illustrating greater pOSSIble economy in the conduct of Missionary opportunity to acquire language in so work. They say the results of the brief a period. The number has been Salvation Army labors are not tabu- terribly reduced, and the wear and lated, and hence a true verdict cannot tear of their way of living is largely be hoped for; but in their part of In- responsible for this. Their very plan dia the Army has not been successful. of operations increases health and life It has swelled its ranks from converts risk, and affords no corresponding in- of other churches, many of whom crease in efficiency, have returned to their old fold. It has They refer next to the Roman Cath- only labored where other Missions olic priest as a missionary model.
had planted themselves. They have The rate of increase for these missions found it easier to appeal to Christians has for twenty-five years been lower than to Hindus for support, and have than that of the Protestant missions.
diverted funds from other Christian The Protestant Church is not ready work-only the merest fraction of to insist that all its missionaries shall their support has ever come from non- be celibates. In<Ea has had enough Christians. The Army has carefully of asceticism according to prescribed avoided districts where no missionary Hindu rules, unless it should appear work is done by others. in the form of a great Hindu reformer.
Nor have the agents of the Army To Hindus generally, Western men g-ot into greater sympathy than others will not appear to be real ascetics, but with the natives. The text of the manufactured and spurious. More- letter on the matter of Europeans over, there is nothing Hindus corre- adopting native dress runs as follows: sponding to the Christian home, in .. For at least two cellturies. the Englishman which woman fills her place of honor, has been a familiar figure In India; to this gen· and where unity and affection dwell eration he ill! now almost as familiar as the Mus- together. Nothing is more necessary Bulman. To HinduB, his dress seems to be even and instructive to Hindus than the attractive. While no Hindu dreams of adopt· exhibition of that family life which is ing the Mussulman costume, thousands of Hin.
dus are now adopting the English dress. It is the rich fruit of Christian faith. Of impossible, therefore, that what is familiar and course, the other phase of an economiattractive can at the same time be specially reo cal agency implies that cheaper men, pellant. All who know anything of human na· men of less intellectual furnishing, ture will agree, that not by a particular dress, but by intelligence and true sympathy do we even of less moral endowment, may find access to the hearts of men. Soul must be used, that the standard of the mistouch soul, and eating curry and rice with one's sionary force might be lowered. Refingers and weaJ.ing long hair are poor substi. ferring to this, the open letter says: tutes for a. knowledge of the language and "Outer conditions will adjust themthoughts of Hindns."
But, after all, can there not be a selves and will never hinder mission- cheaper agency employed with ad- ary work if the agents supplied by the vantage in the mission field? That is churches are what they should be, l't current question. Multitudes of and here we earnestly plead that the thoughtful friends of missions are standard of attainment and efficiency asking that question. Does not the be maintained among all Europeans Salvation Army prove that? This who come to India as agents. If it be " open letter" replies that the cost of lowered, nothing can be gained, but its European agents in India has never . much may be lost. Imperfectly been made known. The number of equipped Europeans can only take a deaths among them is exceptionally place as the rivals of imperfectly large. The number disabled by sick- equipped native agents, than whom ness is very great, as compared with they will be more costly, and-less other missions. The average stay in effective."
India is very brief. They have little They say they need a class of native agents more highly trained than any lem by living as the Chillese live, eating their they yet have had. They appeal for food as they cook it, sleeping on their k'ang men to reach the thousands of Hindus beds. and very closely imitating their mode of who have been educated in schools life; but a part of these, at least, having decided and colleges, more or less acquainted that nothing is gained by such a life, and that with Christianity, and who have im- health and fitness for service are endangered bibed some of its moral thought, but thereby, have returned to a more Western man- 'who have not found the path to true Der of living. Simplicity is not imitation. We light. They wish, too, for some few are not Chinese, and no amount of imitation men of learned leisure to produce will make the people think we are." a Christian literature in the vernacular. "Year by year," they say, "the The other writer discusses the quesreading public increases, as does the tion of lower-salaried, and thus a less demand for Christian literature; but expensive, even if a less furnished miswe cannot give them the best, as we sionary agency. He does not think ought." that the nllssionary who uses the smallest amount of money is there- They say it has been matter of re- fore the cheapest agency. gret to them" that the criticism rece~ly bestowed on Indian missions so .. Commercially, the investment that brings in much has referred only to details of the largest proportionate returns-the largest secondary importance, and so little to percent.-is the cheapest_ So financially, and the essentials of the missionary prob- every other way, the missionary that accomlem." plishes the largest amount of efficient results is, as a rule, the cheapest. By' efficient results' They close their "open letter" say- is meant living, active, self-propagating ing: "The progress of Christianity is churches, a wise and earnest native ministry,etc. that of 'the truth as it is in Jesus,' The missionary that accomplishes nothing is breaking the spell of an antiquity not only expensive, but a •dead capital,' though which overawes, and scattering a he were to use only 100 Mexicans a year J while manifold error which has long bewil- one using 5,000 in successful work may be the dered men. And because we know cheapest." that here in India the battle is the Lord's, we rejoice in the certainty He affirms that sbtistics prove that that the victory is His also. And all the man or the Society that works flesh shall see the salvation of God." with least proportionate expenditure, reaches the least proportionate results, And now we have two other per- and that nine-tenths of the efficient resons discussing these features of mis- sults in China have been from Missionsionary economies in China whose aries who live comfortably, from their views are set forth in The Chinese own national standard of comfort. Recorder, the first we give being a There is little economy in a merely strong advocate for the simplest possi- numerical increase of missionaries. A ble style of living for missionaries, so few well-trained, suitably cared for, as to destroy the impression that mis- able to create and direct a native force, sionaries are lovers of good living, and are cheaper than many of the cheaper so as to avoid a style of living so far sort trying to do the work themselves. beyond the reach of the people as to It is on the line of this power to create arouse their cupidity rather than fur- the middle man, the efficient native nish them an example. But even tIllS force, that, he says, "comparatively a advocate of simplicity says: very small number of the number of foreign workers now in China have .. Living <u rimply as the average teacher or accomplished very nearly all the efmerchant, does not mean that we live as they ficient results so far. It is a notorious do. The former is practicable; the latter is im- fact that several of the smaller practicable, and, therefore, unwise. Some very societies have done some of the best earnest men have endeavored to solve this prob- and largest work."
He fortifies this position by quoting from Rev. John Ross, of Manchuria, speaking at the London Conference: "Let all the missionary societies manned, but is now in the same position as pick out, not as many men as they can find, but pick out a few, choice in Loando, awaiting good workers to man it. all respects, spiritually, mentally, in- tellectually, physically-let there be a Nhangupp<po.-From Dondo we .. take it few choice men, let these train the natives, and the natives will do the afoot" fifty·one miles over l1i1ls, monntains and work. It seems to me that this is the only way you can get the work vales, by the old caravan trail of the ages, to properly done." Nhanguepepo Mission station. Our property Bishop Taylor's Industrial Missions. there is worth about $6,000. It was deSigned Bishop William Taylor sent an ex- tended report of his work in Liberia, to be 8. receiving station, in which our new- and also in Angola, and in the Congo country. We condense the latter por- comers might be acclimatized, taught native tion of it, as this mission has attracted a good deal of attention and been the languages, and prepared for advauce work. subject of considerable criticism: Under the superintendency of Brother Withey Mamby.-Two days above Congo mouth we land at lIIayumbo, and proceed in boats seven- a great preparatory work has been done at this teen miles up an inland lake to Mamby, where Mi.s Martha Kah is stationed. When we settled station. It has, however, become specially a there it was in the bounds of the" Free State of Congo," but later the published decrees of the training school for native agency under the Berlin Conference putit under the wing of the French government. The French authorities leadership of one young mau of our first have recognized and registered our native title to 100 acres of good land, and are not unfriendly party from America, Karl Rudolph. We to US by any means; but .. by law" forbid us to teach any languag6 but French. Good has already have an organized Methodist Episcopal been done at Mamby, and is being done. Ow· ing to this disability, we have proposed to aban· Church at this station, composed of thirteen con- don it, but Martha Kah is entirely unwilling to leave, and as it is our only footing in French verted native men and boys. The work of each territory, and as they hold a vast region, peo- pled by numerous nations of African heathens, day is distributed; two of our boys called" pas· we have thought it best to hold on to Mamby. tors" have the care of about 100 head of cattle Loanda.-Passing the mouth of the Oongo River, we proceed by steamer over 300 mUes to belonging to the mission. Several boys are the beautiful land·locked harbor of St. Paul de Loanda. The Portuguese town bearing that taught to yoke and work oxen in sled or plow; name has many massive buildings. includillg churches in ruins, dating back over 300 years. several boys bave learned to be stone-masous,. It has an estimated population of 5,000, a few hundred of whom are Portuguese (one English and when I was there last were engaged in house of business), the rest being Negroes. From the beginning we have had adequate self· building a stone wall around the cattle" cor· supporting resources in Lo..nd.. from the Portu- guese patronage of our schools, and have now, ral." One boy is trained to business in the lit· but at present we lack the teaching corps requis· .; ite. tIe store. .
Dondo.-From Leanda we proceed by steamer Pungo Andongo.-Pnngo Andongo Station has oisixty miles" south by sea, and cross the bar into the mouth of the Ooanzo River, as large a8 the cro.sed the lines of sustentation and of abso- Hudson, and ascend 180 miles to Dondo, at the head of steamboat navigation. Dondo is a noted lute self-support, and is making money to open trading center, and has a population of about 5,000, mostly Negroes. We had a good property new statious in the regions beyond. in Dondo worth about $5,000. Its school work and machine shop were self-supporting when Malange.-An onward march of sixty·two miles brings us to Malange, a town of probably 2,000 population, and noted for its merchandise. Our people there are Samuel J. Mead, P. E ,"his wife, Ardella, retined, well educated, and a tine musician, at the head of our school work.
Willie Mead, head of the mechanical depart-.
ment; his wife is especially engaged in teach iug missionaries. Robert Shield, a young mis~ sionary from Ireland, who was brougl1t up at home for a. merchant, runs a small mission store at Malange, preaches in the Kimbunda, and has a growing circuit extending among the villages of the surrounding country. Uur na- tive Church, organized at Malange at the time of my visit, had" the number of twentY'one, all probationers, of course, but baptized and saved. Our property at Malange is worth prob- ably i6,~00. Samuel J. Mead has charge of a big farm, and making it pay. Brother fillie trained four native men to run two pit-saws, and in the last year or two has turned out $1,500 worth of lumber, which sells for cash at the saw·pits. These meu are also preachers, and preach several times each week in the Por~ tuguese language. In labor, money. and build· ing material, they have recently completed a new two-story mission house and other mission improveonents, amounting to an aggregate cost of $1,200, without any help from home.
LulU<.lburg.-From Malauge a tramp of 1,000 miles northeast will bring Us to Luluaburg, in the Bashalange ·country. discovered by Dr. Pogge and Lieut. Weismann in 1883. Th-: ..tot yet built a mission bouse in Pluky. Miss Governor-General of the independent State of McNeal teaches school in a native bonse in the Congo, at my request, gave to Dr. Summers. midst of the town, and preacbes on Sabbath one of our men from Malange. permission to days under tbe sbade of a bread-fruit tree.
found " station for our mission at Lnluabul'g. Her scbool house is crowded, and sbe has six of which he did, and built a couple of houses bel' boys and three girls converted to God, wbo on, it, and was making good progress when be testify for Jesus in bel' meetings, and belp her became worn out by disease and died. I bope in bersonl-saving work. Probable value $800, 80011 to send a suceeSBor to dear Dr. Summers. in land. Miss Barbara Miller assists her tem- Kimpoko.-From Luluaburg a week of foot porarily, but her specialties are kindergarten traveling northwest will bring us to Lueba, at and mllsic, awaiting tbe opening of the tbe junction of the Lulua and Kassai rivers. academy.
Tbence, in a little steamer descending tbe G'araway.-Twenty miles nortbwest of Cape Kassai river about 800 miles, we sweep through Palmas. Miss Agnes McAllister is in cbarge of U Qua mouth·· into the Congo, descending tbe station, and Miss Clara Binkley bas special wbicb 70 miles we will tie up at Kimpoko, near cbarge of tbe educational department, botb the northeast angle of Stanley Pool. We. working togetber as missionaries. Aunt Rachel, opened this station in 1886, designed as a way a Liberian widow woman, runs the farm and station for our transportation to tbe countries produces indigenous food enougb to feed two or of the Upper Kassai. At Kimpoko we made an tbree stations. This is a station of great irrigating ditch a mile long, drawing from a promise. Probable value, $1,200.
bold mountain creek an abundant supply of Matumba.-One hundred miles by steamer water to insure good crops at all seasons. We down tbe Congo to Banana brings us within an have there about ten acres ,under cultivation, hour and a half by cars of our mission station and grow in profusion all tbe indigenous food at Matumba. Miss Mary Kildare, a superior that we can ll.I!e. Brotber Burr, who is our pre- teacher, linguist and missionary, is our sole oc- siding elder at Kimpoko, writes that Kimpoko cupant of the station at Matumba. I bougbt of has been nearly self-sustaining from the be- the government nearly ten acres of good ground ginning, but entirely 80 since the beginning of there for nearly $120, baving previously bought this year. They are building a new mission- the native title. We bave a comfortable little bouse this dry season, about 15×80. In tbis bouse of galvanized iron, 22×24 feet, set on pil- work they may require a little help-a rew bales lars six feet above ground. Tbe bouse is divi- of clotb from borne. At a low e,timate our ded into two rooms, 12 x 12 feet, and a ver- property in Kimpoko is worth at least $1,000. anda 12×124 feet, enclosed by balu.trading and Manyanga.-From Kimpoko we go by oars or a gate, and is used for schoolroom. She bas steamer twenty miles to the lower end of Stan- now a scbool of twenty scholars. Sbe does her ley Pool at LefYjJoldville. Thence by foot 100 preacbing mostly in the villages; tbe bouse is miles to South Manyanga (which is called the in an enclosure of nearly an acre~ surrounded Nortb Bank route; by the Soutb route we walk by a bigh fence with strong gate wbich is locked from Leopoldville 231 miles to Matadi or Lower up at 9 P. 111. daily. Itook her recently a box of Congo), Liberian coffee seed, which she has in a nursery Isangila.-From Manyanga we go by a launcb growingbeautifully, and sbe bas a fruit orchard of three or four tons capacity, propelled by oars coming on.
and sails and currents, 88 miles to Isangila. We Our property at Matumba is wortb $1,000.
bave bad a station at IsangiJa for over two years, We, two years ago, started three stations be- on which we bave built good native houses, but tween Vivi and Isangila-Vumtomby Vivi, Sadi bad not bougbt the site of the Government till Kabanza, and Matamba. We built pretty good my last visit to the land office at Barna. The houses at a total cost of $30, not counting our site, containing 7Yz acres. cost us nea.rly $80. A labor.
good garden spot. Ollr bretbren dug a yam Since tbat, Brother Reed and wife and from their garden in Isangila when I was tbere Brotber Bullikist, very good people, sent out by a few weeks ago, which weighed twenty-two Dr. Simpson, of New York, have opened a pounds-more wholesome and delicious if pos- station nearly midway between Vnmtomby sible than Irisb potatoes. Our paying industry Vivi and Sadi Kabanz.., so when we get ready tbere will be in the transport line of business. to go out to found new stations, we sball prefer, instead of resummg work at those vacated, to • As our Vivi Station is at tbe higbest point of small steamer naVigation, so Isangila. is the go into the more populous regions of the inte· lowest point of the middle passage of the Congo rior. The Congo State bas a strip of country from Isangila. eighty-eight miles to Manyanga. densely populated, 100 miles from the north Our site at Isa.ngila_with improvemeuts 19 worth bank of tbe Congo, and extending from Banana $300. 250 miles to Manyanga, all unoccupied and open Pluky.-Across Hoffman river, from Cape to U~. except a few new stations near the Congo.
Palmae, is the beginning of our h.ru Coast line So God is opening a vast field for us 011 the of stations. Miss Lizzie McNeal is the mission- Lower Congo as well as on the Upper Congo ary. Though two years in the station, we have and Kassai. Death of lIfissionaries.-The list of writer that those societies who print eminent dead has been lengthened of full and succinct accounts of their late by the addition of missionary work in a variety of forms, and keep- names. ing the same 'steadily available to outsiders as well as their own sup- Mrs. SarahB. Lansing, wife of Rev. porters, become most fully established Julian Lansing, who for the past in the public confidence, and ulti- thirty years has faithfully labored as mately command the fullest support. a missionary in connection with the It is quite curious to watch the filter- United Presbyterian Mission of Egypt, ing process which goes on from these has deceased. She was born in 1820. prints, larger or smaller, through the She was a sister of the Rev. Dr. Dales, press and public assembly. of Philadelphia, Corresponding Secretary of the United Presbyterian Board -Now that the Christian world is of Foreign Missions. In her mission depressed, if not discouraged, by the work she has suffered many hard- entire collapse of England's policy in ships, and at one time, while at the Soudan for the suppression of the Damascus with her husband, had to slave trade, by extension of the Kheflee for life under persecution. dive's jurisdiction from Khartoum to the Central lakes, it is with peculiar Rev. C. W. De Heer, of long service interest and some fresh hope that we in the Gaboon Mission of the Presby- learn that the Sultan of Zanzibar has terian Church, died at Clifton Springs, published a decree that after Novem- N.Y. ber 1, 1889, all slaves entering his dominions shall be declared free; and The Methodists of India have been that after January 1,1890, all children sorely stricken of late in the succes- born of slaves in his dominion shall sive loss by death of Dr. McCoy, of Cal- also be free. A single generation will cutta; Rev. Mr. Gray, of Singapore, thus see the end of slavery in this and also Mrs. Rudisill, Mrs. Winter greatest of slave centres. The Arabs and Mrs. Hopkins. in Zanzibar do not seem to have waked up to the effect of these two edicts on The Church of England mourns the slave trade. the death while she rejoices in the life of Bishop Sargent. He was sev- -At the meeting of the Anti-Slavery enty-four years of age, and furnished Conference in Brussels the Belgian another illustration of missionary King said he felt hopeful in regard to longevity, he having served fifty-four the steps now being taken for the supyears in India. He went to Madras pression of the slave trade, though when barely twenty years of age, and he had little hope that domestic slavery entered the society's service. He has would be done away with for many served in the Episcopacy for twelve years to come. Perhaps not, but the years. On the celebration of his foreign market for slaves can be cut jubilee in the mission he addressed off, and if the foreign market for ivory 1,400 of a Christian community, of were cut off a large motive power of whom sixty were native clergy. the slaver would be destroyed. But, after all, there is a long, tedious task -The General Assembly of the ahead of the humanitarianism and United Presbyterian Church haf' for- Christian evangelism of Europe and mally requested Rev. Andrew Watson, America in uplifting this Dark Con- D. D., to prepare a history c f < their tinent. But it can be done, It must Egyptian Mission to be publishea by be done, and it will be done. It is their Board of Publication. This is being done. to be commended, and the example should be imitated by all societies -The Free Church of Scotland sends whose work is at all historic, even if out a leaflet appealing to the children it be small. A close observation of the subject for years has shown the
ThE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
to aid the Sheikh-Othman slave refuge. Woman's Board. There are five This is the present headquarters of the native helpers in this mission. Keith-Falconer Mission to Arab Muslims. It is a large native village about -A missionary in Korea, writing to ten miles north of Aden, with a fluc- us recently, says: "I hope I have tuating population. The children in convinced you that we have great enthis refuge now number sixty, thirty- couragements in regard to the work, eight boys and twenty-two girls. They notwithstanding all you may have were dragged over three hundred heard to the contrary. The work has miles to the African harbor called not stopped; it cannot stop. Even Tajora, whence they were being taken were we all to leave Korea to-day I in dhows to Arabia to be sold as believe it would still go forward, and slaves, but were captured by a British eternity show grand results from the gun-boat and taken to Aden, and the seed-sowing already done. Just now Government asked the missionaries to the obstacles do seem somewhat fortake charge of them. What is known midable. I want you to pray the obas "The Arabian Mission" of this stacles down, or pray us above them. country, of which Prof. J. G. Lansing, We read in the Book that there is a of New Brunswick, N. J., is an active 'faith which subdued kingdoms.' projector, has decided to co-operate That is the kind we want brought to with this mission at Sheikh-Othman. bear on Korea."
-The Friends Mission at Ramsallah, -We gave a full account in former Palestine, ten miles north of Jerusa- numbers of the Patna case, as it is lem, founded by members of the called; that of Luchnion, the Hindu Friends' Society in England, has re- girl who fled to Miss Abraham to escently been transferred to the New cape the bondage of a so-called mar- England Yearly Meeting, and is now riage, but which in fact was a sale of known as the" Eli and Sybil Jones her person to a life of shame. The Mission. " The General Board and Calcutta Missionary Conference petithe Woman's Society of that yearly tioned the Government of India to remeeting co-operate in this work. verse the decision of the magistrate There is a Friends' Church at Ram- remanding her to this ignominious sallah, and twenty-five to thirty ap- bondage. The Government replies plicants for membership are now that it is unable to disturb the finding awaiting admission. There are five of the Courts in the case, as it was schools, two in the village for boys supported by the testimony. The and two for girls, also a training home High Court acknowledges the wrong just opened, with about eighteen done, but cannot see any "possible jimpils. There are three lady mission- measures that are practicable to undo aries, all of whom sailed from New that wrong." This is a most humili- York since June. Two of these ladies, ating confession for a strongChristian the assistant physician and the teacher Government to make in the premof English, are in the employ of the ises, and the matter ought not to rest here.
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLI1'WOOD, D.D.
The Religions of Ohina. the hills; every store and shop has its In one sense there is no country so little altar with burning incense to the full of religions as China. The gods god of good luck; every house is built and shrines are, if possible, more with reference to geomantic influence; ubiquitous than in India. Gods of the " fung shuay" is consulted in all mat- river, gods of the trees, gods of the tel'S of life; the whole land teems with hearth, gods of the kitchen, gods of the emblems of polytheism. First is TA01TIS!.1. Nevertheless, the Taouist priests have To this system the above named remained as a power in China. The in- liuperstitions chiefly belong. Its tellectual classes would disclaim any founder, Laotze, lived about 500 years confidence in them, and there are few B. C., and was already a public of the laity of any rank who would call teacher when Confucius was born. themselves distinctively Taouists, yet But Laotze's system, which was all classes, high and low, resort to these rationalistic and highly mystical, was professional necromancers on special above the comprehension of the people. occasions, and particularly when in Its ethical standards were pure and trouble. lIen claiming to be Confu- lofty, but cold and censorious. It had cianists are Taouists by turns, and no element of sympathy. Its philos- many costly Taouist temples have ophy was impracticable, as compared been built by the gifts of the wealthy with the precepts of Confucius, and in extremis. Much is given also by its discouraged and disgusted author way of financial ventures, as the god of died at length a voluntary exile in a wealth falls into the Taouist category.
remote western province. Laotze was The whole Joss business belongs to a true philosopher, propounding orig- this system, and it constitutes a large inal theories, while Confucius had lit- element in the practical religion of the tle originalty, but was a skillful com- Chinese wherever they are found.
piler of the ancient observances and CONFUCIANISM.
traditions. No uninspired teacher has " Quong fu tze" was a cotemporary ever taught a more exalted system of of Laotze, though several years private, social and political ethics younger. Attracted by the fame of than Laotze, but his transcendental- the great philosopher, he went to hear ism had little power with the people, him. Bnt there was little sympathy and the virtues which he commended between them. Confucius seemed to were disproportionally of a negative the older and morbidly critical Laotze kind. He feared the effect of general as only an ambitious and conceited education as fostering conceit, and young pedant. On the other hand, civilization as leading to corruption. one visit to the old philosopher seems His only god was reason (Taou), and to have sufficed for his young rival.
the mystical and pantheistic character Confucius gaye his attention to the with which he invested it-its imma- ancient records and traditions, and, nence and indwelling as an efficient winnowing out the abundant chaff, force in all things animate and inani- presented what he considered the mate-opened the way for the count- wholesome wheat. The Ancient less superstitions which now bear the 81100 King he rednced from 3,000mon- Taouist name and fill the land. His ographs to about 350. Unfortunately, successors fell far short of his sublime in his strong leaning toward Agnos- philosophy and his moral purity, and ticism, he is believed to have ruled out only preserved his mysticism as a most of the passages which related to basis for every species of jugglery and the worship of the Supreme Being.
imposture. The all-prevailing " Taou" 'Vhat he sought to establish was a took the form of spirits dwelling in purely ethical system bounded by the Ih'agons, in men and lower animals, confines of the present life. He ig- and even in trees. Certain uncanny nored all that related to the unseen animals are especially regarded as world or to the hereafter. Beginning embodiments of spirits. It peopled with the domestic and social relations, t118 land with elves and hobgoblins. he endeavored to build up society as As a disembodied essence it also ap- a pyramid, with the King or Emperor peared in the vague influence known as the head. The State was his uni- as " fung shnay." verse. In reply to some questions about the unseen world he said: eties of Buddhism. The most popular " We do not know life, how can we form of Buddhist worship is that paid know death." He magnified the re- to Quanyin, the " Goddess of Mercy." spect due to parents and to all ances- She is supposed by Beal to be identical tors, and .that came to be the only with the Avolokitesvara of Northern real worship of strict Confucianists. India and Thibet. Avolokitesvara is His ethics were out of true proportion. a later mythical personage of whom The rights of the father and the hus- Gautama knew nothing. He is a livband were exaggerated even to tyran- ing god, and therefore able to hear ny, if not to the power of life and prayer, while the Buddha is extinct. death. Woman, as woman, was not He is a Bodisat (one who will become duly honored. Only as a mother, or an incarnate Buddha at a future time). the mother of a husband, did she re- When Fahieu, the Chinese pilgrim ceive respect. As such she might even who visited India at an early day, was bea tyrant. overtaken bya stormat seaheprayed to Avolokitesvara for real help: prayers That Confucianism is a mastBrly offered to Buddha are only expected to piece of statesmanship, that it solidifies produce reflex influence on one's own the whole fabric of authority and uni- heart and promote self help. fies all the forces of the home and the social bond, none will deny, but it In China this Bodisat is worshipped is not a religion. Its ethical stand- under the conception of a virgin ards are for the most part high, and princess who won Nirvana, but postall history represents its author as a poned it, and still lives in one of the virtuous exemplar as well as teacher. heavens to bless suffering humanity. This worship is wholly alien to primi- Confucius found his country dis- tive Buddhism, but it is more sympatracted by social and political dis- thetic and seems better adapted to orders, and he confidently offercd his human necessities. i services to various provincial princes as a governmental adviser. His suc- There is also in China a popular cess was not great in this attempt, Buddhist worship of Amitabba, anand he was obliged to be content with other Bodisat, ·.,yho presides over a gathering about him a multitude of real heaven beyond the setting sun. disciples, to whom he taught that The chief hope of the masses is not ethical system which, since his death Nirvana, but a re-birth into one of the and through all subsequent ages, has heavens, or at least into a higher and exerted so vast an influence. more favorable earthly state. The number of those who may be regarded Confucianism is the controlling sys- as distinctiv'ely Buddhists in China is tem of China. small, beyond the limits of the mon- astic orders. Those who are at times BUDDHISM. Buddhists, and who cherish some Bud- dhist hope for the life to come, are This system was introduced from mostly concerned in this life with the India early in the Christian era. countless popular superstitions of Through successive centuries Chinese Taouism. They may frequently be scholars and religionists went to India found consulting' the Taouist jugglers to study its teachings on its own soil. or in the joss houses offering paper The type of Buddhism introduced into money to the god of wealth. China was chiefly that of the Mahayana, known as the Northern Bud- All the religions of China are overdhism, and which was already depart- lapped and blended together, and we ing from the atheism of Gautama and must remind those apologists who are promulgating various theistic doc- anxious to swell the comparative forces trines. of the non-Christian religions, that it China is now said to be the theatre of more than a dozen different variis not good arithmetic to set down the is so much easier to reiterate than to whole population of China to each of investigate and learn the truth. the three systems. Other doubts are raised of a pre- THE PRIMEVAL FAITH OF CHINA. cisely opposite nature.. "Are not the noble Confucian ethics all sufficient A presentation of the religions of for China?" "The Chinese are astute, China would not be complete without reflective, proud of their country and at least a brief reference to that im- their creed, why not let them alone ?" pressive imperial worship which is Thus, from the extreme position that paid by the Emperor in the Temple of all effort in their behalf is bootless, Heaven in Peking. The subject is owing to their depravity, we are carworthy of an extended paper, but there ried to the opposite and contradictory is only space to say that it is believed, assertion that it is gratuitous, as they with apparently good reason, to be a have a philosophy of their own which l'elic of that primeval worship which we could scarcely hope to improve. was rendered to the true God. The Then there is the still further question prevalence of polytheism has not whether it be possible to change the wholly eradicated the conception of religion of a nation so populous and so One self-existent and ever-living God, vast, and whether with all our effort the Creator and upholder of all things. and sacrifice, the total result is not The offering of a whole burnt offering ridiculously inadequate. Yet notonce a year by the chief ruler, as the withstanding all this variety of dark King of Salem was once the " priest of prophesying, China is, perhaps, the the Most High God," seems indeed a most important mission field of the relic of something of which we would world to-day, and lays a larger degladly know more. Drs. Martin and mand than any other upon the faith Legge, two of China's foremost for- and effort of the Christian Church, eign scholars, do not hesitate to regard andespeciallyof the American Church. it as an obscure perpetuation of the primitive worship of Jehovah. Alas! First. In common with the other that it is an imperial monopoly, fm' Mongolian nations, China presents a even the common people often seek very significant claim by its geosomething iligherthantheir basesuper- graphical position. As the Missionstitions. The sailors of the Fukhien ary Churches of Europe look eastward Province, when overtaken by a storm, toward these Mongolian races, they make offerings to the gods of the sea, find a twofold barrier in their way. but when that does not avail, they Russia on the north and the Mohamthrow them all away and pray to the medan powers on the south rise up Supreme God of the Heavens. like mountain ranges to shut them off. An oyerland propaganda seems im- CHINA AS A MISSION FIELD. possible. Russia is quite as impenetra- ble to western Christianity as the EYer since the publication of Mr. Turkish Empire, while farther south, Pumpelly's " Across Asia and Ameri- even to the southern point of Arabia, ca," his example has repeatedly been Mohammedan fanaticism raises its followed in the cheap assertion that formidable barriers. India might find no Chinaman is ever really converted access from the south, but the Himto Christianity. He is too material- alayas rise between. Burmah may i"tic to appreciate spiritual truth, it is one day open a passage, but Burmah said, or he is too crafty to be credited itself is dark. The highway of salvain any profession he may make, or he tion to China is by the sea, and it is is too stolid to be aroused from his straight across the Pacific that our Confucianphilosophy. It is hard to re- path lies open. Yokohama and San fute false utterances of this kind when Francisco -are now separated by less once they have gained currency. It than thirteen days. As in all the lands men and women of a higher past, so now the indications of Provi- type than I met in China, of a finer dence all point westward, and our spiritual experience, of a higher spir- American people, with their wealth itual tone, or of a nobler spiritual life, and intelligence and Christian in- and I may say with conviction that fluence are in the van, or should be, there are in the native churches in of this great movement for the con- China not only the elements of stabil- quest of the Mongolian races. ity, but that steadfast and irresistible Second. The character of the revolution which will carryover the Chinese presents a special argument whole empire to the new faith."
for a forward movement. Like the Rev. Jolm L. Nevius, D.D., who Anglo-Saxons, they are aggressive and has spent over thirty-five years in cosmopolitan. Their industry and China, declares that he has nowhere enterprise reach out over the world. found a higher type of manhood than They are found, whenever permitted is presented by the native Christians to enter, in all North and South Amer- of Shantung, and he has given many ica, in the island groups of the Pacific, proofs of their Christian fortitude.
in Australia, in New Zealand, in Sin- Nowhere in our generation are there gapore and the Straits of 1I1alacca. more striking instances of the genu- They are everywhere remarkable for ineness and self-help of Christian con- their thrift, and in spite of all the hin- verts than in China, considering their drances that can be interposed, this great poverty. In large portions of wonderful race is sure of great future the Shantung Province churches are influence in the world. No other na- almost entirelyself-supporting, though tion is so industrious, so frugal, and, poor to a degree which Americans considering its age, so well preserved cannot realize. As a rule, they have and so likely to continue in power provided their own places of worship.
and influence. Instances such as these are given: Just now China is awakening to a Of a Taouist priest in a country vil- new sense of its latent possibilities and lage, who, on becoming a Christian pressing to the forefront of the great convert, at once began to preach to empires. Moreover, in spite of all that his neighbors without salary, and is said of the deceitfulness of the China- he gave not only his time and man, it may safely be said that the men 'labor, but the principal part of his of no other race are more fully trusted house for a chapel; of a poor man in whatever industry they undertake. who, out of his narrow means, recent- No others are so law-abiding and ly gave a cottage for a school and peaceful as citizens, and that even chapel; of a woman who, though the without the privilege of citizenship. only believer in her village, persevered In places of trust they rival the Jap- till she had secured a Christian school, anese even in Japan. The thrifty in- which grew into a church; of a little dustries of Singapore, and Malaysia, congregation which, upon its organi- and the Sandwich Islands, are largely zation as a church, subscribed upon in their han,p.s. the spot the whole salary of their pas- I Third. The Chinese will compare tor for a year; of an intelligent widow favorably with any other race in their who left her home and went to Peking capacity for strong and controlling to learn more of the gospel, that she Christian faith. This point has been might teach her neighbors. ,Could all abundantly attested. The late Fleming similar annals of the Church in China Stevenson, who had visited the mis- be gathered together they would form sion fields of China in person, gave a large and interesting volume.
the following testimony: Fourth. The numericalresultswhich " I have found nowhere in Christian have been gained in the Protestant missions of China within the last Thibet and its Religion. few years are certainly remarkable, Perhaps in no country has Buddhism and only excelled, perhaps, by those of become so intrenched, no where else Japan. Two years since it was stated has it so monopolized all thought and at the annual meeting of the Ameri- aspiration, or so molded and concan Board that in a single decade trolled the people, as in Thibet. At the number of converts in the dif- the time of its introduction from India ferent missions of China had increased by way of Kashmere-it had scarcely from 13,000 to 32,000, and this ill spite gained a footing before the seventh of bitter persecution on the part of century-the system of Gautama had relatives and friends, and notwith- undergone important changes. It had standing the prejudice created by the drifted from the atheistic position of wrongs and outrages committed by the early Buddhists of India and Cey- lon and had adopted a vague and fan- Christian nations. II tastic theism, at the same time that it had received various admixtures of Fifth. There is great hope for China devil worship and sorcery. It had and great encouragement for mission- developed a trinity of supernatural perary labor in the new order of things sonages, who were destined to become which is fast placing her abreast with future Buddhas, though not until Vestern nations. The railroad and after various incarnations for particuthe telegraph line have come to stay, lar service~ on earth. This proved a national defences are in progress, min- convenient doctrine for the priestly eral wealth will be developed, and magnates of Thibet. It encouraged education is to be encouraged in all the claim now set up, that two of these practical Sciences. The late Viceroy beings are incarnate in the Grand of Canton, in a memorial to the Gov- Lama at Lhassa and the Puntsheu ernment, asking royal sanction for a Lama at Kroshis Lunpo. railroad from Peking to Hankow, The Thibetan King Srong Tsan said: "For China to return to the iso- Gampo, who introduced Buddhism lation of her past is a hopeless task. 622, A. D., was the first to be wor- It only remains for her to assimilate so shipped as a divine incarnation. In much of modern progress as will enable 822, A. D., the second son of the last her to outwit her astute Western com- King of Thibet instituted a bitter perpetitors." He adds: "I was myseff. secution against the Buddhists, and opposed to the introduction of rail- they were mostly driven from the ways at first, but when I came to country. Civil disorders followed till Shanghai and saw the progress possi- the Buddhist missionaries, Atisha and ble, I could not deny the sight of the Brom Ston, regained the best ground eye." The imperial permission has and restored prosperity to the Buddhist been given for building this road, and order. But what proved still more if the conservatists have burned the important to the stability of the sys- Temple at Peking in the hope of scar- tem was the fact that for ages there ing the Government with the supposed has been an alliance between Thibet displeasure of heaven at these innova- and the Empire of China. In the tions, they are too late. The shadow thirteenth century, A. D., Kublai on the dial of the nineteenth century Kahn, grandson of Jenghiz Kahn, is too far advanced. China is open to made the Lama at Lhassa " Tributary the gospel now; it may not be so when Sovereign of the Country and Head she becomes strong enough to dictate of the Buddhist Church," and as a rethe terms of her treaties. She may turn he was officially crowned by the copy the exclusion laws of Christian Lama as sovereign oyer the vast Mon- America. She may rule out British gol E,mpire. Kublai Khan thus be- Christianity with British opium. It is the full hour of opportunity. came a convert to Buddhism, and the practice of polyandry. The Lamas are Lama of Thibet became high priest held in great reverence, and some of or spiritual head over all Buddhists of them are high-minded and good men.
the vast empire including China and As each Lama at death is supposed Mongolia. The Lama was simply an to enter into a new-born infant, whose ecclesiastic invested with these spe- identity great pains are taken to estab- cial powers. The seat of government lish, a long regency must in each case was, and still is a Buddhist monastery intervene, and this is filled by some -the Emperor of China being the real honored monk. The infant when ruler. found is addressed as if, he had just About 1390 Tsoongkapa, the Luther died and risen again. The following of Thibet, came forward as a reformer. is an illustration: He purged out the base alloy of Sakt- In 1774 WalTenHastings, Governor- ism (the worship of Siva and his wives) General of India, sent an ambassador and the low superstitions which had to Thibet. On his arrival, the Lama grown as parasites on a corrupt Bud- to whom he bore messages had died, dhism, founded many monasteries, but he addressed the newly-born suc- and reformed the observances of the cessor as the identical Lama, express- monks and nuns. His influence so ing the Governor-General's sorrow at weakened the supremacy of the Dalai his recent death, and his joy that he (Grand) Lama that, by Imperial edict, had again returned to fill the world his jurisdiction was divided with the with hope.
Pautsheu Lama. Both of these, as Time, that has wrought changes above stated, are incarnations of the and revolutions in the other nations of Divine Bodisatvas. the world, has brought little chang'e Lamaism might, therefore, be called to Thibet, and now in our day systems a sort of theocracy, subject to the of error like Esoteric Buddhism and Imperial Government of China. Ec- Theosophy, desiring to secure the very clesiasticismcontrols and characterizes highest authority for their wild as- everything. The great monasteries sumptions, are deriving that authority are the leading institutions, and their from the Mahatmas or monks of Thi- monks and nuns number thousands. bet. It is contended that there, by The inhospitable character of the long continued meditation and great country and the lack of encourage- bodily mortification, they have ac- ment for industrial pursuits seem to quired the power to discern the favor monastic life. thoughts of others, and that they are An astonishingly large proportion conversant with all that transpires in of the people of both sexes are buried distant planets. It is favorable to in these religious houses. An observ- these extravagant theories that Thibet ing traveler long ago remarked that is so far off, so high up, so snow-coy- this withdrawal of so many able- ered, so unknown. It would seem to bodied men from active pursuits is be one of the most difficult strongholds compensated by the fact that no army from which to dislodge a hoary system is necessary for defence, and there is of error. Buddhism in Japan is worn too great a torpor in both the people lightly by government and people.
and the spirit of their institutions to Buddhism in China is only a guest of think of conquest. There is little soil the nation, though having strong fol- to cultivate and no market for manu- lowing among the lower classes. The factures, and why not spend much of more intelligent resort to it only in the national strength in meditating on time of trouble. Buddhism in Siam the law of Buddha? is regnant and strongly entrenched, Population is kept down not only but not so deeply seated as to exclude by monasticism, but also by the s~range a liberal spirit. Siam is an open and,
EDITORIAL NOTES OX CURRENT TOPICS
so far, a welcoming mission-field. But Some encouragement has been met Thibet has little contact with the na- with by the faithful and self-denying tions, and is not touched by the spirit missionaries, and though the fruits of the age. Yet even Thibet has not are meagre tJ:1ey have no thought of been despaired of as a mission-field. retreat. They have translated por- tions of the Scriptures into Thibetan, The Moravians, whose province it and at two stations they have printing has been to enter inhospitable fields presses at work in mUltiplying copies which no others were likely to choose, for the use of the people. Rev. A. C. established a mission in the lofty Thompson, D.D., in his admirable mountain town of Keyelang in 1856. book on "Moravian Missions," says, They experienced great difficulty in very justly: "Seldom have Moravian reaching their chosen field, and when laborers had a severer trial of their settled at last they found themselves faith and patience than amid these at the great height of 10,000 feet strongholds of Buddhism. But in that above the sea. Dark skies, almost dreary , Dwelling of Snow,' near the perpetual snow, except in narrow headwaters of the Indus, the Sutlej valleys, scanty vegetation and general and the Ganges, they have enkindled gloominess and sterility are thenatural a beacon light; they are occupying characteristics of the country. The advanced posts and preparing a base pessimism of the Buddhist faith seems for movements into Thibet proper, and well suited to the general environ- into China from the west." ment.
VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The Need of Oaution. last, wholly an individual work of faith, looking for support to no other In view of censure, already noted in orgauization, nor to any system of these columns, as rather freely applied solicitation of funds, public or private. in a certain quarter to a work of evan- It seems, therefore, to be in no proper gelization among the Jews which has, sense the "mission" of any other enjoyed the confidence of the Christian body, to which a' detailed account of ministry and people of all denomina- proceedings would be due; nor yet in tions in this city for a number of such a sense a child of the Christian years past, we have availed ourselves public at large as to invite an account of information from a disinterested of that sort, which might be thought source in which we have confidence, to savor rather of uncalled-for ostento the following effect: tation than of duty, precisely as it would in the case of a~y other of our The Hebrew Christian Church in city churches. Nevertheless, all con- St. Mark's Place, of which the Rev. tributions have been publicly acknowl- Jacob Freshman is pastor and founder, edged in detail, and the general dishas been organized about eight years, position of them explained in the during which it has steadily grown Annual of the church and in the quarup from the feeblest of beginnings to terly issues of The Hebrew Christian. an effective centre of evangelization, Contributions have thus been classed not only in this but in other cities of in three kinds: (1) All collections and this country, in Paris, and even in donations, not expressly otherwise Jerusalem itself. Although enjoying d3signated, have been devoted to the advice and sympathy of other church and missionary expenses, exchurches, through an invited Commit- clusive of the support of the pastor; tee of leading pastors and laymen of (2) such donations only as have been the several denominations, who have never ceased their fraternal interest ,expressly designated for personal use in its affairs, it has been, from first to have been appropriated to the necessi- tions towards reducing the mortgage ties of the pastor, leaving him wholly to a small encumbrance. J. M. S. dependent on the providential response to faith, without salary or visible We rejoice to see that Senator Mormeans of support, and subject at times to severe trials; (3) contributions des- gan, of Alabama, has introduced a ignated for the building fund, which are at once turned over to the bus- bill instructing the Committee on Fortees of the church property, for the extinguishment of the debt thereon. eign Relations to ascertain and repOlt To these may be added a fourth fund, now closed, 'which was confidentially the best methods for increasing trade contributed for Mr. Freshman's recent missionary journey to Jerusalem, re- and commerce between the Congo sulting in the establishment of a branch mission in that city under the Free State and the United States, and charge of a Hebrew Christian convert, supported by the little church in St. the obstacles, if there are any, in the Mark's Place and its friends. Further, concerning the accounts: to the trus- way of such trade and commerce and tees, who are men of well-known and high Christian standing, and also to other intercourse. The resolution is the distinguished clergymen and laymen who constitute the advisory com- timely, in view of the statement that mittee, full' and systematic book accounts are understood to be ahvays the United States did not formallyacopen, including the detailed expenditures to which invidious reference cept the conclusions of the Berlin has been made; and auditing committees have made actual examinations Conference, and therefore holds no and published reports thereon. It i~ possible that self-appointed investiga- political or civil rights for its people tors (perhaps unconsciously prompted through the malice of a certain crafty in tile Congo Free State. One of the Jewish Sanballat, or Gashmu) may have failed to obtain a search warrant avowed objects of Senator Morgan is which it would be impertinent to ask. It is well known that the Jewish per- to secure those rights; another is to secutor referred to has exerted himself persistently to undermine Mr. encourage the wealthy and enterpris- Freshman's work, not only by scurrilous articles in the savory columns ing negroes of this country to emigrate of the Truth Seeker, but also by cunning communications to the leading to the Congo Free State, and engage friends of the work, and to editors of religious newspapers, one of whom in trade or in such other beneficial enhas perhaps been induced to listen, in ignorance of the character and mo- terprises as may be open before them. tives of the man. In the interest of commerce and mis- The cost of the church property has been about $25,000, of which $15,000 sions, and especially of the future of have been paid, and substantial prog- the colored race, we hope CongreH>'I , ress has been made by recent subscrip- will rise to the dignity of such a sub- ject, and by prompt and enlightened action afford evidence that it under- stands and appreciates the significance of Africa's present condition, the result of a series of marvelous proyidential interpositions. We cannot but regard the opening up of the Dark Con- tinent by a brilliant succession of heroic explorations and the extension of European gm'ernments over im- mense areas of territory, and the in- troduction of railroads, enterpriHf', commerce and Christian civilization, as shedding light on the" Negro Prob- lem" among us. We earnestly hope that our Government will take a wise and active part in the matter of the Congo Free State, and in all otlwr feasible ways for the benefit of Africa. J. 11. S.
Facts from Mission Fields.
The year 1889 is the fiftieth anni- versary of the martyrdom of John "Villiams. who fell on Erromanga. relating to their own missions, which It is a very remarkable and significant we give from month to month. Its fact that his murderer's youngest son plan of sending out monthly a letter is to-day, as a professing disciple, ad- giving in condensed form the latest dressing crowds in Sydney, New South news from their various fields, is an Wales; and his oldest son, now past admirable one, and we wish other so- 60 years, has asked to be instructed in cieties would follow the example. It the way of salvation, and is now being is, in fact, an advance sheet of fresh taught by the missionaries on Erro- and important news, and the facts are manga the way of life! What hath eagerly caught up by busy editors and God wrought! Truly the "field is given to the public. J. M. S.
the world, and the good seed are the " The American Board Almanac of children of the kingdom /" John Missions" for 1890 is a thing of beauty Williams died and was buried as God's as well as utility. It is crowded with seed, and here is a part of the visible matters of interest and information harvest. respecting missions. It is sent by mail Hayti presents in its past history for 10 cents a copy, $1.00 a dozen, $6 and present condition one of the worst a hundred. Send orders to C. E.
types of paganism. Cannibalism of Sweet, 1 Somerset St., Boston. See our the worst kind prevails. Not simply advertising sheet in January number are human beings eaten, not only are for fuller account. J. M. S.
those who are devoured captives or prisoners taken in war or by violence Our associate, Dr. Pierson, is meet- ing with great success in London and forcannibal purposes, butfamily feasts Scotland. Enthusiastic crowds, fill- ing the largest churches and halls in are held where those who partake ac- Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and wherever he goes, flock to hear his tually eat the flesh of a member of the addresses. He has averaged two or more addresses a day, we believe, family / Children are devoured as a since he landed at Liverpool. In his last letter he says: " Every day is filled delicacy by their own mothers, who with engagements to the 1st of May, and even June if I will consent to reassert and justify their right thus to ap- main." The interest is intense. All ranks and classes and denominations propriate the fruit of their own womb. are engaged in the work, and impor- tant results must flow from it. This is under no pressure of hunger or J. M. S. want. .It is simply a proof of the fact that the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cmelty. An attempt was made by a governor of Hayti to suppress the atrocity by exe- cuting those engaged in such a canni- bal feast, but he was driven from the throne and compelled to take refuge in the neighboring island of Jamaica, the condition of which, under the in- [We have received a letter from an fluence of a pure gospel, is a sufficient aged minister of Christ, in the course of which occur the following signifi- . refutation of the charge that missions cant words.-EDs.] are a failure. These two islands, side " My attention has for forty years been fixed upon those professors of religion who may be by side, are a standing monument of called •average Christians.' They compose a very large part of the Church, and questions the respective influences of the gospel like these have often arisen: Are they Chris- tians? Are they a help or a hindrance to th" and paganism, even when a nominal cause of Christ? Ought not special efforts to be made to reach them for their own sake and Christianity like Romanism touches for the sake of the cause of Christ?
its awful death shade. A. T. P. "I was not a little surprised some time ago to find in Dr. Geikie's • Hours with the Bible" We desire here to express our indebtedness to the Baptist Missionary Union for various missionary items the following very strong endorsement of this sionary MassConvootion of the Northclass (p. 317): ' No career could have been west," under the auspices of the Methmore uneventful than Isaac's, but it showed at odist Episcopal Church, to meet at least that a path of modest retirement may Clear Lake Park in July of this year: honor God as much as one of more prominent "Rev. A. T. Pierson, D. D.: action. Our Lord's authority is vouchsafed for his having passed from earth to heaven at ,, Your suggestion some time ago his death.' It seems to me that there is great that the Church should gather toerror just at this point through all branches of gether an Exposition of 'the Results of the Church. I have no recollection of seeing Missions from all parts of the world, anything published bearing upon it except in and the suggestion of the Spirit of a volume of discourses by Dr. Skinner, en· Missions that at the next World's titled 'Religion of the Bible,' issued about Fair would be a good place for the the time I left the Union Seminary in 1841. In display of such an exposition, ought the first discourse, on 'Spiritual Religion,' he to be acted on, and that without dequotes Dr. John Mason Good as saying, on his lay. Three years would be short death-bed, 'I have taken what unfortunately enough time to gather and arrange the generality of Christians too much take-I the materials. We are 'about to gather have taken the middle walk of Christianity.' the material for a Missionary Museum The discourse which follows is a description of on an extensive scale at Clear Lake, spiritual religion, not of the 'middle walk.' Iowa, for use in our Annual Conven- It seems to me an appeal to average Christians tions. I think that our Missionary urging them to consider the nature and re: Secretaries could be interested in the sults of their religion; might be made that matter and all materials gathered would have a great awakening effect. Just could be used at the World's Fair, and here is one of the chief reasons why the cause then be dispersed to our different Misof missions is not more flourishing: average sionary Centers for continued and Christians regard missions as something which perpetual use. You ought to be able may be passed by without endangering their from your central position to interest standing in the Church or their final salvation. all the Missionary Boards. I would It seems to me, judging from the fullness and like to be informed of the prospect, pungency of your writings on missions, that and would be glad to assist. We could this whole subject must have passed through interest all our missionaries. Let me your mind. An article of yours in the' New hear of the prospect." York Observer' of July 25, entitled' First the Kingdom, 'bears in that direction and encour- A subscriber congratulates the ages me in asking you to put before the Church, editors upon their success during the in the form which seems best to you, an appeal past year, and says: to average Christians. You have the eye and ear of the Church, and can make yourself " You have given us a magnificent heard as few others can. Will you not try i11" magazine. I hope you will be pros- perous and successful in the coming We feel such sympathy with the year. If you would place before us above, that we purpose in due time to for Monthly Concert in tabulated form, the complete missionary forces prepare for these pages an appeal to in the respectiye fields presented, you the average Christian. It is the great would give what is greatly needed. body of the Church that need arous- What the more progressive friends of ing, and that, so far, are doing next to missions desire is not simply their respective denominational forces, sucnothing for missions. Out of a con- cesses, cost, etc., but with their own gregation that numbers from 4,000 to that of all other societies-' the u'orld 5,000, it has been found, by actual in- rather than the society view of the vestigation, that only 386 are known to work." contribute anything regularly to the support of the Gospel! How large then We think our brother scarcely ap- must be the proportion in all Christendom who have no active interest, by gifts or even by prayers, in the great mission work of the world!
We have received the following suggestion from Rev. S. P. Marsh, of Iowa, Corresponding Secretary of the "Mispreciates the imnl>nse labor he would earth," they ,"vould exclaim: "What lay upon our overtaxed shoulders hath God wrought!" That first con- when he asks each month a complete tribution of £13, 2s. and 6d. has showing of each field treated. More- grown to between two arid three mil- over, one entire department of this lions of pounds a year. That cottage REVIEW is given up to the exhibit of is, we understand, still to be seen.
just such facts, so far and so fast as The English Baptists ought to buy it we are able to gather reliable figures. and make it a missionary museum Vould it be wise to encumber our where the relics of idolatry and super- pages with such repetitions? By a stition might be preserved as a witness little careful search in these pages any of what God has wrought. A. T. P.
pastor may collate on anyone field all the figures at our disposal. A. T. P. Asceticism in Missions."
The crisis of missions is evidently [Our editorial correspondent and translator of our foreign magazines upon us, and this seems to be the grow- sends us the following, which also ex- presses our own jUdgment.-J. M. S.] ing conviction in every part of the " I am glad to see Dr. Ellinwood's field. A missionary who has labored sound and healthful paper on Asceti- cism in Missions in the January RE- 26 years in India says: "India is now VIEW. There seems to be setting in a craze for this. But, at home or abroad, ready for our work, and if this crisis asceticism for asceticism's sake is neither Protestant nor Evangelical. is not met by the Church at least two For a definite end, individual or social, it may, like everything else, or three generations will pass before be sometimes eminently serviceable, but to set it up in a vague way as an equal opportunity can be offered." a model to strike people with admira- tion, is really nothing but a particular From Brazil the word comes: "This fashion of " striking an attitude." It is the beginning of all the wretched land is ready; thousands would accept uneasiness and trickery of self-salva- the gospel if they only had preachers."
One writes concerning China: "A thousand missionaries are worth more now than ten thousand ten years from now. As for Japan, it is melted and waiting for moulding. What shall the mould be: Christianity or infidel- ity?" A.T.P.
1892 ought to be kept as a great an- tion.
niversary, and Kettering ought to be " It is a wonder that those who are the place of pilgrimage. disposed to think that it is a source of When we think of foreign missions strength in Roman Catholic Inissions we must not forget that, strictly speak- do not consider that their mission- ing, they are the outcome of the aries are unmarried, not because they present century. It was in 1792 that are missionaries, but only because twelve Baptist ministers met in the they are priests. And as to asceti- little cottage of Widow Wallis, at cism generally, the Jesuits-the mis- Kettering, and formed the first En- sionary order by pre-eminence in that glish society proper for" propagating Church-are, for Roman Catholics, al- the gospel among the heathen." most the least disposed to asceticism Since then what marvelous Iniracles for its own sake. They are ready to have been wrought! What gigantic undergo any amount of privation in strides taken by this magnificent the way of their work, but are very movement! If these twelve men little given to affecting it where it is could come back to-day and see how not providentially imposed. Sim- the little "mustard seed" has de- plicity of living is a Christian and a ,eloped till it has become a mighty missionary obligation. But an affec- tree ., whose branches co,er the tation of luxury and an affecta-
1:;6 QROAXIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
tion of squalor are the two opposite producing, he yet adtls: "To the great evils which the Christian and the mis- laboring, toiling mass of the Indian sionary ought to avoid, although people there could be no more benefi- doubtless he ought to incline rather to cent influence than the daily coming bareness than to sumptuousness. Dr. in and going out among th~m of a Ellinwood's article is just the right Christian missionary and his wife thing. CHARLES C. STARBUCK. and children. To millions of their " Andover, Mass." Indian fellow-subjects the missionary We add a word on the subject from family was the great daily object Sir William Hunter, who is constantly lesson of the Christian life. But referred to as the highest authority on besides these millions there were hun- civil and political matters in India. dreds of thousands of men of a cul- In a recent address before the British ture which demanded another method Baptist Missionary Society he defines of attack." "This certainly," says " Asceticism" as "merely a life of the Missionary Herald, from which quiet self-denial." He speaks of it as we get this testimony, "is a weighty one of the methods to be employed, testimony, and it commends itself to and by no means the sole method. all who hold the doctrine set forth by 'While he bears solemn witness to the Paul, • I am become all things to all ,aluable results which the celibate men that I might by all means save luission brotherhoods in India were some.' " T. M. S.
VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS. * Woman's Missionary Societies of Oanada. general society. They have a successful work in India-schools and Bible women-but no I. Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety Presbyterian Church in Can- statistics are at hand. Income for the year, ada. $5,000. WESTERN DIVISION. Ill. Woman's Baptist Missionary So- Secretary, Mrs. Shortreed, 218 Ontario St., Toronto, Canada. ciety of Ontario and Quebec.
Periodical: Monthly Letter Leaflet, Toronto. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. H. H. Fields-The New Hebrides; Trinidad, Brit· ish Guiana, West Coast; China, Honan; For· Humphrey, Toronto. mosa; Central India, and Indians of Canada. Ho-me Force-Presbyterial societies, 25; aux- We are obliged to use last year's annual re- iliaries, 4m'; mission bands, 156. Income for port, as that for 1889 is not issued at the time the year, $80,000. we write, and as the society is organized into EASTERN DIVISION. provincial divisions it is not quite easy to pre- Mrs. Burns. President, Halifax, N. S. sent a summary of their work in our brief This division has 9() auxiliaries, 35 mission space. bands, and 4,000 members, and income for the year $6,000. During the year two Presbyterial Field.-The stations in India occupied by societies have been formed and six auxiliaries organized. Fields the same as Western Di- this society are Cocanada, Samulcotta and vision. Tuni. . II. Woman's Baptist Missionary Union of Maritime Provinces. IV. Woman's Missionary Society of the Methodist Church, Canada. Corresponding Secretary, lIIrs. John March, St. Johns, N. B. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. E. S. Strachan, 113 Hughson St., Hamilton, Onto This society occupies the same fields as the This society is divided into five branches. [* The Home Work of the M. E. C. in our There are 800 auxiliaries, with 7,173 annual and 39Q life members, and 123 mission bands, January number, page 76, second column, 20th with 3,511 members. Income for the past line from top to 32d line, inclusive, got mis- year, $22,806; an increase of $8,285. placed in the make-up, and connected with that of M. E. C. South, whose Home force was This society has work among the Indians, already stated. Please connect it with the the French, the Chinese in America, and previous Society, No. XII.-EDs.J Japan. Four ladies were sent to Japan this past year. They have a very successful board- ing school at Tokio, with 150 boarders. A new school has been opened at Kofu.
Publication department in the missionary Outlook. V. Woman's Auxiliary to the Board N. ,V. Periodical: OurSistersinOtherLands of Diocesan, Domestic and Foreign Missions, Church of England. 14 Paternoster Row, London. '
The headquarters of this auxiliary is To- Fields and Force- China, Swatow, For. ronto. They collect about $15,000, and have a departmeut in the Canadian Church Magazine mo~a, Amoy, the Haka Country, Singapore, and Mission News. No report of distinct work. IndIa, Rampore, Bauleah. No summary of European Woman's Missionary Sooieties, statistics is available. They conduct board- I. Indian Female Normal School and Instruction Society. ing, day and Sunday· schools, and hospital 2 Adelphi Ten'ace, London, W. C. Periodi- work. Income, $3,755. cal: The Indian Female Evangelist; quarterly. V. Central Committee and Church Woman's Association of the Scot- Fields and Force.-Bombay Presidency, 13 stations: Madras, 2; Northwest Provinces, tish Episcopal Church. 9; Orissa, 1; Punjaub, 1. Missionaries and assistants, 63; native teachers and Bible women, ~onvener, Miss H. Mackenzie, 28 Nelson St., 175; Zenanas visited, 1,353. Eight years ago Edmburgh. Office of ASSOCiation, 122 George the mission staff numbered 106, now 238; St., Edinburgh. Periodical: The Jllission then there "rere 26 schools, now 66. Then, Chronicle. total under instruction 1,296; now 4,150. Medical treatment in 1888 given to 9,338 Fields-South Africa and India. That in patients. In 1881 the income was $34,710. In Africa was begun in 1873. and lies in Indepen- 1888 it was $67,885. dent Kaffraria, a district about as large as Scotland; that of India is at Chamba, a dis· II. Ladies' Society for Female Edu- tant part of the diocese of Calcutta. The pres· cation in India and South Africa. ent number of members co·operating with the (Free Church of Scotland.) committee is 3,080, and the annual subscrip- tion amounts to $1,925. Offices of Free Church, Edinburgh. Periodical: Woman's Work in Heathen Lands; qnar· VI. Ladies' Association for the Christerly. J. and R. Pro'lane, Paisley, Edinbnrgh. tian Education of Jewish Females (Church of Scotland). Fields and Force.-India and Africa. In India five principal stations, includiug Cal- Secretary, Miss Tawse, 11 Royal Terrace, cutta, are in Bengal; Western Indian ineIudes Edinburgh. the stations Bombay, Poona, Berar, and Jalno. ~ladras and Nagpore are centres with Fields-They support schools in Smyrna, a variety of work. Africa includes Kafraria Salonica, Alexandria, Constantinople and Beywith Lovedale and other stations, Transkel rout,with missionary ladies at each place, and and NataL a total of 16 assistant teachers.
The grand total of missionaries is 34, of VII. The London Bible and Domeswhich 13 are in Africa; native Christian agents tic Female Mission. number 181; total, 215. The pupils count 6,738, of ,vhich 1,758 are in Africa. Income, Office, 2 Adelphi Terrace, Strand, London, $44,065. W. C. Periodical: Bible Women and Nurses. Cassel & Co., London and New York. III. Church of England Zenana Mis- sionary Society. Besides a large and most noble missionary work in the poorest parts of London, carried Office, 9 SaJisburySquare, London, Periodi· on through Bible women and Bible women cal: India's Women (bi-monthly); Daybreak nurses, this Society operates on some foreign (for young people, quarterly). JaB. Nisbet & fields, but we have no data of that part of its Co., 21 Berners St., London, ·W. work.
Fields and F01'ces-India, China, Japan. VIII. British Syrian Mission Schools Missionaries 105; assistants 57; Bible women and Bible Work. 139; native teachers 368. Over 7,000 children in scbools. Medical work also is carried on. Corresponding Secretary, Bliss Poulton, 18 This year the Society has commenced work in Homefield Road, Wimbledon, London. Peri· Ceylon for the first time. Income 1881, $68,200; odical: Daughters of Syria. Seeley & Co., 1888, $138,265. Essex St., Strand, London IV. Women's Missionary Associa- Tbe mission originated to relieve the con- tion of the Presbyterian Church of dition of the 20,000 widows and daughters of England. the Maronites and Greeks, whose husbands and fathers were massacred by the Drnzes in President of General Committee, I<lrs. H. 111. 1860. The work has been extended and ar· Matheson, Heathlands, Hampstead, London, rests general attention, Fields and Force-It operates at Beyrout, Damascus, Hasbeiya, Mount Lebanon, Code- Syria and Tyre. The Jllount Lebanon depart· ment has 7 stations, making the total of sta· tions 12; foreign workers 21; native workers 120; adherents 920; schools 29; scholars 2,779. The income is $1,120 IX. Ladies' Auxiliary of the Wes- ants, 30; native Bihle women, 55: native school leyan Methodist Missionary So- teachers, 59; boarding and day schools for ciety. girls, 50. They have a normal school for training Bible women at Calcutta, also one at President and Treasurer, Mrs. Lidgett, 69 Delhi. Income, $31, .55. Shooters Hill Road, Blackheath, London, S. E. Issnes quarterly papers. XIII. Church of Scotland Ladies' Association for Foreign Missions, Fields and Force-Europe, Spain, and Italy, India, Ceylqn, China, Africa, South and West. including Zenana Work. It supports 86 missionary workers. The annual report has no su=aries, hence it is Periodical: News of Female Missions. R. difficult to properly present this work. They and R. Clark, agents, Edinburgh. report checkerd success in India. At Negapatam, India, the members of the Hindu Tract Fields and Force-India, Calcutta, Madras, Society have been lecturing and distributing Poona (Zenana mission, orphanage, female tracts, warning their fellows against Christian medical mission), Darjeeling, Sialkott, Chamschools, with only too painful success. ba; Africa, Blantyre. Missionaries appointed in Scotland, 15; in India, 11; native agents, Their income has slightly fallen off this year, 6; male, 76; female, 82; non-Christian, 24; being $38,140, and they close the year with a scholars, 2,522; Zenanas visited, 59; houses small debt. regularly visited, 200; patients at Poona dis- pensary, 2,526. Income, $33,450; the largest in X. Ladies' Committee of the London its history. Missionary Society. XIV. Zenana Mission of the Irish Office, 14 Biornfield St., London Wall, Lon- Misswnary Society_ don. Periodical: Quarterly News of Woman's Work. John Snow & Co., London. We have only the local report of the mission in Gujerat and Kattiawar with the Zenana Field. and Force-China, India, and Mada- Mission before us. It appears from this that gascar. Lady missionaries, 36; wives of there are two missionary ladies engaged in missionaries, 45; schools, 148; pupils, 7,507; educational and Zenana work at Surat, and native teachers,l38; Zenana agents, 114; Ze- one in medical work; als02 assistants and 6 nana pupils, 2,982. Income, $28,760. native Christian agents, and 15 non-Christian teachers. At Borsad there are two mission' XI. Ladies' Association for the Pro- aries. At Ahmedabad there are others; also motion of Female Education (So- a medical mission, and 8 native Christian ciety for the Propagation of the agents, with 9 non-Christian teachers. Anand Gospel). and Broach also appear as stations.
Office, 19 Delahay St., Westminster, Lon· XV. Miss Walker – Arnot's Tabitha don, S. W. Periodical: The Grain of Mustard Mission at Jaffa. Seed Gardner, Darton & Co., 2 Paternoster Building. Hon. Secretary, Miss E. Walker-Arnott, 24 St. Bernard's Crescent, London. Fields-India, following the lines of the Dioceses of the Church of England, including that This simple organization has been in existof Rangoon, Japan, Tokio and Kobe; Mada- ence 25 years. The field is designated in the gascar, four principal stations; South Africa, corporate title, which we give above. The following the lines of the five Episcopal dio- boarding school numbers 60 residents, of whom ceses; Capetown, Zululand, etc., India. Mis- 12 were Javesses, and the day schools 100 sionaries, 45; native teachers, 85; Japan mis- pupils. The receipts last year were $4,825. sionaries, 3; native teachers, 2; Madagascar missionaries, 6; native teachers, 14; South XVI. Helping Hands Zenana Asso- Africa missionaries, 7; native teachers. 4. ciation (Young Ladies)_ Total missionaries, 61; native teachers, 105. It speaks well for the ladies of England, that Office, 42 B. Fulham Road, London, S. W. of these, 12 are honorary missionaries. Publication: It utilizes India's Jewels for pub- lication of its correspondents. XII Ladies' Association for the Support of Zenana Work and Bible The society co-operates with the Indian Fe· Women in India,-Baptist_ male Normal School and Instruction Society at Jaunpore, Benares and Lucknow; "ith the Mrs. Angus, Honorable Secretary. The Col- Church Missionary Society at Brindabun: with lege, Regents Park, London. Periodical: Our the 'Church of England Zenana Mission at Am- Indian Sisters; quarterly. Elliot Stock, 62 ritzar, and with the Ladies' Association of Paternoster Row, London. the S. P. G., and the London ~1issionary Society at Belgaum. The distinct branch, Fields and Force-Stations in India, at prin- known as the Nurse's Missionary Association, cipal cities, 18; lady Zenana visitors, 42; assist- trains as nurses those who wish to assist mis- sions abroad.
1890.J PROGRESS OF MISSIO.TS-lIIO.TTHLY BLLLETIN
VIII.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Afrlca.-The Niger Mission. Rev. W. -A general conference of Chinese mission- Allan, of West Africa, thus summarizes the aries will meet at Shanghai May 7, 1890, and vast changes that have taken place since the continue for ten days. Rev. J. R. Goddard, of Gospel was first preached at Bonny, in Africa: Ningpo, is the secretary.
.. The worship of the iguana is overthrown, -The totals of missions in China are: 39 the priest is a regular attendant at the house societies, 526 male missionaries and 597 of God, and the iguana itself converted into an women; total, 1,123 miSsionaries; 162 native article of food. The Juju temple, which a few ordained helpers, 1,278 unordained, 34,555 comyears ago was decorated with twenty thou- municants in the churches, and 14,817 pupils sand skulls of murdered victims, I found rot- in schools; $44,173 were contributed by the tingawayin ruin and decay. Ipassedthrough churches the past year, and the net increase the grove which was formerly the receptacle in membership was 2,295.
of so many murdered infants, and I found it France.-The Statistics of France for had become the regular highway from the 1888 contain some sad facts respecting family town to the church, and that the priest was life. Compared with 1887 the decrease in mar- now a baptized Christian. I went ashore and riages was 212, while there were 6,360 less than addressed 885 worshippers, including the in 1886. There were 1,702 more divorces than .. king, the three former heathen priests, chiefs, in 1887, and 1,758 more than in 1886; the total and a multitude of slaves, and was thankful number waS 4,708. The decrease in the num- to ascertain that the work of conversion was ber of births since 1887 was 16,794. Since still going on; for. in addition to 648 persons 1884 there has been an annual decrease in already baptized, of whom 265 are communi- births. In 1884 there were 937,758 births ; in cants, there are over 700 at Bonny alone who. 1888, the number was 882,637. In illegitimate are now under instruction. " – Missionary births there is, however, an increase. In 1881 Herald. they were 7.5 per cent.; in 1888, 8.5. In the -In Northern Africa has lately been dis- Seine department 25 per cent. of the births covered a river that has worn a bed through were illegitimate. The official report states the rock 300 feet deep, and then makes a per- that if it were not for the illegitimate births pendicular leap 650 feet, while all around are there would actually be a decrease in the deep, yawning chasms and gigantic peaks. population of France.
-The pupils o{the Huguenot Seminary at -Miss Grant Brown, who with two other ladies lately made a mission tour in Corsica, Wellington, South Africa, have formed the Huguenot Missionary Society, which sends out reports that wherever they traveled they held from its ranks missionaries to labor among the daily meetings which were thronged by people heathen in Africa. The lady principal, Miss eager to learn the truth. The work met with Ferguson, and the other teachers, are all much opposition from the priests; but the earnest' Christians, and seek to lead all the civil authorities were generally friendly, and pupils to Christ. in several villages the mayors offered the use – The Moravians have projected a mission of rooms. In one village three men volun· teered to stand every Sunday in the market on the Victoria Nyanza, but have been unable place, and read the Gospel to their countryto establish it by the lack of funds. Just be- men. There is no Protestant church on the fore the opening of lheir General Synod this island. year news was brought that a legacy of be· tween $25,000 and 30,000 had fallen to the Germany.-According to the Statisti- Church, and it is probable that the work will cal Year Book of Germany for 1889, the latest speedily be carried forward, as the men are data on the religious status of the country are ready. these: 29,369,847 Evangelicals, 16,785,734 Catholics, 125,673 other Christians, 563,172 Deymah. -A Mission School is to be established by Rev. E. W. Kelly, of lVlandalay, Jews, 11,278 confessors of other religions or on the very spot where Dr. Adoniram Judson, professing no religion at all. The Evangelicals the first missionary from America, suffered include Lutherans, Reformed and the United the cruel imprisonment at Oungpenla. Church, .:. e., the union formed in 1817 in Prus- Chlna.-Rev. J. W. Stevenson writes sia and sorne other States between the two from Shanghai: "I am happy to report 27 Protestant confessions; the Catholics include 'baptisms this week, viz., 12 at Gan-ren, 7 at Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics and old Nan-k'ang, by Mr. McCarthy; 3 at Chau-kia· Catholics; the other Christians represented k'eo, by Mr. Coulthart; and 5 at Ning-hai- are United Brethren, Baptists, Mennonites, chau, by Mr. Judd. Mr. McCarthy baptized in Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists.
all during his tour in Kiang-si 66 persons, and Quakers, Irvingites, German Catholics, Free he reports quite a number of inquirers. At Religionists and Dissenters. In 1871 the pro· Chau-kia-k'eo a great fire has devastated the portions were these: 25,581,685 Evangelicals, place, and 3,000 families are said to be burnt 14,869,292 Catholics, 82,158 other Christians, out of house and home." 512,153 Jews, 17,156 of other or no religion. The most noteworthy features of these figures pany did everything possible to keep mission- is that while the Evangelicals and the Catho- aries out of India; now the British East African lics have grown in equal proportions, the Company has invited the Church Missionary number of " other" Christians has increased Society to place missionaries at all the stations in much larger proportion. This is evidence of the company as fast as they are opened. sufficient that the propaganda made by the various denominations of England and Ameri- Italy.-Ten thousand Italian priests cain Germany has not been unsuccessful. This have secretly signed a petition to the govern- is one of the factors that is slowly but evi- ment praying for protection against the tyr- dently surely at work toward the disestablish- annyof the Vatican. They have been prom- ment of the Protestant Church of the land of ised assistance by several deputies, who will Luther. plead their cause in Parliament.
-The Sixty-sixth Annual Report of the Japan.-It is said that there are more Berlin Society for the Promotion of Christian- than 1,000 pnpils in a single, rapidly-growing ity amongst the Jews shows than two mission- Sunday-school in Okayanla, Japan. aries and one colportenr are employed by the Society, and that its income during the year -Results oCa Japanese Earthquake, Ac- 1888 amounted to 25,593 marks 42 pfennigs cording to the official return of the damage (about £1,279), which, with a balance of caused by the recent earthqnake at Kumamo- 46,34i marks 54 pfennigs from 1887, made the to, in Southem Japan, the loss in that pre- total receipts of the year 71,925 marks 1 pfen- fecture alo!le-an area ronghly equal to that nig. The expenditure was 41,219 marks 46 of a medium-sized English county – was as pfennigs, leaving a balance of 30,705 marks 55 follows: 234 houses completely ruined; 239 • pfennings in hand. Pastor Hausig, a former partially destroyed; 19 persons killed, and 58 missionary of the London Soci8ty, is secretary injured; at 893 places there were fissures in of the Berlin Society. the ground; roads were destroyed iu 137 places; forests injured at 17; building lots and – The Gustavus Adolphus Society, to carry cultivated land at 3,336 places, and embank- the gospel into Catholic countries, last year ments at 45 places; 24 bridges were entirely received $230,000, 01' $5,600,000 since 1832. The destroyed and 41 damaged, and the water in society has had 1,444 applications for aid from 138 wells became muddy and unfit for con- Roman Catholic countries. sumption.
Indla.-Perhaps one ofthe most notable Korea_A traveler in Korea writes: testimonies to the success of miSSionary labor "Buddha 'worship, as conducted among Koin India and other countries was made during reans, is a species of idol-worship. Diviners the recent Baptist Union Conference at Bir- walk the streets in the persons of blind men mingham, when Sir W. Hunter, before a gath- lTUh long staffs, W]lO anllounce their pl'esenee ering of 4,000 people, gave his experience of with a peculiar professional cry. Demonmissionary work. He simply dealt with the worship prevails in various superstitious pracnlatter as, to use his own term., "' a secular tices, to ward off disease and other ills of life." man and a layman," and in doing so pointed out that during the ten years from 1871 to 1881 Russia. – Twelve hundred converts the Christian popnlation of India had increased 64 per cent. as compared with the 11 have been baptized in the Baptist Mission in per cent. increase of the general popnlation, Russia in the past two years. The lliission is and that the Indian native Protestant Chris- principally among the German colonists in tians had now grown up into a native Protest- South Russia. There is also a snccessful misant Church, with their own pastors, number- sion in Ronmania and Bulgaria. ing 576, and their own native lay preachers, 2,756 in number. "Missionary work," he 8weden.-The minutes of tile Swedish added, "is one of the greatest and best works Augustana Synod gives 291 ministers, 582 conat present going on in India; it has been rich gregations, 425 church edifices and 191 parsonin results in the past, and is fraught with in- ages, valued at $2,503,304; 74,2,'J4 commnnicalcnlable blessings for the future." cants, 5,935 baptisms, 3,263 confirmations, 288 parochial teachers, and 11,506 pupils. Synodi· -The Mission College at Ahmednugar has cal treasury, $1,526.44; education, $16,414.4f; won for itself such a high place among the home missions, $15,901.63; foreign mission" govemment officials that they have increased $6,60•.39; orphan homes, church extensioll, their grant-in-aid nearly fourfold for a term etc., $27,749_54; congregational expense", of five years. The school for girls nnder the $511,986.40; total, $580,823.58. charge of the Misses Bissell, in their fine new. building, is a busy hive or Christian instruc- -Baptist progress in Sweden is one of the tion, full of hope and cheer. Five new village most remarkable religious movements of the churches have been organized during the year present time. Revivals are constant. In in the vicinity of Ahmednugar, Mr. Robert twenty years the nnmber of church members Hume.being specially active in mission work has advanced from 7,900 to 32,308. The bapin these rural districts." tisms in 1888 were 2,390.
-Seventy years ago the East India Com- -Swltzerland has 1,162 Sunday·schouls, with 5,459 teachers, and 84,000 scholars. Sweden has 3,340 Sunday-schools, -with 15,000 teachers and 220,000 scholars. Austria' has 140 Sunday-schools, with 312 teachers and 4,51!) scholars.
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1890
IS THERE TO BE A NEW DEPARTURE IN MISSIONS?
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. xm. No. 1.-0ldSeries.—JANUARY.—VoL. m. No. I.-New Seriu.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
IS THERE TO BE A NEW DEPARTURE IN MISSIONS?
[EDlTORIAL.-A. T. P.] Our Lord rebuked those in his day who were more observing and discerning as to the face of the sky and the forecast of the weather than as to the signs 'of the times and the signals of coming trials and triumphs.
The question is not what would we like to have as signs of the near to-morrow, but what are the actual indications of the approaching future. What we may not be able to shape according to our mind or will, we may be able to accommodate ourselves to and prepare ourselves for. Possibly what we cannot prevent we may direct and control, as sagacious farmers in the valleys of the Vaudois sometimes guide and bank in the current of a mountain stream swollen by heavy rams.
There are some startling-to some, alarming-signs in the horizon which betoken some new movement in the direction of missions. Ultra-conservatism may complain and criticise, and even seek to arrest these developments, but this may be found to be only a new attempt to sweep back ocean tides. Why not calmly survey the situation and prepare to take our part in giving a wise and winning guidance even to an excessive and inconsiderate impulse of enthusiasm? Some movements that seem purely human have God back of them; and in seeking to "overthrow" them we may "haply be found to fight even against God."
1_ The first sign on the horizon to which we call attention is the infusion of a nett) .~pirit of enterprise into missionary work.
Enterprise is the characteristic feature o'f our modern civilization. The world in this nineteenth century no longer moves on its axis, or through its orbit, at its former rate and pace. Travd and transportation, postal and telegraphic communication, the rapid rate of livingyes, and of dying, too; the speed of making and marring great fortunes; the sweep of thought to the bounds of the earth and the bounds of the visible universe; the quickened. pulse of physical, intellectual and social life; the intensity and extensity of scholarly research and scientific investigation-these, and a thousand other similar signals, fly, like flags in the wind, to show both the direction and the rapidity of this social cyclone. Where everything else is moving as with lightning pace, the cause of missions must yoke a sanctified enterprise to its car or be hopelessly left behind. God means that the church shall quicken her march, and catch up with the times. Why should the world, the flesh and the devil monopolize all the enterprise of the age? Because Christ said that the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light, we are not to infer that he meant they should be. It will no longer do to act and talk as though we had countless years and even centuries before us wherein to evangelize this world. We have often said, what now we calmly :and deliberately repeat with emphasis, that with one tithe of the '" dash" and" push" with which all worldly enterprises are carried forward, the thirty millions of Protestant church members now on earth would not let ten years pass without belting the globe with ~issionary effort and bearing the good tidings of the gospel to every family of man! We yearn to see the church of God take up this work as though she felt that the time is short and eternity only is long; that millions of unsaved souls die every year, and a whole generation in less than forty years; as though she saw that God has given her opportunities and facilities that multiply her responsibilities a hundred fold. There must be an apathy and lethargy that are next to criminal, if the children of light stand still, or move so slowly as to allow the children of this world to outrun them in this race, and not only to carryall modern inventions, but all modern devices for destroying bodies and souls, into the regions beyond, ahead of the gospelmessage! The Prince of Darkness is pushing his missions and publishing his message fast enough, however sluggish may be the messengers of the Prince of Peace!
II. We mention next, as a sign of the times, the unparalleled uprising of our young men and women. Nothing like this has been seen before in the centuries of church history. It reminds the student of the middle ages of the enthusiasm kindled by Peter the Hermit, and has give~ to this movement the name of the" modern cr·usade."
This uprising is by no means in a solitary quarter or a single direction. It began nearly fifty years ago in the formation of that first Young Men's Christian Association in London, under George Williams, whose seed was in itself after its kind, and which has so rapidly multiplied that it now covers the earth with its shadow. Countries that then were hopeless heathen and pagan are now dotted over with these associations and sending native representatives to the great international conventions. Before the Y.M.C.A. began to be, young men, and especially young women, were comparatively scarce awakened to activity in the service of Christ. The denominations stood apart, as ~ects, eyeing each other with jealousy and envy, quarelling over minor differences which were practically divisions; the rigid line between" clergy" and" laity," drawn not in apostolic days but in the dark ages, practically separated the ministry and the lay-membership in the matter of soul-saving. 'l'here was but little general training in Bible knowledge or personal work for souls. We have seen all these conditions changed within forty years. No doubt the movement has at times swept beyond legitimate lines and bounds, .and even threatened to obscure, if not obliterate, important distinctions. But, on the whole, the Y.M.C.A. has done a wonderful work for God in uniting all disciples upon the fundamental truths of .our holy faith, in increasing knowledge of the Bible and power in using it, in developing general activity in Christian work, and expanding capacity for it. The Young Men's Associations naturally suggested the Young Women's, and the consequence has been that now all our Christian youth find new avenues open before them for both training and serving.
Then who can look on these ." Societies of Christian Endeavor" that, with incredible rapidity, are enclosing the round world in the network of their organization-inside of ten years increasing to thous3nds of societies-and hundreds of thousands of members-with- ·out feeling that God means to infuse new and young blood into our Christian work? If those that are older are not on the alert, they will find themselves hopelessly in the rear, if not left high and dry on the shore, like some old battered hulk when the ocean surges recede.
'Vhat shall we adequately say also of that" Students' Uprising," which, taking definite form at the Summer School in Mount Hermon, Mass., a few years ago, has now enrolled nearly 4,000 volunteers for the foreign field? The critical, cynical sneer that this is "all gush," and that when time has" sifted this bushel of wheat it will be found that the biggest part of it is all chaff," may do for a sneer, but this movement cannot be laughed down. It has shown too much vitality for the arrow of ridicule or the dart of denunciation to destroy it. No doubt time will liberally deduct from this number of volunteers; many now willing will be found reluctant and unready in the crisis; and Divine Providence will block the way of many who will be both ready and willing. But, from present appearances, it is far more likely that the great practical hindrance in the path of these volunteer3 will be that the church is so fettered by conservative methods, or so hampered by illiberal giving and lack of holy enterprise, that no way can be found to send volunteers to the field and support them on the field.
Even now, as we write, a circular has just come to our hand announcing what is perhaps the most significant sign of the times, of them all, in this direction. It tells us that the Sons of Kansas have heard the Macedonian cry, and the missionary spirit is abroad in the land; and tnat since the organization of the State work no movement, has ever grown with a rapidity so amazing, and none has arisen so replete with prophecies of good and opportunities of service. A number of the most active workers in the Y. M. C. A. in Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota have already decided to be the pioneers, in preparing the way of the I.ord, for the carrying of the gospel tidings to densely populated and benighted Africa. These men propose to enter by way of Liberia and the Kong Mountains, the Soudan of the Niger and Lake Chad, where are nearly 100,000,000 of people without a missionary, and to form a living tie between the African field and the home churches and associations. Think-of young men leaving secretaryships of the Y. M. C. A. in our northwest, and pioneering the way into the almost unknown and forbidding region of the Soudan!
There are those who deprecate this whole movement, and think Dr. Henry Grattan Guinness showed little judgment in his appeals to' the Kansas young men, and still less judgment in giving direction to the enthusiasm which his appeals aroused. But there is a wiser way than to stand off and criticise. The herdsmen on Western prairies, never try to stop or turn back a stampede among their cattle. Those thousands of hoofs would soon trample them into a bleeding mass of lifeless flesh. No, they spur their broll(~os into the very midst of the flying herds, and by degrees turn them about and guide them so that they swing round a circle and return to their pastures. When great movements take place, in which youth and enthusiasm need the guidance of mature judgment, let wise counsellors get into the current and sympathetically give it direction. God be thanked in this age of apathy for anything that breaks up stagnation! If this world is to be evangelized, it must be young men and young women that take up the work and put into it a consecrated spil'it of enterprise and enthusiastic endeavor. Surely the Holy Spirit must be moving, whQl'e men leave positions of honor and trust as well as of comfort, and go as pioneers into the depths of the Dark Continent simply to prepar; the way of the Lord! There is a sublimity in such consecration.
III. We think we see also, among the signs of the times, a markea tendency to establish a more direct tie between the churches and the mt88zonaries. This drift has been strongly resisted by the Boards, and not without reason. They say it tends to narrow instead of to broaden sympathy; to foster favoritism in the choice of certain attractive fields and the neglect of others; to cripple the general work in attention to local fields, etc. We see !lound sense in all this. Yet is it worth while to reflist a growing demand of the day? The churches say that to have a worker located somewhere who is immediately supported by the particular church, and from whom letters come from time to time, feeds the flame of missionary interest; that, it makes the appetite for missionary intelligence more keen, cultivates intelligent sympathy, and renders the whole work more fascinating. Those who have tried it say that money can be more easily raised for three missionaries, than for one on the old plan of putting money indiscriminately into the missionary treasury to be disbursed generally. 'Vide-awake pastors affirm that the trial of this method proves that the church will not only contribute cheerfully to support the missionary, but to supplement his salary by such additional sums as help his ,schoolwork, hospital work, and out-stations. And why not? The moment a church comes thus into sympathetic contact with a particular field, there is aroused a feeling of identification with that field, which makes giving easy and natural; and there is a sense of responsibility for such field as under the care of that particular church. Why can- , not the Boards assign particular fields, still remaining the channels of ,communication, and put the church at home into vital union with the ,needy multitudes abroad? What reason is there why every church «)f average numbers and resources may not have its missionary abroad as well as its pastor at home? Why may not church finances be so controlled as that provision shall be regularly made for the one as well as the other? What more practicable way can be found for distributing, the wide-world field than to assign a definite work to each ,congregation, and encourage every church to work in its foreign parish as systematically, liberally, prayerfully as in the best cultivated ,city parish at home? In many a church enough money is spent on a quartette choir to sustain three missionaries in the centers of heathenism!
IV. 'fhere is also an undeniable tendency to independent effort .on missionary fields. It is natural and almost inevitable. Not to speak of the singular success of that man of God, Rev. J. Hudson 'Taylor, in placing over 300 missionaries in Inland China without dependence on boards, committees 01' collections, and in supporting them upon funds received in answer to prayer, there is an obvious reason why independent movements are becoming more and more inevitable. There are many volunteers offering whom the Boards have not means to send out and support. Several young men now in the senior year ()f a prominent theological seminary visited the writer to ask advice. They wish to go out together, like the monks of the middle ages, as a band, electing one of their number captain, and to take possession of some unoccupied territory, say in China, Siam, Arabia, Africa; and, after acquiring under missionaries adequate knowledge of the language, etc., disperse within a limited area and undertake to evangelize it, acting in co-operation. The Board of their own church declines to send them: first, as not having funds; secondly, as unwilling to place them together in anyone field. This is no hasty impulse: they have been considering the matter for two 01' three years, and came to ask advice as to undertaking the work independently, getting support direct from the local churches to which they belong. They propose no antagonism to the Missionary Boards as such; but simply t() undertake what their policy does not permit them to do as missionary organizations. 'l'his may be another instance of enthusiasm run mad. But the question is, what shall be done with such cases? 'Shall we leave such independent movements to spring up in every direction, or shall the churches and Boards so modify their existing policy as t() throw about these movements a sheltering and guiding arm? At the same time there is a tendency to organize colonies of men and women~ representing different trades and callings, to go into destitute fields after the manner of Pastor Harms' Colonies from Hermannsburgh, to settle as germinal communities and even to undertake self-support. Is it wise to shut our eyes to the signs of the times and be either in- different or inactive in view of these developments?
~ human history moves forward methods must be modified. A growing boy cannot be kept in last ,year's breeches: he will extend beyond them in more ways than one. It is worth while considering at least whether we are not trying to wear outgrown garments.
V. The demand for a shorter course of preparation for mission- . ary fields is an open secret-it is now heard without concealment in our great ecclesiastical meetings and assemblies. One of the con- spicuous professors of theology in our land says he not only deprecates this movement, which he denominates a "short cut to the ministry," but that, if he could control ministerial education, he would compel a young man to double rather than halve the time spent in getting ready. We can understand this sentiment, and can even sympathize with it. Having spent nearly fourtElen years in preparation for the sacred calling, and having found even then that our resources were taxed to the utmost to do the work of the pulpit and pastorate, we can see why it is perilous to rush into such a sacred office with its daily demands on time, strength and learning. But at the same time we can all see that, as an army does not need to have all its soldiers trained at West Point, aud that, while leaders of the highest sort are needful, the private soldier can do effective fighting without this elaborate train- ing; so, in the work of preaching the gospel, there are fields where a very common man may, with a very ordinary education, tell the gospel story effectively without being qualified to be a translator, a college professor, or a great leader of missionary enterprise. The question is whether or not this great mass of common disciples cannot be adequately trained for evangelistic work at home and abroad without such a tax upon time, .money, and prolonged study as may put such preparation out of the power of hundreds of willing workers.
Rev. David Allen Reed in Springfield, Rev. M. R. Deming in Boston, Rev. H. C. Mabie in St. Paul, Rev. Geo. C. Needham in Kansas, Dwight L. Moody in Chicago, and others are establishing training institutes for the laity, and they are successfully doing this work. It fell to the writer to conduct the studies of a class number- ing from 150 to 800 during the month of October in connection with Mr. Moody's Institute, and the conviction grows upon us that there is a legitimate work to be done by these persons ·of ordinary educa- tion, and that therefore a special course of training for such work is legitimate.
The power of the early church in evangelism has never yet been equalled; l;lnd there was then scarce one in a hundred who had any pretensions to scholarship. Some of them were not only ignorant but had not even the advantage of training in the school of Christ. The woman of Samaria had never been to college or received a license even as an " exhorter," bnt what an earnest, evangelical, experimental and successful preacher! " They that were scattered abroad" and "went everywhere preaching the Word" had not an apostle or ordained preacher among them; yet the" hand of the Lord was with them, and many believed and turned to the Lord." We believe in a highly educated ministry. There is more room than there ever was for such profound thinkers as John or such close reasoners as Paul; but if we can get publicans to leave their benches, and fishermen to leave their nets, and farmers to forsake their ploughs, and carpenters to lay down their saw and plane; or better still, perhaps, hold fast their honest and honorable callings and make them handmaids to the preaching of the gospel, is there less room for such workmen now than in apostolic days?
How is this world ever to be reached with the gospel if we insist on limiting the work to the graduates of colleges and theological seminaries? The whole drift of New Testament teaching is toward constituting every believing hearer a herald.
VI. There is likewise a tendency to the critical investigation of the actual work of missions and Mission Boards, which is another conspicuous sign of the times.
Never before, since the days of apostolic evangelism, have so many assaults been made on missions by professed friends. We regard this as unavoidable. In the first place, the work of missions has challenged universal interest, and perhaps critical comment, by its just claims to a most marvellous success. And, in the second place, such vast sums of money are now controlled and disbursed by missionary societies that it is inevitable that they shall be called to account where the disbnrsement seems to be lacking in economy 01' in efficiency. For ourselves we welcome the criticisms of professed friend or open foe. There is nothing to be feared. Even misrepresentation will only lead to investigation and correction; and if anything be designedly hidden as needing concealment, that is just what we want brought to light.
But one thing must be remembered: while independent investigation-untrammelled by any official connection with boards and societies-is to be welcomed, it is not every investigator who can either elicit or perceive the real state of things. To no one who is not manifestly a spiritually minded observer will the most devout laborers uncover their real work, nor will any other sort of observer be able to enter into the secret heart of missions, even were it unfolded. There is a natural reserve and reticence in speaking of what is peculiarly sacred until we are drawn to do so by the perception of a right mind and heart in others. To some visitors a true missionary will be unconsciously indisposed to be confidential, and some visitors lack that magnetic touch that opens the inner doors within which lies what is, after all, the divinest part of the work of missions. When a man goes to explore mission fields he must go filled with the spirit of mISSIOns. If he has a spidt of criticism it will close the very mouth that would gladly 0pen to speak of the sacred things, and such a spirit even veils the observer's eye so that he sees only what he is disposed to see. The trouble with many independent investi~ators is that they have not only a warped judgment, but go through the central fields of missions without seeing the fruit which only a vision cleared by sweet charity, sympathy, and spirituality can detect. The visit of Dr. William Fleming Stevenson and his wife to the Oriental fields will never be forgotten by the missionaries. That great heart, now still in death, beat so grandly in sympathy with 'their trials and triumphs; so magnanimous was his bearing, so tender his cautions, so wise his counsels, so acute his perceptions, so appreciative his comments,so affectionate his spirit, so fraternal his interest, that all felt moved to lean on him and tell him every secret joy and sorrow of the missionary life. He would stand in a school and watch the dusky boys and girls in silence, big tears rolling down his face as he heard them recite the words of scripture or sing the songs of the new life. His questions were keys that unlocked at once the secret chambers of the missionaries' experience; his suggestions were the fruit of a wisdom that was paternal and a gentleness that was like that of a mother.
Let us not give up the visiting of mission fields to the professional tourist or the mercenary self-seeker, to the curious traveler or the self-constituted critic. Let our great-hearted, spiritually minded men and women visit the homes of lonely exiles, who for Jesus' sake bury themselves in these far off lands, and yearn for the benediction of a loving smile and sympathetic touch as for the ministry of angels.
1890.J EDUCATION AS AN EVANGELISTIC AGENCY
EDUCATION AS AN EVANGELISTIC AGENCY.
BY JAMES JOHNSTON, F.S.S., LONDON, ENGLAND.
As secretary of the late Conference on Foreign Missions in London, and editor of the report of its proceedings, I tl'llst that I shall not be considered presumptuous if I offer to the Christian public, through your pages, the conclusions which I have arrived at on I>ome disputed points in missionary operations-opinions which have been formed, not under the brief excitement of missionary meetings, or the study of papers and speeches, though much assisted by them, but on practical experience as a missionary and a lifelong study of mis- -sionary operations.
In choosing the subject of Education as an evangelistic agen~y I am influenced by two considerations. :First, it is a burning question in England at present. It is discussed in missionary magazines, in the columns of newspapers, in the pages of our reviews, and forms the subject of hot dispntes in ecclesiastical courts and public meetings. Second, because my first impulse to missionary service was given by the founder of Educational missions-Dr. Duff; and my first study of that kind of work was under the guidance of Mr. Anderson of Madras-as great an educationist as Dr. Duff, and a man who "agonized for the conversion of souls" with an intensity greater than I ever met with in the mission field. But, though going to China under such influences, and with full powers to establish a mission on the same lines in that country, I abandoned the cherished idea on discovering that, at that time, there was neither a call nor opening for an educational mission; which is not the normal form of missionary agency and is only justifiable in exceptional conditions of society, of which India is the most typical example. * After this personal introduction, which will, I trust, be pardoned as my apologia and before we discuss the question on its merits, let us get rid of some misconceptions which have prejudiced many earnest students, and in the hands of controversialists have given the appearance of victory to the opponents of educational institutions for mis- .sionary purposes.
First of all, it is said that Dr. Duff revolutionized the whole system of missionary effort by the introduction of his system. As one boldly puts it: "After six weeks' investigation, Duff, a young man, revolutionized the whole system of missions in India." There are two gross misstatements in this brief senteace. First, the scheme was not Dr. Duff's at all. It was the outcome of the mature mind of Dr. Inglis, an ecclesiastical statesman of the Church of Scotland, and Duff was only the fitting instrument chosen by him for carrying it out. The only point on which he deviated from the plan laid down for him * The question of education, as an essential condition for the development and effiCiency of ,a native church. is not touched on or alluded to in this article, was in choosing Calcutta as the sphere of his operations instead of some rural district, as Dr. Inglis proposed; and second, the statement that Duff at once revolutionized missionary methods in India is entirely unfounded. It was forty-five years before it was approved by any great body of missionaries, and Duff never wished, and never did materially alter or affect the methods of former missions.
Nothing could be mOl'e erroneous and mischievous than the mis~ representations on this point. One writer, to whose statements great, prominence has been given, has the boldness to say that "mission schools and colleges have been diverting from evangelistic work the energies and talents of at least th1'ee-fmtrths of the ablest men sent out by all the Protestant Missionary Societies." Leaving out that invidious and unmeasurable quantity, by which the writer guards 'himself, but which only reveals the fact that some of the ablest men do choose this method of evangelizing India, what do we find to be the real state of the case? I have before me two estimates from the statistics of missions in that country made by two independent authorities. The one says: "According to the Asylum Press Almanac there are 264 European and American missionaries in southern India, Of these exactly forty devote the main portion of their time and strength to 'mission high schools and colleges.'" That is only fifteen per cent., or less than one in seven, in the most educational region of India.
The other says: "Taking the latest reports of sixteen missions in different parts of the country, including the Panjab and Madura, Calcutta and Bombay, we went through the names of all foreign missionaries and found that between a seventh and an eighth of the total number is devoted to educational wOI'k-in many cases very partially" in others more fully." Both these witnesses give the estimate for the great educational centres, including the capital cities of the principal provinces. If they had taken the whole of India there would have' been found one in ten of the foreign missionaries, and if we include the native ministers and evangelists there would not be one in twenty or thirty engaged in this higher education, and of both classes it may be said that, of those engaged in teaching, many give only a part of their time to mere teaching; mnch of it is devoted to directlyevangelistic work. Dr. Duff never meant his system to form more than a. fractional part of the missionary work of the church even in India. As for the rapid revolution, no system of missionary effort has ever been more stoutly opposed both at home and in India. It wa~ not. until the year 1879, forty-five years after its introductioIl, that it received in Bangalore allYthing like an unanimous approval from any missionary conference. But there and then a resolution was· passed, proposed by the most ardent evangelistic missionaries iu southern India, expressing the most unqualified approbation of the higher education as one most important form of missionary work. It took forty~five years to win this entire approval from the missionaries of India, and it is the greatest proof of the value of Duff's method that it has fought its way to such universal acceptance by reluctant but the most competent witnesses. We may call the tlystem Duff's because but for his devoted and persistent perseverance and advocacy it would not have accomplished the great .results it has.
The Rationale and Results of Educational Missions. The true grounds on which Duff's system of operations can be fully justified are such as the following: First of all it is strictly evangelistic in its aim and methods. This is a feature overlooked by some and denied by others, but from the first this has been its characteristic. Duff in Calcutta, Wilson in Bombay, and Anderson in Madras, were all of them ardent evangelists, and openly declared to both parents and pupils that their great object was the conversion of every youth under their influence, from the day they entered their schools or colleges; and anyone who saw these men. at their work would have felt that no missionaries in India were more ardent and devoted than they. On the occasion of a visit which I paid to Madras, I accompanied the missionaries engaged in all kinds of work to their varied spheres of labor, and have no hesitation in saying that not one of them had snch audiences and opportunities for preaching the gospel as the missionaries in the great educational institutions, and none were more faithful and zealous in pressing the truth on their hearers than they were. To have a thousand of the most intelligent youth at the most critical and hopeful period of life under their daily influence, with the direct teaching of Scripture iu every class every day~ besides the frequent opportunities at other times, was the highest privilege a missionary could well desire; while the fact that they were cheerfully teaching their young hearers that secular truth which would fit them for taking their part in the life on which they were about to enter, and to rise to the highest positions open to their countrymen~ tended to secure their respect and affection. Many have the impression that Duff only aimed at the education of the youth of India as a means to prepare them for the reception of the gospel. In dealing with individuals he had no such idea. He knew human nature better, and had too firm a faith in the adaptation of the gospel to all men, and to all conditions of life, to trust to secular education as a preparation for repentan~e and faith. He might use science and geography or history to show the folly of the old creeds and idolatries, but the missionary in the bazaar did the same. In seeking the conversion of the individual he went straight to the conscience; but he did regard education as a preparation for the eventual overthrow of idolatry and the destruction of caste, and the final emancipation of the Indian empire from its social, moral, and religious degradation. It is true that (lonversions in our schools and colleges have been few, but this, as we shall show, is owing to social and religious conditions with which Christianity had never before come into conflict.
The System of Caste and" Book Religions." In calling on the church, as many are now doing, to conduc~ her missions on exactly the same lines and in the very furms in which they were carried on in Apostolic times, it is forgotten that the Apostolic Church never had to contend in the Gentile world with a state of .society and with a religion at all like those which exist in India. The early church never came in contact with a system of caste, nor with a religion based on the sacred teaching of religious books of great antiquity and authority. No parallel can be drawn between the books which had a kind of sacred character among the Greeks and Romans, and amongst the German and Scandinavian tribes, when they were brought under the powel' of the Christian religion, and the sacred books of the Hindoo and Mohammedan races in India. The Jews were the only appar.ent exception-an exception which confirms our rule, for the Apostolic Church had never conquered them as a people, and as a nation they stand as stubbornly oppo~ed to Christianity as the Pharisees in the days of Peter and Paul. It is true they made many converts; but, apart from the sovereignty and power of the grace of God, there were conditions at that time which explain the success of the early evangelists among the scattered tribes of Israel. The best 1)art of the nation were in a state of chastened expectancy. Under the long oppression of their enemies, they were longing for a deliverer, and Jews and Gentiles alike were prepared for the advent of the l'Ies- ,siah, who came "in the fulness of the times" as the "desire of all nations." The Aryan races of the West were prepared by the Greek language and philosophy, which had shaken the foundations of their faith in the gods of their fathers-the same work which is now being done by our educational system for the Aryans of India. In this work the mission schools do onlv a fractional part. They educate only about 200,000 out of the 4,000,000 now under instruction in government and native schools. I well remember an illustrative example. When in Madras I visited a school which was started by the heathen for the purpose of giving the culture of the West, free from all taint of or tendency towards Christianity. The first lesson that was proposed for an examination was the elementary parts of geography. Finding that they were quite familiar with the usual proofs of the earth's form and motions, and knowing that their sacred books taught a very different theory on divine authority, I asked the head teacher what effect this teaching had on their faith in their old religions. His reply was: "These boys laugh at the religion of their parents." Secular teaching is doing this work in India, under British rule, as surely as the same work was done for the Roman Empire by the C011quests of Alexander and the Greek language and literature which he introduced.
The Aryan Races and the Oities of India. Almost the only conquests of Christianity in India have been among the Dravidian races of the South and aboriginal tribes scattered throughout India-races which have never been brought fully underthe power of the Hindoo system of caste and religion, and who have no sacred books in their own tongues, while the aboriginal tribes have scarcely anything of a definite or formulated system of religion of any kind. It is admitted on all hands that almost the only casesof conversion among the Ayran races have been th.e fruit of educational missions. It is equally certain, and fully admitted, that in the great cities of India very few converts have been made except through the schools and colleges. Even in the Dravidian city of Madras~ where the Aryan race is present and their religious system exerts its. crushing power, there are almost no converts made by preaching in the bazaars. The few churches which have been formed are almost entil'ely the fruit of educational missions. 'rhere were, when I visited India more than thirty years ago, three missionaries of the most pronounced evangelistic character-men who would have nothing to do with education, but spent their whole time in preaching in the bazaars, all of them men far above the average in talent, devotion and piety-Lacroise in Calcutta, Scudder in Madras and Bowen in Bombay. These men spent a lifetime, much above the average duration~ in untiring efforts to convert the natives, without succeeding in getting two or three converts to form the nucleus of a church in these towns. It is not our aim to explain the causes of this state of matters; we only call attention to the notorious fact that, if the Aryan race is not to be hopelessly aband.med to idolatry, we must employ the educational methods; and if the cities of India are to be made the citadels of Christianity as those of the Roman Empire were in apostolic times, we cannot dispense with our Christian schools and colleges as missionary agencies. Abandon our educational missions, and we declare that the church has no gospel to reach the dominant races of India as represented by the Hindoos and Mohammedans, and that Christianity must hide itself among the rural population and savage tribes-unlike the early church, which subdued the cities, while the name for a village remains as the equivalent for heathenism. Educational Missions and National Education. The educational system as now in force in India is comparatively satisfactory and progressive. It is assuming proportions which may be called national. Neal'ly four millions of boys are now in schools, less or more under the inspection of government, and the education of girls is fairly begun. But to whom does India owe this western culture? Its origin and development may be directly traced to the example and influence of Dr. Duff and his educatiOnal missions. When engaged as Secretary of the" Council on Education in India" it was my privilege to come into frequent and intimate intercourse with the late Lord Halifax, the author of the Education Despatch of 1854, well called the Magna Charta of Indian education. He repeatedly told me that, but for the practical demonstration of the possibil- ity and the advantages of the education given in Duff's schools and colleges, they could not have attempted the introduction of such a scheme as that which he, as head of the then Board of Control, sanctioned, and which Lord Northbrook, then his private secretary, so admirably drew ~p.
In the report of the recent commission on education in India it is frankly admitted that in almost every province of India it was the missionary college which prepared the way for the Government Institution; and as for female education, it could not have been attempted but for the preparation of the way by the missionary. The influence of government education, with all its faults, is unquestionably of great importance in elevating the standard of morality, however far the pupils may come short of it. Associated as it is and influenced by missionary colleges, it gives a higher ideal of character and helps in the formation of a national conscience-India's greatest need.
Educational Missions and the Moral Elevation of India. Some make light of this moral effect of Missions, and look at nothing but the conversions which can be expressed in arithmetical numbers, or recorded in official reports. It is not thus we understand the commission of Christ, and the duty of His Church. Although conversion is the highest and primary aim of all Missions, it is not to be thought a small matter, if right views of man's duty to God and his fellow men are successfully implanted in the youthful mind. At the time Educational Missions were begun, the teaching in native schools was not only erroneous and defective, it was positively pernicious and corrupting to the entire youth of the country. '1'he books taught in Hindoo schools were most injurious to morals. They chiefly consisted of stories of acts of injustice, lies, cruelty and lusts of their gods. These were taught in the most literal and gross way. The apologetic and idealistic schools had not then got beyond the very limited class of the illuminati. It was the influence of Christian teaching which brought these to the front. These were not like similar stories in the Latin and Greek classics in an English school. These are known by every boy to be mere myths. To the child and teacher in the schools of India, they were the most sacred and living realities, which it was impiety to doubt and no discredit to imitate.
To have got these books banished from the schools of India, and books teaching a pure morality substituted, was of itself a great work, and is due to our Educational Missions. Government tolerated school books teaching both idolatry and vice, until the agent of the Christian Vernacular Education Society called attention to the evil and got the offending passages expunged. It is possible that the passages, being in the Vernacular languages, escaped the notic;e of the English members of the" Education Department," until forced upon their re- luctant attention by Dr. Mudoch.
In this work of moral elevation, we give full credit to the secular schools and colleges of the Government, only in a less degree than to those of .the Mis- sionary Institutions. The professors, it is true, were not unfrequently sceptical, or broad in their religious views, but they were, as a rule, moral and upright men; and the ingenuous youth of India, who looked up to them for their scholarship and character, could not come into daily contact with honorable and cultivated English gentlemen without being influenced for good. They learned to look upon uprightness and truth and manhood in a new light, and unconsciously acquired a new sense of honor and self-respect. In many im- portant respects, there is no doubt that the men trained in secular colleges are morally superior to the corresponding class among their own countrymen. It is true that, with their new intellectual acquirements, which raised them so far above the common level of the men, even in their own grade in society, they were apt to be vain and supercilious; and being newly emancipated from the degrading superstitions of their fathers, they lost not only reverence for the gods, but respect for man; and too often fell into the dissolute and vicious habits of which they find many examples among the European population. We trust, however, that these evils wilL diminish as the increase of the educated class lessens the rare distinction of these new accomplishments, and the sober- ing influence of the discovery of new truths counterbalances the frivolity arising from the sense of emancipation from old errors. Weare also hopeful of good results from the greater importance which Government now attaches to moral and religious teaching, and the means to be taken to supply it. The powerful influence of the teaching of English language and literature was brought out in a little incident which occurred in a Government college in Calcutta. One of the students came, in a towering rage, to his professor, charging one of his fellow-students with having called him a liar. The professor, with a sardonic smile, said, "I thought that you Bengalis did not care about being called liars," using the Bengali word for liar. " No," said the indignant youth, " if he had called me a liar in Bengali, I would have laughed at it; but, sir, he called me a liar in English, and I won't stand it." We hope that this elevating influence of the English language will yet impart new moral significance to the words of the native tongues of India, as many words in Greek were ennobled by the moral and spiritual ideas infused into them by the spread of the Christian religion.
But this influence of the literature of. England in secular ilchools extends beyond the teaching of morality. The most careles-s profess- ors in Government colleges cannot teach the English language with- out teaching Christianity. I shall never forget the impression made upon me by an incident which occurred in a Government college, when I was in Madras. I had been invited by the principal to ex- amine some of the classes, and before I reached the senior class in English literature, it was time for dismissal. The whole class, how- ever, enthusiastical"ly volunteered to stay in an hour, if needful; and a finer body of young men, no one could well wish to examine. More than fifty of the first youth of Madras, in point of intellect and position, were before me. After putting to them some questions in general literature, I asked them to recite some of their favorite pieces in prose or verse. The finest in the form stood up, and gave with the greatest accuracy and ex- pression the opening passage of Milton's Paradise Lost: " Of man's first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, " etc., etc.
The following questions and answers came in quick succession. More like what I had been accustomed to in a Sunday-school at home than a secular college in India.
.. What act of disobedience is here referred to?" " The disobedience of Adam." "Who was he?" "The first man." "Whom did he disobey?" "God." " In what did he disobey God?" "In eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." "What does the poet say was the effect of eating of that forbidden fruit?" "It brought death into the world, and all our woe." After some more questions I asked another tQ stand up, and without the slightest hint or prompting, he gave that passage in Shakespeare in which the words occur: " Over whose acres walked those blessed feet, Which, eighteen hundred years ago, were nailed For our advantage, to the bitter tree."
Such questions and answers as the following were put and answered with the greatest promptness : " What land is here referred to?" "Palestine." " Whose feet are said to have walked there?" "The feet of Christ." "And who was Christ." "The Son of God." "What was done to those feet?" " They were nailed to the cross for our advantage." "What advantage did we derive from Christ being nailed to the cross? " " He died that our sins might be forgiven."
After a few more questions I turIlf~d to the Professor and said, " I thought that religion was not taught in Government colleges in India, and here we have had both the fall and the recovery of om'
race clearly brought out by your pupils." The answer was ready and conclusive: "How can I teach the English language without teach- ing Christianity? I am not teaching parrots to repeat words by rote.
These youths have minds and will get the meaning of what they repeat whether you will or no. I must teach them to understand the meaning of the references of the authors they read." I could not but express my acquiescence and satisfaction; and by this time the class was entering into the enjoyment of the dilemma of the English GQv- ernment in requiring that religion should not be taught, while they at the same time put the English classics into the hands of the pupils.
One of them said quietly, "We have a Christian teacher:" "and,"
added another, " this is a Christian school." It is a well known fact, that of the scholars who are converted after leaving school, a fair proportion can be traced to the Government colleges. On the evening of the following Sunday, it being known that I was to preach, there were more than a hundred of the highest Braman youth in Madras amongst my hearers, who listened with thorough intelligence and unflagging attention to a discourse, which, I am ashamed to say, was more than an hour in length; and at its close most of them remained another half hour to talk over what they had heard. They frankly admitted the supreme claims of Christianity on their allegiance. They felt that, logically, they were bound to accept it. But between that logical conviction and the open profes- sion there is a wide gulf, which cannot be passed without a supreme act of self sacrifice on their part, and a superhuman influence on God's; and while caste and custom demand the youth of India to forsake literally everything they love in the world and hold sacred in their family, we cannot wonder that they shrink from openly embracing Christianity.
It is often said that these youths leave college with an aversion, if not a positive hatred, to Christianity. For such assertions there is no sufficient proof. We have the best evidence that the opposite is the case. That a good many talk loud in opposition to Christianity, is no matter of surprise. That some have a positive feeling of hatred to it is to be expected. Those who have most strongly felt the claims of truth on their conscience are the most likely to be of the latter number; and when we see how many Europeans are the leaders in Iilcepticism we need not be surprised that youths in a country like India, who have been rudely driven from their old religions by the frigid logic of science, should be found in the popular ranks of the enemies of Christianity. But it is the general experience of mission- aries that, when they enter a village where a youth trained in a Christian college resides, they find in him a friend, and often a helper in securing a favorable hearing for his message.
Educational Missions and Caste. Our mode-:n visitor to India in the cold Reason has little conception of what caste was fifty years ago, and still less conception of the influence by which it has been so greatly modified, and in many cases broken down. Many influences have been at work to modify the severity of caste rule, and to the visitor it will probably appear that railways and English manufactures have done more than anything else to bring about the present anomalies in the system of caste, which are such a source of uneasiness to the orthodox Hindoo and are rapidly rendering it ridiculous in the eyes of the masses. There is no doubt that these are the chief agents which are now disintegrating the system, but to those familiar with the progress of opinion in the country, it is known that but for the preparatory processes that had been going on for a generation before English railways and manufactures were introduced, it would have been impossible to get the people to submit to these modern innovations. Education was the great factor in this preparatory work, and it was the schools and colleges of the missionaries which prepared the way for the national system of education which has for the last thirty-five years been breaking down the prejudices and moulding the minds of the population of India. 'Ve have treated this questi<'ln of the value and importance of Edllcational Missions as if the present form in which they are cop.- ducted were the best or only way in which they could be carried on.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
This we regard as far from being the case. There is great room for improvement in many ways, by which far greater moral and spiritual results might be secured; Lut on the consideration of these I cannot enter. I am prepared to leave the settlement of the question to be d.ecided on the work and the results to which we have called attention. Taking into account the difficulties with which these institutions have llad to contend; the prejudices and antipathies of the natives on the one hand, and the crushing competition with the secular education of the Government on the other, it is a marvel that so much has beeu accomplished. This is felt by every great missionary agency in India of the present day that has any experience to look back upon. The outcry at home is a mere revival of old prejudices, with which the system was assailed at the first, and will soon disappear when facts and reflection have had time to have their due effect upon the minds fired with zeal, but not sufficiently tempered with knowledge.
So long as Educational Missions only divert one in ten of the foreign missionaries from the purely evangelistic work, which must ever be the great characteristic feature, no man who really knows India will call in question the wist10m of setting apart this tithe for education. No reasonable man a8k8 for more. Duff diverted nearly all the missionaries of the Church of Scotland and of the Free Church to this form of service, but that was when no other churches made it a specialty, and even he never meant it to be more than a fractional part of missionary enterprise, and ollly in exceptional circumstances would we set apart even a tenth for purely educational work.
We are glad of these recent discussions; they will clear the atmosphere and lead to some improvements which will place our Educational Missions on a higher platform and give them greater power for promoting the future well-being of the youth of India and setting up the Kingdom of God in that great country.* THE MIRACLES OF lIISSIONS.-No. XV.
t THE BISHOP OF THE NIGER.
[EDlTORIAL.-A. T. P.] WHEN Bishop W-eeks, of Africa-at that time not having been promoted to weal' the mitre-was traveling in England, a gentleman who was in the same railway carriage with him began to attack him as a friend of missions. " What," said he, " are the missionaries doing abroad ? We do not heal' much about their movements. We * The strictly religious results of Educational Missions we could not estimate without extending our remarks far beyond the limits of this article. If weighed, not counted, they will be found of far greater value and amount than is generally supposed. In one sentence I may say that the secular education by Government is doing for India what the Greek culture did to prepare the nations for the preaching of the Apostles; while that of our Christian colleges is commending Christ and Christianity to the hearts and consciences of the young of India in the form best fitted to their nature and conditions.
t Samuel Crowther. By Jesse Page. F. H. Revell & Co.
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THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
pay them pretty well, but hear nothing from them. I suppose they are sitting down quietly and making themselves comfortable."
There sat beside :Mr. Weeks another traveler, as black as any of the natives of the Dark Continent, and himself an unmistakable negro. He quietly waited until the stranger had exhausted his tirade against missions, and then, making a sign of silence to :Mr. Weeks, begged to be permitted to reply to the strictures of the critic. " Sir," said he, " allow me to present myself to you as a result of the labor of the missionaries whose work you have been depreciating." Pointing to :Mr. Weeks, he continued, "I am an African, and this man is the means of my having become a Christian and of my coming to this country in the capacity of a Christian minister."
The man who had thus impulsively assaulted Christian missions looked upon the black man beside him with a look of mingled embarrassment and amazement. He could not be mistaken: there was a genuine typical African, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, with retreating forehead, and short curly hair; yet that man had addressed him in the elegant language of an educated and accomplished Englishman. He had felt all the refining power of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and there were in the very tones of his voice, and his whole manner, the unmistakable signs of a Christian gentleman.
The accuser of missions sank into a reverie. He had no more to bay as an objector. That one man was both a compensation for, and a vindication of, Christian missions. And soon he resumed conversation, but in a different tone: he began to talk with :Mr. Weeks upon missionary topics as an interested and engrossed listener.
That black man was none other than Samuel Adjai Crowther, afterwards consecrated as the first native Bishop of the Niger! We propose sketching his remarkable history as one of the p~oofs that the gospel has not lost its wonder-working power, even upon the most unlettered and degraded races of men. No face or figure that appeared on the platform of the great :Missionary Conference of 1888 in Exeter Hall, in London, proved a more powerful magnet to draw all eyes to itself than that of the venerable white-haired Bishop, who was born in 1808, and is consequently over four-score years of age.
Early in the year 1821, in the midst of the Yoruba country, the :Mohammedan Foulahs were ravaging the land to seize and enslave all whom they could secure even at the price of bloodshed. They pursued those who took refuge in flight and flung lassoes over their heads, bringing them to the ground half suffocated, like a bison on the praines. Among the captives was Adjai, then a boy of twelve and a half years. His father died in the defence of his wife and children, but the boy was dragged away tied with ropes to other victims.
He was traded away for a horse, and afterward, separated from his mother, was sold to a Mohammedan woman, with whom he went to the Popo country on the coast where the Portuguese purchase slaves. On the road he passed the smoking villages that marked the track of those who traffic in the" souls of men," and saw the human heads nailed to the trees as a warning to all who would not yield to their fate.
So great was Adjai's horror of slavery that he tried to strangle himself with his waistband. At Lagos he saw the first white man~ and it was not calculated to draw him to the white man's God, for the Portuguese who afterwards bought him scrutinized his" points" as he would examine a horse; and then, chained with other captives, the boy was packed in a barracoon, where the heat was intolerable, and on the , least provocation was cruelly beaten with long whips. Early one morning he was hurried, with a hundred and eighty-six others, on board a slaver, where they were all crowded into the hold and compelled to remain, the dead, the dying and the living all in horrible contact.
Two English men-of-war gave chase to the slaveship and merci- fully liberated these prisoners, and Adjai was taken to Bathurst. Sierra Leone had been colonized in 1787. Mr. Granville Sharp took some 400 negroes and formed a settlement on a sort of peninsula whose fancied resemblance to a lion gave it this romantic name; and this col- ony became the refuge of the refuse of slaveships. No one but an eye- witness could have believed what a degraded and destitute community this was, and how like one of the mouths of hell, until 1816. Mission- aries were then sent to Sierra I.eone by the Church Missionary Society -notably William A. B. Johnson, whose apostolic career has been already outlined in these pages. Six years after, the Lord Chief Jus- tice publicly testified that'in a population of 10,000 there were but six cases for trial and not one of them from any village where there was a school!
Adjai made g~od progress in study, and, best of all, it was here that the little slave boy found the liberty of a child of God, and in 1825, at seventeen years of age, was baptized, taking the name of Samuel Adjai Crowther. He was taught a trade as a carpenter, and often u~ed in his mission work the skill he acquired.
In 1826 Mr. and Mrs. Davey took him on a visit to England, where he became a pupil in the school at Islington. During his year's sojourn he kept his eyes .and ears open and learned much by observation. Then returT)ing to Sierra Leone he became the first native stu- . dent enrolled ill the new Y om'ah Bay College i::l 1827, where he soon became assistant teacher, and where he formed the definite purpose, hencdorth to devote his life to work for the elevation and salvation of his own people. The little girl, Asano, who, like himself, was rescued from a slaveship, and had grown up in his society, baptized as Susanna, became his wife and the mother. of his six children. 'Ve may anticipate here, and say that two of his daughters became wives of native ministers, two of his sons have wielded a noble influence as Christian laymen, and one is the Archdeacon of his father's diocese; so that we have, not to look outside of Bishop Crowther's family, a little church of eight godly souls, all the fruit of the converting grace of God.
To follow step by step the career of this marvellous man would consume ten times our available spaee; we can only touch the salient points of his useful life. In 1830 he is in charge of the school at Regent1s Town; two years later at Wellington, with a more important trust; finally, back in the college, training students for high positions of service in Africa.
His natural aptitude for linguistic study fitted him for noble usefulness in translating and in editing books. During his life he translated the Scriptures into the Y oruba dialect and tongue of the inland tribes, and prepared a valuable dictionary of the Y orul;>a tongue, a. primer, the prayer book, etc.
Samuel Crowther was too gifted a man to be remanded to obscurity. There was no province of serviceable labor in which he was not in demand. In 1841 he was appointed to accompany the exploring party who ascended the Niger, and in the Soudan sailed for the heart of Africa, with no weapons but those of peaceful conquest.
Owing, as it was thought, to the green wood stowed away in the bunkers, this expedition was marked by one awful word,failu'i'e. At one time fifty-five persons lay helpless on the decks, and even the doctors succumbed to fever and death. For twelve years public opinion in England forbade another exploring tour of the deadly Niger. But one thing llad been demonstrated amid this failure: that. Crowther had in him the mettle of a true man and missionary; and that such :i. dangerous field must be worked by native agency, mainly by suc4 as were acclimated to the risks of the African country.
In 1842 Crowther was again in England, and in 1843 was ordained deacon in the English Church, and a little later priest. rChis marks a new era in African missions, in the emphasis laid on a native a.qency for the evangelization of the Dark Continent.
In 1843 he is again at Sierra Leone preaching his first sermon in English to a crowd of native Christians, and administering the sacrament to a large number of negroes.
Several refugees from the violence of the Foulahs founded a new ~ity, Abeokuta, "under the stone "-called from the great rock that uplifts its head like a sentinel above the town. Here in 1846 the missionaries came, hailed with joy; and here Crowther had the joy, after over twenty-five years' separation, of meeting his old mother! They were both dumb with joy, and could only look into each other's streaming eyes with the mute language of mingled rapture and amazement; and here in Abeokuta his mother became the first fruits of the new mission. In 1849 the mission, only three years old, could show 500 attend- ants, eighty of whom were communicants, and 200 more of whom were candidates for full membership, while many more outside the mission circle had flung away already their idol gods.
He found the Ibo people offering human sacrifices, dragging the victim about by the legs till he died and then flinging the body into the river, or tying human beings to trees beside the stream till they died of hunger; killing infants who first cut their upper teeth, asamong the Onitsha people all children are slain which are born twins.
It was about this time also that the Egba chiefs sent by Mr. Townsend their memorable letter to Queen Victoria, saying: " We have seen your servants the missionaries; what they have done is what we approve. They have built a house of God; they have beside taught the people and our children the word of God. We begin to understand them." And yet" missions are a failure !" Not so evidently thought the Egba chiefs. In reply came the Queen's gracious message, with two elegant Bibles, respectively in English and Arabic, and a steel corn-mill from Prince Albert. Crowther not only taught the people in the Word, but encouraged among them all manner of handicrafts.
Again Crowther was in England, arousing sympathy for the natives. of Africa. Then in 1854 he went on a second expedition up the Niger, planned partly in hopes to rescue Dr. Barth, who was believed to be lost in the interior. While at Lagos Crowther observed another fruit of missions-plantations of cassava and maize, with tillers of the soil, where before slave barracoons used to be with huma~ beings in chains and agonies.
When the Pleiad anchored off Ibo it was found that the promises made thirteen years before, that the white man would return, had been remembered by the King. But so long a time had elapsed that he began to believe that the promise had been forgotten by the white man. Obi himself was now dead, but his son and rightful successor, Tshukuma, was found 3; ready listener to the gospel message.
Along the Niger's banks the explorers encountered constant proofs of the ravages of the Filatas, that, like the Youlahs, aim not so much to slay as to enslave. The whole right bank of the river was cleared of its towns and villages to the number of about one hundred, and all who survived the strife of war were sold as slaves! Oftentimes they found the natives fleeing in terror or preparing to resist violence, but as soon as the peaceful purpose of the explorers waRmade known they were kindly received everywhere. This expedition was as successful as the former was disastrous. The Niger was proved navigable, and, better still, it was proven that the people of the Niger valley were accessible to the gospel.
On Mr. Golefimer's return to Europe, Crowther took his place at Lagos, and attempted oversight of missions on the coast. When in 1857 the Niger Christian Mission was organized, Crowther sailed on the Dayspring, planting the first stations of the Niger Mission. Some of the main obstacles confronted in this work were those which were owing to previous familiarity of the natives with Europeans! Oftentimes the missionaries would have been thankful had no shuttle of commerce or contact woven acquaintance between the degraded Africans and the enlightened Europeans.
The wreck of the Dayspring compelled Crowther and his party to tarry awhile at and about Rabbah. He found the Niger worshipped by the people as mother of all rivers, very much as the Egyptians held the Nile in veneration. 'l'he basis was laid for mission work in Onitsha, 140 mil~s up the river and on Ibo territory. Everywhere the people were found not only willing but eager to hear the gospel. One morning a woman came to Mr. Taylor, begging him to follow her, and she led him two miles away to a company of twenty-four persons, one of whom rose up and said, ""Ve have sent for you to come and speak to us the word of God: we thirst to hear it; please do help us ! "
We come now to the closing period of Samuel Crowther's life. The slave boy becomes a bishop.
In 1859, with Mr. Taylor he established a mission at Akassa, at the mouth of the Nun river, the navigable entrance to the Nigel'. He visited Onitsha, where he found twenty-eight waiting for baptism; he went again to Ghebe, where he 'found similar evidences of the grace of God, and gathered the first fruits of the new Niger mission. He passed along the Niger's banks and here and there set up the cruss amid the "wastes of many generations." At Ghebe he led around the mission buildings the messengers of King Masaba, of Nupe, and sent by them this memorable message to the king: "We are Nazarenes: in our schoolroom we teach the Christian religion; our only guns are our cotton-gins, and our powder is the cotton puffing out of them; the cowrie shells (the currency of the country) are our shots, which England, the warmest friend of Africa, desires to receive largely."
Crowther is once more in England pleading in Exeter Hall the cause of missions, and the main attraction of the anniversary exercises of the Church MIssionary Society. A converted and educated negro was telling his own tale of missions; and it was an illustrated lecture, the speaker himself being the living illustration.
In 1864, in Canterbury Cathedral, Samuel Adjai Crowther was consecrated first Bishop of the Niger, and there were not in that vast audience many eyes that were tearless as that negro knelt to receive the typical investiture of the overseer of Christ's flock. Mrs. Weeks was there, the wife of the missionary who first taught him the way of salvation. Bishop Crowther at onGe returned to the Niger valley and at once sought to form a Christian Church at the Delta, where even the awful practice of cannibalism was not yet wholly abandoned, and the people were trodden under foot by the Juju priests. The New Year, 1872, opened with a little mission church.daring to utter its testimony to the Lord, and becoming a church of the martyrs. Isaiah Bara and Jonathan Apiafe, persons of distinction, were among the converts, and when bound and doomed to die by slow starvation, they simply declared their "minds made up to remain in chains till the Judgment Day," if need there be, rather than bow to idols; and quaintly affirming that "Jesus had taken charge of their heart ana padloclced it, and the key is with Him." For twelve months they en- dured the painful bondage, and would have died but for food secretly conveyed to them by their brethren. '
Three years passed, and the wife of a chief k~own as Capt. Hart died. She had been the Bloody Mary of the persecution, but her husband would not be comforted; and seeing his fetish idol had failed to save her, he heard the word of the Lord from Bishop Crowther, and as he came to die renounced his faith in his idols and ordered them thrown intQ the river. On the day after his funeral this was done: the people, in a rage, executing wrath on the J ujus, breaking them in pieces and flinging them into the stream.
The era of persecution passed away with the decease of Hart and his wife, and "Bonny became a Bethel." A woman of high position and large influence became nursing mother to the infant church, and her own house became a place of assembly. Another house of worship was built, and both were thronged; and Archdeacon Crowther was put in charge of this mission. Meanwhile the titular king of Bonny, George Pepple, visited England, and when with renewed health he was about to return, he sent a letter in advance declaring himself a convert and asking for a special service of praise to be prepared that he might on arrival at Bonny offer up thanks t.o God. Led on by this converted king, Bonny became one of the centres of godly influence in the lower Niger district.
Those who depreciate missions should have visited Bonny when Bishop Crowther preached; should have seen an orderly congregation of over 500 gathered attentively listening, and King George and his sister among them. Again in the afternoon the audience gathered, many of them walking through the tide, which was over knee deep in the beach path. Such cavillers should have been in the mission house when those converts came to buy books from the village Ayambo, which they aptly entitled the" Land of Israel," because there was no more to be found in it a single idol! In Hl83 persecution broke out in Bonny; but it only brought out the martyr spirit. Even timid women would not recant at peril of life.
In the Kingdom of Brass, which is one outlet of the Niger, other marked victories ha'e been won. The King, Ockiya, in his latter years, publicly confessed Christ. In spite of his Juju men he re- nounced idolatry; and we saw his cast-off idols in the mission house in Salisbury Square. King Ockiya not only gave up idolatry, but polygamy, and thus not only showed how r€al was his change, but set a' beautiful example to his people. In that same land where Bishop Crowther himself a few years ago found horrid cannibalism, and superstitions whose name was Legion, he has since found praying rooms where chiefs gather twice a day with their families for worship.
Bishop Crowther maintains that, on account of the prevalence of Mohammedanism in Africa, the Arabic should be taught to the native {latechists as the sacred language of the Koran, and so be a means of reaching intelligent natives through the Arabic bibles and testaments. He found on the friendly waters of the Galadima an avidity for the books printed in Arabic, and gave presents of Bibles in that tongue to the Galadima himself and others. When Crowther explained to the Mohammedans he met, the difference between the formality of the fast of Ramadan and the fasting of the Christian unto God, the {lommon reply was: " Yes, you are true persons; your religion is superior to ours." He found the WOl'k and influence of Islam such that whenever he referred to Adam, Noah, Abraham, etc., and even .Jesus, the natives recognized these names as common to the faith of Mahomet as well. He advises that Mohammedanism be wisely dealt with, that missionaries and native preachers and teachers be prepared to utilize all that is common between the teachings of the Koran and the word of God, and at the same time resist and expose the folly, superstition and immorality fostered by Islam.
In 1875 Bishop Crowther's mother died, at the age of 97, the .death of a saint, and passed into the unseen glory.
This really great man has left on all the mission work the impress of his ability and piety. He started the Preparandi Institution at Lokoja for the training of native catechists and school teachers, and it is a ·centre of spiritual light and influence for the whole west coast. Wherever he goes blessing comes, and no living man is doing more than he for the elevation and salvation of his degraded fellow countrymen.
Paul wrote to the Colossians that his aim and object in preaching were to "present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." When the great day of Presentation comes, with what joy will Mr. Weeks present to the Lord, Samuel Adjai Crowther as the fruits of his ministry in the Lord! And then for the first time will he realize what ulti~ mate blessing hung on the leading to Christ of a humble slave boy of Yoruba land.
The negro has been described as" God's image carved in ebony."
THE mSTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
"I don't care much as to what I am carved in," said one of the colored speakers at the late Baptist Anniversaries in this city, "so long as I am ' in the image of God.'''
THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
BY PROF. HENRY WOODWARD HULBERT, MARIETTA, o.
I-Introduction. The Purpose and Plan. The last few years have seen great advances in the study of historical geography. Germany has taken the lead, and trained minds in many lands have gone more and more into this line of investigation. Professor Bryce's epoch-making book, "The Holy Roman Empire," gave a decided impetus to researches dealing with the great movements of events within the limits of Europe, and that impetus received an added momentum from a still more elaborate treatise in two volumes from the workshop of Professor E. A. Freeman, of Oxford, entitled," The Historical Geography of Europe." Masses of facts are marshalled in this latter treatise with a master hand, which in another place };las shown its power in the most minute researches of apecial study. Professor Freeman embodies in himself the two tendencies in historical studies prominent in our day-the tendency to extreme specialization, which builds up from the foundation on the inductive plan, and the tendency to deal with facts from a broad outlook, and which brings into play the profoundest philosophical grasp of events, and gives us wide generalizations in the departments of the philosophy of history and the history of civilization. These two tendencies are rarely found successfully developed in one man, and when they are found they mark him as a leader in the department of history. Neither of these tendencies should be allowed to exclude the other. The specialist does elementary work. He extracts the crude ore from the mines (often abandoned ones) and gets it into shape for higher treatment. 'l'he work at this stage is but just begun. It is stating a truism to say that history cannot be cut into isolated fragments. It would be history no longer. The unity of human life and events becomes more and more evident. History unrolls itself to the eye of the intelligent observer as one grand plan. Our age is peculiarly fitted to grasp such an idea. The great object lesson of unity-material, commercial, political and religious-is ever before our eyes. Space and time are dwindling. The world is growing more and more into one comprehensive family of nations. The time is hastening apace when what Professor Freeman has done for Europe must be done for the world. It is true that the pursuit of studies in historical geography is in a certain sense a superficial one, for it deals mainly with results and immediate causes. Yet it paves the way for a line of investigation which deals with profoundest questions as well as with some very practical ones. Most of the international quarrels to-day are over questions of historical geography, and the proper treatment of the great race movements will tax the genius of our best statesmen.
It is the purpose of this paper to call attention to a subject matter far better fitted in many important respects for treatment at the hands of the historical geographer than are the conglomerate and often conflicting elements of a purely secular and national life. What Professor Freeman has done for the historical geography of the political affairs of one continent should be done for the Christian Church throughout the world. The ideal unity of the Christian Church as outlined by the solemn, prayerful words of its Master would point it out as a theme of magnificent proportions, and of entrancing interest. At its very inception it was made universal, and its whole progress and expansion lie in the white light of history. It was a divine force left in the world by Christ which, under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, was to carry out His divine plans for and in the world. It was to go up to the conquest of a kingdom that should be limited only by the extent of the human race. The globe was made a magnificent battlefield-the theatre of a campaign. The forces of Truth and Error are joined. There are two lines of conquest -horizontal and perpendicular-(l} the surface of the world and its multitudes; (2) the depths of human nature, the subsoil, the experience, the individual life. The historical geograploty of the Christian Church deals with the spread of Christendom, and has to do largely with acreage and numbers-in one sense the superficial items in the struggle. The history of a Christian civilization tells how deep down into the subsoil of human nature and national life the benign doctrines of Christianity have penetrated. When the Christian Church shall have reached every remotest region of habitable earth, and the gospel is proclaimed in every tongue, the work will have been just begun. It is a mighty task to reach fourteen hundred million human beings; it is a mightier task to bring them out into the full liberty of the gospel. As the late Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock was accustomed to say, " We must rechristianize Christianity."
But despite its seeming superficiality the Historical Geography of the Christian Church demands thorough treatment. Our century is especially interested. We have found that the best way to rechristianize Christianity at home is to enlist its sympathies in carrying out the last command of the blessed Master. The door is open to-day for truth or error to enter in. Truth must not hesitate a moment. "Te must prevent untruth even at the risk of superficiality. We must plant good seed at least. It is a strangely interesting and almost universal fact that, wherever evangelical truth has been preached and the Bible has been translated into the vernacular, no forces of opposition-physical, intellectual, or moral-have been powerful enough to wholly eradicate the gospel truth. Extreme cases of this fact are found in Abyssinia and in Persia, and the only exception now in mind is in North Africa.
The science of missions looms up in grand proportions. We are leaving the realm of experiments and establishing ourselves on a more and more scientific basis. We are learning the la11!8 that must be obeyed. The science of war becomes strategic. The universal in- quiry now is-as it was when the cannons of Gettysburg were boom- ing-How goes the battle? vVhat progress has been made in winning the ground of the enemy? And that we may fully understand the answers that come flashing across the wires to us, we ask again, How has the battle been going from the first? The Historical Geography <>f the Christian Church attempts to tell us the story of the campaign -the manmuvres, the advances, the retreats and the general progress -" beginning at Jerusalem," under the divine leadership of the" Cap- tain of our salvation," only to stop at the" ends of the earth."
The story of this march should be prefaced by astatement of the geographical conditions under which the Pentecostal Church found itself-(l) the conditions imposed by the Roman civilization, and the commercial and military relations of this civilization to outlying barbarism; (2) the conditions imposed by the spread of languages; and (3) the conditions resulting from the scattering broadcast of the Hebrew race, which was so largely to be the recipient of the new truth and the promoter of its rapid expansion. A map of the known world of that period will display before our eyes a sketch of land and sea a few thousand miles east and west, and Atillless from north to south, with a great cloudland of unknown territories and unnumbered millions still awaiting the discoverer.
We shall then see how, with the point of our finger, we cau on the largest map cover up all the territory occupied by the centripetal Pentecostal Church. 'fhe Apostolic Church, with a mighty centrifugal force, went forth to service and to martyrdom. By the year 100, A. D., men, women and children were ready all around the Mediterranean to die for the Christian faith. 'fhe church of the second and third centuries, although in hiding from the most malignant persecutions, betrays itself at thousands of points all over the known world; and the year 312, A. D., with its imperial decree of amnesty to Christians, reveals that for a century the Roman Empire had been honeycombed with Christian churches. The politic Constantine did not cast in his lot with the minority when he adopted the Cross as his standard in war and peace. Under the founder of Constantinople and his successors paganism went slowly to pieces by a sort of spontaneous combustion; getting a new lease of life now and then, it is to be regretted, through the persecuting ardor of the church, which still felt the old Bores of three centuries of wounds inflicted by a dominant paganism.
But immediately in the new light of imperial favor, not waiting for the last gasp of expiring paganism within the pale of civilization, the church, true to its divine misson, went forth to convert the bar- baric world, and the era of foreign missions proper began. Imperial legates and humble missionaries worked hand in hand at the centres of national life. Christians captured in frontier wars gloried in their opportunity to bring their rude barbarian captors to the foot of the Cross. The Armenian nation submitted to the new doctrine; the Abyssinians, under the fervent preaching of Frumentius, became Christians. Ulfila did pioneer work among the Goths on the lower Danube, and left the Gothic Bible' to be the foundation of all Teutonic literature.
Thus the campaign was carried into the three continents of the known world. Then followed the rapid expansion in the days of Theodosius the Great and Justinian, in which, behind the veil of the Alps and the Carpathians, that work was progressing which acquainted the rude northmen with the abc's of-Christianity, largely under its Arian' form, so that when the Western Empire fell, a reverence for the Christian symbols controlled to some degree the barbaric ruthlessness of her conquerors. N estorianism, under fearful embarrassments, pushed eastward through Persia into India, across the steppes of Central Asia, and Ret up its Christian monuments in China. From the Pacific to the Atlantic Christian prayer was heard.
In the struggle of nations there were occasional disasters by which whole lands we~e suddenly lost to the faith. The Saxons seemed to efface for a while Christianity in southern ahd eastern Britain. But in the days of Gregory the Great new vigor was aroused. The broken columns were re-formed and the march began again in earnest. Ireland from her island retreat 'gave Chl'istendom an electric charge, and Rome herself for a while felt the tingle in her veins. The Franks, the Frisians and other Teutonic tribe~ yielded to the piety of devoted missionaries. Slavs and Picts and Huns and Norsemen and eveh the relentless invaders of Britain learned the truth about Christ.
Then came the sudden apparition from the Arabian desert to scourge an idolatrous and decaying church. The Saracens, more respectful at fil'st toward" the religion of the book" than were the rude northmen, or even at times more than were the Christian coreligionists towards each other, swept over the faires.t gardens of the church- Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, North Africa and Spain fell in rapid succession before the iconoclastic followers of the prophet. Leo the Third at Constantinople saved eastern Europe from the first serious onslaught. The whole North African Church was swept out of existence, but Charles Martel rolled back the Muslim tide at Tours, and Europe had a respite.
Then followed the gloom of the middle ages, lit up at points by flickering lights among the Mozarabes of Spain, the Abassides of Bagdad, the lnxurious and corrupt court at Constantinople and the schools of Charles the Grcat and Alfred of England. The Saxons in Germany tardily submitted to the Cross forced upon them by the gleaming argument of Charles the Great. The Wends, the Danes and the Swedes received Christian missionaries. The Moravians and Bulgarians were converted. Bohemia, Franconia, Bavaria and Belgium were won over, and the gospel was preached among the Tartars of the Crimea. Even the darkest days of the tenth century were relieved by progress in some directions. Rollo, the Norman, became a Christian. The colonial principle was used in Sleswig to propagate Christianity. The German emperors zealously used their swords to spread the faith. The bat'baric Prussians were the objects of missionary activity. Poland was reached, and Hungary saw her patron saint. In 988, A. D., Wladimil' the Great and all his immediate subjects went down together into the Dnieper at Kiev to a Christian baptism, and Russia abolished her idols.
During the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries the vigor of Christendom was turned into the useless and hopeless task of recovering and keeping the" Holy Land" from the Saracen and Turk. Mission work was greatly obscured, yet it went on with faltering step. Far-off Iceland and Greenland were converted. The Finns and'Pomeranians were brought under Christian influence. The good work went on in the vast spaces of northern and eastern Russia. A Tartar prince, the mysterious Prester John, was won 9ver by the N estorians, and their missions flourished in Central Asia. The" Order of Christ" (Sword-brothers) and the" Order of Mary" (Teutonic order) carried the gospel with their swords up along the Baltic shores.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw a decay in missionary zeal. Disasters came thick and fast. What was lost at one part of the field was gained at other points; still the Christian Church has not yet recovered entirely from the heavy advei-se blows of those centuries. The little light of Christianity in China seems to have gone entirely out. The ruthless Tamerlane destroyed the larger part of the Nestorian Church and sapped its vitality to such a degree that it has never since been aggressive. Islam penetrated further and further into Central Asia. The faltering Christian Churches in Arabia were lost in the Muslim sirocco. Russia fell under the sway of Mongol hordes. The Ottoman 'rurk appeared upon the scene and marched steadily westward, engulfing the Byzantine Empire, sweeping up to the walls of Vienna and laying desolate the Christian churches of the entire Levant. As an offset to all this, at the very close of the period, we see the armies of the Catholic Ferdinand and Isabella free Spain forever from Muslim domination. Russia, after weary centuries, comes out from under the sway of the" Golden Horde" and becomes the champion of the Greek Orthodox Church. Franciscan monks made headway in northwestern Persia. The west coast of Africa received missionaries, as did also the newly discovered islands off the coast. Just at the close of the century a new world, with its teeming possibilites and grave responsibilities, dawned upon the vision of man, and the Christian Church began to grasp the full geographical scope of the kingdom committed to its care.
The inevitable internal struggle between the monarchical and the constitutional or republican principle in the Christian Church came to a head in the sixteenth century. The contest between reformer and ultramontanist for a time obscured all other subjects in church life. During the Reformation era the Protestant world was so fully occupied with its fight for life itself that little foreign missionary work could be expected from it. Gustavus Adolphus and Gustavus Vasa carried on missions among the Laplanders, and Coligny and Calvin attempted a mission at Rio Janeiro. Natives of Virginia were converted through English missionaries. With these exceptions the aggressive work of the church was mainly done by the Roman Catholics. Canada, with the vast interior regions of North America, Florida, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, India, China and Japan, were reached. The devoted Xavier set an example of heroic service for the whole Christian world.
The seventeenth century was also essentially a century of Roman Catholic missions. The Dutch carried a formal Protestantism with their merchant fleets to the East. John Eliot and his fellow-missionaries iu New England counted their Indian converts by the thousand. But the great territorial conquests for the Cross during this and the following century were made by Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits and other L:1tin orders. A mere list of the names of the countries they entered and which received permanently their presentation of the Cross is too long to be quoted here. They poured out their treasure of human life with unstinted hand. Whatever else we might be prompted to say we must accord to these zealous propagandists the honor of having extended" widely tue superficies of Christendom.
The eighteenth century saw the work of evangelical missions well under way, and the nineteenth century has thrown itself into the thick of the conflict; so that in spite of the material wonders of our day that have changed the looks of the world, our century will, in the long future, be pointed out as the age whose most prominent characteristic was not the steam engine, the telegraph or the railroad, but the missionary of a Christian civilization, bringing new life to nations
ASCETICISM IN MISSIONS
buried in heathen darkness or living in the twilight of an eclipsed faith. Before our century shall have co·me to a close there will not be a land or a nation or a language uninfluenced by the gospel of Christ. The expansive march of the church will have then reached its limit. It will not find time to weep for new worlds to conquer~ for its work here will have been only begun. The true test of a faith is not its expansive power, but its penetrative power.
This, in brief, is the scope of an historical geography of the Christian Church. It involves the historical geography of every religion with which the Christian Church has come in contact.· It involves to a large degree the political growth of the world as well as the commercial expansion, for the church has penetrated into every department of human life. This whole investigation will show how vitally the Cross of Christ has affected the history of mankind. The true dividing line between ancient and modern histOl'y is the line traced by the Cross. Modern history in any nation begins when Christianity begins to be the power that shapes its life. This line historically appears like a zigzag isothermal line running across the chart of history, beginning low down where the first centres of civilization in the Roman Empire became Christian, in the fourth century, and ending close upon the year 1900, when the last nation shall have heard the Master's name and shall have felt His transforming power.
ASCETICISM IN :MISSIONS.
BY F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D., NEW YORK.
It is a sign of progress in the work of missions that it has awakened a surprising amount of discussion as to ways and means. It is no longer looked upon as a harmless scheme of a few visionary people; it is marshalling the great forces of the Christian Church. Accordingly, it finds a conspicuous place in the monthly magazine and the daily newspaper, and even in the official correspondence of statesmen and diplomatists. It has not only stirred up the old Oriental systems of error-it has attracted the attention of infidel writers in Christian lands and called forth their efforts to thwart its purposes and prevent its success. And it has awakened still another class of critics who have no special interest in the subject further than that it affords topics for speculation or ridicule. Particular attention has been given to questions of economy, and to romantic ideals of what a missionary ought to be. It would be difficult to say why it is that the idea of self-immolation has always been somehow connected with this particular enterprise-why one who enters upon it should be supposed to be indifferent to comfort and to all those things which ninetenths of the activities of mankind are busied with seeking.
There is not the same idea in the popular estimate of the ministry at home, though that also abandons the pursuit ot wealth and seeks as a life work the moral and spiritual edification of men. It is nnder- Htood that the average pastor ought to be at least comfortable, and no congregation is quite willing to allow any special degree of hardship or privation on the part of its minister. Oftentimes there is a degree of care which amounts to coddling. This is supposed to be generous and praiseworthy.
But with the foreign missionary it is very different. He forsakes home and friends and fatherland. He renounces all prospect of gain beyond his bare support, casts in his lot with poor and despised races of men, submits to the influence of unfriendly climates for his work's sake. But this is not deemed sufficient. The more barren his lot of all comfort, the greater the degree of self-denial and privation that can be encountered, the better. What he has really undertaken is to carry the Gospel to the destitute, and so to live as to secure the longest, fullest and most complete career of usefulness along that line. But this is not the view of the malcontents. They regard him as a spectacle, an ascetic, an object lesson in self denial. It is not so much what he does, as what he suffers. The chief end is the impres- sion which he makes on men's minds by his self-mortification. Such is the logic of Canon 'raylor's teachings, and of U. S. Minister Denby's recent official despatch on the death of Rev. J. Fisher Crossette. MI'. Crossette, once a most useful and devoted missionary, had for a long time been laboring under serious mental aberration.
He suffered the lashings of a morbid conscience and took upon him- self a degree of privation which no civilized man ought to aflsume, and by which his life was doubtless brought to an untimely end.
His sincerity and devotion to suffering humanity were worthy of all praise, but there are scores of missionaries in China whose real use- fulness has excelled his fifty fold, but who call forth no special tributes, because lacking that morbid element which always impresses the uninformed and sympathetic. The fact that he drew no regular salary, "taught no creed, and did not strive to proselyte "-though this is an error-but fed perishing beggars, sharing with them his last crust,-this is the ideal.
Is it then more important to feed here and there a poor beggar than to establish Christian churches, schools, colleges and hospitals, and to proclaim to an entire nation those great principles which bring all reforms and all benevolence in their train?
A few weeks since a farewell reception was given in New York to a veteran missionary and his wife just returning to Japan, where many years ago they had the honor of being the very first Protestant missionaries to that Empire. They had watched the progress of the whole marvellous work wrought in that land, and had had a large part in it from first to last.
This able missionary, Dr. J. C. Hepburn, had given to Japan a massive and complete dictionary, which did more than almost any other one thing to open up communication between the Japanese and the English speaking world. He had accomplished much also in Bible translation-thus helping to place the Scriptures in the hands of all the people. Moreover, he had constantly maintained a dispensary, and in his medical work alone had done a work worthy of a lifetime. He had maintained a high spiritual influence over the lowliest, whom he was always ready to succor, while at the same time winning the esteem of all the better classes, both native and foreign. How had all this been accomplished? Simply by a rare combination of piety and common sense. Simply by living plainly, but comfortably, and in such a way as to make the most of his life and labor for the glory of the Master and the lasting good of the people.
He had refused offers of educational service under the government which would have increased his small salary many fold. He had r~sisted the temptations to-engage in a general medical practice which might have secured a fortune, but he had been no ascetic; he had taught and exemplified, not a morbid, but a healthy Christianity -just precisely that which was needed to regenerate Japan. Would the supporters of missions have had it otherwise ? Would they have preferred a cloistered ascetic, fed only from his beggar's bowl?
Canon Taylor has found his ideal in a half-dozen unsalaried mis- 'V. sionaries from Oxford who are laboring in Calcutta. Sir. VV.
Hunter has also accorded t~ them the highest praise, as models. They are, no doubt, under the influence of a most sincere piety, and ever cherish only the most thorough respect for their self-denying devotion; but how many such men is the worldly and easy-going church of this age likely to In'oduce? Has the Christianity of proud and wealthy Britain any fair prospect of impressing itself deeply upon the Indian Empire by delegating here and there a handful of men to perform a duty which the whole church should unite in performing?
It may be true, as both Canon Taylor and Sir W. W. Hunter assert, that such persons represent the common idea which Hindus associate with the religious life, but one might suppose that asceticism, with all its forms of self mortification, had been tried long enough in India and throughout the East. 'Yhat have the tens of thousands of Indian saints and mendicants ever accomplished? The moral and religious life of the nation has gone to corruption and decay in spite of hoards of beggars and fakirs. We must take issue with all such ideas of missionary methods.
We may go still fart.her, and ask what has been the result of those many historic instances in which the 'church has, in fact, copied the asceticism of the East? What have the monasteries of Sinai and of Lebanon done for the regeneration of the Holy I~and ? What did a celebate and cloistered priesthood accomplish for Mexico through three hundred years of undisputed sway?
That the example of the Calcutta brotherhood, so far as it promotes consecration of spirit, will be useful, no one will question; but that India,or any country, is to be reclaimed by su'ch agencies, is more than doubtful. There 'is need of a healthy and aggressive movement which shall subsidize the gifts and prayers and efforts of the whole church. Not the touch of a small separated class, but the spiritual sympathy and life of all Christendom must be applied to the dead faiths and effete civilizations of the East. Asceticism would fail. As well might the old prophet have attempted to raise the dead child with the tip of his finger, instead of overlaying him with his· whole pulsing life, mouth to mouth, hand to hand, and heart to heart.
H the church is to exchange her own regular methods for any other agency, let it be the armies of the Young Men's Christian Associations. Let there be fellowship and activity and the massed influence of numbers. Let there be a constituency at home that is abreast with the representatives at the front, and therefore in the fullest sympathy with them.
But, while welcoming every agency and means of good, the church cannot lay aside or delegate to others her own direct work for the evangelization of the world. It is acknowledged by all that the success thus far accomplished in the modern missionary movement has been the work of the regular organized missionary agencies. The great Christian denominations have sent forth chosen representatives,as Barnabas' and Saul were sent from Antioch. Guided by the providence of God, in the choice of fields, they have rais!ld the common standard of the cross in many lands, till already the headlands of the continents and the chief islands of the sea are occupied. They have translated the Scriptures into hundreds of languages and dialects, trained native preachers and teachers, organized churches, established schools and colleges, multiplied religious books and tracts, :ounded hospitals and dispensaries.
The missionaries of these boards and societies have generally been married men, and not the least among their elevating influences has been the object lesson of a Christian home. It is impossible to measure, still less to tabulate, the subtle influences which have gradually changed the Oriental idea of woman's place and influence, until now in India Zenana doors are wide open, and both Hindus and Mohammedans are beginning to emulate Christianity in the higher female education. Even the fanatical Moslems of the Turkish Empire are seeking the benefits of Protestant schools for their daughters. But these immeasurable results have attended the organized methods of modern Protestant missions. They are no longer experiments.
Celebate missions had been carried on for at least two centuries by missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church-many of them devoted men. Scores and hundreds of lives were spent in self-denying labor, in Congo, among the American Indians, in Japan and China, in India and the islands of the Indian Archipelago; but in all these lands they failed to regenerate heathen society. The Greek and Latin churches of the Levant, following similar methods and lacking the domestic element, have scarcely held their ground; they have received from Islam a deeper impress than they have given. Why, then, should Protestant Christendom yield to the cry of those who, in the very midst of in- creasing success, would turn to the effete agencies of the past?
But still it may be claimed that whatever may be said of mission- ary methods, the labor should be cheaper, the salary should be only sufficient for a bare subsistence, if not waived altogether; the work should be one of faith.
In reply to all such claims, it may be asked, first, whether any special providence is supposed to attend foreign missionaries, as compared with the Gospel ministry at home? If not, can any greaterrisks be assumed in a heathen land, where the people are out of all sympathy with the truth and where no means of employment and selfhelp are offered, than in the prosperous communities of our own lann. Or is a comfortable and homelike dwelling less necessary to a missionary's wife in a dreary heathen community, where she finds perhaps no white woman besides herself, than to a pastor's wife in an American village? Of all women in the world, those who are weighed down with the sense of loneliness and the depressing cont.act of degradation and misery which are incident to missionary life need most the sanctuary of a home to which they may resort after t}le wearisome labors of the day-a bright little spot where they may find not merely comfort but the nameless objects of taste which shall remind them of the old home far away. Depression of spirits is often a more fatal cause of ill health and of failure than either the work or the climate.
An article in the Gotemporary Review of July, 1889, by Meredith Townsend, presents these very sensible thoughts on "Cheap Missionaries. "
The writer discredits the idea that merely living poorly produces any favorable impression on the natives. "They understand real asceticism perfectly well, and reverence it as a subjugation of the flesh, and if the missionary and his wife carried out the ascetic life as Hindus understand it, and lived in a hut half or wholly naked, sought no food but what was given them, and suffered daily some physical pain, they might stir up the reverence which the Hindu pays to those who are palpably superior to' human needs. But in their eyes there is no asceticism in the life of the mean white, the Eurasian writer or the PortngueRe clerk, but only a squalor unbecoming a teacher and
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES
-one who professes, and must profess, scholarly cultivation. Even if the cheap missionary could induce a fitting wife to share such a lot, he will think of the children to come, and he perceives, from examples all around him, what, on such an income, their fate must be. They will be boys and girls, with the white energy, who have been bred up as natives-that is, they will, unless exceptional persous, belong to the most hopeless class existing in the world."
But there is a new standpoint from which to consider the question of ascetic missionaries, and of cheap missionaries; it is the standpoint of the church itself. Never before was so great wealth placed in the hands of Christians. N ever before was there so much danger to spirituality from superabundance and luxury and mammon worship. On the other hand, never were there so many opportunities and facilities for the united effort of all good people in reclaiming the world as now. So far as home interests are concerned, there was never so much actually done by the rank and file of laymen and of women for the cause of truth and humanity. Is this then an age for delegating the work of the distant waste places to an exceptional few? Or is it quite becoming to the tens of thousands of professing Christians who are imperilling- the bodies and souls of themselves and their children by the very surfeit of self-indulgence, to turn the last screw of impoverishment on the ambassadors to heathen lands? Would the hollowness and insincerity of such a policy be likely to impress heathen nations with the moral earnestness of our propagandism, or even of the divine reality of our Christian faith?
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY MAGAZINES.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The Lund Missions-Tidning describes the Gallas, in Northeastern Africa, as probably the people among whom the Swedes will principally labor in time to come. This tribe extends from Abyssinia southward, and some of its superior families have established themselves as royal lines of other tribes as far south as the Victoria Nyanza. The royal family of Uganda are Gallas. The Swedes, of course, only think of laboring among the Galla tribes, not of following these transplanted dynasties.
-The Neukirchen Mission in Germany has three missionaries on the island of Java, with seventeen congregations. The statistics of 1888 were: Helpers, 5; elders, 2; communicants, 88 ; catechumens, 27 ; scholars, 30; attendants, 283.
-In the Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrijt for April, 1889, there is an article by Herr A. Merensky on "Opinions of Travellers Respecting Christian Missions among Native Africans," from which we give some extracts. The author remarks that, in colonies where the natives form a large percentage of the population, the value of the missionary work is often very cordially acknowl- .edged by the authorities, but that as yet the accounts of travellers are so subjectively colored that they vary according as the traveller looks upon the natives as men, or as only a higher species of animal. If the former, he is apt to judge missions favorably; if the latter, he will esteem them absurd. We train a horse or dog, but we do not endeavor to convert them. Such travellers look upon missionaries as amiable lunatics. Some, however, are more bitter. Thus Mr. J. S. Little declares that some of the missionaries in South Africa are of evil lives, and says that" the scandalous proceedings at the Moravian station of Caledon are alone enough to prove this." Of course it would be strange if, of so many missionaries, some did not turn out unworthy. But his proof is a broken reed, for there is no Moravian station at Caledon, and there is not even a German station there. Mr. Little, therefore, has been catching up a report without knowing either the nation or the denomination to which it has reference. Such a man's unfavorable testimony cannot be worth much; yet even he acknowledges that the missionaries, as a whole, are an excellent and self-denying body of men. But of their converts he judges most unfavorably. However, he is good enough to add that it is not the missionaries that are to blame, but the contact with civilization. However, he knows very little about the missionaries, as appears from his accusing them of having burdened the Zulus with a perfectly arbitrary orthography-the contrary, says Herr Merensky, being demonstrably the fact. He adduces" Cetewayo" as an instance of perverse spelling. It is that; only it does not happen to be the missionary spelling. Yet after all he breaks out with, "The much-abused missionaries, as well as, the Boers, have been the pioneers of civilization in South Africa, and even on this ground are entitled to be regarded with all honor! "
-Mr. J. Nixon judges very differently. He declares of Magata, a chief near Pretoria, where the Hermannsburg missionaries are working, that not even in England has he met with a more perfect gentleman, in the best acceptation of the word. Speaking also of the chief Kchama, he declares that he is a chief whose word can be depended on. " He is a noble example of successful missionary work. His Christianity is nothing nominal, like that of so many other blacks, as well as whites, but is life, which exerts a pronouncedly good influence upon him and his people. He has' abolished drinking in his land, and is always intent on some reform. His word is always trusted, not only by the missionaries, but also by traders and hunters, who are mistrustful of everything accomplished by missions. He is sincere, e<mrageous, and manly, and if all Caffre chieftains were like him, Caffreland would have a very different look from its present one."
-Comparing the poorer white Boers in the west of the Transvaal with the Christian Barotsis, Mr. Nixon says that, while many of the former cannot write, a number of the latter, taught by the missionaries, can read and write well. Their fruitful fields also are in strong contrast with the dry Boer places, without gardens or any sign of cultivation. The Barotsi, Mr. Nixon says, owe their happier circumstances to the zeal and pains of a German missionary, Herr Jensen, who had taught them how they might sow and reap and dispose of their produce to advantage. The Barotsi, he says, were prosperous for natives and had ploughs and wagons in plenty.
-Mr. Nixon also spent some months in Bechuanaland, and remarks that many of the so-called savages were as well educated as their Boer neighbors, t and had quite as good claim to be respected. The labors of Moffat, Mackenzie, Livingstone, Price and other missionaries, though with many a failure, had exerted christianizing and civilizing influences on the masses. Dr. Holub also, the eminent German traveller, who is understood to be a Catholic, gives the following glowing description of Kchama: "What I mentioned even in my first work, I can to-day, some years later, do nothing but re-attest, namely, that King Kchama does his best to civilize his Bamangwatas. Happily he has only accepted the good of civilization from the white man, and it is this with which he seeks to inoculate his people. His success is acknowledged by every stranger, and is especially visible to whoever had previously visited his capital of Shoshong, whether it were when the heathen l'egime of super- stition yet prevailed under Sekchomo or Matscheng, or later, during the early reign of Kchama. The difference between now and then proves itself to be a mighty bne, in which the good falls altogether on Kchama's side. Kchama has the fullest right to have his government described at length in an historical work, on account of its good success and the iron energy of the ruler. What he has accomplished in Southeastern Africa may well be esteemed something unique in the history of Southeastern Africa, and must never be passed over when the general capacity of the blacks for culture is in question. The advancement of prosperity and progress among his people is Kchama's most ardent wish, an aim which he has pursued for years with ever increasing zeal and success. His subjects are more and more abandoning the heathen customs; it is only some of the very old people that murmur at having to comply with the innovations, with which, nevertheless, they do comply. The amulets of lions, leopards and ralis teeth, etc., which used to be worn around people's necks, are no more to be seen. The orgies have ceased, especially the corrupting orgies of circumcision, formerly a national rite, a momentous solemnity, from which everything was dated, a man's age and fitness to serve in war, and the regiment to which he should belong. The power of the rain doctors is forever broken in this tribe; the beer-carousals and their attendant orgies have come to an end. The spirituous drinks of the Europeans are forbidden in the whole land, and even to Europeans the use of them is only permitted within their own four walls. A drunken white in the open street must look to be banished from the country. Ten years ago visitors prophesied that Kchama would not be long able to enforce this prohibitory law, but would be absolutely powerless to oppose 3;ny permanent resistance to this curse of civilization. Well, these prophets, thank God, have turned out false prophets. Kchama's laws stand fast, and we will hope that they have already so thoroughly naturalized themselves that Kchama's future successors will also be constrained to conform themselves to them." Dr. Holub declares, in conclusion, that he wishes thus to secure to this " noble man" a monument in writing which shall perpetuate his memory. And, as the editors of the Zeitschrijt remark, Kchama is not alone in these endeavors among the chieftains of South Africa, though he far overtops other Christian chiefs.
-In De Macedonier Herr E. Haan, who has been ten years a missionary in Java, gives an extended report of the reasons for the comparative unfruitfulness of the missionary work in that great island. Besides that most of the people are Mohammedans, he brings the very severest indictment against his countrymen as respects their treatment of the Javanese. The Dutch have always been noted for the cold severity and extortionateness of their rule over subject races, and they seem to be as bad as ever. Herr Haan says: "The Javanese is viewed by the European as a thing with which he can deal at his pleasure, and which only exists for the convenience of Europeans, in order to secure to these a comfortable, easy and wealthy living." As an instance: Every Javanese, if he occupies land set apart by the government or by individuals for coffee culture, is compelled to set out a certain number of coffee trees, to tend them, and to deliver all the coffee they yield at 14 francs for 125 lbs., while the same amount in the market brings 45 francs, 55 centimes. "Does the Javanese even receive for his coffee money enough to live on? Hardly. Indeed, it not seldom happens that in place of rice he is reduced to eating the leaves of trees." "Nowonder, then. when the Javanese are dealt with after this step-motherly fashion by the intruding European lords, that they are filled with bitter hatred towards the Europeans. They have experienced neither love from them nor benefit from their religion, and in requital they hunger for the moment when everything that is white shall be put to the sword." Again: " The Javanese hate the Europeans with a deadly hatred, they thirst for their destruction, and the many insurrections of later years, as yet fortunately discovered by craft and suppressed by force, prove only too clearly how the fingers of the Javanese itch for the extirpation of the white man."
-Herr Haan is convinced that it is hopeless to convert the Javanese by means of Europeans. Only native Christians can do the work. "For, to speak plain, a European missionary in Java can accomplish absolutely nothing with the gospel. All the missionaries, without exception, confess this by word and writing, and it is proverbial among them that, being unable to reach a single Mohammedan, they bestow their time in the translation of Christian works, yet with so wrongheaded a lack of concurrence, so absolutely without a plan of campaign, that it sometimes is the case that two missionaries are translating the same work at the same time, of course each in the hope of seeing his own translation printed."
-No white nation has much occasion to boast itself as to its treatment of inferior races: but among Protestant nations Holland, and among Catholic nations Spain and Portugal, enjoy a peculiarly bad eminence in this respect. There is this difference, however, according to Mr. Mackenzie, in his history of Spanish America: the Spanish Government and the Spanish Church, in the prime of the{r dominion, were unwearied in their efforts to restrain the harshness and rapacity of covetous adventurers, who had a long way the start of them, and very slowly did prevail against them: whereas the Dutch Government itself is still the main extortioner. Weare glad to see that sections of the Dutch Church are beginning to bear a faithful witness against this iniquitous tyranny.
"The native helpers," says Herr Haan, "must be the pathbreakers of missions, and can be so, because they can converse with Mohammedans without arousing prejudice against themselves, and without awakening suspicion can bring the gospel into the hearts and houses of their brethren according to the flesh." "Facts show that wherever they come they find souls eager for the Word that speaks of atonement and grace "-ideas wholly foreign to Mohammedanism, which makes absolutely no provision for the inner wants of the soul.
-The Rev. C. J. Sandegren, of the Leipsic Mission, in South India, who attended the great Mula-Linga festival, says: "The demeanor of the templepriest towards us was very noteworthy. For although we had come in the avowed design of preaching the gospel and testifying against heathenism and idolatry, yet this exceedingly liberal and large-minded heathen priest conducted himself in the most friendly manner towards us. Indeed, he even came to us and himself urged us to preach to the people, assisting us personally to maintain order and attention. He also sometimes stayed with us at our quarters, listening to our singing and conversation. But yet we could discover in him no real longing after salvation. It is true, he mocked at the people's idolatry, but imagined he must put a good face on the mummery, and fulfil his office as priest, because he had his living by it, and because it brought in to him and his family no small profit. As temple-priest, moreover, he not only enjoyed a good revenue from this festival, but also has in his possession the extensive templeestates, from which he and his kindred derive an ample income, and enjoy an eminent and respected position in the land. And how is it easily possible to renounce all these things? thinks the good-natured man. Our preaching and
LATEST FACTS ABOUT MICRONESIA
Christianity doubtless are good, true and useful, but self-denial, the surrender of earthly advantage-that, he fancies, would be very foolish, not at all after his taste; for riches, enjoyment and voluptuous pleasure formed the real god of this heathen priest."
-" Speaking generally, a mission-period falls into three stages, which, it is true, are neither sharply distinguished from each other nor have everywhere the same length of duration. The first stage is that of sending forth, strictly speaking, of the slow foundation work of the foreign missionaries. of individual conversion, of the initiation of a process of fermentation, of the impregnation of the intellectual and moral atmosphere with new views and elements of life. The second stage is that of the erection of a first story on the foundation laid, of the extended co-operation of the natives, of the organization of the growing congregations, of the leavening of the popular life with the forces of the gospel. The third stage is that of national Christianization in the stricter sense, the collapse of a heathenism already undermined, the winning of the masses. This mostly comes to pass as a result of important historical events, e. g., the acceptance of Christianity by reigning personages," etc.-Allgemeine Missiol1S- ZeitshriJt, September, 1889.
-The Macedonier gives some extracts from the South African German Missionary Merensky, "Erinnerungenaus dem Missionsleben," which are interesting, as distinguishing more sharply the various native tribes from each other. We are accustomed to call them all, except the Hottentots and Bushmen, Caffres, or Kaffirs. And, indeed, they do in a general way belong together; but while the Zulus are Caffres proper, the Bassutos and Betchuanas, who are very closely related to each other in appearance and language, are but remotely related to the Zulus. Herr Merensky, therefore, informs us that we {)ught not to call the former Caffres. "As respects their bodily build, among the Bassutos we find many tall and powerful forms, but also many weak people-far more than among the Zulus." Merensky attributes this in part to the greater wealth of the latter, which enables them to use meat more freely, in part to the privations to which the Bassutos were exposed at the tinie of their oppression by the Zulus, but in part to the fact that an unchaste life has already, among the Bassutos, made its way even into the world of childhood.
-" Young people may often be called handsome, especially among the girls: the finely formed ears and small hands draw the eye. Old people, how- €over, are, as a whole, very ugly. This, however, is far from being true of the Christians." Merensky, even in unfamiliar mission-stations, recognized the Christians by their faces. At a station of the South Bassutos he was astonished at the sight of handsome old men and venerable old women. The missionaries had already been there thirty years, and these people had grown old as Christians. Merensky wishes, therefore, that in popular works, when portraits are given, it should be indicated whether they represent Christians or heathen; and it would be of much interest, from lands where heathenism and Christianityare wrestling, to be able to compare portraits of both.
LATEST FACTS ABOUT MICRONESIA.
Rev. Frank E. Rand, of Ponape, of Caroline Group, Micronesia, being interviewed by Dr. Pierson, says: The whole group-Caroline Group-extends nearly 2,000 miles east to west, and embraces a hundred or more islands; this is the only group where there are high mountainous islands. Ponape island is the largest in the group, rising in centre about 3,000. All of the group, save from six to ten, are low and coraline, with large lagoons. The Ruk lagoon is a hundred miles by about forty.
About 5,000 inhabitants on Ponape, missions established about thirty-seven years ago, and the island is now semi-christianized; thirteen churches on the island, and about half the people attend, and two missionaries and families were there eight years before the first three converts; but twelve years after the Ponapeans were carrying on foreign missions among the neighboring islands.
Pinglap, 150 miles east, was approached in 1872 by the Ponapeans, but repulsed; two young men, however, of the Pinglapers were found on Ponape on the re- turn of the missionaries, and became converted, and one of them ultimately became pastor of the present church on Pinglap. Some of that church are now helping the Ponapeans to carry the gospel afar. Two years after, in 1874, three young men and their wives, Ponapeans, landed at Mortlock Islands, about 300 miles west, a group of six coral islands, population of 4,000, found the people in primitive paganism, having had little or no cOiltact with foreign- ers; language differed from Ponape, and hence conversation was impossible.
They were left there, and communication began through a man and wife who had lived on Ponape. They were left there, knowing the Morning Star would not return for twelve months, the chiefs promising to protect them, and hav- ing supplies only for a few months. Their houses were comparatively hovels.
In a year they were visited again by the Morning Star, and found each of the families living in a good house, having also three large churches, the largest holding 600 to 700; all had acquired the language; one of these native teachers, the wife of one of the missionaries, had translated a portion of the gospels and hymns from Ponape into Mortlock tongue, and each family had a large school in which pupils read and wrote in their own language and beginning to cipher, and some twenty-five in each parish awaiting baptism.
At the present time there are in one of those churches from 300 to 400 members, and instead of three churches, nine. .
Since then there has been a greater work done on the island of Ruk, where the first missionaries went in 1880. It has always been called the Terror of the Pacific, from cruelty shown to crews of vessels. The coral reef encloses about 15,000, or more, speaking the Mortlock language. One missionary was left there in 1880, " Moses" by name, from the Mortlock Islands. He was landed at his own request on one island in this lagoon, with a population of abou1; 4,000. Mr. Rand visited this island a year after, and found Moses, within two months after landing, had been in great risk of life, but saved his life by singular tact and courage. Mr. Rand found him likewise living in his own large house, having built a large church with some twenty-five ready for bap- tism, with day school and Sunday school; but with marvellous influence over the nation in restraining war among themselves. Now there are some eight or nine chur~hes, and a prosperous community. Chiefs now send to Moses for teachers to come to them to instruct them not to fight.
The principal work on Ponape is Training Schools for young unmarried men and the married men and wives, to prepare them for Christian work.
In 1888-9 they had forty-five boarding pupils; twenty of them have gone into the work in the beginning of 1889, and there is a girls' boarding school with thirty-eight pupils. There are two more training schools at Island of Kusaie- one for·Marshall Group and the other for the Caroline Group, and at the same place a girls' boarding school.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
II.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Aftica.-A correspondent of the lish a protectorate over Tunis, where ..i'lfanchester Guardian writes encour- the Italians outnumber the French ten agingly of the development of com- to one. They add that at the Berlin merce which is checking the slave congress Mr. Waddington disavowed trade on the Congo river. Steamers any claim to the Regency. The French from Liverpool are now plying direct answer that Tunis was offered to them to Boma and Matadi, stations on the at the congress by Bismarck and river. These are becoming the chief Beaconsfield as a counterweight 1;() ports from which produce is being Cyprus, which was acquired by Engshipped, and are gradually drawing land, but that they should not have the ivory trade away from Zanzibar. availed themselves of the offer, had A regular ivory market exists at Stan- not the Italians made surreptitious ley Falls, and here the Arab traders efforts to supplant them in the good can now sell their ivory instead of graces of the Bey. Meanwhile they kidnapping slaves to carry it to the desire to know why Italy has not laid east coast. Under the old method of hands on Tripoli, a section of north slave labor it often took one or two Africa uncoveted by any other Euro- years for the ivory to reach the coast, pean power. To this latter suggestion and the former slave dealers are now the astute Italians make no reply. settling down into a peaceful colony They know a trick worth two of that.
near Stanley Falls, evidently appre- The possible outcome of their protect- ciating the advantages of modern orate over Abyssinia, and of their facilities for trade. When the Congo assertion of authority over the whole· railway is complete, the Congo route sea-coast' of East Africa from Warwill be more used than at present. sheckh, near the second degree of The railway will start from Matadi. north latitude up to and including A further blessing both to the traders IVfassowah, may be found to have some and the natives is the discovery of the day a weighty bearing on the status of river Lomami, which runs parallel Italy in the Mediterranean. For few with and to the left of the Congo. It things are more certain than that the is navigable and of good depth, and advent of the Gladstonians to power will be a great benefit in facilitating in England would be followed by the communication between Niangwe, the recall of the British army of occupation chief Arab settlement in the high from Egypt. To what power would Congo, and Stanley Falls. The fre- England then be more likely to turn quent falls and rapids on the Congo over the duty of protecting the Nile in this part have rendered communi- country than to Italy? It has been cation by it almost impossible between largely through the moral support of the two places. The ultimate benefit, the British Government that the Italhowever, of thus opening up Africa ians have gradually acquired control for trade will depend upon the number of the southern part of the Red Sea of Christian men engaged therein. and of the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. Between heathenism and civilization We may rather say that they alone without God, there is little to choose. divide control with Great Britain. Owing to the weakness of their navy, -Italy and Africa.-There has been they could never be dangerous to Brit. of late an acrimonious dispute between ish commerce, and they could be the journalistsand politicians ofFrance trusted to shut the Suez Canal against on the one hand and Italy on the other touching the claims of their respectiye a French or Russian fleet. Apropos of countries to possessions on the north this suggestion, it is well to remember coast of Africa. The Italians main- that the Italians took possession of tain that France had no right to e~tab- Massowah under an understanding with the Gladstone Ministry, and for tic volume as it enters that country.
the purpose of effecting a diversion But, fortunately, when it is most against the Mahdi. Co-operation with wanted for irrigation-during the dry England, with regard to Egyptian in- season-it gives the greatest volume; terests, was, in other words, the motive for then it is the rainy season in the of their first important demonstration Nile sources.
in East Africa, and it will probably What would Egypt be without the turn out to be the ultinlate result of Nile? The country knows no rains, or their Abyssinian protectorate. The at least so seldom that a shower is Italians constitute a much larger pro- a marvel; and though, during some portion of the European residents in months, the parched earth is relieved Egypt than do the French. Of Lev- by heavy dews, its dry season would antine countries generally the same be intolerable without the overflowing thing may be said. In this respect of this grand river.-African News.
they are the natural heirs of the Vene- -The Sultan of Zanzibar has de- tians. Candia, for instance, should creed that all slaves entering his the Porte be constrained to surrender dominions are henceforth to be free.
it to any European power, ought to go Also that the children of slaves born to Italy in her capacity of the heir of in his dominions after January 1 are Vellice, from which the Turks wrested to be free. These are great steps for- it, after it had been the property of ward, and lead us to hope that the the Republic for many centuries. The entire suppression of slavery in East island is of too great strategic import- Africa may be looked for in the near ance for England to suffer it to fall future. Another important mark of into the hands of Greece, which woulU progress is the establishment of a new practically make of it a Russian naval direct line of mail steamers from Lon- station. On the other hand, if the don to Mombasa and Zanzibar, which, Italian flag were planted in Candia with those now running, will make a and Alexandria, the Mediterranean fortnightly service.
would be as truly a British lake as it – The Abyssinians and their Chris- is now.-The Sun (New York). tianity.-The change of rulers in Abys- -The Nile has Three Peculiarities. sinia promises to inaugurate a new 1. It has a constantly diminishing departure in the public policy of that volume of water as it flows to its historic country by opening it to West- mouth for more than 1,000 miles. 2. ern influence, and thus preparing the It floods during the dry season. 3. It way for the rejuvenation of its stereo- has no tributaries for 1,100 miles from typed and formalistic Christianity.
its mouth. In the great expanse of The new king, Menelik, formerly sov- the Soudan there are few rivers, and ereign of the southern province, Shoa, the Nile is the only one worthy the and then nominally, but scarcely in name in aU Egypt. Up in the heart fact, vassal of the late Negus, or King of Africa it has many feeders, and John, has all along been favorable rushes down into the sandy plain of to the representatives of Western civil- Egypt a mighty torrent; but it hardly ization and Evangelical Christianity.
fonus its great trunk by the junction King John was a typical Semitic, con- ofthe White and Blue Niles before it servative to the core, and naturally begins to diminish in volume. Liter- hostile to aU new and progressive ideas.
ally, the thirsty sand licks it up. And He not only expelled the Christian mis- though the junction with it of the sionaries, sent there by the London and great Atbara gives it a new supply Basel societies, from his domains, but some hundreds of miles below, it soon attempted to come to an understanding again loses volume. It is a large river with that larger branch of the Chris- in Egypt, but far inferior to its majes- tian Church which, in its character and kind, agreed most with the sterile physite Church as a natural con- faith of his own people, namely, the sequence followed.
Greek Orthodox of the East. Menelik This isolation, voluntary at first, be- has already made a decided move in came one of necessity soon after, when the opposite direction. He has assum- the Mohammedan invader overran the ed friendly relations to the Italians; Eastand devastated Oriental Christian- his ambassadors were recently the sen- ity. It is the great distinction of the sation in Rome; and his land is being Abyssinians that they, in their moun- re-opened for Christ~':'"l} mission work. tain fastnesses, were the only people The veteran Flad, who for two decades who did not bend their necks to the of years has been in vain waiting for Moslem conqueror, nor yield their an opportunity to continue his gospel faith to Islam. The struggle against mission, so auspiciously begun under Arabic aggression, which is now the his leadership thirty or more years ago, question of life and death for the has, notwithstanding his years, deter- future of the Dark Continent; is really mined to return to Abyssinia and work one of more than a thousand years'
while it is day. standing. Against fearful odds the As matters now stand, the Church Abyssinians have maintained their of Abyssinia is a ruin, in its way as struggle for existence, and, though instructive as the pyramids of Egypt often wounded and bleeding, have re- and the tablets and bricks of Assyria. tained their national and ecclesiastical Practically, it represents, in stereo- existence and organization.-Pro!.
typed form, the Greek Christianity of Geo. H. Schodde.
the fifth century. The shape and form Belgium.-The French Protest- have been retained, while the spirit has ants are divided into two sections; been lost; the hull is there but the one, represented by the Protestant kernel is gone. Abyssinia was con- Evangelical Churches, which are verted to Christianity early in the State churches; and the other, by fourth century, and viewed its first the Belgium Missionary Christian bishop from Athanasius. It is the Churches, whose name admirably sets only Semetic people that ever as such forth their spirit. The latter have embraced the Christian faith and es- 27 churches and stations, with 59 an- tablished a national Christian Church. nexes or places that are regularly It is one of the anomalies of history evangelized; 50 temples and halls; 38 that Christianity, although springing Sabbath schools, 17 day schools, 22 from Semitic soil and developed in a pastors, 4 evangelists, 7 Bible read!lrs, Semitic people, was, on the whole, re- 5 colporteurs, 47 laymen, who take jected by them, and the spiritual in- direct' part in the work; 7,850 meet- heritance of Shem passed into the tent ings took place last year; 215,500 of Japhet. The Abyssinians, too, were tracts have been distributed. The converted under Greek or Aryan in- churches have a membership of 4,647, fluence, and for a century and more and their Sabbath-schools are attended constituted a not unimportant ele- by 2,366 children. More than 500 ment of the Oriental Church. In 451 members have been added to the came the separation. Together with church during the year; and not- the Church of Egypt, with which it withstanding the deaths and emi- was then and is now yet organically gration, the increase has been 275 connected, that of Abyssinia embraced adults and 171 children. A station the Monophysite faith. The condem- has been founded, two churches nation of this heresy by the synod at built, services begun in several new Chalcedon led to the withdrawal from localities, 70 villages where the Gos- an connection with the Church gen- pel is not regularly preached have eral, and the isolation of the Mono- been visited by the missionaries; while the colporteurs have worked in account of Christian work at the 200 villages. Hawaiian Islands. The 56 native The expenses of the year have churches report a membership of reached 139,714 francs, and the con- 5,747, besides other churches for Eng- tributions of these churches have lish-speaking residents and Chinese, amounted to 63,000 francs.-Rev. J. having a membership of 679. These C. Bracq.' native churches contributed for pas- Hawaii.-The last report of the toralsupport $9,531, and for home and Hawaiian Board of Health shows that foreign missionary work, if we rightly there were, March 31st, 1888. 749 lep- understand the treasurer's report, ers in the district of Molokai set apart something over $20,000. Eight pastors for them. These are provided for re- have been installed during the year, ligiously by two Protestant and two seven of whom were ordained. The Catholic churches. The report of the Chinese mission, under the care of Mr.
Hawaiian Evangelical Association for F. W. Damon, has been prosecuted 1887 shows that one of the Protestant with success. Daily evening schools churches has 225 members. The mem- have been well attended. Four new bership of the other is not given; but Sabbath-schools for the Chinese have as it reports more than half as many been opened in different parts of deaths as the former church, we may Honolulu. There are 22,000 Chinese be sure it has over 100 members, and now residing in the Hawaiian Islands. that it is perfectly ridiculous to speak . The Japanese work, begun so recently, of the lepers of the Sandwich Islands as has had a remarkable development, not cared for now or before Father both in Honolulu and in other parts Damien came to them. The idea of of the islands. The North Pacific Mis- giving him credit for revolutionizing sionary Institute, under the care of the care of lepers is laughed at in Dr. Hyde, has graduated eleven stu- Hawaii. It is clear that the lepers dents and received ten in their place. have been so well cared for that many These graduates are all at work in have sought admission just to get the different localities.-Miss. Herald.
generous support given by the State. India.-Writing of the Mission The last report of the Board of Health Sunday-schools in Jubbulpore, Bishop makes no mention of Father Damien, Thoburn says: but they "cannot say enough of the inestimable and disinterested services "They are so many in number and are of the siCK rendered them by Mr. J. attended by so many pupils of all ages that an impression has gone abroad that no real work is done in them.. It has been alleged Dutton, who is a trained nurse, and that no real teaching is done, that the same came to the Settlement on his own ac- persons do not attend two days in succession, count, for the purpose of living with and that inasmuch as nothing is taught noththe lepers and devoting his life and ing is learned, but these boys disprove all such entire time to their benefit; and who assertions. They had evidently attended often, and had learned both hymns and catechism.
may be seen busied from morning to I took occasion to examine the register of night cleaning and healin~ the many attendance, and was surprised to find that the sores of the lepers, and administering attendance varied but little from week to to the many ailments of the sick, and week, the total number for the week preced- ing my visit having been 3,268. Of these 1,300 very much to the satisfaction and had been boys, 639 girls, 920 men, and 409 comfort of the sick." It is made clear women. Perhaps the most hopeful feature of that the contagion of leprosy comes these schools is the fact that so many women from violation of laws of cleanliness are in this way bronght within the sound of the gospel. Many who could not be tempted or morality.-The Independent. to join an ordinary audience of men, have no -The 26th annual report of the Ha- hesitation in doing SO when they see that the waiian Evangelical Association gives crowd is chiefly composed of children. The a full, and on the whole encouraging, attendance of girls also is remarkable. Many of these 'Sunday-schools' meet on week days, and hence they are sometimes called prose tale of a demon with a thousand Bible-schools. 'Whatever name they may bear heads. Among the works published it is evident that they can be s1j.ccessfully in the year 1886 are the following: A used in giving large numbers of the people a book on architecture, containing notes clear outline of the blessed truths of Christ's on the lucky and unlucky times for gospe."
-The Current Literature of India. beginning a building, a biography of -The latest official returns of the Faraday, adaptation of Shakespeare's issues of the Indian press are for the "Comedy of Errors,"" Winter's Tale,"
year 1886. The total number of books and" Merchant of Venice," Milton's and periodicals published in that one " Paradise Lost," "The Diseases of the year is 8,961. In the Indian vernacu- Elephant," "Cholera and Its Cure," a lars alone there are published annually Marhatti version of Glodsmith's " Her- about 200 newspapers, the most of them mit," the" Perils of Youth," a work being dailies. The variety of subjects telling young men not to run off to treated in Indian literature is astound- Christianity or any other religion be- ing. It reflects not only the polyglot fore examining their own, and annota- character of the race-stems, but also ted editions of Goldsmith's comedies, the mixture of faiths. Among the " The Good Natured Man" and "She books issued in 1888, in the Punjab we Stoops to Conquer." There is a large find such a heterogeneous compound increase of important missionary pub- as the following: "The Little Office lications, of works by the Hindu re- of the Immaculate Conception of the formatory associations, and of native Blessed Virgin," " Praises of Moham- attacks.on infant marriages and other med by His Followers," "Attacks on lingering abuses. Another important the Prophet by the Christians," "Stories triumph must be added to the long of Krishna," and" Talismans from the catalogue of philological achievements Koran." In the same region, the North- of missionaries. In Bhamo, Burma, a west Provinces, there is one treatise on Kachin spelling-book has been pub- astrology and another on electroplat- lished by two missionaries. It is the ing. In Burma the list of books includes first attempt to reduce the savage a volume of songsin praiseof the " New' Kachin dialect to grammar. Many of Umbrella for the Dregen Pagoda." In the native publications classed as relig- the Central Provinces a collection of ious are purely controversial. They astrological calculations was publish· are attacks on Christianity. Both ed in an edition of 500 copies. The Hindus and Mohammedans are quite Bengali publications comprise works willing to attack Christianity in print.
on polygamy, the Brahmo discourses, From the first, missionaries have in- and songs on the loves of the Krishna. dulged pretty freely in controversy.
A gratuitous edition of 1,059 copies of This spirit has been latterly on the a work on astrology, in the Tamil, decline, as if the missionaries were appears on the list of issues for 1882. now thinking the game hardly worth Several other books on the subject are the chase. In some sections Hindus published for general sale, among them and Mohammedans have taken up the one in an edition of 400 copies. It is cudgel against one another. On the claimed to be an ancient work 2,000 other hand, controversial works have years old. Another Tamil work de- been written, in a very hostile spirit, nounces Christianity, animal food, by rival sects within the same religious and intoxicating drinks. An edition fold.-Bishop Hurst, in the Chatau- of 500 copies of this work appeared in quan.
1882. In the same language appear -A Writer in The Bombay Guar- two other books of antagonistic ten- dian, on Jesuit missions in India, dencies, one a book of verses in favor shows that it is a mistake to assert that of the Virgin Mary, and another a Protestant missions have not prospered as have those of the Jesuits. The latter Syria. – An Assyrian Library entered India about 350 years ago, and their educational institutions are nu- Thirty – five Hundred Years Old.- merous and ably manned, but their adherents, who are now estimated at Prof. Sayce gives an interesting ac- 1,000,000, have not increased at anything like the ratio seen in the Protes- count of the recent discovery of tant missions. For instance, in the long buried tablets and inscriptions, decade from 1862 to 1872, the Roman which have an important bearing Catholics increased twelve per cent. on certain test questions in Biblical against fifty-one per cent. among the criticism: Protestants. The Jesuits do not preach to the heathen, one of them saying, From them we learn that in the fifteenth cen- "This is not my work, which is to tury before our era-a century before the look after my people, not the heathen." Exodus-active literary intercourse was going But the chief point of difference be- on throughout the civilized world of Western tween the methods of Jesuits and Pro- Asia, between Babylon and Egypt, and the testants is in regard to the Scriptures, smaller states of Palestine, of Syria, of Mesoconcerning which the writer in The potamia, and even of Eastern Kappadokia. Bombay Guardian says: "For 350 And this intercourse was carried on by means years the Jesuits have had a succession of the Babylonian language and the compliof learned men in India, yet they have cated Babylonian script. This implies that, never translated the Scriptures in all over the civilized East, there were libraries whole or part, so far as we know, into and schools where the Babylonian language any of its many languages. On the and literature were taught and learned. Babyother hand, the Protestant missions lonian appears to have been as much the have, in 90 years, translated the Scrip- language of diplomacy and cultivated society tures, in whole or part, into over forty as French has become in modern times, with Indian languages and dialects, includ- the difference that, whereas it does not take ing the Gondi. By the one method long to learn to read French, the cuneiform the Indian peoples can read the Word syllabary required years of hard labor and atof God for themselves in their own tention before it could be acquired. We can tongues; by the Jesuit method they now understand the meaning of the name of have been, and are, deprived of it as the Canaanitish city which stood near Hebron, rigorously as the Sudras are of their and which seems to have been one of the most sacred books by the Brahmans." important of the towns of Southern Palestine. Kirjath-Sepher, or "Book town," must have Japan.-Dr. Griffis, author of been the seat of a famous library, consisting "The Mikado's Empire," says: mainly, if not altogether, as the Tel-el-Amar- na tablets informs us, of clay tablets inscribed "It is of interest to all who want to see with cuneiform characters. As the city also Japan a Christian nation to know that the bore the name of Debir, or "Sanctuary," we •reformed' Buddhists expect to furnish their may conclude that the tablets were stored in countrymen and all inquirers with a religion. its chief temple, like the libraries of Assyria Alert, keen, not over-scrupulous, they will and Babylonia. It may be that they are still doubtless have a neo-Buddhism all ready. They lying under the soil, awaiting the day when are already patrons of Western learning; have the spade of the excavator shall restore them studied at home, in India, at Oxford, and in to the light. The literary influence of Babylo- America, the situation; have introduced phy- nia in the age before the Israelitish conquest sical science in their splendid, new, brick-built of Palestine explains the occurrence of the colleges at Kioto; make the New Testament a names of Babylonian deities among the inhabtext-book,and the Bible and its learning subject itants of the West. Moses died on the summit of lectures. They will Buddhaize Christianity, of Mount Nebo, which received its name froIQ if they have power and' opportunity. Let the Babylonian god of literature, to whom the Christians study the past and take warning." great temple of Borsippa was dedicated; an<1 Sinai itself, the mountain" of Sin," testifies t<l a worship of the Babylonian Moon-god, Sin, amid the solitudes of the desert. Moloch or Malik, was a Babylonian divinity like Rimmon the Air-god, after whom more than one local- ity in Palestine was named, and Anat, the wife of Anu, the Sky-god, gave her name to the Pal- estinian Annah, as well as to Anathoh, the city of "the Anat-goddesses."
lIIISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS
IlL-MISSIONARY CORRESPONDENCE FROM ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD-FIELD.
Brazil. pleteness of our foreign mission reports that they have no way of knowing what becomes [While we do not fully sympathize of their gifts after they are once absorbed into ""-ith the writer in all he says, yet we the general fund, and so prefer givipg in a deem the following communication way which will enable them to judge for them- selves if their money has been economically worthy of consideration by all mission- and wisely employed. ary societies. It is desirable that full and explicit reports be made of all The largest givers are usually the most con- expenditures. There is not sufficient scientious. They give from principle, and for that'reason feel a responsibility for the way fulness and skill shown in many of in which their gifts are used. If then there is these reports. Our own effort to the slightest ground for suspicion that the analyze and give a scientific and in- money which they have given, with the sole motive of building up the Kingdom of their telligent account of the" Statistics of Lord and Saviour, is uselessly dissipated in Missions" has already demonstrated to ill-digested schemes of inexperienced workers, us the necessity of a great reform all or is used in such a way as to pauperize the along that line, and we urge the duty new converts, or simply promote general civilization or secular education, they cannot upon the attention of all whom it con- but feel that their accountability to Him whose stewards they are requires them to withhold, cerns.-EDs. ] or at least to limit, their gifts. It is quite pos- sible that we have here'the true explanation SOLIDARITY IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. of the undeniable fact that our foreign mis- sion work is not receiving that whole-hearted LETTER FROM REV. J. BEATTY HOWELL. and enthusiastic support on the part of many large givers which it deserves, and in former JAHU, Sept. 20, 1889. times received. A significant sign of the times, of profound interest to all engaged in foreign mission work Something must be done to bring the contrib- or connected wibh it, is the undoubted fact utors into closer relations with the work, and that the mechanical benevolence of former to lead them to feel that they have a voice in days is being largely replaced by an intelli- the application of the funds contributed. The gent interest, on the part of contributors to solidarity of home givers and foreign workers every good work, in the final destination and must be recognized and emphasized. A practical results of their gifts. practical application must be made of the During the past year several missionary principle that the givers have at least an equal Rocieties have found themselves seriously em- voice in the application of the funds with bal'I'assed by a considerable diminution of those who are entrusted with the distribution. their regular income, due to the falling off in Missionaries and secretaries have a right to legacies. It is becoming increasingly the cus- advise, plead, urge, but nothing can deprive tom on the part of churches, Sunday-schools the givers of the right to determine where and and individual contributors, to forward their how their gifts shall be applied. contributions directly to some friend on the field, to be used for certain definite and desig- The first and most important step in this nated objects. Our secretaries are constantly direction must be a change in the method of bewailing the discouraging fact that funds giving mission information, especially in the contributed by our church members are department of statistics. Some plan must be diverted from denominational channels to out- devised for enabling contributors to know just side enterprises conducted by irresponsible what is being done with the mission funds, parties. and what each department of the work costs. A single explanation covers all these facts. At present the church is only given the general There is a growing desire on the part of con- totals of so much expended upon mission tribntors to follow up their gifts, and a grow- work in China, so much in India, etc., with no ing sense of responsibility for the way in means of ascertainingthe proportion of funds which these are employed. Those whom ODd expended upon different departments, the has entrusted with means, and into whose comparative cost of each, or the part of the heart he has put the desire to use them for burden borne by the native Christians. his glory, are, to a very noticeable extent, planning and carrying out the distribution of these It would be a new departure in missionary consecrated funds in their own lifetime. matters for most of our societies, and would, The criticism of mission methods, and the no doubt, at the beginning involve some extra doubts tIu'own upon their results, of which work, but we respectfnlly suggest that the their has been so much lately, has naturally attempt be made to give the church topical had the effect of rendering contributors sus- reports of the work, instead of by countries, as picious and inquisitive; but such is the incomheretofore. In the annual reports of the the will of the Great Head of the Church as to societies let all accessible information from all the way in which His work is to be carried on parts of the field be grouped under the heads than the judgment of the consecrated givers of common school education, higher educa- at home. Both of these factors must have tion, publication) medical missions, itinerant their due weight in our calculations an'd plans and evangelistic work, Sunday-school work, for work. The foreign workers have made theological seminaries, native pastoral work, many mistakes and learned much by experi- lay laborers, including Zennana visitors, ence; it would not be wonderful nor alarming Bible readers, colporteurs, etc., buildings, if home givers should do the same. self support, indirect influence of missions, religiously, politically and socially. The fact that the amount available for any department of work would depend largely Let the persons best qualified and best in- upon the interest which the home churches formed write up tbese subjects for the differ- took in it, would furnish the strongest incenent fields, giving, along with general informa- tive for the special writers to make the fullest tion and practical reasons for carrying on and plainest exposition of the facts in regard each department of the work, full statistics to the different departments, and the motives showing what has been done, the part of the for carrying on each branch of work; and expense borne by the mission, and the part thus tend to the general instruction of the borne by the native church. This would cer- people in regard to the whole work. The caretainly make a report more readable and more ful study of the various departments of the instructive than the one now sent out annually. work, for the sake of deciding to which funds If the material for the l1onthly Concert of should be contributed, would have a powerful lIIissions were arranged in the same way, it educating influence, while enlarging the symmigbt help revive the interest in these meet- pathies of the givers. ings, which pastors agree in saying has been on the decline for some time past. An incidental result of the clear recognition of the different departments of the work, Having taken this preliminary step, it would might be the appointment, in ihe different then be possible to invite contributors to fields, of Superintendents Of Departments, to designate the department, or departments, of whom should be entrusted the collection and work to which they wished their contributions preparation of information in regard to the to be applied. If it were thus possible for con- needs and possibilities of his special departtributors to use their fnnds for the promotion ment, thus leading to a more systematic, of the kind of work which seemed to them thorough, and symmetrical development of the most important or promising, money would work than would otherwise be the caSe. doubtless flow into the treasury which is now withheld. Ohina.
There are invincible practical objections to FIRST HIPRESSIONS IN A CHINA JlIISSION. a scheme of mission operations based upon contributions for special objects, such as the LETTER FROM REV. JOHN G. FAGG. support of individual preachers, teachers, schools, pupils, etc., which do not hold against CHANGCHEW, 30 miles inland from Amoy. contributing for general departments of work. I am a missionary prophet of ouly a year's The very furthest that specialization can be standing. I question whether my vision is carried without injury to the cause, is indicat- sufficiently adjusted to give a reliable foreing, along with the department of work, the cast. I will, however, cite a few facts. The field in which it is to be done, e.g., Publication notable feature of missionary effort, in this in Syria, lIledical Work in China, etc. 'part of China, has been a strong movement inland. It may be objected that to leave the propor· The southern half of the province of Fuhtion of funds to be expended upon any depart- kien is worked by three .societies, London, ment of the work to be determined by the English Presbyterian, and Reformed. Amoy wishes of the donors, would have the effect of is the natural headquarters. Until last year causing some needful departments, but which no missionary family had ever lived inland are not specially interesting, to be neglected, from Amoy. lIlissionary work was carried and others to be disproportionally developed. on by constant touring. It is possible that this might be so at the Since lIlarch, 1888, four missionary families beginning, but in this respect we must trust to have moved inland. Two families are at the enlightened interest of the givers, in- Changchew, thirty miles from Amoy; two structed by the missionaries or other compe- families at Giokhe, sixty miles from Amoy; tent persons. There will always be a large two gentlemen have settled forty miles south amount of undesignated fund, which could be from Amoy, at Changpoo; three hospitals applied to supplement the special contribu- have been opened, one at each of the places tions in those departments where it might be f1entioned. The hospitals have been largely necessary. Besides, there is no reason to patronized. suppose that the judgment of the consecrated Another feature of encouragement has been workers on the field is any surer indication of the increased willingness to hear the gospel. Native preachers have frequently remarked recently, that the past year was the best in $10,000 for that purpose. It only needs to their experience. Years ago they were scolded, have two years added to the conrse. It will a bused, stoned. To-day they go into villages not aim to be a 'University,' like the Methowhere chairs are brought out to rest them. dist Institution in Peking, but will be content 'They are entertained to tea and sweet-meats. with the field of general education and the- 'They are invited to come again. Gamblers ology. Although our mission has been in are. requested to leave their seats and the existence nearly thirty years, we have never preacher is invited to declare the doctrine. yet seen our way to the ordination of any men to the ministry, but this year we have decided These are rifts in the clouds. The darkness to take that step in the case of six graduates is still deep. Idolatry is most powerfully in- of the theological school whose record for trenched. In this city of 150,000 inhabitants three years has been such as to make it apalone, there are over 300 temples. Thousands pear to be the right thing. " of dollars are spent every month on theatricals and other demonstrations in honor of the France. gods. Even small, poor villages have several thousands of dollars filched from them every FRENCH FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY year. Idolatry is a gigantic system of robbery. FOR 1889. BY REV. J. c. BRACQ, SECRETARY AMERICAN Our religion has formidable opposition yet to overcome. The foreigner is hated, sus- MCALL ASSOCIATION. pected. The opium curse, the cruelties of East Indian coolie traffic, Chinese expnision in The annual meeting of the Socitftt des Mis- America and Australia, are associated with the sions Evangeliques gathered, not only the white-faced foreigner. His doctrine may be numerous friends of missions, but, also, some good, but it seems most improbable that he is Tahitian converts, brought to Paris by the heralding it from pure motives. All this prej- French government, for the Exposition. udice and suspicion can only be lived down. It cannot be talked down.' We are under per- M. Beugner, the distinguished Secretary of petual surveillance. the Society, read a repon, as remarkable for its form as it was interesting for its contents. However, we already have two thousaud It is interesting to see, in the city of Paris, a converts; we have a hundred stations at man devoting such talents to the cause of strategic points; we have five hospitals; we missions. We give a summary of his report, have an efficient native ministry. There is a though it must necessarily mar it. "If there Christian conscience bearing testimony against is," he says, "an imperious necessity for an the rottenness of heathenism. There are liv- army, it is to feel that its actions are haring examples of Christianity's transforming monious with the will of the general, and power. There is a native foreign missionary correspond exactly to his plans. So it is with society to the Hokkas, to the south and west the army of Jesus Christ. To do one's duty among the hills. Statistical tables are no with joy and courage, the least of his soldiers gauge of what is being done, of the influence must have the assurance that he is in the place, that is exerted. .Thousands hear the gospel and at the work, appointed. message every year. Unseen, nnheard, the day of China's redemption hastens. For the "What, in this respect, is the situation of this coming of that day we continue to labor and detachment of Christ's army known as the to pray. Societe des l.fissions Evangeliques? How are its present plans connected with the general In a note from Rev. Arthur H. advance of God's work in the world? Smith,date.d P'ang Chia Chuang Shantung, June 29, he says: "Thenew impnlse given to the evangelization of the world forces itself, as a great fact, upon " We have just held the meeting of our mis- the mind of all careful observers. The represion for the year, and have planned for en- sentatives of all missionary societies, gathlargement in many directions. We are asking ered in London, last year, were unanimous for twenty-six new people, to fill up the old upon that point. The 'Signs of the Times' stations and to open three new ones. Doubt- have spoken. The 'Pillar of Cloud and of less we shall get some, bnt Japan is so clamor- Fire' is advancing. Everywhere, under the ous, and seems to many so attractive a field, combined action of explorers, commerce, and that we do not at all compete with that mis- colonization, the doors are opening-the apsion, to say nothing of other fields, such as peals are heard. It is, for the Church, the those in India and in Africa, which are really hour marked of God, to take possession of the worse off than ours. We have for many years desolated Inheritance of the Lord. had a high school and theological seminary at Tlung Chou, and we are now unanimous "This call of God, our Society has heard. in the conviction that the time has come to ,Ve have come into possession, first of all, of make it into a college, and we have asked for an indispensable instrument of progress, the Maison des Missions. The construction of this much needed missioqary school, and the abundance of pupils that have come to us since, are the chief factors in onr increase of activities during these last years. From the month of December, 1888, to the month of which M. Collaird seems to have exercised June, 1889, we put eight new missionaries in upon the mind of King Lewanika. It is piti- the field. These facts show that the present ful, indeed, that, when M. Collaird has made· year might be called the year of departures- such efforts to open that country, and when better still, the year of envoi8; in other words, he calls, in a most soul-stirring way, for rein- a year of missions, in the truest sense. Last forcements, the SocUte des Missions Evan- year, at one time, we had eighteen missionary gtliques is able to send him but one man.
students; after the departure, we had but After a review of the work in Senegal, he re- twelve; yet we doubt not, that, next autumn, ferred to the attempts made by this Society the number will be larger than ever. " to evangelize the French Congo. Two mis- He then gives a review of the French work sionaries have been sent to study this field.
at Tahiti, pointing out the progress made by The great sacrifice of lives, made by the Eng- the converts; their profound attachment to lish Baptist Society in that part of the world, the Word of God; the general observance of has taught lessons that the French could not the Sabbath; the regular attendance of wor- fail to heed. There are already three French ship; their Christian liberality, etc. But he school-teachers and one missionary artisan deplored the fact, that, with the missionaries, working there, with an American Presbyterian their religion still localizes itself too much in missionary society. The presence of the lat- the Church, and does not radiate in good ter has led the French authorities to feel works and wholesome influences. There, as in more kindly toward the American mission- Africa, the converts and missionaries have aries. It is well known that the Society en- to cope with the hydra of intemperance. tered this field at the request of some of the The French missionary work in the Lessouto French government officers. The adminis- Land is probably the most interesting of all trators of several French colonies are now ask- the fields worked by the French Protestants. ing them to send missionaries, and to estab- There, their great difflcnlties are the increas- lish Protestant schools in the territories under ing hostility of reviving Paganism, and the their jurisdiction. The London Missionary competition of Ritualistic and Roman Catha' SOCiety has offered to surrender to them the· lic missionaries who are untiring in their ef- _ English work in the entire Society Islands.
forts to ruin the Protestant work. Altogether, But the French Protestants have contributed, the Church of the Lessouto Land received, during the past year, 313,g62 francs for thek last year, 514 new members, which makes the own work; and that sum, though large com- total present membership 6,54.3. The class of pared with the resources of the French Pro- catechumens has naturally lost what the testants, scarcely justifies them in undertak- Church has gained, but these losses have been ing new work, espeCially as the Society closes.
soon compensated for by the numerous ad- the year with a deficit of 29,000 francs.
missions, making their present number 3,332, In the light of these facts it is interesting to or 80 less than last year. By adding the num- listen to M. Beugner's conclusion: "This ber of catechumens to the number of com- situation compels us to ask once more if our municants, we reach the number of 9,875 churches bave come to understand the extent Christians. These results have been fOllowed of their duty towards missions; and if their by an increase of horne missionary work. The divine Chief, whose approval, alone, is of im- number of Annexes has risen from 94 to 110; portance, can be satisfied? What He expects and the number of native workers, catechists, of us, brethren, is easy to ascertain. Is it not and school-teachers, from 176 to 194. The clearly expressed in the sketch of the work missions of the Lessouto Land contributed, just unfolded before us? Does not the mag- last year, for home missions, 19,984 francs; nificent impetus of our mission in Lessouto which sum represents the aggregate pay of Land show the triumphs that God can achieve 194 evangelists and school-teachers. through our feeble churches? Is not Tahiti The French efforts to evangelize the Zam- there to show that, in missionary lands, as bezi have so far entailed the greatest sacri- well as at .home, French Protestants-ar- fices: "The seed which our missionaries deut patriots like their Fathers-know, also, are planting, and which they water with their like them, how to defend the sacred trust oe tears, is not the gospel that they preach, but the Word of God? Have we not seen, by the it is their very life, which they carry in their work of the Zambezi, that the old Huguenot hands and spend in detail. Ready are they to blood is not degenerated, and that it has been give it entireJy if the Master· demands it." reserved for our missions in Pagan lands, now, Among the sacrifices already made are the when the heroism of martyrdom can no longer children of M. Coillard's two colleagues, and be exercised at home, to restore to us the- the death of Dr. H. T. Dardier. One can heroism of Apostleship; necessary, inasmuch hardly realize the greatness of the dangers to as the Church cannot exist without heroism; which these noble pioneers of the gospel are let us say, rather, without devotion unto exposed. Htwever, their courage is begin- death? Does not the mission in Senegal, in ning to be rewarded; and among other favor- spite of its failures and its difficulties, speak t<> able signs, may be mentioned the influence your consciences? And these doors that are open before you; these appeals that are ad- must be erected at central points. Association dressed to you; here, by tribes and their literature must be t~anslated and published_ ehiefs, and there, by a government that form- To a limited extent native general secretaries erly viewed us as adversaries-do not all these may require partial support for awhile. The facts unite to tell uS that God has reserved, in work may suffer serious delay if the associa- .the conquest of the Pagan world, a great and tions defer their' contributions until such beautiful place for French Protestantism! secretaryships are offered them. I do not He has endowed it for that task. He has en- believe we can improve upon the well-matured couraged it in its first efforts. He calls it now financial methods of the church missionary .to accomplish its mission in all its fulness. " boards.
Japan. The financial obligation of the associations is, of course, to work for young men on the LETTER FROM SECRETARY L. D. WISHARD. foreign mission field. The associations will have as large demands upon their treasuries TOKIO, September, 1889. in this line as they can supply. If they The Young Men's Ohristian Associations are assume financial obligations to general misan established fact in the East. Eight months sionary work, either of a denominational personal study' of the situation in Japan or undenominational character, they go un- -assures me that this is eminently true in this warrantably outside their distinctive province country. While the association has only effect- and field, and so far deprive themselves of the ed a beginning here, it has secured such a firm privilege of aiding this special work for young foothold and has been so heartily welcomed by men which they exist to carry on. Their missionaries and Japanese Ohristians as to foreign mission work will suffer in proportion. fully justify the belief that the application of the same general methods of work which have _ Do not misunderstand me as reflecting upon 'succeeded in the United States will accomplish the privilege and duty of individuals to subat ieast as great comparative results in Japan. scribe liberally to general foreign work, denominational or undenominational. I The hearty call for a national secretary, ex- simply suggest that the foreign mission contended by sixty-five missionaries and leading Hindoo Ohristians in the presidency of Madras, tributions of the associations should be applied India, and the endorsement of the movement to work for young men, the support of which by Bishop Thoburn of Oalcutta, and other must come from the associations if it come at prominent missionaries throughout India, all. I maintain, as I have ever done, that so justifies the expectation that the association far from allowing the contributions to our has a definite and important career before it special work for young men to diminish the in that Empire. The acceptance by Mr. David present church missionary contributions, it :lIrcOonaughy, of Philadelphia, of the call to should be the rule and aim of everyone of our India, confirms this expectation. I have members to increase his present church con- talked with leading missionaries from Ohina tribution by a sum at least as large as that during the past summer, and am encouraged which he gives to foreign work for young men.
by them to visit that country with the expecta- There should be one medium of communica- tion of finding a wide and permanent field for tion with the foreign mission WOl:k. It is very the association. important that this work be conducted in Surely the favorable situation in Japan, and harmony with the fundamental principles and the hopeful outlook in India, and even in methods of the work at home. Many perplex- China, to say nothing of promising openings ing questions will be encountered in opening in Syria and Turkey, warrant the associations the work in the different countries. In every in expecting a great work in the East and in new field we must be in a position to avail our- preparing for it. selves of the best judgment afforded by the The present expectation is that a large force experience of fields already opened. Inde- of foreign secretaries will not be called for. pendent movements by individual associations, It is very probable that not more than one or states, or sections, will be attended with the leader will be located in each of the different same danger which would defeat our work at ·countries to develop the native yonng men. home, if such movements were instituted in The financial system or plan which in my extending it. The best results can be attained judgment should be adopted, is suggested by only by such harmonious development of the the policy of the churches. Let every associa- work as can be secured through the over- tion, as far as possihle, contribute regularly sight and direction of a central head, which is -monthly-to the foreign work, through the guided by the settled principles and methods American International Oommittee, thus fur- of association work. The American associa- nishing theeommittee with a fund with which tions have acted wisely in entrusting this im- to meet the demands for aid that are sure to portant responsibility to their international increase with the extension of the work. committee by their unanimous action at the There may he cities on the foreign mission International Oonvention in Philadelphia.
field whose current expenses may demand Their co-operation with the committee in .some help, at least temporarily. Buildings financial support, and the location of foreign
I~TERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
mission secretaries, will, it is hoped, be fol- now doing, mission work among the Indians. lowed "ith as satisfactory results as have been within our bounds; and whereas, the importattained in the American work itself by the ance of the work among the families is insame system of co-operation. creasing as the children return from the The relation of the association to mission- schools~therefore: aries and native churches is the same as its relation to pastors and churches at home. Resolved, that the Presbyteries and the The missionaries and native pastors welcome Board of Home Missions be earnestly recomthe work with the understanding that it is mended to press this work at once. auxiliary to the denominational work; that we propose to work beside them, not to go for- Resolved, that in the opinion of this Synod ward as pioneers into fields unoccupied by the proper method of reaching the masses of churches, or to carry on a work which cannot Indians and protecting and encouraging the be immediately conserved by the churches. school children on their return to their homes, Any departure from this principle will be is, by the sending of consecrated married attended with the same disasters which have young men who will devote their lives to the already followed similar undenominational work, and preach the Gospel of Christ, in their" work at home and abroad. Our work is inter- native tongue, to the Indians. denominational rather than undenominational, and as such can only have a healthy It was the testimony of three men, intiexistence where denominations are estab- mately connected with this work, that the lished. majority of the Pueblo Indians can be reached by the Spanish language. This is true, also, We are in the very beginning of this foreign of the Navajo tribe. As the Spanish language mission enterprise. Other principles and is fully developed, it can be learned much methods will be suggested as the work pro- more easily than any of the tribal languages; gresses. The recognition of the above seems and so the people can be reached more quickly to me indispensable to the permanent success • and with better results. Some time ago I read of our work. If we will plan and work in a very sentimental article on giving the Inharmony in the Orient, as we have in the dians the gospel in the vernacular language, Occident, I believe we will establish the but the bald facts of the case are that the· association so finnly that it will stand for majority of the Indians of Mexico and New centuries in these slowly changing nations, Mexico, especially those living in Pueblos and win its greatest victories for Christ in (towns), speak Spanish like their neighbors, Asia and Africa, which contain the vast the Mexicans; and as they now, in their" majority of the young men in the world. Roman Catholic worship, hear Spanish ser- mons, can be most readily reached in that SYNOD OF NEW MEXICO. language. As rapidly as possible the mis- DEAR EDITORS: The following action of the sionary should learn the tribal language, but Synod of New Mexico may be of interest to that will require long years. In some cases you, coming, as it does, from the very centre there is no alternative; the language must be of the work among the Pueblos and the so- mastered before the gospel can be preached. called wild tribes of Indians. In its meeting A notable successful example of this is our at Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Synod Rev. Chas. Cook, of Sacaton, Arizona, who readopted this paper: cently reported a church of sixteen members, 'Yhereas, this Synod is deeply interested in gathered in spite of the hostility of a governthe work of Indian evangelization, and, where- ment agent. Yours truly, as, for many years our Church has done, and is J. J. GILCHRIST, Director of "EI Anciano.~' EAST Los VEGAS, New Mexico, Oct. 14, 188}.
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D_ Health in the Tropics. the area of reenforcement is being ex~ There is still need for education in tended amongst thousands of our besi the matter of the physical adaptation young men and women in our col- for enduring hot climates, by persons leges; and, if added emphasis can be born outside the hot belt of the earth. put on the need, it is to be found in There is more need now than hitherto the increased tendency to proceed on of popular information concerning it, individual responsibility to foreign when scores of missionaries go to such service, without the quarantine of climates where one went a score of Boards and Committees, who are at years ago. There is yet intenser need least supposed to have given the subof wide instruction in the matter when ject some special attention, however careless or incompetent experience when the lack of ozone may demand it. may show them often to be. Some persons are peculiarly subject to bowel complaints, from mental lt scarcely seems necessary to write causes, thus predisposing them to of the simplest facts, in this connec- cholera or similar complaints, when tion. Yet, the sacred trust of a human others, not so predisposed, have an career is not to be thrown away with- immunity from it, under the same exout culpability, from la~k of inquiry posure. Intense fear of disease, or of concerning the alphabet of hygienic snake bites, in a country where poisor hereditary conditions of the indi- onous snakes often select the bedroom vidual. It is because of the convic- or the ottoman as a retreat; or ove1'- tion of the increasing need for popular fondness for taking medicines, or instruction and caution concerning some constitutional make-up by which some of the simplest of these condi- the person" cannot bear" the natives tions, that we turn aside from so much of the country, are among the items else that presses for consideration to which, at least, increase the chances summarize portions of an admirable of a physical break-down in a tropical article in the October Asiatic Quarterly climate. Review on "The Constitutional Requirements for Tropical Climates." Age is a most important factor in The article, it is true, was not written considering whether to attempt a to furnish hints for intending mission- tropical life. The Sanitary Commisaries, but as physical laws are not held sion of Great Britain advises that no in suspense for saints, what the writer, one be sent to the tropics not twentywhom we propose to follow, has to five years of age. Young persons in say of those venturing into tropical India are said to be specially subject climates for commerce or for a civil to enteric fever, and, at best, are liable or military" career," is-the necessary to remain "weak and weedy," as a conchanges being made-equally of force sequence of exposure to continued to the missionary candidate. It seems, heat. This is of special force in the therefore, that young persons, looking case of women, and twenty-three is a forward to missionary service, might minimum of age which presents fa- Wisely, first of all, give themselves vorable conditions for women enduring pause to ask whether the preparation these climates. Nor is it well, as a is a useless one for them, under their rule, that persons attempt a residence physicial conditions. "'IVe now refer in the tropics who have passed their only to those physical conditions of fiftieth year. This does not apply to which they are as competent to judge visiting the tropics, nor to persons before starting for a foreign field, as who, residing there, pass this" mileafter arrival there, and, possibly, even stone" in life. before the first step is taken in preparatory mental equipment. Temperament is to be considered. " It is usually noticed that Europeans The writer, whom we shall follow of a bilious temperament, or, still too loosely to admit of quotation, better, of a bilio-sanguine temperapoints to the fact of what he calls ment, have enjoyed the best health in "idiosyncrasy" of constitution. Some India." persons are unfitted for sustaining heat and will be a nuisance to others "But," the writer says, "there who feel cool and comfortable in the must be no predominance of the same temperature. Smue persons can- nervous temperament, which has long not take quinine without such dis- been regarded as the basis of nervousagreeable accidental results as practi- ness, hypochondriasis and hysteria." cally preclude the use of this medicine, vVe yenture to quote the writer's deand that in conditions of climate scription of the infelicities awaiting " nervous" people in India: "A sensitive and sympathetic nature is not of diabetes, which is a common dis- most conducive to health and happiness when ease of the tropics, 01' of asthma, submitted to the daily, and even hourly, ills which is excited by the malarious inand irritations inseparable from life in the fluences of hot climates, or to insomnia, tropics. " . . " There is the irritation caused should be very carefully weighed be- by tbe prickly heat, and ,the noise made by fore seeking a residence in these cawing crows, cooing pigeons, chirping ~par climates. rows, squeaking squirrels, and creaking wells about the house in the day time. At night We do not say that all such persons there are animals gamboling on the roof, bark- are absolutely precluded from entering pariah dogs, bleating goats, more creak- ing these fields. We do say they must ing wells, native tom-toms, singing, 'lights expect, other things being equal, inand country music.' . . creased risk, an hindered service, and probably an early retirement from the "Then there are irritating things that do field. not make a noise, the mosquito in battalions, the ubiquitous fly at some seasons in legions; Chinese Characteristics. in the rains the hosts of various other winged insects, frogs, rats, scorpions, centipedes and INABILITY TO CONSERVE TANGIBLE snakes. If in camp, there is probably the MEMORIALS OF THE PAST. roaring of the camels, the howling of the jackals, and the clapper of the irrigation BY REV. ARTHUR H. SMITH. wells. If a dust storm blows, ink-pot and ears are filled with sand, every object in the room There is no nation existing on th!:) or tent is covered with it, and food is rendered planet which has a greater regard for gritty by it. Now all such matters may be antiquity, and with more reason, than regarded as minor ills, and not worthy serious the Chinese. But there is no country attention; bnt by their very perpetuity they in which it is possible to find so few rarely fail to make an impression on the material relics of the distant past as typical nervous temperament. Work is per- in China. We have already spoken of formed with difficulty by the nervous man the Chinese hunger for fame, as well when he is subjected to the periodical bite of as of the "disregard of foundations." a mosquito on his finger, the frequent visit of vVe have now to notice the relation a fly to his nose, the harsh and sudden caw of which these two characteristics bear a crow looking in at his window, and a couple to one another, and their connection of sparrows chirping and fluttering over his with the instinct of conservatism_ head in the persistent endeaVOl' to find a hole The Chinese are very desirous ~f in the ceiling wherein to build a nest. Then, transmitting to those who come after, worse still, owing to the nuisances mentioned, as well as of making known to conthe typical nervous individual passes sleepless temporaries, a knowledge of whatever nights; and not to sleep well in the tropics is tends to make themselves, their famto prepare the system for disease. In short, ilies, or their dynasty great or notable. the numerons disagreeables of tropic life act This is an impulse which they share as a metaphorical shirt of Nessus over the with the rest of the human race. The whole moral epidermis of the nervous tempera- means by which they seek to accomment, which is least of all unfitted for a hot plish this end are the erection of climate." memorial temples, memorial portals, " P'ai-fang," stone 01' wooden tablets, If this long quotation serves no pur- and, in the Ming dynasty, the use of pose of instruction as to adaptation to stone figures of men and animals lin~ endure the tropics, we are sure it will ing the avenues to cemeteries. Of the at least be recognized by every" old swift ruin which overtakes every form Indian" as a most graphic and not of building constructed on a Chinese overdrawn picture_ plan, and of the ruin of the public roads, we have already spoken. Strict- Constitutional tendencies and hered- ly speaking, there are no old temples itary predisposition to disease come in China, because no Chinese temple next in our author's catalogue. No can withstand the elements more than person in whose family there are any traces of insanity should go to reside in the tropics. Heat alone tends to excite the mind, and the accident of a sunstroke would render it still more imminent_ So of "fits," epilepsy and hysteria. An hereditary history a few score years at most, when it more impressive scale. Although gives way to a new and revised edi- built of materials which ought to en- tion, if it does not totally disappear. dure for centuries, and although put Temples, like fruit trees, have a defin- up at great expense, it is rare to find ite period of life, and if that is to be specimens which are thirty years old prolonged, they must be perpetually and yet in good repair. The founda- grafted, or else new scions must be~ tions sink, the strong iron clamps give raised from the seed. The wooden way, the heavy transverse blocks of lacquered tablets, which are so highly stone are wrenched from their mor- ornamental when new, and so dismal tises, and crack. Every projection when old, and which play so import- appears to be starting from its socket, ant a part in gratifying the Chinese and however interested the traveler desire for "face" and "fame," have but may be to ascertain the age of the a limited duration, and then disappear work, or to study the curious carving for ever. More permanent by far are which it displays, his first and in- the portals which are erected to the stinctive anxiety is to get out from great scholars, famous officers, virtu- under it, before it falls. It is impossi- {Jus widows and maidens who may be ble to refrain from speculating as to so honored as to have the right to the length of time ere the crazy frame- them conferred by imperial favor. work will come down, and whether When these structures are made of the law of chances will admit of its well cut stone, are of the most advan- fall without killing anyone. If com- tageous size and well situated, they parative brevity of existence is true are the finest representation of Chinese of such massive structures as the por- architecture to be met with in the tals, it is much more the case as re- Empire. A wealthy citizen of Paris, gards stone tablets, which constitute London or New York, who wished to the ordinary vehicle for the con- confer upon these cities a gift which veyance of fame to posterity. If should convey an accurate and attrac- erected on a large scale, they stand on tive view of what the Chinese can the back of a gigantic tortoise, em- achieve in ornamentation, could not blem of longevity, and appear at first do better than to order one of these adapted to execute the commission P'ai-fangs, and have itset up in a with which they are charged, to per- public park, where it would be ad- petuate fame for "an hundred gen- mired for many generations. The erations," if not for "ten thousand Chinese lavish great sums on these antiquities." But the same vicious structures, which are to be seen in mode of construction, or rather de- immense numbers, just in proportion struction, rules the tablet, the portal to the proximity of a supply of stones. and the temple. The foundation is If stones are not to be had, the portals inadequate, and sooner or later they are made of wood, as in Peking, and all go down. The tortoise is decapi- very much less than one generation is tated by the attrition of ages, and required to reduce them to a condition buried up to the stump of his neck in of ruin. Like all other Chinese erec- the soil, while the precious fame-beartions, they give way at the bottom, ing tablet lies prone on the earth, or the tall posts begin to lean in different shattered into many pieces, the fame. directions, the lacquer scales off as if being thus administered in what the they had the leprosy in an exaggerated physicians call" divided doses." Or form, and large sections of the com- if the tablet, as a whole, holds toplicated ornamental woodwork at the gether, it may form the seat at a waytop are seen to be on the point of fall- side restaurant, a door-step, or even ing. The same thing occurs in the the pavement to a bridge. In any .case of the stone portals, but on a case the inscription has been cut so shallow that it is almost or quite illeg- it cannot be entrusted to temples, por- ible. The traveler may penetrate half tals, or tablets, for the reasons which of the provinces in China, may ex- we have already given, might be ex- amine every venerable tablet which pected in the form of carefully pre- he sees, and yet not find one which pared maps showing the old, the in- dates as far back as the Mongol termediate, and the new designations dynasty (500 years ago), except in of places which for two or three mil- some "Forest of Tablets" in a large lenniums have been historic. Works city, under special care. of this sort certainly do exist. One of them rejoices in the formidable title We began by remarking that no na- of Li Tai Yii Ti Yen Ko Hsien Yao tion has a greater regard for antiquity T'u, or Map of the Imperial territory than the Chinese, but contrast this under successive Dynasties, with their wretched poverty of memorials of the changes. This appears to be exactly past, with the overflowing wealth of what is wanted by the student who the citie.8 of the ancient empires, now wishes to revive the mighty past, and extinct, at the other end' of the Asi- he sits down to an examination of the atic continent, Babylon, Nineveh and sixty or seventy maps, with a 'confi- Baalbek. Instead of lofty columns of dence that now at last the darkness of porphyry, the ruins of an ancient the bygone ages is to roll away, and Chinese city consist of an unlimited light is to break forth in its place. supply of bits of tiles and brickbats. We have spoken elsewhere of the The only way to identify the site of Chinese" disregard of accuracy," and such an ancient city, as, for example, these maps furnish fresh illustrations the Khanbalik of Kublai Khan, near of this characteristic, whatever they Peking, is to trace the mounds of may furnish in the line of ancient geearth, which give the mere outline of ography. They are drawn with the what was once one of the world's purpose of exhibiting both the ancient great capitals. Khanbalik was a com- and the modern names at the same paratively modern city. What was time, the former in black ink, and the the situation of the ancient capitals of latter in red. As the scale of the the Yin, the T'ang and the Sung dy- maps is not a large one, one result of nasties, as compared with the cities this plan is to crowd out altogether a now to be found in the neighborhood, great many ancient names which. the traveler finds it very hard to as- ought to be noted, and as Chinese certain, for in China there is most characters take up considerable room, literally no continuing city. That the another incidental result is to lead to Chinese wish to keep in remembrance the printing of the black characters the situation of ancient places, is evi- immediately over the red, to the dent from the fact that in the historic obliteration of the latter. Not only so, parts of the empire it is common to but extensive notes and explanations, find inscriptions over city gates, certi- instead of being put at the edges of fying that this was the" ancient" such the maps, where there is always about and such a chou. In some instances one-third of the space vacant, are' this tradition is kept alive simply by printed wherever it suited the fancy the pasting of a strip of red paper over or convenience of the block cutter, enthe gate of a small market town, tirely covering up hundreds of squaTe with characters conveying the an- miles of territory, and in several cases nouncement, although it is impossible literally stamping out of existence to find a single person who can give such important cities as Si Ngan Fu the exact location of the ancient city. and Peking, with all the country ad- joining. These infelicities, however, The preservation of that historical are trifling compared with another, knowledge of the past, for which the Chinese have so great a respect, while which defeats the very object for direction. But it must have been which a map is made, to wit, to ex- some time before even this erratiC' hibit the relative situation of places orbit was adopted, for in one of the on the earth's surface. For example, earlier maps Yu Chou has gone eastunder the map of the Contending ward about seven degrees, and is dis- Kingdoms, it is impossible to deter- covered calmly seated at the edge of mine either how many kingdoms are what is now the barrier between Corea represented or what were their and Shingking ! boundaries. It is, we repeat, a singularly sugges- Let us suppose, for example, that tive circumstance, that a people so exwe wish to ascertain the situation of ceptionally conservative of the past as the state called Yen, the ,. Kingdom of the Chinese, should have so few endur- Swallows," and of its capital, the ing monuments or public works. All Khanbalik of Kublai, the modern that can be said to come under this Peking. Not far from the ancient head are the Great Wall, the Grand Yen, was the ancient Yu Chou, the Canal, the walls of cities, and river modern Tungchow, which is about embankments. The Great Wall is twelve miles east of the capital. Now doubtless a wonderful monument of by a minute inspection of some forty- human energy, and it has been refive of these maps, we discover that in marl;:ed that it is the only artificial eighteen of them neither of the cities structure which would arrest attention Yen and Yu is marked at all. In eight in a hasty survey of the surface of of the remaining maps Yen is noted, the globe. But the Great Wall has but not Yu, in others Yu but not Yen, been subject to constant renewals, so· and in only nine are both to be found. that it is impossible to deterinine the Judging then from these phenomena real age of any particular part, and only, one 'would suppose these ancient throughout a large portion of its cities to have been like a modern re- course it is reduced to a mere heap of volving lighthouse, visible only at rubble. The same questions of identity intervals, and at intervals of great of structure which occur in regard to irregularity. But this is not all. the Great Wall, are constantly sug- Sometimes Yen is called Yen Kuo gested by the many hundred city walls (the State of Yen), and sometimes it all over the empire. Few of them can appears to be m.erely the city. In the be proved to be of any great age, all map representing the "Seven King- of them .are subject to constant redoms," Yen has gone east about one newal of the external facings, and geographical degree, and is perched many of them have been moved bodily on the Great Wall, while some from one place to another at irregular centuries later it went as 'much to the intervals. northwest, though still adhering to the Great Wall, and is called "East- The Proper Attitude of Foreign Misern Yen," fully justifying by its sionaries toward Conflicting Faiths. rapid flight its name of the" Swallow Capital." But if Yen was peripatetic, BY REV. JAMES HERRICK, BRATTLEBORO, VT. Yu Chou was not less so, and in the ten times in which it emerges, it con- The great object to be aimed at by trives to make a complete circuit of missionaries is the salvation of the the modern Peking, appearing now on present generation of the people to the east, then south, south-west, north- whom they are sent. west, and north, its movement bearing some resemblance to the revolution of Their attitude toward conflicting the constellation Ursa Major about faiths should be that of persons the Polar Star, though in a reverse thoroughly cominced that the Bible is the word of God. That in accord- ance with its teachings "there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who 'what they might do for themselves.
gave himself a ransom for all." That As a general rule, they should be ;, in none other is there salvation," and expected to pay, according to their that opportunity for salvation is con- ability, for articles or services costing fined to the present life. money, the value of which they appre- Missionaries should feel a warm ciate and which they wish to receive.
sympathy for people of other faiths, It is desirable that missionaries as members of the human family, and should mingle with the people, hold- show a disposition to meet them, not ing as free and familiar intercourse as enemies, but friends desiring to do with them as circumstances will them good. They should be more allow. The difference in manner of ready to make known the excellence liying, etc., should not be greater than of their own religion than to attack necessary. .Much must, however, the religion of others. Though pre- depend upon climate and the condi- pared to show that other religions are tion, habits, and character of the not true, they should avoid giving people. It cannot be expected that unnecessary offense. While carefully missionaries from England or America teaching the principles of Christianity will pursue the same course among and the duties it enjoins, they should savages in Africa, that might be pur- insist upon doctrines and practices that sued by Mohammedan missionaries are essential, rather than those which, from Egypt or Arabia. Nor, that in .though not essential, seem difficult such a country as India, foreigners will and burdensome to people newly em- adopt the habits of the natives in bracing Christianity. regard to food and dress, or live in In his efforts to convert people, the houses of the same kind, and as desti- missionary should depend chiefly upon tute of furniture as the houses occupied the force of Divine Truth, made known by most of them. Civilization is one to them in the vernacular language, ac- of the things incident to the spread of companied by the Spirit of God. In his Christianity not to be disregarded, intercourse with the people, and his though of secondary importance. As work among them, he must show that respects matters of this kind, no he loves them. He must treat all with general rule can be given. Let the kindness, especially those in trouble. missionary, mindful of the fact that Sympathy shown, and favors given foreigners are often disposed to hold in the time of need, will do much, not the natives at too great a distance, be only to incline people to listen to the careful to avoid extremes, and follow gospel message, but to teach them the the guidance of his own best judg- nature of the Christian religion. It ment.
must not be supposed, however, that Though preaching the gospel to kind treatment or secular help will people in their own tongue is the alone make people Christians. They special instrumentality to be relied must not be left to believe that a pro- upon, teaching must not be neglected.
fessed desire to become Christians From the first, those professing a will entitle them tO,receive such help. desire to embrace Christianity must Under all circumstances people should be taught, adults as well as children, be treated with kindness, but not with the leading doctrines and precepts of too much indulgence, either before 01' the Bible. So far as practicable, after becoming Christians. So far as children of both sexes should be'
may be, the missionary should help gathered into schools open to persons them by teaching them to help them- of other religions as well as to Chris- selves. He should strive to promote tians. In some cases, missionaries in self-reliance, and not allow people to India have established schools in which depend upon others to do for them the English language is taught for the special purpose of teaching the Bible germ the secret of the new intellectual, to heathen of high caste, and have met moral and spiritual renewal of China. with a good degree of success. The The Protestant religion, during the advisability of such a course will past.twenty years, in China, has spread depend much upon circumstances. into 'every province of China; it has Where the middle and lower classes, found its way into hundreds and who generally constitute a large thousands of the little villages. It has majority of all, and many of the its secure seats and large interest in higher classes, may be reached through each of the open ports, and in the in- the vernacular, it cannot be the duty terior it has spread its educational and of most missionaries to spend much benevolent institutions. .It has gone time teaching English. everywhere spreading the Word. No longer an illicit religion, at the centres Missionaries should be inclined to of influence, it has commanded the teach native converts, and place re- respect of the government, while in sponsibility upon them. Steps should the interior it has gone to the call of early be taken to fit promising persons sorrow and need, and allying itself of both sexes to take part in the work with the people in famine and flood, as school teachers, and young men as in destitution and fever, it has dis- preachers and pastors. Candidates armed prejudice among the peasantry, for such services should not be encour- and won its way by all human sym- aged to go abroad for education. pathies to an assured position of dig- Most, at the present day, can find nity, influence and prospective perample opportunities for needed educa- suasive power. The young thinking tion in their native countries. If they men and the wise progressive leaders go abroad for their education they will have awakened to the discoveries that be in danger of losiNg interest in their the multitude of missionary colleges own people, for whose good they and schools are sources of intellectual should expect to labor in the future. hope for China. They have dis- They will also be in danger of form- covered a large literature already ing habits which, though not increas- wrought out for them, and they are ing their ability to be useful, will in_ seeking the wide outlook of knowledge crease the cost of their future support, which the missionary has quietly and interfere with the object greatly to placed in their way. Theyhavefound be desired-that mission churches early in the scores of hospitals and dispenbecome independent of foreign aid. saries, planted in multitudes of mis- sionary centres, the signs of a true Having introduced native converts sympathy with men. And the half into employment as helpers, the mis- million of natives, from the imperial sionary should cherish toward them family down, who have been helped such feelings as Paul entertained for and comforted when sick and dis" Timothy, and be ready to help them, eased, carry henceforth only gratitude as need may be, by words of admoni- to the men whose doctrines they may tion to those in the earlier stages of once have despised. the work, and of counsel and encour- When the children of the great agement to all. Viceroy are taught the English lan- guage daily by a missionary, and the Ohanges in Ohina Affecting Its Progress. principles of Christianity therewith; when they are healed by the mission- BY REV. H. D. PARKER,.M. D., CHINA. ary physician, and thus realize the purpose of his coming, we may (Concluded from last number of the REVIEW.) measure the severance with the past and the outlook for the future. Coincident with all these changes has been the changing aspect of the government toward the Christian re- ligion. The toleration of that religion, Protestant and Catholic, held in its This changed aspect of people and Protestantism in China rejoices in government may be seen in the greater this change. She sees large results readiness to settle the disputes which in the near future. Conscious of her so frequently have arisen as to the own intellectual and moral supremacy purchase of property in the interior. and leadership in the race toward The government has undoubtedly un- spiritual enlargement in China, she dertaken to withdraw all possible com- rejoices in whatever enlightens the plaint and to act fairly in dealing minds of the officials, or points to the with difficult cases. allaying of fears, hostilities and enmi- Not only is this true respecting Pro- ties among the people.
testant, but respecting Roman Catho- Let us ask then, in conclusion, what lic missions as well. In fact, the re- bearing have these changes upon the habilitation of the Catholic churches future of work in China, and what is in China is one of the most significant the immediate outlook. Weare re- signs of the times. By treaty in 1861, minded that in everyone of the all lands, once the gift of an Imperial twenty-two open ports in China, in Hand, but confiscated, were returned. all her great centres of influence, in In Peking they built over against scores of cities and interior towns, are the palace a model church. It was a to be found, well started, some of them source of long hostility and scandal. with large equipment, fertile of great But two years ago a truce was made, a resources, missionary organizations.
commission went to Rome to effect an Ve recall that God has placed in exchange. The wise diplomats of China, at this hopeful stage of pro- Rome made due concession. The gress, no less than 1,100 men and North Church in Peking, with all its women as consecrated, energetic, en- fine surroundings, was exchanged for thusiastic missionary workers. Halt a larger and better site. The offensive of these are women. Surrounding cathedral was pulled down, and a new this small army of Christian workers one built in the new position. are about 190 ordained native minis- On the first of December last, this ters and 1,400 unordained native new and magnificent cathedral, whose workers. That more than 35,000 na- value in our money would be no less tive communicants represent the r~ than $300,000, with all the additional sults gathered in. That this numbet and completed enclosures of schools, represents about 140,000 persons large, hospital, nunnery, museum, printing ly interested and believing in Protest- press, with a value even greater than ant Christianity.
the cathedral, were dedicated and -Weare to recall the long series of newly instituted. The ceremonial was colleges, schools, theological semina- unique and magnificent. Every for- ries, girls' schools and day schools, eign ambassador and minister was reaching from Peking to Canton, from present. All departments of the Shanghai toSchung Ching, into which Chinese government were present. are gathered 15,000 young men and It was the sign of amnity between women, in whose intellectual moral Rome and China. It was the imperial and spiritual progress so much of the seal of rejoicing in the reinstatement future depends.
of the Christian Religion in the capital We are to be reminded that a band of of China. seventy medical missionaries, increas- In this outward display the Protest- ing every year there their well-founded ant Church takes no other part or hospitals, dispensaries and general share than to note the fact and the as- philanthropies, meet personally half a pect of glad change in the relations be- million of the native population every tween the imperial and official power year and pour into willing ears the and the Christian religion. sweet stories of the gospel. Weare
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
to notice that missionary literature, in spiritual outlook, we see the Divine a vast variety of forms, is receiving an Hand preparing the way for the reever increasing interest. Weare to demption of this great and noble emobserve that great floods and terrible pire in the East. Let us stimulate our famine have brought the missionary, efforts with the largeness of the hope with his pitiful heart and helping now set before the Church, and ere we hand and gospel of redemption, into are aware of it the vast and sorrowful hundreds and thousands of homes, and mass of men in China will be girdled the way is prepared for the pouring in with an awakened thought and interof vast comfort, vast intelligence, vast penetrated with the silverlinesofspiritgpirituallight, into this the once celes- ual energy and hope. In every aspect tialland. the hope for thefuturein Chinaisgreat. Weare in the battle. Let men toil in In all these converging lines, the hope of assured success, and the whether of diplomacy or commerce, generations that are coming will send or industrial energy, or intellectual up the shouts of joyful victory. awakening and opportunity, or of V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
THE LAST DECADE OF THE CENTURY. group themselves about the opening "Watchman, what of'the night?" of the New Year and of the closing It was a cherished habit of President decade? Edwards to keep a lookout in the secu- First of all there are some things lar papers for every event, every promisingindication,every mere suggestion, which interest alike all intelligent men which seemed related to the advance- of whatever faith. That an empire'of ment of the Redeemer's Kingdom in South America should enter upon the year 1890 as a republic, and thus com- the Earth; and these were the matters plete that revolutionary movement of his chief satisfaction. which began in Mexico nearly eighty years ago, and by which every trace Very meagre must have been his sources of information in the last half of Spanish and Portugese dominion of the eighteenth century, compared is now swept from Central and South with the thickly crowding and often America, is an event stupendous in marvelous changes which pass before itself, and far-reaching in its influence.
us at the opening of the year of our In more respects than one, it is a step Lord eighteen hundred and ninety. in advance. The character of this Every morning the daily press bloodless revolution,as contrasted with preselilts us a new moving panorama. the dark scenes of the French Reign To the Christian, the march of con- of Terror, a ceniu:ry ago, or with the temporary civilizations toward one countless struggles of Mexico, marks common goal- the well being of all a marvelous change in the spirit and humanity-is the movement and un- quality of statesmanship, a great ad- folding of a Divine plan. It is the vance in wise moderation and hu- coming of a kingdom of righteousness mane sentiment. In its religious, as in the earth. While others look upon well as its political aspects, it seems it as an evolution, according to an ill- auspicious.
defined and blind law, the servant of It is a harbinger and a guaranty of Christ finds that which cheers his religious liberty. It removes the dark courage, strengthens his faith, calls shadows of the threatened reign of a forth his gratitude, and gives him new fanatical empress and an ignorant encouragement to pray "Thy King- subserviency to the priesthood and the dom Come." Pope of Rome. Considering the temper What are some of the facts which of the people, and the certainty that such a reign would have led to con- montanism in the Church cannot coflict with the liberal sentiment of the exist with civil liberty in the State. country, it is a matter of rejoicing It required a half century for Mexic<> that the change was made while an to learn this fact; all will learn it emperor was still in power who more readily now. could temperately view the situation and gracefully yield to the wish and The year 1890 will mark, as it is the interest of the nation. confidently hoped, the era of constitu- tional government in Japan. The It was only as a result of peculiar chief danger is that the sordid and circumstances, such as the temporary unjust demands of foreign diplomacy exile of the royal family of Portugal may interpose such barriers to the rein America, and the moderation ex- form of oppressive treaties as to balk ercised toward the party of liberty the purpose of Japan to place herself and advancement, that Brazil was pre- in the great family of civilized nations. vented from joining the Republican to which equal rights are accorded. movement of the other South Ameri- National policy is not yet so far sanccan States long ago. tified as to prevent the interests of trade from sometimes overriding the But what a stride has been made most sacred rights of feebler governsince the days when the theory every- ments and races. The year 1890, so where prevailed that the people were important and so crucial to Japan, created for the ambition and glory of should therefore be one of earnest kings; when only a century ago the prayer. It should begin with sup- " Man of Destiny "on the one hand and plication to Him in whose hands are successive Bourbons on the other,could the hearts of all men, and who can plan campaigns without the slightest turn them as the rivers of water are reference to the sufferings or welfare turned. There is just now no little of their subjects, but only as subserv- anxiety in the minds of missionaries ing the interests of their dynasties. in Japan, since a favorable issue of the .And now it is a Bourbon and a Haps- treaty questions may throw open the burg that so nobly proclaims to this doors to . Christian evangelization new generation that emperors are to more widely than ever, while a rebuff retire when the peace and prosperity from Christian nations might cast a of a nation demand it. Surely the disastrous blight upon the great misworld moves: The kingdom of right- sionary work which hitherto has been eousness is advancing. so successful.
The new decada will open with a The outlook in China, at the best, closer fellowship among the Ameri- can only be considered niixed, like the can republics, as a result of the recent alternate sunshine and cloud of an International Congress. Whatever re- April day. There is advancement. sults of other kinds may follow, The new sensation of riding upon a political and commercial, the new de- railroad train is coming to be appreparture cannot fail to stimulate the ciated. It is seen that the funshuay advancement of general intelligence, is, after all, not so badly upset; the freedom of opinion, and moral eleva- sleeping ancestors do not rise in protion. What the best have attained, test from the trembling earth; the all will come to emulate. course of the world continues, and China bids fair to experience an m- The Bible, the school, the news- crease of general prosperity, and to be paper, the Christian home, all of which prepared in due tinle for the defense have done so much for the great of her coasts from the outrages of Protestant republic of the North will Western powers. be welcomed by the Roman Catholic republics of the South, in spite of The work of the Chinese missions priestly protest and opposition. Ultrahas been greatly prospered of late, on ble when considering the extreme all hands. A new demonstration has conservatism which has· marked the been made of Christ-like charity in sup- past.
plying the needs of thousands who Caution is yet observed by the gov- were perishing from famine, and the ernment, and great prudence is essen- people, rendered impressible by suffer- tial to the missionary; but, looking at ing and grateful by timely relief, are the whole situation as it is, there is ready to receive the truth, and yet reason to hope that, with God's bless- there are dark shadows in the picture. ing, the closing decade of the ce;ntury, The people are preplexed by contra- the second only ~f Protestant mis- dictions in their Christian neighbors. sions in Korea, will be crowned with " How is it," they say, " that those noble successes. It is a worthy topic who are ready to give us thousands of of prayer.
dollars for the starving, and to send In the missions of Siam and the scores of missionaries to spend their Laos country the membership of the lives in faithful labor among us, are native churches has increased in the yet so intolerant to our citizens who last decade just about 500 per cent.
land upon their shores-so utterly This a good keynote for the next ten recreant to solemn treaty obligations, years. The ratio should be main- and so unjust in all their legislation tained.
respecting us? Why are we, to whom The government, so far from re- such cordial and even gushing over- ceding from its favorable attitude to- tures were made in the treaties of wards missionaries, has of late given twenty-five years ago, the only people increased encouragement to their on the globe who are so cruelly ex- labors. They are suppliedgratuitously cluded'/ What is it to be a Christian with buildings and other facilities nation? " for medical work, and one of their To us these questions are easy of number has recently been called to answer; but how long may it be before the superintendency of the govern- the great Chinese nation, or even the ment hospitals. In some instances government,shall be able to distinguish royal gifts have been made to Chris- between a so-called Christian nation tian schools. Everywhere there is as and the real friends of Christ, to whom great freedom accorded to the preach- His cause is greater than the balance ing of the Gospel as in any State of of political power. the American Union.
Of Corea it would hardly be safe to The "Dark Continent" is still dark venture a prophecy. The government as the closing decade opens; but one is still young in its foreigu policy; it only needs to recall what the last ten is not free from opposition and dan- years have accomplished, to gather ger; it is ever open to foreign as well great encouragement for the ten years as domestic intrigue; it has difficult to come.
financial problems before it; but when As the crowning achievement of we reflect that not a decade has yet his remarkable career, Henry M.
passed since the new regime began,we Stanley has solved at last the problem are filled with wonder at the progress of the Nile, while others have found a that has been made, and we must, on more available route to the country of the whole, admire the prudence and the upper Zambezi.
sagacity which the young king has The work so bravely inaugurated by shown in his administration of affairs. the African Inland Mission has grown The advancement of commerce, of into greater proportions under the education, of missions-especially of American Baptist Missionary Union, medical missions-has been far greater and the feasibility of established and than would have been thought possi- successful missionary enterprise in the
'1'[1/<: 1[()"THL¥ CU"ClmT OF lIIISSIONS
illt.t'rior of E<luatorial Africa has bl't'll The ob8tacles are sueh as these: dplllonstrated. (1) The fact that more or less of The missionary enterprises, under- taken by Bishop Taylor ami his heroic agnosticism, hesitancy, or indifference followers, on the branches of the Congo, whatever may be the final appears in the churches. . verdict on their feasibility and suc- cess, have certainly traced a high (2) There is less of certainty in refer- watermark of moral earnestness in the midst of this easy-going age-have ence to creeds, and luany even extend given new assurance that the apos- tolic spirit is not dead, nor the faith their questionings to the Word of that can endure hardness an obsolete grace. God.
But, in the African outlook, as a (3) There is an open alliance be- whole, there is no ground for the un- reflecting optimist. The conquest of tween the scepticism of Christian such a continent is not an easy one. Noble martyrs still fall victims to the lands and the heathen systems of the caprice of heathen rulers, or to the deadly influences of climate. mission fields.
Fanatical Mohammedanism is still (4) Tourists, newspaper correspond- triumphant and defiant on the upper Nile, and Mohammedan tyrants still ents, naval officers, and even dis- spread devastation on the borders of "Vestem Soudan. The horrors of the couraged or disaffected clergymen, are slave trade still continue, and the hlUllane sentiment of Europe and discrediting the work of missions on America has been to prevent it. That twin enormity, the liquor traffic, the fields and advocating the false sys- deluges still the west coast, and finds its way up the rivers, spreading dis- tems as better adapted to their envi- ease and death to soul and body. ronments than the Christian faith. Has the new decade any remedy in store for these terrible evils? But, on the other hand, there are Two auspicious facts, however, are many cheering elements in the outnow before us : look. (1) The Sultan of Zanzibar has deo creed freedom to all slaves brought vVe have always the promise of the into his dominion, and has promised freedom to all children of slaves born Master that He will be in the midst of after January 1, 1890. His own work, always, even unto the (2) A Congress of European powers is to be held in Brussels to devise end of the world. measures for the suppression of the slave traffic. We have already seen how His If we turn from the contemplation Providence is working for the general of the mission fields and consider the general outlook of the cause at home, advance of His kingdom, in the great we find also both light and shade. movements of the nations. It is a time of transitions, especially as to methods and departments of o Over against all the misrepresenta- Christian effort. tions of the enemies of the cause, scores of disinterested statesmen and ad- ministrators of colonial governments, as a result of careful and protracted observation, are commending the work of missions in strong terms.
Our educational methods, our medi- cal work, our general efforts to raise the sphere of woman,-to some ex- tent our preaching,-is copied by the devotees of error, who see the mani- fest power and blessing of the Chris- tian faith.
.Notwithstanding the doubt and in- difference of many, there is more of Bible study than ever before, more of the missionary spirit, more of organ- ized effort, more of generous giving, for the spread of the Gospel.
The great increase of interest and of activity, among the young, is one of the very brightest auspices of the time. In this view, these coming Wishard has been sent abroad for a years are full of promise. labor of two or three years along these lines. He has thus far met with The work on the field is owned of marked success, not only in organiz- God in the manifest power of His ing associations but in quickening the spirit. An examination of the actual spirit of the young men, especially of statistics of growth for ten years, or Japan. for five, always fills us with new sur- prises. May we not also regard the rapid and remarkable development of the IS IT AN ANSWER TO PRAYER ? work of Christian Endeavor Societies in the churches as a part of this gen- All branches of the Church have eral movement and as due largely to been taken more or less by surprise by the same causes? The young of both the uprising of a very large number sexes who are soon to assume the great of Christian young men and women, work of the world's evangelization mostly students, who have volun- are quickened in zeal throughout this teered under a partial pledge to give country and in other Christian lands. themselves to the work of Foreign Mission~. This striking movement has What are the causes of this general been explained by one and another movement among the young? Has on such theories as seem to each most the Church any right to look with plausible, the theories, however, differ- surprise as if something strange had ing widely from each other. Whether happened, something not to be acit was an impulse borrowed from a counted for on ordinary Christian similar movement in the Universi- principles? We dare not speak posities of Great Britain, whether it was tively, but there are some things which mainly due to the great influence of are worthy of notice by way of sugthat earnest and devoted man, Dwight gestion. L. Moody, of Northfield, or whether it was a response to the stirring ap- Twenty or twenty-five years ago the peals of young men sent out from Christian women of the churches of Princeton to labor in the colleges and this country as well as of Great Britseminaries, are questions which ha'Ve ain were moved by the Spirit of God been discussed but never settled. to undertake the work of enlighten- ing and reclaiming the benighted wo- In sympathy with the volunteer men of heathen lands. It was one of movement, there has appeared a gen- the most remarkable movements of eral enkindling of the spirit of missions our time in its depth, its extent, and in colleges, and where, but a few years its moral elevation. It appeared to be ago, the merest trifle was contributed so divinely guided as to avoid exfor the cause of Foreign Missions by travagances, and it worked with the students, large sums are now an- utmost loyalty_ to the instituted aunually raised. thorities of the Church of Christ. It disclosed great ability and organizing Coupled with this movement is a power, but what was most noteworthy new departure in the Young Men's was the fact that everything was done Christian Associations of the country. in the spirit of prayer and supplica- There is a widening out of their plans. tion. Prayer for missions had de- They are looking across the sea and clined. The Monthly Concert had asking themselves, "·Why may not fallen into disuse or had ceased to emthe globe be belted with similar or- phasize the wants of the heathen. 'The ganizations, embracing the young con- week of prayer had become almost· verts on the mission fields, training wholly subsidized for interests nearer them and organizing them for work home. Prayers for missions in the among their countrymen?" Vith pulpit were, for the most part, conthis great end in view, Rev. Mr.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
fined to set phrases when not omitted The Church of Christ proceeds upon altogether. the assumption that the whole work must be diviuely guided and inspIred. But the Woman's Boards bore the "Without faith it is impossible to work of missions to the mercy seat. please God." He that cometh to Him Many of their committee rooms be- must believe that He is, and that He came Bethels. The great work was is the rewarder of all them that dilitaken to their homes and their closets. gently seek Him, and he must not There was coupled with the prayer be overtaken with awkward surprise not only the consecration of their when his prayers are answered. means but of their children. The work of missions became a topic of On this principle it ought not to be conversation at the fireside as it had throught strange, after twenty years never been before. To the children of prayer, that multitudes of the young it became a household word. At the are rising up and saying, "Here are same time they were organized into we, send us. " It is the very thing missionary bands and furnished with that should have been looked for with facts, maps, and catechetical exercises, earnest expectation, and if now the until in a few years they really pos- blessing has come, there is reason to sessed greater knowledge of the mis- ask that God will enlarge the faith of sion fields and of the mission work than His people in another direction-in many adults had possessed before, and one word, that the wealth, as well as greater than some had been able to the children of the Church, may be boast who were pastors of churches. consecrated to missions.
VI.-EDITORIAL NOTES O~ CURRENT TOPICS.
Oollege Missionary Lectureships. Fellowship with God; 4. The Spirit of Through the generosity of W. F. Missions an Inbreathing; 5. The Field Graves, Esq., of Syracuse, N. Y., a Lectureship of this kiud was recently of Missions an Assignment; 6. The endowed in Rutgers College. It was begun last year, provision being made Success of Missions the Seal of God. for six lectures, which were given by A grand outline surely! And in such six different persons as follows: 1. hands the execution will be worthy of Mr. Stout on the Unique Features of the theme and the subjects. We ven- Mission Work in Japan; 2. Dr. Wherry ture to promise that no pains will be on Islam in India; 3. Dr. Kip on spared to make the course a brilliant China as a Stronghold of Heathenism; and eminently useful one, and we also 4. Dr. Hamlin on Fifty Years of Chris- venture the suggestion that other coltian Education iu Turkey; 5. Dr. leges might avail themselves of this Ellinwood on the Testimony of Hea- course of lectures to great advantage. then Religions to Christianity; 6. Rev. Dr. Pierson, doubtless, would be will- J. H. Wyckoff on the Philosophy of ing to repeat it. The growth and de- India. velopment of the missionary spirit in the colleges of this country and Can- Our associate, Dr. Pierson, has ac- ada during the last three years are cepted the entire Lectureship for 1890, among the marvels of the age. We can and we feel at liberty to announce the conceive of no human means more theme and the subjects, viz.: Chris- likely to increase and intensify this tian Missions as a Divine Enterprise. movement and set these colleges 1. The Idea of Missions a Thought of aflame with holy enthusiasm, than a God; 2. The Plan of Missions a Scheme course of lectures on these topics by of God; 3. The Work of Missions a such a master in the realm of Missions.
J. M. S. Mr. Moody's Training SchooV' sued in your training-school ?" asked the re4 porter. As much misapprehension exists in "Mainly three. First, I shall aim to have reference to the purpose and character given a sufficient knowledge of the English Bible; as far as may be, a practical mastery of this institution, our readers will be of it. Second, I would have the workers trained in everything that will give them acglad to have the following statements cess practically to the souls of the people, es- pecially the neglected classes. Third, I would of Mr. Moody himself, made to our as- give great prominence to the study of music, both vocal and instrumental. I believe that sociate and written down by him for music is one of the most powerful agent« either for good or for evil. " publication. J. M. S. " How are these workers to be maintained Mr. Dwight L. Moody, speaking of while they are in the school ?" the recently published article over the signature of the Rev. D. R. Breed, says "There are few people who have developed it is in the same line as a number of any fitness for Christian service who have not other criticisms by representatives of either some means of their own or some friends various denominations, and that Dr. who would be glad to assist them in obtaining Breed is laboring under a misappre- higher fitness, or whom the churches to which hension. Concerning his plan for they belong would not willingly assist for a Christian work Mr. Moody continued: time by their gifts, in qualifying themselves for a life of service. I see no practical difficul- " I found hundreds of families in cities like ty in the way of their support any more than this never coming in contact with churches or in the way of trained nurses." their representatives. The bulk of our church members are taken up with their own house- "What is your idea of affording women hold and business cares, and unless some per- equal facilities with men for this work 1" sons are set apart and trained for this work I do not see how it can be done. It seems "I have found women to be equally effective tQ me that we ought to have a corps of workers as men. Women only can reach men and women who shall make this their women in many cases. Besides this, a great business, as is already done in the Church of many of these women will become the wives of England. Christian men and be mothers of children, and can be, in their way, better helps to their hus- " My idea is not to originate new church en- bands and better trainers of their children by terprises, but rather to fill up the present tbe education for Christian work which they churches. Men who frequent saloons and such received in this school. " places will never be reached by Sunday meetings. Even if they stray into such meetings, "What did you mean by saying that the any impression which is made is all dissipated 'ministers are often educated away from the before uext Sunday. If we are going to reach people '?" these classes we must have some places open every day in the week. There is a class of "That there is a large class of the commupeople that practically have no homes, and nity whom the ordinarily educated ministe.r they go out in the evening into some places does not and cannot reach. For instance, where they have genial companions and there is a large class of mechaniCS; they are amusements. This is a source of vice and busy through the day and cannot be seen excrime. My thought has been to establish cept at their shops. In the evening they go to places of meeting open every night for these the saloons and places of amusement. None people, where they might find some up-lifting of the churches reach them. Since they will influences. Then they will find their way to not go into the churches, let us go into the the churches. highways and hedges, and so compel them to come in. Again, there is a large class of .. There is far more demaud for trained lay mothers in such a city as this, who, if they workers than is commonly apprehended. This are to be reached at all, it mnst be by carrymorning's mail brought me eight applicatious ing the Gospel to them and by cottage meetfor such workers, and I could place fifty if I ings in their homes." had the proper persons to recommend." "Did you mean any assault upon the edu- "What studies do you propose shall be pur- cated ministers, as such?l1 "Not at all. I believe they have their place *Appropriate to these sentiments is the following note from one of the foremost men of this country, just received by the editor: "These upstart training schools are catching it all along the line, especially jnst now from Ba~nd Presbyterian papers. But I see clearly that we must have a lar~e reinforcemerit'ofcommon men-knowing only the Bible, and being filled with the Spirit-m order to do the work in foreign fields Every man of this sort whom we have sent out has done well-I speak f!II. those employed in our A. B. 11. U. So I am going to do my utmost to receive such. A. J. G." and are necessary to church life and growth. ties of immediate work and ample compensa- But there is a class of people whom no man tion." can reach successfully except one of their own number. Let'me give you a matter of my "Have you any assurance that competent own experience. When I was in London I teachers will come to your aid? " went by invitation, one Sunday, to what is known as the Bird Market. I had never been "Abundant. For instance, Dr. Gordon, a. there before. When I was down there I was leading Baptist of Boston; Prof. Weidner, a asked to preach. I found a great company leading Lutheran; Dr. Moorehead, United of people with almost every kind of animal Presbyterian of Xenia; such men as Mark for sale. Men were there in hopes to get up Guy Pierce and Price Hughes of England, a cock fight and bet on the result. I spoke and others." as best I could. I told thp,m a lot of interesting stories. Men would stand there with their "'Yhat provision have you in buildings?" fighting cocks right under their arms, and they "'We have already three good houses for and the roosters would look up at me as I women workers on La Salle avenue. The preached, but I found it was hard to hold buildings for men will be done by December 1, them. Men might start the cock-fight right in and in the two we can then accommodatEl front of me while I was preaching. After I about 150." got through, one of their own number, who .. Is it true that the bUlk of your funds have had been converted, took the stand, and be- come from Presbyterians? " gan to address them. He was familiar with uYes,R large share; but we have had no, their own dialect; he knew their habits; he opposition from business-men of any denomihad the inside track to their hearts. They nation on denominational grounds." stood there and shed tears while he spoke in " Has it been your experience that this kind his simple fashion." of work alienates from the churches? " "No. On the contrary, I believe I am my- "Did you say you hoped to fit ministers for self a proof th!t such work rather draws men their work in three months?" to the churches. I believe I am of more value to them, as I have more experience in this, "I said nothing of the kind. I am not seek- kind of work. " ing to make any short cut to the ministry. I do not consider this work to be in conflict with Oonference in Behalf of the Jews.. the work of the theological seminari..s." At lfilumay, in October last, a " Are you trying to establish what is practi- grand conference was held in behalf cally a new denomination?" of the Jews. To us, as to those wh(} called this assembly, the time seems "No. On the other hand, I think we have very opportune for holding a special too many denominations already, and my only convention concerning God's ancient effort has been rather to nnite existing de- and beloved people, Israel, 'Yho " connominations than to make any new ones. I tinue to be the perplexity of the unsee no reason why the Presbyterian and COll- believer, the unaswerable and miracugregational, to which I belong, should not 1>e lous proof of the truth of God, a united; they hold the same doctrines and are byword among the nations of the separated only by a trifling matter of church earth, and, alas! neglected and ignored government. " by large sections of the Church of Christ. "Why did you make t11is Chicago Awn"e Church undenominational?" ,, The careful reader of history and observer of the times sees that the " All the leading denominations had Jews cannot much longer remain unchurches between here and the river, and noticed. Nations and statesmen who moved away because they could not be self- uo not take them into account will supporting. My own desire is to help qualify find their reckonings delusiye. The honest, yearning, Christian men and women national life of the Jewish people is to be the means of saving souls and to supple- stirring now as it has not stirred for ment the present work of the churches. I many centuries; they are conscious have no personal ambition to gratify." of their increasing influence; their wealth and natural abilities are indis- .. Have you seen any workers actually de- putable; they can stand e~<1and unveloped by such methods as you are here put- abashed in all the great capitals of ting in operation?" Europe. 'Whether there. much long- " Yes; but not as if they had had such opportunities as are now proposed to furnish. For instance, in my school at Mount Hermon, about forty or fifty efficient young men have been trained for service, and our great difficulty has been that there is such demand for such workers in the chnrches, that they are all tempted away from our training school before finishing their course, by the opportunjing for a return to their own land, we Psa. xcviii. 3. Isa. Ix. 1, 2. Isa. Ix. 20-22. Isa. need not now inquire. Our concern Ixi. 9.. Isa. Ixii. 12. "God's Plan Realized "- is with their spiritual condition,which is lamentably low and saddening; and David's throne reoccupied; the Millennial the question for every Christian heart Kingdom; Israel a blessing to the world. is, how can we help in awakening them from the sleep of unbelief; how Psa. Ixxxix. 3, 4, 29. Isa. ix. 7. Luke i. 32. press home the truth concerning Jesus Dan. vii. 13, 14. Zech. xiv. 9. Psa. !xvii. 1, 2, of Nazareth as their true Messiah and 7. Zech. viii. 23. King? " For this end we need to turn to the A verbatim report will be issued by Inspired Record, and review the pur- J. F. Shaw & Co., 48 Paternoster pose and promises of Jehovah concerning His chosen nation, His present Row, E. C., London. A. T P. dealings with them, and His glorious future assured to them. Unless we We call the attention of our readers see clearly in God's light, our plan8 to the BfYltnd Volumes of the Missionwill miscarry, and we shall only be ary Review of the World for 1888 and hinderers of His work." 1889. Substantially bound in crimson cloth, with gilt back, imperial in size, In such words as these, Sir Arthur thoroughly indexed, so that every arti- Stevenson Blackwood, Mr. James E. cle, every report, every item or fact Mathieson and others affectionately can be instantly found – they are a invited all lovers of Israel, within Library of JJ.fissionary Literat1tre, each reach of Mildmay, to gather on 1st, containing 150 full articles from the 2d and 3d of October last for con- pens of the ablest missionary writers sideration of the announced topics, in the world. At the same time they the Monday previous being occupied are an invaluable Cyclopedia of Miswith preliminary prayer-meetings for sions, containing a vast amount of the the Lord's special guidance and bless- latest and most authentic information ings on the work of the three days of on every subject connected with Chris- Conference. tian missions, and the Statistics of the World-Field, collated, tabulated, and The programme embraced the fol- scientifically arranged, as they can be lowing themes. found so complete in no other book or periodical. These volumes will be an They present a fine model for sim- ornament and a treasury of knowledge ilar conferences elsewhere. in any library. For constant reference, they are indispensable to every student Tuesday, Oct. 1st, 1889. The Past. " God's of missions. Rev. Dr. Schauffier of Purpose in Israel," as illustrated in History, New York, said a year ago in refer:nce Type, and Prophecy. lsa. xliii. 21. Gen. xii. to the first volume: "The bound 3. lsa. xliii. 7. Isa. xliii. 10-12. Psa. cxlvii. volume, which I have also, is a very 19-20. Rom. iii. 1, 2. Rom. ix. 5. "God's encyclopedia of grand and useful Promises to Israel. 1, Their nature, security, knowledge, and has already been used and guaranteed fulfillment. Gen. xii. 2. Gen. by me in my work many times." The xvii. 7, 8. Amos. ix. 15. Isa. xlv. 17. Ps. matt!'r in the two volumes would fill a Ixxxix. 34-37. Rom. xv. 8. Rom. ix. 4. dozen ordinary volumes.
Wednesday, October 2d. The Present. " Honor to Whom Honor." "God's Dealings with Israel." Between the first and second Advents of our Lord. lsa. In justice and as a matter of courxliii. 28. Hosea ix. 7. Jer. xii. 7. lIfatt. xxiii. tesy acknowledgment is due where a 38, 39. Rom. xi. 5. Rom. xi. 28. Rom. x. 12, writer or paper quotes at considerable 13. " The Church's Duty to Israel." Between length an author or from another pathe first and second Advents of our Lord. P!'l'. 'Ye are always glad to have our Mark xvi. 15. Acts i. 8. Rom. i. 16. Rom. ii. Reyicw quoted, as it is, extensively, 10. Rom. xi. 23. Rom. xi. 30, 31. Rom. xv. and, as a rule, with due credit. But 27. there are a few exceptions, anu Thursday, Oct. 3d. The Future. "God's Plan Realized" in IsraePs restoration and salvation. Ezek. xxxix. 28, 29. Psa. Ixxxv. 1,2. some of them are such gross eva- fill two such magazines with firstsions or violations of the recognized class material. Our pigeon-holes are rule as, after long forbearance, to call full of grand articles waiting their for friendly protest. Thus one of our turn. We have added a score of leading weeklies, month after month, home and foreign writers, of the first would make up its missionary column order, to our corps of regular confrom items taken verbatim from our tributors. Among them that prince REVIEW, without any hint of their of Missionary Literature, the secretary source. Another reputable paper divi- of the late London Missionary Conferded one of our leading and thrilling ence, whose grand article in this articles into a half dozen papers, giv< number will be read with profound ing each a separate heading, and so interest. While Dr. Pierson has been gave the entire paper to their readers taken from us for a brief season, to as original, none suspecting that every plead the cause of missions in Scotword, save the headings, was stolen land, our beloved Dr. Ellinwood, in from our columns. And another still. addition to his monthly article during with absolute meanness, as well as the year, has kindly consented to coninjustice, gives a weekly column of duct our Monthly Concert Depart- "Missionary Items," "Prepared by ment,which means work of the highest — –." By great ingenuity the character. Dr. Gracey will magnify choicest of our month's items of in- the" International" feature; and Rev. terest are gleaned verbatim and credit Edwin M. Bliss, editor of the Encyclogiven for a single item only. From paJdia of Missions (in preparation), the November issue, the substance of will carry out his wise and far-reach- Dr. Chamberlain's paper on Brazil is ing plans in our Statistical section, for quoted, filling a whole column, and so which difficult work he has special adroitly is it arranged that, while the qualifications. writer, in connection with Prof. Agassiz, is named in one of the paragraphs, We therefore enter upon our third no reader would infer that either Dr. year with renewed hope, and, with C. wrote the article or that it was God's blessing, mean to make this copied from our REVIEW, which is not year one of decided advance all along even alluded to. This may be smart, the line. We invoke the generous but is it fair or honest? J. M. S. sympathy and earnest prayers of all who are laboring with us in the Our New Departure. grandest cause that ever enlisted the sympathies and efforts of men or We hope our readers will be pleased angels. Our friends also will kindly with the mechanical appearance of remember that we have no society, no this number of the REVIEW. While organization, no resources of wealth we were tolerably satisfied with our behind us in this enterprise. Two original cover, some of our friends lone men, with busy hands and not were not; and more still complained deep purses, bear the mental and the of the use of so much small type. pecuniary responsibility of the task Our only excuse for that was the to which we have pledged life and superabundance of our material. We heart and work, and all that God has shall henceforth use less of the small given us; not for reputation or money, type. We have now one of the best but for our common Master's glory printers in the city, which insures in the evangelization of the world for good proof reading and greater clear- which He gave Himself. Help us, ness and perfection of the letter press. Brethren! Help us to make this So much for the mechanical side. agency a mighty power in all the earth! Help us by bringing the RE- As to the matter, we only fear a VIEW to the notice of your friends, s1lperfluity of good things. We could
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS
and to widen the circle of its read- lation. vVe do not wish or aim to ers, and broaden the channel of its supplant the denominational periodiinfluence. cals, with which we are in cordial re- lation, only to supplement the invalua- As this number begins a new volume ble service which they render each in -the third of the series-the present their particular sphere. J. M. S. is a favorable time to extend its ch'cu- VII.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK AND STATISTICS.
foreign Mission Work of Women's Societies.
§ .,c"..i" ''" '" ~"""" " " """ " .1 § "" ~ E % " ""– ''"" 3 .;Icl.; il< 1 0·'c" ~ ~ tl .8 00 t'"l 00 .g.., '000 lIi "00 '0 a; UNITED STATES. '" 0 ~'00 ..- b£ ;0:: 0 ~ '0 .S.~ :;l "00 – -E-< – Ei ;;: ~ '" ;;: -Z 0 '0 0 A – -il< -E-< – – -.".s – – 1861 .. Woman's Union Missionary Society….. 58 3 109 139 1,743 178 $ 41,562 85 1868 . Woman's Boards (3) CongregationalCh. 178 7 32638 968 36,500 3,303 1870.. Woman's Boards (6) Pres. Ch., North … 296 10 186 39…. 20,387 5,136 160,381 04 ::io '1':. r:: …. Woman's Societies, Pres. Church, South 600 7X1 294,267 85 1883 .. Woman's Board, United Pres. Church" 13 1 22,832 71 1 .. ' . . . .. , 16,704 00 10,6144lJ 1880 .. Woman's Board, Cumberland Pres. Ch.. 8 . . . . .. 2 .. …….. 939 1869.. Woman's Board, M. E. Church, North.. 92 10 4081261 245 …….. 5,4.49 225,000 ()() 1878 .. Woman's Board, M. E. Church, South.. 25 ••• 1..• 5.41 9 .33 … "8'0 2,74.2 68,729 65 1879 .. Woman's Board, Meth. Protestant Ch… 4 3 380 7,500 00 1871.. Woman's Bapt. For. Miss. Societies (4). 75 7 170·20 150 …… " 4,315 108,000 00 Woman's Baptist Miss. Societies Conv.. .. ………………. 1,259 18,71628 1873 .. Woman's Miss. Society, Free Baptists… 14 1 …….. :: ..•.••.. …… ……. 250 7,279 27 1871.. Woman's Auxiliary, Protest. Epis. Ch.*. 32 1,361 119,380 58 1875 .. Woman'sBoard,ChristianChurch….. 4 2…. .. ……… 1,421 1875 .. Woman's Board, Ref'd (Dutch) Church. 30.. .. 6.. 36,27917 263 17,4375G '1' " …….. 1875 .• Woman's lliiss. Assoc'n United Brethren 7 .••. 7 .. 5 10,798 6~ 'Voman's SocietY', Evangel. Association. 1 .••..• 192 464 2,352 06 116 32,33135 1879 .. Woman's Societles, Evangel. Lutheran' 4 I .. ""…. ……. 507 1881 .. Woman's For. Miss. Societies, Friends.. 0:01 "43" -t-:"'-t' ~t' ~t'" 250 15,465 30 Totals………………………. au 29,670 $1,157,03.2 90 CANADA.
1871 .. Canadian Woman's Board For. Missions….. ".. ….. $ 95842 1876•• Pres. Ch., Woman's For. Miss. Socs. (3). 30 2…… 670 34,398 17 1876•. Bapt. Ch., Woman's For. Miss. Socs. (3) 10………. 11,111 22 355 1881.. Methodist Ch., Woman's Miss. Societyt. 16 …. … .. ……….. 244 19,07038 CCohnugrcrehgoaftiEonngallaCnhdu, rWcho,mWano'ms Aanu'xs .Btd….t.· 39 1886 . . 1 ……… ".. …….. 200 1,28156 1886 .. 2 1…… … • ••• .••. 18,67581 – – – – – – – –1—– Totals.. … .. .. .. .. …… .. .. .. 59 3 t 1,508 $85.395 56 ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND.
1834.. Society for Prom. Fern. Ed. in East. · … 1 40…. … .. 275 19,976 …… $35,000 00 1837 .. Ladies' Society for Female Education in India and South Africa. ….. …… 34 2 '181 6 …. 7,108 627 £11,892 10 10 1837.. Ladies' Association for For. Missions… 26 1 106 …• , 2,500 …… £7,657 11 0 1845•. Ladies' Associatiou for Christian Edu· cation of Jewish Females ……….. . 6 ………. 5 673 …. £414 18 6 1852 .. Indian Female Normal School and In- struction Society, or Zenana Bible and Medical Missions………………….. 63 4 175. 66 4,340 …… £11,577 ()() 0 1859.. Ladies' Aux. Wesleyan Miss. Society. " 29 5 … 18 268 12,704 87 £7,000 13 6 1867•. Ladies' Association (Baptist) for Zenana "I Work and Bible Women in India ….. 42… 114.. 50 2,900 £9641 2 7 1873.. W. Assoc. for Prom. Christianity in East§ 8 1 56 14 1,000 154 $14,000 00 1875.. Ladies' Corom. L. M. S …………… 36… 288 15 130 9,870 …… £6471 4 2 1878 .. Woman's Missionary Association…….. 15.. 12 5 9…….. 139 $11,000 00 880 .. Ch of England Zenana Mis'y Society…. 105 8 507 4 192 10,157…. £24,866 5 11 880 .. U. P. Ch. of Scot. Zenana Mis'y Soc'y… 21 1 56. 11 …….. …… £3,752 0 4 Ladies' Soc'y in Connection with S. P. G'I~:":':':' 105 ~ ~ ~~ ~ £6,351_0_~ Totals…… .. …… .. ……….. , 488 26 t t t t t $488,556 70 * Home and foreign. + t Not complete. Organized for both home and foreign missions. § Ireland. I. Woman's Union Missionary So- 3. Tronton's Board of the Pacific. ciety.* Mrs. J. H. Warren, 1316 lI1ason Street, San Francisco, Cal. Periodical: Life and Light. Corresponding Secretary, ;Iiss S. D. Dore- AuxiJiaries, 5,.'3. ].fissionaries, 6. Income, mus, 54 East 21st Street, New York. Publica- $4,400. Duri)lg the year the work of this tion: The Missionary Link. 41, Bible House. Board has been divided, and a secretary ap- pointed for Oregon and Washington Territo- This Society is now in the 29th year of its ries. existence. 4. TVoman's Board of the Pacific L.land.•. ~lrs. Geo. P. Castle, Honolulu, Sandwich Fields and Force.-It sustains missions in Islands. India at Calcutta, Allahabad and Cawnpore ; This Board has raised over $1,000 during the in China at Shanghai; in Japan at Yokohama. year, but we have no detailed report at hand. In Calcutta it has 1,000 pupils in 50 schools, and a suburban work of 14 schools. It issues III. Presbyterian Societies (North). in Calcutta The Child'8 Friend, The Christian Bandab, and The illahila Bandab, besides has 1. W01nan'8 Foreign Missionary SOCiety, circulated 10,000 pages of tracts. Its orphan- Presbyterian Church. age has 140 pupils. At Allahabad it has 3D8 pupils, 320 of whom are in Zenanas. At Cawn- Office: 1384 Chestnut Street, Philudel phia. pore it has 968 pupils, 184 of whom are in Periodicals: 'Woman's Work for Woman and Zenanas. At Shanghai it conducts medical Our Mission Field, and Children's Work for' missions, with hospital, and the Bridgman Children. Circulation of the former, 16,000; IIIemorial Home, with 40 girls. subscribers to Children's 'Work, 20,000. Both self-supporting. These are the only foreign At Yokohama it sustains schools and medi- magazines of the Presbyterian church, and the cal work, with 21 Bible women an,l 134 schol- organs of the various Boards. ars. Over 1,500 patients were treated last year. Fields.-This Society has work in India, Japan, China, Syria, Mexico, Africa, Korea, n contributes to other Dlissions in Burmah, Persia, Siam and Laos, South America, North American Indians, Chinese in California and India and Paris. It has 58 missionaries, with Japanese in San Francisco. Number of mis- 97 other salaried workers. Its income last Sionaries, 136; at home on furlough, 17; misyear was $6i,765. The report contains no sum- sionaries sent out during the year, 14; native mary of its home auxiliaries. helpers and Bible women, 84; missionary teachers and visitors, 8; bOUl:ding-schools, 34; 11. The Woman's Board of Mis- day-schools, 140. Income for past year, sions (Congregational). $143,488. Miss Abbie B. Child, Congregational House, 2. TVoman's Board of the Northwest. Boston, illass. Periodicals: Life and Light for Room, 48 lIIcCormick Block, Chicago, Ill. 'Voman, circulation 15,2-22; The Mission Day Occupies the same fields, and reports 1.760 Spring for Children, circulation 18,195. auxiliaries; 687 of these are young people's Fields and Force.-Africa, East, Central bands. and West Central; European Turkey, }lonustir, Philippolis, Samakov; 1Vestern Turkpy, Number of missionaries supported, 74; Bible Constantinople, Marsovan; Central Turkey, women,28; native teachers and pastors' 'wives, Aintab and Marash; East.~rn Turkey, Har- 21 ; boarding-schools, 26; day-schools, 104. poot, etc.; India, Bombay, lI1adura and Cey- Ion; China, Foochow, North China; Japan, Income, $80,236. Kioto, Osaka, etc,., Northern Japan, Seudai, 3. lV01nan'8 Board of Foreign .J[issions. etc.; Micronesian l1ission, Western and North- Office, No. 53 Fifth Avenue, New York. ern lIIexico, Spain and Austria. It supports a Its home force, 501 auxiliary societies; 97 total of 107 missionaries, 148 Bible women, and young people's societies and 3aS bands. Sup- 2i boarding schools. This work is of great im- ports 52 missionaries. Income, $,;'5,000. portance and interest. The receipts amounted The Society works in India, Siam, Africa, last year to $124,801. Of this amount, $13,668 Japan, Korea, Persia, Syria, China, Mexico was from legacies. Auxiliaries and bands, and South America. 1,500. 4. Wontan"s Foreign .l.'lfissionanJ Sodety, Northern New York. 2. ~Voman'8 Boo.rd of the Interior. II1rs. H. B. Nason, 10 Washington Place, Troy, Jlirs. E. ,V. Blatchford. Rooms, 53 Dearborn N.Y. Street, Chicago, Ill. Periodical: Life and Home Statistics: Nunlber of organizations, Light. Income, $48,373.44. This Board sup- 211 ; of these 112 are bands. Income for year, ports about 60 missionaries, 10 boarding- $10,065. schools and 36 Bible women. Auxiliaries, This Society supports 4 missionaries, 5native 1629; and has missions in connection with pastors, and 51 schools and scholarships. and A. B. C. F. M. as the Woman's Board of )fis- contribute to the work in Africa, China, Guatesions.
• We are indebted to Mrs. Dr. J. T. Gracey, Buffalo, N. Y., for this account of woman's work in the foreign field. lIlrs. Gracey writes: "I have found great difficulty in getting the reports, and, when I do get them, I find there is no uniformity in methods of reporting."
ORGAXIZED lVn:>:>WX.U{Y WUHK A:-iD :>TATI:>TICS
mala, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, liexico, foreign missionaries sent out by the Board, Persia, Siam, Syria, and the North American the women support five. Work is carried on Indians. in seven stations in Japan, also in Mexico and the Indian Territory. 5. TVoman's Bow'd of .lfissions of the Southwest. VII. Woman's Board of Foreign Mis- sions Reformed Church in America. Miss B. Burnett, 1107 Olive Street, St. Louis, Mo. Organized for home and foreign work. 1IIrs.J. P. Oumming, Yonkers. N. Y. Periodi- cal: Mission Gleaner. 26 Reade St.. New York. This Board supports 12 missionaries in the foreign field, and 12 in home field. Its foreign Total number of auxiliary societies, 26:3. work is in Chili, S. A. ; Korea, SiaIH, China, Income for the year, $17,487. Persia, and Dehra Doon, India. 'Work is sup· ported in Utah, Alaska, etc. Income, $15,82•. The Society has work in Japan, at Nagasaki It has 376 auxiliary societies and bands. and Yokohama. The Ferris Seminary has 144 pupils. In China, at Amoy, is a success- 6. Woman's Board of the North Pncific. ful children's home, girls' boarding school, Presbyterian Mission Rooms, Portland, Ore Bible school for women and medical work. In gon. President, Mrs. W. S. Ladd. India work is carried on at Vellore, Tindi- This Board was organized in 1888. Have no ranam, Coonoo!', PalnlRwairand Madanapalle. particulars of work. 7. The Occidental Board. VIII. Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- Headquarters, 93:3 Sacramento Street, San sionary Society. Francisco, OaL This Board has been organized only a year, Oorresponding Secretary, IIIrs. 0: W. Gates, but, while we have no details, it is reported as Xewton Centre, lIlass. Publication: The growing very fast. Helping Hand, with 22,~29 subscribers, and a children'S paper, The King's Messengers, with IV. Ladies' Foreign Missionary So- 19,~77 subscribers.
ciety Presbyterian Church in the Fields. -In Burmah it has separate missions to the Karens, Burmese, Shaus, Ohins. In United States (South). India, among the Telugus, Eurasians, and As- samase. In Ohina, at Swatow, I:lhaohnig and This is not a separate Society, but con' Kinhwa-Fu. In Japan, at Yokohama and tributes to the general Board. There are 5:36 Tokyo. In Africa; on the Oongo; also in France, societies, which raised last year $24,H22. Germany, Sweden and Spain. Their missions are in Brazil, China, Mexico, Greece, Italy, Japan, and among the Indians. The Society supports 154 schools, 5,256 They snpport 39 female missionaries. They pupils, of whom 2,089 are boys; also 56 Bible have a woman's department in "The lIission· WOlnen. It has 74 missionaries in the field. ary, ., the magazine of the Board. HOIne FUJ'(;".-Mission circles and contribut- V. Woman's Board of Missions of ing churches, 1,377, with 29,187 contributors; ().l..! bands, with 12,358 members. the United Presbyterian Church. Its income for year '89 was $70,6(8, an in- Miss Margaret Shaw, Secretary, Pittsburgh, ('rease of $4,000. Pa. 2. ~Voman's Baptist Foreign .1l1issioJ1r.try This Society does home and foreign work, Society of the West. and has about 18.000 contributing members. Its foreign work is mainly in Egypt and India, Oorresponding Secretary, Dr. O. H. Daniels, where there is a large and interesting work 122 Wabash Ave., Chicago, III. among the women. Twenty-one unmarried missionaries are supported, three of whom The same general fields are occupied by this are medicaL They publish "The Woman's Society as the Baptist Society in the East; Missionary Magazine." Income about $20,000. also the same periodicals are circulated. Dur- Have not separate report. ing the year just closed the Society has sup- ported ;3() missionaries: 14 in Africa, 7 in India, VI. Woman's Board of Foreign Mis- 5 in Ohina, 2 in Japan, and 3 in Africa. They sions of the Cumberland Presby- have 23 schools, with nearly 1,700 pupils, and terian Church. 44 Bible women.
1I1rs. J. O. lIlcOlenkin, 1105 Ohestnut St., The Home Force–l,321 circles, 209 young Evansville, Indiana. Periodical: Woman's De- ladies' societies or guilds, 294 boards. Mempartment of Missionary Record; published in bers not given. Total cash receipts for year, St; Louis, Mo. $33,72'~. Force.-Auxiliary societies, 793, withamem· bershipof7,900; young ladies' societies, 8, with 3. Woman's Fm'pign Missionary Society of membership, 130; children's bands, 1:38, with California (Baptist). 1,741 members; making total organizations, 932, and total memberships, 9,771. Amount Office, San Francisco. contributed last year, $10,614–an increase of This branch of the Baptists raised over $2,956 over previous year. This has been $1,000 last year, but no report is at hand of raised in the regular channels. Of the 12 their work. 4. Woman's Fm'eign Missiona1'Y Society of Oregon (Baptist). Headquarters, Oregon Oity. Thisraised about the same amount of money fully in Korea, China and India. Ten mission- as the above Society, but no report has come aries have been sent out the past year. of its work. XIII. Woman's Missionary Society IX. Woman's Missionary Societies- Auxiliary to Southern Baptist Con- of the Methodist Episcopal Church vention. (South). Corresponding Secretary, Miss Annie N. Armstrong, 10 E. FayettB St., Baltimore, Md. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. H. D. Me- Garack, Nashville, Tenn. Periodical: Woman's These societies are auxiliary to the Conven- Missionary Advocate. Published at Nashville. tion, and their funds aid their Board in work Subscribers, 11,500. in China, West Africa, Italy, Brazil and Mex- ico. The treasurer's report shows for the Fields.-China, Brazil, Indian Territory and year: foreign missions, $17,882, an advance of Mexican Border. $3,500, and for home missions, $11,810, an ad· vance of $5,000; making $30,000 for both The Society supports 25 missionaries, 54 Boards. 'The Journal says, "Never has such teachers and assistants, 9·boarding schools, a showing been made in onr history." and 24 day-schools.
Publication: The Baptist Basket, Louisville, Home Force.-Auxiliary societies, 1,852; Ky. members, 38,203. Young people and children's societies, 890; members, 27,263; making total X. Free Baptist Woman's Missionary societies, 2,742, and total membership, 65,466. Society. Corresponding Secrerary, Miss K. J. An- Receipts for year, $68,729. Home work represented as follows: thony, 40 Summer Street, Providence, R. 1. Auxiliary societies, 4,305 ; members, 111,623; Periodical: The Missionary Helper. Published young ladies' societies, 632; members, 13,366; in Boston. children's bands,' 594; members, 10,240. Total organizations, 5,531. Total members, The annual meeting of this Society has just 135,229. Increase of 82 auxIliaries during yea~, been held, and statistics are not yet at hand; and members, 8,051. only the amount of money raised, both for Receipts for year, $226,496; an advance of home and foreign work, amounts to $38,000, of $20,187. which $25,000 was for foreign work. The Woman'8 Home Mi8sionw'Y Society works in Alaska, among the Indians, Chinese, A successful work is carried on in India, and and foreign classes in this country. with the reinforcements sent out this year, 20 missionaries are in that field. Their principal XIV. Woman's Foreign Missionary stations are Midnapore, J ellasore and Balasore. Society of the Methodist Protest- ant Church. XI. Woman's Board of the Seventh Day MisSionary Society. Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. M. A. Miller, Pittsburgh, Pa. Publication: Woman's IIlig- Corresponding Secretary, Miss Bailey Milton, sionary Record, Pittsburgh, Pa. 1Yisconsin. This Society has 20 branch societies, 320 This Society works in connection with the auxiliaries, 60 mission bands, 3,200 members, Church Board. They have missions in China, and have raised $30,000. Holland, and among the Jews at Galica. One young lady has just been appointed to China They conduct work in Japan, but report to take charge of a girls' school in Shanghai. difficulty in finding competent Christian One medical woman is in Shanghai, who, dur- teachers. They say their school at Yoko· ing the past year, has attended 2,822 patients. hama has met with disconragement because of poor and unhealthy location, and the Receipts for year, $12,238. system of supporting girls on scholarships does not work well. The school at Nagoya XII. Woman's Foreign Missionary " is increasing and its prospects are encourag· Society of the Methodist Episcopal ing." Income, $3,!83, from 16 branches arid 1 Church. " conference. "
Mrs. H. B. Skidmore,230 West 59th Street, XV. Woman's Home and Foreign New York. Periodicals: Heathen Woman's Missionary Society-General Synod Friend, subscribers, 19,834; Heiden Frauen of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Frend, subscribers, 2,829. Published at 36 Bromfield Street, Boston. Miss Mary H. Morris, Corresponding Secre- tary, 406 North Greene Street, Baltimore, Md. Fie/d8.-Japan, Korea, China, India, Burmah, Straits Settlements, Bulgaria, Italy, This Society has 423 auxiliaries, with 84 lIIexico and South America. young people's bands, making a total of 507; membership, 13,000. The number of synodical The Society now has 98 missionaries in active societies, 20. Income last year, $32,431. service. Ten of these are medical. Three hundred Bible women, and 100 assistants and There is a woman's department in the teachers are employed. Over 200 day-schools Lutheran Missionary Journal, published at are supported. There are 500 pupils in orphan- York, Pa. ages. Medical work is carried on most success- This Society has work in India and Africa.
Itl90.] PROGRESS OF }llSSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
Twelve schools, with 800 pupils, are supported is carried on at Wuchang, China, and 33 misin India; 14 Zenana helpers are employed. Three missionaries are in the field, 1 a physi- sionaries are supported in the different fields, cian, who, in 2 years, treated at home and dispensary, 4,772 patients. At home, work is done in 48 dioceses, and 12 XVI. Woma~'s Missionary Society missionary jurisdictions, by 53 diocesan and of the Evangelical Association of North America. parish branches and individual members of Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. C. F. Rass- the Woman's Auxiliary. weiler, Napierville, Indiana. Periodical: Department in lIfissionary Messenger, pub- Domestic Missions, inlished in Cleveland, Ohio. cluding Indian and Home Force.-Auxiliaries, 115; with 2,398 members. Bands, 39, with 1,067 members. Colored Work …… $18.388 72 Income, $2,187. Foreign….. _…….. 23,034 29 The Society has work in Japan and Ger- – – – $ 41,423 01 many. Specials sent through XVII. Woman's Foreign Missionary Union of Friends. Treasury.. _………. $21,25034 The various societies of friends have become Specials not sent consolidated and independent in their missionary work. through Treasury ..•.. 56,706 6H 77,956 97 Pnblication: Friends' Missionary Advocate, 341 Dearborn St., Chicago, Ill. Total.. ……. . $119,379 98 Missionary work is supported in Mexico, 3,456 boxes, value ….. . $184,593 15 Syria, China, and Japan, and among the Indians. 'rotal for 1888-S9… $303,97313 Missionaries supported, 18; native helpers XIX. Woman's Missionary Associaand Bible women, 5; number of schools, 4; tion of the United Brethren in number of pupils, 305. Christ.
Total receipts for the year, $16,348; a gain of Corresponding Secretary, Mrs. L. R. Keister, over $2,000 for the year. A church has been Dayton, Ohio. organized in Tokio, with 22 members, and a boarding school there has 20 pupils. In Mexico Periodical: Woman's Evangel, published at there is a prosperous school, with 150 girls. In Dayton, O. Subscribers, 12,900. Palestine is a training home, with 18 pupils. Two missionaries have been sent to Palestine This society has work in Africa, at Coburg, this year, one of them medical. At Rasel Germany, and among the Chinese of the Pacific Metu, Syria, is a school with an attendance of Coast. 120. Horne Force – Auxiliary societies, 367; XVIII. Woman's Auxiliary to the members, 5,412; young ladies bands, 24, with 2,173 members. The society supports 7 Ameri- Board of Missions, Protestant Epis- can missionaries, 14 native assistants. Re- copal Church. ceipts for year, $9,162.
Corresponding Secretary, Miss Julia C. Em- XX. Woman's Missionary Work of ery, 21 Bible House, New York. the Christian Church (Disciples).
This Society does both home and foreign Corresponding Secretary, ]llrs. S. E. Shortwork. Foreign work is supported in China, ridge, 358 Home Ave., Indianapolis, Ind. Japan, and Africa. Woman's medical work Publication: Missionary Tidings. Pnblished at Indianapolis.
This Society does both home and foreign work. Its foreign work is in Turkey, India, Japan, and China.
They r~port about 900 auxiliary societies for last year. Have failed to get their report for this year. Amount of money raised, $25,000, [The limitations of space compel us to defer the reports from Canada and the European Societies, though in type, until February.-En.) VII I.-PROGRESS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Af'rlca.-jesuits Expelled. The London that the Jesuit missionartes at Unyanyembe Missionary Society has heard from their have been expelled from their station. A agents at Zanzibar that the East Coast co=unication dated June 25 reached London route was still blocked, and that although at the same time from the Rev. D. P. Jones, of letters from Urambo and further inland are be- Twambos, via Nyassa, reporting that all at lieved to be on the way between Mpwapwa that station, and also those at the south end of and the Coast, there is danger of the mail Lake Tanganyika, were well, and, considering men being waylaid, as a prominent Arab is their trying position, in fairly good spirits. known to be on the lookout for them. A letter received by the agents from Kisskwe reports -Mr. F. S. Selous, the South African trav- eler, in his recent expedition, visited the French mISSIOn on the Zambesi, where he seventeen ladies and twelve gentlemen. Of found the families of Messrs. Jeanmairet and these only three-Mrs. Stott, and Mr. and 1I1rs. Jalla at Sesheke. He says that the mission Nicoll-are returning; all the others are fresh has passed through the greatest difficulties. recruits. They are shut out from communication with the outward world, the receipt of letters de- -No mission in the world, perhaps, can pending upon chance travelers or merchants. show a more notable record than that of the The crocodiles devour all their domestic ani· Canadian Presbyterian Church in China. At mals. The kindness of the missionaries is the end of 16 years' work, and with a small having great effect upon the people, but Mr. staff of laborers, it reports 2,650 baptized ,Selous says that the Barotse valley is in a de- members, 2 native pastors, 64 elders, 60 dea- plorable condition on account of the periodical cons, and 37 native preachers. It maintains 2 inundations of the Zambesi, and the fevers mission honses, 50 chapels, a girls' school, and which result therefrom. a training college. The credit of these results is due, under God, to Dr. ThIackay, one of those – Wiliam Taylor has done more to turn remarkable men who are born missionaries. the eye of the Church toward Africa than any other man. Others have called the attention -The Chinese Religious Tract Society, of 0{ political governments to the Dark Conti, which A. P. Happel', D. D., is president, is a nent, but no man ever turned the Church to- society formed for the dissemination of Chris- ward it as 'WiIliam Taylor.-Dr. Leonard. tian and scientific literature in the Chinese language throughout China. This society – East Africa has of late engrossed so much pnblishes in Shanghai The Child's Paper attention that readers may be in danger of (illustrated), and The Chinese Illustrated forgetting the claims of missions and the News, in addition to numerous books and progress of the Gospel in other parts of that tracts.-Chinese Evangelist (New York). vast continent. The venerable Bishop Crow, ther, who has recently arrived in England, Egypt. -Along the valley of the Nile speaks highly of the immense strides which from Alexandria to the first cataract are 70 Christianity is making among the West Afri· mission stations and 70 Sunday,schools, num· can natives; a very encouraging feature being bering 4,017 scholars, while the day and the self,denying enthusiasm which converts boarding-schools have over 5,200 pupils. There display in helping on the good work For in· has been an increasing demand for Bibles, 6,651 stance, on the river Bonny they have them- having been sold the last year, with 8,933 vol- selves built an iron church to accommodate umes of religious literature, and 17,179 educa, 1,500, but which has frequently a congregation tional books. of 2,000, and they have built three churches in the interior for their use when attending 'the England.-The second anniversary of oil markets. Enropean Christians may learn the West London Mission, in charge of Mark a lesson of self-help from their brethren of Guy Pearse and Hugh Price Hughes, was held the Dark Continent. in the last week of October. This remarkable enterprise, inaugurated only two years ago, -If Stanley has succeeded in obtaining the in the wealthiest part of the city of London, control of all the country about the upper Nile ha; accompli~hed results worthy of the men for England, as is reported, he must be credited wllohave taken it in hand. Not only have with the founding of a second African Empire thousands been attracted to the religious servwhich will rival the Congo Free State in im- ices, but many of the poor and ",retched have portance and promise. been relieved and rescued, and branches of the work established in several parts of the city. -The Sultan of Zanzibar has granted the The movement has been imitated in other British East African Company the control of large cities, and other denominations have 700 miles of coast. been stirred np to follow the example of these zealons Wesleyans. The' Lord Mayor of Lon· -The Italian Government has declared a don, who presided at the anniversary meeting protectorate over Abyssinia. in St. James Hall, said, after hearing the financial statement of the treasurer, that in ~In the midst of serious dangers, says the the whole course of his experience he had Presbyterian Me.isenget, the missions are never heard an abler financial statement or prospering at Nyassa. The Free Church of one which made so small a demand when the Scotland has opened a new station at Malindu, great interests involved were taken inb con· on a high plain at the north of the lake. Ma- sideration. He also subscribed £50 to the en- Hndu is surronnd'ld by 17 villages, embosomed terprise, and then proceeded to make a brilin gardellS of magnificent bananas. liant speech, in which he commended the various branches of work undertaken by the Cbina.-Exeter Hall was the scene, on mission in most enthusiastic terms.-Chris Monday evening, of one of those intensely in- fian Advocate (New York). teresting missionary farewells, to which the Miss Janet Hunter, M. D., of Ayr, sailed China Inland ThIission has, of late years, made for India last week, with several other ladies, us happily accustomed. There were on the to engage in medical miSSionary work at platform twenty-nine friends on the eve of setting ont for the far East, to swell the ranks of the workers in that vast mIssion field- Madras, in connection with the Ladies' Society Mr. Richardson was It'd to interest himself in -<Jf the Free Church of Scotland for Female its welfare.-The Ch,·isiian.
.,. Education in India. Miss Hunter is a dis· Japan.-Dr. and Mrs. H. M. Scudder tinguished student of the London School of bave been compelled, on account of the illness Medicine for Women, and has taken the of their daughter, Miss Scudder, and their own double qualificatiou from the Royal Colleges age and infirmities, to retire from their 1m of Physicians and Surgeons, Edinburgh, and portant station at Niigata. This makes a sad the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the Uni· breach, as their son, Dr. Doremus Scudder, Yersity of Brussels. She has recently spent and wife are obliged to accompany them.
some months in further medical study in the -2,129 converts were received into the hospitals of Vienna and Prague. During her churches of the American Board in Japan residence in London Miss Hunter was a memo during the year ending April 30, an Iiverage bel' of Regent·square Presbyterian Church. of more than 4.3 to each church. 43 of the 49 HawaU.-The Rev W. H. Barnes, churches are self-supporting.
Honolulu, says that there are 20,000 Chinese – The Board of Foreign Missions of the in the Sandwich Islands; that two congrega· Reformed Church have resolved that in the tions of them are connected with the English Japan Mission the main strength shall be ex- ·Church Mission, and that they make good pended in the development of the 8endai Thea· Christians. logical Training School and the Miyagi Girls· J.nctia.-Dr. Parker reports of the lUeth- School. Rev. J. P. Moore has been appointee!
-odist Episcopal mission work in the Rohilund the permanent evangelist of the mis~ion. Rev province: "In this province there are 26 sep- A. D. Gring is no longer connected with the arate circuits, which include 160 centers of nlissioll.
work, in which a teacher or preacher resides, -According to the new constitution of -or a school is taught by a Christian evangelist, Japan neither Christian ministers nor Buddhist and about 600 villages in which persons have priests are allowed to hold seats in the Im- been baptized, and in which they now reside. perial Diet.
There are in the province 1 high school, 8 -The missionaries of the American Board middle-grade Anglo-vernacular schools, 11 in Japan have sent a memorial to the Pru· upper primary Anglo-vernacular schools, 153 dential Committee" asking for new mission- v"rnacular schools, and over 5,000 pupils in aries." This large reinforcement is requested, attendance in all the grades. This work is says one of the missionaries, "not with the "arried on by a force consisting of 7 American view to extend our present limits or for experi- missionaries, 75 regularly licensed native ments, but simply to occupy eight more large preachers, and 226 native teachers and evan- cities that are centres for about five million gelists in the regular work. This calculation people, which fields God has opened to us, and does not include the work or schools of the in which our churches have already begun Woman's Society, nor the pastors supported work. " And yet, "the American Board has by the churches. The expense of thiswork to its largest single mission in Japan. It num- the Missionary Society and to the friends who bers 85 adults, and costs annually $75,000."
personally support schools is $27,000 per year." Fifteen years ago there were only two little -·The Intelligencer shows remarkable prog- churches, with about a dozen members each; ress in the Telugu mission of the English now fifty churches and 8,000 Christians, con- Church Missionary Society. The total num- tributing annually about $30,000.
ber of Christian adherents within this mission JeWS.-From the Record of the Free in 1849 was 65; in 1859, 177; in 1869, 1,726; in Church of Scotland we learn there are 47 18i9, 3,998. It thus appears that from 1869 to Protestant Jewish missionary societies labor- 1879 the Christians had multiplied at the rate ing among the Jews. They employ 377 mission- of about 131 per cent. From 1879 to 1888 the aries, with a total expenditure of about increase has been at the rate of 121 per cent., $500,000. It has been estimated that during a yearly average of 475. This record suggests the century fully 100,000 Jews have been Call· what may be done in India in the coming verted to the Church of Christ.
years. -Dr.·John Dixon, of the Mildmay Medical -A Brahman in Calcutta told Dr. Baumann lIlission to the Jews, reports 11,121 visits of old that he had read through the New Testament and new patients to the dispensary in 1888, eighty-three times and the Old Testament and 2,489 visits of doctors to the patiE'nts in twenty-seven times. their own homes, besides the work of thn :ltaly.-Protestant Mission in Elba. This d('aconesses in connection with the mission.
little island has for some years been the sta- In this way over 5,000 Jews and Jewesses have tion of a Protestant Mission, carried on under not only received medical help, but have heard the auspices of the Vaudois Church, but sup- the Gospel each time they visited the missioll.
ported by private contributions, collected by -Friend of Missions.
Mr. Jonathan Richardson, Killeaton, Dim· Jews In Palestlne.-Russia can· murry, Country Antrim, Ireland. It was on tinues to expel the Jews wholesale. This IS a hearing how this mission was established that (]t'plorable state of things, though not in the least surprIsmg. Mrs. Finn, Secretary of the prospering. A liberal friend of the cause in Society for the Relief of Persecuted Jews, Scotland has promised $6,500 to build another writes; "The Shaftesbury Memorial Fund has house for the missionaries at Tiberias. This been applied each year since Lord Shaftes- is chiefly a medical mission. bury's death to the employment of Jews at Abraham's Vineyard, Jerusalem, where a few Vntted 8tateS.-Missionary Statis- are trained in cultivating the ground and tics. We areglad to notice that The Missionary other industries. But there are tens of thou- Reyiew of the World proposes to tabulate each sands destitnte in Palestine. We are ready to year the statistics of all missionary societies give them the work without which they perish in the world. The work of the former editor. of starvation. We last year aided abont 300 ~Ir. Wilder, though imperfect, was exceedcases of urgent need in London, and this year ingly useful; and every missionary editor has as many in proportion, many of them in find- undoubtedly greatly missed these annual ing homes in America and elsewhere." tables since Mr. 'Wilder's death. It can hardly be tbe case that any editor of a denomina- ltIadagascar~The Drink Traffic. A tional miSSionary magazine would have the conference has been held of all the missions time to prepare these annual tables. But this working in Madagascar, except the Roman Re,;ew is the place where they ought to ap- Catholic, on the subject of the Drink Traffic. pear, and we offer the editors our hearty en- It took place in the committee-room of the couragement in their effort to give every year London Missionary Society on the 2d of a summary of ihe missionary statistics of the August, and resulted in the appointment of a world, which is promised to be the most comrepresentative committee, of which the Rev. plete and satisfactory ever published. It will B. Briggs is convener, to collect information be a strong feature of their already exceedand frame proposals for a memorial or peti- ingly valuable pubJication.-Baptist Missiontion to be addressed to the Queen and the al71 Magazine.
Prime Minister. ltalscellaneouS.-Colonel Olcott, the -The young native preachers in Antana- traveling theosophist, has touched at Bel- fast, and lectured in that fine city at a shilling rivo, the capital of Madagascar, have banded a head. He is cheaper than a blaspheming together for the purpose of sending some of ., Colonel" who remains on this side of the their number to the heathen in the outlying water. Colonel Olcott did not secure a large districts of the island. audience in the old Presbyterian town, and the indifference with which he was listened to New Gulnea.-A telegram to London appeared in the fact that when he closed no reports the killing of Rev. E. B. Savage, a one was found ready to move the customary missionary of the L. M. S., on Murray Island. yote of thanks. The Colonel's lecture, semi- It is also reported that some of the native Buddhistic, and wholly infidel, does not seem teachers were also murdered. Mr. S. went out to have been very luminous, especially in the in 1885, and the work of the Society in Eastern statement of his theosophic vagaries. In New Guinea of late years has been encourag- Dublin a gentleman rose in the audience, ing. The natives of Murray Island are can- after listening intently to the lecturer, and nibals, and yet the Christians recently sent asked the Colonel to state in brief what $150 to aid the L. M. S. in its work. he had been talking about, as he had utterly failed to understand him. There was no re- 8cotland.-Dr. George Smith, in the sponse. Free Church of Scotland Monthly, reviews the last ten years of the foreign missions of -In heathen countries Protestants occnpy that Church. In 1878 the adults baptized were 500 separate mission fields, containing 20,000 277; in 1888, 815; in 1878 the native communi- mission stations, supplied by 40,000 mission· cants were, 3,317; in 1888 they were, 6,272; the aries. In these 20,000 mission stations there pupils had also doubled, and the contributions are 500,000 Sunday-school scholars-an average from native churches and the number of naJ of 25 to each station. In the 20,000 Protestant tive Christian agents. The revenue has also mission stations there are one million of native increased in the same proportion. It was communicants, or an average of 50 to each £48,775 from all sources, in 1878, and £97,542 station. There are also 2,000,000 of adherents in 1888; the home donations being £31,263, as who are friendS of the evangelical faith and against £64,999, and the foreigu £17,512, as hearers of the Gospel preached from the Bible against £32,543. Starting now on the next dec- -an average of 100 to each station. ade with what is practically £100,000 a year, it is to be hoped they may again double it. -The Star of India says that among the This little church has a missionary record of countries barred to Protestant missionaries which it may well be proud. should be named Nepaul, between India and Thibet, a most interesting country. 8::vrla.-The population of Syria and Palestine, together, is estimated at about -Dr. Abel Stevens says that the old Asiatic 2,000,000. The prevailing language is Arabic, heathendom is generally giving way before though many languages are spoken. the continually increaSing power of Western thought and Christian civilization. -The mission of the Free Church of Scotland on the Lake of Galilee, in Palestine, is