The Missionary Review of the World — March 1903
lIlIRACLES IN WATER
Forty·six living evidences of Christianity, showing the power of God to save confirmed drunkards and criminals a ud to keep theru saved. They are neV m en and women in Christ, having been" born again" at the Jerry McAnley Mission, 316 Water Street, New York City Missionary Review of the World Old Series ~ MAROH 1j VOL. New Series 3 XVI. No. VOL. XXVI. No. 3f A FAMILY OF THIRTEEN HUNDRED CHILDREN AN ACCOUNT OF THE QUARRIER ORPHAN HOMES IN SCOTLAND BY FARRAND BAKER PIERSON, LONDON, ENGLAND Half an hour's ride by train from Glasgow, and a short drive from Bridge-of-Weir station over the low Renfrewshire hills, brings one to the little village which is the home of Mr. Quarrier and his thirteen hundred children. At first sight it looks more like a model village built to demonstrate some social theory than a busy, practical home, for one is scarcely prepared to find this group of neat stone villas so far from the suburbs where they seem to belong.
Passing between the stone pillars of the main gateway, one finds a village of forty cottages, besides church, schools, store, workshops, offices, and farms, about sixty in all, scattered over grounds covering forty or fifty acres. From the entrance Faith Avenue runs down to the old central building, long since outgrown as a school, but which, with the two cottages flanking it, formed the nucleus of the village when, thirty years ago, the beginning was made here of what has preeminently and characteristically been "a work of faith and labor of love."
It is remarkable how fully the whole plan was in Mr. Quarrier'~ mind when he first formulated his scheme in 1872. These are his words: I would like to see an orphanage established near Glasgow on the cottage principle, to which children from any part of the country could be sent. By the cottage principle I mean a number of cottages built near each other, each capable of accommodating twenty to thirty children, with a father and mother at the head of each household; playground and other appliances attached to each cottage; a school-house in the center, also a central workshop;, each father to be able to teach a different trade, such as tailor, shoemaker, etc.; the mother to do the cooking for her household, with assistance if needed. The children would meet all together at school and church, and on special occasions iii the common playground, but at other times in their own playgrounds. It is desirable to keep up the family and home feeling among the children, and we believe this can not be done in large institutions, when hundreds of children are ruled with the stringent uniformity necessary where large numbers are gathered together.
These words might have been written to-day as a description of the work done. But tho it seems thus to have sprung from his 'brain complete, the whole story of Mr. Quarrier's life reveals how intimately.
the whole work has been associated in its gradual unfolding and development with his own experience.
A few years after his birth at Greenock, in 1829, his mother was forced by the death of his father, a ship-carpenter, to go to Glasgow for work. Here, in the hard struggle that followed, he drank the dregs of an orphan's cup; but even hunger and cold and nakedness were proven a part of God's training for him by an impres- sion received while he was still a child of seven. He was standing one day on High Street, barefooted and bare- headed, not having tasted food for thirty-six hours, cold and miserable.
Through his childish wonder that no one of all the passers-by turned aside, or seemed to care for his need, the resolve came that should he ever be in their position he would not, like them, WILLIAM QUARRIER walk with eyes closed to the suffering so near. This resolve he never forgot, and can still point to the very spot where it was formed.
He became apprenticed to a shoemaker, and prospered in that trade; and tho after his conversion he wished to enter the ministry, he was dissuaded, and continued in business until he owned three ware- houses in different parts of the city. During all this time he kept in view his purpose of helping the destitute children of the Glasgow slums, and was seeking himself to earn the money to establish homes, thinking to put some one else in control. But gradually he was forced to the conviction that if anyone was to do the work, it must be himself, while the example of George Muller stimulated him to put his whole faith in God rather than in his own efforts for provid- ing the meallS required. lIe was already 'working with and for the boys of the city through the "Shoeblack Brigade," and other indus· trial brigades, devoting a large part of his time to them, and growing familiar with the conditions and problems of the work.
Finally, in 1871, Quarrier published a letter in the press, asking for cooperation in bis scheme for providing homes for some of the hun- c1reds of destitute and orphaned children of the city's streets and slums. He ventured to pray for a sign of God's favor in the gift of £1,000 to £2,000 in a single sum, not mentioning the request to any one. As the money came, in response to his appeal, he waited, and
1903J A }j'AMILY OF THIRTEEN HUNDRED CHILDREN
was not left long in douut. The highest amount set by his faith was given by one donor, and with this seal of Vod's approval the work began.
The start was made in small rooms in Glasgow itself, and soon the children began to come in, dirty and ragged, but willing to stay, because, as one said," this place is gUld." Soon it became n ecessary to have more room, alid a large boys' hom e was rented, with a small er one for girls.
It had been through Miss Annie Macpherson * that Mr.
Quarrier had been led gmtlually to withdraw from his large busi- ness interests and devote himself U BEFORE" wholly to this work; and it was now in cooperation with her and l"our orphans as receiv ed into the Homes through her receiving-home in Canada that a beginning was made in the work of transplanting the waifs t9 Western homes, whero thoy co nld live unJlampered by any stigma of reproach from parentage or early life. So desir- able have these children proved, that hundreds of applit)ations in excess of th e ability to.supply the demand have been received at the homes, tho more than two hundred boys have been sent out every year. But recent action by the Canadian government prac- ti cally pH t a stop to it, by demand- ing that the children become the wards of tlle government; and as this seemed to deprive them of their sense of f.·eedom from re- proach, the children have since been retain ert ill their Jess-cau- •• AFTER " tious fatherland . Some of those sent out were The same children after two years' rc::;ldence In the Quarrier Homes * See page 169.
adopted, and others, beginning in farm and other work, have becotn.e independent and often prosperous. In all the work not more than three per cent. have. ever given Mr. Quarrier cause for shame, the children carrying with them a loving interest in the welfare of the home left behind, evidenced in many letters and gifts sent back from time to time.
The llew quarters in Glasgow did not long prove sufficient, and Mr. Quarrier al; length sncceeded in securing the small farm at Bridge- of-Weir. He was very desirous of beginning at once to build, but as the money was not pro- vided he was kept waiting for some time. God saw, as he did not, that a receiving-home in the city itself was indispensable to the proper working of his plan, and withheld the supplies till this was provided by the purchase of a site on James Mornson Street and the erection of a substantial build- ing. Thus there was secured in the city what is at once an inlet and an outlet. Ohildren are re- ceived and dealt with as circum- stances require, and, if necessary, are sent out to the homes ready for apprenticeship to local firms.• or they can be cared for during their years of new and growing THE H JAMES ARTHUR' ~ i n d ependence. Oontribu tion s rapidly in- ThIs Is the ury.land ship on which the boys learn to become expert seamen creased, God having justified both His wisdom and His grace in the delay. In 1878 the first homes were opened, and since then have steadily increased to their present number.
Olose by the eentral building stands what constitutes the most striking feature of the landscape : a full-rigged ship, equipped for a voyage, and making a steady if slow passage through a bed of con- crete. This ship-the James Arthur-is the answer to the need of Christian seamen. The thirty boys constituting her crew make this . boat their home, under the care of a competent captain, from whom they get the training in seamanship necessary to start them on the way to the good positions, from captain down, which many of them now hold. By dint of scrubbing and polishing, everything is kept "ship-shape," and only on stormy days are the sails furled, lest even this anchorage prove insecure.
CHILDREN AND THETR BRASS BAND IN FRONT OF THE CONSUMPTIVE SANATORLA ON MAY-DA.Y
THE LINeOL'[ AND GARFIELD HOMIl: AND FAMILY Nearer the main entrance Church Road branches off to the left. with Mr. Qnarrier's house beyond, and the" stores " llear by, where all the various requisites for the weekly supplies can be obtained by the mothers. Never was a business carried on with more perfect neatness than is seen in the shelves of provisions and the huge drawers of stockings-every pair given by friends–and of sllits and other garments up-stairs. Following Ohurch Road, paRt a group of cottages. we come to the school, with a dnck-pond in front, and well supplied with maps, charts, and instruments. Still farther all is the church, a fine building. Il()W enlarged to hold fifteen hundred, with clock-tower and chimes. It is full of flowers, tended by the boys undcr the care of the head gardener, who is "father" of a house lJear by. Indeed, all the grounds give eyidence of the care of his boys, and the trim walks and lawns, and the many flower and foliage beds, emphasize the COlltrast between the sorrow and misery of the slums, from which many of them have come, and the brightness and love that surround them here. The remainder of the grounds is occupied mainly by the cottages. each with its household of thirty or forty children, which give character to the village.
In architecture and arrangement the aim seems always to have been to secure unity without uniformity. While all are of stone. and the same general styIe is preserved in all, yet not only do no two seem alike, but scareely are any three set in a straight line. Ohange in porch or gable, or in general plan and sbape, give individuality to these houses that the children call" home," while the arrangement in groups, some about a green square, and others ill a pretty crescent, separated
A FAMILY OF THIRTEEN HUNDRED CHILDREN
by lawns planted with shm bs and flowers, makes them truly homelike. This lack of uniformity is noticeable also in the dress of the children, and to it is perhaps due in part the absence of the listlessness that so often marks children trained in rigid monotony.
In the administration of the homes Mr. Quarrier's well-trained business ability and common sense are manifest. The fact that the average expenditure per child is less than £12 a year proves that there :s no waste, yet it is an economy without parsimony. Mr. Quarrier firmly believes that it is ultimately a saving to get the best of everything for the children, within reasonable limits, and to provide for the more esthetic side of their nature. A good example of this is found in the water and drainage system of the village, which is under his own control. 'rhe water is brought by pipes to the buildings from a hill some distance away. The children's lavatories are models of modern sanitary arrangement, and the white tiles and porcelain wash-bowIs must be a strong incentive to cleanliness in themselves, while the disposal of the purified sewage by upoto-date sanitary methods' furnishes them almost a guarantee of good health. Similar conditions are fGund in laundry and bakery, as well as in the new engine-house, with five engines and extension ladders, given after the destruction by fire of one of the buildings containing the bakery and other departments.
Thus in many ways it is made evident that the work is carried on for the sake of the children alone. 'I.'here seems to be no motive but GiRLS DRILLlNG IN FRONT OF T:Ie; CE',TRAL BUILDING
loving sympathy with the little ones. It is emphatically unlike the "public charity," and not even the great motive of George Muller here seems prominent-the desire to demonstrate the power and faithfulness of God. None the less is this accomplished, however, as William Quarrier, with a clear faculty of looking at things from their own standpoint, seeks the well-being of the children given into his care. Encouraged by the revelation of God's faithfulness, given through Mr. ~1iiller's work, he puts his whole trust in God for the care of his own work. No endowment has been received, other than that supplied noys AT WORK IN THE BAKffiHOUSlt Sixty dozen loaves of bread a day are baked In these ovens for the Quarrier Children by grounds and buildings, and no means but prayer is used to obtain the necessary funds; but never has the balance been on the wrong side, and as the work grows God continues to supply the growing needs.
But great as the work is, it has not satisfied Mr. Quarrier. His desire for helpfulness has widened with the growth of the work, and his faith, feeding on God's faithfulness, has sought for wider service among neglected sufferers. A long knowledge of the prevalence of consumption in Scotland led him to seek and partially accomplish the erection of a national sanatorium for the free treatment of this disease. Still unsatisfied, his broad philanthropy is reaching out and asking now for £20,000 for an epileptic home on similar lines.
It is evident that in such a work obstacles must be met, and Mr. Quarrier has not escaped his share. Opposition based on religious or political grounds has been encountered, and even now hinders the work; but in spite of these things it continues to grow, by the blessing of God, and nothing could more clearly reveal His working than this little village, where quiet happiness is so written on the faces of the children whom their heavenly Father feeds.
ltESCUE WORK IN LONDON SLUMS
RESCUE WORK IN LONDON SLUMS BY THE LATE THOMAS PAuL, LONDON It is always interesting and inspiring to notice how God trains his workers for special service. Miss Annie Macpherson, the founder of the Match-box Makers' M.ission, was born in Campsie, a beautiful vil- lage in Scotland . Her fath er was a specialist in education, and took care that she should be sent to the best schools. He was in touch with a band of men and women who were striving for the intro- duction of a thorough system of national education, and while his daughter wa( still a girl he was called to England to superintend the Ockham Industrial Schools.
As his secretary she early became familiar with the theory and practise of teaching, and this proved of inestimable value in her su bsequeIlt life-work. Other and valuable lessons had to be learned in the school of sorrow.
The father's health failed, and III'S8 JolACPHEftSON after five years' suffering from slow consumption, he passed away, leaving a bright testimony to his Christian chat'acter and faith.
Further preparation awaited the daughter in a Jittle village ill Cambridgeshire, whither she removed after her father's death. Her heart was d~aVn out by the neglected condition of some hundreds of navvies, engaged in digging for coprolite (a fossil deposit found use- ful for variou~ purposes). While there she read Miss Marsh's book on "Work Among Navvies," and thus, with fear and trembling, was induced to attempt giving the rough men a tract during their meal hour. This led to an evening school, ill which she labored seven years, being greatly helped and guided in the principles of faith -service, by reading "The Life of George M. tiller." Who can tell how many other hallowed and useful lives his testimony has been the means of inspiring? Miss Macpherson says: Altho we sought to exercise faith, we knew, at first, but little of it, and it came quite as a surprise to us, and a few m en who had been converted, when God definitely answend p1·aye1·. Our first gift Was from a dear invalid Vho denied h erself a mutton chop three times a week to send the price of it to help our work. Other instances of the kind taught
me the beauty of simply living by faith in God, and this I have endeav- ored to do in all the thirty and more years that have since elapsed. By and by, without a penny being asked from anyone, we had sufficient to build a little hall, in which many now doing good work-one being a mis- sionary in China-were born to God.
At that time Rev. William Pennefather was just beginning at Barnet the first united Ohristian Oonference-the precursor of Mildmay -and Miss Macpherson spent annually two weeks with Mrs. Pennefather. In this way our sister was led to visit Lady Rowley, then working in the East End, and to attend the theater services being held by Mr. Reginald Radcliffe. Here she met Miss Clara M. S. Lowe, who took her to visit some poor match-box makers in East London. This was the turning-point in her life. She says: Never shall I forget my shock when first introduced to a miserable garret, with broken roof, in which six little girls, pale and thin, were toiling with the utmost speed to complete one gross of match-boxes, for which only 2>2'd. (5 cents) was paid. From that moment I longed to live among and care for these forlorn little ones.
Soon after the way was opened for her to visit New York, where she saw many of the missions then being established iu that city. Among these was a Home for Destitute Boys, founded by Mr. Van Meter, who, after training, sent the boys to the Western States. This gave her the idea which she has so marvelously developed in the way of emigration.
Ooming back to London in lSGG, she found the East End being devastated by the plague. Revisiting her match-box makers, she saw sorrow and distress in every home. Parents and husbands were snatched off suddenly, leaving many helpless orphans and poor widows. Something must be done at once. Mr. R C. Morgan, of The Christian, came to her help, pleaded the cause of the widow and orphan, and ere long a fund of £22,000 was raised to feed the destitute and open sewing-classes to aid the widows. This formed the startingpoint of The Home of Industry, with its numerous and diversified phases of evangelistic and helpful service.
A Widows' Sewing-class was opened, regular work was organized among the little match-box fl1akers, and Miss Macpherson's attention was specially attracted by the street arabs, many of whom were cholera orphans. Some meant to be honest, bl1t many lived by thieving and begging. One day she made bold to ask a group of these boys if they would come and take tea with her-an unheard-of thing, for free teas were not so common then as now. They demurred, but one, relenting, ran after her, saying, "We chaps don't want religion licked down 0111' throats." It ended in two hundred of them being entertained in a room, the use of which was given by Mr. George Holland. After a plentiful meal, a talk was given on " The Prodigal Son," and many of
REscUE WORK lN LONDON SLUMS I'll
the lads were seen to be in tears. "That night," says Miss Macpher- son, "I knew God had called me, and my life was consecrated to the work of reclamation."
A small house was secured, and thirty homeless orphans were received. Soon three other houses were taken (one for boys and two for girls), and an four were speedily filled. The work was of God, and mllst grow. ]1'llrther accommodation became imperative, and a ware- house in Commercial Street, Spitalfields, which had been used as a cholera hospital, was opened in February 1869, as "The Home of In- dustry." This was not only quickly filled with destitute waifs, but speedily became the center of a large mission work. Sewing~classes, mothers' meetings, evening-schools, Sunday-schools, for adults as well as for children, and evallgelistic services were soon in operation, while the Bible F]Jwer Mission, which afterward spread all over England and America, had its origin here.
The Emigration Idea Before the close of the first year many of the rescued boys were placed in situations, but difficulties arose from the proximity of old haunts and evil companions. The matter was laid before God, and Miss Macpherson was led to recall the methods adopted by Mr. Van Meter in New York. Already some fifty families had been sent out to Canada, bu t the emigration of boys had not been thought of. At length it was determined that if God sent the money-without direct appeal to anyone-it would be taken as a signal to go forward. In the spring of 1870 a thousand pounds were sent in, and it was decided to essay the novel task of transplanting a party of boys to Canada. This band set sail on May 12, 1870, under Miss Macpherson's personal care. On arrival at Quebec a telegram was sent to the government, by the port officials, who described the boys as well-behaved and likely to be of service on farms. Orders were sent to entertain the party and the lady at its head, and to send them on to Toronto. Homes were soon found for the little emigrants, and the same year two other parties-one of boys and one of girls-followed, all of whom were placed in good homes. Since then seventy-four companies of children have been sent out, making a total of six thousand five hundred poor children transplanted from a hopeless life of struggle and sorrow to a land of plenty and promise. Nor in all these voyages has one serious accident occu rred to these children. Some of Miss Macpherson's own conclusions on the subject are of interest. She says: The question has often been asked, "Have the Canadians no children of their own, that they so readily receive little strangers from England?" The reply is, "Not in flocks, like the poor in East London." Their sons and daughters marry early, and press on to the west to begin life as their parents did before them. Thus the homes are left childless, and room is made for our well-trained boys and girls.
Take bU"/; one instance to illustrate thousands. A farmer and his wife came to our Canadian Home for a young child, as their son and daughter had both married and gone to the Northwest, and their house seemed, they said, lonesome. Soon our youngest emigrant was on the wife's knee kissing his newly found friend. The farmer himself appeared from the stables with a boy of five years on his shoulder. "I've found," he exclaimed•.• the very one!" "So have T," she reI lied, "and he's a beauty." Eventually they took them both, as also one of the elder bo~ s to assist with the" chores' on the farm. The three found a happy home. received a good education, and are now doing well.
After the children are adopted, the official visitor calls yearly, and his reports are entered on the ., Home-history" books. The most careful attention is given to this supervision, which is felt to be of the utmost import.ance.
The first Distributing Home in Oanada was a free gift from the council of the town of Belleville, Ontario. In IBn another Home was opened at Knowlton, in the eastern townships. This is now used as the Distribution Home for the Liverpool children emigrated by Mrs. Birt, Miss Macpherson's only surviving sister. A third Home was opened in 1872, in Galt, far west in the province of Ontario. But eleven years later this gave way to a new Home at Stratford, Ontario. As to the outcome of the work, Miss Macpherson says: Hundreds of our children are now married and thoroughly assimilated with the Canadians. Among the first thus happily settled were three sisters, who were originally found in a garret weeping over the body of their mother. Their exemplary behavior in their adopted homes, near each other, led to their being called" The royal family of B–."
Our aim in all the work has been, not onlythe rescue of the body, but the salvation of the soul. The good seed has been sown in faith and prayer in our Home training, and fostered in many a godly Canadian family. Thus the reaping-time has come, and during the past fifteen years every visit to Canada has been a series of sweet surprises in the consistent lives of numbers of our proteges. Many are novacceptable ministers. Some are in China, Africa, and other lands as missionaries. Large numbers are professional or business men, while the majority are quiet, steady farmers, active members of various Christian churches. For others we still pray and hope.
Home Missionary Work Apart, however, from this emigration movement, a very large evangelistic and home mission work is centered in The IIome of Industry, 29 Bethnal Green Road, London, E. First of all there is the Widows' Sewing-class, started in the cholera year. More than half of the original members have passed away, but others have come in. The means to support this branch have not failed, altho often have the workers been kept in conscious dependence on the widow's God for means to pay the weekly sixpence which in many cases is the poor aged one's only regular support. The class meets each Monday,
RESCUE WORK IN LONDON SLUMS
the members do two hours' sewing, have a plain tea and a sixpence each. Meanwhile the Gospel is told out in a simple, earnest way. The sick and feeble are visited at their homes, and many a dear saint of God have I myself had the joy of visiting, in company with the Biblewoman. Indeed, Miss Macpherson often speaks of these aged widows as her" best helpers," by reason of their constant support in prayer. Many ladies-some of them sore invalids-interest them- selves specially in these widows.
A very large Mothers' Meeting has also been sustained for many years. The members are taught practical things about home duties and the care of children, and so on, but the Gospel is never forgotten, and many have been won to Ohrist and become bright lights in their dull courts.
A Sunday afternoon Mothers' Sunday-school, for women who can never get out to an evening service, has gone on steadily for thirty years, and has been the means of blessing to many who otherwise would probably never have heard the message of mercy.
The Sunday-schools are large and flourishing. '['hree floors may be found crowded any Sunday afternoon, and bands of earnest young men and women walk to The Home of Industry to help with the children and catch the inspiration of devoted service which seems to breathe in the whole work. And need there is for such effort. Boys of ten will declare, "There ain't no God-father says so." Yet the words get carried home, and many a time even such a father has come with his child and yielded to Ohrist with his boy at his side.
These men, again, are found in dense crowds every Sunday forenoon in Bird Fair-a modern saturnalia, at its height when the church bells are ringing for service. Sporting men and would-be" knowing lads" resort hither from all parts of this vast city, and the scene for three hours is most extraordinary. Dogs, rabbits, fancy animals, birds of every kind are exposed for sale. Manners are rough and language vile. Yet in the midst of all this the ladies from The Home of Industry have, with the help of voluntary speakers, maintained for years two open-air services. 'rhe opposition at first was very fierce. Now all is peace. Many formerly notorious characters-pugilists, atheists, and drunkards-have been converted" under the arches," and now bear brave testimony before their old companions. But there, this is a favorite theme with me, and I must pause, lest the editor's blue pencil be my fate. Bird Fair on a Sunday morning is a sight once :;een not easily to be forgotten.
Another very interesting work· is that among the hundreds of girls employed in large factories of all kinds, from cigar-making to soldiers' clothing, frilling and fringes. Often these are the chief support of some aged mother or of a family of little ones. Rough and reckless in manner, by reason of upbringing and surroundings, they
have yet a warm heart beneath. '1'he factories are visited, and thc Word read at the meal hours. Classes are held specially for them at the Home. The labor is very arduous, often disappointing, and yet it has proved rich in spiritual results. Some of the roughest and most hopeless have been marvelously transformed. Work of a somewhat similar type is done amo.ng young workingmen, and many, formerly members, are now bringing up their families in the fear of God, and witnessing for Him in open-air and mission halls.
One other branch must be mentioned-the Bible Flower Mission. Twenty-five years ago some one enclosed a bunch of violets in a letter to The Home of Industry. This was passed around among the widows, that each might" have, smell," and t-hen sent to a dying woman, who passed away clasping it in her hand. This little incident led the late Mrs. Merry, sister of Miss Macpherson, to propose that friends should be asked to send a few blossoms. The idea took hold, and now once every week quite a number of ladies spend an hour or two unpacking baskets of flowers sent from all parts, makillg up in little posies and attaching text-cards. These are then taken to the sick aud dying in hospitals, infirmaries, and in poor little homes. God has blessed these flowers and cards to many in many lands, and at least one mission in Spain-blessed to the salvation of hundreds-sprang out of a bunch of flowers and its text, given in an East End hospital twenty years ago.
Miss Macpherson gives all of the credit for this great work to God alone, and counts herself as merely an instrument in His haIlds. But 1'1iss Macpherson has many gifts and graces which she has devoted to this work, and which have been abundantly used of God. Her last word in telling her story was: "Not I, -but Christ that liveth in- me."
THE CHALLENGE OF GOD TO THE CHURCH BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF God is never done speaking. Truth is never new, but the emphasis laid upon it is, as there are no new notes in the musical octave, but there may be new combinations and chords. To him who has all acute ear for Divine utterances, there are new voices, and they are not without significatioll; and he learns to distinguish sounds, and to know what is piped by the frivolous and gay, to provoke the dance; and what is harped by the thoughtful and spiritual, to incite devotion; and what is breathed by the still, small voice of the Spirit, to awaken consecration, or trumpeted forth as by the clarion call of Gabriel, to arouse to action.
The opening of the twentieth century is signalized by a loud and imperial call of God to the prompt prosecution of missions on a prac-
THE CHALLENGE OF GOD TO THE CHURCH
tically new basis. We do not mean that the old foundation upon which the work is based haH been supplanted, but that, as a form of . aggressive activity, missions rest upon motives, considerations, and claims that are new and essentially modern-the outcome of the new history that the world is making. And the object of this paper is to urge some of these grand incentives which are like new signal-lights of God, new signal-peals, for our guidance.
First of all it is plain that everything is moving on with a new pace. What we call civilization goes by strides, not steps-by leaps and hounds. Mr. Gladstone ventured to say that a single decade in the nineteenth century recorded more progress than a thousand years in the days of yore. There is ill everything a strange celerity of movement never known before. As we have left behind the stage- coach for the steam-carriage, and the penny post for the electric tele- graph, everything about mankind seems to have correspondingly quickened its rate of advance. Inventions so multiply, and so fast, that in a new sense we know not what a day may bring forth. Men yet living have seen the first steam-carriage or steam-vessel, the first telegraph and telephone, photograph and phonograph, spectroscope, sewing-machine, typewriter, anesthetic, bicycle, electric light-and all these are but specimens of scores of other marvelous inventions and discoveries unknown seventy-five years ago. And what is the meaning of all this if it be not a new set of facilities and instruments for doing the work of "God? Does not this constitute a new call of God to His people to prosecute missions with a fresh zeal and rapidity, so that we shall accomplish in one decade what a century ago would have demanded ten?
Again, look at the widespread intelligence which of itself is break- ing down false systems of religion. The errors of faith are insepa- rable from errors as to fact. Hinduism has a false cosmogony as well as a false theology. So has every system of religion its superstitions which rivet it 011 the benighted peoples who are its adherents. Cuvier's knowledge of comparative anatomy made it impossible for his fellow students to frighten him by a ghost with horns and hoofs which shrieked out" I'll eat YOll!" "Impossible," he calmly replied; "you are graminivorous, not carnivorous." Education is going about like Talus with his iron flail, demolishing old systems of ignorance and superstition, or like Sampson lifting Dagon's temple pillars from their base. Amid this inevitable decay of the old, the question is, What is to be the new? Are we to leave the young men of the Orient, who have lost faith in the old religions, to drift into universal doubt and live with no faith and no God? The Church of Christ must bestir i-tseli, or in Japan and India and China we shall have a new generation of infidels. Better almost to have false gods and false faiths than none at all, for no religion means no restraint and no conscience, anarchy in the
state and the family. Look again at the moral peril of civilization. There is a fever-heat of intensity in modern life. WeaIth is accumulated often with astonishing rapidity and in vast amounts. '1'he spirit of liberty degenerates into license. There is a tendency to anarchy. Individuality and independence are developing abnormally, and men are in danger of losing sight of the grand fact that God has so constituted mankind that there can be no real independence, and liberty is found ouly in restraint-obedience to law. We are membeFs one of another. Even the head can not say to the feet, "I have no need of you," and those members which seem to be more feeble are not less necessary. Any life that is lived without reference to others is destructive of others' rights and welfare, and threatens ruin to society itself. There is but one remedy for the perils of civilization, and that is Christ. In proportion as He is preached, obeyed, imitated, in just such ratio does every best interest of man advance. A true, pure Ohristian faith and life bring forth fruit in beautiful character, happy homes, prosperous communities. The unanswerable argument for missions is found in the fact that so far as the Gospel triumphs we have some practical approach to the new Jerusalem let down from God out of heaven upon earth.
Look again at the historic argument that had to wait for history to frame it. Christian missions have now had a new and modern trial of a century of organized work. It is not claimed that they are perfect. Nothing human ever is. But they have proven their right to be. It ill becomes Britons or Americans to snter at missions. Our ancestors, little more than a thousand years ago, were savages and cannibals. Every argument against carrying the Gospel to the degraded and debased tribes of man reacts upon us in constraining us to deny that we are any better off for this Gospel. That must always be a grand work that makes grand workmen. And we risk nothing in affirming that, of all the products even of a Christian civilization, the true missionary is the ripest and best. '1'0 give one's self for olle's conntry, as a soldier does who faces the enemy's cannon, is heroic patriotism. To give one's self for one's consciellce, and risk all for the sake of fidelity to the truth, is more heroic. But to give one's self for the sake of saving others, that is the martyrdom of Love; it is godlike. And if we would find not solitary stars but constellations of glory, we must look to the missionary firmament.
Look yet again at the basal matter of the redemption of man. The old emphasis was upon destiny. Xavier and otbers like him were moved to go out among men to save them from hell. He thought that every baptized infant was a brand snatched from eternal burnings, and he cared nothing for toils or trials, that he might save from the abyss. Nowadays, whether for good 01' ill, the stress is being laid on character. The secrets of history and destiny are seen to lie
SOME INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA
wrapt up ultimately in what every man il:!. To secure a radical change of nature, a new creation, -in the man prepares for the new heaven and earth. You practically shu t up hell and open heaven whenever the elements of hell within are banished and the secrets of a heavenly life take their places. It is true, as a quaint American bishop said to one who asked where all the brimstone comes from that feeds the fires of perditIOn, "every sinner carr£e8 his brirn8tone with him." In the New Testament very little is said of eternal damnation, but every page sparkles with the promises of eternal salvation uegun in believing, and the first missionaries went forth urged on by this sublime motive to "preach among the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ." (Ephesians iii.) Look yet again at the prospect of the coming age. Who can deny that in both Old and New Testaments there is most prominent the promise of a day-dawn to which the brightest hOllr of a so-called civilization is but as midnight? Describe it as we will, it is a new epoch in history when God promises: "Behold, I make all things new." There is to be a commonwealth-a city of God-into which entereth no defilement of impurity, no abomination of idolatry, and no shadow of duplicity and treachery. There is to be an end of what is, in order to a new beginning of what shall be. And, as surely as God promises this glorious kingdom, He makes our activity in preaching the Gospel to the race of man preparatory to this day-dawn. Whatever be the reason or the philosophy of the connection, it seems to us indisputable that the Gospel herald is' to usher in this new day. Perhaps God sees that neither the world nor the Ohurch will be ready for that day until the great message of the Gospel is carried to the world's ends. But whatever be the secret hidden in God, the duty of man is absolutely explicit: ., This Gospel of the kingdom must first be preached as a witness to all nations, and then shall the end come."
SOME INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA BY REV. C. B. WARD, YELLUNlJU, NIZAM'S DOMINIONS, INDIA In January, 1902, I visited one after another the missionary enterprises of Mrs. Lawson, of Aligarh; Mrs. Lee, of Oalcutta; Pundita Ramabai, of Kedgaon; and, lastly, that of Rev. Albert Norton, of Dhond.
At Aligarh I found a veritable city founded, out in the plain, not far from the city, for the convenience and comfort of orphan girls, boys, and widows, with necessary industrial annexes. The total number of souls in the various departments of the work was over one thousand three hundred. It is but a few years since Aligarh became a mission station. The field was new to any form of mission work.
Mr. and Mrs. Lawson were appointed there as missionaries, with only the ordinary help and the ordinary assurances of backing by the society that sent them (Methodist Episcopal, North). The famine of 1897 fell heavily on that district. Relief measures were tardily under- taken, and suffering, appalling suffering, was seen on every hand. Mrs. Lawson was moved by compassion too warm to restrain. She began to take in the starving boys and girls, in humble dependence upon God for help. She reasonably concluded that the Lord was likely to answer prayer through His people, and she began to publish short letters, statements, and appeals in The Indian W£tness, Bombay G1tard ian, The Christian, and many other papers of India, England, and America. God justified her wisdom, and money began to come, and continued to come, as the work grew. The famine of 1900 came before that of 1897 was over. Mrs. Lawson went straight on, in the name of the Lord, whose hand was with her till the work assumed the prop01'- – tions and shape in which I beheld it in January, 1902. It should be said that she did not receive help from some famine funds that were administered by Methodists of India, on account of some restrictions imposed by the committee as to her receiving funds direct. At the time I saw the work it was costing over Rs. 5,000 per month. It must have cost much more than this at an earlier date, when famine suffer- ing was severer, and their building operations were going on. I should not judge their buildings cost less than Rs. 150,000. The entire work grew up unauthorized a~d unguaranteed by the mission or by anybody else, in humble dependence upon the Lord-'s promises to answer prayer.
At the time I saw the work, arrangements were being made by which the Methodist Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was to take over a part of it. I do not think the entire work for the years 1897 to 1900; inclusive, cost less than Rs. 300,000 ($100,000), and the Lord gave it as the work progressed.
Mrs. Lee's work in Calcutta did not begin as a famine work. More than ten years ago Mr. and Mrs. Lee came back to India, supposing themselves to be endowed so far as support went. They began work at once in the line of Mrs. Lee's Bengali training and their mutual convictions regarding the will of the Lord, among the women of Cal- cutta. A school was opened, and evangelistic work among women was vigorously started. For the work they depended upon the Lord for such help as He sent them by whom He would. Mrs. Lee had a facilt;l pen, which for years she had been using effectively in portraying the -characters of those she helped, and incidents in connection with the work. There was little of the formal appeal in her writings, and yet they were an effectual appeal. Money came because the Lord was in the work. Thus they worked on. But one day the bottom fell out of their endowment, owing to the failure in business of a dear friend.
This threw them and the work wholly upon the Lord. In 1899 came
190;)] SO~lI<; INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA
the Darjeeling disaster. that swept away at a stroke their six chil- dren in school. Humanly speaking, that they should succumb might have been expected. Bli t ou t of their woe came the dawn of a great advance in their work for the Master. Durillg the famine of 1900 a large number of orphan boys and girls were brought down from the country. ~Vhen I visited them in January, 1902, they were conducting two missionary institutions, one for girls and one for boys, about four miles apart, in property they had bought and built, with a corps of four European helpers and ten Biblewomen. There were some two hundred and fifty boys and girls in the two institutions, and extensive mission work was being carried on all the week by the Biblewomen and by all hands on Sunday. I saw some of the city Sunday-schools. The entire work was costing about Us. 3,000 per month. This they were receiving quietly but surely day by day, while they had acquired property worth nearly Rs. 100,000. Mrs. Lawson's husband draws a salary from the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but Mrs. Lee's husband gets his bread as do the birds for whom God careth tenderly. This work, too, was unauthorized and unguaranteed. Neither this work, nor the work of Mrs. Lawson, might have ever been inaugur..ted had not these noble women, like one of old, gone out, "not knowing whither they went," but following the Lord step by step, and trusting promises they found in their Bibles, as explicitly worded as words could make them.
The origin of Pundita Ramabai's work I need not detail. It has been widely published. But her work, as it stands to-day in Kedgaon, really sprung into existence in 1897. Till then she had conducted her widow rescue work in Poona with something over one hundred widows. She received an impression she could not shake off that she should gather in three hundred famine widows and waifs. She wrote to her American committee for authority or approval of her plans. 'rhis was promptly refused, and she was instructed not to incur added responsibility. But she says one word continued to ring in her ears: "Hear ye Him 1" She accordingly decided upon a course to pursue. She wrote bel' American committee, resigning her salary allotted her by them, and released them from all responsibility for the advance work at Kedgaon. And in sole dependence upon the Lord she started for the Punjab without sufficient money to do much with, believing the Lord was leading her and would supply all neederl funds. Three hundred widows and waifs came, and eight hundred came, and still they came, till the number ill her charge came up to nearly two thousand.
She had long before this been compelled to go out of Poona for room. Kedgaon, some miles to the south of Poona, on the line of railway, was the place opened to her. She secured one hundred and twenty acres of land, and began to build, and has kept on building, as the work has progressed, till this day. And still she builds and
continues to gather widows and waifs. There can not be less than Rs. 400,000 in buildings and other improvements to fit her property for her great work. When I first saw the work, January, 1902, I judged it to be the greatest single enterprise of a missionary character in this country, costing about Rs. 15,000 per month. The pundita has here a greater city than Mrs. Lawson has yet to look upon. With the pundita it is a principle that no debt must be incurred. Building and everything else goes on only as money comes in. She pays her helpers no salary, and her six European and American ladies seem as happy, living in a very humble style of life, helping this noble woman with their energy and their prayers, as angels might be supposed to be.
Not least among her assistants is her own daughter Monorama. It is truly a great and spiritual missionary work, for since my first visit I have had the privilege of helping there in spiritual work for two weeks. It is a non-Methodist institution, but I do not know another institution on the globe where there is as much of what Carvosso called" old hied Methodist religion" as at Kedgaon. And the end is not yet, for Ramabai felt led to open a like institution for boys, which she has begun.
At Dhond I found Mr. and Mrs. Norton with over four hundred boys, many of whose sisters were at Kedgaon. Mr. Norton returned to India about three years ago, as I remember it, and went at first to assist Pnndita Ramabai ill her work. But a little over two years ago . he was led to seek land and begin an orphan work for boys at Dhond, only seventeen miles from Kedgaon. The work rapidly developed during the terrible days of famine in 1900. They at one time had more than five hundred boys in haIlll. Theil' buildings are not of the most per- manent character, tho suitable for present uses. They have been constructed at the very minimum of cost. When I was there in Jan- uary, 1902, the work was costing about Rs. 2,000 a month, and all this the faithful God of all the earth was giving in answer to prayer. Mr. Norton does not, I think, believe in publishing appeals or statements. He does, however, write many private letters that level-headed friends publish for him, and they help him not a little. Mr. Norton publishes a balance-sheet, and does the rest of his appealing at the Throne of grace. The marks of stringent economy are manifest in all Ml'. Nor- ton's work at Dhond.
Thus I found in these four institutions four thousa1l<1 souls under good missionary and Christian training, in charge of some twenty-four missionaries, men and women, costing about Rs. 25,000 per month, the money coming direct to the workers from individual donors and friends, as they are led from time to time to send of their own volun- tary choice.
I am somewhat generally acquainted with some fifteen other insti- tutions, conducted on similar principles in India, in which over two
1903J SOME INTERESTING INSTITUTIONS IN INDIA
thousand souls are in like manner being trained for God and mission work. Almost the entire number of them are famine rescues. These institutions, with the exception of two, have all sprung into existence in the last five years, without order or gnarantee of any earthly sort. In each case the promoters of such work profess to having been led into this work in simple dependence npon the promises of the Word of the Lord. The providential support of the work goes far to sustain their contention at this point. I am not in a position to speak with the utmost authority as to the cost of these latter institutions, not having visited them, but do not think it possible that they are conducted at ~ less cost than Rs. 25,000 per month. There are not less than fifty missionaries, men and women, engaged in the work they embody.
The total cost of work carried on upon the principle referred to is at the present time about 50,000 rupees per month. It comes from Christians of all lands, in the shape of spontaneous volnntary offerings, directly sent to the promoters of the work in question, and amount to 600,000 rupees, or 200,000 dollars, for the present year.
Some Things Worth Noting As all this class of missionary work so suddenly came into its present astonisliing dimensions, some things may be noted. It is all new and is synchronous with the stringency that is seriously affecting all the missionary societies of America and Enrope. Twenty-three years ago, when I began to work on this line or principle, I knew of but two persons at work in India who worked on such lines, and they were ladies. They still survive, and work for their Master in India. All such work was then deprecated; it was considered unsafe, and the principle was considered unsound, the fruit of an imagination somewhat overheated. I speak from experience. I had the gantlet to run. The criticism and adverse philosophy I well remember. But in India, and in the home lands, there has come a great change. It is noticeable within and without society lines of work.
Formerly there was reckoned to be no way to the missionary field except through some society. Now scores can be found in the mission field who have paid or prayed their own way out. And the old fear to inaugurate any work except there were the society order and guarantee-what has become of it? In the last few years many are the missionary society agents who have not waited for orders, bnt have trusted in the Lord, and gone about doing good, that their societies are even now reJolcmg over. God is in the eRlargement of faith.
But is all this work going to stand? Perhaps not. Without a doubt many an enterprise under society auspices will go down. This has been history in the past. But we keep pegging away. E?ome of the work referred to will die, but this is no valid argument against the remainder of it.
It is worthy of note that Divine favor rests on this work. 'rhere is far less (Jf the wail of financial stringency from this class of workers than is hearu from some others Spiritual blessing rests on the work being Jone under the auspices referred to. Their warJs are being converted, sanctified, and becoming effective material for mission service.
Let it be noted that none of these missionaries lay claim to any gift of faith. They tell llS they simply take the gooJ old Bible, amI just believe it means what it says. They believe it to be the WorJ of God, and trust the promises therein found, as true to the letter, anJ of present and every-Jay application and al~propriatelless. As children takc parental promises, they take what is written and go ahead.
There is room for a refl~ction or two for people at home over this modern missionary phenomena. First, nearly all missionary societies have discouraged direct giving to mission objects as detrimental to the treasury interests of said societies. There has set ill a tide, it may be feared, that will never be stopped to. take a direct hand in. the work of missions. A determination that can not be repressed has seized many to enter into direct partnership with the missionaries on the field, and so they send their own money direct, and know what it is to do or is doing. The great body vi friends who this year will send $200,000 to independent work in India are old constituents of the missionary societies. They are among the most devoted Christians in the churches, too. Has any serious thought been taken as to where the" Alliance" gets its money? Its supporters are among the old society supporters.
The societies have made a mistake, and much of this unauthorized work is a part of the result. A great break away ·has set in. Can it be overtaken? Had onr :Methodist authorities seen the things that make for their greatest missionary peace, and utilized this desire of good people to directly aiJ or tf},ke part in specific missionary work, Mrs. Lawson, Mrs. Lee, and C. B. Ward might nerer have needed to get thousands of rupees they now do receive, in the independent way they do, outside of all society auspices.
Another reflection: Most missionary bodies have come nearly tu the point where they will accept no missionary candidates unless they are collegiates. It is, however, only too well known that some of the very best missionaries in the foreign field, both men and women, are innocent of collegiate attainments.
Yes, we can find scores of mission workers and missionaries in the unauthorized work under consideration, who are dividers of the Word of God, who need not to be ashamed, who are successful, as none can dispute in the face of the facts, who are not college mell or women, and most likely would not have been sellt to India Ly allY old society.
SOME PECUL1ARITlES OF NATIVES OF CENTRAL AFRICA
But God sent them, and they are doing creditable service for their own Master. Is there not a danger that intellectual qualification has been allowed too largely to usurp the prerogative of the baptism of the Holy Ghost? While time lasts, God will continue to call some from the plow, or the sheepfold, or the fishing-smack. We forget this, at our peril.
But is there not a danger of going too far with these" deprecable missionary enterprises"? Certainly. Some have already gone before they were sent. But the worldliness and nOll-spirituality of much that pertains to church life at home is driving multitudes to seek new and, to their minds, more securely spiritual channels for their missionary activity and generosity. Attempts to repress the growing missionary enthusiasm of these modern times, or failure to see and utilize it to the full, is eventuating in the multiplication of independent mission enterprises. Would that a great apprehension of the fact that God is trying to save the world as soon as possible, with an all-consuming determination to come up to the help of the Lord in this matter, might come on all Christian people at home! Then should we see such wonders as the world has as yet never witnessed.
SOME PECULIARITIES OF THE NATIVES OF CENTRAL AFRICA BY REV. DEWITT C. SNYDER, M.D., BROOKLYN, N. Y.
The natives of Africa watch the foreigners with eagle eye. Nothing seems to escape their notice; they promptly pick out his most prominent feature or characteristics and give him a name to correspond. If he wears glasses, he js named" mesu menal " (four eyes). If he is gruff and cruel, they call him" lumpumpa" (the surly one).
They are also extremely imitative. Their quick eyes note the foreign peculiarities of manner and dress, and they immediately proceed to copy the good and the bad alike. This imitation extends even to the tone and modulation of the voice. One can generally discover in what mission a Christian native has been instructed by hearing him pray. Not by the words he uses, but by the inflection of his voice.
After we settled at Luebo, the natives soon began to build their houses of clay, in imitation of our own. They surrounded them with verandas, not as roomy as those of the missionary, but only about two feet wide; these do not prove to be of much nse as places of rest and recreation, but still they are bu rnukelenga (like the white man's). The doors are no longer mere window-like holes, but reach to the ground. Within most of them may be found a small, home-made, rickety table, in imitation of those seen in the missionaries' homes.
These people are largely moved by a desire to please their teachers.
This is very noticeable in the religious training given them, and must be guarded against, or converts will have merely a parrot-like knowl- edge and experience. This desire also makes them very willing to learn. They absorb new ideas readily, and tho they may never improve what they borrow, they are, nevertheless, far from being mere machines.
An amnsing incident in c:onnection with this propensity to imi- tate happened shortly after Ollr arrival at Luebo. Having occa- sion one day to borrow some cloth, I wrote a note to a trader living across the ri ver, and re- quested the loan of three pieces of cloth. I gave the note, carefully folded, to a native, and told him to take it to the trader. When he returned with the cloth he re- marked to me, referring to the note, "That is strong medicine."
It would have cost him many a hard day's work to get three pieces of cloth from that trader, and it seemed a wonderful thing to him A NA'rrVE HUT NEAR LDEBO that a smallmukanda (book) like that could gain so easily and so This was the style of house built before the missionaries came quickly this very desirable end.
A few days later, presumably after much thinking, he came to my office, and, pointing to a newspaper lying near, asked me if I would give him a piece of it. Very readily I granted the request, and the matter passed from my mind, until a month or so later, when I learned that he had taken the sheet of newspaper, had carefully folded it, and carried it to a chief living a few miles north of our station, telling him it was a strong mu1canda (book) from the white man, and that it was a request from him for three goats, and that they were wanted immediately. lIe got the goats, and he and his friends had a feast.
One day, unexpected company coming, the host found himself without a clean table-cloth. He said to his native table boy, "Get a clean sheet and use it." When the guests sat down to dinner each one found at his plate, in lieu of a napkin, a neatly folded pillow- case. 'rhe boy evidently believed in the eternal fitness of things.
The African is highly superstitious, and stands in awe of all occult power. This perhaps accounts for the fact that it has been possible for one or two missionaries or traders to settle, unprotected by soldiers, among thousands of cruel and bloodthirsty savages.
The natives watch the foreigner at his work; they see him do
SOME PECULIARITIES OF NATIVES OF OENTRAL AFRICA
many things which are marvelous in their eyes. They ascribe these to a buanga (medicine) possessed by the wnite man which is stronger than any which their own medicine-men possess. They live in constant fear of the fetish doctors, to whom they ascribe the power of hoodooism. They believe that their lives can be blasted forever, that all manner of evil can come to them through the power of the witch doctors to "cast spells" over them, and they imagine that the maryelous things accomplished by the white mall by meallS of his imported machines must be due to some mighty ".hoodoo" power; therefore, they almost worship him. This was especially true in the earlier days at our stations, and is still true in the interior. Later, when they learned that they could do many of these things themselves, their reverence grew less and they became less fearfll1. To-day the white man who has not gained the love and respect of the native is held in contempt. I can remember the time when a native was afraid to attempt to kill a white man, thinking that his bnanga was so strong that a dire calamity would surely follow any such attempt.
Many of the characteristics of the natives are due to their training and their environments. They are very improvident and never lay up anything for a rainy day, simply because "rainy days" are unknown. They are lazy, because Nature is so lavish of her gifts and furnishes them with all they need with a minimum expenditure of labor. 'rhey are cruel and unkind, because they have never been taught to love. Parental love is here merely an instinct to protect and provide for their children, like that of dumb brutes for their offspring. The aged and sick are left to take care of themselves and die unattended.
IMPROVED HOUSES IN CENTRAL AFRICA These were bunt by missionaries for natives. Thay have the improved" verandas" and are made of clay. Hey. W. H. Sheppard, F.R.G.S., an African missionary of the PrpRhyt.~'rinn Board (South), is the nian tn white
All these things change under the benign influence of Christian teaching. Their environment improves as their horizon expands. They find that there is something better in life than mere animal existence. 'rhey develop a love for each other. The age,I and sick are cared for, and their personal appearance improves. T:p.ey learn that there is a future, not only for them but for their children, and discover that life can be made easier and more pleasurable by adopting the ways of civilization. 'l'hus they become industrious and learn the dignity of labor; they lay by of their stores, and some become comparatively wealthy. They provide for a future, not only here but hereafter.
The great problem confronting those who truly seek the best weI- .fare of the African is to discover what is the best eIllployment for them to follow. I believe strongly in industrial schoqls, where the natives may be taught the best way to develop the nat~ral resources of their country. .Agricultural work and cattle raising will furnish work for the great majority. The Roman Catholics ar~ 'letting a fine example to all workers in their system of child-training colonies. At times the priest takes a number of these children to the coast and shows them the ways of civilization, as exemplified in the great steamers, railroad shops, etc.
There is no grander work in the world for the white man than the endeavor to uplift the one hundred millions of people of Central Africa. In this day of " combines" and" trusts," what a magnificent thing it would be to see the Christians of the world forming a great "trust" for the giving of a Christian civilization to thele less fortunate people, commonly called "the heathen"! Such a combination of all denominations for this purpose could not fail to command the respect and help of every thinking man, and we believe that the riches of the world would flow freely into the treasury to ,be expended by a wisely selected board of managers.
In Central Africa the missionaries found no written language, and there were no school-books, dictionaries, or books of reference; consequently, the memory is wonderfully developed. I have delivered an address in the morning, and in the afternoon, at an examination, have heard them repeat it word for word, even to my mistakes in grammar.
Their "bump of location" is also remarkable. They know no north or south, and recognize east and west only as the places whence the sun comes and whither it goes. They are, of conrse, strong in their belief that the "sun do move." I took a native with me On one of my journeys which led us hundreds of miles from home. We traveled by steamer down one river and up another, and yet when we reached our destination he pointed out, at my request, the direction in which his far·away village lay. I knew it only by consulting a map, and he had never been away from home before and knew nothing of maps.
The Africans have eXMllent eyes, and can see much farther and
SOME PECULIARITIES OF NATIVES OF CENTRAL AFRICA
more accurately than their white brothers; but, strange to say, they can· distingl1lsh but three colors (strictly, only one color)-white, black, and red. They know no shades of color, so "pearl ash/' "elephant's breath," and" ecru" never worry them. What is not red or white is black. Light brown, as compared with black, would be white, but if compared with white they would call it black. They have no name for green, and so, if pressed for a name, call it white. I have come to the conclusion that while they see a difference in colors, they give names but to three. The reason for this may be due to the following facts: (1) Their bodie8 are black. And the night (just half of the twentyfour hours), of which they are so afraid, is black-"Mafik," as they say.
(2) 'fhe buanga, that transcends all other medicine, more powerful than witchflry itself, most potent in warding off evil spirits, the altar by which they swear eternal friendship, that with which they mark the arm in solemn pledge that they are telling the whole truth, is " Mpimba "-8 beautiful to/tite clay.
(3) The natives are highly snperstitious concerning the blood. Not only is it life, but it is also looked upon as a most sacr'.ld thing. In a quarrel, no matter how severe, no matter how many anger-provoking adjectives may be used, no matter how many blows may be struck, it can be amicably settled by a wise judge if no blood has been spilled. If, however, the smallest drop of blood is drawn, then a fight or a severe penalty is demanded before the matter can be settled. I have known the offended party to carefully preserve just one drop of blood by letting it dry hard on the arm, to convince me that all chance of compromise was past. Blood is used to revivify a fetish which has lost its power. Blood is poured out from a dying fowl at the feet of a fetish to pacify an angry spirit.
The three colors-Mafik (black), Matak (white), and Makunz (red)-are thus deeply impressed on the native mind, and hence are named and remembered.
The Kongo native is not vindictive, like the North American Indian. You may punish him to-day, and to-morrow it is forgotten.
As friends they are loyal and true. In the early days of the mission an insurrection arose at a state military station, and the revolting native soldiers, after killing the white officers and burning their houses, started down the valley to kill all the white people living there, the missionaries as well as traders. The Bakete, a tribe of some ten thonsand, were nearest neighbors to us, and we were apprehensive of their joining in the revolt. We had never proved them, and so did not know whether or not their protestations of friendship were sin- cere. We packed up all our belongings, and made ready to burn our houses and hide in the woods. As I was walking in the compound in front of the mission I was suddenly surrounded by about three hun- dred of the Bakete, each one armed with a spear, a knife, and the usual bow and arrows. All were in war-paint, and were accompanied by their trumpeter with his great war-trumpet of ivory. For a.
moment, I confess, my heart beat with unusual violence. The' chief, addressing me, said: " I hear that you and your people are going to leave. Why? " "It is strongly rumored," I replied, "that the revolting force of natives are coming to kill us; and as we have no desire to die in that way, we are going to hide in the woods." " Well," he said, "we are here to tell you to take vour people and goods to my village, and I and my warriors wiII come here. When we are all dead or overcome in this fight, then it will be time enough for you to go to the woods." Altho the Kongo State consists of but one class of people, they are di vided into numerous tribes and are distinguished from each other in various ways. Each tribe has its own peculiar tattoo mark. rrhey are very proud of this disfignration, and for this reason it is always on some exposed part of the body. A slave, when changing masters, never seeks a change of tribal-mark, but loyally clings to his birthright. In only one instance have I known the nati ves to change these insignia. Very seldom does a native marry ou tside his tribe-indeed, it is forbidden. He may buy a woman from another tribe, but she becomes his slave-wife, and her children, if any, are slaves. In the early days of the state Paul Le Marinel, a noted explorer, found near the Kongo River a large tribe of the Ba Nyanzi fighting among themselves. He persuaded one-half of the tribe, with their powerful chief, Nzapo.zap, to leave their village en masse and go with him. He located them at Luluaburg, a military station not far from our mission, amI they took the name of their chief, so that they are now known as the Nzapo-zaps. When this exodus took place most of the women were left at home, 80 that it became necessary for the men to . procure wives from the neighboring tribes. They took Baluba women. The Baluba are slaves. Wherever in Central Africa you see a slave you are safe in saying he or she is a Muluba. 'I.'he Nzapo-zaps are a proud race, and they retattooed all of the women whom they married, so one sees the tribal mark of a Ba Nyanzi cut over that of the Baluba, making a very peculiar combination, and at first very puzzling to a student of ethnology. The minds of the people inhabiting Central Africa are like the minds of children, unformed and capable of great development. They may be likened to a rich field of unbroken soil which needs but the intelligent hand of an honest and earnest cultivator to turn it into a rich and fertile farm. What a grand work is here for the Christian philanthrophist, if only it might be organized and placed in the hands of honest workers: The lifting up en masse, as it were, of one hundred million souls out of the miry clay of ignorance and superstition onto the solid rock of intelligence and Christian character!
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THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY LIBRARY rr HOW TO GET IT AND HOW TO USE BY MISS BELLE M. BRAIN, SPRINGFIELD, OHIO Author of " Missionary Readings for Missionary Programll!es," ek.
The rapid growth of missionary literature during the nineteenth century has undoubtedly heen one of the chief factors in the marvelous development of missionary interest in recent years. Information has been the key of interest, unlocking hearts and pocketbooks, sending missionaries to the field, and causing money to pour into missionary treasuries. It is a significant fact that the missionary society in Great Britain (the Ohurch Missionary Society), which expends the largest sums on missionary printing, has also the largest income for missionary work.
During the first eighteen centuries of the Ohristian era the literature of missions was limited indeed. Dr. Pierson has called our attention to the fact that when Ohrist gave His last command there was not one Ohristian book in existence. "The Ohurch had no literature for nearly a century, and had to wait fifteen centuries for a printingpress and three more for any missionary literature outside of the Acts of the Apostles." But during the past one hundred years so many gifted pens have been at work that there is now a vast catalogue of hooks on missions, that are intensely interesting and of a high order of literary merit. To make these hooks easy of access to the Ohurch, and to bring individual Ohristians into contact with them, is the purpose of the missionary library.
How to Secure a Library Missionary hooks, tho well printed, attractively bound, and finely illustrated, are, as a rule, so inexpensive that no church need he without at least a .small missionary library. Even churches in remote rural districts may, through well-directed effort, come into the possession of enough books to assist in preparing programs and make possible the formation of a study-class or reading-circle.
The best way to introduce the subject is to devote an evening to the importance of missionary reading and the corresponding need of a library. Oall it "An Evening with Missionary Books," and make the program as bright and attractive..as possible. Have SOme 'one give " A Ohat About Missionary Books," ~onduct an open parliament on "'rhe Most Interesting Missionary Book," and have selections read from some of the most famous books.
Having thus introduced the subject, the next step is to secure the books. There are several methods of doing this, each of which has proved successful in many churches: 1. Start a subscription paper and ask for contributions of money in sums ranging from five cents upward.
2. Make a list of aU the books desired, with the price of each, and canvas the congregation for persons willing to donate one volume. Strange to say, many who would refuse money will readily agree to buy a book. In some churches the desired result has been obtained by printing the list in the church calendar or publishing it on a bulletin-board. It is a good plan to ask the donors of the books to read them before putting them in the library.
3. A Christian Endeavor society in one of the larger cities secured a fine library by giving a book social. The missionary committee wrote to a prominent pu blishing house, and asked them to send a selection of their best missionary books on approval. At the social these books were put upon a table, and the members of the society were urged to examine them and buy the most attractive ones for the library.
4. Anothm' plan is to ask some one person in the church to give the library. Another is to devote part of the regular funds of the society to the purpose. 'These are undoubtedly the easiest ways, but probably not the best. On the principle that people care most for what costs them something, interest in a library given by many will be far greater than in one given by an individual or by the society as a whole.
5. In churches where it seems impossible to get either money or books, it is a good plan to ask those who have missionary books in their own libraries either to loan them for a limited time or give them outright. In this way the· nucleus of a library may be formed that will in time lead to better things.
Having obtained the library, it is important to keep it up to date by the addition of bright new books as they are issued from the press; otherwise interest in it will lag. In some societies a fund for this purpose is created by charging five cents for each book read and a fine of a cent a day for each book overdue.
The Kind of Books to Buy Great care must be exercised in selecting books for the library, especially when they must be limited in number. Books suitable for the purpose may be broadly divided into six classes, each of which should be represented by one or more volumes: .
1. Books on methods of work for the missionary committee. '['here are now a number of small and inexpensive ones that are almost indis- pensable to the missionary worker.
2. Historical books, such as Barnes' "Two Thousand Years of Missions Before Carey" and Leonard's" A Hundred Years of Mis- sions." Besides these the library should contain a history of missions in its own denomination, such as Speer's "Presbyterian Foreign Missions," or Merriam's" A History of American Baptist Missions."
3. Biographies of great missionaries. Since this is the· most
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fruitful of all missionary literature, it should be largely represented in the library. At the head of the list all will probably unite in placing Paton's matchless volumes, tho Blakie's "Personal Life of David Livingstone," Hamlin's" My Life and Times," Griffis' "Verbeck, of Japan," and many others, are scarcely less popular. Bryan's" Life of John Kenneth Mackenzie:' has a double value, giving not only the story of a great life, but also vivid pictures of medical missionary work in China.
4. Books descriptive of foreign lands and people. These include such delightful books as Gale's "Korean Sketches," Denning's " Mosaics fro'm India," and Smith's "Chinese Characteristics." Under this head, too, come books of travel. These must be chosen with special care, for many of them give wrong impressions of missionary work and incorrect information about missionary lands. Some of them, however, are perfectly reliable and much too valuable to be omitted. It was Cook's "Voyages," an early book of travels, that fed Carey's missionary impulse and inspired the great wave of interest throughout Great Britain that culminated in the purchase of the Duff, and the sending out of the first band of missionaries to the South Seas in 1796.
5. Stories of missionary work in heathen lands. There are often as fascinating as the most romantic fiction, They include such thrilling books as Young's "On the Indian Trail," Pierson's "Miracles of Missions," and Chamberlain's "In the Tiger Jungle" and "The Cobra's Den."
6. Books of missionary fiction founded upon fact. These are invaluable, appealing to a class of readers that nothing else will touch. "The Bishop's Conversion," "The Sign of the Cross in Madagascar," "A Chinese Quaker," and others of a similar character undoubtedly have a great mission to perform.
Two classes of books it would be well to avoid: large and expensive volumes that are of value mainly to specialists, and old and uninteresting books that are of little use to anybody. Because a book is old, however, it is not necessarily uninteresting. "Missionary Enterprises in the South Sea Islands" was written by John Williams threequarters of a century ago, yet few books of recent date surpass it in interest.
How to Use the Library The first requisite to a well-managed library is a good librarian, upon whose energy and enthusiasm much of its success depends, The ideal librarian should be thoroughly interested in missions and well acquainted with missionary books, willing to assist those in search of material for papers and talks, and able to suggest books to individual readers suited to their taste and likely to win their attention.
The library should be kept in a prominent place, easy of access to
all, either on a shelf or in a case without doors, so that the books can be examined and taken out at pleasure. If the case has doors, either keep them unlocked or take them off altogether. This may occasionally result in the loss of a book, bu t it is better to lose a few books than to bury"them in a closed case where they are seldom or never nsed.
But while it is wise to make the books easy of access, strict rules should be made requiring them to be returned within a given timesay, two weeks, as in other libraries, with a possible extension, provided no one is waiting for the book. All books should be marked with the name of the church or society, and a careful record kept of the dates on which they are taken out and the name of the person taking them.
'The books should be kept uncovered-at least, unt.il the bindings become worn and unsightly from use. On this point Mr. Harlan P. Beach says: "I have learned from our college work that it is not best to cover missionary books. If you cover them you put a coffin around them, and that is the end of them."
Having secured the library and put it in good running order, the next problem is how to get the books read. The old adage, "You may take a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," finds its parallel in the missionary committee that leads a society up to a wellfilled case of attractive books, but can not induce anyone to read them.
But suclI a committee need not despair. Experience proves that by persistent effort and the use of tactful methods an appetite for missionary literature can be created that will make the books in demand. The results that follow are so great and so lasting as to be worth all the effort expended. "One good missionary book carefully read," says a wise worker, « is of more permanent value than a dozen speeches."
The first thing for the missionary committee to do is to set a good example by reading the books themsel ves. Otherwise, as Professor Amos R. Wells wittily says, "they will be in the position of a bald-headed man selling a hair-restorer!" Having faithfully taken this first step, the committee will be in a position to put into execution Some of the schemes devised by missionary workers to induce people to read. Here are a dozen plans, each of which has been tried with good success: 1. When planning programs for the meetings, provide a number of topics that necessitate the use of missionary books. In assigning these to the members of the society, furnish with them a list of references to books in the library where suitable material may be found.
2. Print lists of all the interesting missionary books available, not only in the missionary library, but in the Sunday-school and public libraries as well, and distribute them among the young people. Then
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ask them to pledge themselves to read a given number ina given time -one a month, four a year, or two during the summer vacation. It will add to the interest to keep a record of all the books read, either in a blank-book or on a sheet. of cardboard hanging on the wall.
3. Make short, bright book reviews or hook summaries a feature of the program. and when new hooks are added to the library, give "book notices" of them, calling attention to their most attractive featuret'o 4. Professor Wells makes the following good suggestion: "Have a bold placard staring people in the face In the prayer-meeting room, bearing on it the words, 'Have you read "The Cobra's Den"?' or whatever book it is desired to push at the time."
. 5. At the close of some missionary meeting, or at a missionary social, put all the books in the library on a table and ask those present to examine them. Turning the leaves and looking at the pictures will often lead people to read the books.
6. Organize a missionary reading-circle to meet successively at different houses for the purpose of reading aloud some interesting book. This is an excellent way to develop a taste fOl' missionary literature. So also is the study-class, which provides for the thorough study of one book, and necessitates frequent reference to others.
7. Have selections from the most popular books read at missionary meetings and missionary socials. Now here can bette!' llJaterial for the missionary elocutionist be found than here. For the missionary meeting the following selections would be both entertaining and appropriate: "The Sinking of the Well," John G. Paton.
.. God on the Rock," from "On the rndian Trail."
" In the Tiger Jungle," from Jacob Chamberlain's well-known book. "A Sabbath-keeping Baker," from" .My Life and Times." " A Life for It Life," from "The A postle of the North, James Evans."
For a missionary social, nothing could be more entertaining or mirth-provoking than such readings as " The Korean Boy," from" Korean Sketches." "Nelwang's Elopement," from "The Story of John G. Paton." "The Spotted Tiger Foiled," from" The Cobra's Den." "Mackay as Undertaker," from" Mackay, of Uganda," by his sister.
S. For some missionary meeting select three books, and ask three persons each to read one of them and come prepareu to relate the most thrilling experience recorded in it. For another meeting ask five persons to read five biographies and give the strongest lessons to be learned from them. Or have ten persons read ten books and give an instance of answered prayer recorded in each. Still another plan is to assign each chapter of a book to a different person and 11aye it reviewed as a seriel, each person giving the gist of a chapter.
9. Many who would refuse to read an entire book can be induced
to read brief portions of one. For this purpose keep a list of references to books in which interesting chapters and paragraphs can be found.
10. The pastor can do much to promote missionary reading by suggesting interesting books to be read. It was the custom of Dr. Arthur Mitchell to take a book and read it and master it, imd then give his people the most striking incidents in it, clothing them in his own language. The result was that his people were fined with missionary zeal, and each church he served as pastor became a leader in missionary work.
11. Distributing the following qnestions among the young people, or discussing them at some meeting, will reveal to them how much time they devote to works of fiction and how little to books on missions, and perhaps induce them to pursue a better course: How many novels have you read? How many missionary books? What novel did yon read last? What missionary book? What novel do you expect to read next? "Vhat missionary book?
12. The " Unanimous Library" scheme devised by Mr. W. L. Amerman, of New York City, is an excellent one that could be used to advantage everywhere. The idea is for each society to buy a book (for obvious reasons it is best to select a small one), with the understanding that it is to be read by every member of the society. In order to "make it unanimous," some are induced to read it who would not otherwise do so. In pursuance of this plan a large number of Christian Endeavor societies in the New York City Union bought a little library of four small books and endeavored to get these read by all their members. The results were surprising. In one church where there were three societies (junior, intermediate, and senior) one book was read by fOllr hundred and thirty-eight different persons within a given time.
Utilizing the Public Library If a free public library is accessible, the material in it should be utilized. The number of volumes on strictly missionary topics is usually somew hat limited in pn blic libraries, bnt the departments of history, biography, travel, ethnology, and sociology contain a great wealth of lllaterial that is invaluable to the student of missions. In most libraries this material is little used, largely because it is unknown.
By concerted action 011 the part of the missionary workers of any community, the quantity of missionary literature ill the public library may be considerably enlarged and its circulation greatly increased. Here are some of the privileges which have been sought and obtained in many large libraries that might be secured by missionary workers everywhere: 1. A special catalogue of all the books bearing directly or indirectly all the subject of missions.
1903J THE FOREIGN MISSIONARY LIBRARY
2. The massing of all books bearing on missions in a special alcove -temporarily, if /Jot permanently.
3. One or more shelves devoted to strictly missionary hooks. 4. The addition of new books, from time to time, recommended by missionary workers and needed by them for special wvrk. 5. A special rack in the reading-room, upon which current numbers of the leading missionary magazines may be found.
In many states there is now a well-developed system of traveling libraries, by means of which a good assortment of books may be obtained for the cost of transportation. These libraries, too, should be utilized by missionary workers, especially in localities where there is no public library and the books accessible are limited in number.
A SUGGESTED LIST OF FIFTY VOLUMES BOOKS ON METHODS OF WORK FORKIGS LANDS AND PEOPLES 1. The Missionary Manual. 'Wells. 26. Chinese Characteristics. Smith. Revell ………….. $125 United Society of Christian Endeavor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ .35 27. Among the Mongols. Gilmour. 2. Missionary Methods for the Misslon- American Tract Society . . . .. 1.00 ar~ Committees. Park. Revell. .25 28. Gist of Japan. Peery. Revell. .. 1.25 3. MiSSIOnary Spoke of the Epworth 29. Persian Life and Customs. Wilson.
Wheel. Cooper and Brockman. Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.25 30. Korean Sketches. Gall. Revell.. 1.00 Eaton & Mains. . . . . . . . .. .25 31. Siam and Laos as Seen by Our 1. Fuel for Missionary Fires. Brain. Am~rican Missionaries. Presby- United Society of C. E. . .35 terian Board of Publication. " 1.50 5. Fifty Missionary Programs. Brain. 32. From Far Formosa. Mackay. Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1.25 United Society of C. E. . .35 33. Mosaics from India. Denning. Revell ., ……….. 125 HISTORIES OF MISSIONs 34. With Tibetans in Tent and Temple. Rijnhart. Rel·ell…… . 1.50 6. Two Thousand Years of Missions Be- 35. Arabia, the Cradle of Islam. Sam- fore Carey. Barnes. Christian uel M. Zwemer. Revell…… 2.00 Culture Press . . . . . . . . . . $1.50 NARRATIVES OF MISSIONARY WORK 7. One Hundred Years of Missions. Leonard. Funk & Wagnalls. .. 1.50 36. Miracles of Missions. Fierson.
8. Missionary ExpanSion Since the Funk & Wagnalls. 4 vols. Each $1.00 Reformation. Graham. Revell 1.25 37. On the Indian Trail. Young.
9. New Acts of the Apostles. Pierson. Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . " 1.00 Baker & Taylor Company . . .. 1.50 38. In the Tiger Jungle Chamberlain.
10. A Denominational History of Mis- 39. Th~eC~'ra's ·Del;. . . Ch"a';'b·e;l~i1~. 1.00 sions ………….. .
BIOGRAPHY 11. John G. Paton (autobiography, 3 vols. in 1). Revell. . . . . . . . $1.50 12. Mackay of Uganda. By His Sister. Revell . . . . . ' . . . . ' . 1.00 Armstrong . . . . . . . . . . . 1.50 40. Sketches from the Dark Continent. Hotchkiss. Friends' Bible Insti- 13. Personal Life of David Livingstone. Blaikie. Revell . . . . . . . . 1.50 14. Mary Reed. Jackson. Revell . . , .75 tute, Cleveland. . . . . . . . " 1.00 15. Verbeck of Japan. Griffis. Revell 1.50 41. Transformation of Hawaii. Brain.
Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . " 1.00 16. Apostle of the North: James Evans. 42. Missionary Enterprises in the South Young. Revell . . . . . . . . . 1.25 Sea Islllnds. Williams. Presby- 17. John Kenneth Mackenzie. Brysvn. terian "Hoard of Publication. ' . 1.2; Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . . , 1.50 43. Amid Greenland's Snows. Page.
18. Marcus Whitman and the Early Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Days of Oregon. Mowry. Silver, 44. Sao Thah. Bunker. Revell. . " 1.00 Burdett & Co.. . . . . . . , 1.50 45. Protestant Missions in South Amer- 10. James nhalmers. Autobiography ica. Student Volunteer Moveann Letters. Lovett. Revell.. 1.50 20. Joseph Hardy Neesima. Davis. Re- ment …………. " .50 vell. . . . . . . . .. 1.25 MISSIONARY FICTION 21. James Hannington. Da1Dson. A. D. 46. The Chinese Quaker. Eyster.
F. Randolph & Co.. . . . . . .. 2.00 Revell . . . . . . . . . . . , . . $1..'10 22. Faith Working by Love. (Life of 47. The,Sign of t'1eCrosR in Madagascar. Fidelia Fiske). D. T. Fiske. The Fletcher. Revell . . . . . . . " 1.00 48. The Chinese Slave Girl. Davis. Pilgrim Press . . . . . . . . . ' 1.75 23_ Modern Heroes of the ~1isson Field. Walsh. Thomas Whittaker. .. 1.00 Presbyterian Board of Publica- 24. My Life and Times. Hamlin. Re- tion. . . . . . . . . . . .75 49. The Bishop's Conversion. If'lWweU.
veil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ' 1.50 Eaton & Mains . 1.50 25. Latin America. Hubert W. Brown. 50. The Sky Pilot. Ralph "onnor. Revell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , 1.25 Revell . . . . . . . . . 1.25 [The editors hope that these excellent suggestions from Miss Brain will be followed out by pastors and societies of adults and young people. The most important thing is not to try all the plans or to wait until the best is found, but to select one at least, and try that heartily and diligently. We invite correspondence on this subject as to what methods have actually proved most fruitfuJ.-EDlTORS.]
THE PROBLEM OF EVANGELIZING THE YOUNG MEN OF NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS BY REV. F. W. ANDERSON, TORONTO One of the most serious difficulties in the work of the Church of Christ in Christian lands has been expressed in that apt phrase, "The Young Man Problem." Account for it as we Jllay, it has become a very real problem in our day to know how to hold the young men in our churches, and to retain their active interest in the worship and service of the Church. Our ministers feel this strongly, and yet how few of them seem really able to find any solution for the problem. They preach special sermons for young men, and they get their choirs to prepare special music to assist in making the service attractive. The young people's societies are suffering greatly; more and more their offices have to be filled up by women where the young men would be much more in place. The boys slip out of the Sundayschool'and are lost, for a time at least, in spite of the earnest efforts put forth to retain them. In too many cases the home, too, is losing its. hold on the boys as they come to that time of life when the attractions of the outside world seem to cater more to their youthful fancies and ambitions. How to reach, protect, and save these youths is a very grave question, for the integrity of the home, the Church, and the State as Ohristian institutions depends largely on the solution of that problem. To help solve this problem there has been raised up in recent years, in Protestant Europe and America, an agency of the Church, working along interdenominational lines, and the Young Men's Christian Association has found a place, and is to-day doing a work such as make:;; it worthy of strongest possible support.
But if this question is a serious one in America and Europe, with all the helpful influences from centuries of Christian civilization, the shelter and protection of the Christian home, and the organized effort of the Christian Church to teach and guide and save her young men, how much greater must be the problem of evangelizing the young men in non-Christian lands, where ignorance and superstition, and even immorality, have been at the very foundation of the religious systems under whose influence they have been brought up.
It has been stated, according to very careful estimate, that there are something over two hundred millions of young men livipg in the lands whi0h are non-Christian,or where the Roman Catholic type of the Chriit'ian religion has become degraded to a lower level than almost any heathen religion.
In China there are found some eighty millions of young men, in India sixty millions, in Africa thirty millions, in Japan and the Pacific Islands twenty millions, in the Levant ten millions, and in the papal
EVANGELIZING YOUNG MEN OF NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS
countries of Mexico, Central and South America about ten millions more.
The condition of these young men, and the circumstances in which they are living, must be seen to be understood. It is quite beyond the comprehension of those of us who have always been accustomed to the environment of a Christian community, and who know only the standards which young men in our horne lands have before them.
Physically many of these young men might be considered our superiors, others we could count as our equals, but the great majority are weakened in body, not only because of their inferior manner of living, but especially as a result of the immoralities of the race from which they have sprung and the vices in which they themselves indulge.
Some of the brightest minds in the world may be found in the Orient, but in most cases the heathen young man is inferior in mind as well as in body, because of the dense cloud of ignorance and superstition in which his people have been so long enshrouded. All he needs is a chance.
But the greatest difference, in contrasting the condition of the non~Christian young man with that of his brother who has been brought up in a Christian country, is found in the moral side of his nature. Here we find his standards low, but his life is usually lower, and in many cases he is utterly depraved. He has not been able to see God, not alone because his heart is not pure, but because the knowledge of the true and living God, who alone can make clean the heart of man, has been withheld from him; and without God he is without hope.
Could we but fully understand the real condition of the lives of these heathen ypung men, and honestly consider the question of their need, the unanimous verdict from those who have realized the enlightening, uplifting, purifying power of the Gospel of God's grace would surely be that Jesus Christ, and His power to save and to keep, is the paramount need of the sorely tempted man in the heathen land, as well as in Christian America. We find the ancient civilization of these lands to be fast crumbling away. Their systems of ethics and morality have proven inadequate. The native religions have long been known by their fruits. There is a need far greater and a demand much mor~ imperative than for better education and an advance in Western civilization, which without the Western religion is utterly vain. Jesus Christ, the world's Redeemer, alone can answer the mute appeal.
The present time is recognized to be a time of unparalleled opportunity for the work of evangelizing the heathen nations of the world, and if this is true in general, it, is particularly true in regard to the class we are considering. Altho it is found that the great majority of the people in these lands dwell in rural districts, and mainly in vil-
lages and small towns, still the cities are not only the centers of com- mercial activity, but they also are the centers of political and literary influence. In China alone there are some eleven cities with an aver- age population of nearly a million people, while there are in all some- thing over one thousand nine hundred large cities in that empire, each with its dense population and relative importance. As an educational center the city of the Orient is very important, for there the coming leaders of the people are being trained. In Calcutta, India, there are some ten thousand students regularly attending the colleges which prepare for the examinations of the University of Calcutta, and that institution examined last year over thirteen thousand men who came from all parts of the Indian Empire. In addition to these, there are thirty thousand high-school boys, many of whom arc preparing for the university work, and thirty thousand educated natives who are employed in government and other important service. '1'hen Calcutta, with its population of nearly a million souls, has as many as two hun- dred thousand young men who speak the vernacular language, and about five thousand European young men.
Nevcr before has there been such a spirit of inquiry and desire for enlightenment as is to-day manifested by the young men of the Orien t. The advance of Western civilization and education and business enterprise is bringing about a gradual but steady change in the attitude of the people toward that which is Occidental. The thirst for education is becoming so great that young men are willing to su bmit to almost any condition, if only they can drink at the fountain of learning. And so the Christian school and college are filling a very important place in the plan of evangelization. But the government institutions, e8tablished for both primary and higher education, are attracting an increasingly large number of those who do not care to come under the influence of the Christian religion. With this education along Western lines the faith of the people is being undermined. Where the light breaks in the darkness must disappear, and so in the heathen world, where the light of reason and science and advanced civilization has come there is a manifest shaking of the old faith which was based so largely on superstition. If this is true to-day of those who are becoming educated-the destined leaders of the people -it will sooner or later be true of the people whom they will lead. Thc old religions will not have the hold upon the coming generation which they have had upon those who have gone before. The opportunity, therefore, is great, and the present responsibility is serious. It is a time almost of crisis. We must strive to give to these young men the knowledge of the Christian religion, which we believe alone can satisfy their craving after light ana truth, and which will enable them to be leaders in the highest sense.
. It is important. to evangelize these young men at the opportune
EVA"iGELIZING YOUNG MEN OF NON-CHRISTIAN LANDS
time, because of their influence as leaders upon the organized work for the evangelization of tileir people. '1'he missionary is aided or impeded ill iJis work, eitlu'}' as an ewngelist or doctor or teacber, by the attitude of the official and illfluential class in the community. By them the attitude and interest of the people is largely determined. How very desirable, then, to have these leading men brought under the direct influence of the Christian religion before they enter upon their official duties! If they become favorably disposed toward Christianity, and, better, if they become followers of Christ themsehes, then they will be sympathetic and helpful to the missionary and his work in the smaller towns and villages to which they return. Again, the foreigner nnd his work mllst be considered only a primary necessity in the work of evangelization; the large burden of r~sponsibility must finally rest upon the native agency, and from the educated classes in every country the native pastors and evangelists must come. Hence tbe advantage of dohlg an effeclive work on behalf of these young men in the educational centers, that they may be won for Christ, and then trained for the work of the native ministry.
But, after all, the real problem is found in the question of how these two hundred millions of young men may be reached and influenced by the Gospel. There is, of course, the quiet but forceful influence which is constantly exerted in connection with the missionary wherever his work is established. The boys are being taught in the schools, and they will soon bo the young men of whom the trainingclasses will be formed, and some of them may ultimately become the llative workers anli pastors. Then the faithful missionary evangeiist is over striving to win for Christ and His servioe the young men who listen to his preaching and come to him for private interviews regarding the truth which he has proolaimed. But, as we have seell, a large and influential class of the nation's young men are in the large cities and college centers of the land, and it is with these classes the missionary finds at the same time his largest opportunity and his greatest difficulty. His ordinary methods of work wiII not avail to reach the student olass, and he finds it next to impossible to do anything for the large class of commercial you ng men in tho big city.
Recognizing their inability to at all adequately overtake this very important line of missionary endeavor, and at the same time carryon their regular work, the missionaries in different countries, and in many capital cities and educational centers, have united in their appeal to the Young Men's Christian Association of America to undertake, on behalf of these classes of young men in non-Christian lands, a work similar to that which has been so effective in the home land as the cooperative agency of the churches. It was in response to the first appeal that one of the Recretaries of the International Committee of the Y. 11. O. A. made a tour of investigation in 1888, and in the
following year the first two association secretaries were sent out, one to India and the other to Japan.
From this as a starting-point, the work has gone on with increasing efficiency and development. During 1901 the International Committee had twenty-two representatives, with headqnarters in fifteen different centers in India, Ceylon, China, Japan, Korea, and South America. During 1902 some ten new men were added to the force of secretaries, and several new cellters have been opened np.. Special attention is given to developing the work among the students and educated natives, and the influence of this work is great. Evangelistic meetings are held, and Bible classes for inquirers and also for Christians are conducted, while the secretaries have all the personal interviews they can attend to. All this work is carried on with the. hearty support and cooperation of the missionary force. No new field has been opened up without the urgent request of the foreign missionaries and the influential natives interested, and the limit to which this work may be extended and developed is bounded, not by the need nor the opportunity, but by the number of propcrly trained leaders and the home cooporation necessary to support their effort.
THE GENESIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN REVIVAL * BY DR. W. WARREN, LONDON, ENGLAND There are few who have not heard of the remarkable religious awakening which has cOllle to Australia and the neigh boring British colonies. This was started in Melbourne and spread through a large part of Eastern Australia.
As is natural in a colony, most people in Melbourne are busily engaged in daily toil and few have leisure. Money and pleasure are unquestionably the dominant forces. We have heard that there are two things an Australian will not grudge to pay for-a good feed and a good laugh I The people are educated, earnest, and energetic; they appreciate what is good, and are responsive and gracious. Heligion, education, and reading of the Scriptures is excluded from the state school, but Sunday-school work is prosecuted with earnestness and efficiency. The greater part of the people go to no place of worship, yet church life and work is on the whole active. RomanisIl1 shows increasing pertinacity. Her buildings are in evidence everywhere. High-class education is offered at low rates, thus drawing into their schools the children of many Protestants. In s[ch a com- • Dr. Warren was a practising physician in Melbourne, Australia, for over twenty year", and yet found time to engage in mission and Sunday-school work. He was on four missionary councils, and acted as medical referee, and was Honorary Director of a Missionary Training and Testing Home for Youn,~ 'Vornen. Frorn a considerable vantage-ground it was thus po-· sible for him to gauge the pulse of Christian life in the city, and to note its progress and development.-EDITORS.
THE GENESIS OF THE AUSTRALIAN REVIVAL
munity there is ample room for aggressive Gospel effort, and no spirit- filled man need wait long for a respectful hearing from a responsive and devout congregation. An evidence of this is supplied by the keen and generous response to appeals on behalf of the heathen both in men and money; to-day many an Australian name is found on the martyr-roll of China.
Nearly twenty years ago an evangelization society was formed, fol- lowing the lines of a similar one in England, and guided by the experienced hand of a former agent of the parent society, then engaged in bnsiness in Melbourne. For many years faithful men, such as the late Rev. John McNeil, had been preaching, both in and outside their own churches and denominations, the free and full Gospel of the grace of God. The Y. M. C. A. building also formed a center of active and varied work, and here took place once a month the gathering of the members of "The Hible and Prayer Union."
Out of this grew an annual convention held in the city every August.
Both of these assemblies drew together the godly folk from all sec- tions of the church.
In 1891 the visit of the Rev. G. C. Grubb and his party was· attended by widespread and lasting results. There were many con- versions in each district, and the quickening of believers was very notable. .
Yet another factor in the process by which the way of the Lord was being prepared for the great revival of 1902 was" The Band of Prayer," inaugurated by John McNeil and four other ministers in the year 1889, and which has continued to meet for eighteen years every Saturday afternoon for two hours praying for the Great Revival, which has now come. These men have continued" praying al ways with all prayer anu supplication in the Spirit," and frequently spending whole nights in " waiting," like their Master.
In September, 1891, the first convention for the promotion of deeper spiritual life (on the model of Keswick) was held at Geelong,* and has been continued annually since. The energetic and tireless McNeil was until his ueath the secretary of the movement.
Hundreds of believers came together and were richly blessed. Sins were confessed, debts were paid, conciliations effected, presentation of jewelry and large gifts of money to missionary work were some of the results.
Out of the weekly missionary prayer-meeting grew the home cir- cles of prayer, thirty of which Mrs. Warren started as the nucleus of preparation for the" revival in Australia," and which speedily grew to two thousand one hundred when Messrs. 'rorrey and Alexander arrived in Melbourne, April, l!J02. These meetings formed a leading feature in this latest and blessed widespread and spreading revival.
• A small city forty miles [rom lHelbournc. This meeting superseded the one in August.
The missionaries at once fel t the preparedness of the soil and the ready response to their Gospel appeals.
Years rolled on, and conY('ntions came and went. At length the Australian Evangelization Society had an intercolonial petition drawn up and widely signed, inviting n. L. Moody to come to our help as God's messenger. This he would gladly baye done, but his physicians forbade the long sea jonrney. The writer and a friend were in Chicago, in January, 1901, on their way borne to Australia. They heard H. A. Torrey preach and instrnct his great class at the Moody Bible Institute, and came to the conclusion 'that he was the man to meet Australia's need. He considered the matter favorably, and after a very sllccessful tour in Japan and China, came to Melbourne in April, 1902. Every house in each district was twicc visited before the mission opened, and the inmates were invited to attend. Within a few weeks the Spirit of God laid hold of the Christians, and there was a conscious assnrancc that the city and its suburbs of near five hundred thousand population were going to be moved as never before. All evangelical churches and associations drew together. A committee of seventy got to work, out of which grew six sub·committees, dealing respectively with finance, tents and halls, music, advertisements, missionaries, and prayer-meetings. The sn burbs were divided into fifty mission centers, with fifty local missionaries, drawn from all the states and represen tillg every scction of the Church. Thirty large tents were secured, as well as the largest halls. The city town hall and several of the theaters were engaged, and before the mission closed the exhibition building, which seats seven thousand, was nsed, and even this proved inadequate. Here a choi;' of one thousand two hundred voices, with the great organ and the silvery aid of a piano, led the praise and song.
Simultaneonsly, and for seven weeks preceding the mission, a chain of prayer was sustained, meetings being held finally in tiro thousand homes on 'l'ucsday evenings, at which some forty thousand attended. This wave of prayer from believing and expectant hearts 80c11re(1 and assu,red success. Whole families were brought to Christ, as well as infidels, pu b1ica1ls, and actresses.
The" Decision Day" among the children was a day of ingathering, and, among others, the boys and girls ill the colleges were reached. In one Sunday-school every scholar in the first three classes of young men and women openly confessed Christ. One Christian Endeavor Society has received an addition of fifty members as the result of the IlllSSlOn. A suburban church has had two hundred new members added, while in one suburban Sunday-school, on "DeciGion Day," more than one hundred scholars openly gave themselves to Jesus Christ, each professing convert right through the mission signing an acceptance card. A policeman averred that since the mission opened in his
A CONVERTED DRUNKARD AND A CONVERTED SALOON
district, he and his fellow-constables had had practically nothing to do. Theatrical managers declared that if the mission continued they would have to close their establishments.
One Wednesday was set apart for fasting and prayer, and Dr. Torrey said that the meetings ou that day had been attended with more power than on any ·previously. A notable feature of the work was the midday meetings at the city town ball, which seats two thousand five hundred. Some women had to be excluded from this business men's meeting; but they demanded one of their own, and agail! the great hall was filled with women daily, from 12 o'clock to 12.45'; and finally a Bible-reading for people of leisure was held from 3 to 4 P.}!.
Do you wonder? God's people were in earnest, the Holy Spirit was gi-en His )Vay and sway, and believers greeted each other with: "The big revival has begun. Glory to God 1·' These results were obtained in answer to direct, persistent, and believing prayer. So were t.he revivals in America in 1830 and 1857, and in the North of Ireland ill 1859, and that in Japan in 1901. The proposition, then, is: we can have a great revival if we desire and pray for it. Then how great is onr guiltiness, and how eternal will be our loss, if we do not "give ourselves unto prayer"! The world does not know what is the matter with it, nor what it needs. But we do! Shall we not take up and em brace our responsibility?
A CONVERTED DRUNKARD AND A CONVERTED SALOON AN ACCOUNT OF THE MISSION OF THE LIVING WATERS * BY J. A. RICHARDS, ESQ., NEW YORK It is a great and glorious transformation when a man or a woman who has been using both body and mind in the service of Satan begins to nse them in the servifOe of the Master; it is a similar blessed metamorpbosis when a building which has been used for dragging men hellward by dispensing" fire-water" begins to lift them heavenward by offering freely the " Water of Life."
Brother John Jaeger, a convert of the McAuley Water Street Mission, has for some years been conducting the Mission of the Living Waters. When he was converted he scarcely knew a word of English, and could neither read nor write. He was a man of wretched life, soaked in all sorts of sin. SinfOe his conversion the Lord has made him one of the sweetest-spirited men 1 ever knew:. God taugpt him to read in a marvelous way, and since that time he has been • This rescue mission at 136 Christie Street, New York City, is frequently spoken of as John Jaeger's Mission, since he was its founuer and luissionary.
steadily growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Word. The work also has been constantly opening up, and brighter prospects have been held out to him from time to time in the Kingdom of Grace, through much tribulatioll, however, and severe trial oftentimes, but lle is always victorious because of the presence and power of the Spirit of Christ, on whom he absolutely depends. He is now confined most of the time to his bed from palsy, but hi~ wife and helpers carry on the work with the blessing of God.
– From a soul-winning truck-driver ,Tohn Jaeger became sexton of the· DeWitt Memorial Church, and grad ually was more and more set apart for the Lord's work, until finally, nine years ago, he came to my house in MOlltclair, N. J., to speak at a meeting in the evening, giving his experience. He told me at that time that there was an old safoon across the way from where he was working ".hich he greatly coveted for the Lord. I talked with several brethren in MOlltclair concerning the matter, and one day in my office it occurred to me to say to a Montclair friend, "Why not form a Jaeger Syndicate?" (speak- ing commercially). lIe agreed to the suggestion, but the amollnt we agreed to invest was small, and we dropped the subject. That day when I came in from lunch I stepped to the desk of one of my asso- ciates and saw thereon a copy of the American Baptist. As I allowed my eyes to rest upon it without any serious intent they fell on this statement: .
How apt we are, like Philip, to magnify our needs and overlook our resources. Andrew teaches the important lesson of keeping our eye constantly upon what we have in hand and using it faithfully as far as it goes. If we only keep on the alert to do this, our scanty resources will, under the favoring touch of Heaven, accomplish incalculable good. Let us not be deterred from entering upon a work for the Master, even tho there he in sight only a lad with five barley loaves and two small fishes. Shall we be afraid to adopt the credit (trusting) system in our Master's business, and refuse to tnrn a wheel until four 01' five hundred penny worth of bread has accumulated on our hand, while the harley loaves and fishes are within reach for inlmediate use. How long will it be before we learn the wisdom of the children of this world?
My thought was immediately arrested, and I felt deeply impressed that this was a message from God that the mission should be started immediately. The vacant saloon was rented, and it was soon transformed into a mission house, with Brother John living in rooms above it. The beer stand became the Bible stand, and many of the old fixtures were reconsecrated to the service of the Lord. From that day to this, now over nine years, there have been meetings held in this room every night in the week and twice on Sundays, almost without cessation.
During all this time the Lord has supplied the needs. Some of those who have taken the l'm;ponsibiiity of the work have been seri-
1903J A CONVERTKJ) DRUNKARD AND A CONVERTED SALOQ.N
ously straitened, partly by reason of sacrifice made. But what of that? The work of the Lord goes on and souls are saved every night, and the Word of God is sown in men's hearts in such a way that they can not forget it.
Brother John is a remarkable man, and has been used in a marvel- ous way by the Holy Spirit. Coming from among the poorest and vilest, he was so entirely recreated that he has always been a miracle to those who knew him in his former life. Over and over again some oj' his old associates have stumbled into his mission, and have been amazed to find him there preaching the Gospel, and llIany of them have been quickened and saved. His methods are mos't searching and straightforward. As he says, in his broken English: I can not schpeak in any flavor-ed language; no cologne words for me. The men must be told just what they are and where they are going, and then they are. ready to receive the message that Jesus Christ will save them.
Frequently while talking he would walk down the aisle and take hold of the arm ami hand of one whom he saw was impressed and lead him, unresistingly, to the bench in front.
On the walls of the mission is a large rack, on which are pipes, bags of tobacco, opium pipes, and other things, which men have given up when they surrendered to Jesus Christ. This John calls a " picture 0 f the devil's face."
Mrs. Jaeger has been a wonderful help to her husband in his work. No man is too low for her kind word and hearty hand-shake, no filth is too vile to prevent her seeing through it the soul of 011e who needs the Lord Jesus Christ. They come into direct contact with all sorts oj' sins, and are a constant rebuke and a constant blessing to those among whom they live.
The testimonies of the converts are marvelous. Almost all races of men, Jew and GOl,tile, bond and free, burglar and thief, and even the" respectable sinner," are saved at the bench of the mission. The same Jesus is made available to everyone, and John would frequently jump from English to German and from German to English again in the one exhortation, and hundreds of Germans, ral'ionalists, formal Lutherans, Roman Catholics, have been saved. John was himself a Romanist, and knows bow to deal with them. It is marvelous how he has been able to save the Jews also. His lingering presence is like a benediction, and he and his wife still direct the work with the assistance of John Hollis, one of the converts. At the ninth anniversary meeting, a few weeks ago, the mission was fiilled with converts, some recent and others of long standing, but all testifying to the power of God through Christ.
As the old saloon was a drinking-place, so it was determined that the new mission house should be a place where the" living waters"
should be given to any thirsty soul. Christ found no fault with drinking, but said on the last great day of the feast: "If any man thirst let him come unto Me." The question is not, "Shall a man drink?" but" What shall he drink?" "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit?" So those who pass the door see that there is a llew kind of saloon opened there, and drinks are free. 'They do not understand it, and many are ~ttracted by the very name.
Christie Street runs parallel with the Bowery, ~nd the forms of vice which dare not show themselves on the broad thoroughfare sneak through Christie Street, and make the place at times almost a hell on earth; and yet many a man might walk through that part of the city and suspect nothing of the terrible sin that is being constantly exhibited to those who know of its existence and who are in any way acquainted with its ways.
The mission is entirely undenominational, and is Stl pported by the Lord's people, as they are moved by sympathy with Him, to help the work. Sometimes we run behind, but we are confident that He who inaugurated the work, and has carried it on thus far, will send that which is needed to continue it to His glory in this dark place in tho City of New York.
THE MADRAS MISSIONARY CONFERENCE BY REV••r. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The missionaries of all India met, December last, in a delegated body in Madras, for what is termed the Fourth Decennial Uonference. 'rhe first convened in Allahabad, in 18'12, with one hundred and ten missionaries present: the second met in Calcutta, ill 1882, with four hundred and twenty-five in attendance; and the third in Born bay, in 1892, with six hundred and twenty mem bers answering to the roll-calL The number of missionaries in India had grown to be too great to admit of promiscuous attendance, and this, the fourth conference, was constituted of delegates from abon t sixty societies, according to a given ratio; .but even then it enrolled threc hUIl(hed names.
The program called for reports of previously appointed committees to present well-considered material on some eight general topics: " The Native Church," "Evangelistic 'Vork," ., Education," "Womell's Work," "Medical Work," "Industrial 'Vork," " Comity," and "Literature." Dr. Torrey, fresh from the great evangelistic movements in Australia, was present and addressed large audiences in the evenings.
In his address of welcome, the Church of England Bishop of Madras said that the census statistics answered conclusively the criticism as to the failure of missions in India. He analyzed some of the causes of this numerical snccess (1) as due to the effect of Ohris-
THE MADRAS MlSSIONARY CONFERENCE
tianity upon the life of the Christian community ill the greater care of children, women, and in variolls social reforms; (2) the power of truth; (3) mixed motives appearec1, of course, in the mass move- ments. Social causes have cooperated here. "The pariah has been kept for centuries by the Hindu religion in a state of hopeless degra- dation. Suddenly he is confronted with Christianity. He finds for the first time a religion which treats him as a man, and that Guspel of freedom comes home to his heart with the convic- tion of truth." He did not regret that this increase had come largely from the lowly: This is only the principle that has governed the spread of Christianity from the first. It is no obstacle to the spread of Christianity among more cultured classes, while it is " the crowning proof of the truth and power of Christianity ill every age."
'rhe venerable Dr. Murdock, to whom Christian literature in India owes so much, was also appointed to make an address of welcome to the conference. Ten years ago he had stated at the Bombay confer- ence that he had no thought of living to see the !lext conference. He now said that when he arrived in India, in 1844, there were not a hun- dred thousand of Christian adherents in the country, whereas now there were almost three millions.
The conference adopted resolutions on the evangelization of India through native agents, but there mllst be a greater preaching foreign force than is now on the field. The administration and organization arising from the success of past labor absorbs the attention of the· missionaries already on the field, so that a small part of their energy can be given to preaching and teaching the Gospel The number of missionaries assignable to this extension work is deplorably small.
They formulate an appeal for additional missionaries in India.
Acknowledging the great advance in India, they think it a serious condition that" nine-tenths of the entire population are still ignorant of the only way of life." It is only in the oldest and best-worked districts that all the villages are visited by an evangelist so often as once a month. In case of a far larger number, alllJual visits are all that can be made, while throughout the country as a whole the vast majority of villages·are not yet visited at all Lyeither foreign mis- sionary or native evangelist. They think there ought to be one foreign missionary to every fifty thousand of the population; even then, if he had ten trained evangelists to help him, each would have five thousand souls to look after, against the average of one ordained minister to seven hundred in America and EnglaJ](l, besides the thou- sauds of trained Christian workers in the home land. Of the lady missionary workers there are only one to fifty thousand women in the native community. They call for a fourfold increase of the present number of all missionaries in India, and especially for more earnest efforts among the higher classes and among the Moslems.
THE UNKNOWN LAND OF CENTRAL AMERICA BY A. E. BISHOP, GUATEMALA, CENTRAL AMERICA Central America proper lies between Mexico and the Isthmus of Panama, comprising the British colony of Belize and the five inde- pendent republics of Guatemala, Hondurus, Nicaragua, Salvadore, and Costa Rica–which, in fact, are not fepu blics, but military despotisms. Such a thing as liberty is almost unknown. Each able-bodied man is subject to six months' military service every year if needs be. On the last Sunday of each month all these are compelled to appear at the soldiers' barracks, where they receive a slip of paper showing that they have presenteu themselves. This slip of paper they are compelled to carry with them, and to show upon demand of the government police. If the poor unfortunate has lost his paper or left it at home he is hustled off to jail. In politics the form of an election is carried out, but intelligent free voting among the masses is unknown. Frequently the change of president or ruler comes through a revolution. bnt as a rule the people are quiet and peaceable, and troubles usually occur through jealous leaders stirring up strife or hiring a following.
'The country is very mountaino'us, and contains more volcanoes than any other territory of similar size in the world. It is rich in agricultural possibilities as well as in mineral deposits. Earthquakes are of frequent occurrence, the most destructive one of recent years . occurring in April last, w.hen the beautiful city of Quezaltenango was almost entirely destroyed.
The principal means of transportation throughout the interior are pack-mules and Indians. It is no unusual sight to see an Indian carrying four sacks of flour (two hundred pounds) on his back, sus- tained by a broad leather band across his forehead. In each of the republics there are short lines of railroads running from the seacoast into the interior, and in some of them there are a few cart and stage roads, but the mule and Indian form the chief means of transpor- tation.
Since the Spanish Conquest the Indians have been robbed, enslaved, and greatly misnsed, and yet with all the tyranny of four long cen- turies, the nobility of some of these ancient races has not been entirely obliterated, and to-day they are much more industrious than the uncivilized North American Indians. In the Republic of Guatemala we have over one million pure Indians, still speaking their own dia- lects, divided into ten tribes. No man ever showed that he cared for tbeir souls, until two years ago, when Mr. C. .F. Secord and his wife took up their abode among the Quiche Indians, the largest of the ten tribes, numbering two hundred and eighty thousand. The official language of all of the republics, and that in general use outside of the Indian dialects, is the Spanisli.
1903J RECENT OBSERVATIONS IN A MORMON TOWN
If the political conditions of this land are deplorable, how much more the spiritual or religious conditions 1 Four centuries of ignorant Romish rule has done nothing to uplift, but much to debase and debauch, making the poor unfortunates of this dark land worse than they were in their pagan state. Superstition, darkness, ignorance, and vice are seen upon every hand. Idols of gold, silver, stOlle, wood, and paper are worshiped with blind devotion. In Guatemala the government statistics of some years ago give ninety-eight per cent. of the popUlation as Roman Catholics.
On the Atlantic coast the Moravian missionaries have done good work for years among the Mosquito Indians of Nicaraugua, and the Wesleyan Methodists of Englanu have worked some among the English-speaking negroes, but until the Central American mission was formed, a little over ten years ago, scarcely any attempt was made to give the Gospel to people of the interior. This mission is evangelical, undenominational, and is supported entirely by voluntary contribntions. It now has thirty missionaries divided among the five republics. Several hundred have been converted, and many of the converts hope to give their lives to the spread of the Gospel. One great need is for a training-school for preparing native converts for evangelistic and pastoral work. There are many believers scattered throughout numerous villages; some of them are calling for pastors and help, which we can not supply. There is a loud call for a number of men, experienced workers, to go from place to place evangelizing.
RECENT OBSERVATIONS IN A MORMON TOWN BY S. M. FORMAN, AMERICAN FORK, .UTAH Many Mormons in Utah seem to be friendly to the Christian missionaries who go to work among them, and invite them to come to their homes, altho they will not return the visit. Some of them come to our services, but not regularly.
As to public morals, profanity is, I think, much more prevalent tban in non-Mormon communities. I do not know of a boy ill town who is free from this sin, and even the women swear. One of the late Mormon "bishops" of this town is said to have been « a very good man, except that he was dreadfully profane"! Dancing is the mQst popular amusement, and balls are given frequently to raise money for their missionaries. It is the Mormon custom to open their dancingparties with prayer 1 There are few men among the Latter-day Saints who do not drink, and many women have the same habit. In this town of two thousand nine hundred souls there are four saloons, each paying a license of $600 a year.
The non-Mormons who come ont here nsually do not stay long patronized, since they are so few in number that it is difficult for them to succeed in business without Mormon patronage. Many of onr best men move away because they find that this is no fit place to bring up a family. The Mormon children are said to be very impure in thought ,and conversation and life. At night young girls and boys are allowed great freedom on the streets.
The public schools are well condncted, and the Mormons are proud of the fact that Utah stands high on th8 roll of states as regards illiteracy. It seems strange that any educated man or woman can believe snch things as the Mormons teach, but they seem sincere even in receiving their new" revelations." In many hOllses one of the first things your eyes light upon is a large engraving of Joseph Smith and Oliver Oowdery receiving ordination to the Aaronic priesthood at the hands of John the Baptist. Only their successors are supposed to have authority to administer the rite. Bottles of oil are taken to the church, and after the corks haye been taken out the oil is consecrated by the elders. There has been a great deal of smallpox and scarlet fever among the people, and altho the Mormon authorities claim to have the gift of healing, as well as the other gifts and powers bestowed upon the early disciples, their anointings with consecrated oil and laying on of hands has not availed. Several times the public schools have been closed, and now all pu blie gatherings are prohibited ill a Mormon town three miles away because of scarlet fever.
In regard to polygamy, a Mormon woman told me recelltly that when her father waR dying he asked her mother to call Jennie (his other wife), and said, "Oh, I have made a terrible mistake! If I had my life to live over again I would never go into polygamy." When "Jennie" came ill she saw the other wife sitting on the bedside holding the husband's hand. This made her angry, and she said, " There is another woman sitting where I ought to be," and made a commotion in the death-chamber. I inquired a young man's views as to polygamy, and he replied that he had been born in polygamy, as his father had four wives, and that in his opinion polygamy was part of the Gospel, and had been a great blessing to many people. When I told him that many members of his own church had no use for poly.gamy, he said, earnestly, "They are not good Mormons. l{o one can be a good N~ormon and not believe in polygamy!" Across the street lives a man with his three wives, all in one house, and there are quite a number in this town living openly in polygamy. Since statehood has been conferred on Utah it is impossible to convict anyone, as judges and jurors are themselves Mormons.
THE MENACE OF MORMONISM
THE MENACE OF MORMONISM * Mormonism, not content with its almost entire control of the State of Utah, has been reaching out of late years to all the surrounding states and terril aries; it hali carried its campaign to the South and East, estab- lished missions in Oanada and Mexico, and sent its missionaries to for- eign lands.
What may be called the Mormon political policy embraces these subjects: To maintain the dictatorial power of the priesthood over the present Ohurch membership, to extend that membership over the adjoin- ing states so as to acquire in the latter, first a balance of power, and later, complete political control; to continue the werk of proselyting throughout the United States and in foreign lands, with a view to increasing the strength of the Ohurch at home by the immigration to Utah of the converts.
That the power of the Mormon priasthood over their flock has never been more autocratic is the testimony of the best witnesses. We find that very rarely do any apostasies occur, and men of all claRses accept orders to go on missions to all parts of the world without question, and that the tithings are paid more regularly than they have been since the days of Brigham Young.
Mormon mothers are usually anxious to have their sons made elders and sent on missions. A mission lasts two or three years if in the United States, three or four years if abroad. The mission work has always been carried on with intelligent zeal. The number of missionaries in the field is given as between one thousand four hundred and one thousand nine hundred. The statistics on this matter seem to vary, as does also the exact number of members of the Mormon Ohurch. There is a large membership in the Sunday-school and in various church societies.
The home field most industriously cultivated has been the rural districts of the Southern States, whose ignorant popUlation, ever susceptible to "preaching" of any kind. and quite incapable of answering the Mormon interpretation of the Scriptures, is most easily led to accept the Mormon views. 'Vhen an opportunity is offered to improve their worldly conditions as well as save their souls, the bait is a tempting one. For the past five years they have been operating this field. At the beginning their work was confined to the mountain districts, and they were little heard of. But within the last three years they have extended thcir field. In North Oarolina nearly every county has been visited; in Oentral and Northern South Oarolina and Northern Georgia they have been very active Southwestern Virginia and Eastern Tennessee have also been visited The Mormons have been more successful with the mountain whites than with any other people. They are ignorant and very superstitious and easily influenced. The general plan of the missionaries is to become acquainted with the women of the family. They become familiar with the customs of the country, and have done most of their work traveling in wagons or on horseback, from house to house. As the houses are so far apart, they usually have to remain over night. They never go singly, hut always by twos. From reports from clergymen and others who have been opposing the movement in the South, there is no doubt that several hundred young women have been sent to Utah, while the so-called converts number thousands.
• Condensed from The Presbyterian Banner.
The work of proselyting in the Eastern States has become more active. Mormons have headquarters in Brooklyn, and their missionaries make visits in all parts of Greater New York. They leave a great many tracts at private houses. explaining that they will call again, and doing so if they receive the least encouragement. They take great pains to reach servant girls with their literature. The Mormons are carrying on an active campaign in Maine and other New England states. The foreign work is now being carried on extensively in Great Britain. Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden. Converts. who desire to emigrate to Utah are provided with transportation and furnished with homes in Utah. Japan is the next country which will receive attention.
No student of the doctrine of polygamy as a doctrine and practise of the Mormon Church can reach any other conclusion than that it is only held in abeyance at the present time, and is being practised secretly now, and in a short time will be brought openly to the front again. It is a part of the doctrine of polygamy that woman can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout member of the Mormon Church "for time and eternity." So now Mormon women are the most earnest advocate:! of polygamous marriages.
If the Mormon Church remains stationary as regards wealth and membership, its power will be checked. What it is depending on to maintain its present status and to increase its power, is the loyal devotion of its adherents and its skill in increasing their numbers in the states surrounding Utah and in other states. If Christian missionaries are sent to these states, and also to Utah, and the people taught the true religion, they will be fortified against the false doctrines of the Mormons. Let us hope the time will soon come when this evil will be checked, and our nation be one "whose God is the Lord," without any false sects, who pervert the Scriptures, and whose doctrines and practises are a disgrace to a civilized land.
A TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE IN SOUTH AFRICA * THE ZULU CHRISTIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN NATAL My visit to the above-named school was not by invitatioon or appointment. Neither have I any personal reasons for writing it up. On the contrary, having, with others, prophesied the failure of the enterprise, it is not easy to acknowledge the failure of my predictions.
This school, which is now closing its first year, stands on a hill about five miles from Phrenix Station, on land lately purchased from Mr. Hodgson, adjoining Mr. Swale's place. It is exclusively a black man's school, the principal, directors, teachers, and all the pupils being of the African race. The principal, the Rev. John L. Dube, is a pure Zulu, cousin of Chief Umqawe, one of the most powerful of the Zulu chiefs, and closely related to the ancient royal line. He received his education at the American Mission School at Amanzimtote, and in America, where he has spent several years in study in some of the best schools and colleges, and where he was ordained to the ministry. The prospect of a Christian Industrial School, by the Zulus and for the Zulus, is practically the same as that of the famous Booker Washington, who has done so * Coudeused from tbe Nqtal Mercurv. June 18, 1902.
INSTRUCTORS AND STUDENTS OF THE ZULU CHRISTIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL IN
much for his own people in America. In America, as here, it has been thought that the natives were incapable of managing and directing any great enterprise by themselves. But Mr. Washington, by building up from a little school, started in a hen-hollse, a college of more than forty buildings and twelve hundred students, carrying on workshops of Illany trades and a farm of one thousand two hundred acres, has demonstrated that it is possible for the black man to do something for himself. Mr. Dube, who has met Mr. 'Vashington and visited his school at Tuskegee, Alabama, is enthused with this idea for the Zulus.
N ow I confess that I had the feeling that Mr. Dube was anything but a Booker 'Vasbington, and he would find that a scheme which could be p,arried out for the negroes in America would be a very different matter for the Zulus in Natal. Nevertheless, I am convinced that whate.ver we may think about him or his schemes, he is going to succeed. 'Vhile Mr. Dube was in America soliciting funds for this enterprise, I received a letter from a friend making inqlliries about it. I replied that while I could speak in the highest terms of Mr. Dulle's character, and the purity of his motives, I believed his enterprise was certain to be a failUJ:e. I believed so from the number of similar attempts made by the natives which I had known to fail-the sugar mills, the native paper, and the farms bought in company. I believed the natives themselves would not patronize the school, especially when there were so many schools open to them where tuition, and sometimes even food, books, and clothes, were furnished free of charge. I said one of two things is certain to happen. If they get as much money from America as Europeans would think sufficient to carryon a school, their heads will be tnrned with the possession of so much wealth, and they will become reckless and extravlt- gant; pretty soon it will be fonnd that funds have disappeared in a mys- terious way, and that will be the end of the schooL. Or, if only funds are obtained for the buildings, and the attempt is made as was proposed, to make it necessary to charge so much higher for tuition, or require so much more work, the pupils will go where the expense will be less. Moreover, the teaching service will be so poor that they will not be satis- fied with it.
But in all these things I have to cmifess that I have found my pre- dictions contrary to facts. In the first place, barely enough money has "been received from Amcrica to erect the three plain buildings which are now occupied; nothing at all for the principal, who is supported by his salary as pastor of the native church; and the teachers are all paid out of the tuition fees. In the second place, the popularity of the enterprise is·phenomenal. More pupils have come and more fees have been received than in any other native school in South Africa north of Lovedale.
The first term opened with about seventy-five pupils, which were about twenty-five more than could be reasonably accommodated. Then additions were built, which have been crowded this term with one hundred and eighty pupils, more than double their capacity, coming from the borders of Transvaal, Swaziland, Basutoland, Sululand, and Natal. Of these about one hundred are borders, ninety-two of which have paid up their fun fces of £2108. ($12.50) for the term. In the third place, more and harder work has been obtained of the pupils than in any other sehool I know of in this land. I stood on the top at the long hill, and look"d down to where the water had to be brought from in buckets, not only for all cooking and washing purposes, but for mixing mortar for the build-
A TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE IN SOUTH AFRICA
ings, and I said if we should attempt to make our boys carry water up a hill like that. there would he·a rebellion (mawinyaruf). They were at work at daylight, their principal working with them, and they were still at it until dark at night.
But how about the results? Well, I see what we so often fail in in our schools-that much of the work seemed to be productive. Some of the boys gathered thatch grass on the place, which sells for a good price to the natives. Others quarried stone, which is used in the buildings and sold for building purposes. I suw the wagon of a neighboring farmer being loaded with them. I saw a crib of corn of some twenty muids which the gardens had furnished, besides green ears for the boys' dinners all through the season. I was given to eat one of the finest pineapples I ever tasted. This came from a garden, cultivated by the pupils, where there were plenty more. There were also from the same source fine pumpkins galore, beans, sweet potatoes, and other vegetables which make the boys happy at their meals. There were tables and benches made by the boys; rough they were, to be sure, but serviceable. I saw some of the boys squaring stone with mallet and chisel, and others laying them in a wall to be used in the buildings. As in Booker Washington's institute, so here, no money is expended for outside labor which the pupils can be made to do for themselves. There was a printing-office well supplied with type, where the circulars were printed which have so thoroughly advertised the school among the natives. Fowls and pigs are being raised, and an incubator is on hand ready to set up. But all these things are only the beginning for what is planned for the future.
So much for the work of the hands; how about the head-work? Here, again, I was surprised to find that the work compared favorably with that done in any of our native schools under European direction. The exercises in arithmetic, tho not of the highest grade, were as good as we find in any school of that class and grade. I expected that the pronunciation of the exercise in English would be very faulty with only native instructors, but I could not see but that they spoke about as plainly as is heard in any of our schools where there are only European instructors. As a test, I offered a prize for the one who would do the best in defining the following ten English words: Useful, selfish, earnest, prudent, chastity, baneful, punctual, influence, loyal, steadfast. It will be seen by anyone who knows the Zulu, that these are exceptionally hard words to define in Zulu. Nevertheless, they defined all these words correctly but one, and so promptly that it was very hard for me to decide among a half-dozen candidates who deserved the prize.
Tho boys largely predominated, girls were in evidence, for this is a c.)educational institution. Grave fears have been entertained on that account, as was the case with Booker Vashington's school. But Mr. Dube says he enconnters no more trouble from that source than will be fonnd in separate schools for the sexes. Five lashes for the boy who sends a note to a girl, and the same for the girl if she receives it without reporting it, nips the amorous correspondence in the bnd. Mr. Dube does not believe in sparing the rod, and his muscular arm and two hundred pounds avoir<lnpois is held in wholesome respect.
But what I took to be the best results of all were not in the various industries, nor in the classroom, but in the evidence of spiritual life which I saw in the prayer-meeting. There was a certain earnestness in the prayers and testimonials which showed that there was real spiritual
life. The effect of the special meetings held by the evangelist, the Rev. David Russell, when more of the boys signed a cove~ant giving them- selves to God, is still manifest. I found that now about seventy-five per cent. have declared themselves to be on the Lord's side, and more than twenty per cent. are members of churches.
I came away from the school with one thought uppermost in my mind-that whether missionaries, or colonists, or the government give this school the encouragement it deserves or not, it is going to sllcceed. A people who show such a determination to help themselves, as is here seen, are bound to come into light. Yhatev·er anyone may think about native education, it can no more be stopped than the progress of the sun.
A Letter from John L. Dube * I must thank God, who has so abundantly blessed us and given us good health during the past year to carryon the work to which he has called us. The term opened last Fehruary with one hundred and three boys, who boarded at the school, and fifty-six day scholars. The attend- ance has kept increasing, until now it numbers one hundred and eighteen boarding pupils and one hundred ar,d eleven day scholars, or a total attendance of two hundred and twenty-nine. Many applications bave been refused on account cf lack of accommodations. This is the hardest of all; for those boys turn back into heathen darkness. when a term in the industrial school would have so opened their eycs that they would have been inspired with a desire to go on improving their condition. In order to accommodate as many as possible, some have slept all. mats on the floor of the school-room. others in buildings which were unfinished (having neither doors nor windows), and they were quite content to do so, preferl'ing to sleep on the veranda rather than be refused admission.
Among the boarding pupils there are five Basutos. whose home is beyond Pretoria in the Transvaal. There is also one man about thirty years of age, who has been working hard for several years in ordeI' to attend school. He comes fl'om the Batyopi tribe, near the center of Africa, seven hundred miles distant. He has cuts (trihal marks) all over his face and neck.
There are seven teachers engaged in the school work. Much attention is given to industrial training. Nor is it alone in this particular field that industrial training is coming to the front. The testimony of missionaries from most of the principal fields of the world is that industrial training has spread rapidly during the last fOllr or five years.
On account of the great lack of room it has been found necessary to make additions to the building during the year. The lal'ge room at first used for dining-room, school-room, and chapel was inadequate to accommodate students during assembly, some having to stand in the hall, so that more rooms have been added to the rear of the bllilding, and an addition, 25 x 50 feet. has been erected for chapel and school-room purposes. This is built of wood and it'on. Most of this work has been done by the students. This practical work in the way of building has h,een a great delight to the boys, who love to handle tools. We have also made all the tables, benches, doors, and some seats and desks for the chapel. Ve greatly need money to maintain a carpenter shop. With a proper man to manage it, and suitable tools, it could eventually be made self- • Condensed from the annual stntf'mf'nt of the American Committf'e. Further informa- tion can be obtained from Mrs, Byron Horton. Sp~r..tary, 617 Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn, N. y.
WORK AMONG THE INSANE IN SYRIA 217 •
supporting. We can secure a good man for the position for $400 a year, and then Mr. Scott could gi ve his entire time to superintending the brick and mason work.
The students have quarried stone used in building cellars and in building a new kitchen in place of the temporary one. They have made brick on a small scaie,' improved the roads, cultivated more than thirty acres of land, and planted fruit trees. They also assist with dish washing, setting of tables, carrying water, splitting wood, etc. The girls assist in sewing and housework.
Mr. Crutches, an American negro, held some meetings during the year at the Church, and the boys had the privilege of hearing him on Sundays, and were somewhat prepared for Mr. Russell's mission, which did a great deal to make the year so bles3ed. These meetings were well atterlded by the students and village people, and fifty-two of the boys accepted Christ. This rejoiced our hearts, as our aim is not only to lead the boys to know the things of this life, but to be prepared to enjoy the spiritual life in Jesus Christ. Among others who accepted Christ as personal Savior was Mgoni, from the Batyopi tribe.
The school closed June lqth, but the vacation was not spent in idleness. The very day that the term ended five girls and one boy came seeking admission. They did not know that the school ever closed. Since they had run away from their homes, it was decided to take them in and teach them during the holidays, and one scholar who had not gone home assisted in instructing them. Noziwile, the woman who had lived with us for two years, attended the vacation school with these children, thus making seven in all.
WORK AMONG THE INSANE IN SYRIA * A little to the south of Beirut, high up on the first ridge of hills of the Lebanon range, are the buildings of the Asfuriyeh Asylum, the first "home" founded in Bible lands for the care of the insane. In the days when our Lord trod the sacred soil of Palestine, the pOOl' lunatics were chained and tied up among the tombs and rocks. Ever since those days the old cruel treatment has been going on, and has been getting even worse, for the horrible torture that Lhey now have to undergo in those lands almost defies description. Some leading authorities on mental diseases who have traveled extensively in Palestine inquired into the ques" tion and urged that steps be taken immediately to bring about better conditions.
In Beirut Drs. Clouston and Yellowlees, of Scotland, met Mr. Theophilus vValdmeier, on whose heart this had previously been laid. They encollraged his proposal to found a home for the insane, and met the provisional committee of doctors and missionaries in Syria. Mr. Waldmeier founded the large' mission station at Brummana, now in connection with the Friends' Foreign Mission Association. For years he has been studying the conditions and needs of the insane in the East. The doctors of Beirut promised their hearty cooperation and help in the work which Mr. vValdmeier proposed.
-.' {'on(lensed from a leaflet. Contributions to this work may be sent to Franci~ C. Brading, Secretary, '15, Queen Victoria Street, London, E. C.. or to Robert B. Haines, Jr., 701 Provident Building, Philadelphia.
Men '8 cottage Administration bulldlng Women's cottage THE LEBANON HOSPITAL FOR INSANE IN SYRIA In 1896 he resigned his connection with the Brummana mission, in order to be free to pioneer the difficult task of erecting a home for the care of the insane. After visiting Europe and America in the interest of the work, Asfuriyeh was chosen for the site of the future" Home for-the Insane." It is about three and one-half miles from Beirut, and four hundred and fifty feet ahove sea-level, affording a most beautiful view, and open to the sea air on three sides. Thirty-five acres were secured. The house already on the property was altered so as to make it suitable for an administration block and a residence, and two other buildings were erected.
The following buildings are now in use: 1. One large administration block, used for offices, stores, and residences. 2. Two hospital buildings, male and female, capable of holding about twenty-five patients each. 3. One smaller building for private patients, adapted from It house already existing. This holds about six to eight patients. 4. A laundry has also been built, the laundry work being done by the patients. 5. Robert Wain Ryerss ward for violent male patients. Some farm huildings were already existing when the property was acquired.
The hospital was opened on August 6, 1900. At present upward of one hundred cases have been treated in the hospital, and many more have been brought to see the resident doctor, Dr. vVolff, a qualified specialist, who has heartily devoted himself to the work. MI'. Waldmeier has hitherto been able to give his services without salary.
One more building is needed for violent female patients, and then the hospital may be regarded as complete on its present seale, and would afford room for between one hundred and one hundred and twenty sufferers.
It is not necessary to enlarge on the great need of such an institution; the simple faet is sufficiently eloqnent that nothing has been done for these poor .afflicted ones since the days of our Lord. Chains, dungeons, and torture are the pOl·tion of most of those who are insane in Palestine and Syria. Many who enjoy the fruits of light and liberty at home count it a privilege to bring help to those who sorely need these boons. There have been some gratifying Cllres ah·eady. The people
OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS ACCORDING TO
[From "The Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions," by Rev. H. P. Beach] ——— —————————————————–~————————-~— COUNTRIES —T~H-E-F-IE-L-D—-I–,-F-OR-E-IG-N-M-lS-S-lU,XA-.R-l.-ES–,II STATIONS NATIVE CHRISTIANS EDUCATIONAL M.EDICA.L ~"I r."~e;:~=.s'~ld)~ '", E"I I '5 ~ Q,) ~0 1=1;;.. ~ 'I !~ ——–1— —– —— —– —-1- – – —— — —- —- ——- —- – – – —- – – — – – ——- American Aborigines. 32 372,487 1 305 99 188 221 813 413 371 177 17,651 32,526 210 5,307 35 780 16 4 12 6,768 547 20,769 37,7ti9 148 7,073 Mexico. . . . . . 21 767,005 13.545.462 1 62 18 64 66 210 293 98 4,34 11,423 18 2,217 8 4 4 200 4,073 48 4.969 239,580 50 2,617 Central America . 11 196,637 ~,550,100 40 11 38 13 102 1,087 236 57 68,807 ns,016 494 54,608 1 1 1 578 37,843 200 16.437 West Indies. . . . . . 36 90,000 5,000,000 200 34 159 51 444 3,058 223 352 75,681 353,1:~9 72.638 8 163 2 1 548 196 1,924 2,756 4,451 South America. . . . 36 7,000,000 37,500.000 243 140 211 88 682 4,958 33,900 101 14 943 6 1 Oceania. . . . . . . . 15 58,81B 875,244 129 31 108 70 338 1,553 97 105 37,746 94,240 393 19,190 38 1,003 14 2 13 1,817 135 42,835 8t,3n4 8,794 1.212 Australasian Ahorig.. 14 735.939 135 247 554 8,288 148 82 7 1 10 94a,000 43,218,411 54 22 36 23 305 157 26 853 112,808 10,3.~0 43 601 3 483 Malaysia.. . . . . 21l 158 17 110 20 6,388 354 4,557 1,819 35,412 653 2,476 43,420 204,672 2,166 15 250 6 1 8 6,580 Japan. . . . . . . 47 161,198 46,453.249 252 40 232 248 772 275 31 12,887 7,275 66 16,578 38 38 376,617 585 60,882 54 3,735 14 1 13 16,437 Korea. . . . . . . 11 1.797 548 3.120 134,1j.~1 342,114 82,000 12,000,000 01 14 40 36 141 3,338 99 168.367 822 3.060 6 113 13 7 12 19.993 23,001 360 274,6'iO 31,071 8,285 China (Jan., 19(0) . 68 1,353,350 386,000,000 610 578 7/2 825 2,785 1,207 6B,207 967,9'27 36,719 170 5,150 162 79 259 691,732 281- 13 5,367 114 201,473 Siam, Laos, etc. 9 235,000 6,200,000 52 26 55 31 164 1,B05 80 10,007 3,199 168,177 8 1.493 12 3 10 18,869 2(J2 15,732 122 026 219611 767 Burma 11 231.211 10,449,621 66 7 70 59 1,032 851,180 3,497 12 3:i I'1,~:~~ 41 4,440 7 2 Ceylon 11 6,547 5,806 171,372 3,031 7.910 25,333 3,576,990 94 52 19 64 229 102 1.461 19 1.347 1 India. 93 1,328,392 283.817,080 1,169 464 899 1,304 3.836 24 7 28,509 1 376 24,255 89 111 3 106 Per~ia 6 628,000 9,0(J0,OOO 26 9 22 28 85 930 184 296 1 70 5 6 11 99,713 Turkey 31 1,111,741 23.834.500 128 108 123 278 637 51 3,201 35 3 63 189,73.
Africa . . . . . . . , 95 12,000,000 1~,950,000 1,158 ~4 779 480 3.051 M 3,574 66 126 232,175 Madagascar, etc. . . . 12 231,588 4,308,762 99 31i 99 50 284 Lands Littl( Occupied. 4 6,80'2,196 40.257,090 11 7 8 27 42 1,306 7 17 25.827 Papal Europ(l. . . . , 27 1 1 55 5 9,143 Japanese and Chinese 77 68 56 73 274 9 462 1 7 6,300 in Christian Lands.. 2l 255,043 14 11 151' III 101 124 75 44 2,855 3,727 38 1.594 1 91 45 Missions to Jews 101 11,242,665 1~2 38"2 96 2 612 204' 210 58 5,392 a5 3 Bible Societies . 4 36 46 10 4 96 1,213 61 2 2,23s Sailors' Societies 4 97 175 12 9 293 76 210 Totals. — —–.1:-.——- 5,263 3,029 4,221 4,105116,618 75,281 I~ ~ ~ ~ 23,723 ~ ~ ~;;;:-;-~ ——————————————-
WORK A fONG THE INSANE lN SYR1A
themselves say they are miraculous. Patients have been received from all parts of Bible lands, including Tarsus, the ancient Bashan, the Holy City, Egypt, and even one British subject from Malta, who became insane in Jerusalem.
No distinction is made with regard to religion. All mentally afflicted persons, except epileptics, are r eceived. The chief object is to save those who would in the Ot'dim,l'y course of events be taken to one of the so-called " holy places of cUl'e " belonging to the various sects of priests, a nd where most fearful torture is meted out to the poor suffal'- ers. Unfortunately nearly all onr patients have been inmates of one or other of these places.
The noisy, destructive, and excited cases were formerly treated in the same wards with the quieter ones, but in many cases it was impossible to keep som e of these, and it ha.s been sometimes necessary to send the very noisy ones back to their relatives until the special new ward could be erected.
When the hospital was first opened applications poured in from all sorts of people. The natives imagined that the doctors had some magic power to heal all kinds of diseases, and people suffering from gunshot wounds, broken limbs, fevers, and the like, came seeking admission. Gradually, however, the natives began to learn that the hospital was for mental diseases only, and some very bad cases were brought from several days' journey away, roped to the backs of animals. One man, a giant, who had six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot, was brought from Bashan. He is evidently a descendant of the ancient inhabitants of that land. There have been many simple expressions of thankfulness. One man, whose wife was cured, said he was not rich, but would set aside one hundred vines and give the proceeds to the hospital out of gratitude to God.
'l'lUIl ADIIINISTRATION BUJJ.DING (IF THE HOSPITAL
EDITORIALS'
Rev. R. A. Torrey in London Jonathan Edwards, and Charles G. Finney to hear such a trumpet On January 9th, at Exeter Hall, of no uncertain sound. After a a very large and representative few weeks at Mildmay, two meet- meeting was held at 4 P.M., and ings a day (excepting Saturdays); lasted till 7, to welcome Rev. R. A. Mr. Torrey goes to Glasgow, etc., Torrey and Mr. Alexander on their promising a longer mission in Lon- arrival from India. It was a most don in the autumn. There is a enthusiastic gathering. Rev. H. spirit of mnch expectancy abroad. W. Webb PepIoe, Earl Kinnaird, One of the most interesting parts Rev. F. B. Meyer (just back from of his address Va;; his story of the Jamaica), and other representative three years' prayer – meeting in men spoke. Mr. T. A. Denny was Chicago, where one night a week in the chair. But the address of hundreds meet to pray for worldthe occasion was made by Mr. Tor- wide revival. He added that at rey himself, and throughout had lel!>st 5,000 people are now daily the true ring of the coin of the uniting. by covenant, to pray for kingdom. He sedulously kept him- the work in London thus begun. self in the background, and gave Before these lines reach the reauer's the keynote of all his work in Lon- eye we are expecting to see great don from Psalm lxii : 5: "My soul, results wrought. wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is froUl him." Foreign Missionary Officers in Conference He gave some account of the work in Australia when, seven The tenth annual conference of weeks before he arrived, 2,000 the Members of Foreign Mission prayer-meetings in as many houses Boards was held in the Bible had been in progress, and he House, New York, on January affirmed that the whole success of 14th and 15th. Among the interthe work was due to four factors: esting features were the reports of Dr. Barbour, of the A. B. M. U., 1. The power of believing and who has recently made a tour of united prayer. the world, and the presence of the Hon. Emily Kinnaird, of London, 2. The power of the inspired a representative from the Zenana Word of God. Bible and Medical Mission.
3. The power of the atoning blood These conferences not oidy offer of Christ. an opportunity for missionary ex- perts to discuss important problems 4. The power of the Holy Spirit. and plan improvements in the con- duct of the work at home and These, he said, were his sale de- abroad, but they help to educate pendence, and if they were the sale the younger officials and increase ground of our expectation also, the harmony between those who God would work in London as he are planning and conducting the had elsewhere. He very propel'ly campaign. Among the subjects took high ground, deprecating even considered this year were: " Bible the applause which turns the minds Translation," "Philanthropy and of the people unduly to man and Missions," "Home Problems." away from God. He thrilled the " Isolated Stations," "The N ative audience by his unequivocal declarations of faith in the whole Bible, the efficacy of the atoning work of Christ, and the almighty power of the Spirit of God. It seemed like the days of Wesley, Whitefield,
19031 EDITORIALS
Church," and the apportioning to longer to be known as a secular schoo!. The Board of Managers churches of the Miss'cnary Budget. say in part: The following resolutions, pre- Early in the past summ~r Rama- sented by the Business Committee, bai reported to the ExecutIVe Com- were adopted: mittee that the safety of the teach- In view of the necessity of a ers and pupils at Sharada Sada.n·~n properly cOllducted Missionary Home and Agency in the City of Poona were imperiled by certam Shanghai, and of the testimony of Bishop Moore, and of the Rev. neighboring Mohammedans. She J. R. Hykes, and others, to the high character of the Home and asked permission to remove the Agency conducte~ by ~l': Edward Evans in that CIty, It IS recom- school to Khedgaon, and to sell or mended that the Boards represented in this Conference corre- rent the property. The members spond with their missions in China 'concerning the qu~st~on. of .the of the Board of Managers were maintenance of thIS InstItutIOn, and the prevention, if possible, of scattered for the summer. The its discontinuance. president, by virtue of his office, In reply to the communication receivedfrorrt the Rev. J. T. Gracey, answered by cablegram and by let- D.D. inviting the Boards to send their' newly appointed missionaries ter. . . . to the Conference at Clifton Springs, June 3 to 10, 1903, the In her reply to the president, Conference would call the attention of the several Boards to the Ramabai took exception to his use advantages of having their newly appointed missiona,ries attend the of the word .. non-religious," and annual Conference of the International Missionary Union, and confirmed the reports that the would express its appreciation of the kind invitation extended by school was no longer strictly secuthe Union. clahr~rabctuetr decidedly Christian in The Conference having listened all the pupils, 123 in with deep and sympathetic interest to the Han. Emily Kinnaird and number, 'being avowedly Chris- Miss Edge, representatives from England of the Zenana Bible and thns. . . . Medical Mission, cordially refers them to the several Boards in She tendered her resignation as America with which their society is cooperating in India. principal of Sharada Sadan, on the gl'ound that th~ B;ssociation desire.d It was unanimously agreed that it to be an irrehgIOus school. It IS " Passion Week" should be a b- needless to disavow any such desire served as a week of prayer for mis- on the part of the associat~on or of sions. We earnestly hope that any individual member of It: they pastors and all other Christians are Christians. will heartily cooperate in this plan This being the situation, the to unite the Christian Church in Board of Managers at a m.eeting intercession for the heathen world, held December 1, 1902, unammousfor whom Christ died. ly passed the following res<;Jlutio,ns: Ramabai's Schools in India "Resolved, That the reSIgnatIOn Weare pleased to receive a of Ramabai as principal of Shastatement from the American rada Sadan be not accepted by the Ramabai Association, to the effect Board. that the school at POODa. is no "Resolved, That Ramabai be al- lowed to conduct the school hence- forth upon such religious hasis as in her jUdgment seems best."
It will he seen, therefore, that the old theory and practise of c;onduct- iug the Sharada Sadan on Its secu- lar side have been abandoned, and that the school henceforth is to be, as regards religion, whatever Ram· abai may determine. But the Board desires it to he conducteo, as in the past, for the higher educa- tion of its pupils.
Ramabai has grown greatly in Christian character and experience during the past ten years. She could not do other than make the schools Christian in plan and pur- pose. We bespeak aid for her great and growing work. *
Monnonism and Polygamy from the fraternal bonds which This question is again brought bind the family of man together, and the first principle of a wellprominently before us by the elec- regulated family is equality of tion of Reed Smoot, an apostle of the Mormon Ohurch, to the United right and of privilege before God, States Senate. There does not and the opportunity of bettering every brother's condition. seem to be any sufficient ground for his exclusion under existing Again, there is the doctrine of the laws, since it is not alleged that Unity of the Body of Oluist,' He is he is living in polygamy and he is the Head and we are the member::;. The head gives impUlse, and the willing to affirm his loyalty to the body obeys the impulse. The head central government. The thinking. Ohristian people of the nation are, projects the plan of action, and the however, strongly of the opinion body carries out the plan. 'Vhen that the entrance of a Mormon we read the orphan's proverb, elder into the Senate is detrimental in many ways to the highest inter- 'When my father and my lllother, ests of the nation-moral and forsake me, then the Lord will take political. What is needed is a me up," we must remember that it constitutional amendment pro- is the arms of Ohristian beneficence hibiting polygamy with disfran- that become, in practical life, the chisement as one of the penalties arms of God, by which He takes up for disregarding it. Now is the time to agitate and enact such an and lifts the orphans to His own amendment. Uniform marriage bosom.
and divorce laws are also sadly Again, the doct1'ine of Divine stewa1'dship needs to be 1'evived in needed. * this apostate age; we need to un- Dr. Barnardo's University derstand that whatsoever gifts a A work so grand as that of the man receives from God, even those National Waifs' Association should never lack support or need any ad- he is to minister by the grace of vocacy. It speaks for itself. This God for the well-being of the family association is Dr. Barnardo's University and Dr. Barnardo its chan- of man; what we have is not our cellor. own, save to useforthe benefit ami There is a principle, even deeper than Ohristianity, to which such a blessing of our fellow men, and the work appeals. During the con- glory and honor of God. struction of the Eddystone LighthOllse the French monarch was Again, it i::; possible so to make urged by fawning courtiers to harass the workman constructing use of money as to t1'ans1nute it that great house of stone to give into immortal bles8'ings a,nd benelight and to save life; and his answer was this: "I may be the fits; so to use "the marIlmOIl of enemy of England, but I am the friend of humanity." unrighteousness "-which has itself Dr. Barnardo's work addresses no moral quality-as to prepare itself to us as membe1's of the family everlasting habitations and everof man. "God has made of one lasting friends for ourselves in the blood all nations of men." There welcome of the great hereafter. is no human being who is sundered Ohrist was the first to stoop to our humanity, to uplift the fdlen from the depths of their degrada- tion and destitution, and he who from his elevation stoops to raise one fallen child of humanity is en- tering upon the career of the Son of God; is joining Him in that double yoke which He always wears with a disciple. anf! expe- riencing how light is the burden and easy is the yoke that is borne with the Ohrist of God.
BOOKS .."OR THE MISSIONARY LIBRARY
BOOKS FOR THE MISSIONARY LIBRARY THE GEOGRAPHY AND ATLAS OF PROTESTANT tion. They are works of art, up to date, and with practically every MISSIONS. Volume II. Statistic,; and At- mission station marked. With las. By Harlan P. Beach-, M.A. 4to, 12G these volumes in hand there is no pp. Eighteen double-page plate maT's excuse for ignorance of the present and insets. 2 vols. $300. Student Vol- state of the campaign for the Chris- unteer Movement, New York. ,1903. tian conquest of the world. The eighteen double-page plates are We have already noticed the first supplemented by numerous insets volume of this magnificent monu- on a larger scale. The only omis- mental work. We have had great sions that we have discovered are expectations in regard to this atlas, one or two isolated stations not and are not disappointed. It is a indicated, such as that on the east masterpiece, and stands with Dr. coast of Greenland. 'Ve believe the Dennis' "Centennial Survey" for time has come when Africa and the amount of labor involved, for South America should be treated the painstaking accuracy manifest- not as continents, but according to ed, and for its value as a book of political or geographical divisions. reference. These volumes will an- swer nine-tenths of the qUEstions 'Ve hope that every friend of asked us by correspondents. Every missions will secure this atlas and student of missions should own a use it continually, making addi- set, and we know of no better way tions and corrections as the camof investing the money. paign progresses. These volumes are among the few that are essen· The first pages of the atlas are tial to a missionary library, and devoted to statistics, an alphabeti- the price is m.arvelously low. cal list of missionary societies, and an alphabetical list of all the mis- THE LIFE STORY O}!~ VILLIAM QUARRIER. By sion stations in the world. The Rev. John Urquhart. Published by Allan statistics may soon be out of date, & Son, Glasgow, and il.lfred Holness, Lonbut they form a landmark for the dOll. 1902. beginning of the twentieth century. The figures are, without This is indeed a "Romance of doubt, as complete and accurate as Faith." It is the story of the origin can be obtained. They do not lie and progress of the Homes for Orif rightly used, bnt are extremely phans a.nd for Consumptives, etc., useful in showing the comparative at the Bridge of Veir, neal' Glasdistribution of workers alld the gow. Ve could not appreciate the numerical results. These figures hook until we had visited the show a total of 16,618 foreign and Homes, the story of which is pres- 75,281 native workers in 28,135 sta- ently to be "pread before our readtions and out·stations all over the ers in fullpr form. Suffice it to globe. Each country is considered say that, on a basis of prayer separately, and a list of societies at and simple faith in God, a beauwork there is given, with figures tiful and model group of buildshowing the foreign and native ing,; have been erected, including force, the year entered, the stations colleges, schools, chapel, trainingand out-stations, the native con- ship, consumptives' home, after a stituency, and the educational and most modern model, etc.-everymedical work. Figures and facts thing artistic as well as useful, and are also given for practically un- ministering to the esthetic tastes occupied fields, Jewish missions, as well as ethical and intellectual and for Bible society work. needs. The work is the harvest of But it is to the maps of the atlas that we turn with especial satisfac-
a very small seed sowing years dramatic episodes, and is insplrmg ago. There was a Glasgow Shoe- throughout. 'Ve know of no betblack Brigade, and then by slow ter piece of what may be called but sure steps God led out into a "missionary fiction." It is based larger plan and ampler sphere until on facts, and gives a true picture now there are over 1,300 orphans, of life among the Karens and the and about 100 helpers, and an influence of Christianity UPOJI annual expenditure of $150,000: them. Young people will read The whole atmosphere is full of "800 Thah" when they balk at faith and prayer and piety. It biography, history, and sermons. is a little New Jerusalem-a model community. Everybody should THE REDEMPTION O}<' OUR CITY. A Report of read this soul-inspiring book. the Conference in Broadway Tabernacle January 27-31), 1902. Fede"ation of OPPORTUNlTIES- IN THE PATH OF THE GREAT Churches, 11 Broadway, New York.
PHYSICIAN. By V. F. Penrose. Illustrated. This is a. full report of a most 12mo,2711>p. $1.00. Presbyterian Board. Philadelphia. 1902. stimulating and important confer- Under a somewhat obscure and ence. It includes addresses by Dr.
unattractive title, Miss Penrose has A. F. Schauffier, Robert E. Speer, collected a great deal of vel'y use- Samuel J. Barrows, Oharles Cuth- ful and desirable information. Her bert Hall, George L. McNutt, Frank book tells of the need for and Moss, '1'. S. Rainsford, and many achievements of medical missions others-all on the subject of the all over the world. No other book ethnic, moral, and religiolls condi- covers the ground so well. The tion of.NewYork, and what should fi~st chapter sets forth in a con- be done to better it. All pastors vincing way the reasons for medi- and lay workers in the great cities cal missions-Biblical, natural, his- should possess themselves of a torical. Then the conditions under copy of this report, should make native customs, and the progress themselves familiar with the facts, under Christian physicians is set and then work to redeem j he men forth in Korea, China, Siam, India, and women who are living in as de- Persia, Turkey, and Africa. Inci- graded and helpless a condition as dents enliven the narrative, and those in Africa and Tibet. * statistics show the comparative L1FE SECRETS. By Henry Foster. m.D. Com- results. The book is excellent for piled by Theodora Crosby Bliss. 12mo, 241 pp. $1.00, net. Fleming II. ReveIr readers, and still better for students Co. 1902.
and workers. * All who profited by Dr. Foster's Soo THAH: The Making of the Karen Nation. hospitality in the Clifton Springs By Alonzo Bunker. Illustrated. 12mo. $1.25, net. Fleming II Revell Co. 1902. Sanitarium, or knew of the noble Dr. Bunker has seized upon an work which he did for invalided unusually g(lod opportunity to write an unusually good story. missionaries, will want to read The scene is laid for the most part in the villages of upper Burma, and these spiritual prescriptions of this the plot has to do with the coming of Christianity into that region Christian physician. Dr. Foster and the influence it had on the Karens. The story has well-sus- was not only skilled in giving tained interest throughout, and contains many interesting details health and medical advice for the as to the life of the people, some benefit of bodies, but very many have been blessed by the wise and truly Christian counsel which he gave for health of soul. These se- lections from his Bible studies and chapel talks contain many choice gems. *
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE AMERICA The railroad associations have The Giving According to Apple- gathered 50,000; those for students, of a Year ton's Annual Cyclo- 40,000, and for boys, 50,000. 'York pedia, the amount in earnest has been begun among 4,000,000 men in manufacturing of money given to religions, edu- pursuits-miners, lumbermen, etc. cational, and philanthropic insti- Much is done in the navy, and tutions in this country during the at 71 army posts quarters have past year, in gifts of $5,ODO or more, amounted to $85,000,000. As the been set apart. For the foreign Ohicago Tribune figures the facts, work $80,000 have been apporthe total is $77,397,167 in sums of tioned, and 12 of the best secreta- $10,000 or more. But neither of ries were sent abroad last year to these estimates includes the ordi- labor.
nary gifts to churches, or the Christian Last year, thetwen- Methodist Jubilee Fund of $20,0D0,- Endeavor ty-second, was a COO, which, tho covering three Figures to Date memorable one, years, yet belongs in great part to 1902. The funds were divided as "for during that follows: year it became farmore completely cosmopolitan in its character and To charities…. '" …………. $-36,519,894 world-wide in its scope than ever To educational institutions…. 2~, 150.803 before. It was established f.rmly To libraries……………….. 4.970 HOIl in 6 new countries of Europe, and To churches… ….. … . . .. .. .. 4.869.700 To art galleries, museums, etc. 2,8H6,OOO Oharity has one $4,000,000 gift, made a good beginning in as many education several million and balf more. It expanded its work largely million gifts, and Princeton The- in India, multiplied its forces eight- ological Seminary received $1,500,- fold in Persia, more than held its 000. own in China, and in Japan had Statistics H. K. Carroll has the best year ill its 11istory." The st.atistics for the world are as fol- of our recently given in lows : Young People's Societies, 41,123; Junior, 16,376; Interme- Churches the Chr'istian Ad- diate, 1,383; Senior, 46; Parents', 2; Mothers', 79; Floating, 123; vacu.te the figures total, 62,132. .For the United States: Young People's, 28,415; relating to American churches up Junior, 13,866; Intermediate, 1,318; Mothers', 74; Senior, 26; Floating, to date. He finds 147,113 ministers 123; total, 43,822. Thirty million meetings have been held in twentyin all denominations and creeds, two years. The world membership, as reported at the beginning of the 194,116 church organizations, and 28,689,028 communicants. The in- crease of last year was 720 minis- ters, 1,261 churches, and 403,743 members. The last item for the year preceding was 924,675.
World-wide 'Vhat a wonderful present year, was 3,600,000.
Y_ M. C. A. record for a society whose founder is Slave Trade in A girl sold for still living I In the world are 7,507 New York $300! How few associations, 620,721 members, and there are who know 737 buildings costing $32,000,000; in the facts of life in our midst.
America the societies are over 1,600, Miss Helen F. Clark, director of the membership over 300,000, and the New York Foreigners' Mission, $12,000,000 were expended last year. 21 Matt Street, New York, writes
as follows, under date of November buildings and equipment. In com- parison with many tom bs in Green- 22,1902 : wood and other cemeteries, which cost a larger sum than will be spent Just before my return from the on this memorial, which would a sanitarium on November 4th a man choose who loved his fellowyoung Chinese-American girl was 'men, the mausoleum or the hostaken by her Chinese father, who pital ?-The Congregationalist. is a heathen, and, despite her own and her Christian mother's pro- Fresh Air for The report of the tests, she was sold to another Chinaman for $300. The next day Twenty-five Tribune Fund for she was forced to marry this man, altho she had never seen him until Years 1902 gives a sumthe day of her sale. As soon as I reached home her mother came to mary of the work me and Haid, sobbing pitifully: "If you had only been here I would since 1877, when it was started. have brought J– to you, and you would have put her away, and The first year the receipts were but saved her from this awful marriage." I was sick at heart over $187, and only 60 children were sent the thought that I was too late to help this Christian girl, but I came to the country for two weeks each. home as soon as I had the strength totravel. Dear friend, you can not In 1902 receipts were $25,268 and realize the tragedies that sometimes confront us here. Will you 9,130 children had two weeks' outnot pray earnestly that we may have at all times the wisdom and ings, While 27,738 had outings of a courage to carryon this difficult work? day. The total for twenty-five This mission is doing an excel- years shows receipts of $510,769 and lent work, but is $750 dollars in beneficiaries numbering 563,537. debt. All can not take an active From the first excursion to the last part in rescuing these unfortu- no child has ever been injured. nates in the heart of our metropolis, Presbyterian The Presbyterian but we can all help those who are Home Missions Church has work giving their lives to this work. in the home field A Fitting It would be difficult which is both extensive and varied, Memorial to to imagine a monu- extending to atleast these 7 classes: Dr. R. S. Storrs ment to the late Dr. R. S. Storrs Foreigners, especially the Italians that would gratify him more than a,nd Bohemians of Pennsylvania; the hospital which it is proposed the Mountaineers: Indians in New to erect to his memory in Fu- Mexico, Arizona, 'Yashington, chau, China. Last February the Alaska, etc.; the Mexicans in New physician's residence there was Mexico; and in Cuba and Porto burned, and the hospital so badly Rico.
injured as to be practically worth- What a In answering this less. New buildings are to be Secot:d Million qnestion, the As- erected at a cost of $10,000, which Would Do 8C!II blY IIe'J"ald says, sum will be raised by Dr. Storr's in part: former people of the Church of the To know what might be done with Rueh a douhled income, let us Pilgrims, Brooklyn. This hospital look back at what was done with an incollle of $500,000 in 1872, and has given about 20,000 treatments compare it with the present work suppol"ted at an annnal expenditure pel' year, and is within easy reach of about $1,000,000. In 1872 there were 262rnissionaries, now 750: tben of 1,OrO,Oco people. Its usefulness 439 native workers, now 1,882: then 10.681 scholars in scho(.I, now will be much enlarged by new 26,108; then 4,203 church meml ers, now 44,443. The doubled income of these years has represented an increase in the work as a whole of
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
about 500 per cent. On the aver- Ve can expect to do only a little age, each of the ntissions of the Church could absorb 10 new mis- at most toward relieving the great sionaries for this direct evangelis- tic work, and could use 50 new distress here, but even that little native workers to preach and teach the Gospel. Snch an increase of is a help and opens the way to the the missionary contributions would provide for an immediate enlarge- hearts of the people, making it ment of the work in extent, and an immediate development of its in- possible for us to influence them tensive power. We should have, in order to care even with approxi- and give them the Gospel message mate efficiency for the great popu- lations entrusted to 11S, new stations we have come to this land to give. in Persia, in China, in India, in Siam, and Laos, and others in It is very slow work getting into Japan, Brazil, Africa, Korea, the Philippines, Colombia, and Guate- the homes and gaining the confi- mala. dence of the fanatical Romanists. One Hundred The Mis8ionary and One Outlook (Canada ,,-e hope for spiritual results from Questions M eth a dist) for Answered January gives a our efforts to relieve the physical long list of 101 ques- needs of this poor people in this tions, with replies appended, re- time of war and 8ca~city and dislating to things which every ease. MRS. J. H. POND. Methodist in the realm should EUROPE master, both for his own good and In City and I t is not America that of the Kingdom. These are specimens: Vhat is the correct Country alone which is suf- name of our missionary society? fering sorely from How many missions have we, and depletion of the rural population where are they? How many missionaries? How much money do and plethora of the urban. For, we give? according to the London Chri8tian: Distress in We have felt the In Mr. Rider Haggard's llew Venezuela burden of the poor book on "Hural England" the steady depletion of the country and sick and into the towns, with the consequent disastrous effect on the provincial hungry ones about us, and had a districts, is put with startling em- phasis. In 1851 there were 1,253,000 great desire to do something for agricultural laborers in England; their relief-more than we could in 1891 there were 780,700, tho in that time the w hole popUlation had do with our own means. increased by one-half. The total The need is very great, and it figures now are put at 25,000,000 town dwellers and 7,500,000 country seems as if it would not be less for dwellers. Agricultural laborers are not only few, but they are some months yet, even should looked down upon, and their chil- dren all endeavor to get as soon as peace be established. Many men possible into the towns. With no thought of the increased cost of. have been killed in battle, others living, the keen competition, the have returned home maimed and uncertainty of· employment, the lack of prospect for the aged, they broken in health. Our streets are plunge into the precarious life of the cities and are quickly lost in filled with the most wretched- the crowd.
looking beings you can imagine; London's "V. T. Stead, wri- many men with one or more limbs Charities and ting in the Chl'is- gone; families of women and chil- Missions Han End e a v or dren are left without any means of World upon "Lon- support. don's Ten Greatest Things," puts its charities eighth and its missions ninth. These are a few of his speci- fications under charities: For the administration of Poor •
Law Relief in London there was addition of 9 each day), making raised last year from the rates the 47,000 in all cared for I sum of more than £3,000,000. In the workhouses of London, where C. M. S. and The Church Mis- board and lodging are provided for Woman's Work sionary Society has the utterly abject and homeless poor, there were at the beginning 350 married women of the century about 67,LLO persons. on its roll, and 380 who are un- In addition to these "indoor pau- married. Of the latter there were pel's," as they are called, there were but 2 in 1820; sixty-eight years later about 37,000 in receipt of outdoor the number had risen only to 108. relief, making a total of 104,000 so- But now Africa has 62; Moham- called ., legal pOol''' supported medan lands, 74; India and Ceylon, either wholly or in part by the pub- 98; China, 94; and Japan, 47. lic rates. At the beginning of the century no fewer than 24,000 luna- Increase in Medical1Wissions at tics were chargeable to the London Medical Home and AbToad Unions. Of these, 16,000 are main- Missions for January gives tained by the London County Coun- the names and locacil. The number increases at the rate of 700 a year. Londoners are tions of 328 physicians in the taxed one way and another for foreign field who hold British detheir local administration the sum grees or diplomas. Last year 36 of £12,000,000. But in addition to new ones went out, but 20 retired, this sum Londoners subject them- leaving a net increase of only 16. selves to a voluntary tax 'in the The number was but 165 in ]893, shape of subscriptions for charities so that it has just doubled in a amounting to several millions a decade. year. The hospitals, for instance, which are mamtained solely by Bishop Tugwell Bishop Tug well public subscriptions, represent an Returns to sailed in Decem bel' annual expenditure of at least Africa in the Nigcl"ia for £1,000,000. They receive at their the west coast of hospitable portals more than 100,- 000 sick persons every year, while Africa. He has succeeded in raisdispensing relief to 1,500,000 poor ing £1,500 for the Onitsha Induspersons free of charge. trial Mission. During his visit to Liverpool, lVIr. Blaize offered £1,000 Dr. Barnardo's T his philanthro- on condition that the bishop could guarantee £200 for five years, in Beneficence pist, whose colossal order to pay a European technical instructor. Through the help of work relates main- Sir Alfred Jones he was able to secure the gurrantee, and th{) instily to children, has lately written tution will be opened immediately on his return. This mission is one in The ChTi.siian: " I have now of the most interesting missionary settlements Ll Africa. over 13,000 object-lessons in the A Magazine The Mission Field modern art of emigration! To be Much Improved (organ 0 f the accurate, I have up to date sent S. P. G.) changed editors a few months since, and out 'furth of the kingdom,' to with the New Year appears beau- tified in various ways-as to paper, Canada and to British Colonies, type, and illustrations, as well as improved in contents. In particu- 13,657 boys and girls. Less than lar, "Scraps from the Editor's 300 of that large army have in thirty years disappointed me. Not one in 50 has failed in his after-life.
]'[ore than 13,300 have records of which no one needs to be ashamed -and these records are closely and minutely compiled." He adds that 27,000 of his "boys and girls are filling respectable stations at home" in Britain, while he has now on his hands 6,200 (with an
1903J GENERAL MISSIONARY
Note-book" bids fair to be full of Malan remains as a "provincial interest for items gleaned from all commander," and in Italy, Lieut.- the world-field over. Colonel Minnie Reid, both under Commissioner Cosandey's direc- Mildma.y This society seems tion. Economy of management Mission to be prospering will, it is said, be one of the great to the Jews under the lead of advantages of the change.
Rev. John Wilkin- An Automobile Never was mission son. Among the rest a quarterly, published in Yiddish, is largely Mission more fertile in exread in East London, in Russia, and in America. Thousands of for France pedients than that Gospel tracts and New Testaments, and portions in various languages, founded in France are being distributed in different parts of the world (about 1.200,000 by that man of sanctified common of New Testaments and portions have been distributed by this mis- "V. sense, Robert McAll. It used sion since 1886). The work in Russia is prosecuted with prayer and to be said, in the early days of the faith, and in South Africa the way is opening, while an agent of the mission, that whatever might be mission expected to make another visit to the Jews in Arabia in Janu- the talent of the volunteer worker ary or February of this year. Especial attention is called to the he could put it to immediate use, fact that "the Jews were never so accessible to Gospel effort as at and if the volunteer had no talent present," and "the change in the attitude of the Jews toward Christ at all he could put that to use too! is very hopeful," and these sentences become the more significant Among other methods of the McAll when we remember that the writer has been engaged in Jewish work mission has long been boat worksince 1851. first along the seacoast, and later by mission house-boats on the waterways of France, of which there are 20,000 miles. The success which has attended this boat work has been simply marvelous, and in not a few places churches have been founded or long dead Protes- tant churches revived and reinsti- tuted, as the result of one or more visits of the boat. A serious dis- advantage has always been felt, however, in the brief time which Salvation Army An imp 0 r tan t could be allotted to anyone local- on the change has been ity, three weeks, or at the most Continent made in the work six, being all the time that could be of the Salvation allowed. Two Parisian pastors, M.
Army on the Continent. All the Foulquier and 11. Uerisier, who work among the Latin races-that have done much volunteer preach- is, in France, Italy, and Belgium- ing in the boats, now make an has been placed under the com- appeal to generous-hearted persons mand of Commissioner Cosandey, in that city to provide them with who recently succeeded Mr. and an automobile, saying that they Mrs. Booth-Clibborn at the head propose, without abandoning their of the work in Holland. Colonel pastoral work, to consecrate their Estill, of Australasian and South powers. their activity. imd their African fame, has now been given experience to the service of the Holland and made a commissioner. Master by devoting a certain por- From France, Commissioner Rail- tion of time in visiting those inac- ton returns to International Head- cessible yet near villages and ham- quarters. In Belgium, Brigadier lets where the boat has been. They
propose to continue the work begun her by the officials in charge. It by its visits, by visiting the local is said that the conditions of life at fairs and markets with Gospels to this settlement are such that even sell and tracts to distribute, hold- the keepers become brutalized ing meetings wherever they can through association with so hard- procure a hall or a private rOOlIl- ened a set of criminals. farm-house kitchen or any other. No sooner was this purpose made Reaching RusSla On the thirtieth known than from these country villages offers came pouring in of Through Austria anniversary of his the free use of restaurants, ball- rooms, andother halls. 'Ve trust missionary service that the automobile will not he long in materializing.-The Chl"is- under the American Board, MI'. t'ian lYork. Clark, of Prague, writes a letter to Moravian Under Moravian Missionary auspices there are his supporting church in Win- Training. 2 institutions for schools the preparation of chester, Mass., celebrating the candidat!!s for mis- event. He speaks with hope resion service; the one at Niesky, founded in 1860, the principal of garding religious work in Russia in which is the Rev. Herman Kluge; the other, a preparatory school at the following words: . Ebersdorf, founded in 1892, under the care of the Rev. Jonathan "As our work is bounded on the Kersten. In the former there are east by Bohemian eolonies in Rus- 17 students, in the latter, 22. Other candidates for mission service are sia, I lIlay briefly intimate that we prepared in the theological semi- may now work lIlore freely in that naries at Gnadenfeld, Germany; at great empire. Our meetings in Fairfield, England, and in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Of those who the City of Lodz, where 10,000 are graduates of these theological neglected Bohemians live, are now seminaries, 40 are now activelyen- public, as the result of a direct apgaged in mission work in the various provinces. peal to the czar, which received favorable consideration. The St. A Russian A Russian woman, Woman Turns Eugenie de Meyer, Petersburg friends of the work are supporting the Bohemian evange- Missionary has undertaken the list in Lodz. Since the Russian lan- arduous work of re- guage can be acquired by an educlaiming the convicts at the penal cated native of Bohemia in four settlement of SaghaIien, where only the worst type of criminals months, it may be a part of God's are sent. The czaritzar is keenly plan to use these colonists, now in interested in this work of her young Russia, to aid in the evangelization subject, and is taking all pains to of that immense empire."-Mishave the work continue. Eight 8ionary Herald. thousand murderers are among the convicts, and this brave woman The Pope For several months lives among them entirely unpro- Uneasy the authorities in tected save for the courtesy shown the Vatican have been urging, as one reason for the I'estoration of the pope's temporal power (so dear to the papal heart), the activity of the Methodists in the Holy City. For latterly these heretics have been attracting atten- tion by their increasing influence. Their very presence has been de- nounced by the Church organs as "an insult to the Holy Father, their methods as reprehensible," while" their heresies" are actually "sustained by foreign gold" I The assertion is made that, were the temporal power restored, they would he compelled to close their
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
mission. Therefore, let our Method- ishing and demoralizing effect of ist brethren beware. the massacres, that the survivors would be able to support the young- ASIA er orphans themselves; but we mis- judged the extent of the misery Censorship The story is hard to and the extreme youth of some of of the Press believe, and yet it the children taken; above all, we in Turkey appears to be true, never dreamed of the number who would crave admittance after their that a year-book widowed mothers, who had strug- .vith Scriptural quotations for each gled on for a time, had fallen vic- day in the year has met with disaster tims to hardship and privation. at Constantinople at the hands of the censors. Quotations considered The society has refrained from so dangerous and detrimental to inaugurating separate mission the peace of the empire as work, and has sent only mission helpers to aid the American mis- Resist the devil and he will flee from you; sionaries in carrying the extra Little children, let us love one another; burdens with which the massacres Be not weary in well doing; overwhelm them. It is felt, how- For we have not an high priest which can ever, that the work of the society not be toucbed with the feeling of our in- will not be completed until every firmities; child on the books has been pro- vided for, and until there has been were the cause of this drastic ac- done for Marash what has been tion. The phrase, "I, therefore, done for Urfa. There are yet hunthe ·prisoner in the Lord, beseech dreds who need assistance. The you to walk worthily," etc., was treasurer is Mr. Hector Munro regarded as rebellious, and the Ferguson, 47 Victoria Street, S. W. "old man" whom Christians were exhorted to put off was interpreted The Cholera The accounts which as referring to the sultan himself, in Palestine we have received and to contain, therefore, the seeds of rank revolution. of the ravages of cholera in Palestine are heartrend- The Situation Altho the Chl'istian ing. In Jaffa and Lydda our in Armenia public is no longer C. M. S. brethren have had trying shocked by hearing times and several deaths among their native agents, In Tiberias of cruel massacres in Armenia, and the scourge has been most fatal, the hand of the assassin is stayed, 500 deaths, chiefly of natives and there is still much to cause grave Russian Jews, having taken place anxiety. Neither life nor honor within a very short time. Our are safe in the region around Moush, brethren of the United Free and the Kurd, when he needs Church, whose medical work at money, takes it with impunity from Tiberias is so important and suchis Armenian neighbors. The pres- cessful, have suffered severely, and ent situation is thus set forth in the Mrs. Torra,nce, the wife of Dr. annual report of the Friends of Torrance, has succumbed to the Armenia Society: terrible disease, A strict cordon has been drawn round the ill-fated The numbers of widows and town, so that it is shut off from orphans dependent on the society the world and deprived not only for maintenance or employment of comforts, but of the necessities are fewer than hitherto; but our of life. Tiberias, one of the holy duty to those who remain is none places of Judaism, is inhabited the less binding. "Vhen we be- chiefly hy Jews of a poorer class, gan we thought the work could be finished in five years. By that time the elder orphans would have been placed (lut, and the nation so far recovered from the impover-
with whom cleanliness is not a ment is found for them,-Congre- gationalist. virtue, and in the present distress The Dense In the December their misery passes description.- Life and Work. Mass of ~Missionary Record Benefits of Work and TVorkers Humanity of the United Frce British Rule for December (Eng- Church of Scotland lish 'Vesleyan) has there is a somewhat remarkable the following statement: map. It has been reproduced b;r A somewhat severe critic of photography from that of the Brit- British rule in India admits tha t in India we have established a wider ish government survey of India, and more permanent peace than the land has ever known from the and represents a region to the days of Alexander the Great. 'Ve have raised the standard of justice north and west of Calcutta, 90 by fair and equal administration of laws, we have checked the COl'rtlP- miles long by 60 broad, being about tion and tyranny of native princes, we have organized industries and a three-hundredth part of the total introduced a sy~tem of public education, and are gradually breaking area of India. Each small dot down many of the religious and social superstitions which sin shows a village with an average against humanity and retard progress, "Nowhere else in our empire," population of 363. In the original he says," "has so much really disinterested and thoughtful energy survey-map every village is named. been applied in the work of government." Tho this is not the" prop- There are in all India no fewer agation of the Gospel," it is assuredly promoting the Kingdom of than 715,718 such villages. In ad- God among men, and we may well be thankful for the great services dition to these, there are 1,831 large to humanity which, with all its defects, the British Empire is accom- towns, with an average population plishing in the earth. of 14,625. Even of these towns very Y. M. C. A. Merchants in Cal- many are not yet occupied by any Club-house cutta and Y. .M. missionary. Certain larger circles, in Calcutta C. A. men in Eng- not in the original map, are insert- land and America ed to show the mission stations of have provided the money to pay for all Protestant denominations at the new $7;),000 club-house which work in this section. There do not has just been opened in Calcutta appeal' to be more than 10 or 11. for the 14,000 English-speaking Yet many sections of India are not young"men and the 14,000 Eurasi- nearly so well supplied with misans (young men of mixed blood) in sionaries as that here shown.-C. that city. The building is within M. 8. Intelligencer. easy walking distance of the Some Rumors China is becoming wharves and commercial districts, from China almost as fertile in rebellions as South and contains a restaurant and dor- America. News of uprising and of mitories. Y. M. C. A. members in threatened secessions come from the south and west in great freoffices and business houses watch quency. A late rumor is that the dowager empress has been cenfor strangers, and invite them to sured for her deposition of the em- peror and his restoration demandthis club, where membership ed. The Chinese officials feel the need of a man on the throne. Harprivileges are granted them for a per's Weekly has this to say of the west China rebellion: few weeks without charge. while a At last the program of China's boarding-place a~d often employ- one fighting general, the famous Tung Fuh-shao, is revealed, and it shows that as a statesman he is not
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
less able than as a soldier. His of this college is a Christinn. Canplan takes into consideration two ton College is much in need of most important forces: the deep funds for buildings. The native loyalty of the vast mass of Chinese Christians in China need special to the present Manchu dynasty, prnyer during this trying crisis. and the particular hostility which The general outlook in China is masses of Chinamen feel toward most encouraging. The only backthe present emperor as being the ward step has been this edict recause of their dire misfortunes and quiring Confucian worship. humiliations at the hands of the foreign devils. General Tung Education The educational Fuh-shao has recognized both these in China situation in China truths, and, acting on his knowledge, hftS proclaimed as emperor is attracting much the son of the redoubtable Prince attention. The London Times Tuan, the same boy who was at one says that a series of edicts has been time declared heil'-appnrent by the promulgated, establishing unidowager empress. Yung Lu and versities, colleges, and schools other high Chinese officials have throughout the empire, and it is cast their lot in with the young believed that there is among the pretender. This youth, Pu Chun higher officials a sincere belief in by name, a prince of the old Man- the advantages of Western learnchu line, has now been proclaimed ing. The movement is of especial emperor, with the title of Tung interest to us, for it seems to have Hsu, at Tung-yuneing. the chief an anti-Christian bias. Hitherto settlement of the Ala-shan Mon- missionaries have been employed gols, and the palace at Si-ngan-fu in the better Chinese schools. The is being prepared to receive him. Imperial commissioner, in his re- It is strongly situated among port to the emperor, complains of mountains, and is so far from the their proselytism, and urges that sea that an expedition thither they should be replaced not by would be a very formidable affair other Europeans, who would be too indeed, infinitely more so than expensive, but by Japanese. Then, the march to Peking. The form ida- if ""Vestern text-books were judihie element in this matter is that it ciously expurgated, the religious is not a Chinese but a Mongol difficulty might, he thinks, be movement-and the Mongols are avoided altogether. hardy nomads and fighters, who have again and again given able Christianity is discoumged rulers to Asia. among students. Not merely is homage to Confucius required, but This rebellion is of great impor- sacrifice to the shade of the sage, which is the highest form and extance to missionaries, for the atti- pression of worship known to the native faith. Already a Christian tude of the rebels would doubtless has refusea. the required obeisance he very hostile to Christianity and to the tablet of Confucius, and has all that it advocates. been dismissed, and foreign pro- fessors have felt compelled to ten- A New Edict The authorities in der their resignations. All sug- gested compromises have been re- in China China have issued jected. At Taiyuenfu, in Shansi, where the indemnity for mission- an order requiring ary murders was used to found a Christian university, the governor all students in Chinese universities to render worship to Confucius.
This will debar many Christian students from attending Chinese universities, and result in the res- ignation of many Christian profes- sors. This renders it all the more necessary that missionary schools and colleges should be liberally supported. The Tung Chow Col- lege is now asking for nn endow- ment of $250,000. Every gmduate
arranged to open simultaneously official capacity in trying the case. a competing institution. It is The net result of the recent out. thought they will be united, but break has been to add very largely that is sure to involve difficulties. to the prestige of foreigners, and of this prestige the Catholics are The missionaries may not be ex- inclined to take full advantage. cluded from schools, but they fear Their converts not only domineer they will cease to have influence, over Chinese who are heathen, but and that is probably what the au- oftentimes persecute Protestant ttLOrities aim to accomplish. Hence converts in the most relentless the Times correspondent, Hev. manner. Recent letters in the Gilbert Walshe, concludes that the Shanghai papers give particulars prospects of religious educational- of persecutions in certain localities ists and Christian missionaries that seem almost incredible. Ungenerally are not materially im- less something can be done to bl'ing proved by the much-belauded edu- about a better state of things, the cational reform.-The Churchman. consequences will be serious.
What a Here is one illustra- REV. c. W. MATEER.
Medical Mission tion of what is ac- Did complished by med- Demand for The British and ical missions. A Bibles in China Foreign Bible So- wealthy and influential man at ciety publishes this Swatow became interested in the cheering statement: medical missionaries' labors and The returns from our China agency for the first nine months of got in the habit of giving them rice the present year are intensely in- teresting, especially on account of tickets for the poor patients. Then the increased demand which they show for Bibles, and Old and New his wife became very sick, and the Testaments: missionaries treated her. The man said, "I should like other women to be treated as my wife has been," Bibles New Test's and he gav~ $2,000 to start a 1902 and ami Totals Old Test's Portions women's hospital. Next he came First and second to see the advantages of a Vestern quarters. .. .. . . .. 10 295 558,899 569,194 24Q,972 256,039 education, and offered the mission- Third quarter ….. 12067 aries $10,000 to start a Chinese Total for first 9 months of 1902.. 22,362 school where Western learning 802,871 825,2.'l3 Total for first 9 357,491 could be tallght. His last step was months of 1901 .. 7.916 34~),575 to destroy his idols and apply for Expansion in Rev. C. R. Hagar, of South China Hongkong, writes Christian baptism. in the Missionary The Peril The darkest cloud IIerald: "It was eight years yes- from Rome on the horizon is the terday since my last arrival in China, and the years have been full in China aggressive hostility of changes in the empire, and I of the Roman Cath- trust some changes for the better in the mission. At least the numolics. Shortly before the Boxer ber of stations has increased from outbreak the French government 5 to 27, of which 25 are now under had secured from the Chinese my superVISiOn. The membership official recognition of Catholic has also increased from a possible bishops and priests, so that in case 100 to more than 1,400, so that we of persecution, or of litigation af- can take heart and feel encouraged fecting Catholic converts, the at what our Lord has done for us." bishops and priests may claim audience of the magistrate, and the privilege of sitting in a quasi
GENEltAL MISSIONAltY INTELLIGENCE
A Queer Cornplirnent.-A Chinese established in 1881. So far as man in l'ecommending a certain known, this is the iirst time that heathen girl as a suitable wife for such an honol' has been bestowed his son, who was a professing Chris- by the f50vernment llpon a Christian, said: "Oh, she's a smart girl, tiall Japanese. and her feet are almost as big as a Christian's I " AFRICA A A correspondent Liberty Goes It is an interesting Training-class writes from Pyeng with British fact that nowhere, in Korea Yang that their Rule at least in the Old winter training- "VmId, do the Jews class of native Christians, who are enjoy such a high degree of liberty studying the Bible and preparing as in Egypt, the country in which for Christian work, num bel'S nearly their fathers were once slaves. 'I'his 600 men. Almost all of them have is accounted for by the fact that come from neighboring places at Egypt is subject to British rule.
their own expense. The class is The favornble economic condition divided into five divisions, the men of the Jews in Egypt is shown by being graded according to their the flourishing financial position of knowledge. Seven years ago this the Jewish communities. Thus the kind of work was started with a Cairo congregation is said to pos- class of about 30. It has become sess 1,500,000 francs as well as a a class and convention combined. score of houses. Besides the 5 Besides the regular studies there is synagogs, there are 2 hospitals, an address every evening to the an eye hospital, 2 institutions for whole body by one of the mission- the blind, and numerous other aries, and on Saturday morning a charities maintained by the com- discussion on some important sub- munity. A great deal is done for ject. These conferences are ex- the blind, who are to be found in ceedingly interesting and instruct- Egypt in large numbers.
ive.
Forward A few weeks ago Honor to a For a decade or in the the daily papers Japanese more much has been Christian said about Mr. Ishii, Sudan printed in large the founder and su- type: "BRITISH AT perintendent of the orphanage at Okayama, Japan. After a Chris- LAKE CHAD. How THE UNION tian expel'ience which was most remarkable, 'he commenced his or- JACK WAS HOISTED. CAPTURE OF phanage fifteen years since, and has labored with great energy and THE MALLAM GIBRELLA. RECEPself-sacrifice, making the institution notahle throughout all Japan. TION OF OUR TROOPS IN BORNU." The Christian character of the orphanage has been marked, and yet A dozen officers, a medical staff, its philanthropic work has won for it universal admiration. And now and a number of non-commissioned this humble and devout Christian has been recognized by the Impe- officers led the expedition, whose rial authorities, and been given the badge of the Blue Ribbon, an order work lasted nearly six months, and resulted in the suppression of the most notorious slave-raider in the region (Mallam GibreIla), and the deliverance of thousands of people from the tyranny of his rule; the establishment of a chain of posts between the Niger and Lake Chad.
The people were not only friendly, but overjoyed at their arrival. On
all sides there was the greatest re- Church Missionary Society labor- joicing at the capture of the Mal- ing here represent the entire force lam. In some cases, as the latter of the whole Christian Church rode through the villages beside his working among 25,000,000 souls in captors, the whole population Northern Nigeria only, and among turned out and cheered. :)0,000,000 to 80,000,000, reckoning the whole sweep of the Sudan Among semi-Moslelll, s e TIl i- across to the few and far-off points heathen, wholly no.n-Christian of light on the Upper Nile. people, what does this cheering for the white man mean? Simply that The Sudan Pioneer Mission has in the greatest, darkest, most suf- heen formed to commence work up fering of all lands ruled by Islam, the Benue River, where at present Islam can rule no longer. The no mission exists, aiming at the hand of God is taking it away. As inland mountainous country of a governing force the power of Is- Adamawa, south of Lake Chad, as lam here is broken. As a spiritual the most healthy part of the West- force it remains. God waits for ern Sudan known. The head waters that other conquering army, the of the Benue flow from this region, soldiers of the Cross, to enter and whose highest elevation is from occupy this land, theirs by right, 8,000 feet to 9,000 feet, and whose hy a far greater right than that of capital, Yola, possesses a British England. resident.
Alas, that greater army sends no Convinced that it can not he acsuch expedition, stands for the cording to the will of our Lord most part idly, ignoring its Lead- Jesus Christ that fifty to eighty er's command! Rev. J. D. Aitken, millions in the Sudan should be left of Lokoja, at the junction of the without the Gospel, we send forth Nir;er and Benue, writes: in His Name this statement, seek- ing for fellow laborers, to pray, go, Are not the fields here already white unto give, help, send. harvest? At present they are open to us. The people hale Mohammedanism, because MRS. KARL KUMM. thousands of their friends and villages have been enslaved under its direct laf. If, how- Earl Cromer Earl Cromer, as the ever, we do not quiekly step in, frOlll constant and the Soudan Khartum British intercourse with Mohammedans under English rule they will soon forget their old Missionaries agent in Egypt, wrongs, they will embrace the religion of the speaking at a banfalse prophet. and be no longer open to us as now. When I came out in 1898 there were quet recently, paid a trihute to the few Mohammedans to be seen below Iddah. work of the American rrissionaries Nun! they are everY1-yhere, excepting belOlv in the Sudan. The natives are Abo, and at the present rate of pro;2,TC'RS there learning that the foreigners visitwill scarcely be a heathe·n village 0!l the rive-l' ing them are no longer slave-dealbanks by 1010. Then ,re shall begin to talk of ers, but the bitter opponents of l:1ohammedan missions 1.0 these people, and slavery. He said: anyone who has worked in both heatht'n and 1fohammedan towns knows ''''hat sllch a ·work Let me testify to the special means. pleasure afforded me by It visit to the adlllirn bly conducted estahlish- No mission has worked at Ibi, men t, of the American missionaries none have ever gone to the Bautchi on the Sobat River, and to that of hills, none to Bornu, none since the Austrian missionaries on the the dawn of the Christian Era any- ~White Nile. One is a Catholic inwhere near Lake Chad. Beyond stitution and the other Protestant, Lokoja but one station in all Nor- but I know on distinction hetween thern Nigeria (Gierku, near Zaria) such efforts among the pagans, and is occupied. Three men of the they shall receive encouragement and assistance.
1903J GENERAl. MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Native Races The rapid increase derstand the great book better than Not Dying Out of the indigenous any Western pictures could have African races under done, without taking away any British rule (the Zulus, for instance, of its great heart-lessons that having more than doubled in a have been so beneficial to those of quarter of a century, and the Ba- other lands and tongues.-Bombay sutos haVing quadrupled in the Gua1'dian.
same time) affords theme for serious ISLANDS OF THE SEA thought. In the light of this outlook, the question of the treatment Tidal Wave News has recently of these and their neighboring races assumes an almost terrible in the been received of :1 interest, and it can not now be shelved, or inefficiently dealt with, South Pacific great catastrophe without the deeper wrong of adding to the racial antipathies which which resulted in also in the future will have to be grappled with. Any and all at- great loss of life among the natives tempts to elevate these peoples without the everlasting foundation of the Society Islands and the Tuof the Gospel of Christ must neces- amotu group on January 14th. A sarily fail, and it is for' the Ohds- hurricane and tidal wave caused tian Chul'Ch to-day to emphasize the death of 1,000 men and women, this in every possible way, especially by the practical development and brought destitution to the surof missionary work. vivors. As yet reports have only been received from 3 islands of the Tuamotu group. These islands are all under the control of France; they are of volcanic origin, and are famous for their fertility and for their pearl fisheries. Missionary work was begun in both groups by ff Pilgrim's Bunyan's immortal the London lfissionary Society Progress " in book has been early in the century and was very successful, most of the natives be- Matabele translated into the coming Christians. Later the work language of the was given over to the charge of the French Evangelical Society. Matabele by Mr. Carnegie, mission- On Hikuerl1, one of the islands ary to this tribe. The illustrations which is said to have been almClst are a new departure. It has a depopulated, there was a Protespllrely local coloring, but, as the tant chapel and Sunday-school in artist says: "The Puritan eIassic charge of a native 1=reacher, under bears the necessary change of local the Pal'is Society. coloring without loss of any kind. Time and place do not affect essen- tials in the great allegory, and Redemption In 1871 a beginning there is no reason against an inter- for Even was made by a few pretation according to local environment to suit any race in the New Guinea Polynesian misworld." In its new dress we see sionaries – the m- Christian starting from a "kraal." The mud-hole of the" veldt" is the selves recently rescued from lowest "slough of despond." Evangelist degradation. They landed at Port Moresby, from that time the head- quarters of the mission. Eighty- is a missionary. Apollyon appears two of the men died through as a creature with a wolf's head, malaria or violence, besides about owl's eyes, and crocodile's scales 120 women and children. It was and tail. A war – dance festival six years before the first convert takes the place of Vanity Fair. was secured. "Now," said Dr.
This will help the Matabele to un- Lawes, well known as one of the
leaders of the mission, at a recent the matter of duties is serious meeting, "on the first Sunday of enough.-Sp'irit of Missions.
every month 3,000 men and women A Feast as a The Rev. H. P. Peacemaker Schlencker, who gathered together to the communion, reverently commemorating has recently begun work at the new mission station in Ohrist's death. Many of these he the interior of New Guinea, gave a great feast to the natives of the had known as savages in the days district a few months ago. No of feathers and paint, and many fewer than eleven hundred guests accepted the invitation, and they of the native pastors and deacons represented 45 different villages. Many of the people had never met had on their breasts the tattoo before, except when they were fighting one another. Before the marks recording the lives their feast a short service was held, at spears had destroyed. From the which Mr. Schlencker tried to ex- plain why missionaries had come first young men had been trained to New Guinea. Everything passed off well, and there is good to be preachers and teachers, and reason to hope that this great feast now there were 64 whose ability, marks the beginning of a new era of peace and goodwill in that part earnestness, and general capacity of the heathen island.
were most encouraging. A college, American Board Hawaii, Guam, and in the Pacific the Philippines are opened twenty-seven years ago, has all fields in which now 24 married students in resi- the work of the Board is prosedence, and these would form the cuted. In the Hawaiian Islands the people now propose to take nucleus of a force that might yet charge entirely of the evangelical work in their midst. The native bring the tribes of the interior to population is outnumbered by set- Ohrist. The whole coast, from East tlers, there being 70,000 Japanese, 29,000 Chinese, and 17,000 Portu- Oape to Fly River, was dotted guese, to say nothing of other for- eigners. In GUam, which is a new with churches and missionaries' station, a missionary residence and houses at irregular intervals." school building have been erected. The people seem ready to receive Two Drawbacks The postscript to the Gospel, and the most cordial in the one of Bishop relations exist between the agents of the government and those of the Philippines Brent's recent let- Board. Guam, being a military ters, while it does station, a good opportunity for work is presented in the presence not deal exactly with the progress of the garrison. In the Philip- pines the attention of the Board of missions, ought not to be sup- is to be centered in Mindanao, the second largest island of that group. pressed. He says: This island has a population of about 1,000,000, and is at present Something very practical and prosaic! No gifts to the Philippines should be made of leather. Moss (a more exact but less pleasant word is "mold"!) grows on your boots, your bags, your books, in a single night, and I look each day with sorro..ying eyes. at t~e devastations whlCh the clImate IS working on the library which I have always been so proud of.
One matter illore. In the wisdom of Oongress it has seemed good to make us Filipinos pay duty on imports from other parts of America! It is nice to receive gifts from friends at home, hut it might necessitate our selling the gift to llay the duty! A few days ago Mr. Olapp received a bill of $22 gold for some tracts that had been used for packing material. He was relieved to find that it was a mistake. But
1903J GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
practically untouched by Protes- gathered the ChUl'ch together, they tant missions. rehearsed all that God had done with them. and how He had opened MISCELLANECUS the door offaith unto the Gentiles."
Are Missionary Missionary meet- How our hearts burned within us Meetings Dull? ings d'III ? Well, as we liptened to the story of the marvelous grace of God in the Phil- we shol!ld say not, ippines and West Ohina. Do you Long ? Not half long enough, all know the depth of joy, the per- Wearying? Rather a tonic which fect. satisfaction of listening for a braces our muscles and strengthens whole day to the victories of the our spiritual nerves and sds the cross of Ohrist ?-Helping Hand. blood bounding and puts us in a'
glow. "Is life worth living?" Not Civilization. Man y improveasks the woman of the world or but the Gospel ments upon the the half-hearted Ohristian. (Jome out i.nto the KingdC)m of God and Ohristian faith are see. When we learn what He is offered to us by philosophers and doing with the degraded Filipino, " thinkers." Now, truth is stronger the prejudiced, custom-bound Ohi- than error, and the essence of imnaman, and the darkest African. provement is to produce better we want to live to see His work work. Show us, then, the pagan finished. We want to live and races whom you can elevate, and work in order to give, to have a we can not, by your more devoted hand in this movement. 'Ve want missionaries, your more generous to live in order to pray, and so hold gifts, your "rainoow" Bibles, your up the hands of those heroes and Gospel free from the accretions of heroines who are doing this mag- miracle and the atonement.
nificent work. We want to Iive just GEORGE A. DERRY.
now and here, to watch with joy- ful reverence God's majestic march OBITUARY among the nations, and to see in W. W. Barr, Rev. William WHglorious anticipation the speedy coming of His Kingdom. You don't of son Barr, D.D., feel any of this thrill of enthusiasm? Get on your knees, and if Philadelphia Secretary of the you have never got further than being a member ofa Baptist church, United Presbyask to he baptized by the Holy Spirit into the membership of the terian Board of Foreign Missions, Kingdom of God.-Helping Hand. and editor of the Christian In- structor, fell asleep in Jesus on 'Vednesday night, December 24, 1902. Dr. Barr was born Septemher 11, 1832. He graduated at Jefferson One Rousing It is coming! How Oollege, Oanonsburg, in 1855, and Meeting, at our hearts have at Xenia Theological Seminary in Least been thrilled as we 1858. He took appointments to have listened to the preach under the Board of Home new Acts of the Apostles by Up- Missions in different places, and craft, Briggs, Armstrong, and Ben- proved so acceptable that several nett, Groesbeck and others. "They churches sought him for their pas- sailed," not to Antioch, but to Bos- tor. He was ordained and installed ton, "from whence they had been pastor of the Eighth Ohurch, Phila- recommended to the grace of God delphia, September 28, 1859, and for the work which they fulfUled. continued in this pastorate till 1894.
And when they were come and had In 1860 Dr. Barr became editor
of the Evangelical Repository, and the Civil War he was the sturdy continued in that work for nine- conservator of the Southern Baptist teen years, in addition to his pas- Convention. With the diplomacy tarallabol'S. He became associate of & sto,tesman, the eloquence of an editor of the Christian Instructor orator, the courage of a hero, and in 1882, and continued in that con- the devotion of a confessor, hE' kept nection till his death-a little more in the column of Harmony all the than twenty years. He was original Southern states. He is Moderator of the General Assem bly also justly entitled to be callE'd the in 1875, at Wooster, O. "Father of Cuban Missions,"-Our' Home Field. The great work of extending the Church of Christ in foreign lands T.T. The Rev. T. T. was the absorbing business of his life outside of the pastorate. He Alexander, Alexander, D.D" was for many years a member and President of the Board of Foreign of Japan fol' twenty-five Missions, and for nine years its corresponding secretary, up to the years a missionary last meeting of the General Assembly, when he asked to be relieved. of the Presbyterian Board in Japan, The assembly in retiring him still continued him as honorary sec- died in Honolulu on November 14, retary. 1902, Dr. Alexander was born in As a scholar Dr. Barr was thorough, painstaking, and accu- Mt, Horeb, Tenn., October 8, 1850, rate. As a preacher he was able, sound, scholarly, yet plain and con- and went out to Japan in 1877. vincing. As an editor his work was marked by ability, earnest- During his life in Japan he had ness, courage, fairness, and accuracy. been active in the opening of new His achievements were remark- stations, had taught theology in able for their completeness. Like the Savior he could say, "I have the Meiji Gakuin in Tokio, and finished the work thou gavest me to do."-The Christian Instrtwtor'. just prior to his departure from I. T. Tichenor, Dr. Isaac Taylor Japan had been in charge .of the of Atlanta Tichenor, for eigh- teen years Corre- evangelistic work in the City of sponding Secretary of the Board of Kyoto, where also he was helping Home Missions of theSouthern Baptist Convention, and for three years the Congregational missionaries in Secretary Emeritus, passed to his reward December 2, 1902. Dr. the Theological DE'partment of the Tichenor was a descendant of Revolutionary stock, and naturally an Doshisha. Dr, Alexander was a American patriot. Few men in any sphere of activity-literary, pl'Ofes- man of gl'eat ability, one of the sionaJ, politica,J, or eQucationalknew his native land so well. Dur- best Old Testament scholars in ing the years immediatelyfollowing Japan; a man of rare openness of mind and beauty of character; a lover of peace; alwlLYs forgetful of himself; modest and gentle in all his ways, yet a man of iron princi- ple and of unswerving devotion to what he believed to be right. Few foreigners in the empire were as highly valued as he by the Japa- nese, both for the purity and sweet- ness of his Christian character, and the value and solidity of his coun- sel and judgments in their per- plexities. He did a great deal at the time when the liberal move- ment was strong in Japan to help many to find solid standing-ground.
–LissenLbly llerald.
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1902
OF THE MISSIONARY SOCIETIES OF THE WORLD FOR
This table includes only Missions to non-Christian and non-Protestant peoples, and so they omit work done in non-Catholic Europe, while covering that in behalf of Indians, Chinese, and Japanese in the United States. The figures are derived almost wholly from annual reports, and relate in the main to 1901, though sometimes the year includes a part of 1900. The aim has been to leave the fewest possible blanks, and hence where official figures were not at hand, conservative estimates have heen made, based upon former reports.-REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
~~~ 8 ~~~ :.g n . z.e.iQ)~.~5r;~:; .~~rtl .;!; -.1i.J ?; ~ ~~ :.!,i.~… <'-< 31l "Om 3 .r ~ :§~ S O I'" ~" i ]~ +"lo:~§ – ~~0 :;;~ U " rJ:J .~ ~ g 'il "0 ~-~_ Countries in which Mission. NAMES OF SOCIETIES S are Sustained s0 'Z'ijJ :: ~ ~. _~_O_"~I–~_–I–I—–<-~—-__:—–I'—-.———–_ o~ ~. _____ ,___ – __ American Board……… '" . …… .. … … .. .. 1810 $697,371 167 4 168 182 521 240 3,483 4,004 1,306 50,892 4,551 143,688 1,255 62,188 South Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, 1,444 Micronesia, Mexico, Spain, Austria. Baptist Missionary Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1814 628,460 1 160 10 184 102 456 295 3,232 3,688 1,432 112,163 6,553 158,387 Southern Baptist Convention.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1845 156,083 ' 46' 166 1,009 20,000 35 36,428 Burma, India, China, Japan, Africa, France, o 45 11 102 41 171 273 ~,773 96 Spain, Philippines.
Free Baptist…………. " ….. .. …. ….. . . .. 183.~ 40,476 7 1 8 11 27 8 71 98 14 815 74 1,800 939 China, Japan, Africa, Italy, Mexico, Brazil. Cuba.
3,332 India (Southern Bengal).
Seventh-Day Baptists.. ………… .. . .. … . … 1847 12,000 1 1 I 2 6 o 11 17 2 58 7 100 6 170 China (Shanghai).
Christian (Disciples). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1875 162,151 41 3 35 17 96 40 161 257 73 2,442 368 6,000 31 2,522 India, China, Japan, Turkey, Philippines.
American Christian Convention.. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18S6! 8,500 7 o 3 8 13 1 12 25 23 348 26 1,000 o o Japan (Tokyo, etc.).
Protestant Episcopal…… _……………… _ 183.'5 I 320,024 88 15 83 113 8~51 516 62~ 261 5,224 230 12,000 104 4,493 Africa, China, Japan, Haiti, Greece, Alaska.
Society of Friends………. … . . .. . .. .. … .. .. 1871 49,514 17 12 19 24 72 6 128 200 63 1,808 175 5,580 38 1,462 Mexico, Alaska, Jamaica, China, Japan.
Lutheran, General Council. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1869 20,000 6 o 4 41 14 1 138 152 210 2,580 75 5,760 118 2,780 India (Madras).
Lutheran, General Synod…….. …………. 1"37 48,183 14 o 9 7 30 o 452 48'2 432 6,817 330 20,586 213 6,108 India (Madras), West Africa.
Methodist Episcopal, North… , ……….. , … 1819 1,176,263 250 14 224 228 716 499 5,312 6,028 710 95,260 5,600 262,350 1,420 62,838 China, Korea, Japan, India, Africa, Bulgaria. ]00 Mexico, South America, Philippines. Methodist Episcopal, South……. . .. … . … .. 1846 449,064 82 70 78 2291 100 257 486 220 10,959 856 18,000 3,195 China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil.
Free Methodist……………. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1882 22,938 4 5' 4 14 o 13 27 12 99 40 150 5 280 India, South Africa, St. Domingo.
lIIethodist P~otestant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1888 15,199 4 5 o 10 7 16 26 30 453 85 1,000 2 135 Japan (Yokohama).
Wesleyan Methodist……………………… 1890 7,000 3 o 2 1 6 o 3 9 1 20 o 50 1 20 Africa (Sierra Leone).
Presbyterian, North………………….. , … 1837· 935,187 241 58 241 170 710 175 1,841 2,551 1,299 41,559 4,481 110,000 718 25,910 India, China, Japan, Korea, Africa, Syria, Presbyterian, South……………………… 1861 185,018 62 9 59 89 169 12 103 272 171 4,571 1,010 Persia, Spanish America, Philippines. 9,680 2~ 1,037 China, KO/;.ea, Japan, Africa, Greece, Italy, Cumberland Presbyterian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1820 29,079 9 2 7 7 25 7 28 53 14 830 Mexico, Brazil.
90 1,500 3 200 Japan, Korea, Mexico, Indians.
Reformed Presbyterian (Covenanter)……… 1856 25,839 8 o 8 8 24 2 38 62 16 302 18 800 16 611 – Northern Syria, Asia Minor, Cyprus, China.
Reformed Presbyterian (General Synod)…… 1836 4,500 3 o 2 o 5 8 57 62 20 1,130 170 2,000 8 320 India (Northwest Provinces).
Associate Reformed Presbyterian, South….. 1874 8,779 4 o 3 3 1~~ 7 11 21 17 302 34 1,000 4 90 Mexico (Tampico, etc.). 34 35 1 44 464 577 United Presbyterian…………….. ……… 1859 162,728 37 7 41'>1 8,691 998 25,000 299 20,694 Egypt, India (Northwest Provinces).
RefOl'llled (Dutch)……………………….. 1832 173,204 30 5 30 26 91 31 461 552 26~ 4,961 879 12,000 190 7,345 India, China, Japan, Arabia."
Reformed (German) ……………………… 1878 35,895 9 1 8 4 22 32 40 62 53 2,025 344 6,000 2 189 Japan (Tokyo, Sendal, etc.).
German Evangelical Synod… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1883 16,406 7 2 5 -1 15 o 72 87 17 1,200 15 2,000 11 1,100 India (Central Provinces).
Evangelical Association. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1876 9,086 2 o o 2 4 8 83 37 21 890 95 1,700 1 8 p'apan (Tokyo, Osaka).
United Brethren in Christ………………. 1853 21,000 16 o 16 o 32 a:1 3 57 75 3,200 210 6,000 8 600 Japan, West Africa. 22 Canada Baptist…………………………… 1873 46,392 23 1 16 52 11 368 73 4,644 573 9,000 99 2,049 India (Telugus).
Canada Congregationalist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1881 7,845 1 2 2 2 7 o 5 12 5 49 6 100 4 625 Africa (West Central).
Canada lIIethodist….. . .. .. . ……. .. … . ….. 1873 186,255 60 5 65 o 130 41 91 221 243 8,127 430 10,000 48 1,400 Japan (Tokyo), Indians.
Canada Presbyterian. .. .. … . …… … .. . .. … 1844 141,094 45 18 1 4.~ 44 150 5 142 292 170 3,368 341 10,000 79 5,171 China, India, New Hebrides, West Indies, Twenty other American Societies…………. …… 432,640 60 172 97 160 489 29 835 1,324 208 2,780 325 6,000 125 12,890 Formosa. 4,304 1,640 119,493 23,011 Totals for America……………………. -:-:-:-:-:-: ~,173 1,620 -s481,4581,219 7,958 '397,340 34,308 —-;0,031 6,509 ~,995 Baptist (England).·· .. · ………………….. 1 1792 491,200 135 0 104 6 2451 27 1,110 1,355 1,011 53,882 1,206 110,000 652 18,519 India, China, Palestine, Africa, West Indies. 167 London Society (L. M. S.) ………………… 1795 730,650 417 36 168 67 438 879 5,811 6,249 1,357 58,059 7,329 182,710 1,876 76,292 China, India, Africa, Madagascar, Polynesia. 462 Church Society (C. M. S.)……………… , . .. 1799 1,550,000 38 149 354 340 1,260 377 7,896 9,156 588 76,370 R,142 281,584 2,387 104,755 Persia, China, Japan, India, Africa, North America, etc. Propagation Society (S. P. G.) …. _………… 1701 535,138 o 1,638 1,750 130 2,100 188 3,138 5,138 2,700 45,000 2,570 148,000 870 38,000 India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Africa, West Universities' Mission …………………….. 18.'59 146,720 196 22 1 49 110 13 216 826 78 3,743 700 11,000 103 Indies, etc. 9 4,372 Africa (Lake Nyasa and Zanzibar). 27 SoCiety of Friends. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1867 96,920 18 81 27 24 82 o 969 1,051 21,4 2,725 240 8,000 264 19,521 Palestine, India, China, Madagascar. 21 Wesleyan Society………………………… 1816 657,230 32 18 121 55 388 168 3,409 3,797 2,714 48,748 1,333 150,000 1,091 73,244 India, China, Africa (West and South), West 75 Indies. Methodist New Connection ……………….. 185~ 30,010 26 01 6 o 15 9 135 150 217 3,416 75 7,000 41 110 584 China (Shantung, Tientsin). 147 United Methodist Free Churches… .. .. ….. .. 1837 57,170 47 11 14 2 54 6 6 60 26 10,555 320 24,000 23 1,620 China, Africa, Australia. 166 Welsh Calvinistic………………………… 1841 39,890 94 3 14 7 il2 11 256 298 393 4,701 643 19,473 215 7,269 N. E. India, France (Brittany). 83 Presbyterian Church of England ………. , … 1847 111,000 58 17 :1 28 92 24 319 411 234 7,159 667 12,000 130 1,800 India, China, Malaysia, Formosa. 46 24 Prebyterlan Church of Ireland. .. .. . .. . . .. .•.. 1840 121,930 147 29 114 5 419 588 116 2,763 278 5,000 136 1,820 China, India (Gujerat), Syria. 15 China Inland Mission …………………… " 1865 266,825 125 252 275 209 807 20 683 1,490 250 7,683 280 15,000 85 1,200 China (Fifteen Provinces). 97 Established Church of Scotland. . …… .. . . … 1829 237,420 65 19 27 66 123 10 639 747 180 2,687 355 7,873 259 15,989 India, East Africa, Palestine. 157 42,133 168,532 968 United Free Church …………………….., 1843 56~,815 524 86 114 96 406 38 2,363 2,769 826 26,230 I 50,000 1,122 57,677 India, Africa, Arabia. Palestine, New Heb- 3,454 rides, China, Japan, West Indies. Other British Societies………………………. .. 1,386,463 5,074 273 178 680 1,278 74 3,840 5,118 540 1,256 1,215 33,800 Paris Society……………………………. [1822 270,280 18 43 15 123 42 3CO 423 45 14,960 423 25,000 198 12,080 Africa (South and West), Tahiti, Madagascar; Basel Society… .. . . .. . .. . .. .. . .. .. . .. .. .. . . … 1815 324,120 63 149 9 387 44 1,043 1;430 552 21,871 747 43,500 519 19,987 South India, China, West Africa.
Berlin Society…………………………… 1824 142,612 15 93 13 215 4 217 212 276 16,226 1,251 87,293 125 8,BOO Africa (East and South), China.
Gossner :Society. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1836 45,650 o 22 5 60 18 577 577 57 15,590 380 40,000 200 3,640 India (Ganges, Chota Nagpore).
Hermannsburg Society… . .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. . … 1854 . 101,810 o 47 o 125 o 286 411 149 27,240 1,039 54,123 130 7,245 India, South Africa, New Zealand.
Leipsic Society.. .. . .. . .. .. .. . .. .. .. .. . .. . .. … 1836 149,894 6 40 5 97 22 720 817 219 8,830 20,918 269 8,061 South India, Burma, British and Germall'
lIIoravian Church………………………… 1732 172,554 29 167 18 361 21 1,959 2,320 201 96,877 470 East Africa.
32,028 1,580 23,998 South Africa, Australia, South America, West Indies. Eskimo, l'ibet. , North German Society…………………… 1836 38,302 1 11 7 34 3 55 89 35 1,565 128 3,000 38 1,296 West Africa, New Zealand.
Rhenish Society (Barmen) ………………… 1829 168,738 5 110 17 257 26 1,422 1,676 347 83,560 2,011 82,445 340 15,269 Africa. East Indies, New Guinea, China.. 28 199 2,340 Thirteen Other German Societies………….. 1….. . 147,132 o 74 10 142 341 255 4,270 235 8,000 42 o 81 Ten Netherlands Societies………………………, 124,126 4 12 30 280 331 230 5,041 110 9,000 950 47,500 Eight SC&.Ildinavian Societies………………….. . 366,364 28 97 59 341 84 2,058 2,899 1,122 89,097 3,441 75,000 890 45,000 Societies in Asia, Africa, Australia, etc.. . . . .. . …. . 866,305 231 171 230 1,156 370 18,320 19,476 4,3:l7 314,550 12,140 500.000 2,560 162,000 Totals for Europe. Asia. etc…………… …… $9,946,793 2,974 4,284 2,194 13,090 2,523 59,472 69,140 19,199 929,182 50,847 2,195,428 16,983 812,242 TOTALS FOR CHRiSTENDOM…………… ….. $16,174,966 3,322 5,742 3,413 17,467 4,169 78,965 92,151 27,157 1,326,522 85,155 3,145,459 23,442 1,089,237 Missionary Review of the World Old Series JANUARY New Series VOL. XXV. No.1 { VOL. XV. No. 1 .. LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS"
The Captain of the Lord's Host and the Missionary Campaign BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF The great command of Christ and the great commISSIOn of the Church are coupled with a promise than which there is no greater: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the consummation of the age."
Those four words, "I AM WITH YOU," are perhaps more frequently found in the Scriptures than any others, and, at every great crisis or turning-point in the history of believers, from Abram to Paul. When the father of the faithful was called out from Charran; when Jacob left Bethel, when Isaac was going to Padan Aram, Moses to Pharaoh, Joshua against Midian, and Solomon was assuming the kingdom; when Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel were undertaking the prophetic office-this great Jehovah promise was their stay and strength. It was repeated to Paul the Apostle, and was the consolation of Christ Himself: "He that sent me is with me."
In this particular case the promise takes a unique form, literally, I, WITH YOU, AM. The pronoun and verb, which together form the mysterious name of Jehovah, are separated so as to take in between them the two words which concern the messenger whom He sends forth. As this is the only instance of such order and arrangement, we can not think it an accident. It is as tho God literally took the disciple who acts as' His ambassador into His embrace, and stretched about him the everlasting arms of His presence. He says: "Be fearless and calm, for I with you am. I go before you as vanguard; I follow after you as rere-ward."
The Acts of the Apostles, which immediately follows the Gospel narratives, is the proof that the promise was literally fulfilled in apostolic times. Modern missionary history is a later exhibition of the fact of the continued presence on the field of the invisible Captain of the Lord's Host.
This promise means three things: first, the personal presence. of Jesus Christ, as Oaptain, with His missionary company; secondly, this presence continued to the full end of the age; and, thirdly, this presence affecting every day's details; in other words, a Divine providence over the whole work of missions, through the entire age of thE, Gospel dispensation, and extending to every event of every dayapparent adversity and prosperity, disaster and success, all equally under control, and equally part of the working out of the promise.
CHRIST IN THE DAYS OF THE APOSTLES The Book of the Acts shows how this promise was fulfilled, during the period of one generation. The history covers about as much tim~ as the Gospel record-thirty-three and one-half years-and records how, in that first generation after Christ's ascension, He manifested and vindicated His faithfulness and truth. As disciples went out to preach, in Judea and in Samaria and unto the nttermost parts of the earth, from first to last He who sent them was with them.
As these four words mark every great crisis, when Old Testament saints came to the parting of the ways, even so, when the Church comes to that new parting of the ways, which in itself embraces all the great steps, typified in the history of those old-time believers-the Church going out, not knowing whither, into strange lands and unto strange peoples, against myriads of foes massed in great hosts; when all these typical experiences of former days were comprised in one great experience of the new Gospel age, the great promise is renewedly given, " I with you am."
In the Acts we see at least twelve proofs of Christ's fidelity: 1. There are jour great pentecostal outpourings: among the Jews at Jerusalem, the Samaritans, the Romans in Cesarea, and the Greeks at Ephesus. These are representative outpourings, given at the inception of work among these various peoples, to indicate that the bestowment of God's Holy Spirit was equally for Jews, Samaritans, Romans, and Greeks-in other words, for the whole human race. 2. The sending forth of laborer8, as when Christ called Saul of Tarsus by name, in the ninth chapter; and when Barnabas and Saul were called by name, in the thirteenth chapter, and sent forth by the Holy Spirit on the first great missionary tour. 3. The pre-adaptation of laborers for their work. Christ said of Saul, "He is a chosen vessel," and He told him that he had been prepared for this work, as a vessel is prepared by the potter, whose hand molds the clay on the wheel for his purpose. Jesus Christ shows His presence in the work by fitting the laborers in advance, and often unconsciously to themselves, for the work unto which they are called. Then He gives direction to the workers. as when Paul was forbidden to go into Bithynia, and called to Philippi by a vision of the man of Macedonia. 4. The Lord is also seen opening doors. When Saul and Barnabas
"LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS"
returned from their first missionary journey they gathered the Ohurch together at Autioch and rehearsed how that the Lord had opened the doors of faith to the Gentiles. They told the same story on their way to Jerusalem, and to the council there; never claiming that they opened a door by any skill, personal, social, or political.
5. Again the Lord gave courage in the hour of danger, as when the apostles, threatened with death by the Sanhedrim if they should continue to preach in His name, went to their own company, and, lifting up their voices with one accord, said, "Now, Lord, grant that Thy servants may in all boldness speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thy hand to heaL" He exhibited His presence among them and encouraged and emboldened them by shaking the place where they were together, and then by giving them great power both over the souls and bodies of men.
6. When Stephen came to the hour of martyrdom he was permitted to look up· and see Jesus Ohrist "standing." Why standing? He is represented as having taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of God, after having ascended up on high; but Stephen saw Him standing as his advocate and defender, as if He was so aroused by what was going on on earth that He had risen from off the seat of power and stood there by the throne of God specially to encourage that first martyr.
7. All through the Acts we perpetually have answered prayer. Ten days of supplication, and Pentecost; Peter's prayer on the housetop, and a vision of the sheet let down; prayer by the Ohurch for Peter in prison, and his marvelous deliverance; Paul's prayer, and a vision at Oorinth. Over and over again all through this wonderful history Jesus Ohrist appears in answer to prayer, in some cases personally, as to Paul in Oorinth: "Fear not; I have much people in this city. No man shall set on thee to hurt thee. I am with thee."
8. Jesus manifests His presence in the ingathering of converts. Three thousand on the day of Pentecost; shortly after the men were about five thousand; then a great multitude of priests obedient to the faith; and so convert after convert, the most conspicuous being Saul of Tarsus, himself turned to the Lord by the literal presence and appearance of Jesus Ohrist.
9. Marked deliverances manifested Ohrist as present with His Ohurch, such as that remarkable deliverance of the apostles from prison when the angel of the Lord opened the doors and said," Go, and speak in the temple all" the words of this life; " and Peter's rescue from four quaternions of soldiers, when his chains fell off and the iron gate opened before'him of its own accord; and Paul's salvation from shipwreck, with all that sailed with him, after another appearance of God to him.
10. In sorne cases j~tdgment manifested Ohrist's presence. Ananias
and Sapphira were struck dead, and Peter expressly says, "Thou hast not ~ied unto men, but unto God." He felt himself only a representative of the Master. 'rhen, in the twelfth chapter, a great manifestation of judgment, when Herod, who had destroyed James and was proposing to behead Peter, glorified himself and not God, and was immediately eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. So, also, Elymas, the sorcerer, was struck blind for attempting to mislead and pervert the Roman deputy.
11. General signs and wonders were wrought by Jesus Ohrist. For example, the remarkable story, in tho nineteenth chapter, of the magicians of Ephesus so wrought upon by the Word of God that they brought their books, containing their incantations and magioal formulas, by whioh they imposed upon the credulity of the people, and then burned them in the presence of all men. The price of those books was probably about ten thousand dollars, an immense fortune in those days, one Roman penny being the hire for a day's labor. No wonder the writer of the Acts says, "So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed."
12. Christ showed His presenoe in the daily administration of affairs in His Ohurch. For example, notioe His individual care over converts. A eunuch is going down to Ethiopia. An angel is brought on the scene, with the Spirit of God and the evangelist Philip, all cooperating to bring one inquiring soul to God. In the next ohapter Ohrist appears to Saul of Tarsus and converts the aroh perseoutor. In the tenth chapter an angel and the Spirit of God deal with Oornelius and with Peter, heaven and earth oombining under the leadership of Jesus Ohrist to bring one individual soul to the knowledge of salvation.
'rhus the whole twenty-eight chapters of the Acts record Christ's manifold fulfilment of His promise: "Lo, I am with you."
CHRIST IN THE NINETEE.NTH CENTURY The nineteenth century furnished many indications that modern mission history has been a oontinuation of the Acts of the Apostles and a new fulfilment of our blessed Lord's promise, " I with you am."
There have been new Pentecosts-upward of a hundred outpourings of the Holy Ghost through the century past-whose general features are parallel to the developments of the Aots; 1ut seven great outpourings have been oalled "the miracles of missions."
In Tinnevelli, for instance, God gave in the first year of the century a remarkable outpouring, whioh, in a sense, has been oontinuous until the present day, so that this distriot in India is perhaps most thoroughly pervaded and transformed by the Gospel. Whole villages have turned to God, and old heathen temples been ohanged into Ohristian places of worsh.ip. In one instance the people in a village of
"LO, 1 AM: WITH YoU ALWAYS!!
a.bout fifteen hundred desired to turn it into a Christian settlement, a.nd the Brahman that presided over the villagers called them together and said: "Let us have no difference of opinion here. If you are ready to move together, move. We will have no schism; but I will not find fault even if you change your temple into a Christian place of assembly;" and they did. The stone step into that church is a heathen idol, turned face downward.
A wonderful work took place in Hilo, in the Sandwich Islands, under Titus Coan, a simple Gospel preacher with about one hundred and fifty miles of coast-line, over which he toured as an evangelist and pastor. As the people began to wake up under his visits and preach- ing, he found that he could not take care of these people in this desultory way, and so he established a three years' camp-meeting, and they came to him instead of his going to them. About ten thousand assembled around Hilo. 'l'hey erected little places of abode, and pre- pared to cook food and to manufacture baskets; and if at any time of night or day the signal was sounded, they would crowd the churches to rcpletion. So mightly did God work that at times Mr. Coan had to stop preaching. The sobbing, crying, and groaning, and the mani- festation of the Holy Spirit, were such that he could not be heard, and at times could not go or:. preaching, but prayed silently to God to carry on this great work. He baptized nearly two thousand people in the course of a few months, all being carefully examined as to the. proof that they had truly received Jesus Christ.
William A. B. Johnson spent seven years in Sierra Leone. He was a humble German, with only a common school education. The Church Missionary Society wanted a man for these refuse blacks, gathered in from the holds of slave-ships when Britain made this a kind of dumping-ground. He was warned, "They are the worst· people on the earth;" but he said, "That is where I want to go, where no one else will." He found an awful state of immorality, everything that was bad. He began to preach the simple Gospel. Inside of eighteen months he could not sit on his piazza, night or day, without hearing a group of people gathered under the trees shouting praises to Jesus for salvation, or others praying that He would be their Savior and give them eternal life. He lived only seven years at Sierra Leone, and died at sea, his eyes being closed by the first convert of her tribe, yet that whole community had been tranformed, every trade being represented among those blacks. No relic remained of their former heathen orgies. The whole community was gathered in, and they had their _own missionary society. They could not be kept from going to Church' even by floods; they would take off their clothes and put them on their heads .and swim across the streams, and then dress again and go on. When they could not get to meeting they would bring their offering next time, so that there should be no falling off of funds.
Many other examples might be added, and have been cited in these pages. In no single field of missions, since the last century began. has the Gospel been faithfully preached on spiritual lines, by spirituai men and women, without a pentecost of power. Sometimes it has been seven years before there was one convert, sometimes, as in Tahiti, fourteen years, and in one memorable instance, as in Australia, five times seven years; and when Nathaniel Pipper, first of the Australian aborigines, was brought to Christ, the event was so striking that a public meeting, over which the mayor presided, was called to give thanks. Everywhere Jesus Christ has fulfilled His promise, "I am with you," in spiritual outpouring.
His presence is also seen in the selecting, preparing, and sending forth of laborers into His harvest. Often these selected workers have not gone to the field to which they expected to go. Carey inclined to the South Seas because he had become so interested in thcse islands through Cook's voyages, but he went to India. Livingstone planned to go to China, but he went to Africa. Judson planned to go to India, but he went to Burma. Some manifest reason has only afterward been seen why God directed them to some other field than that which they had selected.
In modern missionary history there appear remarkable evidences of preadaptation. In nature this is one of the great arguments for a God. In a cocoon the legs, antenme, and wings of the future butterfly are all folded up within the skin of the caterpillar. The caterpillar could know nothing about its future, for it was born as a worm and lived on refuse; but at a certain point in its history it enfolds itself up in this covering and passes through a change, coming out no longer to crawl, but to fly, henceforth to feed on honey-an entirely different creature; yet all the preparations for this future life in the air are to be found in the caterpillar when it could have had no forecast of what was to come.
So in missionary history there is a Divine preadaptation of men for their work. John Williams was an iron-monger. When he first went to the South Seas he found there a ship which three years before had been laid on the keel, but had never been completed, because no one understood how to work with metals. This vessel was necessary to his evangelistic and itinerating tours, and he was the man to complete it. He did not know why he was trained as an iron-monger, but God did, and all this previous preparation came into play.
The century past furnishes no more conspicuous instance of Divine foresight and election for service than Verbeck, of Japan. Just at the crisis of its history Verbeck was sent to this island empire. He was a man of no country; born in Holland and trained in the United States, he was ready to be identified with Japan. He had no political
"LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS"
alliances and could be accused of no political ends or aims, and could identify himself as fully with Japau as if born and bred there. Had he allowed his good deeds to be proclaimed or the work that he was quietly doing to be trumpeted, it would have come to the ears of the Japanese inquisition, and his voice would have been silenced, and his work stopped, and his converts pflrsecuted, if not beheaded; but he was so modest and retiring that he would neither tell his own deeds nor let anybody else. Then, again, he was singularly versatile. He could talk in five languages-a born linguist and translator-and could therefore contribute to the translation of the Bible and of necessary books. He had singular tact, was an educator, a scientist, and an engineer. At this particular crisis there was probably not another man in the world equally adapted for the work that was put before him. He did not know of his own fitness, but God did. The Potter had prepared a particular vessel for His uses.
As to the opening of doors, when Oarey proposed to go to India there was scarcely a door in the world that was open,and he could scarcely get a footing even in India except as an indigo planter. The right of the merchant gave the right of residence, and so the opportunity to teach; but with great difficulty he obtained a footing there at all. The islands of the sea were inhabited by cannibals. Ohina was literally walled around, excluding foreigners. Japan had been sealed for two hundred years, owing to the reaction against Roman Oatholic intrigue. Korea was a hermit nation up to 1884, when it was opened through Dr. Allen and his medical treatment of the king's nephew. Almost the whole world, at the opening of the nineteenth century, seemed closed to missionary effort; now it is accessible. Between 1853 and 1858 seven great peoples became open to Protestant missions, embracing half of the earth's population-Japan, through Commodore Perry and the treaty with the United States; Ohina, under new treaties made in 1854; India, by the mutiny in 1857; Oentral America, under Benito Juarez, overthrowing the priesthood and confiscating the church property; Turkey, Papal Europe, Africa-a result which could not have been brought about in centuries by any ordinary political or commercial measures.
Ohrist has still given boldness to His people. Dr. Schauffier, for instance, when a Russian official said to him, "My imperial master, the czar, will never allow P·rotestantism to set foot in Turkey," calmly replied, "My imperial Master, Ohrist, will never ask the Emperor of Russia where He may set His foot or plant His kingdom." In 1851, when Sultan Mahmud in Turkey ordered the expulsion of all the missionaries, Oyrus Hamlin said to William Goodell, " We have got to leave; the sultan has issued an edict, and the British ambassador and the American consul say it is no use to resist." But Goodell replied: "Hamlin, the Sultan of the universe 'can change all this."
So they gave themselves to prayer. Next day Sultan Mahmud died. Six days before this there had been a great defeat of the Turkish forces; on the ninth of Augnst following there was a con~agration that destroyed between three and four thousand dwellings. Here within thirty days was a defeat at Aleppo, the death of the sultan, and the great conflagration; and since Abdul Medjid came to the throne the edict of expulsion has never been mentioned, nor has there been any attempt to enforce it.
As to the martyrs, no decade of years has been without one or more, and the century closed with the blackest page in all the annals of modern missions in the Boxer uprising in China. But every instance of martyrdom has been also one of Divine interposition and superintending Providence. The shells of the Chinese gunners, which were attached to time fuses, were fired so unskilfully that they went through the walls of the compound and exploded outside, doing little harm. If they had exploded inside, it would have been almost impossible to occupy those premises; and if the Chinese had not sent a number of their best gunners elsewhere, or the missionaries had not been led to gather in supplies of food early in the siege, and had not been directed by God where they could find stores of rice and other provisions, or had there not been a temporary cessation of hostilities, for no known cause, for about ten days before the final raising of the siege, or had the relieving army come twenty-four hours later, the sacrifice of life would have been terrible. Hev. F. D. Gamewell, who had charge of the fortifications in the siege of Peking, was the one man trained as a military engineer; he was just about to go away on his furlough when the siege began, and so he stayed with his beleaguered and endangered brethren, and became to them a sort of generalin-chief, to whom the safety of those besieged missionaries and of thousands of native converts was perhaps due more than to any other one man. Who kept him there just at that time? Who had given him that engineer training, the use of which he never knew until he was in the midst of the siege?
Has the Lord Jesus manifested Himself in answer to prayer throughout this century? Let the story of Budapest and the Jewish mission there answer. The Archduchess Dorothea, brought out of the Homan Catholic faith into unconscious Protestantism by reading her Bible, prayed God to send -some one to Budapest especially for the, large neglected Jewish population gathered there. Mr. Wodrow, an obscure man in Glasgow, recorded in his diary his prayer for the establishment of missions among the Jews; and the Church of Scotland sent out four men, Drs. Black and Keith, with Bonar and McCheyne, to go on a tour and see where Jewish missions ought to be established, and they left out Hungary because of the expected opposition from the Hungaritm government. At Jerusalem, Dr. Black fell
"LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS"
from his camel, and they had to take the most direct homeward route by way of Budapest, where Dr. Keith was taken sick with cholera. At this time the Archduchess Dorothea awoke at night, and God seemed to say to her, "The parties are here that are going to establish a mission." She inquired, and found there were three or four Scotch- men in town, detained there by one of their number who was danger- ously ill. She went to the bedside of the stranger and ministered to his wants; then, as he became better, told him of her longings and prayers~ and of the state of the Hungarian Jews. The result was that one of the largest missions established was at Pesth. Look at the leading of God. Two supplicators, one in Glasgow, and the other at Budapest, a committee to explore for Jewish missions, designedly leaving out Hungary and God designedly putting it in; one man falls from a camel and hurts himself, another is taken ill of the cholera and has to tarry; and so a prayer in Glasgow and a prayer in Budapest, going up to God, bring about Christian missions in Budapest.
A word about Divine judgments. The remarkable occurences in Turkey already mentioned in connection with the edict of expulsion illustrates this point. The Armenians who incited those persecutions were the greatest sufferers from the calamities that occured.
When Napoleon, in 1812, proposed his conquering career in Russia, the Russian ambassador said to him, "Sire, remember that man proposes, but God disposes." Napoleon, in his arrogance, answered, "I want your master to understand that I am he that proposes, and I am he that disposes." What II challenge to the Almighty! God did not stir from His throne, but sent one of the smallest messengers, a snowflake, to punish the blasphemer. Napoleon retreated from Moscow. He had already lost one hundred thousand men by sickness and war, and when he forsook his retreating army he had Lut twenty-five thousand soldiers left; and the officials reported to the Emperor of Russia that they had buried 213,516 French corpses and 95,816 dead horses to prevent pestilence. The arrogant Corsican found that there was a God in heaven, who, whatever man proposes, Himself does dispose.
One of the greatest revelations of God in the century has to do with African slavery. Between the years 1871 and 1889 some of the greatest apparent disasters occurred in the history of modern missions by way of martyrdoms and the deaths of invaluahle men. Patteson, in 1871, . died in Melanesia, the five wounds on his body inflicted for five victims kidnapped from the island of Nikapu. In 1873, Livingstone, virtually a martyr, died at Ilala on his knees in the little grass hut, his life apparently a partial failure. To him "the end of the geographical feat was the beginning of the missionary enterprise".; yet he had not entered upon the beginning of this his true work, for he had not reached the end of his geographical feat, and his last dying cry was
like a wail: "All that I can say in my loneliness is, may Heaven's rich blessing come down upon any man, American, Englishman, or 'l'urk, who will help to heal the open sore of the world-slavery." Then came the death of Krapf in 1881, dying on his knees like Livingstone, himself also one of the seven illustrious explorers of Africa. He had said, " Over the slain in the trenches will ad vance the hosts of God for conquest until this great African fortress is taken possession of by the Lord." Then came the death of Bishop Steere, in 1882, of the Universities Mission; of Moffatt, in 1883, one of the greatest of African missionaries; and, then, of "Chinese Gordon," in 1885, ill the Sudan, one of the best of Englishmen, followed by the martyrdom of Hannington in 1889.. The period of eighteen years, beginning with the death of Patteson, the martyr of Melanesia; and of Livingstone, the martyr of Ilala, and ending with the death of Hannington, the martyr of Uganda-surely this was a dark day for missions!
God's hand overruled all, as is seen in the subsequent history. Three weeks after Livingstone's funeral the Church Missionary Society held its missionary anniversary in Westminster Abbey. Gordon Lathrop preached his great sermon on the- revival of the dead man when he touched the bones of Elisha, and he besought the great audience seated over the very grave where Livingstone's body lies, as God's mighty army to follow Livingtone's death with conquest: "Let the whole Church touch his bones and rise to a new victory for God." Immediately came forward movements in every direction. First, Livingstone's own Scotland, by the Free Church, established a chain of missions at Lake Nyasa, and the Established Church erected its station at Blantyre, called after Livingstone's birthplace. There at the present ti,me Britain controls over five hundred thousand square miles. Then came the Gordon Memorial Mission, founded by the Dowager Countess of Aberdeen; then the setting apart of Edward Steere to the Universities Mission, in the very year of Livingstone's death, 1874. Then Stanley, who had discovered Livingstone in 1871, began his nine hundred and ninety-nine days' journey across the cont.inent, and traced out the Kongo to its source. Then came the Kongo Free State, in 1885. Then the Livingstone Inland and the Kongo Balolo Missions, both established by the Guinnesses. Events crowded fast upon one another like people that tread upon each other's heels. Livingstone died feeling in a measure that his work was a failure and beseeching people to interpose to heal the open sore of the world, and lo! within these few years came the mightiest movements that have ever taken place in the century in the way of missions. In 1879 Monsieur Coillard and his wife went to Barotsi land to identify themselves with the French missions in that country. In 1885 Chinese Gordon finished the six years of work, unequaled in the world's history for effectiveness, for the suppression of the slave trade.
THE ISLAND OF GUAM AND ITS PEOPLE
Patteson's death, in 1871, started the whole series of these events, for, having been slain by natives who sought to avenge kidnapping, his death called attention of the English and American people to this crime. Livingstone's death emphasized the effect of Patteson's death, two years before, and hence in that very year the Sultan of Zanzibar was compelled by England to close the slave-market there. Part of the ground on which it stood was bought for the Universities Mission, in the same year, and the great cathedral of the mission is erected on the very spot where used to be the slave-market, and the communion-table stands on the very site of the whipping-post! Not only so, but in 1874 Salter Price bought, in behalf of England, the site of a freed settlement at Mombassa where, whenever a slave lands, he is a free man because on British soil. Thus, within fifteen years after the death of Patteson, within thirteen years after the death of Livingstone, this greatest series of events that has ever taken place in missionary history occurred within the bounds of the African continent. He Who said, "I with you am, all the days, even to the end of the age," is thus demonstrating to the children of God that He means what He says, and that He abundantly fulfils His glorious promise.
THE ISLAND OF GUAM AND ITS PEOPLE BY REV. ~FRANCIS M. PRICE, AGANA, GUAM Missionary of the American Board The beautiful island of Guam, the largest of the Ladrone group, has a population of about ten thousand, of which Agana, the capital, has seven thousand. There are two somewhat distinct classes of people here: those of Spaniiilh blood (the so-called high-classed Chamoros), and the common people. The first class furnishes the civil officers of the government and possesses most of the wealth and intelligence, tho a large proportion of the poorer class have each his own home in Agana and a little farm in the hills. The blood of many nationalities flows in their veins, but the Malayan undoubtedly predominates and gives its character to the people. Their faces show them to be a weak race, and while many are pretty, few are fine looking. Some of the children are very attractive with their soft black eyes and olive complexions, but one seldom sees a beautiful old man or woman. The iron of the pure Gospel of Christ must be infused into their blood to impart strength to their characters and nobility to their countenances.
The language spoken in Guam is more highly inflected than those of other Micronesian isla~ds. It has personal prefixes and suffixes for the verb, distinct forms for some of the tenses and for the singular and plural of nouns. 1'he Spanish language is. used to some extent, and probably one-tenth of the people know enough Spanish for busi-
ness purposes and one-tenth of these understand it reasonably well.
The vast majority of the people speak only the Chamoro, understand- ing very few words of Spanish or English. At present everyone wants to learn English, and our tongue will doubtless supplant all others in the coutse of time.
The homes of the people are superior in many respects to those of other Micronesians, but in- ferior to those of the very poor in America. The small thatch-covered houses are set on posts three or four feet high, which have wood- Cll (often bamboo) sides and floors, and consist of two or three rooms. The better class have stone houses, cov- ered with tile or corrugated iron; many of them are neat CHAMOlO MOTHERS AND CBILDRE~ and homelike, but are gen- erally destitute of furniture, and suggest anything but comfort. Chairs are unknown and a mat spread on the floor at night serves for a bed. The women do the cooking on mud ranges; they chop their own wood, even going to the hillsides to cut and carry home bundles of sticks on their heads or shoulders. Rice and corn constitute the staple food, with vege- tables, fish, and meat for variety. . .
The Chamoros are inveterate smokers; men, women, and children smoke pipes or, if they cau afford it, immense cigars made from the native plant which, judging from the odor, can scarcely rival the Havana. Many of them chew the nut of the areca palm, the betel-nut, which is slightly intoxicating, and whose juice, mixed with lime,imparts a reddish color to the lips, and is supposed to add much to their beauty.
The clothing of the people of Guam is simple, and adapted to the climate.. For men it consists of white cotton trousers and a blouse worn outside (very neat when clean), and for the women a cotton chemise, a trailing skirt, usually of calico, and a white, thin camise, or over- waist, with low neck and large flowing sleeves. When the women go on the streets in full dress they usually wear a cotton kerchief, folded diagonally, over the shoulders, with the ends crossed and pinned over the breast and another thrown loosely.over the head. '1'he well-to-do wear clothing of richer quality. It is hard for the children to get used to the superfluous custom of wearing' clothes, and they throw them off and run about naked, in defiance of law, at every opportu- nity. One little fellow was caught by an officer and locked up over- night for venturing too far from home undressed.
THE ISLAND OF GUAM AND ITS Pli10PLE
SOME NATIVE SCHOOLBOYS IN GUAM The Chamoros are a peaceable people, not given to deeds of violence, quarreling little among themselves, and living, for the most part, in separate families. They are kind and generous, given to hospitality, and quick to return favors. When I was visiting a sick man one day I found that he had no proper food, and told him to send his boy over to my house to get a little rice. He immediately turned to the boy and said: "Catch that chicken and take it over with you." It was the only chicken he had and worth many times the value of the rice. For the most part they are tillers of the soil, but very fond of municipal life, so that farmers will go as far as ten or twelve miles to till their land and return to their homes in town rather than live in the country. Late Saturday night the men come home, spend Sunday with their families, and are off for their ranches before daylight Monday morning.
Most of the women and some of the men go to mass early Sunday morning; the remainder of the Sabbath is given to sports and trading or to the doing of odd jobs. Gambling is a passion with them, and the streets of Agana swarm on Sundays and feast-days with groups of
men and boys pitching coppers or larger coins. The natives admit that this is productive of great evil, since it deprives many families of food, and leads men to steal in order to pay gambling debts; but there is no public sentiment against it. Oock-fighting is so prevalent as to be a national.sport; it is crnel and demoralizing, restricted but not prohibited by the governor.
Drunkenness, so prevalent for- merly, is not common here now, and disorderly men, natives or marines, are very seldom seen on the streets. The liquor laws are practically prohibitory, especially for the natives, and no one can get foreign drinks without a per- mit from the governor. This permit is granted or not at his discretion, after the applicant has sworn that it is for personal use only.
Social life is, as a rule, very unclean, and the sentiment against social sins is abhorrently low.
Houses of ill repute abound~ One ClIAMORO CHILDREN-DRESSED I who was in a position to know said: "Parents even in the best families would be glad to give their daughters in temporary marriage to the officers of the navy who are married men for the time of their sojourn here." Snch a thing is not, of course, allowed in our navy.
The thirst for white blood has something to do with this, but the sad thing is that public sentiment tolerates it. There are two reasons for this. The large fees demanded for legal marriages, during the Spanish administration, compelled many to live in unlawful wedlock, and thus lawful marriage was lightly esteemed. But much more than this the immoral lives of most of the Spanish priests and officers gave a religious sanction to vice. Some of the padres had children by different women in different villages and publicly recognized them.
"They told us," said a Ohamoro, "to do as they said and not as they did."
The religious history of the island is interesting and sadly pathetic.
In 1668, Mariana of Austria, Queen Regent of Spain and widow of Philip IV., contributed 25,000 pesos from the public treasury and sent Roman Catholic missionaries to evangelize the Ladrones. Diego Luis de Sanvatores arrived in Guam with six religiosos in 1669, and so vig- orously did they prosecute their work that, according to the Spanish historian, "they taught and baptized 6,000 persons during the first
1902J THE ISLAND OF GUAlI AND ITS PEOPLE
year." Padre Diego was indefatigable in his labors, scarcely giving himself time to eat or sleep, carrying his message into all parts, instructing and baptizing multitudes, especially little children. He was slain after three years by a native chief for baptizing his child without his consent, and was posthumously honored with the title: " The Apostle of the Marianas." His associates continued the work after his death, and in the course of time all the islanders became Roman· Catholics.
Here was a fine opportunity to teach the Chamoros a spiritual religion, the pure Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and had they done 80 the subseql1ent history of the island would have honored the Spa n ish name; but they' chose rather to modify the mes- sage and adapt it to the low state of intelligence of the people. The re- sult is a form of heathen- ism shorn of some of its repulsive features, but still ignorant, false, and degrading. Image and picture worship are now well-nigh universal. In practically every house there is a shrine with an image or picture of Christ and Mary and some of the saints, candles are lighted before them, CHAMOROS OF THE BETTER CLASS and prostrations are made precisely as is done in heathen lands. In a little pamplet, the only book yet published in the Chamoro language, instructions are given for a pr!tyer to be recited before the image of a former priest of this island. Mary is more worshiped than Jesus, and in one of their common oaths-they are very profane-they use the names of Jesus, Joseph, and Mary in one breath.
Prayers to. ~he Virgin Mary and other saints, called the" Novena,"
are chanted by the women and children (men seldom taking any active part) for nine successive· evenings at stated times in given neighborhoods, each successive evening chanting being at a different house. The prayers are in Spanish, and, according to the chanters'
BUILDING USED FOR PROTESTANT SERVICES IN GUAM own confessions, are not understoorl by the great majority of those . using them. Of singing and prayer as known to Christian people they have little or no conception. The Carmelite Order flourishes here, and belts, blessed by the priest, are worn by nearly all the women and many of the men, with the delusion that if they have them on at death the Virgin Mary will come and take them to heaven. The Virgin Mary is practically looked upon as their savior,.and they hope for salvation not because of faith and a righteous life, or even because they try to imitate her virtues, but because of some superstitous meaning attached to a material object connected with her which the priest has blessed (for a consideration).
How can such people be moral? The fact is they are not moral in any strict sense of that word. Necessarily religion is divorced from morality, and with few exceptions the natives are liars and thieves, low in their social ideas and practises, in mortal dread of ghosts and the devil, and devoid of any of the comforts and restraints of a per- sonal religious life.
Enough has been said to show that, whatever may be said in favor of the Roman Catho~ic Church, it is not truly and thoroughly Chris- tian, and has utterly failed to lead the people to an intelligent knowledge of God and a faithful following of His Son. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as taught by Him, and interpreted, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, by an intelligent and faithful study of the Holy Scriptures, and preached by Spirit-filled missionaries, has been and is still the" power of God unto salvation" of the peoples of other islands of the Pacific, turning them from darkness to light,
THE ISLAND OF GUAM AND ITS PEOPLE
purifying and elevating social and family life, and creating a public sentiment such as is found in Christian communities all over the world. Christ alone can purify the heart.
There is evidence that not all the people of Guam have been satisfied with the spiritual food they have received; they have been hungry for better things. Prior to 1850 Bibles had been brought here, nobody knows how, possibly by whaling ships, and found their way into a few families, and were read with eagerness by the more earnest men. People long deprived of the Word of God, when once they have tasted of this Bread of Life, hunger for more, and usually are eager to have their friends partake-like other good things that are more enjoyed when shared with others. The reading of the Bible spread among the people, and finally knowl~dge of this reached the priest's ear; then priest and ruler combined to stop it. Diligent search was made for the Bibles, and three large baskets of them were publicly burned in the plaza about 1856. Some successfully hid their Bibles and have them still. One remarkable man, Jose Taitano, who has been reading the Book of books for many years, was long ago convinced that there was a better way than that he had learned from the priests, but he was perplexed. The government and the Church were against him, and it was a public misdemeanor to disobey the orders of the priests. So he waited and did nothing, only he discarded the grosser superstitions, such as the wearing of Carmelite belts and other charms and amulets, and hoped and prayed for deliverance. There may have been others like him, but for the most part the people had W!lE~ THlli J'ROTEBTANT SIIlRVICEij .utE lIEW IN GUAl!
yielded to the iuevitable, and remained subject to the priest and ruler, thinking there was no eye to pity and no arm to save.
On June 24, 1898, the Oharleston took possession of Guam for the United States, and the death-knell for political oppression and religious stultification was sounded. God's eye had pitied and His arm had brought salvation. 'Two natives of Guam who had lived many years in the United States and Honolulu, and had become earnest Christians, Joe and Luis Castino, when they heard that de- liverance had come to the i r people, were moved to return to their native island and t ell the "old, old story." On their arrival Mr. Taitano welcomed them, and with his large family of six girls and four boys openly united with them. The priest threatened them, telling them that they were still under Spanish law, and would be punished as soon as the Amer- icans left. But the Americans did not leave, and opposition only made these men more earn est. A daughter of Luis Castino, an earnest Christian of strong char- GOVERNOR SCHROEDER, GUAM acter, who had been well educated in the Honolulu schools, opened a schDol for teaching English, and has prosecuted her work with great ;patience, energy, and success. She is .a good musician, and by playing :the organ renders valuable assistance at the religious services.
Major KeIton, of the Marine Corps, associated with Q-overnor J.Jeary during his term of office, conducted services for the marines and natives, first at the barracks and later at a private house. He did much to encourage and strengthen the little band of believers. He was transferred before the missionaries arrived on the fi eld, but sent a letter, which they received at Honolulu, expressing joy that they were coming andregret that he could not be at hand to welcome them.
t~" On , November 27, 1900, the first American Protestant mission- atiesarrived in Guam, and found this little company of twelve Chris- tians. :Governor Schroeder, whose family joined him at that time, ;,had been attending the evening services with these simple worshipers, ~nd he and his family have been regular attendants at the Sunday evening services and mid-week meetings ever since. The governor is not the reconstructionist and reformer that Governor Leary was, but is a better ruler. He is deeply interested in the welfare of the people, just and honorable in the administration of his office, and of high character both in private and public life. He is a kind man, and beloved by the people.
Officers and a few of the marines also attend the evening services, and the number of the Chamoros is increasing. A young people's society, embracing in its membership all the Prot~stant Christians on the island who desire to identify themselves with Christian work, holds a meeting every Sunday evening. Some of these give conclusive evidence that they have been bol'll again.
Our difficulty now is to find a room large enough for our services. There is no available place in Agana for such services, and we await only the gift of some one interested in the Lord's work here to enable ns to purchase land and build a chapel. Our room is overcrowded and very uncomfortable in this warm climate. Many stand out on the street and listen to the singing, but we can not invite Jhem in because there is no room.
It seems to us that no people, even ·in the untouched i~lands of the Carolines, ever needed the Gospel more than these people do. The American Board is seeking to give them the Gospel, and by the side of the American flag to plant the blood-stained banner of the Son of G, od.
THE MISSIONARY OUTLOOK IN ASIA A Round-Table Discussion of the Far East SOME OF THE OPEN DOORS BY REV. W. E. WITTER, M.D. District Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, Boston The American Baptist Missionary Union has never before, in all the eighty-eight years of its remarkable history, faced so many wide open doors, or received such repeated and imperative calls to enter and possess vast fields for God. Rev. W. M. Upcraft, recently returned to our West China Mission, writes: "There are many calls, and open doors were never so widely open nor so many as now. At both Yachau .and Kiating there will be baptisms (D. V.) in the eighth moon. We need help, and if you have not already sent men, is it too much to ask that some be sent at once? It is far to come and toilsome, but once herA there is unbounded opportunity and unlimited welcome." We are glad to say that a few who faced death for the sake of the Name in that region are hastening back to those unbounded opportunities and unlimited welcomes.
No more importunate calls ever came from any part of the world for the immediate thrusting in of the sickle and reaping unto life
eternal than have been coming for months from our representatives in the Philippine Islands. Rev. O. W. Briggs writes; "On a recent Sunday I baptized forty-three at J aro. We also organized our church and celebrated the Lord's Supper. There are literally hundreds· of candidates. The work is growing daily like the Ohurch after Pentecost." One of Mr. Briggs' recent letters to the rooms was accompanied by a document containing the full name, age, etc., of 7,934 people, with thirty-five headmen or chiefs who desire to abandon Rome and go over to the Protestant faith.
From the inland seas of Japan, Oaptain Luke Bickel, of our Gospel ship, writes of having reached sixty-two islands with some three hundred and fifty towns and villages, and giving their first message of the Gospel to over forty thousand souls during the last twelve months. All this work has been simply thrust upon him through the eagerness of the people to hear the Gospel.
From Burma, Assam, and Southern India and from Africa come similar appeals for more laborers with the promise of abundant harvests, and we are glad to say that individuals here and there, and numbers of our churches, are hastening to the rescue. To illustrate, we have been having special prayer in our rooms in Boston for money with which to advance our work in the Philippines, and the Lord has signally answered our intercessions by sending us an offering from a hitherto unknown friend of $2,000; an application for appointment as a missionary from a man pecularly qualified to take up the work there; the offer of $200 from a wealthy woman if a new missionary shall be sent, and $1,400 from the Pacific coast for the support of the work there on its present basis.
The outlook is as bright as the promises of God. All that is needed are eyes to see the brightness and hearts filled with the passion of the Ohrist to embrace these opportunities and rejoice in the speedy fulfilment of the irrevocable Word, " A nation in a day."
ARE MISSIONS IN TURKEY WORTH WHILE?
BY REV. HENRY O. DWIGHT, D.D. Missionary of the American Board, Constantinople Lately a question has come up many times as to the good policy of persisting in missions in the Turkish empire. Is not Turkey a Mohammedan country, impervious to Ohristian ideas? Do not the difficulties which confront missionaries there justify shaking off the dust of our feet against the land, and turning our attention to less stony fields? But we need to bear in mind the distinction between closed doors and doors that are hard to open. Jesus Ohrist lets no mere difficulty weigh when the question is of saving men and giving them manhood. The history of missions does not show that obstacles
THE MISSIONARY OUTLOOK IN ASIA
are a valid excuse for failure to persevere in the Lord's enter- prises.
If this were not true as to missions in 'l'urkey, God would not have set upon them the seal of His blessing. No other mission of the American Board has rendered such return for labor expended. Some thousands of earnest, consistent Ohristians are trying to live in Ohrist, and to labor for Him in various parts of the empire. Within a decade multitudes of the people have been moved with amazement at the brave, patient manliness shown by these Ohristians during the out- break which involved them in a bloody tragedy without hope of escape. In place of the old type of Ohristianity, which was an out- ward show and an empty name, a new type has attracted the attention of the non-Ohristian population. A distinct movement toward a better spiritual state has begun to show itself among people and priests in the Eastern Ohurch. The Bible has been put into all the languages of the country, and no other book sells so well. Had the mission press the means, it could lead and, for a long time, control the revival of literature, which is sure to come. More and more the young of all classes of the population are placed in the mission schools with avowal" by their parents of the wish to have their children learn the secret of sturdy character, and clean living. Even among the non- Ohristian part of the population some have acknowledged Jesus Ohrist as Lord 'and Master, proving that they are not impervious to Ohristian ideas.
The whole Ohurch of Ohrist should seek to comprehend the mean- ing of God's evident blessing upon this far-reaching enterprise. In the presence of any Philistine giant with a loud-mouthed challenge, the Ohristians line of action is not flight, but greater trust in the Lord of Hosts. When the disciples of Jesus Ohrist stand appalled, asking why they can not cast out the evil spirit, the Master tells them to-day, as of old, "This kind goeth not out, but by prayer." Unless we read wrongly the history and present state of this field, what is demanded of the Ohurch at home respecting the work in Turkey is increase of interest, more fervent prayer for the power of the Holy Spirit to rest upon the workers, and a determination steadfastly to press the under- taking until the end. .
THE OUTLOOK IN BURMA BY F. D. PHINNEY, RANGOON, BURMA Supt. of the Press; American Baptist Missionary Union, 1882- The outlook in Burma was never brighter. Evangelistic work never met with a more welcome reception than at the present. Buddhism is so diametrically opposite to Ohristianity that it is impossible, except under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit, to get the truth lodged in the heart of its followers. A godless religion, a vicarious
atonement unthinkable, and a Savior of mankind an impossibility, it takes much time to displace the beliefs of centuries with a belief in God, forgiveness of sins, and a Savior who died that we might live. Yet to-day the Burmans are discussing these things, and the missionary and the native evangelist have snch interested audiences as lIever before. Yet the harvest still lingers, and the cry still goes up for more laborers to be sent forth into the harvest.
Educational work progresses, and in the great majority of mission schools is distinctively Christian. The results are seen in frequent conversions of pupils, even of those from non-Christian families.
The Christian Karen commllnity, noted for its self-reliance in the matter of self-sllpport, is going on to better things, and their own foreign missionaries are proving the power of God in their work among the wild and rude Kachins of the far northern part of Bllrma; and among the Shans of the Shan country to the northeast; and away among" the dispersion" of their own race in Northern Siam.
The outlook is now more evidently true-tho not a whit more true-than when Dr. Judson said of it: "Prospects in Burma are bright as the promises of God."
AMONG THE KARENS BY REV. E. N. HARRIS, SHWEGYIN, BURMA American Baptist Missionary Union, 1893- Seldom does the principle of the reflex influence of missions on the churches sustaining them have happier illustration than in the recent history of the Shwegyin (pronounced Shway-jin, with the accent on the last syllable) Karen Mission, of Burma. For about a quarter of a century this mission has been conducted on a self-supporting basis, all the pastors, churches, and schools, including even the head school at Shwegyin tOWll, being maintained exclusively by the contributions of the native Christians, and, altho it is one of the smaller of the Karen missions, it has long been regarded as one of the most successful, considered from the point of view of the spirituality, consecration, and general efficiency of the native membership. But about three years ago, at the suggestion of the missionary, yet altogether without assistance or even supervision from him, certain mission extension plans were inaugurated for the purpose of reaching more effecti vely the heathen popUlation of the field. First the native churches selected several of their best men to start substations ~t three points outside Shwegyin and contiguous to large heathen settlements (one of them being entirely beyond the circle of the churches and so constitl!ting practically a foreign mission), and furnished the money for the purchase of land on which to locate them. Then buildings were put up, and schools started both at the three sub-stations and at such neighboring heathen villages as would receive teachers, and a vigorous evangelistic campaign organized. The result has been a remarkable gain in all departments of the work. The attendance at the town school has increased about fifty per cent., while the entire number of pupils connected with the various schools under the care of the churches has about doubled. Before the new plans were inaugurated there were forty-five churches, but now the number is fifty-three. At that time the average annual number of additions to the churches by confession was about one hundred, but last year there were one hundred and sixty-nine. While the contributions for all objects aggregated about Rs. 7,500 ($2,500) for the year 1R98-and that was thought to be a large sum for the 1,800 Ohristians in their poverty to raisefor the year 1899 it was over Rs. 10,000, and for 1900, statistics for which have recently come to hand, over Rs. 14,000, nearly a twofold increase in two years' time. It is probably safe to say that during the last three years the efficiency and prosperity of the churches and of the whole mission have doubled. Thus we see that just as missions are indispensable to the highest prosperity of our churches on the home field here in America, so missionary enterprise is indispensable to the highest prosperity of our churches on the mission field itself.
THE MISSIONARY SITUATION IN CHINA BY REV. J. FRAZER SMITH, M.D.
Canadian Presbyterian Mission, China During the past eighteen months those most interested in the spread of the Gospel have had ample cause for alarm, owing to the difficulties that have arisen in different pq.rts of the world, which have seriously interfered with the regular work of very many missionary societies. Notwithstanding this fact, a careful survey of the whole situation is most reassuring, and should convince all, and especi~lly those who rest securely on the promises of God, that never was the missionary outlook more hopeful than at the present time.
As regards the situation in Ohina, even those who have given the subject the most careful consideration, and who have the widest and most intimate knowledge of the country and the people, are much divided in opinion as to what the probable outcome may be. It should be remembered, however, that for several years past the general feeling on the part of many was that an upheaval of some kind was inevitable. The reas'on for this is not far to seek. The terrible indifference of the Ohinese; their intense pride; their obstinate ignorance; their avarice and deceit, as well as their extreme conservatism and utter contempt for anything and everything foreign, have long been recognized as almost insuperable barriers to the evangelization of that great nation. Add to this the fact that this apathetic and paralyzed condition was felt to be due, to a large extent, to the rottenriess of the whole social fabric, and you have sufficient cause, not only for the tur-
moil of the past, but also, to the extent to which the above conditions still maintain, for anxiety for the future.
At the same time it is freely admitted on all hands that China will never return to the old condition of affairs again, and so far as this is a settled fact we have great reason to thank God, and with renewed energy press on in the glorious work. Besides, there is still another outcome of the trouble in China which is most encouraging. Never before, perhaps, in so short a period of time, has the Church at home been called upon to exercise so much patience, resignation, and faith in regard to her work abroad. The imminent danger of the mission- aries of so many different denominations has deepened the spirit of . prayer in the Church at large, and has broadened the spirit of Chris- tian brotherhood which is so desirable. In this way many half-hearted Christians in the home land have become enthusiastic workers. Then the fact that so many native Christians were faithful even unto death has caused the Church of God throughout the world to believe in the power of the Gospel and the value of missionary effort as never before.
THE OUTLOOK IN NORTH CHINA BY REV. COURTENY H. FENN Missionary of the American Presbyterian Church, Peking, 1893-1900 Missionaries, business men, railroad promoters, mining engineers, all returning to their old haunts throughout the greater part of the Chinese empire; edicts of toleration and protection of foreign teachers and teaching; proclamations of educational and political reform; a consequent increasing demand-like that of 1898 and bound to be greater-for Western books, scientific training and inventions; indemni~ies for the losses of missionaries and native Christians paid locally and long in advance of the general indemnity; funeral rites for the martyrs of Paotingfu attended largely by the gentry of the place, and a new mission site presented by the gentry and people of the same city, on their own initiative, to the American Presbyterian Mission; personal letters from native officials to various Protestant missionaries, expressing their grateful appreciation of the reasonableness of indemnity claims, and the total absence of the- spirit of revenge from the negotiations in this matter; the more respectful and receptive attitude of the people toward the preaching of the Gospel in many places-all these things are U signs of the times," and afford great encouragement to those who hope that the better day for China is already dawning. It is doubtless true that there are occasional signs of continued unrest, and rumors of other gathering storms; that the empress dowager has been allowed by foreign powers to retain the supreme imperial authority, and that she is probably no more enthusiastically pro-foreign than before her humiliating flight to Hsi An Fu; that the bulk (I use the term advisedly) of Ohinese officialdom is still intensely conservative, and would like to see Ohina forever free from foreign influence; and that there are still some who are mad enough to think it possible; yet 1 believe Ohina is prepared, more than she ever has been before, for an aggressive forward movement to proclaim the pure Gospel of Jesus Ohrist as the only tonic for the weakness which has been laid bare, and the only hope for the regeneration of a nation whose hoary age has been dishonored by individual selfishness, social foulness, political rottenness, and a national pride whose self-deception has rendered it the laughing-stock of the world. Ohina's chief lack in the past has been that of vision. She was blind, yet thought she saw. At length her eyes have begun to open, after the severest operation of the ages. Now that the bandages are being removed and the optic nerve is accustoming itself to the strong light, there is hope of a cure. What Ohina is to see with this new strong vision is largely for the Ohurch in America to determine, for never so much as now has Ohina realized that America is her best friend.
THE OUTLOOK IN JAPAN BY REV. J. C. DAVISON, NAGASAKI, JAPA1J Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church The present outlook in Japan is certainly very encouraging and especially gratifying to those whose hearts have been enlisted through long years of active service on the field. The remarkable spiritual results of the recent special evangelistic efforts in connection with the Twentieth Oentury Movement furnish abundant proof of a condition favorable to even greater harvests still to come.
Directly conducive of these blessed results have been the systcmatic and united labors of missionaries, Japanese pastors, and lay workers who with earnest prayer, practical preaching, personal exhortation, and wholesale distribution of religious tl'Mts and Scripture portions seized the hour ripe for the manifestation of God's grace ready to be revealed after the patient waiting and continued seedsowing through years of icy indifference and wilful neglect, Of the more indirectly related causes may be noted: 1. The general sense of relief to the national mind resulting from the successful termination of the long-disturbing question of treaty revision, together with a pardonable complacency over the recognition by foreign nations of Japan's just merits as a naval and military power, since both have contributed in no small degree to the revival of a more cordial feeling toward foreigners, and willingness to listen to the Gospel message, 2. The present favorable opportunity for influencing the enlarged numbers of students entering our mission school, an event made
possible by reason of the changed attitude of the educational authorities on the question of religious instrnction, together with the removal of certain disabilities, to which the students of all private schools were formerly subjected.
3. The steady growth of Christian ideas manifest in the literature of the present day, the subject being kept constantly before the reading public.
4. The ad vance in self-support, far in excess of the relative growth in church-membership, and in some places even in spite of reduced numbers.
The temptation to accept more lucrative employment in secular life, consequent upon the general expansion subsequent to the war with China (1894-1895), and the issues growing out of the Boxer uprising and the acquisition of the Philippines by the United States, has resulted in a great scarcity- of encouraging candidates for the ministry, yet it is to hoped that as a result of the recent quickening efficient workers may be forthcoming in numbers adequate to the needs of the Church. God speed the day of Japan's redemption I THE OUTLOOK IN KOREA BY REV. W. B. SCRANTON, M.D.
Superintendent Methodist Episcopal Mission, Korea Korea, or rather Tai Han, the Great Han country, as they now prefer to call it, has come into the view of the world to stay. She is situated as a near neighbor to Japan, and is closing her second decade of intercourse with Western powers. During this period she has had foreign representatives continuously at her court, foreign advisers and many instructors of one sort and another in her employ and pay at the capital, and an energetic body of missionaries in the field. It is natural to ask, What impression have all these made, and what is the outlook?
At the capital the streets have been widened and lighted with electricity, and electric cars give the people some idea of the rapidity of modern progress. A steam railway connects the western port (Chemulpo) with the capital, and concession has been granted to the Japanese to lay three hundred and fifty miles of railroad from the most southern port (Fusan) to Seoul, and a further concession has been made to the French for a like length of road from the capital to the far northwest border at We-ju. These roads are but the forerunners and provoking- instruments of trade and of development of native resources.
Attempts have been made, especially aided by the Japanese, to put the Korean government on a better plane of administration, to give the country laws and better civil courts, and to open schools for general and special education. In one of the latter departments a humiliating but encouraging sign recently was an attempt on the part of some of the students to obtain redress from the government for the time and money expended without receiving the educational advantages which the government had promised to them. There is now a demand for real practical instruction along every line.
Protestant converts now number a ronnd ten thousand and more. Romanists have not been idle, and number forty·two thousand odd, as the result of not quite two hundred years of sowing and care.
What is the outlook? I answer, in the first place, it never was more encouraging than at the present. The opportunities for work, to say nothing of the needs for teaching, in all departments are far beyond the power of the force in the field.
And, second, this body of converts and adherents is now sufficiently large to affect thought and morals in the various communities where they are. Christianity has already become a force that must be reckoned with, and which will influence the further development of the country. Christianity closes markets on the Sunday, purifies the family relations, makes clean bodies and minds, brings honesty into business relations, fidelity in official positions, gives hopefulness in life, brings comfort in sorrow and victory in death. To give one illustration only: The mourners wailing, so sad and lugubrious and always present in the homes where death has entered, now has given place in all the Christian homes of the land to the singing of our Christian hymns of comfort. They use them in the services at the house, along the road as they go to the grave, and as a parting to the loved ones. Ohristianity in Korea" bringeth forth fruit as it doth in you since the day ye heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth."
The third sign of hopefulness, as I see it, is the live interest the Christians are taking in their church relations, and the sense of responsibility which is growing upon them, both in temporal and spiritual matters. We have churches where the avemge yearly contributions range from twenty-five cents to one dollar (gold) per capita.
Spiritually the people themselves are inquiring after the deeper life. The discouragements which we meet along this line are not a . ·few, but when there are individuals who are seeking after the deep things of God, such individuals in such churches furnish us great cause for rejoicing, and this is the case in many instances.
Lastly, the hardest for the missionary, but really a most encouraging condition of things, is the eagerness for instruction on the part of his flock. Their question drawer has no bottom. Their interest has no surcease, and their pursuit of the missionary never remits until from sheer physical exhaustion he has to leave the country for "'a quiet place apart" to gain the necessary relief.
MISSIONARY OUTLOOK IN INDIA BY REV. HENRY MANSELL, D.D., MUSSOORI, INDIA Missionary. of the Methodist Episcopal Mission since 1863 India, where" God has manifested His eternal power and Godhead," contains nearly three hundred million inhabitants, practically all idolators. Nine hundred years of Mohammedan misrule, intolerance, and iconoclasm could not break down idolatry which Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism have failed to reform.
1. What the British government has done.-More than a hundred years ago British supremacy began, bringing every influence except military and legal force against it. The government was tolerant of all religions except Ohristianity, and was an object-lesson against theocracies, and in favor of monotheism and sterling honesty and truthfulness in government. Since the government of India after the mutiny was transferred from the company to the crown the British government, without ostensibly propagating Ohristianity or violating the strictest neutrality and toleration, does in every principle and act give silent and speaking testimony. against idolatry and in favor of Ohristianity. She builds school-houses all over the country, and establishes practically free common-school education, and grants aid to mission schools of all denominations. She has a university in every presidency for students of all races, creeds, and castes. She builds churches and chapels, and supports chaplains for her own Ohristian servants, and grants aid also for non-conformist chaplains.
She gives decisions in all the superior and lower courts in accordance with strict justice, without favor to any caste, creed, or religion. Her civil codes are on the basis of the 'ren Oommandments. All these principles of Ohristian science, religion, and law testify without force of government against idolatry and in favor or Ohristianity.
She builds railroads (twenty-five thousand miles already operated), digs canals for irrigation (thirteen and a half million acres irrigated) to guard against famines, has public work-shops for all machinery, factories for every fabric, engineering colleges, technical schools, and model farms and gardens.
2. What the missionaries have done.-It is only a little over one hundred years since the first missionaries went to India, and they have translated the Scriptures into the languages of Oeylon, India, Tibet, Burma, and the Straits islands. With the aid of other English scholars they have written grammars and lexicons of all the languages of India and adjacent countries. They have written histories of India, from the earliest times. They have written extensively on the religions and religious observances, and the manners and' customs of the people. They have established mission schools and colleges, and written and translated text-books for them in science and history. They have preached in the streets, bazars, and religious festivals, as well as in the villages, city wards, and private houses of the people. They have established printing-presses and publishing houses for Bibles, tracts, and religious books, and written commentaries on the Scriptures, and books for the growing churches. They have built hospitals and dispensaries, orphanages and asylums for the blind, the lepers, etc. In fact, they have done every kind of missionary and evangelistic work.
3. Some reslllts.-I have not the report of the last census, but am sure we have at least three million Protestant converts in the seventy missionary societies. Our own Methodist mission, one of the youngest of the larger societies, after only forty-four years' work, has one hundred and twenty-five thousand of a Christian community, ninety-four thousand Sunday-school scholars, thirty-four thousand day and boarding .school scholars, twelve thousand Epworth Leaguers, one hundred and fifty-six ordained native ministers, and three thousand six hundred and forty-seven educated and trained native teachers, pastor teachers, and workers of all grades. We have church propertychurches, parsonages, school and college buildings, printing-presses, hospitals, etc., worth $1,400,000. We report about twenty thousand baptisms a year. Other societies show larger statistics.
4. There are mission centres and flourishing native Christian churches for all the great societies in all the capitals of the presidencies and provinces in India, and mission stations in all the commercial and religious centers in India, Burma, and Ceylon.
There are many millions of the people who have acquired an English education in mission and government colleges. Hundreds have received degrees in England and thousands in India. All these have had their faith in the unphilosophic teaching of their religions and their idolatrous rites irremediably broken. Millions more have studied in mission and government vernacular schools, heard Christianity preached, read tracts and Scripture portions, and know more of Ohristianity than they do of their own religions, and would embrace it if they could publicly renounce idolatry and receive Christian baptism without being outcasted, with the loss of. all social and financial standing; while multiplied thousands of the unlettered, depressed classes-India's dumb millions-are beseeching missionaries of all missions to make them Christians, who would baptize thousands a day if they had funds to employ pastor teachers to indoctrinate them and teach their children to read and write.
The Brahma and Arya somajes are two great theistic societies. formed to oppose idolatry and provide a half-way house for those who believe in Christianity, but have not the courage to break caste and embrace it.
The orthodoJ: Hindus are forming societies to dissuade their young
intelligent men from embracing Ohristianity. There is a large and growing society to promote the remarriage of widows. The Rajputana States have decided to oppose the consummation of marriage till the bride has reached the age of fourteen. Besilles all this, there is, through the influence of education, manufactures, commerce, railway communication, and enterprise, a rapid rise in civilization on Ohristian types, beyond that of any other country. The India of today is not the India of forty years ago. There is now the utmost cordiality between the missionaries of all denominations and the natives of all grades and castes from the rajah to the sweeper.
We have all the aforementioned tabulated and untabulated results in hand where one hundred years ago there was everything against us and only God with us. We have better educated and equipped missionaries than we had forty years ago, and since thirty years ago the noble bands of women. We have all missionaries, European and native, and all helpers and laymen praying for the baptism of power for the twentieth century forward movement. We have all Epworth League chapters and Christian Endeavor societies formed into evangelistic praying-bands. Ohristianity banished idolatry from Europe in three hundred years. Our outlook of faith and hope is that India will be a Ohristian empire before the twentieth century ends. Hallelujah, the Lord Ohrist reigneth!
THE NEW CENTURY OUTLOOK IN PERSIA BY REV. BENJAMIN LABAREE, D.D., URUMIA, PERSIA Missionary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions A hundred years ago Persia was scarcely allowed a place at all in any forecast of the new century's march, and now, at the close of that stirring period, no review of its history shows that such spirit of prophecy then was at fault. But here on the threshold of the twentieth cen"tury we dare not rate the influence of Persia on the near future of the world so low down in the scale as her tecord in the past one hundred years has been. Oonditions have changed rapidly within the last fifty years. New importance has come to be attached to Persia's political relations. They are assuming new shape already. Long into the nineteenth century English influence was in" the ascendant in all the political counsels of Persia; but for some time past Russian diplomacy has taken its place. Beyond question her future is to be closely allied with the aggressive policy of her powerful neighbor on the north. The die is cast in this respect, seemingly beyond recall. And undoubtedly the religious destiny of Persia is intimately bound up with the coming political development. Yet in this line there are factors of independent force which demand to be
THE NEW CENTURY OUTLOOK IN PERSIA
considered, inheritances from more than two-thirds of a century of Protestant missionary work that must be properly estimated and taken into account. We ask then, What are the religious signs of the times in Persia? What are the tokens of the coming of the Redeemer's kingdom in this compact Mohammedan state? What agencies are making for the ultimate triumph of Christianity? ·What is the bequest of the nineteenth century in this line to its impetuous successor? In order that we may answer these urgent questions and know just where the Christian Church stands to-day toward this empire, let us look at the preparatory work already done, examine the foundations on which the new century is to rear its structure, and judge as to the forces on which reliance may be placed for the definite advance of Christianity in the years before us.
MISSIONARY BEGINNINGS IN PERSIA We need not go back beyond the reach of a lifetime to meet with the beginnings of modern missionary operations in Persia. A full third of the nineteenth century had passed before its benign mis- sionary touch had started into life the new order of religious condi- tions which now so widely prevail throughout the land. The dawn of some new spiritual life might, perhaps, have been augured in the very beginning of the century, when, in the unfolding of the Divine plan, Henry Martyn prepared his translation of the New Testament in the Persian language, and a little later on the Old Testament was rendered into the same mellifluous speech by the venerable Andrew Glen, of Scotland. Yet these all-important fountains of light were sealed up, as it were, for scores of years, no one coming forward to open the way for them out into the deep Mohammedan darkness of the nation. Nominal Christian churches, Nestorian and Armenian, had for centu- ries been allowed a languishing existence in the land, but long since had they ceased to give out any true guiding light as to the way of life through Christ. Spiritual gloom and death engulfed the peoples of -the land. One-third of the century passed, with its faithful recor~ of apathy and neglect on the part of the Church, before missionary work was actually begun here. Then it was to the desolated fragments of the Nestorian Church that the Spirit of the Lord directed the awakened interest of certain churches in America.
The year 1835 marked the arrival at U rumia of those pioneer apostles of the American Board of Boston, Messrs. Perkins and Grant, and the inauguration by them of systematic efforts to kindle new spiritual fire on the ashes of this once famous missionary church. Again, as so often of old, did God signalize the mystery of His doings by the choosing of a "remnant" in which to magnify His power. For long it was a day of small things, materially and spiritually. The work of education, for bishops and priests and youth, began very humbly in a
cellar, which in part remains until to-day a suggestive landmark in our mission history. At the same time the resources of the beneficent healing art were stored in a small closet. Now; in the progress of more than sixty years, that cellar school has reared its head aloft and expanded into a modest college, choicely situated, with its several departments, academic, theological, and medical; while the cupboard dispensary has gradually become transformed into a beautiful hospital, whose fame has filled the land. Moreover, both college and hospital have been in some shape or other reproduced in other centers of mis- sionary work in the kingdom.
This development in material things has a striking counterpart in the spiritual tranformation which has taken place. The years 1847 and 1848 was an era of notable spiritual expansion in this century of mISSIOns. It was a new creative day. Upon the long-prevailing void and waste of true religion dawned the light of God. At once new views of sin, of the love of God, of Christ as a Savior from personal guilt, of true Christian character, of the reality of prayer, and of genuine Christian communion broke on the horizon of relig- ious thought and experience to these descendants of the early church of Antioch. And what the Spirit of God so signally inaugurated at that time, He has cherished and prospered through the suc- ceeding years. The marks of a Divine continuity are conspicuous all down the march of the mission's record. For one who is at all famil- iar with this history it is impossible to regard it as other than a Divine movement, a fulfilment of our Lord's snblime promise of His own efficient presence wherever the Gospel should be preached, and in vital connection with the whole display of Divine power in mission lands throughout the world as the century has rolled on. '1'he steady ingathering of hopefully converted souls.. the development of the Church from early formative conditions to present self-reliance and partial self-support, along with some most significant exhibitions of missionary zeal and self-denial in the nat.ive Church, are unquestion- able tokens of the indwelling presence and power of the Spirit of God. The v.ision of ancient prophecy has often been repeated in thewonder- ful providences attending the progress of missionary operations. The Church at home has made large plans, and the men commissioned by it on the field have counselled and toiled, but over and over have they . both been awed by the sense of some special guidance other than human, shaping their decisions, their labors, and results.
Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they-the living creatures-went; thither was the spirit to go: and the wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. When those went, these went; and when these stood, these stood, and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them.
It witS uuder such unseen impulses thltt our missionary wheels
were lifted up out of the narrower purpose of preaching salvation to the Nestorians only, and were started upon the broader one of evan- gelizing the other nations of Persia as well. The writer recalls the day and hour, over thirty years ago, when the little band of mission- aries constituting the then mission to the Nestorians, at the solitary station at U rumia, resolved, with a deep consciousness of their respon- sibilityand clear convictions as to the leadings of God, to change their long-cherished name, "The Nestorian Mission," to be thereafter called "'1'he Mission to Persia." Thus they desired to publish to the Church at home, and for their own greater inspiration, their advance to a higher stage of missionary endeavor. On the basis of this wider sweep of evangelistic purpose the appeals went out to the home Church. And with memorable results at once. The appeal was met by a condition of things there wholly unanticipated. Divine Providence, most wonderful in working, had been preparing the way for the very enlargement of plan which the mission was now urging. Stirring events of historic note in the Presbyterian Church in America that same year gradually brought about the transfer of the mission from tenderly cherished relations with the American Board to the fostering care of the Presbyterian Ohurch. The latter assumed the new charge with a full sense of the responsibility, and entered into the spirit of the new ideals of the mission with an enthusiasm born, we believe, of the Holy Spirit. They responded promptly and generously to the plan for evangelistic expansion. Men and women and funds were liberally offered in order to extend the line of operations.
The mission speedily felt the pulsations of a new life. But a few years elapsed and the spirit of life in the wheels had carried the living missionaries, with all necessary equipment for aggressive work, to the strategic centers, Teheran, Tabriz, and Hamadan. In these the new aims for larger evangelization have been kept in the foreground, and have been realized probably in a fuller measure than in the original Nestorian field. Christ, the only Savior of mankind, has been widely preached throughout large regions, in cities and towns, from peasant's hut to prince's palace; to Armenian, Israelite, and MOhammedan. And the printed Scriptures have been made to reach a still greater number. To how many this preaching has been unto their souls'salvation, only the Book of Life contains the record. We know it is a number very precious to the glorified Ohrist. Years ago the venerable pioneer of Persia missions wrote back as he was parting from the shores of Asia, "Heaven will not know sweeter songs of praise than those sung by redeemed Nestorians." Since then there have been added to the celestial chorus voices, no less melodious, of Armenians, Jews, and Mohammedans, redeemed by a joyous faith in the J..Jamb which taketh away the sins of the world.
(To be conclttded)
ZIONISM AND CHRISTIANITY BY REV. DAVID BARON,LONDON, ENGLAND There is a great deal of eager speculation among Zionists and in anti-Zionist circles through the Diaspora as to what revelations will be made by the president in his opening address at the Zionist Con- gress in Basel (December 26-29). Especial interest is felt in what Dr. Herzl will say in reference to his historical interviews with the sultan last May, and as to the attitude of the other powers to the progrant formulated at the first congress, the chief item of which is to strive to procure for the Jewish people "an openly recognized and- legally assured home in Palestine."
It is certainly very significant that the head and founder of politi- cal Zionism should have been received on three succeeding days by the Sultan of Turkey to prolonged audiences lasting several hours each time, and should have been decorated with the grand cordon of the Medjidie, one of the highest orders in the gift of the Ottoman sov- ereign. This leads us to believe that the question of a return of the Jews to the land of their fathers is now well within the range of prac- tical politics. .
As a matter of fact, the Zionist movement has a very sympathetic support of some of the European sovereigns, the foremost of whom is the Emperor of Germany. He was won for Zionism through the me- diation of his uncle, the Grand Duke of Baden, who is a pious Christian and a sincere friend of the Jews. It was through this most excellent prince that Dr. Herzl first gained the ear of William II., who has since 1898 granted several long interviews to the Zionist leader in Berlin, Potsdam, 'ConstantinopYe, and Jerusalem. Certain facts have been communicated to me in confidence, and I have seen with my own eyes certain remarkable private documents, in reference to the attitude of some of the European rulers and princes to the aims of Zionism, which prove to me that there is a great deal more politically behind this movement than even the bulk of even Zionists themselves are aware. At the third congress in Basel, in August, 1899, Dr. Herzlreferred to the, significance of the emperor's public reception of a deputation of Zion- ists in the city of Jerusalem.
There is much from the Christian standpoint to criticise and to lament in the fact that the means proposed for the accomplishment of this great end are entirely material and political; and that, so far, there is an utter forgetfulness of the cause of the long break in Jewish national history, and an ignoring of the words of their own prophets, that though He has doubtless used the nations to carry out His will, it was nevertheless God who scattered Israel on account of sin (Jere- miah xxxi: 10; Amos ix: 9), and therefore, tho He may again use means to gather them, without God, and without repentance, they will
ZIONISM AND CHRISTIANITY
never be restored to blessing. But, even to the Ohristian, Zionism is a movement which must be followed with the deepest interest, for what we are now beginning to see is nothing less than, to nse the title of Professor Heman's book on the subject, "The Awakening of the Jewish Nation," * after a sleep of nineteen centuries. This national awakening, in spite of the dark but short night of trou ble which still lies ahead, I greet as preparatory to the great spiritual awakening of Israel, the issues of which to the world will be as "life from the dead."
It is from this point of view that the Jewish parliament, which is about to assemble for the fifth time, is nothing short of a miracle, which, unknown as yet to the great actors, is brought about by the power of God. Here is a people which for two thousand years has been supposed to be dead, and whom the nations have done their utmost to bury out of sight, who have even said to themselves," Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off from Ollr parts"
(Ezekiah xxxvii: 11), beginning to live and move and to have a cor- porate being. • But tho full of interest as a sign of the awakening of the Jewish nation, and pregnant with hope in relation to Israel's national future, Zionism in the mn-in, in its present fo"rm, is by no means a relig- ious movement, and it becomes more and more apparent that the partial return to Palestine, for which it is a preparation, will be in a condition of unbelief. But this fact should of itself serve to rouse the Ohurch to fresh energy in preaching the Gospel to the Jews, while the nation is still }n dispersion, remembering that tho it may not be given to her to convert Israel as a nation, she has the glorious task entrusted to her of calling out the" remnant according to grace," and it is a grand fact that the proportion of individual Jews who receive Ohrist is continually on the increase. On the question as to the atti- tude of Zionists as a body to Ohristianity, the following extract from a paper read in German by Pastor Bieling, head of the Berlin Society for Israel, at a conference of Jewish missionaries in Oologne may interest the readers of the MISSIONARY REVIEW, tho my own experi- ence among Zionists in different parts of Europe does not leave me to take quite such a gloomy view of the situation. Pastor Bieling says: Zionism, far from making the hearts of the Jewish people more susceptible to the preaching of Christ, has rather the opposite effect of closing them against it. Proof of this is to be found in the utterances of its representatives, in the experiences of missionaries, and in the position assumed by Zionists in relation to Christians in Israel. The correspondence between Max Nordau and Pere Hyacinth, of Paris, which certainly possesses interest, has· been reprinted in various missionary journals. Nordau's reply to the grave and dignified letters of Pere Hyacinth not only betrays that lack of comprehension (If the truths of Christianity which, alas! appears to have become the fashion with the educated, * "Das Erwacben der Jiidiscben Nation."
but constitutes an open attack on it. The assurance that Jesus is in reality hailed with enthusiasm by the Jewish nation as belonging to them, and that Peter will continue to be the only Jew who says to the descendants of David, "I know not the man," does not mislead us. For the Jesus of whom he speaks is but the great Jewish sage by whom the Jewish people has given its religious ideas to the world in form cutdown and adapted to its weak comprehension. He is in nowise the Son of God, the Savior of the world. . . . Max Nordau asserts with all distinctness that the leading representatives and the great majority of the Jewish people are in no way inclined to follow "the Christ of the Gospel of John."
The experience of the Jewish mission confirms this statement. I have corresponded with a number of missionary brethren in reference to this point. The same answer is returned from Russia, Rumania, Galicia, and London, to the effect that Zionism does not in any way influence the Jews in the direction of the Savior, but instead its tend- ency is to harden their hearts against the preaching of the cross.
'rhe following passage occurs in a letter from a brother in .Russia: We missionaries certainly obtain easier access to Jews who are Zionists, especially when we converse with them on their favorite topic, but they are only inclined to listen so long as Zionism is the theme of conversation. If we change the subject to that of the Gospel they become wholly indifferent and wish to hear no more. The Zionist movement is not only no help to the Jewish mission, it is positively a hindrance, for by means of it the Jews become proud and self-conscious, and confirmed in the steady conviction that they are able to obtain their object without Christ. Truly pious Jews are opposed to Zionism. They do not expect deliverance from Herzl and others, but look for a fresh Divine revelation and the sending of the prophet Elijah.
I will not suppress the fact that other of our missionary brethren express themselves somewhat more hopefnlly to the effect that they discover a greater readiness to hear among Zionists. I can myself confirm this statement, but hearing is quite a different thing from receiving, and hearing often comes to an end when the speech concerns the savior from sin. And it may well be that the experience of one brother is the general experience-i.e., that Zionists are not less inimical to the Jewish mission and missionaries than are the Orthodox and Chasoidic Jews. This attitude of aversion to Christianity comes at last clearly to light in the position which Zionists take toward Jewish Ohristians.
The program of Zionism would lead one to imagine that religion might be left a priyate matter, and that Zionists could well endure that Jewish Ohristians should be among them. And, indeed, there are some who, on purely theoretic grounds, see no reason why Jewish Ohristians should be excluded from the new Jewish state. It is worthy of note that these are principally such as have themselves broken away from all religion. In practise, however, the disinclina- tion, the hatred, indeed, to Jewish Ohristians remains the same in all cases. The reason Zionists will not take counsel and cooperate with Jewish Ohristians is the old hatred to Jesus the crucified, which is still far from being overcome.
THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT IN SPAIN
The development of the Jewish people these 1900 years is known to have been anti-Ohristian, and Zionism is not inclined to forsake this course. It is true that this in nowise hinders it from seeking assist~ ance from Ohristian circles. It was openly acknowledged that one reason which decided the Zionist Oonference to meet in London last year was to obtain the interest of the Bible-loving English. But to draw any hope from this of a nearer approach of Zionism to Ohristianity, or to suppose for a moment that Ohristians, by means of their aid, would acquire any influence with the movement, appears to me mistaken. Undoubtedly, Zionists will welcome the help of Ohristians and be thankful for it, but they will not approach a step nearer to Ohristianityon account of it. Ohristians may relinquish all attempts in this direction to obtain influence with the Jews. Let us not indulge in delusions. Zionism does not incline Jewish hearts to accept the Savior; on the contrary, its effect is rather that of hardening them against Him.
THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT IN SPAIN BY CHARLES E. FAITHFULL Pastor of the Chamberi Evangelical Cburch, Madrid, Spain Thoughtful observers of important events in Spain during the last thirty-three years can not fail to have been painfully impressed with the backward movement that insiduously but gradually has been enveloping both political and religious-i.e., Roman Oatholic-circles.
This has been specially noticeable since the death of Alphonso XII. in 1885, the fa.th.er of the mere boy who will attain his regal majority next October and ascend the throne under the title of Alfonso XIII. The regency of his mother, estimable as a woman and mother undoubtedly, but eminently ultramontane in thought and purpose, willalways be looked back upon as a sad page in Spanish contemporaneous history -a period of such a retrograde character as to foment discord and sow seeds of class hatred such as will be difficult, if not impossible, to eradicate.
When it is remem bered that the opposition to religious liberty has been in direct opposition to constituted law, there is cause for a wellfounded anxiety, and the inquiry will press itself on the thoughtful mind, What will be the ultimate issue of this struggle?
But in a remarkable way a counter-movement was preparing, and the initiatory step toward its manifestation was, strangely enough, to be taken unwittingly and certainly unwillingly under the regal roof itself. The appearance of some leading articles from the pen of Father Montafia, one of the young king's professors, gave the signal of alarm, and so powerful was public opinion that the queen regent was compelled to dispense with his services-one fact that must suffice to show
the mischief this man was secretly effecting. The religious instruction imparted to his royal pupil was, as may be supposed, of the most advanced type, and, counting perhaps too much on court favor and on the sl~pposed general feeling in the land, he did not hesitate to state that the word" liberty" in matters religious or political was synonymous with sin! Such intolerance, stated also in the articles from his pen, was only an echo of his whole private instruction, and fell like a thunderbolt into the liberal camp. 'l'he challenge afforded was speedily taken up and liberty nobly defended by some and feebly acquiesced in by others less courageous, but culminated in the professor's removal.
But yet further developments were shortly to appear. At a trial, known as the affair Ubao, a nun who, unknown to her parents, had been inveigled into conventual life by a designing Jesuit confessor, became the subject of passionate discussion all over the peninsula, once again stirring up the mud of monastic institutions and afresh revealing this incurable cancer to the public gaze.
How remarkable, how inscrutable, are God's ways! Simul- – taneously with this trial that resulted in the lady obtaining her freedom from a bondage worse than that of Egypt, but into which so mauy earnest but mistaken souls are led, a book appeared that might have been written afterward, so exactly did it fit the case. It was admirably suited to the already excited feelings of the people. I refer to "Electra," from the pen of the prolific and distinguished author of "National Episodes, etc.," Perez "Galdos. The almost phenomenal success of this work, its translation into several languages, and its constant reproduction on the boards of theaters, both in the old and new worlds, show just what was in the public mind and what was calculated to affect it.
In the month of February another event, culminating in a strong expression of opinion, added fuel to the flame and threatened tempo- rarily to disturb public order, not to say the safety of the throne. I allude to the marriage of the Princess of Asturias, elder daughter of the queen regent, with the Count of Caserta. This gentleman's father fought in the ranks of Don Oarlos III the last Carlist war, and therefore was far from being persona grata either at court or in the country. The marriage was ill timed and ill chosen, except perhaps so far as the young princess' personal happiness was concerned, for on every hand it is openly and boldly stated that should anything happen to the young king the country would never consent to his sister ascending the throne. It is easy to perceive that the reason for such outspoken animosity is a latent but well-founded fear that her husband, imbued with Oarlist views, would exercise a deleterious influence and only too surely succeed in tying more tightly the knots of those bands with which the clerical party are ever seeking to hinder progress.
But there has been still another cause for this movement that,
THE A:NTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT IN SPAIN
strictly speaking, is anti-clerical rather than anti-papal. The jubilees ordered to be celebrated in all the churches of the pope's spiritual dominions have been a source of irritation needlessly produced, as there was no poseJble excuse, ,exctlpt that their prestige in the eyes of the faithful would have been diminished, for their going beyond the precincts of the churches. The collisions arising from this ill-advised policy have been lamentable spectacles loudly proclaiming the entire absence of the public good will toward the Church and stirring unnecessarily animosity in those who were already known to be' inimical to her.
From these facts it will readily be conceived that the prevailing feelings of anger and distrust were not likely to subside in view of events in Portugal of a similar character, and especially the energetic action of the French government regarding unauthorized monastic orders. Scarcely had Parliament reopened than a regular avalanche of abuse and invective was heaped upon those who in this law-making. but not law-abiding land had skilfully succeeded in eluding, not to say openly defying, legislation. This strong undercurrent of a deepvented hatred still flows, and will undon btedly pulminate in the application of what was promulgated as law, tho .possibly in such a feeble fashion that erelong the hydra-headed monster will rise again.
Thus far I have briefly traced the origin, character, and extent of this anti-clerical movement. It now only remains to answer the inquiry, What is or will be the result?
For the present it is difficult to prophesy as to the result. The immediate outcome has not so far contributed to any material improvement in the condition of the country, from a religious point of view, nor, indeed, can this be expected. One of the many phenomena constantly forcing themselves on our notice is the similarity to the successive stages of a storm. The premonitory symptoms of discontent and unrest are followed by an outburst of pul5lic indignation, manifested by processions, meetings, angry protests, violent recriminations, and so forth, but, like the fury of the elements, when spent, the calm sncceeds and everything resnmes its former aspect. True, th~ constant repetition must ultimately result in a wearing away of those opposing elements that to-day, even after thirty-three years of comparative liberty, are eating out the vitals of the nation's spiritual life and even her material prosperity.
From a Christian point of view there is but one remedy-the Gospel message permeating the masses, slowly perhaps, but surely, and so disarming prejudice, and calling out, one by one, as from other nations, " a people to His name."
BISHOP HENRY B. WHIPPLE, APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS BY MERRILL E. GATES, LL.D., WASHINGTON, D. O. Secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners.
"Pax per sanguinem crucis" is the legend on the seal of the first Bishop of Minnesota, and at the foot of the figure of the cross lie a broken tomahawk and the pipe of peace. The name of Henry B.
Whipple became known to the whole country when the bishop who bore it fearlessly denounced the deeds of injustice on the part of the whites which preceded the Sioux outbreak, in 1862. He says: " When I entered upon the episcopate, in 1859, I determined that, God being my helper, it should never be said that the first Bishop of Minnesota turned his back npon the heathen at his door!"
He was the loving and tender preacher of the Gospel to these" men of the restless eye and the wandering foot;"
and he was also the fearless, outspoken champion of their rights. He stood for fair j u d g men t of Indians by whites even when fear, sus- picious jealousy, and local hatred were most intense.
" In his death," says a , mSHOP HENRY ll. WHrppLj: London religious j ou rna 1, " the Protestant Episcopal Ohurch in the United States of America loses unquestionably one of its most picturesque personalities, as well as the member of her epis- copate who was the best known in England. He will be remembered by posterity as the steadfast champion of the North American Indians."
The pioneer in missions must be an evangelist with a passionate love of souls. He should also be a statesman in his broad and clear com- prehension of the relation of his work to the civilization and the good government of the people among whom he works. The history of missions shows so many instances in which these two qualities have distinguished missionary workers, that one who studies the work of missions with affectionate interest comes to look upon this twofold endowment as the especial gift of God, again and again bestowed upon great missionary leaders. Is it not true that the habit of studying God's Word with the unselfish aim of making its great lessons useful
BISHOP HENRY B. WHIPPLE, APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS
to masses of men and women, tends directly to the breadth of view and unselfishness in action which civilized nations now regard as " statesman-like"? "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple."
Bishop Whipple had this twofold endowment for the work of a missionary leader. He was a tender and passionate preacher of the gospel of the love of God in Ohrist. He was deeply and mightily moved in his heart to make Ohrist known to those who were indifferent and without hope. Especially did he care for the working people in Ohristian communities and those heathen whom he was fond of calling his" Red Brothers." When his election as Bishop of Minnesota made him the neighbor of the twenty thousand Sioux and Ohippewa Indians in that State, his preaching as a minister of the Gospel became even more simple, tender, and powerful than before. "I preached through an interpreter," he says, "which is at first difficult; but it compels the use of silllple language in order to reach the heart." "I was overwhelmed by the thought of the joy which would come to the Divine heart of the Savior as I looked down upon these men of the trembling eye and the wandering foot, kneeling at His feet/'
The distinctive characteristic of Bishop Whipple'S work lay in the fact that with the sweetness and fervor of his personal love for the Indians there was a clear recognition of the duty of redressing their wrongs and of making them civilized citizens. By personal inspection and by careful study he gained a thorough knowledge of the condition and the needs of the Indians. He was among the first to advocate important measures of reform, which have since been adopted into our Indian policy. His letter to President Buchanan in 1860-opposing treaties with Indian tribes as nations; calling attention to the evil effects of paying money annuities to tribes; emphasizing the need of law upon Indian reservations, and calling for Indian police and a United States Oommissioner at each reservation'; demanding that the government take steps to prevent the sale of ardent spirits to Indians; advocating homesteads for Indians, where they could live by the cultivation of the soil, and calling for practical teachers in the peaceful pursuits of agriculture and the arts of civilization;-was a statesman-like paper, which outlined, more than forty years ago, most of the successive steps in civilizing the Indians which the United States has since undertaken. And it is of especial value, too, as illustrating the right attitude of a public-spirited clergyman (in a nation which believes emphatically in the separation of Ohurch and State) toward national questions of legislation and administration, such as now cor..cern us in Porto Rico and the Philippines, closing, as it does, with the words, "I have written frankly, as a Ohristian Bishop may write to the Ohief Magistrate of a Ohristian Nation."
It is interesting to observe in his life the process by which he waS
fitted for his work. The natural temperament of this man, the cir- cumstances of his birth and early training, the experience of his younger manhood in mercantile and political life, and the first years of his ministry as an evangelistic preacher in a great city in charge of a free church especially for working people-all tend toward the equipment of the missionary preacher, the successful administrator of the affairs of a diocese, the public-spirited Christian philanthropist, and the courteous and beloved representative of one branch of the Church of Christ in cordial relations with Christians of other denomi- nations and of other nations.
Born in 1822, at Adams, New York, of parents whose antecedents and training were in the Episcopal Church, but who were communicants of the Presbyterian Church throughout the years or his boyhood, after some years under other Christian teachers, he became a student at Oberlin, living with his uncle, the Rev. George Whipple, who was professor of mathematics while that powerful evangelist, Dr. Charles G. Finney, was president at Oberlin. Strongly drawn by the activity of his temperament toward business and political life, he did not com- plete the college course. But the influence of the high moral standards and the Christian enthusiam of Oberlin is clearly seen in his sub- sequent life. As a young man in business, he took an active part in the State politics of New York. When he became a clergyman, Thurlow Weed said of him, "I hope a good politician has not been spoiled to make a poor minister." After a pastorate of seven years at Rome, N. Y., in the winter of 1856 he went to Chicago and organized a free church which worshiped in a rented hall, and undertook a mission work among the "artisans, clerks, and railway men in the city, who were as sheep having no shepherd." He showed tireless Christian energy and remarkable tact and sympathy in getting hold of working- men. He says: .
"I visited every shop, saloon, and factory within a mile of the hall, leaving a card giving the place and hour of worship, and stating that I w.ould be at the service of any needing help, day or night." His study of the locomotive and its history, in order that he might talk with railroad men" without their thinking him a fool," and the hold he thus secured upon them, have become historic. His marked success in this work among the poor of Chicago led to his election as the first Bishop of Minnesota, a choice which took him entirely by surprise. To the friends who came to inform him or it he said: "I can not go. It is a mistake. I am not a scholar, a theologian, or a preacher. I am not even a graduate of a college. I was trained up a merchant. I gave up my business to tell the story of the love of Jesus. I know that I can do that, and I can be a shepherd to the poor, but a bishop I can never be."
The steady and remarkable growth of the churches under his care
as Bishop of Minnesota; the erection of the first cathedral church of his denomination in the United States; the growth and influence of the schools and the theological seminary which he established and developed; his influence in the councils of his own Ohurch and in England, where he served repeatedly as the delegate and representa- tive of the Episcopal Ohurch of the United States, are sufficient evidence that he judged too modestly his own equipment for the work of a bishop.
Especially interesting and noteworthy were his missionary journeys among the Indians, and his. work at Washington, in Minnesota, and in England, in favor of Ohristian missions, of fair treatment, legal protection, land in severalty, education, and citizenship for the North American Indians. In the first year of his episcopate he made a long missionary tour upon foot among the lakes and rivers of northern Minnesota, visiting the Ohippewas and the Sioux, and wrote: "There is nothing more heart-moving than to look into a sea of heathen faces with the thought that they know nothing of the love of Ohrist, and then to feel the thrill that comes as a gleam is detected on some face showing that the story has taken root."
The words of Madwaganonint, chief of the Red Lake Indians, after he had heard the Gospel from Bishop Whipple, give the Indian estimate of the man: " Your words are true, like the words of a spirit; we want to know more than we do. All we understand of your words is pleasant to us. You are patient, and you make the trail plain. Your Ohurch cares for little children. I like it. We hope you will give us a teacher and a school. I have your face on my heart. Good-bye. I am done."
Hardly had Bishop Whipple entered upon his work in Minnesota, when, in the dark days of the Oivil War, in 1862, the State was convulsed by the outbreak of the Sioux massacres, in which eight hundred whites were murdered. With hardly an exception, the Ohristian Indians remained faithful to their avowed friendship for the whites. Leaders among these Ohristian Indians rescued and brought in safety to their friends large numbers of white settlers, women and children, who in their isolation would have been slain had it not been for the faithfulness of these converts. A storm of abuse was let loose upon Bishop Whipple because he spoke fearlessly, at Washington and in Minnesota, of the gross injustice on the part of the government and the whites, which had provoked this Indian outbreak. He possessed his soul in patience, standing steadfastly by the hated and the outcast. He exposed abuses, and fortified his appeals to the President and to Oongress by facts carefully collected, which supported all his statements. The result of years of this fearless Ohristian advocacy of justice and of hh~ tireless activity in missionary journeys among the Indians of Minnesota, was the conviction on the part of Indians and
whites alike that his statements could be implicitly trusted, his friend- ship and sympathy could be absolutely depended upon, and that his constantly growing influence must be reckoned with, and was steadily used for the best interests of the Indians and of all the people of Minnesota. The public estimate of the man on the part of Indians arid of white frontiersmen may be summed up in the words of Ohief Shaganash, who said: " You show us a good trail. I will try to follow the trail. And if I could be near a missionary, I believe that I could be a Ohris- tian."
Louis Robert, a French Indian trader, when asked, many years ago, if he knew Bishop Whipple, replied in the phrase since taken up by the newspapers and the novelists: "Yes, he is a sky-pilot, and always straight." The Indians called him" Straight Tongue," and trusted him entirely.
He visited Washington several times each year to plead for right- eous treatment of the Indians. The memorial which he drew up and presented to President Lincoln in 1862, and his suggestions to Presi- dents Lincoln and Grant, are believed to have led the appointment in 1869, by General Grant, of the Board of Indian Oommissioners, of whose work Bishop Whipple says in his autobiography: "There was little light on our Indian affairs until President Grant appointed a Ohristian commission, and sought the advice of Ohristian men in the appointment of Indian agents." In 1895 President Oleveland commissioned Bishop Whipple a member of this board.
His life and his work as a missionary bishop illustrate the triumphant power of the love of Ohrist in overcoming the selfishness and hostility of race prejudice. One who saw the first group of Indian children, as they were brought by Bishop Whipple to Faribault to his school, said: "You can't make Ohristians of them any more than you can tame a wcasel! " Two generations and more of Ohristian Indians, who have been useful as teachers and in the Ohristian ministry-men whose approved work and strength of character commend them to all who see and know them-bear witness in this field to the transforming and civilizing effect of the Gospel received and cherished in the heart. Wilen Bishop Whipple was invited by the Ohurch Mission Society of England, as the representative of the American Church, to deliver an address at the centenary of the society in April, 1899, it was SUgg8Stive of the uplifting power of Christian mission work among the most savage heathen races that Bishop Tucker, of Uganda, Africa (where, in 1883, there were but five Ohristians, while in 1899 there were over two hundred Ohristian honses of worship and 60,000 Africans who could read the Gospel), should there have sat beside Bishop Whipple, of Minnesota, who says, "on the site of the beautiful Shumway Memorial Chapel I witnessed a scalp-dance in 1860," and who lived to see
AN INDIAN CAMP-MEETING IN CANADA
Ileveral thousand Christian converts among the Indians of our country, and 60,000 of these Indians full citizens of the United States, with homesteads of their own. Verily," God hath made of one blood all nations of men," and through the blood of Jesus Christ hath "preached peace to them that were afar off." The first gift for Christian missions among the Indians, placed in the hands of Bishop Whipple upon his consecration as Bishop of Minnesota, was seventy dollars from Rev. Mr. Hoffman, missionary at Cape Palmas, Africa, who said: Before I left Africa our Christian black men gave me seventy dollars to carry the Gospel to heathen in America. I give it to you for Indian missions.
Thus beams of heavenly light from the cross are reflected from continent to continent into the" dark places of the earth." There is no such rational optimist in the world as the advocate of Christian missions! Well might Bishop Whipple close his autobiography with sentences that mark him as an enthusiastic Christian optimis.t; Not even in the primitive Church have greater victories been won in leading heathen folk to Christian civilization. . . . Ours is not a forlorn hope. We may out of the gloom of our perplexed hearts cry, "Watchman, what of the night?" but faith answers: "The morning cometh!"
AN INDIAN CAMP-MEETING IN CANADA BY REV. EGERTON R. YOUYG,TORONTO, CANADA Author of "On the Indian Trail," etc.
For years most of the great American camp-meetings have been given up. Owing to the newness of the country and the fewness of church buildings, these great annual religious gatherings in the primeval forests were in their day so much- appreciated by the people in the sparsely settled regions that they, with their whole households, made every sacrifice necessary to spend at least one week in the tented· grove. To travel forty or fifty miles to the selected campground, and there, in a rudely constructed tent or board hut, to reside for a week 01' ten days amidst the religious fervor of those remarkable gatherings, was considered a most glorious privilege.
With the advance of civilization and the filling up of these regions with people and churches, the camp-meeting gradually was given up. There are still some held every year, hut most of them are so associated with intellectual improvement, the pleasures of a summer outing, and other attractions, that they are widely different from the old camp-meetings of fifty years ago. These old historic campmeetings served their day, and were suited to the conditions and limitations of those formative times in the new country's history. With their passing away we can hut regret that under modern conditions
we have hardly retained all that was in them which was of the highest good.
The nearest approach to an old-fashioned camp-meeting which it has been my privilege to attend is held by the Ojibway Indians on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. This annual gathering is held in September, after the Indian'S have gathered in their little harvest, for many of these now civilized Iridians live by culti"l'ating the soil. The spot selected is in a beautiful forest of native trees, principally beech, oak, and maple. About a thousand Indians, from several large reser- vations, gather here to worship with the band who live on this large island, which contains about twenty-nine thousand acres of land.
The visiting Indians come to the camp-meetings in various ways.
Some of the large reservations charter steamboats, others .come in sail- .ing-vessels, skiffs, and tugs. The old birch bark canoe is fast pass- ,,,~- mg away.
A hundred tents or more are pitched in a great circle under the trees, and thus enclose the spot selected for the religious services.
Large stone altars are erected in various parts of the grounds, on which, from the twilight hours until midnight, blaze great fires of resinous pine, which, with the many lamps, illuminate the grounds.
The whole appearance is inspiring and picturesque.
The services begin with a prayer-meeting'at six o'clock each morn· ing-always led by a native Indian. The singing and praying, which are in the Ojibway language, are hearty and earnest. The words of the leader are suggestive and to the point. 'l'hen the various camp- fires are lighted and a hearty breakfast is prepared. At 9 A.M. the few" whites" on the ground gather for a Bible reading, which is also attended by many Indians who are fairly gOJd English scholars.
The three great public religious services are held at 10.30 A.M., 2.30 P.M., and 7 P.M. The Indian choir renders most efficient ser- vice, singing hymns in both Ojibway and English. 'l'he lessons from the blessed Book are read sometimes in one language and sometimes in the other. A short sermon is generally given in English by one of the white ministers or missionaries present, and then an Indian preacher follows. For rugged eloquence and power, as well as pathos and tenderness, the Indian speakers easily leave their white brethren far in the rear. None of the great services seemed fairly under way until in charge of Allan Salt, Big Canoe, Peter Jones, liee-nese, or some other of these gifted Indians, the converts of the early missionaries. In conducting the after services, where men and women are directly urged to decide for Christ, they are simply inimitable. Stoical as the Indian generally is, when his heart is all on fire with the love of God and he is pleading with his own people to accept of the same Savior who has so gloriously saved him, he is full of the tenderest emotions, while his voice is of the sweetest music. Some of these loving addresses were
AN INDIAN CAMP-MEETING IN CANADA
almost irresistible. Strong, stubborn men are melted down, and then and there renounce their old lives and decide for Christ. The results are real and abiding. The holy boldness as well as sublime faith of some of the new converts was almost startling at times. I will here give one illustration.
It was in an after-meeting and the time was long after midnight.
I had closed the services with the Doxology and Benediction, and had urged the great audience to go to their tents and get some rest. A number did so, but sud- denly there sprang up on one of the planks, which served as seats, a zealous Indian brother. First turning to me, he said: "I know our beloved brother Young will forgive me for what I am going to say. When we were wild and wicked, and especially when we could get .the wicked white man's fire-water, we used sometimes to spend the whole night in our sinful revelry and debauches. And now that the love of God fills our hearts, can we not spend one whole night for Him? Outside of this great tent REV. ALLAN SALT are plenty of young men who A Christian Ojibway Indian, 84 years old have not given their hearts to God. They did not get in with the crowd that was here. Let us seek them for our Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. They have come.• some of them, many miles, and in their hearts they want to find Jesus, but they are shy and timid. They are now wandering among the trees or are around the camp-fires. Now that so many have gone to their tents, let us go out and bring them in."
Of course I gladly said, "Go on and do what is in your hearts."
At once, while some began singing, others went out, and it was inspiring to see them coming in with perhaps thirty or forty of their friends, nearly all of whom were young men. With renewed vigor the evangelistic services were contiIllled in a way which would have delighted the heart of Mr. Moody. Seeing a fine-looking young man with a very serious countenance sitting off at some distance, I went and spoke to him about the necessity of giving his heart to Christ.
He admitted that he knew he ought to do so, and that really was why he had come to the camp-meeting; but he said: "Not to-night." I
pleaded with him to decide now, but I could not make any further impression upon him. While I was thus unsuccessfully pleading with him there came from the prayer-circle a young Indian who had been most strikingly converted only a couple of nights before. Without any of my quiet way, he seized hold of the young man to whom I had been talking and at once began: "Why this foolishness? You know you have come to this camp- meeting to get the load off your heart. You. want to have your sins – forgiven. You are miserable and unhappy. The fact that you are INDIAN CAMP-MEETING, CHRISTIAN ISLAND, GEORGIAN BAY, CANADA..
The tent ill the background was used for meetings at night and in bad weather j the stone altar in the foreground is one of seven on which camp-fires were lighted at night here is beoause you want to be a Christian. Now get up and come with me and settle the matter now. It is the bad spirit that says, 'Some other time.' Jesus says, 'Now!' Get up, I say, and come along! "
Thus, in a blessed sense, he "compelled" him to come in. The man went and was happilyeonverted, and went back rejoicing with the other Christians of his Reservation.
For three years these camp-meetings have thus been held, and there has each year been an increase in spiritual power. The converts of tbe first year were among tbe best workers at the second year, and this year it seemed impossible to tell who were the most zealous for the conversion of friends yet unconverted. It was beautiful to see a chief but recently converted go out into the crowd and put his arm around
AN INDIAN CAMP-MEETING IN CANADA
his brother's neck and literally by his tearful pleadings win him to decide for Christ.
One Indian said to us at the meeting this year: "When I came to the camp-meeting three years ago I was a great drunkard. I could never go off from the Reservation without getting the bad white man's fire-water. I spent all the money I made in that way, and neglected my wife and children and was a great nuisance on the Reservation.
Bu t I am so glad that I 'came to the camp-meeting three years ago.
The Spirit of God took hold of me and made me very miserable. My eyes were opened to see what a poor wretched creature I was. I am so thankful that my good friends, whites and Indians, talked to me and urged me to bow down in prayer at the foot of the cross. I could only cry, 'Blessed Jesus, I am very bad and miserable. I have noth- ing to bring, but I cast myself on your mercy. If you can save such a wretch as I am, save me!' And He saved me. Blessed forever be His name. And. now I have had all the appetite for fire-water taken from me, and my sale desire is to be the instrument in my Savior's hands of saving my countrymen from sin." This clear Scriptural testimony is that of the man who pleaded with me to let the services be continued when I had closed long after the midnight hour.
With one incident of touching interest I must close. As one of the steamers was coming down from the north shore with a band of Indians for the camp-meeting, at one of the ports where the boat stopped for a couple of hours some miserable white ~en sold some fire-water to three or four young non-Christian Indians. When the steamer reached the dock of our island, where the camp-meeting was in progress, the word was soon circulated that there were on board some drunken Indians. Our island police soon took them in charge, and then the question was what to do with them. The Canadian law is very dacided on the point, and some of the people, whites principally, said: "Let them be sent over to Penetanguishene and put in jail. We don't want to be bothered with them here." But good Simondson, a blessed Christian Indian, came to me and said: "We have a better plan in our hearts than that of sending these foolish young men to jail. We have a house at the other end of the village away from the camp-meeting ground. There we will take and care for them, and when they are sober and have been made to See the folly of their conduct, we will go and hold a prayer-meeting with them and try to get the spirit of Ohrist in them instead of the spirit of fire-water."
The suggestion of this godly man was carried out rather than that of the impulsive white Christians, who wanted to send them to jail.
Is not this act a beautiful fulfilment of the injunction of the apostle: "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual. restore such an one in the spirit of. me!'llrneslil, considering thyself lest thou all?>_ be tempted."" . _.
THE MISSIONARIES AMONG THE LAOS * BY THE HON. HAMILTON KING, BANGKOK, SIAM Minister Resident and Consul-General of the United States to Siam A journey of six hundred miles in America means a hastily packed grip and a few hours' run on a railway train. To go that distance into the jungles of Northern Siam, however, means a very different under- taking. First, boats had to be secured from the far north, for the northern streams abound in rapids and sand··bars, and only boats built for the purpose can be used. From the north also must be secured double crews of ten men for each boat versed in this peculiar mode of naviga- tion. In a little less than three months our two boats were at the lega- tion and the twenty boatmen, together with a superintendent, cook, boy, and maid, were ready for the start. In the place of the hastily packed grip we took tables, chairs and beds, dishes, cooking utensils, even to the stove, a list of canne~goods that covered four pages of my journal, fruits, vegetables, live fowls, and provisions of all kinds, even to the four large native jars of drinking-water. .
By the assistance of a steam-launch for a few days and the extra force of men we made remarkably good time, and were able to leave our boats, on the evening of the seventeenth day, five hundred and fifty miles from Bangkok and ten miles from Lakawn, our first stopping-place.
Elephants, ponies, and carriers were awaiting us here, and we were up and away in the morning before the heat of the day. My two daughters rode on elephants. These great creatures travel slowly-perhaps two and one-half miles an hour-and the train came into the city at half-past eleven.
Outside of Chiengmai, the oldest and the strongest station of the North Laos (Presbyterian) Mission is in this city. It was started some sixteen years ago by the Rev. Jonathan Wilson, D.D., who is yet in the work here. This station consists of a comfortable chapel, a prosperous girls' school, and a hospital which is opening the hearts and the homes of the people to the influences of the Gospel. In addition to this is the wholesome social life of the Christian homes, which is wielding a powerful influence for Christian living. The relations between the missionaries and the people of the country here are most cordial.
Chiengmai is four days' journey from Lakawn by elephant, pony, or chair. The road is through a rugged country and over a mountain range.
Chiengmai is the largest city of Northern Siam, and is the chief and central station of the North Laos mission work. Around it are situ- ated the other stations-Chieng Rai, eight days to the north and close upon the borders of Yunnan in China; Lampoon, one day to the south, and Lakawn, Praa, and Nan. The station at Chiengmai was established by Dr. Daniel McGilvary and his wife in 1867, who were joined by Dr.
'Vilson, now of Lakawn, and his wife the following year. These two veterans are yet active in the work, the one preeminently a man of action, and the other a man of sweet sentiment and poetic soul. The relation existing between these two men and the younger members of the mission is beautiful, while the respect and reverence with which they are looked upon by the natives reveals the cause of much of the success of the mis- sion work in the north.
*OOndel)sed from The Independent. The North Laos Mission comprises sixty-nine souls in all. There are five stations, for La,mpoon, being only seventeen miles from Chiengmai, is considered part of the Chiengmai station. These five stations have fifteen church organizations, five hospitals, one at Chiengmai, Lakawn, Chienghai, Nan and Praa, a thriving girls' school at Lakawn and at Chiengmai, a boys' school of ninety members and five native teachers, a successful printing establishment, and their converts are numbered by the thousands. These churches, with the exception of one at each of the five stations mentioned, are in the hands of native elders, carryon much of their own work, and do something toward supporting themselves. Besides this, extensive tours are made every year from the different centers or stations, and thus new fields are being opened up in all direc- tions and new people reached.
From the first the medical work has been given a prominent place and has proved a valuable auxiliary. When the Rev. Daniel McGilvary first went to his field forty-three years ago he took with him four bottles of quinine. The people were afraid of the white man's medicines and believed the ills of the flesh were due to spirits and hence could be cured only by offerings made to the spirits. The doctor hired people to take the medicine to prove to them its efficacy in fever, which is the prevail- ing malady of the country. In a very short time an order was sent for forty bottles more, and now thousands and thousands of rupees' worth of quinine are sold in Chiengmai alone every year. Vaccination, brought into Siam by Dr. Bradley, of Bangkok, about this time, was soon introduced into Chiengmai. This proved a success from the first, and not long after the doctor vaccinated a whole village of Karens of one hundred and sixty three persons, from a month old to seventy-five years of age. Now I am told that the majority of this generation have been vaccinated and untold numbers of lives have been saved during the last third of a century. The loathsome disease of goitre abounds in this country and to the north, and from the infancy of the mission a splendid work has been done in alleviating the sufferings caused by this disease. Work among the lepers, many of whom are also found in this country, has been prosecuted for the last seven years, and altho under discouraging circumstances for the want of money, much good is being done.
For many years past the medical work has enjoyed the favor of the rulers. The former chief, who was a veritable king, showed his appreciation of the work in many ways. He frequently made presents of horses, bicycles, and other articles for the use of the physician. And shortly before his death he gave Rs. I,GOO for the work. His appreciation of and confidence in the work were definitely shown in that the physician of the mission was in constant attendance upon him for two or three years, previous and up to the time of his death, and his sons, who are now reigning, continue in the same attitude. A recent move to enlarge the present mission hospital has elicted such generous response that the mission is encouraged to believe that their work is appreciated by all classes in this city. The missionary physician has free access to every home in Northern Siam, from the hovel of the beggar to the palace of the highest ruler.
Naturally this work appeals to the people of all grades and has a tendency to open wide the door to the influences and the principles that inspire it. At a recent banquet given in honor of Prince Damrong, Minister of the Interior, he said, in a voice to be heard by all present: Mr. King, I want to say to you that we have great respect for your American missionaries in our country, and appreciate very highly the work they are doing for our people. I want this to be understood by everyone, and if you are in a position to let it be known to your coun- trymen I wish you would say this for me. I have just now more espe- cially in mind my visit to Chiengmai. The work of your people is excel- lent. I can not say too much in praise of the medical missionaries there especially.
And what is being done in Chiengmai is repeated only on a smaller scale at all the other stations.
Here we found a well-equipped printing-house also running at full head under the supervision of the Rev. D. G. Collins. During the last year over one million and a half pages have been printed by this establishment, and 25,500 books and tracts have gone into the hands of the people. The income of the office goes far toward paying for the printing of the mission, the plant is constantly growing, and yet the orders from the government and other sources are far beyond its capacity. Aside from the influence of the tracts a~d Scriptures placed in their homes, the missionary has created for this people a printed language and is laying for them the foundations of a healthful literature. Dr. Wilson is giving to this people a wealth of song and music that is rapidly lifting them into better things. Few Christian missions can boast of a life that has given to a heathen people and to a language unknown to the world before a wealth of eight hundred translated and one hundred original hymns set to the best and most wholesome tunes that are to be found in the hymnology of our Christian Church. This is the gift of Dr. Wilson and his daughter to the Laos people during the last few years. A little over two years ago I bade good-bye to Dr. Wilson at Bangkok. He was then seventy years of age, and with a sad heart I turned to my family and asked: "Vhy should a man of so much culture and at his advanced age return to the jungles to die?" Now who can tell the untold blessings that shall spring up into the lives of the generations yet unborn because of the work this man has done since that day of our separation!
As I studied this field I was persuaded that there are few places now in the world where the influences of Christian missions can be seen to better advantage. Here the influences of Christian civilization, divorced to a very ·large degree Jrom those evils that generally go hand in hand with it, have been brought to bear upon the Oriental mind through the agency of the Christian mission alone. As we approached this city where the work has been the largest in operation, it was interesting each day to mark the external evidences of improvement that greeted us. Each day the women that we met were more neat and trim in appearance; as one who was with me remarked, they appeared better groomed, their clothing was more comely, their faces wore a more hopeful look, and they bore the mark of better things in their lives. The roads became better. Better-tilled fields, better-kept fences, better houses, more thrifty homes, and a general improvement in all that goes to make up a prosperous and thrifty people were evident in this province. The gardens looked more thrifty, water-wheels were doing the work of the hand, wheeled vehicles were taking the place of the woman's pack, and all spoke of an advance.
On the morning after my arrival, as I stood before an audience of six hundred people in the commodious church, I said to myself: "This is the best thing I have seen in Siam. The Gospel has the right hold upon this people's lives, and is lifting them." I never spoke to a more atteIltivE} audience. This is the best type of people I have seen in the country. Ina goitre district not one case of the disease was seen in the audience. There were well-dressed and comely women and maidens, some strong features and intelligent faces, clean and happy children, and men who seemed to appreciate what was said to them. The city itself is the cleanest and best- kept city I have seen in Siam, the streets are broader, straighter and bet- ter kept, and the roads in the province far and away are the best.
On the morning of the last Sunday we were in the city there were present in the Christian church seven of the officials and nobles, and six of the ladies of the noble and princely families. To the missionaries this L thought to be the beginning of larger things for the women of North Siam, and to appreciate what it means one must know the position of women in Siam in general, where even in the advance city of Bangkok very few are seen in public as yet.
It has not always been thus. Men have died here for the Christian faith, and for long months the missionaries have struggled against oppositions that to ordinary souls would have meant defeat. But wisdom has come to the missionary with years, and toleration has come to the country with more light.
These people are being stirred from the very foundations. They do not want the religion of Jesus. They are believers in the Buddhistic faith, the faith of their fathers, of their king, and of their country. But their king is willing that they should have the light, and the members of the North Loas Mission are interpreting their work to be to let in the light of a Christian civilization in such a way as to touch the people and influence them along the lines of every-day living. That these men and women believe in the power of conversion needs no better proof than the thousands of converts and the fifteen prosperous churches that have sprung up about them. But they realize also the indefiniteness of the term "conversion," a term that may mean anything from a little more rice each day in the native mind, to that spiritual uplift which, set before us by our Master, is yet the prayer and the aspiration of the best of us after two thousand years of light in a Christian land. Realizing this, they have for years, without antagonizing the people, been working, through all the influences of Christian living that will appeal to them, to open up their lives to this light.
I have great respect for the men and women I met in this work. They are larger than their work. They are broader than their Church. They magnify their profession. They are planting for the future. They count not on the number of so-called conversions alone, but on their SllCcess in planting pregnant ideas in this people's lives as well, ideas pregnant with a better civilization and a better national life. Planting seed that are sure to revolutionize this government, they leave the matters civil entirely to the authorities that be. They make friends with the officials by making of their people better subjects. They are clean, cheerful, and wholesome in their lives, without cant, spiritually minded in the best sense, and yet withal they are people of this world.
If this is missionary work, I believe in it. They live that they may show the natives how to live. Therefore, they have builded beautiful homes and spend of their substance to make life attractive. They are neat and comely in appearance. They enjoy the good things of this life, and are cultllred in the things of God's world; for it is along these lines the natives must be reached; it is in these things the natives must be lifted. This is the soil that must be raised to a higher state of cUltivation before the better and more spiritual fruits of the Gospel can be grown thereon. Spiritually minded, they have the wisdom to approach a material people in a material way, to let their works so shine that the people seeing the results in this world may go their way and try to do likewise. For they believe in the Scripture, "If any man will do His will he shall (come to) know the doctrine."
The distinctive elements that enter into the success of this mission are these: 1. It is separated from such influences of civilization as tend to counteract the influences of Christianity.
2. There is but one denomination in the field. 3. They show respect for those things that are sacred to the Siamese. 4. They have the wisdom to let the Siamese govern their own people.
MISSION WORK IN BULGARIA* BY REV.J. F. CLARKE, SAMOKOV, BULGARIA Missionary of the American Board The Bulgarians were almost unknown to the outer world until about the year 1850, when they began their efforts to throw off the Greek yoke, which culminated in 1870, when they secured the recognition by the sultan of their own exarch. A Slavic nation, having a language originating from the same source as did the languages of the Russians, Servians, and Bohemians, it was freed by Russia from its five centuries of subjection to Turkey in 1877, and its boundary extended to the .lEgean Sea, so as to include that portion of Macedonia in which the greater part of the population is Bulgarian. But by the action of the Powers in the Berlin CongrEss the Macedonian part was returned to the Turks. The population of Bulgaria is nearly three and a half millions, of whom about three-fourths are Bulgarians. The total number of Bulgarians, including those in Macedonia and elsewhere, must be about five millions.
King Boris accepted Christianity in 861 A.D., and from that time his people were called a Christian nation. Tho the Bulgarians belong to the Greek Church, they never use the word Greek, but call themselves the Pravo-slavs (meaning orthodox) Church, a Church similar to the Catholic, tho their priests are allowed to marry once. The religion of the mass of the people has consisted in picture worship, especially that of the Virgin Mary, while even the name of Jesus was little known. Their faith has had but little influence upon their lives, yet before the coming of European influences, especially infidelity, drunkenness, and licentiousness, their morality was far higher than it now is. Doubtless their nominal Christianity has had an influence to keep them together as a separate nation.
The destruction of books in their language by the Greeks, in order to increase the number of the followers of the Greek patriarchs, led Bulgarians to purchase eagerly the New Testament, first published in 1856, chiefly because it was in the sweet mother tongue heard in their homes from their infancy. Thousands of copies were sold in a few years in Bulgaria and Macedonia, and this great desire to purchase the Word of *Condensed from a pamphlet published by the American Board.
MISSION WORK IN BULGARIA
God led Christians in America to answer what seemed to them a Mace- donian cry.
The American Methodist Episcopal Board commenced work north of the Balkan Mountains in 1857, and the American Board south of the same mountains in 1858. And these missions have been working in cor- dial sympathy with each other to the present time. .
At an early date it seemed best to open schools, that for young women in Eski Zaghra, and for young men in Philippopolis. A Bohe- mian exile from Austria brought his sister with him to Bulgaria. and she, having been taught in the home of a missionary, was ready when needed to enter into the work of teaching. Her loving heart drew her girls to her, and she led them to Christ. A revival followed, which was deep and lasting. The voice of prayer for their parents and friends was heard in many a strange but secret place about the premises. A young man said to a relative, "You are deceived by these Protestants." But she anowered, "When you have tasted of an apple, do you ask if it is sweet? We have tasted of this Gospel and know its sweetness." Perse- cution followed, but only served to lead her closer to Christ. Marika was confined by her mother, but escaped through a window and returned to her teachers, nor was she frightened away by the mob of angry women who broke many of the windows of the school building.
A young merchant, Nacho, was led to Christ by what he heard at the Sabbath services, and,at once returned to his partner hundreds of dollars secretly overcharged in making purchases. The next day his partner called and said to a missionary, "What S'ort of people are you that you should lead my partner, in whom I had perfect confidence, to return me stolen money of which I knew nothing." The wife of Nacho returned to her father with her two children, and, as she utterly refused to come back to him, he entered the school to prepare himself for Chris- tian work.
During the first years the missionaries were received with great cor- diality in their tours among the villages, and one of them for a year taught singing in the Bulgarian school of the city. The people were grateful for the aid given them in education, and thousands of books, chiefly the tract primer, were used in their schools. But in God's provi- dence a great change took place which the missionaries would not at that time have chosen, but it led to a deeper study of the Bible. A monk married, contrary to their ecclesiastical laws, and was brought a prisoner to Philippopolis. He wrote a letter to the missionaries, saying that if they did not protect him he must become a Moslem. But before the let- ter was read he was in the home. Tho legally, and according to the "capitulations," he could have been protected, his letter proved that he was not a Protestant, and he was given up to the authorities. But the action, which for hours it had seemed a duty to take, caused the people to exclude all evangelical books from their schools and, to a great extent, from their homes, and led to bitter opposition from the Bulgarians.
But the missionaries persisted, and now opposition has ceased. God has given his blessing to feeble efforts, and little bands of Christians have been gathered to be lights to those around them.
At different times missionaries and others have been exposed to peril!!
and beaten. In returning from Constantinople in 1863, Mr. Merriam was murdered by Albanian brigands, and his wife's experiences at that time led to her death twenty-three days later. Another missionary has three
times been in the power of robbers, once losing his own and his wife's watches, clothes, and the money taken for workers and for long tours.
Christian followers, workers, and missionaries have also often met with violence from Bulgarian opposers, one missionary having twice been so beaten that it seemed best to secure a government physician's certificate of his wounds. But this violence has always led to greater openings for the Gospel.
Hindrances and persecutions in various forms still continue. Tho contrary to the constitution, a ministerial order, issued in subservience to ecclesiastical influences, prohibited the circulation of evangelical work, and according to this order, a missionary who had freely sold and given away books and tracts in the streets of Samokov was recently arrested for doing the same thing in a neighboring city and sent, with his books, to an ecclesiastic for examination. Redress was secured through the English consul-general, and the matter opened the way for quite satis- factory conversations with those who had given and executed the order.
The statistics of the European Turkey Mission for 1899 give four stations; fifty outstations; twenty-four missionaries, male and female; seventy-seven Bulgarian workers;' sixteen churches, to which have been received 1,998 members, of whom 1,270 are now living, of whom 110 were received in 1900; fifty-three places of regular worship, with an average of 2,847 attendants; fifty-three Sabbath-schools, with 2,379 s!)holars, and twenty-three schools of different grades, with 709 pupils. Native contributions for Christian work were $5,945.63. , In Philippopolis Mr. Marsh and nearly twenty Bulgarian fellowworkers are pushing forward the work in twenty-six places in this field, in all of which there are earnest followers of Christ. A new, substantial church edifice, which has for years cost much effort on the part of the missionary and the people, is nearly completed.
At Samokov Messrs. Haskell, Thomson, and Dr. J. F. Clarke and son; with Misses Maltbie, Haskell, Baird, and capable Bulgarian associates have been earnestly seeking to give a Christian education to young men and women, efficiently using the press to widely scatter religious truth, and doing all in their power in evangelical work in the surrounding places.
In Monastir Mr. Bond, Misses Cole and Matthews, and native workers are doing efficient work for Christian education in a school which at times has girls of seven different nationalities in it, and have labored, as far as possible, in other places. A deep interest is felt in the Albanian work under their charge, especially in the girls' school in Kortcha.
From Salonica Messrs. House, Baird, Haskell, and Miss Stone have abundantly utilized the three railroads spreading out through all Macedonia, and enabling them to do much for a population of two millions, among which they have twenty-one outstations. Their work in the city among different nationalities, and often among sailors of English fleets, will be much facilitated by a valuable property they have recently secured on their personal responsibility, but without any appropriation from the American Board. Miss Stone's efficient efforts as an "elder sister" among the Bible workers, teachers, and the women in many places have been of much value. Some of her workers and others in Bulgaria are doing more for Christ than many of the preachers. They have been welcomed even in Turkish homes.
The boys' school in PhiIippopolis, after various changes, has become the Collegiate and Theological Institute in Samokov, with about sixty students. While most of the higher national schools are to a great degree full of skepticism and infidelity and other evil influences, it seems essential to the progress of evangelical work in Bulgaria and Macedonia that this institute be well supported and manned. It is needed not only to educate Christian preachers, but also to prepare Christian laymen for
MlSSIOl' WORK IN BULGARIA
Sabbath-school work, church officers, and business men, who will have a.
positive infltlence among the mass of their own faithful people. God has from the first blessed the labors put forth, at times abun- dantly. The one hundred and nine Christian workers in the fifty-one places for stated'preaching, besides many more occasionally visited by colporteurs and others, are exerting a permanent influence throughout Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Albania, from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.
MISS STONE'S WORK AMONG llULGARIAN WOMEN * Miss Stone's capture has focused the world's attention upon her, and her missionary activities have acquired a new interest in the eyes of the public. For twentythree years she has had charge of the Bible women's work in Bulgaria. She made many long, arduous, and dangerous journeys, visiting schools, read- ing the Scriptures to the women in their own homes and in public meetings, preaching, teaching, praying, distributing the Word of God. Only one of her letters gives a clear idea of dangers encountered. It speaks of a tour undertaken in company with Rev. Dr.
House and s eve l' a I native workers.
Thursday night we spent in a lonely mountain khan (inn), with a robber on the other side of the fire from us.
You may be sure that I heard his planning. I could not MISS EI.LEN M. STONE sleep. Thankful enough were we when, long before d awn, the khanje (inn-keeper) aroused the robber and sent him on his way, bidding him wait for us along the lonely road.
We were a very silent party climbing the mountain, expecting the robber to come upon us anywhere. But as the hours passed we thanked God for deliverance. . . . Darkness overtook us upon an unknown road, and we sought shelter in a deserted Turkish guard-house. We tied our horses upon the ground floor, divided our bread with them, and got ourselves and our belongings up-stairs-all this in the thickest darkness. There- must have been robbers secreted somewhere inside. We were aroused by the sound of horses passing out. Mr. Petanschken went down and came- back reporting that the door had heen opened from within, the heavy stone with which he had barricaded it having been set to one side. Our- two best horses were gone. It was hard traveling in the rain, but at last, we arrived at Serres, and had such a good time among some of the most., hospitable, loving Christian souls I ever met.
• Condensed from The Chr-istian .Herald.
BANEFUL EFFECTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR* From the recent report of the Berlin mission may be gathered how heavily their thirty-five South African stations have been visited by the war. Gerlachsthal-Springfontein, with its spreading cornfields, has become a solitary desert; from Bethany the whole of the cattle were carried off; Adamshoop was completely stripped; Botschabelo suffered great hardships from both Boers and English. What the English troops could not carry away as food was burnt, lest it should fall into Boer hands, and the result is great scarcity, sickness, and misery. But much graver than these material losses is the injury to missionary work-the looting of stations, the dispersion of congregations, and the arrest of missionaries. Mr. During, after having his station loot'ed by English soldiers, was carried off (a prisoner) in the middle of the night and while the rain poured down, and was kept for eleven days in vile durance before he was brought to Pretoria for trial. He was accused-some Jews being his accusers-of having spoken against the English and of having supplied the Boers with food. At the trial both allegations were proved false, and he was set at liberty after an imprisonment of six weeks. Mr. Balding, at Leydenburg, suffered similar indignity. 'Vhen, in July, 1900, English troops occupied the place, a piece of ground belonging to the Boers was made over to the natives, who looked upon it as absolutely their own. Mr. Bauling pointed out to them that not until the conclusion of peace such distribution of land could have final validity. This advice formed the basis of an accusation against him. His property was confiscated and the station turned to military uses, while he himself was thrown into prison and treated as a common malefactor, until the intervention of the German consul secured him some relief. Another grievous case is that of Mr. Kahl, at Neu-Halle. Some evil-minded persons who once had belonged to his church made a calumnious charge against him of harboring and supporting Boers. While he with three of his children were away from home, the station was surrounded by English troops in the dead of night, and his wife and five remaining children were carried off to Pretoria. Kahl himself was summoned to appear there, and, failing to do so, he was arrested, his ox-wagon with a team of twelve oxen appropriated, and he himself would have been deported to Ceylon· but for the remonstrance of the German consul. His station is occupied by English troops.
Another baneful result of the war is the demoralization of the native churches, whose members are exposed to all the dangers and temptations inseparable from the presence of the military at the time of confusion and distraction. The teachers, whose warning voice might have acted as a restraint to some, have either heen removed or discredited when they tried to be faithful to their office, and only those who are acquainted with the African character can adequately estimate the loss of such personal supervision.
The reports which arrive from several stations as to the revival of tribal conflicts indicate another danger. While the Boers held rule the natives were kept in check, but this return to general lawlessness may indefinitely add to the complications of the situation, and is sure to prove an additional hindrance to missionary progress.
* These particulars are taken from the organ of the Basel Missionary SOCiety (Evan.- gelillches Millsions Magaztn). Translated by B. Hitjer.
OF MISSIONARY WORK IN JAPAN FOR THE YEAR 1900.-Compiled by Rev. H. Loomis
…,..".'". 3" i .."-.".''."". ";::'"''" …… 'ag i-"'~"" -…"-"'" "" .",,,, I., z:§ I"'' ,; . .:a, ."..'.". NAMES OF MISSIONS. h. ,; <S§~i ,t …. ,; '" ,; !i ',d ,0<'"c, ."- lll";i)bC 'd' 1 .,_,"00 .~~~• '0~iILl 00 ~ ~… .; ,; !Srd :S ,,_ o@; ;:= o.~ ~~ ~w.E .~ ~ ~~ o"g S ~;; 0 ":0;; "«1''-'': ~g ~ '" " §~[~8 ","o ~t: … ", ~w >-il;l …. ~- 0 .~~ ~~~·~.6 "…'Po "",,PPoo :..;::::::: 0 '"d,1':": — -<.> '~d"'0'''0' E-< ill 0 A<E-< .0" 0" " ,,<.> oh E-< ~..:.. rQ:) tIl OQ;$O;::::! z'- 0":> S,,·S~ .a.~ §: ~o 0" "00,,, — :Pin :0 — "…, . – 00 – … "'" 0..8 '" '" -" :g~~:9§ 00~~ .>…",",<0.0> ",,,, — ~rg — – ->=-I ;:;; ~§ " '" oz…. – -,,!!::Q … ~ — E-<s ;:;; ~ ~ ",,, ~ ",- <.>'d 0 .. 00 S 00" — — ——————1-:-:- – – -0 — ->=I – p0::.".., – 0 – 0-0 — – -0 – 16 7 00 26…. American Baptist Missionary Union………………. " …….. 1860 56 9 54 27 1 26 204. .. . 2.011 754 ' 4,435 3.540.38 Amer.Board·sMissionwithKumiaiChurches(a) ……………. 1869 62 12 170 72 36 36 519 51 10,214 630 4,372 1 15 38 67 10…. 31,745.00 American Christian Convention (d) …………………………. 1887 6 2 23 7 …. 7 11 …. 344 51 608 …. 2 4 4 2 …. 278.01 Baptist Convention (Southern) …………………………….. 1889 8 4 9 2 …. 2 15 …. 90 …… 154 …. 1 4 3 .. .. 125.00 Christian andMissionary Alliance ………………………….. 1891 3 1 3 71 …. 3 4 …. 26 …… 330 …. 3 1.. .. (/) 10.00 i. Presbyterian Church of the United States………………….. 1859 54 12 (31 …… …. …….. …… .. ………… ..
Reformed Church in America …………………………….. 1859 31 9 114…… …. …… …… …. …….. …… …… …. …. …. .. ……. . United Presbyterian Church of Scotland……………………. 1874 2 1 1 ……………………………………………………………. ..
Church of Christ in Japan (a) ……………………………… ………… 71 40 31 619 139 10,846 2,202 5,428 2 18 34 113 27 … . Reformed Church in the United States……………………… 1879 18 3 48 ………………………………………………………….. .. Presbyterian Church in the United States (South) …………… 1885 28 7 53 …………………………………………….. ' …………… . Woman's Union Missionary Societies, U. S. A ………………. 1871 5 2 7 …… …. …… …… …. …….. …… 618 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
Cumberland Presbyterian Church …………………………. 1877 18 4 L12 …… …. …… …… …. …….. …… …… …. …. …. …. 6 …. .. .. 372"'.55' Church of Christ………………………………………….. 1883 19 4 14 13 …. 13 94 …. 734 150 738…….. 9 10 4 1 Evangelical Association of North America ………………….. 1876 6 1 16 14 …. 14 61 15 926 …… 553 1 3 18 12 9 …. 1,256.06 Evangelical Lutheran Mission, U. S. A ……………………… 1892 8 2 1 1 …. 1 13 4 77 …… 100 …. …. 2 2 1… 488.00 General Evangelical Protestant (German Swiss) …………….. 1885 7 2 1 1 …. 1 5 15 116 80 125 1 3 2 …. 1 …. 43.32 i Hephzibah Faith 1.8..9.4 ….2 ….1 .. …. …. …… …….. 31 25 …. …. …. 1. … …. 15.30 6 6 . .. … 604 22 290. … …. 3 7 3 . … 1,516.39 Independent and UMnicssoinonneacrytedAssoNcaitait~ioen((f.f))……………………………………. ….3 …… …. 70 4,692.00 25 . … MethodistChurchofCanada(e) ..~~.~~l.~~.~~:::::::::::::::::::: iS73 ~~ g"53 ….26 '''3 ….23 ·"i.ii "23 '(ii2~oi6 'i~ooo '2~23i '''1 '''4 "26 "64 "ii :::: Methodist Episcopal Church. U. S. A. (e) … .•.•.•••.•.•.•..••.••• 1873 64 9 81 79 4 75 488 88 (i) 4,855 2,880 7,326 2 10 60 28 46 1…… 13,940.00 Methodist Episcopal Church (South) (e) .. …………………… 1886 35 9 18 15 2 13 63 18 688 574 1,386 1 1 10 7 4 …. …… 1,620.00 t:: :::: :::::: : : :::::: :::::: :::: :::::::: :::::: :::::: :::: :::: :::: :::: :::: : : :::::: :::::::::: ~h';'.t:~~aMfs~~:~~f~o~~~~:~: ~:~:::: ~~~~ 1~~ Methodist Protestant Church (b)…………………………… 1880 13 3 651 Nippon Sei Kokwai (k) … . . . .-r:.. . . . . ::::::::::::: ::::::::: ~r …. …. 34 82 80 2 4 80 14 388 183 196 1 5 7 7 6 …. …… 998.21 78 705 371 (j) 7,976 2,901 5.739 4 39 45 141 59 4 2,051 11,233.67 …… ……………. ………
~~: ~fJ~~~:~'h¥s~~:,~~~i.t.~ ~~~~~~~:: SOClety for the Propagation of the Gospel. …………….•… 'l1873 23 … … …… …. …… …… …. …….. …… …… …. …. …. …. …. …. . …………. ..
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : :: : : : : : : : : : : : : : . : : : : ¥J:: :::: ….27 :::: :::::: :::::: :::: :::::::: :::::: :::::: :::: :::: :::: :::: :::: :::: :::::: :::::::::: Salvation Army …………………………………………… 1895 13 4 22 (h) 15 …. (h) 15 …… …. …….. …… 314…. 51 4 …. …. 2,585.15 Scandinavian Alliance Mission in Japan …………………….. 1891 8 4 10………. 17 …. 152 …… 110 …. …. …. 4 …. …. 14.50 Seventh Day Adventists .. : ………………………………… 1898 5 2 2 1 …. 1 12 …. 12 90 60 …. …. …. 10 …… ..
Society of Friends, U. S. A……………… " ………………. 1885 6 2 3. ….. …. …… (g) 33 …. 201 58 420…………… . 2 …. 104.33 Uni;:~r:;~;:~:t~::i:;~~;~~::~~ ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::I~~~ 75~ 17~ .~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~ .;~~ 42,: ~~:~~36,:~: ~~ ~ 32~ .~~ ~ Universalists……………………………………………… 1890 5 1…. 175.00 5 …. 5 11 31 65 13 137 1 2 3 3 3 ….
.. … .. … 3.1:: .. 55: 2'1211102'::: = = —-w = = 712401= Increase in 1900 ……………………………………….. 00 -5 12 32 -:-= ~I-:-= 799 -11-:-= "'7;953.72.
(a) Statistics to January 1,1900. (b) Statistics to April 1, 1899. (el Statistics to May 1, 1900. (d) Statistics to June 30,1900. (el Statistics to August 1, 1900. (f) Approximate; reports not complete. (g) Admitted to Christian fellowship by public profeossion of faith in Christ. (h) Not churches, but army corps. (il Probationers and commulllcants. (j) Catechumens and infants included. (k) Ueports not complete. (l) Yen = 82 cents (gold).
EDITORIALS Christianity in Great Britain F. B. Meyer Rev. Dr. Alex. Maclaren, of Man- Rev. F. B. Meyer has resigned chester, England, greatest of living his charge of Christ Church in preachers, is reported as saying London, in order to be free for a that he confesses that his heart wider work as a missioner in Britsometimes failes him when he ain and elsewhere. His resignation thinks of the present aspects and takes effect next September. He prospects of Christianity in Great feels called upon to give up the Britain. The great wealth, the comforts of a pastorate that he loosened bonds of Christian faith, may devote himself to the ministry the neglect of the Sabbath, the of the Church at large. He says: growing senseless luxury, the god- " I think I hear the voice of Christ lessness of all classes of society in saying, in unmistakable accents, this day, from the highest to the that I must fall into the ground lowest, are enough to break the and die if I am to bear the best and heart of workers. He could not most fruit." but read in the social life of England, in the public action of the The Christ Method of Evangelism country, in the corruption of the municipalities, in the growing in- When Mr. Meyer was in Calcutta temperance of the people, in the he recommended the Christ method manifestly increasing impa:tience of propagating Christianity, and of the press, in the leaders of said that, if he were a young misopinion who were ready to shake sionary, he would do his best to off the last fragments of Christian- "train twelve apostles, seeking to ity, and who in many cases were imbue them with his own spirit, talking rubbish and npnsense about living with them, working with the superior claims of Buddhism, them, and sending them forth." Hinduism, and he knew not what. A man of the fullest consecration, "ism "-he could not but see in all largest faith, greatest tact, soundthese things a call to Christian est judgment, and ripest expepeople to be ashamed of their quar- rience would be necessary for this relings and envyings, and to go kind of work; but given such a forward Shoulder to shoulder, and combination of qualities and twelve ·to close their ranks against the foe. workmen developed in this way, a most effective and blessed service' Everything that Dr. McLaren would follow. says is entitled to a hearing. How solemn the testimony of This was the m~dieval method this man of such advanced years, of carrying on missions, when who, in his fifty years' ministry, twelve men, giving themselves up has never said or written anything to the evangelization of a certain that needs to be recalled! And district, would elect one of their what a trumpet peal to the Church, number captain, go to some remote calling on all disciples to forget in- region, and under his direction significant differences in view of scatter in different parts, and seek their magnificent basis of agree- thus to compass the whole region, ment on vital truths, and the sin- meeting after intervals to confer gular unity and solidarity of a ma- and report. Such a method has lignant foel the stamp of God's suggestion on it and is always likely to succeed.
1902J EDITORIALS
Mr. Torrey's Tour Missions in Bulgariz… The numerous acquaintances and The capture of Miss Stone has friends of Rev. R A. Torrey and offered another opportunity for wife will be interested to know unfriendly critics of missions to that they plan to sail, December present their views in opposition 28th, from San Francisco, for Y 0- to those of Jesus Christ. One kol;tama, China, Australia, Syria, newspaper speaks contemptuously etc., spending about one year in of Miss Stone as "forcing her re- the tour. Mr. Torrey expects to ligion " on the Bulgarians (doubt- give addresses and hold Bible Insti- less accompanied by a fleet of tutes, and visit these lands to study gunboats anda battery of artillery). their religious and missionary as- This critic declares that it is fan- pects, and give such aid and encour- tastic to propound a religion to agement as he may be able to the a people which has not been edu- Lord's workers. The tour is mainly cated up to the point of accepting it. on invitation of the Evangeliza- If this were true it would not tion Society of Australasia. He apply to the missionaries in Bulwill spend three months or more garia. They do not offer a new in Australia and New Zealand, and religion, but simply a purer and probably hold Bible Institutes of more living form of the old. The some weeks' duration at prominent Bulgarians have been Christians centers. These world-travelers es- for a thousand years. The essential pecially ask prayer in their behalf. truths of the faith are -fully ac- Mr. Torrey's teaching is especially knowledged by them. The comemphatic along the lines of Bible plaint is only that with them inspiration and the Holy Spirit. knowledge has become too much He took the pastoral charge of the divorced from living faith and from Chicago Avenue Church in 1894, life, and too much oppressed by and during seven years the atmos- darkening ceremonies and burdenphere of this church has been one some enactments. The American of continuous revival. The small- Board does not send its mission~ est number added in anyone year aries to the Levant to propagate has been 254! Protestantism, but to aid in the development of an intelilgent and Satanic Opposition living faith. If the missionaries preach in ab- The lovers of God's work should solutely non-Christian countries, it not be at all surprised if diffi- contradicts history to call them culties appear in the field, and, unreasonable in going into a counat the same time, when success is try which has- not for generations apparent and the largest victory been educated up to the acceptance seems to be on the point of being of Christianity. The Gospel spread accomplished. The one greatest over the Roman empire, among a problem is, and always has been, people who were getting tired of how to meet, resist, and overcome their old gods, but who continued satanic opposition; and how, where to worship them until they turned he is permitted for the time to tri- to Christ. Ireland accepted the umph, to hold on patiently and Gospel almost at a bound; so did persistently both to our work and the Scottish Highlands, Southern our hope, believing that the final England, and most of the rest. The result shall be that Christ shall in work of conversion in Denmark all things have the preeminence, and Sweden was much more lingerand that we shall be partakers of His ultimate and etern~l yictoq! in~, b~t tbere too the only way in
which the people were educated up climatic or other reasons, to leave our shores. In the East End of London there is a great to the Gospel was by the spread of and rapidly increasing Jewish community, elbowing out their Gentile neighbors; the Gospel. These critics speak churches and chapels are surrounded by this immigration, and much good work is accom· like men who so dislike Christianity plished among them; but still there IS room for men of the highest ability and with burn· that they never ascertain the most ing zeal, prepared and qualified to point Jews to their true Messiah and coming King. palpable facts of Christian his- The difficulty of bringing men and women tory. t of this race to Christ has been greatly ex· aggerated, and the results of the Jewish Mis· For India sian have been grossly ridiculed. As Mr. Wilkinson, Sr., has often pointed out, Miss Louise B. Pierson, daughter 0< three-fourths of our Bible is the Jewish of the editor, sailed November 16th Bible; and a Jew or a Jewess is as responsive for Calcutta (140 Dharantala Street). to loving interest and effort to bless as any She goes to undertake work in con- Gentile can be_" Possibly a Jewish believer nection with the Woman's Union may have more adaptation than a Gentile Missionary Society of New York, believer (other things being equal) as a witin the orphanage and Bible school, ness for Christ to the Hebrew race; but that where Miss Gardner has so success- does not in the least degree remove the oblifully labored. Miss Crosby, re- gation laid upon Gentile Christians to offer turning to Japan, and Miss Loomis, the Gospel to that race. We can not shake now going out under the same so- off our responsibility for the huge debt we ciety, spoke at the farewell meet- owe to Israel as keepers of the oracles of ing in the Bible Society Directors' God and as the brethren of our Lord Jesus Room on November 13, at the same Christ. It would, we feel persuaded, be well time when Miss Pierson also spoke pleasing to Him were many men of high a few parting words. ability and of consecrated purpose to offer themselves to the well-known and honored A Call for Jewish Missionaries societies and organizations now existing to help in gathering in "the remnant according Mr. John Wilkinson (Mildmay to the election of grace." Mission to the Jews) thinks an initial failure in duty is to be seen Rev. Louis E. Meyer, an authorin the absence even of appeals to ity on the subject, says that 204,- students to give themselves to J ew- 540 Hebrews were baptized unto ish mission work. He insists that Christ during tha past century, and God's order has never yet been re- the average is 1,500 a year, excluversed: "to the Jew first." Mr. sive of the Romish Church. Yet, James E. Mathieson, of London, notwithstanding this singular blesssays: ing on missions to Jews, the old race prejudice seems still dominant We remember with thankfulness the bright and it interferes with all general but brief career of Ion Keith Falconer in work for this class. his efforts to reach the Moslems in Arabia, and also the noble close of a noble life when Modem Warfare Bishop Valpy French gave his last days to the same race. We recall the time when The destructiveness of modern " the Cambridge Seven" offered themselves warfare is more and more apparent, willingly for the China Mission, and we feel tho we become too much accusgrateful to God that He has signally used tomed to it, to have it impress us their testimony, and that they are all alive as it ought. Since the commenceunto this day. But a claim to similar devo· ment of Britain's struggle in South tion is surely urgent in the interests of God's Africa, however incredible it seems, chosen race. For this work the highest up to October 15th, 824 officers and scholarship, combined with the rarest devo- 16,648 men have died, in British tion, should be sought for, a mastery of the ranks alone, 6 officers and 417 men Hebrew language and of the Yiddish or other dying after returning home, and 7 dialects, and capacity to "reason out of the officers and 615 men reported" miss- [Old Testament] Scriptures that Jesus is the ing." Even the immense expendi- Christ." Many men find it impossible, for ture of money fades into insignifi- cance beside this waste of life, and the vast world of sorrow which these figures suggest.
OUR llUSSIONART LIBRARY
OUR MISSIONARY LIBRARY CONSTANTINOPLll: AND ITS PROBLEMS. By Sophia (69), and the girl Gulsum, Henry Otis Dwight, LL.D. Illustrated. the hired rabble of women at the 12mo, 298 pp. $1.25, net. Fleming H. office of the Minister of Finance Revell Co., New York. 1901. (115) and the funeral of the patri- arch (143), the dishonest tenant This is a valuable book. It is so (153) and the Levantine duel (192) good a book that we wish there -all these help us to understand were more of it, that it were more the burden which the reformers full on some points. It is radically must carry. different from the familiar "Notes" of travelers, in that it is The book improves as we adnot compiled from other books, and vance, and the closing chapter is it contains scarcely anything of the the best. It is a spectacle that may conventional guide-book type. In- well appeal to our sympathies, not deed, a page or two of such details a hungry nation only, but a circle might have been added without in- of hungry nations, all willing to creasing the cost of the volume, and read and studY-Ill fact, clamoring to the convenience of the reader. for books-and open to evangelical But this timely publication is influences, while, at the same time, crowded with facts of a most sig- the money needful for the editing nificant sort. They are facts of and publishing of such books is that kind which a mere casual withheld. The present reviewer visitor can not possibly know. Dr. has often expressed in public the Dwight has been from his youth a opinion that the time has come resident of Constantinople, and when our missionary effortsought part of the time a missionary, in to be gathered up into strong cenconstant touch with the people, ters rather than scattered. We great and small. The reader should ought to concentrate our fire on understand that this volume is not certain points, and win definite a text-book of Byzantine archreol- victories at such points, instead of ogy, nor a history of the Ottoman trying to occupy so much ground empire. It is not a discussion of as we do. Especially ought we to the recent massacres, nor a system- make sure of two things-namely, atic account of missionary enter- education and a vit.al Christian prise. It is fairly described by its literature. Therefore, the true title, and the nature of these prob- policy would be to gradually turn lems may be inferred from the over the evangelistic function to chapter headings. The incidents native preachers, and to put the with which each section is filled available force of living missionary are not mere objectless anecdotes, workers into these two departbut facts that bear on the solution ments of schools and the press. In of the difficulties involved. Any this we fully share Dr. Dwight's scheme of moral reform must face feeling, and his last chapter is a these obstacles, and the reader who pathetic plea for a Christian litergives careful attention to Dr. ature for the Ottoman empire. The Dwight's facts will soon share also voice of a preacher will soon be in his sense of the responsibility now silenced, but the hook which emresting on the American churches. bodies Western learning with East- The admiral's daughter (page 24), ern taste, as only a trained misand the effort to obtain a passport sionary Can prepare it, will remain by fraud (27), the clapping of hands for centuries a treasure of good (35), and the wine-drinking Pasha sense and truth. Dr. Dwight does (61), the eveniDgservice in St.
not even suggest his own relfLtion Bible will come to be acknowledged to this grand task, but it is a pleas- as mast3rs not only of their own ure to testify that he is himself one catechism and hymn-book, but also of the very few m'm to whom we of the traditions, genealogies, and look for the providing an evangel- chronicles of their own people. ical body of thoroughly good books in the land of the Green Banner. c. F. S. We are authorized by the pub- J. F. R. lishers to say that this work may be had by all foreign missionaries A HISTORY 0" BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA. By at half price, carriage not included.
Robert W. Rogers, Ph.D, D.D., LL.D., -[EDITORS. F.R.G.S., Professor in Drew Theologi- cal Seminary, Madison, N. J. 2 vols., 8vo, VIA CHRISTI. By Louise M. Hodgkins. 12mo, pp. XX., 429, XV., 418. Eaton & n'lains, 257 pp. Cloth, net, 50c.; paper, net, SOc. New York. Price, cloth, $5.00. The Macmillan Co., New York. 1901.
No missionary, if his field be in This introduction to the study of this part of the Orient, should fail to acquaint himself with this work. missions was prepared at the re- For the first time the story has been clearly and completely told of quest of a committee of the the rise, reign, and fall of two of the chief nations which, under God, Women's Boards of Missions in the may be called the Schoolmasters of the Hebrew People. For the first United States and Canada. It retime the intricate labyrinth has been threaded from the outmost views in order the various ages of bastion to the inmost chamber, and the bearer of the torch knows all the Church, from St. Paul to the the way, as to the manor born, and yet is one of our own men and nineteenth century, and presents speaks his message in our own language, and without wearying us the progress of missions during or losing sight of us. this period. The book is valuable This is precisely the sort of work which the time demands, and will for reference and as a basis of do more to meet the speculative vagaries of the modern text de- study. * structionists than whole libraries of controversial literatures. The THE MODERN MISSION CENTURY. By Arthur eloquence of the facts is the secret T. Pierson. 8vo, 576 pp. Net, $1.50. of Professor Rogers' enthusiasm, The Baker & Taylor Co., New York. and is the secret of his power over James Nisbet & Co., London. 1901. his readers, and nothing is more plain or more satisfying than the The nineteenth century is par fact that the Assyria and Babylonia of the Bible are the Babylonia excellence a missionary century. and Assyria of history. Now when the real history of Egypt and Its achievements in winning the Greece, the other two full professors in the School of the Hebrews, world for Christ and the instances is finally written, the prospects are, from the abundant finds of the last of Divine interposition and leaderfew decades,. that. thft wrlpl'lr,S.of.the ship have been marvelous. "All history is mystery until it is read as His story." This volume pre- sents the facts of the progress of the Kingdom during the past 100 years as an evidence of the superin- tending providence of God. As General-in-Chief of the missionary campaign, He is shown to have gone before His armies, to have broken down barriers, prepared His generals and soldiers, and given the victories that have made us "more than conquerors." Noone who reads these pages can fail to see the hand of Godin nlpdern his- tor~. *-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE AMERICA Our Problem These figures tell of the something of the Fourth Student The fourth inter- task laid upon the Volunteer – national conven- Foreign-born Christians of Amer- Convention tion of the Student in Toronto Volunteer Move- ica: During the fiscal year ending ment for Foreign June 30, 1901, there arrived at the Missions will be held at Toronto, Canada, February 26 to March 2, port of New York 453,496 immi- 1902. Three volunteer conventions grants, being an increase of 52,654 have been held: the first at Cleveland in 1891, having in attendance over the record for the previous 680 delegates; the second at Detroit in 1894, having in attendance 1,325 year. The stream of aliens to our delegates, and the third at Cleveland in 1898, having in attendance shores now sets strongly from 2,221 delegates. At the convention in 1898 there were 1,598 students southeastern Europe. From Italy and 119 professors, representing 461 institutions of higher learning in alone came nearly thirty per cent. the United States and Canada; 87 secretaries and other representa- of the entire number. The followtives of foreign mission boards and societies; 80 foreign missionaries, ing table shows the sources of the and many other leaders. larger classes of immigrants: From present indications the <convention next February will be Italian …………..•………. 131,658 (even IStronger and more represen- Hebrew…………………. . 43,237 tative. It will, in all probability, Polish…………………… . 37,636 he attended by students and pro- German…………………. . 29,680 fessors from over 500 colleges, theo- Slovak ………………….. . 26,931 logical seminaries, medical schools, Scandinavian ……………. . 24,181 ;and other high institutions of learn- Irish……………………. . 19,953 ing. The fact that the next con- Croatian and Dalmatian….. . 12,348 ference of the secretaries of the Magyar………………….. . 12,344 boards of missions of the United :States and Canada will be held in Pennsylvania's Of the 6,302,115 'Toronto insures a large attendance Part of the popUlation in ,of officers and representatives of Problem Pennsylvania, the foreign mission boards. A 985,250 are foreignlarge number of missionaries from all parts of the world field are ex- born. To these are to be""added pected. National leaders of the 160,451 colored people, including young people's societies, state, pro- Negroes, Chinese, and Japanese. vincial, and international secreta- Adding 400,000, the children of perries of the young men's and young sons recently arriving in t.his counwomen's christian associations, try, we have 'about 1,500,000 of and editors of church paperlS and foreign-born in the bounds of the missionary magazines, as well as State. Of these between eight and fraternal delegates from student nine hundred thousand speak formovements in Europe have been eign tongues, who, if they are to invited. be successfully reached and dealt with, must be reached in the mother tongues.
Relative Cost I have compared of Home and the annual average Foreign Work expense of rUI1ning 3 New York City churches with the annual average expense of carrying on the Arcot Mission in India since it was estab- lished forty years ago, and it is less than that of those churches. And note what has been accomplished.
There are, now 8 mission stations, port of schools, or to withdraw en- 100 village congregations, 24 organ- tirely. As there.are no men ready ized churches with 4,910 members to go to Turkey, and as the treasand 1,861 catechumens. There are ury does not warrant the necessary 120 schools with 2,992 pupils, of increase of funds for that field, and whom 2,200 are not Christians; also as the Turkish field is limited and 16 girls' schools with 1,343 pupils; preoccupied, the executive com- 4 Anglo-vernacular schools, where mittee has decided to recommend ],000 young men are taught; 6 that the Foreign Society withdraw training-schools with 322 boarding from that field as soon as it can do pupils, and yet the average yearly so consistently with all the intercost of all this work is less than it ests and rights at present involved." costs to support 1 New York City church.-DR. JACOB CHAMBER- An Indian on The Mission Field LAIN. Indians reports the testi- mony of an Apache Growth of Baptist Missions.-Dr. Mabie states that since 1890 142,000 Indian at a Christian Endeavor' converts have been baptized and meeting held in connection with added to the churches in connec- one of the mission churches of the tion with the American Baptist Reformed Church in America. Missionary Union. This is twice ,, We Indians, " said he, "look like the number permitted any other man, shape like man, but we not society in Christendom to gather know enough. We not know God. in. The fact appears upon another We like snow man children make, page that this same society received all the time standing still in one 6,553 to its churches last year.. place, so cold, so cold, no go about, no work, go away little by little, Methodist Women and Missions. then all gone." -The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Epis- How the Gos- Bishop Hare, wh copal Church reports 2,405,575 pel Transforms seems to be followmembers in the 21,034 branches, and receipts amounting to $426,795 last Red Men ing hard after year, an increase of $12,264 from Bishop Whipple in the year before. The Northwestern Branch reports $102,612; the New service for the Indians, reports that York, $65,901; the Cincinnati, $57,- there are l7 Sioux now in the min- 013, etc. istry. There are about 60 others, not in the ministry, who are Surrendering a Some twenty years licensed' by the bishop to hold ser- Mission Field ago the Christians vices. The clergy, with the aid of these assistants, keep up service in (Disciples) under- 86 congregations. They have 63 took mission work in the Turkish church buildings. There are 3,286 empire, as not a few felt at the Indian communicants. The Indian time, in serious violation of Chris- congregations raised last year for tian comity. But now the state- charitable and religious objects ment comes from official sources $7,892. that for "some time the work in Turkey has not been satisfactory. Christian To their other good One of two courses seem to be open Red Men in works the Indians to the society: either to send a number of Americans to take the Arizona in our Fifth Pima oversight of the churches and to Mission are adding spend many thousands for the sup- the support of their minister, the Rev. W. H. Gill. He tells thus of their enthusiasm in this direction: Our Indians have begun to sup-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
port tl1eir own church this year, Friends, and the Cumberland Pres- besides giving to missionary work. byterian. Besides these there w'ere On the first Sunday of our fiscal several independent missions, such year 8 members paid up their entire as the Church of Jesus, part of year's subscription, while 1 enthu- which, about 1884, was formally siastic member doubled her's and taken up by the Episcopalians; an paid up. On the second Sunday 14 English mission originated by the more paid up in full. At the end late James Pascoe, but since his of the first quarter neady all of the death dismembered; and finally 00 subscriptions have been brought, the work of a Mr. Harris, of Oritho I told them they could have zaba. These report 650 congregathe whole year to pay in. This, I tions, 18,000 communicants, 60,000 think, is encouraging for the first adherents, 185 foreign workers attempt at self-support.-Assem- aided by 585 native workers." bly Herald. EUROPE The Mormon Some idea of the Growth of On this theme, so Tithing enormous revenue the British closely connected System the .Mormon Church Empire with the spread of the Gospel, in a late receives from ti.. Pall Mall Magazine, Mr. Holt thing may be gained through the Schooling has this to say: "During the century now drawing to a close, following item from a Utah corre- land has been added to the British Empire at the average rate of 2 spondent: acres for every sec,ond of time. In the year 1800 Greater Britain was Yesterday a Mormon young only six times as big as the United woman told me that her father Kingdom, while in 1000 it is found paid every tenth load of hay for to have become just ninety-six tithing when he brought it from times as big. Roughly, the increase the field. During the winter, when has been from 2,000,000 square miles he sold the remaining hay, he also to 12,000,000, and this growth of six gave every tenth dollar. Also with times the area. in 1800 has been his cattle, he gives one-tenth of going on all over the world. what he has, and the ne.xt year he tithes the same stock over again, George Miiller These are a Iso giving one-tenth of all, thus in- Orphanages known as the Ashcluding the cattle from which he ley Down Orphan has paid tithing for many years plus the increase. This man is in Homes at Bristol, and concerning moderate circumstances, yet he them an important new departure pays $500 a year tithing. He asked is announced. These homes are the officials if, having once tithed famous from the fact that they his hay and stock, he must again were founded and carried on by tithe them when any were sold by George Muller in the spirit of abgiving one-tenth of the amount solute dependence upon God for all realized, and was told that he must support; altho the founder is dead, do so. Is it any wonder that this his son-in-law, Mr. James Wright, organization is so abundantly pro- still adheres to the same principles. vided with the "sinews of war?', The new departure is a broadening of the work and the admission of Missions in Dr. John W. Butler half-orphans as well as the chil- dren who have lost both parents; 5 Mexico in his " Sketches of homes will be occupied instead of M e x i c 0, " say s : "Several of the evangelical churches in the United States en- tered the mission field in Mexico toward the close of 1872. They did so in about the following order: The Presbyterian, Methodist Epis- copal, Congregational, Baptist Southern Convention, Southern Methodist, Southern Presbyterian, Reformed Associate Presbyterian, Baptist Northern Ohurch, The
4, accommodating in all 2,050 chil- bel' 3d. The law required that all dren. In the sixty-third annual persons professing to work in assoreport there are mllny interesting ciation should publish the rules of facts and figures. The income for their association, and offer some last year was over $160,000, and reasonable guarantee that their the expenditures something over funds would not be applied to pur- $117,000, leaving a handsome bal- poses which they might not wish to ance on hand for advance work. avow. It seems that, out of a total of 16,468 religious establish- Where a Part This list of special ments, 5,141 have applied for of Missionary needs, or "inci- authorization, believing it to be Money Goes den tal" expenses, quite possible to carryon their work under the changed conditions. which appears in Among the applicants for authorithe C. M. S. Intelligence'/' will help zation are 1,045 estahlishments of us to realize that salaries and the Sisters of St. Vincel!t de Paul traveling expenses do not consume and 1,352 other female establishall the gifts of the churches. The ments. It is well known that these sums called for vary from $150 to Sisters carryon works of humanity $2,000 : and beneficence, and they have no reason to apprehend any difficulty For providing a grant to a Yeruba catechist in obtaining authorization from on retiring through loss of sight. the government. On the other hand, 11,327 religious establish- For furniture for the Lagos Old Mission ments, constituting about two- House. thirds of those which existed in France up to October 3d, have made For repairing the Beach House Sanatorium, no application for authorization, Lagos. and must, therefore, expect to be dissolved, the members of the dis- For a new house for an industrial agent, solved orders either renouncing Niger Mission. work altogether, or going into exile to prosecute their work on foreign To meet medical expenses in the Niger Mis- soil. sion during 1900. French According to the For reerecting a rest-house on Mamboia Hill. Catholic Catholic W01'ld, To provide school nlaterial, furniturE', etc., in Missions Catholic France • the U sag'ara Mis~ion. For various buildings, alterations, etc.. in the supplies 7,745 mis- sionary priests, and 9,150 mission- Uganda l1ission. ary sisters, besides 33,000 Sisters of For a paper-cutting machine for Uganda. Charity, of whom a considerable For building a mission-house at Shimba, and proportion work in "almost every part of the world." This large repairs in the 1!;ast Africa Mission. staff, however, is only in part en- For repairs and taxes at Gaza. gaged in missions among the For repairs at l1ajitha SChool, Punjab. heathen. Yet unquestionably France is of all Catholic lands that English The Eng 1ish which furnishes the most laborers Friends and Friends, in their for these. It also gathers the larg- est missionary contributions, of the Missions Thirty-fourth Mis- 6,848,700 francs which in 1900 the sionary Rep 0 rt, chief Catholic collecting society, show, in their five mission fields, India, Ceylon, China, Syria, and Madagascar, 27 missionaries, 5 medical missionaries (one a lady), 24 unmarried ladies. Full members, 2,725; adherents, 13,635; scholars, 19,521. Total income, 412,640 marks. Indian Famine Fund, 596,519 marks. Whole number of home members 19,OOO.-Allgemeine Missions Zeitshrift.
Exodus of The time allowed Religious by the law of July Orders from 1, 1901, to religious France orders for asking authorization to remain in France expired on Octo-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
the Xavier Union of Lyons, took in, missionaries, 130; missionary sis- 4,063,407 francs were from France. ters, 17; native pastors, 26; teach- The next largest sum came from ers and evangelists, 371; native Germany, 755,349 francs. These helpers (elders, etc.), unpaid, 923; voluntary contributions are far schools, 340; scholars, 15,259. from sufficient for the support of the French missionaries and their The Old In 1871 what has numerous and extended missions. Catholic since been known It will never be known whence the Church as the Old Catholic great sums come which make up the deficits.–Allgemeine Missions Zeit- Church broke away schrift. from Rome and became a separate body. The year before the doc trine Deaconess The fo urte e nth of the infallibility of the pope was Conference in conference of Dea- decreed. Those Catholics who re- fused to accept this formed the Germany con e s s 11 0 the r above-named branch of the Church. Houses was held a It has recently been growing rap- idly in Austria, as its last Austrian few weeks since at Kaiserswerth. synod showed. In 1882 there were The first one met in 1861, at which only 6,113 Old Catholics in Austrb, 23 institutions were represented, but there were reported at this modelled after Fliedner's original, synod 16,885. Since 1898 there have to prove to him that his darling been 3,620 accessions, of who m project had not been formed in nearly one-third en t ere d the vain. The deep interest attending Church in the early months of 1900. the recent conference was shown by One fact of special significance rethe fact that the sessions, begin- ported by the moderator is that ning at 8 A.M., lasteil until 11 or 12 there is a growing feeling of' harat night. Three delegates were mony between the Protestants and present from America (Baltimore, the Old Catholics, so much so that Philadelphia, and Omaha), and in some instances they worship toothers from Germany, Holland, gether. Undoubtedly the troubles France, Switzerland, Austria, in Austria, that have sent thou- Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and sands into the Protestant fold, will Norway. account for this growth of the Old Catholic Church and its relations Basel Mission Statistics, 1900 to Protestantism.
STATIONS ~-Missionaries–, " Los von Rom" Very striking ac- Once More counts continue India …………. 23 Male Female to be received of China …………. 13 Gold Coast…….. 10 79 60 the" Away from Rome" rnove- Cameroon …….. 9 ment in Austria. It is claimed that 20 14 as the result of it 13,000 have be- come Protestants, while 7,000 more 46 24 have join~ the Old Catholics. During the last six months over 29 15 3,000 Catholics have come over from the Papacy-the number far ex- Baptisms Members ceeding that professing conversion last year. Among the particular India …………….. 261 14,700 incidents mentioned are the follow- China ……………. 265 6,137 ing: Gold Coast.. .. .. . …. 859 18,136 Cameroon………… 549 2,615 After a conference held in Leit- Rhenish Baptisms: Adults, Missions, 2,973; chi I d r en, 1900-1901 3,375. 11 e m bel's, 82,245, as follows: Cape Colony, 16,023; Gennesee, S. W. Africa, 12,032; Cumberland, 132; Borneo, 1,957; Sumatra, 46,154; Nias, 5,020; China, 927. Stations, 92; substations, 254; European
meritz, 171 persons became Prot- sition in the Middle Ages of causing estants. The evangelical commu- ice-cold water to fall drop by drop nity at Turn, near Teplitz, which upon the victim's head. By the numbered 50 persons three years intervention of his friends, howago, now numbers 1,100; and a new ever, 11. Ientsch has escaped his church to hold this great number tormentors, and is' enjoying his is rapidly nearing completion. In freedom of conscience in Germany. Eger, after a sermon by Dr. Eisenkolb,27 persons announced their A Refuge for In Varna, Bulgaintention of leaving the Catholic Converted ria, an asylum is Church. Toward the end of a re- Moslems be i n g established cent month the Protestants in Graz held a thanksgiving service for converts from for the thousandth conversion from Islam and their friends. The plan Catholicism within their district. is to form a colony of converted Every Sunday in Brunn there are Moslems where they can still use services for the reception of newly the Turkish language and follow converted Protestants; and the the avocations of the Orient, and large village of Horschwitz, from yet have religious freedom and being an exclusively Catholic vil- form a nucleus for a church and lage, has become almost entirely centre for education. vVhile under Protestant during the past eight the care of Gerlllan Protestants, months. In Bohemia alone, since January, 1899, over 7,000 conversions have taken place.
The Is it the twentieth the chief agent at Varna is Br.
Dark Ages c e n t u I' y or the Hohannes Avedaranian, a convert Revived tenth? An almost from Turkey, who has married a incredible story is Christian woman of noble family told in La Semaine Religieuse, of in Germany. During the past year Geneva, concerningthe passingover two families from Northwest Per- to Protestantism of a Carmelite sia have gone to join this colony.
: monk in Gratz, Austria. His name The husbands, Mirza Ghulam and ; is M. lentsch, is 54 years old, and Naki, had married Nestorian wives, greatly esteemed for his character and in due time became Christians and zeal. By the study of the themselves. Tho not much molest- Scriptures he had been led to the ed here, they desired to go where conclusion that the Roman Cath- their children could grow up under olic Church was not the true Church religious freedom, and with spir- of Christ. He therefore quitted his itual and educational advantages.
monastery, and placed himself -REV. J. N. WRIGHT.
under the instruction of a Protes- ASIA tant pastor. His superipr, however, prevailed on him, on some pretext, The Pilgrim In Mercy and to reenter the monastery. Im- Road in Truth Dr. F. John- mediately he was imprisoned in his Palestine son writes: "In cell until he should retract his most modern maps heresies. On his refusal he was of Palestine you will find toward secretly transferred to a Franciscan the eastern limit, and running monastery. Thence he was taken roughly from north to south, a to Brixen, to a community of line to which is appended the name Sisters of the Cross, where, accord- •Derb-a-Haji.' This mysterious ing to one report, he was subjected name denotes simply the Pilgrim to a series of cold douches, but, Road, which consists of a broad according to another account, was camel track in the midst of a deso- made to undergo the terrible late country. Remains of the ex- punishment practised by the Inqui- cellent work of former rulers of
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Palestine-the Romans-are plain- Missions Rev. C. H. Stile- ly visible in the Pilgrim Road, for are How Far man, of the C. M. in addition to road structure are found castles-ancient Roman mili- ,Apart? S., in a recent ad- tary stations which have been re- dress called atten- paired from time to time, and now serve as useful halting-places for tion to the painful fact that no two the pilgrims. stations in Persia were within 200 miles of each other, and there were "In company with my dispenser no stations belonging to other socie- and one or two Keraki, we reach ties between them. "Travel 200 one of the castles or halting-places miles in England," he interposed, after a journey of some eight hours by way of comparison, "and count from Kerak. The next morning a the church-spires as you go along! " horseman arrives announcing that In Persia there were many'towns the pilgrims will begin to arrive unoccupied, many villages unvis- after three or four hours. I go to ited. The earnestness of the Mo- the top of the castle, and far in the hammedans, such as it was, was distance can be seen in the midst like that of Naaman knocking at of an undulating hill country a the wrong door. The nee d of moving object, dark, ill-defined, women workers was especially which gradually increases in size great. In Mohammedan lands and definition, until at length the scarcely three women in a thousand several components-man, beast, could read, so that they were inac- and burden-of the huge caravan cessible by the printed Word, and call be distinguished. From statis- unless the living voice, which must tics given me by the Pasha of the be the voice of women, came to Haji, who with some 400 soldiers 'them, they would never hear the and two or three pieces of artillery, Gospel message at all. There was accompanies the caravan, and is an open door in Persia. responsible for its safe conduct, I learned that the number of pilgrims Moslems MI'. Stileman makes was from 6,000 to 10,000. Such a Touched by this statement as proportion of human beings would the Gospel showing that the involve. I suppose, not less than 15,000 to 20,000 beasts of burden, Moslem heart is not mostly camels. altogether flinty: "I could tell you of Afghans, and Arabs, and Per- " In the course of the afternoon sians, and Turks, of Mohammedans the area on one side of the castle is of India and North Africa, of Palcovered with tents, and one part of estine and Egypt, of Java and the encampment is set apart for Sumatra, who have become followbakers, butchers, etc., from whom ers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the pilgrims purchase. These have been baptized. I suppose tradesmen make no small gain on that, of all Mohammedans, the the journey. Turk is generally considered to be the hardest to move. And if the " At some time between midnight Turk has a heart of stone, the and dawn a cannon is fired to warn Turkish official has a heart like the the pilgrims to prepare for resum- nether millstone. Yet it has been ing the journey. Before dawn they my privilege to baptize even a are well on their way to their Turkish official. 'l'hat man's life next halting-place. The risk to was transformed by t,he expulsive pilgrims, if not keeping in close power of a new affection, the power company with the main body, is of the constraining love of Christ. great"" I well remember one day when I
was reading the Word of God with natural qualifications which mark him, and we came to the passage them off from their birth as in~ where Christ is described as our tended for Sudras, whose service to Head, that Turkish official said to society can only be to labor for it; me, 'Oh, Sahib, what a glorious for Vaisyas, to trade for the supply thought! The eyes are in the head, of its needs; for Kshattriyas, to and the ears are in the head, and fight in its defense; or, finally, for the mouth is in the head. I am Brahmans, who, besides all this, blind, but Christ sees for me; I am are qualified for the higher office of deaf, but Christ hears forme; lam its teachers. dumb, but Christ speaks for me!' And when he was told on one occa- In India the harm done by the sion that if he were not very care- missionary effort has been pre· ful he would be put to death for cisely to aim at this confusion of Christ's sake, what was his reply? Dharmas as the "one thing need· He said, 'I am not a dark-room ful." A Hindu who becomes a Christian; I am a house-top Chris- Christian has lost caste in a far tian.'" deeper and more serious sense than even those who excommunicate him Widows How cruelly Hindu can understand, and the more sin· in India widows are often cere his renunciation of Hindu- ism, the more completely are the treated is shown by foundations of his spiritual life a case from Poona, related by Mrs. broken up. R. A. Hume. The plague was raging in that city. In a Brahman Deaths from A recent statement family six persons fell sick. After Tigers shows the mortality the death of the father, four Brahmins came to perform the custom- and Snakes from wild animals ary obsequies. A part of these and snakes in Inwas, that the head of the widow should be shaved. Altho she her- dia during 1900. The number of self was lying ill of the plague, yet human beings killed by wild anithe priests laid hold of the dying mals was 3,444, which was higher woman, tOOl. from her all her orna- than in any previous year .for a ments, broke to pieces her armlets, quarter of a century, except 1875 and held her first until her head and 1897. The DlOrtality from snake was shaved, meanwhile heaping all bite was 25,837, or nine per cent. manner of approbrious names upon less than in 1899; but larger than her. During this barbarous pro- in any preceding year since 1889. cess she breathed out her soul.- Nearly half occurred in Bengal and Evangelisches Missions Magazine. more than a quarter in the North- Excellence (?) A few months since western Provinces and Oudh.
of the we had a plea from Superstition An extraordinary Among case of lingering Caste System di vers e Chinamen the Hindus superstition among in behalf of foot- the Hindus is re- binding; and now comes the Theo- ported from the Madras Presidency. A man was charged at the last sophical Review, urging one and criminal sessions in Bellary with all to stand by the Divine system the murder of his son, five years old. He made several confessional of caste. Quoth the editor: statements, in the course of which There can be no doubt that the he did not deny the murder, but great division of the Four Castes is put forward the following extraorfounded in nature, and that in the dinary plea: He said that for sev- West, as in the East, men and eral years he had been worshiping women come into the world with at a temple in Hospett. the god of which used to appear to him and express approval of his devotion,
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELt..1GENCE
and demanded sacrifices, in return bers enables the doctor to give help for which he was to receive unlim- in other directions, and is really no ited wealth. The man assiduously reason, as some might think, for offered sacrifices of various kinds discounting the value of a medica1 -grains, fruits, and animals-until mission in such a region. It is the finally the god demanded the sacri- one daily center which guarantees fice of his child. He hesitated a an audience for the message of the long while, until the god promised Gospel of the Lord Jesus. that, if the child was sacrificed, he would revive it. Eventually the Baptist The statistics of man carried out the god's wishes, Statistics Baptist missions in and killed his child in the temple. from Burma Burma, as given in The police and villagers, having heard of the crime, turned up and the annual report apprehended him, interrupting his for the year 1900, are as follows: worship. The man contended that, Total number of missionaries. inbut for the interference of the cluding wives and single women, police, his child would have been re- 170; total native helpers, 1,533; vived. The judge, after taking into total organized churches, 689; consideration the religious delusion churches entirely self-supporting, under which the man labored, said 495; church members, 39,065; added he could not acquit him of the by baptism in 1900, 2,242; Sundaycharge of murder, and sentenced schools. 405; total number of pupils him to death, leaving it to the high in the schools, 17,575; church and court to deal with the punishment, chapel buildings, 717; total native if it chose to do so, in revision. contribution, $79,845.
The World's The Moravian Med- From Grievous Rev. Edward Fair- Loftiest ical Mission at Leh, "Failure" bank, of the Mara- Mission in Kashmiri Tibet. to Shining thi mission, told Station 11,600 feet above the Success how for many years sea, is probably the the work was a highest mission station in the total failure from the standpoint of world. The town is the capital of visible results. For eighty-two Ladak, which ill but a sparsely years more missional-1eS died twice populated place. In winter there over than there were converts is sometimes 50 degrees of frost, and this fact goes far to account to Ohristianity. But famine and for the small number of the people. The valley of Leh itself is said to plague proved a wonderful agency have only 2,783 inhabitants. The for turning the hearts of the people work at the town is therefore com- to God. More people were baptized paratively light. The maximum in the single year 1900 than in the number of in-patients at anyone previous sixty-three years. Thirty time last year was 7; the average villages actually begged for Ohrisnumber of out-patients 16 to 20. tian schools, and 70 villages have In the months of August. Septem- sent complaints that the Gospel is ber, and October, when Baltis, not preached among them. Thou- Turkis. and natives of Kashmir sands of famine children are being and India come to Leh for trading trained to become the industrial as purposes, this last number is nearly well as the spiritual saviors of doubled. The smallness, the com- India. parative smallness, of these num- Children's A writer in Funerals in Woman's Workfor Peking Woman quotes this from Mr. Hol- comb: "If you lived in Peking you
would be surprised never to see bearer chair. He gets a percentage a child's funeral pass; but if you go of all the cash that the beggars re- into the street very early in the ceive, and he has the beggars carmorning, you will find the explana- ried to the place of begging if they tion. You will meet a large, cov- can not walk. If a new man beered vehicle, drawn by two oxen, comes a beggar the beggars will having a sign across the front stat- not let him beg unless he pays ten ing its horrible office, and piled to dollars or so to the king of the begthe brim with the bodies of children. gars. A young fellow of whom I Sometimes there are a hundred in know was disowned by his father the cart at once, thrown in as gar- and went begging, but was beaten bage, nearly all of them naked, a several times by the beggars' guild. few of them tied up in old reed bas- He found it exceedingly difficult to kets, and fewer, never more than get anything to eat. He had not one or two, in cheap board coffins. capital enough to make the neces- These carts go about the streets sary beggarly investment. The each night, pick up these pitiable king of the beggars goes around remains, some of them mutilated and levys a tax on each store. -The by dogs; they are thrown in like so one not paying this tax will soon much wood and taken to a pit out- be overrun with importunate begside the city wall, into which they gars, until the tax is paid to get rid are dumped, then covered with of the pest. The store paying up quicklime. Does it make you sick is not troubled, except now and to hear of such a thing? I have then, by a mendicant priest or a, lived seven years in the city where wandering beggar." that is a daily occurrence." The Fruit Says a writer in Imperial A correspondent of of Medical Spirit of .Missions: University the North China Missions Some time ago a Redivivus Daily News says leading English. that Prince On'ing missionary told me that one of thinks the reestablishment of the their workers had visited a city at Impe.ial University ought to take the other end of this province. As place as soon as possible, and he he was the first foreigner seen has already officially asked -the there, he received the hospitalities president, the Rev. W. A. P. of the mob in the shape of cabbage- Martin, D.D., LL.D., to inform the stalks, ancient eggs, and brickbats. various professors that their ser- As he was running from the crowd, vices will soon be again required. a well-dressed native gentleman Dr. Martin had just prevIously sent called to him to enter his house. a strong letter urging the recon- The gate was closed and bolted, struction of the university. If this and the guest was told that the is accomplished reform is bound to mob would disperse, as they had no proceed. serious iII-will toward him; it was only their little way with a Begging as a Solicitation of alms stranger. After partaking of re- Business in this queer coun- freshments, the host said that he try has been re- would like to call in -some of his friends, if the guest would tell them duced to a science, a fine art, a 'of the Kingdom of Heaven. Soon profession. These wretched crea- a number of respectable men came tures in the large cities have "a head in; they listened attentively to the beggar, who is called the king of address, and then asked many the beggars, and rides in a fine four-
GE~ERAL lI:IISSIONARY iNTELLIGENCE
questions about the Christian re- we can not. The missionary doctor ligion. The missionary asked his gave him five or ten grains of sub- host what had induced him to desire nitrate of bismuth three times a a knowledge of the Gospel. The day, put him on a simple diet, and reply was: "Some twelve years ago his recovery was marvelous. Be- I went to Shanghai, was taken fore this man returned to his home very ill at an inn, and when my he bought a New Testament, and money was gone, as I was a used to read it night and day. He stranger, the innkeeper was going became intensely interested in the to put me out upon the street to Gospel. The day was not long die, when some one said, 'Send him enough for him, so he used to come to the hospital; they will care for and sit by the Christian doctor's him.' " He was taken, treated desk at night and ask .him ques- kindly, and cured of his disease. tions. " Doctor," he said at length. He was astonished to find that "I am glad I ever was sick." there were any people in the world, "Why?" said the doctor. "Oh!" especially strangers, who would said this patient, "if I had never care for persons who had no claim been sick. I should never h a v e upon them and no money to pay for known the Gospel of this precious the outlay. He then learned that book." When he returned to his our religion taught the love of our home, he was so enthusiastic a neighbor, and that every one was a Christian that he was in danger of neighbor. He received some relig- driving away the customers from ious instruction, and desired to his store, so faithfully did he preach learn more of this stra,nge religion. Jesus to them.-Rlustrated Mis- The missionary stayed some time, sionary News. and before he left he baptized this man and some of his friends, and Number of It has been roughly since then an important work has Chinese estimated that the grown from this little center. Martyrs .Boxers killed at least 5,000 Protes- The Need A man came to a for Medical mission dispensary tants and perhaps 20,000 or 25,000 Roman Catholics. The Shan,ghai Missions in Honan, China, Mercury contains an interesting ed- who had been ill itorial on the nativ~ martyrs. From this article we learn that it is now for a long time with chronic dys- safely estimated that in and around pepsia. The medical missionary Peking the Presbyterians lost about tried to find out something about 300, the London Mission lost at his history, and he found that he least 400 in the Province of Chi-Ii had been eating stone for nearly (in which Peking is situated), the two years. When ask.ed how much Methodists about 300 in the same he haa eaten, he said, "About half region, and the A. B. C. F. M. 150 a millstone," or sixty pounds of in Tung-cho alone. This gives the stone. He had been advised by a total of 1,150 native Protestant native doctor to eat it, so he ground Christians who suffered martyrit up in a mortar, and used to eat dom in the vicinity of Peking. half a cupful every morning; but Perhaps a larger number perished he was none the better! Then he farther westward, in the Province was advised to eat cinnamon bark of Shansi, under the bloody reign as a sure cure, and he ate forty of the infamous Yu Hsien, the pounds. The missionary say s, most of these latter being English "Yon can imagine the condition of Baptists and American Congragathat man's stomach." I am afraid
tionalists. A ve r y considerable converts. He knows that after the number must have perished in salaam they will gather around a Shang-tung, and large numbers demijohn of rum, thattheirdaughsuffered martyrdom in Manchuria. ters, somewhat scantily clothed, Therefore, it is perhaps safe to say will execute dances none too decent, that the earlier estimates of 5,000 that they will still keep and rever- Protestants who perished are en- ence their fetishes. What does he tirely within bounds. care? In heart he contemns this generation, but he is on the lookout AFRICA for the next. He well knows that before long he will be asked to The Islam is spreading teach the boys, to imbue them with his science, and evening after even- Preaching of rapidly in Senegal; ing he will gather them around him, having provided them with Islam in nor are the reasons tablets, each inscribed with a verse of the Koran. This verse is conned Africa hard to discover. over until it is ineffaceably graven in the memory. And to these A black Mussulman scholars he will teach the islamic precepts in all their rigidity; he comes into an important town. He will make fanatics of them, if he can -at aU events, faithful observers stations himself in a corner, under a of the law of Mohammed. They will take more serious account of veranda where some one permits the sacrifices which he requires of them; abstinence from alcoholic him to remain. He rouses no sus- drinks and from certain meats; certain limits to the passions; strict picion, speaking the same language, observance of the sacred ordi- nances. They begin to understand and living the same as the rest of the intellectual superiority of Islam above their own religion, and are the village. The fetishists, whose immovably anchored in the belief that such a religion, so elevated, religious practises are reduced to a yet easy to understand, demanding sacrifices, yet in return offering so very smaH minimum, soon begin to many brilliant promises, and, fin- ally, leaving an immense range to note the prayers which the new- the natural passions of the negro- that this religion is the only percomer repeats at regular intervals. fect one, and that no other has any right except to the deepest con- He is encircled with a certain re- tempt or hate. If Islam were the vestibule of spect; he says that it is the religion Christianity, if it were a step for- ward in a sort of natural religious sent by God to his prophet; that it evolution, I might wish it to have yet more followers, for it raises the is greatly superior to fetishism and level of a pagan people; and tho it were only by its struggles against at the same time very easy-to say spirituous liquors, it renders an im- mense service to the black popula-· the prayers, to observe the great fasts, and to be charitable-this assures all the favors of God for this world and for the next. The fetishists have very dim ideas of the life to come, and what they hear of Mussulman paradise, with its vari- ous delights, is wholly new, not .displeasing to them.
On the other hand, this Moslem priest, who is very intelligent, takes good care not to affront the super- stitions and rooted habits of his hearers. He passes silently over even that which is condemned by the Koran. Provided that one adopts certain forms, offers the prayers, even without comprehend- ing anything of them, and that one believes in ths virtue of the Moham- medan amulets, he demands noth- ing more of the first generation of
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
tions which are being poisoned. with tions are swept away by their ac- our alcohol. ceptance of the new faith. The difference between the Uganda But when Islam has once thor- of 1900 and the blood-stained, oughly entered into the life, into the harassed, barbarous days of Mtesa morals of a people, it is not a ves- and his son Mwanga, is really ex- tibule, but a high, insurmountable traordinary; and the larger share wall; not an open door, but a door in this movement is undoubtedly bolted and chained, whose keepers due to the teaching of Anglican will not even seriously reason with and Roman Catholic missionaries.. us. Islam has raised them and has made them believe that they have -SIR HENRY JOHNSTON. arrived at perfection. In reality, the only true way which leads to Christian An old woman of the Promised Land has been hidden Tribal East Africa, whose from them and they will not believe Marks face was heavily it. Islam is more a social system seamed by tribal than a religion. It does not go to the heart of man; it does not hum- marks (cuts and a rough kind of ble him, but puffs him up with tattoo), was asked why she thus pride; it does not ask him to change disfigured her face. The woman his heart, but only his habits. And replied that they were marks of this is the reason why this religion beauty. "But you do not see Eu- of Mohammedanism spreads so rap- ropeans mark their faces in this idly and exercises such an influence way?" " No," replied the woman, over its adepts.-Journal des "but you Europeans have your Missions. tribal marks-marks of love, for you feed us when hungry, clothe us The Gospel Among the naked when naked, and teach us about in Uganda Nilotic negroes of God. Others do not treat us like this; even our own people throw the eastern half of us away, and leave us to die. Yes, the Uganda protectorate, mission- you Europeans have these marks of ary propaganda seems at the pres- love by which we know you, even ent time absolutely impossible. as we are known by tribal marks." These people take absolutely no -REV. A. G. SMITH, C. M. S. Reinterest in religion or in any sub- port. ject which is not of a purely material nature. On the other Native Protestant Christians in hand, the Bantu-speaking natives are well inclined to religious in- South Africa quiry; and the rapid spread of Christianity over the kingdom of 1878. 1898. Uganda and the district of Toro is one of the greatest triumphs to Baptized ……………….. 168,432 347,142 which the advocates of Christian propaganda can point. It must Catechumens ……….•.•.. 127,497 176,322 not be imagined, of course, that the Baganda or Batoro have none ISLANDS OF THE SEA of the old Adam in their composition since they accepted Christian- Aborigines of "The Australian ity; but, undoubtedly, their intel- Australia continent has, in ligence is quickened, their ideas are all its peculiarities, enlarged-to a very notable extent -and their harmful old supersti- something unachieved. The na- tives, agreeably to the inferior types of surrounding nature, stand at the lowest step of the human ladder." They form an ethnic group and even a race apart in mankind. Professors, aforetime. of the whole Australian continent, their number has largely decreased,
incapable as they have been of French priests have been sent to the opposing a serious resistanc~ to the New Hebrides. Three are settled in sailors and merchants, and to the Big Bay, Santo, near Dr. Sandi- European colonists. The history lands. They claimed land occupied of the colonization of Australasia by Mr. Scott, trader, but he had peg- (Australia, Tasmania, New Zea- istered title-deeds. He gave them land) is one of the saddest pages of shelter owing to the wet weather, modern history; it is the system- but, as they claimed land not bouglit atic and' intended extermination by them, the natives ordered them of inoffensive tribes, and even of a away. In April two French tradwhole race, like that of the Tas- ing steamers, instead of one as bemanians. The attitude of the fore, proceeded from Noumea to the European colonists who settled in islands to draw the trade from the South Australia, Victoria, and New English to the French, but were South Wales was, toward the only partially successful." A numaborigines, cruel beyond descrip- ber of the New Hebrides chiefs have tion. Their struggles against them petitioned to be annexed to Enghave been hunts rather than wars; land. The Romish plan is generally the English colonists have often not to face- savages, but to follow treated them as if they were mere up successful Protestant missions, beasts of prey, and have pushed and to use French power as their them toward the barren stretches agent. of the inland, or into poor and unhealthy regions where their num- Snakes! Yes; Years ago some bers steadily lessen. We could but also Men missionary teachers cite overwhelming facts, deeds of cruelty wi.thout a name; some, for were about to go to example, in order to exterminate New Guinea. The islanders tried them more rapidly, are said to to dissuade them from going, and have fed bands of natives with they said, "There are alligators flour mixed with arsenic. It would there, and snakes, and centipedes." be easy for us to cite other ex- "Hold," said the teacher, " are amples, which mark the wars of there men there?" "Oh yes," was extermination of 1828 and 1830, but the reply, "there are men; but they to what end recall such abomina- are such dreadful savages that it is tions? Suffice is to say, that be- no use for you to think of living tween 1836 and 1881 the number of among them." "That will do," renatives in Victoria fell from 5,000 plied the teacher; "wherever there to 770; the tribe of the Naringeri, are men, missionaries are bOtllld to in South Australia, which, in 1842, go."-llfissionary Herald. numbered 3,200 souls, had fallen in 1875 to only 5lI.-Journal des Bad Say sEarl Beau- Missions. Europeans as c ham p, late Gov- French The French are de- Mischief in terminedly pushing Hindrances ernor of New South New Hebrides their way in the Wales: "One diffi- New Hebrides, under the speciai guidance of Romish culty is the variety of languages priests. A journal published by missionaries in the New Hebrides among the inhabitants. In the contains the following: "Within the last six or seven months 21 diocese of Carpentaria 21 languages a~e spoken, and in Melanesia the number is even greater. But I suppose that the prime difficulty which confronts all missionaries in the destrict of the South Seas is the lives which have been lived by white men. It would be impossible
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
for me to relate even a fraction of Given a country in which one per the sin and wickedness and vice cent. of the population is Christian, and misery which the early pioneer and where the whole population white men brought into the South grows by one per cent. yearly, and Sea Islands. Those persons were the number of the Christians by 10 originally buccaneers and pirates, per cent., it will only be seventy and they behaved as such. The years before the whole people will martyrdom of Bishop Patteson was have to become Christian.-Bulledirectly due to the fact that the tin de la Mission Romande. last visitors to the island where he was slain had been white men, who Campbell It is to be rememhad so ill-treatea the islanders that Morgan on bered that nations the inhabitants resolved to kill the "The Waste." do not tabulate the next white man they saw. It is only natural that ignorant and loss of life when half-educated natives should say: they enter upon a war of conquest, "What is the use of our becoming and until the first note of com- Christians when most of the Chris- plaint has been heard froD;t the men tians behave as they do ? " and women in the mission field we must be dumbandsiIent. Nothing The population of Polynesia at is wasted that is poured at the feet the present time is said to be about of Christ. Think deeply and you 863,000, of whom 323,500 are Chris- will find the cross of Christ everytians. This is the result of a single where. The old commonplace, century of work. " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," is true,"and we MISCELLANEOUS may expect that China is about to have a new Pentecost, the harvest The Progress The influence of the of a glorious result from the great of Missions Gospel is in the trials through which missionary course of pervading effort has passed in that country. But you can not convince the cold and transforming the whole wodd. business man outside of this com- In the comparatively few regions ing. It is ours to hope right on. into which it made its way as early We see Jesus, and there we must as the eighteenth century, Chris- be content. His work is mifinished. tianity has become the dominant The fog is on the world, but by the religion, as in Greenland, the An- waste of the moment he wins the tilles, Guiana, some Indian tribes ages. Missionary effort is the of North America, and the Hotten- necessity of Christian life and we tots of Africa. It is the same with can not escape from it. The first some of the regions evangelized conscious thrill of the life of God since 1800, Hawaii, New Ze~land, within the human soul is a missome of the Polynesian Archipela- sionary passion. The one function goes. A comparison of the statis- of the Church is missionary. tics of the whole of Protestant missions shows that, during a certain " Suffer This was the ringtime the Church among the heathen grew at the rate of 5 per cent. per Hardship with ing challenge that year, but that for two or three years back this increase has risen to 10 Me." the veteran fighter per cent. This result is a decisive answer to those who pretend that of "wild beasts at the work of missions is illusory, because every year there are more Ephesus" and of the "powers of heathens born than converted. wickedness in high places" flung out to young Timothy: "Suffer hardship with me" (2 Tim. ii: 3, R. V.). It is the call Jesus gave
to His disciples, and to anyone who to have a man come from the would follow Him-by the way of neighboring city and preach to the cross. King Alfred said, "No them in Italian. The men were so man should desire a soft life if he interested and grateful that other careth for any worship here from meetings followed, until now that the world or for eternal life after church has what might be called an tbis life is over." It is a saving Italian annex, and the results of call. Indulgence is making men the work are most gratifying. soft. Luxury grows lust. Sensuousness kills all noble sentiment. The Three The American Mis- Manhood is decaying because young Foes of sionary Bishop at men are not ennobled in a high pur- Missions Sh ang ha i, Dr. posed service for others that leads Graves, in a recent them to treat their bodies harshly for Christ's sake, to do the dis- article in the New York Churchagreeable, to venture on large man, says: "The three foes of misundertakings which take time, sions are the tesselated pavement, money, sacrifice, and thought. It the new altar, and the stained-glass is good Gospel to yoke up a man window." This is plain speaking. to hard service that calls for all and with very slight modification the strength and grace available. might not unfairly be addressed to Better for the men of the Church to hundreds of parishes in England, die in their youth in mission fields even where the vicar is one of the than to become soft, sleek, and "stanch friends" of the Church critical in their pews at home for a Missionary Society.-C. M. S. century.-Association Men. I ntelligencer.
What Fifty A year ago a Growth of The remarkable, Methodism growth of Method- Testaments woman was living ism which is now Did near a town where the largest Protestant denomina- tion in the world, was shown at one 50 Italians came to of the meetings of the recent Wes- 1eyan Ecumenical Conference, held work. She became very much dis- in Wesley's Chapel, London, by Bishop Hartzell, of Liberia, Africa. tressed at the heathenish way in "In the world to-day," he said, " there are nearly seven and a half which tltey lived, for she discovered millions of Methodist communi- cants. When Wesley died, the that they never went to church and Methodist members in England numbered 76,968, and in the United that the nearest Roman Catholic States 42,265. From that small be- ginning had grown the great compriest had not taken the trouble to pany of world-wide Methodists, numbering in actual communilook them up. Most of them could cants 7,358,392. If these be added to the adherents of Methodism who speak no English and she could attend upon its services and look to its nearly 50,000 clergy for speak no Italian, so she was at a spiritual ministrations, the number of Methodist adherents throughout loss to know how to help them. the world must certainly be 20,000,000 of people. Learning that almost all of them could read in their native tongue, she purchased copies of the New Testament in Italian, and gave one to each man. It was not long be- fore one of the leaders came to her and asked if there was a church where they could go and hear that Book read. He said most of the men were reading it, many of them with much interest. She consulted with her pastor, and they arranged
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1894
~,~, tJ'*'~ ~¥~ 7J~""
4 .k¥~..L-~, Ittr If!} MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVII. No.l.-OldSeries.-JANUARY.-VoL. VII. No. 1.-New 8eriu.
THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION AT CHICAGO.
BY THE EDI1'OR-IN-CHIEF.
At the World's Fair the seven wonders of the world met to hold high carnival. The metropolis of the great Northwest achieved a grand success. To describe the superb splendor, the vastness and variety, the architectural and resthetic attractions, the overwhelming grandeur of this Exposition, is impossible. All adjectives fail, and even superlatives are weak. "Aladdin's lamp" may now be relegated to the oblivion into which the most gorgeous fancies retire when outdone by facts. The common verdict is, "The half was not told me."
Symmetry, in hug0 columnar and statuesque forms, here on every side saluted the beholder; and the combination of the colossal with the exquisitely delicate, of the original and the unique with the refined and poetic, left fal' in the distance any previous triumphs of human genius. When, at night, the electric lights illumincd and glorified the massive structures and allegorical figures that surrounded and adorned the Court of Honor; when the golden statue of Liberty, in lustrous robes, confronted the Administration Building, with its garlands of light and its coronal of glory; when the electric fountains shot rainbows skyward, and all this unearthly beauty and radiance was reflected and repeatcd in the mirror of the lagoon, it seemed reverent to ask whether the dream of Paradise were not become a reality, and the " Vhite City" were not at least the forecast of t.he " City of God."
Connected with this imperial display of the world's inventions, discoveries, achievements, and material civilization, there have been held several congresses, to three of which the pages of this HEVIEW might properly advert: The Parliament of Religions. the Congress of Missions, and the World's Evangelical Alliance. The daily press m{d religious weeklies have so far dealt with detail!'! that at this distance of time nothing remains but a re-view, II backward glance whieh lIIay serve to gather up and crystallize into permanence the impressiollfl of the geuel'lll ellaradcr and rCimlts of these three conferences.
THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION AT CHICAGO
As to the l'arliament of Religions-of which especially this paper treats -there was something thrilling about the conception of gathering into one fraternal assembly the representatives of the various religious faiths of mankind, and hushing all discordancies in one universal harmony. Charity seemed to have come down from heaven to sit upon her throne and sway all hearts j and yet, as to the utility of such a parliament, there were in many minds grave doubts which events have not dissipated. Of course in an open field, with a fair showing, Christianity has nothing to fear from competition with any other so-called" religions j" bllt such a parliament leaves on the popular mind impressions which are misleading and mischievous. Superficial people naturally infer that, as all the great religious systems of the world claim to have their" sacred books," and" sacred persons," and most of them their" incarnations," it is simply a matter of comparison and competition whether or not Christianity shall, in the race for the prize, come out ahead! There is, in the concession of a common platform-to which Brahmans and Buddhists, Confucianists and Taoists, Parsces and Shintooists, and representatives of every other typc of rcligious doctrine and practice are admitted upon an equality-something which looks very like the virtual abandonment of thc position held for centuries by the evangelical disciple, that there is but one divine religion, and that so unique as to defy all comparison or competition.
On the same platform, in the Hall of Columbus, were to be seen Christians of every name-Roman Catholic and Greek Church dignitaries, as well as leading Protestants of all denominat.ions; theosophists and materialists and deists, as well as theists; followers of every creed, however sublime or absurd-a great throng all gathered in one hall and rejoicing in the unity of their diversity, and that all-embracing bond of " charity." It was pronounced a " wonderful and impressive sight," even by the unimpressible newspaper reporters! Cardinal Gibbons delivered an invocatory prayer, and addresses followed from a Presbyterian" president," a Universalist female preacher, and a Roman Catholic archbishop; and everybody was supposed to be happy because the millennium of " peace on earth and good will among men" was at last inaugurated! Here,for seventeen days, those who glory in the" universal Fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man," and the universal affinity of all religious faiths and cults, sat down together at their banquet of love. According to the conditions of the Parliament, the principles of each faith were to be set forth by special advocates, without reply, rejoinder, controversy, comparison, or any form of counter attack, so that, as every mouth was muzzled, there was no room on that platform even for the exposure of error, sophistry, fallacy, or even falsehood. Such refutation must find its opportunity and facility outside the Parliament, if at all. No wonder if that competent and cultured Arabic scholar, Dr. George E. Post, of Syria, when he heard false statements made as to the teaching of the Koran, could not keep silence, but broke' through restraint and started for the platform, with an open copy of the Koran in hand, to refute the falsehood by reading from the book itself !
There is room for grave suspicion as to the final outcome of this Parliament. Many of the best men still question whether " charity" was not made to cover extremes of concession and unwarrantable fellowship; whether such levelling of alllandma.rks between creeds and cults was not a dishonor to the Christian faith and the Christian's God; whether the ban put upon all " controversy," and even rebutting testimony, did not leave error to run its race unhindered, and hamper truth in overtaking it, by compelling a resort to tardy and uncertain methods of exposure; whether the ultimate result will not be to countenance an unwholesome tolerance of false teaching, and open the door-as in fact is already the case-to a new era of propagandism of Buddhist, Mohammedan and other "mysteries" even in Christian lands j whether we are in no danger of misreading the motto, "Liberty, equality, fraternity" into "Laxity, apathy, and compromise. "
" The Moslem Wodd is a Mohammedan paper recently started in New York City, whose editor thinks the United States a'n excellent missionary field, and hopes to make many converts to the doctrine of Islam. He thinks the people here ripe for conversion, and that American women in particular will embrace the doctrine, because it makes woman free and independent. Islamism, the editor avers, will lessen licentiousness, purify the marriage relation, and banish adnltery! The morality of Mohammedanism will, he says, compare favorably with the morality of Christianity. He makes the Islam heaven appear very roseate. His paradise is beyond description, ineffable, iridescent and glorions. A Mohammedan may have as many wives as he can p1'ovide for: no more. That's good news. This prevents adultery, etc. With two hundred million Mohammedans already upon the face of the earth, what may we expect ?"
So says a contemporary journal. It is not strange if doubts of the expediency of such a Parliament will not" down atone's bidding." There is but one "religion" worthy of the name j only one "Sacred Book," sealed with the" seven seals" of God: fulfilled prophecy, general accuracy, faultless morality, exalted spirituality, divine originality, consistent unity, and saving efficacy. No other "religion" gives man a Saviouf? anointed of God, competent as prophet, priest, and king, the way of God to man, the way of man to God j no other faith, however ancient, and boasting however many millions of adherents, can supply such a firm standing place fOf life, slich a pillow for the dying head, as Spurgeon found in those "five words," which Paul would rather speak with the understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue : " CHRIST DIED FOR OUR. SINS."
Bacon's maxim was, that it is not worth while to discuss a matter with any man who does not agree with you upon first principles. ",Vas there no risk of an impression, even on those invited to present thllir " religion" in such a Parliament, that Christians do not regard their divergences from themselves as radical or fundamental 1 And is this a true or tenable position 1 Is it possible for an idolater, a polygamist, a materialist, a deist, a pantheist, a theosophist, a worshipper of Brahm or Buddha, or of 'his own ancestors, to have real concord with one who holds all idol worship to be sin, polygamy to be a perversion of marriage and the panderer of an unhallowed lust, and that he who denies the Son of God denies the Father also 1 Charity is not laxity. It covers a multitude of sins, but it is not to become a mantle of snow, concealing a fatal crevasse. Let us, as Augustine said, cultivate "unity in essentials, liberty in non· essentials, and in all things charity j" but, without unity on the essentials, liberty becomes lawlessness and looseness, and charity another name for the carelessness that' compromises with error and is indifferent even to vital distinctions. John was the" apostle of love," yet his pen wrote: "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God j and this is that spirit of Antichrist" against which the New Testament thunders perpetual warning. Even the apostle of love would have made a poor president of such a " Parliament j" he was too intolerant; for he protests, " If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him 'Godspeed,' for he that biddeth him 'Godspeed' is partaker of his evil deeds" (1 John 4 : 3 j, 3 John 10).
It was that same Paul who drew that sublime portrait of charity that still stands unrivalled in God's gallery, who asks, " What concord hath Christ with Belial 1 what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness 1 and what communion hath light with darkness? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel 1 and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols 1" And ihis same Paul enjoins: "Be not ye unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6 : 14.:..16).
Forbearance with errorists and evil-doers must not degenerate into toleration of their error or evil-doing. 'With cordial concession of the poetic beauties, moral truths, and even lofty models found in the false " religions" of the world, we must still insist that the unique charm and claim of Christianity are found in this, that it gives us the only infallible Book j tho only perfect Personality, and the only Saving Bond between the sinner antI his Saviour. 'What is religion but, as the word hints, the binding back of the alienated sonI to God, j and what other religion ever wrought snch reconciliation? and yet wlmt is- any religion without salvation? There may be room for comparison and competition among ethical systems and humanitarian theories j but there is "none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved," but that of Jesus. And, as a fact, no other religion has ever yot answered the question, ". What must I do to be saved 1" This defect is so radical that to gloss it ovor is to daub a falling wall with nntempered mortar.
It is vain to pretend that the divergences between Christianity and other faiths are not radical. Mrs. Besant's definition of theosophy makes it " consist of three affirmations: 1. The universe is fundamentally spiritual, and matter is only an expression of spirit. 2. Law reigns everywhere, in morals as much as in physical nature-that is, every act and every thought produces its inevitable result, against which no prayer and no vicarious atonement is of the least avail. 3. The doctrine of reincarna- tion, declaring the persistence of intelligence which passes from life to life, thus gathering experience as it goes, and ever building up a higher type in man." What signifies it, if with much of this teaching the Christian faith is not fundamentally at variance, since at some points the believer must part company with such teachers ! We believe the Creator still rules creation, and that physical laws are but His modes of working. Call nature" clock work" if you will; but remember that an intelligent being may reverse the ordinary movement of the hand on the dial, apparently reversing also the law of the clock's uniform motion, and yet not damage or even interrupt its mechanism!
Without impugning the lofty motives of the projectors of this Parliament, one impression, already produced, especially upon these representatives of foreign faiths, is that Christians are ready to concede that theirs may not be the only J)ivine religion. Swami Vivakananda, in his orange robes, was emboldened to Iilay : ,. Much has been said of the common ground of religious unity. I am not going just now to venture my own theory. But if anyone here hopes that this unity would come by the triumph of anyone of these religions and the destruction of the others, to him I say: 'Brother, yours is an impossible hope.' Do I wish that the Christian would become Hindu q God forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Bnddhist would become Christian q God forbid. If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything to the world it is this: It has proved to the world that holiness, purity, and charity are not the exclusive possessions of any church in the world, and that every system has produced men and women of the most exalted character. In the face of this evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive survival of his own and the destruction of the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart, and point out to him that upon the banner of every religion would soon be written, in spite of their resistance : 'Help and Not Fight,' 'Assimilation and not Destruction,' 'Harmony and Peace and not Dissension.' "
One of the last voices heard in the Parliament was that of Reuchi Shibata, of Japan, High Priest of the Zhekko sect of Shintoists. Here are his concluding words : " What I wish to do is to assist you in carrying out the plan of forming the universal brotherhood under the one roof of truth. You know unity is power. I may help you in crowning that grand project with success. To come here I had many obstacles to overcome, many struggles to make. You must not think I represent all Shintoism. I only represent my own Shinto sect. But who dares to destroy universal fraternity q So long as the sun and moon continue to shine, all friends of truth must be willing to fight courageously for this great principle. I do not know as I shall ever see you again in this life, but our souls have been so pleasantly united here that I hope they may be again united in the life her'lafter. Now I pray that eight million deities protecting the beautiful cherry-tree country of Japan may protect you and your governmentforever, and with this I bid you good-bye."
How will that do for a Parliament projected by Christian believers, one of whose first truths is, " There is but one God," and who hold that poly- theism is therefore treason against Him?
Bishop Campbell, who attended the conference, expressed publicly his regret that he had been identified with such a gathering, and says that "the answer of the Archbishop of Canterbury t.o the invitation was the one which all Christian ministers should have made: " 'The difficulties which I myself feel are not questions of distance and cOIlvenience, but rest on the fact that the Christian religion is the one religion. I do not understand how that religion can be regarded as a member of a Parliament of Religions without assuming the equality of the other intended members' and the parity of their position and claims. ' "
Bishop Campbell adds: " Whatever profit may have been derived from the meeting, we have to face the fact that, by participating in it, Christians have stood upon a platform from which the Lord Jesus Christ as ' the truth,' , the true light of the world,' and the only revelation of the Father, has been excluded. For the purposes of this gathering, followers of Jesus Christ as the only true God have practically admitted that Christianity is only one of many religious systems, and that Jesus was one of several religious teachers. The object of the Congress seems to have been to find common ground upon which the religions of the world can meet, and this I conceive to be an impossibility, so long as the inclusive and exclusive claims of Jesus are admitted. This meeting placed Christianity on a level with the heathen religions. "
As Christians, how can we consistently recognize any man as on a common platform with us, religiously, who does not accept at least three basal truths : The Bible as the rule of faith j the atoning work of Christ as the ground of salvation j and the Holy Spirit as the author of the new nature? Christofora Jabara, of Antioch, urged the appointment of a committee to investigate the claims of all great religions and formulate a creed which shall embrace the .truth in each and be acceptable to all. He particularly argued that the reconciliation of the Mohammedan and Christian religions is an easy matter. He maintained that the Koran is an inspired book, and that the Bible cannot be understood without it j and that God has allowed Islamism to endure because it is destined to correct the errors of Christianity. A new idea certainly! Hereafter we must have the Bible and the Koran printed on parallel columns, that each may be a commentary on the other! !tis as appropriate then to invite missionaries from Moslem soil as to send them to the followers of the Prophet of Mecca !
This is but one of many utterances at the Parliament openly advocating the " harmonizing of the great religions of the world upon the basis of common central truths," not only Buddhists and others who represented heathen faiths, but American clergymen pleading for such a broad plat- form! A new and universal creed. whose grand base blocks are to be the Fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man. Professor W. C. Wilkinson, when discussing the "attitude of Christianity to other religion..," said unpopular but true words : " These erring religions the Bible nowhere represents as pathetic and partly successful gropings after God. They are one and all represen.ted as groping downwm'd, not groping upward. According to Christianity they hinder, they do not help. Their adherents' hold on them is like the blind grasp of drowning men on roots or rocks that only tend to keep them to the bottom of the river. The truth that is in the false religion may help, but it will be the truth, not the false religion. The attitude, therefore, of Christianity toward religions other than itself is an attitude of 1:tniversal. absolute, eternal, unappeasable hostility, while toward all men everywhere, the adherents of false religions by no means excepted, its attitude is an attitude of grace, mercy, peace, for whosoever will."
The suppression of truth and the repression of all contradiction and correction of falsehood are to some minds a fatal blemish and blotch upon the Parliament of Religions. The Pope's portrait over the platform and his letter of special blessing on the gathering, with the warning from His Eminence's emissary that no words must be uttered offensive to Catholics, served to put the Parliament well nigh into the hands of Romanism to begin with. And when the brilliant Japanese priest railed against the missionaries who, half a century since, incited his countrymen to rebellion and carnage, no voice was raised to protest that it was Jesuits and not Protestant missionaries who were 1eferred to, and Romanists were more than content to have the obloquy rest on Protestant shoulders!
On the whole, Humanitarianism, Unitarianism, Universalism, and Romanism triumphed at the Parliament, or we do not read the signs of the times. The creed that emphasizes nniversal brotherhood, human 'charity, alms deeds and culture, passes by the atonement, and holds to an ultimate salvation hy evolution, can of course clasp hands with heathen priests, ratlOnalists, free thinkers, and idolaters. Why not 1 But such a creed means a surrender of every vital doctrine, or a vague, misty faith fit only for a new sect that might well be called, Oonjusionists.
Two remarks will close this already extended paper. First, all religions are to be judged practically, not theoretically. Mr. Leightley ventures to say that" the attempts made to Christianize India are pure foUy. The Hindu has as elevated and noble a religion as Christianity, and he really assumes to know and understand more about the fundamental principles of religions than most Christians." It might be well to set opposite such estimates the remark of a very celebrated traveller, that" to discuss Buddhism ten thousand miles off, theoretically, in a Parliament of Religions, is one thing; but seen near by, it is the worst compound of filth and fanaticism, idolatry and ignorance, superstition and sensuality I have found anywhere. " An acute observer remarked that the sufficient answer to tbe Parliament of Religions was the "Midway Plaisance. " There is a story of a priest who used a walnut as his object-lesson to show the vast superiority of his own church. He stripped off the tasteless, worthless shell-that was one nominal body of believers; then the skin, nauseous and disagreeable-that was another; and now for the real kernel, the very meat, his own church. He cracked the nut, and out fell a rotten, worm-eaten mass! A cough to cover his embarrassment and a hasty dismissal of the congregation concluded tIle object-lesson.
Our second remark is that such a Parliament of Religions puts new hindrances in tbe way of Christian missions. "Vith what grace or consistency can we conduct a crusade for Christ against faiths whose followers we welcome to a common platform with us and salute as factors in the great" religious unities" and" seekers after a common goal" ~ A common platform must mean agreement on fundamental truths. Are we then henceforth to treat the distinction between evangelical Christians and esoteric Buddhists, Moslems, and fetich worshippers, as belonging to nonessentials ~ If these religions are fragments of one universal faith, or at least preparations for one ultimate faith; if the Shastras, Vedas, Zend- Avestas, Koran, are inspired of God, and Zoroaster, Confucius, and Gautama Buddha are apostles, and even incarnations of God, it is presumption if not insult to send missionaries to these peoples. But if Christianity is right in asserting a sublime monopoly; if Christ was true when He said, " I am the way, no man cometh unto the Father but by Me;" if these religion-s are only seductive theories, corrupted with gross error, and having no saving power; if even the truth they contain has never actually uplifted the peoples which tenaciously hold them j if we are to judge Mohammedanism and heathenism, not by essays in the Art Palace, but by the " Street in Cairo" and the" Dahomey Village," it may be our duty to wage uncompromising war against any religion that betrays men with false hopes of salvation.
One speaker thought he scored a victory because so few of his hearers were found to respond openly when he asked how many had read Buddha's life. No doubt many more had read it who did not choose to be put to a test which might prove the snare of a wily orator. But is it necessary always to read the lives of men in order to judge of the practical drift of their teachings and the actual influence of their systems 1 Zeno and Epicurus were both superior men, and their philosophies were in many respects lofty in moral tone; but the Epicureans and Stoics became awfully degenerate. Buddha was a heroic and unselfish Oriental saint, but when his personality was withdrawn his system sank to a very low level. It is the miracle and glory of Christianity that, when its Founder withdrew into heaven, there was and still is a Personal Presence whose influence is felt to the ends of the earth; and even the corruption of human nature has not essentially depraved the religion Hc taught nearly two millenniums ago Are we in no danger lest the new god of this age, Oivilization, may be another colossal image of gold, which all men are now called upon to worship, and may not another firm protest be the duty of God's holy children 1 This Parliament of Religions recalls a familiar incident, in the reign of Solomon, which seems almost a parable of the present day. The faiths of the world are all confessedly dead-have no vitality or saving power. Into the court of human opinion the one living faith is brought j and there are those who would lULVe it divided: they seem to think that, if the supernatural could be eliminated and the ethical left, if atonement by blood and regeneration by the Holy Spirit could be left out, the rest might stand. We could, perhaps, induce the world to accept one half of the body of Christian truth j but the true believer sees that this is like cutting in twain a living child-dissection is vivisection, division is death-and his heart yearns for the old. faith as it is, and will not consent to any compromise with error or any surrender of the truth as revealed by God. With the utmost " charity toward all and malice toward none," he still believes that nothing can be settled until it is ReWed aright j that all peace or fellowship that is not founded upon submission to God and acceptance of His dear Son, lacks firm foundation j and that partnership with those who teach error and practise idolatry is a sanction of what is wrong, and helps to blind their eyes to their sin and risk. It is not true that" it matters little or nothing what one believes, so long as he is sincere.' , Never was a maxim more a devil's lie, gilded over with the charm of apparent charity. Were this proverb a right axiom, it would no more be worthwhile either to search diligently to find the truth, or to embrace and obey the truth when found. If God has given us the Truth, and Jesus is Truth incarnate, we who possess this truth and know this Jesus, are bound to go into all the world, face error in teaching and unrighteousness in living, and bring the works of darkness to the light, having no fellowship with them j and proclaiming to men everywhere that the wrong, however sincerely held, is degrading, depraving, damning j that in none other is there salvation save God's appointed Saviour. If this were not so, the Bible would not be God's Book, for it would become the father of falsehood j Jesus could not be God's Son and the world's Saviour, for He would be setting up a baseless claim j and Christian missions would be unsound, unpractical, and even impertinent, for they assume that all ot.her "faiths" are false in essence and fatal in tendency.
Paul expresses the whole matter in a few words: "For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many, and lords many j but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him j and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him" (1 Cor. 8: 5, 6). These words were written calmly, but with no hesitating hand, with reference to forms of religiout; faith prevailing in Paul's time, and substantially identical with those now claiming recognition; and this inspired testimony may well be repeated by us with even increased emphasis. The tendencies of our times are toward a fellowship broader than the Word of God allows. Paul might have formed a parliament of religions on Mar's Hill, but he could not meet, without a courteous rebuke and firm remonstrance, the errors of Epicureans and Stoics; and so the conference broke up speedily. He might have formed another parliament at Ephesus, but his uncompromising hostility to idolatry set the whole city in an uproar, and brought his own life into risk. James warns us that overtures for the friendship of the world IIlay become hostile assaults on that relation of a believer with God which, like marriage, allows no allegiance to another, no division of devotion. John incarnated love, but boldly called him " liar" and "Antichrist" who denied the Father and the Son. It may be doubted whether" orange robes," or " priestly" dignity, or " Demosthenic" oratory, or courteous suavity, or even a hiding of error behind half truths, could have prevented the beloved apostle from calling things by their right U:l.mes had he been present at the late " Parliament."
The convictions which find utterance in this paper we dare not keep back, for silence is sometimes treason and heresy. Edmund Burke, before the electors of Bristol, defending himself against the charge that he had pursued in Parliament a course opposed to the wishes of his constituency, nobly said: "I obeyed the instructions of nature and reason, of truth and conscience; I maintained your interests as against your convictions." Intrepidity and independence demand in these days an unswerving witness to the old trnths, which are in serious danger of being swept away before the advancing flood of a "new theology." In no age have the landmarks which inspired apostles set up, been more recklessly and rapidly removed. It seems to be taken for granted that whatever is new is true and whatever is old is false, or at least needs improvement; and that the goal of the gospel itself is reached when all men are united in one religious faith, even though it be a Christless creed. With solemn but unalterable conviction we write it, as before God: The Captain of our salvation leads us on in a holy war, in which the Word of God is to be used as a sword, and love itself is armed for the fight and goes forth not for compromise, but conquest. The Stone, cut out without hands, that grows into a mountain and fills the whole earth, takes up into itself not even the best material of human systems, but alike disdains the iron and clay, and the silver and gold j not assimilation, but comminution-all to be swept away together as chaff. There is to be no new and universal religion, an eclectic combination of what is best in all existing faiths. He who sublimely says, "I am the Way, the Truth, the Life," is the only 'Way, the perfect Truth, the sole Life; and our mission is to tell men that any path that goes not by way of the Cross leads to darkness, danger, death-· VIA CRUCIS VIA LUeIS.
"HREE WEEKS WITH JOSEPH RABINOWITZ
THREE WEEKS WITH JOSEPH RABINOWITZ.
BY A. J. GORDON, D.D.
Perhaps there is no man living whom the writer has more earnestly deRired to meet face to face than this Israelite of the New Covenant. Professor Delitzsch wrote several pamphlets and documents concerning him, evidently regarding his as possibly the most remarkable Jewish con- version to Christ since that of Saul of Tarsus. "Ve have followed with the profoundest interest the reports of his work in Russia since his confes- sion of Jesus as the Messiah; and we have read with no less interest his sermons and addresseR which have appeared from time to time in print.
Going to Chicago in July last, for a month's service in connection with Mr. Moody's W orId's Fair Evangelistic Campaign, we found ourselves at our lodgings placed in the next room to a Russian guest whose name was not yet told us. Hearing in the evening the strains of subdued and fervent Hebrew chanting, we inquired who our neighbor might be, and learned that it was one Joseph Rabinowitz, of Russia j and thus to our surprise we found ourselves next neighbor to one whom we would have crossed the ocean to see, with only a sliding door now between us. Introduction followed, and then three weeks of study and communion together concerning the things of the kingdom, the memory of which will not soon depart.
Before we detail the story of our summer Hebrew school at the feet of this Christian Gamaliel, let us repeat the story of his conversion as we have read it before, and now heard it verified by the man himself.
Joseph Rabinowitz was a lawyer residing in Kischineff, Southern Russia, a man of very wide and commanding influence among his Hebrew brethren as a scholar, a philanthropist, and a lover of his nation. . From a young man he had been a most diligent and painstaking student of the Hebrew Scriptures, of the Talmud, and of all related Jewish literature, so that at the age of forty, he says, "I was like 3 man living in a house furnished with every article of furniture which money could buy, and yet the shutters of that house closed and the curtains all drawn, so that I was in the dark, and knew not the meaning of my own learning till Jesus, the Light of the world, came in and illumined all as in a flash."
About ten years since Mr. Rahinowitz was selected, in connection with certain colonization efforts, to go to Palestine to secure land for planting Jewish emigrants, who desired to flee from Russian persecution. When fitting himself out with guide-books for his contemplated journey, he was advised to take a copy of the New Testament with him, as furnishing an admirable directory to the sacred places of Jerusalem and the vicinity. He did so, and while walking about Zion and gazing upon its historic sites, he carried in his pocket this yet unopened treasure. Going one day to the brow of the Mount of Olives, he sat down on that sacred hill and began' <:ontemplating the city as it lay at his feet. Then came a train of reflection and questioning: "Why this long desolation of the city of David ~ Why this scattering of my people to the ends of the earth? vVhy these fresh persecutions breaking forth against us in almost every country of Europe?" While he pondered these sad questions he gazed toward the reputed Calvary, where that holy prophet of his nation had been crucified.
As he did so his eyes were opened j he looked upon Him whom his nation had pierced. In a flash the truth entered his heart: " We have" rejected our Messiah! hence our long casting off and dispersion by Jehovah!"
He believed j he cried out to Jesus, " My Lord and my God," and almoRt as suddenly as Saul of Tarsus Joseph Rabinowitz, from being a Hebrew of the Hebrews, had become an Israelite of the New Covenant, a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. He took out his New Testament, a guide-book in a sense undreamed of, and read the first passag~ that fell under his eye: " I am the Vine, ye are the branches. Without Me ye can do nothing." "I saw it in the twinkling of an eye," said he j "our Jew- ish bankers, with their millions of gold, can do nothing for us j our scholars and statesmen, with all their wisdom, can do nothing for us j our coloniza- tion societies, with all their influence and capital, can do nothing for us j our only hope is in our brother Jesus, whom we crucified, and whom God raised up and set at His own right hand. 'Without Him we can do nothing.' "
We may imagine the sensation which was caused in Russia when this emiuent Hebrew returned home and boldly announced far and wide, pub- licly in the synagogue and openly in the columns of the press, his accept- ance of Jesus Christ as his Saviour and Lord. Persecution and obloquy were poured upon him from every quarter, and they of his own household became his foes j but he had counted the cost. He joyfully and boldly maintained his testimony, till little by little the enmity was softened.
Now he rejoices that one after another of his own family have joined him in confessing Christ, and preaching Him to their neighbors. By permis- sion of the government, surprisingly granted, he has built a synagogue, where he assembles a large congregation to listen to the Word of God from his lips j and he says that his entire time is occupied from morning to night, week in and week out, in answering letters from Jews who are distressed in mind concerning this great question, and in meeting inquirers coming sometimes hundreds of miles to talk with him of Jesus of Naza- reth. What wonder that such a conversion, attended with such results, should have led Professor Delitzsch to hail the event as " the first ripe iig"
on the long barren tree of rejected Israel, and as a cheering sign that for that people "summer is nigh." "Ve quote from this eminent Hebrew professor these strong words : "The movement of Kischineff is cp.rtainly a prelude of the end. No doubt the final conversion of the nation will be preceded by such testimony proceeding from individuals raised up by God and filled with His Spirit. Voices will be heard in Israel calling to repentance, to a return to God and His Anointed (Hos. 6: 1-3; 3: 5) ; many shall awake to new life, and from that portion of Israel to which blindness is happened a Jewish-Christian congregation will be gathered. The religion of the Messiah will then prove the Divine power which penetrates the spiritual and social life of the nation. Joseph Rabinowitz is a star in the firmament of his people's history. God keep this star iu the right path and continue its light in truth and brightness! One thing is certain, the history of the Church caunot reach its consummation until the prophetic and ap0stolic Word, predict,ing the conversion of the remnant of Israel, is fulfilled, an event which will bring an abundance of spiritual powers and gifts for the revival of the whole world."
It seemed to us as we talked with this Israelite without guile day after day, and heard him pour out his soul in prayer, that we never before witnessed such ardor of affection for Jesus, and such absorbing devotion to nis person and glory.vVe shall not soon forget the radiance that would come into his face as he expounded the Messianic Psalms at our morning and evening worship, and how as here and there he caught a glimpse of the suffering or the glorified Christ, he would suddenly lift his hands and his eyes to heaven, in a burst of admiration, exclaiming with Thomas, after he had seen the nail-prints, "My Lord and my God!" So 'saturated is he with the letter as well as the spirit of the Hebrew Scriptures, that to hear him talk one might imagine it was Isaiah or some other prophet of the old dispensation that was speaking. "What is your view of inspiration~" we aRked him, in order to draw him out concerning certain muchmooted questions of .our time. "My view is," he said, holding up his Hebrew Bible, "that this is the Word of God; the Spirit of God dwells in it; when I read it, I know that God is speaking to me; and when I preach it, I say to the people, ' Be silent, and hear what Jehovah will say to you.' " "As for comparing the inspiration of Scripture with that of Homer or Shakespeare," he continued, "it is not a question of degree, but of kind. Electricity will pass through an iron bar, but it will not go through a rod of glass, however beautiful and transparent, because it has no affinity for it. So the Spirit of God dwells in the "Word of God, the Holy Scriptnres, because these arc His proper medium, but not in Homer or Shakespeare, because lIe has no affinity with these writings." This sentence gives an instance of his vividness of illustration, of which he seems to be a natural master.
We spoke just above of his striking Hebrew diction, the lofty prophetic tone, tempered with exquisite pathos, with which he pleads with his people coucerning the Messiahship of Jesus. The following, selected from one of his sermons, will illustrate our meaning : " Lift up your eyes, my brethren, unto Mount Golgotha, and behold there the ransom which delivers our souls from the curse of God, prollOunced on Mount Ebal, and which bestows upon us the blessing on Mount Gerizim. Only behold the Cross of the Messiah, and you will sec clearly that here is the gate of Jehovah, into which the righteous shall enter; the only access opened unto all men, be they Jews or Gentiles, that in one Spirit they may draw near to our Father in heaven. Open your eyes and behold the Lord of glory, Jesus the crucified j how glorious is this High Priest, who Himself is the propitiation for our sins. How beautiful, how lovely is the Great Shepherd of the flock, who Himself is the Lamb of God, which beareth the sin of the world, and who comes as our Messiah, bringing peace to them that are afar off, and to them that are nigh.
" My brethren, if you esteem your souh~ precious, and if you desire to be citizens of the city, and to be numbered among the saints, and in the household of God, then bow this day your knees before the King of Glory, before Jesns, crowned for you with the crown of thorns j smite your breasts and confess your sins and the sins of your fathers, and the iniquity they have committed against the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah. Say then, 0 house of Israel, ' Surely we all, like sheep, have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way. but Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all j for the iniquity of His people was He stricken. For only with Jesus, the Messiah, is redemption, and He shall deliver Israel from all his sins.' "
Some of Mr. Rabinowitz's expositions and explanations of Scripture were exceedingly interesting. "Show me a photograph of Kischineff,"
he said one day, "and I can tell instantly whether it is correct, for I have lived there all my life. So when I read the New Testamerit, how vivid are its pictures to one who llas lived for years in Jewish history and tradi- tions!" Opening to Rev. 16 he read: ., Behold, I come as a thief.
Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame." "This admonition of the Lord affected me very deeply when I first read it," he said, " for I knew at a glance its meaning. All night long the watchmen in the temple kept on duty.
The overseer of the temple was always likely to appear at unexpected hours; to see if these were faithfully attending to their charge. 1f hc came upon any watchman who had fallen asleep, he quietly drew his loose garments from him and bore them away as a witness against him when he shouid wake. My Lord is liable to come at any moment. He may come in the second watch or in the third watch, therefore I must be always ready, lest coming suddenly, He find me sleeping, and I be stripped of my garment."
"Do you know what questioning and controversies the Jews have kcpt up over Zech. 12 : 10?" he asked oue day. '" They shall look upon Me -nN-whom they pierced.' They will not admit that it is Jehovah whom they pierced. Hence the dispute about the whom j but do you notice that this word is simply the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph Tav? Do you wonder, then, that 1 was filled with awe and aston- ishment when I opened to Rev. 1 : 7, 8, and read these words of Zechariah now quoted by John : ' Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also that pierced Him;' and then heard tho glorified Lord saying: ' . I am the ALPHA AND OMEGA'? Jesus seemed to say to me, 'Do you doubt who it is whom you pierced? I am tho Aleph Tav, the Alpha Omega, Jehovah the Almighty.' " Rabinowitz is as clear as is Paul in the eleventh of Romans as to the Divine order and plan for the bringing the nations to God. After the present Gentile election and outgathering he holds that the Jews are to be converted and restored to God's favor in connection with the second ad- vent of our Lord, and that then will follow world-wide salvation and the universal ingathering of the Gentiles. He is very positive, therefore, as to the meaning of the passage in the fifteenth of Acts: "Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of tltem a people for His name." "That is what is now going on," he says. " During Israel's rejection the elect Chul'ch is being gathered." "After this I will return and build again the tabernacle of David that is fallen down," etc. "This is very plainly the conversion and restoration of Israel," he says. And when I urged that many spiritualize the words and apply them to the Christian Church, he replied: "It will not be easy to make a Jew believe that, when the words in Amos which are here quoted plainly refer to the restoration of Israel; and especially since the Jews have been praying this prayer from time immemorial, always repeating it at their yearly feast of Tahernacles, ' 0 Thou Redeemer, prosper those who seek Thee at all times: raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, that it may no longer be degraded.' "
" After the tabernacle of David shall be rebuilt and national Israel saved," he continues, " then and then only will come the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, in which all nations will be brought into obedience and SUbjection to Christ." Such is his strong conviction, and the reader may find that he appears to agree with Peter in Acts 3 : 19,20 and with Paul in Rom. II.
Indeed this Hebrew prophet is proclaiming most solemnly the impending advent of our Lord. He contends that without a clear proclamation of the second advent Christians have no common ground on which to meet the Jews; that to spiritualize this doctrine as many do is fatal, since the predictions are so clear of a glorious and conquering Messiah as well as a suffering Messiah. If you spiritualize the second advent you must allow the Jew to spiritualize the first, as he is always ready to do, and you have no basis on which to reason with him. Mr. Rabinowitz's view on this point is shared by another remarkable Hebrew Christian preacher, Dr. Adolph Saphir, recently deceased. In his valuable book just published, "The Divine Unity of Scripture," he says: " I will speak freely on this subject. It is the second advent of our Lord, when lIe will return with His saints, and when He will make Himself manifest to Israel and to the whole world, not in order that the last judgment may be held, but that another historical period may be ushered in, when God's will shall be done upon this earth as it is in heaven, and when Jesus Christ and the transfigured saints shall come to be seen and acknowledged, and then there shall be fulfilled the promises which God has given from the beginning of the world. vVhen He comes Israel will say, 'It is Jehovah, and it is His first advent.' The Church will say, , It is Jesus, and His second advent.' Israel will say, 'He has come to take possession of the throne of David, and Jerusalem wiII be glorified and will be His nation.' And the Church wiII say, ' He is glorified in the saints and admired in all them that believe, and we whom He has redeemed with His blood shall reign with Him on the earth.' This is what all the apostles taught and taught constantly, 'Looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. ' It is Jehovah who wiII appear to Israel. It is Jesus who appears to His Church-the same thing-' the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.' "
Nothing could be more thrilling and pathetic than to hear this latter- day prophet of Israel dilate on the blessedness and glory of his nation when it shall at last be brought back into favor and fellowship with God . •, The Gentile nations cannot come to their highest blessing till then," he says, "nor can our rejected and crucified Messiah see of the travail of His sons and be satisfied till His kinsmen according to the flesh shall own Him and accept Him." Then, with a dramatic fervor and pathos impos- sible to describe, he said the following beautiful thing: "Jesus, the glorified Head of the Church, is making up His body now, my brot.her. Think you that my nation will have no place in that body ~ Yes; the last and most sacred place. When from India's and China's millions and from the innumerable multitudes of Africa and the islands of the sea the last Gentile shall have been brought in, and His body made com- plete, there will still be left a place for little Israel-she will fill up the hole .in His side, that wound which can never be closed till the nation which made it is saved."
Many other sayings of this remarkable man might be quoted had we space to insert them. He declares most confidently that the Spirit is moving on his people as has not been the case since their dispersion. lIe is full of joy at the prospect of their speedy turning to the Lord. Emphatically he preaches that there is no hope but in the crucified Messiah. He must be received; His blood must cleanse; His mercy must be gained before the Jewish nation can ever have rest. In one of his sermons he compares Israel to a little ship which has witnessed the wreck of many a proud craft-Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome-while this is the one nation that is never to perish, because of the unchangeable covenant of Jehovah. He says: " Two centuries a.go it was wrecked; broken were its malolts, bnt up to the present day it sails among modern nations-a strange, weird-like ship. Its mariners are often in despair, when the waves seem to swallow up their fragile vessels; many from among Israel seek to join other ships and find a home there, and try to partake of the treasnres of culture and modern development which adorn them. But soon the men of other nations rise against the mysterious strangers from the old Oriental ship, and not willing to tolerate them, fling them back into the waves, so that with difficulty and trepidation they return to the old wreck, on which the tears of their fathers have fallen abundantly. The storm rages, the clouds are dark, the hearts of the mariners fail them, they cry out, ' Lord, ~lwe us, we perish!' But the hour is coming wIten He who long ago rose ill the
IEMORIAL
TIIJ:o: Hon.r; 0 1" Pn.-YKlt. BETIHmK.ll. Synagogue of Congregation of hruclHl'~ of the }I;' cw Covenant at Kischt'neff, Bcssarabia.
'1894.] THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD
little ship on the sea of Galilee shall rise in the midst of them; He shall rebuke the wind and the waves-it will become perfectly still, and some shall sink down before His feet with the cry of Thomas: 'My Lord and my God!' And immediately Israel will be in the Haven of Rest, which is still remaining for the chosen people of God. "
It would not be possible to put on paper Rabinowitz's fervid and dramatic exposition of Christ's farewell to the temple: "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate; and verily, verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see Me until the time come when you shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of. the LOl d." He pictured a Jew sitting in the door of his lonely house in the evening. Suddenly he catches sight of a beloved and long separated friend approaching. He rises up and shouts out his salutation to him : "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." So shall Israel do when the Spirit of grace and of supplication has been poured out upon them; and they shall see Him whom they pierced coming to them. As they once cried, " Crucify Him! Crucify!" now they will cry, "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."
So when on parting I asked for his autograph, he wrote this in Hebrew as his farewell word, " Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord."
THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD.-I.
BY JAMES DOUGLAS, M.A., BRIXTON, LONDON.
In attempting a general survey of government as mirrored in the present condition of the nations of the world, it is needful, for the sake of perspective, to note certain broad lines of difference that distinguish the civilization of to-day from that of the old-world period. Beneath much that on the surface lies now politically apart, there is a kinship which shows a line of direction that is common, and a unity in spirit more significant by far than a unity in letter or name. The ideas at the base of modern polity are different in kind from those which were the recognized and controlling forces in the days when Sparta and Athens flourished. The political wheel rotates now in an opposite direction.
Broadly speaking, the individual is to-day a unit, whereas in ancient systems he was but a cypher. Leaving out socialism and other kindred movements which loom darkly on the horizon and constitute a menace of all government as at present in force, the trend of government, in all communities which are up to date, tends more and more to the recognition of the rights of the individual both as one who has person and property to be protected and a voice to be heard. It was not so in the old-world epochs; no, not even where absolutism was set aside and monarchy deposed. Ancient republics did not turn 011 the pivot of the individual. Under them, hardly less than under absolutism itself, individual rights were grouud down. The common weal, philosophically interpreted ann clothed with all-inclusive authority, was drawn, as a kind of Juggernaut, remorselessly over every form of individual right. The State in ancient days was not, as with us, a power that gives fixedness and protection to the complex organizations which modern civilization has engendered and is continually reforming; but it was a unifying machine in which all indi- viduality was sunk, and upon the shrine of which it was the citizen's honor to be sacrificed. The ancient republics, indeed, were patriarchal in spirit, only in their case it must be remembered that the philosophe1's were the patriarchs. Hence while intelligent moderns have come to regard with comparative indifference any variety of constitutional Iorm that admits of equally broad individual rights, the ancicnts, attaching small importance to the individual, separately viewed, merged thought and feeling in the comparative estimate of their respective political systems as philosophically deduced and fitted to render the State cohesive alike to make or repel attack. It was for this reason the philosophers of Greece were accounted the rightful politicians, to whose enactments the citizens of the varied States, willingly conceding the authority of law, complied.
All this, time, or, as we venture to think, the insensible action of Christianity, has changed. A man is now a man. He is no longer to be spirited away or philosophized into a chattel or a thing. ·Whether a king reign or a president rule, the position of the individual calls for recognition and demands respect. That minute jurisdiction which the State exercised, even under the freest forms of ancient government, to the curtailing of the liberties of the citizens has paRsed from the scene. The like applies to State exclusiveness. In ancient times, it is true, patriotism was intense, on the principle that that for which a man sacrifices everything must be dear to him indeed; but, on the other hand, such patriotism was extremely narrow and unjust. It acted as a grievous gag to commerce, and stifled all cosmopolitan feeling. There could be no fraternity on the basis of government as anciently conducted. There is not much of it in our OWR times; but who can deny that along with the right of the individual to be considered, there has begun to dawn among the nations a sense of their community and common humanity? These are aspects in the case which are like glimpses of azure in an otherwise murky sky. The governments of the world are very varied; and some, though Christian in name, ignore the cry for liberty, or seek ruthlessly to stifle it; still the record, on the whole, is one of surprising advance. ,Vhat is tantamount to a -revolution has taken place. Now, in contrast with early sentiment, it is generally held that there is a region of individuality, of subjective freedom, a wide circuit of opinion, action, and example over which the citizen should himself rule; and that so far from civil restraints furthering man's development, and being the effective means of perfecting the body politic, these ends are best consulted wherc State interference is reduced to a minimum, and scope is given, consistently with conscience and mora1ity, for the free play of individual powers. Summed up in a word, the modern trend in government has underlying it the conviction that the citizen everywhere has in him what the Greeks/ would call the ovra.(.w;, or capability of all positions. Such an idea was foreign to Aristotle, foreign to Plato, foreign to the schools. Christianity in its secret influence-and it is only as working in secret that Christianity retains its purest spirit-is to be credited with the find. As expounded by the philosopher, government was caste. The place of the many was to submit to the few. The masses were regarded as if they had no reason, no spirit j as if they were a compound of appetite only. Sueh an assumption Christianity, with its Gospel for all and its doctrine of "no difference," insensibly but surely sapped. The philosopher is not all reason j nor are the common peoplfl-the profanum vulgum-all flesh and no spirit. Humanity is not to be classified by a psychological law into ruler, warrior, craftsman, answering to reason, will, and brute impulse. Humanity is of the same blend under all suns and nnder all conditions. Intelligence is not to be conceived as if dead in the many and only existent in the few j nor is executive force to be viewed as the monopoly of a class for the enslavement of the multitude and the carrying out of the behests of the few. No. The dunamis of all positions is common to the race j and the gatherer of sycamore fruit may, after all, be the man for the times, even as Amos was God's prophet to the nation.
While writing the above we would not be understood to mean that there are no ominous signs in the political sky. There are. And were it our business to furnish a political horoscope, or to deal, either argumentatively or prophetically, with the schemes that would raze modern govemments to their foundation, we should have something to say to those who dream dreams, who think to redress inequality of condition at the expense of manhood, who foment anarchy and imagine that government can serve in lieu of Christ, or that unrighteousness between man and man can be stamped out by governmental portents j but this is not our object. Rather it is to show what the governments of the world are to-day in their varied forms and in their superficial and more radical discrepancies.
1. The governments of the world may be classified broadly nnder fonr heads: Monarchies, absolute and constitutional j republics and protectorates, including dependencies. The absolute monarchies embrace many oldworld forms, and are still represented in the councils of the leading nations.
In RUSSIA government is absolute. In the Czar all power, legislative, judicial, and executive, is vested. He is " the head of gold," for his will alone is law. Beyond the fact that the Czar may not appoint his successor, the succession being determined by regular descent, with preference of male over female heirs, and the further fact that the reigning monarch must be a member of the Orthodox Greek Church, there are, theoretically, no limitations j the Czar reigns in his own right.
There are four boards for the assistance of the Emperor in the administration : the first, a Council of State, in which the princes of the imperial house have seats ex officio. The number of members in 1889 was sixty, who hold their seats by appointment of the Emperor. This council is divided into three departments-legislative, civil and ecclesiastical, and financial. Their functions, however, are consultative alone, and are con- fined to the examination of projects of laws, the discussion of the budget, ~nd the arrangement of the expenditure.
The second board is the Ruling Senate, to whom belongs the right to promulgate laws. This buard is divided into nine sections, and at the head of each is a lawyer of distinction, who represents the Emperor, and apart from whose signature no decision has force. The third board, called the Holy Synod, has charge of all the religious affairs of the empire,' and consists of leading ecclesiastics alone; but the Emperor's will is supreme, for all the decisions require the Emperor's sanction and go forth in his name. The fourth board is composed of a Committee of Ministers who are heads of departments and communicate directly with the sovereign.
The Government of TURKEY is likewise autocratic, only on a more modified scale. The Sultan of Turkey is more conditioned, both by usage and religion, than is the autocrat of Russia. The probability, however, is that he realizes himself more in his limit than does his more powerful rival. For one so conservative in type and stereotyped in faith as Moham- medans usually are, it will doubtless be a small hardship to be bound by the accepted truths of the Mohammedan religion, or to govern in accord- ance with the " Multeka," a code of laws based on the supposed sayings .; and opinions of the false prophet. The Sultan's Government has been somewhat disturbed by the attempted introduction of IJtte years of forms of government after the model of Western Europe, but the results of the experiment have not been encouraging. The patch of new cloth on the old garment has rather made the rent worse. If the old spirit remain, experiments in government are worse than useless. There is no means of rejuvenating the old man politically or carnally. He must die to live.
Under the Sultan's direction the legislative and executive authority is exercised by the Grand Vizier, the head of the temporal department, and the Sheik-ul-Islam, the head of the church. The former is assisted by a Privy Council consisting of ministers of departments; and the empire is divided into vilayets or governments, subdivided into provinces and dis- tricts, and further parcelled out into sub-districts and communities.
In CHINA an old-world form of absolutism, based on the government of the family, is maintained. The Emperor's person is sacred, and well- nigh invisible. He appoints his snccessor, and has full control. There are seven boards: The Board of Civil Appointments, the Board of Revenucs, the Board of Rites and Ceremonies, the Military Board, the Board of Public Works, the High Tribunal of Criminal Jurisdiction, and the Ad- miralty Board. Over these boards is the Grand Council, in whom the f'npreme directioll of the empire is vested, while the Hdministratioll is under the direction of the Neiko or Cabinet, comprising four mcmbcrstwo of Manchu and two of Chinese origin-besides two assistants from the Hanlin or Great College, who have to see that nothing is done contrary to the civil and religious laws of the empire.
A feature of the times is the rapidly growing extent to which the absolute monarchies of to-day are being conditioned from without. The fate of AFRICA supplies the most notable instance. In that great continent there are still a few independent States of note that pursue their career untrammelhid by European intervention. Bornu, for example, the most populous Mohammedan State in Central Soudan, is governed by a Sultan under the official title of Mai, commonly spoken of as the Sheik, who is in principle an absolute monarch, and is assisted in the administration by a council of military chiefs together with members of the reigning family. The like applies to the Sultanate of Wadai, which is the most powerful of the Central Soudan States. This Sultan has a council of administration and also a college of Ulemas, by whom the Koran or Law is interpreted. The army is employed, in times of peace, as sheriff officers, to levy tribute in kind from the provinces and vassal States; but for the most part Africa is now partitioned into protectorates which have been ratified by treaty between the powers concerned and the varied Sultans, and made accessible to the civilizing, commercial, and evangelizing influences of European nations. Great Britain, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, and Portugal have not only their colonies and possessions in tIle Dark Continent, but for the most part their Hinterlands also and vested rights in regions where their actual influence is as yet but distantly felt. When we speak of Africa's absolutism, we must remember the countercheck that is thus supplied. In what we see to-day there is the dawning promise and potency of, Africa's political redemption. Zanzibar, for example, while retaining its Sultan has now. by arrangement with England, under whose protectorate it has been placed, a regular government, consisting of a president and a responsible head for each department. On the mainland the Sultan's authority is virtually in the hands of England and Germany, who utilize it in his interests and their own, and make their power felt far into the interior, acknowledging, indeed, no limitation save that of similar appropriations. The change of government ~hich all this bespeaks is not seen so much in name as in spirit. The government is despotic still, but the spirit of it is progressive and the ends contemplated remedial.
Thus throughout the extensive possessions of the Imperial British East Africa Company, ceded by the Sultan of Zanzibar for an annual monetary consideration, slavery is being gradually abolished, while the chiefs and people are settling down to husbandry and to the recognition of the company as their rightful rulers. It cannot be doubted that similar results will accrue from Germany's protectorate. Abyssinia and Shoa, the political institutions of which were of a feudal character analogous to those of medireval Europe, are now under the protectorate of Italy, as are likewise the Sultanates of Abbia and of Mijertain Somalis. The Congo Free State is rapidly being modernized. Nominally ruled by the Kiug of Belgium, this State has a central government at Brussels, consisting of the king and three heads of departments, and a local government consisting of a govern1rgeneral, a vice-governor-general, a State inspector, a general secretary, director of justice, director of finance, and commander of the forces. The governor is further aided by white subordinates, who as chiefs of provinces administer affairs. There is also a native army officered by whites, besides a flotilla of row and sailing boats.
The colony of Mozambique, including the province of Louren90 Marques, is progressing toward self-government. Though as yet under the crown of Portugal, and administered by a royal commissioner appointed for three years and residing in the capitals of the provinces alternately, it was constituted as the Free State of East Africa on September 30th, 1891, and it is hoped that, with the development of the country, the basis of self-government may be laid.
MOROCCO may still be rcgarded as a monarchy, both free and absolute, though within the recognized range of French influence. This empire, which is ruled by a Sultan, has three capitals, and is the westernmost and largest of the Barbary States. The Sultan's rule is absolute, but the tribes south of the mountains are semi-independent, and, indeed, scarcely acknowledge his authority, being governed each by their own chief. The Sultan has six ministers, by whom he carries on executive duties. These are (1) the vizier, (2) secretary for foreign affairs, (3) home secretary, (4) chamberlain, (5) chief treasurer, and (6) administrator of customs. There is a <lisciplined standing army of cavalry and foot soldiers, besides militia and regnlar forces.
The Government of PERSIA has features similar to those of Turkey. The Shah ranks as vicegerent of the prophet, and on this high ground he exacts submission. Of late years the method of administration has been somewhat modernized. Instead of the Grand Vizier and the lord treasurer, by whom the executive government was formerly carried on, there is now a ministry consisting of nineteen members, eleven with and eight without portfolios, over whom the Minister of Posts presides. There are also governors-general set over the twenty-two large and ten small provinces into which the country is divided ; and nnder them as required, and at their appointment, are licutenant-governors, who are immediately answerable to the central government.
The kingdom of SIAM, now being shadowed by the power of France, partakcs of absolute features. The influence of "Vestern ideas, however, is becoming yearly more marked, and "centralization is being largely introduced. "
In AFGHANISTAN the government, while absolute, is unstable, and depends greatly on the executive force of the hereditary prince. Of foreign powers England lIas now the leading sway iu the councils of this kingdom. Looking at absolutism generally, it is evident that its run is rapidly sinking in the political heavens. Absolutism has no footing in the great continents of America, and with the exception of Rnssia and Turkey is banished from the Continent of Europe, while in the great continents of Asia and Africa its power is being more and more conditioned from with- out, modified by Vestern ideas, and put under tribute to governments that breathe a freer atmosphere. Notwithstanding, absolute monarchies have their clearly defined place in the governments of the world. They meet the felt need as regards barbarism, with all its chaos and consequent indi- vidual weakness. They are the first step in the ladder of civiliz'ation j hence the universality of absolutism among all peoples that are but one remove from the bottom of the scale. There is another gronnd that ex- plains the befittingness of this government under suitable conditions, and that is its ideal character. Hence in the Book of Daniel the most precious metal is taken to denote it, the reason being that this kind of rule gives a scope to kingly display and prerogative snch as is found nowhere else. It is as King Absolute the desire of nations shall come.
But, further, for the very reason that absolutism has this ideal char- acter, it eminently suits all nations, such as China, which are non-progres- sive in type, and which look upon the foreigner ill the light of an inferior creation. Accordingly, for absolutism to be at all settled as society now is, the scale of civilization must be either very low, as in Africa, or stereo- typed and non· progressive, as in China j for either this form of govern- ment represents escape from chaos, or it answers to the natural conceit that imagines that the kingdom of heaven is set up within its borders.
History, ancient and modern, bears witness to this. In order to the security of absolute government, one of two things must exist-either human thought is rudimentary or non-critical. This explains why Russian abso- lutism has such a stern warfare to wage. Criticism has awakened in the Czar's dominions, and refuses to give up the ghost j hence, though the crown of gold be still worn, uneasy is the head that wears it.
The same law applies to the Mohammedan power all over the world.
The influence of Mohammedanism lies outside the pale of progressive ideas, for there is nothing in the Koran to stimulate the intellect, but everything to palsy its powers and, by its philosophy of fate, to induce somnolence and decay.
(To be {)()ncluded.) Of the 1,500,000,000 of the earth's inhabitants, the Emperor of China holds sway over 405,000,000 ; the Queen of England rules or protects 380,- 000,000 j the Czar of Russia is dictator to 115,000,000 j France, in the republic, dependencies and spheres of influence, has 70,000,000 subjects j the Emperor of Germany, 55,000,000 j the Sultan of Turkey, 40,000,000 j the Emperor of Japan, 40,000,000, and the King of Spain, 27,000,000-tU'o thirds of the population of the globe under the government of five rulers.
THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN :ijOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
THE MEETING OF THE AMERICAN BOARD OF COMMIS- SIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS AT WORCESTER, MASS., OCTOBER 10-18, 1893.
BY REV. C. M. SOUTHGATE, WORCESTER.
Three times before this, its eighty-fourth annual meeting, the Board has met in Woroester. A simple mention of the dates suggests striking contrasts. In] 864, instead of a world thronging to celebrate the discovery of America in an international exposition, the nations were watching the strife which was to determine whether there should be a United States. A resolution on the state of the country aroused great enthusiasm, the whole body rising and bursting- into "My country, 'tis of thee." 1844 carries us back to the year of the first electric telegraph and the annexation of Texas, when the railroad was a curiosity to the great majority. At this meeting three petitions were presented on the matter of slavery. But most impressive was the gathering in 1811. The Worcester of to-day, with its more than 90,000 inhabitants, was a vill~ge of 2500. It was the year after the organization of the Board. A single boarding-house entertained all attending, and its parlor sufficed for their deliberations. Here were examined and approved its first missionaries, Judson, Newell, Nott, and Hall. Famous fathers of famous sons are named-Jeremiah Evarts, father of William M. Evarts, Senator and Secretary of State; Dr. Jedidiah Morse, father of the inventor of the electric telegraph. One of the two pastors of the town was Dr. Aaron Bancroft, whose son George was to become the nation's greatest historian. An item of business was the appropriation of $100 toward the education of Eleazer Williams as a missionary to the Coghnawaga Indians, which was intrusted to Rev. Joseph Lyman, D.D., of Hadley, and Dr. Richard S. Storrs: the one represented here eighty-two years later by the eloquent preacher of the annual sermon, Dr. A. J. Lyman, of Brooklyn; the other, grandfather of the Board's honored president, who is ~he third of that name to render it distinguished service. This Eleazer Williams never went on the mission proposed, but became noted by his claim to be Louis XVII., the lost Dauphin of France. Many will recaJI the magazine article concerning him entitled "Have we a Bourbon among Us?" Note a Christian name prominent in these beginnings. Three of the five students who gave themselves to this work under the famous haystack at Williamstown in 1806 were Samuel J. Mills, Samuel Nott, Jr., Samuel Newell. The two divines who, in 1810, driving from Andover to Bradford, after consulting with the four students wishing to go as missionaries, formed the scheme of the A. B. C. F. M. and secured its adoption by the Massachusetts Association of Congregational Ministers, were Samuel Spring and Samuel 'Vorcester. The striking coincidence is but an illustration of the historical fact that modern missions had their origin in a pouring out of the Spirit upon godly parents. The lesson has meaning for to-day. Mechanics Hall welcomed the multitudes this year, its 2000 sittings being none too many. Even an outline of the four days shows the meeting to be memorable. The treasurer's report gave receipts, including bal- ance from last year, as $680,014.92, of which $205,683 came from the three Woman's Boards, and $14,000 from Societies of Christian Endeavor. For twenty years the average cost of administration has been but six and one tenth per cent-more than 93 cents in every dollar given going directly into the work. Expenditures of $768,333.66 left a debt of $88,318.74, chargeable, not to the falling off in regular donations, which was only about $2000, while those from the -Woman's Boards were $8000 in advance, but to the variable element of legacies, which were less than last year's by $103,000. But painful retrenchment has been necessary, and the Pruden_ tial Committee call for $250,000 beyond last year's gifts. A most pathetic documeut, entitled "The Cry from the Missions," presented the protests and appeals from men in the fields that their work might be not crippled, but advanced.
The report of the Home Department makes mention of campaigns among the churches to carry information and inspiration ; the preparation of lantern slides for illustrated missionary lectures, and helpful material to meet the growing demand of Christian Endeavor Societies and others for monthly concerts. Tlie Eastern Secretary, Dr. Creegan, also arranged for sixty-two addresses by Dr. John G. Paton, which secured to him $7500 for his work in the New Hebrides. " The Y. P. S. C. E. is doing a most important work in the way of educating the young people in the principles and facts of missions. " Gifts from these societies and the Sunday-schools have more than doubled during the year. Seven new ordained missionaries, one of them a physician, with twenty-nine assistant missionaries, have gone out since the last annual meeting, and thirty-six more have returned to their fields after periods of rest in this country. The annual survey by the foreign secretaries, Drs. N. G. Clark and Judson Smith, shows that the Board has under its care more than 1200 strategic points, amid a population of not less than 100,000,000 souls; engaging the efforts of 557 missionaries and 2738 native helpers; including 442 churches with 41,566 members, of whom 3570 have been received in the year; 48,585 pupils in schools of all grades, from kindergarten up through high school and college to the theological seminary; medical relief administered to 120,000 patients; the Bible and Christian literature distributed by millions of pages. The native contributions reported amount to $112,507, most of it given out of deep poverty.
The three secretaries presented, as usual, papers from the Prudential Committee. That of Dr. Alden was upon" The Personal Factor in the Missionary Problem"-the Personal Leader, the enthroned Lord; the Personal Messenger, the individual men and women who have each received a personal call from the personal Lord, and who have been by Him trained by special providence and grace, each for his particular service; the Personal Recipient of the Message, the salvation of the individual soul being the one definite thing for which the messenger is sent; the Personal Source of Supply, which is to provide and support the messengers. And especially "we want not only auxiliary societies, associations, conferences, churches, to be brought into direct fellowship with the administration of this trust, but more than all else, and pr8ctically including all else, every individual believer." Dr. Clark considered" Two Unsolved Mission Problems." First, Industrial Education, as supplementary to the spiritual work "More important than any result achieved in the lines proposed has been the lesson learned that civilization in any form does not precede but follows the Gospel." But this hm; been of great service in developing the native converts, whether as pastors or as business laymen in their communities. "Let education, including industrial education, keep even pace with the preaching of the Word, and a Christian civilization will mark the progress of the Gospel." "A possible unity in the presentation of the Gospel to the unevangelized world by so many denominations and schools of theology," was the second problem discussed. Christ crucified is the one mcssage to which all else must be subordinated. "Let the life that is in Christ have its free development and take on a form for itself, according to the characteristics and intellectual endowment of each separate people. Let there be no more jealous rivalry of denominational interest, no more waste of men or means in building up separate sects, but one Gospel, one Christian life, one united movement on the part of all evangelical denominations. Then would the Church be one in her mission enterprise; then would she arise and shine, the glory of the Lord being risen upon her." The impressive utterance gains redoubled force when we remember that it is from one who for long years has watched the working and progress of missions with a statesmanlike sagacity and apostolic devotion. The paper of Dr. Judson Smith took up the work of the American Board in Africa, showing how inevitable and how successful has been the share of this organization in one of the most fascinating chapters of modern history. "Amid all the 'stir and activity, in politics and commerce, in exploration and occupation, by which the leading powers of the world are vying with one another to cover and appropriate to themselves the resources and power of Africa, this aggressive advance of evangelizing forces is the supreme movement of the times, and holds in its plastic hands the long and growing future of the nations that one day are to fill and adorn these lands with a varied and progressive life and with a Christian CIvilization. "
The Woman's Boards crowded a great church with enthusiastic auditors of the story of efforts and achievements. Their specific work dates from 1868, when the Board at Boston and that of the Interior at Chicago were organized, followed five years later by that of the Pacific. Their present annual receipts are over $200,000, and their total contributions more than $2,000,000. It has been already noted that their gifts for the last year, instead of falling off, have increased by $8000, so that no re- trenchment has been necessary in the work under their charge. It is not strange that the Board voted to grant unmarried lady missionaries an equal voice and vote with men in affairs of their missions, and that the Pruden- tial Committee was instructed to inquire what changes in the constitution were needed to make women eligible on that body of central control.
The intimate relation of missionary work to international problems appeared in the vigorous discussion of complications with foreign nations, such as the unwarranted attack upon missionaries in Turkey and the burn. ing of college buildings j a strong resolution of protest to our Government against the Geary act j and an appeal for annexation of the Sandwich Islands, which the work of our missionaries lifted from barbarism to become the most productive spot of land in the reach of commerce. Men whose lives have been wrought into these achievements were present to discuss the questions with knowledge from the inside.
The greatest immediate interest and excitement gathered about" the Noyes case." It is now eleven years since, at the Portland meeting, the Andover Seminary teaching of a possible future probation for the heathen was denounced as being unsound and tending to " cut the nerve of missions." The first grcat discussion took place at Des Moines in 1886, leading to the adoption of a resolution condemning the doctrine as " divisive and perversive and dangerous to the churches at home and abroad," supporting the action of the Prudential Committee in carefully guarding the Board from any approval of that doctrine by appointing those holding it, and advising the continuance of that caution. At Springfield the next year, after a determined struggle by the liberal party, this position was reaffirmed by a vote of 95 to 43. The meetings at New York in 1889 and Chicago in 1892, while abounding in warm discussion, made no distinctive change in this position, although at the latter the Prudential Committee was requested to interpret the position in a liberal spirit, and to reopen the case of Mr. Noyes. This gentleman, while a student at Andover, had applied for appointment, but been rejected on the ground of statements concerning probation which were held unsound. Four years ago a council called by the Berkeley Temple Church, Boston, ordained him, and he was 'sent out as an independent missionary to Japan, where he has since then been supported by the church. A year ago the missionaries of the Board in Japan requested that Mr. Noyes receive appointment from the Board, affirming the value of his work, his earnest Christian spirit, and that if he held any peculiarities of doctrine, they had never appeared in his work or utterances. After correspondence with him, this appointment was voted by the Prudential Committee, accompanied with a minute stating that they understood him to withdraw from the position previously objectionable. Mr. Noyes replied that he chose not to withdraw that statement, but that he felt it had been interpreted more unfavorably than was warranted. Upon this the Committee withdrew its appointment, holding itself bound by the statement already upon its minutes. His own words before the Berkeley Council should be given: " Of the intermediate state I hold no positive doctrine. I do not know what effect physical death will have upon character. What I dread for my fellow-men is spiritual death. T am confronted with the tremendous fact that without the Gospel they are dying. Character tends to fixity. The Spirit of God will not !'ltrive with men forever. Then woe is me if I preach not the Gospel at once! ,,yith the Gospel message I believe there comes the decisive opportunity and obligation to repent. God help me so to present this message that men shall be saved by it and not lost!
" Those who do not hear the message in this life I trnstfully leave to God. I do not claim to know God's method of dealing with them. But I do not refuse to think about them. I entertain in their behalf what I conceive to be a reasonable hope that somehow, before their destinies are fixed, there shall be revealed to them the love of God in Christ Jesus. In this, as in every question to which God has given no distinct answer, I merely claim the liberty of the Gospel."
In a letter to the Prudential Committee of the American Board under date of June lOth, 1893, Mr. Noyes writes: "In regard to my general theological position, I suppose the vote appointing me was taken on the basis of my statement of belief made to the Council which ordained me. This is quite satisfactory, for that statement essentially represents my present position."
With all the documents before them, the opinion had spread widely among the churches that, although the Prudential Committee might have acted consistently with its records aud instructions, it was entirely competent for the Board to make this appointment upon the present aspect of the case. At the first session memorials from local and State bodies came in requesting such action. A special committee of fifteen was formed, to which all such matters were to be referred without debate. On this were placed men of differing views and most positive convictions. Should they come to an agreement, it was felt that all could agree, but few counted it practicable. They were in session continuously for fifteen hours, considering all memorials and hearing all parties who wished to appear, finally bringing in a unanimous report, with this as the crucial resolution: "that this Board, in response to the expressed wish of its missionaries in Japan, and in recognition of the successful labors of the Rev. William H. Noyes in that empire, requests the Prudential Committee to offer to him an appointment as a missionary of the Board. The Board declares that this action is not to be understood as in any way modifying its former utterances on the subject of future probatitln."
The session of Thursday morning was devoted to the report and discussion, and the resolution was finally adopted by a vote of 106 to 24. Some who had signed a conservative protest voted for the resolution, and others since then have recognized in it a safe gronnd for union. Within the last months a party of moderation has come to the front, composed of men wholly evangelical in faith, liberal in spirit, and wofully tired of a struggle so plainly disastrous, and, in their view, needless. Upon the declaration of the vote, a feeling of intense relief and profound gratitude to God for the manifest guidance of His Spirit was apparent. Eager declarations of loyalty to the Board came from all quarters, an earnest of which appeared in five subscriptions of $1000 each toward the special needs of the treasury. A solemn sense of responsibility and a prevailing conviction of spiritual brotherhood were apparent. No partisan victory was sought or gained. The votes of the strong conservative majority alone made the action possible. It is felt that the Lord Christ Himself has led this Board, with its glorious history and unmeasured opportunity, through a place where two seas met, and that its best years are now to come.
The report included a resolution that the Prudential Committee be in- creased to fifteen, to be elected in three classes for three years each, nine years being the limit of continuous service. A vote taken at another time was in the same direction of keeping the Board in close touch with the churches, by providing that the number of corporate members be increased from 250 to 350, nominations being made in part by State bodies.
Not wholly disconnected with the decision in the Noyes case was the resignation of the Home Secretary and two members of the Prudential Com- mittee. Secretary E. K. Alden has given nearly a quarter of a century to the Board, carrying into it the supreme devotion which marked him as a missionary pastor in his important church in Boston. Dr. A. C. Thomp- son, late Chairman of the Prudential Committee, has the perhaps unprece- dented record of forty-four years' official service. His wide journeys, always at his own expense, covering not only this land but foreign fields, and his remarkable command of its general history and minute events, coupled with unswerving loyalty to his convictions, have given him great influence. Mr. Elbridge Torrey has illustrated for seventeen years the value of a Christian layman in such a position, sacrificing the interests of a large business to bring to the committee the practical sagacity so essen- tial. The hearty testimonials and strong resolutions which recognized the power of these services indicate in part how noble are the gifts of life and spirit devoted to this work of missions, the quintessence of Christianity.
Mention should be made of the prayer without ceasing which antici- pated this gathering, and was evident in prayer-meetings and devotional exercises; of the communion services ; of the stately sweep of song in the great congregation ; of the high intellectual order of addresRes, from the opening sermon to the closing words of the president; of the impressive words of missionaries j of the pervading sense, usually apparent, of acting as under the Master's eye. Fitly chosen was the closing hymn, .. " We are living, we are dwelling, In a grand, an awful time; In an age on ages telling.
To be living is sublime."
AUSTRALASIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO MISSIONS
The closing prayer by Dr. Goodwin carried souls direct to the throne, and the benediction of peace pronounced by the president has its echo in thousands of grateful hearts.
AUSTRALASIA'S CONTRIBUTION TO CHRIST'S CAUSE IN FOREIGN MISSIONS. * BY REV. ANDREW HARDIE, RICHMOND, VICTORIA.
How far has Australia obeyed the last command of Christ ~ (Matt. 28 : 18-20).
Australian Christianity has, from the beginning of colonization, endeavored to keep in touch with the grand missionary moyements of our age. The early settlers kept up their connection with missionary societies in the home land till the colonial churches felt themselves strong enough to take up fields of their own. Whether their efforts have been as earnest, enlightened, and enthusiastic as they ought to have been, we can only decide when we know what has been done. We had hoped to be able to give a complete and accurate answer to the question, but have not quite succeeded. For as you cannot realize how great Australasia is till you have travelled from Melbourne to Cape York, from Sydney to Perth, and then taken the round trip, visiting Tasmania and New Zealand, so you can have no idea how numerOUll are the agencies for foreign missions now existing in Australasia till you have tried to get into touch with all. We can only present the inf~rmation obtained and make an approximate estimate from the known to the unknown in order to furnish a reasonable reply.
In the fulfilment of Christ's last command, the Wesleyan Conference takes a first place among Australian churches, if not in date of start, yet both in money spent and results seen. Her mission work was begun by the British Conference of 1815, and was largely sustained and entirely directed by that body till 1855, when the Australian Conference took full responsibility and control. Besides assisting in the evangelization of the aborigines and Chinese resident in the various colonies, the Conference spread her wings and carried the glorious Gospel to the <;annibal islanders of the South Seas. Employing 22 European missionaries, 95 native ministers, and a host of lay preachers and other workers in her mission churches, her expenditure last year came close on £16,000. Results of the most gratifying character prove that the Lord:s with her in the work. In 6 Chinese stations she has 150 members and upward of 400 adherents. In her latest enterprise (British New Guinea) she is aided by 20 native teachers drawn from Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji. In New Britain, New Ireland, and Duke of * A paper read at the United Missionary Conference, held in Melbourne, Aus- tralia, June, 1893. York islands churches are established, schools well attended, and over 500 are communicants. New Zealand gave golden harvests among the Maoris; but it is in the Friendly Islands and Fiji that the most conspicuous triumphs have been obtained. There the entire communities have been Christianized, settled governments established, and Fiji has become a British colony. In less than fifty years 100,000 savages, who found their highest joys in horrors of which we dare hardly think, have been made to sit at Jesus' feet j have exchanged the club, spear, and feast of human flesh for the tools, trade, and social joys of civilized life j and many of them stand ready to brave danger and death in carrying the standard of the cross to other islands. Well may this awaken new songs of praise, new hopes of victory for our glorious King all the world over!
Almost contemporary with the Wesleyan Conference stands the London Missionary Society. Through the Rev. S. Marsden, Church of England Chaplain, as agent in New South ·Wales, help began to be given to this noble, God-honored society about 1816. Since then contributions have steadily increased. In 1885 the Australian auxiliaries obtained the privilege of recommending candidates for service, and have fOent 8 missionaries from the colonies. At a cost of over £5000 a year they support 20 missionaries, who labor in Shanghai and Pekin, China j Salem, India j Raratonga and New Guinea, and" make their influence felt not only in the mission field, but iu the life of the churches sustaining them."
The British and Foreign Bible Society appears third in the race, so far as our information goes. From the diary of Rev. ·William vVaterfield, first pastor of Collins Street Indf)pendent Church, ~felbourne, and first secretary of the Victorian auxiliary, we learn that this society was formed in the Scots Church school-room, July 14th, 1840, Mr. Latrobe presiding. Rev. James Clow (Presbyterian) moved the first resolution, a committee was formed, and £16 collected. Since then £15,540 have been sent home as free contributions and £31,081 paid for Bibles. Auxiliaries exist in each colony, and together raise some £5000 per annum j 170,000 jubilee Testaments and large grants of Bibles have been distributeJ.. Seyeral translations of the New Testament into the languages of the New Hebrideans have been carried through the press by this society in Sydney and Melbourne.
The Church of England occupies the next position in chronological order of organized work, although she doubtless helped in mission work from the beginning of her history. Having no federal union, and apparently no central board of missions in each colony, it is difficult to ascertain all that she is doing. 'Ve have only secured returns from 8 missions-5 Victorian, 1 New South Wales, 2 general. lIer great Melanesian mission is supported partly by England and partly by Australasia. There are 6 white clergymen, 9 native ordained clergy, and 93 native teachers at present engaged. At the college on Norfolk Island 29 students are supported by New Zealand, which contributes some £1500 a year to the mission. England gave last year £1897, while the colonies raised £3763. There is an endowment of £35,000, to which the martyr Bishop Pattison left £13,350, so that the expenditure of £6266 for last year, though exceeding the contributions, is provided for. Good work is done at the training college j the workers are very devoted, and a goodly number of the islanders are walking in the light of life. In 1853 Victoria established 2 mission stations for the aborigines at Lake Condah and Lake Tyers. These have been carried on with satisfactory results, at a cost of about £550 a year. Two years later she started her mission to the Chinese, which has now 7 stations, 5 missionaries, and costs £744 pcr annum j 350 converts have been received into church-fellowship, most of whom stand fast in the Lord, some 8 of them being now ordained clergy or catechists laboring in China.
For the last fourteen years New South Wales has had a mission to the Chinese in Sydney and suburbs which employs 3 missionaries and spends £400 a year. Of 68 converts, 40 have been confirmed and 25 are now communicants. A Chinese has been ordained to the ministry. 1891 saw a united effort made to start a mission in New Guinea j 3 missionaries and several native teachers are now at work there, but find the diversity of dialects a hindrance to rapid progress. Victoria has contributed £2000 to this enterprise.
In 1892 a Victorian zenana mission was formed to work among the women of India and China, and 10 lady missionaries with 37 Bible women are now supported by it, at a cost of £1227 last year.
Mr. Eugene Stock this same year was instrumental in forming an association to work in fellowship with the Church Missionary Society, training and sending forth colonial missionaries to India. Victoria has spent £100 on the training of 4 men. New South Wales has also a similar association.
Probably the greater portion of the Church of England missionary effort still goes privately to help the Church Missionary Society j and all know that for many years the Rev. H. B. Macartney has shown what one earnest worker can do in this communion for Christian missions. To support native teachers, schools, and other agencies in India, China, and Ceylon, our brother raised last year £1259. Combining these missions, we reckon that over 200 paid agents are employed, at an annual outlay of under £11,000.
The Presbyterian churches have also about 200 agents, costing nearly £12,000 a year. On April 8th, 1859, the various sections of the Presbyterian Church in Victoria were happily united. Their first act was to ap- a point committee for Sabbath-schools, their next a board of missions.
Attention was first directed to the Chinese, for whom there are now a fully organized church at Ballarat, of which the Rev. James Cline, a Chinese convert, is pastor, and 7 mission stations at Little Bendigo, Beaufort, Ararat, Beechworth, Bairnsdale, Warmambool, and Coburg, with trained catechists in charge. A goodly number of adherents has been gathered, and many communicants show by their godly life that true converts make splendid Christians. For the aborigines, who were next taken up, the services of that able and zealous Moravian missionary, Rev. F. A. Hagenauer, now inspector-general for all the aborigines of Victoria, were fortunately secured. His mission station at Ramahynch, Gippsland, is a pleasing picture, well worth seeing, and the history of the mission has been full of interest-an interest, however, tinged with sadness, for the aborigines are a doomed race and are fast disappearing. But many of them die " in the Lord" and in great peace and joy. After these missions, the New Hebrides were adopted as a third field, and one of its missionaries, the now world-renowned Dr. J. G. Paton, has proved a mighty power for good. His thrilling adventures on Tanna, his successful evangelization of Aniroa, and his untiring advocacy of this field in all the colonies, the homeland and America, have greatly helped the growth of the missionary spirit. The Rev. D. Macdonald, at Havannah Harbor, Efate, has added hundreds of converts to the Church and trained EOme noble teachers, and at 5 different stations other men have done good work. But diversity of languages, races, and customs, entire absence of unity of a political kind and other causes have hindered the speedy conquest of these islands for Christ.
Aided by her Young People's Fellowship Union, the Church has begun a mission in Corea. Her first missionary, Rev. J. H. Davies, lies buried in Fusan, but his monument is the mission house ereded there, and now occupied by Rev. I. H. Mackay, M.A. There the Presbyterian Women's Missionary Union placed 4 workers, who are succeeding beyond expectation in winning the women and acquiring the language. This society has also 2 ladies at work in India and 2 among the Chinese women and children of Melbourne, and though only in their third year, are spending about £700 a year.
When the Presbyterian churches of Australia and Tasmania were federated about three years ago, the memorial erected was a new mission to the aborigines of North Queensland. For this 2 Moravian missionaries (Revs. J. G. Ward and N. Hey) were obtained from home, and have made an excellent start at Cullen Point, Batavia River, York Peninsula, among a very destitute and degraded people. As yet only ordained ministers and trained catechists have been employed, but medical missionaries and lay agents will be engaged as opportunity is found; 20 missionaries and 40 teachers are maintained at about £5000 a year, New South Wales joined in the New Hebrides Mission in 1869, taking a station on Malo. In 18'13 she opened a mission to the Chinese in Sydney and subnrbR, and for five years has carried on another to the same nationality at Newcastle. She also helps in the Federal Assembly's mission, and raises about £1300 annually.
From] 854 Otago and Southland Presbyterians in New Zealand sent help to the Free Chlrch of Scotland foreign missions, till in 1869 they beg'an work among the )JaOl·is. Having tasted Lha blessedness of direct effort, they took up both the Chinese and New Hebrides, and now support 5 missionaries and 70 native teachers, at a cost of £2000 a year. Their work has been abundantly successful.
North New Zealand Presbyterians have taken up the same three fields, and last year spent £200 more in the work than their brethren in the south. Tasmania and South Australia each began work in the New Hebrides in 1882. Their fields are a great contrast in results. South Australia has reaped but little fruit on Tanna. On Epi, Tasmania has sent 2000 gathered into the fold; they each spend about £350 per annum. South Australia also works in India, and both help in the Federal Assembly's mis- SIOn.
Queensland only took up mission work as a church in 1888, with one mission to the aborigines and another to the Kanakas, adding recently the Federal Assembly mission. But individual congregations were working among the aborigines at an earlier date. Especially among the Kanakas good fruit has been plentiful, and the interest in the work has been extend- 'ed by the pleadings of the Ormond College Missionary Society. This church raises about £400 a year.
Among the Baptist churches the Rev. J. Price claims for South Australia and Tasmania the honor of being the parents of all the colonial Baptist missionary societies-" the Furreedpore Mission, East Bengal, having for twenty-eight years been supported by the prayers and offerings of the colonies." Whether this claim is admitted we do not know; it is certain, however, that Victoria was then,' if not earlier, sending help through the home society for native teachers in East Bengal. In 1885 she sent out 2 zenana missionaries, and in the following year organized her own society. She now employs 6 missionaries and 9 native teachers. Some 80 converts have been admitted to church-fellowship, and the work in the girls' school is most hopeful. Annual expenditure for this and Furreedpoor £1200 each. New South Wales took up the same field in 1887, and spends £500 in supporting 3 zenana missionaries, 1 Bible woman, and an evangelist. Queensland followed in 1888, and has 2 missionaries, 1 native preacher, and 2 teachers, with an organized church. She raises £250 a year. Total, 40 agents; cost, £3150 a year. 1890 brought to our shores the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, of China. His wonderful work of faith and love in the China Inland Mission awoke deep responses in the colonies, and led to the formation of councils with many branches. The centre is in Melbourne; a5 missionaries have already gone from Australia, and the society is spending £3000 a year. At one place in China a church of 120 members has already been gathered, and the grace resting on this work gives bright hopes of glorious harvests of souls.
Yet another new organization has found a home here-the East African Industrial Mission. Its special aim is to teach the arts of useful industry. This is well worth Christian attention, and has been too long overlooked for some fields, though there are others where it is unnecessary.
A MISSIONARY
Thus far we have presented facts-giving an aggregate of some 650 paid agents and an expenditure of £53,000. But remembering the many denominations Dot noticed and societies not reached-e. g., Church of England work among the Kanakas of Queensland; independent missions to the same people; the missions of the minor Methodist bodies; Bible Christians; Salvation Army, etc.-we may safely reckon that Australasia employs some 800 missionaries and teachers in the foreign field, and raises every year some £70,000 in response to her Lord's last command. In itself this is a gratifying and gladdening fact. But is this all that Australia could and therefore should do ~ Only consider the gloom of the heathen, the good of the Church, and the glory of Christ, and snrely you will say, " Forward," "Amplius." Think of the aborigines! Tens of thousands in North and Western Australia are still uncared for. Ought not· their present misery and prospective doom to urge us to do more, and that speedily, for those whose goodly heritage has become our own? Think of the 30,000 Chinese living among us-strangers set free from the pressure of ancestral traditions, with the heart hungering for sympathy, and readily responsive to kindness. Why let slip the opportunity of winning these for Christ? Think of India's child widows, of a million a month dying unsaved in China, and say, " Have we done enough ~"
Then recall the results of mission work. What heroic characters it has developed in Carey and Livingstone, Judson and Moffat, and thousands more! What blessings it brings to the churches supporting the workers! Would it not be well worth a greater effort to get more of this benefit?
Above all, remember Christ, His great love, His magnificent selfsacrifice, His earnest longing to fold humanity in the embrace of everlasting forgiveness and fellowship. Remember He has trusted us to place Him on the throne. The King cannot come again till we prepare the way before Him. Oh, if Australia transferred to her Lord her enthusiasm for sports, the millions she spends on strong drink, the love she has for gold, how soon she would become" the King's daughter, all glorious within, her garments of wrought gold," her attendant maidens, the converts of the missions, waiting with her, ready to enter into the King's palace and be forever the beloved of the Lord! May He grant her yet this glory !
A MISSIONARY HEROINE.
BY MARIA A. WEST, NEW YORK CITY.
There is a missionary lady whose story of entrance into Thibet and months of sojourn in that hitherto closed country thrilled every Christian heart that heard it, while she tarried a few days in New York, on her way to England, having come directly from Thibet and China.
Miss Annie Taylor was born and reared in London. The child of wealthy yet worldly parents, and without any special religio'us training in early life, she was led of God to turn away from earthly aims and pleasures and choose His service when but fourteen years of age. At that time she united with a Congregational church, but later with the Presbyterian Church, under the ministry of Dr. Sinclair Patterson. After some years spent at school in Germany, and in Italy, where she gave herself to painting, she began a systematic round of Christian work in district visitation among the p~)Or, for the Master's call continually sounded in her ears. This was also connected with medical study and attendance upon a hospital, when her rich clothing was gladly laid aside for the garb of a nurse. All this was not pleasing to the parents, who sought in vain to turn her heart back to the joys and pleasures of this world. But God was preparing His ." chosen vessel" to bear His name far hence to a people sitting in the densest darkness. Miss Taylor received her diploma for midwifery, and studied dentistry enough to aid in her future work. In God's own time the door was opened for her into a foreign land. Her parents, finding it useless to oppose her, gave a reluctant consent, and the joy of her soul was well expressed by a member of the council of the China Inland Mission: " It is like a burst of sunshine when she comes into the room."
Miss Taylor went to China, donned the dress of the people, learned their language, and then, led by the Spirit of God, settled alone in one of the villages on the Thibetan border, and began the study of that language, with the view to labor in that land. This step was not approved by her missionary associates, who deemed the undertaking rash and presumptuous, especially for a woman. Having means of her own, she was, in a sense, independent j and believing that God had called her to this work, she went forward in the face of dangers and trials that might well have appalled the strongest man.
After some time spent at Kansuh, in 1886-7, she went to a Thibetan monastery at Kumbum, and mingled with the Thibetans living there, wearing the dress of that people and studying them as well as their tongue. While there her health failed, and she visited Australia, where she met her mother, who was but recently converted. On her recovery, Miss Taylor was providentially led to Darjeeling, on the Thibetan border, in India, and there continued her study with a native teacher.
Visiting England for a few months, she returned to Darjeeling, in the hill country of lndh, and lived alone in a Thibetan village for five months, going later with six or eight Thibetan coolies, horses, tents, and provisions to Sikkim, a part of Thibet not yet made over to the English. She was taken prisoner by the government officials and most of her supplies seized, leaving her destitute and alone in that strange land. They tried in vain to turn her back, but nothing would induce her to retrace her steps. The hill men who callle with her built a hut of green bamboo for her shelter, and then went ou their way. Finding that she could not be persuaded to return, the chiefs endeavored to poison her, and almost succeeded several times. Finally she said she would go, but by another route, which took her through a wide portion of the country ; and most of that fearful journey, sometimes in the rain or snow, and often intense cold, especially at night, was made on foot, twenty and even thirty miles a day, without a fire at night to dry the wet clothing or warm the chilled frame, sleeping in a hole dug in the ground (sometimes with ,a layer of frozen water underneath), and often without food at the close of a long day's tramp. Yet He who feeds the sparrows never failed to send something sooner or later to His child when she cried to Rim. Her breath was one continual prayer going up to heaven; every place upon which the sole of her foot trod she claimed for God in Thibet! She was within three days of Gaza, the capital at one time. Being a woman, her life was spared-for womanhood is reverenced in Thibet-and her medical skill served her for many a good turn. Sometimes the women would secretly bring her a little food hidden in their garments, when the chiefs had forbidden anyone to sell it to her. Sometimes their popped corn would be strewn by the wayside, and she would pick it up like the birds of the air, thanking God for the timely supply.
And amid a people notoriously immoral, when she had no earthly protection by day or by night, God shielded His dear handmaiden from insult or harm. Day by day she was attended by an invisible guard, and the arrows of the Evil One were turned back by His shield! Unscathed by the enemy, 8he came out of that dark, dark country, having sown in some hearts the precious seed of the kingdom, * and bringing with her the " first fruits" in a converted young Thibetan, whose feet she had washed and bound up when he was suffering from a long journey, having fled from his chief; a native of Lhasa, where the people are hig-her in civilization, and where life is far more endurable, so that it can be made a centre for missionary operations in the future when the door .is widely opened.
Mter this entrance on the side of India, Miss Taylor went in on the Chinese side, and met with similar experiences. I may have confused the two, but it matters not. She will doubtless give the world her own story in due time; and this, which is by her permission, will only serve to whet the appetite of God's children for the full narration. I will add that Miss Taylor goes to England to secure at least ten or twelve men to go out and learn the Thibetan language at Darjeel.ing, India, so as to be in readiness for the work when the door of Thibet is opened to their entrance, as it must be soon. Rome is making preparation for its occupation; and why should the Christian Church be behind in obedience to its" marching orders" from the Commander-in-Chief? God hasten the day!
* The Moravians had prepared the New Testament and part of the Old in Thibetan; also a good dictionary. Blessed pioneers in making ready the way of ,the Lord are these Moravians I
THE RESPONSIBILI'l'Y OF YOUNG PEOPLE FOlt MISSIONS
THE RESPONSIBILITY OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND THEIR SOCIETIES FOR MISSIONS. * BY REV. FRANCIS E. CLARK, D.n.
One of the most hopeful signs of the present day is the wonderful quickening of interest on the part of young people in the work of foreign missions. Mission work is no longer a novelty. The rosy light of romance has been largely stripped from the squalid wretchedness of heathenism. It is understood that missionary life involves not so much of adventurous iucident as of hardship. The days when Sabbath-school children dreamed of the missionary as sitting under a fruitful cocoanut-tree while the eager natives pressed around him to hear the Word of Life, while his own existence was a kind of happy combination of the life of Robinson Crusoe and the exemplary parent in the " Swiss Family Robinson," have largely disappeared.
Even the boys and girls have come to know that missionary work in foreign lands is very much like Christian work in any land so far as the spirit, and purpose, and determination, and grinding attention to details is concerned. It is frequently a life work in the slums, plus the deprivation of friends and pleasant neighbors and the joys of patriotic citizenship, plus isolation and loneliness.
The idea of physical hardships and romantic sufferings which used to inhere in the thought of mission life has also largely disappeared; there has taken the place of these romantic hardships the far truer idea of steady, constant, monotonous work among degraded classes, with the awful and appalling inertia of heathenism as a constant and discouraging background to all elforts.
Yet in spite of all this the tide of enthusiasm among young people for mission work has been steadily growing. This is indicated by the remarkable Students Volunteer Movement, which has spread into England as well as swept over America, and which enrolls UpOIt its lists thousands of those who are desirous, God willing, to carry the Gospel to other lands.
Moreover, this rising tide of enthusiasm is very plainly indicated at the conventions of young people which have been such a remarkable feature of the religious life of the last decade. It has been noted over and over again, at the huge international conventions of the Society of Christian Endeavor, that the most interesting sessions are those which are devoted to mission work; that the stirring missionary addresses called forth the largest enthusiasm, and that the eyes of the young disciples who represent this army, which is now nearly a million and three quarters strong, are fixed not only upon their own prayer-meeting, on their own consecration service, and their own committee work, but look out with an intense long- • Read at tile Ccngre•• of Missions. Cblcago, October 2d, 1898. ing upon the uttermost parts of the earth with the hope and prayer that He whose right it is may reign.
But this most gratifying enthusiasm should not surprise us if we study the trend of the times. It is the natural and normal expression of the religious life. ",Ve ought to be surprised if we find any other spirit manifested by these devoted young hearts who, in the freshness of their youthful zeal, by the hundred thousand every month renew their dedication to Christ.
The responsibility for missions of these young people and their societies rests upon several natural reasons. First, they, in common with all the world, have received the great commission j they too are under marching orders j to them as well as to the oldest veteran were the words written, "Go ye into all the world." They cannot escape if they would from Christ's command, " Disciple all the nations." But a peculiar responsi- . bility rests upon them because they are young. This is pre-eminently the mission century. More than all the sixty that have gone before it, is it the age in which Christ's command has been heard by all the world.
Uttered though it was eighteen hundred years ago, by some modern spiritual audiphone the command has been repeated, and emphasized, and broadened and thundered out, and heard and heeded as never before.
The young people who have been born in the latter half of this nineteenth century could not help hearing this command as their fathers never heard it. They have been actually enveloped in the sound waves of this mighty audiphone. Their responsibility is greater than the responsibility of their fathers, on the principle that to him that " knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin."
" Weare," says Dr. Josiah Strong, "it seems to me, even more favored than those who are to follow us. Some one has said that he would rather be his own grandson than his own grandfather, and so would I; but I would rather be myself than my latest descendant, because I would rather have part in the glorious work of creating the Christian civilization of the people than to bask in the full radiance of its glory."
The millionaire has m;re responsibilities than the pauper. Every dollar is an added means of doing good, and for every dollar he must give account. All the light which has broken in upon this wonderful century adds to the responsibility of every man and woman whose birthday falls within it, and the responsibility is an increasing one as these birthdays draw near to the closing decade.
Again the responsibility of these young people's societies is indicated by the very nature of these modern organizations. The Society of Christian Endeavor may, without presumption, I suppose, be taken as the type of the modern young people's religious organization. Born but little more than twelve years ago, it has now spread throughout the world, has nearly twenty-eight thousand branches and an actual membership of not far from one million seven hundred thousand. Formed with no wisdom of man, but by the purpose of God, its scope and real mission are becoming more and more plain every day.
Its fundamental principles are CONSECRATION, LOYALTY, FELLOWSHIP. Its consecration is expressed in the weekly pledged prayer-meeting and in the monthly consecration service. Its loyalty is indicated by the fact that' the societies are always under the control of their own churches, and that the purpose of every committee is to do just what its own church and pastor desire to have done. Its interdenominational fellowship is exemplified by the vast union gatherings which bring so many of them together in loving accord upon the broad platform of service for the one Lord.
But all this consecration, loyalty, and fellowship must mean and does mean missionary zeal unless the very purpose and spirit of the movement is strangely perverted. The consecration of these yonng disciples means that they will go where Christ would have them go, that they will do what He will have them do, that they will be only and altogether what He would have them be. The true missionary spirit cannot be divorced from the true spirit of devotion. Their loyalty to Christ means the same thing. It is a mere empty profession if they do not hear His -command to " disciple the nations. "
Their loyalty is not only to Christ, but to the Church, their own Church and denomination, and part of the work of every church is the mission work. All worthy denominational activity is expended at home and abroad in furthering the kingdom. Loyalty to these interests inheres in the very nature and constitution of a modern young people's movement.
Loyalty to the Church involves loyalty to the denominational missionary treasuries. Not merely a passive wish that they may be full, but an active effort to fill their coffers. It is hoped and expected that during the coming year the Christian Endeavor Society will make a thank offering of not less than a quarter of a million of dollars for missionary purposes. This money will go through the regular church channels into the denominational treasuries, to be used as their own boards see fit. It will be a tangible expression of the genuine zeal which fires these youthful hearts.
Moreover, the world-wide fellowship promotes this same spirit. These soeieties are not confined to the narrow limits of one denomination or hemmed in by the boundaries of a single nation, but their line has gone out into all the earth. Eleven evangelical denominations in America have adopted or endorsed the Christian Endeavor Society. Four in England have done the same thing, and as many more in Australia and in Canada, and it is largely found in all the denominations in all these countries which have not formally endorsed it. A United Society of Christian Endeavor with many branches exists in China, still another in Japan, with its monthly periodical and its useful literature. In India the work is progressing with equal rapidity ; and into Tamil and Telugu, Hindi and Bengali, Marathi and Hindustani and Oordu the constitution has been translated, and the society is making its way. Into the Sandwich Islands and Samoa, Madagascar and South Africa, Burma and Siam, Persia and Syria has the socitlty spread. The cruel tyranny of the Sultan is not sufficient to cru~h it out of the Ottoman Empire, while in France and Spain and the nations of modern Europe it has been found to be, so far as it has extended, help and inspiration for young people.
In England and Australia the society is moving on with the same rapid increase as in the land of its birth. This broad and ever broadening fel- lowship must have its effect upon the hearts of the members of this organization in increasing their brotherly love not only for their fellow- members, whom they have seen, but for those of different climes and dif- ferent complexions, whom they will never see.
In the blessed interdenominational and international felbwship of this movement is found one of its chief incentives to missionary enthusiasm, for its members feel their peculiar kinship with Endeavorers everywhere. The motto which is engraved, not only on the ban,ners and the badges of this youthful host, but upon their hearts as well, "For Christ and the Church," really means, " For Christ and the Church and the world," for the Church is for the world, and the world is destined to be for the Church.
It is worth noting in this connection that the origin of the first Society of Christian Endeavor was closely linked with mission work. The organization which preceded the first society, and which was to an extent merged into it, was a mission circle, and the mission idea has never been foreign to the Endeavor idea.
Another point of contact between young people and missionary work is found in the innate heroism of their youthful natures. Every generous boy is an incipient hero. Every pure young girl is a heroine in embryo. The sordid world often makes sad havoc with these early aspirations, but with rare exceptions among those who are rightly trained they are sure to be present: The ideal heroes and heroines for which their minds blindly grope, as the morning-glory turns toward the rising sun, are found to-day very largely upon the mission field. The Moffats and the Livingstones, the McKays and the Patons and the Morrisons are the real knights of the nineteenth century. If in these piping times of peace stories of valor in a righteous cause can anywhere be found, they will be found in these lands to which our brave missionaries have gone.
All this is felt by the young disciples whosc lives are dedicated so completely to the Master's service. As the camel's foot is fitted to the desert's sand, as the bird's wing is adapted to cut the air, so the hearts of the young people of the present day, stimulated and stirred as they have never been before, are adapted to the heroic service for Christ, which in its highest manifestations is found to-day in mission lands.
Again, their responsibility for missions is indicated by the fact that their own spiritual life can flourish only in the atmosphere which is created by the enthusiasm for the salvation of the world. It has been truly said, " An enthusiasm for humanity is what we most need, not only that the world may be saved, but that we ourseh'es lllay not miss our salvation. Civilization is compelling an interest in others for our own sakes. Christ inculcated an interest in others for their sakeE. Christian brotherhood springs from something higher than common interest. In an ocean steamship the steerage and the cabin passengers have a vast deal in common during the voyage. If the steerage goes to the bottom, so does the cabin. If a deadly pestilence breaks out in the former, the latter is im- mensely concerned; but all this may be without one brotherly heart-beat between the two. Modern civilization is fast getting us aU into one boat, and we are beginning to learn how much we are concerned with the concerns of others. But the higher social organization of the future must have some higher and nobler bond than an enlightened selfishness. Even such a love for one's neighbor as will fulfil the second great law of Christ."
This" enthusiasm for humanity," of which Dr. Strong so eloquently speaks, which is but another and broader name for enthusiasm for missionary work, is necessary to the continual life and growth of these disciples who are banded together in these young people's societies. The spiritual law of self-preservation must compel their interest in these large concerns of the kingdom.
A few years ago the Christian people of Australia felt that their religious life as a nation was at a low ebb. The affairs of the kingdom Ian" guished within their borders. The demands made upon them to subdue and civilize and people a vast island continent occupied all their energies, and spiritual matters seemed to drop out of sight. Leaders of religious life were alarmed, I am told ; but just then came the thought, not, "'Ve must spend all our energies upon ourselves," not, " We must evangelize our own broad domains first," but, "We must do something for the nations beyond, for these vast heathen islands which lie around us, which are sunk to the lowest depths of superstition and cannibal ferocity." "We owe something to them as well as to ourselves."
So the island of New Guinea was partitioned between three or four of the evangelical denolllinations, and recruits were called for to carry the Gospel thither. It was known that going meant hardship and privation, and very likely death; that the missionaries would find no honored graves even, but, in all likelihood, would be served up at cannibal feasts.
It was known that a shipload of Chinamen, who had been wrecked on the coast for which this mission was bound only a year before, had all been killed and eaten; and yet, when the call came for volunteers, not only the four white men who were first asked for came to the front, but five times as many ; not only the forty natives of the South Seas who were immediately desired heard the call, but four times forty.
Those who were chosen were esteemed the fortunate ones, and the tears and the sorrow were all expended upon those who could not go, but were obliged to stay in their comfortable homes. From that time I have been assured more than once in many sections of Australia the work of many churches revived, the spiritual life of the people was quickened, and those who were willing to lose their own lives not only found them, but a great people renewed their spiritual zeal and lighted once more their torches at the altar where this missionary fire of devoted consecration had been kindled.
So it will ever be in America, as in Australia, among the young and the old. Those who would have life must give life. Those who would gain inspiration for larger service must be willing to expend all they have on present duties. Those who wo~ld fit themselves for larger things-yes, those who would escape spiritual atrophy and death must continually kindle anew their enthusiasm for humanity, their. love for the world for which Christ died.
It is becoming more and more evident, I believe, to .all these young people in societies of Christian Endeavor that they must" go or send ;" that there is no compromising with Christ; that His command cannot be trifled with, and that if for good and sufficient reasons they cannot dedicate themselves to this service, they must remember their responsibility for sending some one who can go. They have all been drafted into this war, and if they cannot personally fight the battle in other lands, they must fight at home and send their substitutes across the sea.
This sense of responsibility directly affects their pocketbook, and makes, the matter of proportionate and systematic giving a very real and vital thing. "When this sense of responsibility touches the pocketbooks of men, when every dollar that a Christian earns he feels is mortgaged for the advancement of the kingdom, then will come the glad day when" holiness to the Lord" will be written on the bells of the horses, and when the smallest things will be dedicated to Jehovah.
That glad day is coming, I believe. We can already see its early dawn in the East. One of these days there will be a vast revival in gh'ing. The purse strings of the world will be unloosed. God grant that the young people who are handed together in common forms of service may feel this quickening t011ch, may realize their responsibility more and more, and may know that upon them depends the fulfilment of Christ's prayer, " Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done."
The progress of the Christian Endeavor movement has been remarkable in its extent and rapidity. In 1881 there was one society and 48 members. Six years later, in 1887, there were 2314 societies and 140,- 000 members, and in 1892, 21,080 societies and 1,370,200 members. The progress will be much greater in 1893 than in any previous year, as a result of Dr. Clark's tour around the world. It is estimated that there will be about 30,000 societies and 1,700,000 members reported at home and abroad.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
David Zeisberger, the Friend of the fish and hunt, and found pleasure in the American Indians. hardy life of the pioneer. Near the Forks of the Delaware in Pennsylvania BY ARTHUR C. KEMPTON, ROCHESTER, a site was selected, and here they erected the first log-cabin of what has since N. Y. been known as Bethlehem, the centre of Moravian influence in America. It Let us leave the present and look waS in: this place, with its strong religupon America as it was two hundred ious sentiment, that Zeisberger was years ago. converted. His friends were one day singing a hymn, when Zeisberger sur- I. A Land of Da1'7cness. prised them by bursting into tears and What we now know as Chicago, the leaving the room. In the shadows of Queen of the West, was then a trackless the forest he struggled with the angel swamp; New York was only a small until he received the blessing, and in town; and no white man had yet seen the very hour of his conversion he rethe land of the Golden Gate. The solved to consecrate his life to the cause " settlements" scattered here and there of missions among the Indians. along the coast consisted merely of a few log huts in the midst of a small II. The Dawning of the Day. clearing which bore a scanty crop of In the following year he and another potatoes and Indian corn. The interior young man left their homes to live was a great Unknown. among a friendly tribe of Indians in Coming apparently from the west, the the Valley of the Mohawk, so that they red man had spread himself over the might learn their language. As a rule country, until the whole continent was missionaries are more hindered by their sprinkled with the ashes of his camp- own countrymen than by the heathen fires. Numerous tribes were engaged themselves, and this is certainly true in in unceasing warfare. The war·path the life of Zeisberger. These young was the Indian's delight, and in cruelty men had only entered upon their noble he found his greatest pleasure. work when they were taken prisoners Such was the country which David by the authorities of New York, who Zeisberger saw from the deck of the pretended to believe that they were ship which had brought him from Hol- French spies, but who in reality were land, and such were the people among moved by their hatred for missionaries. whom he was to spend his life. He But their hearts were not daunted. was now only seventeen years of age, Like Paul and Silas, they made the jail and was fresh from the Moravian ring with songs of praise and the voice schools of Germany and Holland, where of prayer, and covered the whitewashed his parents, who had crossed the ocean walls with verses from their hymntwelve years before, had left him to be book, as an expression of their faith in educated. But God was leading this God. After a period of two months they young man, for though he was not yet were released and returned to Bethleconverted, it was in these forests of hem. America and among degraded tribes It was several years before another that he was to accomplish a work effort of this kind could be made. for Christ that has seldom been sur- Zeisberger entered heartily into the passed in the history of missions, and work around Bethlehem, but he longed rarely been paralleled by Christian work to be among the Indians of the Six Naamong the Indians. tions. At the first opportunity he Zeisberger was delighted with his home in the new world. He loved to I).gain set out with the avowed purpose lips swelled with unearthly shrieks, and of living among the Indians until he their hands clutching the empty air.
had mastered their language and be- As Zeisberger rushed up the ladder they come familiar with their customs. He tore it from under his feet, but he thus lived for five years [1750-55 near grasped one of the cross·poles of the Cayuga Lake] in one of the huts of an roof and swung himself into his retreat.
Indian village in Western New York. Here the missionaries stayed till the At first he met with considerable prej· mad revelry was over; then they es- udice, and was exposed to constant dan· caped, while the exhausted savages were ger. A drunken Indian is a fiend in· lost in drunken sleep.
carnate, and these Indians were drunk These are but instances of the dan- a great part of the time. Frcquently gers to which they were constantly ex· Zeisberger and his comrade left their posed, yet they refused to give up their hut and fled to the forest, hiding some· work, and we see them kneeling to- times for days before they dare return. gether in the shadows of the forest and On one occasion the drunken savages vowing to be faithful even unto death.
burst into their lodge, and when the So month after month passed by. At young missionaries fled the Indians fol- last the barriers of heathen prejudice lowed with wild war·whoops, sending were broken down. Zeisberger became bullets whistling just over the head as familiar with the Indian langullges first of one, then of the other. This and customs as were they themselves, cruel sport continued for a mile or two and they esteemed him as a brother.
before the savages returned. They showed their confidence in him At another time, while on a preach- by making him keeper of the belt and ing tour, they came to a town (now wampum which comprised the entire Geneseo) in which the entire population archives of the Grand Conncil. His in- was intoxicated. Two hundred men fluence in the nation was great, and it and women in a frenzy of drunkenness seemed as though success was near; seized them with dark looks that boded but it was further from them than they no good for the missionaries. At last thought. An Indian war broke out, they tore themselves away from their and Zeisberger was compelled to return tormentors, and hid in the loft of one of to Bethlehem (June, 1755). Thus end· the huts. Here, almost suffocated with ed his work in New York State. For heat and burning with fever, they spent five long years he had labored and not the night. In the town cask after cask a single sonl had been converted, but of rum was drained, devilish laughter in those years he had gained an experi- and yells filled the air, and all the ence and knowledge that fitted him for abominations of heathenism made tlJat future trials and for future victories.
summer night hideous. When at last III. Olouds give plilce to Sunshine.
the morning came Zeisberger's compan- During his absence in Ncw York his ion was in a raging fever. His thirst fellow-missionaries in Pennsylvania had became so agonizing that Zeisberger reo founded several Christian villages solved to risk every danger to relieve among the Indians in the vicinity of his sufferings. The nearest spring was Bethlehem. Into this work Zeisberger half a mile away. He stole out, reached entered with zeal, and so~:m the clonds the spring in safety, and was returning are broken and dispersed by the bright with the needed water, when suddenly snnshine. Having he::trd of a distan!
he was set upon by a troop of naked Indian village that desired to hear the savages. Doubling his fists, and dealing Gospel, we see him with a single Indian blows to the right hand and the left, he . companion tramping through tangled drove the squaws aside, and ran for the forest,s and pathleRs swamps, until at hut. The Whole party followed, their last they reached the town. Here they long hair streaming in the wind, their found no time for rest. The Indians flocked together to h~r the Gospel. them. Zeisberger watched over them Da'y after day was spent in telling of with loving care, but during that sad the love of Christ, and in teaching the winter over half of their number were natives to sing Christian hymns in their buried in the Potter's Fleld. With own language. A deep impression was heavy hearts those who yet remained made. Tears rolled down the cheeks started for their forest homes as soon of dusky warriors as for the first time as peace had been declared. It was an they heard of a Saviour's love. Amid awful journey. They were so wasted the shadows of the forest, where the by disease that many were scarcely trees spread out their branches and able to walk. Their food-supply bebreathed gentle benedictions, Zeisberger came exhausted, and the heart of the baptized his first converts, and rejoiced poor missionary was rent with the cries more over them than if he had inherited of famishing women amI children. At a kingdom. another time they were almost con- sumed by a forest fire; but at last they But at the very time these Indians reached the blackened ruins of their were shedding tears of penitence and villages, and at once laid out another blessing the white man who had brought town. Again in their forest homes, to them the Gospel, the hatchets of the converts were filled with gratitude other fierce warriors were reeking with and joy. The new town which sprang the blood of palefaces. As the Indians into existence rang with the melody of watched the white men pushing stead- praise, and was named" The Tents of ily westward, clearing plantations and Peace.., Soon the first baptism took building cabins until the wilderness was place, and this was but the beginning dotted with fiourishing settlements, they of a great revival. From far and near feared that all their hunting grounds the Inuians came to hear the word of would be taken from them, and now salvation, and went their way to scattribe after tribe had joined in a mighty ter the seeds of truth in their own tribe. effort to exterminate these invaders. Hundreds listened as Zeisbergerstood in some forest sanctuary beneath the They were terribly in earnest. Nu- shade of the arching trees, and promerous scalping parties attacked the claimed the Saviour of the world. frontier settlements. Farms were laid Many a poor wigwam thus became a waste, homesteads burned, defenceless home of peace. and many a dying hour women and children butchered, and all was cheered by the Christian's hope. the horrors of Indian warfare prac- Some of these fierce warriors, whose tised. It was contrary to the ~Ioravian belts had frequently been hung with principles to fight, and the Christian scalps, were now seeu weeping silent Indians were threatened with extermi- tears. These were bappy days for nation, for by their neutrality they won Zeisberger. Many were baptized, and the enmity of both Indians and settlers. the town continued to prosper until it One night a band of hostile Indians at- excited the admiration of every visitor. tacked one of the villages, brutally It was a wonderful instance of the civmurdered ten of the Moravians, and. ilizing power of Christianity. Comleaving the town in flames, went off fortable houses were surrounded by with the bloody scalps as trophies of gardens and orchards stocked with their dp.ed. Again several Christian vegetables and fruit-trees. Stretching Indians were treacherously murdered down the river valley lay two hundred by the enraged" settlers," who accuseCl and fifty acres of plantations and meadthem of being in league with the other ows, in whose grassy pastures were Indians. At last Zeisberger appealed seen large herds of cattle. to the government for protection, ann his Indians were taken to Philaddphia. This peaceful town was now left in lIere they were crowded into the bar- the care of another missionary while racks, and small-pox broke out among Zeisberger went to win new victories often lasted until midnight. Many for Christ in mOfe' perilous places. came as champio;s of heathenism and When his friends told him of the des- went away as humble servants of Jesus perate character of the tribe to which Christ. Old and young were converted he was going. and plead with him to re- and baptized, until the mission num- main with them. he replied: "No harm bered one hundred persons. This was can befall me if my God does not per- the second triumph that had crowned mit it. Are the Indians very wicked? the effort of this master missionary.
That is just the reason why I ought to IV. Great Victories and Great Defeats.
go and preach to them." Having ar- This completed Zeisberger's work in rived at the village, he sent his two Pennsylvania. A messenger had come companions to announce a religious ser- from the Indians of Oltio asking for I!.
vice for the evening. An immense teacher, and he reso].ved to go. Ac- crowd gathered round the camp-fire, companied by sixteen canoes full of and as Zeisberger arose every eye was Christian Indians be started on his fixed upon him. Some most desperate journey stilI farther west, April 17th, characters were there. ruffians and mur- 1770. They paddled along the streams derers, noted even among the Indians and rivers until they reached their des- for their wickedness; but no one knew tination in Central Ohio. It was the better than he how to speak to savages. valley of the Tuscarawas, the place He told of the Saviour's love with such which was to be the scene of their great- power that his hearers did not dare to est victories and their severest trials.
oppose him. Some of their faces showed They laid out their town in the form of a the subduing power of the Gospel. while cross, and called it "Beautiful Spring."
some grew black as with the darkness While building it many Indians visited of hell. the place, and here Zeisberger preached On the following morning the inhab- the first Protestant sermon ever preach- itants of three villages crowded into the ed in the State of Ohio. He was so council-house, and Zeisberger and his eager to instruct them that he fre- companions preached from dawn of quently laid aside his axe, sat down day till midnight. His life was com- upon the tree that he had felled. and pletely in the hands of the villainous told them of the Redeemer of the world.
crowd, and a score of times did they Two towns arose amid the prayers of threaten to murder him, yet he con- the people, and the Spirit of the Lord tinued fearlessly to condemn their sin. God came upon both places. Zeis- Plot after plot was formed against his berger's plans for the future challenge life. but God protected him. When his our admiration. He aimed at nothing enemies were most violent and death short of a Ohristian Indian State. He seemed near, he calmly wrote: "They would establish a centre of religion and will certainly not succeed, for He that civilization whose benign influences is with us is stronger than they." His would stream forth and enlighten the faith was victorious. The opposition whole land. He would build for the was gradually overcome, and six fam- Gospel a stronghold from which it could ilies took their stand in favor of the not be driven. He would have all the Gospel. One of the Christian Indians, tribes acknowledge that a people of the called Anthony, became so zealous a living God had arisen among them.
worker among his friends, that Zeis- An old Indian chief named White berger said of him that he "was as Eyes was his chief supporter. With eager to bring souls to Christ as a hunt- tears running down his cheeks this man er's hound is eager to chase the deer." of war and blood plead with his people So was the power of heathenism to accept the Word of God. " We will broken, and a mission established in never be happy," said he, "until we this seat of Satan. Inquiry meetings are Christians." A season of unparalleled prosperity in front of him, and saved his life at now dawned upon the mission. The the peril of their own. At another Grand Council of the Delawares de- time an Indian entered Zeisberger's creed religious liberty. The Gospel had house with salutations of friendship, free course, and was glorified. Upon but suddenly he drew his tomahawk, this outward prosperity the consistent and crying, " You are about to see your life of the converts set a crown as fra- grandfathers," was in the act of strikgrant as the evergreens of their valley. ing the fatal blow, when one of the con- Indian visitors flocked to their town verts sprang forward and wrenched the from all the surrounding country. The weapon from his hand. Then Zeischapel at Beautiful Spring would hold berger sat down by his would-be assasfive hundred persons, and yet it was sin and spoke to him with such tenderoften too small to accommodate the ness and love that he was convicted of worshippers. These Christian settle- his sin and accepted Christ as his Savments were famed throughout the en- iour. tire West. Their plantations covered hundreds of acres along the rich bot- The oon/ve1·ts also bore these trying toms of the valley, and herds more nu- circumstances with great fortitude. merous than ever roamed through the One day a savage attacked one of them, forests or were pastured in their mead- and, aiming his rifle at him, cried, ows. Men coming from the Eastern " Now I'll shoot you. for you speak of colonies were filled with astonishment when they beheld Indians not only civ- nothing but Jesus r" But the convert ilized, but growing rich. But forces were at work which combined to crush stood firm and replied, ., If Jesus does this noble enterprise. The rumblings not permit you, you cannot shoot me." of the American Revolution had beeu The man dropped his gun and turned heard for some time, and now the away in silence. storm·clouds burst in all their fury. Their neutrality placed the missionari~s Zeisberger now found himself be· in great danger, but in the face of al- tween two great powers, the British and most certain death they resolved not to the American, each of which considered desert the converts. Their towns were him an enemy. The British fitted out continually filled with painted warriors, an expedition from Detroit, which was and their escapes were simply miracu- commissioned to utterly destroy the lous. Once the savages had cocked Christian villages and to take the mistheir rifles and were on the point of sionaries prisoners or to bring back their shooting down the missionaries, when scalps. This expedition was placed in their chief was seized with an unac- charge of two noted villains, and soon countable impulse of mercy, and per· reached the villages. They pretended suaded his men to spare their lives. to be friends, and were hospitably reo ceived; but their true purpose soon be· Even the settlers accused Zeisberger came apparent. Encouraged by their of being an accomplice with the Indians, leaders, the savages filled the towns and sent out a party of desperadoes with drunkenness and ruin, running with the express purpose of killing him. around with terrific war·whoops, danc- They met him all alone in the open for- ing and singing, and shooting down the est. "That's the man," cried their cattle for merc sport. The next mornleader, pointing to Zeisherger ; " now do ing was resolved upon for the destrucwhat you have been told to do." He tion of the towns and the massacre of heard the clic1dng of their rifles and the inmates. Death seemed certain, commended hi~ spirit to God, when but Zeisbergel' did not waver. "I care suddenly some Christian Indians burst 110t for myself," he cried, "but oh, my through the hn·,lwR, placed themsclves poor Indians r" As the appointed morning dawned, he ordered the chapel bell to be rung for the usual early ser· vice. Its clear notes sounded far out into the surrounding forest. The dis- of cattle were in the woods; their gartant scouts guarding the trails heard dens were loaded down with fruit, yet them, and wondered if that morning's they were mercilessly dragged away prayer would be the last the mission- and left without food or homes in the aries would ever offer; converts and midst of the forest at the approach of warriors heard them, and bent their winter, and this by order of the British steps toward the sanctuary. When authorities! The winter was the most Zelsberger entered the church it was severe that had been known for years, filled to overflowing. The converts sat and their sufferings were terrible. with solemn faces; the warriors looked Scores of them perished from starvagrave and sullen. Deep silence per- tion and cold. Corn was so scarce that vaded the entire assembly, but when it sold for $8 a bushel, and through Zeisberger announced the hymn there lack of food the missionaries were reo followed such a burst of song as never duced to mere skeletons. At last their before had been heard within those cruel captors showed some signs of walls. All were conscious that heaven mercy, and one hundred and flfty of was near. Taking Divine Love for his the converts were permitted to return theme, Zeisberger then preached a won- to their deserted villages, that they derful discourse. The Spirit of the might gather the corn which had been Lord God was upon him. Surrounded left in the fields. by his enemies, he fearlessly condemned And now we have to relate the IIlost their sin, and lovingly pointed them to heart·rending incident of this sad his· the Saviour of the world. Then, turn- tory. The Indians had reached their ing to the converts, he urged them to towns and were busily gathering the place all their trust in God, and He corn that they might bring it to their would not forsake them. Deep feeling starving families and teachers, when agitated the entire congregation. Tears the Americans heard of their arrival, of joyful trust in the Lord were shed and, with unreasoning hatred, sent out upon every side; eV4in the savages a body of militia under Oolonel Will· bowed their heads in shame. The meet· iamson with the avowed purpose of uting closed with a fervent prayer, in terly destroying these Christian se,tle· which missionaries and converts were ments. They were only too successful commended to the protecting care of in their work. They told the Indians their Heavenly Father, and His bene- that they had been sent to help them in diction invoked upon their enemies. their trouble, and that they would con· God heard that prayer, and saved the duct them to a place of safety, where lives of His children. The hearts of they should have plenty of food and the savages had been so touched, that clothing. The IndianR, thrown comthough their officers both bribed and pletely off their guard, placed themthreatened them, they could not be per- selves entirely in the hands of the solsuaded to stain their hands in the blood diers, even surrendering their weapons. of these servants of God. Thus thwart- The soldiers professed to be Christians, ed in the plans, the hatred of the offi- and the Indians gave them a Christian'S cers found vent in taking the mission· welcome. That night murderers and aries and the converts prisoners. For victims slept side by side like brothers, eight years they had labored in this val- the one dreaming of scalps and bloodley, and the towns which they were shed, the others of lIew and happy forced to leave have rarely been equalled homes. In the carly morning, at a. in the history of the Indians. As they given signal, these fiends arose and were marched away they looked back seized their helpless victims. Taken and saw their homes in flames. Five wholly by surprise, they were crowded thousand bushels of unharvested corn into two houses and strictly guarded, were standing in the fields; hundreds while the soldiers hesitated as to the mode of execution. Some wished to love for the Indians grew only the set fire to the houses in which they greater as his sufferings and disappoint· were imprisoned, and burn them alive; ments increased, and shone brightest others desired to tomahawk and scalp when the end was near. A few years them, so that they might have trophies more the devoted missionary struggled of the campaign. It was finally put to on, and then he was called to enter into vote, and scalping was decided upon. rest. As he lay upon his bed the Ind- ians gathered around his couch and No protests of innocence, no appeal sang in their own language, which had to their friendly services in the past grown so sweet to him, songs of the availed the helpless prisoners. They Redeemer, and of heaven until he fell were allowed until the next day to pre- asleep in Jesus, and then they sobbed pare for execution. Shut up in their aloud. prisons, they began to sing and pray and to comfort one another. At the first In an old, forgotten cemetery in dawn of morning their eager enemies Pennsylvania you will find his grave, asked if they would soon be ready. marked by a single marble slab as sim- .. We are ready now," was the an- ple as was his life; but underneath swer: .. we have committed our souls that stone there lies the dust of one who to God, who has given us the assurance was far more a hero than many whose that He will receive them." And now names are more familiar upon the lips converted heathens taught their Chris- of men. And when the nations shall tian slayers what it means to die tri- be gathered from north, and south, and umphant in their Saviour. They were east, and west before the Great White tied together two and two, dragged to Throne, among them will be hundreds the place of execution, slaughtered and who were led toward heaven by him; scalped. One man felled fourteen to and in that city where all sorrow shall the floor with a cooper's mallet, which be turned to joy few shall wear a he then passed to another ruffian with a brighter crown than David Zeisberger, brutal laugh, saying: .. My arm is the friend of the American Indians. tired I Go on in the same way! I think I have done pretty well !" Mass Movements in India.
Tomahawk and war-club, spear and BY REV. GEORGE w. JACKSON, WELscalping-knife did their awful work till the bleeding bodies of ninety-six Indians LAND, ONTARIO, CANADA. were piled in heaps upon the floors. Of these twenty-seven. were women and That large numbers of the people of thirty-four children, twelve of the lat- India, chiefly from among the poor, ter being infants. Two lads alone es- have become enrolled among the folcaped, one of them being scalped and lowers of Christ, is not only a matter left for dead; the other hiding in the for rejoicing; it is more: it is a fruit· cellar of the house where the blood of ful subject by which we may discover his parents streamed through the floor the methods to be employed, the prin. upon him. Search the annals of his- ciples involved, and the dangers to be tory and you will find no more hellish avoided in this great work of conquest deed than this massacre at Beautiful for Christ, so much of which remains Spring, yet it was carried on under the to be done. And just in passing let me 'stamp and seal of a " religious nation. " note the similarity which seems to exist between the silent, secret, and rapid V. Sun8et and Evening Star. spread of the information and plans Neither Zeisberger nor the mission which led to that almost universal and ever recovered from this blow. He simultaneous rising of the native army was now an old man, and his closing and people at the time of the Indian years were years of sorrow. Driven Mutiny, and the present apparently unihither and thither by his enemies, his versal interest of the poor of India in of concentrated evangelistic work in the Christian religion. Somehow, and connection with the London and Church no one seems to know just exactly in of England Mission stations in Tin- what way, the same class of people in nevelly and Travancore, and In the all parts appear to begin to listen ear· German mission of Chota Nagpore.
nestly, to receive favorably, and to obey And (3) the more recent and similarly more readily tban formerly the Gospel large ingatherings, as the result of pre- of Christ. Is there some secret means vious hard and comparatively fruitless of· communication by which word is toll, in the Baptist 1I1ission of Ongole passed from one people to another? among the Telugus, and the Methodist Or is it rather because the missionaries and Presbyterian Missions in North- in all places, after long years of patient western India. Other cases which toil among others more difficult to reach, might be named woulJ probably fall have only now begun work among the under one of these three divisions.
poor? In cases of famine and distress noth- It seems necessary to remark that ing seems more Christian and therefore those who have never had the honor of more natural under the circumstances taking part in the work under review- than that missionaries should hasten to I mean that of actually accepting for assist in supplying relief to the perish.
baptism large numbers of people from ing. and provide for the maintenance among the heathen-should be careful and education of the children thus left not to hazard opinions or offer criti- orphans. This was more especially true cisms unkind or adverse. Putting our- in earlier times, when the Government selves for a moment in the place of of India was not so fully prepared as it those who have had the above-named now is to deal with the flood and fam- honor, we shall feel that only on the ine. Such evils as have arisen out of spot and during the occasion for action these forms of missionary effort, and could all the circumstances be taken caused bDth distress to the workers im- into account. The public know afler· mediately concerned and occasion for ward how great actions should have complaint to those who are only too been fought better than the men who eager for such occasion, are no doubt did the fighting, or at least they think common to the work at home as well as they do. The public can teach diplo- to the work abroad. We, therefore.
matists the right home or foreign policy propose to pass over this first class of which should have been pursued in movements with the remark that tIle given cases, and this under the guid- next generation will be in a better posi· ance of newspaper editors; and such tion to appreciate all the results and opinions change with each additional fruits of that devotion to the training item of information received, and of orphans which has marked the lives would, no doubt, be radically altered of not a few of the best Christian work· were all the circumstances fully dis- ers in India.
closed. We, then, looking at these Passing on to the second class of marked events in the India mission- movements-viz., those resulting from field, should seek to learn rather than a definite and continuous evangeliza- criticise. tion of a particular tribe or tribes within These movements seem to be capable a given area, as in the aforementioned of a kind of classification: (1) There missions, the following remarks from were the earlier movementA, resulting, Bishop Caldwell's "Lectures on the partly at least, from famine relief and Tinnevelly Missions," pp. 166, 167, its accompanying work, in Krishnagar, should have full weight as proceeding Bengal; in the Madras Presidency; from one who was a most active worker and in the Mysore. (2) Next to these in the field under review: "Wherever may be named the now famous results we have gone we havc preached to the people the Gospel of Christ, in accord· mohullahs or district!', a special caste.
ance with Christ's own command; we In rural evangelistic work results sel· have known nothing nm:mg them save dom follow the general proclamation to Christ and Him crucified, and it is un· the assembleu populace; but when, questionable that the Gospel, without whether in a city mohullah or village the help of any extraneous influences, para, we address a distinct caste, our has again and again proved itself mighty aim being directed toward definite re· through God to the pulling down of sults as to that caste in particular, suc· strongholds. Still it is equally true cess more surely follows. Definite di· that in the greater number of instances rection in methods of work leaus to con· the conversions that have taken place tact with the poverty and oppressed have been the result, not of spiritual condition of the poor, and the most motives alone, but of a combination of vexed problems in this connection seem motives, partly spiritual and partly to be : (1) How can missionaries fulfil secular, the spiritual motives predomi. the demands of philanthropy in cl<ses nating in some instances over the secu· of oppression and injustice, and at the lar, in others the secular predominating same time keep strictly to the principle over the spiritual; aud this holds true of not holding out any temporal induce· not only with respect to Tinnevelly and ments to the acceptance of the religion the missions of the Church of England, they preach? And (2) how can they but with respect to every rural mission avoid repelling sincere inr}uirers, who in India, with whatever society it may profess good motives, while seeking not be connected, and whatever may be the to encourage those whose motives ap- idea of its condition which is commonly pear to be purely worldly?
entertained. May I not add that this has " Rhenius," says Dr. Murdoch, in held good of every conversion of tribes his "Indian Missionary Manual," p.
and nations, as distinguished from the 289, "employed a native lawyer to conversion of isolated individuals, plead the cause of thc oppressed con- which the history of the Church has verts. This, with the favor for a time … recorded?" of one or two of the European officers Coming now to the third and last class of TinneveIly, had a powerful influence of movements mentioneu, we have under in inducing people to place themselves consideration one of the most recent de· under Christian instruction. " And velopments of modern missions. Long. again: "In the early stages of the er periods of regular organized work of Travaucore Mission the secular element every variety preceded these move· was largely present. One of the mis· ments than any of the former. Schools, sionaries, till it was disallowed by the orphanages, bazaar preaching, and home soclety, acted as a judge; slaves evangelistic tours, combined with tract who became Christians were not com· distribution, medical work, and per· pelled to work on Sundays." This sonal effort, were sllstained ycar after practical philanthropy on the part of year with patient persistencc, and now the earlier missionaries, resulting as it the natural results appear in large num- did in large numbers of baptisms, is at bers of accessions. It remains to bring the oppositc extreme from the careful· out the reasons why similar results havc ness of those who would repel all who not followed in some other missions- need temporal assistance, which action for instance, -the English Baptist Mis· may account for the apparent sterility sions along the Ganges Valley. I will of some missions.
only venture to express the opinion Having thus glanced at some of these that direction needs to be added to the mass movements, and suggested some methods employed in order to insure of the methods, in conclusion I ask, success. In bazaars or business streets, Does the missionary experience of the there is always a mixed multitude; in past warrant any society in expecting a large and healthy and rapid growth of 'si~ht of me!l and her judgment of af· faIrs only lllustrate what an ewiOWthe Church apart from previous pioneer ment of common sense can come from unmixed religious consecration and work, which has been 80 faithfully per· spiritual" high·living. "
formed in the missions now so blessed -Bt01'ies from I"d'ian Wigwams and Northern Camp-fire8 is a second volume with success ? We know that some of experiences and observatiolJs among the Indians of far Northwest America, have done the pioneer work without by Rev. Egertvn R. Young. His .. Canoe and Dog Train" at once made reaping its results; but may new mis- a reputation for Mr. Young as one of the most fascinating story-tellers, and sions fearlessly look for immediate reo this volume is so much a continuat.ion of the same sort. that all who know the suIts from virgin soil in which heathen· first volume will wish to read this. The greatest audiences of Exeter Hall and ism has remained hitherto undisturbed? Chautauqua have been charmed by Mr. Young's narratives. It is profusely ilor do the facts of recorded experience lustrated. (Hunt & Eaton, New York; Charles Kelley, London; William indicate that ploughing must precede Briggs, Toronto.) sowing and reaping in spiritual hus- -Answered Prayer, published by the Fleming H. Revell Company, New bandry? York and Chicago, is a suggestive and helpful blank form prepared by 'Dr. Book Mention. Arthur T. Piersou, with columns for " Date of Prayer Begun," " Particular -Rev. I. G. John, D.D., Secretary Prayer asked of God, " "Particular of the Board of Missions of the Southern Promises Pleaded," and "Date and ~1ethodist Episcopal Church has pre- Circumstances of Answer." It will be pared a valuable Handbook of "Methodist a revelation to many devout people if Missions. It is published by the Board they will procure one of these booklets of Missions of the 1Ilethodist Episcopal and keep the memorandum and mark Church, Soath, Nashville, Tenn. Bish- the results when they find prayer rising op Hendrix in the introduction quotes to the plane of power. Emerson's saying, "Coal is portable climate," anJ he adds, "a handbook -Foreign Missions Afttr a Oentury, like this is portable zeal." It sum· by Rev. James S. Dennis, D.D., of Beimarizes English Methodist missions, rut, Syria (Fleming H. Revell Comthos~ of the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch pany, New York and Chicago), is a and bf other Methodist bodies, but gives volume of lectures delivered at Princeover 500 pages besides to the missions tOLl. Theological Seminary, 1893, on the of the Methodist Episcopal Ohurch, J". ,is of the students' lectureship on South. This book will be a vade mecum n,i."iolls. They are remarkable for of value far beyond Methodist linei!. th(,jr order of thought. Qlearness of slyle, and the freshness of facts stated. -All. Autobiography. The Btory of the Lord's dealing with Mrs. Amanda -Hindu Litemtu1'e, 0]' the Ancient Smith, the Oolored JjJcangelist (Meyer & Book.~ of india, and Persian Literature, Brothers, Chicago), contains an account A'l'.cient and .Afodern. Both these volof this ex slave's life-work of faith, her umes are by Elizabeth A. Reed, and travels in America, Great Britain and published by S. C. Griggs & Co., Chi- Ireland, India and Afriea. Bishop cago, These present popular and read- Thoburn says he has learned more from able aecounts of the~e literatures. The Amanda Smith that has been of actual guarantee of their accuracy is that they value to him as a preacher of Christian have had the revision of eminent spetruth than from any other one person cialists like Max Muller. The ablest he has ever met. He also says that reviews have not hesitated to speak of during 6eventeen years in Calcutta he them as fascinatin~ presentations and had known many famous strangers to strong analyses. For those who canvisit that city who attracted large audi- not make original re~earch ther cannot ences, but he never knew anyone who fail to be helpful and entertaiUlng. could dmw and hold so large an audio ence as this devout and soiritual·lllinded negro woman. The strange extremes in her fortune remind one of those of Bishop Crowther; her hold on God by earnest prayer and faith is a spiritual tonic. We do not belbve anybody can read this story, told in her untutored style, without spiritual help. Her in-
FIELD OF )!ON'l'aLY SURVEY
I1I.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
Topics for 1894. estant missionaries, men and women all included, are now sent out by the January-The World. churches of Christendom. In England February-Chinese Empire, Confu- alone, with a population of 27,000,000, cianism. and in the Established Church alone March-Mexico, Central America, West Indies, City Missions. as there are two and a half timea many April-India and Burma, Hinduism. May-Siam and Malaysia, Unoccu- clergymen. The Moravian Church pied Fields, Buddhism. sends out into the foreign field one in June-Africa, Freedmen. 60 of its members, while other Protes. July-Islands of the Sea, Arctic Mis- tant bodies in general give only one in sions, North American Indians. 5000. August-Papal Europe, Romanism. September-Japan, Korea, Shintoism, As to destitution.-Thibet, almost aU Medical Missions, Chinese and Japanese of Central Asia. Afghanistan, Beloochisin the United States. tan, nearly all of Arabia, the greater October-Greek Europe, Moslem portion of the Soudan, Abyssinia, and Lands. the Phillipine Islands are still without November-South America, Frontier a mISSIOnary. Besides this large dis· Missions in the United States. tricts of Western China and Eastern December-Syria, The Jews, Educa- and Central Congo Free State, large tional Work. portions of South America, and many of the islands of the sea are almost or Facts and Figures from Many Lands. altogether unoccupied.
BY THE MANAGING EDITOR. China's population is variously esti- mated at from 350,000,000 to 500,000,- One tlwusand m'illion souls, two-thirds 000, and counting women, there are of the human race-heathen, pagan, about 1100 missionaries from Protestant Moslem-most of them have yet to see churches. Should the missionaries a Bible or hear the Gospel message. there bear the same proportion to popu- lation as in London, there would be As to religion, the world's popUla- more thanjifty times the present force. tion is divided about as follows: In India there are more objects of Protestants". . . .. ••…..•••..•. 120-1150,000,000 idolatry and false worship than there are inhabitants. RomlUl Catholics ……….. , … , 175-210,000,000 In Japan, for every Christian disciple Eastem Chnrch (mostly Greek).. 84-99,000,000 there are two Buddliiat priests and six Shinto temples, and 10,000 more head Jews…….. .•••…••..•…. …. 7-10,000,000 priests of Buddha than the entire num· ber of followers of Christ. Mohammedans….. .•….•. . … 1fO-200,OOO,000 Africa is not only the Dark Continent Confuclanistst. .• ••………… 80,000,000 still, but perhaps, on the whole, most destitute of all the continents in relig- Buddhists …..••….. , ..•••…•. 340400,000,000 ious teaching. On the West African coast the habitations of cruelty still Hindus .•..•…….•••……• , .. 175-220,000,000 abound. Near Lagos 200 human beings were lately offered in sacrifice! Chris· Shintoos ….•.. ………… ….. 14,000,000 tendom has introduced 70,000 gallons of rum to every missionary. In the Pagans •…..••.•………….•.. 200-2150,000,000 great Congo Free State there are 100 drunkards to one convert. Under the To the thousand millions of non- maddening infiucnce of intoxicating Christian peoples less than 10,000 Prot- • These numbers probably more correctly represent those liYing in Protestant countries and not otherwise designated. There are only about 40,000,000 Protestant communicants.
t There are probably 400,000,000 of the Chinese and Koreans who accept Confucian ethics, but m~ny of them are also Buddhists and Tao· l.ts. drink sent from New England 200 Con· was but one new translation for every goans in one day slaughtered each other. sixty-six years, while from 1880 to 1890 One gallon of rum caused a fight in the average wasfive in one yea1' by the which 50 were slain. British and Foreign Bible Society alone, and in 1892 nine new translations were Medical missions are found especially begun. helpful in China, Korea, Persia, Syria, India, and Africa, where native physi- At the beginning of the century the cians are unskilled and often barbarous Bible was within the reach of only one in their treatment of even the simplest fifth of mankind; now it is accessible, as cases. Many of the acts perpetrated by far as translation into native tongues .. medicine men" among the heathen and dialects is concerned, to nine tenths are in thelll8el yes piteous appeals to us. of the earth's inhabitants. In Africa children are scored with a sharp knife from head to foot to cure During this century over 160,000,000 them of a slight illness. In the Friend- copies of the Word of God have been ly Islands delirious patients were buried printed in over 350 different llillgl1ages alive, and in other parts of the South and dialects. No very important tongue Pacific incisions with a knife are made of the earth is now unrepresented. to let out pain. In 1892 there were distributed, at More than one half of those who die home and abroad, by the American, in Calcutta have no medical attendance British, and Scotch Bible societies whatever, and not more than one fourth 6,000,000 copies of the Bible in whole have attendance of physicians who de- or in part-more than there were in existserve the name. If the supply of phy- ence one hundred years ago. sicians in India were in proportion to that of England there would be a medi- Dr. David Abeel said, forty years ago cal force over 190,000 strong-at pres- and more, that wherever he went, in ent there are less than 150 foreign and China or in Java, in Siam or anywhere Eurasian doctors. else on heathen ground, he met always one missionary, who was neither Pres- Taking the non-Christian countries as 1:yterian, Congregationalist, Methodist, a whole, there is but one medical mis- nor Episcopalian, but Who combined sionary to a population as large as New the excellencies of all; always ready York City, While the heathen are dying to speak, and to speak for God; never at the rate of 40,000,000 a year. doubtful in the utterance of truth; never offensive, but always ready to be In the Report of the General Mission- silent if those around preferred, but ary Conference at Allahabad twenty who was always ready to witness for years ago, it is stated that a .. grave the Divine Master and for the heavenly theological professor considered it neces- kingdom; in which missionary he had sary to enter his protest against the cor- more satisfaction, on the whole, than rupt and immoral system, which had in any and all the others he had met; (or its object the bribing of the heathen and that one missionary was the Bible /" and Mohammedans of India into becoming Christians by means of a dose Educational work is found especially of castor oil and epsom salts." Il1Iadia useful in Turkey, South America, Afrito-day to be able to add medical to mis- ca, and India, and has played a very sioTmry is like placing a cipher after important part in Japan. another figure-it increases the value tenfold. Upward of 200,000 patients There were in 1892 over 700,000 are annually treated in mission hospitals scholars in 17,500 schools, carried on by and dispensaries. the missionaries of America and Eu- rope. Bible translation and distribution has been wonderfully increased of late Oontributiona to all benevolent puryears. l!'rom 100 to 1500 A.D. there poses by Protestant Christians of the United States amount to about $85,000,- 000 annually. Only one seventeenth of this is given to foreign mi~sions. If the rapid emergence out of centuries of gifts in proportion to income of church- midnight darkness. Thirty thousand members equalled that of the Japanese children are gathered into Sabbath- converts, the contributions would be schools. There are about forty soci- increased at least tenfold. eties at work with over 7000 ornaincd The Japanese workmen average less missionaries. In 1868 the numoor of tha'!l 12 cents a day wages, yet the con- communicants was 20,000; last year tributions last year from converted na- the number of converts added was over tives aggregated over $100,000. 20,000.
'l'he training of a native mini8t1'Y is The question has been raised by some everywhere the most important work as to Whether the Africans can be really of the missionary. Clllistianized. Bishop Crowther, a na- Within half a century mission sta- tive African, was sold as a slave and tions have multiplied more thau tenfold " afterward emancIpated, converted, edu· ordained missionaries with same ratio, cated, and has been a roost successful but native laborers and assistants have bishop of the Church of England in increased thirtyfold. Western Africa. .
If the last eighteen years be divided Professor Smith says that the 80,000,- into three periods of eight years each, 000 natives of Central Africa are" as the Baptists during the first sent out 67 good stuff to make men of as were the missionaries; during the second, 70; ancient Britons of England." The trans- und during the third, 175, or 150 per formation that has taken place among cent advance. In other denominations many of the Zulus and Hottentots has there has been similar increase, and it been marvellous.
is probably owing largely to the Stu- In Cltina. has begun a new era of the dent Volunteer Movement. Six hun- railway, telegraph, and scientific ad- dred and thirty volunteers have already vance. Before modern civilization idol- gone out, and 100 ure under appoint- atr.v and superstition must gral1ually ment. . recede as darkness before light. Some Africa has an area of over 11,000,000 time ago the nati ves in Central China square miles and a population estimated objected to the building of a railway, between 150,000,000 and 200,000,000. on the ground that the laying of the If the present missionary force were railroad ties would disturb the graves equally distributed throughout tne con· of their ancestors and anger the guard- tinent, each ordained missionary, native ian dragon which surrounded their city.
and foreign, would have a parish as They were obliged to yield, however, large as the State of Connecticut. before the authority of the governor of As late as 1851 the President of the the province. Science may destroy idols Royal Geographical Society said: "All and dispel superstition and breed scep- beyond the coast of Central and South ticism as to non-Christian creeds, but it Africa is still a blank on our maps." cannot in itself reveal God nor create Twenty years ago the Congo nati ves faith ill Christ. This only the Bible had never seen a steamer; now a fleet cando.
of twenty ply the waters of the Upper In 1842 the number of communicants Congo. Railroads are being built from of Protestant churches in China was 6 ; south amI east toward the centre; a in 1865, 2000; and in 1892, 50,000.
telegraph line from Cairo to the Cape; It is estimated that the Chinese spent steamers ply the waters of many of its every yea~ $130,000,000 in ancestral rivers and lakes. worship, and the Protestant church- A chain of mission stations r:eaches members of the United States spent but from the mouth of the Congo to the $85,000,000 for benevolent purposes of Equator, and Africa is beginning to the church.
surpass many other countries in her In Foochow alone 800 opium smokers knelt in a place of worship anI! prayed the total tract circulation was only half God for deliverance from the chains of a million; now one society alone circuthis soul-enslaving habit. There are lates more than 12,000,000. By the 150,000,000 opium smokers ill China. action of the government education is spreading among the masses, and it is India has a population of 288,000,000, of vital importance to social and religand an area of 1,554.000 miles (one half ious life that the appetite thus created ai large as the United States). There should ha"ve healthy food. are still thousands of towns with populations of 5000 and upward which have The Christian Vernacular Educanot a single missionary. tional Society distributed over 1,000,000 books and tracts last year. When Carey landed in India Protes· tant Christianity was represented by India has 21,000,000 widows and one feeble mission in the south with a 50,000,000 zenana prisoners. No wonfew thousand converts. In 1851 there der that a society of native women in were 91,000 converts. Now there are Bombay hDS for its motto, " The world 40 societies represented which support was made for women too." 1000 ordained, 71 medical missionaries, and 758 women. The communicants An educated Hindu was lately asked number 250,000, and the adherents what in modern missionary effort made about 1,000,000. The number of con- him fear most for the stability of his verts last year was 24,000. There has own religion. 'He replied: "We do been a gain of one 7~undred and forty per not greatly fear your schools; we need cent in the last ten years. not send our children. We do not fear your books; we need not read them. A Sunday.school procession number· We do not much fear your preaching: ing over 80,000 children, all either of we need not listen. But we dread your Hindu or Moslem parents, recently women, and we dread your doctors; marched in Lucknow, the scene of the for your doctors are winning our hearts, awful Sepoy massacre in 1857. India and your women are winning our has eight Christian colleges and 26,000 homes; and when our hearts and our schools and 3,000,000 pupils. homes are won, what is there left us ?"
'I'here are 18,000,000 girls of school Japan has an area of 147.655 square age, and only one in 60 attends school. miles, and consisis of nearly 4000 isl- This leaves 17,700,000 to grow up in ands. The population numbers 40,- ignorance. 072,000.
The Hindu Vivekanandaasked at the Twenty-nine societies are represented Parliament of Religions why those who with 604 missionaries. The adult memwere so fond of sending missionaries to bership of the 365 native churches is save the souls of heathen did not do 85,584. In 1892 there were 8731 consomething for thcir starving bodies. verts added. The Western Recorder replies, that Christians have contributed $40,000,000 It is said a larger proportion of the to famine relief funds, besides estab- people can read than in any other counlishing in India hundreds of hospitals try in the world. There Bre 28,000 and asylums, whereas the heathen have schools with 72,000 teachers and 8,410,- never established one of either. Only 000 scholars. Besides this there are 607 6 per cent of the people of India can Protestant Sunday-schools with 22,777 read or write, and that percentage in- scholars. The theological schoolsnumcludes all English residents. ber 16, and the students 542.
There is a great awakening of the Korea has but oue missionary to every mental and moral forces, and it rests 800,000 people. 'There are three sociwith the Christians of Englaud and eties there and 177 communicants. America to prevent this from developing into agnosticism. Thirty years ago Turkey in Asia has an area of 509,289 square miles and a population of 15,- 608,055. There are 230 missionaries (including women) and 13,513 com· of over 3,1,000,000, there are but 325 municants. Protestant missionaries from 17 soci- eties. The number of communicants is Pliney Fisk went to Syria in 1818. about 15,000. One half of the popula- He died in 1820, and by his grave in tion is not within reach of the pure Beirut was planted a little cypress·tree. Gospel. There are no .missions in Now this tree, planted in the suburbs of Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela. Ro· a town of a population of 8000, has manism in its worst form-only a step grown to be a stately cypress in the removed from :heathenism – prevails very centre of a city of 90,000 people. there. The educated classes are in a Overlooking it, says Dr. Jessup, is a transition state from Romanism to female seminary, a large church edifice, scepticibm. a Snnday.school hall, a printing house which sends out more than 20,000,000 As to negro instruction in the United pages annually,. and contains 30,000 States, where only twenty-seven years electrotype plates of Arabic Scriptures. ago no colored child was legally per- Within a radius of four miles are 4 mitted to read, there are now 25,530 Christian colleges, 7 female seminaries, schools in which 2,250,000 have learned 60 boys' day schools, 31 girls' schools, to read, and most of them to write. In 17 printing·presses, and 4 large hos- the colored schools there are 238,000 pitals. pupils and 20,000 colored teachers. There are 150 schools for advanced edu· The great triumphs of the Gospel in cation, and 7 colleges administered by Turkey are the gaining of religious tol- colored presidents and faculties; and eration, the elevation of woman and the of the presidents three were formerly family, educational advancement, and slaves. It is also noted that there are the progress in Bible translation and 154 colored editors, 250 lawyers, amI distribution. 740 physicians, and that there are 247 colored students now educating them· In the Ottoman Empire arc 892 Prot- selves in European universities. estant schools with 43,027 pupils. In the Islands of the Sea there are 211 Sixty thousand copies of the Bible stations occupied by 190 missionaries. are sold annually in the Turkish Em- Twelve societies are represented. The pire. converts number 100,000.
Difficulties in mission work arise A little over one hundred years ago chiefly from the opposition of the gov- the population of the Sandwich Islands ernment, whose policy is" Turkey for numbered 400,000. Through what we the Turks." They are hostile to the call" civilization' " there remaiu now Protestant schools, and large numbers hardly 30,000, and instead of the fine of converts emigrate to America and phySical specimens of manhood, with elsewhere, thereby causing a loss of their extensive tracts of valuable land, teachers and pastors. The boycotting there is hardly a wealthy native left. of native converts makes self.support Their lands have been seized by the ad· in the churches extremely ditlicult. In venturer and the speculator. spite of these difficulties, however, the success of Protestant missions is secured "Gem;ral" Booth says, with more by the Protestant educational institu- severity than exaggeration, that "the tions, wide distribution of Bibles and day has gone by when the priest and other Christian literature, and the deep- the levitc are content simply to pass by rooted faith of the native converts. the wounded man. Some of them must Protestantism as a principle is steadily needs turn backaud punch the head of growing in the land. any good Eamaritan that ventures to come to the rescue of the man they South Amll'l'ica is called the "neg· neglect." lected continent." With an area of 7,000,000 square miles and a population
EDI'l'ORIAL DEPAlt'l'MEN'f
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The leading editorial article, in the T. C. Horton, H. N. Frost, James E. November issue – " Thy Kingdom Come"-was the outcome of personal Mathieson, Bishop Baldwin, H. 11. and prolonged studies of the Word of Parsons, Robert E. Speer, Robert P. God; and if the views therein expressed Wilder, Sir Arthur Blackwood, F. S. may at first have struck auy reader as Curtis, A. B. Simpson, George MUller, extreme or unwarranted, the editor hopes and James Wright, Andrew and Hora· that judgment may not be pronounced tius Bonar, George E. Pentecost, Henry hastily, but only after such careful ex· Varley, Lord Radstock, F. B. 11:eyer, amination as the writer himself has and hosts besides, have held, in sub- given the subject. The paper was pre- stance, the same opinions which this pared, in substantially its present forlll, obnoxious paper upholds; and not only for the ~Iildmay Conference in London so, but the writer has himself heard in June last; then, with some modifica· most of them affirm that their zeal in tions, it was given at the Congress of missions dates from their acceptance of Missions in Chicago in October. Partly these often 1'idiculed views. This is because of its historical interest, as con- something at least to think of. May nected with these two great gatherings, not the common views of the kingdom it was thought best to give it a place in be largely traditional and historical, this REVIEW; but, while the views rather than scriptural and spiritual? therein expressed bind no one, even of the editorial staff, but are purely those The author of this paper confesses of the editor-in-chief and, he may add, that these were not the sentiments of of his beloved colleague, Rev. A. J. his earlier ministry, but these views . Gordon, D.D., there is no hesitation in came purely through biblical studies, affirming that these are substantially the correcting previous opinions by scrip- views of the majority of workers on the tural standards. Hence he holds these foreign field, as actual extensive corre- views not as tentative nor theoretical, spondence with missionaries shows; as but as final, and unassailable on scrip. Mr. W. E. Blackstone, of Oak Park, tural grounds. He therefore once more whose acquaintance with missionaries affectionately commends this discussion is as wide as that of any man in Ameri- to those Who love the Word of God and ca, asserts. The whole question is, wait for the kingdom of God. however, one not of previous bias or personal notions, of tradition or phil- He felt constrained to gi ve his testi· osophy, but ultimately a question of mony concerning the "Parliament of What the W01'd of God teaches. The Religions." But before he ventured to article is meant to be purely expository, put this paper in its final form on the and must be met and answered on a pages of this REVIEW, he submitted it biblical basis. to the judgment of some of the best and wisest men of his acquaintance. Some of our contemporary journals From one of these-a man who for wise affirm, as was anticipated, that the views judgment, apostolic charity, and gen· therein expressed "cut the nerve of eral beauty of character has, among all missions. " Well, it is very strange his wide acquaintance, no superior-he that so many men, most devoted to mis- received the following: sions, such as Hudson Taylor, Spencer Walton, A. J. Gordon, C. H. Spurgeon, " Your article in full on Parliament Dean Alford, S. H. Kellogg, W. G. of Religions was received. I am great- Morehead, E. P. Goodwin, D. L. IV pleased with it. It is strong and Moody, D. W. Whittle, J. H. Brookes, righteous, yet sufficiently tempered. The more I see of the fruits of that blasphemous love-feast, the more I am convinced that it was really originated and managed by the prince of • the power of the air, the spirit that now an understanuing as to the means of worketh in the children of disobedi- publishing reciprocally the dogmas of ence.' " the different religious beliefs. An un- derstanding of this kind, it is true, Rev_ C_ C. Starbuck has sent to would have implied the right of propa- the editor some exeerpts on the Parlia- I("ating the Asiatic religions in our Christian communities; but this right ment of Religions, translated by him, already exists, at least in our Western countries, and we should have no occaas follows: sion for uneasiness if it were put in practice, "The Parliament of Religions at Chicago opened its sittings at the ap- " For instance, Fung Quang-ju, Secpointed date, September 11th. It is retary of the Chinese Legation at Washknown that the idea of thus confront- ington, officially delegated, as appears, ing with each other the representatives by his government, presented an essay of all religions, in order to bring to on < Reciprocity' according to Conview the points which these men may 11ave in common and the differences fucius. This virtue consists in not which separate them, has not met with doing to others what we would not bave universal approbatk'IL others do to us. What an excellent op- portunity this would have been t.o come "The Ki1'chenfl'eund feds bOll nd to call to an understanding with him as to the it' an empty aud stllpid comedy.' The measures tending to obviate the inces- Archbishop of Canterbury has refused sant and often bloody collisions of the to take part in the sessions; the En!!;- Confucianists with the messengers of lish braneh of the Evangelical Alliance t.he Gospel; as to the meaIlS of bringing ha~ abstained from appearing. Tlle into agreement the declarations of re- Sultan. acting IlS Commander of th!! ligions tolerance emanating from the Faithral, has even forbidden the Mos- throne, and the vexations measures of lems to attend the gathering, and has addressed the same prohibition to the the provincial authorities, which render Christian church dignitaries of his em- these futile I pire. " But in pla.ce of taking pains to turn "The promoters of this aspIrIng these religious assemblies to account in (grandiose) enterprise, however, were such ways, it seems to have been animated by the best intentions. Their thought enough, as in similar 8J[!semcirculars assign, as the purport of their blies previously, to exchange complienterprise, the desire to develop the ments and felicitations, and to applaud spirit of human brotherhood among re- one another beyond measure. It ligious men of the various cults; to would, however, have been better to bring into clearer publie conscious- make rejoinder to a certain Buddhist ness the distinctive doctrines of each priest, named G. H. Dharmapala, who religion; to bring into recognition proposed this question to the assembly, that theism has inexpugnable founda- < How many of you have read the life tions, and that man has serious grounds for believing in immortality; to rein- of Buddha?' and wbo, when only five vigorate the forces which are striving hands were raised (which does not absoagainst materialislil; to demand of each lutely prove that these were the only religion the light which it is capable of furnishing to the others; to make out readers of this biography present), exexactly the present situation of each reo claimed, with an accent of profound ligion ; and finally to persuade all the disdain: 'Only five! Four hundred peoples of the earth that they onght to and seventy-five millions of human have more friendly relations with each bein gs profess our religion of hope [of other. despair would have been more exact] and of love; you, who call yourselves "Beyond doubt. if our missionaries a great nation, you do not even know and those whom they e..-angclize were the history of the founder of this religa.lways animateu by the largeness of ion, and you pretend to judge us!' temper breathing in this programme, the labor of the former would be facili- No one seems to have taken pains (pertated in many cm,es. But in order to haps the rules were against it) to conput these principles in practice, it would tradict the eloquent advocate of Budhave been necessary that the r-epresenta- dhism, and to bring him to note that tives of the various Asiatic religions he obtains his formidable Dumber of which figured at the Congress sllould Buddha's adherents only by including llave held personal conference with the the Chinese among them, something represcr:tatives of the various mission- which be bas not the least right in the ary societies lahoring in the midst of world to do ; that tbe countries where their coreligionists, in order to arri ve at Buddhism is the dominant religion, like Siam, Burma, Tbibet, are the most de- generate of all Asia, vegetating ina.. dreary marasmus; that if they seem to A. That the Prudential Committee be at present reviving, it is because be increased at once to fifteen members Chl'istian civilization is beginning to (including the President and Vice-Presiinfuse into them a new life; and that dent). if the island of Ceylon makes an exception, it is only because it is subject to a B. That, beginning at the annual meet- Christian government. ing of 1894, the members of the Pruden. tial Committee shall be elecred in three .. These observations have been sug- classes, one class to serve three years, gested to us by reading the report of one class two years, one class one year; the opening session of these remarkable that at U;e cxpiration of these terms assemhlies; but we do not believe that members shall be chosen in classes for the subsequent sittings are likely to terms of three years each. It is further bring any modification of our judg- recommended that rio member wbo has ment. The' Parliament of Religions' served three full successive terms shall will have no practical result; it will be, be eligible for re·election till after a to the very end, merely a simple curi- year has passed. osity, like so many others which are airing themselves at the Chicago Expo- O. Autborizes means to secure legal sitton."-Revue des Missions Con tempo- authority for this" change in the cbarraines (Basel). n. ter. " Again, and in an un~elfish spirit, the Resolved, That this Board, in re- sponse to the expressed wish of its miseditor appeals to the benevolence of his sionaries in Japan, and in recognition of the successful labors of the Rev. Willreaders for help in the gratuitous circu- iam H. Noyes in that empire, requests the Prudential Committee to offer to lation of this REVIEW among students him an appointment as a missionary of the Board. Tbe Board declares that for the ministry and especially "volun- this action is not to be understood as in any way modifying its former uttertecrs for the field, whose poverty and ance on the suhject of future probation.
self-denial make it impracticable to pay A, B, and o were carried unanimous- ly, and the vote on n was 106 to 24. the price of the REVIEW. These arc the men of all men who need the stimu- lus, the information and inspiration it The editor has hitherto sedulously re- afl'ards. This" volunteer fund" has frained from any utterance on matters fallen of late into neglect. It is a long of the A. B. C. F. M., fearing further time since any considerable amount has to embarrass its action when already been paid into its .. treasury." The complicated with many difficulties; but editor gratefully acknowledges the fol· it seems to us that in this its final issue lowing donations: there has been a distinct concession in lIrs. McEwen, of Italy…….. $25.00 favor of the broad and loose theology Mrs. Grace Passmore Green- of the time.
wood, of London………… 15.00 There is no use of denying that there Benjamin I. Greenwood, Esq., is a drift within the evangelical church in exactly opposite directions. There of London. . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . 33.00 are conservatives who hold to the old $73.00 theology, and cannot and will not give The fund still is overdrawn some $202.. up the full inspiration and inerrancy of 14. Would not some whose hearts are the WonI of God, and the doctrine of stirred in behalf of these poor young future retribution as therein set forth.
men, who are devoting their lives to Others arc advocating the views of missions, take up this ministry to saints? higher criticism and a modified view of and is there not some one person who future punishment, with the .. eternal will send direct to the editor a check for hope" theory of Archdeacon Farrar.
this deficiency? This REVIEW has made its choice, and stands upon the old platform.. As to Tho following is the important por- the future state, if there be any essen- tion of the action of the American Board, tial change in the soul's condition after by which the revolntion in its constitu- death, it is not revealed. If any man tion and policy was effect!ld : will indulge a hope unwarranted by Scripture, why not at least keep it to each a shirt, and told them something ltimseif, and preach only what is clearly of this story of Jesus. He asked if they authorized in the Word of God? It is could l'emember the name, and they said, one of the worst evils of our day that "Yes, it was Paton." Thirty.three men, and even preachers, seem to con- years before he had in his evangelist sider it duty to give utterance to their tours stopped at this island for a few doubtR, theories, and speculations. Why days; and here, so long after, was the not confine Ollr testimony to certainties fruit. The calico shirts had been worn and verities, and convictions based on but once a week, carefully preserved a plain decIaration-a thus saith the for the Lord's Day. and the only way Lord! Then if a man hold any view to keep the day which they knew was or have any notion, not in accord with to meet others and tell what they could Scripture or justified by its direct teach: remember of the wonderful story I ing, it works little harm beyond himself What shall Christian disciples say at at most. There is no power in any the great day with regard to the shamepreaching as such which goes beyond ful neglect of perishing millions? the limits oj instructions>" ambassadors mllst keep within the bounds of the When Hudson Taylor first went out Divine message or they lose all author- to China it was in a sailing-vessel. ity. Very close to the shores of a cannibal island the ship was becalmed, and it We cannot but think that a separa- was slowly drifting shoreward, unable tion is finally inevitable if the present to tack about, and the savages were divergence of opinions continues and eagerly anticipating a feast. The capincreases. Already fellowship is ques- tain came to 1<lr. Taylor and besought tionable both as to its expediency a'nd him to pray for the help of God. " I even possibility. The A. B. C. F. 1L will," said Taylor, "provided you set is a venerable and beloved institution, your sails to catch the breeze." The and this division in its ranks is doubly captain declined to make himself a disastrous; but any unanimity which laughing stock by unfurling sails in a is at expense of principles involved is dead calm. Taylor said, " I will not a greater disaster still. undertake to pray for the vessel unless you will prepare the sails," and it was Dr. J. G. Paton tells an affecting done. While engaged in prayer there story of a visit to a neglected island in was a knock at the door of his statethe Pacific, where he found to his room. "·Who is there?" The capamazement, though no missionary was tain's voice responded, "Are you still there or had been sent there, there was praying for wind ?" "Yes." "WeII," a sort of Sabbath keeping. Two old said the captain, "you'd better stop men, who had a very little knowledge praying, for we have now more wind of the truths of the Gospel, were keep- than we can well manage." And, sure ing track of the days, and on the first enough, when but a hundred yards day of each week they laid ordinary from shore a strong wind had struck work aside, put on a calico shirt kept the sails and changed the course of the for the purpose, and sat down to talk boat, so that the cannibals were cheated to those whom they could call about of their human prey. them, and in a simple way recited the outlines of a wonderful story they had Was it not Augustine who said, "I once heard about one Jesus. Dr. Paton need a whole Christ for my salvation, It inquired where they had learned this whole Bible for my study, a whole truth, and they answered that long be- church for my fellowship, a whole fore a missionary had visited the island world for my parish, that I may be It for a week or two, and harl given them true Catholic andnot a sectarian" ?
EXTltACTS AND THANSLATIONS. G3
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extracts and Translations from Foreign husband. the late minister of Abercorn.
Periodicals. was one of the first to take an interest BY REV. C. C. STAltBUCK. ANDOVER, in the founding of the Blantyre Mission, MASS. has arrived, and now graces the apse. It is well colored, and the corona of AFRICA. seven lights adds to the beauty of the -" When, in the year 1853, the sec- church. It is pleasant to reeord that ond twelve pupils entered the Her- . twelve years ago Mr. Playfair made a mannsburg mission house, there was valuable gift to the mission of meteoro- found among them a prosperous young logical instruments." "We have now farmer, already married, who made over hung the central lamp, the gift of the to the mission his whole farm, compris- laundry workers. A central chain is ing three hundred morgen of land, with suspended from iron cross-beams, which all its appurtenances, and then. with in light scroll work stretch from four wife and child, entered the mission faces of the octagonal drum of the dome.
house as a simple pupil. That raised a This supports a cluster of twelve lamps great uproar at the time; the young from a height of thirty-six feet. The farmer was declared to be out of his lightness of the grouping of the lamps head; and Lewis Harms, who had ac- in black iron scroll-work is the most cepted his high-minded donation, was marked feature in the structure."
denounced as a fortune-hunter. This -" With a civil service for Africa; a farmer is now the senior missionary of hall of learning at Blantyre; ecclesiasti- Bethany, in South Africa-Herr Beh- cal, civil,naval, military, and geographirens. He has never repented of having cal degrees, we shall soon be a comin earlier times forsaken everything and munity of kings and knights and profollowed Jesus, becoming His servant fessors, with not one among us who in the foreign missionary service; his does not boast a spur, or a hood, or Lord has rendered him, therefore, a rich some other peaceful weapon of inspirrequital of blessing."-Allgemeine Mis- ing awe. And it is quite as it ought to sionB-Zeitschrift. be. We need kings for Africa, and any -The Presbyterian Church at Blan- kings going a-begging may apply-only tyre has been described as "a genuine we need real kings."
Central African cathedral." Life and -" The King of Mukori, in West Work (printed at Blantyre) gives some Africa, was present at tbe baptism of interesting particulars of the interior four converts. He afterward told the furnishings. "An oak prayer desk, a missionary' his whole desire was to obgift to the church from Mr. Patrick tain everlasting life,' and that he had Playfair, minister of Glencairn, has ar- prayed to God for grace to renounce rived. It is carved by himself, and is a polygamy. He has since made this rebeautiful piece of work. We value it nunciation openly before his people, highly." "The communion table is suminoned for the occasion, and has very light in structure, of oak, with placed himself under instruction."- thistle-leaf ornaments. The design is Awake (C. M. S.). taken from an old table in Holyrood.
The window-sills and heads of doors are -" The last half-yearly report of Cap- carved in native wood by the boys from tain Lugard, recently made public by designs by onrselves." "A stanuard the r. B. E. A. Company, though it lamp, the gift of Mrs. Playfair, whose does not add much of special note to
MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
our knowledge of events in Uganda, is kingdom, now winning its way slowly a document of extreme interest and im. through sore struggle and conflict towportance. It sweeps away the last ves- ard Christianity and civilization, of tige of fOUIIdation for the reports cir- forces that will paralyze all further deculated by the French mililsionaries, and velopment and destroy existIng work." puts the recent tangled events in clear -Church Missionary Gleaner. and simple sequence. But most of all does it tend to show how closely na· MISCELLANEOUS. tional interests and national honor are implicated in the present crisis. Cap- "Dr. Rigg, President of the Westain Lugard has found within the sphere leyan Methodist Conference, England, of British influence fresh articles of com- preaching recently at Truro, remarked merce anll further facilities for transit. upon the definite Christian character of ' He also emphasizes the state of districts leading English statesmen of the present where the people, trembling before the day, and the lack of Christian faith devastations of the Mohammedan Kab· among many of the great statesmen at urega, who ravaged their land and en- the beginning of the century. Both slaved them, had gladly hailed his ad- Mr. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury are vent, and had accepted with joy his decidedly religious men. Dr. Rigg also assurances that the new power had pointed out that the last ii,e Lord Chancome to stay. They see no distinction, cellors of England, the present Chanhe tells us, between the British power cellor included, were all not only pro· and the C()mpany, and have regarded fessors of religion, but earnest, practical him throughout as the direct represent- Christian men. "-Indian Witness. ative of the Queen. This hopeless confusion in the minds of the Waganda and How will it be when Mr. John Mor· neighboring peoples, not only of the ley comes to the throne? Company with the Government, but of the English missionaries with both, has – " If we are looking for the converadded much to the perplexity of the sion of the world before the return of situation. If all outward manifestations Christ, we shall hear with joy of thouof British power, having once been sands of baptisms and try to think that given, are withdrawn, Uganda will be if they are not all born again of the Holy left no longer' a fairly concrete native Spirit now, many of them will be after kingdom, but one rent asunder by inter- fnrther teaching, and that their children nal political strife, fostered all too clear- will be true Christians. If, on the other ly, alas I by those who should always hand, we understand the Scriptures to , make for peace. ' Uganda will speed- teach that the Lord is now gathering ily fall a prey to encircling enemies, and out of the nations a 'people for His the English missionaries and Protestant name' (Acts 15: 14; Rev. 7: 9), and converts, looked >n as the weak re- that at His coming nations will be mainder of a withdrawing power, will, brought in instead of individual converhumanly speaking, inevitably be as- sion!!, as now, we shall be earnestly de. sailed. It is not a question whether our siring that better day, and shall rejoice brethren there are willing to remain at as we '800 these things come to pass' the risk of their lives, or whether the by which we 'krww that the kingdom committee are prepared to expend funds of God is nigh at hand' (Luke 21 : 31). in a region without British protection- Those who look for the Lord's coming these questions have been unmistakably are not pessimist missionaries, as some answered in the past history of Ugan- suppose, but optimists: the outlook is da. We have put our hands to the full of 'hope for the Church and for the plough, and dare not look back. But world, when the King comes to establish it i~ a question of the flooding into a His kingdom. Until He comes the evangelization of the world i3 ,thtl wtrl"k of thc Church, and' the King's business
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
re~uireth haste.' Prophecy shows the nature, and he carefully points out that uj'gency of missions: "So MUCH THE nations lose their name and their place MORE AS YE SEE THE DAY APPROACH- in the world if they begin to live only ING."-H. DE ST. DALMAS, in Indian for these lower ends. This is ' sound Evangelical Review. teaching,' really wise and healthy coun- -Eleven years ago the Jesuit Father sel, and we commend it to all our read- Colberg, quoted in the Allgemeine Mis- ers. WcaIth has its place and power; sions-ZeitscMift for November, 1892, pleasUI;e, too, has its fUnctions; but writes of the people of Ecuador: "The nations that try to live by and for these simplest teachings of our religion are to things alone will not make very fruitthem unknown things. What shall we ful history; or, if they make fruitful say of the parish priests who take up history, it will only be by way of feartheir quarters in Quito or other cities ful warning rather than of noble and the whole year through, remote from inspiring example. "-Australz'an Ohristheir congregations, and merely ride out tian World.
to them once or twice, when the time -" We which are alive and remain" comes to gather in their church dues, till the coming of the Lord. With this and who only at such times, as it were, hope did Saul of Tarsus go forth to acby the way, administer the holy sacra- complish, within the compass of a huments? The moral state, up to the man life, his work of bringing every most recent period, has been the worst knee, in the name of Jesus, to bow to in Quito itself. What astonishes me is the honor of God the Father. The hope that the faith has not utterly perished. of the great decision as very near did A terrible responsibility rests on the not cause him or primitive Christendom ministers of the Church, and, above all, to esteem the work of missions superon the once so numerous monks. And fluous. Such a position, it is true, in the remaining republics, from Mexi- does not rest upon a shrewd computaco to Peru and Bolivia, matters are a tion of feasibility. It is the love of good deal worse." Christ which gives the impulse and the consciousness of having become, Surely it is time that 80mebody carried through saving grace, a debtor to all them the Gospel.
-" Mr. Justice Hodges, of Mel- men. The world being crucified to Him bourne, does not give a very flattering and He to the world, this may no longer account of the way in which Australians, interpose itself betweell Him and any at all events Victorians, live. Speaking man. It is not only the lust of conquest as chairman at a pleasant Sunday after- or of gain which makes the world ap- noon meeting in Prahran, his honor de- pear small, and will let no corner of it clared that he had lived thirty-eight seem too remote or uncouth to abide in.
years in Victoria, that he had not To whomsoever the horizon of eternity been more than a few weeks out of the has disclosed itself, to him all this is colony all that time, and that he has yet far more certain, and for him the been compelled to conclude that the measures of time also shrivel up. All great majority of the people lived for policy, even church policy, even mis- two objects chiefly-viz., 'gain, and sion policy, can but calculate and strive wild, exciting pleasures.' Mr. Justice after the attainable. The love that pro- Hodges despises neither wealth nor ceeds from Christ is governed by an- pleasure, but he properly thinks that other law; it takes hold of those small they are not the be-all and end-all of details of labor, evidently of themselves life. And this mad love of gain and of of slight account, believing the seed pleasure is, he remarks, common to all corns of the kingdom of God to have a ranks. His honor pleads for a higher vital energy which cannot be sup- life, for the culture of man's spiritual pressed, and to which no limits of
GENE:!tAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [,January
earthly chronology are appointed. entirely devoted."-Sir C. EWEN SMITH, Whenever and wherever Christendom in Ohurch Missionary IntellifJence1'. and Christians, in firm confidence of the eternal goal, renounce the thought of -" The logic of faith. In the sumbeing at home in this world and of con- mer of 1892 therl:! occurred a violent verting this world into a home, then earthquake in one of the West Indian and there stirs and develops itself their islands, arousing universal terror, espeworld·conquering power, a power to be cially among the colored popUlation, displayed, not for themselves, but for who completely lost their heads. There Him who was not of this world. "-Dr. was, however, one old negress who dis- MARTIN KUHI.ER, in Allgemeine Mis- tinguished herself nobly from her counsions-ZeitscMift. trymen. The visitation, which shook the faith of others in shaking their -The Moravian brethren, in their re- homes, only confirmed her faith. One ports of the Labrador Mission, make of our missionaries, visiting her Boon mention of the visit of the agents of the after, asked the devout old woman, Chicago Exposition, to secure the visit whom infirmity had fettered to her ruinof a company of Eskimos to the Fair, ous hut during the earthquake, whether which we know was accomplished. she had not been greatly alarmed. Half The brethren acknowledge that these wonderingly, half reproachfully she re.. gentlemen gave them earnest assurances plied: 'I terrified! How couid I be, that they would do all in their power to when I have a God strong enough to secure the best good of the Eskimos in shake the earth?' "-Mis8ions-Blatt au.~ every way. Indeed, they strongly urged that a missionary should accom- der Bl"ildi3rgemeine. pany them, which, however, the brethren declined. Being convinced thnt the -It appears that it is not the body of dangers, both to health and to the moral the Hanover and Hermannsberg Free and spiritual life, of so long a continu- Church that has separated from the ance among the mixed throngs of such Hermannsberg l,[ission, as was at first a show, were much greater than any supposed, but only a fraction of it, possible benefit, they strongly discour- which, we are sorry to see, has also agcd the project, so that the Eskimos opened opposing missions in Africa and who actually went we may assume to New Zealand. The temper of these debe those wbo were least under mission- vout but extremist Lutherans seems to ary influence. be singularly like that of the extremist Presbyterians of Scotland in the seven- – " 0 ne good missionary is worth ten teenth century, in exaggerating into the indifferent missionaries. You must re- first importance points which appear to member that the personal character- most Christians of little significance. istics of men who lJave to deal with The Covenanter disputes, however, were natives, and especially with ignorant distinctly intelligible, while, according natives who are plunged in the depths to Dr. Warneck, even Lutherans find it of superstition, not only influence the hard to make out what these ultrapeople among whom their lot is cast for Lutherans are contending about. the time being, bnt they leave traces behind them that may continue for years; -It appears that the British Governso tbat, while a good man may leave ment-" thereby acknowledging that the his memory green to blossom for years, . anti-opium fanatics' were right after an indifferent man, or one who does not all"-has decided to prohibit the posunderstand the natives, or who rouses session or use of opium in any form by the prejudices of the natives, may hin- the Burmans. It groundS this prohibider for years the progress of that enter- tiOl'! on the law of Buddhism, thereby showing, as the Olturcl. Missiona;ry Inprise to which I am sure aU here are so telligenCe?' remarks, a regard. to the pre- cepts of Buddhism which is rarely
ENGLISH NOTES
shown to those of Christianity. In this clergy, who use every effort, it is said, case, however, as it remarks. the good to prevent the people from going to hear is a matter of joy, whatever the ground. evangelical preaching. Still there is sign of power in the movement. " If I -" George Fox said to Friends in go to your assemblies," said a man, " it A.merica in 1679: 'If you are Christians is not that I am against the priests, vou must preach the Gospel to Indians. against the Church-it is because there ~egroes, and all others. Christ com- they preach the truth." A poor widow, mands it. "-The Mi8sionary. s devout Catholic, said, "I do not find peace for my soul in my ow.n religion. British Notes. I go to your meetings; that so goes to my heart that I cannot desist." One of BY REV. JAMES DOUGJ,AS. the ladies who befriended her threat- ened to throw her off altogether if she The Fiftyjiftlt Report of the Evangeli- persisted. " Madame," answered she, cal Society of the Christian Missionary " there they preach the Gospel, and that Church of Belgium is now before us, is of far more moment." from which we translate a few items. It comprises 29 churches and stations. The German Buptist J1fission in the In 99 localities the Gospel is regularly Came?'oons.-This mission, to which we preached, and occasionally in 56 others. referred recently, has lately sustained a Colportage is carried on in 325 com- great loss in the exodus of Pastor A. munes. At Amoy, in the middle of Steffens. A young man, he went out Huy, colportage has led on to prayer- with his wife a few years ago to carry meetings. "Our friends had heard on the good work which the English several speak of prayer-meetings which Baptists were obliged to relinquish. evangelical Christians hold. ' We His record is that of a missionary afire should like, we also, to learn to pray,' with God ; and in his brief career he has said they to the reader, 'and to have succeeded in gathering many precious gatherings like those.' A first attempt sheaves. In 1892 the Lord granted a was made, when several ventured with rich increase to the church of 376; and subdued and timid voice to give thanks in June of the present year Mr. Steffens to God for the work done among them. wrote rejoicingly" that the work of the These gatherings are continued week- Lord is progressing steadily. baptisms ly ;" and the need of instruction also taking place nearly every Sunday, more becoming felt, a service of teaching has than 200 having already been added in been organized. the current year." On the morning cf July 4th, at nine o'clock, his earthly In the province of Namur, the move- course was run. In his last letter, ment which began at Morville fifteen which he dictated the night previous, years ago for long hung fire. No he says, "The Cameroons Mission and progress was perceptible. and the meet- the native people I have loved with all ing-house was almost empty. Lately my heart." His poor young widow has this work, so long struggling, has taken elected to remain and carryon the work on an aspect quite new. The constancy they began together. of the little band and the perseverance of their prayers have prevailed, and to- Pro.qre88 of tl,e Gospel in Ireland.- day their wishes are realized. They The work of Mr. Connellan, formerly a have now a worker staying in their Roman Catholic priest, is making its midst, and the meeting-house is lined mark on his fellow-countrymen; and with hearers. The Gospel seems likely so serious is the defection from Rome to extend its conquestR among the that the Roman Catholic bishops have neighboring villages. The work ill been consulting as to the best method Brnssels itself is sadly hindered by the of stemming the tide. Evidently}'l:r._
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Connellan has been raised up of God, late them to take up the work they are endued with wisdom and courage, to already beginning." do a great work in Ireland. He has all the ve1'!le of a born leader of men; and be- Baptist Missionary Meetings at Reading an Irishman to the core, and versed ing.-Four new missionaries have been in the system from which through appointed for service in India. Mr. grace he has found deliverance, he J. J. Hasler, B.A. (London), is desigknows how to insinuate his way into nated for educational work in connecthe hearts of the people, and to turn the tion with the native Christian training flank of the enemy. His method is con- institution in the great mogul city of structive mainly. Where a hearing can Delhi. Mr. A. E. Collier goes forth to be obtained, nothing is so effectual as to work, as soon as his probationary course give the pith of the Gospel. If Jesus in Delhi is finished, in the densely popu- Christ Himself be received, believed in, lated district between Agra and Delhi. and known, the cerements of supersti- Mr. F. W. Hale is to be associated, as tion must soon fall off. The central companion in labor, with the Rev. light will banish the darkness. There J. G. Potter, of Agra; and D. Laurie are, however, many cases where Bible Donald, a Scotchman, is designated for statements will not be listened to, where Bengal, and will serve, during his prothe Bible is not regarded as the rule of bationary course, with the Rev. W. R. faith; and in such cases it is necessary James, of Madaripore. to undermine their boasted refuge by shaking their faith in the Romish The valedictory address to missiona- Church. The Protestant outlook in ries, new and returning, was given by Ireland is brightening, and despite ter- the Rev. W. Medley, M.A., classical rorizing, hundreds of ex-Roman Catho- tutor of Rawdon College, Yorkshire. lic men are to be met with in Dublin Space may be found for a brief paraand elsewhere who glory in their seces- graph: "Whatever may lie' before us sion. hidden and veiled, there is one thing that lies here before our eyes and hearts Rev. W. Holman Bentley oj the COr/go.- unveiled, a certainty; clear, bright, and This Baptist missionary has of late done absolute is this: God is 1'edeeming the a most valuable piece of work. In May world by Jesus Christ. Yes, He, not last he completed the translation of the we; bu. a share in this redemptive New Testament which has been printed work is offered now to us-to you; as by the British and Foreign Bible So- large a share as our hearts have room ciety. In the future Mr. Bentley hopes for, for it is here that lies the true measto work at a translation of the Old ure of our opportunity; not so much in Testament. His wife is an efficient our poor estimates of time, or space, or helpmeet. She has translated "More area, be they long or short, large or about J esns," of which the Religious small; of gifts, be they more or fewer, Tract Society has printed 500 copies, of lengthened or of shortened life, of and are now bringing out a revised edi- connted items of things achieved, but tion of 2000 copies. The same society as old it Kempis says, 'God weigheth has also issued a translation of" Peep' more with how much love a man workof Day," the work of a native assistant. eth than how much he doeth.' , He Mr. Bentley says, "It is . our great doeth much that lovetb much.' " desire to see an earnest, aggressive native Church. The handful of mis- Touring among Telugu8.-Mr. W. G. sionaries can do little toward the evan- Scott, writing from India, gives an ingelizing of so great a country. We teresting account of an evangelistic tour must look to the natives to do this; and among the Telugns. Hundreds of miles it is our aim to do all we can to stimu- were covered and the Gospel preached in 250 towns and villages. A spirit of hearing prevailed, and thousands of -Eugene Stock, of the English tracts, books, and Scripture portions Church Society, based a recent missionwere sold. Many confessed the sinful- ary addres~ on thc two words not and ness of idolatry, and said, " We have but occurring ten times in the second forsaken the true God of whom you chapter of First Corinthians, and with have told us. We want the love and the following hf:)ads: "1. Not the sofavor of God, and to dwell with Him ciety, but the Lord. 2. Not a pet misforever." Mr. Scott believes that there sion, but the world. '3. Not money, but are thousands who, though they have men and women. 4. (For the past) made no profession of faith in baptism, , Not unto us, 0 Lord, 1Wt unto us, but have lost all confidence in idol worship. unto thy name give praise.' 5. (For The fields in that land are white al- the present and the future)' Not by ready unto harvest. might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.' " 'rHE KINGDOM. -At the Missionary Congress in Chi- -" The idea that all dark skins are of cago a committee of ten was appointed a race innately" lower, " in the sense of to prepare a memorial and address to all being unfit for progress and civilization, missionaries with the view of calling is an idea born of imperial insolence, an together an international congress of inhuman religion, and a narrow concep- missions for the purpose of reorganiztion of human progress."-JiTrederie ing the missionary. forces of all lands. Harrison, in the F01·tnightly Review. The especial object in mind is the pre- vention of the waste of funds in mission -" The world will never become fields by different societies overlapping wholly Greek, nor wholly Roman, nor each other. If at this point thorough wholly Protestant, but it will become and universal reform could be had, and wholly Christian, and will include every also in respect to the unseemly strifes in type and every aspect, every virtue and the foreign field between Christians of every grace of Christianity-an endless different names, the good cause would variety in harmonious unity, Christ go forward with rapid strides. being all in all. "-Philip Sehaff. -Locate the statement in any other -And such is poor human nature! land and it is just as true. A mission- "My hand was nearly shaken off and ary in Japan writes that the hindrances my hair nearly shorn off for mementoes to mission work come from natural deby those who willingly let missions pravity, religious training, practical die !"-Jud8on. moral difficulties, and unconverted church-members. In reference to the -We must not pervert Scripture effect of religious training he says: precedents. The story is that a man "We speak of God, and the Japanese called upon a rich friend for some char- mind is filled with idols. We mention ity. "Yes, I must give you my mite," sin, and he thinks of eating flesh or the said he. "Do you mean the widow's killing of insects. The word holine88 mite?" asked the solicitor. "Certain- reminds him of crowds of pilgrims ly," was the answer. "I shall be satis- flocking to some famous shrine, or of fied with half as much as she gave," some anchorite sitting lost in religious said his friend. "How much are you abstraction till his legs rot off. He has worth?" " Seventy thousand dollars." much error to unlearn before he' can " Give me, then, your check for $35,000 ; take in the truth." that will be half as much as she gave; for she, you know, gave her all." -An Egyptian native deacon (Copt), at a village sixty miles south of Cairo, -" Personal consecration should be suspended ten of his members for such written purse-and-all-consecration." things as bad di3positions, vanity, stingi- annexed the islands of the Pacific to ness, and not allowing their wives to go civilization. Many of tIwm have been to weekly prayer-meetings. ·Where- completely transformed by the mis- upon the L1ttlIRran Observer is moved to sionaries, whose labors alone have cxclaim, "What a thinning out there given them commercial importance."
would be if such things were pcrmitted And General Lew Wallace this to the to have weight in the United States !" men themselves; "I have often been asked, ' iVhat of the missionaries of the -Shall we hope or fear, rejoiec or East, are they true, and do they serve lament? Wc have read much of late their Master?' And I have always concerning the desire and determination been a swift witness to say, and I say of the Japanese Christians to think and it solemnly and emphatically, that if act for themselves, and their restive- anywhere on the face of the earth there ness under any attempts at control on exists a band of devout Christian men the part of the missionaries or societies. and women, it is these. They live and And now a similar state of things is die in their work. Their work is of reported from the Presbyterian Mission that kind which will be producti.ve of in Brazil. No doubt great peril is in- the greatest good."
volved in all attempts to break leading strings, but (1) anything is better than -~Iaharajah Dlmleep Singh, son of a perfect Willingness to be guided and Runjeet Singh, born heir to the great carried forevermore; (2) independence kingdom of the Sikhs and to the match- must come some time, or the native less Kohinoor, died in Paris, October church will never do its work; and (3) 22d, of paralysis, aged 55 years. In neither missionaries nor secretaries are early life he exchanged his throne in the infallible, nor do they always know just Punjab for a pension of $250,000, rank what is for the best. On the whole, let among the highest nobility of England, us give hearty thanks while we pray for and two large landed estates; became wisdom. thoroughly English in tastes and habits; united witb the Church and long hon- -'Tis a consummation devoutly to ored his profession; married a most be wished that all missionary societies gifted and devoted Christian Egyptian would make haste to codify and unify girl in a Cairo mission school, and their very diverse systems of gathering made annual gifts to that mission, and reporting statistics, and also to adopt amounting in all to $100,000. Sad to a common nomenclature, so that word relate, in later days he lapsed into evil would have the same meaning with all. habits and sold himself to treasonable A half dozen or half score of items undertakings in behalf of Russia, and might be agreed upon which all would seemed to make general shipwreck of set forth. And what is meant by " for- faith and virtue. At many points in eign missions," and by" missionaries," his life truth is far stranger than the and by" churches" (is it buildings or wildest fiction.
organizations ?), or "members" (is it communicants, or what ?), and by" schol- -Perhaps the most famous distribu- ars" (does it include those in Sunday- tor of Bibles in the world was Deacon schools ?), etc. ? William Brown of New Hampshire.
He began the work in 1849, and kept it -The Review of Reviews bears this up until his death last year at the age testimony to the civilizing power of of 76. During that time no less than missions; "It is our brave contingent 120,000 copies of the Scriptures were of missionary teachers, and not the given out by him, and in 2 years pre- present greedy squads of German and ceding his death he canvassed 239 towns Spanish traders and officials, who have and visited over 80,000 families. WOMAN'S WORK. have a new name-to wit, Ovm' &a and Land. Thus its nineteenth birthday is -" Let the beauty of the Lord our to be celebrated. God be upon us" was the motto of the last year's graduating class at the Trip- -The Methodist women continue to oli, Syria, girls' school. push the Lord's work. During 24 years about $3,000,000 have been gath- -Women are displaying a remark- ered, and during the year ending Octo. able capacity for organized philan- ber 1st the income was $277,290, an in. thropy. Their recent Congress brought crease of $11,948. The number of mistogether a large number and an infinite sionaries supported is 145. The society variety of societies. It is estimated that has 4533 auxiliaries, 723 young women's there are some 20,000 women receiving societies, and 713 children's bands, with salaries in England as officers of benevo· a total membership of 150,738. lent organizations and 500,000 giving themselves in a semi'professional and -The agitation of the rights of worn· continuous way to such work. en, and most properly too, has reached the missionary societies where, from the -The Rev. Sumantrao V. Karmar- beginning, the brethren have had things kar, of Bombay, writes in the Mission- all their own way. The wives of mis· ary Herald (American Board), "The sionaries have for the most part been too home of the missionary has done more little accounted of; have often been to forward the progress of the Gospel omitted in the reckoning. And worn· in India than any other agency. To an's worth as a money-gatherer was see a woman, intelligent yet womanly, long unsuspected. The latest case of presiding at the table, voicing her opin· becoming feminine self·assertion is seen ions and ideas freely, assisting her hus· in the recent request of the Congrega· band in his noble work, managing dili· tional Woman's Board that, since al· gently her own household, and conduct. most half of the contributions are deing faithfully her special work among rived from its efforts, a fitting proportion women, is a novel and most interesting of its members may be possessed of vot· sight to a Hindu. The oosthetic and ing powers in the American Board. ' Christian environments of such a home have so impressed the minds of our peo- -The New York State Branch of this ple that they are endeavoring to adopt same Woman's Board has commenced this ideal home life as far as practi. the publication of TlwMessenger, aquarcable." terly, with Patchogue, L. 1., as head- quarters, and Mrs. C. S. Colton. editor. -A deaf and dumb woman in Man· churia, having applied for baptism, ! made her confession of faith in this -The Scottish United Presbyterians fashion: She drew on a scrap of paper have on hand a most importunate call for a crooked line, and pointing first to her- several women to go at once to Man· self and then downward, indicated what churia, where upward of 1000 women her past evil course had been. Then, are literally famishing for the truth, drawing a straight line, and pointing to with Lone to minister to them. her heart and looking upward, described the highway on which she was now OUR YO"GNG PEOPLE. travelling -First, all the giving for missions -Ohildren's Workfor Oltildren(Pres- was wholly by the churches as such, and byterian) is to be enlarged from 16 pages through t.he annual collection. Next, to 24, is to contain news from the the women organized by themselves and home and the foreign fields, and is to sought pledges of definite sums. Now, it looks as though the process of differ· entiation was to be carried another step, THE UNITED STATES. and the boys and girls, the young men and maidens, were to be banded to- -Every Sabbath the members of the gether to work, in a sense by them- Church of Christ Endeavor Society of selves, and in their own way. And cer- Elyria, 0., visit the jail to hold a pray- .tainly somehow from early childhood er-meeting, and the good-literature and onward there should be steady and per- flower committees carry reading and sistent training in the grace of giving, flowers to the prisoners. and toil for the advance of the kingdom. There b a serious defect if only the fa- -The college secretary of the Interthers, or the elders of Isrlte1, bear the national Committee of the Y. M. C. A_ bnrdens. Almost from the cradle let publishes a valuable table of statistics the pennies be saved and consecrated. relating to the religious condition of the colleges of North America for the col- -These three sentences set forth the lege year 18!l2-93, and not including fundamental ideas and principles of the young women or students in profes- Epworth League, the Methodist coun- sional schools. It appears that 147 colterpart of the interdenominational So· leges have the English Bible in their ciety of Christian Endeavor: Motto: curriculum, of which 68 are in the "Look up. Lift up." "I desire a Western States and 31 in the South: league, offensive and defensive, with Number of associations, 441; active every soldier of Jesus Christ. "- WIl8wy. members, 20,856; young men, 70,419 ; "We live to make our own Church a Christians, 38,327 ; non-Christians, 32,- power in the land, while we live to love 092 ; conversions, 2850; studying for every other Church that exalts our ministry, 4892; studying for foreign Christ."-Simpson. missions, 1115.
-" One cent per day for mISSIons -Charles Bathgate Beck, after varifrom each member of our church, " says ous bequests to persons, leaves $10,000 the Epworth Herald, "would give us to Columbia College; $10,000 to the more than $7,000,000 annually." One Home for Incurables in the city of New cent per day from each of the members York; $10,000 to the Society for the of the Presbyterian church would give Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; more than $3,000,000, or three times as $10,000 to the Society for the Prevention much as was contributed to missions of Cruelty to Children; and $5000 to during the past year. the Peabody Home for Indigent Wom- en, and directs that all the rest of his -Six societies of Christian Endeavor, estate shall be given in equal proporwhose members gave each two cents a tions to Columbia College, the Board of week, reached last year 15,000 persons Home Missions of the Presbyterian in Southern China with the Gospel, Church, the Presbyterian Hospital, the 2000 of them with medical aid. Society for the Prevention of Crime, and the New York Hospital. This resi- -An Australian" sunshine commit- due will give them $900,000 each, as tee" has bought an invalid's chair which the estate is not expected to fall below it loans to the sick. It was used for the $5,000,000. first time by an old gentleman who had not been out for six years. -In spite of eminent poetical author- ity to the contrary, the good that men -" I thank God for the Christian do lives after them. Take this capital Endeavor Society," says a Methodist case as an example: The Peabody gift Endeavorer in an Australian Methodist of $2,100,000 for the purpose of projournal, "for through it I found my moting education in the South was made way into the class meeting." in 1866, and in 1869 the donation was Carlisle, Pa., has ended the fourteenth increased to $3,500,000. Mr. Peabody's year of its existence, during which time previous donation to the cause of edu- 2361 students were admitted, of whom cation amounted to $1,250,000. 1483 were boys and 878 girls. These came from 59 different tribes; 1597 have -More than 60 graduates or students left, of whom only 60 graduated, all of the Ohio Wesleyan university are since 1889; 131 died at the school, and now in foreign missionary service. Nine 633 still remain. members of the last graduating class are candidates for the foreign field. -Out of 50,000 Sioux, over 4000 are The university has now somc 25 stu- now members of Episcopal, Presbytedents who are preparing for missionary rian, or Congregational churches. Many, work. A good record, and one which if not most, of these have become citiit is said no other Methodist college can zens_ The contributions of those conmatch. nected with the Episcopalians amount- ed to $4100 last year, while the women -Home missions find no mean field raised $2210. in Chicago, according to the figures relating to its population. The latest re- -The Free Baptists have receu.t1y tums give these nationalities: Ameri- sent a reinforcement of 7 missionaries can, 292,463; German, 384,958; Irish, to India, and they sailed in one party 215,534; Bohemian, 54,209; Polish, from Boston. 52,756; Swedish, 45,877; Norwegian, 44,615 ; English, 33,785; French, 12,- -Secretary Coit states that the 968; Scotch, 11,927; Welsh, 2966; Rus- Fr6nch-Canadians constitute fully one sian, 9977; Danes, 9891; Italians, twelfth of the population of Massachu- 5000; Hollanders, 4912; Hungarians, setts, and that in Worcester County 4827; Swiss. 2735 ; Roumanians, 4350 ; there are 9 towns with a population of Canadians, 6989; Belgians, 682; Chi- 41,395, of which these immigrants from nese, 1217; Greeks, 698; Spanish, 297 ; Quebec furnish 20,6411. The Congrega- Portuguese, 34; East Indians, 28 ; West tionalists have 8 churches among them, Indians, 37; Sandwich Islands, 31. 4 missions, a weekly newspaper, and a Total, 1,248,763. French Protestant'college -How much shall the negro be edu- -The Lutheran General Council nas cated? Three answers are given to this a mission in Eastern India with a force question in the South. The first is that consisting of 4 men with their wives, 2 he should not be educate€! at all, for it zenana workers, 2 native pastori, and would lift him above his station. The 96 evangelists, catechists, teachers, etc. second is that he should have education The Gospel is preached in 146 villages. enough to make him a better servant, The number of communicants is 1141, laborer, or mechanic. The third, held by and of pupils 1608. The number of the few more liberal-minded Southern baptisms was 600 last year. people, is that he should be educated as the white man is, for he is a man, and -Zion's Herald (Boston) is publishing must be prepared for all his duties and a series of exceedingly interesting letresponsibilities to his country, the world, ters from Rev. William Butler, the and to God. And somehow the last founder of Methodist missions in the reply seems to be most benevolent, most Northwest Provinces of India, who went Christian, and most truly American. out in 1856, and reached Bareilly just in time to taste the horrors of the Mu- -The Indian Industrial School at tiny, barely escaping with his life. Statistics of the Missionary S')cieties of the [THESE tables include only Missions to non·Christian and non-Prote,tant people., and so they omit in the United States. The figures are derivpd almost wholly from annual reports, and relate in the main possible blanks, and hence where official figures were not at hand, conservative estimates have been IIIis.ionary Income. Missionaries. Native Helpers. <i — ., ., .c 'C. '"0 0 ., ~" NAMES of SOCIETIES. -'–.0,.,",~, .c . .~ .,; 'O!r:i .~§ .-c2o ",,, S …. '0 l3 oj .~ ~ .. … 'C I::S 'g H ~"~ :«.:0.=.:. s:i.l '" 0 "~0 ~ 31'« … ~ " £ 0 p 0 E<. -183 1 "2 18 1:85 7 1 i 8 -2-,59 1 1 American Board ………………. 1810 -$679,286 $11=.507 2 Baptist Missionary Union ……..•. 1814 990,341 179,2S0 161 18 140 102 246 1,273 3 Southern Baptist Convention …… 1845 154,686 5,368 39 .. … 35 18 21 57 4 Free Baptists ………… ……… 1836 5 Seventh-Day Baptists………….. 1847 34,913 387 62 8 8 5 13 6 Christil>.U (Disciples) …………… 1875 3 …… 7 American Christian Convention …. 1886 6,610 ………. 19 3 3 …… 1 8 8 Lutheran, Geueral Synod………. 1837 9 Lutheran, General Coundl. …….. 1869 69,355 ~5 '0" …… 16 12 3 44 … 10 Methodist Episcopal …..• …. 1832 3,160 105 8 …… 1 1 1 12 4 …… 59,200 1,625 235 80 62 5 182 16,474 50 4 2 2 B9 993,592 104,038 184 100 214 1,971 11 Bishop Taylor'. Missions … …… 1885 36,961 . ……… 51 …… 80 12 37 51 12, Methodiilt Episcopal, South…….. 1845 227,027 12,700 46 181 37 6 20 105 5,300 1,640 99 13 AfrIcan Methodist Episcopal. … .. 1876 12 8 …… 7 14 Protestant Methodist….•……… 1882 14,711 290 54 3 3 4 5 15 Wesleyau Methodist…………… 1887 3,000 200 2 …… 2 3 …. 10 16 Protestant Episcopal ………….. 1835 282,499 8,288 94 …… 53 33 47 251 17 Pre.byterian………………….. 1837 1,014,504' 42,347 214 42 230 137 187 1,460 18 Presbyterisn, South …………… 1861 127,812 6,.~06 48 13 37 25 32 91 19 United Presbyterian …………… 1859 115,893 11,418 28 3 25 26 24 496 20 ReCormed Presb. (Covenanter)….. , 1856 20,839 700 43 6 7 …… 56 21 Ref. Presb., General Synod……… 1836 6,000 40 5 .. … 5 2 …… 28 22 Associate Reformed, South. 1879 4,182 261 2 ….. 2 2 3 Ii 23 Cumberland Presbyterian …. ….. 1820 36,568 1,386 6 …… 6 9 2 8 24 Reformed (Dutch)….. , ………… 1836 136,688 9,034 24 :I 26 1<1 36 356 25 Reformed (German) …………… 1878 . 2'>,015 3,047 4 …… 4 II 9 22 26 Evangelical Association…….. , …. 1876 , 14,889 1,127 7 …… 7 ….. 5 24 16,484 275 6 …… 7 German Evangelical Synod…• …. 1883 …… …… 28 28 United Brethren in Christ ……… 1853 25,000 1,111 5 …… 5 5 …… 44 29 Friends………………………. 1871 8,303 ………. 13 …… 7 12 .. – … !2 30 Canada Baptist………………… 1873 43,345 1,039 18 ….. 12 9 15 160 31 Canada Congregationalist …….. 1881 2,487 ……… 2 .. -.0. 1 2 …… 2 … 82 Canada Methodist.. ………… 1873 122,010 4,559 77 •. " .. 60 …… 16 40 33 CanadB Presbyterian……… ….. 1844 134,291 2,719 ~I 31 8 30 27 2 100 7 293 1 21,4 34 Twelve other Societies …………. …… , .. 585,877 32,672 87 84 1,156 9,793 1 1,448 1.19311,050 Totals ……………… $6,089,4021 $544,734 Unitod States and Canada for 1892·93.
work done in uon·Catholic Europe, while cO"cring that in behalf of Indians. Chinese, and JajJanese to 1893, though sometimes the year includes II part of 1892. The aim has been to leave the fewest made.
~ w§ ~:::s. i ~ ~"1=1':i~3ii 'AS~~~. ~:g ~~.~S !.;:J~:; ,f..)-.'S6 Conntriesin which .~~ o~.i Missions are Sustained. ~0 S~ ~~ ~~ ilr~..c : :l w a:I Q:$ ""' L"I 8 ~ ~~III '" '~0 g ~ '" ~Sill ,g'§ 0 3,215 1,224 442 ~ 3,750 135,000 1,147 –48,585 Africa,-'l'nrkey, India, China 1 Japan, :Micronesia, Mexico: Spain, Austria.
1,929 1,061 770 102,4.5 7,560 220,800 1,213 24,688 Africa (Congo), India, Burmah. 2 Assam, China, Japan, France, Russia. etc.
170 185 75 2,923 395 7,300 16 598 China, Japan, Africa, Italy, 3 42 13 11 860 :Mexico, Brlll.zil. t 59 1,470 95 3,865 India (Bengal). " ,4 15 2 30 …… 80 70 China (Shanghai). 5 97 ,45 20 788 127 1,500 10 960 China, Japan, India, Turkey. 6 17 27 4 199 37 350 2 20 Japan (Tokyo, etc.). 7 203 12 135 8,082 848 20,000 196 5,309 India (Madras), West Africa. 8 101 153 3 1,441 125 3,000 89 1,608 India (;lfadras). 9 2,784 352 366 26,296 2,337 51,200 326 13,053 China, Korea, Japan, Africa, 10 S. America, Mexico, Italy, 181 50 7 400 …… 214 106 99 10,733 947 Bulgaria, Mdaysia. 40 12 10 110 Africa (West Coast, Congo, 11 356 76 1,000 2 etc.). 3,076 China, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, 12 21,000 51 Anlerican Illdians, 800 5 257 West Africa, Westrndies. 13 21 3 2 217 11 400 4 241 Japan (Yokohama). .14 17 2 1 250 10 400 5 208 Mrica (Sierra Leone). 15 478 244 50 5,441 160 12,000 110 3,792 Greere, Africa, China, Japan, 16 2,470 758 398 31,324 3,452 77,500 725 Baiti, Indians.
246 132 35 2,702 391 6,500 26 28,983 India, Siam, China, Japan, Ko· 17 10,641 929 26,000 264 rea, Africa. Syria, PerEns, S. 602 223 41 241 20 600 31 America, Mexico, etc. 76 15 3 1,363 China, Japan, Korea, Africa, 18 Greece, Italy, Mexico, Brazil. 12,068 Egypt, India (Northwest Provo 19 inces). 618 Northern Syria, Asia Minor. 20 40 9 117 40 250 3 60 India (Northwest Provinces). 21 14 10 9 248 41 350 5 110 Mexico (Tampico, etc.). 22 31 10 10 615 85 8.10 4 150 J apl&n, Mexico. 23 459 217 55 5,799 457 14,000 172 5,099 China, Japan, India (Areot). 24 41 37 12 1,842 168 4,500 3 236 Japan (Tokyo, Sendai, etc.). 25 43 16 5 568 80 1,300 1 18 Japan (Tokyo, Osaka). 26 38 9 5 356 1 800 14 520 India (Central Provinces). 27 60 282 25 7,000 1,000 10,000 9 415 Africa (West Coast, Sherbro, 28 54 40 18 21<1 24 32 etc.). 643 Mexico, China, Japan, Jamaica, 29 651 ….. , 1,500 19 Alaska.
2,978 386 7,000 68 l,OOS India (Telugus). 30 7 1 ……………….. . 12 2 75 Africa (West Central). 31 192 95 40 7,607 …… 12,000 40 2,500 Japan (Tokyo, etc.), Indians. 32 198 145 75 2,082 291 6,000 144 3,751 China, India, New Hebrides, 38 West Indies.
– – -2-35 – – – – -2-65 …………… . – -62 – – – 2,530 — —- 14,389 5,749 2,766 277.027 23.783 645,452 4,867 146.652 EUROPE. out of heathenism by the humble in· Great Britain.-Dr. Barnardo's last strumentality of the Moravian Church, report shows that the income for the is the steady increase in the number of year, amounting to £133,000, was con- its members who devote themselves to tributed by 74,543 donors, two thirds service in the foreign field. During the of the amounts being in 49,004 sums past year no fewer than 36 have gone under £1 each, and that· less than 1900 forth, bringing the total of European were of sums of £10 and above. And missionaries to 392. At the same time, it is sai:! that half of the income of the the number of young men in training Salvation Army is collected, chiefly in is unprecedented.
pence, from the poor people who attend -This from the irrepressible Chap- the services. lain McCabe: "Don't you believe it?
-The Missionary Herald (Baptist) for Then listen. Twenty-five years ago, if November gives an excellent illustra- a traveller should come to the gates of tion of what admirable results the mod- the city of Rome with a little Testa- ern art of picture·making is able to ment as big as his thumb in his pocket, achieve. The life-like faces appear of the gendarme would search him, and 14 missionaries about to depart for their on the principle that a little fire would fields; and how much easier it now is do as much execution as a big one if it to follow them with our prayers! only has time enough, he would take the Testament. from the traveller, keep -A clergyman lately wrote to the it for him till he came back, and then Church Missionary Society stating that return it to him. Now, the Methodists, no less than 27 of his people-all of on a lot 95 feet wide and 155 feet long, them working men and women except in the heart of the city, right opposite one Cambridge undergraduate – had the War Department of the kingdom spontaneously and simultaneously offer- of Italy, are laying the foundations of ed for foreign missionary service; and a building that is to cost $100,000, and he asked that some one would go down in it they will soon have two or three and see them. Some are young, and big power presses at work printing must wait two or three years before Bibles and Testaments and religious coming forward; but others were rec- tracts and books by thousands; and ommended to offer definitely whenever they will also have here a school for they were able to do so. If half the boys and one for girls, and a church for number eventually go out, it will be an the people. There is a very long dis- unprecedented event in the history of a tance between the ostracised Testament parish. of 25 years ago and the Italian Method· ist Book Concern which is soon to be." -The Mildmay Mission is altogether unique among beneficent institutions, combining home and foreign work, and ASIA.
carrying on good deeds in great variety. Realms of Islam.-It reads like cut· Thus in London and near by are main. ting sarcasm, or like the extravagant tained 2 hospitals, 3 medical missions, fancies of a humorist, but the Montreal 20 missions, a training home for 40 Witness, in a recent issue, has a grave young women for the home and foreign editorial headed "Young Turkey," field, an orphanage, a probation home, speaking of a liberal movement, not yet 2 convalescent homes, and an invalid quite a party, and quoting from a mani· home; 40 buildings are occupied in the fe~to in pamphlet form which details various works connected in this society. the host of evils under which the em- The Continent.-Side by side with pire groans, how to remedy the same, steady growth in the numbers gathered and warns against the catastrophe in store if something radical in the way of ers, and 178 are women, many of them reform is not speedily taken in hand. wives trained to toil with their hus- bands. -The chief mosque of Damascus, which was destroyed by fire on Septem- -It comes out in official documents ber 14th, was one of the most famous now first published by the Calcutta and interesting in the East. On a com- Government, that after all the Sepoys manding site, its great dome and tall were justified in 1856 in charging that minarets were the first objects seen by the cartridges were greased with tallow, travellers to the oldest city in the world. and that somebody in the Ordnance De· The mosque was built more than a partment deliberately nnd persistentlf thousand years ago on the site of an lied when the fact was denied. And early Christiau church, the old walls hence came the Mutiny, one of the chief and many of the columns of which were horrors of history. Truly that was a permitted to remain, and was an object costly falsehood. of great veneration by the Mussulmans, for about it were clustered many sacred -Robert N. Cust is nothing if not traditions, among which was one that honest and plain spoken and forcible within its walls rested the head of John when he utters himself. And commonthe Baptist. ly, when he resorts to tongue or pen, if we do not believe, we do well to read, -Ten years ago Arabia was one of mark, learn, and inwardly digest what the unoccupied fields of the world. In he alleges, even when he expresses 1884 the Church Missionary Society the conviction that the dogmas and began work at Aden, and the English practices of Christian life are brought Baptists at Jeddah. About the same before the people of India " in the most time Keith Falconer, a Scotch noble- occidental, unacceptable, and unattracman, opened a mission at Sheik·Oth- tive form which can be imagined by an man. Three years ago Thomas Valpy alien and self-asserting European and French began his labors in Muscat, and American agency, despising and eVen about the same time an American mis- insulting the time-honored customs of sion was founded at Busrah and Bah- an ancient people who were civilized at rein. There are at the present time 7 a time when the Anglo·Saxons were Europeans and 4 natives working among still savages." He thinks the converts 10,000,000 people. The cities of Jed- are shamefully kept under. dah, Aden, Muscat, Bahrein and Makalah, each the centre of a province, are -The native kingdom of Mysore is open, and most of them have already to have marriage" reform." That is, begun to be occupied by the heralds of from henceforth no man over 50 shall the Gospel. marry a girl under 14; a man over 18 may not marry a girl not over 8; and -The cholera scourge, for which the the minimum age for marriage is 14 Meccan pilgrimages are largely respon- for a boy and 8 for a girl. sible, is to come to a final end, if the statement is true that England has -Rev. Jacob Chamberlain tells in the served a notice on the Sultan that if he Golden Rule of an exciting adventure does not see that this pest-hole is puri- with a tiger, and of a set-to with a tenfied, she will see that the pilgrimages foot snake occurring only a few days are prohibited. later.
India.-The Bareilly Methodist Theo- -Upward of 60,000 attendances were logical Seminary in 20 years has sent registered at the Amritsar hospital and forth 499 Hindu gospel workers, of its branch stations during the year. As whom 200 are missionaries, 61 are teach- regards out-patients, Dr. H. M. Clark claims that it is the largest medical mis- -Dr. Griffith John gives the story of sion in the world. The central hospital a notable Chinese convert named T'ang, comprises out· patients' department, who in his youth sought to become a waiting and consulting rooms, dispen- Buddhist priest, but was prevented by sary, operating·room, dark-room for the largeness of the entrance fee. After· eye-work, dressing·room and private ward he began to attend the preaching room; in separate buildings are store- of the missionaries, and was converted. room, servants' houses, students' quar· His house was five or six miles from ters, and in·patients' department bath· Hankow; but every Sabbath for six· room. Branch dispensaries are at Naro· teen years he regularly attended the ser· wal, Jandiala, Sultanwind, and Beas. vices, bringiug with him an ever·in· creasing number of neighbors whom he -The Health Officer of Calcutta re- had influenced. By and by he was ports that during the years 1886-91, out made a deacon, and became a preacher. of 49,761 persons who died in that city, But his business allowed him for a time 31,221-more than 3 out of every 5- to give only an hour a day to the work. had no medical attendance whatever in His usefulness, however, grew to be so their last illness, and less that one third evidellt that his brothers and other rela· were attended by those possessed of any tives resolved to set him free for it en· European training in medicine. In the tirely; and now, being supported by villages multitudes are blind, deaf, them, he gives his whole time to the dumb, lame, diseased for life because mission gratuitously. in infancy the simplest remedies were not to be had. -Fong Chung, a pure·blooded China· man, is now actiIlg as United States China.-Bishop Auzer, the chief of Consul at Amoy. As such he has the German mission in the province of power to try Americans resident in Shantung, has received a very high dis- Amoy for breaches of United States tinction from the Chinese Government. law. He was educated at Yale· Upon the advice of Prince Tshing and "Would that Mr. Geary could be the Tsung·li-Yamen (minister of foreign forced to visit Amoy and there become affairs), the emperor has conferred upon plaintiff in Rcase before Judge Chung!" the bishop the rank of Mandarin of the Third Order, an honor which has as yet -The Chinese haveanill·wiII against never been cxtended to a missionary. aU foreigners, but Roman Catholics The bishop is thus in rank next to the seem specially hated-the chief reason governor, and bears the title tas·yen (ex· for this being the extreme closeness of ceIlencY).-l1iilzer Zeitung, 8peye?·. their methods of work. They have sere vices for communion, etc., at which -We call the Chinese heathen, and none but converts are admitted. The yet they have some customs that would Chinese mind. which usually knows do credit to a Christian people. On everything about everybody's business, every New Year's morning each man cannot understand this, and the evil· and boy, from the emperor to the low· disposed can easily invent some bad est peasant, pays a visit to his mother. story, which is swallowed. He carries her a present, varying in value according to his station, thanking -" Behind I'chang are hills, low and her for all she has done for him, and covered with graves for miles-1,000,. asks a continuance of her favor for an· 000 graves is no exaggeration of thc other year. They are taught to believe number. The reason is that the' fungo that mothers have an influence for good shui ' (supernatural influence!!) are sup· over their SOIlS all tllrough life.-Pield posed to be specially favorable at News, I'chang, and so funerals come from great distances to bury. " -It is related that in the dead of to the Congo for use in the service of winter, with piercing winds blowing the mission. fiercely from the north, on a wheelbarrow a blind woman was transported 470 -The white ant is a pest almost bemiles by her husband and another man yond conception. In Africa their houses that she might be taught to read from are dome-Shaped mounds, often 18 feet raised letters, and so be fitted for work high. These insects erect pyramids one as teacher in connection with the Eng- thousand times higher than themselves! lish Baptist mission! ! In their travels the ants so conceal their approach that their presence is not sus- AFRICA. pected until the damage is done. They usually tunnel into any object which -The life and work of the late Bish- they attack, often reducing it to a mere op Crowther, the first African bishop shell. In this way they have been of the Church of England. will soon known to ascend within the leg of a be commemorated in Sierra Leone by table, devour the contents of a box upon the erection of a Crowther Memorial it, and descend through a tunnel bored Church. in another leg, in one night.
-Rev. T. J. Marshall, a native min. -One of the problems confronting ister, is engaged upon a translation of the Germans in East Central Africa, as the Bible into the language of Daho- a result of their progressive colonization mey. The New Testament and the policy, is what to do with the liberated Psalms are already finished. slaves. At first, after liberating expe- ditions, these were distributed among -Nyangandi lives in West Africa, the mission stations; but within the near the Ogowe River. She was going past year or two the number has inaway from the missionary's house on creased considerably, and the difficulty Saturday afternoon, where she had been of providing for them grows proporwith bunches of plantains to sell, when tionately. The missionaries, who were his wife said: "Now, you must not thus heavily taxed, put in a claim for forget that you promised to come to- State aid, and were granted a yearly morrow to chnrch." "Yes," the girl sum in support of each child. But this replied, "I will surely come, if I am does not solve the problem of what is alive." But the next morning she to become of the adult ex-slaves. In found somcbody had stolen her canoe, his report last year the imperial goverand no one would lend her one to go to nor said it was impossible to make them church in. But she had promised to support themselves, as they &re for the go, and so she felt that she must. She most part physically weak, and had swam all the way! The current was never learned and did not desire to work. swift, the water deep, and the river fully a third of a mile wide; but by -The Berlin Society has gathered swimming diagonally she succeeded in 11.456 communicants in South and East crossing. Africa. The Rhenish Society has com- pleted a half century of work in Nama- -Rev. George Grenfell, Baptist mis. qualand, and the results appear in 10 sionary, while acting lately as frontier stations, 2000 communicants, and 5000 commissioner in the interests of the native Christians. Congo State, travelled more than 1000 miles on a bull's back, his wife using -Among the popUlation of Cape the same means of transport. They Town are found 17,000 Malays. Two have found oxen in this respect so ser- English women are laboring in their beviceable, that they are taking four back half, and 6 more are needed. -Whatever may be the immediate has been done so largely by the native result of the struggle with the haughty Christians. Thus in the years 1872-91 Lobengula and his warlike Matabele no less than 52 coupies were sent from followers, there can be no doubt that in the Raratonga mission to toil in New the end great gain will inure to civiliza- Guinea, and of these 4 men and 3 womtion and Christianity. Cecil Rhodes is en were killed by the savages, and 17 a statesman of a high order, and he is men and 23 women died of fever. Last laying the foundations of an East Afri- year 38 more were sent from Samoa, can empire. Niue, etc.
-Alfred Casalis, a missionary of the -Dr. Gunn, of Fotuna, in the New Paris Society in Basutoland, reports in Hebrides, tells a distressing story of how the London Ohristian that in his dis- that island has been desolated by an epitrict there are 6 schools, one with 200 demic of dysentery. Medicines were pupils, 9 native schoolmasters, 7 native almost useless, and one fourth of the catechists, 730 church-members, and popUlation fell victims, including most over 300 catechumens. of the children and youth. Two were taken from his home. ISLANDS OF THE SEA.
-A missionary of the London Society -After sixty years of help and overin Madagascar sends to Tl~e Ohronicle sight the English Baptist Missionary Soan account of a native young man, who ciety is about to withdraw all pecuniary had been a wild lad, but who something assistance from the Nassau and Bahamore than two years sincQ gave himself mas churches. This district, which now to Christ. He was much impressed assumes self-support, includes 19 islands with the Saviour's command to his dis- having 94 native evangelists, who are ciples to preach, and was convinced that superintended by 1 European missionthis command ought to be obeyed not ary. After four years of gradually deby a few, but by all, and not on Sun- creasing grants, San Domingo, Turk's days alone, but every day_ Though a and Carlos islands are also to be thrown plain woodcarrler, as soon as his wood upon their own resources. These conwas sold he would go about the market, tain 14 stations with 2 missionaries and Bible in hand, preaching as long as any 40 evangelists. The same course is to one would listen. Finding that his be taken in the near future in Trinidad, trade interfered with his giving as much with its 20 stations, 2 missionaries, and time to preaching as he would like, he 13 evangelists. gave it up. One day he told the missionary that he had preached 7 times, It is with deep sorrow that we learn but thought that "so little." Ordi- of the death of two of our editorial narily he preached from 10 to 14 times_ correspondents, whose names are fami- When asked to go into some of the liar to all friends of missions. Rev. Dr. churches and preach, he declined, say- Steel, of Australia, died on October 9th, ing, "I should get comparatively few and Rev. Dr. Nevius, of China, on or to hear me, whereas in the market when about October 26th. A fuller notice of I raise my voice and call out, 'Oh all these two able advocates of Christ's ye people, God is waiting to be recon- cause will appear in our next issue. ciled to you to·day ! ' 400 or 500 people can hear me, and stop to listen. "
-One of the most notable features of the progress of the Gospel in the South Seas is found in the fact that the work
The Missionary Review of the World — January 1892
NARAYAN
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XV. No.l.-0ld Series.–JANUARY..–VOL.V. No.1.-New 8erie3.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSlONS.-NO. XXI.
[EDITORIAL, A. T. P.] THE BEGINNING OF MODERN WONDERS.
The Society Islands were so called by Cook in honor of the" Royal Society j" and the largest, having a circuit of one hundred and forty miles and containing about six hundred square miles, is known as Tahiti. It consists of two rounded peninsulas joined by a narrow isthmus, and is crowned with a majestic peak called The Diadem. The name was a prophecy, for this island furnished the first conspicuous diadem of modern missionary labors.
It was first seen by an English Captain-Wallis-in 1767. The inhabitants were tall, stout, brown skinned, with dark eyes, and seemed unusually good.natured and playful j but they were thieves, liars, and murderers.
When the knowledge of the Tahitians reached England, the directors of the London Missionary Sooiety determined to send the Gospel to this island, and at last found thirty men who were willing to go, four of whom were ministers, the rest tradesmen ; and six of them were married. A ship called the Duff was bought, and pious Captain Wilson took charge of it.
This memorable missionary band left the Thame.s on August 10th, 1796. A purple flag waved in the wind, with three' doves bearing olivQ branches as its device; and as they set sail they sang the hymn, " Jesus, at Thy command we launch into the deep."
A seven months' voyage brought them to the shores of Tahiti. and they were welcomed by about seventy-five canoes, whose natives clambered over the ship's side, and in various ways expressed their joy, hoping for knives and axes and other useful implements. They had brought with them hogs and fruit for the purpose of barter; but as it was the Sabbath day the missionaries tried to make them understlOlnd that they neither sold nor bought upon the Day of Rest. Most of the natives returned in their canoes, but about forty stayed on deck, and the missionaries had a service. While they prayed and sang the natives looked on in silence.
Two white men were already at Tahiti, one of whom had been shipwrecked, and the other left on shore a few years previous. Their names were Peter and Andrew, and they were. clad like savages. Being able to speak some Tahitian, they served at first as interpreters between the mis-
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS
sionaries and the natives, but they turned out to be very wicked men, though born in a Christian land.
An old man, Mane-mane, was high-priest to the idol gods, and was held to be some great one. A chief showed the missionaries an empty house about one hundred feet long, but unfurnished, which he said should be given to them. 'Upon thsir arrival on the beach they were met at once by strange customs. They found the king, Otu, and his queen both riding on men's shoulders. Wben those that carried them changed the burden to other shoulders, the royal feet were not permitted to touch the ground, because whatever land they touched would become their own, so they jumped over the head of one man upon the shoulders of another. For the same reason, when the king and queen visitcd the ship, they refused to go on deck, because if they touched the ship it would be theirs, and none but their own servants might dwell there or eat there henceforward. Afterward, when Mr. Lewis unfolded his umbrella, they warned him not to hold it over their heads, as it would thenceforth become sacred to their exclusive ust'.
Thc missionaries found dancers on these i~lands called Areois, who were a most wicked set of people. Their bodies were blackened with charcoal and their faces dyed red. They committed murders, killing their little children as soon as they were born. They had no occupation but dancing, boxing, wrestling, and sporting.
The first night, in presence of the natives, the missionaries sang and prayed and thanked God for inclining these strangers to receive them so kindly; and the first Sabbath they turned their dwelling into a chapel and Mr. Jefferson preached, being interpreted by Andrew, the Swede; and so through the vehicle of an ungodly man the first impressions of the Gospel were made upon these natives.
The father of Otu was called Pomare. He was a very wise man; had formerly been not only a chief, but the supreme king of the chiefs of the island. He had, however, many fauIts. He was a liar, a glutton, covetous, and pre-eminently selfish. On the second Sabbath, however, he attended the service of worship, when Mr. Cover preached from that text which has been probably the subject of more sermons than any other in the Bible-John 3 : 16-and after the service Pomare pronounced what he had understood very good.
The favorite g')d, Oro, was simply a log of wood about the size of a man, kept in a shed among trees surrounded by a stone wall. . In this place were altars on which lay pigs that had been dead for months, and it was called a Marro, and was a habitation of cruelty. Men were sacrificed and their flesh hung in large baskets on the trees around till it decayed. No woman was counted worthy of the honor either of approaching the Marre or being sacrificed in it. The priests used to roll themselves up in a great bundle of cloth, and in a squeaking voice pretend to represent the gods; and though tlw people knew that it was the priest that was speaking, they dared not disobey. They kept in their houses some of their gods, and fancied them to be in disposition like unto themselves. Hiro was the pro- tector of thieves, and when they went out to steal, they promised Hiro a part of the booty if he would not expose them ; and the missionaries found that the natives were very much like the god th'ey worshipped. Nothing was safe within their reach. Murder was quite as common as stealing; and one Sunday Mr. Lewis preached upon the commandment, " Thou shalt not kill." Mane-mane advised the people to leave off their wicked ways, yet he had not left off his own; and when he wanted to kill a man, drank wine to keep up his courage for his horrible work. His own wife killed her offspring, and when remonstrated with, said she would keep the customs of the country and defy the missionaries' displeasure.
Some of the idols were made of stone, but most of them of wood, or of a kind of string made from the outside of the cocoanut. Sharks and birds were worshipped, and there were more than one hundred gods. When 9 sacrifice was demanded for Oro, it might be the guest who was eatir.g beneath the roof of a chief. If one man of a family were offered, the people of the same household were usually chosen until the whole was destroyed. When the beating of the sacred drum gave the signal that II human sacrifice was required, the natives would flee to the mountain dens and caves for refuge. The Tahitians believed that at death their spirits went to cruel gods, who first devoured them three times over, after which they passed into the body of a beast, bird, or man, and lived again on earth.
If thus cruel to their friends, their cruelty to enemies may be inferred; their bodies were left unburied to be devoured by beasts and birds. Sometimes a hole was made through an enemy's body, and he was worn as a Tiputa by the man who slew him. The conquerors destroyed all the women and children of their foes, and taught their own little children to kill those of whom they would naturally have made playmates; and sometimes these little children of conquered foes were strung on a spear like beads.
Among such a people these missionaries began their apparently hopeless labors. Three weeks had not passed before they were robbed, and, because they did not punish the offenders when detected, they were regarded as cowards; but they sought to win by kindness, and determined they would not seek to defend themselves, but confide themselves entirely to the keeping of Jehovah. They placed near their house a hospital, and offered to nurse all who would come. Though many natives were suffering from terrible diseases, they would not accept the proposition. Satisfied with food and raiment, the missionaries gave up their blacksmith shop and store room to Pomare, and even offered to surrender to him all their own private property, but he would not accept it. During the first year there was a quarrel between Pomare and Otu, and, as Mane-mane had stirred up the rebellion, Pomare order~d him to be killed. Thus perished the wicked old priest, the great man of the Tahitians. The more the missionaries saw of Otu the more wicked he was found to be ; and the continued unbelief of the peo~le was a source of much heavi- ness to these servants of God. Nothing offended the natives more than to rebuke their wicked customs. rdia, the queen, bad destroyed three chil- dren of her own within three years after the missionaries had arrived.
On March 5th, 1800, three years to a day from that when the mis- sionaries first saw the island, the first wooden posts or pillars of a Christian chapel were reared; and they besought God that these, like the pillar that Jacob set up at Bethel, might be a memor.ial of the presence of God.
The next June, in the Royal .Admiral, eight new missionaries arrived, and were welcomed by Pomare. It was agreed by the brethren that Mr. Nott should go around Tahiti to preach to all the inhabitants. He was accompanied by Mr. Elder. Sometimes Mr. Nott preached three or four times a day. They lodged in the houses of the natives, and took with them on the journey some of the Tahitians themselves, who thus had the advantage of hearing him preach during a five weeks' tour, and UpOll his return he found that they were able to give a clear account of the Gospel truths they had heard. Constant prayer went up to God that He would pour down His Rpirit from on high. The missionaries endured great suffering for the natives' sake, especially in consequence of desolating wars. When the natives were entreated to believe in Jesus Christ, like ancient unbelievers, they asked, " Has Pornare or any of the chiefs believed 1" They were, in fact, the greatest enemies of Christ, and discouraged the natives from attending to the Gospel. The tenacity of idolatry seemed to make preaching a hopeless task.
The natives had great confidence in the power of red feathers, attributing large success in fishing to their presence on the canoes, but had little conception of the soul or of duty, and while faithless toward God they were credulous toward the most absurd imposture, placing their trust in fortune. tellers, dreams, and signs of good or ill luck.
While Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Scott were travelling in Tahiti and lay down to rest, a chief invited a guest to go with him to the beach, killed him with stones, put his body in a basket of cocoanut leaves, and sent him to Pomare as calm and unconcerned as if he had only killed a hog.
In 1803 Pomare himself suddenly died, and the wicked Otu had more power than during his father's lifetime. He styled himself Pomare II. It was he who was destined to be the first convert of the Gospel work at Tahiti. He had taken pains to learn to read and write. He was greatly feared, and it was believed that he could kill a man by his prayers and imprecations. In the spring his queen had a child, and he himself was privy to its death. The queen died in 1806.
In May of this year a day of fasting and prayer was appointed by the missionaries, and particular pains were now taken to teach the children. They learned to repeat a short catechism by heart, and in November Mr. Davies opened a school in the new houee, and invited the boys who lived near by to attend it on three afternoons in the week. A month afterward they asked to be taught oftener, and were instructed daily. They learned to read and write, being first taught to make letters on the sand. Spelling- books !lnd Bible histories were made for them and sent to England to be printed. A!I the missionaries began to be 'familiar with the language, they discovered that it was unfitted for the expression of Christian ideas. There was, for instance, no word for "thanks," and no proper expression for " God."
A vessel arrived from the directors of the London Missionary Society, bearing a letter in English for Pomare. He was pleased with it, answered it courteously, and consented to the request of the directors, and promised to banish Oro from the island. He acknowledged that his land was a bad land, a foolish land, and one that knew not the true God ; asked for a large number of men, women, and children from England, and said he would adopt English customs. This letter appears to have been insincere, for shortly afterward he desired thai a man might be killed at Atehuru as a sacrifice, and taken in a canoe to another place ; and he sought to conceal it from the missionaries. He seems to have made his fair promises only as a "loak for his covetousness.
In 1807 another war broke out at Tahiti, which lasted about three years. The missionaries were obliged to leave the island, Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward going to Huahine near by, and all the rest to Port Jackson in New South Wales.
The king, who had. gone to Eimeo, invited the missionaries to come to that island. There were now seven missionaries in Eimeo-Nott, Hayward, Bicknell, Scott, Wilson, Davies, Henry. They had settled at Papetoai, and built a small chapel and opened a school. Events occurred which inclined them to stay in Eimeo, and they observed that the king appeared £0 regard idols less than he had done in times past. For instance, in 1812, when a sacred turtle was caught, instead of Rending it to the idol's temple, he had it dressed in an oven in his own kitchen, and served for his dinner, which was an ast.ounding blow at idol customs; and as no harm befell him, he was confirmed in his contempt of idols, and the power of the popular superstitions was greatly weakened. Pahi, the brother of the King of Raiatea. made a still bolder experiment-destroying in an oven a sacred log which had been worshipped, and then ate bread fruit that had been baked in its ashes.
Pomare declared that he would now have henceforth but one wife. He married Teara, daughter of the Raiatean king, and on the birth of her little daughter the customs of the ages were disregarded, which permitted no fires to be lighted for many days, nobody to leave the shore, and no persons to approach the child except sacred persons in sacred garments.
On July 18th, 1812, Pomare asked to be baptized, and declared his fixed purpose to cleave to Jehovah and His people. He said, " I wish you to pray for me," and proposed to build a larger chapel. He declared that he had tried to persuade the kings of other islands to do as he intended to do, and when they answered that they would cleave to Oro, he told them that was cleaving to Satan. The missionaries, full of joy, waited anxiously to see whether Pomare was really a converted man. Subsequently his grief for his sins, his observance of the Sabbath, and his efforts to persuade his friends to turn to God, convinced them that he had been changed by the .grace of God.
When the missionaries found the people in Eimeo ready to attend their instructions they heard that the people in Tahiti were likewise inquiring after Jehovah, and Mr. Scott and Mr. Hayward were sent to see whether the joyful report was true.
Missionary labor at Tahiti was apparently in vain for from fourteen to sixteen years, and, notwithstanding untiring, earnest, and faithful effort, but one solitary instance of conversion had taken place. The wars of desolation continued, and abominable idolatries and iniquities reigned. " The heavens seemed as brass and the earth as iron i" and when God's time to favor the work in Polynesia came, the beginning was such as to turn all attention to Himself. For at the time the war had driven the missionaries from the island and cut off all communication. Two native servants, formerly employed in the missionaries' families, had, unknown to them, received favorable impressions, and had united together for prayer. They had been joined by others, and at the return of the missionaries to Tahiti, at the termination of the war, they found a number of praying people, and had little to do but to aid in a work which God had thus singularly begun.
These years of fruitless and apparently hopeless toil had almost determined the directors of the London Missionary Society to abandon altogether the work at Tahiti. Dr. Haweis, chaplain to the Countess of Huntingdon, one of the founders of the society, and the father and liberal supporter of the South Sea Mission, earnestly opposed such abandonment of the field, and backed his arguments by a further donation of a thousand dollars. The Rev. Matthew Wilb, the pastor of Mr. Williams, declared with great emphasis that he would sell the clothes from his back rather than give up the mission, and proposed, instead of abandonment, that a season of special prayer should be observed for the divine blessing. Such a season was observed i letters of encouragement were written to the missionaries, andmark it I-while the vessel w~s on her way to carry these letters to Tahiti, another ship passed her in mid-ocean, which conveyed to Great Britain, October, 1813, the news that idolatry was entirely overthrown in the island, and bore back to London the rejected idols of the people; and so was fulfilled literally the Divine promise, " Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear."
We have already mentioned the fact that, while the missionaries were driven away from Tahiti, two natives had begun to call upon the Lord Jesus in prayer. One of these lads was named Tuahine. Another native, impressed by some remarks from Pomare, had gone to make some inquiries of Tuahine, who had lived for some time in the missionaries' families. Finding his mind was in a similar state they resolved to retire to some secret place to talk and pray, and after a little while several young persons united with them ; and this little band, without the guidance of any missionary, determined to abandon idols and the wicked practices of their countrymen, keep the Sabbath, and worship Jehovah alone. As Christianity spread, Tuahine helped the missionaries by directing inquirers, teaching in the schools, and translating the Scriptures. Sometimes he spent from eight to ten hours a day in this last work, and rendered invaluable counsel and aid to the missionaries. He proved himself to be a Barnabas and an Apollos both in one, and had a surprising gift in prayer. He discharged the office of a deacon with great faithfulness, and died about forty-five years old, a model of a converted native.
The chapel that Pomare had desired to be built at Eimeo was opened for worship July 25th, 1813, and the next evening thirty-one natives cast away idols, and their names were written among the disciples of Jehovah. Shortly after, the number had risen to above three hundred. embracing, among others, a priest called Patii, who led the way in the burning of idols. He brought out the gods one at a time, tore off the sacred garments and ornaments, threw them one by one into the flames, pronouncing their names, repeating their foolish histories, and challenging the people to observe what helpless logs they were. The joy of the missionaries may be imagined. The queen's sister about the same time publicly showed her contempt for the idol gods; and Pomare himself, though gnilty of many things inconsistent with the character of a Christian, made a tour of Eimeo, seeking to persuade the heathen to turn from idols.
Meanwhile at Tahiti persecution arose against the native Christians. They took refuge in the woods and lonely vaUeys at midnight for prayer. One young man suffered martyrdom, and another bore a lifelong sear received at their hands. The year 1815 was the most remarkable that had ever been known at Tahiti. A plan was laid to destroy the Christian natives entirely, and the night of July 7th was fixed upon, when the Christians were to be assembled for prayer. Having been adTised, however, of this conspiracy, they sailed for Eimeo, and their departure was the cause of a quarrel among their enemies themselves, in which they largely destroyed each other.
The missionaries at Eimeo received the Tahitians with great affection, but feared that the heathen might rise up in both islands and destroy all the worshippers of Jehovah. July 14th was set apart as a day of fasting and prayer. Soon afterward two chiefs from Tahiti came to Eimeo, inviting the Christian chiefs who had fled to return. The invitation was, however, a mere cover for a plan to destroy the king and his friends. A battle ensued in November, 1815, in which Pomare and his little army were victors. Instead of killing his enemies the king determined to destroy their idols. The multitude stood astonished, both at the helplessness of their gods and the audacity of their destroyers j and when the great god Oro was carried to Pomare's feet, he set it up as a post in his kitchen, fixing pegs upon it on which to hang baskets for food, and subsequently burned it as fuel. Such was the end of the great war god.
Mr. Nott and Mr. Hayward soon went to Tahiti, and made a tour of the island. They found the people busy in destroying Marres and build- ing little chapels. Pomare himself had written a prayer, which he often read in these places of worship-a prayer worthy of any Christian author.
The missionaries found the people very anxious to learn to read, and the king had not only destroyed his public idols, but now wished to part with the family gods, always kept in his house. He sent about twelve of these frightful little images to the missionaries in Eimeo, with a letter ask- ing that they might be sent to the Missionary Society in England, that they might know the likeness of the gods that had been worshipped in the island. The idols were accordingly nailed up in a wooden case and sent to the directors of the London Missionary Society. Family prayer became common, and the people retired to the bushes for private supplication.
The missionaries could scarcely get any rest, so continually were they besieged with inquiry. In every place they found chapels-sixty-six in all -in which the people assembled four times a week.
About this time a printing-press was brought to Eimeo, and from a neighboring Marre, polished stones-pieces of pavement upon which worshippers had knelt before the altars-were dug up and placed where God's Word was to be printed. Satan was robbed that God might be honored. The first book printed was the Baba, or spelling-book, and Pomare was permitted to aid in setting up the first page, and to strike off the first impression. The Tahitians were very anxious to have these printed.
books, and sent to the missionaries plantain leaves rolled up, with the request for spelling-books written on the leaves. This was the beginning of the spreading of the knowledge of God from isle to isle by the power of a sanctified literature. Catechisms followed, and little books containing col- lections of texts j schools were multiplied, converts increased, and there was a general spirit of inquiry. .
For years Mr. Nott had been translating the Gospel of Luke into Tahitian, assisted by Pomare, and while the book was in press the natives often constrained Mr. Ellis to stop printing to explain to them what they read. The missionaries wished to bind the books before they were dis- tributed, but the impatience of the people compelled them to give up wait- ing for proper binding materials. The natives, however, did not suffer these precious books to remain without proper protection j dogs and cats and goats were killed that their skins might be prepared for covers, and the greatest anxiety was manifested to obtain these new copies of the Gospel. Five men from Tahiti landed at Afareaita, and did not go into any house to lodge lest some one might anticipate them in the morning and buy up all the books, so that they should be compelled to return without any. Mr. Ellis gladly gave them copies of the precious Gospel, which they wrapped in bark, put in their bosoms, and set sail for Tahiti without having taken food or drink during their stay at Eimeo.
And now the brethren determined to form a missionary society in Eimeo, and on May 13th a great meeting was held, and numbers of natives came from Tahiti. The prayers began at sunrise, and long before the chapel service at three 0' clock they were obliged to leave the chapel for the grove outside to accommodate the crowds. The king was seated with the queen, her ladies, and many chiefs, and Mr. Nott preached from the words, "Understandest thou what thou readest~" (Acts 8 : 30,31.) 'An address from Pornare hims.elf followed, advocating the formation of the. Missionary Society, and hundreds of 4ark arms were lifted toward heaven in assent.
The" Royal Mission Chapel" at Tahiti, so called, was finished in the spring of 1819. It contained 133 windows, 29 doors, and was 712 feet long and 54 feet wide-212 feet longer than St. Paul's in London. As no preacher could speak loud enough to be heard to the end of the chapel during a whole sermon, three pulpits were placed in it, with a minister in each. Six thousand people joined in singing God's praise in this new place of worship, and three sermons were preached simultaneously.
The next day after the dedication service in May, 1819, laws were publicly given to the people, condemning murder, rebellion, theft, Sabbath breaking, these prohibitions being followed with becoming sanctions. After the law was read the king asked the chiefs, " Do you agree to this law~" and Tati, a ringleader among the rebels, held up both hands, and called upon the people to do the same. At the close of the Sabbath service, Pomare solemnly pronounced his faith in a crucified Redeemer. Let any reader consider how different were these assemblies from the feasts at which Pomare and his father had distributed the bleeding limbs of human victims as offerings to the gods.
The rest of the year was full of rejoicing; new customs obtained, and the preaching of the Word was greatly blessed. Pornare was shut up whole days with Mr. Nott, helping him to correct the translations of the Gospel of John and the Acts.
We can give no further space to this wonderful story. The king himself was a leader in all good works, and on December 7th, 1821, died in the faith of Christ at the age of forty-seven years. Though naturally proud, covetous, deceitful, intemperate, and treacherous, he not only believed the Word of God himself, but persuaded many others, while he forced none to turn from their idols, and we cannot but believe that, not- ,withstanding his many faults, he sincerely belonged to Christ.
A fitting conclusion to this narrative may be found in the coronation of the young king, four years old, on April 21st, 1824. He was dressed in his coronatiou robes in Mr. Nott's house, and borne to the church on the highest platform. A hymn was sung, a prayer was offered. and Mr. Nott
lIONQR OF' A MISSIONARY
made an effective address. The laws of the country were placed upon the table, and the young king was asked whether he would promise to govern the people in justice, and mercy, and obedience to these laws and to the Word of God; and he replied, "I do, God being my helper." Oil was then poured upon his head, and a blessing pronounced upon him by Mr. Davies. The crown was placed upon his brow while Mr. Nott spoke words of benediction, and the Bible was presented to him as the most priceless treasure in the world. From the platform of coronation, the procession went to the " Royal Mission Chapel," and the young king sat in the royal pew.
Contrast this scene with the coronation of Pomare II., who had been declared king according to the heathen fashion, robed in a girdle covered with red feathers, the ceremony attended by the slaughter of men and followed by the worship of the god Oro. Now a little prince began his reign with the sweet sacrifice of prayer and praise to the living God.
In the end of the summer of 1835 many people in various parts of the island were converted, especially by the preaching of Mr. Nott, at Papao, and in July, 1836, the queen found that only two openly ungodly persons were to be found in the whole district of Pare; and Mr. Davies was almost as much blessed at Papare as Mr. Nott was at Papao. The translation of the whole Bible into Tahitian was completed in 1836, the greatest part of the work having been done by Mr. Nott; and in February of this year Mr. Nott set sail for England. He presented the translation to the directors of the London Missionary Society, and remained in England for two years. He appeared at Exeter Hall at the great anniversary in 1838, and after showing the Ailsembly a copy of the Tahitian Bible, bade them a last though not an everlasting farewell, and returned to Tahiti, rejoicing in the privilege of spending the remainder of his days in the service of Christ in the South Seas.
HONOR OF A MISSIONARY.
I should not like you, if meant by the gifts of God for a great missionary, to die a millionnaire. I should not like it, were you fitted to be a miRsionary, that you should drivel down into a king. What are all your kings, all your nobles, all your stars, all your diadems and your tiaras, when you put them altogether, compared with the dignity of winning souls for Christ, with the special honor of building for Christ, not on another man's foundation, but preaching Christ's gospel in regions far beyond ~ I reckon him to be a man honored of men who can do a foreign work for Christ; but he who shall go farthest in self-annihilation and in the furtherance of the glory of Christ shall be a king among men, though he wear a crown no carnal eyes can see.-Spurgeon.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS AND THE HIGHEST USE OF WEALTH.
B. C. AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE A. F. M. AT PITTSFIKLD, MASS., OCTOBER 14TH, 1891.
BY PRESIDENT MERRILL EDWARDS GATES, LL.D., OF AMHERST.
The incarnation of the living God as the Redeemer of man has made it forever necessary that the man who would know God must see something of God in his fellow-men. In all ages the men whose hearts God has touched, whose eyes God has opened that they may see Him and make others see Him, have been men mightily moved in soul and heart toward their fellow-men. The nearer we come to God's view of human life, the purer and deeper and mightier will be our love of human souls and our pity for wasted. sinful. and benighted human lives.
LOVE OF GOD AND WORK FOR MEN.
There is a Divine revelation of the very heart of God Himself in the description Christ gives us of the scenes of division at the judgment. Our Master takes as His own not those who selfishly cry, "Lord, Lord!" and boast familiarity with God's power and achievements of their own in cast- ing out devils; but the men who have shown" the mind which was in Christ Jesus, " and under the constraining power of Christ's love have served Him by serving" in His name" their fellow-men for whom He died. It is by the faith that is in Christ Jesus that we stand; but the absolutely vital, the indissoluble connection of faith with love and with works of love and help- fulness and mercy, is made startlingly clear in this revelation by Christ of the things whi.ch shall be made manifest at that day. It is only by living out a vital principle of life to its issues that we can come to know it thoroughly. True Christians are men and women who are bent upon reducing right theories of life to right living. Life-power and moral truth are the mightiest forces in the universe. In Christian character these two forces are combined. God is life and truth ; godlikeness worked out in life is character; into sound character has entered the " omnipotence of a • principle," and the almightiness of God Himself is pledged to make char- acter, which is vitalized truth, the mightiest power within the control of man. And since God is Jove, and God in Christ is the supreme revelation of that holy and infinitely attractive love which spared not His own Son that He might be just and yet might Jove us out of our sins into lives of holiness, Christians can never Jearn large lessons of God's love in Christ without sharing in Christ's love for their fellow-men THE TEST-OUR FEELING TOWARD MULTITUDES OF UNSHEPHERDED MEN.
Always, then, for the individual Christian, and for any body of Christians who are acting together, there is a supreme test in the question, How deep a concern do you feel for the welfare of the great body of your fellowmen ~ What are your feelings, what are your purposes, what is your attitude of soul t.oward the benighted ones, 'our brothers and sisters, who are ignorant, debased, sin-burdened, and hopeless in the world ~ Sharp and clear is the contrast between the spirit of the Pharisees and the spirit of Christ in this matter of caring for crowds of the commou people. When their returning officers said, " Never man spake as this man speaks," and when "the common people heard Him gladly," the Pharisees waved aside the divine meaning of the message with that contemptuous phrase, the essence of selfish vanity and arrogant pride, " This people that knoweth not the law is accursed." But" the mind that was in Christ Jesus," the mind that dwells in every true child of God in richer fulness as the Holy Spirit shows him the things of Christ, is revealed in the words, " But when He saw the multitude, He was moved with compassion upon them, because they fainted aud were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. " In those words speaks from the heart of God the loving voice of the Good Shepherd j and "His sheep know His voice and follow Him."
This mind that was in Christ, this deep yearning love for lost men, has always marked the true Church. It began its growth among men with the growth of the early Church at Jerusalem, and it had to break its way through that intense spirit of exclusiveness which, with the Jewish Church, had been a cult for centuries. For generations God had walled in His chosen people, had separated them from the rest of the world, that their knowledge of Him and their realization of His presence might be intensified by exclusion. In the fulness of time, when the Word was made flesh, when the love of God was poured into the life of men through the life and the words of Christ, this spirit of love for all mankind burst the cerements of the old dispensation, and the Christian Church began its wondrous growth on earth. It came into life, it grew and prospered under the teaching and guidance of the Third Person of the Trinity, the ever-living Holy Spirit, whose office it is to take of the things of Christ and show them to His followers, who is with us here to-day guiding His Church. Peter first felt the power of this mission-spirit of love for all mankind. Then the heavenly vision came to Paul, and flaming with the spirit of Christ's love he went through all the provinces, fiery-hearted with the spirit of missions. With the growth of the Church this spirit has increasingly prevailed; the walls of separation between nationil have been broken down by it. It is to the growing spirit of Christ, not to the evolution of a perception of a subtly selfish interest for the individual to be attained by the promotion of the we)£are of the whole-it is to the spirit of Christ and not to "enlightened self-interest," that we owe the deepening sense of the solidarity of the race which binds men together the world around.
In the history of the Church it is the men whose hearts have'received this spirit in the largest measure whose names illumine the annals of the Church and the pages of universal history. In their hearts was condensed so much of the thrilling force of Christ's love that heat passed into fiery rays of light, and they became beacons to men for all time. From Paul, longing to visit Spain, yearning over the Romans, melted with love for the Galatians, holding all Greece and all Asia in his heart, down through the glorious roll of saints and martyrs and missionary heroes till we reach the names of the missionaries whom we have seen in the flesh, and whom we love, hearts and lives on fire with the love of lost and benighted men have been the evidence of the spirit of life in the Church of Christ.
IN A LIVING CHURCH, ALWAYS A LOVE OF MISSIONS.
There can be no living Church without a glowing love for mlSSlOns. Christ has made this very clesr to us. In the glimpse He gives us of the judgment. in His parting words as He ascended, "Go ye and make disciples of all nations," and, ,. Lo, I am with you all the days, even unto the end of the world," we find the very essence of His teaching, the flowering of His spirit of service. To seek and to save that which was lost, was the mission that brought our Divine Redeemer from heaven to earth j and to seek and to save the lost is the Divine commission, from the glorified Christ in heaven to each believer who looks up to a Divine Redeemer for direction in a life of grateful service.
What has this to do with the question of money and its use ~ Let us ask ourselves this question thoughtfully.
MEN AND MEANS.
As members of the Church of Christ set to do Christ's work in the world, assembled here in the interest of one of the most important agencies in that work of evangelizing the world, which is pre-eminently the one work given by Christ to His people to do in His name, we are brought face to face with the question of the means to carry out this important work. Here, as in every other important undertaking which is to influence many lives, men and means are the essential requirements. Men never were offered to a praying Church in such numbers as stand confronting us today, saying, ' • We are ready, send us." Under the influence of the spirit of God, the immeasurable importance of bearing the glad tidings to the dark places of the earth has dawned upon young men and women in our· land with a vividness and a power never before seen or known in the history of the Church. Do you who are past middle age remember the " missionary concerts" of your youth, when prayers were regularly offered that God would" break down the walls" that shut Christians out of China and Japtm V That prayer has been answered. This year the Emperor of China issues a royal edict calling upon the governors of his provinces to protect the missionaries against misrepresentation and violence, and declaring that the object of Christian teaching is to make men better. We have been witnesses of this marvellous change. We have seen Japan rise suddenly to highest standards in civilization 'and ih government-a nation born in a day. Japanese Christians are setting the Christian world an exam- ple of unity and loving fellowship in work. The testimony of all observers is that never was a great nation in a more receptive mood for Christian truth than is Japan to-day. In India there is a special call for laborers.
Another generati0n of educated men, broken loose from the old faith, will soon be anarchic in morals unless Christianity shall supply the basis of morality in life. Ve need not raise any questions of a future hell; there will be hell let loose upon the earth unless Christian truth gets hold upon India, unless the love of Christ cherished in the heart shall more than make good the loss of restraints of the old order. In unharvested fields the grain, ripe and ready, falls to the earth in rich, decaying masses, un- garnered. Unless these years that are now upon us be used, the oppor- tunity is forever lost. It i~ now or never, for India! .
"TIME-VALUE" AND" PLACE-VALUE."
Political economists talk of a " time-value," which belongs to a commodity that is ready precisely when it is wanted, like seed corn in spring, and of a " place-value," which is the result of the presence of an instrument or a commodity at the precise place where it is needed, and at precisely the time when it is needed. The time-utility of missionary effort just now is immense. Who can estimate the place-utility of Christian effort DOW in Japan and in India ~ Of Africa I hardly dare to speak. Africa, no longer the totally" Dark Continent," first pierced through by the rays of love and light where Livingstone carried his well-read Bible that rayed out life for him and made his path a trail of love and light until that night when he knelt alone beside his cot under the great tree in the wilderness and, kneeling, met his God; Mrica, now slowly rising to a place in the world's history, but still as booty to be struggled for in a contest of diplomacy, if not of arms-to save and uplift Africa, what need of Christian giving, what a call for help from Christian America, who owes the heaviest debt to that continent which is mother of the race, long fettered and beaten with many stripes, whose unrequited toil made" cotton king" !
We see these open doors. We hear these calls from perishing men. We see the" time-value" and the " place-value" of efforts now put forth for Christ. Loyal subjects of Christ our King, we see clearly the importance of these strategic points to be seized now for the advancement of His kingdom among men. The old walls about the isolated nations, which our fathers and mothers prayed to have thrown down, lie flat before us. The opportunity 'is ample. The need is pressing. The demand from the field is imperative. The loss of life, the loss of souls, is deadly. WHAT HINDERS THE WORK ~ In those monthly concerts, when the walls about China and.Tapan had fallen, the petitions began to take on this stereotyped form : "Lord, raise up men and women who shall be uJilling to go into these opening fields.," The sacrifice involved in foreign mission work has always been immense, but the fruit of it has been abundant and rich. Partings with kindred and friends, departures into strange lands-these have always been essential to the propagation of the. truth since the time when God said to Abraham, the father of the faithful, " Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I will show you." By such self-sacrificing obedience to God's commands have new nations learned of that brotherhood of man which has no meaning, no power, save as all nations learn that they have a commGn 'Father, even God. Much of what is called the " spirit of the nineteenth century," this awakening of the world to the conviction that all men are of one blood, and that property in man is impossible, is the manifest result of mission work done by strangers who, for Christ's sake and at God's call, have sojourned in strange lands among despised peoples preaching peace and brotherhood through Christ. But the cost of leaving home and friends and native land, the sacrifice involved in expatriating one's self and one's children, has always been so serious 8 matter to contemplate that those who love their own ease have always wondered when the call of God has been potent enough to carry His consecrated servants as missionaries to foreign fields. The supply of men and women willing to go has never been equal to the need of the field, seldom to tbe means at the disposal of the missionary boards. It has been taken for granted by the Church for the last two generations, first, that the walls that shut in mighty nations could not be broken down short of centuries to come; and then, that laborers willing to go could not be found in sufficient numbers.
FACE TO FACE WITH ANSWERED PRAYERS.
But what is time to our God, when He wills to send His kingdom forward by a mighty unfolding into the growing season, into the flowering time! A thousand years are as a day with Him. He laid the walls level. He opened the way. His will and wisdom' brought in the age of steam. Railroads and steamship lines girdle His globe to make ready a highway for his messengers, " speaking peace to the nations." He sets a Stepherason and a Fulton, a Morse and a Bell and an Edison at His tasks when they know it not. Corporations of selfish men do His work, as heedless of the plan of God as are the stones which are framed into the mighty arch of the cathedral, or the liquid elements that are seized upon by the growing plant and drawn up into a place in the beauty of its unfolded blossom by a power utterly beyond their ken! Mission fields are open. The world is the field. AU fences are down. A Christian Church, the Church of America, stands to-day face to face with its answered prayers. It is as if a throng of men and women had been standing in the ante-room of the King's chamber, half drearily telling eachother in monotonous voices what they wished to ask for if the King would only give them audience. Suddenly the King steps in among them and declares, " I know your wishes j you have them now!" And with stammering voices and uncertain gestures the would-be petitioners stand abashed in the presence of a royal Giver, whose readiness to give exceeds their readiness to receive!
THE STUDENT VOLUNTEERS FOR MISSIONS.
For a generation the Church has been praying for men and women who were ready to go. The Holy Spirit hae tried the hearts and searched the spirits of young men and women at our higher institutions of learning. No one who bas been among them, as I have been, and has seen this searching work of the Lord, can fail to recognize it as God's doing, and as altogether wonderful and like His mighty power and the gracious constraining force of His own love, that to-day over six thousand young Christians of America are volunteers for Christian mission-work.
The years when young students look out upon life from the· mountain heights of youth are favorable to a clear vision of comparative values. While the wish is eager to make one's life count for the utmost possible in the service of God by serving one's feHow-men, those whose eyes God touches that they may truly see discern the truth that no other work compares in potent possibility for good with this light-bearing in dark places. Our" young men see visions;" and this is the fulfilment of God's glorious promise of rich blessing fO,r any nation. They see that the Holy Spirit describes the highest object of a liberal education, when He speaks of one who" has tbe tongue of the'learned to speak a word in season to him that is weary." And the spirit of God has so moved upon the young people in the Church of God in this land, that as a class of Christians they say today to the Church of God, " Weare ready to go. Weare eager to try within this next generation to fulfil the glorious command of Christ and , make disciples of all nations.' "
THE ALMIGHTY BANKER CALLS IN HIS LOANS.
Since the work is Christ's work intrusted to us, since the would.be workers are ready and call upon our mission boards to send them, since the great, the rapidly growing wealth of this Christian nation is in the hands of Christian men and women of mature years, my brothers, what answer can we give for ourselves before the jndgment throne of God, if this glorious work of preaching the Gospel of light to dying men is checked and dwarfed, and fails of its glorious pORsibility, because we who are God's stewards hold fast to God's money for our own selfish uses 1 There is a time when the Almighty Banker of the Universe calls in His lo~n81 There is a time when the Master, about to return from far countries, Himself makes rigid yet loving inquiry of every steward concerning the talents, be they one or ten, intrusted to his use. Are we so using the money God has given us as to give to Him" His own with interest" 1 But, some one will say, this is an unnatural view which you present. Christians are to use their money as do other men, subject to the laws of. political economy and in accordance with the general spirit of the time in which they dwell and with the standards that prevail in the grades of society where their lot is cast. Let us look at the question for a moment.
HIS PROPERTY IS.A MAN'S" OBJECTIFIED WILL."
A man's property has been said to be his" objectified will." Mere things, which apart from man are impersonal and utterly outside of moral and jural considerations, enter into the domain of rights, of justice, of morality, through their relation to the will of their owner. The object into which you have introduced your will, which you have willed and worked to make your own. has become in a sense a part of you. There is a true sense in which the man who touches your property toltches you. Property that is truly owned and used becomes in a sense a part of the owner and user. His intelligence permeates it, his will directs its use. Since wealth is often labor stored up in portable form, it has in it a man's life. It partakes of his personality. A man's wealth, through his acting in it. becomes a personal force in social life which may be used for the noblest ends or prostituted to the bagest uses.
No man can escape the fullest responsibility for the use he makes of his wealth, which is potential power of service. Every man holds all his powers in trust j for the use he makes or fails to make of each power, he must auswer at the judgment-seat of God. Our divine Teacher has warned us that in wealth there is a subtle and dangerous tendency which leads it to seek to escape this law of service. Wealth, whkh should be a useful servant, seeks to become a tyrannical master. Christ in His warnings to His followers personifies but one power in the universe as likely to become a dangerous rival for that throne in man's heart and life which belongs to God Himself. The subtle power against which He thus warns us is Mammon, the love of money. Between the mad pursuit of gain and the service of the living God, He warns us that every man must choose. "Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. " The property that you have must be as fully and entirely subject to the Jaw of the service of God in serving your fellow-men, as must your powers of heart and will and hand and head.
THE CONVERTED HEART INVOLVES THE CONVERTED POCKET-BoOK.
Talk of men as converted, as Christian men, who con~ciously and deliberately allow their property to be used for debasing and ruining their fellow-men! Imagine that a man'M heart and will can be converted to the service of God, and his property remain in the service 0" the devIl! 'Tis an utter imposRibility !
The cOllversion that does not reach a mall's use of his property is no true conversion. There is no truly Christian man who keeps an unconverted pocket-book or bank account. God'~ universal law of unselfish service is as supreme in the domain of material possessions-in the realm of that wealth which extends a man's power" to bring things to pass"-as it is in any other department of man's possible efforts. The unvarying law of God, which uttachcs an obligation to every opportunity and places a duty over against every right, makes no exception of wealth with its vast powers of service. God has so ordered the tiocial life of our race that no man can make the most of his powers of mind and heart and will until he employs those powers in the service of his fellow-men. This is an accepted law in the realm of mind and spirit. It is no less binding upon the power which material wealth places at a man's disposal. No man has the slightest light to say of his wealth, " It is mine; I may nse it selfi&hly if I will." No man has arrived at a true conception of the responsibility that attaches to the possession of property, until his relations through it to his fellowmen fill a larger place in his views of life than does his ability by his wealth to serve his own selfish ends. No man is free to make an option as to whether he or his property shall come under God's law of service. He and his property are under that law, of necessity, as he is of necessity a member of society and of the State, without his leave having been asked. In the use of his property, as of all his other powers, he olVes steady allegiance to that law of 5ervice, by virtue of the solidarity of God's universe of law; and though in managing his property he may disregard this obligation, he can never escape it.
Now, wealth must be used for service according to its own laws. Wealth is productive only as it is used. as capital-that is, as wealth employed in the production of new wealth, of new values. Since wealth is " the usufruct of skill, intelligence, and morality," it places its owner under obligation steadily so to use it as to reproduce morality, intelligence, and skill.
RESTRIOTED SERVICE, TO GAIN WEALTH.
My brothers, Christian men who have put much of your life into money-winning, as you remember how much of time and effort have been withheld by you from more definite Christian work that you might concentrate yourself upon money-winning, is there not an especial call upon you that you redeem (" buy back") the time that was withheld from God's work by you while you were making money ~ Take the case of a man who has won his wealth by years of concentrated effort. Often it is true that he has gained it by a constant withdrawal of his time and his strength from other occupations in which a generous, public-spirited man wuuld like to engage. "Follow this line of study with me," said a friend, in his early mallhood. " No; business demands all my time," was the answer. "Take hold and help us in thi.; effort at political reform in our city," said his public-spirIted neighbor. " I haven't the time, business claims me." "Will you undertake part of the work of special visitiqg to be done by our church people this winter ~" " Really, you must find some one else, my dear pastor, I am so pressed by business." It was by such restrictions of effort, by such exclusions of everything that did not tend directly to the winning of money, that he made his way to wealth.
But clearly, God meant that man to cultivate his mind, to be a useful citizen and a Christian worker. In some way, then, the time and strength withdrawn from other duties and from public service should be given back to serving the public, to the enriching of the life of others.
LET THE LIFE INVOLVED IN WEALTH-WINNING BE EVOLVED IN THE RIGHT USE OF WEALTH.
The time owed to distinctively Christian effort, to work for the good of his fellow-men, may be in part made good, if the wealth into which his efforts and time were coined is used nobly and wisely. And while no giving for Christian work can take the place of personal interest in Christian activity, yet many men could do infinitely more by free and consecrated gifts of large sums of money than they now do by formal expressions of their sense of unworthiness and lack of effort in the past, unaccompanied even now by any large use of their wealth for Christ's cause.
"Redeem the time" that was withheld from God's service by you while you were making money. Redeem it, buy it back, by using your money conscientiously and generously for God's work.
If you have inherited wealth, let the time and labor that were involved ill the rolling up and the transmission of a fortune, be evolved again in days and years of active philanthropic and Christian work, done by the Christian workers whom your money supports in mission fields.
" PECUNIA ALTER SANGUIS."
For everyone of us, a part of his life-effort is stored up in money-in his possessions. It is the clear perception of this fact that gives significance to the old phrase, " pecunia alter sanguis. " In the money your life acquires is stored up the life-blood of your effort; not because gold is as precious as one's life, but because the power acquired by past effort, stored up in money, enables you to set the efforts of others in motion to carry out your purpose and your will. How shall this life-blood of your past effort be kept pure and noble? How will you use it?
Wealth is concentrated power of service. Whether our wealth be great or small, it is still concentrated power of service. Is the wealth that is in the hunds of Christians also 0/ co.ns~cmted power service? Upon thi.~ blood of your past life, which has in it a life-giving power if used for noble ends, has there fallen the touch of consecration ~ Is it not an awful danger of our times, the greatest peril that threatens professedly Christian people, that though we are Christians, we 80 persistently ignore all true ends in the use of our money 1 Is it not too much our habit of thought to regard only those as people of wealth who have much more money than have we ~ When we read upon page after page of the New Testament the most searching warnings as to the use of wealth, is it not our habit to pass them on to the very wealthy, whose fortunes far exceed the means at our disposal ~ MAMMON MAY BE WORSHIPPED BY THE POOR AS TRULY AS BY THE RICH.
Yet the essential nature of wealth does not lie in its quantity, in the amount of money at a man's disposal. The god Mammon may be worshipped with a man's whole heart, though his business transactions be petty and his savings small. Some rich men give to good causes small contributions, with a hypocritical allusion to "the widow's mite i" but our Lord bestowed His regal blessing upon the widow's mite not because it was small, but because she gave her whole living to the Lord. And in the countless warnings addressed by Him who is the Truth to Hill followers, cautioning them as to the deceitfulness of riches, as to tho difficulties that those who trust in riches will find in entering the Kingdom of Heaven, the word used is one that does not lay stress upon great wealthis one that may be used of very small possessions. The essential meaning of the word is usable values embodied in material things. The warning is against trusting in material things for our happiness, our security, our power. Rather are we to trust in the living God, to use for the glory of God all the powers we have of body, soul and mind, every means by which we may bring things to pass in our life here. The warning is against the comfortable sense of safety that comes from" having means behind you." large or small. Whatever possession is capable of standing between a man's soul, and a vital living dependence upon God day by day, is to be suspected, dreaded, and used with fear and trembling as in the sight of a jealous God, who has personified this love of possessions as His great rival in the hearts of men.
" DECEITFULNESS."
The peculiarity of riches, great or small, ·lies in their deceitfulness. They that trust in possessions cannot enter into the kingdom, even in their conception of what that kingdom is, and of what are its powers. And the awful danger in dealing with riches is, that the material advantages they secure are so obvious. so universally recognized, that most men never get beyond these advantages in thought, desire, or fear. How lightly and apologetically we Christians are accustomed to deal with the awfu! emphasis which our Master has laid upon the perpetual, essential danger that lies in the use of wealth! Our Lord has spoken of this danger again and again, in words that stand out luminous with such lurid light as burns in His warnings against the unpardonable sin. Yet too often we hear these warnings tossed aside with a half smile, even by preachers of the Gospel who are accustomed to preach to the rich, as though they would say, " Of course, Christ said this j but what He meant was so essentially different from this that it need not for a momeut make you gentlemen with large bank accounts uncomfortable, especially if you respond kindly to the special appeal I make this morning, and drop into the box a contribution a little larger than usual." Let us, who believe in the living Word of the living God, take time to read together a few of the many utterances in God's Word which bear directly upon this point. Who c~n doubt that the iteration and reiteration of these warnings is, for us and for all Christians, profoundly significant ~ THE TESTIMONY OF THE WORD OF GOD.
" The rich man is wise in his own conceit" (Prov. 28 : 11). " Thou fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee. So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12 : 20). "The deceitfulness of riches chokes the word" (Matt. 13 : 22). "But they that will to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition" (1 Tim. 6: 9), "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after, have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim. 6: 10). " Let not the rich man glory in his riches." " Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly" (the Greek is [duskolos] dVC1,,6A.wS, meaning literally that his diet and his digestion are such as to put his life entirely out of harmony with the heavenly life j it " goes against his stomach j" before he can enter in, he must be fed upon other food !)-" shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 19 : 23). " How hardly shall they that have riches" (the Greek is [chremata] xpf]/LaTrJ." not necessarily great riches, but possessions enough to trust in) "enter into the kingdom of God" (Luke 18 : 24). "Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living God j that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate-that they may lay hold on eternal life" (1 Tim. 6: 17, 18). "Go to, now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted; your gold and your silver are rusted, and their rust shall be for a testimony against you" (James 5 : 1-3). It is the rust, not the gold, that is the witness against them. Their means are not used for Christ, and the selfish rust on them" shall eat your flesh as it were fire." "There is a grievous evil which I ha,"e seen under the sun-namely, riches kept by the owner there9f to his hurt j and those riches perish by evil adventure" (Eccl. 5 : 13).
Can there be any question that these clear declarations of God cut sharply across the tacit assumptions of many of the Christian congregations of our times 1 CHRIST TEACHES CHRISTIANS TO USE ~~EALTJI, BUT NOT TO "TRUST" IT.
Yet this awfully dangerous power of wealth is entrusted to Christians. The parables and teachings of our Lord, time after time. hold up the property relation as the basis of a lesson in Christian living. The great majority of His parables deal with this relation in one form or another. Nothing can be clearer than that He holds every Christian responsible for the right use of all his possessions, however small, however large, they may be. For the right use of the ten talents and tho two talents, there is tht' same commendation, the same relative reward j while 1he awful stress of contrast is laid upon him who had but one talent heeause ho declined to use that one for his master. There is no one of us here present, then, who can feel that the warnings and the responsibilities that attend the possession of wealth for a Christian do not concern himself. For the right use of all his powers of service, God holds each one of us responsible; and certainly the income that each one of us receives, the property that each one of us possesses, has in it latent power of service for the promotion of the Master's kingdom.
Now the divine law of political economy applies to this whole matter. Dangerous as is the use of wealth, God calls upon Christians to URe all they have of it, be it little or much, in His service and for His glory. We sing in moments of devotion, " All that I havo I 0'11'0 to Thee, I hold it for the Giver."
The proportion which each man of us is free to spend upon his own personal gratification, upon the personal pleasures of his family, upon the embellishments of his home, we cannot determine for each other j but everyone of us is bound conscientiously to determine it before God, and under the searching vision of the Spirit of all Truth, whom no detail and no selfish motive can escape. The Holy Spirit in the heart of Christians can and does make " sumptuary laws" for us.
To HELP MEN TO HELP THEMSELVES.
When we become convinced that there is in our hands as stewards money to be used for our absent Lord-for om Lord in bodily presence withdrawn, in spirit dwelling in us-then how gloriously does the scope of this mission work open out before us ns wo look at the money in our hands! Wealth must be used for unselfish ends, or it cannot be used as the Lord wills. To help others, we must help them to help themselvcs. The greatest work which Christian wealth can do in the world is to bring men one by one under the sway of that one Supreme Personality, the Lord .Tesus Christ !
HELP THEM TO CHRIST.
The only hope for men is in a close personal relation with a personal Saviour. Not in masses will men be Iiftf~d out of vice and sin. Society will be purified, institutions will be made better and kept better, only as men are drawn one by one to IIim "Who has been lifted up." The grellt social discontent of our time, whose hoarse warning voice comes to our ear from every continent on the globe, finds its canse in thp. Jack of a true centre for each man's life in Christ. The pitiable, blind yearnings of socialism must touch the hearts of true Christians, because they are the gropings of men after that true brotherhood which men find only when they see the Fatherhood of God. Christ is the" Desire of the Nations," though they know Him not. The truest, wisest use of wealth is in promoting efforts to bring the Gospel of Christ home to the hearts of the people, and to bring the people home to Christ. "They that trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ranEOm for him." But the power of the Holy Spirit can transmute these money gift!;, wllich we here and now before God pledge ourselves to make for the promotion of His kingdom, into Christian influences which will win souls for Christ. Oh, what a glorious thought, that dead and wasted years, which have been coined into money, if that money be laid at the feet of Christ, may be made to live over again, His Spirit touching the dead past and quickening it into living service, as this money shall send to the dark places of the earth souls fired with the wish to preach Christ!
" Defer not charities till death," says Bacon, " for certainly if a man weigh it rightly, he that doth 80 is rather liberal of another man's than of his own." Be your wealth great or small, use it for Christ while you can yourself direct its use, while you ~an yourself see and enjoy the mighty moral and spiritnal values which are produced from the right use of wealth. Where is the man or the woman of large wealth who will set tlle world a Christian example of that free, cheerful, joyous giving which God loves (" God loveth a cheerfnl giver") by taking a whole mission station to snpport from his abundant means, as a rich man keeps a yacht" for his own pleasure" 1 vVho will thus prayerfully "rcde~m" large sections of his great wealth, of his coined time, by prayerfully using it for these noble ends 1 Vie look for the speedy appearing of such great benefactions, as the re-
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
sponsibility of wealth comes to be more clearly felt. Meanwhile, let us see to it that by loving and free giving until we feel it in the sweet deprivations that we are willing to meet for Christ's sake, we each one of us show to the world something of that spirit that brings a blessing from the Lord, Who still" sits over against the treasury. "
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT. (With .Map.) BY REV. ROBERT W. :/d,ALL, D.D., PARIS, FRANCE.
[NOTE.-At the Editor's request Dr. McAll has sent to the REVIEW an account of the new enterprise for French waters, and a plate of the proposed boat.- EDITOR.] Not long since there WaS issued the following appeal for a McAll mission boat for river and canal-work throughout France.
Each summer, for many years past. the boats lent to the mission by Mr. Henry Cook (Seamen's Friend), of Portsmouth and Gosport, have visited various French seaports, and a remarkable blessing has resulted.
Last summer immense interest was awakened during the sojourn of the boat in Paris, moored for two months in the Seine, beside the celebrated Pont de la Concorde.
Henco has arisen our intense desire to have our own boat adapted to the system of rivers and canals which is spread like a network all over France, and which consequently could be used at all seasons of the year. By this means hundreds of hitherto umisited places can be reached with the Gospel message. The estimated cost of such a vessel, containing a saloon for meetings and seating 120 to 140 persons, with lodging for those in' charge, is estimated at £1000. Captain and Mrs. Pim, of Valence, members of the Society of Friends, generously offer to give their services during seven months of each year to carry out this enterprise. The annual outlay for dues, watermen, lighting, warming, etc., and the expense of an evangelist sent to aid in the services, will amount to about £200.
We plead earnestly for special donations toward building the boat, and annual subscriptions toward working it. Without these, this most desirable undertaking cannot be accomplished, the ordinary income being already taxed to the utmost.
While we were using Mr. Cook's boat, Le Bon .Messager, one writer, in a popular French daily newspaper, professing to be very friendly, asked, " What is to be done when, in a few days, this little ship.has to quit the Seine and put to sea again ~ A happy thought occurs to us, which we submit to the promoters of this effort. "Ve recommend them to engage a
I,S,SIonRB.Y
anal~ tn 'l1RllCeI J • f–'—I IIan -:i- + -+– 'ecHon + PARIS – FEBRY 1891 H. R~&. It€'Y.
H(!c;~itecf D. by I~( ;;tale
THE GOSPEL AFLOAT
balloon and hold meetings in the air, high above the Tour Eiffel. The audience being thus already part way to heaven, it will be easier to guide them upward for the remainder of the journey."
This and similar pleasantries clearly attracted thousands to the boat, and numbers who came expecting to be amused remained as earnest listeners. It would be difficult to compute in how far we are indebted even for the new, permanen.t boat to the popular interest thus awakened, evidencing how especially this novel mode of evangelization is adapted to reach the French people.
When the ship was about to leave Paris, a pleasing little incident occurred. Mr. Henry Cook, of the Portsmouth Seamen's Society (who lent us the vessel), and our missionary, the Rev. S. R. Brown, had to go from one marine office to another to carry out some formalities. The distances were considerable, so they hired a small carriage, and were directed from bureau to bureau, a wearisome round. When it was finished Mr. Brown asked the driver what extra sum (beyond the small legal fare for a single drive) was due, on account of the many calls and long waiting. " Gentlemen," he said, his countenance brightening, " I will not receive one sou extra. It has been a pleasure and privilege to conduct you. I and my son have attended the boat meetings whenever we could, and have found great benefit there. I am only too happy to offer this small mark of my gratitude."
The new boat is now in process of building; the special donations have warranted ordering it, but there will be the annual cost of working it, river and canal dues, mariners' support and cost of sending evangeliststhough the good captain and his wife will receive nothing, not even their own support. We tried to believe the annual cost would not surpass £200, but to work well we must rather reckon on £300. It certainly promises to be the means of sending far and wide the Gospel message in France to numbers of places in which it is as yet never heard. We hope to launch it about the end of October.
From the Nineteenth Annual Report of the McAIl Mission we append a few statements which will interest all who are watching the new developments of this work. The missionary boat on the Seine has found the door open wider than ever in France. This was a new experiment in the heart of the vast city. Moored at the well-known Pont de la Concorde, it was wonde~ful to descend into the cabin on a summer afternoon, and find everything orderly as in a regular place of worship, and hear the hearty singing, and mark the reverent attention pervading the crowded assembly, composed chiefly of men; then, so soon as one meeting was ended, to see a new audience eagerly rushing in and filling the cabin a second, third, and even fourth time. What a resistless evidence of a widespread desire to listen to the Gospel message! The gross attendance, during the seven weeks, was 23,500, comprising all classes of society, and many, evidently, hearing the Gospel for the first time in their lives. By a vessel permanently connected with our work the G08pel could be conveyed not only to the cities and towns, but to ~ multitude of remote places where, as yet, its glad sound is never heard.
Every ycar brings new proofs that, so long aR the workers, whether for young or old, keep strictly to the faithful declaration of the Gospel, and the direct effort to win souls to Christ, the people will ncver grow weary of listening to them. Our special work during the" Exposition Universelle" evidenced this anew j each of our two temporary halls at the gate!! has ceased to be temporary. In each a little permanent cl)ngregation of residents in Par'is remained after the Exposition had closed. Were-entered the large salle of Avenue Rapp with the New Year, the influx of these new-comers having rendered the neighboring one of Avenue Bosquet too small, while the little room at the Trocadero has bcen retained. In both "We have the joy of recognizing a certain number of true converts.
Another striking indication that the present i~ a peculiarly favorable time for Gospel work here is found in the fact that in two of our central llalls in Paris-those of Rue Royale and Boulevard Bonue Nouvelle-the gross attendance during 1890 (omitting all extra mcetings) exceeded that of 1889 by 24,300, and this without any novelty of procedure or 8pecial attempt at publicity.
Mr. M. L. Dodds has written: "Never before did this 'Salvation Navy,' as the new~papers call it, attempt to take Paris hy storm, nor dare to cast anchor and hoist flag just below the Pont de la Concorde. Soon, however, the curious crowd gathered, and were welcomed to the nicely fitted-up saloon. The hours of meeting were at first from three to four and from eis-ht to nine. They were gradually extended, till three meetings occupied the afternoon, the saloon emptying and refilling each hourhardly emptying, for often there were a dozen or more people who did not stir, and whom the longest discourse did not frighten away; people who seemed rooted to the spot-both sexes. The greater number are men -men of all classes. One quite young fellow sat in his place from halfpast two till six, and again from eight to nine, magnetized, as it were, by what he was hearing. He was a Catholic, from the North) and had never been to meetings of this sort before. Many took the thing less seriously; they like to whet their intellects on the discourse. 'These are good things,' said a young man to his companion, as they went out, ' but one takes and leaves.'
" Anything like steadiness of attention did not, of course, come all lit once. At the first there was a grcat dcal of coming and going, ~ometimes II little staring and laughing; some were amused at the faint sickly swing of the boat IU! other vessels passed it. Some found the steep companionladder ridiculous-' fit for English people,' they said-these Parisians do not see these ladders as often as they do in England. Some tried to join in the hymns, and sang out of tune, amusing the others. Some came only frOID curiosity, which being satisfied, they retired, never to return. h short, the meetings on the boat began exactly as those first meetings in 1872 began. If anyone wanted to stand again, in imagination, at the cradle of the miRsion, he could have seen the same curiosity, the same criticism, the same bewildered qnestions, the same falling off of wayside hearers, the same process of selection by whieh others stayed, and returned, and listened, and wondered, and often received life for their souls. .
" The French daily papers, describing the work, gave us lengthy advertisements for nothing! Think of it! Advertisements are expensive in France. 'With what gold should we have bought a column and a half of the Figaro .2 " All the French papers were talking about our Bon Messa,qer. Under some such title as 'Le bon Dieu .~ur l' eau ' – ' La religion Ii voiles'- , Une cJwpeUe flottante,' they gave a piece of clever and not ill-natured banter, and llometimes of not too inaccurate description, which helped to send hundrcd~ on board. Le Monde Illustre had some capital comic ,;l:etehes. The crowd pressing down 'en queue '-the saloon filled with peopll1-the lady open-mouthed at the harmonium-the orator keeping time with his llymn-book-were all represented. Even the texts eould be deciphered in full in the pictures. Le Monde made a mistake, however, in giving us too many old ladies in the front seats j but that may be passed over.
" The Rappel said : •• • A yacht is moored below the Pont de la Concorde. To its masts is attached a large ensign, white, on a blue gronnd, " Evangelical meetings every day, free entry." A fixed gangway gives access to the yacht j by a steep staircase we reach the cabin, transformed into a meeting hall. " , A dignified English lady, a little leather bag hangin"g on her arm, gives you a red book. The title is" Popular Hymns." You are warned, by a notice on the cover, that the book is not for you. Comfort yourself -you will get other presents! There are tracts for all tastes.' Butenough. The speakers and players are in turn described or caricatured. Thc singing and reading is carefully described, then the address by M. Mabboux. Then it is naIvely remarked, 'The meeting is closed with a prayer, which must be said with the eyes shut j , for to elose the eyes during prayer strikes these people as a new and peculiar action. "The Figaro also describes the steep ladder, and the hall, 'which might contain about two hundred persons. It is a meeting hall, with a reading. desk at one end j wooden benches arranged in order, and all round the walls are little sentences setting forth the adyantages of having to do with God (commerce avec Dieu), such as "God is your refuge." Jesus Christ said, " Venez d moi vous tous qui etes travailtes et charges, et je vous s01dagerai. " " The Lord is my Shepherd," etc. These' go all along the cabin, in French and English.' "One tract was given down-stairs, and one Gospel on deck. The tract was usually offered by a lady to each one going out, and within its cover was placed a complete list of the mission halls in town, so that any one could choose the hall nearest to his place of residence if he wished to attend. On deck a young man offered a copy of a gospel. Some!imes curious but too rapid conversations took place with those going out.
" A lady, being offered the Gospel of John, said she wi&hed that of Matthew too. ' It is not here to-day, madam, but would you not like to buy a New Testament g, '" A New Testament g What is it g, " , It contains all the four Gospels, and other matter. ' " Ah ! then I should like that j is it expensive ~ , " , Four sous.' " And it was bought. "Miss B– gave a tract to a lady, who stopped, and said abruptly; " , Then, what must one do to get to heaven g, " , Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. His death saves you.' " , Yes-but what must I do g, " , Just what I have told you-believe.' " , And then ~ , " , Then you must read His Word and do His will.' " , Do you believe in hell and in purgatory? ' " , In hell I do, not purgatory.' " , According to that, we are all condemned.' " , We are. Only Christ saves us.' " , Are you saved g , "But a rush of people through the narrow doorway, up the ladder, separated the two. Others had to be attended to. Will she come back again and inq~ire further ~ Who knows !
" They get good speaking on the bateau, and they get plain speaking, too. These Frenchmen make a noble use of a noble language. Some came from the country to help, as Messrs. Mabboux, Vernier, and Sainton. When possible, four or five took turns in the course of the afternoon. And they rose to the occasion. The best gave their best here. I suppose the sight of those wistful faces appealed to them, and they , stirred up their gift.' What the people got was the simple Gospel, suited to their needs. Christ was exalted as Saviour and as King of kings."
M. J. Sainton, who labored very earnestly in the meetings, adds: "The audiences were very mixed, from the consequential lady and gentleman to the street urchin j but, with few exceptions, after the first moments of surprise, our listeners were respectful, attentive, and even sympathetic. By these meetings on the boat we have reached a new contingent of sinners in the midst of our Parisian society, till then strangers to the Gospel. lIad this been the only result, thc work carried on had been a real success, for we should have been carrying out the commandment of our Master, , Preach the Gospel to every creature.'
" But, besides this, we can say that from this time the work of God has begun in very many hearts, a work which the Holy Spirit will deepen unto salvation, "One day a young man, with a fine open face and well dressed, said to me, 'For several days I have been without work, my savings permitting me to wait and look out for a good place. Meanwhile, I am profiting by your good conferences, where I am glad to hear, in regard to religion, things quite new to me, and which I desire to know more about.' Since then I have seen this young man several times at our evening meetings. He has become one of onr regular attendants.
" Another young man, whom I had noticed at different times, and who always appeared most serious, said to me in reply to a question, • Yes, sir, I begin to understand that what you say is the truth.' Later on, I spoke to him again, and he said, 'Yes, I believe in Jesus Christ. I want to live according to the Gospel, and not only that,' added he, with as much seriousness as naIve simplicity, " but I should wish to become a preacher like you. '
" Another day a young man came, accompanied by some companions, and with a mocking smile on his lips. By degrees his expression changed. After two or three meetings his companions dropped off, but he returned alone. He always sat in the same place, and sang and listened quite earnestly. I asked him one day about his spiritual state. He could not answer, bllt I felt that a good work was going on in his heart. He told me that since coming to our meetings he has ventured into II Protestant church, and that the simplicity and beauty of our religion had greatly impressed him. I gave him the address of the hall near which he lived, and he said to me that he would certainly attend the meetings there.
" Another time a gentleman, a merchant from the Provinces, waited for me at the door. That day we had to some extent touched on controversy on the subject of 'confession of sins.' • It is the first time,' said this gentleman, ' that I have been present at your meetings, and I wish to tell you with how much interest I have listened to you and your colleagues; but,' added he, • I should have liked to see our Catholic priests defend their points, and to know what you would have replied to them. ' , If the priests,' said I to him, • do not accept the Word of God as the common ground of discussion, we would not argue with them, for God has not given any other foundation for our faith in the doctrines of the truth. If, on the contrary, they accept it, all discussion is quickly settled, for not only can they not base the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the Word 'of God, but they have against them numerous and striking texts.' Then followed a most interesting conversation, which ended in the gentleman declaring: 'I also have had religious convictions from my childhood. In youth I rejected certain ordinances of my Church without abandoning the faith, and I see to-day that I am much more Protestant at heart than Catholic.'
SOME HINDRANCES '1'0 THE WORK 01' FOREIGN MISSIONS
"Unfortunately I did not think of taking his address, and he has probably returned to the provinces, for I have not seen him again."
Pastor Aubanel, of PariiO, says of the missionary ship at Fecamp : " The meetings held at Fecamp during August, 1890, on board The Herald of Mercy, were specially noteworthy because of the number of hearers, and the earne:;t attention with which they listened to the fundamental truth of the Gospel. For some days they were led by Pastor Cresseil, of Paris, but he had to leave, to conduct the evangelistic work at Trouville during the bathing season. The committee sent me to replace him. Every day, aided by the captain and Mlle. M–, I held a meeting and proclaimed a free salvation through repentance and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to a number of sailors and their families.
•, Perfect order reigned on board during the whole time. The missionroom was constantly full of attentive and interested hearers-often too slIlall to hold all who wished to come, so that the deck also was crowded with persons eager to hear the glad tidings-which they could do, as the skylights were open; many also stood on the edge of the quay. On those days it is estimated that as many as 250 were present. The average was 180.
" A plentiful distribution of tracts and Scripture portions was made at the end of each meeting. New Te:;taments were on sale at the low price of one penny for the small edition. The people were so eager to buy that the stock on board was soon exhaustcd.
" When I took leave of the audience after the last meeting, very many of them, with a warm shake of the hand, said how sorry they were that the meet.ing" were over, and how much they hoped that they would be begun agaiu in a ncar future. "
SOME IIINDRANCES TO THE WORK OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.
BY REV. GEORGE W. NORTHRUP, D.D., LL.D.
[We venture to reprint from the Baptist Missionary Magazine the masterly address of President Northrup before the Se;"entv-seventh Anniversary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, held in Cincinnati, May 25th, 1891, hoping thus to bring it to the attention of some who may not have !lad an opportunity of reading it. -ED.] I purpose to speak of some of the hindrances at home to the work of foreign missions, or some of the causes of the comparative failure of the Church to evangelize the pagan nations. Before expres5ing my thoughts on this subject, I beg leave to uttcr a word of a personal nature. It is possible that my remarks may not Eecure the approval of all ; may, in fact, give offence to some who hear me. If such shall be the case, let me assure you that I am not mored by a pcssimi6tic spirit, nor by a disposition to disparage the missionary history of our people. I am not willing to admit that I am inferior to any of my brethren in loyalty to the denomination with which I have Leen identified for fifty years, and which I have served, in a public way, for more than a third of a century. The feeling which I am most distinctly conscious of, as I stand before you to· day, is that of heartache in view of the apathy of Christian people, and especially the apathy of our denomination, in regard to the temporal and eternal salvation of the vast population of the pagan nations. I have put the question to myself once and again, within a few weeks past: " What can be done to change this state of things-to awaken the feelinl! of love and compassion which ought to exist for the hundreds of millions of our felloW'.men involved in the darkness, degradation and misery of heathenism g I speak in behalf of a billion human beings, for everyone of whom Christ died, every ODO of whom has a place in the heart of God, everyone of whom is of as much worth in His sight as any citizen of the great republic. It is certain that God has done all that He could wisely do in bestowing grace UpOll His people. It is also certain that, if they would use the grace bestowed with greater fidelity, He would give more and still more-, " opening the windows of heaven and pouring out a blessing, that there would not be 100m enough to receive it." The speedy eVaI;gelization of the pagan world, and shall we not also Bay, their salvation, is, in a real and profound sense, in the hands of the Church.
1. Among the causes referred to, we notice, first, the departure from the method of Christ, in laying chief stress, not on salvation here and now, the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth, but upon salvation in a narrower seuse of the term, as escape from the retrihutions of hell. To use the words of another: "It has been too much the habit of Christian people, in looking abroad upon the heathen world, to regard it, Dot as a kingdom to be congucred for Jesus Christ, but rather as a seething sea of drowning men, a few of whom might bo saved from the general wreck by those whom the Church sent out on her gallant life-boat service." But certainly this is not the conception which Christ empllasizes when He sets before men the object of their immediate aud supreme devotion. He hegan His ministry by preaching the Gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent ye, and bclieve tho Gospel." He frequently called the kingdom which He came to establish the" kingdom of heaven." not because it is in heaven, but because of its heavenly origin and nature. The prayer given by our Lord indicates plainly the location ned nature of tho kingdom for tho establishment of which He enjoined His disciples to labor ~and pray: "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done"-where g in heaven? " Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The objects presented in these two clauses are identical; the petition, "Thy kingdom come," means" Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The end here presented-universal obedience among men to the will of God-is the burden of the Gospel which Christ preached, and which He commanded His disciples to preach to " all nations," "to every creature;" an end which includes the whole duty of man, and in the accomplishment of which the earth will reflect, in II degree beyond buman conception, the love, purity and blessedness of the heavenly world. True, in a few instances, Christ spoke of the infinitely diverse destinies of men in the future world; "but for once that He spoke about tho ';;iVing of the soul, lIe spoke fifty times about the kingdom." Since Christ's method is the wisest and best, in the measure that the Church has departed from this method, it must have lost in reli~ious power, llow much power, in the way of missionary appeal,' has the doctrine of the eternal perdition of the great majority of the pagan world 1 I received, a few months ago, a letter from a missionary in India, accompanied by a printed appeal to all evangelical churches, in which he states that, while last year (1890) fifty thousand heathen had been rescued, twenty millions had died, few of whom had heard of the love of God in Christ. And he exclaims- " Twenty millions of immortal souls swept into hell in a single year I"
It is probably an approximately correct estimate that, during the missionary year just closed, twenty millions of pagans, who had reached the age of moral accountability, have passed away, the great majority of whom never heard of the Gospel of the grace of God. Is there not, in this fact, considered in the light of the commonly received view of the Bible relation to the final doom of the heathen world, a power of appeal to the people of God sufficient to impel them to all possible labors and sufferings necessary to make known the way of eternal life to every pagan on the face of the globe 1 Rave they been greatly moved by this fact of overwhelming importance 1 Row much have the Baptists of the Northern States, numbering eight hnndred thousand, contributed to aid in sending the Gospel to the vast multitude who have passed to the awards of the eternal world since the Union met in Chicago, one year ago 1 If we allow to these twenty millions their due share of our contributions according to their number, it will appear that the members of our churches have given, on an average, not to exceed two cents for rescuing from hell a number of our race equal to one third of the population of the United States. Is not this an amazing fact 1 Does it not ~eem incredible 1 Does it not furnish a moral demonstration that the idea of the exposure to everlasting puni8hment of the pagan world has but an almost inappreciable influence upon the great body of Christian people 1 Brethren, I would submit the matter to you j I would ask you, each one, to state, clearly and fully, to his own mind, the considerations which render it credible that the Baptists, represented by the Union, believe what they profess to believe in regard to the final doom of the heathen world, and yet give, on an average, not to exceed one cent a week, to send the knowledge of the way of eternal life to a billion heathen, and not to exceed two cents to rescue from perdition the twenty millions whose day of probation has closed since the last anniversary of the Union. Would it not seem difficult to find eight hundred thousand non-Christian men, of average natural benevolence, who would not give as much, if necessary, to prevent the everlasting misery of an equal number of irrational creatures ~ 18 it a matter of wonder that the world does not believe in hell, or that it does not believe that the orthodox churches believe that the heathen" shall go away into eternal punishment'" Do you say that for the world to deny that Christians believe what they profess to believe on this point is to charge them with the most culpable insincerity-a charge which involveR, logically, universal historical scepticism, rendering it irrational to believe in the existence of faith and goodness among men 1 True, but we would inquire if the charge involved in the other alternative is less damaging-the charge, well grounded, of continued practical indifference, on the part of the great majority of the members of all evangelical churches, to the eternal welfare of a thousand million of their fellow-men, whom they profess to love, and whom they are bound, by the most saered obligations, to love as they do themselves.
We would not have you misunderstand us at this point-to regard us as doubting the reality or under-valuing the importance of salvation as escape from the retributions of the future world. We believe that everlasting punishment will last forever; and we believe this awful truth because it iii taught in the Bible; and we believe it is taught in the Bible because it is a fact in the universe; and we believe it is a fact in the universe because the infinite God, in the plenitude of His resources, conld not prevent its existence, acting, as it behooves Him to act, in accordance with the immutable principle of His holy nature; and we believe that this truth ought to have the same place of relative importance in the instruc- tions of the pulpit which it has in the Bible. And yet we affirm that Christ did not dwell chiefly upon salvation as pertaining to the future world, but as a good to be realized here, through the reign of love in the souls of men, constraining them to grateful and self-sacrificing labors that the will of God might be done everywhere on earth as in heaven. Salva- tion is deliverance from sin, and sin is of all evils the essence and the sum. "It brings present disgrace and ruin to body and soul, to home and country ; it breeds distrust; it enervates manhood and womanhood; it incitp.s to murderous revenge; it arrays class against class; it kindles the fires of volcanic social hate; it is a menace to peace, to social order, and to international amity; and from all this there is salvation only by that personal integrity and "ocial righteousness which are the gifts of God to man through Jesus Christ." Salvation in this world involves salvation in the world to come ; the kingdom of God on earth is the foundation of the everlasting kingdom of God in the heavens; and in the measure that salvation is wrought out here, and the kingdom of God extends among men, will the end be accomplished which Christ set before His disciples as the object of constant and paramount devotion. The whole ministry of Christ was a ministry of love to all the sinful, sorrowful, lost sons of men. He was moved with compassion for the multitude because He saw them "in distress," "scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd," living mean, ignoble, wicked lives, ignorant of God and of the place which they occupy in His infinite heart, with latent spiritnal powers capable of development, with solemn re!!>ponsibilities of moral agents, with features of the divine image not yet wholly effaced and that might he restored. How strongly did He nrge, by word and deed, in life and death, the duty of self-sacrificing love for men, not merely for the souls of men, but for men, women and children, in all the relations of life; and how impressively did He emphasize, in the sublime programme of the judgment day, the decisive importance of deeds of love and mercy. "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these My brethren, y0 did' it unto Me." " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto Me." "Come, ye blessed of My Father." "Depart, ye cursed." Who are the brethren of Christ in this judgment programme? His disciples ~ Yes, but not these alone. For the event which He describes is that of the general judgment, when all nations, all the generations which shall have thronged the globe, will stand before His judgment seat, among whom there will be countless millions who never saw one of His disciples. The brethren of the Son of Man are "the poor, suffering, sorrow-laden sons of men, and the principle on which the judgment proceeds is that as men treat those, they would have treated the Judge had they had the opportunity. "
Are not the heathen among those who are in greatest need of the offices of love? Are they not hungry, famishing for lack of the Bread of Life q Are they not sick, consumed by the fever and leprosy of sin! Are they not poor, bankrupt in estate and character? Are they not in prison, compassed about by walls which they can neither scale, nor dig beneath, nor break through? If this great passage does not teach that men are saved by works of love, it certainly does teach that a faith, which does not produce these works, is vain and dead, and that those and those only who possess the spirit aud do the works described by Christ, are justified in regarding themselves, or in believing that He regards them, as His true disciples. The question for us to answer, as Mr. Spurgeon is reported to have suggested, is not, May the heathen be saved without the Gospel, but, Will we be saved if we do not carry the Gospel to the heathen ~ And it may be confidently affirmed that those who cannot be moved with compassion, in view of the wrath of God which has come upon the heathen, will not be moved with compassion in view of that which is to come upon them; that those who will not make sacrifices to rescue the heathen from the hells in which they are in this world, will not make sacrifices to rescue them from the hell of the future world, which seems far off, vague, unreal.
What, 'then, is the greatest need of the Church to-day ~ We answer, A divine enthusiasm; a mighty passion for the kingdom of God on earth, embracing all the populations of the globe":"'all China, all India, all Africa, all Enrope, all America, and all the islands of all the oceans; a kingdom as wide-reaching as the manifold life of man, involving obedience to the will of God in all positions and relations-in the sphere of the family, of social life, of business life, of political life; a kingdom whose progress shall be marked by the growing consecration of the people of God, the preaching of the Gospel to the poor, the overthrow of oppression, the extermination of drunkenness and the passions of lust and the greed of gain, the destruc,tion. of superstition, idolatry and all forms of infidelity, the sway of truth, and love, and righteousness over all the earth, a divine enthusiasm-a mighty passion of love and loyalty, impelling the soldiers of Jesus Christ to conquer for Him all the kingdoms of the globe on which His cross of shame and agony was set up, and from which He uttered the cry of expiring and redeeming love.
II. We mention, as a second cause, the failure of the evangelical churches to apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize in their foreign mission work. .
It is estimated that there is, on an average, one ordained minister to every three hundred thousand of the pagan population of the world.
There is good authority for the statement that in China, and t.he popula- tion accessible to the American Board, there is only one missionary for every six hundred thousand people. Moreover, there are whole nations, numbering scores of millions, in which no disciples have been made. We are confident that all who have any adequate conception of the interests involved will admit that the two following statements are thoroughly reasonable : 1. "That the Christian churches of the world should be satisfied with nothing less than sending out one ordained missionary for every fifty thonsand of the accessible pagan population of the world."
2. "That no church ought to call itself thoroughly aggressive and evangelical that does not expend, for the support of missions at large, at least one dollar for every five it expends for itself. "
What would compliance with these propositions require of the evan- gelical churches of the world ~ Twenty thousand ordained missionaries instead of four thousand, as at present; an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand, of which the quota of our denomination at the North should be not less than twtlve lmndred, making our foreign force of ordained ministers at least fifteen hundred. This would require our churches to give annually five times as much as the committee planned for expending during the current year, as authorized at the last annual meeting of the Union, or $2,500,000, a sum which, large as it may seem, is $400,000 less thau would come, annually, into the treasury of the Union if. the members of our churches should give, on an average, one cent a day for the cause of foreign missions.
We ask you to consider most seriously the vast relative waste, in men and money, involved in the condition of things existing in all the Northern States-the part of the country represented by the Union.
To illustrate the matter which we have in mind, let us take an example of numberless cases, with many of which everyone is familiar. Here are five fields, each having a population of fifteen hundred, and five evangelical ministers-one Baptist, one Presbyterian, one Congregationalist, one Episcopalian, and one Methodist-twenty-five ordained ministers preaching the Gospel to seven thousand five hundred people. while on the other side of the globe there are twenty-five fields, each having a population of three hundred thousand, and but one ordained minister; twenty-five men preaching the Word to seven million five hundred thousand people-one thousand times as many as are under the care of the same number of religious teachers at home. We ask now, in all earnestness, Would it not be infinitely more reasonable and Christian, if these several denominations would apply at home the principle of comity which they recognize abroad, keeping five of these ministers here and sending twenty to aid their brethren, each of whom is confronted by nearly a third of a million pagans? If it would be wrong in the sight of God to put five ministers of different evangelical denominations in a village of fifteen hundred people in China, or Africa, or Burmah, restricting their labors to that locality, is it not wrong and equally wrong, yea, wrong in a greater degree, to do the same thing here, while hundreds of millions o£ our fellow-men are living and dying in the darkness and misery of heathenism ~ The field is the world. The whole world is missionary ground. Every city, every village, every neighborhood, in which there is one man, or woman, or child who is not a citizen of the kingdom of God, is a missionary field. We challenge any man to adduce reasons which will approach to a justification of the course of the Christian churches in distributing their forcet! over this common missionary ground-the whole world-in such an extraordinarily uneven way, putting one minister in charge of three hundred people, many of whom are Christians, and another, of no greater ability, in charge of three hundred thousand, of whom all, or nearly all, are pagans. If the great evangelical denominations would act on the principle of comity here suggested, it would be an easy matter for them to send an immediate reinforcement of sixteen thousand men, so that there might be one minister to every fifty thousand pagans; and it would be an undertaking of no difficulty for us to send our quota of twelve hundred, and to furnish them with adequate support.
Is it a violation of truth or charity to say that the existing state of things is a great religious scandal, an offence against God, and a crime against our brethren of the heathen world, sit.ting in the region and shadow of death, perishing for the lack of the Light of Life?
What are the lessons taught by these facts? What are the duties which they should impress upon us? One duty, and that of paramount importance, as clear to our mind as if it were written on the heavens in words of fire, is this: That the evangelical churches ought to emphasize strongly all points of doctrinal agreement and all methods of Christian work in which they can unite, coming as closely together as possible, and presenting a united front to the enemies of God. Consider, we beseech you, the most obvious facts of our condition. Here are the evangelical churches, in all but a few millions, confronted at home by three hundred million members of two powerful and thoroughly corrupt organizationsthe Roman and Greek hierarchies-and by vast masses of men connected with no churches, dominated by sensuality, greed of gain, lust of powcr, and social distrust and hate, tremendous principles of evil which have brought to untimely destruction cities and nations, many and great, all down the ages; and abroad, confronted by a billion heathen, all involved in deepest moral ignorance and most debasing superstition, and half of them held in the thraldom of false philosophical systems of extraordinary power; and joined with these forces, both at home and abroad, the spiritual hosts of wickedness, nnder the leadership of the god of this world. In such a war as this, fighting the organized evil forces of earth and hell, the combined powers of "the world, the flesh, and the devil, ,. united in the strongest compacts, shall we not, all soldiers of Jesus Christ, stand together in the closest relations possible, help each other heartily on the march and in the deadly assanlt, cheer each other amid the fire and storm of battle, knowing that the Leader is one, the army one, the foe one, the final triumph one, the eternal glory one-the glory due unto Him who is " worthy to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and blessing" ~ But we hear objections, many and plausible, urged against what some may be pleased to call an impracticable and fanatical appeal.
1. It is said that we, as a denomination, hold the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; that it is of supreme importance that we secure the widest possible acceptance of onr views at home; that we dare not compromise with error by consenting to give up any community, however smail, to the care of Predobaptist churches, etc.
The question, then, for us to consider is reduced to this: Shall we give over more of the population of our country to the Predobaptists, or more of the heathen world to the devil ~ Are we to regard the errors of all Christian churches, other than our own, as more destructive than the errors of heathenism ~ And, then, if we have the truth, in its purity and fulness, are we not, of all Christian bodies in the world, under the greatest obligation to go to the regions beyond ~ Surely, the very fact of the purity of our creed immensely engances the claims of duty resting upon us to secure its worldwide acceptance. What an inspiring and uplifting event it would be to the whole Christian world, if we should send out, at once, the number of missionaries suggested-twelve hundred-moved by the spirit of apostolic self-sacrifice and heroism, whose labors might be the means, under the blessing of God, of winning to our pure faith tens and hundreds of thousands in heathen lands, creating at many points, as among the Telugus, Baptist communities numbering fifty thousand! Furthermore, is it not evident that the fundamental principle of our people ought to constrain them to go, in large and increasing numbers, to the nations of the pagan world ~ For the fundamental principle of our churches, that of which. we boast and in which we glory, is loyalty to Jesus Christ, implicit obedience to His commands. We discard and repudiate all assumed authority of a human source, whether of popes, or councils, or traditions, or creeds. But loyalty to Christ, in order to be such in truth and not in name only, must include obedience to all His commands, especially to those which are of supreme importance, among which stands the Great Commission. Does our action, as a denomination, justify or contradict our profession of loyalty ~ What is the command of Jesus Christ, as distinct and imperative as if we heard His words ringing out from the height of heaven ~ Is it not, "Go ye, Baptists, preach the Gospel to every creature, make disciples of all nations~" Is it not the belief of our churches, that the Great Commission was given originally, not to Presbyterians, or Congre- gationalists, or Episcopalians, or Methodists, but exclusively to Baptists- the very people of whom we claim to be the only living representatives ~ The first body of Baptists were right loyal to their Lord; they went every- where preaching the Word; they carried the good news to aU quarters of the known worM. How is it with the people known as Baptists in the last quarter of the nineteenth century ~ Is their obedience such as to justify their claim to be the true successors of those early disciples of Christ ~ Have they discharged, are they now discharging, in any true and worthy sense, the high and imperative duty imposed by the risen and glorified Redeemer, loyalty to whom they claim as their distinction and horlor ~ Is it obedience to the command, "Go, make disciples of all nations," for a people, numbering eight hundred thousand, to contribute $400,000 a year-on an average, one cent a week-to give to a billion pagans a knowledge of the incarnate Son of God, who loved them and gave Himself for them, and through whom alone they can attain eternal life ~ Brethren, mere profession will not justify our claim of special loyalty to Christ, nor ~ill obedience to His requirements in the matters of baptism, communion and church government justify it while the great majority of the members of our churches are in a state of mutiny against the Great Commission, saying, if not in words, yet practically, We will not ourselves preach the Gospel to the pagan nations, nor will we make sacrifices to aid others in the work of preaching to them. .
How is it that the belief has come to prevail so widely, among all Christian people, that there is au enormous difference, in culpability and danger, between disobedience to Christ in rejecting what He requires them to believe, and disobedience to Christ in disregarding what He commands them to do ~ Why is it that the heresy of unbelief is regarded with such apprehension or alarm, while the heresy of inaction is viewed with comparative indiffer- ence ~ Is faith without works any better than works without faith ~ Are they not alike dead and displeasing to God-equally vain and perilous 1 To the heresy of inaction, far more than to the heresy of unbelief, is due the deplorable fact that the midnight darkness of heathenism still envelops nearly two thirds of the population of the globe. What, then, shall we do 1 The alternatives are: Either cease to claim to be the true successors of the earliest Baptist churches, or obey, with the devotion which char- acterized them, the Lord's command, "Go, preach the Gospel to the whole creation."
2. But we hear another objection urged with great frequency and confidence. It is said that the United States is destined to be the leading I nation of the future, that it occupies a position of immeasurable importance in the world's history; so that whatever we do, or fail to do, in relation to the evangelization of the pagan nations, we must seck, by all means in our power, to make our nation thoroughly Christian. What shall we say of this utterance, heard everywhere, especially on anniversary occasions, in the pulpit and on the platform ~ Is it not largely an utterance of national conceit, inspired by national pride and selfishness, and utterly opposed to thll example and teaching of Christ and His apostles 1 1. The ruling motive force of Christianity is love j and it is the nature, the irrepressible instinct, of Christian love to help the most helpless, the deformed in body, the feeble-minded, the moral refuse of. society for whom none care.
2. Jesus gathered around Him the weakest, the lowest, the" publicans and harlots," the social outcasts-the nobodies of ilis time, according to the prevailing standards of the world.
3. Does the Great Commission read, Go ye, therefore, make disciples of the leading nations, preach the Gospel to those who hold positions of great stategic importance? . This would seem to be the form of the Lord's final command as given in the English version most widely current in our churches. But the oldest manuscripts, beyond question substan- tially identical with the "Original Autographs" of Matthew and Mark, read very differently, as follows: "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples of all nations;" "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation. "
4. The history of the Church justifies the method of Christ. Chris- tianity has won its most notable victories among peopla of little account in the judgment of the civilized nations, as among the Karens, the Telugus, the Sandwich Islanders, the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles, who, though they were regarded by the Romans as too stupid and brutish to serve as slaves, have built up the most magnificent empire known to his- tory-an empire upon which the sun never sets, which has endured for a thousand years, and is influencing now, as never before, the thought, and life, and movements of the world. .
5. The only principle of missionary strategy recognized by Paul, the foremost missionary of all the ages-as appears from the inspired record of his life-was to preach the Gospel where men were thickest. And for the adoption of this principle he had divine warraut j for when he was at Corinth, the Lord said unto him in the night by a vision: . " Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace j for I alll with thee, and no man shall set on thee to harm thee; for" -what did the Lord say? Corinth is a city of culture, the eye of Greece, occupying a position of great strategic importance? No, no ; but, " no man shall set on thee to harm thee, for I have much people in this city."
o brethren, can we not hear our Lord calling us one uy one, by name, and saying, " I have much people in China, much people in Africa, much people on all the continents and islands of the globe?" Let us take deeply into our minds and hearts Christ's idea of the people! the people! the people! He accounted man transcendently great, not because of the external distinctions which gain for him recognition and honor in the world, but because of what he is as man, the divine image in him, his inherent powers of intellect, heart and will, which have revealed but an insignificant fraction of their latent energy, even in the case of those who stand forth in history as the greatest of the sons of men, and to whose expansion and growth there is no goal this side of the infinitude of God.
In Christ's esteem, all men, of whatever race, or rank, or condition, ar~ of equal worth in virtue of their divine endowments and immortal destination.
The people have been of but little account in the past. It has been the great ones of the earth-emperors, kings and nobles, the rich and the powerful j for these it has seemed that all things were made; for these the people have labored, and suffered, and died like the beasts of the field; but thanks be unto God for the signs, multiplying on every side, betokening the growing power of Christ's idea of the greatness of man as man, the worth and dignity of the people. It cannot be doubted that one of the chief causes of the agitations and revolutions which are taking place in all Christian nations, working the di&integration and overthrow of institutions of social and political wrong which have survived the destruction of dynasties not a few, is the growing conscionsness, on the part of the people, of their divine rights and powers of manhood; their dignity as moral agents-deep calling unto deep-the strivings and aspirations of the human soul, like the ceaseless ground-swell of the ocean, in response to the presence and quickening touch of the Spirit of God. And as the Christian idea, which is Christ's idea of the people, shall grow in power and splendor, it will mould more and more profoundly all social and political institutions, and will constrain all the true disciples of Christ to labor with equal love, devotion and joy for the temporal and eternal wellbeing of all men, irrespective of race, or nationality, or color, or sex, or social condition.
But who knows that the United States is destined to be the leading nation of the future, that the Anglo-Saxon race will rule the coming ages ~ To whom has the assurance been given that God will not build up in China a kingdom far surpassing, in intellectual and moral power, the British Empire or the great republic 'I Where is the prophet who can foretell the destiny of the " Dark Continent," having at the present time a population of two hundred and fifty millions-four times that of the United States ~ Who can forecast the turnings and overturnings which shall precede the coming of Him whose right it is to reign, and who shall reign over all the nations of the earth ~ Is it nrged that certain of the pagan nations and races have no future, that they are worn out, their powers of expansion and growth exhausted? We reply that the judgment of those who thus speak is certainly shallow, and probably false, because they fail to estimate adequately the restorative and re-creative power of Christianity. The error is like that involved in the conception of "a mechanical world and an outside God." The idea has widely prevailed that the material universe is a " closed system"-a system of finite forces, acting and reacting upon each other, excluding all divine causality-its goal quiescence and death. The conception is fundamentally false, because it does not include, as it should include, God as the universal and abiding ground of all being and all life, as immanent and active in all chemical forces, in all vital forces, in all souls-to His almighty will energizing throughout creation from the atom to the archangel." This view compels us to reject, as irrational and incredible, the notion that the goal of the material universe is quiescence and death, and to affirm that, through the immanent and energizing power of God, it will abide, and pass on from lower to higher stages, " from the nebulous matter to the glory of the new heavens and the new earth."
But God is in history in a sense infinitely more real and profound than He is in the realm of physical nature; and hence we believe that there are no effete and worn-out peoples, no races whose powers of expansion and growth are permanently exhausted. For though the words of the apostle that" all live and move, and have their being in God" declare a universal fact of history, yet, in these last times, God has entered, in Jesns Christ, into new and more vital relations with mankind, and is creating them anew by His spirit. awakening and invigorating their dormant and paralyzed powers, thus enabling nations and races, as well as individuals, to enter upon a new career, far higher and grander than would have been possible to them before the Advent.
In concluding these remarks, we desire to say, that we have spoken as truly and earnestly in beha!f of the work of missions at home as of the work of missions abroad. The cause of home missions and the cause of
MISSIONS AND THEm RESULTS
foreign missions are one in principle and one in interest. And, therefore, along with the motto, " America for Christ," but high above it, we should place the motto, "The World for Christ:" And the speediest and the only infallible way to gain America for Christ is to give to the world's evangelization the place of supremacy, in labors and gifts, which it holds of right. This our churches, this the churches of other denominations, have lamentably failed to do. The most general and conspicuous act of disobedience to Christ, on the part of the Christian people of the United States, is their deliherate and persistent refusal to discharge the high and imperative duty to evangelize the pagan nations-a work for the accomplishment of which, within the period of the past twenty-five years, their resources, in men and money, have been ample. It is, in our judgment, no exaggeration to say, that the Baptist churches of the Northern States could have done and ought to have done, during the past year, as much for the cause of foreign missions as has been done by all the evangelical churches embraced in the same portion of our country.
Brethren, I would that one half of the Baptist ministers at the North would give themselves to the work of evangelizing the heathen. Disastrous to our denomination at home, do you say ~ Impossible. It would bring to our churches an unparalleled degree of prosperity; the places left vacant would be filled by men called of God from the ranks of the laity; ministers of other denominations would be won to us, convinced that we were holding the truth in its purity, and living it with apostolic fidelity ; Christians of other names, moved by the power of our example, would obey in a worthy manner the Lord's final command; and this powerful missionary "movement" .would confound infidelity at home, would convince the world that Christianity is, indeed, what it claims to be, and would mightily advance the Kingdom of God in all parts of our country.
May the Divine Spirit enable us to penetrate to the heart of these great paradoxes in the kingdom of Grace-that we saVtl our life, not by seeking, but by losing it; that we become rich, not by keeping, but by giving; that we become great in moral power among men, not by self-assertion, but by self-abnegation, by self. sacrifice from love to others; that it is through our poverty that we are to enrich the world, according to the way of Him who, " though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich."
APOSTOLIC MISSIONS AND THEIR RESULTS.
BY REV. JOHN RUTHERFORD, ROTHE SAY, SCOTLAND.
" Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." Such was the word of the Holy Ghost which came to the church in Antioch as they ministered to the Lord and fasted.
This was the actual beginning of Chris.tian missions; those two men were the pioneers of all in every age who have gone forth to carry the Word of Christ " far hence unto the Gentiles."
It was a vast work that lay before them. As Paul afterward wrote, " Who is sufficient for these things~" so would he feel now. Alone and single handed they were to attack the ignorance and superstition and vice of the world. Their difficulties could hardly be overestimated. What amount of credence were they likely to meet with from hostile Jews, from subtle Greeks, or from tl1e military Romans ? Was it probable that the minds of the heathen could be easily turned from the saturnalia and idol festivals to which for generations they had been addicted? Systems of priestcraft, of degrading mythologies, of widespread epicureanis~, of an utterly debased home life, of slavery and of revolting games and pleasures kept the world crushed beneath corruption and sensuality. And who, then, were Barnabas and Paul, to attempt to overthrow institutions venerable with the traditions of centuries? who were they to try to change the religions and social face of the world? "Two Jews of obscure name, of no position, without rank, without wealth, without influence, without either literary, political, or military genius, without any culture but such as a Roman noble would have despised as useless and grotesque." Yes, and even after years of working at this their chosen work, they did not find it either popular or remunerative, for it fell to their lot to approve themselves the ministers of God in affiictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, in prisons, in deaths, being beaten, being stoned, being shipwrecked, Iiving in weariness and painfulness, in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness.
Were they sufficient for these things? sufficient to cope with false philosophy, with heathenism, with abounding moral pollution, with a world which knew not God? They realized that their sufficiency was of God j they had been called by the Holy Ghost.
And so Barnabas and Saul went forth from Antioch, taking with them as an attendant and companion John Mark. Barnabas was one of the noblest, most manly, gentlest, and most effective of all the apostolic band. A Christian of the highest type, he had already been of the greatest service to Paul on more than one memorable occasion, a man of large heart, of wide sympathy, of great generosity and liberality j devoted and earnest and Joving, a " son of consolation," a good man, who rejoiced iu all good by whomsoever wrought, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.
And Paul, still known by his early name of Saul, was a man whose character towers far above that of ordinary men j a gentleman in the true sense of the word j a Christian, devoted, body, soul, and spirit, to Christ; courteous and orave, tender-hearted and true, full of enthusiasm and of sobriety of mind j a man of the deepest power of thought, eloquent, persuasive, able to organize and to manage, able to bear with weaknesses and prejudices, a man whose life was yielded without reserve to the glory of Jesus Christ and the welfare of men.
These, then, were the first Christian missionaries. After a farewell meeting with the church in Antioch they made their way to the port of Seleucia, where there stretched at their feet the waters of the great welltern sea. Here they found a splendidly built harbor in which the ships were lying protected from the swell of the waves outside. The ruins of this harbor remain in great perfection to our own day, only silted up with mud. From just such a harbor and such piers as we are acquainted with in any of our great shipping centres, the first New Testament missionaries set sail. It was the noblest use to which the masonry of the port of Seleucia had been ever put, when it sheltered the ship into which Paul and Barnabas stepped as they went at the divine bidding to evangelize the nations. Their vessel sailed out into the west-westward was the call of God to the Christian Church for many a century, until Europe and America should have received the Gospel-and soon arrived at Cyprus. Arrived at length in this, the first country to which God had led them, what would the results be? What would be the results of discussions with unbelieving Jews and with opposing philosophers? of weary journeys on foot-journeys continued for weeks together, while the preachers endured hunger and thirst, cold and nakedness, and had no certain dwelling-place? what would be the result of their residence in foreign cities among neVI' faces, all of whom were alike ignorant of" this Jesus whom Paul preached"? 'Would the results be commensurate with the time and labor expended V Modern critics would say, No ; for upon their principles Paul would have done better if he had not interfered with other people's religion, if he had let the world alone, for the religion of Greeks and Romans, of Celts and Britons was no doubt good enough for them, and they would somehow or another all turn out right enough in the next world. It was not after this fashion that Paul reasoned or acted. No ; he had a gospel to make known'-" woe is me if I preach not the Gospel." To make all men know the mystery of Christ he was willing to be buffeted and reviled, willing to undergo abuse and bodily injury, willing to be scourged, to be stoned and left for dead, as he was at Lystra. What, it is asked, are men to undergo treatment like ihis for the sake of propagating the Christian religion? Here is his reply : "I count not my life dear unto me, that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I received of the Lord Jesus."
But what were the results? A handful of converts in each of half a dozen or a dozen towns, and those converts by no means the mature, well-informed, experienced Christians who are to be seen in modern congregations. It is difficult to realize how inexperienced those converts were, how crude their ideas, how imperfect their morality ; they required mIlch patient teaching and exhortation; and even the best of them, who were appoicted deacons and deaconesses and elders, knew very little, for they had but recently turned from idols to serve the living and true God. All their previous life had the dead weight of heathen custom, heathen ideas, heathen morality, heathen vice; and it took long years of patient labor on the part of the apostles to raise their converts to anything like a proper appreciation of the behavior that is beeoming a Christian. Were ,OJ these results, then, worth the labor ~ WaR it worth while to have gained these new churches in heathen countries, when the gain had been achieved at the expense of such bodily injury to an apostle as had made him prematurely old and taken many years from his lif,e 1 Similar objections are constantly made against modern mission work-Is the conversion of a handful of Jews or of a few thousands of negroes or Hindoos or South Sea Islanders worth the life and the moncy that are spent in the process ~ and the verdict of many is in the negative.
But surely the actions of a divinely inspired apostle are a safer guide than any negative or hostile theories. Look again at Paul as he is returning from the second of his great missionary journeys. He has been away, from Antioch and his friends there for perhaps three years, and years and,hard work are telling upon him; he is not the same strong man he once was; no, he bears in his body the branding marks of the Lord Jesus. Since he and Silas set out-for Silas is now his companion-they have undergone the" shameful handling" which fell to their lot at Philippi; and violence of that kind no man can ever fully recover from. But Paul has a brave heart j none was ever braver than he. The devotion of his whole being to the Son of God, who loved him and gave Himself for him, this personal affection to the Lord Jesus ever urges him on to spend and be spent for the glory of Christ and the salvation of man. He feels himself debtor to all–to slave and freeman, to Jew and Greek; and therefore as Jesus Christ's minister he is abundant in labors; life is too short and too precious to waste; eternity will give him rest. Therefore. does his heart bound onward to the work, although even in this second journey he has been in stripes above measure, in prison, in deaths oft, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness.
Yes, this was the kind of life Paul chose for Christ's sake. There was then no other educated man of his position who was acting in this fashion. They looked on him as a fool, and regarded those journeyings of his as fanaticism. He knew that this was the estimate formed of him by his former associates, " Weare fools for Christ's sake j" but he had counted the cost, and Christendom of to-day thanks God for the sufferings, the journeyings, the fearless enterprise, the manly Christian resolution of St. Paul-a resolution to live not for applause either in the Church or outside of it; but to live for Jesus Christ alone and for mankind of every nation, for slaves and outcasts, for little children and for women, for those whom the world despised. One thing this Paul ever does, one thing engages his thoughts by day and his dreams by night, that Christ be glorified in his body whether by life or by death.
Was it worth while ~ Would Paul and Barnabas and Silas not have done better to have stayed at home and taught the home church ~ Suppose they had, where, then, would our European and American churches have been to-day ~ Simply nowhere. Had there been no apostolic missions, Anglo-Saxon Christianity would have been non-existent.
Are missions worth the money ~ Do they pay? Alas! that such a question should even be asked by a worldly church. Ask Christ, and listen to His answer, " Make disciples of all nations." Ask Paul, " I am debtor to all men." Ask the martyrs, they counted not their lives dear to them for the name of Jesus. Go with me to Central Africa, to Lake Victoria Nyassa, and see what divine grace can do for the most benighted races. One of the missionaries, Rev. Mr. Ashe, writes as follows: "Picture the tyrant playing the first act in the tragedy. One of the elder storekeepers, a Christian page, is brought into the royal presence. 'Can YOIl read 1 ' asks his majesty. 'Yes,' boldly answers the page. 'I'll teach you to read!' cries the king, catching up a spear and laying it about the lad's shoulders till it broke in two ; then, taking up the blade, he gashed the head of his faithful servant and kicked him, till in a state of exhaustion he handed the weapon to one of his chiefs nearly as cruel as himself, to continue the lesson. He then sent and had fifty of his pages arrested and cast into prison. After being imprisoned for a week thirty-two of them were burned in one huge funeral pile. "
The spirit which animated these martyrs was the same which inspired the early Christians, who endured a similar death, as Tacitus narrates, in the time of Nero. Wrapped up in sacking which had been previously smeared with pitch, they were hung upon trees in the royal gardens and then set fire to, there to burn to death, blazing as lamps in the darkness of evening; or again, encased in the skins of wild beasts, they were thrown to dogs and worried till they died. The early martyrs and the martyrs of the nineteenth century in Madagascar and China and Africa were faithful to Christ, faithful unto death. Most assuredly work which God blesses with results such as these is worth the while.
The work is Christ's. The command to carry the Gospel to every creature is Christ's command. It is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Jesus, who still breathes into His people something of the compassion of Christ for those who are even to-day sitting in the shadow of death; and the results of Christian ,missions are Christ's. The handful of converts in Cyprus, in Pisidia, in Derbe, and Lystra, and Iconium, a]ld Athens, and Corinth, and Rome, and Spain, and Egypt, and Gaul, and Britain continues to increase throughout the centuries, until in this year of grace, 1891, we have Christian churches everywhere, the prelude to the timc when the earth itself shall be full of the knowledge of God, when sin shall be made to cease out of God's world, when in the fulness of the joy of the wholo human race ccnsciously redeemed, the shout shall. rend the skies, " The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever."
NARAYAN BHESHADRI, D.D
NARAYAN SHESHADRI, D.D., THE BRAHMAN APOSTLE OF THE OUT-CASTE MANGS.
BY GEORGE SMITH, LL.D., EDINBURGH, SNTLAND.
[We venture to reproduce from the Free Church of Scotland Monthly a superb paper which many readers have not seen.-ED.] The same Scottish newspaper announced the death of two remarkable Asiatic converts of Dr.. John Wilson of Bombay-the Parsi, Rev. Hor- mazdji Pestonji, and the Brahman, Rev. Narayan Sheshadri, Doctor of Divinity of the University of Montreal. There still survives the oldest of all, the Rev. Dhanjibhai Naoroji, at the head of the native Christian community of Western India.
Vilhen, in 1839, Dhanjibhai and Hormazdji left the fire-worship of Zoroaster for the only Name given under heaven whereby men may be saved, Parsi and Hindu society was moved to its centre. In vain was the civil court appealed to. But the Institution was almost emptied. .tmong the few sons of caste and superstition who clung to it through ill.report were two Brahman brothers-Narayan and Shripat. What Dr. John 'Wilson and Mr. Nesbit began, Dr. Murray Mitchell continued, and the good work resulted in their determination to put on Christ by baptism. Narayan, who was confessedly of age and could not be hindered, became the first convert of the Church of Scotland, Free, in the year 1843, when Dr. Wilson and Dhanjibhai were in Scotland founding the home organization of the missions anew. Shripat was not sixteen years of age, and Sir Erskine Perry handed him over to the Brahman priests, with a sneer at the plea of the age of discretion. He was torn from Mr. Nesbit's arms, as he sobbed forth the question, "Am I to be compelled to worship idols ~"
While the younger brother was thus driven back by a Christian judge into Brahmanism, and submitted to the humiliation of swallowing the five products of the cow, that he might be restored to caste, the elder began that apostolic career which, for this life, ended in the committing of his body to the Atlantic on the 21st July last, in the hope of a glorious resurrection in Christ Jesus, at the very hour when the Foreign Missions Committee in Edinburgh, all unknowing of the fact, were discussing the arrangements by which Dr. Mowat was to share his toils next October.
After spending some years as a missionary teacher in the Institution and preacher to his countrymen, Narayan Sheshadri was ordained by the Presbytery of Bombay, and the highly educated Brahman became for the rest of his life the apostle of the Mangs, the out-caste poor of the Deccan centre of India. Leaving ordinary British territory, he resolved to annex the great native state of Haidarabad to the kingdom of Christ.
The year was 1863. As his base, he worked from Jalna, a military cantonment, in which mission buildings were easily acquired. Three miles south he gradually obtained three hundred acres of land, which forms the centre of the mission to the Mangs. As the Spirit of God blessed his incessant evangelizing, he made that spot the centre of what grew to be his extensive mission to the out-caste. He formed a Christian church and a Christian community, calling both" the House of God," but using the Hebrew" Bethel" rather than one of his own beautiful Marathi words. After ten years of blessed toil he visited Scotland and America, to tell the churches of his work and to raise funds for the necessary buildings. His winning face and irresistible personality, his native eloquence alike in English and the vernaculars, and his contagious earnestness, captivated not only Christians in all the lands he visited, but the Parsi official of the district, and even the proud Arab prime-minister of the Nawab, Sir Salar Jung. For the mission he received three hundred acres of gautan, or chnrch land, free of tax, and never to be cultivated save as a grass common; for the Christian peasants he was installed as patel, or headman, over six hundred acres, in which office his son Yeshwant-rao, lately agricultural professor in Nagpore College, has succeeded him.
Year by year the work went on increasing, when he paid a second visit to America and Scotland. The writer was with him a deputy to the Presbyterian Alliance at Philadelphia in 1880, and went up and down Scotland with him, pleading alternately for the Livingstonia and for the Bethel Mission. After his first visit some of our generous Glasgow elders, led by Mr. William Mitchell, formed a committee to' help his village mission. Congregations specially charged themselves with the support of his catechists. The children of the Free Church, above all, built him his church, and year by year supported some of his schools. By 1886-87 the work had so far extended that we published this appeal for him : " Before we pass away from these earthly scenes, we should like to see the thirty villages, wherein our Christians reside, supplied with pastors duly qualified, called, ordained, and settled over their respective congregations.. How is this to be accomplished 1 However, we have most encouraging promises in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. , I shall take out of them (namely, Gentile nations) for priests and Levites, saith the Lord.' Has He not given a full realization of this promise in the experience of once heathen European nations; and what He has done with respect to European and American nations, lIe is able and willing to do with reference to the Gentile nations of India, China, Burma, Japan, and all Eastern nations. We mean to submit to the Free Presbytery of Bombay a scheme of studies to train up village pastors in connection with our Bethel Mission. Last year we had the pleasure to dedicate a new church at Rewagao, two miles to the south of Bethel, to the worship of the only living and true God."
In 1888-89 our deputies visited the Deccan Village Mission, and Rev. Dr. Lindsay made this report to the children of the church: " First, there was a most interesting series of baptisms, with an address to the baptized; then the nsual service, when I preached and Dr. Sheshadri interpreted; and lastly, the communion service, at which I had the privilege of presiding. No pews exist in the Bethel churcb. The congregation sit on the floor in row after row, devout and attentive; and th,e babies, most of them without a stitch of clothing on, crawl about everywhere. An bour or so after service the catechists and Bible-women met in the church, and we had an interesting interview with them. A great number were present besides Bible-women and catechists, and I could only get at which was which by act.ually taking hold of each and finding out by question whether the person I had hold of was a catechist or a Bible-woman, and separating them from the rest.
" One or two of the Bible-women made a very great impression on us. Their story of work was simple, clear, and interesting. 'Have you made many converts ~' one of our number asked. 'There is one,' she replied, pointing to one of the men among the catechists. Mrs. Mackichan and Mrs. Daly examined these Bible-women, and their questions drew out very interesting answers. Mrs. Daly gave them some very sound practical advice, which produced more immediate results than longer sermons usually do. All the small children came to the Monday village family worship clothed, although most of them spent the hour of service in getting rid of their inconvenient garment. One small urchin, having divested himself, to his own evident satisfa~tion, of every vestige of garment, toddled to the church door, carefully put on the largest pair of shoes he could find, and then tumbled down the steps in them. When he reached the bottom he picked himself up, got into the shoes again, and shuffied off out of sight-a happy child 1 "Dr. Sheshadri sends his men out in small bands to preach in the villages round about Bethel, and in this way has formed small Christian communities in most of them. One sees at Bethel genuine native Christians, who preserve all their primitive habits, and who are not Anglicized by their Christianity. The evangelists all collect at Bethel on the first Monday of every month, and are regularly instructed by Dr. Sheshadri, who is a born teacher (to hear him give a Bible lesson to school children, and to see the small eyes twinkle with eagerness, is a sight not to be soon forgotten), in the interpretation of Scripture, and in the best ways of meeting the various objections commonly brought by Hindus and Moslems against Christianity.
" In the afternoon we started for the neighboring village of Rewagao. It possesses the first of those village churches which Dr. Sheshadri proposes to build in the principal hamlets in his district. A congregation of about ninety people gathered, and three baptisms took place at the close of the service.
"Dr. Mackichan and Mr. Daly returned in the evening from their visit, and reported a cheerful little Christian community in the far-off village they had gone to see. These Christians lived in a distinct quarter of the village,- and though greatly outnumbered by the heathen, were full of hope and courage.
" I hope that Dr. Sheshadri's plan of building ten or twelve village churches will .be carried out, and that each church will have attached a prophet's chamber, in which the missionary may reside when on his rounds. The great defects of our mission in the Bethel district appeared to be the want of adequate provision for the training of the children, and the wide extent of country which Dr. Sheshadri has to superintend."
Of converts still living in 1890, Dr. Sheshadri reported 1062 as the number, besides 649 adherents. Mr. A. G•.Mowat, M. B., C.M., was sent ont from Glasgow last year to work the northern division of the mission from Jalna, after learning Marathi with Mr. Small at Poona. He has just been instructed to repor~ on the whole mission, after a year's survey.
Accompanied by his son, Dr. Sheshadri left Bombay for Japan last February on sick leave, proceeded thence to America, preached almost daily, and addressed the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Canada. He sailed for Glasgow in the (Jircassia very well,* even at his age; but as the result of a storm on leaving. New York, he succumbed to bowel disease, and was buried in mid-Atlantic.
It is a strange story from man's point of view. The Brahman lad, fruit of our educational Institution, who confessed Christ before thc Supreme Court of Bombay, was enabled by the Spirit of God to bring, from first to last, some two thousand of his countrymen to Christ, notwithstanding defects of a purely secular kind, which he was ready to acknowledge and bewail. He has left a goodly heritage to the Church of India.
Do we ask what is missionary work g Rather ask what is not missionary work g for wherever there are Bouls to be saved, ignorance to be enlightened, human wrong to be righted, vice to be uprooted, and woes to heal; wherever the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, is obscured by reason of darkness, there is missionary work; and wherever in the homes of Christendom there are hearts unrenewed, lives wasted in folly and trifling, God-given powers dying for want of holy exercise, money, time, influence and example diverted to unworthy objects, there is missionary work.
* This was his last letter to Dr. Graham, of Edinburgh, now ninety years of age : – " WALNUT STREET, PHILADE~pmA, July 14, '91.
"My DEAR FATHER GRAHAM: I see that in all probability you'll have me once more in my temporary home, Ashfield Villa, Greenhill Gardens, 1 Chamberlain Road.
"You and your dear minister, Dr. Wilson, and all inquiring friends in your beautiful city, will be gratified to hear that I have been restored to health and strength. I have been travelling from San Francisco to New York, and thence to Chicago, Washington, and Bostoll, very often preaching twice on the Lord's-day, and once or twice on week-days.
"We leave New York on the 18th instant by the Circassia, on or about the 29th in Glasgow. I shall let you know when we-that is, my son Yeshwant-rao and myself-will be at Edinburgh.
Morningside. With warmest love to you, Miss Graham, and Miss Martha, and all Inquiring friends, ever afi'ectionately yours, NARAYAN SHESH~DRI."
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
-The census just taken shows India to have a population of 285,- 000,000.
-The Report of the Free Church of Scotland remarks: "A work on which Dr. Duff laid great stress in connection with all educational operations in the country, from the lowest indigenous vernacular primary school up to the highest college class, was the compiling or selecting of good, pure text-books, thus superseding the impure, immoral rubbish which at one time prevailed to so large an extent in all schools in India. Of course a good deal of this work has been accomplished, but a good deal remains to be done. The Government of India has put itself in communication with all the local governments on this subject of pure text-books, passed resolutions and laid down principles for the guidance of the various educational departments throughout the country. One of these principles is to the effect that at least one half of every school-book used as a reader in English or in vernacular teaching should consist of lessons having a direct bearing on conduct, either by way of precept or of example. The fact is becoming more patent to missionaries every year that the progress of Christianity rests on a sensitiveness of conscience as to conduct. Wherever there is an indifference as to conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Wherever I God or the Supreme Authority is regarded as indifferent as to whether actions are good or bad, and also wherever men are regarded as under the compulsion of fate, so that they can do nothing of themselves and are therefore blameless as to bad conduct, there can be no conviction of sin. Now these are two of the fuudamental principles of Hinduism, and taught in most of their school.books. Hindus are trained from their infancy on these Ii nes.' '
-Mr. F. N. Farquhar, B.A., of Christ Church, Oxford, has lately gone out to take up work in the London Missionary Society College at Bhowanipur, Bengal. He writes: "Nothing impresses me so deeply as the extreme difficulty of the work of leading the class of men we have to deal with-educated Bengalis-to become Christians. They are not only proud of their own hoary cult, and filled full of arguments drawn from the purer and nobler parts of its teaching, but their want of physical vigor and moral greatness makes them far more difficult to rouse than stndents at home; and the fear which is now felt by Hindus concerning the advance of Christianity has led them to form almost a sacred dread of allowing any shred of Christian teaching to find a place in their heart.
"Yet though this seems to be true of a very large number of these young Babus, there are many whose hearts have been touched, and who are anxious to learn more about Christ.
" My little experience and few scraps of observation since I came here confirm my belief that the educational work done here is of extreme value and importance. That these young Christians should be taught by earnest Christians rather than by careless Christians or by Hindus is of immense importance, o,'en if we do not consider the actual Scripture work and direct Gospel teaching. And the magnificent set of educated native Christians dependent upon our mission here is a proof of the power of Christian educational work. The native pastors and other educated natives have impressed me deeply; they are kings among the ordinary Bengalis here, and their Christian character seems far advanced, and is most beautiful, most helpful, and most encouraging."
-The English Baptists, in their Annnal Report, announce as their policy" Aggressive Concentration." "Ooncentration and consolidation of missionary effort, rather than unwise diffusion, are the methods most ownea and blessed by God in Indian mission enterprise." The report of their deputation says: "vVe have in India to-day just one thin long line of stations, in most instances with extensive distances between. We have located our brethren in great cities far distant from each other, and by so doing removed from them the strength and inspiration that come from working in touch and contact in mutual sympathy and brotherly counsel. We ha'e set one or two brethren down in a vast and densely peopled city, and written' Occupied' over the entire district stretching far away, until we have treated a similar centre hundreds of miles distant in precisely the same manner. • . , 'Spread the Light!' 'Spread the Light !' is a cry in which we would all thankfully join j but it is surely well to remember that the light of missionary zeal and usefulness resembles that of live coals, which if kept together may long continue to burn brightly and diffuse a genial warmth, but which if unwisely scattered will soon become dim and cold."
Says the deputation: "Even putting all distinctive missionary effort out of the question, the mere contact of Western thought, culture, and education is inevitably breaking up the older forms of Hindu thought. But it lies with us to say whether that contact shall be charged with infinite blessing, leading them on to a higher, deeper, truer faith, and a new national life j or whether, cutting them adrift from their old moorings, we leave them without Christ, strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world, to be ravaged by intoxicating drinks and made imbecile by opium."
-The Rev. L. P. Weinberg, of Jaffa, quoted in the Jewish Intelligencer for February, writes: "The general topic of conversation among Jews at the present time is Palest.ine, and almost every Jewish newspaper speaks of this country as ' the only place of refuge' for them." , Arias, missionary of the London Society for the Conversion of the Jews, reports a significant remark of some Italian Jews: "Till the Chris- tians treat the Jews well, we shall never beliE)ve that Jesus is our Messiah."
Most of the Italian Jews that he has met with seem to be in the dregs of Judaism, with few signs of longing for anything better.
-Professor A. R. Simpson, President of the Edinburgh Mediclll Missionary Society, says, most aptly, that in the Old Testament the" place of God's feet" is the Temple, but that the feet of the God-man are found most often "where the sick lay and the bereaved were weeping." ,. These were the places of His feet, who Himself bore our sicknesses and carried our infirmities; and these are· what He would seek our wealth to make glorious." Brave encouragement, Professor Simpson well says, to the medical missionary, to show him that he is in the track of the Saviour of the world.
-The West Himalaya Mission of the Unitas Fratrum was begun in 1853. Not until 1890 has a meeting of all the missionaries of the three stations been found practicable. Compared with the giant heights among which theY' live, saY's the Missions-Blatf, the Alps seem mere ranges of hills. And hardly had they broken up from their first meeting, when a veritable deluge converted the whole valley of Leh into a sea, swept away every bridge over the Upper Indus except one, and swept many persons out of the world. The Brethren do not seem to remit their ancient passion, " To plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose On icy rocks, and 'mid eternal snows."
– " See," said a sick child in India, "the goddess Kali's bloody tongue, wicked face, cruel hands. necklace of skulls; our gods are terrible; I cannot help screaming when I see them."-Canadian Church Magazine.
-Whether the late English reviewer, who is greatly displeased that Christians should endeavor to disturb the sweet calm of Buddhism, would be equally displeased that they endeavor to discredit the worship of the venerable goddess Kali, is not certain. Perhaps he would grudgingly allow this one exception.
-The Missions-Berichte gives a stinging remark of a South African Caffre, that among the whites they became acquainted with two thingsthe Bible, to save their souls, and brandy, to destroy their bodies. Butt he added, he was content with the former.
-In China, it appears, at least in some hospitals, wherever a patient. on returning home, expresses interest in spiritual things, an evangelist is sent after him, and thus, says Dr. ~iain, of Hangchow, much fruit has been gathered unto life eternal. E,'ery year there pass through that one medical mission 10,000 patients.
-The China Central Mission of the Presbyterian Church makes a very strong appeal for reinforcement. The field immediately accessible to them includes the whole great valley of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the" Son of Ocean." The four provinces of Kiangsu, Kiangsi, Nganhui, and Chehkiang have 121,000,000 inhabitants within an area of 204,287 square miles.
There are signs of a sudden breaking-up of the fallow ground of general indifference. They want to be ready to answer spontaneous calls from all parts. The accession of a new emperor, and an uneasy expectancy of political change, join with an extraordinary frequency of natural calamities, of flood or drought, famine or pestilence, at once to unsettle and humble men's minds.
The province of Szechuen, on the Upper Yangtse, with some 45,000,000 of people. ought to be occupied in force. Untouched by the 'l'ai-ping insurrection, it retains all the glory and prosperity of ante-rebellion times.
The people are a hardy, straightforward, enterprising race, as is shown by their various and productive industries. For centuries they have been boring salt and gas wells from three to five thousand feet deep, and using natural gas for evaporating the brine pumped from the bowels of the earth.
Their bronze, silk, and white wax industries are noted over the empire.
Their language is Mandarin, in which a Christian literature is already prepared.
The Central China Mission statistics for last year show an increase of a little over eight per cent. Five of their fifteen churches pay their own pastors. Everything is encouraging. "Come .over and help us," they say. The great Church to which they speak wlll /.Issuredly not be heed- !es~! .
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
The Week of Prayer. begun; all the Protestant churches can scarcely muster 7000 men and women as [EDITORIAL.-J. T. G.] ,. witnesses to the uttermost parts of the It was at the request of a smr.ll band earth;" the members of the Church of of missionaries in the Panjab that the England in its richer portion alone have Evangelical Alliance originally appoint- an income of $1,750,000,000 annually, ed a Week of Prayer for supplication for but last year, 'gave only $1,450,000 to for.
the conversion of the world. Since eign mlSSlOns. What is true of them is then there have been many other weeks relatively true of the rest of the churches.
and special days set apart for the same The circular appeals for a fuller recog- purpose. The Church of England Mis- nition of the principle of the missionary sionary Society, for instance, has a entel'prise: ,. Missionary work is not a Day of Special Prayer, or, as they phrase voluntary, supererogatory work of a few it, of "Intercession for Foreign Mis- more devoted souls. It is a charge sions," and many other churches have which is given to all as Christians."
adopted more or less regularly, the cus- It also mentions as a matter of special om of a set time for united prayer for thanksgiving the altered tone of the pub- the same object. We note with pleas- lic press toward missions. It reads: ure several statements in the introduc- ., Since the death of Bishop Hanning- tion to the week's programme of the ton, slowly but surely much of the Eng- Evangelical Alliance this year, such lish press has changed its tone with re- as these: ,. The privilege of prayer rises spect to the missionary enterprise. How to the topmost height attainable on often now have we thankfully to ac- earth, when, in common with believers knowledge that current literature brings of every name the wide world over, the missionary subject before house- we agree to hold a concert of prayer, holds who otherwise would remain ab- so that the globe may be girdled with solutely ignorant of the work! How assemblies of believers of one heart often of late has the public press done and of one mind, interceding with signal service in defence of missionary God for each other, for the Church agency – notably regarding work in of Christ, and for the spread of the China, India, and Uganda! In this, Gospel. • .• Looking abroad on the with profound gratitude, let us distinct- world in the light of the Word, we see ly acknowledge God's gracious hand."
the predictions in the Holy Book being All this can be readily transferred to fulfilled all around us. Be it ours to the Universal Week of Prayer, and a wait on God and to v.ait for Him in holy study should be made of the topics concord of faith and prayer, 'looking named in the programme of the Evangel- for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus ical Alliance, and'illustrations searched Christ.' . •. Wherefore,' holy breth- for of the special topics mentioned in it.
ren, partakers of the heavenly calling,' To these suggestions we venture to as in the opening year we gird ourselves add that the Church of God on earth has anew for fresh service and faithful testi- good realmn to render praise for the mony, let us invite each ot'her again to workmen God has raised up. We ought gather unitedly before the Eternal to pause to shed a tear at the grave of the Throne in praise and prayer." missionary dead of 1891. The list is but The Church of England circular names an appendix to the eleventh chapter of groundlifor humiliation, as found in the Hebrews. Bishop French ascended from fact that nearly nineteen hundred years Arabia; Bishop Boone, ha.,-ing only for have rolled by since the Head of the a short time been enrobed in the mantle Church gave the great missionary com- of his father, the renowned missionary, mis!lion, and yet the work ill !lcarcely died in China; Newton, "the beloved,"
of the Panjab-" a man sent from God, Harmony and Proportion in Missions.* whose name was John"-was followed to beUer than India's palaces by Winter, REV. CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D., LEXINGTON, of the Delhi Mission, who loved his special work more than he did a bishopric. MASS. Amid the lamentations of thousands, that" good servant of the Lord," Bishop The foreign missions of the Church Caldwell, was laid to rest after fifty-four of Christ are becoming numerous and years of labor in India for India; Dr. complicated. Many missionary socie- Luther H. Gulick. the founder of a large ties are in the field, separated from each missionary family, went up to the other by differences of nationality, lan- "bosom" of the" Father of the faith- guage, and church organization. ful ;" and dear and great John Inglis dropped his finished transhtion of the When these different organizations ocvisions of him of Patmos to open cupy the same field there is, there must his eyes on the beatific vision of the be, more or less of denominational fric- Ancient of days; Red slob, the Mora- tion, sometimes of antagonism even, vian sentinel of the outer patrol limit of and generally there will be a want of Chri~tendom on the edge of Thibet, that co-operation that always constitutes awoke to know the richer meaning of strength and progress. In that wonder- Nam Thang Song, and to find it "all ful prayer in ?hich the Son of God bright again" forever; Mrs. Bennett, poured out His soul as His hour drew more than sixty years in Burmah, went near, He prayed most earnestly that the to join again the Judsons and the Father would keep His disciples" that Boardmans; Sheshadri, the first Asi- they may be one, as we are." .. Neither atic whom America ever honored with pray I for these alone, but for them also a doctorate of divinity, found a fit- which shall believe on Me through their ting sepulchre in the sea for his body, word, that they all may be one, as Thou, while his soul went to the .. sea of Father, art in Me, and I in Thee; that glass;" and Goloknath of Jalander was they may be one, that the world may becarried to his burial by .. devout men," lieve that Thou hast sent Me." and honored by the presence at his funeral of European officials and a thou- The missionary work has given birth sand Hindus and Mohammedans. Time to a great measure of the true spi~it of would fail us to tell of others who have unity for which the Saviour prayed-a I gone from remotest mountains and val- unity which exists between true discileys, from the habitations of cruelty and ples, notwithstanding all this diversit;,r. spiritual solitude, to the .. general as- The existence of this International Missembly" and the" Church of the First- sionary"Cnio-n is an answer to the Reborn" on high. But surely in the crowd deemer"s prayer, and must be an object of our on-rushing thoughts at a season of His approving regard. like this, we can pause long enough to thank God for such examples of the In order to remove so far as pOBsible highest missionary spirit and loftiest the occasions of conflicting views and spiritual achievement, and to ask that measures which perplex and scandalize their tribe may increase, and the Church the heathen, it has been generally agreed universal catch the radiance of their that one society shall not interfere with lives and be inspired to emulate their another society's legitimate sphere of devotion and their deeds. labor, marked out by actual occupation. And as surely, turning from this missionary nave in the great Westminster Where the different societies are alof the Church, we cannot fail of interest ready intermingled on the same terriin prayer for the great host of stillliv- tory, there is danger of injury to the spiring missionaries, both men and women. itual element. One will say, ., I am of Paul; another, I am of Apollos." It requires of the missionaries thus divided, great wisdom, prudence, and brotherly love. There is evidently a growing *ltead before the International Missionary Union at Clifton Springs, N. Y., Jnne, 1891.
ht-rERN.A.-rtONAL DEPARTMlllNT
spirit of unity on mission fields, and fields that some of them are a law unto those who intrude upon fields already themselves. 'rheyhavenotroubleabout occupied are guilty of a great sin. They proportion in their work. We have: become the authors of a great wrong and 1. The sslf-supporting missionary, injury to the Master's cause. The grow- who has property that makes him inde- ing spirit of harmony will make such in- pendent of missionary bodies and Bocie- trusions more and more difficult. De- ties. He may be a very happy, useful nominational friction will be avoided, man. If his means enable him to call and denominational comity as to enter- to his aid native helpers, he is equal to ing each other's field is becoming, or a whole station. In prosecuting his rather, I would say. has become a recog- work he is sole judge of the depart- nized international and interdenomina- ments of his work, and in what relation tionallaw of missionary strategy. to each other he will develop them. It Japan is now a field of special tempta- is impossible to work only in one.
tion, so many societies are earnestly 2. There are self-supporting missiona· engaged in the work. The Holy Spirit, ries, who depend upon their own indus- the Guide unto all truth, the Paraclete, try or upon some secular employment He alone can deliver the work from this for support. Their object is to exhibit danger of divided counsels and of weak- the example of an honest, industrious ened efficiency. Christian life, and lead the heathen both The law of proportion in the mission- by precept and example into the same ary work must be regarded as well as life. They would show them and help the law of harmony. them also to experience that disciple- There are many departments of this ship to Christ has the promise both of work, as preaching, education, the press, the present life and of that which is to the formation of churches, the erection come. Thls scheme of missionary work of buildings, the care for the poor and can be fruitful of much good only by suffering, anyone of which may be put combination. The Inland Mission in forward out of proportion and to the in- China is partly of this nature, but it re- jury of the rest. It requires great wis- quires the oversight and management of dom and judgment to develop all the in- gifted men, like Hudson Taylor and his terests of a mission so that no one shall compeers, to gu~e its affairs, direct its be neglected and no one shall overtop labors, and provide for expenses that the others. The missionaty needs to every progressive work will demand.
have" an unction from the Holy One, Bishop Taylor's mission in Africa is and to know all things." He must neg- of this partially self-supporting kind.
lect nothing, he must push nothing be- He gathers from Christian friends at yond its value. I think to a very re- ·home what is needed for the complete- markable degree this wisdom has been ness and efficiency of the work beyond given. the productive results of the laborers.
Where there is Episcbpal government I would bid God-speed to all such efforts, a great responsibility falls upon the and yet they must be exposed to certain 'bishop. He can more readily remedy infelicities. Untrained men and women mistakes and harmonize the depart- will be found in them who, when they ments, or, if he should lack wisdom, he encounter the grave difficulties of a for- may get them into a muddle. eign language and find the native proud But many missions are more demo- and contemptuous, will Boon be dis· cratic in their organization. They are couraged, and retire in black despair.
largely self-governed, although the home Such cases have too frequently occurred.
societies fix upon the general principles In future they may be avoided.
upon which they must proceed. 3. By far the greater number of mis· Let us not forget, however, that there sionaries on the field are supported by are so many kinds of agents in different _.. mi s -s-i-o–n-'a. ry s o c i e t ie s , The operatiDZ and ~ ";"' :' largely apportioliating power is in those established, and for a time, it may-be, societies. But the officers, being far chiefly officered by the best-educated from the fields of labor, must depend missionaries. But from the very begin- upon the missionaries for the facts, and ning the object to be aimed at is the upon their judgment as to the meaning raising of native laborers for every de- of the facts. WhilE! here is an oppor- partment of the work_ tunity for difference of opinion between ]'or a time the native agency, in press- the officers and the missionaries, which ing forward into new fields, must be perhaps sometimes occurs, yet there has supported in whole or in part by the been remarkable harmony on the whole. mission, otherwise it cannot exist at all.
When earnest discussion has arisen it A mission is prosperous only so far as it has been conducted in a Christian raises up an efficient, well-trained na- spirit, and has resulted in the advance- tive agency. One missionary with four ment of the work and in the settlement well-qualified native preachers will reach of important principles. Sometimes the people more widely and efficiently education has been too much pushed, by far, than five missionaries with no and sometimes preaching. In Buresal, nath's assistant, and the expense will India, preaching was almost the only not be half so great. The work will be- work attempted. Education was left come in this way self-developing and entirely to the native Christians. In self- perpetuating.
consequence the children were growing It follows then by necessity that when up in such deplorable ignorance that a the funds of a mission do not keep prog- general meeting of missionaries took up ress with the missionary work, the for- the subject and demanded that Chris- eign missionary should be withdrawn, tian education should accompany the that the native work m~y go on. If dur- Christian native Church. ing the past year the societies that have But the subject which is most exposed been compelled to cut down their ap- to disproportion has regard to the work propriations had, instead of doing so, of the native Church, with its pastors, refused to send out a single missionary, teachers, and helpers. Generally in all they would have saved their work from departments of the missionary work in a calamitous set-back. Some missiona- the ministry, in education, in editing ries have seriously contemplated resign_ and translating, the native factors must ing and leaviDg the field in order to be our chief reliance for ultimate suc- avoid this great evil.
cess. Fifty years ago the prevailing An early movement in the missionary idea was that the world is to be convert- work of sending ou~ laymen to teach the ed by the preaching of missionaries. various arts of ci vilized life proved a That idea is no longer held by anybody. failure; but the time has now come The nati ve Ohurch is to be the true mis- when there is a call for such co-opera- sionary Ohurch. Native preachers and bon. The converts from heathendom helpers are to go everywhere preaching must live by their own labor. The the Word. They are to do the chief sooner they are emancipated from many work of evangelization. The great work of the filthy modes in which all heathen. – of the missionaries is to bring forward, dam, including even the Chinese, live to educate, to train the native laborers the better for a pure and honest Chris- and native churches unto this work, and tian life. The glorious example and life give the whole over to them as soon as of Mackay of Uganda have taught us possible. This is the only way in which what a lay missionary-a mechanic, a the great work of the world's redemp- civiI-engineer-can achieve for Christ tion from sin and darkness can be ac- under the darkest prospects. The Lord complished. It is the most effective will have many Mackays ready when the and the most economical way. Ohurch shall really call for them. Mis- Schools, colleges, seminaries must be sionary societies must learn that CODverts must have daily bread not by hundred dollars a year for the support charit.y, but by their own labor. And of each one, three millions of dollars 8 all missionaries, men and women, year will be needed for their bare sup· should have that practical knowledge port, and certainly not less than nine of the common arts and activities of life millions more for the prOilecution of the which will enable them to gnide the work through native agency. Then the porsecuted and boycotted into inde. six thousand would soon be one hun. pendent self-support. dred thousand, and that number a mill- ion of native preachers.. By that time, There is great danger at the present moreover, the million would be mainly time of looking more to the number supported by native churches, and the than the quality of the laborers. Men promise of the Almighty Father to the of mere sentiment are sure to fail. Son, "Ask of Me and I will give Thee They find themselves confronted with the heathen for thine inheritance, and the difficulties. of an unknown, strange, the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy barbarous language, and by a proud, in. posse~sions," would approach its glori. solent, contemptuous people. After a ous fulfilment. year or two of heartless effort they reo treat in black despair or sink into a list. Ohinese "Blue-Books." [J. T. G.] less :Mfe. None but men who are strong in the Lord and in the power of His Whoever has carefully studied the might are needed in this work. splendid volume containing the Records of the Missionary Conference which met It follows, from all we have read, that at Shanghai in 1890 will have noticed in this great and marvellous movement the essay of Rev. Timothy Richards on among the youth of our colleges is " The Relation of Christian Missions to in danger of involving the Christian the Chinese Government," his reference Church in an unexpected embarrass- (pp. 407-10) to what he .is pleased to ment. To send out all who are willing style" Blue Books." It is a collection to go and are fitted for great usefulness of public documents on all State queswould necessitate the entire abandon. tions published in 1826, in one hundred ment of the element of native co-opera. and twenty books. It was republished tive help, of pastors, teachers, trans. by the Shaghai publishers in 1889; a lators, common schools, and, to some supplement to the same, also in one extent, of colleges and seminaries. A hundred and twenty books, bringing the greater catastrophe could not befall the subject down to date, was published in work. 1888. These books, he says, are in the catalogue of the books for sale in the What, then, is the meaning of this Government book.shop at Tientsin, and wonderful movement? probably in all the provinces. Two books of the supplement are devoted to It brings before the Church the tre. Christian missions. mendous reality of the missionary work. It cries aloud to all Christians, Aban. Mr. Richards proceeds to give some don your luxurious living, your piling idea of their "scandalous" contents. up of millions. Pour your millions into First, a history of the way in which the missionary work, und see if the Lord Christianity has gradually corrupted will not pour you out a blessing that China. This is followed by an attempt there shall not be room to receive it. to stamp out Christianity in the provo inces of Hlman, the source of the pres. But these six thousand crusaders must ent Ohinese riots, and Kiang Suo Sun. not be encouraged to go forth while the dry other documents follow. Mr. Rich. Church stands back and refuses to de- ards proceeds to recite that the books velop the work already in progress, having the evident blessing of God and the co-operating work of the Holy Spirit. Their going forth must be to aid, not retard the work. At an average of five affirm that six hundred years after Bud- able books translated; of the tens of dha all India followed the Christian thousands of youllg and old taught; ot'
religion. Among the statements are the hundreds of thousands saved from found assertions that the founder of death during famines, and of'the tomb- Christianity was a criminal, and Joseph stones of those who have given their was not his father. lives for the good of China, this collec- The great rebellions in the Ming tion of obscenities and lies is their dynasty and of the various secret lOects version of what we have done for in the present dynasty, with all their them."
, horrors, are attributed to these Western The relation of the State to these so- religions. It is an insult, the author called" Blue-Books," and of their rela- says, to suggest that all these vile here- tion to the present disturbed state of the tics could have 'had the same origin as country, as it originates in hatred of the Chinese. The writer says that four foreigners, has become the subject of taels were given to each convert, and considerable discussion in China. It is that the books of the Roman Catholics well known that the riots have been in- were full of obscenity, and that the Gov- cited by the literati and gentry of ernor Man of Chi Kiang memorialized China ; and it is this class that read the throne regarding their evil deeds, such statements as are contained in requesting to have their churches turned these books, Which, be it borne in into charity schools for a hundred years, mind, are for sale at the Government to cleanse away their moral filth. book-stores. It would seem, therefore, "After this," says Mr. Richards, of little avail that the imperial authority "follow scandalous quotations from Wei at the Peking Yemen should by royal Yuen, who says that men and women edict declare that Christianity was a re- sleep promiscuously together in the ligion of good moral influence, so long churches; that one hundred and thirty as it permits these documents to be taels of silver are given in three instal- placed on sale under its auspices. To be ments to the converts to help them to sure. it might be claimed that the edict do business; that the Christians' eyes counteracts their influence, and even are scooped out by the priest after that it was so intended. It is much death; that when these eyes are melted more probable that the Government up with lead, eight per cent of the lead chooses to blow hot and cold at the same is turned to silver; that a pill is given, time, for whatever else the West mlly which makes the convert pledge him- teach China, it is not likely to set it any self for life, and so bewitched is he that lesson in the duplicity of diplomacy.
the first thing he does is to destroy the In the North China Herald the vener.
ancestral tablets; that several other able and highly esteemed missionary, things are practised by Christians which Rev. Griffith John, calls upon the for- I consider too vile to print… Mr. Rich- eign powers to demand the suppression ards closes his remarks on the" Blue- of these books. He says that it is to be Books" with the following grave reflec- hoped that some one will take these tion: Ie Thus end the 'Blue·Books' books in hand and bring their vileness without the slightest acknowledgment of and falsehood to the light. He has any benefit derived from modern mis- afresh examined them, and declares that sionaries. They wish to convince their " anything more false, disgraceful, and people that Christian missionaries only inflammatory it would be difficult to come here for mischief, and that the find, even among the vile placards of converts are the scum of society! In Hunan." He deems it of the utmost im· face of about a million taels spent an- portance that their publication, as they nually for the good of China; in face of now stand, should be suppressed. He tens of thousands of patients gratuitous- concludes by saying that the Hunan ly healed annually; of the many valu- placards are intended for the multitude;
JartUBl'j'
these books are intellded for the officials out-patients belong to the Syongtn, or and literary classes. 'rhey are to be low-class people, many of whose wom- round in every yamen, and in thousands en, except the newly married or those of private libraries. The foreign powers of marriageable age, go out upon the have decided that the Hunan publica- street in the daytime. I would like to tions shall cease, because they poison open an evening olinic for those Korean the minds of the people. For a still women who must not be seen upon the stronger reason they ought to decide street in the daytime, and I want to that these" blue books" shall cease in open a dispensary in another part of their present form, because they poison the city, and perhaps one outside.
the minds of the officials and scholars. Quite often at my morning clinic I have Just how far the foreign powers had women from the higher class who should go in aUempting an " Index" of have come in closed chairs. They al- literature that must be expurgated in ways inform me that it is a great ell.cep- China, or whether they should attempt tion for them to go out, but their dis- at all to coerce the Government to cause ease was difficult, and they had heard certain parts of current literature to be that I was a very wise doctor, and there- suppressed, may be grave questions. fore came.
But that they might demand that their .. My out-calls have, many of them, sale should be prohibited in Govern- been to people of quite high rank-from ment book stalls would not appear alto- the daughter of a ' Chusa' to the moth- gether unreasonable as a political meas- er of the late Prime-Minister-but others ure or as a war measure, if you please. have been to those most miserably low We have not called attention to the mat· and poor. I, have visited a niece of the ter with a view to second the call to the late queen-dowager, living in a large foreign powers to demand their suppres- stone house built within two or three sion, but rather to show some of the court-yards, with foreign lamp-posts sources by which the prejudices of the here and there ; nice-sized rooms, easily literati and gentry are stirred against made larger by pushing back the Korean Christian missionaries. Perhaps we shove-doors and throwing two rooms may even come into greater charity into one ; large Korean screens here and toward some of those whose minds have there ; a fine mirror and Korean dress- been thus poisoned ; and perhaps we ing-case ; the patient and her attendants may come to better apprehension of clothed in spotless white, in mourning why the literati and gentry, rather than for tho Queen; the under-garments of the common people and the coolies, dis- the patient made of soft white Korean like foreigners and missionaries. At silk. She was covered with light downy any rate, if we are to proceed with judg- comfortables of colored silk, and lay ment, it is manifest we must become upon a soft mattress with a beautifully more closely acquainted with the in- embroidered Korean pillow on the warm· digenous influences affecting the people est part of a highly polished 'Rang'
of Ohina. floor.
" In the same afternoon I have visit- ed a poor sick woman of the Coolie class Medical Work for Women in Korea, in her little tive-by-eight room, with ceiling so low I could not stand up- We know so little of the" Land of right, one small window covered with the Morning Calm" that it is with inter- oiled paper, the patient lying on a small est we quote from a long oommunication mat and covered with a coarse cotton from Miss Rosetta Sherwood, M.D., of comfortable. The history of many of the MethodistEpiscopal MissilJll in that the wretched cases one meets with in a country, the following paragraphs: practice like this are appalling and "The majority of the hospital and heart.sickening. "
" Why is the Ohina Inland Mission Suo- mission in China, suggests that a longer period of time is required before we cessful?" can predicate success or failure of the mission in its evangelical enterprise. The editor of the lIarvest Field, the Wesleyan magazine published in India, " That it has heen a wonderful suc. some while since addressed the above cess at home everybody must admit. question to the Rev. David Hill, the The rapid pouring into one field of so Britisb President of the Shanghai Con. large a number of missionaries is un. ference of Missionaries laboring in exampled in modern times as far liS I India. We have so long heard and know, and demands close study. Two read conflicting statements of the effi. or three reasons for this success have ciencyand value of Mr. Hudson Tay. occurred to me : lor's methods, and those of his associ. ates, that it was with rather more than "1. The mission is steeped in prayer, usual interest we read Mr. Hill's reply, and its founders and followers have Ilnd we are so confident of a wide inter. boldly made the grand experiment of est in the subject that we quote the testing and trusting the promi~es of article bodily. Mr. Hill says: God.
"You inquire as to the reasons of the " 2. Appeals for men have been made success of the China Inland Mission. at meetings for entire consecration to The assumption implied in such in. God. This consecration has been quiry some would question, if it refer urged home first of all-then the de. to the work of the mission in China, mand to show cause why this consecra. and the number of members gathered tion should not flow in China cbannels into the Church. This is not large as has been made. Full surrender has compared with that of several other opened the ear to China's claims. missions having a much smaller staff of missionaries, and does not demon. "3. Speedy entrance on the work. strate Ilny very marked success. No protracted waiting for examination after examination, or for a long college "On the other hand, 2000 and odd course. This attracts men. Christians gathered into the Church in twenty-five years does tell of success, "4. Then the offer of a life of sacri. and that Mr. Hudson Taylor should fice rather than one of ease has a great have been used of God to this end is deal to do with winning the right sort matter for profound thankfulness. of men. Faith, too, fascinates. That it is not large may be accounted for by the perpetual pioneering of "5. Besides Mr. Taylor's magnetio many missionaries. In opening the influence, Mr. Broomhall's untiring way to regions beyond they have been energy and the broadcast sowing of llbundantly successful, hut this per. China's millions have marvellously aided petual" motion has not favored large the progress of the mission. harvests of converts. Where steady, persevering work has been the order of "These have appeared to me the the day, conversions have been most chief causes of success, and I as II numerous. Methodist feel I may learn a good deal from them." " Then the genius of the mission is so largely that of witnessing rather -Mrs. Maria T. True, of Tokyo, tem· than winning, of sowing rather than of porarily in tbis country, in writing to reaping, that that doubtless has had us says: "Some Japanese ladies have something to do with the comparatively purchased an acre of ground and built small ingathering. And the very large a small house for an industrial school proportion of new men occupying new for young women. About forty pupils places, as compared with any other are enrolled, and during tbe little more than one year since the school was opened they have by their own labor
liTElRNATlONAL :l)Et'Alt'I'MEN'l'
earned their board, and in some cases ful, as it is certainly entertaining, other expenses. The main industry is called" In Brightest Asia," which Mr. silk embroidery, but they also have in- Corthell, of Tremont Temple, publishes. troduced various other kinds of work, Its 127 illustrations are a panorama of and have still more comprehensive the trip and much besides. plans, to be carried out when the fund for another building have been secured. -Rev. Henry N. Cobb, D.D., Corre· This is a Ohristian school, and is blessing sponding Secretary of the Board of those who have established it and are Foreign Missions of the Reformed carrying it on as well as those who are Church in America, has started to make taught in it. a visit to their missions in India, China, and Japan. Rev. J. N. Conklin, "One of the native pastorR has also of the Arcot Mission, temporarily in been the means of opening an indus- this country, has assumed Dr. Cobb's trial home for young men. I know both official duties in his absence. We of these enterprises well, Bnd am sure learn from him that the native Christhey are worthy of our warm sympathy tians of this Arcot Mission are suffering terribly from food scarcity, and cholera " A letter just received from a Japan. is likely to follow. The report about esc minister contains the following: the cholera at Amoy, Mr. Conklin says, • This is my strong conviction: we can· has been greatly exaggerated. not evangelize Japan with a method like child's play; if we evangelize such a -Our Baptist friends are getting heathen country as Japan we must take ready for the observance of the great a gigantic method. The Bible and the Carey Centennial this year. A good Holy Spirit are the only weapons needed deal of literature will doubtless be forth. in our battle.field.' coming, which will be helpful to them, and to all of us. The American Baptist , • Then he goes on to outline a meth- Publication Society, Philadephia, has od by which he thinks work could be just issued ., A Century of Baptist For. carried on in every town and village in eign Missions," by Mrs. Titterington. Japan. He asks advice concerning It is an outline of annals, briefly stated, leaving one of the best churches in and with a list of questions at the close Tokyo in order to give his time to this of each chapter, suggestive of its being country work. used as a text·book. It is confined to American Baptist missions in Asia, .. It is ~ard to realize how heavily Africa, Europe, and South America. burdened the few earnest workers in Japan are, unless one has seen the con- -The Congregational missions in ditions there." South Africa have been the subject of many an inquiry with other than mis. -The Rev. Dr. Mabie, Home Corre- sionary intent. Ethn ologists, :philol. sponding Secretary of the American ogists, and others have found the mis. Baptist Missionary Union, presently sionary's arcana of knowledge the after getting well seated in his position, most valuable and resourceful that started on a trip round the world, chiefly could be investigated. There have to visit the Baptist missions in Asia. been heroes and statesmen among the About two hundred Baptist mission· missionaries of that country. Rev. aries were visited. They must have Josiah Tyler furnishes a fresh fund of enjoyed his calls, for there was nothing knowledge for mllny classes in " Forty of the bugbear of a .. deputation" in Years Among the ZulUB" in autobjothem. He did not go to make official examinations into their larders or their learning, nor with any authority to upset their plans. Dr. Mabie tells his side of the cheery journey in a sketchy way in a book that must be very help. graphical form of narrative. (Congrega- ent at the celebration of the sacrament tional House, Boston.) in a church other than their own; to have inter-mission discipline, by which -In April, 1890. Rev. Mr. Large, of an agent of one mission should not be the Canada Methodist Mission, in Japan, engaged by another until after mutual was murdered. The murderer has been, consultation, and strangers coming from as is supposed. found out, and on Au- another station should be provided with gust 25th was arrested. He is described letters, of commendation from the as a youth about twenty years of age. church which they had left; to foster At first it was supposed he was insane, social advancement by means of obtainbut fuller investigation does not sup- ing grants of land from the Government, port the theory. He is a native of the the endeavor to have Christian regiprovince of Kazuza. ments formed, the adoption of technieal pursuits, the encouragement of capital- -Rev. Dr. T. J. Scott, President of ists among Christians, the institution of panchayats among them, and the pur- chase of land in the villages as sites for schools and churches which should be the property of the missions."
the Methodist Theological Seminary at Bareilly, India, writes us: "God is -We have received the following com- wonderfully blessing the work in this munication from a representative of the part of India. Just think of a thousand Protestant native congregation at Bag- baptisms a month! At least ten thou- dad: sand will be added to the Christian •• I beg to inform you that there are community during the' year. What a work in supplying pastors and evange- about twenty houses of Evangelical Protlists! In places of course the devil estants here in Bagdad, reaching from rages. In AImorah, while a young man sixty to seventy persons, male and was being baptized in the London Mis- female. You will be very glad, of course, sionary Society's church, a mob smashed to know that there is such a light and salt the windows and doorl!. Dr. Butcher in such a. big city of Turkish-Arabia, had his "coat tOfn off, and would have where thousands of people are living in been brained by the mob had not Dr. darkness and the shadow of death. How Parker seized the ringleader and got Dr. many difficulties are on the way of the Butcher into the church. The colonel Lord's laborers in such places! But commanding the station got word, and faith, patience, and perseverance over- • doubled quicked' the Sepoys down; come everything that hinders the extenthe magistrate arrived, and the mob sion of the kingdom of our Heavenly quailed. The young man stands firm. Father. We hope we shall never fail in We may expect more mobs and more fulfilling our sacred duties toward our victory. Pray for us." God, ourseIve~, and our neighbors. For the establishment of this, our Protestant -Apropos of Dr. Hamlin's admirable native congregation in Bagdad, we need article, which we present this month, on to have soon registration, cemetery, "Mission Comity," we take the follow- school and church, without which we ing from the Report of the Church of cannot enjoy success and progress in Scotland Mission, setting forth an agree- such lands. To get what is mentioned ment to which the missionaries of the we must apply to the Sublime Porte in various societies in the Panjab came Constantinople and the Turkish auin a Conference of their members, held thorities here to get the necessary orders, last April : that we may possess all our national " At this Conference it was resolved rights. I am very glad to say that we to adopt a common course of instruction have already got orders for registration for inquirers before baptism; to admit and cemetery, so there is firm hope that and welcome to the communion mem- we shall get an order for school and bers of the various churches when pres- church too. Our registration was partly made by the local Government here; but I am sorry to say that burial-ground has not yet been given to us for ceme- tery, as we have not enough money to buy a piece of ground, to pay official fees, and all expenses concerning such serious matters, for our Protestants here are unable to provide the necessary SUUlS."
·EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
I1I.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
The Editor's Salutation. himself one of the tery foremost mis- sionary biographers of the age, the au- METBOPOLITAW TABEBWACLE, thor of the 'standard classic on Carey's life, will contribute a series of papers NEWINGTON, S. E., on the great cobbler of Hackleton, and LONDON, ENGLAND.
The editor salutes all readers of the other writers of scarcely inferior merit REVIEW and friends of missions with will take a part in this symphony of the most cordial good wishes for the testimony to the work of a world's new year! May it be indeed a Happy evangelization, and the duty and priv- New Year to us all individually and to ilege of the Church to push her COD- the whole Church of God! flicts and conquests to the extremities The year 1892 ought to be a year of of the globe.
grand advance all along the line. It is Once more we emphatically call our the centennial year of modern missions, readers and all who are linked with the • for it marks the hundredth anniversary work of missions to a new consecration of William Carey's great movement, the to prayer. Here lies the hope of the organization of the first distinctively Church and the world, in a new spirit foreign missionary society of Britain, of gracious supplication. God will be at Kettering, May 31st, 1792, and will be inquired of when He is to do great observed all over Britain, if not all over things. Our hope must be in no com the wider realm of Christendom, as the pleteness of organization, no abundance ~ completion of the grand century of of gifts, no sufficiency of laborers, no modem missions. multitude of agencies, but first of all But it ought also to mark the begin- in God, in the Providence that opens ning of a new century of far more in- doors and keeps them open, that pro tense Christian zeal and far more self- tects workers, that rrues even rulers and denying missionary effort. The open controls all things; and in the grace doors now before the Church, the sin- that works even mightier marvels in gularly complete equipment providen- anointing the messengers of Christ and tially given for world-wide work, the inclining lost sinners to hear and heed amazing successes of the century past. the message. Let us remember those the strange withholding of laborers and two wonderful words of promise: Matt.
gifts from the service of the Lord-how 17 : 20 and 18: 19, 20. One of them ought such considerations as these to reminds us that in faith there is the stimulate the whole Church of God to seed of God, the secret of divine life undertake new enterprises for Him, to and power to upheave even mountain lengthen her cords and strengthen her obstacles; the other teaches us the 8takes until the canopy of her mission- power of a symphony of prayer, when ary effort shall stretch over the Whole believers who live in the secret of God area of the unevangelized world.! are like keys of a musical instrument The pages of this REvrnw will be that the hand of God touches, and largely given up during the year to the which give forth a sweet chord in har- rehearsal of William Carey's life and mony with His will. To abide in God, work, and to the exhibition of its mag- and so have power in united prayer, is nificent results; While it will be our the first and last secret of missionary aim to suggest and inspire far larger success. This is one of the essential hopes, stronger faith, and wider en- truths to be impressed by perpetual deavor, in behalf of the coming of the repetition.
kingdom of our God! May the prayers Here in the great Tabernacle we have of every devout reader be with us! had an exhibition and illustration of ~eor~e Smith, LL.D., of Edinbur?h, the power of importunate and believing prayer. In May last pastor Charles H. 8th, to propose another union of prayer Spurgeon was attacked with a violent in tbat place. for the greatest outpour. and virulent influenza. After partial ing of the Holy Spirit ever yet known, recovery, in June he was the victim of upon all flesh. If this spectacle has a relapse that brought him to the very been sublime to angels and men, who jaws of death. His recovery was pro. can describe the sublimity of a holy nounced impossible by human means, agreement of all disciples in supplica. and this great congregation of six thou. tion for a worldwide effusion of the sand souls united in daily prayer to Spirit of all grace! God for him. For twenty.one weeks This Metropolitan Tabernacle is a daily meetings for prayer assembled in house of prayer most emphatically. the Tabernacle, early in the morning, Here are numerous rooms, under and at 7 o'clock, and again at the same hour around the great audience.room, where, in the evening. They were thronged, for almost forty years, this one servant and not only by Mr. Spurgeon's own of God has held forth the Word of Life; people, but by Christians of every name. and in these rooms prayer is almost No sublimer spectacle has appeared to ceaselessly gomg up. When one meeting human eyes since apostolic days than is not in progress another is. This is a this union of discipIes, in believing hive of bees, where there are campara. prayer. As for Peter when in prison tively few drones. There are prayer· awaiting Herod's axe prayer was made meetings before preaching and others without ceasing of the Church unto God after preaching; evangelistic associa· for him. Baptists of every "grade;" tions, zenana societies-all sorts of work Methodists, Primitive, Wesleyan, and for God find here a centre and all can· Episcopal; Congregationalists and Inde. secrated by prayer. Before I go upon pendents ; Presbyterians and Plymouth the platform to address these thousands, Brethren; even the members and clergy the officers of this great church meet of the Anglican communion were pres· me and each other for prayer as to the ent and participated. Meanwhile Mr. service; and one feels upborns on these Spurgeon was overwhelmed with per· strong arms of prayer while preaching. sonal and official attentions from all No marvel that Mr. Spurgeon's ministry classes and conditions of men. Up to has been so blessed. He himself at· the time of his departure for Mentone, tributes it mainly to the prevailing on October 26th, he told me that over prayers of his people. Why may not seven thousand messages of condolence the whole Church of God learn some· and sympathy, resolutions of various thing from the Metropolitan Tabernacle religious bodies, etc., and other docu. of London as to the power of simple ments, from the lowest and highest in Gospel preaching backed by believing society, had reached him. Fifty tele. supplication! grams of inquiry a day came to Beulah Referring to this great church, one Hill, until clerks were unequal to the cannot forget also its divine mission as reading of and the replying to these a standing protest against the secular. messages and inquiries. Even bishops izing of the house of God by the attrac· and archbish~ps called to offer not only tions of worldly art and restheticism. sympathy, but service, if such were Here is nothing to divert the mind from possible; and Jewish rabbis called to the simplicity of worship and the Gas· assure the sick man that all Israel was pel. No attempt at elaborate architec. praying to Jehovah for his restorl't· ture, furniture, garniture. A precentor tion! What wonder he was raised as leads con"gregational song without even from the dead-taken out of the jaws the help of a cornet; prayer and praise of the lion! In view of all this, I ven· and the reading of the Word of God, tured, in presence of a great congrega· with plain putting of Gospel trnthtion i:Q. t4e Tabernacle, on November these 4nve been Mr. StJur~eon's lifelon~ " means of grace" and weapons of war. a year of praise also, a new year of mis- And yet this remains to.day the largest sions, introducing a new century of mis- congregation in the world, even when a sion triumph and glory to God!
stranger attempts to fill the place left vacant by the pastor's withdrawal to a -The editors of American newspapers place of rest and recuperation. are, as a rule, a sagaeious folk. They This lesson has, in my opinion, a beating on all work for Christ, at home cannot be hoaxed. But not all of those and abroad. Our reliance is too much on the charms of this world, in drawing who have the l'equisite " nose for news" souls to the Gospel and to the Saviour. The Holy Spirit will not tolerate our are favored with the reciprocity of the idols. If we will have artistic and secular type of music, substituting unsancti- senses by which they" know news when :lied art for simple praise; if we will have elaborate ritual in place of simple, they see it." An instance is at han~. believing prayer; if we will have eloquent lectures in place of simple, ear- In, the summary of Dr. Pierson's open. nest Gospel preaching, we must not wonder if no shekinah fires burn in our ing sermon at the Tabernacle, made by sanctuaries. If Ahaz is allowed to dis· place God's plain altar by the carved, the Christian, we :find the following: idolatrous altar fro!ll Damascus, we need not be surprised if God withdraws " The Holy Ghost never tolerates idols His power. Perhaps the reason why the work of God abroad shows more in his courts. The success of this great signs of His presence and power than our sanctuary services at home is in Tabernacle is owing to nothing more part this, that our foreign mission work has never been embarrassed as yet by than to this-that the paster has preachthose elaborate attempts at resthetic attraction which turn many of our home ed the Gospel, and has never preached churches into concert halls and lecture saloons and costly club-houses. May anything else, for well.nigh forty years, God grant us to learn once for all, that nothing in our mission work can make He prayed God that some calamity might up for Holy Spirit power, and that Holy Spirit power itself makes up for the happen to the building itself before it lack of all else. If the angel troubles the pool, there is healing in the waters ; was ever prostituted by unsanctified and but if God's angel comes not down 'all the doctors in Jerusalem, with all'the secularizing methods of attracting the drugs in creation, cannot impart healing virtue. people. We want to keep out of our v.orship everything that turns away at- tention from God, or hinders the power of the Holy Ghost."
An irate reporter, by whom the" in_ terim" pastor declined to be interviewed rushed off and cabled to this countr; that Dr. Pierson had most wantonly and uncharitably attacked Mr. Spurgeon in his absence, and had ~harged his con- gregation with doing the very things which he had commended them for not doing. We extend our sympathy to so much of the secular press as became tho victim of this hoax and falsehood. Yet on its face they should have been able to recognize its improbability_ Even a caricature must be a likeness. But to present one who is '
LET us PRU! Oh, for a new spirit of " the president Of nobleness and chevalree" prayer to God! Oh, for a whole Church on its face before the throne, with in snch a roll was too much out of align- mighty pleading for a blessing as wide- ment to afford amusement or to do spread as the race of man, and as deep- harm. The editor.in· chief of this RE- reaching as man's depravity and degra- VIEW answers too closely to the en- dation, guilt and need! Let the year comium on Sir Philip Sydney, in hav- now opening be-whatever else it may ing ., mildness which is associated with not be-a year of prayer; so shall it be courage, erudition modified by refinement, and courtliness dignified by There is one preacher to eight hun. truth "to render it necessary to correct dred inhabitants in the home land; so m:mifestly gross a canard. It may one preacher to four hundred thousand be that he will not so much as thank us in non-Christian countries. for an allusion to it. [J. T. G.]. Estimated wealth of Evangelical Christians in United States•… $13,000,000,000 Increase of wealth last :year (sur- plus after paying all expenses Facts and Figures. of living and contributions for benevofent purposes)….••…. 450,000,000 REV. c. R. BELL, D.D. Contributions for Foreign Mis- sions during the year……… . Population of the world ……….. 1,500,000,000 Total foreign missionary contri- 5,000,000 Living in Asia •••.••.. 800,000,000 Living in Africa •.. •. 210,000,000 butions during the century …. 90,000,000 Living in Europe……. 350,000,000 Annual expenditure for home Living in America, churches….. .. •.. .. … …. .. .. 80,000,000 North and South ….. 110,000,000 Average per member. . •. . . . . • .• •• $6.00 Living in Island World 30,000,000 Annual expenditure for Foreign M.issions, per member (average) .37 – – – 1,500,000,090 Evangelical Christian Commnni- The annual increase of wealth was' ninety times more than the foreign cants………… …………… 35,000,000 missionary offerings during the year. Adherents.. … .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. . .. . 105,000,000 The estimated increase of wealth of Total Communicants and Adher- 140,000,000 the evangelical Christian population of ents………………………. . 90.000.000 the United States last year was more 205,000,000 than four times greater than all the Greek Church……………. . .. .. 8,000,000 foreign contributions by all American Romanists…………………… . 175,000,000 Christians d~ring the entire century. Jews……………………… .. 882,000,000 Startling statements I M.ohammedans ……………….. . Pagan and Heathen………….. ..
Converts to Christianity in heathen 1,500,000,000 lands one hundred years ago did not exceed…… …. … …. .. .. .. 300 Communicants now………….. . 800,000 Adherents ………………….. .. 2,200,000 Total Communicants and Adhe- Signs of the Times. rents…….. ………… …….. 3,000,000 There are signs of a general upheaval Then there were very few Christian all through the pagan, papal, and Mosworkers abroad. and they were chiefly lem world. Japan has suffered from a peasants and artisans who accompanied recent earthquake, in which thousands enterprising merchants. Then the are said to have perished. China was Church for the first time began the visited by most destructive floods, and great enterprise of organized foreign now is the scene of widespread riot and missionary work. not a little bloodshed. South America -Brazil, Chili, and the Argentine Re. Now there are 170 missionary boards public-has been and is undergoing and societies directed by men, and 110 civil and political disturbances, which by women-all actively in service as in some cases amount to a convulsion. agents for their respective Christian Russia is expelling the Jews and preconstituencies. Now at work in non· paring for war, and all Europe is either Christian lands 7700 missionaries, male in a state of ferment or of uncertainty and female, consisting of and apprehension. No one on the con. tinent feels sure of the peace of Europe Ordained…………………… .. 3,482 for thirty days ahead, and a European La,Ylllen …………………….. . 829 war means a world's upheaval. Africa WlVes of missionaries…………. . has been the scene of almost continual Umnarried women…………… .. 2.005 conflict since the Zulu and Soudan 1,384 wars. Turkey is on the verge of per. petual disturbance. The isles of the Native workers ………………. . 7,700 sea are the scenes of repeated and some· Of whom 4,250 are ordained 36,000 times widespread antagonisms, either preachers within their own coasts or with foreign 43,700 foes. No one can predict how long Total force …………………. .. 13,500,000 UNITED STATES ALONE. 80,000 Evangelical church-members..•… Ordained preachers …………… .
Ordained preachers abroad……. . 1,000 Unordained missionaries, male and 1,750 female, abroad…………….. ..
2,750 Mexico and Central America, Burmah Pierson has met with the warm welcome /lJld India, Thibet and Korea will keep and hearty support of the officiary and their uncertain quiet. There are some congregation of Mr. Spurgeon's Taber- sagacious students of affairs who boldly nacle. Our English exchanges make say that never within this century has kindly mention of his entrance upon his there been such a general murmur of new responsibilities. The Ohristian says approaching conflict; and that only the of the opening service: "The great destructiveness of modern engines of building was thronged with worshippers war prevents its outbreak. In the re- in every part. At the opening of the cent naval exhibition, we saw a fac- service the crush was not BO great as we simile of a trial target upon which one have generally seen it, when Mr. Spur- of the largest of modern English ord- geon was the preacher; but before the nance, a HO-ton Armstrong gun, had commencement of the sermon there expended its explosive force, aud the were very few vacant seats." After giv.
ball-a conical one-had been driven ing a column to a synopsis of the in- through six feet of steel and iron, tell terim pastor's sermon from the admir- feet of oak timbers, five feet of solid ably chosen text Acts 10 : 29: .' There- granite, fifteen£eetof concrete, and six of fore came I unto you without gainsay- brick masonry, in all penetrating forty- ing as soon as I was sent for; I ask, two feet before its progress was arrested! therefore, for what intent ye have sent Meanwhile, let it be recorded with for me?" the editor says: "His brief thanksgiving that never has such a ministry at the Tabernacle has open.
spirit of benevolence been exhibited as ed auspiciously." He further quotes now among God's true children. For from a Tabernacle correspondent, who example, Mr. Thomas M. Russell, a writes: Scotchman, has just willed £60,000 ster- " • With the hour the man' is a prov- ling to Rev. John Wilkinson for his erb which hail received a very happy work among the Jews ; £8000 were con· illustration in the presence and minis- tributed by a. single donor in Australia try of Dr. Pierson as Mr. Spurgeon's to modern missions, and we hear almost locum tenens at the Metrollolitan Taber- every week of large gifts to home and nacle. The arrangement is according to foreign evangelizatIOn. A prominent Mr. Spurgeon's mind and heart; and, lady, a well-known countess, has sold judging from the welcome which has all her jewelry and ornaments except been accorded to our American brother, heir-looms, that she may send her valu- the indorsement of the church and con- ables to minister to God's kingdom ; gregation has been assured. Possessed and amid all modern apostasies in doc- of the rare qualifications necessary, there trine and inconsistencies in practice, is every reason to believe that Dr. Pier- there is a practioal protest of conse. son will fully justify Mr. Spurgeon's crated souls in the more complete self. choice, and his own acceptance of the surrender that includes property. Oh, appointment, and that the happiest re- for the new spirit of war for the Lord! sults may be expected from his three When will the world be convulsed not months' ministry. An enthusiast for by the preparations for gigantic de- missions, the aggressive work at the structive conflicts of arms, but by the Tabernacle is not likely to flag; an ear· universal uprising of the Church of nest and an able exponent of the Gospel, God in behalf of the world's conquest the living ministry which has been car· for Christ! ried on so long by Mr. Spurgeon is sure to be maintained."
On Sunday evening, November 1st, The Editor-in-Ohief Abroad. the audience numbered some 6000 per- Our readers will not bE' surprised, bu!; sons, 2500 of whom remained to the the,}' will be gratified to know that Dr. after-meeting. [J. T. G.)
18112.] THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY J. R. MILLER, D.D.
The World-Field-Hints for Prayer and Our very life must be in it, in the tem. Work. per of the divine self-sacrifice. But what a privilege and joy thus to work -An artist was asked, "What is your in it, with God Himself and all the best .picture?" He replied, "My saintliest spirits of the earth, now and next. " That was a good answer for an aforetime! Is it not the grandest testi. artist to make. When a man looks mony to the magnificence of human na. back for his life's best work in any ture that God made us co-workers, not line, his feeling should be that of the in the primary work of creation, but in other artist, who wept when he saw his the far grander work of redeeming the completed masterpiece, because his sat- world? In this work we can make isfaction with it marked the climax of our lives luminous in this world, and his lifework. It should be the same bright forever with a celestial glory in with 1>ur years; we should always look the next." to the next as our best. This is a good thought, too, for every Christian and -For a good while the burden of the every church with regard to the work prayers at monthly concerts was for the of missions-our next year should be opening of doors, the breaking down of our best. We should surpass our best barriers. Now from all the fields comes past in praying, doing, and giving. We the cry that the dOOTS are open everyshould make our monthly concerts for where, and that the want is for men to 1892 the best we have ever had. We go in and occupy them. Later the should become more familiar with the prayers were for men and women who needs of the mission·fields, and with would go to the opening fields. These the nature and extent of the work that prayers have been answered, too, in the Church is doing. We should seek most wonderful manner, and to.day to kindle missionary interest among there are 6000 young Christians in our our friends as in no former year. We country alone who have volunteered should pray as never before for the for mission work, and are ready to go cause of missions. We should give wherever they are sent; and now the more than in any former year. cry from all societies is for money. Thus the responsibility for the work is -One of the address!ls of President thrown back upon Christian people Storrs at the recent meeting of the themselves. God has done His part in American Board closed with these opening doors and inclining men and strong words: "It is a vastly critical women to be willing to go as mission.
time in the progress of Christ's king- aries; He has answered our prayers.
dom, with all the world uprising before Are we going to fail him now? Said us, with wealth enough and men President Gates, in an address at the enough to meet the need, with only last meeting of the American Board: the spirit to use them wanting. Let us .. Oh, my brothers, what answer can settle it in our minds that the world is we give for ourselves before the judg.
not to be converted to God by good ment-throne of God, if this glorious people sitting in pews and listening to work of preaching the Gospel of light sermons, even the best, or sitting in to dying men is checked and dwarfed, rocking-chairs and reading good books. and fails of its glorious possibility, be.
The work is vast, difficult, possible-a cause we who are God's stewards hold work that calls for the labor of enthu- fast to God's money for our own selfish siasm, for prayer and tears, for sweat· uses? There is a time when the AI.
drops, and, perhaps, for blood-drops. mighty Banker of the universe calls in Contributions of money are not enough. His loans. " 68 THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [January -There are indications that the time mooring from all its past, and is emis at hand for a great blessing in India. barking upon a movement that must This " slow old land" is beginning to lead on to the greatest of revolutions in arouse from her sleep of centuries and its internal life and external relations." respond to the tender touch of a faith He adds: "The time is most opporthat regenerates. Dr. Phillips writes tune for the pressing of missionary almost enthusiastically of the outlook. work at every point, in every. form, There are open doors on every side. with all our power. The present dis- Prayers are being answered and long, turbances, while not without elements patient labor is having its reward. All of anxiety, are rather symptoms of the India is ready for a forward movement. general ferment that is spreading than In Life and Light we are told of a wide- of a reaction, and will doubtless in the spread restlessness and a spirit of in- end lead to a far more open door for all quiry in India. In a Madras paper eTangelistic work. " these lines are given as the cry of a multitude to-day: -The condition of things in Japan is such as calls for much earnest prayer "We are weary of empty creeds, at the opening of a new year. The Of guides who show no man the way, country is undergoing a wonderful Of worship linked with lust and shame; transformation. Great progress is Life is an iiI, the sea of births is wide, being made in all departments of na- And we are weary-who shall be our guide 1" tional life. The influences of Chris- tianity and of civilization have swept Thank God for those consciously weary through the country in the last few and heavy laden, to whom the mission- years with marvellous rapidity, The aries may carry the pitying, "Come new empire with its constitutional govunto Me, and ye shall find rest for your ernment takes its place almost alongsouls." side the most enlightened European governments in its freedom and liber- -It is to be hoped that the troubles ality. In the Parliament of 300 memin China are not altogether discourag- bers, 13 are professedly Christian men. ing. May there not be an indication The work of Christian missions in that in them of the beginning of a change land has been prospered beyo'nd the in that wonderful country which shall most sanguine hopes of the Church. leave it a new China? Western thought is breaking in among the peo- But in the midRt of all this progress ple. Modern science is forcing itself and success there are dangers besetting through the old walls, and the country the interests of Christianity and of the is feeling its power. Telegraph wires empire, through which only the hand are stretching everywhere. Western in- of God can guide the country. Says ventions are revolutionizing everything. Dr. Ellinwood: "At the present time China is about breaking its old bonds. the forces which array themselves This is the fruit of Christian missions. against the missionary work in Japan The Bible is doing it. There is unrest are entering into a strong alliance, with for the time; there are persecutions a determination to resist the aggressive of missionaries; but while these things influence of Christianity. Very natuare disheartening in a sense, yet there rally the advocates of the old systems is in them an element of victorious- of Japan, as well as the converts to ness. The leaven of Christianity is various types of western infidelity, are working. Says one of the mission sec- alarmed at the influence which Chris· retaries: "Internal changes of striking tianity is gaining in Japan. . • . Books character assure us that this nation of also have recently been published by venerable antiquity and proverbial con- native authors, which earnestly advo· servatism, almost without its knowledge oate a union of all Buddhist sects and and against its will, is in reality unan alliance with the philosophies (in- worship and schools in their own fidel) of the West, in resistance to the dwellings, this order, whioh has not yet missionary efforts of the Christian been executed, but which at any time Church. Evidently Japan is now the might be, is one which may cause serio theatre of one of the most active con- ous trouble. These outcroppings of a flicts of religious and philosophical persecuting and intolerant spirit show thought that the world has known, and a disposition at least to trouble and in. the Christian Church needs to regard terfere with the work of missions in it the more seriously, from the fact that that old country_ Christian truth has no such advantage there as in countries where the momen- -Africa is wide open now to the tum of many generations of Christian Gospel. The explorations of the last influence constitutes an immense con- thirty years have revealed a heretofore servative force. All questions in Japan, terra incognita, and where the old maps to a generation which has had only the had" Great Afrioan Desert," the newer' antecedents of error, are open ques- maps have rivers, lakes, and mountains tions ; and Christianity must take its and great peoples. Rnilroads are being even chances with every other form of built to supplement the splendid water belief or unbelief, save as the omnip- highways whioh nature has provided. otent Spirit of God shall prompt and The doorl;! of language are also being direct the work in answer to the pray- opened ahd mainly by missionaries ers and efforts of His people. " themselves. Four hundred and thirty. eight languages and 143 dialects have There should. therefore, be earnest been oatalogued. Thus a new world is and importunate prayer for Japan, that open to the Gospel. In the Congo Val. wisdom may be given to the men called ley alone is a population equal to that to direct in missionary work; that the of the United States. Stanley travelled Christian Churoh there may be kept in 999 days 7000 miles and never saw from yielding to worldly influences or the face of a Christian, nor of a man counsels, and from all divisions and who had had the opportunity to become dissensions; that the cause of Christ one. Yet he moved among a populamay be advanced until the empire shall tion of fifty millions. What will the be indeed Christian. Church do to send the Gospel through these wide open doors into Afrioa in -There is trouble also in Turkey, 1892? appealing to the prayers of Christian people everywhere. The government -It used to be said that in India the seems desirous to check moral and intel- birds never sing, the flowers have. no lectual progress, and therefore is assum- fragrance, and the women never smile. ing an unfriendly attitude toward mis- No wonder the women of heathen lands sions. Several acts have been com- never smile. Their lot is sad beyond mitted whioh show this hostility. Mis. description, but a better day has come sionaries have been arrested without for them. The Christian women of cause and kept in close confinement, Christian lands are hastening to give as it they were guilty of some grave their sad sisters the blessed story of offenoe. The government also con· the Gospel. There are in the United fisoated a large number of hymn-books States 34 women's foreign missionary and Bible diotionaries belonging to the societies, 10 in Canada, 24 in Great Amerioan mission. In October last the Britain, 1 on the continent of Europe, Sublime Porte issued an order prohibit. and 1 in South Africa. The work that ing the holding of public worship or has been done by these societies, espe. conduoting of sohools in dwellinghouses. As many missionaries conduot cially for the women of heathen lands, only a desire to please white people in is one whose value and influence can- the awkward appointments of their not be estimated. It would be easy to home, they would be of little account; gather up and present here a table of but in many cases it is the outward sign atatistics (see page 954, December num- of a prooess of change which will eventber of REVIEW), but large as ,the figures ualIy rectify even their distorted family would be, they would give no adequate relationships-a heritage from their view of the resulta of the work which heathen ancestry. The desire for a woman, with her loving hear' and her better home life has somehow been imgentle touch, is doing for her sister planted in the young wife's heart during woman in darkened countries. One her school.life. looked at an opal as it lay on a jeweller's case, and it seemed cold and lustre- -Faraday showed that a drop of dew less. Then the jeweller held the stone oontains electrioity enough to rend a in his hand for a few moments, and rook. The Gospel of Christ has in it now it shone with all the colors of the all the power of God and can work marrainbow. It needed the touch of a hu- vels, as it has already wrought marvels man hand to bring out the iridescence. in saving men. Like that stone in its case are the millions of women in heathendom. Their -If we can do nothing else, or whatlives are dull and sad and without ever else we may do, we oan all pray beauty, but they require only the for the blessing of God upon the work warmth of the hands of Christian women of Christian missions, and prayer has to draw out all the beauty that.slumbers mighty power. The worship of Durga, in their nature. "Godly women have the blood.goddess of the Hindus, is atproved themselves the link, so long tended by the most terrible excesses of missing, to bring their sisters in East- sin. Some native converts have agreed ern lands to the feet of Jesus." that every evening this worship goes on they also will meet to pray to God to -The establishment of Christian put an end to the wicked practices. homes is one of the finest results of " Let us go on praying night after night missionary work in heathen lands, and year after year," they say, .. tm we hence the beauty of a picture which a have prayed down the Dllrga Puja. missionary draws of what is being done Let us pray it down. ' , Christians for Zulu girls in the Inanda Seminary: everywhere should join in all such The humble little home shows that the prayers. wife and mother has tried with the little means at her disposal to give a home- -Some idea of the difficulties of city like look to the place. There will be a evangelization may be gotten from a curtain at the window, a cushion on the statement, by the President of the wooden settee, and a bit of frilled cre- Methodist Church .Extension Society, tonne about the shelf which holds her that within one square mile of New lamp and a few books. If it be objected York City there are 20,000 people, nineby the wise in such matters that the teen twentieths of whom are foreign Turkey red and white of the window born and speak 30 different languages. decorations are not artistic, nor the Yet no work is more important just now friII of cheap cretonne, nor the patch- than that which needs to be done in work quilt whioh covers the bed, we our great cities if they are to be saved say, perhaps not, but the mark of the for Chrh!t. The real heathenism that woman's hand and care to our 'mind is found in many of them is appalling. make the dark little room much less One of the most hopeful of recent cheerless. If these things indicate movements is that which looks toward poses purely religious. Within the cen.
the regeneration of the slums. In Lon. tury now drawing to a close 150,000,000 don and now in New York there has copies of the Bible have been printed been an arousing of the people which in 226 different languages. Fifty years promises much. The work should go ago there were 502 mission stations in forward till all the cities have been foreign parts; there are now 5765.
cleansed. One of the saddest things Fifty years ago there were 653 ordained about the slums is that they are fed missionaries; to.day there are 6696 from the churches and Sunday-schools such servants of the Lord. Then there and from Christian homes. The peo. were but 1266 other laborers and help.
pIe there have fallen out and have ers abroad; now there are 50,552.
drifted downward to where they now are. Many of them have memories of -There is a view of the benefits of better days, even of holy things. In foreign missions which should appeal our prayers at the Monthly Concert, the even to worldly men. General Arm· efforts to evangelize our cities should strong says: "America, through the have a place. American Board, expended in fifty years a million and a quarter dollars to -As nearly as can be computed from evangelize Hawaii, and during that the reports of various societies, the fol. time has received about $4,000,000 a lowing summary of Protestant foreign year in trade. England's missions are missions is correct. From churches in said to bring back £10 in trade for United States, Canada, Great Britain, every pound given to convert the and Continental Europe there are in heathen. Christianity means a demand foreign lands 8048 stations and out- for clothing and utensils. The first stations, with 5594 missionaries, 35,343 sign of grace in a penitent savage is a native helpers, and 681,503 communi· request for a .shirt.- cants. The amount of money given last year was $11,429,588. Of COUlse -A writer in the Children's World this summary is incomplete, as there says: "Of every six infants in the are unreported missions and mission. world, one is born in India; of every aries. six orphan girls, one is wandering in India; of every six widows, one is -The reports of the Americsn Board mourning in India; of every six men give the following facts: The Board that die, one is passing into eternity in has under its care 21 central missions India. Think of it, and give India a with 97 stations, 1136 out·stations and part of your prayers•• , 1287 preaching places. A total of 538 missionaries are employed, with 2648 -After two missionary sermons in native laborers. There are 410 churches Melbourne recently a hard.working man with 38,226 church.members. During sent in thetitle·deeds of 93t acres offarmthe year the additions were 3554. In land, worth about $2500, to be divided schools of all kinds 46,403 pupils are between India and New Guinea. Being reported. Medical relief was given duro asked afterward about his gift, he said: ing the year to 100,000 patients. ." This is how I look at it. Supposing I were a boy and my father gave me $5, -The following figures are full of but afterward wanted part of the money interest. Seventy.five million dollars back again to help him in some work are contributed yearly in the United he was doing, and he came to me to States to the sustenance of the Church, help him, and I gave him a five·cent $31,000,000 more being given for pur. piece, what sort of a Bon should I be ?"
'12 GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
Orga.nized Missionary Work and Statistics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, Bellevue, O. .
-Hermann Wagner and Alexander upon them as touching the redemption Supan have recently published a vol· of the world. All the more since they ume of statistics relating to the popula- are such inveterate and indomitable tion of the globe. Of course the figures travellers, traders, colonizers, and buildthey give for countries not a few are ers of States. Most of all is the call of but estimates, and sometimes are but Providence to British Christians to beguesses; but taken all in all are no stir themselves for the Master, since the doubt the best to be had. They fix the sway of their government is so supreme number of the human family at 1,480,- over so large a fraction of the human 000,000, Of these there are in Europe, race. 326,000,000; in Asia, 826,000,000; in Africa, 164,000,000; in America, 122,_ -India is ten times larger than Ja- 000,000 ; in Australia, 3,000,000; and pan, China nearly three times as large in the Oceanio Islands, 7,500,000. as India, and Africa twice as large as China has 350,000,000 and India 324,- India and China combined. The 000,000, of whom 286,000,000 belong to "Dark" Continent is of vast propor- British India_ Russia has 93,000,000 ; tions as well, and contains a vast multithe German Empire, 49,000,000; Aus- tude which is well-nigh altogether either tria-Hungary, 41,000,000 ; Franoe, and pagan or else Mohammedan. Call the Great Britain and Ireland, 38,000,000 population 164,000,000, acoording to eaoh; Italy, 30,000,000, and Spain, 17,- the latest estimate, that of Wagner and 000,000. But another authority, Pro- Supan, and what impression has been fessor Von Juraschek, gives 1,544,000,- made upon it by the Gospel? Accord- 000 as the population of the world, of ing to a Danish authority, the Rev. whioh Europe has 358,000,000 and the Dean Vahl, in 1890 there were laboring Americas 124,000,000. in Africa, and representing all Christen- dom, 1004 missionaries and 206 women, -" When Shakespeare lived and and 878 native missionaries with 8389 sang, 300 years ago, on the whole globe other native helpers, or a total force of there were less than a million more 10,477, and the fruit of their toil is English-speaking people than now in- found in 214,561 oonverts or communihabit London alone. There were be- cants; but the" Encyclopredia of Mistween 5,000,000 and 6,000,000. So re- sions" gives a list of 43 missionary socently as a century ago, even after this cieties at work between the Mediterrarepublic was founded, there were only nean and the Cape, with 611 ordained 15,000,000 English-speaking persons on men, 170 unordained, 387 women, 209 the globe. At the same date 30,000,000 ordained natives, 4891 native helpers, spoke French and 40,000,000 German. or a total of 6268 persons engaged in Now we find that While the French and bearing the glad tidings to the perish- German tongues are spoken by a rea- ing. Into 565 churches 101,212 souls sonably increased number of individ- have been gathered, 9439 were admitted uals in the world to-day, in Australasia, last year, and 53,235 pupils are receivthe British isles, and in America 115,- ing instruction in 861 schools. These 000,000 olaim English as their mother figures stand for what Protestant Christongue. This is 40 pel' oent of the in- tians are doing-that is, they have sent habitants of the oivilized world." If 1168 men and women to Africa, or such is the fact, it follows that Anglo- about one to every 150,000. Saxon, English-speaking Christians have a tremendous responsibility laid -Next see-one item from many- what the devil and his angels are doing to maintain his widespread and fear- single Christian of every denomination, fully well-established sovereignty over at least 2 Buddhist priests (not head- Africa. The following tabulated state- priests). So there is a population of ment, printed in the {!hristian Union and over 39,000,000 of Japanese without a obtained from the Boston Custom single Christian among them. Once House, shows the exportation of rum to more, if all the Christians in Japan were Africa from the Port of Boston during congregated· in the city of Osaka (500,- the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1891 : 000), there would be in that one city 4 times as many heathen as Christians, …. …. and not a single Christian in any other ;:~ :~ :: :: :: :. part of the country. No, Japan is not r … :: ::: yet a Christian country; and there is room and need for hundreds if not I thousands of missionaries and native evangelists, if this people is to be saved il ere the Lord come." Then ponder this concerning India: "Since 1881 the For two or three years this traffic, which population has increased by 29,000,000 partakes so largely of the inhuman and -that is to say, almost as many souls the hellish, was reported as steadily have been added to the people of India falling off, but now it has again reached in ten years as are comprised in the high-water mark. whole population of England and Wales. The total is now 286,000,000. India -More than one fourth of the earth's contains more people than all Africa inhabitants are crowded into China and and South America combined; more Japan, and more than one fifth into than all Europe, excluding Russia; India; but after all the phenomenal nearly ten times the popUlation of Engsuccess which the Gospel has had in land. Or take the provinces, Bengal Japan, but a trifling beginning has been alone has more souls than the United made. An English missionary states States and Canada combined; the Punthe following facts: "To-day there are jab more than Spain and Portugal ; the 40,000,000 in Japan, and not 40,000, Madras Presidency, equal to Italy and Protestant Christians-that is, one in Belgium together. Each missionary, 1000. For every 2 Christians there are on an average, has 250,000 Bouls to 5 Buddhist temples, not to mention reach." And then, as for China, "not Shinto temples. There are 10,000 more one in 10,000 has as yet ever even heard head-priests of Buddhism than there are of Jesus Christ." Among China's 350,- Protestant Christians, and for every 000,000, 30 ProtAstant societies sustain in all less than 1300 men and women (at the rate of one to 270,000 heathen), something more than 40,000 have been gathered into churches, and about 15,- 000 are receiving instruction in Chris- tian schools. Evidently the call for 1000 more missionaries to labor in China alone is a most modest and reasonable one.
-Or, glance at South America with 7,500,000 square miles and a popula- tion of about 35,500,000. Over almost the entire continent the papacy bears undisputed sway, and heathenism holds the rest. Including the American Bible committed to our trust-as contrasted Society, 8 societies are endeavoring to with the superabounding opportunities diffuse a pure Gospel-the Methodist of this Christian land, where one per- Episcopal Church, North and South, son in every 600 of its 63,000,000 is an the Presbyterian, North and South, the evangelical minister, and one in every Southern Baptist, -the Moravian, and 5 is a professed disciple of the Lord the South American Missionary Society Jesus Christ? Is $6 out of $100, $94 of England. The number of men and being retained for work at home, is $20 women at work is but about 325, and out of $100, $80 being retained for be- the number of communicants is less nevolent work at home, a fair propor- than 15,000. There remaineth yet very tion ?"
much land to be possessed. -0£ the 15,730,000 people of Hun- gary, 3,200,000 are Protestants. Of -Of course there should be some fair these again 2,030,000 are Reformed -that is, some truly Christian-propor- and 1,120,000 Lutherans. The latter tion established and maintained in our have 1195 pastors and 1433 congrega- churches between home expenses, home tions; the former 4241 congregations missions, and foreign missions; and served by 2283 pastors. The Unitarians hence these words of Secretary Alden, number about 1i0,000, organized into of the American Board, are well worthy 187 congregations with 107 pastors. of careful consideration. His figures The Protestants are very active in edu- relate to the Congregationalists. He cational and literary work. The num- says : " There are 4817 chnrches with ber of their schools is 3826, besides 14 a membership of 506,832, a Sunday- preparatory schools for teachers, 52 school membership of 613,810. The high schools, and 13 theological schools. reported contributions for 1890 for , home expenditures' in round numbers -Says Bishop Walden: "Italy has were $6,100,000, and for the several de- above 30,000,000 of people, of whom bepartments of home benevolence $1,900,- tween 25,000 and 30,000 are connected 000, a total of $8,000,000. The reported with some Protestant organization-not contributions for foreign missions were more than one in every thousand of the $350,000. Suppose we add the gener- population. In 1890, 6 Protestant bodies ous sum of $150,000, t6 represent possi- reported 23,452 members, but besides ble unreported contributions, and thus these there is the mission of the Plycall the contibutions to foreign missions mouth Brethren, a few small indepen- $500,000; we have then a total from dent missions, and the several Anglican benevolent contributions, excluding and other foreign churches. The entire legacies, of $2,400,000-that is, $80 out Protestant force, however, must fall beof every $100 is for work at home, $20 low 30,000. The Methodist contingent for work abroad. Bringing in, how- is about 2500, a little more than 1500 ever, the entire home expenditures, are found in the Wesleyan, and a little which is a proper thing to do, we have less than 1000 in the Methodist Episcoan aggregate of $8,500,000. On this pal Mission. The Waldensian Church basis, $94 out of every $100 is devoted began the work of evangelization in to the support of Christian institutions 1848, and reports 18,000; the Free and Christian bene,olence at home, and Church of Italy, united in one body in $6 for the corresponding work abroad. 1865, reports 1800; the Baptist less We ask, Is this a fair proportion? We than 900, and the 'Italian Catholic repeat the question, Is this a fair pro- Church' about 100. Such is the nuportion, particularly when we remem- merical strength of Protestantism in ber the perishing need of the unevan· Italy."
gelized nations-not less than 120,000,- -Belgium received its Roman Catho- 000 of their popUlation being specially lic impress under the iron rule of Philip of Spain, and is to-day, along with Agency, South Dakota, says: "We Spain, the country most devoted to the have just closed the convocation of our papacy, and is in the eyes of the Ro- Indian deanery, which, despite the late man Catholic Church, a true, ideal disturbances, was the largest in num- state. Among its 6,000,000 inhabitants bers and offerings we have ever had. not more than 20,000 are Protestant. Over 1500 people camped around an In 1837 a number of Protestants, among open circle. The women, representing • whom was the well-known Merle d' Au- 36 local branches of the Woman's Aux_ bigne and the church elder Mertens, of iliary, presented in cash $800, and the Breslau, founded the" Evangelical So· young men $170 for all sorts of chari- ciety of Belgium." In 1848 a church, ties, among them being work in Japan consisting of 49 converted Catholics, and China, missions in South Dakota, was organized upon a Presbyterian ba- the Episcopate fund, the native clergy sis, under the name of the" Christian fund, and other objects." Mission Church of Belgium." Accord ing to the statistics of 1889 it consisted -The secretaries of the Missionary of 2; churches, 22 ministers, 81 elders, Society of the Methodist Episcopal 104 deacons, 4 evangelists, 8 Bible Church have issued a circular letter readers, 5 colporteurs, and 4 students showing how the collections for mis- of theology, all under the direction of sions have been steadily advancing, bnt 3 local synods and one general Synod. calling attention to the fact that the In 1888 the number of communicants demand is advancing at a greater rate was 4396 ; Sabbath-schools, 59; schol- than the supply. The table appended ars, 2631. Besides this free church, gives a snmmary of the collections for there is also the Belgian National (Prot- the past seven years for the general estant) Church, whose ministers are work of the Society, both at home and paid by the State. abroad: -What a spectacle was beheld at the 3 … ""~~~o;~~&? :.''","e; Yankton Agency, S. D., a few weeks since, when 1000 Sioux, representing 0 8i~~~f8~~ 0~0 16 tribes-the Omahas, Santees, Yanktons, Yanktonnais, Brules, Ogalalas, E-< :l:g-o"o&'<5~ g,..f…,.t…§….,.,…g……,.,l……i…<is Minnecaujus, Two-kettles, Blackfeet, Hauhapapi, Sissetons, Wahpetons, As- … .,; &3~~8~~~ ~ siniboins, Rees, Mandans, and Gros … ~~E~~~~ <Xi Ventres-came together to hold an an- ~ ~'" nual meeting to tell and to hear the '" ~~~~"t:!~fi 0> story of the victories of the cross. And 0 Ui>""''''''''''' ,…. it was only a year before that the" Mes- c0>r siah crRZe" and the war were on. These were all Christian brethren and Presby- ~ terians and Congregationalists. Among the subjects in which the Indians took -"'" g;:ll~c;;188;g1~ an active and eloquent part were these: " How to Prevent the People from Being … .,S,-. ~_~_~_~_~_~.~_c:!~: Led Away by False Religions," " Should "'"::: 0 Mourners Refrain from Attending Pub- … ~ ":'g~<"o'&~5g"s'"'''','..'..'~'..S.'..;~lIo~ ~> lic Worship 1" "How to Make Prepara- 0 tion for the Sabbath," "The Proper 0 Uses which the Dakotas Should Make of Money Annuities." And further, Ii Bishop Hare, writing from the Rosebud ~ ~ E-< illi§JOCi§OJl&:51-2-O&O5~0g0 I ,…. ""'''''''''''''''''''"'''i?""t -The Presbyterian Church, North, is doing earnest work with excellent results in Western Persia, Rev. J, H. Shedd states: "Four of the churches, with professing Christians of the country.
an aggregate of 879 members, support The system of church polity, which has themselves, and 2 of them contribute slowly developed itself, is rather a com- largely for helping others; 5 other bination of Independency, Presbyteri- churches, with less than 100 members anism, and Episcopacy. An Anglican each, pay half or more of their ex- mission works chiefly on the East Coast, penses, and 28 others pay a less sum to with a bishop and cathedral at Antan- self-support. The tacit understanding anarivo. A Roman Catholic bishop is is that a church of 100 members ought also stationed at the capital. There to be self-supporting. There are some are about 28 missionaries of the London 20 other mission stations-for the nomi- Missionary Society in Madagascar, 10 nal Christians-home missions. One of the Friends' Mission, 10 of the Angli- fourth of this advance work is from the can Mission, 26 of the Norwegian Lu- native missionary fund, and three therans, and about 40 priests and fourths from our mission. The whole brothers of the Roman Catholic Mission.
of this agency cost the New York Board as well as sevflral Sisters of Mercy.
last year $3741, an average of $62 a The London Missionary Society has congregation, to help the development about 950 native pastors and about 100 of the native church and home mis- evangelists or native missionaries sta- sions. Last winter nearly 100 schools tioned in various parts of the country, and over 2000 pupils were cared for at many of them in quite heathen dis- an expense to the Board of $1582.50, an tricts. There are about 350,000 Protes- average of $16 to a school, about 75 tants and about 35,000 Roman Catho- cents to a pupil. To this should be lics. Five sixths of the Malagasy are added the sums given in self-support. still pagans. Schools have been estab- A few schools are entirely self-support- lished, and education is compulsory ing, and all pay some part of the ex- wherever the influence of the central pense, except in a few very peculiar government is effective. All the mis.
cases. In a few places Moslem pupils sionary societies at work in Madagascar attend. The higher education of the col- have colleges and high schools, the lat- lege or female seminary costs the Board ter both for boys and girls, in all of a larger sum. The number of pupils which education is given ~reely, with in the united schools, male and female, but nominal charges for books, etc. Al- was 337 the year past. Of these 202 most every congregation, except the were boarding pupils. The income smallest and the weakest, has its school.
from these is almost enough to pay for The London Missionary Society has their board. The charge to the Board also an industrial school for teaching aside from missionary salaries was handicrafts. Hospitals and medical $2200, which covers expenses of teach- schools are also connected with this So- ers, buildings, rooms, and some inci- ciety, as well as with the Friends, Lu.
dentals. It is about $11 a pupil for the theran and Anglican Missions, and boarding departments." there are now a number of trained doc- tors and surgeons. It is estimated there -A large portion of the Hova and of are about 1800 schools and about 170,- the other tribes in the central districts 000 children under instruction, but it is of Madagascar have been christianized, difficult to get the statistics of the Ro- and Christianity is acknowledged and man Catholic Mission.
protected by the government. There is no state church, although the queen -The Moravian (Bethlehem, Pa.) very and principal officers of the government properly, and in excellent spirit, calls are Qonnected with the churches formed attention to certain misstatements con- by the London Missionary Society, tained in the" October" number of THE which comprises the vast majority of MIsSIONARY REVIEW, "usually so accurate," relating both to the total expen- misstatement referred to is found not diture for missions made by that body in October, but in November instead.
of Christians aD.d the amount contrib- uted by friends from outside. Now, he who would knowingly offend in that way, and thus" belittle the liberality" Monthly Bulletin. of a church which just there comes nearest to the Gospel ideal, would by -News of the death of Miss Jennie the act prove himself the chief of sin- B. Small, a missionary of the Presbyteners. The mistake is deeply regretted, rian Board of Foreign Missions, at and originated wholly from partial and Petchaburee, Siam, on June 2, has been so defective information. However, received. Miss Small taught school for Borrow is not altogether unmingled several years in Mansfield, Allegheny with joy, since the opportunity is thus County, Pa.
afforded to present the facts, which for -The Zambesi Chief Lewanika has substance, The Moravian being author- sent his eldest son Litia to Morija, in ity, are as follows; "The total cost of Basutoland, to receive Christian inour missions in 1890 was $350,475. struction. The chief has many excel- The largest proportion of this-more lent parts, and for some time has been than two thirds-was raised in the mis- on terms of friendship with M. Coilsion fields themselves, through the con- lard, of the Paris Society of Missions, tributions of the converts and also from and Litia himself is a promising young the proceeds of trades carried on in man of Christian character. certain mission-provinces for the benefit of the missions. The sum of $24,060 -The London Christian says; "The is to be credited, as THE MISSIONARY Chinese Government is now taking very REVIEW puts it, to the ' Brethren's con- vigorous steps to suppress and to pregregations,' but this is not all. The vent attacks on missionaries. We may Labrador and the Alaska accounts do therefore reasonably trust that those not pass through our General Board. who are carrying the Word of God into Labrador entailed an outlay of $9800, that distant land will be in less danger Alaska of $8400. The gifts from friends than has recently been the case. This in Britain, including therefore those of is something to thank God for not only the London Association referred to were for the sake of the missionaries, but of $26,686 ; on the Continent of Europe, the future weal of China itself."
$22,656 ; in America, $285. [Total gifts -The work among the blind in Syria from friends, $49,627.] Mite societies is full of interest. The number of blind in the various Moravian congregations seen in the East is very distressing. contributed $3430. Legacies were receiv- There are blind schools at Beirut, Daed to the amount of $23,670, and the in- mascus and Tyre. Blind Scripture come from funded legacies was $37,264. readers have the entree of Moslem homes, How much of the last two items should a privilege which blindness confers. be credited to members, and how much One of the earliest pupils in the Beirut to friends of the Moravian Church, we Blind School, after completing his are not able to say. It may be added studies in Edinburgh University, has that the entire cost of administration been ordained pastor of the Presbytewas but $16,570, and that the total of rian church of Knox, in Brussels, Onadherents is now 90,020, while the tario. home churches number less than 35,- 000." It will be noticed that a portion -The first section of the little rail- of the $350,475 is derived from the road which is to connect Jaffa with Jern- " proceeds of trades." salem has been completed, and tourists Surely, humanum est errare, and the are now able to travel by rail from Jaffa to Ramleh, about one third the dis- Glasgow, said, at the annual meeting of tance. It will not be long before pil- the London Missionary Society, that grims to the Holy Land will be whisked missionaries did not sufficiently raise in an hour from the sea to Jerusalem, the veil and tell what Hinduism is.
to the ~reat disgust of camel owners One could not speak about it and and stage proprietors_ scarcely write about it. Almost every -Some of the Indian women on the temple in India had from 30 to 200 Yakama and Puyallup reservations have priestesses engaged in vice. That was asked that women evangelists be sent how Hinduism dealt with woman. to them, and in response Mrs. E. C. Miller has been sent to Yakama, and -The Bev. Allen Hazen, formerly a Mrs. Bell to Puyallup. The doing of missionary in India, and more recently Gospel work among Indian women will a pastor in New Zealand, has returned, result in great good. If they can be at the age of sixty-eight, accompanied taught the blessedness of peace, and be by his daughter, born in India, to re_ made to know the Prince of Peace, sume, at his own charges, his old work in the Marathi Mission.
Indian wars will soon come to an end. –In an interesting paper in a recent -At the "Keswick Convention," in number of The Church of Scotland Home England, there was a missionary meet- and Foreign XtSsian Record, Rev. Dr. ing, at which many addresses were Mackinnon, of Heidelberg, calls attenmade by missionaries from many lands tion to the thoroughness with which -among others, by Mrs. Grattan Guin- German missionaries are trained for ness, representing, as she said, mission- their work. Their systematic method aries on the Congo River, Mrica, and is said to be remarkable indeed in comby Mr. Robert Wilder, who described parison with the lax preparatory trainthe great volunteer missionary move- ing in some other countries largely enment in the United States_ A very gaged in missionary effort. After satispractical issue of the Convention was factory proof of their fitness for the the fact that a multitude of gifts, vary- life, the candidates in Germany are ading in amount from a few shillings to mitted to attend the Mission House one hundreds of pounds, and reaching the evening in the week for a year. They grand total of £1814, were sent in to be are then entered upon the books of the devoted to the cause of God at home preparatory school for two years for inand abroad. struction in Latin, etc. After this they have a course of instruction of a theo- -A Japanese converted to Christ logical nature, including the study of seems at once to betake himself to the the Bible in the original tongue, and a labor of teaching the truth to his friends few sessions of medical training in the at home and at a distance, and thus is hospital. The years thus spent are use- the way prepared for the minister of ful in developing in the future mission- Christ. No wonder that, with such ary many qualities which are of the ut- preparatory service, the truth is run- most value in the mission field. The ning in that land, and being glorified. rllsult is that men are sent out who are -Mrs. L. J. Newton, in a recent ad- in every way worthy of their work, and dress to the Missionary Conference held who undertake it thoroughly equipped at Chautauqua, speaking of progress in for the master's service. the Punjab, India, said: "We have $7000 invested in our church and hos- -The American Baptist Missionary pital at Ferozepore, every cent of which Union is supporting eighteen preachers was given by native converts." in Russia. One has been exiled to Si- beria for preaching the Gospel, and an- other sent out of the country with only -The Rev. Professor Lindsay, ..··of three hours' notice. -A Misil Agnew, of New York, it is cheerfully, 'and he lived there in the said, when only eight years old gave most frugal and primitive fashion. He her heart to· mission work. She went had no notion of being too valuable in to Ceylon, and spent forty-three un- Europe to be hidden away in the almost broken years. A thousand girls passed inaccessible uplands of Asia. He was through her school. She taught the a true Moravian.
children and the grandchildren of the first generation. The natives called -King Mwanga of Uganda has proher the mother of a thousand daughters. hibited slavery in his dominions.
IShe led six hundred girls to Christ. -The Queen of Madagascar, with They became the wives of the chief 200,000 of· her subjects, is ranged on men, and were shining lights. There the side of Christianity.
are also forty Bible women in India -At Oyamada, Japan, the church of who were trained in her school. 100 members has built a church costing -A few weeks ago a leading Brahman $1300, of which they paid $900 them· in Bombay, an official in the education selves.
department, married the widowed -England proudly boasts that the daughter of another Brahman prominent sun never sets on her dominions. The in the literary world. The ceremony United States may say as much, for was attended by many Hindoos of note. when the sun sets in Alaska it is an The other Sunday a Bombay pleader hour high in Maine. convened a meeting to get sentence of expulsion pronounced upon all the -A medical missionary in China reo Shenvi Brahmans who were present at cently treated fourteen men in one day the marriage. The temple was crowded, who represented eleven of the eighteen but it is a remarkable evidence of prog- provinces of the Empire.
ress that only nine persons voted with -The four gospels have been transthe convener of the gathering. The lated into Uzbek, the language of 2,250" Shenvi is one of the most powerful 000 people in Central Asia, and pub- Brahman castes in Western India. lished by the British and Foreign Bible -The Moravians are alive to their in- Society.
dividual responsibility concerning the -Tunis is under the protection of unevangelized nations of the world, and France. It has a population of 2,000,.
they hold themse~ves in readiness to go 000, mostly Mohammedans, among out as missionaries when called upon whom drunkenness is prevalent.
to do so. This is true of the most -The work of telegraph building in scholarly and distinguished among them South Africa is pushed far ahead of rail· as well as of others. Henry Augustus road enterprise. Savage Africa will Jaeschke, late Moravian missionary in thus be joined with civilization by elec. Northern India and Thibet, besides Ger- tric wire. man was master of Polish, Danish and Swedish, and was acquainted with Eng- -The first section of the Congo raillish, Hungarian, Bohemian, Latin and way has been completed, from Matadi Greek, and, after going to the East, al. to Leopold Ravine, and construction ready knowing Sanskrit, Persian and trains are running.
Arabic, and, no doubt, Hebrew, he -The Chinese Government has fully learned Hindustani and Urdu, and compensated the missionaries in Honan lastly Thibetan. He was likewise for the injury to their property by a versed in mathematics and natural sci. mob only three months ago. ence, especially botany. He obeyed the call of his Church to go to the -The Comber family will be noted Himalayan regions unquestioningly and ,. in the martyr list of Congo Missions, having given five lives already to that -The Rev. Mr. LeWis, of England, work: Dr. Sidney Comber, Thomas J. died recently. In 1842 he went to Comber, Mrs.' Hay, Mrs. Thomas J. India, and having reduced the language Comber, and Mrs. Percy Comber. of the Khassees to writing, he devoted himself to translations, and was able Ohina.-The 32,000 native Chinese without any help but that given by his Moravian Christians gave year before wife, to translate the whole of the New last $38,000 for missionary work. Testament into Khassei. From the work which he started have developed -It is reported that, as a result of 60 churches with a membership of 7000. the great assistance given to the faminestricken people of Shantung, in 1889, -The Rev. W. F. Bainbridge tells the when over $200,000 were distributed following touching story of a Brahmin and over 100,000 lives saved, a great convert hemet in India: .. Ashe talked many have been drawn to pay special of his work and urged me to labor hard attention to Christianity as the religion in the interests of heathen evangelizawhich influences people for such deeds tion, I felt that it was not he, but Christ of kindness and mercy; and during speaking through him. Last mgnth a 1890 it is said that over a thousand per- Conconada brother wrote me of his sons were baptized whose attention was death. He had just officiated at a weddrawn' to the religion of Christ by the ding. A sudden sickness came on befact that the missionaries were so promi- fore he had signed the marriage certifinent in securing this aid and distribut- cate. 'Just your name, brother,' they ing it. Not by any means were all these said, as they put the paper unner his recipients of aid, but they saw what was hand, and the pen between his fingers_ being done for their fellow.men, and , Name? • said the dying Brahmin, compared the fruits of Christianity with , name? There is none other name the fmits ,of heathenism. given under heaven among men where- by we must be saved.' • Yes; but we -It is stated by Dr. Joseph Simms, want your own name. Quick I Write it.' who has lately returned from China, , My name? I have none other name that at least 200,000 girl babies are than the lamb's name written in my brutally killed in various ways every forehead.' And the pen moved and the year in that empire, to get them out of hand dropped, and the spirit was gone; the way. In every large city there are and they looked, and he had written asylums for tl:ie care of orphans, sup- 'Jesus.' .. ported and conducted by foreigners, who save yearly from slaughter tens of thousands of female infants.
India_-Sir Charles A. Elliott, the new -The Methodist Episcopal Church Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, speak- has three conferences in India, North ing at Simla, has added his testimony India, South India, alild Bengal. The to the value of missions as judged from statistics have recently been published the standpoint of high Indian officials. of the three combined, together with cor- .. I make bold to say," were his words, responding figures for 1870, and the " that if missions did not exist it would growth of 20 years thus shown is most be our duty to invent them." This is cheering. The figures for two decades what was said by the famous men who ago are put in parenthesis: Missionbuilt up the administration of the Pun- aries, 72 (19) ; wives, 62 (17); Hindustani jab, and who, when it was !1nnexed in missionaries, 54 (5); Zenana mission- 1849, among their first requirements, aries, 33 (2); baptisms in 1890, 7661 along with courts, and codes, and roads, (471); native communicants, 11,991 and police, wrote home to the Church (600) ; day schools, 853 (117) ; scholars, Missionary Society for a supply of mis- 25,540 (4309) ; money collected in India sionaries. in 1890,217,287 rupees (24,478).
The Missionary Review of the World — February 1889
THE VINDICATION OF MISSIONS
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD~ VOL. XI. No.2-Old series.–FEBRUARY.–VoL. II. No. 2.-New Series.
I.-LITERATURE OF MISSIONS. THE VINDIOATION OF MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] ALL along the lines Satan seems to sound the signal for an assault on mISSIOns. Perchance the day has dawned, foreseen in apocalyptic vision, when" the devil is come down, having great wrath because he knoweth that he hath but a short time'" (Rev. xii: 12). Oertainly there is, just now, a very unusual commotion among the foes of Ohrist and His Ohurch, and it is manifestly caused by the unparalleled progress of Ohristian missions.
Satan is a master strategist. His favorite device is to employ respect~ able agents, and, best of all, professing disciples, to do his business. He disguises the personnel of the attack by getting them to hold the bow while he directs and discharges the venomous arrow. And so we find leading journals of America and Great Britain, and even a Oanon of the Anglican Ohurch, indulging in unfair and unfriendly criticism, and actually trying to prove" Ohristian missions a great failure" !
As to that" distinguished clergyman of the Ohurch of England," too much notice has been taken of him already. lIe has bought a cheap notoriety by his antagonism to missions, without ever earning a costly reputation by his defense of the faith. In the November issue of the Ohurch Missionary Intelligencer our friend" K." has given him and his paper an examination and an exposure so searching, so skillful, so analytic, so critical, that it leaves nothing for any other reviewer to do., . That scholarly article we wish everyone might read. It is at once a dissection and a castigation, reminding us both of the scalpel and of the scourge. The accomplished writer, with keen analysis of character and thorough knowledge of missions, cuts quick and deep beneath the cuticle of snperficial information and professed impartiality, and reveals the real ignorance of facts and perversion of the truth which vitiate th':) Oanon's essay. lIe calmly and coolly exposes and elucidates the entire structure of that misleading, if not malicious, paper, and justifies the judgment already pronounced upon its author by a very competent observer, that the" like of him for pretentious inaccuracy was hardly ever seen." In another aspect that reply isa terrible castigation. Long before "K." gets through, his victim is, figuratively speaking, dead under the scourge; and we wonder why the whipping goes on, unless it be on the principle of the boy who kept on beating a dead dog, because, as he said, "he wanted to show all living dogs that there is punishment after death." We hesitate to refer further to the Canon's essay, for it is not magnanimous to kick a foe who is already hors du combat, not to say lifeless. But while an author may not be worth notice, his false and fallacious statements and inferences may demand contradiction and exposure. 'Ve may not hope to overtake error, which" runs around the earth while truth is pulling on his boots," but we will do what we canto undo the mischief already wrought. Even out of the bramble may come a fire which, jf not quenched, sha1l devour the cedars of Lebanon; and so we undertake to address to candid minds some of the mighty facts and weighty considerations which, to every careful observer, are a triumphant vindication of missions.
It needs but little learning and less logic to see that the basis, on which the Canon rests the great missionary failure, is unsound. It will not bear investigation. First, as to the facts, so far as they are facts, there is nothing new. No intelligent student of Christian missions is taken by surprise or trembles with alarm. The main body of the. statements, based on comparative statistics, the most ardent advocates of missions, and even missionaries themselves, have not only conceded but furnished. He who has read Christlieb and Croil, Anderson and Stevenson, George Smith and Thomas Smith, Gammell and Goodell, Laurie and Livingstone, Bainbridge and Bartlett, Doolittle and Dorchester, Warneck and Wilder, Gordon Cumming and James Johnston, has seen these" vital statistics," facts and figures, fully set forth; indeed to Dorchester's" Religious Progress" and Johnston's" Century of Christian Progress," Canon Taylor probably owes no little of his own material. But while we concede the facts we dispute the inferences. Many a good scientist or statistician proves a poor philosopher or logician ; and even those who have gathered and classified these very facts follow them with no such induction, as is plain from their attitude toward missions, some of them being the foremost leaders and most eloquent pleaders of the whole mission host!
That is a false maxim that" facts and figures cannot lie." They may be arrayed in a garb so delusive, and arranged in a relation so deceptive, as to justify the quaint counter-saying, that "nothing can be made to lie so badly as figures, unless it be facts." For instance, the increase of popUlation is contrasted with the increase of Christian converts, and the former is shown to outstrip the)atter by ten millions a year; and this is one of this Canon's shots, by which he proposes to demolish Christian missions. But look at the comparative agencies producing these respccyve results. Suppose we estimate the unevan· gelized population of the Eastern Hemisphere at 1,000,000,000, and their annual net increase at 10,000,000, or one per cent. The whole Christian Ohurch at home sends into the mission field only some 6,000 men and women, and last year the "Ohurch 1-fissionary Society" alone reported 4,000 converts, or sixty-seven per cent. upon this whole force; while the entire gain from the whole mission field, in the last fully reported year, was more than 150,000, or tlOenty-five hundred per cent. If now we count into the working force the 30,000 laborers who .. are converts from heathenism, even yet the results are amazing; for, while the popUlation of these non-OhI'istian countries grew by one per cent., the number of converts advanced by over jour hundred per cent. upon the whole number of workers in the 'field! Does that look like failure?
But while we find fault with Oanon Taylor's figures and his worse .inferences, we most of all find fault with his sinking the Ohristian in the mathematician. Figures cannot exhaust facts. ~'here are results that cannot be reckoned by numbers or reported in figures, and the greater part of the actual fruits of missions cannot be thus estimated . or tabulated. Think of the direct results in the elevation of man as man, and in the creation of Ohristian communities in the very heart of heathenism and paganism! The gospel lever has lifted whole peo- ples to a higher level during this century of modern missions: new dignity has been given to manhood and womanhood and honest toil; new sanctity to marriage and family ties; new security to life and liberty, property, and happiness; cruel customs, degrading supersti- tions, caste distinctions, have been modified and even abolished; and there has been a wide diffusion of snch ennobling conceptions as the Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of man!
To. all tbese and many other direct results, we must still add the indirect influence of the gospel-refining, subduing, civilizing, even where it does not renew, sanctify, Ohristianize. There are many changes which stop sbort of conversion, which are both invaluable and inestimable. Dr. Lindley declared that when a naked Zulu got so far toward Ohristianity as to put on duck pants and a calico shirt and sit on a three-legged stool nine inches high, he was about nine thousand miles above his nude neighbors. Before Ohristianity entered India, lepers were treated with shocking inhumanity, many of them being buried alive. Not only has a stop been put to this cruelty, but for fourteen years there has beon a special Ohristian mission to the 135,000 lepers of India. Rev. James Ohalmers, the veteran missionary, after twenty-one years of experience among cannibals; after visits to the Loyalty, Samoan, Society, and New Hebrides groups; after ten years of life in the Hervey Islands, and almost tcn more among the savages of New Guinea, declares that he has never yet seen a single mall or woman that has been civilized without Ohristianity's influence; and he declares that the gospel is the only true civilizer, and that if this wel,"e all, it is worth while to send Christian missionaries to the field.
If Canon Taylor thinks missions a failure, he ought to have been wrecked, like a certain Scotcl~ seaman, on that islanl! in the South Sea, where, eight years before, a whole ship's crew were thrown ashore, escaping the devourillg jaws of an angry sea only to be roasted in can- nibal ovens and eaten by remorseless savages; yet here natives in English dress and with English words of welcome now. pulled their canoes toward htohsepitsainblkeinCgl~'isshtiipal, l eager to reseue the perishing and invite them tG homes. lIas CarlOn Ta,ylor heard Mr. Calvert and Mr. 'Yebb tell the story of Fijian missions? How heathenism has been so swept awuy that the visitor canllot believe that those people, polite as Parisians and honest as Norwegians, were wild cannibals a generation ago! How, out of less than 112,000 Fijians, over 100,000 are attendants on Christian worship! How, where fifty years ago there was not one Christian, there is to· day not one avowed hcathen 1 How there are over 1,200 placcs of ChriRtian yorship and not one cannibal oven or heathen temple! And yet Christian mi~sions are « a great failure"! Is it not rather the Canon himself?
ThG argument by which the Canon wonle1 reduce CIJristian missions to an absurdity is itself capable of an easy reductio ad absurdum. He calculates that at the present rate it would take from 300,000 to 1,000,- 000 years to convert the worh1-a result 'rather remote for any of us now living to hope to see! What a shallow argument against missions!
Shall we haul down the flag of the cross before this noisy cannonade?
Beholl! the logical inference as to all other work-reformatory, benevo- lent, philanthropic. 'Yhat if it can be demonstrated that, notwith- standillg the Herculean labor of temperance reformers, it would take, at the present rate, 1t million years to male every man a total abstainer or even to clear the world of drunlmrds, ronld that prove the temper- ance work a failure or lessen the value of mdivjdnals already rescned and homes already redeemed from this curse? Give the Canon's argu- ment a broad enough application, and all existing philanthropies would cease to-morrow! There arc in operation a thousand forms in which unselfishness ministers to want or woe-asylums for the blind and deaf, the incurable, the cripple, the insane; refnges for homeless orphans and midl11ght missions for lost women; soup-houses and cof- fee-rooms for the poor, lllght-schools and lodging-houses for bootblacks and newsboys. Blindness, prostitution, crime are said to be on the increase. All our best efforts canJlot overtake human poverty and misery. Shall we then pronounce all beneficent work a failure and abandon all eleemosynary institutions?
'fhis is a "distinguished clergyman of the Church of England."
'VeIl, how does he measure values? After the law of a carnal com- mandment, or after the power of an endless life? Hesults that affect a human soul-its character, history, destiny-are not to be gauged by quantity, but by quality; not to be counted by numbers, but weighed in the scales of God. Who shall measure the worth of one human being, of one human life, of one home redeemed from poverty and misery, lust and filth, rum and ruin? One child's possibilities for evil or gooel suggest a profound heig1lt alH1 depth which even the mind of a cherub and the heart of a seraph could not sound or explore. Even if eternity be left out of account, for the sake of benefits accruing in this life we shall still run the uneqm>l race with human sin and suffering, though we never supply all nleds or banish all crime and wretchedness.
Oanon Taylor's preaching, it is to be hoped, saves here and there one out of the thousands about him. Does he consider his ministry a failure? If so, why not doff his canon's robes and take up some work that pays better than preaching? The fact is, if he be a true disciple, his heart is better than his head, his love is sounder than his logic, and so he goes on patiently, rescuing here and there one soul from the awful wreek of faith and hope and love and life- because he cannot help, it. And so Ohristian missions are the necessary vent to a pent-up fire in our bones which makes us "weary with forbearing, so that we cannot stay" from the telling of the old story. It is because love, the expansive, expulsive, explosive law of the new life, will work to save, though the more abundantly it be lavished the less we be loved!
This question, "Do missions pay?" is a characteristic sign of our materialistic and commercial age. We have a supreme contempt for such methods of measuring duty and responsibility. A dIvine command is our authority for Ohristian missions, and their sufficient vindication. With results we have nothing to do, however discouraging. But since this Canon and oth~rs like him set up such standards of measurement, we cannot forbear to show that even on this basis mis- &ions are triumphantly vindicated. The witnesses that testify to the magnificent successes of missionary labor are legion. They may not, in the Oanon's eyes, be men of the highest learning, but they speak what they know and testify what they have seen; and their knowledge, however limited, cannot be offset by his ignorance, however extensive.
This paper in the Fortnightly Review hints that the quality of converts on mission fields scarcely justifies the expenditure in lives and treasure. Is the m'erage very high in the home churches? Where is the pastor who does not mourn over the dead driftwood that somehow gets into the current and then lodges in some bend of the stream to block all progress? Half of our church members give no sign of vital godliness. In a land wher~ the yery "atmosphere" is Ohristian, professing disciples trample on the whole decalogue, and even the churches are the shrines of idols. Oan we reasonably e:xpect a higher average of genuine a~d steadfast l)iety where the whole atmosphere is poisoned with paganism? But what are the facts? Whether judged by holy living or by ample giving, by faith or by works, the average convert in Turkey and Persia, Siam and Burmah, Ohina and Oaffraria, is far beyond the home standard, as the best missionaries testify with re- markable unanimity. Out of their poverty they give with an abun- dance of liberality that }mts to shame the gifts of our richest and most generous donors; and while Protestant Ohristendom sends to the direct mission work abroad only one out of every 5,000 members, these small churches, gathered on heathen soil, give at least one out of every hundred. .
In all.Oanon Taylor's comparisons of Ohristian life on these differ4 ent fields, there is the same obvious warping of facts by the determina- tion to make out his case. He repeats the common error of those who would applaud morality at the expense of piety, and who uniformly appropriate for the contrast the best specimens of the former with the worst of the latter. If the converts in the home and foreign fields are to be compared, we insist upon fairness and equity. Let us take for our examples those whose education, capacity, environment, oppor- tunity, most nearly correspond; and even then let us take into consid- eration every circumstance to which charity would accord a hearing in the court of reason and conscience. For a plant to live at all in a desert is a greater proof of vitality than for the same plant to thrive with lux.
uriance in a well-watered garden; and only they who, on pagan soil, where even the language has no terms for spiritual ideas, have seen the plants of godliness grow like flowers of Eden, can feel the full force of the proof that a divine Husbandman has been at work I But here, again, something besides numbers is to be taken into ac- count.. '1'he most subtle substances evade analysis, and the most im- portant results defy representation in the crude colors· of the mathe- matician or statistician. Theodore Parker rose from reading Judson's life to declare that if missions had produced but one such hero, all costs were repaid. With as profound persuasion do we affirm the same of multitudes of single converts in the foreign field. Foreign missions would be a grand success had they produced no results beyond creating, out of materials found in such soil, such men as Asaad Shidiak in Syria, .
Deacon Guergis in Persia, Kho-Thah-Byu and Sau Quala in Burmah, Africaner in Namaqualand, Kamehameha III. in Hawaii and Rona- valona II. in Madagascar, Tawai and Miti in New Zealand, Tubou and Bulu in Raabai and Finau in Vavau, Motele and Moshesh in Basuto- land, Pomare in Tahiti and Papeiha in Raratonga, Kayarnak in Green- land, Aquilar in Mexico, Leong-on-Tong in Ohina, and Brindelbund and Das Maitra in India; not to mention hundreds of others who are not individually named, like the converts of Uganda, who sang of Jesus till their tongues were crisped in their martyr fires! One might as well try to weigh in a scale the worth of a sunbeam as to estimate by mere arithmetic the value of transformed men and women, who in the ceuters o.f pagau, papal, heathen and M()hammedan communities shine as lights in the world holding forth the word of life. The unconverted pagans themselves often confess amazement at transformations of character so radical, and, with Pharaoh's magicians, are compelled to say, "This is the finger of God!" When the vindictive Indian learns to forgive, the brutal cannibal to be compassionate, the cruel savage to be gentle, the treacherous Turk to be faithful, the sordid Ohinaman to be unselfish, the vile Hottentot to be chaste, there is a creat-ive energy at work. This is more than ;eformation or transformation' it is a miracle. It contradicts nature and natural law, and argues a new nature, a new birth, a new creation. He who does not know how repeatedly and unmistakably such transfigurations have been realized, even amid the habitations of cruelty and the shadow of death, is not a competent witness as to the value of missions, and no man who does know these facts can or will pronounce missions a failure.
Moreover, when a man writes on the great missionary failure, first of all we would like him to settle the meaning of terms. What is a failure? Manifestly the opposite of success. And what is success? This is the accomplishment of a plan or purpose. In the last analysis, the success or failure of Ohristian missions must depend upon the real purpose of Ohristian missions.
Weare constrained therefore to raise the question, What is the purpose of the gospel in this dispensation? There is a grand distinction which even students of the Word and advocates of missions often overlook. With the work of conversion we have nothing to do, and for that we are not responsible. Our mission is one of evangelization. "Go ye into aU the world and evangelize-preach the gospel to every creature." Our Lord Ohrist never said that it was our duty to convert everybody, nor did He promise such a result. We give the community a free school, though not every boy that goes to school will turn out a scholar. Weare to give the community a free 'gospel, though not every hearer does turn out a convert.
"This gospel must first be preached for a witness in all the world." This means no superficial, hasty, formal proclamation of the good news of grace. It means thorough work, the implanting and erection of all the institutions of Ohristianity. Everywhere men are to be confronted with the Ohristian church and home, school and college, society and civilization. They are to see demonstrated before their eyes, and by the logic of events, what the gospel of Ohrist can do for the man, the woman, the child; what it can do to elevate labor, dignify humanity, abolish cruelty and eve!! discourtesy, supplant caste by a true equality, and lift all society to a higher level. The contrast will thus be made to appear between the religion of the Nazarene 'and all other faiths. The Mohammedan, heathen, pagan, will be compelled to confess the I immense superiority of a gospel that is not satisfied with mere evolu.
tion, but demands revolution; and that, not out of ruins but upon them, rears a temple to God, in which unselfishness, benevolence, ch:J.rity and purity arl' the white-robed priests. That is pr~aching the gospel as a witness, and it gives to all men a fair chance for intel- ligent choice. Such is the purpose of the gospel in the present age, and such is the commission of the church during this dispensation, viz., worrd-wide evangelization; and so far and so fast as the church accomplishes that mission, however few or many be the professed con- verts, so far and so fast does the church succeed in missions, for she is doing the very work her Lord has given her to do.
While it is not promised that everybody who hears the gospel shall be converted during thIS age of gospel wItness, great reAUlts have accompanied, and greater WIll follow, the missionary efforts of the church of God. Already results that rival Pentecostal wonders have been realized. McKay at Formosa gathered 1,200 converts at the Lord's table on the twelfth anmversaryof his advent to that island,.
William Johnson saw Sierra Leone transformed into a Ohristian state within seven years. Dr. Clough, at Ongole, baptized 10,000 converts in three months in 1878. The South Seas were Ohristiamzed in forty years, from TahIti to New Gumea. A thousand spires dIsplaced can- nibal ovens, in the Fiji group, in less than half a century Transfor- mations have taken place within the memory of men still living, that are as inexplicable by any human philosophy as the creation ·of a world out of nothing. Madagascar, Polynesia, the Karens, the Zulus, the Maoris, even the Japanese in our own day, furnish modern miracles as astounding as the cleansmg of a leper, the empowermg of the Impo- tent, the exorcising of the demoniac, or the raIsmg of the dead.
The fuller exhibition of the fruits of missionary enterpnse must be left to a future paper on the "ExpOSItion of Missions." But, as a specimen both of the success of missionary labor and of the witness of impartial observers, we refer the reader to the recently published" Life and Letters of Oharles Darwin." In contrast with Oanon Taylor's as- sault, let us OLce more summon this apostle of materialIsm from his grave, to give his testimony. Mr. Darwm, though not a Ohristian, had the. greatest reflpect for the good in Ohristianity, and was great enough to.acknowledge it. 'l'his isthe way in which he answered some shal- low critics of foreign missionaries. We give space to his testimony be- cause it deserves to be quoted in full. After his visit to Terra del .Fuego, he wrote : "The Fuegians are III a more miserable state of barbarism than I had expectpd eyer to have seen a human being. In this inclement country they are ahsolutely naked, and their temporary houses are like what children make in summer with boughs of trees. I do not think 'any spectacle can be more interesting than the first sight of man in his primitive wildness. It is an interest whioh cannot well be imagined until it is experienced. I shall never forget this when entering' Good Success Bay'-the veIl with which a party received us. They were seated on a rocky p~int, sur~'ounded by the dark forest of beech; as they threw their at'ms wildly around th,eir heads, and their long hair streaming, they seemed the ;troubled spirits of another world. . • . There is in their countenance an expresion which I believe, to those who have not seen it, JlJust be inconceivably wild. Standing on a rock they uttered tones and made gesticulations than which the cries of domestic animals are far more intelligible."
'Admiral Sir James Sullivan testifies that JUl'. Darwin" often ex- pressed to him his conviction that it was lltterly useless to send missionaries t~ such a set of savages as the Fuegians, probably the very lowest of the human race." But subsequently, about 1869, he wrote to the Admiral" that the recent accounts of the mission proved to him that he had been wrong in his estimates of the native character and of the possibility of doing them good through the missionaries, and he requested the Admiral to forward to the society an inclosed check for £5, as a testimony of the interest he took in their good work." Yet later, in 1874, 187'9, and 1880, he wrote: "I am glad to hear so good an account of the Fuegians, and it is wonderful; the progress of the Fuegians is. wonderful, and had it not occurred, would have been ,to me incredible. I have often said that the progress of Japan was the greatest wonder III the world, but I declare that the progress of Fuegia is almost equally wonderfu1. It is truly 'wonderful about their h<?nesty and their l::tnguage. I certainly should have predicted that not all the missionaries in the world could have done what has been done." * Again Mr. Darwin writes: "In our passage across the Pacific we only touched at Tahiti and New Zealand. Tahiti is a most charming spot. Delicious scenery, climate, manner of the people, all in harmony. It is moreover admirable to behold what the missionaries both here and at New Zealand huyc effected. I firmly believe they are good men working for the sake of a good cause. I much suspect that those who have abused or sneered at the missionaries have generally been such as were not very anxious to find the natives 71w1'al and intelligible beings. They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor children-that all these things, have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced hy the introduc- tion of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is a base ingrati- tude; fOJ' should he chance to be at the pointof shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will mo~t devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far."
Weare compelled to leave the "pretentiously inaccurate" paper of Canon 'I'aylor with these brief comments on the" facts" it presents and the inferences it draws. Its answer must be found in the mis- * Vol. ii. 307, 308.
MISSIONS TO THE LEVANT
sionary annals of the entire century since the pioneer English mis- sionary went to India. There is not a true worker on'the field who will for a moment be disturbed by the recklelOs shots from this eccle- siastical gun. Nor will the missionary enterprises of the ch,urch be for one hour arrested or delayed. Infidels have been trying for cen- turies to overthrow the Word of God by scientific speculations. So soon as some new "fact" or "law" is discovered, they make haste to load up their guns and fire, expecting to see the defenses of the Christian faith totter and tumble under the tremendous shock of this scientific artillery. But 10 ! the 'fortress stands, with not even a hole or breach in the wall. And when we come to examine what was hurled against the walls, we find not some huge, heavy shot of solid fact, but a mere paper-wad of fanciful theory that took fire from the powder before it was out of the mouth of the gun!
We seriously apprehend that in this noisy assault on missions there is more flash and roar than force and nre. This gun kicks so badly that it were better to be before it than behind it. And when the smoke c1ears away and the effect of the assault is seen, this" distin- guished clergyman" will find himself famous only for his blunders, while his inexact statements and illogical conclusions may have led many a reader, like Nathanael, to come and see whether any good thing can come out of Nazareth, and to confess that the despised Nazarene is the Son of God and the miracle worker among the nations! These attacks, whether from nominal friend or from pro- fessed foe, are like the wild dash of the birds of the night against the crystal inclosure of that superb light that shines on the colossal statue in New York harbor: the assailants beat themselves into insensibility, while the light shines on undimmed, and the grand statue, reared on granite pedestal, stands unmoved and immovable, still guiding the watching sailor to a peaceful harbor.
MISSIONS TO THE LEVANT: THEIR PROBLEMS, METHODS . AND RESULTS. .
BY REV. EDWIN M. BLISS. [Our readers will be interested to know that the writer of this int~resting series of papers has but recently returned from Constantinople, where he spent several years as assistant agent of the American Bible Society for the Levant. Hence his thorough knowledge of the subject which he dis- cusses.-EDs.] UI. THEIR RESULTS.
IN considering the results of missions in the LfJ,ant we note: 1.
The development of the agencies employed. 2. The direct· effect ot those agencies in the establishment of evangelical communities and churches. 3. Their indirect effect upon other communities in the line of intellectual, social, and religious life. 4. The type of character developed as a foundation for the future. 1. The development of the agencies employed. The success of an undertaking is often measured in a degtee by the amount invested in it. The work: of the American churches in the Levant, commenced by the little band who sailed from Boston under the auspices of the then infant American Board, is now carried on by seven organized American societies-six representing the Congregational, Presbyterian, United Presbyterian, Reformed Presbyterian, Southern Presbyterian, and Methodist denominations, and one, the American Bible Society, representing all, and helping to unite all upon the one foundation of the Word of God. There are also two colleges-Robert College at Constantinople, and the Syrian Protestant College at Beyroot-independent in endow)llent and management of the societies. Three more, at Harpoot, Aintab, and Marsovan, in Asia Minor, with endowments and boards of trustees, but practically under management of the societies. Two more, at Oroomiah, Persia, and Osiout, Egypt, under direct control of the' societies. There is also the Bible House at Constantinople, connected with no society, owned and managed by a board of trustees in New York, the income from which goes. toward Bible work, supplementing that of the societies. The Disciples of Christ and the Baptist Union are represented by a few native preachers, whose work has been, so far, almost entirely among the existing evangelical churches.
These different organizations are represented oy 133 American gentlemen, mostly ordained and married men, and 119 single ladies. They are located in 42 central stations, and have nearly 500 out-stations connected with them. Over 1,700 native preachers, teachers, and colporteurs work under their superinte·ndence. There are 185 churches with 15,226 communicants; 763 schools with nearly 33,000 scholars; 43,000 copies of the Scriptures, in whole or in part, have been distributed in one year. Unfortunately the statistics of religious and educational books are not kept distinct by the different societies. A general estimate of 50,000 books, 100,000 text-books, a.nd 400,000 tracts would perhaps represent the work of a year. Aside from these are the periodicals, 5 weeklies and 6 Ip.onthlies, the latter chiefly child's papers. One weekly in Bulgarian reached a circulation of over 4,000. '}'he medical work has assumed great proportions. Herc again no statistics arc given, but to say that 25,000 cases are attended yearly would probably be within the truth. These all involve an annual expenditure of Amel"ican funds amounting to nearly $500,000. How much the native communities contribute in salaries of preachers and teachers, tuition, cost of books, and general community and church expenses, it is impossible to say without better data than are furnished as yet. The value of property in land, buildings, school, printing and binding apparatus, stock of printed sheets, bound books, etc., is very great. In Constantinople alone it is over $400,000. These figures indicate the amount of the investment that the American churches have made in evangelical wo.rk in the Levant. The question then CDmes, Is this investment so. placed as to. secure the widest pDssible returns? The 42 central statiDns include nearly every city Df size and impDrtance in Bulgaria, RDumelia, Asiatic Turkey, NDrth Persia, Syria, and Egypt. AttentiDn has been paid especially to centers of pDpulation. There is prDbably no. country where the annual shifting Df the population is so great as in Turkey. Oonstantinople, Smyrna, Adana, even such interior places as Harpoot and 'Oesarea, are thronged by men who. leave their village homes for a few months or a few years to earn a little and then return. These are the peDple that are most easily reached, and there is scarcely a hamlet, frDm the Balkans to. the Persian Gulf, from the Oaucasus to. LuxDr, that has not some one or more Df those who have been reached by preacher, teacher, or colpor-. teur in the larger cities. There is also a regularly organized system by which the whole field is visited each year. The results are brought into. discussion III native presbyteries and uniDns, and then into annual meetings of the missionaries, where plans suggested on the field are scrutinized mDst carefully, matured, and put into. actiye operation. In fact, as a matter of business management Df the sums committed to their care, the missions of the American churches to the Levant have often won the highest encomiums from those who have taken the pains to examine into the matter.
2. The direct effect of these agencies in the establishment of evangelical communities and churches. The statistics already given show 185 churches with 15,226 communicants. Of these abDut 1,200 were added during the past year. If we follow the style of arithmetic in vogue with Oanon Taylor and others, this would give a cost to the American churches of about $400 per convert, tofay nothing of native contributions. Of course it is easy to say that this cost includes the expense of a vast school system, a large amDunt Df publication, etc. But as all these have for their aim the actual conversion of men, the number of such conversions must constitute, it is claimed, th(> real test of succelOs. Education, publication, etc., are all good, but are legitimate for a missionary society only as they have direct results in Ohristian life. What are these direct results, as shown by open connection with Protestant evangelical Ohristianity? Are they accurately measured by the membership in PrDtestant churches alone? NDt in the Levant, any more than in America. Hardly even as much. The position of the evangelical churches there, is not unlike that of the Puritans of two and three centuries ago. Membership in the old Oriental communions is a mere form, even more civil than religious in its character. A man partakes Df the sacrament very much, as he registers his name as a voter here. This, Df cDurse, is not true of all, but it is true to a great degree. When men leave the:se churches to CDnnect themselves with Protestants, they are actuated by differing mDtives. Some do it under the pressure of the longing fOl' a closer communion with God than is possible for them in the formalities of the old service; others from intellectual conviction that the Protestant worship is -purer an.d represents a truer faith than their own; others in disgust at the corruption of the priesthood; others in protest against ecclesiastical domination in civil as well as in church life. Were all these to be gathered into churches and enrolled as communicants, as they would have been by Xavier and the Moslem mis3ionaries over whom Canon Taylor waxes so eloquent, there would be 500 churches, and the communicants would be numbered not by tens but by hundreds of thousands. 'fhe missionaries in founding these churches have realized that the acceptance of Ohristian doctrine, the practice of Ohristian worship, amounts to nothing without Ohristian ll/e. With the exception, perhaps, of the first class referred to above, most have joined the new community with little or no conception of what Ohristian l~fe meant. They have come, for the most part, with old views, old practices, still in full sway. To bring them at once into the young, uneducated churches would have been to bind all to the level of those around them, with little or no hope of a pure, elevated Ohristian character. There have thus grown up around the churches large communities with many strong, intelligent men, accepting to the full, evangelical doctrine and worship, but remaining noncommunicants, because the heart does not seem yet to have accepted what is clear to the mind. 'fheyare passing through a process of education, and it is from their number chiefly that the additions to churches come. How to guide the churches so as to admit to thorn only those who have some conception, faint though it may be, of a true Ohristian life, and a genuijle purpose, however weak, to lead that life, has ever been a most difficult task, akin to that of Gideon in his assault upon the Midianites. 'fo gauge the direct effects of Ohristian missions by the membership of native churches alone would be as incorrect as to claim that Gideon's three hundred represented the whole result of Mosaic teaching.
3. The indirect effect of these agencies upon other communities-in the line of intellectual, social, and religious life.
At one time, Rev. Dr. Van Dyck, the veteran missionary to Syria, said, as he started for a village on Mt. Lebanon, "I am going to – – – to start three schools." "What do you want of three schools there?" "Oh, I am only going to manage one. But just as soon as I get mine started, the Maronites will start one and the Druses will start one. 'l'hat makes three." So it has been all over the Levant. Wherever the colporteur or evangelist has gone the teacher has followed. With the advent of text-books" things new and old" have been opened up out of the storehouses of ancient history and modern science. Ohildren have learned that the world is wider and older than they had supposed. Parents have learned from their children and have begun to
TO THE LEVANT
question the correctness of the views in which they have been trained. A very large percentage of the geographies, histories, and general text~ books have gone, not into schools but famllies, and families too not in any way connected with the Protestant communities. The result has been a general quickening of intellectual life. The old communi. ties found that men were beginning to think for themselves, and real~ ized that they must guide that thinking or it would wander far from their control. Hence, on every hand, schools have been started- Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Maronite, Moslem. These have been in some cases heavily endoweu, furnished with the best modern appli~ ances available, yet even so they have not been able to keep pace with the evangelical schools, as is shown by the fact that, periodically, anathemas are hurled from the old altars against those who dare to place their children under the baneful influence of Protestant teachers. Not long ago there was a most earnest appeal in the Turkish papers of Constantinople for teachers who could meet Protestantism on its own ground, could grapple intelligently and successfully with the questions of modern thought. They said, "The time is past when the dictum , of an Imam carries with it conviction. Men are thinking for them- selves, and if we would hold our young men true to the faith in which they were born, we must show them that we are the equals in thought of those who would entice them away." 'l'he result was a series 01 statements about Protestantism of much the same grade of accuracy as certain recent paragraphs on missions in the Evening Post of New York, and renewed press censorship so severe as almost to destroy the character of mission newspapers. No one can go through even the remoter sections of Turkey without seeing on every hand the signs of an intellectual life such as has not b8'en since the days when Byzan- tines fought over Greek prepositions in the baths of Constantinople; and there are few, even of those opposed to missions, but will admit that this is due primarily to them. The influence of Christian missiOl1E on the social life of the East has been most marked.
Scarcely, even under the caste systems of India, has the power of social custom been more severe than in the Levant. Fifty years ago ,there was little or no family life. The men during the day were at work, in the evening at the coffee-shop. rrhe wOmen bore children, cooked and served meals. The wife could not sit at the same table or tray with her husband, shared in no way the responsibilities and honor of the home. Marriage was a matter of barter and sale. Social entertainments were of the lowest grade. Oonver3ation turned almost solely on pyrsonal scanda1. Personal purity had not sunk as low as in some other countries, but it was by no means high. Business was purely a matter of keen wits, never of fair profit. He who could cheat most was the best man. This has not all changed. Else America might go to school to Asia. There has been, however, a wonderful
MISSIONS TO THE
improvement. There are comparatively few Turks now who would consider it an insult to receive inquiries after the health of wife or daughter, and the rigid, seclusion of the harem is more and more a thing of the past. In many a home the mother shares with the father the honor of receiving a passing guest, and the daughter feels free to express her feeling toward the suitor for her hand. The evening finds books and newspapers on the table, and the Vermont farmer who astonished Dr. Hamlin with his inquiries about Fuad "Pachy" finds his counterpart in the Koordish Sheik who talks intelligently about Bismarck and Giers, Gladstone and Boulanger.
The power of Ohristian missions over the religious thought and life of those who do not openly declare their adherence to evangelical Ohristianity is shown in many ways. Up to the present year there have been distributed by the Americ11ll Bible Society not less than 800,000 copies of the Scriptures. Add perhaps 700,000 by the British and Foreign Bible Society, and we have one and a half millions of copies put into the hands of the people. These have been in about the pro- portion of 1 Bible, 3 Testaments and 5 Portions, i.e., single Gospels, Psalms, and Proverbs. When it is remembered that the immense majority of these have been sold, and that certainly not more than one-half, if more than one-third, have gone into evangelical families; when it is remembered too that book-purchasing is not in the Levant what it is so often in America-that it almost uniformly represents a genuine earnest interest in the book-some idea may be gained of the unseen influence that is being exerted all over that great country.
A Bible Society colporteur in the inn of a small village on the Black Sea coast, was challenged to argument by a group of young men thoroughly versed in European infidelity. Being an uneducated man, he found it difficult to meet them. 'fo his utter surprise, a Turkish priest sitting by, asking him for a Testament, took up the argument, and utterly silenced the young men, who left acknowledging their defeat. To the colporteur who expressed his thanks for the timely aid, he said: "Go tell the gentleman at the Bible House not to be discouraged. There are many like myself who read this 'good Book, accept its faith, and are trying to lead the life of Ohrist. We do not openly confess Him, for we feel that the time has not yet come, but it will come, and then you will see the fruit of the seed you are sowing." Among the most significant facts in the religious life of the old Ohristian communities of the Levant are the changes that have been brought about in not a few places in the church services. Worship before pictures has been very generally discouraged, and in some cases the pictures have been taken down. It is becoming an increasing ambition on the part of the clergy to be known as good preachers, and many an earnest gospel sermon is given from pulpits where, until recently, nothin~ 'Yll,tlheard but an intoned liturgy in an unknown tongue. Sabbath-schools and Bible-claSiles have been established, and at the present time the Am~rican Bible Society is printing in Con- stantinople ail edition of the ancient Armenian Bible, at the com- bined earnest request of Gregorian and Papal as well as Evangelical Armenians.
4. 'rhe type of character developed as a foundation for the future. The en,rnest, thoughtful supporter of foreign missions will and must meet this question: What relation have these results to the ifuture? Weare glad of what has been and is being done; glad for every soul brought to a truly Christian life; glad for the growth in intellectual, , social, religious life of those who cannot see their way clear to join our numbers; but America cannot [tlways snpport the East. Foreign missions must inevitably have something of the exotic in their nature. A real live Christianity must be in a sense indigenous to the land where it lives. Is the character of t-qe native evangelical Christians such as to warrant the belief that in due time they will be able to develop their own life,' normally, successfully, and independently? For the answer to this we must not look to statistics of increasing or decreasing contributions. 'rhese are very apt to be misleading. Fam- ine, war, pe8tilence, emigration, taxation, all enter in as dlSturbing elements. In not a few cases increased missionary expenses are coin- cident with decreasing demands from native churches, because new doors are opened and new work commenced. Neither is the increase in church membership a very safe guide, as may easily be inferred from what has already been said. ,The correct flnswer can be funy gained only as we go into the churches, attend the meetings of pastors and helpers, learn their methods and their spirit, and this must be done, not only along the seaboard but in the interior. Anyone who will do this will find large churches managing all their affairs, financial, executive, religious, with skill-and success; local unions and presbyteries consulting earnestly and courteously in regard to the interests of the one great work; home missionary societies snpporting and conducting operations in outlying districts; Young Men's Christian Associations, not patterned after those here, but developed according to local needs and opportunities. Undoubtedly much is lacking. A single generation under such con- ditions as obtain in the Levant can hardly suffice to deyelop a Chris- tian people of the highest grade. There are not a few native pastors that are overfond of foreign money, seek unduly to copy foreign life. But they do not represent the great number of those who from pulpit and desk, by the roadside and in the home, are seeking men to lead in the life of Christ. There are church members who do not give of their substance as they shonld, but the proportion who give conscien- tiously the tithe, and even more, would put to shame many an Ameri- can congregation.
1889.J DELITZSCH'S HEBREW NEW TE:STAMENT
It.is easy for the chance traveler or" superficial observer to find occasion for legitimate criticism. Not so easy for even the carefnl sympathizer to judge accurately the forces that are working for the development of communities. 'fhose who know best and most intimately the local internal life of these communities and churches have the most faith in them. They recognize that mistakes are made, but they believe that throughout these lands dear to every Christian heart the life planted by the apostles, nourished by the church fathers, almost overwhelmed by the adhesion of an unconverted empire, held in bond for centuries by an ignorant ecclesiasticism, is now reasserting itself, and will erelong more than regain it.~ pristine purity and strength.
THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF DELITZSCH'S HEBREW NEW TESTAMENT.
BY PROFESSOR GEORGE H. SCHODDE, PH.D., COLUMBUS, O.
ALTOGETHER the most remarkable and unique work in modern mis- sion literature is Delitzsch's Hebrew translation of the New Testament. According to the latest reports, officially sent out from Leipzig, the modern headquarters of Jewish Christian enterprise, the British and Foreign Bible Society, since the first appearance of the new version in. 18'1'8, has published no less than nine editions, making a grand total of 80,000 copies. The literary success of the work, aside from its great merit as a mission agency, is indeed phenomenal. Fully 60,000 copies have been disposed of among the Jews of Southeastern Europe and Western Asia, and have all been employed in the gospel cause among the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 'The present is an exceedingly timely moment gratefully to call attention to this great literary monu- ment of modern mission enterprise.' It was in 1838, or just fifty years ago, that the first specimen chapters of the new translation were given to the world. For forty years the now venerable veteran labored incessantly and with characteristically German diligence, perseverance, and scholarly accuracy on his important task. In 1870 he published a translation of the Epistle to the Romans, with a full introduction on the history and present status of the Hebrew New Testament problem, together with extensive notes from the Talmud and the Midrashim! " in which he elucidated the methods and pri.nciples pursued in the work and gave the reader a clear insight into the intricacies 01 the problem and the thorough and scientific manner in which the author was solving it. It is accordingly now just one-half a century since the labor of love for Israel was undertaken by Delitzsch. It is proposed to celebrate this peculiar literary and mission semi-centennial in a manner suitable to the cause. An appeal has been published, addressed to the pupils and friends of Franz Delitzsch, asking for contributions toward the estab- lishment of a permanent fund, the income of which is to be used for the spread of this New Testament in Israel.. The appeal is signed by Pastor Wilhelm Faber; the energetic young leader of the Institutum Juda£curn of Leipzig, who has for the last six or eight years been giving his whole time and attention to this work, and has made eight long mission tours among the Jewish Diaspora of the East. A jubilee of this sort is certainly deserving of the sympathy and co-operatioh of active mission frienJs everywhere.
Another reason for drawing attention to this work now is_the fact that the version. is now to be issued in permanent shape and form. While the first nine editions were going through the press corrections of greater or less nnmber and extent were made in each edition. Hebrew scholars all over the world have taken a deep interest in the literary character, correctness, and finish of the work. Suggestions have been made by some of the best,specialists in this department, and these have been duly weighed and measured by the translator, who himself is doubtless the greatest Hebraist of this generation, if not of this century. How carefully this has been done by him is clear from a report, published in English by Delitzsch some six years ago, in / which he discussed some of the principal suggestions made, and made special acknowledgments to Professor Driver of Oxford for his valuable aid. In this way it can be candidly saia that probably no work issued within our day and date has been so searchingly examined under the critical microscope and has for so long a time been constantly before the eyes of our unofficial college of Hebrew scholars all over the world as has this Hebrew version of the New Testament. Accordingly it is a work of rare literary and critical correctness. It 1S now thought that it has reached the stage in which it can be given out in a permanent shape, and the coming tenth edition will be the first in that form.
The work is issued i.n two sizes. It ori.ginally apl)eared in a small 12mo form of 471 pages. The type was very small, but still clear-cut and easy to read. In this shape alone the first six or seven editions appeared. Later it became clear that its mission value would be enhanced if it could be published in the same type and size as the Old Testament Hebrew text and be bound with the latter, thus constituting the one Holy Writ of the two covenants in the sacred tongue of the chosen people. This was done, and it has proved to be a wise undertaking. The Jews in examining and studying the writings of the New 'l'estament do so solely with an eye to their relation to the Old, as the fulfillment and completion of the latter; To have the two together in ono cover naturally facilitated this work a good deal. As this edition of the t.wo Testaments in Hebrew can be had for about one dollar and· a half, no pastor able to understand this venerable tongue should be without a copy.
It would probably be hard to say from which side this noteworthy pUbhcation presents the greater number of attractive features-from its literary or its mIssionary. No doubt our readers are interested more in the latter, and these in themselves constitute an interesting chapter in the annals of this present mission century. On the face of matters it is certainly remarkable and almost beyond credence that a book written in Hebrew should be the most widely circulated specimen of the non-popular mission literature of the day. Jnd yet when certain facts, not all of which are generally known, are taken into consideration the strangeness of the phenomenon at least in part disappeared. It is generally accepted that the Hebrew is a dead language. This is one of the many popular mistakes of the times. It is true that for the Jew as we see him in America. and Western Europe the Hebrew is only a sacred language, which he uses pro forma in his synagogal worship and often does not understand any more than the Roman Catholic does the Latin of the mass. But the Jews of the western world and Western Europe are modernized, more or less superficially, and are by no means the representatives of genuine Judaism. These must be looked for further East. Of the six and one-half million Jews constituting the Jewish Dispersion, about four mil1:ons are found in the East, and for all of these the Hebrew is the only literary language in which they can be approached. They themselves generally speak not a pure Hebrew, but a jargon; but the pure Hebrew is the language of their books, papers, etc. It would be worse than a waste of effort or time to offer them a defense of the claims of the Ohristian faith in any other than their own literary tongue. They are a most peculiar people, and in the mission efforts among them this peculiarity must be taken into con-' sideration as a most important factor. They are the exact opposites of the Western Jew, who is ever willing to compromise with modern thought, if it only accrues to his social or financial benefit. The Eastern Jew is a conservative of the conservatives. The adherence to the ways of the fathers, so characteristic a feature of all Semitics, is especia~ly strong in him, and has made his system of religious beliefs and customs little better than a petrified formalism of the Talmudic centuries that have gone before. For them religion and religious instruction is unthinkable except in the sacred tongue.
It is for this peculiar people that the Hebrew translation of the New Testament has been made. The underlying principle in the undertaking was that the New Testament is the best commentary on the Old, and If the erring children of Abraham in the Orient could be persuaded to compare the words of the New Oovenant with those of thO Old they would, more readily than by any other way, learn that, as the Old is the necessary foundation of the New, so the latt~ is the necessary completion of the Old.
The adoption of this method of reaching these people was not a new discovery, nor is Delitzsch's the first Hebrew translation of the New Testament. Away back m the first Ohristian centuries there existed a Gospel for the Hebrews, which was doubtless a Hebrew translation (not the Hebrew original) of our present Matthew. During the Refor- matIon period a translation of this kind was made. Later portions were again translated, espeeially under the influence of the original InstUutum Judaicum of Callenberg, in Halle.. The present century witnessed repeated efforts in this direction. Especially was this true of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.
With much expense and labor edition after edition was issued, 'until the final issue of 1863. This last is in general a good production, but not by any means equal to the work of Delitzsch. Shortly after the pUblication of tHe latter, an entirely original Hebrew translation was published as a posthumous work of the Jewish missionary Salkinson, and was edited by the Jewish scholar Ginsburg, the editor of the Mas- sorah. This, however, has not proved a satisfactory work in all par- ticulars. It also is extensively used for mission purposes.
How wise it was to select the Hebrew as a literary language for the mission work among the Jews of the East is apparent when we lo~k at the extensive use made of this language for literary work in general.
8alkinson himself has published a magnificent Hebrew translation of Milton's "Paradise Lost," and also of Walker's" Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation"; S. Hoga, a Jewish convert, has translated in ele- gant style Bunyan's" Pilgrim's Progress" and the "Old Paths" into Hebrew. The Book of Enoch has been translated into this tongue, also the Koran, Goethe's "Faust," and even Sue's "Mysteres de Paris." Periodicals, both religious and secular, in large numbers are published in Hebrew; some of them, as the IIamelliz of St. Peters- burg, are very influential. .
Just what the extent of the blessing achieved through this New Tes- tament is and will be of course no man can tell. That it has done great good is certain. There are ministers in the Lutheran church of Ger- many and America now who were converted in Russia from Judaism through studying this translation. It is also certain that the demand for the book is great among the Jews, and that there are many Nico- demus souls there who come to Jesus by night, but fear publicly to proclaim their newly found faith. As no Testament is given or sold to a person unless the missionary or colporteur is reasonably satisfied that the person receiving it will read and study the book, it lS evident that there is a real and not an imaginary demand for It. And this willing- ness and eagerness to search for the truth in the New Covenant book is the most pro~ising feature ln Jewish mission work in the Oriental lands. Faber's reports, published under. the auspices of the Leipzig Institutum Judaicum, are filled with accounts of eager anxiety on the part of these people to read of the M9ssiah. To bring them this news in an acceptable manner has been and is the great mission of Delitzsch's Hebrew New Testament. He has aided materially in solvmg one of the most intricate of mission problems.
A PILLAR ON THE BORDER OF EGYPT
A PILLAR ON THE BORDER OF EGYPT.
BY CRAS. S. ROBINSON, D.D., NEW YORK.
"PEOPLE are SO wofully like sheep I" thus once wrote Thomas Carlyle's piquant wife: "all running where they see others run-all doing what they see others do; have you heard of the wonderful Bishop Colenso! Such a talk about him too! And he is not worth talking about for five minutes-except for the absurdity of a man's making arithmetical onslaughts upon the Pentateuch with a bishop's little black-silk apron on !" This outburst of the indignant woman, made twenty-five years ago about an almost forgotten prelate, reminds us of the French proverb so often quoted: "It is always the unexpected that happens." Only we now propose to parody it by saying tl,lat it is always the absurd that grows popular. Just now it is the wild attacks on the books of Moses, forced forward by a desperate skepticism, which are drawing the crowd. It is God's own wisdom which has snddenly unearthed the mummies of Rameses's dynasty, making Egypt for a while the most conspicuous of lands.
In a previous article we have spent some space in showing how an irresistible pressure of Western ideas and civilizations is continually changing the face of Egypt and turning the people away from Oriental customs and worship. At that time it was announced that some sort of illustration must be adopted to serve as proofs of the prophet's open prediction that evangelization would immediately follow in the advancing steps of civilization. New Testaments would soon begin to arrive upon the cars. t can make that my theme in the present paper.
Still it seems to me that I can reach my end more safely by taking my readers with me again in a kind of tourist's ramble. We are to think with our eyes now. Arguments are not to be spun for an indoors debate when the question is one of fact and not at all of philosophy. Let us take a railway trip, the first and the simplest the country has to offer, going up the usual course after landiI)g on the frontier. It is worth while to keep looking out of the car-windows, from the moment when an Arabian official receives us at Alexandria to that when an enthusiastic American missionary welcomes us into his home in Cairo.
Of all the unearthly-looking fellow beings you ever herded with, you may be sure the people, eastern and western, who throng the trains and pour forth at each station are the most inexplicable and the most indescribable. Dresses in most Oriental countries denote rank, lineal descent, nationality, and occupation. Bnt who can interpret the inexhaustible variety of shades and discriminations presented in even this one day upon such a thoroughfare as the overland route to India across Egypt I Persians, Armenians, Copts, Turks, Frenchmen, British, Syrians and Greeks, besides the aborigmes of the region itself-aU of these our careful dragoman pointed out one after another in the single crowd we saw at the midway station-I cannot put down the Arabic name they called it by-lazily watching our arrival, halt and departure.
Dean Stanley, in speaking of the usual presentations hereabout, uses a most apt similitud~. He compares the lines of camels, the solio tary traveler who shows himself now and then, the stiff trees, few and far between, to the rude views of a magic lantern. Anyone who has o in the old times before photographs came in vogue ever seen tilOse preposterous paintings on glass for the Sunday-school exhibitions which were offered during such historic years as Biblical illustrations, will recognize some original models immediately. So clear is the atmos- phere that any object in the wide reach of landscape seems startlingly vivid and plain, even at a great distance. Along the tops of the low ridges and swells of land caravans are outlined upon thl) blue sky with an almost miraculous distinctness; and ~o stately and rigid, so precise in step and so ungainly in proportion, are the camels especially, that an observer can hardly refram from imagining they are mere figures shaved along, like so many fancifully-colored slides, into the groove of a lantern poorly focussed and dimly lit. Occasionally a lonely Arab appears in the field of view; then a company of merchantmen, resem- bling perhaps the Ishmaelites of old who bought Joseph; then a big 'rurk upon a small donkey; and all are so angular and awkward that anyone (if he has ever Leen in the stereopticon line) feels like begin- ning a lecture.
We became commentators upon this ride as usual, receiving at many points a happy explanation of some Scriptural text. A new building attracted my attention, and as upon nearer inspection I found that the walls were filled with cut straw, it became worth our while to ask the question as to customs in such matters; this resulted afterward in our visiting a quite extensive and busy manufactory of brick rIose by the station. There we learned with the aid of our eyes all we needed to be told; for the men were at the moment molding the square blocks of wet clay and chopping the stubble with which to mix them, while stretched out over the field were great patches of levelland covered with those which were already drying in the sun. No one can know the thrill that comes over the mind of a tourist when he sees such things, until he is in the midst of surprises, all going to prove that the same processes, the same habits, the same traditions, are found now as in Moses's time.
The maidens were coming in as the blazing noon drew on, with an awkward weight of some sort of grain which they had been industriously gleaning, done up in huge bundles and carried on their heads. This we noticed had not been cut with scythe or sickle, but the damsels had in their own fashion pulled it up roots and all. 'l'hus the proper untitheses of the royal preacher was reached in exact language when he spoke of "a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is . planted."
We observed also that large areas of land which had evidently at no great time back been covered with water were now ,baking under sun- ' shine as hot as if it had been the glow of a blast-furnace. Some portions of the soil had hardened as it dried; workmen were actually cutting up the caked ground with axes, and the plow was following along behind. Then first we really appreciated the admonition of the man of God: "For thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem, Break up your {aUoio ground, and sow not among thorns." These are the words of Jeremiah, and no doubt he addressed them to the Jews; indeed; Hosea says the same thing under the same figure: "Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you." But scholars have ;;ettled 10:J.g ago that Jeremiah wrote his prophecy in Egypt, in full sight of what he daily interwrought into the forcible rhetoric he was wont to employ.
These are good exercises for a weary railway ride in desolate Egypt, especially if one is really jammed up against the uncleanest sort of things most of the time! As the day waned we drew closer, evidelltly, to some great center of population. A grove of palms appeared now and then; a few tamarisks with feathery branches; occasionally a white tomb with a diminutive dome over it ; then a train of camels, or a Mussulman cn a donkey. Just before our tickets were taken preparatory to an arrival, far off upon the right our attention IYas arrested by three vast masses of majesty, pinnacling their triangular shapes against the clear blue heaven, silent yet speaking, tranquil yet fllll of exciting history. And he must be tame of heart and dull of spirit tvho can now without emotion look for the first time on the Pyramids of Ghizeh!
Piazzi Smyth, astronomer-royal for Scotland, has prefixed to his interesting book, "Our Inheritance in the Great Pyramid," a verse from Isaiah's prediction concerning this kingdom of the ancient Pharaohs-a verse which he makes the motto for the whole volume: "In that day shall there be an altar to the I.ord in the midst of the land of Egypt; and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord." He considers that the great pyramid is what the prophet intended by an "altar" or "pillar "-that is, a monument acknowledging the true God. The commentators do not agree with. him in this. Addison Alex- ander calls attention to the usage of the Hebrew language;. he the rather accepts the "altar" as a sign of devotion, and he does not refuse such a "pillar" as the sign of monumental or commemorative' acknowledgment. 'But he quotes other passages to show that an altar in the midst of the land, and a pillar at its border, denote altars and pillars throughout its whole extent. He translatesone· of the verses: "And Jehovah shall be known in Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day."
Josephus has been quoted as saying that he was the one who gained permission from ptolemy Philometor for Onias to erect the temple in Heliopolis for Jewish worship, and that he did this by showing him the passage from Isaiah under our study now, for this convinced thp, king.
At this point we must pause; thus much of the verse is absolutely fulfilled: Egypt is beginning to speak the language of Oanaan; civilization is changing the East into its own likeness. The rest of the prediction will be brought to pass soon: Egypt is to be converted unto God. The declaration of Isaiah is very explicit: there shall come one day when the land of Egypt shall change its form of religion, which is now that of the prophet of Islam, and receive the service of the Lord, the gospel of Ohristianity; then its life will be laid on God's altar. We have the fair permission to strengthen our faith with this prophetic promise that the cities of the Egyptian land will soon begin to see the true light that is shining for them; they will cry unto the Lord a great cry because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a Saviour.
Our illustration is just at hand. In witness of afact so specially welcome to every friend of foreign missions, and so honorable for a testj… mony to the zeal of one branch of our American Presbyterian d~nom ination, I shall close this article with a note lately received and published in the public prints, written by one who has been familiarly acquainted with Oairo itself and with its vicinity for many years: "Years ago, right opposite Shepheard's Hotel, was au open space, where dragomans piched their tents, so as to show travelers intending to take the trip across the desert to Sinai, or through Palestine, how the thing was done.; Now the dragoman's occupation is mostly gone; the railway and the steamship have made him a 'lost art.' Where the tents were pitched in front of and beyond Shepheard's are magnificent blocks of buildings, one of whichis the large edifice (covering a square) of the American United Presbyterian Mission.
" There is no thoughtful man but will rejoice when religious toleration, under the regis of England, shall cover this land as this day it covers India. Our United Presbyterian brethren hll.ve not awaited that time. Their works for the Lord here are already known in our own land. It is a proud sight for me to look upon the British soldiers flocking to the mission church in Cairo to attend the Sunday service, the week-day prayer-meetings, and the temperance meetings; but it is a grander sight to see the schools of these American United Presbyterians filled with Copt and Moslem children-to see large audiences of converted men and women on the Sabbath day come .up to the house of the Lord; and it is a thing of the moral sublime to find that now not a year goes by in this ancient land without more than two hundred souls converted to the Lord. What is especially encouraging is
A MISSIONARY l'OEM
that within a comparatively short time some forty Mohammedans havecome to the knowledge of the truth, through good report and evil report (mostly the l,atter), and some through persecution, and have taken their stand for the Master.
"Truly this work of our Benjamin among the American Presbyterian churches commends itself to all our brethren of the great Pan-Presbyterian band. We thank God and take courage when we think what He has accom- plished through His servants Lansing, Hogg, and their companions here. This day more than' five cities in the land .of Egypt speak the language of Canaan,' and the prophet's words have been fulfilled, which he pronounced 2,500 years ago: 'In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of'Egypt ' (Isa. xix: 19). The altar is erected, and thanks be to Him who has done this through the instrumentality of this faithful little . band of American Christian men and women."
A MISSIONARY POEM.
DEAR DR. SHERWOOD: It seems to me that the following, from Frederic Myers's "St.
Paul," is an exquisite description of the missionary work. It is put into the mouth of the A.posLle of the Gentiles. CHARLES C. STARBUCK.
EAST the forefront of habitations holy Gleamed to Engedi, shone to Eneglaim ; Softly thereout and from thereunder slowly Wandered the waters, and delayed, and came.
Then the gt'eat stream, which having seen he showeth, Hid from the wise but manifest to him, Flowed and arose, as when Euphrates floweth ; Rose from the ankles till a man might swim.
Even with so soft a surge and an increasing, Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod, Stilled and astir lind checked and never-ceasing, Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God: Bears to the marishes and bitter places Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm'; Isle after isle in infinite embraces Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm.
Ay, and afar to realms and to recesses Seen in a storm, discovered in a dream, Fields which no folk nor any power possesses, Oceans ungirdled of the ocean stream.
Yes, or if loose and free, as some are telling (Little I know it, and I little care), This my poor lodge, my transitory dwelling, Swings in the bright deep of the endless air.
Round it and round His prophets shall proclaim Him, Springing thenceforth and hurrying therethrough Each to the next the generations name Him, Honor unendingly and know anew.
MIRACLES 01l' :MISSIONS
MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.
MISSION TO THE HALF MILLION OF BLIND IN CHINA.f [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] ANOTHER of those marvelous adaptations of history which so signally evince and evidence a divine plan has recently appeared in the Celestial Empire.
William H. Murray was bOl'n at Port Dundas, near Glasgow, and, as the only son in a family of ten children, would naturally have entered the saw- '
mill of his humble father but for the loss of his left al'm by accidental , contact with the machinery when only about nine years old. This occur- rence, which determined his future as outside the sawmill, was the begin- ning of a series of providential events which have made him the most conspicuous benefacbr of China's blind people that has ever appeared in that vast empire. With but one arm he could not labor physically to much purpose; but though he lacked bl'awn he had brain and he could study. He improved his mind, and before long' was employed in the l'llI'al districts neal'
Glasgow as a letter-carrier. His conscience was not asleep, and remon- sh'ated against the Sunday work which this occupation required. To avoid compromise with his moral sense and at the same time retain his position he surrendered two shillings out of each week's wages. His self-sacrifice was not only blest to himself, but sowed the seeds of that extensive reform now in progress to secure for government employes in the postal service a Sabbath respite ft'om work. , Brain and conscience thus being busy, young Murray found his heart awaking to a new longing to be of service, He felt witllin him a conscious- ness of a call to some mission among men, he knew not wllat. He applied to the National Bible Society of Scotland for work as a colporteur. The secretary felt drawn to the modest but persistent lad, but hesitated to have him give up a good position In government service for a venture which might prove a failure. But William lIfurray "pmyed himself" into the work of the society. His long daily walk he divided into three parts: a third of the way he studied the Scriptures in the original Hebrew; another third of his monotonous tramp he gave to New Testament Greek; and the last part of his walk was emphatically a walk with God, consecrated to daily prayer that he might be fitted for some sphere of personal, direct missionary service.
He longed to be pl'omoted from a royal mail-carrier to a messenger of good tidings to the King of kings. In 1864, now almost a quarter of a century ago, he was accepted as a colporteur of the Bible Society and began work on the Clyde, among the sailol's and seamen. Here was a new link in the chain which connected the sawmill in Scotland with this great work of opening the inner eyes of the blind in China.
The Bible Society soon found that" it neyer had such another colporteur"
as the quiet young man who, without any great mental endowments, graces of person or gifts of speech, was dmwing to himself the men that go down to the sea in ships to do business in great waters, and was rapidly picking up such phrases in various foreign tongues as enabled him to effect more sales of Bibles among sallors of all nations than any of his predecessors had done.
The colporteur was evidently a divinely called man.
As this work occupied him only in winter months, he was free in the sum- mer season to push his Bil;lle-cart along the rough roads of the Scotch Highlands. One-armed as he w~, he had two legs and a brave heart, and "''' Work.for the Blind in China." C. F. Gordon-Cnmming. Gilbert & Rivington, London, Eng. , so he patiently carried on his work, getting inured to hardness as became a good soldier of Jesus Christ. How many a mighty workman and winner of souls has been trained like Milne and Morrison and Curey and OnckeIJ, and Livingstone and McAuley and Johnson and Marshman and Buchanan and Clough, in a very strange school.
And now comes another link in this providential chain. William Mmray's unusual aptitude for languages attracted the notice of some of the directors of the Bible Society, and arrangements were made for him to attend morn- ing classes at the old college in H,igh Street. A friend hel ped to pay the necessary fees, and MUl'ray managed his studies so that they did not impinge upon other duties. He rose at 3 A. M. and studied till 8, then attended his classes till 10, then stood in the streets beside his Bible-cart till evening, .
when after a frugal meal he studied again till bedtime. .
Seven years of apprenticeship were accomplished, and in 1871 he was free to carry out his heart's desire. He sailed for China, where he was to spend half a year at Che[oo trying to learn to distinguish at sight the 4000 intri- cate, complicate characters by which the Chinese language is represented on paper. It has been quaintly said that he who would master the Chinese tongue needs a head of oak, a constitution of iron, lungs of brass, nerves of steel, the patience of Job, and the lifetime of Methusaleh. But Mr. Murray was not to be easily discouraged. He had tackled Greek and Hebrew char- acters, and· he was· not dismayed at the still more elaborate mysteries of Chinese words. He applied himself diligently, and in four months he acquired about 2000 characters. The Bible colporteur started on his work.
He devised a mule litter to carry his books, and ovel' mountain roads and facing cold winds made his first journey 250 miles in,to the interior of Shang- tu province.
Sixteen years of untiring work as a colporteur passed away, during which this one-armed man undertook journeys even into Mongolia and Manchuria, fording rivers, daring perils, enduring hardship, feeding on wretched fare, sleeping in rude sheds, or perhaps favored with more palatial accommoda- tions in the shape of the coffin which dutiful sons have with filial tenderness provided for their father in anticipation of h~s need, and which the generous host put at disposal of the traveler. Mr. Murray sometimes found himself in the midst of a riotous rabble, but again surrounded by those who clamored for the foreign" classic of Jesus," and on one occasion he found at evening that his sales had reached 3000 copies j then the people begged him to remain among them, and he did so for half a year. During his sixteen yeal's in China he has sold over 100,000 books, containing wholly or in part the Scriptures in the tongues of China and Tartary. These Bibles have found their way into humble huts of poverty, and even into the imperial palace j have been borne to gl'eatdistances by merchants and scholars who have bought them at fairs and public gatherings, and so this modest man has been permeating this vast empire with the Light of God.
But now we come to another link in this strange story of a useful life.
Mr. Murray saw in the thronged skeets hundreds of blind men, sometimes in groups or gangs of eight or ten, each one guided by another blind man in fl'ont, and the foremost guiding himself and all the others with a long stick- "the blind leading the blind." On one occasion a company of 600 blind beggars was seen waiting for a free distribution of rice! It is thought . that there are half a million of blind in China, and that this ,'ery nnusllal proportion of blind people is traceable to smallpox, leprosy, neglected ophthalmia, uncleanly habits, and the dense'smokecreated in their dwellings by the dried grass with which their ovens are heated. For generations these sights have been seen in the Celestial Empire-blind beggars, hungry and un. clad, beating gongs, singing songs, yelling in chorus, squeaking with flutes, or otherwise torturing the defenseless ears of bystanders until" cash" was given them simply to induce them to move on and torture somebody else.
These blind legions of China awaken a sort of pity and even reverence by their very infirmity and misery, and are addressed by title of "Teacher"~ Hsien-SMng-but the most of the adult blind are so hopelessly vile that Mr. Murray himself has never ventured into their night refuge in Peking, but seeks to isolate and educate the blind lads, beginning with them when but seven years old.
But we are anticipating. His soul was strangely drawn out in behalf of these thousands of blind children. His appeals to others in their behalf were met by the usual response, that the work already on their hands was too great to be done with the few helpers and slender means at their command. And so his only way was once more to " walk with God" in prayer for guidance and help. The Bible colporteur must himselfunderiake to help these sightless crowds.
Here we touch another link. Mr. Murray, before he left Scotland, had mastered Professor Melville Bell's "System of Visible Speech for the Deaf," and had found it so great a help in his Chinese studies that he had prepared a. pamphlet upon it for use of foreign students. The thought flashed on his mind that this system might be modified so as to become eyes to the blInd as well as ears to the deaf. He saw that the fingers of the blind must take the place of eyes, and that the first step was to reduce the sounds of the language to symbolic!orms. These he made in clay and baked, and from these the blind wei'e first taught to read. But two difficulties presented themselves: first, the system lacked simplicity, and, secondly, as the Chinese adore their written characters, they might worship these clay symbols.
While in Glasgow Mr. Murray had also studied Moon's "System of Embossed Alphabetic Symbols" and Braille's" Embossed Dots." Perhaps these might be adapted to the perplexing" tones" which make it possible for one word to mean a dozen different and absurdly contradictory things. How to bring all these linguistic mysteries within the touch of the blind was the problem over which William Murray thought by day and dreamed by night. One day, weary with work, he lay down for a noon nap, when, while yet awake though with closed eyes, he saw outspread before him the whole system he has since put in available form for use, and perceived that it would enable the blind to read accurately and in a short time the Word of God. He believes that vision to have been a revelation to him from above. He made no attempt at an alphabetic system. but employed numerals. He found that inst'ead of the ordinary 4,000 characters, a little over one-tenth of that number would suffice to represent the sounds of the language, viz., 408 dis· tinct syllables. Instead of figures he uses mnemonic letters, and ingeniously contrives that not more than three syllables shall be used to represent the longest word, corresponding to units, tens, and hundreds. He found Braille's system to be more helpful than Moon's, as being fitted both for writing and musica.l notation.
So pl'acticable has this method proved that a thorough acquaintance with both reading and writing may be acquired by a blind boy of average faculty in from six weeks to two months, whereas six yeal's of study would be required for seeing eyes to recognize the 4,000' distinct characters of the ordinary written language. For eight long years Mr. Murray worked to perfect the system which he saw in theory in that day-vision, and it must be remembered that he could devote only odd hours not already taken up with his Bible w<;>rk. His first practical test was upon "Wang," a rheumatic blind cripple, who soon learned to read for himself the blessed Word. Then a poor blind patient, who had been severely kicked by a mule, relieved the hours of suffering by studying the Murray system, and within two months even his callous fingers could feel the precious truth of God. Then a poor blind lad, left on a dunghill to die, after three months' nursing was restored to health and learned to read and write. Ne:Xt a blind beggar boy, an orphan taken in out ofthewinter's cold, within six weeks read more accurately and fluently without eyes than many do with eyes in a score of years.
Miss Constance F. Gordon-Cumming, to whose golden pen missionary literature owes so much, visiting Peking, was astonished as she stood at the door of a dark room to hear the Scriptures read by the touch by men who, not fOUl· months before, begged in the streets, half naked and balf starved. And the marvel is that this Bible colpodeur, this consecrated workingman, has been doing this work alone, from his slender income boarding, lodging, and clothing his poor blmd pupils! He seemed to hear the Master say once more, "Giveyetbem to eat," andsohe brought his barley loaves to Him to be blessed and multiplied, and they have strangely sufficed for others' wants as well as his own. One boy of twelve, left in his charge by an elder brother, and then left on his hands, though blind, not only rapidly learned to read and write, but became his main dependence in stereotyping and all other work, and developed such musical ability as to become the organist in the chapel of the London Mission.
The rumor of thlS wonderful school for blind pupils has spread far and wide, and some have come 300 miles to study the system. One pupil developed singular fitness for the ministry and was sent to Tien-Tsin as a candidate for the work. Another has undertaken to stereotype an embossed Gospel according to Matthcw, in the classical Mandarin dialect of scholars throughout the empire. The work is but at its beginning, for there must be at least eight different versions reduced to the dot system before the blind of the different provinces can find the system available to represent'the various colloquial dialects. The ingenuity of Mr. Murray reminds us of Bezaleel and Aholiab, whom God by His Spirit endowed for the mechanical work of the tabernacle. He has so simplified stereotyping in connection with his method of instruction that a Chinese lad will produce in a day more than three times as many pages as an ordinary London workman by the common method. Thus God is using the special sensitiveness of the fingers of the blind and their proverbial aptitude for music, to raise up blind readers of the Word and blind singers and players on instruments, who may make music the handmaid of evangelism. The system, as we have said, is singularly adapted to represent, not only the sounds used in speech, but in music too. The Peking pupils write out musical scores from dictation with such rapidity thlt an ordinary" gospel song" will be produced in· a quarter of an hour. By means of embossed symbols pasted to the keys they also learn to play the piano and organ. The written score being read with one hand and the music played with the other, the student soon learns both to sing and play by note. Then these Christian songs are made a means of attracting an audience, to whom one of the blind students tlien addresses his exhortation, and whom he recommends to buy and study the Bible for themselves. And-so a blind boy will often sell more books in a. day than the authorized agent Of the Bible Society.
Here we reach another link in this chain of providential purpose. We see why Mr. Murray was sent to China as a Bible colporteur. His bookselling and street preaching bring him and keep him on familiar and friendly terms with the natives and prevent his being thought a mere magician or conjur~r who by some weird power turns fingers into eyes. Moreover, the superl>titious respect felt for written characters and all who can read them, togeiner with the reverence and pity toward the blind, seem to open a new and wonderful avenue of usefulness to these blind Scripture readers and singir.g evangelists. Mr. Murray ought to be enabled to devote at least half his time to this work of instructing the blind, and abundant means ought to be given him to multiply his schools in every part of the empire. This new development in China suggests a key that may open the doors to 150,000,000 secluded Ohinese women. A blind woman taught to read the Scriptures may find her way to homes from which all missionaries are practically excluded. As yet popular prejudice has prevented Mr. Murray from teaching but one blind woman, who in a few months mastered reading, writing, and musical notation.
Mr. Murray, having often found genuine converts who had found salvation solely through reading the Word, and who sought of him Christian baptis,m, has been granted ordination and so returned from his visit to Scotland in 1887 empowered to do the whole work of a Christian minister, and will devote his time to the preparation of books for the use of the blind and instructing those to whom God has denied the girt of sight. Who can foresee to what extent the Providence that raised up this man for this unique work may be pleased to use him for the evangelization of the hundreds of millions in China, transforn:ing blind beggars into Scripture readers and teachers of others blind also, so that it shall be h;ue in a new sense that the blind lead the blind, but not into the ditch? The words of Isaiah shall be fulfilled: "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them and crooked things straight." Isaiah xii: 16.
For the sake alike of completeness to this paper and for the information of those who are specially interested, we append a brief resume of Murray's "System for Teaching the Blind of China."
The plan that wonld most naturally commend itself to one wishing to teach the blind, would be to adopt phonetic spelling. I fonnd, however, that" numeral" spelling was greatly to be preferred.
Chinese, as a spoken language, may be reduced to 408 syllables. Now I take a representative written hieroglyphic of each of these 408 syllables, and for my own convenience place them in alphabetic order in a horizontal line. The Chinese know nothing of alphabetics.
Then in a line running parallel above that line of representative .sonnds, I write its equivalent in numerals; but instead of figures I use mnemonic lelters, viz. T or D represents 1, N .tands for 2, M is 3, R is 4, L stands for 5, 8h is 6,.;K is 7, F or V means 8, P or B is 9, and S stands forO.
Then, as the Chinese have no alphabet, I choose simple. syllables, as Ti for simple T or D, Ni or No for Q, etc. Therefore the two lines run thus: Ti Ni, Mi Rhi Li :-mnemonics. Gna Gnai Gnan Gnang Gnao :-Chinese. Shih Kei Fei Pei Tze:-mnemonics. Cha C'ha Chai C'hai Chan :-(Jhinese.
EXPLANATIoN • • These are the first ten mnemonic words. Chinese equivalents that stand for the numbers, and written in a large character, begin the sentence, which, according to the custom of ordinary Chinese bookS, is written perpendicularly, and is read from top to bottom.
The under line represents tell of the 408 Chinese syllables, and these, also in a larger character
WOMAN AND, WOMAN'S WORK
than the intermediary ones, are at the oottom, and finish the sentence. Thus: TI, sh1h, !lInan. tsai, t'ien, shang, che, hua, shih, nan, hsin, GNA.
There are thus 408 simple sentences. and the pnpll is reqnired to commit theAe to memory, a)ld thenceforth, to write the one, and read it as the other. This he does like a chain of events, and in a very short time, at the rate of aoout twenty sentences in a day. This is, in fact; his spelling lesson. I know that this description must appear complicated, but in daily practice it is found to oe qnite the reverse.
The superiority of this method over" spelling" is immense. As an example of its adyantages I would instance the Chinese word" C'huang Q" – a oed. It would require eight letters to spell this word, but by this plan I only need three, i.e. units, tens, and hundreds. There are no spaces or contractions to be a burden to the memory.
Then we only require. ten num erals for our "alpbaoet. '~_ But I saw the advantage of employing the other letters thus: namely, nSing the deep lettt!t's, as K, L, Y, N, in four sets of four to stand in the first space to represent tbe hundreds, and by that means they would answer a double purpose, namely, indicate also to which of the four" tones" the word belongs, each having a choice of four letters for each of the 408 sounds.
Let the sound and the number of its tone be indicated along with its aspirate, which is thus- C'huang Q, and be understood to be the hundredth iu the order of the syllabary; and as regards tbe four .. tones" to belong iu that sense (i.e., a bed) to the second. The letters K, L, M, N eqnal 100, and in that order indicate the 1st, 2d, 3d, or 4th tone. Then LOO equals C'huang Q. A person acquainted with the Braille alphabet will perceive that as only three letters are thus requit'ed, the L takes top, middle and lowest points, while the first line of Braille, which supplies tens and nnits, has only top and middle points, and consequently the word has always one deep letter and two hollow, making a wedge·like form; hence there is no need to separate the words in writing, and thus all space between words is saved, which of itself is no small gain, and at the same time greatly simplifies the fingering to the reader.
When time, material, expense, storage, and porterage are considered, it will be seen how important are all these points which tend to reduce the inevitable bulk of books for the blind. The fact lof each word being represented by three letters, and having thus a definite length and somewhat triangular form, is a great advantage in stereotyping.
It occurred to me that I could simplify the process of stereotyping; so instead of holding the punch in one hand, and having only the tip of the little fingEr to guide, while the other hand holds the mallet, I designed a table with a lever at one side, and a mallet to work by a treadle-the mallet always to strike the center of the table, and squared off the plain over which the block would have to describe. The treadle is of course worked by foot, and with side woods, the width of two words, and woods the width of a double line, which exaclly correspond in size with the latter; for the guide in shifting the block npward in the plain of the fixed mallet, as the other, the side woods keep the position sideways; the stereotyper moves these as he finishes two words at a time, the top piece, at the finishing of the double line, is taken from the top, and pushing up the block, he puts that wood at the next foot, and then the block is in proper position for striking the next, and is firm and fast in its position.
Thus the right hand, which would otherwise have had to hold the mallet, is left free to handle the manuscript, and to relieve the tip of the little finger and take. to guiding. Now, with us the process is so simplified that the operator can pell·mell with great speed and pleasure.
The advantage will appear best in the result, when I tell you that the boy can do with ease in one day what would take three men and one-third in England to 'do in the same time. So what a sighted man would take twelve months to do, my blind boy will do in three months, and the quality of the work is struck more perfectly.
WOMAN AND WOMAN'S WORK AT rHE LONDON CONFERENCE.
BY MRS. DR. J. T. GRACEY, BUFFALO, N. Y.
THE first missionary conference with representatives from various mission fields convened in the city of New York, May, 1854, That notable missional'y, Dl'. Duff of Calcutta, was visiting America, and the churches had been stirred by his eloquent words. His presence was the inspiration of this conference, which had an attendance of one Itundred and fifty members and was in session only two days. This meeting was the beginning of a new era in missionary work. Othel' conferences then followed in England and in the various mission fields of the world.
In the year 1878 a conference was held at Mildmay Park, London, at which thirty-five societies were represented, and this meeting was notable from the fact that for the first time missionary women took part in the proceedings. Mrs. Weitbrecht read' a paper on "Christian Vork Among the Women of India," and Miss E. J. Whately one on" Female Missions in, the East," and "English Mission Schools in Cairo" was read by Miss M. L. Whately. Several missionary ladies took part in the discussions which fOI– lowed the reading of these-papers.
Woman had gone to the isolation, the dreariness and monotony of heathen life; for years she had braved dangers and made all sacrifices, had established schools and been a transforming power in darkened homes, had aided in the translation of God's Word and Christian hymns, had given to heathen mothers a loftier idea of motherhool1, had been imprisoned for the gospel's sake, in loneliness and weal'iness had she patiently and lovingly toiled, yet only ten years have elapsed since she had a voice in the deliberations of a missionary conference. When she appeared she appeared to stay.
The General Conference of Missions, held in Exetel' HaJI, London, in June last, with more than twelve hundred delegates, has been universally conceded to be one of the most remarkable gathering~ ever held in the history of foreign mission work. It was notable for the presence of so many missionary women, and for the great prominence given to woman's work. Women were present from neat'ly all mission fields, and when one day the announcement was made that Mrs. Hannington, wife of the martyred Bishop of Africa, was in the audience, the applause was loud and prolonged.
Of the eighty-four American and continental societies represented, twenty-two were "Woman's Boards," each of them sending their own accredited delegates, more than fifty in number. On Saturday evening, June 9, the meeting was opened by a service of prayer and praise, and tables were set capable of accommodating hundreds of persons. At this opening session the Earl of Aberdeen presided, with his wife Lady Aberdeen on the platform at his side. Ecclesiasticism and doctrinal differences had no place, for the very introductory speech by Dr. Thompson of Boston sounded the keynote. "What have we come here for?" said he. "Not to see the old country, nor its cathedrals, nor the British Museum, nor the Tower of London, nor palaces, nor objects of art, nor to listen to the eloquence of Parliament, but to hear what the Pauls and Silases of the day are doing in the name of Him who made of one blood all the nations of the earth." "All one in Christ Jesus" was the prevailing spirit from the beginning to the close.
In the prepared programme Woman's W Qrk was tRe assigned topic for two of the regular sessions for delegates, and for one of the large public evening gatherings. Then there were meetings held exclusively for ladies, and women were made prominent as speakers at a number of public meetings, and some were even called upon for responses at lunches and breakfasts. From many lands the missionary woman was present, and told het· sweet and thrilling story, that reached all hearts.
Arrangements were made to hold the morning sessions for women in the •. Annex," a hall holding about two hundred and fifty; but the" Annex" was too small, and it was necessary to adjourn to the large hall to accom- modate the large crowd. Some one writing of these meetings said: "The women excelled the brethren in the directness and clearness of their state- ments, and the practical presentation of their work." Almost every phase of mission work was discussed at these sessions. As China was represented, it was claimed that in no country is woman's work so valuable as in the Celesttal Empire; others claimed that Japan most needs woman's help; 9thers maintained that of all countries India needed her, and the statement .vas made that one married missionary, with the feminine influences of home, is worth more than twenty single men, and that often the missiona.ry's home had been the first object lesson of love in heathen countrieR, and the wife has been the great helpmeet, carrying on work which her husband could not do.
Sir Robert Phayre presided at one meeting. " His thirty years' experience in India," he said, "convinced him that it is impossible to attempt to convert a world of men, leaving out the women, as that is clearly contrary to God's manifested will." He referred to the great amoupt of misery behind Zenana walls, as having come to his knowledge in connection with his official duties, but said, "There is no amount of oppression and evil-doing that cannot be removed by prayer."
Miss Rainy of the Free Church of Scotland spoke on "The Place of Female Agency in Mission Work." She said: ., Women should take up this work because it is evident on many grounds that the Lord will have it so. The scheme is of Him, and the way to carry it out has been made clea.r by Him. Missiona.ry women giw their attention to teaching in Sunday, weekda.y, industrial, and boarding schools, taking charge of orphanages and seminaries, Zenana mission work, or house to house· visitation, evangelistic work in villages and country districts, holding Bible classes and mothers' meetings for converts, training and supet'intending native agents, preparing a verna.cular literature for women, and last, but not least, laboring as medical missionaries among women and children."
Miss Marston, M.D., read a paper on "Woman's Medical Work." She said the work was most hopeful, that "the hospital is an institution of increasing vaIUl'>, and both there and in the dispensary the people are pleased rather than otherwise to listen to the message of the gospel. The difficulties of Zenana medical work were enlal'ged upon, and, in conclusion, several suggestions wel'e given. Specia.lists being, a.s a rule, inaccessible, a.~d consultations being out of the question, medical women in India. must either be able to undertake all and sundry cases, or have the pain of occasionally rejecting them. Experience led to the recommendation that, in addition to the usual cUl'l'iculum, there should be a year's study of special subjects."
A number of ladies took part in the discussion that followed the reading of this paper. Miss Cross spoke of the shocking condition of the women in government pl'isons and hospitals, and gave an account of a visit she paid to one of the prisons, where she saw a large number of women condemned for the crime of murdering their female children.
Mrs. Emmerson of New York read a history of the Woman's Union Missionary Society of America, a society representing all evangelical denominations, organized in 1860.
Mrs. Cappin of the African Church of America was eloquent in her justification of woman's work in many lines. She said that what was required for those women was not mere" book learning," but thorough technical education in the art of housekeeping, a.nd above all in the art of making bright, happy Christian homes. It must be remembered that their work was not merely to educate, however grand a'work that was in itself, but to win the precious souls of those women for the Lord Jesus Christ. The objpct of the society must be strictly evangelistic-that of carrying the gospel, whether by education, Zenana missions, medica.l missions, 01' whatever agency might be employed, to the homes of the East. She greatly deplored the small number of lady workers in the field, and she felt it her duty to speak out ~nd to tell ner Chfistia,l1, sisten; Qf the ~reat ~eed of worker!!, Mrs. Edge of China asked Christian mothers to put no obstacle in the way of their daughters, should the LOI'd call them to missionary work.
Mrs. Quinton spoke of the women of the Indian tribes of North America.
She said: "These 'women are hungering for spiritual instruction, and almost as soon as they hear the gospel they give their heart!! to God."
Miss Abbie Child of Boston, Secretal"y of the Woman's Board (Congrega- tional), spoke on the" Need and Preparation of Missionaries," saying, "The time is past when anybody can be a missionary."
Miss Jet'roam, for twenty-eight years a missionary in North India, said: "While preparation is of immense importance, yet missionaries cannot be manufactured; like poets, they are born, not made; nay more, they are called, and called .of God; only the Master can make a missionary. The training is in the Lord's own school."
"The Necessity for Trained Native Christian Teachers" was discussed by Miss Askwith of South India, under the following heads: Who are to be Trained?
What Objects must be Kept in View when Training?
What Methods Should be Employed in Training?
This paper disclosed the fact that there was great need ~for establishing a, United Training Institution for Zenana teachers, in which they may be taught and practically fitted for their special work. l1iss A., in closing, said: "If India is to be won to Christ, if its womanhood is to be raised from the bondage and degradation of ages, it must be greatly through the agency of Christian Indian women. We have intrusted to us the training and education of considerable numbers of these our young sisters, who, with God's blessing, may be a power for good in their native land."
Probably the" Relation of Woman's Boards to the General Boards" was among the most stirring subjects discussed. Everybody had an opinion, and both men and women said that women ought to be represented in the general boards. This was a perplexing question to some, and a special meet- ing was called to consider it.
DI·. lfurdock of the American Baptist Union" read 3, paper in which, while he placed great estimate on woman's work, he advocated that all female agencies should abide by the rules of and be governed by the poli- cies of the General Board; that it would be better for both and have a better effect on the natives when women' recognized the headship of man in order- i.ng the affairs of the Church of God,' remembering that 'Adam was the bead.' He dwelt very impressively upon the union of man· and woman in the work, though it would be a sad day for the church when diVIded by woman's boards eQ.deavoring to work independently."
A somewhat emphatic protest was offered by some of the ladies to the sentiments of the brave Doctor, and one-an American-remarked Botto 'l)OCe, "All buncombe!" Experiences were given. Some worked indepen- dently in a great measure, others jointly. One, a Nova Scotia board, helped the parent board by raising money for each "mission, and thus felt that they had an interest in all." Another complained that they were "hampel'ed in their work by male committees." while another, the presi- dent of a very large and influential society, said she "Vould rejoice to see their work lll,erged into one, for the burden and responsibility were great on women alone. She thought, however, that in that case woman should have a place on committees.
" The Evils of Child Marriages" was discussed by Miss Whately, for years missionary in Cairo, Egypt. She said "this custom was a p'eat hindrance to missionary work. There are now hundreds and hundreds of Mohammedans who attend my school and other schools, but no matter whether it be a native Copt or a Mohammedan, the girl is taken away at twelve."
Bishop Crowther, the rescued slave boy, now a bishop of the Church of England from West Africa, said: "Long ago, among the freed slave children at Sierra Leone, invaluable services were rendered by ladies. Men were helpless with their threats and scoldings, but by kindness the ladies enticed the children to school, and taught them with great succ~ss. To-day, also, ladies are filling very important posts in the Niger territory. Often children had to be whipped into school by the native :schooimaster, till a white lady came, who brought pictures and lesson sheets from England, and taught the children to sing. Soon the news spread, and the other children of the station came with zest, and learned to love education. At Bonny it was agreed by the chiefs that $10 a year should be paid for each boy and girl who attended the school. When the time came the chiefs objected to pay for the girls, 3S they could not afterward earn money as boys could. The Bishop himself then agreed to pay for the girls, who were trained to read, and sew, and knit and make bread. etc. A certain day came when the chiefs were entertained, and Miss Susan Jumbo-daughter of Oko Jumbo-made the brea.d, whtch her father praised without knowing "'I'ho had made it. When informed, he was greatly pleased, and from that time native scruples as to the utility of investing money on the education of girls disappeared.
Lady Aberdeen presided over a special llJeeting, and in a clear rich voice that could be heard all over the large auditorium, said: "The missionary conference, with its many testimonies of the world's need and of God's gracious work among the heathen, should awaken all Cll'istian people from selfish slumbers. She regarded the sight of so many missionaries and their active friends as a grand' one, and when she thought of the great number of Bl'itish and American nationality, she could not but realize that God has committed to the English-speaking race a very high duty in the evangelization of the world. Last year, with Lord Aberdeen, she had the privilege of seeing some of the missionaries at work in India, and also of attending such conferences as workers can there hold for prayer and mutual encouragement and help. The experience was one never to be forgotten. While now thanking the American delegates for coming to this great conference, she cordially aclmowledged the vigorous work of their agents in the mission field, and also that America had greatly inspired and quickened England in missionary effort. The missionaries have all told us one thingof the power of love, the power of Christ's love when it takes hold of the soul. ,.
In reference to openings in Japan, Dr. Warren of Japan said: "The women have'not been in the degeac1ed position they have in other countries, but have long been a great power both in society and politics. The childeen are under regular instruction, and the way is gradually being prepared for the reception of the gospel. Higher educatibn is well to the front also, and the openings for missionary ladies at the present time are many and important. What is wanted is that this. educational work should be accompanied by Christian teaching. Many things combine to accentuate this call to service for Christ, and already much blessing has [attended the efforts of women in the country.
"There is a great opening just now for work in mission schools. The Americans have done a great deal in this and in other respects. First in the country by some ten years, the Americans have ever since kept to the front, Especially are they ahead in women's work. The laborers do not go over in ones and twos, but in sixes and dozens, and their schools have been remarkably successful. In evangelization, also, the women have been greatly blessed. In conclusion, the speaker earnestly begged for more female laborers for Japan."
Of the openings in India, Rev. Mr. Karney said: "India is waiting for Engbsh women to go to her, not mere educators, Dot mere Christians, but consecrated workers for Christ going in the power of the Holy Ghost."
Of openings in China, Dr. Swanson said: "That if the mothers, the wives, and the daughters of a country are secured for Christ, the men are sure to follow; and in no country has a woman more influence than in China.
"There are difficulties to face. Those who go have to go into a new civilization, and to tread on ground more dangerous than they sometimes are aware of; but in the work of education an immense service is being done, not only among the young themselves, but indirectly among their parents also. Therefore th'! speaker maintained that China, of all other countries, is the field for the mission of women. The empire is awakening, .and now is the opportunity. She must either start into life or be buried out of sight; but she is not going to be buried. Here is the chance for pious women, and the female population is constantly sending forth a wail which calls loudly for the light and liberty of the gospel as well as education."
Rev. Dr. Langford, Secretary of the Protestant Episcopal Missionary Society of America. said: "Looking back upon the past, with its record of glorious enterprise and results, and looking to the futm'e, with its blessed possibIlities and opportunities, the speaker thoroughly believed that woman is to take a larger part than in the past in the evangelization of the worldnot only by going out into the field, but by looking to things at home. In the work of organization, and in getting together and putting into shape the facts which may kindle the fire of enthusiasm for missions, the women have a sphere of great influence. The pastor cannot find time, and has not the aptitude to do many things that are expected of him. In America the women have realized this and they are taking the missionary interest quite into their own hands-editing papers, distributing tracts, sending out reports and circulars, and, having faith to believe that it was by the Spirit of the living God that great works will be accomplished, they have organized prayer unions, to present the matter continually at the Throne of Grace. In conclusion the speaker prayed that God would own woman's work by making it a blessing to the entire human family."
The many social gatherings afforded a rat'e opportunity for these worldwide representatives to catch a glimpse of the best circles of Christian England. Our American ladies received very marked attention, and made an impression in the meetings, because, it is said, "They spoke with such freshness of thought and ease of manner."
The meeting was a great inspiration to aU who were present, and marks certain great facts, viz. that woman is a great power in missionary work, and that there is no longer separation or isolation of nations, of denominations or of language. There is one Bible, one faith, one great desire, on the part of missionaries, to preach the" unsearchable riches" to the people of the earth that are in darkness and the shadow of death.
lS89.] MISSIONARY HEROES IN AFRICA
MISSION ARY HEROES IN AFRICA.
BY ROBERT N. CUST, LL.D., LONDON.
My subject is not so much Africa, its people, its customs and its misfortunes, as the Christian pioneers and their work, and to this I restrict' myself. The missionaries cannot speak of themselves; it is the last thing that they woul<Lwish to touch upon, except to describe their shortcomings. A particular church or society cannot speak of the whole class fairly, as of some they know too much, and of others nothing at all. We see them in the committee room, when they are young and ardent for the fight, scarcely knowing the difficulties with which they have to contend. 'We see them a few years on more thoughtful, more subdued and chastened, yet not less earnest; we see them still later on, broken down, unequal for further service in the rleld, yet still longing to laugh at the doctor, and go back to their life's work. Some we never see again, for they remain where they fell. Many of them are men of high talent, who in secular professions might have achi{'ved wealth and fame, or in the home church might have risen to dignity and influence, but, smitten with the wondrous love of saving the souls of the heathen, they have gone forth, and fresh candidates for the holy offioe are never wanting. What is their motive? A simple faith in the Word of the Lord, who bought them. Wishing that my hearers may carry away something that may cling to their memory, I ask them to think of the famous eleventh chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, in which he traces back to faith all the great events in the history of Israel, and I ask leave reverently to adapt his argument to the history of the pioneers of African Missions.
By faith the United Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut in Germany, more than a century and a half ago, were stirred up to send out a missionary to the poor Hottentots, who were treated as dogs by the Dutch colonists. By faith George Schmidt at once offered himself to go out, and suffered hardship with a persecuted race, and, having been blessed by the conversion of a few, was forbidden to baptize them, and summarily sent back to Europe by men who called themselves Protestants, and who were jealous of their own liberty. By faith, fifty years !:.tter (1792), the United Brethren sent out three more missionaries, who founded the illustrious mission of Genadendal, or Vale of Grace, on the very walls of the ruined house of George Schmidt, seven years after the great patriarch of African Missions had been caned to his reward, dying, like Livingstone and Krapf, on his knees.
By faith the London and Wesleyan societies, the Established Church of England, the Free Church of Scotland, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, took up a share in the blessed work amidst other races of South Africa, and out of their ranks by faith Moffat undertook to translate the Bible into the language of the· Be-Chuana, Wilder into the language of the Zulu, and Boyce, Appleyard, and others, into the language of the Ama-Xosa, or Kafir-Ianguages deemed at the time to be incapable of expressing simple ideas, but which, deftly handled, proved to be apt exponents of every variety of human thought, with an unlimited vocabulary, and an unsurpassed symmetry of structure.
By faith Moffat's son-in-law, Livingstone, abando:<J.ed his home, his chapel, and his school, and started off on his great missionary progress, which was destined to illuminate all Africa south of the Equator. By faith he bore up under the perils, the fatigues, the opposition and the bereavement of his deal' wife, who sleeps on the shore of the Zambesi. By faith he worked his way to Benguela, on the west coast, Kllimani on the east, and Nyangwe on the River Kongo to the north, discovering new rivers, new lakes, new tribes, and new languages. Fi"om the drops oC sweat which feU from his limbs in those grea': travels have sprung up, like flowers, Christian missions, founded by men of different denominations and different views of church govm"nment, but united in the fear of Uod, the faith in Christ, love of Africa, and veneration for Livingstone. To the impulse, given by this great apostle, must be attributed the missions of the Establh,hed Church ot Scotland at Blantyre, the Free Chm"ch of Scotland at Livingstonia, the London Society on Lake Tanganykia, and the Universities Mission at Zanzibar. To these must be added the missions of the Church of Rome. In an interview which some years ago I had at Tunis with Cardinal LavigEH"ie, to implore him to locate his Equatorial MisSIons at a certain distance from stations occupied by Protestants, to which he agreed in word, though his practice has been different, he spoke with admiration of Livingstone. But to this servant of God ~t was not conceded to seQ one single ft"uit of his labors. He saw no mission spring up; like Moses, he only beheld the promised land from Pisgah; he died without knowing of the secret of the source of the Nile and the Kongo. But even after death he seemed to have power to charm and to conquer, for by faith his bones were conveyed by his faithful Africans to the sea-shore, from Ilala on Lake Bangweolo, where he died, along a route never traversed before, as if the great discoverer had power to add to geographical knowledge after his death, and the great philanthropist wished te leave a lasting proof that the natives of South Africa can be faithful and loyal, and capable of high enterprises, if they are kindly treated.
By faith Krapf and Rebman sat year after year at the watchtower of Mombasa, waiting till the day should dawn, calling to each other, "Watchmen, what of the night ?". writing home descriptions of vast lakes, and snowcapped mount~ins on the Equator, causing themselves to be derided, both as missionaries and geographers; yet they lived to be honored in both capacities, they lived to see the day dawn at last, to hear of Frere-Town being es- tablished as a station for released slaves at Mombasa, to hear of those internal seas being navigated, and that snow-capped mountain being visited. In hi~ old age Krapf in tearful gratitude read Henry Stanley's challenge, which rang with trumpet-sound from the capital of U-Ganda, and was gallantly answered by the Church Missionary Society, and he lived to hear of the great Apostle's Street, which by faith he had suggested, being carried out from Zanzibar to the Great Lakes, to be extended westward down the Kongo, until hands are shaken with the Baptist missionaries working up that river from the West.
By faith the good Baptist Society established themselves in the island of Fernando Po, and, driven thence by the intolerance of the Spaniards, they crossed over to the mainland, and found what seemed once, but, alas! is no longer, a more enduring inhel"itance in the Kamerun Mountains. By faith here Saker lived, labored and died, translating the Holy Scriptures into the language of the Dualla. but leaving his work to be revised by his .young daughter, opening out a new field for the talent and zeal of women. Hence in fullness of time by faith Comber started to conquer new kingdoms of the Kongo. making, alas! the heavy sacrifice of the life of his wife at San Salvador, before he reached Stanley Pool, with the great heart of Africa open to his assault; for in their hands the Baptist missionaries had carried gentle peace, and their vessel with that name still carried them onward on their blessed and peaceful enterprise.
By faith our good brethren in North America were among the first to send out their agents to West and South Africa, to pay back the debt which they oweu, and to atone for the wrong which their forefathers had inflicted. The sun was thus taken baek to the East, to lighten those sitting in darkness. Each and everyone of their churehes by faith have vied in the desire to found strong missions, translate the Holy ScriptUl:es, and to press ,.forward the work of freedom, education, ciyilization and evangelization.
By faith the holy and humble-hearted Protestant churches on the Continent of Europe, less amply endowed in material resources. but more richly in intellect, industry and self-consecration, have sent forth a golden stream "- of missionaries from the centers of Basle and Canton de Vaud in Switzer" land; of Barmen, Br"lmen, Berlin, Herrnhut and Hermansbul'g" in Germany; from Norway. Sweden, Finland and France, to hold the fort in the most exposed situations, to suffer imprisonment, to achieve great literary works, to found living churches, and attract to themselves the affections of the African. The names of the devoted men and women who have lived and died for Christ may not be known to the world, but are written in the Book of Life.
By£aith Samuel Crowther was rescued from the captivity into which he, like Joseph, had been sold by his brethren, was restored to his country, to be no longer a slave, but a teacher, a leader, a benefactor, and an'example; by faith he was set· apart to give the lie to the enemies of the African, to stultify the idle taunt, that a negro is incapable, by his nature, of culture, piety, honesty, and social virtues; by faith -he was raised up to mark an epoch in the sad chronicle of his persecuted race, and to be the firstfruit of the coming harvest of African pastors and evangelists. By faith his son Dandison, Henry Johnson and James Johnson were blessed with the great grace of being allowed to tread in his footsteps.
If any of my readers desire to know the real worth of the African mission– ary, let them read the lives of 11rs. Hinderer at Ibadan, and 11rs. Wakefield at Ribe, and of many other noble men and women, of whom this self-seeking world was not worthy, who left comforts at home to labor among the Africans; who, in spite of overpowering maladies, have, been, like Hannington, unwilling to leave ihe country of their choice, and determined to return in spite of the warning voice of their doctor, or who, like him, have died as good confessors, counting not their lives worthy, but to fill up what remail!s of the sufferings of Christ. Such lives, in their simple eloquence, cannot fail to chasten the proud heart, to drive out selfish egotism, and to sustain the sinking spirit; they leave a ray of tender light behind them, showing that the age of chivalry and of self-abnegation has not entirely passed away; that the nineteenth century, in spite of its wbrldliness and infidelity, is still able to supply crusaders to fight the battle of our 1I'£aster.
We read often in secular books, and too often in missionary biographies, how our Heavenly Father is supposed on some occasions to have graciously interposed to save the life of one of His poor children; in Roman Catholic accounts this benevolent interference is always attributed to the Virgin 11ary, or St. Teresa. Not a sparrow, indeed, falls without His command; but if sur:h interference is presumed when a good man's life is saved, how shall we account for the absence of this providential care when the good man is cruelly killed, or cut off by premature disease? Such is but a narrow view of God's providence. His ways are not our ways; He has chosen His servants for particular services: some to honor, some to dishonor. Some are selected to -live and work, to others is conceded the peculiar grace to die nobly and set a gloriolls example. Deaths are required as well as lives to complete the picture of the new life. Some may follow the steps of our Lord in a life of beneficenM and mercy; to others is granted th'e sweeter lot of filling up that which is behind of His sufferings. And in the last struggle how by grace they have been sustained, doing nothing common or mean in the last memorable scene of their earthly passion, but sealing their faith by their manner of meeting death!
Hear some of the dying words of these soldiers of Christ. In the hour of death all things are terribly real. There is no room for deception or false enthusiasm there. I have selected these words without distinction of country or denomination, but their number might be multiplied indefinitely. Arrhenius, the Swede, had only a few months of labor in the Galla country after years of preparation for his duties. His last words were: .. Jesus, help me I Jesus, help me I Amen."
Prretorius, the Swiss, was sent out for a few months' inspection of the missions on the Gold Coast; he called upon me on his way out, and promised to call again on his return; but after a few weeks in Africa he fell. His last words were: .. Is it true that I am going home to-day 1"
Of all the smaller English missions, the Livingstone-Kongo was conspicuous for its overflowing (If zeal and life and promise, and of all its agents McCall was the brightest; but he was struck down in mid-work. His last words were recorded by a stranger who visited him. Let each one of us lay them to our hearts: .. Lord, I gave myself, body, mlnd and soul to Thee. I consecrated my whole life and being to Thy service, and now, if it please Thee to take myself, instead Q/ the work 1vhich I would do for Thee, what is that to me 1 Thy will be done I"
He had hoped that his destined course might have been among- the brave [wd strong, to toil with high pUl'pose in the service of the African; but God had chosen another part for him, and as a true Christian he recogI).ized that God had chosen it well, and no weak mUl'mul'S escaped the lips of one who was ready to liv:l or ready to die. Golaz, of the French Mission to Senegambia, as well as his young wife, died within the year after their arrival. His farewell words were : "Do not be discouraged, if the first laborers fall in the field_ Their graves will mark the wall for their 8uccesSorS, who will march past them with great strides."
Pinkerton, of the American Mission in Zululand, was ordered to lead a new mission into Umzila's kingdom; he conveyed his wife and children to North America, and returned joyfully to his task. He met with many obstacles and rebuffs, but at length found himself well on the road. His last written lines were to his wife: "Thefutnre will bring its needed light, and work, and solace. My thoughts turn sadly to you and our children. All well. We go right on."
It was to him, indeed, all well, for in a few days he breathed hill last sigh alone in the African jungle; he had gone right on into glory I .On the other side of Africa, Bagster, of the same mission, had been sent to found a mission among the Ambandu; a few months before his death he had proposed to write on" The Missionary's Joys." In the last page of his jOUl'nal we find: .. We hear His voice of cheer: Go forward: one mau of yon shall chase ten thousand; the Lord your God has promised yon .the good land, which be has given to yon; most joyous is the service of our King I "
Thomson, of the Baptist Mission in the Kamerun country (that famous mission which has during 1885-86 been uprooted and destroyed by the late German Emperor), a few weeks before his death in September, 1884, unconscious of the l'uin which was so soon to come upon the scene of his labors, on his chapels and his mission schools, wrote as Collows : "I am sustained and upheld amid many and heavy anxieties by the growing conviction that the dear Master is, in His great condescension, nSing me here for the settlement of many difficulties; and llook forward to;the future with more hope than I have known for years. I believe the work here will soou assume a better and a brighter aspect, aud my heart glows within me, as by faith I see the time. Oh for more and more of grace to cast all our burdens upon the divine bnrden-bearer I Onr hope and trust are in Him alone I "
With such men (and these few are but types of many) Africa and the whole world can be conquered. Such deaths are great victories. Such words tell us that some portion of us is immortal. These confessors saw the promises afar off, and were persuaded of them, confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims, and desiring a better country, that is a heavenly.
Still, they were men with like weaknesses, and cravings for love, as ourselves, and it is with heavy heart that I read of the last moments of such servants of God, dying sometimes without the solaces of religion, with no fond breast to lean upon, with none of the ordinary necessities of civilized life to sustain and comfort and smooth the path to that bourne, which men call death, but which indeed is th~ portal to everlasting life. The last journal of Hannington (who was present when I read this address four years ago) brings this point of view vividly before me. I can see that faithful Christian in the midst of his sad environment, oppressed with anxiety for the future of the work to which he had consecrated himself, still sustained by the daily reading of, and meditation upon, the Psalms of David. We find in these pages, so wonderfully preserved, no rebellious murmuring, no cries for vengeance, no appeal to the arm of the flesh. Still, as he lay tossing on his unsavory heap of straw, before his feverish eyes, during those sad days and weary nights, would rise the vision of the peaceful home, the pleasing duties, the loved companion, the little children, whom he had voluntarily left, obeying the call to serve his Master; and not in vain, for a still voice would whisper to him: "It is the Lord's will: obedience is of the essence of true courage and true love. The battles of the Heavenly King are fought in suffering as well as doing, and in dishonor, in prison, and in shameful death, as truly as In the mission chappel, the mission school, and the center oj a Christian village."
We seem at this period of the history of our missionary churches to be living over again the trials and persecutions of the early Christians in the first century. Do we not seem to hear the echo of the words of the Virgin-Saint, who at ArIes in France was slowly let down feet-forward into a vessel of boiling oil, becauRe she refused to deny her Master?
.. Jesus Christ, help me! Praise be to Thee! Lord Jesus, grant me patience! I sutrer for Thy name's sake: I suffer for a little time onlll; I suffer oJ '~1I own accord: Jesus, let me never be confounded! take me ! take me ! ..
Time would fail me to tell of Schlenker, and Reichardt, and Schon; of Goldie and Edgerley ; of Casalis, Mabille and Coillard; of James Stewart, of Lovedale, and his namesake on the Nyassa; of Grant and Wilson; of Ram-· seyer and Christaller ; of Mackensie, the Bishop who died on the River Shire; and of Steere the Bishop who sealed up the translation of the last chapter of Isaiah ready for the printer, and then fell asleep at Zanzibar; oC Parker, the Bishop, wise and gentle, holy and self-restrained, who was called to his rest on the Southern shores of Victoria Nyanza; of Wakefield and New; of Stern, Mayer and Flad; of Southon, the medical missionary, who died at U-Rambo; of dear Mullens, who could not hold himself back from the fight, and who sleeps in U-Sagara; of many a gentle ladies' grave-for women have never been found wanting to share the honor and the danger of the Cross.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKs OF AMISSIONAlty CHARACTER
I have seen and known so many of them. A few weeks before we were holding sweet converse, and then the tidings of the death of Fome one of them came floating back by letter or telegmm. They had, indeed, all gone into a br country, and to me they seem to be all there still; and, when I am musing about Africa, or studying some point connected with thatcou~try, and I look up from my paper to my African library, the forms of departed fdends seem to enter at the open door, and I seem to see theil' faces again, and to ask them their opinion. Young Riviere, a Jesuit priest, who had been turned out of Algeria and taken refuge in North Wales, used to corre- spond with me about Afdca. One day he called upon me in London and told me that he had received his orders to start at once to the Zambesi Mission field, to take the place of a dead colleague. He pl'omised to write to me from Tete, and to clear up many questions for me; but he never reached his des- tination, for he sank under his iil'st attack of fever at the mouth of the Zam- besL Differing as I do from the Church of Rome in every principle and detail of their evil system, I can still recognize and thank God for the zeal, and love of souls, and total abnegation of self, which distinguishes hel' mis- sionaries. Oh, when they are such, would that they wel'e ours!
I often think of that famous scene in one of Walter Scott's romances, where the clansman and his seven sons all fell for their chieftain, stepping forth, one after the other, gladly into the gap, and Cl'ying: "One more for Eachim !" So it is with the reserve forces of missionaries. "One more for Christ!" And how much better to have young lives and treasure spent by the missions in trying to save African souls, than wasted by the English nation in slaughtering the unoffending and undaunted freemen of the Sudan, for the purpose of main taming an imaginary prestige of having the strength of a giant without the grace of knowing how to use that strength as a Christ- ian. Wherefore, seeing that we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and press forward more and more upon our bounden duty aud service to evangelize Africa. We owe this debt to those who have gone before, that they should not have diedin vain. The .Missionary is indeed the most glorious outcome of 'the nineteenth century; the honest God-fearing man in the darkest corner of the earth, where he is most wanted. to represent the highest type of 'Christian patience and mo- rality.
.. Oh I that we now had there But one ten thousand of those men in Engla.nd, Who do no work to-dall ! ..
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
[EDITORIAL.l Report of the M/,8sionary Conference, London, 1888. Edited by Rev. Jas. Johnston, F.S.S., Secretary of Conference. Vol. 1. London, Jas. Nisbet & Co. This is the first volume of what promises to be the most perfect encyclopedia of missions in the world. We can say no more. We would not be without that report ifit cost $100 instead of $2.00. The most distingni,hed men in tbe world, in the departmcnt of Oriental languagcs, rellgions, philosophies, and ~nstom., as well as the specific history of missions, are among the contributors to these volumes.
This first volume contains exhaustive papers on Islam, Buddhism. Roman Catholici.m, Relations of Home aud Foreigu lIfissions, Commerce, etc. Then Part II. gives the mission fielus of the world-India, Ceylon, Burmah, China, Japan, Africa and Madagascar, Turkey, Oceanica, North and South America, etc. The second volnme will be eqnally comprehensive and valuable, let us rather say invaluable. I have bought twenty-five copies myself to give away, and if I had the money would pnt a copy in the hands of every minister and theological student III the country. The Arner lcanedition is issued by F. H. Revell, Bible House, N. Y.; Chicago, 150 Madi~on St.-A. T. P.
Life Of John Mlson, D.D., F.R.S. By George Smith, LL.D. London, John Mnrray. This is another of Dr. SmIth's masterly bOoks on missions. We intend to give hereafter a review article
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
-on this remarkable man, but for the present advise every lover of heroic life and labor to read the volume. The following landatory notice from the leading journal of the world, the London 7'imlJ8, we adopt verbatim: "Dr. Smith's life of the late Dr. John Wilson of Bombay is without exception one' of the most valuable records' of missionary work in India ever submitted to the English public, and equally worthy of its subject and its author. • • • Dr. George Smith's mature knowledge of Indian affairs has enabled him to give an admirable presentation of Dr. 'Wilson's life and labors in con- nection with the great public improvements and progress of the years, extending over two genera- tions of official service during which he resided in Bombay. Dr. Smith has given us not simply a biography of Dr. Wilson, but a complete history of missionary, philanthropic, and educational enterprise in Western India, from the governorship of Monntstuart Elphinstone,1819-27, to that of Sir Bartle Frere, 1862-67. He has arranged the many subjects with which he has had to deal and the materials placed at his disposal with great simplicity, clearnesr, and efIect."
Distinguished Witnesses. By Rev. John Liggins. New York, Baker & Taylor Co. This book is timely. It fits the need of the day as tenon fits mortise in a good joint. To decry and even deny the good results of the work of heroic missionaries is easy; but the logic of events will convince any candid mind, and in this book there is a mighty massing of testimony. Nehemiah is not alone in his experience. He met manifold forms of antagonism: apathy and lethargy on the part of Jews, maliciOus enmity and derisive ridicule upon the part of Ashdodite and Ammonite and Arabian. But he simply held his tongue, minded his own business, and built the wall, hung the gates and established law and order. "A light word is the Devil's keenest sword;" there are still many that are willingly ignorant, and if all that they do not know were published, the world itself conld not 'contain the books that would be written. We must disregard the assaults of ridicule and enlighten ignorance. Let us give tae people the facts, and the facts in abundance. They may become to some the fingers of God.
In this valuable 'l'olume the high character and grand influence of missions are established in the mouth, not of two or three, but of hundreds of unimpeachable witnesses. Representative men and women, whose names carry the weight of authority, and from every class in the community, here appear on the witness stand, commanding a hearing in the Court of the Judgment. They speak what they know and testify that they have seen, and only those whose eyes are blinded by prejudice or whose hearts are hardened by willful hostility, will refuse to receive their witness. Modern missions have little to fear from the harsh or hasty words ofa few like Dr. Oscar Lenz, Winwood Reade, Sir Lepel Griffin, J. J. Monteiro, Mrs. Scott Stevenson, or even James A. Froude and Canon Taylor, while such as R. H. Dana and J. P. Donovan, JamescRussell Lowell and Alfred Rugsell Wallace, Robert N. Cnst and James B. Angell, Wm. Elliot Griffis and Wm. Fleming Stevenson, Sir Bartle Frere and Sir Thomas Tancred, and Sir Richard Temple, Lords Lawrence and Loftus, Napier and Northbrook, Generals Edwards and Haig, Wallace and Wilson, Taylor and Gordon, Admirals Wilkes and Sullivan, Foote and Gore; nay, where Darwin no less than Dutrerin, and Keshub Chnnder Sen,.no lessthan Constance Gordon Cummiug, feel constrained to give testimony to the unspeakable value of Christian missions.-A. T. P.
Ohristianity and Humanity. By Chas. S. Eby, B.A. This is a course of lectures delivered in Meljis Kuaido, Tokio, Japan, and addressed to the young Japanese mind. The author is a wideawake ~tndent of the great problem presented by a people just losing faith in the traditions and religions of the p·ast and in danger of embracing any plansible errors which offer themselves. The house is empty, swept, garnished; and now the question is. Shall it be abandoned to the occupation of a sevenfold worse infidelity, or preoccnpied by Christian belief? The author says that a short time since the cry was" No religion" ; then another cry was heard, ~'Give us some religion " ; and now the question is, " What religion?" These lectures are an attempt to answer this last inqniry. They were delivered in English and Japanese on alternate Saturdays. Two of the lectures are contributed to the volume by Prof. J. A. Ewing and Prof. J. M. Dixon, respectively. It seems to us that this outline of Christian apologetics is a very thoughtfnl and fresh one, calculated to awaken attention and well repaying careful reading. Not a few Occidental students will find in them much strong meat for thought.-A. T. P_._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ II.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
Missionary Society of the Methodist turns from the various Annual Con- Ohurch (Oanada), ferences show an aggregate gain in the membership of the church of SIXTY-THIRD annual report, 1887-88. over 10,000, and a fail- proportion of The General Board in their report this gain has been won on mission fields. On the financial side there is say: "The results of the past year's an advance of some $18,000, sufficient, work call for devout thanksgiving to the Head of the Church. The reat least, to show that interest in ality and zeal, and should lead us to mission work is by no means on the consider whether the time is not near decline. . . . Since our foreign work when the church should turn hereyes was begun fifteen years ago, the in- toward yet another part of the negcome of the society has steadily risen lected field of foreign heathendom. from $108,000 to $220,000, and such Verily, the fields are" white unto showers of blessing have fallen upon harvest," and the demand of the hour the home churches that there hasbeen is for reapers to gather in the Eoheaves. an almost continuous revival. The reports this year from Japan willgive After a full and detailed statement a further stimulus to missionary liber- of operations, the following summary isgiven: DlCOlllE A]iD EXPENDITURE FOB 1887-88, COMPARED WITH THAT FOR 1886·87. Income.
Increase. Decrease. Toronto Conf~rence. " ………………………………….. '" $44,488 15 $62009 London………………………………………………… . 16,810 44 54042 Niagara …………..•…………………………………… 25.788 71 Guelph ………………………………………•………. 17,883 01 1,09230 $3io'oo Bay of Quinte Conference …………………….•…..•…… 19.387 29 21824 ~~~t[~~! ~~df~~~~.w~~i C6riti~eric~'::::::::::::::::::::::::: 34;70833 2,001 15 272'4R 6,59536 1,131 94 British Columbia Conference ……………..•……………. 2,.33 17 Nova Scotia Conference. . …………………………… . 11,594 88 New Brunswick and P. E. I. Conference ….•………•..•…. 8,736 15 750'99 92 15 Newfoundland Conference …………………………….. . 5,405 42 30132 Legacies •………………………………•…………….. 14,802 38 12,89608 Donations on annuity •……………………..•………..• 1,500'00 Indian Department ……………………………………. . 8,875'58 Miscellaneous …………•…•………..•……………….• 2,01807 4oo'7i 17240 Total iucome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .• . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. $219,480 00 $19,953 2.'1 $2,34759 Net increase……………………………… . 17,605 66 Expenditure. $i60' 95 $4.55079 TorontoConference, including Japau …………………….. $29,21804 London Conference…………………………………….. 10,034 61 154'94, g: ~:e~~a:::::::::::::::::::::::.,…… ','.:::'.:::::::::::::::::::::: ~:!~ 532 99 2754 2;66993 Bay of Quinta Conference . …………………….. '" … .. .. 10,752 55 1,055 57 Montreal Conference, including French Methodist Institute.·. . 25,165 79 Manitoba and North-West Conference…………………… 29,681 70 1,426'si British Columbia Confereuce…………………. …..•…… 17,765 28 Nova Scotia Conference ………………………….. :. . . . .• 6,615 91 685 81 New Brunswick and P. E. I. Conference…. ……………… 7,587 51 51018 28 Newfoundland Conference… .. .. …………•.•…•……….. 12,678 42 Mouut Elgin Industrial Institution……..•..•• , ••.• , •. •• •. . . . . 3,458 33 2,03049 Sundries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. .. .• •. . •. . . •. . . . . . . • 18,359 28 Cost of management……………………………………. 10,571 51 33305 2,227 12 1,62898 Total expenditure …….•…•…•……•….•… " $195,469 5! $12,343 17 $6,15978 Net increase….•……••……………..•….•…•……….. 618,339 Leipzig Missionary Society. the mortality has beeu so great that it has less European missionaries than stations at present. Number of stations…………………….. 23 Ordained European missionaries………… 22 British and Foreign Bible Sooiety. Native preachers ………… '" …•……… H Candidates.. . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . '" THE eighty-fourth report of this Catechists.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 57 noble society is a voluminous book Teachers……………………. : …•••…• 267 and one full of interest. The circu- I ,ferior assistants of varions sorts………. 130 lation of the Scriptures last year was the largest in the history of the so- Total force ………………………472 ciety, the total number of Bibles, Testaments, and Portions being INCOME FOB LAST FISCAL YEAR. 4,206,0::12. The gross total of re- ceipts amounted to £250,382 lOs. 5d. C) ltributions ………………….. $69,61440 The total of expenditures, £224,823 lItere.t on legacies, profits of the Mis- 98. lid. This pays the debt of previ- ous year, over £10,000, and leaves sionsblatt, etc…………………. 4,098 72 Balance in treasury•….••…… 10,440 240 £15,000 in the treasury toward a.n- Total. ……….•….•..• ,. …..$84,153 a6 other year's work. Expenditures ……………………$7!,825 60 Balance in treasury…………. $11,835 60 This shows a falling oft" of nearly $4,000 from 1886. The society's chief work is in South India, where it numbers more than 13,000 church Imlmbers. Notwithstanding it has sent out in the last three years eleven missionaries, . 125 The society a.fl'ords essential aid to tion cif the revised Rarotongan Bible. a large number of missionary soci- In Northwest America the work is eties by liberal grants of Bibles and .chiefly "among our own people." Testaments for distribution in their respective fields. Thus in West By the important work o~ giving Africa the society's work blends with grants-in-aid to missionary societies that of the Church Missionary and for the employment of Bible-women Wesleyan Societies' work. Develop- in the East, 300 Christian women ment is the law of South Africa, and were occupied in making heathen Bible work keeps pace with it. In and Mohammedan women better ac- East Africa the society works largely quainted with the ·Word of God. with the Universities' Mission, par. Translations in six fresh languages ticularly at Zanzibar and Lake Ny- were added to the list in 1887-88, and assa; it also helps the C. M. S. In with the com pletion of the version for Egypt direct colportage work has Japan last year it is believed that for the first time been commenced the entire Bible now exists in all the among Moslems. In no part of the great languages of the world. So society's work are the accounts more mightily grows the Word of God and discouraging than in Syria and Pal- prevails! estine. The Government opposes, the people are ignorant and unawak- Seventh-day Baptist Missionary Sooiety. ened. In Abyssinia but little work was possible, owing to the Italian THE forty-sixth annual session was military occupation; while Arabia held at Leonardsville, N. Y., Aug. 23, seems ready to be more largely oc- 1888. The society maintains a succupied. From Persia comes the rec- cessful mission in China. The staord of the sure though gradual ad- tistics of the evangelistic and school vance of the kingdom of God, while work there are encouraging. Mr. and there are indications of the disinte- Mrs. Randolph have been added to the gration of Mohammedanism. The Shanghai mission. The society also work in India is carried on by six has a small mission in Haadem, Holauxiliary societies-those at Cal- land. Also mission work is carried cutta, Madras, Bombay, Bangalore, on in Austria, and on alimiterl scale Allahabad, and Lahore; it is charac- among the Jews in New York City. tel;ized as wide and resistless, though But the society's efforts are laJ'gely gradual in its advance. Threeauxil- expended in home mission work, iaries, Jaffna, Colombo, and Kandy, chiefly at the South and West. work in Ceylon. In Burmah the society gives grants of Scriptures to SUMMARY. the Burmah Bible and Tract Society. In Malaysia the work is only in its , Ohina.-3 American missionaries; 2 native sixth year, but is vigorously advanc- preachers; 2 native teachers; 1 Bible woman; ing. In North China the agent con- 5 other native helpers; 5 baptisms; 4,220 pa_ siders that Bible work is the most tients at the dispensary; 82 medical visits; 40 extensive seed-sowing of all the forms snrgical operations. of missionary enterprise. In Mid- China there is cause for much en- Holland.-l paid missionary, bnt really 3 couragement. So also in South workers, and 5 additions. China. No message of the year is brighter than that received from Mission to Jews.-2 workers; much persoual Japan. The sales have nearly quadrupl~d. In Melanesia and Polynesia work; nO baptisms, but several adherents. One event of the year is the comrle- Horne MissWns.-24 workers, including the secretary; 150 additions-85 by baptism; and 5 churches and 7 Bible schools organized.
Scandinavian MzssWn.-l worker.
Total fO'T' America.-26 workers; 150 addl- tions-85 by baptism; 5 cburches and 7 Bible schools organized, one church and one school being among colored people in New Orleans.
Total additions on the whole field, 100-91 by baptism, Reeeipts. age the funds needed for the sup. Balance cash In treasury, port of their Bethel and its w.ark, and perhaps a surplus to be sent September 12, 1887…… $247 35 to the general treasury in New Receipts by contributions and income from bequests and permanent funds, York. Where it is not possible to from September 12, 1887, raise sufficient money in the vicinity to September 20,1888…. 8,633 01 of the work, the parent society feels Received on loans ……. " 3,800 00-$12,680 36 bound to supplement the deficiency. " E:r:pens68.
Paid salaries and other ex- At present, says the Secretary, penses from September there are urgent calls to service in 12,1887, to September 20, behalf of the three millions of sea, 1888 …………………$9,700 98 men of all nations, and there is Paid loans …..•………. 2,800 00-$12,500 98 Cash balance September a great opportunity to enlarge this 20,1888………….. .. $17988 work. Men are wanted specially en- dowed for labor among seamen. We The Amerioan Seamen's Friend Society. need more money. We need collec- THIS society was organized more tions from churches. In arranging than sixty years ago. Its object is the list of benevolent objects we.
",to improve the social and moral respectfully ask church officers to condition oi seamen, by uniting the remember that our society is a Home efforts of the wise and good in their and Foreign Missionary Society to bellaH; by promoting in every port seamen, who would be largely neg- boarding-houses of good character, lected were it not for its efforts in savings banks, register offices, libra- their behalf. We need gifts from ries, museums, reading rooms, and individuals. American shipping mer- schools; and also the ministrations chants who formerly helped our of the gospel and other religious caus,e are few in num.ber compared blessings. " with other days when there was an At the present time there are 17 American marin/e. But the seamen, laborers at 14 home stations, and 19 whether on sailing vessel or on laborers at 17 foreign stations, repre- steamer, whether American or for- senting this society. eign, are swarming over the world, The Loan Library work is efficient exposed to moral temptations, phys- and useful, the society having sent ical hardships and corrupting influ- out nearly ten thousand of these ences.
libraries to entertain and instruct Finances.-During the year ending seamen. It acts also as an agent of March 31, 1888, the cash receipts of the Bible and Tract Societies in dis- the society from legacies, donations, tributing the Word of God and relig- loan library contributions and other ious publications among the men of sources of income amounted to $45,- the sea. It has published 56,900 027.08. The disbursements for mis- copies of the Sailors' Magazine, 20,- sionary work, publications, loan hbra- 000 copies of the Seamen's Friend, ries, expenses, etc., amounted to and 124,200 copies of the Life Boat $41,004.81.
during the past year. In some ports The society owns a Sailors' Home the society is aided by local Sea- in New York, in which 111,326 sea- men's Friend Societies, auxiliary to men have found, since 1842, the com- this society. These develop local forts of a home and protection from sympathies, utilize local energies, the sharks which prey upon "pOel"
choose competent missionaries and Jack" in a great seaport. It is the superintend their work. It is ex- policy of the society to foster by its pected of these, wherever possible, influence homes, orphanages, savings that they will raise in the vicin- banks, reading rooms and similar ad·
OORRESPONDENOE AND GENERAL INTELLlGENOE. 12'7
juncts to the fundamental work of for the sailors' legal rights, hying to preaching the gospelandsavingsouls. secure them by legal f'nactmentsand It also stands up, as far as it can, to vindicate them when violated.
III.-CORRESPON DENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
Africa. to the mission, and at a very low rate. It is toaching to print the fol- LAGOS, WESTERN AFRICA, Sept. 30, 1888. lowing response from a far-off mis- DEAR EDITORS.-Although I am unknown sionary, Mrs. Dr. Metheny, though her own mission· is in great need.- to you in the 11esh, yet I beg to write to you EDS.] that I have been traveling all over West- MERBINE, July 30, 1888. ern Africa conducting revival meetings, MRS. M. E. BEALL-DEAR SISTER: I read and delivering at the same time some tem- your appeal for funds in THE REVIEW. It perance lectures, and so try to deepen the stirred my heart so that I felt that though Ilpirituallife of a few who are only satisfied I could only give a little, I must give that, with mere formal Christianity, and to save and perhaps the Lord would put it into the some from the cursed rum and gin traffic, hearts of others who were more able, to give which is daily slaying its thousands in our according to their ability. We are in debt streets. I desire humbly to appeal through ourselves somewhat for our own house, your kind infiuence to a few or all of the which we built large enough to accommo- Religious Tract Societies in the United date our boarding-school and preaching ser- States, for a free grant of Gospel and Tem- vice. Onr Board was not willing to go to perance tracts, which will be of great use the expense of building, and we felt that we in my evangelistic work. The part of the could not do without the buildings. so we country where I am now conducting mis- took the savings of my husband's life-time, sion services is totally in want of $2,000, and $800 of'a legacy which his danghtracts and wall sheets of Scripture texts. ter left me. The $2,000 was all swallowed up I shall be exceedingly thankful, and my in the lot, so in order to complete the house poor African brethren will be g-rateful to we borrowed money from the Board, to be you, if you will supply us with these. Before repaid by the rent of the house. The mission this gets to your hands I shall be at Accra has the use of the first and second stories. for revival services, where you will please Our work here is new-begun in 1883-though addresame. I have been sixteen and a half years in the field-ten and a half in Latakia, Syria; six I am your faithful, humble servaut, as a teacher. My husband has been twenty~ four. There are now 171 communicants in GEORGE ROSE. and about Latakia. The force there con- sists of Rev. Easson and family, Dr. Balph East Oentral Africa. 23, 188~ and family, Misses Wylie, Edgar, and Dodds of the girls"school. We here are all one BANDAWE, LAKE NYASSA, Aug. family-Dr. and I, our four children, Misses Sterrett and Joseph. We have some Roman DEAR EDIT<»IS : In the article, •. The De- Catholics, but more Maronitesandstill more Greeks. Our special work is among a pagan' serted Mission," in the May number of THE sect, nominally Moslems, but really a secret sect. We also do some work amonlr bona_ REVIEW (p. 361), I notice the following: fide Moslems. For this reason we a~e bit_ terlyopposed by the Turkish Government. "Exclusive of • . . efficient help rendered One of our teachers has for more than three months been in prison for teaching among without compensation by the African Lakes these people. Our life is one continual strain of anxiety on account of our poor Co." people. Since coming here we have had a great number of people under instruction, Work done" without compensatirm" means a.nd we have a congregationol church mem.. bers, and their children, numbering 60. Bework done at the expense of the 8hareholders, sides these some have died and some have gone away. In all 30 adults have been bnt I venture to assert that au exnmination of brought in from.heathenism. How could any the books of the Livingstonia Mission will ie Of Us endure one had not the fure Word of prove, in the most conclusive manner, that the statement in THE REVIEW has not the slightest fonndation in fact.
School work is at present in fnll swing at this station. A staff of 36 native teachers is kept well employed; abont 1,000 children attend the schools dally to receive religions and other in· strnction. Yonrs trnly, ROBT. GOSSIP, Jill.
Asia Minor.
[IN the July number, 1888, p. 530, we gave a brief appeal from Mrs. Beall of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, for help to purchase property essential God to rest on t Dear sister, I hope your selves exceedingly well off if they could· get fur- work may be abundantly blessed. Please lough as orten as the average civil servant get~ remember our work (Reformed Pres. Cove· it, not to speak of the three months' privilege nanter) in your prayers. leave which the latter can enjoy once in three years withont his right to furlough being af- "!Oour sister in Christ, Cected. A good deal might be said abont the devotion of the average civil servant to his MARY E. METHENY. work; bnt my design in writing is purely de- fensive. In di a.. Dr. Cust complains that the domestic affairs [WE admit the fo!owing from a of missionaries bulk too largely in official re- worthy missionary in IIl(lia as but ports. Sometimes it may be so; but that evil fair. In the September number we conld be easily remedied. Let no such subjects printed an able article, written by be referred to in official documents, except in Dr, Cust, entitled" The Heroic Mis- so far as they affect the work of the mission. sionary Society." Some of its criti- Onr critic may allege _that they ought not to cisms we thought at the time" un- affect it. Would the general of an expedition, duly severe," and so expressed our- or the governor of a province, allow them to sel ves in a footnote, p. 669. Our COl'- affect his work? Perhaps he might. The com- respondent, in a private note, says: parison, for which I am not responsible, is not "I know that you have given no a very happy one. When do you find generals sanction to the opinions which I con- or governors living with their families, as you demn, but rather the reverse. All often find missionaries with theirs, in isolated the same, I think it a pity that such places. where in times of illness no ejfic :ent help statements as Dr. Custmakes should is to be had for love or money? A general or go unchallenged. A good deal of governor can easily find a competent nurse to this kind of writing has appeared wait on his Wife, even if she do not happen to lately in Scotland, and I think it is have a European lady's maid with her; this a fitted to do no little harm to the miSSionary caunot always do, even if he could afford to pay for her services. Many mission- cause of missions." In the end we aries have to send 100 miles or so for a nurse believe such discussions will do good when one must be had, and when she comes rather than harm to the cause of she is often no acquisition; but all the same he missions.-EDs.] has to pay her an exorbitant fee, besides giving her food and drink while shei. in his house, and Il'IDIA, Sept. 25, 1888. more money for her traveling expenses than he DEAR EDlToRs.-Is it quite true that" mis- would ever think of spending in such a journey. siouaries have not a Warmer friend than Dr. Cust"? Was he practising the charity that What is a missionary to do in such circum- .. thinketh no evil" when he insinuated that stances if his wife take serionsly ill? He can missionaries .. take a worldly view" of their scarcely hope to have a nurse in his house till a w-'rk, .. and mix up a mission to a dying world week has elapsed, if he be able to get one at all. with visions of early matrimony, social advan- Is he to leave his wife to languish, and perhaps tage, and a pleasant career"? Individuals may to die, all alone, with no one to minister to her, do so; but I do not happen to know them. in order to preach to the heathen? If he may Most missionaries of my acquaintance might not leave his work for a time tl> attend to his have rlone better in respect to this world if they wife when she is really ill, is he entitled to give had remained at home. Again, each man must np preaching when his own health is such as to judge for himself whether or not he should indicate ueed of rest? If a missionary ought to marry, and if so, when. The primitive Church act in this way, ought not every Christian in knew no restriction in this matter, nor should every land to do the same? In that case, what we, beyond what is .. needfnl for the present" are we to understand by the words of Christ, exigencies ofeach. .. Go ye and learn what that mean.eth, I will lie says: "lIow often the Indian official or have mercy and not sacrifice" ? soldier has to ~hip off a sick wife, and cannot accompany her." In my experience this has Dr. Cnst further thinks that the attention of been quite as often done by missionaries, in pro- the mission committee is too mucb taken np portion to their nnmber. One would fancy with affairs of missionaries' familie., ., as if they from such remarks that Indian civil servants were a board of guardians of the poor." This is – were either more devoted to their work than not true of all committees. One committee that missionaries are to theirs, Or that their oppor- I know of acts on the prinCiple of paying mis- tunities of going home on furlongh' or short sionaries well, and leaving them to look after leave were fewer. Now I think the most self- their own wives and children. If all missions indulgent of missionaries w01lld thinlt tbem- were to act on this principle, they woulcl be re- lieved of this trouble, but at a pretty large in- crease in expenditure. As I understand it committees take tbis trQuble on themselves on grounds of economy, so that they may decide urging them to remain firm to their purhow much should be given in each case to en- pose of working in foreign land's~' even able a missionary to "provide for his own" in a decent way. It does seem hard that a mi,- though their entering upon that work seem sionary separated, at no small cost of feelin!!" from his children, should be grndged what is tu them to be long delayed. ' necelJaarv for their snpport. There are people at home rolling in wealth, and enjoying "very The meetings during the five days Were luxury which it can command, who grudge tae small allowance made towards the board and held as follows: Each morning the meeting maintenance of children who are to all intents and purposes in the position of orphans for the began with a short song service, toen the sake of missions. sermon, followed by many short, earnest tes- We welcome fair, well-considered criticism; when we err, tell us our fanlt iu a brotherly timonials in quick succession. After breakspirit; but do not join the common enemy in mali!!:ning and misrepresenting us. We can fast at ten the children's meeting and the bear the tannts and contempt of the ungodly; now we are being wounded, and that most ministers' meeting. At twelve a. sermon deeply, by our friends-onr best friends, it seems. Our time will soon pass away; to our again, and at three a Hindustani service~ own Master we shall staud or fan; but let Christian critics beware, lest by their harsh In the evening the opening song service treatment of us they discourage others from entering ou the work, and S3 injure the cause and the sermon. followed by an exhortation they seek to serve. It would have been easy to write at much greater length; but I forbear, from the leader and an invitation for all to as I do not wish to encroach unnecessarily ou your space. stay to the after-meeting. T-hen following LETTER from Miss Libbie C. Griffin: the benediction the precious after.meeting, BALASORE, ORISSA, Oct. 23, 1888. when sinners came to the altar and were Gon- THE Missionary Conference held each year at Lucknow, the capital of Onde, India, verted and missionaries and lay Christians began this year Oct. 10 and closed Oct. 14. They are held under tl}e auspices of the came and the Holy Ghost came upon them. M. E. lIfission in India, but attended by many missionaries of other denominations. Christians talked of rest, of complete sur.
Rev. J. H. Schiveley, pa.tor of the :r.r. E. render, and perfect trust. Some said that Church, Lucknow, leader this year, is a henceforth Christ should not only be with real evangelist. Sermons were preached by Rev. Tracy, Pres. of Etoma; Rev. Fore them but in them, taking entire possession, man, Pres. Fatipl'; Rev. Pa.rsons, Wesleyan, Lucknow; and Rev. GrilIln, F. Bap- and others that they believed that Jesus tist, Balasore; and by M. E. missionaries as follows: Dr. Johnson, Lucknow; Rev. would help them hereafter not only to con. Stuntz, Bombay; Rev. McCoy, Calcutta, Editor of the Indian TVitne88; Rev. Mansel, trol their tempers, but to lose them, so that Cawnpore; Rev. Marne, Calcutta; Rev. Hollister. Nagpur; Rev. Hoskins, Shah nothing would anger or irritate. A Church Jehanpur; Dr. Scott, Bareiley; and Rev. Thoburn, Simla. The sermons were strong of England missionary thought that he and spirit»al, aiming to bring sinners to Christ and Christians to an entire conse- should have grace to go home and treat his cration. The presence of such workers of many years as Dr. Scott, Rev. Mansell, Dr. servants better, and a Methodist missionary Waugh, Dr. Johnson, and Dr. Parker, was most helpful. Long may they live to help got back the peace of mind that he had lost not only the heathen. but the young missionaries who need their counsel so much_ in building a church and dealing with the Rev. Forman was doubly welcome because of his work in the home colleges. At the lying, cheating, thieving masons who per. Lucknow Missionary Conference a resolu- tion was passed telling of the tha.nkfulness sisted in putting mud where bricks and of the missionaries for the volunteers and mortar should be. Many missionaries knew from experience the ~emptations and trials of these two men and thanked God for the new-found power which should enable them to work with and for these heathen, so full of dark ways and vain tricks, and not be worried, or wounded, or made to sin by them. Saved to the nttermost even here, soldiers pledged themsehes to be as loyal to their new-found Saviour as to their queen, and men, women and children said. "I have found Jesus and mean to serve Him as long as I livp,." Thf':re was joy among the angels and gladness in our hearts for the wonderful things God did for us -all at Lucknow. And greater joy shall come when the beathen for whom we go now to labor shall yield to our God theirSaviour_ How to Make Missionary Wall Maps and Oharts.
(See MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD for December,p.962.) FIRST secure a carpeted room, sufficiently large for the purpose, and after removing all furni- ture spread on the carpet old uewspapers, lapping – their edges four inches. Upon these lay a sheet of muslin. 2ay 8×12 feet. This musliu is double- width ordinary sheeting muslin, and while the lIIap !s necessarily limited to 8 teet ill width, It can be 89 !nany yards long as is Wished, all in New York City. one piece, no seam.. A CONFEIlENCE ON MISSIONS TO TR!!= JEWs. This piece of muslin tack at the corners and midway of the sides and ends. Then take ~ of THE First lIebrew Christian Church in a pound of white glue and dissolve it in one gal- America, Rev. Jacob Freshman, pastor, lon of boiling water, and with a Jlat three·inch- which worships at 17 St. Mark's PIa."", New wide varnish brnsh apply it rapidly and York, recently entertained a" conference" smoothly to the muslin, and as soon as the mus- of friends of Jewish missions. The conlin is covered quickly untack it and remove the ference was opened with a sermon by Dr. papers that are sticking to its back (the glue hav- lIoward Crosby, from the text, .. Salvation ing goue through the muslin), and then relay it is of the Jews," which he maintained to be on the «arpet (a cushion of air underneath pre- not only an original but a continuing and venting its sticking to the carpet) and retack it, an ultimate fact; the Jews, pervading all taking care to keep the edges parallel with the the populations and speaking freely aU the washboard, the room beinglarge enough to allow languages of the world, are destined, with a passage all around the muslin. Donot stretch their matchless aggressive energy and abil.. it too tight. The sizing will dry in four hours. ity, to become the pre-eminent apostles and Next take a straight·edge as long as the map the predominant agents of the King whom and draw with lead pencil parallel lines for they have hitherto rejected. Among the latitude and longitude, and with these as guides speakers on succeeding days were Drs. Aloutliue the map with a lead pencil. Then color bert Erdman, James Morrow of Philadelthe land portions, etc., using Fletcher & Co.'s phia, JaB. M. King, H. Friedlander of Jeruinks. These come in powder form, in small salem. J. 111. Buckley, Wm. T. Sabine, Geo. packages, 25 cents each, and comprise nine col- Alexander, Henry Wilson, and others. The ors, but by combiuing them a number of addi- audiences usually crowded the little chapel, tional colors can be made. These powders are which accommodates about 200, and manireadily dissolved in water (Yo pint) and can be fested absorbing interest and great earnestkept bottled for an indefinite time. Pour some ness for the restoration of God's not-castof the color out in a saucer and dilute it and ap- away but temporarily blinded people. ply with a fiat bristle brush. Care must be taken not to let it dry on you, and it is best to Perhaps the most striking feature of the put thA color on a light tint and by repeated conference, next to the report of Jewish coats darken it to the right shade. The coloring evangelization in New York and other cities will then look smooth and not smeared. When from this center, was the Rev. Dr. Friedall the coloring is on, then take liquid India ink lander's account of the Jews in Jerusalem (25 cents a bottle), andwith a small ~-in6h rOltna at the present time. They are divided, he sable brush blacken the outlines and lines of said, into three classes: latitude and longitude, and make a wide border for the map. Use the brush as you would a (1) The Spanish-speaking Jews, descendpencil, drawing it toward you and backing ants of ancestors who Were expelled from away. Of course these maps are made on your Spain four centuries ago and took refuge knees. If the India ink is too black or too in Jerusaiem; filled to this day with the thick, dilute a little with water. submissive complaisance which ages of oppression had taught them, together with Next take a lead pencil and outline the letter- the extreme Oriental courtesy which they ing (make it bold), block letters, and then fill in have assimilated from the Turks, and which with India ink. If you choose you can buy two makes them the most agreeable (while yet sizes of stencil letters and outline your letters no less impenetrable) listeners to Christian with them, and then fill in with the India ink argument and the New Testament Scripafterward. The India ink must be the last color- tures. They number '1,000, more or less, or ing on, for it will wash add biur if colored over. about one-third of the JeWish population of Jerusalem. Wheu your map is finished, trim the ends only. Leave the selvage on edges to prevent the (2) German – speaking Jews, who began map from tearing. If you are careful to draw voluntarily to emigrate to Jerusalem from your lines with a straight-edge and parallel and southeastern Europe as missionary pilgrims at right angles to each other, you will have a about fifty years ago on the removal by the pleasing-looking map. If the sizing makes it Turkish Government of the restriction on stiff, fold it up until about two feet sqllare, and Jewish families in Jerusalem to 300; always then roll it. The creases will all come out. You proud and fearless to beJews in their native can thus carry it anywhere, and in use suspend it countries; drawn to Jerusalem by intense trom the two corners and middle of the upper religious zeal, for the purpose of devoting edge. themselves solely to devout exercises, to the exclusion of business, and supported in P. S. In using the Fletcher inks it is best to their austere lives by contributions from keep the maps rolled up, as the colors fade those they had left behind; in these devslightly after long exposure to strong .l!unlight. otees the missionary eocol/nters all the fierce intolerance of militll.nt Judaism, and ~NQTr ~~UAlIE! PA, QLME~CE l/4lIl!;XN. it is even dangerous, Bometimes~ toapproo.ch remaining on bond and mortgage,and some them in the hated name of Jesus; they pur_ $5,000 have also been paid for repairs, al- sue with extreme ardor works of super_ terations, and furnishing, which have COD_ ,erogation to acquire surplus merit before verted the lower part of the house into a God, and make the greatest possible sacri- tastefnl and inviting place of worship, with fices to maintain, as they do, among other reading and prayer-meeting room, the upper things, scores of Hebrew libraries and read- fioors serving as the pastor's residence. The ing rooms in the city, tending and mending property is vested in a board of trnstees, of every book with scrupulous care. which Drs.Crosby, Deems and Vincent,Ralph Wells, Esq., and a number of other well- (3) The latest comers, who in recent years known Christian laymen are members, and have been driven out in utter wretchedness the work enjoys the auspices of an advisory from Russia, Roumelia, etc., and kllew not committee, in which to the above-named where else to go but to the land of their clergymen are added Drs.•T. M. Buckley, fathers, a shipload of them having ev..n Wm. Ormiston, Wm. M. Taylor, Wm. T. been turned back from New York. These Sabine, R. S. MacArthur, and others. people are more accessible from having im- bibed something of the modern spirit, and Mr. and Mrs. Freshman serve unitedly also from the contrast of Christian truth without salary, depending solely by faith and love to the combination of superstitiou on the offerings which individuals may be and cruelty which forms of nominal Chris- moved to make expressly for their support, tianity had presented to them in Europe. the collections and general donations going This last migration Dr. Friedlander was to the payment of ordinary church expenses inclined to regard as a beginning of the and of such assistants and publications as return, analogous, in the poverty and lowli- can be afforded for the almost unlimited de- ness of the exiles, to the earlier period of mands of the work, the expenses of con- the return from Babylon. All these Jews verted Jews preparing for the ministry- speak from three to six languages; but, said of whom there are now ten so engaged or Dr. Friedlander, you need not greatly ad- laboring under Mr. Freshman's direction mire their learning, for they get their six in other cities-and to the bnilding fund. languages in infancy as naturally as they A beautifnl bi-monthly paper, called The learn to sneeze or eough. Hebrew-Christian, is published at the mis- sion, at 50 cents a year. The story of the mission in New York under Mr. Freshman may be summarized Mr. Freshman is a preacher of terse and as follows: Mr. Freshman came here in 1881 thoughtful as well as impassioned eloquence from the Montreal Methodist Conference, and usually gives the Sunday morning to after some years of successful pastoral ser- the presentation of the cause of Israel in vice in Canada; following his conversion other churches to which he is invited, with (with that of his father, a Jewish rabbi of the highest acceptance, whether to cultured Hungary) from Judaism to Christ. Having or uncultnred hearers. In his own church a strong impulse to engage in evangelizing he preaches in English on Sunday evenings, the Jews in New York, he commenced l'ublic and in German on Saturday afternoons to services in the small lecture hall of the full audiences of Jews. The pathos and Cooper Union on the first Snnday in Jan- power of the testimonies heard in these nary, 1882. In two months he was enabled meetins-s from the Jewish converts are to organize a Hebrew-Christian Church such as nothing less than the" great trib- with ten converted Hebrews, the number ulation" through which they enter into the required by Jewish custom for a congrega- kingdom of heaven could elicit. " tion. During the succeeding struggles with poverty the little church was tossed about, WILLIAM C. CONANT. occupying at different times the lecture room of Dr. Howard Crosby's church, of THE following letter from Rev. the Seventh Street Methodist church, and Geo. S. Mott, D. D., will explain itself : again the room in Cooper Union, and one at the corner of Grand and Allen streets, where FLEMINGTON, N. J., Oct. 26, 1888. preaching, Sunday-school and prayer-meet- REV. A. T. PIERSON, D.D.: I am greatly in- ings were conducted in the German lan- terested in the missionary intelligence guage. The church is denominationally which you furnished for The Homiletic Re- Hebrew-Christian and nothing else. view, and now in THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE'VORLD. You have for so long a time At length, in 1885, the buildiug No. 17 St. made this a specialty that you must be famil- Mark's place was purchased for $20,000, by iar with the many sources of information re- the aid of such men as Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, specting the foreign field, and I have go.th- Rev. D. Stuart Dodge, Hon. SamnelMorley ered a large amount of material which prob- of England, and others, who contributed to ably you have not given to the churches. I the initial payment of $5,000. The indebt- take the liberty, therefore, of making this edness has since been reduced to $10,000, suggestion to you: There is very much needed for us pllrstors a. good eyclopredia of foreign missions ual harvest; but as Mr. Grenfell was combrought up to the present time. Probably ing down the river, on his way to England, you have seen "The Cyclopredia of Missions" he met a band of native evangelists going by Newt.omb. This was published in 1834, forth on an evangelistic tour. They had set and this statement shows at once that it out of their own accord, without even th~ does not meet present wants because of the knowledge of the missionary, evidently takmarvelous advance in the work. The defect ing upon thclll8elves the Lord's command to of the work is the details. At the time it go and preach the gospel. They had not only was published these details were perhaps forsaken their own superstitions, but were desirable, but much respecting climate and vigorously seeking to propa.gate their new geography and natul'al history can be ob- faith.-Mi8S. Herald. tained from other sources. But my idea is that the articles "ould be wrought over, and' -George Schmidt. Foremost in the fight that they furnish much valuable material with ignorance and evil in South Africa for a new book. In the early days of my stands the figure of George Schmidt, pre_ pa"torate I often consulted it, and even now pared for the hardships of his missionary it is nsMul as a history of early missionary life by six years of imprisonment for conwork. In my opinion a work of this charac- science' sake in Bohemia. during which his ter would be of vast benefit to the cause of brother in tribulation, Melchior Nitschforeign missions. I believe many pastors mann, died in his arms. Whence came the aTe deterred from presenting foreign mis- zeal whkh moved Schmidt to make his way sion work because they cannot get the ma- alone to South Africa in 1737, and to dwell terial without a qnite laborious search, and among his little colony of Ho'ttentots in they have not the time for that. Bavianskloof, until in 1743 the persecutions of the Dutch settlers and clergy drove him There is another work containing very val- from the country, and their intrigues preuable information-" History of the Propa- vented his return? Whence came the argation of Christianity Among the Heathen," 'dent heart's desire, which led him day hy by Rev. Wm. Brown. This is a history, and day to a quiet spot near his German home, not, therefore, in the serviceable for,n of a and there poured itself out in prayers for cyclopredia. It was pubJished byWm. Black- his orphaned tlock far 'away, until, like wood, London, 1834. It is an extensive trea- Livingstone, he died on his knees pleading tise spread out into three volumes. for Africa.? Such burning Ijve and such persistent prayer are not of man, they are I write to you because I do not know any of God. And though the answer tarried one who can so well perform the task. We long.-yes, fifty years-it came before this have cyclopredias on almost every subject. century commenced. George Schmidt was but not one that has come to my knowledge no longer on earth to hear the reports of adequately meeting the needs of the grand the three men upon whom his mantle fellmovement in foreign missions. how:they found the spot which he had cul- tivated, the ruins of his hut yet visible, the GENERAL INTELUGENCE. whole valley a haunt of wild beasts; and, Africa.-The Congo Tribes. Those who better, ho'Y they found one, surviving become intimately acquainted with' the member of that little congregation of 47 negro race as found in various parts of who had long waited and hoped for the re- Africa bear testimony to its good quali- turn of the beloved teacher. This was an ties. The coast ne"ro who has learned aged blind Hottentot woman, who welcomed some of the vices of civilization is un- them as Schmidt's brothers with" Thanks doubtedly a sorry specimen of human- be to God." and unrolled from two sheepity ; but where native tribes can be found skins her greatest treasure, a Dutch New uncontaminated by contact with foreign- Testament which he had given her. Soon ers. they exhibit sterling qualities. Rev. this so-called Bavianskloof (i.e. Baboon's George Grenfell, who has visited all the Glen) was changed into" The Vale of Grace" tribes along the Congo, says that the negro (in Dutch, Genadendall, and where Schmidt's would stand his ground before the white poor hut stood there is now a. la.rge settleman. "There is a vitality of race and ment, with a congregation of more than power about him that is going to make him 3,000 members. From this center the work take bis place some day among the nations has spread over Cape Colony, and beyond of earth." In support of this opinion, he its borders into independent Kalfraria. gives several incidents showing the vigor Now its two provinces include 16 stations and fidelity of the natives, and especially with their filials, where 60 missionary mentioned an incident which he witnessed agents have charge of 12,800 converts. at Banza Manteka, the station at which the American Baptists have recently received Lib..ria.-On the 22d of November last the so many converts. Three years ago their Secretary of the Manchester Geographical Sociplace was a stronghold of grossest supersti- ety read an interesting paper contributed by the Hon. G. B. Gudgeon, consul-general for Liberia, tions, and there seemed no hope of a spil'it- 1889.] ,CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. 133 in London. It was stated that the famous preach the gospel and couduct mission schools ,negro republic of Liberia was founded by the for from 15 to 45 rupees per month. They have American Colonization Society in 1822. The made this choice· out of love to Christ, whom work of civilizing and Christianizing the inbab- they greatly desire to serve. itants of that almost unknown country was en- tirely carried on for more than twenty years by It is now proposed to enlarge the college, add this society. The missions established along to its staff of professors, and extend its coorse, the coast and at various points inland had de- of study. The additions will include a fnlly veloped iut'? Liberia's prosperous towns and equipped medical department, with ho.pital and settlements. It became an independent state in dispensary. Bursaries will also be founded in 1847. Nearly 2,000,000 sonIs were subject to the aid of poor studeuts professing the Christiau role of the Liberian Republic, consisting of faith. The rising generation demands the about 40,000 freed slaves and their descendants, higher educatiou, aud it Is hoped by this means the remainder belonging to numerous aboriginal to provide it iu connection with Christian pre- tribes. While the state possessed a seaboard cepts, sanctions and influence. There is reason of 500 miles and an interior extending over 200 to believe that J affna College will yet be a great miles, she had acqnired no territory except by blessiu!!; to the Indian Empire. The directors treaty, purcbase, exchange, or barter. 'Bishop have appealed for £30,000. £3,000 ha. already Taylor had described the country as healthy and been subscribed. its climate salubrions and enjoyable, without a plague of flies and with few mosquitoes. Many China.-There is a party of progress in travelers had confirmed the bishop's testimony. China as in Great Britain and Irelaud, and The RepubliC of Liberia stood before the world ma.ny difficulties and discouragements as the realization of the dreams of the founders are enconntered there by those 'who of the American Colonization Society, and in resolutely'· go forward. ' For many years many respects more than the realization. Far a woman has rnled the Chinese. The Re- beyond the recognized limits of the country, gent till some two years ago, and since the and hundreds of miles a way from the coast, the Assistant Ruler, the Empress has been in- efl'ects of American civilization were to be wit- vested with immense power, which she has nessed. Men of color entirely governed the nsed to help rather than hinder the pro- republiC, an< if any proof were wanting of the gressive party. Within her pa.lace grounds, capacity of fteedmen to govern, Liberia was an says the North Ohina ,Herald, there are interestiug illustration. The ability, learning, steam-launches on water and model rail- and skill of many of Liberia's citizens were ways on land, and no doubt in the palace found in their code of laws, which for human· itself there are other products of Western ity, justice, and morality nO other country could civilization. The Empress has not refused excel. The Euglish tongue is spoken through- to listen to the VOIces Which speak to her out the republic.-From our English Oorre- from the West, nor has she shown indiffer- spondent. ence to the suggestions of change coming from the same quarter. It is now an· Ceylon.-Education. An important center nonnced that in the second month of the of Christiau activity in Ceylon is the Jaffna Col- next Chinese year the Empress will retire lege for the training of native helpers, which from office and leave the youug Emperor originated iu a spontaneous effort on the part of to reign alone. He has come to the throue the native Christians in 1867. Abottt £l,~OO at a critical time. The first railway ha.s toward its cost was raised in Ceylon, and £6,000 been opened, and may be followed by the contributed by American friends. Iu 1872 the inroads of the iron horse, with its inevita- college was opened under a board of directors ble following in the overthrow of old cns- securing its undenominational character. Never- toms and the introduction of new condi- theless it is a distiuctly and decidedly Christian tions of social life and trade. We find, too, institutiou, and has from the beginniug been that the Chinese Telegrapil Company is presided over by Rev. Dr. E. P. Bastin!!;s. successful, paying a good dividend in the sixth year of its working. The young Em- There is a flourishing preparatory school. All peror, in a decree, acknowledges with filial students reside on the premises, and are thus gratitude the services rendered by the re- separated from heathen associations and brought tiring Empress during the last thirty yearll. ander Christian influence. Every year there and promises, "with awe and care, to have been conversions, and the majority of those give his whole heart to the mnltitudinons who graduate do so as Christians. There is a affairs of the nation." Should yonng China Y. M. C. A. in connection with the college, and pursue an onward and upward course, being many of the members are good workers in the duly conservative of all that is good in the town aud neighborhood. A goodly number of present, and yet earnestly amending and the graduates have become pastors, catechists, reforming and perfecting the institutions and teachers, not onIy in Ceylon, but also iu of the empire, the future of China is as- India. Some of those who might have been re- sured. For ourselves we look hopefully to ceiving salaries of from 80 to 150 ropees per days to come. There will be disappolat- mouth iu secular employment are content to meuts and reverses. These cannot be avoided in taking new departures. But if penditure in India., and not engaging in righteousness and good will are shown in wars as they have done in the past. relation to foreign countries, and at home proper respect be paid to public opinion, Hawaii.-Since publishing the report on and as much regard to whatever can pro- Polynesian missions we have received a furthel' mote the well-being and prosperity and letter on Ha wail, from the very highest Amer- social happiness of the people, China will ican authority. It confirms aU that is said in maintain her place in the great East and the previous letter, and enlarges on One or two win the confidence and alliance of the more points. ., The American missionaries in Ha- powerful West. waii regard the Anglican mission there as an intrasion, except as a single American Episcopal India.-How the Opium Traffic Arose. Mr. minister might have been serviceable near the David Maclaren, who h"s been identified palace. . . . I am not aware that there are with anti-opium agitations since 1840, gave any Episcopal Hawaiians, save a few, particu- a brief account of the traffic. First of all larly near to royalty, and they have a pretty the East India Company, which was the surry time of it now that the kine; has become Government of India a.t the time, made so utterly degraded. While Queen Emma lived opium from the juice of the popPV. Then they had some show of respectability; she was that company sold opium to China. Thirdly, s gaod· woman. they withdrew from the shipping into China, and left that to private merchants, who .. The alienation of the roysl family from the were imprisoned, with the consequence that ecclesiastical attachments of their country has the Chinese war took place. After that the deprived the latter not only of a valuable ele- introduction of opium was legalized, and ment of moral leadership, but of moral influ- the Chinese began to grow it for themselves. ence. The adoption of Christianity by the king In due course the English Government took and the chiefs had great inlluence on the over the government of India, and now the masses, and led many, douhtless, to a formal largest manufacturer in the world is Queen profession of their faith. Victoria. Then the Chinese began to draw a revenue from opium, not only from that .. There has been developed of late, largely imported, but from that grown in the coun- through the influence of the king, some disposi- try. So the Government which had said it tion to revert to heathenism, not very widely, would never draw a revenue from the misery but in some cireles. The king, as you know, of the people, has been induced to do so. has introduced heathen customs abont his pal- We are responsible In the sight of God for ace, and this tells on the weaker natives."- all these evils. How shall the united influ- Charle,. O. Starbuck. ence of missionary societies and churches be brought to bear? I do not know what Japan.-Japanese Views of Christianity. .we can do. We can say to the Government, Several eminent publicists of Japau are however, when the Chinese treaty expires, carrying on a. very interesting discussion that the Chinese shall be at liberty to do as just now. The object is to determine they wish. The Indian Government are still whether or nat it is adVisable for the the makers and producers of the article. people of Japan to embrace the Christian Samples are brought from China, and ex- religion. The Japan Weekly Mail, in a lmined chemically, in order that the same recent issue, summarizes this discussion. kind may be produced. If we say, .. Give it It states that those connected with the up," then bd.nkruptcy seems to stare the movement say that Christian dogmas are a Indian Government in the face, because of bitter pill to swallOW, but advise that it be the failure of revenue. If the opportnnity swallowed promptly for the sake of the after for repentance is not accepted, surely God effects. Mr. Fukuzawa. a well-known wri- will take the matter into His own hands. ter, urges this course, a'though he says he Tberefore, I think, we must teach the peo- takes no personal interest whatever in re- ple of this country, EO that when God's ligion. and knuws nothing of the teaching judgment falls upon us we may be able to of Christianity; but he sees that it is the recognize it. The country should be warned creed of the most highly civilized nations. that the judgment of God will descend upou Professor Toyama of the Imperial Univer- Us in respect of this. At the same time we sity has published a work to support his must use our endeavors to induce the Gov- view. He holds that Chinese ethics must ernment to stay tbe evil. It is said, .. The be replaced by Christia.n ethics, and that 'government must live." That is what the the benefits to be derived from the intro- poor outcast of the street says. Do we ad- duction of Christianity are (1) the improve- , mit it in her case? Is the argument more ment of music; (2) union of sentiment and valid, then, in the case of a !,overnment? feeling,leading to harmonious co-operation; I do not see the way o.ut of the difficulties and (3) furnishing a medium of intercourse involved in doing right, unless it be by our between men and women. It is argued by government considerably curtailing ex- others that the youth of Japan, being free from the thraldom of~reeds, aud free to act according to reason, are so far in advance of Europeans, and instead of talking about adopting a foreign religion, Japanese should number as representatives to act along go abroad and preach their religion ot with an equal number of represeutatives of the Foreign Mission Committee in the manreason to foreign countries. Other writers agement of the mission. 2. The Foreign urge the same views. The writer in the Mission Committee should be approached at Yokohama newspaper says that those who its meeting on·the 17th inst., and requested urge the teaching of Christianity represent to appoint a sub-committee with powers to an influential section of educated Japanese complete all arrangements as to details opinion: theyare sig-ns of the times. "To wi.th this Committee, so as to secure that Japan, in an emphatically agh~stic mood, the mission may be undertaken by the came Western science, with all its marvel- Guild at asearlya date as possible. 3. That ous revelations and attractions. At the the salary of the Guild missionary be fixed shrine of that science she is worshiping to begin at rs.3500 [equal to about £240 per now." annum at present rate of exchange], which the committee understand is the minimum Moravians.'-Among the marvels ofChris- salary paid to ordained missionaries by t:anity must surely be reckoned the missionary the Foreign Mission Committee, and that work, trom century to centory, of the Moravian the terms of the appointment be otherwise brethren. At their formation they cOjDmenced the same as those in use by the Foreign to send out missionaries when they had only Mission Committee. 4. That the Rev. J. 600 members. They labored for fifteen years in A. Graham, M.A., should be formally ap- Greenland without a convert, and yet in dogged pointed soon, and arrangements ma.de "for f.ith and patience they went forward, and to-day his ordination, so as to allow of his 1I"0ing there is not a professing pagan in the whole out to India in autumn. 5. That the Foreign district which they missioned. Their work Mission Committee shall be responsible for among the Hottentots is of a similar character, seeing that the mission, before being trans… and true to their traditions they are once more ferred to the new management, is in posses.. the pioneers of an apparently impossible mis- sion of suitable buildingsfor carrying on the sion. Four of their uumber are at work right work. 6. As already arranged, the ultimate up on the borders of Thibet, and have estab- control of and responsibility for the manlished three small churches. At one of these agement of the mission shall vest with the churches they have been at work for eighteen Foreign Mission Committee, and the joint years and have made eight converts. Here is a committee elected for its management will chance for doubters like Canon Taylor to connt he in the same position as the corresponding up the cost of each convert. But let Canon Committee of the Universities' Mission. 'laylor wait until the Lord of the harvest has 7. In the mean time, and until such time as brought in the sheaves by and by, and he will the new management can be instituted, the no doubt find that, as in Greenland, so in Thibet, present Guild Mission Committee shall carry the time is coming when" a nation .hall be born out all the necessary arrangements on bein a day." The never-tiring patience of the half of the Guild." Moravian brethren has won many a hard-fought field for Christ.-Bombay Guardian. -Alexander Duff… There was an old man I wanted to see when I first went to Europe ScotIand.-The Church of Scotland in 1867. I was told not to fail to go to Edin- burgh and See Dr. Dull' of the Assembly. I Young Men's Guild held a seventh stayed inEdinburgh a week, to gel; a little of the old man's fire. He pleaded for an honr annual conference of delegates at and a half once for India, and at the end of that time he fainted away. They took him Kircaldy in November last. The at- up and carried him to the vestibule. When he revived, he said, 'I didn't get qaite tendance was large (170). Its prog- through; let me go back and finish,' They said, 'If you go back, it will cost you your ress has been marked. The aim of life.' 'Well,' he said,' 1 shall die if 1 don't.' So they carried him back. As they passed the guild is to keep young men from upthe aisle the people rose, and tears Jlowed falling into temptation. The report down every cbeek at the sight of the old of Mr. M. G. Thorburn upon the veteran. He said to them, 'Fathers and mothers ofScotland, is it true that you have Guild Foreign Mission recommended: got no more sons to give to India? I have spent twenty-five years of my life there, "1. J:c"or the work of organizing in support a.nd I have comeback to die. Thereisplenty of the mission there should be a large and of money in the bank. but your sons are not representative Guild Mission Committee, willing to go. If a call comes from the Queen consisting of, say-1 member elected by each to go there in the army, they are ready. Is Couucil of the Guild,15; 10 members elected it come to this, that the Lord calls for reat the annual Conference, 10; 10 members elected by the Committee of Management, 10–35. The duties oC this committee would be: (1) The advocacy of the mission throughout the Guild and the Church. (2) The completion and working of the organization already instituted in support of the Guild Mission. (3) The election of 12 of their
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT. [F~B
cruit..for His kingdom, and they will notgo l' England to help her to resist what wa.s un- And turning to the moderator he said, • If just and unrighteous in the aggression, and ithere is no one to go to India, I will re- with England's help the Syrian chnrch had turn to them, and will let them know that restored to her those liberties which she there is one old Scotchman that can die was on the point of losing. The Lord had for them if he can't live for them."'-D. L. till this day preserved the faith of the Syri- Moody. an church, which was as strong and stead- fast as ever it was. Those who belonged to Syria.-Ancient Syrian Church. Bishop that church believed in Him in whom they Mar Gregor.ius has been making an earnest were first taught to believe. Manyadvanappeal in England on behalf of the Syrian tages, however, had been in great measure church. His remarks in Arabic were inter- taken from them. Their written books preted by Mrs. Fynn, widow of the late con- were few, and of printed books they had sul in Jerusalem and daughter of the late none. There WOUld have been no schools at Rev. Dr. McCane, prebendary of St, Paul's all but for the help which was given some and professor of Hebrew. The bishop refer- fourteen years ago by the late Archbishop red to the persecution to which the Syrian of Canterbury to the Patriarch, who then church had been subjected from the earli- visited England in company with the bishop. est times, and to the great destruction of Since then the Patriarch had been able to precious mannscripts and printed books. open elementary schools, with such native which had taken place. That persecution, teachers as he could command, to teach he said. had come down the ages, through reading1 writing. and the first doctrines of the Mohammedan occupation of the coun- Christianity to some 2,400 children of Meso- try, and even within the last forty years potamia. On the other side of the Euphra- there had been Christian martyrs among tes, where the bishop is located, no schools his people. Not long ago the Egyptian had yet been established. Educationally, Government tried to annex Syria to Egypt, that part of the country was dry and and along with that there was an attempt parched. He appealed to the people of Eng- to bring the Syrian church into a subordi- land to help him to establish schools and nate position, if not to extinguish it alto- the printing press in Syria, in order that a .gether. This was a cause from which the knowledge of the truth might be spread far Syrian church had often suffered. When and wide among the populatiou.-li'rom our the Egyptian Government made this at- English Oorrespondent. tempt the Turkish Government called upon IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MIS- SIONARY UNION."
The Character of the Chinese. and attach shameto vice. It is often BY REV. J. H. ROBERTS, KALGAN, said that vice iii never deified in CHINA. China. Yet a few such cases have THE character of. a people is of been found. There are gods of cru- chief importance to tl;:le missionary. elty, of revenge, of fornication, and I propose, therefore, to delineate of gambling; but no temples have the character of the Chinese, and I been eI'ected in their honor. In Kal- will first describe gan there is one temple to the god of I. GOOD ELEMENTS. wine. But these exceptions are so The first sentence learned at school few that they only prove the rule.
is, "In the beginning, man's nature If, among myriads of divinities, there is good." While this is false, as ap- are only four or five gods of vice, and plied by the Chinese to the individual, those not regarded with honor nor it is true if applied to the race. Man, much worshiped, and among thou- "made in the image of God," retains, sands of temples there is only one to when fallen, some lineaments of the the god of drunkenness, it is seen divine likeness. More of these traces that in general the Chinese do not of primitive excellence seem to have worship vice. The idols mostly rep- been retained by the Chinese than by resent great and good men of yore, other heathen nations. who are worshiped for their virtues 1. The first good element of their displayed when they wet'e on earth.
character is that they honor virtue '1'he ancient empet'ors, Yaoand Shun, who lived soon after the deluge, were hundred feet high. Her mother did' patterns of virtue, and are still re- recover, and she fulfilled her vow; garded with reverenee by all the and now her image is carved on the nation. The Emperor K'ang Hsi, face of that cliff, and is worshiped who. died in the year of our Lord with divine honors. She thought 1721, is to this day loved and honored she was saving her mother's life., not chiefly for his success as a war- While her zeal was misdirected, was rior, but for his justice and sincere not her motive most noble? Reverlove for the people. He often jour- ence for parents is a root from which neyed through the country in dis- many other virtues may grow. It guise, to learn whether the govern- hallows the family, it honors marors and judges were doing their duty, riage, it encourages economy and and to see what could be done to ben- temperance, and it prepares the mind efit his subjects. Once, on sll;ch a to reverence a Father in heaven. journey, when in Mongolia, his presence became known, and an attempt S. A third good element of their was made to assassinate him. character is subordination. They know how to obey. As children they A servant offered to exchange ob~y their parents, not merely till clothes with him, and was killed in they themselves become ofage,but as his stead, while the Emperor escaped long as the parents live. Theyounger to Kalgan. For this devotion the brother obeys his older brother, and servant was deified, and is now wor- never expects to be on a strict equalshiped as the tutelary divinity of ity with him. The people obey the the (Upper City of Kalgan. Other Emperor as the vicegerent of heaven, instances of servants dying to save the embodiment of justice, and the their masters might be mentioned. compassionate father of them all. The virtues of self-sacrifice, brother· Disobedience to his commands is ly love, and chastity, exhibited by often punished with death, or with the few, are admired by all the !la- death preceded by tot'tme. While this tion. Memorial tablets and arches leads to cruelty on the part of the are erected in honor of heroic men, magistrates, it enforces obedience on – vil·tuous women, and filial children. the part of the people; and the latter The way the peopJe cherish the believe not merely that the rulers memories of such persons shows that have power and must be feared, but' there are some good feelings in their that they have the right to rule and hearts. ought to be reverenced. So a law- abiding spirit is a common virtue 2. A second good element of their among them. Socialism and anarchy character is that they honor their never enter into their thoughts. parents. Filial piety is the chief When mobs and riots occur, as they part of their religion. In infancy sometimes do in China, it is always they are taught to worship their par- with the connivance of the magisents; when older they serve them trates, never in violation of their devotedly; and when the parents are commands. The people feel that to dead they offer sacrifices annually at violate the law would make them their graves. Some have been known become rebels and traitors. The law to lay down their lives for their par- was published once for all, at the beents. A hundred years ago in a vil- ginning of the present dynasty, 244 lage among the mountains east of years ago, and as it is never altered, Kalgan a girl was in grief because it is honored as the expression of her mother was dangerously sick. absolute right. What the people She vowed that if her mother might lack in independence and liberty is only recover she would sacrifice her- balanced by their gain in hearty self by leaping from a precipice two allegiance to their rulers, and in makes them willing listeners to our unquestioning submission to the law. preaching. They have a great affec- Their love for their country is in- tion for birds and flowers, which tense, and is the source of their hos- shows a kindly disposition in their tility to foreigners. But their patriot- hearts. They are very industrious. ism does not lead them to try to direct They are always at work, and are the affairs of the government, but sure to havp. a gl'eater influence in only to submit to its control and to the world than an ease-loving peoobey its commands. This obedience ple would. They have a lively coninclines them to be peaceable, patient, science and a ch'ar knowledge of right and contanted, and to obey the law of and wrong. In every quarrel some God, when they learn what that law peacemaker will come forward, who is. will appeal to the innate sense of justice in both parties. Anyone who 4. A fourth good element of their will not listen to such appeals is recharacter is the feeling of personal garded as a bmte. Again, they have responsibility for their actions. This a gl'eat longing for immortality. feeling is stronger in China than in Some of them eat pills to ward off America. If it is proved 'that a death and make themselves immorcriminal did not know the law, he is tal in this world, and others perfoI'm considered less guilty; but no plea acts of penance in order to obtain would be made of hereditary predis- happiness in the world to come. di~position to cOInmit crime; and an Their actions show a human nature insane person, if harmful to others, like ou!· own. Their pain and sufferwould be punished the same as other ings, their bereavements and afflicmen. The feeling of responsibility tions, are as real and as sad as any pervades all classes and affects all which we have to endure, but are a the affairs of daily life. If you sus- thousand times more pitiful because pect that a man wants to steal your they have no comfort and no hope. goods, put them in his care and they will be safe. He can be held respon- 5. I will mention one more good sible for anytlung that has been com- trait of their character, and that is mitted to him fOl' safe keeping. The that they have a worshipful spirit magistrates are considered respon- toward anythin/r that seems worthy sible for all public calamities. They of di vine honors. This leads them blame themselves if there is drought, to worship many idols, many objects or famine, or inundation, regarding of nature, and the good and gt'eat men it as a sign of the displeasure of Hea- of the past. But the worshipful ven on account of their sins. While sentiment is good in .itself, and exthe idea of responsibility is carried tremely valuable in relation to our too far, its result is good. The missionary work. The Chinese are Chiuese expect to see virtue reward- often said to be materialists and atheed and wrong-doing punished, both ists, but they are utterly unlike the in this life and in the life to come. perfected atheists of Western lands. They want to worship some divine It would be easy to enlarge on their being, only they do not know whom politeness, which, with all its abuses to worship. They believe that there through hypocrisy, is a form of good- must be a deity to worship, 01' else ness, and enables them to appreciate, there would be no impulse to woras a savage nation could not, the ship; and they know that a divine gentler Christian virttws, such as being is as necessary to the human meekness, patience, condescension. heart as light is to the eye, or food to and humility. They are an affable the hungry mouth. So their spil'it people. They enjoy being talked to of adoration and of trust in a divine on any subject whatever, and this being is very strong, but it finds tory, an extensive and beautiful litamong the gods of China no object erature, and polite manners. Being worthy of exclusive worship. Now ignorant of the greater civilization let the infinite power and wisdom of Europe and America, they natuand love of God be made known, and rally became self-conceited. They the worship which has been divided know that foreigners have greater between many false gods may be unit- mechanical skill than they, but beedly given to him. It is a naturalJine lieve that they are our superiors in of thought to their minds, when they morals and religion. They despise grasp the idea of the creation of the us on account of our short, tight-fitworld, that the God who could make ting clothes, which are as ridiculous the heavens and the eal"th is so far to the Orientals as their long flowing superior to the false gods as to be garments are to us. They despise alone worthy of praise. Many will us for using a knife at the table, confess the greatness and goodness which they regard as a sign of barof God who are hindered by fear of barism. They despise us for our lack persecution from becoming' Chris- of reverence for Confucius, and fOI' tians; and all the people will admit, our attempt to teach them not to at least in theory, that religion is of worship their ancestors. The wicked the utmost importance, and that the conduct of foreign sailors and mersalvation of their souls ought to be chants in China has sometimes the chief object of their lives. brought disgrace upon aU foreigners, and upon the Christian religion. All GOOD TRA.ITS ILLUSTRA.TED. foreigners are hated and feared, as enemies and kidnappers. The Port- The good traits of the Chinese are uguese traders at Macao, near Canillustrated in their treatment of for- ton, enticed the natives on board eigners who reside among them. their ships and sailed away with Theil' feeling of superiority to for- them. American and English ships, eigners was natural in the circum- as well as those of other nastances. For thousands of years tions, were used for this purpose. they have shown themselves supe- In 25 years, ending in 1875, those rior, in arts, in etiquette, in litera- traders stole and sold into slavery ture, in war, and in the science of five hundred thousand coolies. government, to all the nations with whom they came in contact. The The hatred of foreigners was in- Koreans, Mongols, Thibetans, the creased by their connection with opiaborigines of China, and the people um. The Chinese had a prohibitory of Anam, have confessed their inferi- law, and supposed that they had a ority by sending tribute to China. right to keep that poisonous drug out When new races from the distant of their land. They captured over lands of Europe, with light hair and twenty thousand chests of opium, blue eyes and a strange language, worth six million dollars, which the came to China with gifts for the Em- English, in violation of the law, had peror, it was natural that they brought to Canton; and they dug should be regarded as representa- trenches by the seashore and detives of barbarous tribes seeking the stroyed the opium, by mixing it favor and protection of the" Son of with lime and salt water. It was an Heaven." This title is applied to the outburst of indignation against a Emperor, and" all under heaven" is great wrong, like the Boston Tea one name of his realm. A civilized Party, just before the Revolutionnation in the midst of ruder ones ary War. But the British bayonets has reason for self-gratulation. The in 1842 compelled the Chinese to Chinese are a vigorous race, with a permit the trade in opium, and to large and fertile country, a great hisrefund the value of the opium which BEARING ON MISSIONS. they had spoiled! To this day the English Government has been rais- The good elements of Chinese char- ing opium in India and sending it acter and the generally kind treat- to China! No wond,er that the Chi- ment which foreigners have received nese have hated foreigners I If you are of great importance in their bear- or I were in their place we should ing on the future ot missions. They feel as they do. A foreigner can strengthen our hope of the salvation hardly ever go out on the streets of that great empire. It is evident without being reviled as "a foreign that there is a sturdy race, with devil," and the native Christians are many noble haits, in some respects called "slaves of devils," but the peculiarly prepared to receive and term denotes fear of foreigners as believe the word of the Lord. The much as hatred, and is a sign of op- Chinese are a grand material of position to us coHectively and on which to make Christians. Their / political grounds, but not individu- conservativeness, though now a hin- ally, nor because of our religion. In drance, will lead to a thoroughly 1860 the French and English soldiers reasonable faith and to a firm adher- scared the Emperor out of China ence to the truth. Apart from all propel', burned his summer palace conliiderations of the worth of the near Peking,and forced open the gates soul, are not these people, when of Peking by threats of bombard- compared with other heathen, well ment, and it would be strange if worth saving? And is it not evident such a war had left no bitterness that the consecrated money and the in the minds of the defeated peo- lifelong labors of the missionaries. ple. given for their conversion to Christ, will not be spent in vain? The war in 1884 was considered by most of the foreigners in China as un- II. BAD TRAITS. just on the part of the French. Yet, while the war was being waged, at a Secondly, let us consider their time when no Frenchman had a character as depraved and degraded right to expect safety in China, the by their sins. Let no one think from Roman Catholic priests and other what has been said that so good a peaceful Frenchmen residing in ev- nation needs nothing more. There ery part of the land were protected is another side of the subject-a sad from violence by a special decree of and painful one-and the facts may the Emperor. Other instances might well call out all our sympathy. The be given of kindness shown to for- last words of Confucius were: "The eigners. The Chinese idea is that great mountain is broken! The foreigners in their country are their strong beam is thrown down! "The guests, and ought to be welcomed wise man is decayed!" These words and cared for with the utmGst of truly symbolize the ruined condition hospitality. "When foreigners suffer of China. If you scan the faces of from a Chinese mob, it is generally the people you will see an expres- the result of their own imprudent sion of moral degradation. Tbere conduct; 'but the government is are no radiant faces except those of ready to pay the damages and pun- the little children. Vice among the ish the offenders. If a foreigner boys, and pain, from their bound should be murdered in China, the feet, among the girls, make the feat- criminal would pay the death pen- ures wrinkled and sour at the age of alty. Would that a Chinaman's from eight to twelve years. With death from violence in America all their pure ideals and lofty aspira- were equally sure of being avenged! tions and clear knowledge of their duty, they live very wicked lives. As soon as a child learns to speak it learns to revile, to deceive, and to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But lie. The impulses in us to do the those who become well acquainted same are checked through the wise with us do trust us, and the people training given us by our Christian as a whole are learning to trust forparents, but there is no moral gov- eigners where they would not trust ernment in the family of the average their own countrymen. The impe- Chinaman except that of caprice and rial custom-houses, along the coast, passion. The adults often bring upon are in the charge of foreigners, who, themselves severe diseases merely by unlike their Chinese predecessors in fits of uncontrollable rage. They office, collect the taxes without stealmake little 01' no effort to subdue ingthem. their own tempers, and bow can they teach the children to control theirs? The skill of the Chinese in cheating is well known, and exhibits at once Theil' character is thol'Oughly theirintelligence and their depravity. insincere; This is a fruit of Con- Chinese workmen need to be watched fucianism. Confucius deliberately as much as any in the world. Every told a lie; and a motto of his dis- shop or store has two sets of weights ciples is that" a lie is the excellent and measures, one for buying and subterfuge of a perfect gentleman!" the other for selling. The houses The result of such teaching is a na- are surrounded with walls instead tion of liars. Theil' heart and theilT of fences, to keep off the thieves, tongue are utterly false. Only a few but the thieves will come through questions are replied to truthfully, the gate unless it is constantly such as asking which road you should watched. If you hire a man to take, but if you do not ask with all watch your gate he will lay a tax on the forms of Chinese polite~ess, you everything that comes through your will be answered with a lie. From gate. If you hire a cook he will lay being insincere they have naturally a tax on everything which comes become suspicious of each other; into your kitchen. As it is impolland experience in dealing with them sible to avoid being cheated, each deepens one's conviction that their man tries to cheat others the more, suspicions of each other are well to make up for his own losses. They founded. Supposing the mission- are willing to be deceived, if thereby aries to be like themselves, they at- they may learn how to deceive othtribuM an evil motive to everything ers. One man asked me to sell him we do. We cannot take a walk for some eye-salve-he was sure that I exercise, nor pick up a pebble to look had it-an ointment which would at it, without being suspected of make the eyes lustt·ous and which, if searching for their hidden treasures rubbed on the skin, would remove 01' of stealing away their good luck. every wart, or sore, 01' ft'eckle, or It has been commonly reported and other dEifect. He expected that I believed in China that foreign resi- would sell him some soap, 01' somedents dig out children's eyes to make thing like it, and was willing to pay medicine of them! and a cellar under a good priceforit, expecting to more the foreigner's house is believed to than regain his money by palming conceal human skeletons ! One cannot off the same fraud upon others. A ignore such suspicions on the part of great amount of petty thieving is his parishioners. To deny the crimes done. You can see the rascals steal-· imputed to us would be useless. So ing on the pJrblic streets in the day- we take our visitors down-stairs and time. The thieves are in Jeague show them the cellar. It is a great with the police, and pay them a trial that they cannot trust us. We share of the spoils for the privilege want thelli to trust us, so that they of pursuing their calling u~molested.
will believe .out' message !J.nd have .A bo1<'t man will punish the t4ief by beating him, and a wealthy man can which he treats. It represents one have the thief arrested,bambooed, family in poverty and wretchedness and even tortured to make him con- as the result of using the ordinary fess and restore the pl'operty. An native liquor called" sake." In con- honest person, if falsely accused, trast with this is another family would be tortured in the same way. where temperance prevails, and they Wine-drinking and gambling are al- are enjoying every comfort.
most universal. The best of the One of these tracts came into the Chinese feel free to gamble during possession of a wealthy and influen- the first five days of the New Year. tial man named Nakayama, living in A man who earns eight cents a day the town of Fujioka, in the province will eat four cents' worth of fooct of Joshiu. He was much addicted to and dt'ink two cents' worth of wine, the use of "sake," and was, in fact, leaving only two cents 10 feed and a real drunkard. When under the clothe his numerous family and to influence of liquor he was very cross clothe himself. Drunkenness is not to his family, and it quite destroyed often seen, but is the source of a the peace and comfort of his home.
great deal of crime. All forms of The reading of the tract made a deep vice are extremely prevalent, espe- impression upon his mind, and he cially in the citIes, but also in the resolved to reform. The result was villages. It is surprising to find, in such a happy change in himself and the midst of such general wicked- in the condition of those around him ness, some places of the utmost de- that he wrote to Mr. Tsuda to express pravity, so vile and so violent as to his obligations for what he had make the other places seem virtuous learned, and to tell of the great ben~fit by contrast. One such notoriously that had accrued to himself and his bad place is Ni Chiianz, which ffieans family by abstaining from the U!';e of ]',fud Springs. A man went from intoxicating liquor. Mr. Tsuda wrote there to Kuan Ch'ang to see what he to him in reply that unless he believ- could steal. He stole a leg of mut- ed in the God who made and keeps ton from a poor shepherd in a neigh- us all, and trusted in Him for boring village. The latter found the . strength, he might not beable to re- mutton at the thief's house, and sist the cravings of his depraved merely asked whence he had got it. appetite, and continue as he had For this insult the thief beat him till begun. Mr. Tsuda also told him he was almost dead, and fined him about Christianity, and urged him to to the amount of twenty-six pounds accept its teachings.
of mutton, to be divided between After some months Mr. Tsuda went two temples, as an acknowledgment to Fujioka on business, and called of error in even suspecting the thief. upon Mr. Nakayama, who received This villain is the next-door neigh- him very cordially. Then Mr. Tsuda bor of one of our Christian families, told him more particularly about the ana persecution by such men is truly true God, and Christ the {)Illy Saviour to be dreaded. from the guilt and power of sin. Mr.
[Concluded in next iB8U8.] Nakayama is a man of good eciluca- Incidents of the Work in Japan. tion and intellectual abilities, and BY A RESIDENT MISSIONARY. quite readily understood and fully A JAPANESE Christian, named accepted all that he heard.
Tsuda Sen, has written a tract From that time he began to attend against the use of strong drink, the Christian services, together with which is having a considerable circu- his family; and his faith and love • lation and influence. On the title- have been (ncreasing ever since. page is a picture illustrating (in the Such has been the influence of the style of the Japanese) the evils of gospel upon his heart that he has become, in tt'uth, a new creature, and is attached to the parents on account the cHange is apparent to all. As an of such sinful and cruel practices. It illustl'ation of the power of religion was formerly sanctioned by the Gov- in his daily life, his wife had been ernment, and even while the laws somewhat careless about a quantity have been modified the public senti- of silkworm eggs, and they were ment is so corrupt and the morals of partially destroyed. The loss invol v- the people so utterly vile that but ed was a considerable sum, and she little change has probably been ef- tl'embled in fear that he would become fected. The life of such poor girls violently enraged, as was common is often one of untold bitterness.
heretofol'e, and would punish her Many are the cases in Tokyo where severely. But to hel' gl'eat astonish- they have become desperate and ment, wilen lie found out what had gone and thrown themselves into happened he remained perfectlycalm, the river in order to get" anywhere, and did not reproach her at all. anywhere, out of the world."
After a little thought he said, " We One of the great and blessed results can distribute them among our poor of Christianity is the elevation of the and unrortunate neighbors, and so morals and the creation of a better they can secure a larger Cl'op the public sentiment in regard to the coming season. Thus it will perhaps treatment of women. The result of be bcttel' than if we had sold them Buddhistic teachings makes wom!l,n and taken all the money otm;elves."· a mere appendage to man, and her This conduct on the part of her . only use to minister to his comforts.
husband so astonished and impressed Some years ago a bright and pretty his wife that she said, "This mnst be girl, who had become a Christian due to the power of this Chl'istian and was attending one of the mission relig'ion and the help of God. If this schools, was informed that her par- is the resnit of Cl1l'istianity, then I ents were unable to met all their want to become a Christian also." pecuniary oblig-ations and she had From that time she became an ear- been sold in order to satisfy their nest seeker after the blessing of God's creditors. She was very happy in the saving- presence, and now she and all school, and the tidings was to her the family are rejoicing in a Chris. like the sentence of death. Such tian's hope and a Christian's peace. were the customs of her people that The geeat change for the better she felt there was no hope. But that has come to Mr. Nakayama's when her teacher, Mrs. John Bal- home has been seen and felt by his lagh, heard what had happened she neighbors. In this way many have went to the girl's home, and found been led to a conviction of the bene- her there in a state of most perfect fits that result feom following the wretchedness. Mrs. Ballagh em- teachings of Christ, and have thus ployed every means that she could become. seekers after the same bles- to get the girl released, but no argu- sing. Some time ago one of the mis- ments or entreaties would move the sionaries visited that town, and found heaets of the cruel creditors; and, in ten persons who were awaiting bap- fact, the parents looked upon it as tism. A good Christian church is an act of filial piety on the part of a now growing np in that place. daughter to thus sacrifice heeself for One of the worst things that is met theil' benefit. Mrs. Ballagh tried to with in this heathen land is the sell- move the hearts of the parents with .ing of their daughters by the parents pity for the poor and helpless chiltl; to lives of sin and shame. It is a she told them of the great sin which.
custom that has been long established they were committing against God, and is so common that it is done,with- and ihatsuch acts would surely briug OJl.t !Shame, and no lll,rti<mla.r disgrace His jJl.dgment upon them~ but it wa.s
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. [FEB
all in vain. The reply was simply; one to procure her release. One day she happened to hear the preaching "It has been done, and there is no of the gospel and was convinced of her sin and need. She was also truly help for it." penitent, but was in great trouble, as she saw no way to escape from her Mrs. Ballagh then turned to the present sinful and sad condition. Her only way to get free was to pay girl, who sat weeping, andsMd, "Fol- the price for which she had been sold, and f01' some time she remained as low me." Both then rose and passed she was, but in great sorrow and try- ing to devise some means to escape. out of the room and into the street, At last she resolved to sell all she had, even her clothing, and thus purand thence to Mrs. Ballagh's home. chase her release. When she was set free she came to the preacher There followed a demand that the and announced her faith in God and her purpose to do His will. AHer she girl should be given up, but Mrs. had given satisfactory evide)1ce of her change of heart she was re- B:tllagh refused to do so. It was ceived into the church and is now a consistent and happy follower of finally arranged that Mrs. Ballagh Christ.
should pay the sum of $20 and the girl would be released. .
The girl then resumed her studies at the school, and at the completion of her course was married to one of the native officials. She has now a pleasant home and continues a faith- ful member of the church.
In one of the recent papers is an account of a pOOl' girl who had been sold in a similar manner and had no V ..-.:.THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY A. T. PIERSO:-r, D.D.
CHINA. The grand difficulty lies in the "tones." The language has "only SOME instructive and suggestive some four hundred and odd distinct facts and thoughts are all we have sounds" wi th which to express "ten space for. In the February issue of thousand words," and many of these 1888 the vastness of the Middle words are homophonous, although, Kingdom, the peculiarities ofChinese "by an ingenious system of infleclife and the religions of the empire tions of the voice, the number of were referred to at some length. separate sounds-to a Chinese ear, at We add here some matter of general least-is more than trebled. These interest and importance. The area inflections are the tones. In Peking of China is only one-third that of the there are only four of them, but in United States, yet China's popula- the south those who are knowing in tion is six times as large. The Uni- such matters declare there are twelve ted States if as thickly populated as or more. II' W here the sense of words China would contain over a thousand depends on nice distinctions in the million of people, or more than t wo- tflne of the voice, the opportunities thirds as many as now live on the for blunders become countless and earth. boundless. As instances of the mis- takes to ~hich foreigners are con- Language. Here missionaries con-. stantly liable, we may mention a front one of the mountain obstacles few cases. A man wishing to tell of which not even faith removes, a mountain two hundred" Ii" in without hard study, as we have height, used the expression "erh already shown in the article on the pai Ii," instead of "e·:jl pat Ii," ., Miracles of Missions," in this number. and by so doing gave the man to , Let his words be sincere and truthunderstand that the mountain was ful, and his actions honorable and ()f the height of two wMte pears! carefu!.' Such conduct maybe prac- Aga.in, Miss Gordon-Cumming tells, ticed even among the rude tribes of the south or north. When he is ain her charming book on China, of standing, let him see these two rules man, a resident minister, who told as it were fronting him. When he his steward to buy 400 poundsofMon- is in his carriage. let him see them at: golian potatoes, and the astonished tached to the yoke, then he may be steward brought him 400 pounds of able to carry them into practice." (b) eels. A lady ordered a pair of ducks, "The course of the mean cannot be roasted and served with gravy-sauce, attained to." (c) "To take example and her butler remonstrated that from others, to practice virtue is to they would not be eatable. She im- hold them in the same practice; patiently told him to do as he was therefol'e, there is no attribute of the told, and next day her guests saw a superior man gTeater than his helppair of her best gaiter-boots served ing men to practice virtue." (d) Subup for game, nicely roasted and ject for verse competition: " The moistened with gravy! You salute early morni~g red is harbinger of a man" My friend," and find you rain." Itmay be admitted at once have said" You fool," or address that these subjects are stiff, and we him as "My lord," and are cha- should especially like to see what a grined to discover you have accosted body of English competitors would him as "My pig." make of "The course of the mean cannot be attained to." The idea, Dr. MacKay of Formosa tells us too, of the two rules attached to the that the syllable to, in Chinese, has yoke of a carriage would form a eight different tones, while each tone puzzler to the majority of English has a different meaning. This is a boys. fair example of the many obstacles to be me,t with in this.extraordinary ,Filial Reverence in China. A mislanguage, that seems devised by the sionary of the China Inland Misdevil to keep missionaries out of sion tells an interesting stol'y of a China. mandarin who gave an entertain- ment a.nd presented a large testimo- Education and Competitive Ex- nial to the Christian hospital out of ammations. There are 10,000 cells gratitude for medical services renfor examination of candidates. The dered to his aged father. The son leader of the successfullistis led about was absent on duty and the father as Mordecai was by Haman. His was relieved from a sickness which name is graven on stone in the tem- was supposed to be fatal. His gratiple of Confucius, with all other suc- tude was 'boundless, and the memocessful candidates. rial tablet on which were inscl'ibed the thanks of the donor was eight Students preparing for competitive feet by four in size, suspended from a examinations may like to know the bamboo pole, carried by two men sort of questions with which the and preceded by a band of musicians. Chinese student, under similar cir- As theyapprolched the house large cumstances, has to grapple. The bunches of firecrackers were fired, Imperial Gazette is good enough to and the tablet was presented with publish the subjects for three prose very polite words. The most striking essays and a verse competition, set incident connected with this story is in the examinations for the degree that while the old gentleman was at of Metropolitan Graduate: (a) "Tru- the worst, a.nd when it was supposed Chang, being asked how a man should conduct himself so as to be everywhere appreciated, replied: that he could not recover, the wife of to the dead they are always written the absent son, acting in the place of and' fastenecl. upon the hands of the her husband, performed an act which paper men.
was supposed to propitiate Heaven Habits of the Chinese. Accord- and to secure the restoration of her ing to our notIOns of living, they father-in-law. With her own hand live on a starvation basis. Ex-SeCl'e- she cut a piece of flesh from her tary Holqomb of the American lega- own arm and had it cooked and ad- tion at Peking is authority for the ministered to her father-in-law that statement that in that vast empire he might recover. That such a thing 300,000,000 out of 403,000,000 of its in- is possible in these days, and that it habitants expend for food less than was done in the sight of mission $1.50 per month. This seems incredi- premises and by an educated and ble. These people appear to know prominent family, gives striking tes- how to make their mites go farther tinlOny to the df>pth of superstition than perhaps any other people upon in heathendom as well as to the sen- the face of the earth, timent of ~lial piety which exists Boots are an object of honor, es- among the Chinese. pecially if they have been worn by Ohinese Graveyard Customs. The an upright magistrate. When a Chinese in this country adhel'e tena- judge of unusual integrity vacates ciously to their old country customs. his office, crowds accompany lJim to To provide food for the dead, and the city gates, and his boots, dra'Yn servants to wait on them, is too fool- off with great ceremony, are enshrin- ish for any portion of the human ed in the hall of justice. A new pair race. But lately the time came for is put on and drawn off, five minutes this custom to be obsel'ved, and the on his feet being sufficient to conse- Herald says that every Chinese crate them!
grave in Woodlawn and Greenwood Chinese Religions. The most cemeteries has been decorated with leamed writer on Chinese literature incense paper, joss sticks, roasted holds the God of China to be our God, pigs, and othel' articles. At one of and as he ascended the "altar of the graves was laid a whole pig, heaven," he took off his shoes I But roasted beautifully brown and nicely if so theoretically, it is 'not so prac- spiced, the odor of which, when car- tically. ried past the Cl'owd that wereJooking Confucianism is really not a re1igio~ on, was so aromatic that it made at all, yet it is practically the relig- them hungry. The whole pig thus ion of China. Confucius was a Chi- roasted was a little over two hundred nese philosopher, who taught that pounds. After an hour's exposure man's duties al'e summed up in five before the spirits of the dead it was relations-that of king and subject, brought home in the evening. It parent and child, husband and wife, was cut up into three-pound slices {'IdeI' and younger brother, and that and sent around to the different of friend to friend. It does not shops on Matt street and eaten up. recognize the relati~n of man to The most peculiar of all the ceremo- God. Whoever cares to study this nies of the week was the sending of whole subject will find Rev. B. C.
servants to the dead. This is done Henry's book on " The Cross and the by making paper men and w~men, Dragon" one of the most fascinating which in the midst of the sacrifices and instructive volumes in,the whole are burned, the bystanders saying, range of missionary literature. It "Here are the servants who will , is published by Randolph & Co. So wait upon thee." If there are any also would we recommend Rev. H: important messages to be conveyed C. DuBose's volume on "The Dragon Image and Demon, or Th.e Three pl·esented four images, correspond- Religions of China," published by A. C. Armstrong & Son. The chapter ing to the four cardinal virtues-pion Confucianism is especialJy analytical and clear, and we have from it ety, morality, equity, wisdom, thus: I the best conception we ever had of the character and influence of this —, – -, —, – _. ethical system. From a double combination they The higher classes either embrace the doctrines of Confucius or of get eight signs, which respectively Lao-tse(orLau-Kiun), a philosopher. Both deny divine revelation, are little represent heaven, moisture, fire, winds, ,water, mountains, thunder, and earth, thus: – – -===-==-==, — —- ~. ~, =-=—-::::::::::=.=::::::= . Confuci~s arrang;d these i~~rcle; CJ ,CJ A HIDEOUS DOD IMAGE OCCUPIES ODD THIS CENTRAL CIRCLE.
CJ c::J more than systems of ethics clothed and this is held to be a complete dein a fantastical symbolism. Thus scription of the universe; and, corre- Confucius teaches that from the sponding with mental and moral original substance (Tai-ki) two prin- properties, he constructs his ethical ciples emanate: YANG, perfection, system! The whole thing strikes the the celestial, light and caloric, the Occidental mind as mere child's play, masculine principle symbolized by toying with blocks and making new the longer line – – – ; and YIN, i~ combinations out of one long and two perfection, the terrestrial, darkness short blocks. and cold, the feminine principle, representea by the divided line – -. By Hence comes one of the most curicombining these symbols, there are ous features of ConIucianism, the Ohinese Philosophical Ohart. We give a sort of diagram of this really bor a humble hut to live in ! While remarkable relic of the religion of a we are pla.ying at missions, here is a grea.t people. large and consecrated body of liIative evangelists being raised up from the Round this, rudely radiating in poor native converts of China, the eight directions, are the aforesaid house of a devoted millsionary their eight combinations of heavy dark thQological seminary, and their field lines or ba.rs, the difference being in the province of Shantung-with half the arrangement of the longer and as large a popula.tion as the United shorter ones. States-and their "wages" fifty to sixty dollars a year! A "Christian Mission Institution for Horne and Abroad" was estab- Tht' Medical Missions are very uselished Dec. 25, 1879, and is therefore ful, but have some curio;1s, experinowin its tenth year. The founder is ences. One day there came into the Pastor Samuel T. Davis, M.D., Den- dispensary a young man of twenty, ver, Col. It is a faith work, and one with a large wound, evidently cut or of its four departments is Foreign dug out with a dull instrument. His Missions. Itsupports native preach- father had been ill with dropsy, and ers in China, who at a very small the relatives decided that tile son cost preach to their kinsmen acc.rd- must. sacrifice himself to save his ing to the flesh. They are trained father's life. A piece of flesh was to preach, teach, and labor, under cut out of his left arm and cooked the direction of Rev. Dr. Hunter Cor- and given to the patient as the infalbett of Chefoo. For this life work lible remedy. Nevertheless the pagiven to winning souls they get only tient died. The relatives decided food and clothing, and travel in the that the lad must be lacking in puri- Shantung province with its 35,000,- ty of motive and filial piety. And so 000 souls. We know of no work the poO"r boy had not only to grieve more apostolic in plan and conduct for his father's death and a bad arm, on the fa.ce of the ea.rth. They but had to bear the reproach of unpreach in villages, by the wayside, cles and cousins. on streets, wherever they can get hearers; they guide inquirers, open In a temple outside of Peking is a I'Ichools, and do any work for which brass mule of life size, supposed to they are deemed capable. Dr. Cor- have wonderful healing properties bett furnishes annual reports of this for patient~ suffering fl'om every imwork. In 1887–88 twelve were sup- aginable disease. They first rub the ported by this "institution." The particular part of the brass mule cor- Lord's blessing attends their work in responding to the painful regioD. of a. remarkable manner. In one year, their own bodies, and then with the 1884, Dr. Corbett by this method same hand rub their own disabled gathered in, after careful examina- member, and the pain is expected to tion, 348 converts; while Dr. Nevius, go. Is your tooth aching? Just pursuing similar plans, gathered 260, scrub the mule's teeth, and afterthese two men together in one year ward your own, and the cure is coml'eceiving 608 new disciples. The plete. Have you an ulcer of the corself-denial of these poor natives-who nea.? Pass the tips of your fingers to are no sooner brought to Christ than and fro over the particular eyeball of they become evangelists to their fel- the mule, and then with well-regulow-Chinese-is something marvel- lated pressure rub repeatedly the ous. They live on about four or five dollars a month. One of them gave affiicted eye. True, the eyeballs ot his own house and, lot for a church and school, and then hired of a neigh- the mule hl,ve been gradually worn away by constant frictign, until now only the empty orbits are left; but the success is guara.nteed to be as 'verts come pri~cipally from the real as form~rly. The temple is cov- lower classes; we have never known ered with laudatory tablets in honor of a mandarin becoming a Christian, of the mule, which is patched in all who was in office at the time of his directions with fresh pieces of brass, conversion. Literary men areeeidom put on to cover holes produced by con- found among church members; but a stantrubbing; andanewmulestands very few Buddhist and Tauist pri,sts awaiting the day when the old one have been led to Christ. has fallen to pieces. The principal hindrances to mis- A Sketch of the Missions. When sionary work are: 1. The notorious this century began China was desti- conservatism which resists anything tute of the gospel. In 1807 Dr. Mor- foreign. 2. Self-satisfied pride. 3, The rison, first Protestant missionary to veneration paid to their sages, Con: China, landed at Canton, a few years fucius, Mencius, and others. 4. Evil Jater followed by Dr. Milne and oth- reports, spread among the people, ers. First these men sought to ac- poisoning their minds against the quire the language, constructing a. missionaries and their message. dictionary and translating th~ Scrip- 5. Superstition. 6. The opium traffic, tures; but thirty years after, there with its untold misery, leading to were only three native P"otestant enormous crimes. OhrisUans in the whole country, and only six in 1843; there were 350 in The main helps available to the 1853; 2,000 in 1864; 20,000 in 1875; missionary are: 1. The street chapel, ten years later fully 25,000, and now with opportunity after the preaching over 30,000. for personal conversation. 2. Itin- erary journeys for evangelistic pur- In 1885 about 60(, missionaries were poses. 3. Day schools, which influ- in China, in connection with thirty- ence parents as well as pupils and two societies in upward of seventy afford nucleus for meetings of a gen- cities and towns, in fifteen out of eral charlLcter. 4. The dispensary eighteen provinc_es, over 1,100 native and hospital, which afford access teachers and preachers being associ- gained in no other way. 5. Social ated with them in their work, in calls. 6. The bookstore, reading more than 500 stations. In 1875 there room, and guest rooms. 7. The wide were no missionaries west of Han- distribution of the Word of G~d and kow, on the Yang-tse-kiang, 600 of religious tracts and books. miles from the sea, but in 1885 fifty men and women were located in From all parts come reports of western China, somp of them 1,500 steady progress in Christian work. miles from Shanghai; and the jour- The Rev. Mr. Lloyd has labored in ney from that port to their stations Tuh-chow, under the auspices of the takes longer than from America, or Chul'ch Missionary Society,for twelve England, to China. In 1885 only two years. The' 1,600 converts whom he medical missIOnaries were at work had found in 1876 have grown to among the hundred millions in west- 6,000, him.self having baptized 1,000 lern China. in ten years.
During the l-ast ten yeaJ's the Bible Chinese Christians are, almost to societies have been making great a man, ready to pray in public, to efforts to scatter the Word of God_ exhort one another at their meetings, The most fruitful field is Fuhkein, in and to speak for Christ to their which are about one-third of the neighbors. Rev. Hunter Corbett whole number of converts; and yet bears witness to their childlike faith it was for eleven years before the in the power and willingness of God first convert was brought in. Con- to fulfill evel'y promise, to their un- shaken faith in prayer, their love for
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN. [FEB••
the ScriptUl'es, and their honest and Darkness overspread'!' the earth,andgr088 faithful effort to live blameless lives, Not a few have persevered in the darkness the people, but God's glory sha.ll study of the Scriptures untu they re- arise on thee and His glory shall be seen on peat entire chapters and !Sometimes entire books, from both Testaments, thee 1 We have only to lift up our eyes toand, better yet, they are ,able io explain them. dayand seeon the very summits of heathen- SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. dom, in the midst of the death-shade, the The Vision 01 the Cross. Late one sum- waving flag of the Cross! 'l'he glory of God mer afternoon there was a rain shower in Vi~ginia, Nevada. It was very unusual, for transfigures it, and while it waves and! during summer rains are almost unknown in Nevada. The rain lasted but a few minutes, burns, the strongholds of Satan are giving f but clouds and dense darkness overspread the sky. All thevasteastern slope of Mount way before the onset of the missiona.ry' Davidson that overlooked the city was covered with a pall. and the mountain could host I scarcely be distinguished from the cloud' masses that formed its background. As al! TEXTS AND THEMES. ' eyes looked in that direction, a little tongue of mellow golden flame could be seen upon I WHAT saith the Scripture f regarding tbe very summit, wavering in the midst of midnight blackness. It was very small, 1. Tile Condition of the World: "The whole but it looked large, by contrast with the darkness around it. No one at first under- world Iieth in wickedness."-l Jobn v: 19• stood what it wa6. It was thenation's flag waving from the mountain peak. It hap- .. The dark places of the earth 'are full of the pened that, through ' narrow rift in the clouds, the rays of the sinking sun had found hal>itations of cruelty."-Ps. Ixxiv: 20. ii. their way, and that flag was the only object theytoucled, It was directly in,their path The Divine Purpose and Command: .. God and they rested on it and glorifled and transfigured it. And for an hour that burn- our Saviour will have all men to be saved, ing banner of the Republic held the fascinated gaze of the multitudes. How strange! and to come unto the knowledge of the That sinking, sun that transfigured the nation's emblem had that same day looked on truth."-l Tim.ii: 4. "Goye into all the world the fall of Vicksburg and the victory of Gettysburg 1 and preach the gospel to every creature." -Mark x~i: 15. iii. The Divine Promise: .. In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."-Gen. xii: 3. .. I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy pos- session."-Ps. ii: 8. iv. The Grand Motive : .. For ye know the grace of onr Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."-2 Cor. viii: 9.
". Freely ye kave received, freely give."- Matt. x: 8. v. The Final Consummation: "1 beheld, and, 10, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, Sa.lvation to our God which sitteth upon tbe throne, and unto the Lamb."-Rev. vii: 9, 10.-Selected.
VI.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS: MO~THLY BULLETIN.
Atrica.-Cardinal Lavigerie's mission for the northern portion of Natal about Greythe suppression of the African slave trade town. Most of the Boers belong to the has been encouraged by the Pope's gift Dutch Reformed Church, and while they of S60,OOOto his enterprise, accompanied by have a.ttended outwardly to Christian ora letter from Leo praising the Cardinal dinances, they have heretofore cared little for his crusade, and encouraging him to for the native population. Three years ago go ahead in his work. His plan includes a religious awakening began among these tbe raising of a volunteer corps to fight the Boers, and the genuineness of this interest ,slave traders of the Dark Continent with was shown by their de.ire to reach the Zucarnal weapons. About a score of chival- lus, whom they had regarded as little better rous young Belgians have alreadv formed than animals. There are now fifteen the nucleus of this new Salvation Army. preaching places where the gospel is pro- claimed, and which Mr. Scott says are -Scotch Free Church Mission Among the simply the farmhouses of the Boers. He Zulus. The Rev. James Scott of Impolweni, speaks of seeing eighty Boers and three or Na.tal, writes to the Free Church Monthly in four hundred Zulus gather together for reference to an interesting work among the worship. The Zulus come from kraals and Dutch Boers, and extending to the Zulus in villages, both old and young. some ,clothed, back to carryon mission work in his native but most of them heathen in their blankets. land. .
Over one hundred in Greytown have been Alaska.-The Moravian mission on the formed into a na.tive church in connection Nusbagak river is 8,000 miles from supplies and with the Dutch church. This work is now trained workmen. It was so cold there on the being carried forward under the direction 18th of December, '87, that the moisture in the of a committee of the Dutch farmers, em- smoke congealed and filled up the ohimney ploying three native evangelists. One of with frost so that Mr. Wolff was compelled these evangelists is the son of the Znlu twice to go up on the roof and clear out the warrior who in 1836, at the signal from Din- chimney so that the stove mil(ht draw.
gaan, the cruel tyrant, fdl upon the Dntch Burlllah.-The latestintelligilDce from Tavoy leader Retiefand his party of about seventy tells of great suffering on account of the scarcity men, murdering them all in cold blood. and higb price of rice. In the town it was sell- This father still lives, and is a member of ing for more than double the ordinary cost, the Christian church and listens gladly to while far in the jungle, where the Karens live, his son as he preaches the gospel of peace. it Was not to be had at any price. The govern- -The Baptist Mission on the Congo, ment was shipping it from Maulmain and Ran- West Africa, continue~ to prosper. Seven- goon, and sending it inland as best they could to teen were recently baptized at Batlza Man- save the Karens from starvation. It was not teke, the scene of the great revival, and given to them, but sold at a price much below seven at Palabala. All who have been what it cost. The carriage of rice a distance of baptized at Palabala are men. The drink fifty to one hundred miles On a jungle path, at'a traffic offers great hindrance to the prog- season wben the rainfall averages sixty inches ress of the gospel; per month, is no slight nndertaking. Some had -The Liquor Traffic. In Africa we have to already died, either Qf starvation or from eat- contend against the devit's mIssionary ing improper food, and there is little doubt that .agency. The liquor traffic is increasing, before their next harvest is reaped in December .and it is a gigantic evil-greater, even. many of these poor people will die.
than the slave trade-debasing the people -The Sgau Karen Mission at Rangoon, Bur- .and ruining legitimate commerce. In mah, bas been under the care oftbe Vintons from Wes~ Africa ithas deepened the degrada- its beginning in 1836, and now the na.tive tion of the negro instead of civiJizing him. Christians are to erect a large schoolhouse as a Over 1S0,OOO,OOO gallons of spirits had been .. Vinton Memorial." More than 3,000 rupees imported last year in the district of Sierra were subscribed at the first meeting.
Leone, and in Lagos it was far larger, while Ceylon.-Mission Work at Jaffna. News all the land was strewn with demijohns. from Jafl"na, Ceylon, tells of continned bleSSing The Niger Company imported 220,000 gallons following upon the recent awakening among the during the last two years,and 500 cases of chnrches. Believers have been quickened to gin and 500,000 gallons of rum were landed uew zeal in the work of God; and the conver- by the Caliban, in which I sailed from Liv- sions among the heatben bave been very cheer- erpool. The selling price of rum is less than ing: At a recent communion service six stu- a penny a gallon, and the gin sold at three- dents of the Jall"na CollAge were received into pence a bottle. The liquor so sold was of the church on profession of faith. Tl:e religions the most execrable character.-Rev. W. interest is deepening in this important educa- ..Ililan. tional iustitntion. Besides the two weekly -In the schools of the Scottish Free • prayer·meetings conducted among the profes- ()hurch Mission at Bandawe, Lake Nyassa, sors. tbere are now three such meetings held 1,179 pupils were in attendance the day be- weekly among the students themselves.
fore they closed for the vacation. Of these China.-Forty years ago Dr. Morrison was <)ne-third were girls. Thirty-eight native addressing in a locked inner room two or three teachers are a t work in the schools. Chinese, who listened in peril of their lives; -Basutoland has frequently been saved now tbere are in China some 50,000 converts.
l~om the destruction of its nationality by .. Do you think," asked the captain of the ship the intervention of the missionaries, and who took him out, .. that you can make an the natives blessed their name. The result impression on the 400,000,000 of Chinese?"
in respect to education is that we have 80 'No,~' he answered, "but God can."-Oanon elementary schools, having together 4,666 Farrar.
pupils, besides the normal school and the -The Blind in China. A half a million. it higher girls' school, :with 30 or 40 pupils,and is estimated, are totally blind. The sight- 15 industrial, biblical,and theological school less crowds at ·Canton present a pathetic .stations, 94 out-stations, 19 missionaries, 176 spectacle. A photogl·aph we have seen of native workers, 6,029 communicants, and a party of them before the Presbyterian .3,412 catechumens.-Rev. A. Boegner. Missionary Hospital, taken· last winter by -It is stated that a nephew of the late Edward W., son of Dr. Thwing of Brouklyn, King Cetewayo, after six years in Sweden is a. moving appeal in itself. Mr.J. Cros~ett, in theological and other studies, has gone a.t the United States consulate, Shanghai, writes, Oct. 10, earnestly begging for teach- denominations. One hundred new missionaries ers of deaf, dumb and blind Chinese. For- were last year sent ont to China, and already eign residents are willing toaid in supporting this year several parties have been despatclied_ schools for such. Wealthy natives will help, During the last three 1I10mhs 42 have left Engspecially those who are in commercial rela- land, and 16 more leave in December. News tions with foreigners. Mr. Moody at Chi- had just been received oCthe death of one of the cago, Dr. A Gordon ..nd Dr. Cullis ofBoston missionaries in China, Mr. Eldred S. Sayers, wh() are interested in this movement. Mrs. went ont in 1886, makin~ 3 deaths in November. GUTizslafl', a pioneel missionary-, secured the -Our English Correspondent. education of a Chinese girl and a Portugnese girl at London, both blind, to labor in China. England.-Turkcy Missions Aid Society_ The latter died, bnt the other, known aD The receipts of the society for the year 1837-88 Agnes Gntzlalf, founded an enterprise at were 813,980. The society conducts no missions Ningpo. A hospital at Shanghai was an- of its own, but III a spirit of broad catholicity other memorial she left at death. Teachers aids existing organizations in Turkeyt largely of like consecration are now urgently those of the American church. needed. A professor in the Government School at Korea has expressed a willingneis -When Garibaldi had been defeated 0.1; to come to China. Will not America send Rome, he issned his immortal appeal: "Solother teachers f diers, I have nothing to olfer you but cold and hunger and rags and hardship. Let him wh() -Rev. D. W. Nichols writes from Nankin, loves his country follow me I" And thousands Sept. 24: The grent examination that hll9 been of the youth Qf Italy sprang to their feet at tha~ going on for the paot two weeks has closed. high appeal. And will you, the trustees of pos- Students from ,,11 parts of three provinces were terity-will you tnrn your backs to the appeal here. There were three courses in the exami- of your Saviour Christ f I know that you will nation, requiring three days to each. When the not. You cannot all be missionaries; but some students enter the examination hall, they are of you may be called to that high work, and all not allowed to go out until the examination in of you may help it forward.-Canon Farrar. one conrse is completed. On Friday night, September 14, at midnight, the gates were -The Church of England Women's Missionopened, and the students began marching out, ary Association has sent out four ladies to Jerucontinning in solid phalanx for twenty-four hours. Twenty·nine tlwu8an d were enrolled a salem to form branch of Mrs. Meredith's work and entered for the ftrst examination. Early there, for education and sick nursing among Saturday A.M., Sept. la, we missionaries were on women and children in the East. Two mor.. ladies follow directly. There is work for many the ground with 15,000 books for distribution more as soon as they are ready to go. among the stUdents. Had we had 100,000 books we could easily' have given them away, -The Church Missionary Society has 33a and not more than one to each individual. At missionaries, and received more than three any time during the day we had a commanding hundred offers of service in the year ending view of from one hundred to one hundred and April 30, of which forty·six were from women. ftfty thousand people. So eager were they for the books that it was with diMcnlty that we Fiji.-From special information respectwere enabled to give them to the student•• ing this colony, anticipa.tory of the Blue- Thus 15,000 books have gone out in one day. book tor 1887, it appears that the total Many of these books will go to the remoter population that year was 124,658, eighty-four parts, where the voice of tbe servant of God has less than in 1336, the faIling olf being mainly never been heard. in Indian and Polynesian laborers. Educa- tion seems to be ina satisfactoryeondiUon. -The mission property both of Catholics and It is almost entirely under the care of the Methodists in Chungkinl!;, destroyed by the missionaries. In 1887, 41,724, children Were anti·foreign riois of 1888, is being replaced with at the Wesleyan mission schools aud abou1; costlier ouildings. 1,000 at the Roman Catholic schools. There is a Government Industrial School, at which -The missionary work in China seems to be youths are tra.ined, among other things, in everywhere becoming easier and more promis- boat building, house building, and cattle ing. If the Cbinese Government does not re- tending. In 1887, 102,890 persons attended taliate on Americans for the exclusion of the the Wesleyan places of worship, and 9,83() Chinese from this country and so obstruct the the churches of tle Roman Catholic mismissions, we may look for great results in the sions. The total number of pure Fijians in next rew years. 1887 was 110,754.-0ur English Corr8llpondent.
-China Inland Mission. Ou December 3 FInland.-Rev. Eric Jansson reports 180 Exeter Hall, London, was filled with a large baptized during the year in Finland. The audience a.sembled to bid farewell to a band of missionaries abont to depart for China under mission work encounters great opposition the auspices of this mission. Last year the in- from the priests of the state church, but come of the mission was £33,700, aud the stalf the progress among the people is encournumbered 324, includin~ representative. of six aging.
France.-There recently died at Montpel- ier, France. a.n old servant woman, who had l:iven in the course of some years no less than 10,000 francs, the result of most care- work of the publication department has heeD ful economy, to the French Protestant For- the issue of aeveral books for edncated Hindus._ eign Mission Society. She loved missions, regularly read the missionary journals, and -Special fO'ltures of encouragement in th& never prayed without mentioning by name work of the Inolian Female Normal School aad M. Coillard, a veteran missionary in South Instruction Society are the Zenana work a~ Africa.-Spirit of Mi8.i<>'M. Lucknow, where the pupils have increased from 400 to 500; the work at Patna, which has beel) -A second Baptist church is to be formed enlarged and consolidated; the school work at. in Paris, France. As the flrst church has Bombay, especially that of the Normal School. recently opened a new hall for evangelistic which has supplied teachers to East Africa. services, this will make four places for wor- Western India. Karachi, and other places; Mr•• ship in that city under the control of the Sorabji's work at Poonah, which is in a most Baptists. flourishing condition; and, lastly, medical work.
India.-Speaking in Edinburgh, at the -The prlOces of Rajpootana have abolished opening of the session of the Edinburgh the custom of infant marriages. In the futnre nO' Philosophical Institution, upon .. Madras girl shall be married under the age of H, and and Southern India," Sir M. E. Grant Duff, no boy under 18, unless prior to the adoption of' G. C. S. I., late governor of Madras, said that this law a contract of marriage had been en- the two great languages of the Madras pres- tered into. These princes hold the highest rank. idency, each spoken by about 12,000,000 peo- and their example will have wide influence. ple, were Telugu and Tamil, both Dravidian tongues. Less than 36,OCO people out of -The proportion of the native Christian 31,000,000 claimed English as their mother studenls ot the University of Bengal who hav~ tongue. As to nationality, the immense become Masters of Arts is 23 time. ~reater majority were Hindus; and next to them, than of the Hindn and Mohammedan stndents. but 'at an enormous distance in point of numbers, came the Mohammedans; then Italy.-We have,noted the publication of th~ came the Chrietiaus-far more numerous in Bible in Rome by Martini, the well-known pub- southern Iudia thau in the north. Among lisher, in penny parts. The experiment half the Christians 68 per cent. were Catholics been succe"sfnl beyond expectation. About 50,- and 32 per cent. Protestants. Among the 000 copies are sold every week. The book ilJ Protestants the Anglicans were the most well printed, and each part has been reduced numerous, and in Tinnivelly they had a to eight pages. large number of nati'e converts.-Our En- glish Correspondent. Japan.-Buddhism cannot long hold itlJ -November 2 three missionaries sailed in the ground, and Christianity must finally prevail Pavonia for the re-enforcement of those de- thronghout all Japan. Japanese Buddhism ,md voted toilers in that far-off land who labor Western science cannot stand together. They under the appointment of the Free Baptist are Inconsistent the one with the other.-Jap- Foreign Board. Rev. and Mrs. E. B. Stiles are an<!86 Gazette. known as the A. C. F. missionaries, becanse , their support is to be provided in fnll by the -One of the most hopefnl indications for th& new Free Baptist organization, which is com- fnture of Christianity in Japan Is the missionary posed chiefly of young people and known as the character of the native Christians. They arC' Advocates of Christian Fidelity. Rev. F. W_ zealous in carrying the gospel to their 0 IVn peo- Brown, it is understood, is to be snpported, d ple, and also to Korea and the islands dependent least in part, by the Missionary Board of Hills- on Japan. dale College. -N0 better proof of the genuine Interest of' -Pundit Raghumith Rao, the Dewan of In- our Japanese Christians in the new civilization dore, has put forth a catechism of the Ayran- could be given than their contributions the past Vedic religion, which has excited great atten- year for edncational and religious objects. tion, taken 'llJord fer word from the West- amounting to over $41,000; and it is not pro- minster Shorter Oatechism, leaving out the fessed Christians only that give, but others, im- references to Jesus Christ I This is certainly pressed with the character of the work in prog- the most remarkable plagiarism of modern ress, especially thonghtfnl parents, for the sak~ times. of the morlll cnlture obtained in our schools. A few weeks since word came from Mr. Neesima -The Christian Vernacular Education So- of $31,000 subscribed by a few Japanese gentle ciety reports that the Training Institntion at men, including two of the highest officials in th8' Ahmednagar has been in fnll working order government, toward the enlargement of our throughont the year 1887, with fifty-seven Doshisha school so as to make ita Christian uni– atudents in attendance; thirty students left the versity.-Miss. Herald. Dlndigal Institution with teachers' certificates. The system of inspecting and improving the -A revival has been going on simultane- indigenous schools in Bengal has been vigor- ously worked. Nearly 7,000 children are under ously in different parts of Japan. As a result. Christian instruction. The chief feature of the the increase in all the churches of Tokio cannot. be much less thana thousand. Yokohama has; also enjoyed a rich blessing, and reaped a glori- ons harvest. Many of the cities and towns ot the empire are now wonderfully stirred up. -"-A Worthy Example. An exchange says that a brewer who did a large business at Mish, teacher's use. The pup,i1s provide themsulves IIi 1ms, Japau, has become a Christian and joined with a primer, a copy of the New TestamclIt, the church. He had a long and hard struggle to the native Christian newspaper, a catechism, ,give up his profitable business, but at last the grammar, and geography. The teachers are .grace of God triumphed; he gave up brewing supported in part by the natives. The object and gave his large arid costly building to be used of these schools is to teach the children to read as a church. the Bible, and so these schools become the chief auxiliary to the direct preaching of the -Japanese Mission to Christendom. A gospel.-Chronicle of London MiB8. Soc. .Japanese paper published at Kioto, called the -At Tamatave, the capital of Madagascar, 11iJO'U of Asia, has a report of a proposed mis- Mrs. Mary Clement Leavitt, representing the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. recently ,gion for the conversion of Europe and America addressed an audience of 1,500 natives, the lecto a "purer faith." Its conductors say that ture being translated by an interpreter. The they have noticed that Christianity is on the Tamatave paper gives a full account of the occa- .decline, and that, as religion is indispensable to sion, and thanks God for the arrival of "that man, this mission is projected. There is al- grand woman, Madame Mary Clement Leavitt ready a Buddhist mission in the United States, of the United States." and something of a literature has been created. The Watchman says: "Whereabout the evi- Mexico.-The Presbyterian missionaries -dence of the' decline' of Christianity has been 'noticed' we caunot conjecture, but it was in the city of Mexico have recently located seven -probably in some of those pessimistiC utter- preaching stations in the outlying wards and auces now and then put forth by weak believ- districts. In this way they touch the people ·ers, or the still more insignificant boastings of who could not be brought into anything known unbelief." as a church edifice. Lay talent is utilized, one- half of these services being sustained hy native J a va.-Missionary work began 40 years ago. elders. Seven societies of Holland are represented by 26 missionaries, having 25 mission stations, Paraguay.-The South American Missionnumbering 12,000 native Christians. The Brit- ary Society has started a new mission under ish and Forei~n Bible Society has one agent in very favorable auspices. ·east Java, and will soon send another for the west. Not only Java, but the whole Dutch Persla.-Dr. Bruce writes to the Church India, including Java, Snmatra, Borneo, Cele- Missionary Intelligencer: "We have no oppobes, has a strong claim not only on Europe, but sition from Moslem priests or people worth <ou Christian America for the gospel. Twenty- mentioning; the latter, in nine cases out of ten, ileven millions of people and only 69 Christian gladly receive our colportenrs and evangelists, missionaries to give them the glad tidings I In and welcome their visits. The Moslem priests .all Malaysia, with its 35,000,000 people, there now ha"e lost all their power for good or evil is only one Ame"ican misBwnary. in Persia. The Persian Government is also liberal iu its treatment of Christians and Jews, -In the central district of Java there are but through the intrigues of the Roman Catholic ,some 5,000 native Christians in connection with and (led by them) of the American ecelesiastics, the Netherlands Reformed Missionary Society. it allows Protestant Christians to be opposed, For many years this field has been under the and thereby gives us great trouble. During all .exclusive care of one missionary, who is sta- my mission life among Mohammedans, every tioned at Poerworedjo. Receutly two other persecution and opposition to our work from mis~ionaries have been sent to Poerbolingo, one which we have suflered has been set on foot, <of whom is to be engaged in training native not by Moslems, but by nominal Christians." -evangelists and preachers. Still more recently :a young medical missionary has been sent out. -High Church missionaries from England He is to be supported by the Dutch Reformed are establishing schools and churches in utter Missionary Society in Londou. An attempt is indifference to the work done by American men being made to form the various churches or and women in past years, thus fomenting stations into a presbytery, presided over by a schisms aud divisions. synod. Meanwhile Christianity is spreading .also in the Djogjokarta district, and some 5,000 United States.-Indians of North Amer- natives have accepted the truth. ica. The amiual conference of the Dakota In- dian churches and missions of the Presbyterian Madagascar.-The growth ofth'e elemen- and Congregational denominations was held in -tary schools has been extraordinary. Twenty- September at Oakes, Dak. There were repre- five years ago they numbered seveu, with 365 sented there all the missionaries to the Dakotas scholars; in 1886 they nnmbered 1,005, with of the Presbyterian Foreign and Home Boards, 102,747 scholars. The several provinces are and those of the Congregationalists under the -divided into districts, and each district has a charge of the American Missionary Association. meeting-honse, used both as a church and There were present also 228 native delegates and ilchool-honse. Most of them are built of adobe, visitors, besides those from the Cheyenne River with thatched roof, and are very plaiu buildings, Agency. The attendance ran from 500 to 800. with mud 1I00rs. The school outfit consists of :a few lesson sheets and text-books for the -The American Baptist Missionary Union calls for eighty meu to fill vacancies and open new work on the various mission fields.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
VII.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
Foreign Mission Work of Women's Sooieties.
UNITED STATES.
Receipts.
Denominations and Societies.
1887-8. In aU.
– — —;—- 1861. . Woman's Union Missionary Society, New About york …………………………….. 53 i32' 27 $43,024 $1,000,000 1868.. Woman's Board, Boston (Congregational). 102 1,700 123,240 1,651.329 1870.. Woman's Board of the Interior (Congre- gational) …………………………. 62 1,500 51,117 481,175 1872.• Woman's Bo..rd of the Pacific (Congrega- tional) …………………………….. 5 75 4,045 45.151 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian Church …. 133 111 2,725 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of the 159,640 1,647,618 Northwest ………………………… 71 57 1,522 102,499 726,277 1870.. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of New york ……………………………… 41 32 900 65,1'44 (30,346 1871. • Woman's Board, Presbyterian, of North- ern New York …………………….. 5 13 220 10,413 120.812, 7,193 1877 .. Woman's Board, Presbyterian, Southwest 7 376 28,968 20,732 Woman'sBoard, Presbyterian, Southern. 457 172,906 1879.• Woman's Board, United Presbyterian 43 15,619 66,273 Church …………………………… 7,658 1879.. Cumberland Presbyterian Church ……. 822 42,771 1869.. Methodist Episcopal, North …………… 75 4,383 191,158 1,680,000 ,1878 .. Methodist Episcopal, Soath …………… 22 '45' 2,399 6"9,729 355,345 000 7,100 1879.. Methodist Protestant …………………. 11,288 25,000 1861.. Friends ………………………………. 8 1,854 ……4.0.,0..0.0 Evangelical Association………………. 78 1875.. Christian Woman's Board (Home and For- 697 26,226 145,120 '"7" eign) •………….•………………… '"7" 315 "'i7:ii44 61,472 14,197 1875, . United Brethren ………………………. 1875.. Reformed Chnrch (Dutch) …………… 200 …..1.2.6.,8..7.4 1879 .. Evangelicwi Lutheran (Home a.nd Foreign) 436 27 1870.. Baptist Woman's Society (Northern Con- 1,859 75.369 780,606 vention) ………………………….. 38 44,846 1871. . Woman's Baptist Society of the West….. 45 313,628 Executive Committee Auxiliary to South- 15.554 80,000 ern Baptist Convention ……………. 7,200 1873 .. Baptist Free ….. __ , ' …………………. , 6 60,000 25,321 – -2-72,6-71 – – – – – – – 1871. . Protestant Episcopal …………………. – – – – Totals………………. 680 424 21,l134 $1,117,110 $10,307,990 CANADA.
1876.. Woman's, !,?o.ci"ty (Presbyterian), West- 475 $25,657 ern DivisIon ……………………… . 5,091 1877.. Woman's Society (Presbyterian), Eastern Division ………………………… . 6,182 1877.. Woman's Societies (Baptist), Ontario and 4,493 Quebec…… " ………….. ' …….. .. 189 14,197 Woman's Union (Baptist), Maritime Prov- illces •……•…………….•….•…. 1881.. Woman's Society (Methodist) ………. , .. .
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
1834.. Society for Female Education in the Eastl 40 $.%,000' 1852.. Zenana Bible and Medical Mission ……. . 202 50,000* 1859 .. Ladies' Wesleyan Missiollary SOciety….. ' 30 ';ii;' 35,000* 1860 .. British Syrian Schools ………………. .. 28 116 2.';,(lOIl* 18'18 .. Ladies' Association (Baptist) …………. . 44 105 3O.0no* 1~"3 .. Female Association (Irish Presbyterian).. 12 160 10,000* 1878.. Female Association (Presbyterian Churca of England) ………………………. . 13 8 10,000' 1830.. Church of England Zenana Missionary Society…………………………… . 88 49 1880.• Zenana Medical College……………… " U5,Oro 4,000* Ladies' Committee Auxiliary to London Missionary Society……………. '…. . 24 250 Ladies in Connection with Society for Propagation of Go.pel …….. , ……. . 71 300 Ladies' Free Church of Scotland ……… . 32 177 * About this sum annually. J.M.S.
View of the Missions of the A. B. O. P. M. for the Year 1888-89
MISSIONARIES AND ASSISTANTS. I PREACHING. CHURCHES. i EDUCATION.
g g ] .s MISSIONS. oi ~• I ~fr~C.lrl<n~tl 00 AMERICAN. NATIVE. ~'CI 'CI 'i0'<.:M: ~g• ~ –,–..,,—,.._ _ _1 -_–,,—;—;—1 .~S~ 00 0 ~QJ t~ . § :"8 .. oi 't1 ~. ;;~r.IJ. .-~!: bD .j..J Q,) 0 d~ oJ ~• aj 0~0 ~ .~~ ~~ 0 ..d U~l .~S ~Il <= §• :'~" dj ~ ~ ~.h ~.~ i ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ i ~ ~ ~.~ 'I'~ ~ n j ~o· g ~ ojr18Q,)_ 0 .~O ~ ~ ~:; '8t. ~ :; "" "" .., – – ~ ~ <= 0 tl .S 00 8 00 '§+3 … -< … tti'< '", Sw ~ ~ 6 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ !~.2 ~'g ~ :ags ~ ~ in .A 0 f 2 = ='3 ==-1 19142 150 =. = 115 E",st Central Africa. i883~ . do: ""' ~t] 1l ;, ""' e3:; p:; -I<> ..q z§ '" ~ a5 0 ~ r.r. -;: -§ o§ i:'5 :Zuuel~u-:M,tips~s:i~otnT.~.~.~.!.~.~.~. 1~8~3g5 .$ 0 'E-< 00 E-< ~8 "2197 -n-3 –17 2 12 •35 -1 -,8 25 1 .6,891 16~ '9'7'9" 108 -:-1' . '1'~; – 1 ";';' -:-2' – -2115 5 10 8 2~9~ 4 [3 82 uu 100 25 1,47! 1,655 2.548 19 51 '''6 'ii" 1 …. 12 2 100 100 14 "ii:i' 'i "i2 1 …. 1 2C' 20 . "3:508 I~ 2~ 1~ ~g 2~ 3~~ IH lk~~ 2.~ J~ ~ 3~ 'lll 5,ra~ 6,~~ Western Turkey …. 1819 8 121 22 2 64 17 m 16:g<fs 29 244 1 Ii 7 32,177 Central Turkey ….. 1847 2 51 7 3 7 9 26 19 27 110 4, 160 IIl6 60 10,000 1157,,0~5163 33 4,050 229 1 7 2 89 4 195 95 .,15 4,448 Eastern Turkev ….. 1836 5 115 Ii 1 15 11 41 27 51 170 48 296 337 124 11,010 41 2.542 151 1 526 5 2241238~III1I045543 5,261 6,392 7,9~5 1 8 14 553 3 24..0712'~; 2,802 Mar"'thi. ….. : ……. 1813 7 102 12 1 10 6 29 15 32 HI 67 255 284 88 3.076 3.351 27 1.823 157 1 9 7 514 5.680 , 13.508 Ma.dura …….. : .•.. ISH 12 234 10 •••. 10 8 28 20 144 2~298 31 423 451 234 7,214 11,881 36 3,233 239 1 10 7 6. 4,779 Ceylon ………….. 118~1863 7 25 5 .•.. 4 4 13 11 30 34 304 317 39 1,065 1.806 14 1,389 79 II 6 +57 2 132, 127 7,864 8,455' 6.545 Hong Kong………. 1 3 1 2 34 19 1 5.752 1 …. 3 8 …. 11 12 4 f 384 15 308 54 1 .. '2 "43 8 384 384 10 Foochow ………… 1847 3 21 6 1 6 6 19 2 12 21 1 41 00 26 650 1,250 105 2'''3 •• 17 299 388 349 13 12 42 92 4 976 161 North China …….. 1854 7 29 18 4 20 8 50 …. 17 26 684 2.485 11 2 -42 3 44 10 142 204 Sh&usi.. …………. 1882 2 …. 4 1 4 1 10 .. . …. …. …. …. 10 2 76 75 1 5 5 . . …. .., …. .. …. …. …… .. … 4 22 27 76 27 21 53 11 112 188 171 6,309 11.000 43 6.340§ 2,1l4§ 2 92 61.054 91.0eO…. …… 2,206 41.022 } ~':f..~h~r;,· j~pai{:: m.~ 8 124 23 1.486 Micronesia ………. 1852 3 46 7 1 7 6 21 12 2U 14…. 47 68" 103 7.785 12,300 47 4.844 549 2 30 2 58 2 64 41 1.933 2.085 2011 8 13 537 Western Mexico …. 1872 2 6 2 …. 2 1 5 1…….. 7 8 181 2 120 150 2 110l1~ 10 1 12…. …. 1 23 1 30 30 Northern Mexico … 1882 3 5 4 …. • 2 10 …. 3 3 2 9 194 3H 4 93 95 3,076 68.. 2 …. 3 ~~~~i~·::.:::::::::: }~~~ ~ ig ~ …. ~ ..~ ~ …: ~~ ~ n jg l~ ~~ ~:~ ~ ~ i M1~ 7~ 7~g "7' .. 19 'i "·S 1 4 656 === 19 166 268 17 50 Tota.I… No. Pacific Institute 1872 1…. 1 …. 1…. 2 …. …. …….. …. 2…………· .. · . . . . . · · …. · .. · 1 14…. …… ………….. H 90 960 167* 160 126t 472 448 1.253 2.135 2,607 1~161'188j100.914 33630.11461 4.388 25169 3.947 3.008 892 34.855 42.733U $124.274 * Of whom eleven are physicians. UInciudlDg 80mI' under IDstructlOn but not reported in school. , The CommonSchools of Jafl'na, connected with the mission. are under t Of whom four are physICians. the direction of a lloa.rd of Jl;<lucatlQIl, alld tho teachers are not reckoned as :I: Including Hawaiian missionaries. Ch~;be:,hich might be added 753 baptized believers not yet orpnized Into missioll helpeu.
•
STATISTICS OF THE'WORLD'S MI!,SIONS
Reoeipts of the lfissionary Sooietyof the Methodist EpiBoopal Ohuroh for Year. 1887 and 1888, AS REPORTED TO THE GENERAL MISSIONA.RY CO){M;:TTrlE, NOVEMBER 14, 1888.
RBCEIP'FS I'RO>l EASTERN CONFBRENCES.
CONFERENCES. IFrOW:O;~l'!FrOl8sr~~· I,! Increase. r Decrease. (List omitted.) Oct. 31: 1887. Oct. 3i, 1888.
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . …. ….. $S8fI,673 92 3629.983 77 $27,517 5.3, $67,207 63 RECEIPTS FROM: WESTERN CONFERENCES.
CONFEItBI)CES. i8 Dec~ dFrl;t~~· l'!Fr0 8,fOt';; 1,/ (List omitted.) . Oct. 3i, 1887. Oct. 31', 1888. Increase.!_ Total…. ……………………. $375,121.00 Ji370,597 471 $12,068 28 $16,592 80 Total Receipts from November I, 1886, to October 31, 1881………. …… ..•…. $1,044,19591 18ST, to October 31, 1888………………….. 1,000,581 24 .. ..
Decrea.se .. eo •••••••••••••• eO ••••••••• " . eo eo •• 0' ••••••••••••••• eo •••••.•• eo •• eo. $44,21467 RECBIPTS DURING THE L4ST NINE YEARS.
Sundry t::;ources.
$22,47841 Conferences. – – – – – – – Legacies. ,3i,710 27 YEAR!!. Totals. Increase. $557.371 14 $5,511 84 1880 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $500,182 46 33.865 2f 20,83286 625,663 89 68,m 75 18~1. ………………. 570.96577 <l~,605 O~ IM~2 ……………….. 6:!1,38108 '18.091 ~ 21,67984 691.6M 01 00,00212 22,60604 751,469 90 59,803 89 1883 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650,77254 49,970 O~ 28.966 85 731,125 86 20,34404* 188~ ………………. 652,18800 1885 ………………. 694,03495 101,901 8~ 30.891 5t- 8:6,828 36 95,702 50 1886 ………………. 836,592 37 932,20891 133,95821 21.577 89 992,12847 165,300 11 1887 ……………….. 935.12138 76,743 22 1.0~4.795 91 52,66744 1888 ………………… 35.843 7b – – – – – – 41,983 67 – – -23,4-76-19 1,000,581 24 44,214 67" Totals …………. $6,393,448 45 $558.PZg 4' <!!'?Rfl.':'1":2 /"IF $7.221.73078 NOTE.–A star (*) after amounts III the last COll" 1, '(l.teR a decrease.
-Gospel in all Land•• German Evangelioal Mis!ion Sooieties.
[For the following table we are indebted to Rev. Dr. R. (irundemann, of Germany., "'" ,;, .;.,.;.,. ..: …; <= () 'j:; of ",,=of OJ ~".,,,~'0" '2 ,,0 SOCIETIES. wi <=8 0. S" """.."~, OJ "s~":.l<A~= OJ'~ ~ ~ ~N~'" " .,: :0;; ~ .,; :,z;,. >4 o..~ 0 .'.c0c: "Il< >'I 8~ "00 '" " ..,00>'1 ———~———— Moravian ………………………….. 107 147 83,052 29,283 590 208 $17,407 $101,281 Easel, Evangelical Mission ………… 42 120 19,187 9.497 1,057 208 7.486 199,507 Berlin, Evangelical Mission………… 48 60 17.764 8.400 1,225 53* 3.377 71.611 Rhenish Mission (Barmen) …………. 53 66 29,125 9.666 1,100 66* 5,370 88.440 North German (I:!remen)…………… 4 8 325 114 5 199; 20.389 556 Gossner Mission …………………… 13 19 34,000 11,868 1,775 80* 1.685. 42,431 Evangelical Lutheran, Leipzig …….. 2"J 22 14,014 4.500* 796 129 3,993 67.596 Hermannsburg…………………… 61 71 11,196 5,000* ….. 88* 2,000 63,713 fit. Chrischonat……………………. 1 15 400 20 5 1* 120 8,132 40* ….. 4* 200 6,585 Jerusalems-Verein………………… 3 2 150 2* 43 14,914 BreckluD). (Schleswig-Holstein)…….. 4 8 ……. '''ii' 1* 40 8.773 Berlin Woman's Mission for China…. 1 1 81 80* 77 3* 74 2,523 Neukirchen Mission…. …. …….. …. 5 5 305 3,239 East Africa.. Vereln (Berlin)……….. I 2 2 ….20* 3.000 2 3,OCQ – – – – – – —- – – – – – – – – – – Bavarian Verein·for East Africa…… 1 CO.I. Prot. Mission Verein (for Japan). 1 Totals…………………………. 368 550 209.850 78,679 6.756 823 41,994 J700,1l4 " Estimated. t Statistics of Syrian Orphan Home only. -A. B. 0. F. M.'B Almanac of Mi88ion., 1889. Foreign Missionary Sooieties of the, United States, 1887-88.
Mission- ..: …. — .. .. " " ..s .n… aries. ,/, 8- .,./,, p.1. g.; … " <I <I .<:1 d! 0 5l <i C1l SOCIETIES. '" .si III 'a American Board•…•.•.. ,; I '" '" "" ~.d.,! .<:1 0 "" " ~ j ~ ~ s oj d!" " ~ ~ … <$ — — — – – _~.S Z 's, 0 — – – '" — — "" -rn- 0 Z .a &: <;) .. <!l '"p… .".<.I. <;) $667,289 90 g60 186 286 2,135 836 30.M6 4.386 1,018 42,733 Preshyterian Board, No. 901.180 112 400 205 297 1,126 311 23.740 2,~97 464 23.77() Preshyterian Board, So. 88,049 08 89 31 35 44 ' 39 1.897 305 20 1,2;{S Ref. Church (Dutch) …. 155.381 12 123 29 32 293 47 4,559 180 122 3,357 United Presh. Board …. 103,323 15 154 19 21 385 32 6.878 1.437 216 9.942 Cumberland Presb. Ch .. 15,265 3 5 6 8 13 8 500 225 6 283 Reformed Presb. Church Asso. Ref. Presho Church 21,133 ….. 2 6 4 5 50 2 209 44 32 1.165 Reformed Church of the 2,696 4 2 ••••• 8 8 206 76 2 28 U. S. German … '……. 20.000 3 12 5 7 18 8 1,170 420 5 21& Ref. Presho Gen. Synod.. 4,000 2 4 2 ….. 7 2 20 5 1 28 *Baptist Mis. Union ….. 390,83.5 60 831 101 161 1.798 642 61,062 5.070 754 17,.504 Baptist Southern Conv.. 86,38.5 14 72 24 34 59 48 1,967 344 17 610 Free Baptists….•……. ….. 3 59 6 13 15 10 654 62 85 3,058 Seventh Day Bantists… 15.2{4 1 2 3 9 1 23 5 3 76 Baptist Conv. of U. S, … 4.529 4.598 3 2 2 1 2 1 175 50 2 27 Q:erman Baptist Breth- ren (Tunkers) ………. ….. ….. ……. 1,620 2 ….. 826.7~* 6M *Methodist Epis. Chnrch ….. 234.584* 104t Meth. Epis. Church, So.. 3 …. 5 lliO 31i ….. 131; 192 2.0~1 505 22.535 2.711 694 22,448 28 23 80 42 3.786 450 54 1.545 Protestant Methodist… 3 3 7 4 2 229 84 5 350 18.000 Africa" ~Ieth. Epis()opal 12,000' 7 5 7 1 8 9 900 302 5 408 Free )[ethodist…. , ….. 3 14 6 3 ….. 2 45 Prot. Epis. For. Miss.Soc. 2.000 41 14.'; 75 28 227 32 6 "443 91 3.364 189,932 23 3 2,073 11,074 16 5 5 4 224 ..1.2..3 9 443 Evangelical Association 14,619 5 4 14 4.105 19 462 Un. Brethren in Christ.. 4 25 Evangelical Lutheran, General Synod ……… 30.000 2 2 4 3 147 101 3.436 1,178 161 3.,558 Evangelical Lutheran, 10.288 6 50 5 4 72 4 805 235 57 767 General Conncil ., , …. For. Chri.tian Miss.Soc. (Disciples) ….. , .. , …. 24 12 22 24 2,473 798 18 ….3.8..0 51.408 24 …..2 …..6..1 43 ….. Amer. Christian Conv… 2,000 2 21 1 6 3 ….. — — – — — — – – – – –7- – TFhrieenMdesn.n..o.n.it.e.s………………. …. ·22:700· 1 . ooii 3 9 6 4 392 671 ….. 100 7 6 —- Total. ………….. $3.906.967 1,1113 2,954 927 1,200 8,617 2.243 174.784 21,978 3.864 137.905 * Work of these societies in Protestant countries of Europe 1S not here reported. t Principal and subordinate stations. :(: The portion of the missionary receipts of the church appropriated to Foreign n Mis~ions. ple te re tu rn s. '
Incom Moravian Missions are included in the tabJe of British societies. -A. B. O. F. M. 's Almanac of Mi.sions. 1889.
Canada.-The Canadian Congre- tionality. In Oceania, including the Phil- ippines. the Malay Archipelago. Anstralia. gational Year-Book fol' 188~-89 re- and New Zealand. the number is 276; in America, inclnding certain specified States ports the following statistics: of the Union. portions of Canada, British Honduras, Brazil and Pern.l.130 ; the total Churches. St… Minis. Mf'm· number of Jesnits scattered over the globe tions. ter!;. bel'S. in purely missionary work being 2,377. These 26 49 6,300 are' of various nationalities, but the vast Ontario ………. 77 1,650 majority are French.-London Times. Quebec ………. 20 15 17 Nova Scotia…… ]7 21 7 858 -The Cherokees have in operation 100 11 341 common schools. with an aggregate attend- New Brunswick.. 3 4 ance of 4,049 pupils and an average of 200 2.486 ; a high school for boys. with an aggre- Newfoundland & o3 180 gate of 211 and an average of 156 students; Labrador … , .. . 5 24 a. female seminary. nearing completion, The Northwest.. . 4 with a capacity for 165 students; an orphan asylum containing 145 children,-Ghri.tian 126 75 84 9.529 Advocate. Nashville. -Jesuit Missions. In the Balkan peninsula there are. 45 Jesuit missiona.ries; in Africa, and especially E;;-ypt, Madagascar and the Zambesi region, 223 ; in Asia, especially Armenia. Syria, certain parts of India, and parts of China. 699. In China alone the number is 195, all of French na- Oontributions to Missionary and Bible -Statistics show that there are in Bur- Societies for rifty Years. mah at the present moment 502 Baptist IN view 'of the Missionary Conference, it may not be nnseasonable to present to your readers churches, with 28,559 communicants and the results of a carefrrl examination of the home contributious to the five great religiOUS institu- about 70,000 adherents. In 404 schools theretions named below during the first fifty years of the present reign. I have divided that examina- are 12,000 pupils, and during the year there tion iuto decenniums, bringing out the average amounts contributed in each, with the relative hl"ve. been 2,134 baptismsupon a profession increase or decrease upon the preceding period. With these it is unnecessary to occupy your of fmth. The report reminds the Christian columus. public that it is just seventy-five yea-rs. It may be interesting, however, to notice that -whatever it may be owing to- the decennium since Adoniram Judson, driven out of Cal- 1848-1857 differs from aU the rest in the lower rate of increase, while in the case of two of the cutta by the officials of the East India Comsocieties there is a positive decrease of two per cent. and eleven per cent. respectively. pany, arrived in Rangoon and established The increase of the avera~e annual amount the first Baptist mission at Burmah.-ChriB-· of home contributions, including legacies but excluding dividends, in the last decennium, 1878- tian Weekly. '57, over the first,l838-'47, was, in the case of the Baptist Miss. Society… £34,953 or 157 per cent. -The Methodist Episcopal Church have. Wesleyan Miss. SOCiety. 34.114" 45 .. Church Miss. Society .. 102,717 .. 118 .. 2: missionaries in Italy, 25 native prea.chers" London Miss. Society… 23,707" 3~ British and Foreign 883 church members, 16 Snnday-schools and Bible Society……… 62,101" 131 392 scholars. In lIIexico tney have 9 mis- A/!:gregate increase (five sionaries,33 native preachers, 995 church SocietietJ).. .. .. . …… 257,592" 86 The annual average amounts of the five soci- members, 740 probationers, 30 Sundayeties for the last decenninm was £556,631, and the total amount for the jifly year. £20,798.160, schools and 1,202 schools. being about the amount spent on drink in this country in sixty days at the rate of last year's Jews.-Between the years 1880 ,and 188& consumption. It ought to be stated that these amounts in- the Jewish population of Prussia has include both ordinary and special contributions, excepting in the case of the Church Missionary creased only 2,763. The proportion of the. Society, where the figures of the special contribntions for the whole period conld not be .0 Jews (366,543) to the entire population. easily ascertained. The annual average orthese, in that society, for the last jive years was £19,- shows a falling off of .04 per cent. The 115. ProbablY this was a high avera!':e. One feature brought out in this examination is diminution has been chie11y in the provinces. worthy of note. WhQn a large contribution has been raised for a special object, it does not seem of Posen and Silesia. There were only three to teU adversely on the succeeding years; rather the contrary. So at least it seems to be towns in the entire kingdom with a. Jewish. in the case of the British and Foreign Bible So- Ciety. In 1854 that society raised special con- population exceeding 15,000, viz., Berlin. tributions of almost exactly £100,000 for the JUbilee and Chinese New Testament Funds. 65,355; Breslau, 17,655; and Frankfurt, 15,- with the result that the aggregate ordinary contributions (exclusive of legacies) for the three SM.-Jewish Chronicle. . follouing years exceeded those of the three previous years by almost £30,OCO, or twenty-three -The various Protestant missionary orper cent.; and that notWithstanding that in one of the last three years a further special contri- ganizations at work in India have 249 mis_ bution of £10,000 was raised for these objects. sionaries, 317 native preachers, and 83,819' But when the speCial contribution is raised not for any definite object, but merely to make up .. native communicants. This is an increase deficiency in previous years, I apprebend the result is very different.-Davia McLaren, in of 67 missionaries, 76 native preachers, and British Weekly. 23,748 native communicants since 1881.
-The Lutheran Missions among the Ta- mils of South India amount to 14,000 adher- ents, 22 European missiol~aries, 12 ordained natives, 6 caudidates, 56 catechists, 241 teachers, 149 schools. and 3,653 scholars.
-The General Missionary Committee of the Methodist Episcopal Church has appro- priated for the coming year $1,200,000 fol'"
home and foreign missions, of which $100,- 000 is to meet outstanding drafts and inter- est. The receipts from the churches were· $2,900 larger than ever before, but the treas- ury was $78,340.13 in debt at the end of the year. The appropriations for mission wo"i-k are about fifteen per cent. less than last year. The foreign missions r"eceive $511,- 639.01, divided as follows: India, $109,300.
China, $108,019.01 ; Japan, $60,166; Korea.
$16,104; JlIalaysia, $6,500; Africa. $4,800; South America, $52,960; Italy, $47,000; Ger-· many, $30,300; Sweden, $25,068; Bulgaria.
$19,220; Norway, $14,000; Switzerland, $9,840 ; Denmark, $8.362. The new Malaysia.
Mission was regularly constituted. Dr.
Thoburn is missionary bishop of India and ¥alaysia. In al the foreign inissions there are 720 native preachers and 41.338 church.
members.
EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS. [FEB., 18t!9
VIII.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
(The Ia.ck of spa.ce constrains us to layover a. mass of Bilitorial Notes already in type.-ED8.] Editorial Oard to the Publio. The Bound Volume for 1888.
IN the Jan. number of this REVIEW, TilE IIrstvolume ot THEMIssION.l.BY RETIIIW .(1888) we admitted an article from Bev. Wm. Clark, D.D., on "1I1ission 0:1' THE WORLD Is now bound loud on sale. It.
Work in Papal Europe,'" and in a appearance is certainly striking, and marks an prefatory note we warmly indorsed advance, it not a new epoch, in mlssionary"litthe writer and commended his cause erature. It is a royal octllvo, printed on heavy -the Female College /Lt Florence, and lirst quality of paper, making VT4 compact Italv.. Dr. Clark was a stl'anger to pages, and substantially and prettily bound in us, but he presented so many strong crimson cloth with gilt back.
teliltimonials from eminent clergy- No ODe can form a correct Idea. of the extent, men and others whom we knew, that t:vharroiuetgyhatnhdisqiumalpietyrioalf viotslucmone.tenAts btriilel fhBenlaolYok'iss we unhesitatingly gave full credence ~ will show that it i. in itself a IUrrary of mission liurature, containing matter equal to half a dozto hIS statements, and said what we -did in his behalf. We deeply regret en books, and al1 fresh and in"pirlng, and from the ablest missionary writers in the world. At to say that we have lately received the same time it is an invaluable cvclopOJdia Of ~vidence from the best sources of in- milsions, containing a vast amount of the latest and most accurate information on every subject formation that wI! were deceived and connected with Christian missions. 'rhe eight imposed upon Ly this man, and that departments are crowded with matter of inter- est and importance to the friends of missions, he is unworthy of confidence or aid, in al1lands and in aU branches urthe Church.
.and we hereby withdraw our indorse- I. Literature Qf M"tssions. Contains some 130 separate article., most of them original, and ment and forbid him to use it. From by the ablest writers at home and abroad. the American consul at Florence we learn that no such institution now II. Organized Missionary Work. Gives the ~xist!S in Florence. And Dr. Cyrus latest reports of over 130 of the leading mission- Hajlllin assures us that our statement ary societies of the world. .about his services at Constantinople is essentially untruthful. It grieves III. Corrupondence and General Intellius. tu make such a statement, but gence. From leading mis.ionarie. in all lands, truth and justice and the cause of a. well as intelliltence from the world-field. -Christ demand it at our hands. IV. International Department. By Dr. Gr,,- A Oorreotion. cey, containing 100 pages of great interest and value. IN our January issue we gave V. Moothlll Concert of MissWns. By Dr. A. .credit for the article-" England and '1'. Pierson. Full 01 stirring papers and sugges- Foreign Missions "-to Rev. James tive themes and thoughts.
.Johnston, "Secretary of the World's VI. P,ogre88 and Results Q.f Missions. A world of the latest doings and facts, gathered Missionary Conference." We were from every source and field. misled in making this statement in a VII. Statistic, of the Wcrld's Missions. A way that attaches no blame to any large amount of the latest and most authentic etatistics. Ma!lY invaluable tables, etc., etc. -one. But we -desire to state that, VIII. Editorial Notes on many current subthough possessed of the same hon- jects of missionary interest.
()toed name, our c;::ontributor is an- Aud to add to the value Ofthi8 bound volume, It conta.ins a full and skillfully prepared Indez -other clergyman, a resident of Bol- of Contents, 80 tbst every topic treated in it, and ton, England, who has volunteered every important faet or statement or table of to post us from time to time with the etatistics given can be readily found and made -current ongoings of missionary life available to the rietasdleirt.eraOrynemwerililtsbIeitasmvaazsetdn,eosns in Great Britain. He will continue examination, at his useful service and, when the topic of scope, and the plenitude and va ue of Its his- is too brief for a separate paper we torical and statistical information. It will adorn tihall append his simple initials, or Our English Correspondent, as in and be a valuable acquisition to anI library, the present number. private or public. The price is but $2.50, free delivery. It Is a marvel of cheapne!s.
Statistical Tables.
.. The :Miseionary Review," in the hands ofMr. Wilder, earned a deserved reputation for the ekill and pain.taking labor ebown in the matter of missionary statistics. "Wild…r's Tables" were Simply marvel. in their way and are cited ". authority everywhere. We had hoped and planned to carry on this good work unto perfec- tion, but our wishes and plans for the first year failed. But we still purpose to accomplish it a$ any cost, and are maturing arrangements tha$ will bring it about during the year. In tile meanwhile we avail onrselves of the results ot others' labors. The tables we give this month, published by the Ameri"an Board, are exceed- ingly valuable for reference, while onr own table on wom~n's work is full and reliable.
The Missionary Review of the World — November 1888
THE MISSION TOUR OF SCOTLAND
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XI. No. It.-Old Series.-_NOVEMBER.–VOL. I. No. ll.-New Berie8.
I.-L I T ERA T U REO F MIS S ION S .
THE MISSION TOUR OF SOOTLAND. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] BROUGHTY FERRY, N. B., August 24, 1888.
Dear Dr. Sher1Oood.-The address this evening will conclude, for the present at least, my mission tour in Scotland. I begah this series of addresses at Edinburgh on July 14, six weeks ago to-morrow. My intention was to spend a Sabbath in Edinburgh, and at once return to London and the Continent, where I hoped to prosecute some studies of Papal missions. But the pressure brought to bear was so heavy, and the leading of God seemed so plain in the direction of further effort in this land of the martyrs, that both Dr. Gordon and I concluded to remain for a time and speak in various towns and cities under direction of a Central Oommittee. We have now visited ~n succession twentyone different places-Edinburgh, Oban, Inverness, Strathpeffer, Nairn, Forres, Elgin, Aberdeen, Dufftown, Glasgow, Hamilton, Durioon, Helensburgh, Rothesay, Ooatbridge, Dundee, Brechin, Montrose, Forfar, Arbroath, and Broughty Ferry. Dr. A. J. Gordon, of Boston, who accompanied me during the first part of the tour, left me at Aberdeen, feeling constrained to leave for home on the ninth of August. Rev. James Scott, a devoted missionary from Natal, now at home on a furlough, has been with me, and has taken Dr. Gordon's place, and Mrs. Stott, of the Ohina Inland Mission, has addressed the afternoon ladies' meetings, and often spoken also in the evening gatherings, greatly to the profit of all who have heard her charmingly simpl~ story of Ohinese life and the work among the Orientals. Nothing but the necessity of attention to other matters and of arranging for my return home constrains me to arrest this mission tour. Notwithstanding the fact that it was undertaken in the midst of the summer season, when the ministers were on their vacation and the people were scattered, there has not been one visit to anyone of these places which was not more than repaid in results. Not only on the Sabbath evenings have the largest halls been crowded and overflowing, but even on the week nights, and often in the cold, damp weather, the audiences that have greeted us have been an agreeable surprise. I have made a careful esti· mate o{ numbers, and find that since I arrived in Edinburgh I have.· addressed on the subject of missions an aggregate of not less than thirtyfive thousand different people.
Dr. GordoQ's addresses were marked by peculiar effectiveness. His calm and dignified bearing, his knowledge of facts and masterly method of marshaling them, his self-restrained utterance, free from all undue enthusiasm and vehemence, carried conviction to many who might be unaffected by my more vehement and impassioned speech. And when he left for America, it seemed as though what an Irishman might call the bigger half of the speechmaking were withdrawn. And Mrs. Gordon was a power in the women's meetings; fluent, earnest, practical, with rare facility and felicity of illustration, we felt very much the lack of her help, as she reluctantly turned homeward.
The method followed in this brief tour has been very simple, and we believe may easily be followed elsewhere. A district has been selected, say like that in which Dundee is central, embracing smaller· places like Brechin, Forfar, Arbroath, etc. Arrangements for that district are left to a local committee, who determine the order of visits, the places of the meetings, persons who preside, and homes where the deputies are to be entertained. All we have had to do was to follow the programme, and send word beforehand of the train, etc. We have found some one in waiting at the station, have been very generously and hospitably entertained, and have found everywhere a warm welcome. Mr. W. E. Blackstone, of Chicago, lent us his admirable map, in which the prevailing religions are indicated by various colors, etc., and this has been a ml?st valuable auxiliary to our addresses.
It has commonly fallen to me to outline the general work of missions, to unfold its history and progress, to trace the wonderful providence of God in the opeuing of doors, removal of obstacles, etc.; and to present the general argument for missionary endeavor. Dr. Gordon has commonly approached the subject from the practical side, illustrating the triumphs of grace in the conversion of the Gentiles, the purifying of their hearts by faith, showing how God has given them the Holy Ghost even as He did unto us, and has wrought miracles, wonders, and signs by his gospel. Rev. Mr. Scott; and Mrs. Stott have usually confined themselves to the work of God under their own eyes in Africa and China. Occasionally there have been a few remarks by the chairman or !Some other person present, but we stipulated before we set out on this tour that the tedious and !Somewhat formal" votes of thanks" that usually accompany a public meeting in Scotland should not ,be allowed to divert attention from the words spoken by the speakers.
'rhe door is open for an indefinite continuance of this tour, so far as t~e people ara concerned. 'I'he Central Committee have had ISo many letters and telegrams asking for our services that they have had ~o employ a clerk to attend to the correspondence, and the pr9posal has been strongly urged upon me to go to the Continent for a short rest, and return and resume the work later on in the fall. But for t.he great church that is entitled to my service at home, I think I should continue this work here.
All this I have written, not because I regard myself as of any particular importance in this work, but because this experience makes doubly plain to me that what is pre-eminently needed is to put the FACTS of missions before the people. The great bulk of disciples have never been brought into contact with the thrilling realities of mission- My history. We need to point out to disciples the footsteps of God in this march of missions, and then every loyal heart will respond. One of the most world-renowned philanthropists-a man whose name is a household word wherever English is spoken-wrote to me: "Of the great mass of facts presented by you as bearing upon missions, I regret to confess that I have been hitherto profoundly ignorant." Books on missions are often very voluminous; it requires the leisure, if not the culture, of a scholar to peruse and appreciate them. They are not always pointed, graphic, interesting to the popular mind; frequently there is mixed up with them much that is scientific, literary, foreign to missions altogether. It becomes necessary to wade through a great mass of descriptions of fauna and flora, tedious details as to manners and customs, geography and geology, history and philosophy, to get at a few impressive facts as to spiritual and moral conditions and needs, and the overwhelming proof that God works with the missionaries. Very few books on missions make the hand of God conspicuousmagnify the providence and grace of God in missionary history, so that they stand out like mountains on a landscape. Our whole endeavor has been to confront these intelligent people with the marvelous and wonderful facts that, more than any arguments, convince the most skeptical that God is as actually working now as ever, and that in proportion as we go into all the world and preach the gospel, He is 1()ith u~, working miracles by His providence and grace. This is the argument that rouses the most sluggish, and thrills the most apathetic. Dr. Gordon's most eloquent appeals were the appeals of facts-the story of Mackay's twelve years at Formosa, with 1,200 converts; of Jewett and Clough at Ongole, with 10,000 baptisms a twelvemonth; of Darwin's 2,000 visits to Terra del Fuego, and his subscription to missions because of the enchanter's wand they wielded in Patagonia; of Judson at Boardman, among the Karens, and the 50,000 converts brought to Christ before KhoThah B.vu's Jubilee Hall was built ; of Coleridge Patteson and John Williams in the South Seas, etc.-these are the sort of facts that convince and confute the practical skepticism of disciples and compel them to see that they have been shutting their eyes to the moving of God's pillar of clo·ud.
A. GLANCE A.T THE BASEL 1IlISSION
And how indefinitely these Instances might be multiplied! There were no miracles in ancient times that in their way demonstrated Godls existence, presence and power with His servants more than what, within the past seventy-five years, has been taking place in the fields of missionary labor. If disciples would exchange trashy novels for the biographies of saintly I workers, they would find facts more fascinating than fiction, and more readable than romance. The story of William Johnson in Sierra Leone, of Charles Wheeler on the Euphrates, of Robert Morrison in China, of Thomas Powell in Nanumaga, of John Williams at Erromanga, of William Duncan in Colombia, of Adoniram Judson in Burmah, of Fidelia Fiske in Persia, of Robert McUfat in Africa; the rapid opening of doors in Japan, Turkey, China, India, Korea, Africa; the wonders wrought in the Pacific Archipelago, in Madagascar, in Southern India, in Greenland, in France and Italy; the heroism of the Moravians, the consecration of native converts and evangelists, the radical and revolutionary changes that have turned brutal cannibals into gentle disciples, and reared churches over cannibalovens ; that have made holy men and women out of human beings who had lost almost the idea of God and the image of man ;-theseand the thousand other facts that are the staple of missionary argument and appeal should be persistently kept before, as well as put before, the members of our churches. And no book is, on the whole, so effective for this purpose as the living voice. If the Baptist brethren of this country would make Dr. and Mrs. Gordon missionary bishops at large and send them itinerating through the land to hold popular meetings and bring these appeals for missions into close contact with the popular heart, there would be a revival of missions, or rather a new epoch of missionary interest. We must not only strike when the iron is hot, but make the iron hot by continued, rapid striking, blow on blow, till the very force of the impact creates heat. This conviction alone led me to turn aside to this short mission tour, and no work I ever did 'seemed to me to repay the expenditure with such ample compensation. The great evil of our day is the lack of response to the providence of God. But disciples will not respond to any voice they do not hear, or any hand they do not see. Let us familiarize ourselves with the facts, and then put them before the people.
A GLANCE AT THE BASEL MISSION.-PART II.
BY RllV. HllNRY W. HULBERT, BEIRUT, SYRIA.
IN the organization and working of the Basel Mission there are three departments that merit especial attention~the mission school at Basel, the Industrial and Commercial Commission, and t4e church .government on the niission fields.
The first-named. as the oldest phase of the work of the Society, demands our earliest attention. The places of the seven pupils of 1816 are now occupied by nearly a h~ndred young men, who are divided into six classes. It was our delightful privilege some time ago to spend two weeks within the shelter of the hospitable roof of this school, to listen to the faithful words of its instructors and to live at the common table with the "heathen," and to talk much with them of their early experiences, of their life in the Mission School, of their aims in the life of heroic service before. them, and it does not seem amiss toa.ttempt to give a realistic account of our visit.
We have already described the buildings of the mission school as lying just outside the limits of the older city, near the imposing medimval "Spalenthor." We pass the porter's lodge at the gate and enter the large building at the front. Weare in the book department and among the offices of the mission. Passing through into the main division of the building we have at our right the library, which does not impress us so much by its size as by its department devoted to Christian missions, which is large and well selected; at our left is the extensive museum, containing interesting articles from all quarters of the globe; it has a fine model of the Mosque of Omar; and, what interested us more than all, the walls are lined with the photographs of the men who have passed from these walls of study out into the absorbing activity of practical mission work. They present an array of intelligentand powerful faces. They give the impression of being earnest, practical men. Three doors at the north side of this room lead us into the commodious and pleasantly arranged chapel. Still to the west of these in the further L of the building are the recitation rooms and the hospItal department which is fitted up with all modern convt;lniences.
On the second floor are the refectory, study rooms and dormitory of the two upper classes, with apartments for the family of one of the professors and a teacher, and various office rooms at the front. The third floor is similarl;r occupied by the third and fourth classes, and the fourth floor by the fifth and sixth classes. Still higher up, in the large attic, are small retiring rooms or cells, one for each student, which are used every morning for a few moments of quiet meditation and prayer. In the various studies are found pianos, and in this attic story is a room with an instrument and various arrangements for afterdinner diversions on rainy days when the students cannot walk in the garden. In the basement are the kitchen, a bath-room, shoe-blacking room, etc. In the garden under the sheds are found the carpenter and blacksmith shops and laundry. Near at hand are the equipments of a gymnasium. The garden is carefully laid out with walks through grape arbors and under fine fruit trees.
The order of the day is as follows: At half past five in the morning the rising bell sounds. The" brethren" dress and retire for a few moments to the small attic rooms before referred to for prayer. They then go to their several class study rooms, where. each man has his desk and book-shelves. Here they complete their devotions and arrange their tasks for the day. At seven o'clock all are summoned to the chapel for prayers, at which there is an exposition of a short lesson read from the New Testament, except on Mondays, when the half hour is spent in common prayer. At 7:30 comes cofiee. After this the students go to their dormitories and each man makes his bed. At 8:15 the lectures or lessons begin and continue until 12 :15. At 10 o'clock a bit of bread and cheese or wine is taken without hindrance to the work. Dinner comes at 12:15, after which until 2 o'clock is a time of recreation. Three days in a week each student must spend an hour a day working at his traue; or if he does not have one, at learning a trade. Bookbinding, printing, carpentering or blacksmithing are the usual trades learned. Study and recitation continue from two o'clock until four, when coffee is taken in the refectory. From 4:30 to 7 the· studies go on. At that hour in summer supper is eaten, but in winter this comes at 8 P.M. The students then are at liberty until evening prayers at 9 P.M., when a portion from the Old Testament is expounded. At 10 P.M. all retire. 'rhe students take turns in clearing the tables and doing .various services on the three floors; but a coterie of servants under the "house mother" rule the kitchen. There are also various incidental meetings and minor arrangements that need no mention here. This whole scheme was carefully worked out in the early history of the institution, and is designed to develop qualities of humility, obedience and goodfellowship, and is submitted to by the students with a grace that makes even its hardships a means of growth in manhood.
These hundred young men come from all classes of society, but especially from the common people. They hail from many countries, but the most of them come from South Germany and Switzerland. The institution as well as the society is undenominat~onal, and hence many sections of the Church are represented. After the opening of the school in 1816 and up to January 1, 1882, 1,112 young men had entered the mission house. Of these 505 came from Wurttemburg, 105 from Baden, 36 from Elsass, and 173 from other seetions of Germany. From Switzerland there were 203 candidates; from Russia, 22 ; Denmark, 9 ; Sweden, 6; France, 3; Hungary, 2; Greece, 2; Holland, 2; England, 2; Austria and Norway, 1 each; while from Armenia there were 14; Africa, 9 ; India, 7 ; China 6 ; and America 4. From so wide a field has the Basel Mission attracted earnest workers I Again, it is interesting to note the occupations from which they came, as this may throw light upon the unique feature of the mechanical and commercial department in the work of this society. Out of the 1,112 men, 143 were agriculturists, 123 from mercantile life, 98 weavers, 73 teachers, 73 students, 69 shoemakers, 65 wo~kers n wood, 50 iron-workers, 46 tailors, 29 clerks, 19 factory hands, 16 bakers, Hi printers, 16 candidates for theology, 15 bookbinders, 15 mechanics, 13 watchmakers, 13 saddlers, 13 gardeners, 12 surgeons; the remainder came from 48 different trades, with the exception of 17, who were without a vocation when they entered the mission house.
In fact, the Basel Mission is doing a unique work in encouraging earnest Ohristian young men of the lower classes in Europe to enter upon a missionary life. A young man, say a carpenter by trade, presents himself at the mission house, and IS desirous of being prepared for mission work. If he brings evidences that he is intelligent and is thoroughly Biblical in his faith, and desires to give himself entirely to the work from unselfish motives, he is taken into the school on trial, provided he is at least eighteen years old or not over twenty four. If, after a period of a year. more or less, he shows himself an apt student and obedient to all the regulations of the institution, he begins the course of study, and after six years is graduated and sent off to some field suited to his capacity. He is pledged upon entering, in view of his free maintenance, that he will submit to the direction of the committee. If he proves on the whole rather dull at his books, but shows good common sense and an earnest zeal, he is kept in the missioJ1 house for a year or so.~ and then is sent out into the field to work at his trade, teaching it to the natives, and in the meanwhile doing not a little colporteur work and bringing an active Ohristian zeal to bear on every side. The Basel Mission thus calls for all sorts of talent, and never turns away an earnest man. Like the Apostle Paul, these young men may carry their tools with them, and even the skill of hand may be turned to the service of . Him who was called "the son of a carpenter."
The course of instruction, carried systematically through six years, gives these young men a very adequate training for the rough missionary life before them. Besides the mere elementary branches, their programme of study embraces Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English, a great deal of Bible study in the original languages and in the German, Old and New Testament analysis, dogmatics, ethics, symbolics, church history, including a history of missions, homiletics, and, to pass over the various sciences, practical missionary instruction. The examination in Decembcr and February are delightful occasions for the students and their guests. Eight theological teachers.• as well as two medical instructors, a music teacher and an instructor in English, make up the faculty of the school.
I had occasion to remark the simple, humble zeal of the stUdents, their thoughtfulness for each other, their perfect resignation to the career before them. I never heard more earnest devotions. The singing was inspmng. Noone can live two weeks in that building, as I did, without receiving a precious blessing. The occasions when a group of young men are sent out to their distant fields are especially tender.
r. was present at one of these farewell meetings. The earnest prayers, the solemn counsels, the courageous speeches, and the hopeful songs stirred me deeply, and as the particular friends of the young men who were going came up and clasped their arms about the young heroes and gave them the kiss of peace, I was imagining myself back in the old apostolic days.
Recently I have had occasion, under other circumstances, to review at length the Industrial and Commercial Commission, which is one or' the unique features of the Basel Mission; but a brief summary will not be out of place here. This work grew· up under the efficient management of Inspector J osenhaus. The mission on the Gold Coast was absolutely dependent upon direct commercial communication with Europe for all the necessities of life. The native Christians had no method of earning an independent livelihood. The establishment of a depot of supplies, and the instruction of the natives in agriculture and in the various crafts, was the inevitable outcome of any attempt at missionary work on so inhospitable a coast. 'rhe work has advanced. Vessels owned by the society navigate the various rivers of the territory occupied, and commercial houses are springing up at convenient points. In India the development in this line is on a much more extensive scale. The weaving establishments of Mangalore in 1884 employed 106 persons in weaving 45,198 yards of cloth. In the region round about Cananore 224 persons wove 103,840 yards in the same year. There are large silk manufactories at Mangalore and Calicut. In Mangalore 70 mechanics, and in Calicut 64 joiners were at work that same year."
The Industrial and Commercial Commission has not added the China mission to its field of operations, and it probably will not. From the fact of the resignation of the former inspector, Schott, because he considered it unwise to mix the religious and commercial affairs, shows that there has not always been perfect unanimity in the matter. Several of the prominent missionaries in India agreed with Mr. Schott, but there can be no doubt that the overwhelming majority of sympathizers with the Basel Mission approve of the commercial, mechanical and agricultural phase of the work. They point with pride to the fact that in 1886 the Commission, above all expenses, paid into the coffers of the society the sum of $43,712, The employes and the twenty-eight European lay missionaries connected with these business relations receive no stated salary, but only what is necessary to cove~ their expenses. The entire business is consecrated to the Lord, and is in the hands of men whose sound sense has helped to enrich the society. The income of the Basel Mission Society averages about $260,000, and comes from four sources. By far the largest amount (seventy per cent.), ('omes from voluntary subscriptions coming from far and near. Fully one-half of this is from South Germany; Switzerland comes next.
JlISSIONS A.MONG THE JlORJlONS. .809
Contributions come from Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and even Australia. The Commercial and Industrial Commission furnish seven- teen per cent. of the annual income. Seven or eight per cent. comes from various printing and publishing houses, and the rest from miscel- laneous sources, such as ren~ and school funds. The actual outlay of the Basel Mission for 1884 was about $265,000. Seventy per cent. of this went directly to the three mission fields, then in t1!-e hands of the society. Seven per cent. was expended on the seminary at Basel, five and one-half per cent. in caring for the children of missionaries, three and one-half per cent. in caring for invalids and widows. One-third per cent. was sent to America a1;ld Australia, and the small remainder was used for ge1;leral expenses.
What sort of church government is found in the missions of this society? As we have seen, the Basel Mission is undenominational.
When a young man graduates from the seminary he is examined and ordained as a missionary through the courtesy of some interested church, Reformed or Lutheran or Free, as the case may be. He can- not stay in Europe and preach on that ordination, but is granted the examination in view of his going to a distant field.
As soon as the constituency of the mission began to grow in the mis- sion fields, and it was necessary to organize churches, there was some anxiety as to what the ecclesiastical out.come would be. By a sort of natural selection they have adopted the Presbyterian principle and are using a simple liturgy. As may be inferred from the class of mission- aries sent, and the type of their training school, the Basel Mission church preaches a simple, earnest gospel. If the' piety of the men in the field is of the same nature as that which I saw in the Mission House, there must be a war~th of Christian life' that shall make sure and steady conquests for the Master. The history of the Basel Mis- sion shows that a keen business push is in harmony with an earnest Christian devotion.
The Basel Mission has been a contemporary with the· American Board through nearly its whole history, and soon (1890) will celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary, and its,tatorosriwn ililtsrecjoroicweninbetfhoereonites hundred and forty-and-four thousand first hundred years shall have passed away. All honor to the Basel Mis- sion!
MISSIONS AMONG THE MORMONS.
BY PROF. D. L. LEONARD, OBERLIN, O.
THE Latter-day Saints, as they delight to call themselves, were left for nearly twenty years after their advent into Utah and thirty-five years from the founding of their church, to wax worse and worse in pernicious error, before the Ohristian churches of America initiated their first attempt to bring these outlandish and odious religionists back to gospel belief and a decent practice. To the ends of the earth messengers of truth were dispatched, but none to these benighted thousands, resident in the midst of the Republic. This strange and culpable neglect was, no doubt, in part because their home wa.s a terra incognita, remote and inaccessible across the plains and behind the mountains, and so the situation was not fully appreciated. But, besides, the theocracy was known to be omnipotent, unscrupulous, and determined to maintain itself at all hazards, and hence to make assault was to undertake a work certain to cost hardest endurance to body and spirit, if not also serious peril to life. But at length, a strange combination of favorable circumstances, such as the permanent presence of United States' troops in the suburbs of Salt Lake, the opening of mines in the mountains round about the Mormon "Zion," with the consequent influx of Gentile population, constituted a peremptory call to open a campaign against Satan's seat.
Since 1847 the hierarchy had made the most of its unmatched opportunity to strengthen and enlarge itself on every side. Hundreds of emissaries-ardent, zealous, and overflowing with the wisdom of the serpent-had been sent to Europe, Afri~, India, Ohina. and the islands of the sea, and so skillfully had they wrought that converts were crowding up the Platte and through South Pass at the rate of 5,000 and upwards a year. To receive these recruits numerous colonies were planted here and there over a space equal to nearly a tenth of the national area. Brigham Young was an autocrat then at the summit of his power; arrogating to himself authority and inspiration even greater than any possessed by Moses, Isaiah, or Paul, and with none daring or even desiring to dispute his claim, though it extended to all business and political affairs, as well as to the entire realm of religion. This " prophet's" nod was supreme law, the Federal Government to the contrary notwithstanding. To oppose him was to make social and financial ruin certain, was even to face death. Those were the days of speech in the Tabernacle incredibly foul and profane, and when atrocious crimes were countenanced and condoned. if not even commanded by the church. No deed was too barbarous or too bloody, if thought needed to punish rebels and apostates. A veritable reign of terror, no mean imitation of the Jacohin original, was just closing. It was under such conditions, and while our civil strife was at its height, that a solitary Ohristian minister, the pioneer, thank God, of a host, descended Emigration OaBon, and appeared upon the scene. Some slight preparation had been made for his coming, and a few expectant friends were ready to give cordial greeting. A Literary Association had been formed a few months before, the first attempt at intellectual improvement the Territory had ever seen. And it was through an urgent appeal from this source, as well as from Gen. Oonnor in command at Fort Douglass, an Irishman and a Oatholic, and yet warmly encouraging the movement, that the American Home Missionary Society determined to send a ~epresentative, and accordingly commissioned Rev. Norman McLeod, then located at Denver. His advent was made in the early days of 1865. The association offering the use of its hall, hl a brief period a Sunday-school was organized, as weHas a second at the fort; a congregation was gathered for preaching services, and eighteen were found ready for church membership. All non-Mormons were of one heart and one mind in the matter. Ohristian and non-Ohristian, Romanist and Jew, gave enthusiastic support. Before the end of the year an adobe structure had been erected costing nearly $7,000, and with funds raised upon the ground or in Oalifornia. This was Indedependence Hall, the Faneuil Hall of Salt Lake, the cradl6 of liberty, the first building in Utah not controlled by the Mormon Ohurch, and in which, also, for years almost every organized movement against polygamy and theocracy, whether church, lodge, or political party, had its beginning, and is still used by the Oongregationalists as a place of worship.
But the greatest excitement had already been stirred in the Mormon camp. First the elders were amazed at the impudence and presumption of the whole proceeding. Were not they the sole possessors of divine authority and heavenly grace, and they alone enlightened by the truth, and so fit to teach ? Was it not their mission to convert the Gentile world? And so, who were these that, though themselves in utter spiritual darkness, would teach religion? It was carrying coals to Newcastle, and worse. Nor was it pleasant, this having the war carried into Africa, and so compel them to fight for their very lives. Moreover, after long years of "persecution," attended with robbings and 'burnings, and drivings, and slayings, had they not fled from doomed Babylon that they might possess this, their Oanaan, in peace? So why could not their enemies let them alone? It was enough to provoke the saints, and provoked they were exceedingly, at such outrageous poaching upon their preserves. From pulpit and press a cry arose of indignation, not unmingled with alarm. The man was denounced to those whose agent he was. Woe to whoever gave him aid and comfort, or in any way bade him Godspeed! Once the chapel was filled with a crowd bent on mischief, determined to muzzle the preacher, and revolvers were drawn.
Mr. McLeod may have been lacking in mildness and moderation and sweet reasonableness, and may not always have tempered valor with sound discretion. But his spirit was stirred in him v,t what he saw and knew, and the tempest was }Jigh. In the midst of the strife some military changes were made, which cau'sed the removal of several of his most efficient supporters, and in th~ spring of 1866 he was called to Wasliington to give evidence before a Oongresssional committee. During the summer several. prominent Gentiles were basely murdered, among them Dr. Robinson, the superintendent of the Sunday-schoolJ and it was evident to all his friends that for prudence's sake Mr. McLeod's return should be delayed until the dawn of calmer days. Five years elapsed before he again set foot in Salt Lake, and it was not until 1874 that solid and lasting foundations were laid, when Rev. W. M. Barrows was put in charge of the work. In 1878 Salt Lake Academy was opened, with Rev. Edward Bermel' as principal, and soon after several schools were started in neighboring settlements. In 1880 the New West Education Commission began vigorously to push educational matters among the Mormons, and the year following the writer of this article was appointed Superintendent by the Home Missionary Society to enlarge their work.
But, meanwhile, other denominations had entered the Territory. Thus, in 1866, a Roman Catholic priest purchased a lot for a church in Salt Lake, though it was not until 1871 that a building was erected. Since then several churches and schoolhouses have been built, and a large hospital; but not so much as a form of effort against Mormonism so as to meet the wants of a Catholic population scattered through the mines and elsewhere. The Episcopalians were the next to break ground for the gospel, sending Bishop D. S. Tuttle, now of the Diocese of Missouri, and two other clergymen, who entered the Great Basin in Mayof 1867, and at once opened service in Independence Hall. In July they started a school in the same building, where it remained for two years. This was the beginning of school work as' a weapon against the dominant church, which since has developed into such large proportions and proved itself to be one of the most potent instrumentalities for the regeneration of Utah. The first church' was dedicated in 1871. Meantime, Ogden, Logan and other points had been occupied. Bishop Tuttle remained nineteen years, and made himself deeply felt, and far and wide, for intelligence, patriotism and righteousness.
The Presbyterians delayed their advent until the completion of the Union Pacific, opening work i.n Corinne in 1869. In the fall of 1871 Rev. Josiah Welsh organized a church in Salt Lake; in 1875, by Prof. J: M. Coyner, the Collegiate Institute was opened in the same city, and Wahsatch Academy also in Mt. Pleasant, San Pete County, 125 miles south. 'l'hese were the first schools established by this denomination, which since has added so many,. and has continually held the place of honor as foremost in thfi) extent of its work and the number of toilers, whether in the pulpit or the school-room. Rev. D. J. McMillan was superintendent during the eight years of enlargement, and under his lead missions were opened along a line extending 450 miles from Malad; Idaho, to St. George in the extreme southwest of Utah.
And the Methodist Episcopal Church followed hard after, Rev. G. M. Pierce entering the Valley as avant courier in 1870, preached his first sermon in Independence Hall, and in September Salt Lake Semi.
nary was opened in the same room. During the year following the foundations were laid of a $60,000 church, and in quick, succession six outside points were occupied. But then followed a long period of languor, and retrenchment and diminution; nor was it until times quite recent that these brethren have begun to bestir themselves as IS their wont. With Rev. T. C. Iliff as leader and inspirer, great gains are reported at every Conference. Special prominence is given to chupel and parsonage building, and to the Scandinavian work.
In the "linter of 1871-2 the Baptists began to hold services in Salt Lake, and in the spring ensuing a church was organized, which, how~ ever, lived but about two years. But ten years later a second and more successful start was made, with Rev. Dwight Spencer as founder and builder. And, last of all, the Swedish Lutherans are on hand at length to look after the th6usands of their ecclesiastical brethren who have been beguiled by the soft words of the crafty elders. Thus far they 'have done little to organize. , ~t should also be added that the Hebrews who entered Utah with Johnson's army in 1858 have built them a commodious synagogue in the capital city of Mormondom, are full of patriotism and public spirit, give liberally to to every good cause, and so deserve to be named among those who have helped to redeem the Territory.
Let this table of statistics tell some of the results of twenty-three years from the beginning, less than fifteen of vigorous pushing and less than ten of combined assault of all the churches.
Denominations. Churches. Ministers. Schools. Teachers. Scholars.
Presbyterian, ………. 13 15 33 67 2,170 Congregational. ……. 5 S 23 46 1,950 Methodist ………….. S 25 24 46 1,380 Episcopalian ……….. 4 7 1> 30 610 Baptist..••………… 2 3 1 2 110 Lutheran …………… 1 1 1 1 40 TotaL …………•.. 33 59 87 186 6,260 To these may be added four Catholic churches, with five schools, forty teachers and 850 pupils. Of these schools ten are of the higher sort, or do academical work. The value of the real estate in use for church and school purposes is upwards of $500,000, while the annual expenditure is almost $150,000. Counting teachers and the wives of ministers, we have a total of not less than 300 toiling for the regeneration of Utah. The work thus far has necessarily been prelIminary. The ground has been cleared, the way has been thrown up. An entrance has been forced and institutions have been founded. Barriers of suspicion and prejudice have been broken ,down, friends and even co-operation have beeh secured, and large gains are in view and not fa.r off. MORMONISM LOSING GROUND.
Surely, though it be but slowly, and let this be an item in illustra.tion of the fact. The church grip upon the ballot, leading without fail to a solid vote, has always been among the most alarming features of the Mormon menace to our institutions. Therefore, for the gospel's sake, we may rejoice to note indications that the ruling priesthood is losing political power. Itis estiwated that in Salt Lake alone not less than $2,000,000 in real estate have passed from Mormon to Gentile hands within two years, which means a large influx of the latter class. And their presence makes itself felt at elections. And so it could come to pass that at the recent school meetings in fiveseyeral districts in that city, where from time immemol'ial the Elders, without let or hindrance, had shed freely forth the aroma of their faith, they found themselves ousted and their opponents in possession. This means five schools at once transformed and made fit for Gentile children to attend. And even stL'anger, at the August elections one church candidate, a scion of the ruling Cannon family, ran scriously behind the rest of the ticket, while his Gentile rival ran as much ahead; showing that severall3cores flatly rebelled against the tyranny of the hierarchy. Hitherto such independence has been unlmown in Uta.h, and it looks somewhat as though the Saints themselves might soon dare to make a break for freedom.
UNITED STATES VS. THE MORMON CHURCH.
Below are given some instructive facts and figures which, "with mingled feelings" the patriot and Christian is likely to read, mark, learn, and in- wardly digest. They help to show how prominent a place things mundane and material have in the economy of the Mormon Church (which also collects some $750,000 annually from tithing, and so is in possession of a large fund lOl'
use in keeping matters in shape upon the Potomac and elsewhere). Some items forcibly remind one of what once befell certain persons who sold oxen and sheep in the temple, and made it a house of merchandise. They also sup- ply complete and most cheering evidence that, though the haughty theocracy long paid no heed to the law of 1862, which forbade any church in the Terri- tories to hold property to an amount in excess of $50,000, yet in this evil day, when troubles thicken on every side, the Government is able to call the offender to sharp account. The" Saints" are, however, slow to learn that the civil powers that be are ordained of God. .
Ah-eady the United States Marshal, by an order of court, has come into possession of Real estate and other church belougings……………………………….$157.666.15 And, since, to that have been added: Church farm …………………………………………………………..$150,000.00 Coal lands …………………………………………………………….. 100,000.00 Cattle, horses, etc………………………………………………………. 75,000.00 Gas stock……………………….. …………………………………… 75,000.00 Sheep (30,000) ………………………………..'……………………….. 60,000.00 Tithing yard ……………………………………. ,…………………… 50.000.00 Gardo House………………………………………………….. ……… 50,000.00 Theater stock ……. ,………………………………………………….. 27,000;00 Telegraph"tock ……………………………………………………….. 22,000.00 Historian's office……………………… .. …………………………… 20,000.00 Dividends on gas st~ck………………………… ….. ………………… 4,000.00 Temple Square………………………… ……………………………. 1 – Total. . .. .. .. . . . . .. .. .. , …………. : …………………….. : ………$700,666.15 It will be notLCed that no figures are affixed to the last item~ But that
HOME MISSIONS
square includes ten acres in the very heart of Salt Lake City, and on it stand the old Endowment House, the Tabernacle, the City Assembly Hall, and the great Granite Temple, costing upward of $2,000,000 to date. And the church owns mines of iron and silvel' and other properties too numerous to mentiDn. This successful stroke is made at a vital point.
HOME MISSIONS.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] AMERICA: OUR HERITAGE, OUR OPPORTUNITY.
GOD obviously meant that this land of ours should be the theater of some grand historic achievements. Joseph Cook, De Tocqueville, Web~ter, (!uyot, and other great statesmenlike thinkers, have pointed out the twelve signs in our zodiac which indicate a great future. This Continent is manifestly destined to support a great population.
The Old World might contain this New World twice; yet North and South America have more land capable of tillage. Nature has peculiarly favored this Occidental hemil!lphere. Other things being equal, fertility or sterility depends upon the mountain ranges, the river system, and the relation between the land and the sea. Vegetable products demand a humid atmosphere; there must be regular and frequent rain-falls, or something to supply their place, or the arable land would become an arid desert.
Study this continent well. Mark its· position between two great oceans, and its configuration, and you will no longer wonder at its comparative productiveness.
1. It presents more than an equal stretch of sea-coast, with about one-third the breadth of the Eastern Continents. From Senegambia to Siberia, the extreme limit is three times what it is from the coast of Ecuador to Cape St. Roque. We have, therefore, a narrow continent. The breadth of the Old World is alone sufficient to account for it&- great desert tracts; if you examine the maps of physical geography, you will observe that while we have two small, rainless tracts, in Mexico and Peru, almost the entire belt from Sierra Leone, to the Sea of Japan, seven thousand miles long by five hundred broad, is one continuous desert-giving a Sahara, and a Gobi or Shamo.
Now notice the direction and position of the mountain ranges. Here the mountain chains that are most elevated form the backbone of the continent, running down its western coast: from Long's Peak the landline sweeps rapidly downward in one lowland to the Atlantic, with scarce an interruption; the Alleghenies are but hills, after all. In the Eastern hemisphere high mountain ranges are found in the mid-continent, like the Himalayas, and on the eastern coast. Now, as the earth revolves from west to east, the trade winds of course blow westward, toward sunset. These are the fertilizing winds. Called trade winds because sailing vessels so largely depend on them for their navigation, they may with equal propriety be called harvest winds for their influence on the soil. Now, mountain ranges on the east coast of the continents. arrest and divert these winds from the interior; while mountain ranges on the west rather prevent them from carrying their' moisture again into the sea. Hence the fertility of the Amazon and Mississippi valleys.
Again notice the direction of the mountain ranges north and south, not east and west. If high mountains ran across the continent the north side would be comparatively cold, rainless and barren: the whole physical features of our country would be altered if these great mountain chains changed their direction. In America the sun in his daily course reaches both sides of the mountains; in Asia and Europe the sun leaves the northern slopes barren; from Norway to Kamtschatka is one great frozen plain, a desert of frost, as below it lies a desert of heat. Ours is, therefore, a coucave, while the Old World's-is a convex continent.
Our hemisphere is the hemisphere of the great river system. Compare even the Nile and the Congo, the Ganges and the Indus, the Hoang-Ho and the Yang-Tse, with the Mississippi and Missouri, the St. Lawrence, the Amazon and the La Plata. It is said that the Amazon alone bears to the sea more water than the eight principal rivers of Asia 1 And then observe the distribution of these rivers,in this land affording highways for commerce to the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Gulf.
Even the equatorial districts in our land are habitable and· fertile. The Old World is broad toward the equator, the New World narrowest there. The ,Old World low, and hence excessively hot. The New World elevated in the torrid zone, and consequently cool. In Mexico, for example, whose location is directly opposite the hottest parts of India and the Sahara, we find the Andes parting into two forks, and between them high table lands, such as that on which the City of Mexico stands; and within a triangular territory 300 miles long, you may find at will the temperature of all three zones.
All these physical features of this continent-the Eastern lowlands inviting. the fertilizing trade winds-the mountain ranges running north and south, and thus not intercepting the benignant influences of the sunlight-the humidity of our atmosphere, under the tropics, with a rainfall averaging fifty per cent. more annually than the Old World-the great river systems, with 20,000 miles of navigable water~ way-the broad and fertile valleys that form the vast interior of a con~ cave continent-the magnificent seacoast, with abundant harbors-the peculiar fertility and habitability of the torrid zone, with its variety of fanna and flora-the narrowness of the continent, especially in the hottest portions, exposing it to ample influence of the great seas ;-all these physical features are the sign and prophecy of a plan of God f01' thiB land,' which we are prepared to find emphasized in His providence. His plan is a grand unity, and cannot conflict in any of its parts.
'fhere is a certain geographical and topographical unity which indio cates that one great nation is to occupy our area. The river system and mountain system alike indicate that a division of the republic, especially if that dividing line ran east and west, would be disaster, if not destruction. The human body is not more a unit than is the body politic; indeed, the structure of the land itself resembles that of the body. The great Cordillera range corresponds to the backbone and the Alleghenies to the breast bone, and the river system to the arterial and venous system. A line of division drawn across this land implies a pos- sible interruption of the very avenues of commerce. Imagine a hostile fleet blockading the Mississippi at St. Louis and preventing all Southern"
traffic-stopping our outlet to the sea from the Ohio, Missouri and Upper Mississippi Valleys I-making our mineral and metal deposits, our vast coal-beds, grain-fields and cattle-ranges comparatively without communication with the Gulf !
Consider our acce.ssibility as to other lands and peoples. Looking toward sunris~, we see the Papal lands ready to pour their population across the Atlantic into our great valleys; looking toward sunset, the pagan peoples are coming to us from the Pacific. No other country which represents Republican liberty and religious Protestantism is accessible from all sides or offers space to accommodate the immigrants. !
We have a contine~t capahle of holding more than twice the present population of the globe. We lie between Europe and Africa on the one hand and Asia on the other; an area, that is also an arena of civil- ization and Christianization, is ours; aud the nations are looking down on us as from the corridors of some vast world-wide colosseum! God meant that e.migration should drift to our shores from both sides, by the open path of the sea. '
We occupy also the belt of power, within which the greatest ac~ieve ments of ancient and modern history hay-e been wrought, from the days of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, to the present. Within that belt are neither the enervating influences of the torrid, nor the paralyzing influences of tq.e frigid zone.
There is a Providence in our history. God unveiled the continent when"a reformed church was ready to occupy it, and from it as a center radilj.te iu missionary endeavor. .He diverted Columbus by a flight of paroquets and the drift of floating wood and weed, from the mainland of North America to the Bahamas and South America, and so pre- "vented Papacy from here getting a foothold. In the border wars He gave victory to the Protestants. In the Civil War He preserved the unity of the republic, and all this for a purpose.
The vital question in connection with Home Missions is the strategic.
There are points on our borders which are to be-nay, alreadyare~ the turning points of history, the pivots of destiny, the- hinges of the future. They are to be the rallying points and radiating points of civilization. There populations will be massed, commerCe will cen- e tralize, influence will focalize. Just there are the strategic points, to seize and to hold which for Christ and the kingdom are vital to the success of this campaign of the ages. There the best men are needed.
A true government provides for the whole country governed. Its distribution of forces regards every imperiled point. Like Nehemiah, it is ready to mass all its available forces at any critical point of assault.
So must the Church watch the weak or undefended places in the wall, and there station strong and able men. The local church may be weakest at- these very strategic points, unable, perhaps unwilling, to make adequate effort to sustain such men as the situation demands.
Just here it is that the Horne Missionary Board must interpose and supply the deficiency, putting into the field: a man able enough, influ- ential enough, discerning enough, to see and meet the emergency and command co-operation.
Among all the arguments for Christianity, none perhaps exceeds for pertinency and cogency that found in its disseminating power. An alive church lives for the world, for objects outside of itself. 'fhe true apologetics of the Christian system must be found in its dynamics -what we may call its energetics. A great statesman has affirmed that in any community there are enough intelligence and virtue to take care of all the ignorance and vice. The contest is for the Christ- ian possession of the land; and have we begun to realize its extent?
Three hundred and sixty such commonwealths as Connecticut lie west of the Mississippi. Thirty-five times the area of all New Eng- land does not exhaust the territory stretching from the same river to the Pacific. You might place all New England in the single State of Minnesota, and have a quarter over; its population was already reckoned at 450,000 fifteen years ago. In like manner, Missouri and Nebraska will each contain the whole of New England, and Calif()rnia would hold it three times; and with the living stream of humanity pouring in from China, Japan, and the Pacific Isles, in the form of a semi-civilized heathenism, the very destiny of our whole Western slope seems to turn now on the question whether Christianity can get posses- sion of that State.
The civilization of this land is in a high sense experimental. The nations of the earth are waiting to see whether liberty, guarded by the minimum of law, and granting the maximum of personal independence, freedom of speech and freedom of movement, is a safe estate for the average man. Universal suffrage, Republicanism as a form of govern- ment, tolerance of all religious beliefs, unrestrained money-making-all these, and much more, are here on trial.
Dr. Lepel Henrv Griffin discusses whether the discoverv of America "' I"' has been of ad'"antage or loss, and takes a pessimistic view. ,He calls the, America of to-day" the Apotheosis of Philistinism, the perplexity and' , despair of statesmen; the Mecca to which turns every religious or social, ' charlatan; w~ere the only God worshipped is Mammon, and the highest education is the share-list; where political life is shunned by every hO,nest man as the plague; where, to enrich jobbers, monopolists and' contractors, a nation has freed its slaves and enslaved its freemen; where the, people is gorged and drunk with materialism, and where wealth has become a curse instead of blessing."
Shall the Romish religion secure the ascendancy in the United States? Some have thought so from its boasted progress during the last fifty years. But it must be remembered that, though on the surface there are vast gains, underneath influences are at work producing great losses. A late number of The Oatholic Standard, wh..ile rejoicing in the marked advance of ~ts church in membership, position, institutions and aggressiv@agencies, yet acknowledges that neither the present nor the future warrants the claims made for it as the coming dominant re· ligious body in our land. It rests its judgment upon the following counteractive forces: "The first of these is the constantly occurring losses which the church suffers from the falling away from the faith, and shu more from the practice of the Catholic religion of large numbers of the laity. Mixed marriages, the public schools, intemperance, evil associations, too close intimacies with Protestants, indifferentists and skeptics, too absorbing interest in secular pursuits, and other influences and instrumentalities which the world and the devil know only to well.how to employ, constantly draw many heads of fami.lies away from the practice 01 their religion, and this results, in countless instances, in loss of faith on the part of their children.
"Then, too, it is to be borne in mind that immigration, Which did so much in past years to build up the Church in the United States, no longer furnishes so vast an annual accession to the numerical increase of the Church as it did in former years. Its volume, in proportion to the annual increase of the native-born population, has diminished. Moreover, the proportion of Catholic to non-Catholic immigrants has also greatly decreased.
"Then, too, we fail to see aBY indications ofa really favorable change in the position of the non-Catholic public as respects the Catholic religion," • These admissions speak volumes. 1'hey are a cheering revelation. They assure us that if Protestants are true to their mission and opportunity there is nothing to fear in the way of the supremacy of Roman Oatholicism. With a pure and aggressive Ohristianity, a free school, an open Bible, and aOhristian civilization operative, and a decreasing immigration, Rome will lose almost as fast as she gains.
In this work of home ,missions the largest co;tributors are the missionaries themselves, who, with ,small and uncertain pay, are giving their lives to the battle on the frontier.
Addressing his students not long' ago; Mr. Spurgeon told a good story to illu'strate the fact of preachers being themselves the principal
EARLY KISSION WORK AMONG THE .INDIANS "OF NEW ENGLAND~ tN~V
donors: "When I was in Arran, quite recently, I heard of a minister who preached in a certain church, and, at the close of the service, was strongly urged to promise for a future supply, the collection after his sermon having been unusually large. 'Dear me,' said the minister, with becoming pride, 'what might your ordinary collection amount to? 1 'Last Sunday it was twopence-halfpenny.' 'What is it to-day, then?' asked the miilister, expecting to hear a large sum. ' Eightpence-halfpenny,' was the reply. 'Woe is me,' said the minister withiu himself, .' for I gave the saxpence myself.'''
If matters were investigated it might be found that in God's eyes the principai donors to missions are not the so-called princely givers, who out of their abundance bestow thousands of dollars, but those who on the frontier work for a mere pittance, denying themselves every luxury and many comfortl,b and ofte»; giving no inconsiderable su~s of money beside to push forward the work of evangelization.
A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL MISSION WORK AMONG THE INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND.
PART II.
BY JULIA M. BLISS, LONGMEADOW, MASS.
Two notable endeavors for civilizing and educating the natives were made in the eighteenth century, one at Stockbridge, Mass., and the other at Lebanon, Conn.
The history of the" Housatonic Misf'ion" is/exceedingly interesting, bu t only the barest outline can be given here. Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of West Springfield, having heard that Konkapot, the chief of the Berkshire Mohegans, a man of much nobility of character, was favora- bly inclined to Christianity, deter.mined "that the gospel should be preached to them." With the aid and cou~sel of Dr. Williams, of Long- meadow, and others in the vicinity, and of the commissioners of the English Society at Boston, Governor Belcher being its chairman, a mis- sion was planned. Mr. John Sergeant, a tutor at Yale, who had been very desirous of entering upon such work, was appointed the mis- sionary, and Mr. Timothy Woodbridge was made his assistant. In 1734 the mission was begun at Barrington, where the Indians assem- bled for the wint!Jr; a school was started, and a church with one me,m- ber, Ebenezer Poopoonah, Mr. Sergeant's interpreter, was organized.
In 1735, to the great joy of the Indians, Mr. Sergeant was ordained as their pastor at Deerfield, Mass., the Governor, a large committee from the Council and House"f Representatives, ,Mr. Sergeant's Indians and dell'gates from other tribes, who had come to make treaties, being present. • The scattering of the Indians in summer to till their lands was a great obstacle to progress; so a townsllip six miles square was .granted ~hem, and in 1736; with their own hearty consent, they were gathered there. Land was reserved for Mr. ~ergeant, Mr. Woodbridge, and four Christian English families, who were to go there expressly to teach the natives the habits and order of civilized life. In 1739 the town was incorporated as Stockbridge, and a meeting-houBO .and schoolhouse were built by the province.
Mr. Sergeant, with the aid of friends at home, of the Prince of Wales and others abroad, planned and started the "Hollis" Industrial School for boys and girls. A farm of 200 acres was set apart for the purpose, and, until houses could be provided, companies of boys were boarded and instructed in private families. One building was erected and the school was continued for a time; but, owing to wars and Mr. Sergeant's premature death, the enterprise did not accomplish what was hoped. Still, from this and the common school, many received a fair education, and later, with the English, held various town offices; several completed their education at Dartmouth and rose to some distinction.
In 1749 Mr. Sergeant died, much lamented by the Indians. Accessions had been made to their numbers, and there were then two hundred and eighteen in the settlement and forty-two native church members, and twenty of the fifty-three families "owned English houses." They were making a manful fight against intemperance, the youths were orderly, many were learning the English language, and altogether, Mr. Sergeant was permitted to see much fruit of his labors. This place was filled successively by President Edwards, Dr. Timothy'West and his son, Mr. John Sergeant, who continued the pastor of the natives after their removal to New Stockbridge. During their stay in Stockbridge their numbers reached four hundred, and there were, altogether, about one hundred church members. Their rights and interests, both in town and church, seem to have been scrupulously guarded, but the whites had increased much in numbers, and when a tract of land in New York was given them by the Oneida's, it seemed best for them to remove, and the main body went in 1785. They carried with them there, and subsequently to Green Bay, where they have enjoyed much prosperity, the civilized habits and Christian principles learned at Stockbridge, to such a degree, as won the respect of others and would have rejoiced the hearts of Mr. Sergeant and his fellow-workers.
While the work hitherto had proceeded from the desires of the English to benefit the Indians, that in Lebanon, Conn., had its origin in the heart of a converted Mohegan, Samson O~com. Being hrought to Christ "in the great awakening of 1739," when some efforts were made for the Indi:1ns, he became possessed WIth a great desire to preach the gospel to his countrymen. . So he went to Mr. Wheelock, pastor of the second church in Lebanon, who had a private school for young men, and besought him for instruction. Mr. Wheelock consented to take him into his ffl,mily, and Occom stndied with him four years, till he was fitted for college•. He did not enter,college because of his health; but with heart on fire for his race, "he returned to his tribe preaching and teaching salvation through Christ alone with power and effect." . His case excited such interest that Mr. Wheelock opened his school to other Indians, and it became exclusively an "Indian school for missionary /purposes," there beingover twenty there in a few years. The school was encouraged by words and gifts from ministers, councils, churches, and the best men throughou't New England, showing how deep was the interest of the people in the welfare of the red"man.
In 1759 Occom was ordained by the Suffolk Presbytery of Long Island, where he labored for some years. In 1765 it was decided by the friends of the school to send him, accompanied by Rev. Nathaniel Whitaker, of Norwich, to England to raise money for the work here. Well educated, speaking English with ease, attractive in generald€- meanor, and impressive in the pUlpit, he was well fitted to' arouse interest there. He preached in many cities to "crowded audiences," before the king and queen and many nobles, and raised £7,000 in Eng- land and £3,000 in Scotland. In 1768 it was thought best to remove the school to Hanover, N. H., and there it was called Dartmouth College, in honor of the Earl of Dartmouth, who was" warmly enlisted in the cause." After the death of Eleazer Wheelock and his son; John Wheelock, the next President, the institution lost its distinctive char- acter, "and so the glowing dream, the fervid zeal and the sanguine hopes and expectations of its great-souled founder faded away."
Occom continued his labors in Connecticut and Long Island till 1786, when, with a few Mohegans and other Indians, he went to Oneida County, N. Y., and founded the Brothertown Tribe. There he preached to these Iudians, and was a missionary among the Six Na- tions, and there, in 1792, he died, "more than tbree hundred Indians following him mournfully and tearfully to the grave."
The Mohegans, who seem to have been superior in some respects to the other New England tribes, were all faithful to the colonies in every war, and it was largely owing to the influence of Occom and Joseph Johnson, another of Wheelock's pupils, that the Six Nations were friendly during the Revolution.
Perhaps one effort early in this century should not be omitted though not made for Indians alone. The great interest' felt in Henry Obookiah, an Hawaiian, led to the establishment, in 1817, of the" For- eign Mission," sometimes called the "Indian School," at Cornwall, Conn. It was started with much hope and enthnsiasm under the patronage of the American Board, its object being to educate natives of various tribes and nations, to return and teach their own peeple. So impassable seemed the Rocky Mountains then, that, strange as it ap- pears to us, it was thought that the western coast of America could be evangelized by way of the Hawaiian Islands, and this school was to be a mean~ to that end. Youths were gathered from the ends of the earth, there being at one time representatives of eleven nations and island groups, and seven tribes of Indians. Perhaps experience proved that it was better to educate native helpers in their own countries, for after a trial of ten years, in 1827, the school was discontinued, This seems to be the story of much of the mission work-great good done at the time, many brought to the Saviour, but the large hopes for the future unfulfilled. Eliot, who died in 1690, saw" a cloud over the Indian work" in his last days. Even then the civilized Indians were decreasing, on the islands where there had beeu no war, as well as on the mainland. So much did they continue to decrease that the Rev. Amos Adams, in an historical sermon preached at Roxbury in 1769, says regretfully: "All our attempts to civilize them and bring them to a regular life have proved pernicious in the end and hastened their destruction." And he predicts that the same will be true in the future. And so it has been, that, with the exception of a few removals, the majority, whether or not civilization was one of the ca'J.ses, have died out.
All the reasons for their decay may not be apparent, but a few may reveal themselves. One seems to have been their native indolence and improvidence. They were prone to slip back into their old habits, and seemed to have little desire to acquire property 61' to keep what they had, being willing rather to depend on the Engliah. In the struggle for life how could they keep their place? Another potent cause was their great love of strong drink, which they could procure, in spite of the stringent laws to prevent unpriI:cipled men from selling it to them. Cotton Mather laments the prevalence of intcmperanee, as well as idleness, among them, and the former is given as one of the reasons for their decline in his time. Later, in 1771, Occom, in a funeral sermon for an Indian who had killed a man in a drunken quarrel, solemnly besought his" poor kindred," who were gathered before him, to tUl'll away from this vice, which was their ruin, as individuals and 3 race.
Within the cities of New England are to be found settlements of negroes having the habits and customs of civilized life. Why is it that some remnants of the Indians have not left descendants to live in a similar manner, either in city or country? Much greater efforts were made to elevate them, and many had the same advantage of living in families and learning the English language and ways.. Many had lands in severalty, special laws were made to protect their rights and guard them from evil, unscrupulous men, such as are found in the best communities, and to whose influence they were peculiarly susceptible. Making due allowance for difference in tribes, does it not seem as though one race in New England lacked the virility, the ability to
1lISSIONS. [N00'V
labor, and the aptitud~ for civilization, which the other,apparentlyno higher in the scale, possessed? Deficient in these respects, perha.ps already on the way to extinction, the free "wild man;' of the forest was at odds with civilization, and faded before it.
,Were the money and labor spent on mission work wasted? No! a thousand times. We cannot measure the good done till we listen to . the story 01 Heaoooms and Occom and Konkapot and many another, who were redeemed from sin and brought to the Father's house ; but we know enough to be deeply grateful that Christian hearts were ~oved to such efforts. They should incite our wisest endeavors to conserve the remnants of the race, to give them the best that our religion and civilization have to give, and to draw them to us in the bonds of brotherly and Christian fellowship.
MEDICAL MISSIONS.
BY REV. G. E. POST, M,D., BEIRUT, SYRIA.
[Address before the World's Missionary Conference.] MR. CHAIRMAN. LADIES, AND GENTLEMEN-I shall take you at once to the forefront of the battle. I shall try to give you a series of living pictures or ' medical mission work in the field. Fir~t, let me ask you to imagine your- selves with me to-day in a room which will hold about two hundred people, in the city of Beirut; lSY.tihin the inclosure of the hospital of the Knights of St. John, belonging to the German order, of which Prince Albrecht is the president, and to which the Emperor and the greater part of the nobihty of Germany belo~ The day is Christmas; the occasion is the celebratIOn oC . their annual festival for the benefit of the patients in the hospital. Imagine to yourselves Inthe middle of this room a Christmas tree decked out as you deck it out for your festival in this land,[ or rathel', if you plea.'Ie, as the . Germans, with their exquisite tastes and with their fervent feelings with regard to this day, deck their Christmas trees.
Imagine to yourselves the patients assembling al!d grouping themselves about this tree, while on the chairs around the edges of the ro.om is a select company of English, Americans, Germans, French, and Arabs, natives of the country, and people of other nationalities, gathered to witness the spec- tude. And while they are assembling I will try to describe to you the per- sonnel and the history of some of those patients. 'The first whom we see before us is a Jittle boy of seven years of age. That boy is a Jew. Werarely get Jews into our hospital. :JYou know how it was in the days of Christ, that.
the Jews were attending to pots and pans and brazen vessels, and days and weeks and months and years, and that they forgot the weighty matters of , the law. They forgot the essence of religion. So they are at this day; they are all bent upon externals. IThey are afraid if they come to our hospital that we will give tlJem the unutterable flesh; Ithey are afraid we will give them-flesh which would be canonical, but which has not been killed accord- ing to their law. This little boy is very lB, he needs the hospital; he is so young that they think he perhaps cannot be harmed; he is not yet initiated into the secrets of religion. I do not know how it is, but there he is. We sometimes do get Jewish children. He is going to hear about Jesus Christ -the first time in his life that he has ever heard the gospel of Christ. Just behind him sits a.n old man with a. venerable presence, a. long white beard, a turban, a girdle about his loins, and. a loose flowing robe. Whom.do you suppose that man to be? Wby, he is a lineal descendant of the great Sala.din. He is proud of his lineage. But here he is, in our hospital, . a Mohammedan. A month ago if I had gone to his house he would have driven me away as a Christian· dog. But now, as he comes into tbisroom, he seizes my hand, covers it all over with kisses, and bows himself· to my very feet. What led him to bow down to that Christian dog? That dog gave hiIrt the use of his eyes. He came there blind, and now he sees. And here he sits at the feet of Jesus, with his eyes opened and his ears ready to receive the message of the gospel., By his side there is a woman with a long white veil over her face. You see but one eye. ,She wears a blue dress. She has a little babe in her arms; but look at her arms: the hands are gone! That woman is a Druse woman. She was sitting il). her house in the mountains, warming her hands over the fire in the center ofthe floor. They have no chimneys there-in many of the houses they have no windows. They let the smoke go out of the door. Well, as she was Sitting there warming hel' hands, some earth and stones and stfcks fell from the roof and pinioned her hands in the fire, and her hands were burnt to a crisp. She came down to our hospital, and we were obliged to amputate.both of her hands. Poor woman, that is not the worst of it. Her husband has divorced her. A Druse has only to say to his wife, "Go home," and with no process of law it is all finished for her. But she has come down with that poor babe, and we have been kind to her; we have treated her; she has seen these dear sisters take that babe in their arms and lull it to sleep. They have read the B~ble to her, and her heart has been touched. And now shesits there before that tree, which is the emblem of the love of Christ, and she is going to heal' the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Just on the other side is another man with it. long beard and a green turban. That man is a descendant of Mohammed. Where do you suppose he cam(> from? He came from Hebron; he is the guardian of the sacred tomb of Machpelah, and has had charge of the bones of Abraham, Isaac, and JacQb, and Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. He is a very bigoted Mohammedan. He would not let you go into the outer precincts of that sacred tomb, nor let you look through the bars where those blessed ashes repose. No man has been allowed to go into the innermost recesses of that most sacred place. The very boys of Hebron would stone you away if you attempted to go near their mosque. What brought him here? Sickness. He was blind. He came to this hospital, and the dog that he would have spat upon is the man that gave him the use of his two eyes. And he will give him now his heart and his attention as he preaches the gospel to him.
Again, off on one side there is a man clothed in a long blue robe. He has a peculiar hat on his head-a turban of a peculiar character, and a long black veil trailing down his back. That man is an Armenian priest. 1Why, we sometimes talk about the Apostolic Church, but that man believes that his Church is before the Apostolic ChUl:ch. He says they got their Church direct from Jesus Christ. He says their king sent a message to Jesus Christ, and received a letter in reply setting forth the principles of the Christian religion; and he laughs to scorn all our pl'etensions of antiquity. His is the true and ancient Church of Christ? But hel'e he is. He is to hear of·a Church more ancient than his, the Evangelical Church, the Church which, Christ and His apostles founded in deed and in t r u t h . . / !
On the right hand is a Bedouin from Palmyra. He had a blood feud with some ~his comrades, and they shot him in the side.' The bullet entel'ed the chest.f An unskillful native practitioner there very rightly wished to drain thewound, but very unskillfully rolled up a piece of rag and put it into the · .wound to keep it open; but he did not take care to prevent it slipping in, and it slipped in. Then the. next day he put in another, and that slipped in. · Then he kept on putting it in day after day, until there was a mass there as big as my fist. IThe poor man began to cough and grow thin, and he began to die. They heard of thIS hospital in Beirut, and they heard of sO.Ilebody who dared to perform operations on cases like that. They brought him all the way from Palmyra-it is four days' journey from Palmyra to Darqascus, and three days' journey from Damascus to Beirut. They brought him on a camel to Damascus, and then on a mule from Damascus to Beirut. Ilaid · open his side; there was a great ghastly wound. I took out that gl·eat mass, I and I could look in and see the action of his lungs, and could see clear to the .spinal column. That man has got well. People held it to be a miracle, but it was not a miracle of mine, but a miracle of modeIn science, and modern science is a miracle of Christianity. That man never heard of the gospel of Christ before. He was a Bedouin. He hardly had heard of Christ, except in terms of reproach. But he sits down here to hear all about the gospel.
Here.is a poor woman. She cannot sit up, but is lying on a. bed and ha.s been brought down on a stretcher, She had a brute of a husband who struck her in the,chest, and disease of the bone followed. He struck her right over he heart, and the rbs and costal cartilages were affected. A great plate of dead bone and cartilage had to be removed, and for the first and only time of my life I looked inside a woman's heart. I laid the four fingers of my hand over the pericardium, and felt every· motion ot the mechanism of the heart-a thing I never saw or heard of before. She got well. That was a miracle, not of mine, but of science, and of tJhristianity which underlies sci- ence.' She is here to hear of the gospel of Christ. ShaUl describe them aU?
They are gathered from Jel"usalem, from Bagdad, from Tuat in the Great Sahara, from Turkestan in Central Asia, from the head-waters of the Eu- phrates and the Tigris, from every village in Lebanon, from Palestine, from Cyprus, from Asia Minor-':'they are gathered into this hospital, and there they receive the gifts of healing. Now here they are, gathered about this Christmas tree,.with these sweet sisters, like presiding angels, going to and fro am.ongst them; and there are the presents on the tree. Each one has a garmentora book, and the children some toys; and the gingerbread andcandy and oranges are not forgotten. E-erything is ready. And here is a little choirof .the Deaconesses' Orphan School,which is just down the street. They come up every Sunda.y to our service, a.nd at the time of our Christmas tree they come to sing to us.
They open the book and sing about the child Jesus. Then the German pastor gets up and offers a prayer. Then the English pastor makes some remarks to the audi?-nce gathered about him; and then the doctor, who has stood by their side, bvho has held the terrible knife over them-fIlUt thanks be to God they were under the inllue~ce of an anresthetic that robbed it of its terrors£nd who has stood by their bedsideland watched them through the crisis of the fever, and who has smiled as he saw returning health and strength–he stands now before them to preach the gospel of Christ. Christian brethren, I do not believe in letting down the gospel to anybody.· The.Lord Jesus Christ made the gospel as simple, as elementary and as pos- sible for every man to accept as it can be made, and if we present it as Jesus gave it to Us it will go home to the heart. I am not afraid, Christian breth-
1888.] MEDIOAL
ren, to stand up before that Mohammedan, that descendant ot Saladin, and 'preach Christ and Him crucified.
NoW' understatJd"one thing, that under no circumstances can a missionary, worthy of the name, be ever induced to say anything that would wound the susceptibilities 01' grieve the heart of one of his heathen or Mohammedan auditors. ,That is not necessary. They tell the story of a judge in Aleppo. He had but one eye. A person was condemned to prison, as he thought, unju,sUy. He rose before the judge and said: "0, one;..eyed judge, I am imprisoned here on a false accusation; and I tell you; 0, one-eyed judge, that this man who has testified against me has received a bribe; and 0, one- eyed judge, if I do get justice, I will l'eport this ca&e to the' Pasha '; and if the Pasha do not do justice, 0, one-eyed judge, I will repol't it to the Sultan himself." The judge rose from his seat in a rage and said: "Take the nlan back to prison. I won't hear him plead before me and call me forever a one- eyed judge." Well, we never go to these people and talk to them about the _" false" Prophet. That is not the way to begin. We do not say anything about the Prophet. We preach Christ and Him crucified. Now we have'a gl'eat substratum of common thought and feeling with these people. Re- member that that sacred Book that we have as our title-deed to heaven is ' their sacred Book too. In a hundred places in the Koran Mohammedans are told that they must revere the towrat (torah), which is the law, and Zubar, which is the Psalms, and includes the poetical and historical books, and'the Enjel, which is the New Testament of Jesus Christ. It is no matter if some of these people say that those books have been interpolated or changed; that we need not concern ourselves with. We tell them of this torah which is spoken of in our Book. We open it before them.' Besides that "they hDve Abraham to their father." That venerable Emir traces not his lineage back , to Saladin alone, but to Abraham'; and they all hold Abraham and Isaac to be prophets, and accept all the prophets of the old dispensation; and, fur- thermore, they hold the Lord Jesus to be one of the greatest of the prophets. They never, pronounce his name without saying, "Our Lord Jesus, ,upon Him be peace.." We open that Book and begin to tell them about Father Abraham. I tell them he lived in tents just as some of them hve, and that he went to and fro in this land that he might show the people that he had no abiding place here, but looked for an eternal city in the heavens. Then I tell them about Father David, the great prophet, and then about Seidna Esa (our Lord Jesus). And I tell them, "You think this hospital was built by the order of St. John from Germany," and I say, " No; it was built by the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven." And I go on and tell them how these doctors never would have left their homes but for the love of Christ; and I ask them: "Would you leave your home, would you leave your children, would you do for people seven 01' ten thousand miles away what is being done for you here, unless you had a motive for it?" I say to them: "The motive is the love of Christ. Now if the love 'of Christ constrained us to come to you and give ourselves for you, then you owe it all to Christ," and you will see the tears trickle down those hardened faces, and you will see those forms bowed with emotion as they hear the old, old story of the Cl:OSS.
Christian brethren, I will draw you another picture. There was a Moham- medan girl who came under my care many years ago for a disease of one of the bones of .the wrist, and a portion of that bone required rem~val. The opel'ation was successful, but, as is too often the case, the disease returned in the elbow. The elbow-joint was removed and with the best of results. She was able, after that, to pick up a glass of water; she was able to use her
MJ!lDJeA.L MISSIONS
hllonds to all intents and purposes as before, with a.littIe diminution of streng$.. But after that the disease re-appeared higher up, and the poor girl's strength was sapped littleby little, and not long before I came a>Aa.,! from Beirut she was lying on what I suppose will be the bed of death. I visited her one Sunday afternooll with my wife, and we sat with her, and we brought that little choir of children of the Deaconesses, and they sang sweet hymns in the corridor. I asked her if she would like to have me read a chapterof the Scrip- ture, and pray' with her, and she said, "Yes." I opened Isaiah liii. Her name was Fatimah. You know that Fatimah was the favorite danghter of Mohammed, and that name is as sweet to a Moslem as l!ary is to us. I said to her: "Fatimah, who wrote. that chapter?" She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them and said, "Allah," that is, God• .. Well," I said, "about whom did He write that chapter?" She closed her eyes again, and a sweet smile came over her face, and for a moment she did not answer. I said, .. Fatimah, did he write it about Mohammed?" "No," said she, .. He wrote it about Seidna Esa-about our Lord Jesus, upon whom be peace,."
Twenty-three years ago, in 1865, the cholera was prevailing in Northern Syria. I happened at that time to be in Mount Lebanon. I was studying , the Arabic language, and preparing myself during the summer lor greater usefulness when I went to my mission-field in the autumn. We had a com- munity of about one hundred and fifty Protestants in the city where the cholera broke out, They became alarmed, and they sent a messenger five days' journey with a note saying, "Our dear doctor, the cholera has broken out in our city, and we are afraid that we may be attacked. Will you please send us a bottle of medicine, and if you can, doctor, will you come yourself? We do not ask you to come simply because the cholera has broken out, but the devil has got in amongst us, and we are in a quarrel with each other. and we want you to come and settle it." Well, you may be sure I took no more time than was necessary to dispatch that messenger with a bottle of medicine suitable as a prophylactic, and as a cure for cases of cholera, with the necessary directions, and I said that I would follow with all possible haste. I took with me a young man who was a teacher in the theological seminary. He was a devout young man, and I took him in order to have the benefit of his counsels in this affa.ir with the people. He was not a physician. Well, we travelled through the hot days of August over the, blazing plain of Coole-Syria five days, and we reached the outskirts of the city. We encamped on the banks of the Orontes. My companion said to me, "Doctor, we might go in there to-night, but I want to tell you some- thing: I know you will despise me for it, but I am afraid of the cholera." He said, "I mean to go into that city, but I want to spend this night in prayer and fasting, that God may give me strength." I said, "Why, I do not despise you, I honor you; I know that fear, but we doctors get over that. I do not despise you because you have that fear." I daresay in this audience lci>uld pick out a. dozen or twenty people who would be afraid to go in a pest-stricken city, unless they spent a night in prayer to God; and even after that perhaps some of them would not go in. "Well," I said to him, "if you want'to stay two days, stay." "No," he said, "I will stay to-night, and God will give me strength." He.went into his tent. He took no dinner that night, but spent the night wrestling on his knees. I spent that night in sleep. I needed the sleep, and I was not afraid of the cholera. The next morning, when I woke up and came out of my tent, I found that young man with his face glowing like the face of an angel. I knew that it was allover.
1~.]. MEDICAL
He said, "D<?Ctor, let us strike our tents and go into the city; I have found rest, I do not care a particle now for the cholera; I am ready to go!' We went into the city, and were met"byour brethren there. We saluted them and inquired about the health of the community, and found that no one had yet been stricken with cholera. We commenced then on the quarrel.
Now, here I will show you how the medical missionary has a hold on the people. They knew we had come a five-days' journey into a pest-stricken city from a sanitarium where the cholera never comes. Now, that was a first-rate granite bed on which to build.. I began by taking each one of the brethren apart. I said to one, "Well, brother, what is the matter?" He said, "Oh I there.is nothing the matter with me, but Yusef has done so and so," speaking of another of the brethren. Then I said, "If Yusef is' all right, you are, are you?" " Oh! yes," said he; "I never did anything; I have not done anything against him, but he is the one who stirred up the trouble." "Very well; now, if he agrees to be reconciled, do you?" "Yes." he said. Then I read the Scripture and had prayer with him, and my brother, who was with me, also joined in this exercise. Then we called for another. "Now what is the matter with you, Salem?" " Oh !" he said, "there is not anything the matter with me, the trouble is with Pharis; he is the one that made the trouble." " Well," I said, "if Pharis is reconciled are you all right?" "Yes; there "never was anything the matter with me." Sowe had prayer with him and read appropriate Scripture, and, after a pleasant remark, he went away and Pharis came in. "Well, Pharis," I said, what is the matter with you?" "Well," he said, "there is this biher brother who has caused it; I have not done anything;" and I found, to my great surprise, that there was not one C?f them that had anything against a.nbody else, but everyone knew who was the one that stirred up the whole trouble. When we got through with the whole list and had been assured by everyone' of them that they were ready to be reconciled, we called them all together. Mind you, they had been calling each other devils and Judas Is.cariots, and eVery opprobrious epithet which Oriental speech contains. We got'them together and read over appropriate passages of Scripture, and asked this and that brother to lead in prayer, and then asked if there was anybody i~ that company that had anything against anybody else, if he would rise and state it. There was not one who rose, but everyone of them was melted to tears. They knelt down there and poured out their hearts to God in prayer an1:1 in thankfulness.
Now, Christian brethren, here was another miracle of the grace of God. I do not mean to exaggerate matters,"but it was a very strange thing that not one of that community was stricken with the cholera. Is it too much for the power of God that He should have given that miracle to I'trengthen their faith? I believe you will say with one voice, " No. " Not one-father, mother, or child-of all that community, was taken with cholera, although funerals were passing their door every hour of the day. We left them in a few days entirely at peace with one another. They went out with us a~ far as the Oronte!!, and they stood with us on the bank of that river. We knelt down in prayer togethe~, and they bade us " Godspeed" on our way.
These, brethren, are some living pictures of what medical missions can do in heathen lands.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS. NOv.;'·
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-NO. VII.· [EDITORIAL-A. 'T. p.] MOFFAT AND AFRIOANER.
ROBERT MOFFAT, the poor Scotch lad who, by living on beggar's fare, man-' aged to get an education in theologv and medicine. must evermore stand as the pioneer of Central African exploration. When on the last day of October, seventy:one years ago, he set sail Cor the Cape of Good Hope, he was only twenty years old. But in all the qualities that assure both maturity and heroism he was a full-grown man.
As not infrequently occurs, his greatest' obstacles were 'found, not in the hopeless paganism of the degraded tribes of the Dark Continent, but in the apathy, if not antipathy, of the representatives of Christian governments.
The British governor would have penned him up within the bounds of Cape Colony, lest he should complicate the relations of the settlers with the tribes of the interiot'. While fighting out this battle with the powers that be, he studied Dutch' with a pious Hollander, that he might preach to the Boers and their servants.
Aftel'wards, when permission was obtained, while traveling to the country of the Bechuanas, at the close of his fit'st day's journey, he stopped at a farm- house and offered to preach to the people that evening. In.the large kitchen, where the service was to be held, stood a long table, at the head of which sat the Boer with his wife and six grown children. A large Bible lay on the table, and underdeath it half a dozen dogs. The Boer pointed to the Bible as the signal for Mr. Moffat to begin. But he was waiting for others to come in, and he asked how soon the working people were coming in. "Work people?" impatiently cried the farmer, "you don't mean the Hottentots!- the blacks. You are not waiting for them, surely, or expecting to preach to them; you might as well preach to those dogs under that table! II A second time, and more angrily, he spoke, repeating the offensive comparison.
Young as he was, 1-11'. Moffat was disconcerted on(y for a moment. Lift- ing his heart to God for guidance, the thought came into his mind to take a text suggested by the rude remal'ks of the Boer. So he opened the Bible to the fifteenth of Matthew, and twenty-seventh verse: "Truth, Lord, yet the dOg& eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." Pausing a moment, he slowly repeated these wor«s with his eyes steadily fixed on the face of the Boer; and again pausing, a thit'd time repeated the words. An- griiy the Boer cried out, "Well, weU, bring them in." A crowd of blacks then thronged the kitchen and Moffat preached to them the blessed Word of God. .
Ten yeai·s passed and the missionary was passing again that way. Those work-people, seeillg him ran after to thank him for telling them the way of Christ itJ that sermon. His whole life in Africa was a witness to miracles of transformation. He had'no scorn and contempt toward the sable sons of Africa. He found the most degraded of them open to the impressions of the. gospel, and even th~ worst and most unimpressible among them were compelled to confess the power of the gospel to renew. A savage, cruel chief, who bated themissionat'ies, had a dog who chewed and swallowed a copy of the' book of Psalms, for the sake of the soft sheepskin in which it was bound. The enraged chief declared his dog worthless; "he would no more bite or tear, now that he had swallowed a Ch1'istian book." This godly, devoted missionary preached and taught the warlike Bechuanas tili they put away their clubs and knives, and farming utensils took the place of bows and arrows and spears. This came to be talked over among the people. It was so wonderful that the other tribes could o'nly account for it as an instance of wonderful magic. There was nothing they knew of that would lead men like the Bechuanas to put war to an end and no longer rob and kill.
This all all had a peculiar illustration. Mr. Moffat, seeking to carry the gospel furth~r inland, rode up to an African village. Owing to the peculiarity of the construction of an African village, its huts are arranged in concentric circles, the doors opening toward the center,' where iil a large open court. He could, consequently, see only the backs of the outside drcle of houses, but he could hear singing. He came nearer, and rode into the midst of the houses, but saw no one; he rode into the central court before he understood the forsaken condition of the viilage. There he found gathered all the women and children and a few older men; but the strong and younger men were gone. The song they were singing, if translated, would read somewhat thus: .. Mammy's man will com~ again: He bas gone to tbe land of Jesus: Baby's dad will come again; He bas gone to tbe land of Jesns.
There is no murder tbere, There are no robbers tbere, There is none to hunt them tbere, In thd land of J e8U8. They will bring corn and clotb, They wiII bring brass and iron, They will fondle the cbildren, When they come from the land of Jesus."
This land of Jesus was no other than Bechuana land, from which he had come. These poor villagers knew neither Moffat nor his Master, but they had learned that in that country, where the men had gone to barter arid' trade, the name of Jesus had wrought such wonders that now there were none there that would rob or murder or do harm, Will anyone tell of any other name that has had such a charm on the degraded, depraved hearts of the worst of men as the name of Jesus? This alone, through all history, is the miracle-worker. It sways men until they beat swords into plow-shares and spears into pruning-hooks, and l~arn war no more.
Moffat was speeially warned against the notoriolls Africaner, whose name was the terror of all the country. Some prophesied that he would be eaten up by the monster; others were sure that lie would be killed, and his skull be turned into a drinking cup, and his skin into the cover of a drum. Never- theless, the heroic young missionary went stt-aight for the kraal of the cruel marauderand murderer. He was accompanied by Ebner, the missionary, who was not in favor at Africaner's court, and who soon had to flee, leaving Moffat alone with a bloodthirsty monarch and a people as treacherous as he. But God had armed Moffat with a spirit not of fear but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. He was a man of singular grace and tact. He quietly but firmly planted his foot iii Africaner's realms and began work. He opened a school, commenced stated services of worship, and went about among the people, living simply, self-denyingly and prayerfully. A/rieaner himse7/was hisjil'st convert! The wild Namaqua warrior WaS turned into a gentle child. The change in this chief was a moral miracle. W olfish ~'apac ity, leonine ferocity, leopardish treachery, gave way before the meekness and
STORY OF ST. KILDA
mildnessof the lamb or kid. He whose sole aim and ambition had beell to rob and to slay, to l!!ad his people out into expeditions fOl' plunder and vio- lence now seemed absorbed by one passion, zeal for God and his missionary. He sethis subjects to building a house for Mr. Moffat, made him a present of cows. became a regular and devout worshiper, mourned heartily over his past life, and habitually studied the Word of God. He could not do enough for the man who had led him to Jesus. When Moffat's life hung in the balance with African fever he nursed him through the crisis of delirium; when he had to visit Cape Town, Africaner went with him, knowing thata price had been set for years upon his own head as an outlaw and a public enemy. No marvel that when he made his appearance in Cape Colony, the people were aston- ished at the transformation. It was more wonderful than when Saul the arch-persecutor was suddenly transformed into Paul the apostle.
The world may safely be challenged to produce one such change as the fruit of mere scientific or ethical methods I Here was a. notorious free- booter, the scourge and curse and terror of the whole of South Africa. He was brought under the influence of the gospel, wept like a child, and sought and found pardon and grace in Jesus. The lion became a la.mb. Moffat tes- tified that during his entire residence among his people, he remembered no occasion on which he had been grieved with him or found reason for com- plaint; and even his very faults leaned to the side of virtue. On his way to Cape Town with Mr. Moffat, a distance of 600 miles, the whole road lay through a country which had been laid waste ~y this robber chief and his retainers. The Dutch farmers could not believe that this converted man was actually Africaner; and one of them lifted his hands, when he saw him and exclaimed: "This is the eighth wonder of the world! Great God, what a miracle of Thy power and grace!"
He who had long shed blood without cause would now shed his own for Christ's sake with as little hesitation. When he found his own death ap- proa.ching, he gathered his people around him and charged them, as Moses and Joshua did Israel. "We are not now what we once were, savages, but men professing to be taught according to the gospel. Let us then do ac- cordingly." Then, with unspeakable tenderness and gentleness, he coun- seled them to live peaceably with all men;' to engage in no undertaking without the advice of Christian guides; to remain together as one people; to receive and welcome all missionaries, assent of God; and then gave them his parting blessing. His own aying confession would have graced the lips of the Apostle of the Gentiles. "I feel that I love God, and that He has done much for me of which I am totally unworthy. My former life is ::, stained with blood; but Jesus CHrist has bought my pardon and I am going to heaven. Beware of falling into the same evils into which I have so often led you; but seek God and He will be found of you, and direct you." Hav- ing said this, Africailer fell asleep, himself having furnished one of the most unanswerable proofs that the gospel is the po~er of God unto s;Uvation, STORY OF ST. KILDA.
BY MISS C. RAINY, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND.
ST. KILDA is one or' a small group of islands about eighty miles west of Harris. It has from seventy to eighty inhabitants, who are famed for their' skill in snaring the sea-birds that swarm on its precipices, and whose oil and feathers are the staple export of the island. There are alsa sheep and cattle so on the island, that absolute starvation is not to be feared; but the chief ,vant is vegetables or farinaceous food. Twice a year the proprietor sends a vessel with supplies of coals (as they "- have no peatsj, meat and other necessaries, and to receive the rents paid by the crofters in kind. But as there are no harbors, it is dangerous to approach the island in winter, and for seven or eight months of each year there is no communication with the outer world. The few boats possessed by the St. Kildans have to be dragged up on shore, when not in use, so can- not, therefore, be of very great size. Once or twice they have dared the pass- age to Harris in one of these small open boats, but never without great risk.
They are not very good sailors, as there is not much inducement for them to put to sea.
On the 12th to 14th of September, 1885, a storm of unexampled fury destroyed their crops of barley, oats and potatoes. Such of the crop as was ripe was threshed out by the wind, and the soft spray made havoc of their greEln crops. The last vessel for the season had visited them shortly before and left some supplies, but they felt sure they would be in great straits before the following May, when the earliest hope of succor in the ordinary way was to be looked for. It sometimes does not come till June. They had no seed for their little crofts.
In these circumstances the Free Church minister, who has been about twenty years in the island, wrote to Dr. Rainy for help. The letter was inclosed in a bottle, which was put into a little hold or cavity in a boat about a yard long, made out of a piece of drift wood. The boat had a lug- sail set, and a piece of old iron for a keel; a lid was nailed over the bottle, and on it the words, "Please open," .were branded. On the little boat was also the name St. Kilda. It was made by a member of the Ladies' Associa- tion then in the island. Mr. Mackay's letter was dated 16th September, but I am not sure what day it was dispatched. On the 28th September the little boat was picked up by an old man on the shore of Taransay, an island in the Sound of Harris, and' taken to a member of the same association who was there. He opened the hold, found the bottle, and inclosed the letter to Principal Rainy, with one from himself telling when it was found; but several days elapsed before the weather was calm enough to send this mis- sive, nine miles by sea, from Taransay to the post-office at TlJ,rbert Harris.
Dr. Rainy received it 3d October. He communicated with the Scotch secre- tary, the proprietor, the newspapers and some private friends. The latter thought it important to send help without delay, lest the St. Kildans should, in despair, attempt to cross to Harris themselves.
.A steamer was chartered, supplies of meat, potatoes and seed were put on board, and she reached St. Kilda on the 18th October, after the finest passage on record. '
It was characteristic of the people that, as it was the Sabbath when they arrived, they declined to land the meat, etc., till 1st November, on Monday; but it was moo'nlight and a calm sea, and all was safely delivered. On the 22d a government vessel arrived and inquired into their condition, and, of course, found them well off.
One great advantage of this incident is that it affords them a hope in any future extremity. Of five missives sent off bv them, four, at least, found their way to human hands. One went to Orkney, one to Uig in Lewis, one to Eriskay, an island on the ea.st side of South Uist. But the little ship, with the principal message, came straight before the wind to an island almost due east of St. Kilda, and it did not land on its barren, western shore, but wal; carried round by the currents to a point where human habitations exist.
MRS. MURILLA B. INGALLS, OF MONGZAI, BURMA
MRS. MURILLA B. INGALLS, OF MONGZAI, BURMA.
WRITTEN OUT BY DR. J. N. MURDOCK, Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union.
THE progress of missions has been more than once illustrated by instances of the establishment of large and fruitful mission stations by women. One of the most successful stations in the Burman department of our own missions in Burma was opened by a woman, and has led to the establishment of one of the largest and most prosperous Burman churches in the world. Yet she pronounces no discourses, and performs no ecclesiastical functions. She teaches the women and the men all that concerns Christian truth and church organization. She guides the church in the appointment of its pastor, instructs him in Bible truth and in pastoral theology, including homiletical training, and supervises all the work of the station. She keeps an eye on the schools and is sure to detect aptitude for teaching in any of the pupils, and sends them out to teach in the village sc~ools. She has established zoyat preaching, organized a circulating library, and keeps up a system of Bible and tract distribution throughout the district. She has en_ countered difficultIes, Lut her perfect mastery of herself, her good judgment, her equable temperament, her firmness joined by kindness, her I'eady tact, and her Christian spil'it have brought her through in triumph. No jar has up to this time produced any violent change, nor has any impediment resulted in anything more than a temporary check to the prosperity of the mission. Her greatest difficulty with her people of late years has resulted from her persistent refusal to baptize her converts and to solemnize their marriages.
And yet so delicate is this woman's sense of womanly propriety, that you could scarcely induce her to stand on a public platform and face a promiscuous audience, even though she might not be asked to speak. A real overseer and leader of a numerous Christian flock, she does her work mostly in private, satisfied if she can only see her teachings reproduced in the public ser. mons and lectures of her native helpers, and bearing fruit in the lives of her people. In her relations with other missionaries she is unassuming and deferent, calling them to her aid for the purpose of ordinations, dedications, and other ecclesiastical observances. At first the wish would sometimes arise that this woman were a man; but that wish long since resolved itself into the prayer that God would give us more men, and women, too, of kindred spirit and equal faculty. "The tools to those who can use them," applies to women as well as to men. It seems that the Lord is a respecter neither of persons nor of sexes. And unless we misread the signs of the times examples of this kind will multiply, and greatly add to the increase of missionary force and efficiency.
TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY PERIODICALS.
BY REV. CHAS. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
OF course it is well understood that the ecclesiastical policy of Prince Bismarck is thoroughly subordmated to his political ambitions. When he found his account in persecuting the Roman Catholic church, he persecuted her. Now that he finds his account in petting her, he pets her. Protestantism, except in the prime of Calvinism, has always been too pliant before the State, but above all in Germany, and therefore Bismarck thinks himself secure of that, whether he pets it or snubs it, or lets it alone. Accordingly the Rheinische Missions Berichte remarks: .. If God the Lord in our days leads our Evangelical Church throu!rh ways of humiliation,
FROM FOREIGN MISSIONARY
if all manner of government support is taken from her. if she is obliged to stand far behind the Roman Church and her princes in honor and public repute, we ought not to take this in any way as a strange thing, but should see therein a gracious providence of our God, who means to detach our church from all false props, which can never be of real advantage, that she may become the more sound and vigorous in her inner life, and be more and more fully led to attach herself exclusively to her Lord and Saviour, and put all her confidence in Him alone, and not in men and princes. And, indeed, can we not plainly see In the variousregions of our German fatherland that the Christian life is the most embarrassed precisely there where it has been the most fostered and supported by the state for a long ti;"e back, and that, on the other hand, it has prospered the best where it has received the.1eassupport from the civil treasury, where it has had to depend the most largely on itself? If we only, in this time, approve ourselves in grf'at patience as the ministers and servants of God, all will go well, and we need have no anxiety because Rome is so highly exalted and so greatly privileged, and begins-in her turn to fancy, that now it must surely be that her victory over the Evangelical Church will soon be complete." . . . .. If, in 1788, anyone had ventured to predict, that in a hundred years Protestant Germany would yearly contribute, in voluntary gifts of Christian love, $600,000 for foreign missions, and at least ten times that amount for all the various departments of home missions, no one would have believed it, or,if he had, would have said: At all events that will bean absolntelyoverwhelming burden, nnder which all the life of the Evangelical Church will be smothered. And yet, instead of suffocation, reviving energy is what has come to pass." . . . "There is a parable of much meaning, which says: God the Lord first made the bir<1.s beautiful, as now, with varlOUS plumage, but without wings. Then He attached the wings to them loosely. Some of them refused to carry this additional weil:"ht, and "ast;t off. These became the wingless birds, which cannot fly. Bnt those who willingly bore ~he new burden Boon found the wings growing fast, and rose freely and gladly into the air. In like manner. in these last hundred years. two new and mighty wings, by God's grace, have grown fast on our Protestant Church-the Inner and the Outer Mission-with which she can freely aud joyfully swing herself upward towards God, and with these there is no need that she should sink away, or have any fears of being swallowed up by Rome."
The French missionaries among the Bassutos continue to report a great increase of attention to the gospel. Mr. Jacottet, writing under date of January 18, 1888, says: "If you knew of the movement which is just now impelling a great part of the tribe toward the gospel, how all doors are open to us, you would understand that we need to perform impossibilities to take advantage of this time of Divine visitation. There is, as it were, a veritable billow of grace which God is sending over us. I am persuaded that this movement, whether it proves to be lasting or transient, will draw aftel· it new responsibilities, and that, whether we will or not, we shall be obliged to do much more than we are doing at present."
The Bassuto country is in great economical embarassment, resulting from so remarkable an abundance of the late harvests, that in the excessive difficulty of transporting them to a profitable market, prices have so declined as to make it almost impossible to raise money. and to derange all calculations in regard to the contributions of the native churches, and the support of the native evangelists. As a friend says, in the Journal des Missions Evangeliques: " It is a strange thing, distress born of abundance." A sack of grain, which used to sell for 12 or even 20 francs, now sells for 3 francs or less. And the evangelists themselves grow all the food they nl'.ed, whIle their people, in view of this fall of pl'ices, proceeding from American competition, hl'.ve no means of supplying their other wants. But it seems there are signs of as great an enlargement of the spiritual harvest. But, as Mr. Jourse writes, " Although I know not how these straits will end, yet I know that God, who has done so much for the good of this tribe, authorizes us to count on Hilll for the future."
It is pleasant, in going through a French missionary magazine, to lind ourselves accompanied by the spirit of gentle gayety, and refined c0urtesy, whichare national characteristics. We know that the French are pre-emi- ' nently the missionaries of the Roman Catholic church, and though Protestantism is not sufficiently prevalent in France, especially since the retrocession of Alsace-Lorraine, to airord many Protestant missionaries abroad, yet what there are furnish a distinct and peculiarly amiable element of the missionary force. A bright side of French interference at the Gaboon, corresponding to Gel'man interference in Mozambique, will be that it will make us more familiar with our Hugenot brethren.
M. Dieterlen, in speaking of a young Bassuto who is in training for a native evangelist, touches pleasantly upon a question at once amusing and serious.
"John has at the school of Thaba-Bossiou ajiancee who is trying to be educated and to develop herself in so far as to be on a leyel with her expected husband. This conjugal questiou is of immense importance for the success of the native pastorate; for of what use to have educated and civilized men if their wiYes are ignorant and anchored in the groveling habitudes in which too often we find the women of this country! John wiUha.ve the privilege of possessing a wife who will be after a fashion prepared to become the companion and helpmeet of a pastor. Acc"rdingly it is with no slight interest that I observe the development of this female school,!Dr Ido not know but that we shall have to recommend to our future theologues only to fall in love with such young Bassutoesses as can produce a diploma signed by M. Jacottet and lIIademoiselle Miriam Cochet, and certifying that they have made satisfactory advancement in their studies.
"So much for the students. As to the professors, the Theological Institute numbers justas many as it does students: three professors for three students. It is curious, but it 1S the fact. It is evident that to deyelop these young people we need to teach them some- '0 thiug besides theology. Everything is in the first elements among tbe Bassutos, and it is important enlarge their minds and to freshen up their intelligence, so that they may not be all abroad as soon as any subject is broa.ched not immediately religious. This Is why M. Casalis, our missionary physician, and our man of science, gives them elementary lessons in physiology and chemistry, in which they take a great interest.
"They should also be not unintelligent of ,eneral history, literature, etc. These lessons, supplemented moreover by courses of algebra, and of geology, are given them by a youn~ girl, Mademoiselle Aline Mabille. I know that Mademoiselle Mabille will upbraid me for having spoken of her and disclosed to our friends the part which she takes in the education of our theologues. She knows that a good many people have prejudices against instruction given by young ladies to persons of the more lordly sex, especially to embryo pastors. BUt how could I, in all honor, escape from mentioning the part borne by her in onr theological course? It is not my fault that she has so admirable a preparation and so peculIar a gift of IBstruction, so as to exercise an activity, whose good results I discover every day. If I have done wroag in mentioning my two coadjutors, we will suppose all unsaid, and pass on to the theological lessons, properly so-called, the burden of which rests ·on my weak shoulders."
"In studying the Bible and Church history," says M. Dieterlen, "among the Bassutos, our students pass incessantly from theory to practice, from the book to the reality; for, to obtain useful results, we have to translate from tha Shemitic or Japhetic into the Hamitic everything which we read or learn." The imperfection of this transfusion is, perhaps, a burden under which all our Christianity labors unto this day.
M. Dieterlen, we may remark, teaches a large Bible class, and every Sunpreaches somewhere to a congregation of heathen.
M. Jeanmairet, from the Zambesi, writes that, in their own despite, their newly founded mission on this great river is thus far substantially a mission to the chiefs and their immediate attendants! "Were the villages swarming with people," he says, "only the families of the chiefs would attend the services." Here, then, the Christianization of the chiefs will have to showitself by a.n extension 01 beneficence downward. M. Brandt, of the French Protestant Mission in Senegambia, remarking on the well-known fact that the memory in Africans is greatly superior to their reasoniug powers, ascribes this to the fact that, having no alphabet, they have for countless ages committed everything to their memory, so that it has at last absorbed almost all the other faculties. It is at least true that they have been more absolutely destitute of all mean~ of assisting the memory than any other race.
The Journal des Missions Evangeliques for this Rfonth, remarks with just severity: •'After Europe has traversed a phase of international ideality, a new period announces Itselffor the end of the century, that of a passionate, often acrimonious, sometimes almost insane, affirmationof nationality. The fashion of international conventionsand friendly gatherings seemed likely to level the Pyrenees and bridge the Rhine and the V.stula ; now, on the other hand. the missions among the heathen, far beyond the seas, long ignored, always misrepresented, have to serve as instruments of national aggrandizement. In Europe, the nationalities intrench themselves behind their ramparts, but only to make, beyond the ocean, e1l'0rts for expansion which might well overtax the strength of some of them. And it is still the poor, much-enduring missions, which su1l'er from these pretensions of the national Ego."
The Journal then proceeds to speak of the pressure put upon the English Baptists of Guinea, resulting in their giving way to German ones; to the partial paralysis of our American mission at the Gaboon, induced by the requirement to teach only French in its schools; and to the arrogant despotism of our Indian Commissioner, in prescribing the vernacular in th'e Dakota missionary schools; as well as to the order given by Germany that French priests shall only be tolerated in Zanzibar until German missionaries can be provided. Then, after speaking of the disorders at Ponape, the blame of which, however, it acquits the government of Madrid, the Journal adds: .. But how many outrages in those distant countries whose echo never reaches the ear of Christendom I At the end of the nineteenth century, aswell as during the closing years of the eighteenth, the gospel of eternal life is to be preached to every nation, of every tongue. But how much more difficult and delicate does the work of the missionary become, since his countrymen, or other Europeans, have conceived the idea of 'protecting' the natives. whether pagan or Christian I Savagery. cannibalism itself, were hindrances less painful, less hard to surmount, tha.n the misconduct and demoralizing influence of the whites, and the exaggerations of national egoism in these distant countries."
The Journal again speaks of the "hideous wound" of the slave-trade, inflicted by Islam on Africa, but, with a holy bitterness of irony, bids us be of good cheer, for that Christendom is applying an efficacious remedy by the importation of alcoholic drinks in such redundance that, if only kept up for a measurable time, it will certainly destroy the slave-trade by destroying all the people that could be enslaved!
M. Casal is remarks that the awakening among the Bassutos, although even now resulting in many conversions, would be still more fruitful, were it not for polygamy. The husbands are afraid of losing their wives. In some .districts an actual persecution is raging-of course not unto death. In all, about 500 persons have lately given their names as having abandoned heathenism. The movement is a test of the reality of the previously existing Christianity, for in the villages where scandal had been given by Christians, no good results have appeared, nor have any appeared where the church members have not long been actively engaged in spreading the knowledge of the gospel. The movement began, indeed, with a meeting exclusively of heathens, voluntarily held for the sake of being examined as to their knowledge, which surprised the missionaries by an altogether unexpected measure of doctrinal intelligence.
MISSION WORK ON LAKE NYASSA, AFRICA. [Nov,,'
Mention has previously been made in this REVIEW, that last year there was a celebration in South Africa of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversaryof the arrival of the first missionary to the Hottentots, the Moravian, George Schmidt. We give the following interesting extract fl'om a memol'ial discourse of Pastor Koelbing in Germany. Speaking of Schmidt's final expulsion by the Dutch authorities after having gathered a group of converted natives, Herr Koelbing goes on to say: .. At first, it is true, Schmidt's work seemed anmhilated, Africo, to whom he, at his departure, committed hid cottage and garden, together with Joshua, remained there till about 1756, waiting for the return of their beloved teacher, After that nothing more is known of them, Yet the memory of the Hotteutot's faithful friend remained; the almond and apricot trees WhICh he had planted blossomed and bore fruit, and the Dutch New Testament which he had left behind was honored as a sacred relic, The Hottentots still persevered, in the hopc that once more teachers woulcl come. After decades of years an old man in the neighborhood of'Bavianskloof gathered his chIldren around him, and said: •You are Hottentots, and by men you are despised; out I see in my heart that God will again send teachers out of a far land, I am old, my eyes will not see them; but you are young; you will see them, When they come, then go to them, and follow them I' And at that very time, at Bertbelsdorr, near Herrnhut, a white father had also gathered his children about him. It was the gray-haIred BIShop Spangenberg, the successor of Count Zinzendor! in the conduct of the Brethren's Church, He presided for the last tIme in the Elders' Conference, and on thIs occasion, with solemn pathos, admonished the brethren: 'Do not give up Africa I' And not long afterwards, in the year 1792, the opposition of the adversaries to misslons ceased, and three mIssionaries were permitted to come out again to the Cape, They found Geurge Smith's pear-tree, which he had planted near his cottage greatly grown, and gave their first sermons under its shadow, They came also upon yet remaimng traces of blessing attending the labors of the falthfui missionary;and a poor old dame, now almost blind, exclaImed, with the utmost fire, when she heard that teo.cber~ had come again: 'God be praised I' and brought out a book, carefully wrapped in 3. sheep. skin, It was Schmidt's New Testament, and she the Lena (tbat is, Magdalena) whom he had baptized, The blessinl;' of God was on the work. After a few years a. noble congrega, tion was gathered in Bavianskloof, which, when the land, to the blessing of the mIssionary work, came under Enghsh rule, received the beautiful name of Gnadenthal, 'Gracevale. To-day three thousand Christians dwell at the 10'l'ely place, in the shade of the oak, apricot and peach trees, WhICh remmd us of the blessed work of the faIthful gardener, George Schmidt. There yet towers at Gnadenthal a mighty pear-tree, a scion of the first one planted by him on the spot where he delIvered his first discourses to his people. They yet preserve there as a precious relic his New Testament, the bie.sing of which has now come not only upon the Cape Colony, but likeWIse over Eastern and Western Africa, For WIth the Brethren's Church there have also entered mto the work other Germans, as well as Englishmen, Hollanders and SWItzers, Frenchmen, Scandinavians, and Americans, men of all tbe sections of the Church, following in the blessed path first broken out by George Schmidt. And our hearts, too, find it an occasion of thankful joy, to thmk on the hundred and fiftieth anmversaryof the beginning of his miSSIOn, and of the faithful missionary himself, one of such servo.nts of God as are portrayed by Paul in 2 Corinthians vi: • In much patience, in afflIctions, in neceSSitIes, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, In tumults, in labors, in watchings, III fastlugs; by pureness.. by knowledge, by lODgsutrer- ing, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor or righteousness on the right ho.nd and on the left, by honor and d,s- honor, by evil report and good report: as deceivers and yet true; as unknown and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we lIve; as chastened, and not killed; ""8 sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rlCh; a.s having nothing a~<:l yet possesslng all things,'"
MISSION WORK ON LAKE NYASSA, AFRICA.
IN face of the action of the Portuguese on the Zambesi and the Arabs at the north end of Lake Nyassa, it is important that British people should understand something of the positIOn and work of their missionaries there, and how they may be affected by these movements, The one outlet for the watel'S of Lake Nyassa is the river Shire, which !lows into the Zambesi. Except for a short distance in one part, this river is navigable throughout its course. Some sixty or seventy miles after it leaves the lake it takes a bend westward, and here below Matope, a station of the African Lakes Company, it b.ecomes unnavigable by reason of the Murchison Cataracts. Below these is another station of the African Lakes Company at Katunga's, and from here there is no further difficulty in navigating the river. All goods, therefore, and passengers bound for Nyassa are landed from the African Lakes Company's steamer at Katunga's, and after a journey of some seventy miles across a ridge of high ground are put on the river again at Matope. About halfway between Katunga's and Matope is the African Lakes Company's store and settlement·at Mandala, and little more than a mile from it the flourishing mission village of Blantyre of the Established Church of Scotland. It is wonderful to see this village, with its gardens, schools and houses, in the midst of Africa. The writer has twice within the last three years, when visiting Nyassa, experienced the generous hospitality of Mandala and Blantyre, and so can speak from his own personal observation. Being situated on such high ground, the climate is much more favorable to Europeans than is the case in most other mission stations in that region. It is easier also, for the same reason, to grow fruits and vegetables imported from Europe. It is difficult to overestimate the effects of such a settlement as a civilIzing agency in the country. Mr. Hetherwick, who was in charge of the station for some time in Mr. Scott's absence, has mastered the language of the great Yao tribe, and has lately published a translation of St. Matthew's Gospel which shows a wonderful grasp of the genius of the language. Mr. Hetherwick has now returned to his mission station, some fifty miles to the northeast, under Jl,fount Zomba. Mr. Scott is said to be equally a master of Chinyanja, the language of the Nyassa tribes. The English government have recognized the important influence these settlements are likelv to have by appointing a consul on Nyassa, who has latply built a house close to the flourishing coffee and sugar plantations of Mr. Buchanan under Mount Zomba, some fOJ·ty miles from Blantyre, and near Lake Kilwa or ShirlVa. Mr. Buchanan is also a good Yao scholar, and takes care to teach the people who come to him in considerable numbers for enJployment. Situuated high up on the slope of Mount Zomba, which rises precipitously above it-the streams which rush down from its summit being diverted and distributed so as to form a system of irrigation for the different crops-Mr. Buchanan's plantation is a picture of beauty and prosperity, and offers every prospect of health and permanence. But all these settlements must depend very much for their welfare on their waterway to the coast-the rivers Shire and Zambesi. They were established under the belief that this waterway would be always open to them without interference. It would be very disastrous if they felt that they were entirely at the mercy of what the Portuguese on the coast might at any time choose to do. Those who live there haye good reason to watch jealously any encroachment on liberties hitherto enjoyed and supposed to be guaranteed, and there is no doubt that a little firmness on the part of the English Government is all that is wanted for their adequate protection. The difficulties of establishing missions in the region of Nyassa are ,sufficiently great without any obstacles being put in their way, by a European power.
When we come to Lake Nyassa itself we find missions established on each side of the lake. On the west side are the stations at Cape Maclear and Bandawe, while connected with the latter are sub-stations, amongst which Is an important mission to the Angoni, a marauding tribe of Zulu origin. Dr. Laws at Bandawe has been a long time in the country, and has thor-
BRIEl' NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CH.AR.ACTER. [NOv;, I
_oughly won the confidence of the people. On one occasion when the writer visited him, some five or six hundred people assembled in his schools, in which large numbers of children are taught daily. • • . All this work is threat- ened, as well as that of the Universities' Mission, on the east side of the lake, if the African Lakes Company is to be subject to hindrances on the river below. There is another danger WhiCh has lately shown itself in acute form-the danger-which arises from the impatience of the Arabs at the presence of Europeans and their influence on the lake. For some time in that district there f;eems to have been an abatement of those horrors which Dr. Livingstone describes as witnessed by him and perpetrated by Arab slave-traders. In all probability that has been caused very much by the presence of English and Scotch missionaries and traders, with their steamers on the lake. The news of what happened last year at Karomga, near the north end of the lake, shows that the Arabs are only biding their time to re- peat on the shores of Lake Nyassa the murderous raids which have always marked their course.. Surely we are not going to offer the spectacle to Europe of abandoning Lake Nyassa, discovered by English enterprise, on which subjects of Britain, alone of European powers, have settled for pur- poses of trade or the higher purposes of religion, to the Arabs and the deso- lations of the slave-trade.-Mission Record of the Church of Scotland.
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
[EDITORIAL.-J. M. s.] A Handbook Of Fweign Mis8ions. London: The lteligiqus Tract Society. 1888. Price, $1.
This is a handy and valuable little volume. It contains an account of the principal Protestant missionary societies in Great Britain, with brief notices of those on the Continent and in America. Likewise, in an appendix, an interesting outline of Roman Catholic Missions by Rev. James Johnston, Secretary of the late World's Missionary Conference. The accounts of the societies of Great Britain are sufficiently full to give the reader an intelligent view of their operations. The figures given, statements made, and statistical tables furnished, are mainly from official sources, and of the latest available date. The notices of Continental and American societies are very brief, and in many cases inaccurate; on the whole, of very little worth. In the way of contrast, great injustice is done them.
A Century of Ohristian Progress and Its Lessons. By James Johnston, author of" A Century of Protestant Missions," etc. London: James Nisbet & Co. Price, 75 cents. 1888.
This is a l'emarkable, and in some respects very curious, work in its demonstrated results. It deals, by a careful inductive process of investigation, with the question of the increase or diminution of population in various count~'ies and of various nationalities and religions. The statistics are full and highly instructive, and have been gathered, evidently, with care, and are marshaled with great skill. The chapter on the" Progress of Christian Nations Compared with those undel' the Dominant Religions of the W orId," is specially interesting and valuable. By his showing the increase of the heathen during the century of missions is startling, the increase in India alone being 108,000,000. The increase inChina fl'om 1792 to 1842 is shown to have been 107,000,000, and the present population to be 382,000,000. The volume deserves not only general reading in aU mission circles, but serious and earnest study. Its facts and" lessons". have essential bearings on the progress of missions. Among the Cannibal8 of New Guinea. By Rev. S. MeFarlane, LL.D., F.R.G.S. Londo~: John Snow & Co. Price, $1.25. 1888.
This is the first of a series of manuals written for the London Missionary Society, giving an account of the various missions connected with that society. The work, in this instance, could not have fallen into better hands. As in "The Story of the Lifu Mission," which he has already told in print, Dr. McFarlane writes from personal knowledge and experience. as one of the heroic pioneer missionaries to these cannibals: "I have simplygone back In thought and lived over again our life in New Guinea." The picture is a. graphic one, an exciting and deeply interesting one, and is sketched by the hand of a master. The mission has been crowned with great success. The change in fifteen years has been almost miraculous. The New Guinea Mission is another proof of the transforming power of the gospel, well calculated to stimulate the missionary :opirit.
The Last Journal of Bishop Bannington, being Narratives of a Journey through Palestine in 1884. A Journey through Masai-Land and U-Soga in 1885. Edited by E. C. Dawson, author of .. The Life and Work of James Hannington." New York: E. & G. B. Youug & Co. Price, $1.25.
When the" Life of Bishop Hannington," which we have already noticed, was publshed, his diaries, which relate to the period between June, 1883, and November, 1884, had not been recovered. Since then they have been sent home from the center of Africa. Among these was a detaIled description of his visitation to the churches of' Palestine and Syria. The other diary was recovered from King Muanga in 1886. With regard to the recovery of thIS diary, Mr. Ashe wrote from U-Ganda: "This evening Mackay obtallled the most valuable thing, belonging to the Bishop, which has yet 00me to hghtthe diary of his march, full of thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes. written up to the very day of his murder." Those who have read the life of this martyred missionary will desire to possess this supplemental volume, and read the details of his last heroic conduct III his own words.
FO'I'eign Missions of the Prote8tant Churche8. By Rev, J. Mnrray Mitchell, LL.D. London: Nisbet & Co. Price, 25 cents.
We commend this book very warmly to the attention of our readers Within a very limited compass the author gives a great amount of most valu- able information, and he does it in an exceedingly interesting way. HI~ object is threefold: 1. To show what has been done in the way of missions 2. To indicate from the character of the non-Christian religions what yet reo quires to be done. 3. To describe the methods which are now being employed with a view to the subjugation of the world to Christ. There are few men living who know so much at first-hand of whatls doing-especially III India- in the way of mIssionary effort, as the author. .
Notes on Mi88ionary Sul!jeet8. By Robert Needham Cust, LL.D., late Member of H. M. Indian Civil Service, etc. London: Elliot Stock. 1888.
The title given above gives a very imperfect idea of the extent and vaiue of this work. It comes to us in foul' parts, with neat paper covers.
Part 1. Observations and Reflections on Missionary Societies. Language Illustrated by Bible Translation. Pp. 127. .
Part II. Essays on the Great Problems Outside the Orbit of Pure Evangel- istic Work, but which the Missionary has to Face. Pp. 183.
Part III. Relation of Missionaries to the Outer Wodd. Pp. 88.
Part IV. Missionary Addresses, Pictures and Notices. Pp. 118.
This work covers a very wide range'ofthought and dlscussion. Theauthor writes with remarkable ability, from a wide field of observation and experi- ence. He uses a free lance and expresses his convictions with entire freedom, though they are often not in harmony with received opinions. He is sometimes unduly severe in his criticisms, and yet we read him with zest and instruction. No one can doubt his entire sincerity and profound interest in thQ missionary cause. His style may be judged by the specimens we have given in our August and September numbers: "The Hero-Missionary," and "The Heroic Missionary Society." One or two papers in this work we hope to reproduce in our pages.
The Life and Life- Work of Behramji M. Malabari. By Dayaram Gidumal, LL.B., C.S. Bom- -bay. 1888.
This is strictly an Indian product, and will have more readers in India than abroad. The author, who is a judge at Ahmedabad, says in the preface: "While some consider Malabari sufiiciently enthusiastic. to be a ' Western Reformer,' there are others who, utterly ignorant of the ascetic life he leads, have dubbed him a Luther of rose and lavender." The. narrative here given l~laims to be an unvarnished one. It is interesting from a missionary point of view as giving the views oia remarkable native reformer on a great variety of topics connected with the religion, the institutions, the customs, and the changes occurring in India. In the matter of reforms we see what has been attempted from time to time, and what accomplished, There is much interesting reading in the volume.
Otlds and Ends,. or, Gleanings from Missionary Life. By Rev. C. H. Wheeler, D.D., of Harpoot. Boston and Chicago: Congregational Sunday-School. Price, $1.25.
This book is meant to interest the yonng in missions. Those who have read the author's other works will not need to be told how fresh, breezy and often humorous and brilliant he is in all that he writes. This wod;: does not aim to give a history of the work in the Harpoot field, but to give information on various subjects connected with missionary life, which the people at home are always an,xious to know about.
. Teloogoo XU/sian Scrap-Book. By Thomas S. Shenston.
Published for the author at Brantford, Ont., who is Treasurer of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of Ontario and Qnebec. He has patiently gathet'ed in this book a vast amount of facts and history bearing on and illustrating this interesting mission. Indeed, it is in substance an authentic history of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society of Ontario and Quebec, ol'ganized in 1877, up to which time it had acted as an auxiliary to the American Baptist Missionat·y Union. The operations of the society given here through a succession of years are liighly interesting. We give a fact or two going to show the importance of the mission which our Canadian Baptist brethren are carrying on among this people: "The Teloogoo conntry is somewhat of a triangnlar shape, its three lines being from 400 to eoo miles in leng-th, and lies on the sonthern part of India, on the western shore of the Bay of Bengal from Chicacde to Madras, a distance of 610 miles. It is within the Madras Presidency, and conseqnently nnder British rnle. The number of Teloogoos varionsly estimated at from 15,0(,0,000 to 17,000,000, or abont three and a half times that of Canada, and one-twentieth the entire population of Hindoostan. The greater portion, perhaps four-fifths, of whom reside within the above-described limits, and the remaiping one-fifth are scattered throughout HindooBtan."
The Chinese Evangelist, New York.
We desire to commend this neat little pape)' to the attention of our readers. It is printed in both the Chinese and English language-so It is edited by MI'. J. Stewal't Happel', son of Dr. Happel', President of the Christian College, Canton, China. The specimens we have seen of the paper show great tact and ability in its condnct and contents. With so many Chinamen in this country, many of whom are already converted to Christianity, and all of whom are open to gosp21 influences, snch an enterprise deserves success. It is a monthly. The subscription price is but $1 a year. Guy Maine, manager, 15 Univet'sity Place, New York.
ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK
n.-ORGANIZED MISSIONARY WORK.
American Board of Oommissioners for Boards. (From Woman's Board of Missions, Foreign Missions· $104,511.02; from Woman's Board of the In- terior, $43,872.97; from Woman's Board of THE seventy-eighth annual meetIDg the Pacific. $3,826.67 ; from Woman's Board of the Board was held at Cleveland, of the Pacific Isles, $300.) The receipts from 0., Oct. 2-5, 1888. The reports of the legacies, $146,352.84, were also larger than year's missionary operations, as well were ever received from the same source as of the financial condition of the during anyone year, except the years when the two extraordinary Otis and Swett be- Society, were satisfactory and highly quests came ~nto the treasury. This was a encouraging. Instead of a falling off gain over the preceding year from legacies .in receipts, as many feared from the of $47,938.25; over the average for the five action taken at the previous meeting, preceding years, of $33,608. The total rethere was a considerable increase re- ceipts tor the year from donations and lega- cies were $540,921.21, a gain over the preced- ported. The papers submitted by ing year of $75.548.22; over the average for the five preceding years, of $43,295. Adding the secretaries-" Out· Missionary to the donations and legacies the income Opportunity in China," by Dr. Smith; from permanent fnnds, $11,258.42, we are "India: Its Need and Oppodun- permitted to report as the tutal receipts ity," by Dr. Clark; "Papal Lands, from these sources, $552,179.63, a gain over European Turkey, India and Japan," the preceding year of $75,735.:36. and "Our Financial Outlook," by .. From the Swett bequest, 'set apart' by Dr. Alden-were all able and inspir- the Board • to meet special calls for a brief period of years in the evangelistic and edu- ing. Would that we could transfer cational departments of our missionary work them to our pages! We cannot abroad, emphasis being placed upon the characterize the meeting or give its present emergency in Japan, and upon the results, as it is still in progress at great opportnnity in China,' $62,500 has been appropriated for the purposes named, in- this writing. But we can give a bird's- cluding for Japan, $22,402.25. and for China, eye view of the work and fruits of $19,638.00. .. From the Otis bequest, set apart for new the past year, from advance sheets. missions, $51,082.58 has been appropriated RECEIP'I'S AND EXPENDITURES. for the work in West and Central and East U There has been received during the past Central Africa. in Shansi and Hong-Kong, in year, from donations, $394,56H.37, the largest Northern J3.pan and in Northern Mexico.
sum-if the donations during the period of .. These amounts, added to what has been the inflated currency of 1864-6l are reduced already reported as received from ordinary to 'a gold basis-ever received from this sources, with the balance in the treasury source during anyone year in the history of – at the beginning of the year, $1,577.13, have the Board, a gain over the preceding year placed at the disposal of the Committee, of $27,609.97; over the average for the five $667,289.34. The expenditures of the year preceding years of $9,687. Of this amount, havc amounted to $666,399.2.S, leaving a bal- $152,510.66 came from the four Woman's ance in the treasury of $890.09."
GENERAL SUMMARY, 1887-1888. 22 90 Mi.sions. 900 Number of Missions…………………………………•…….•••.••.•….•.•…….• 1,126 Number of Stations………. _'" __ ……………………………………………. . 61,188 Number of Out-stations. __ …… __ …………………………………………….. . Places for stated preaching.. _………………………………………………… . 100,914 A vera~e congregation.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … . …………….. . Adherents.: ……………………………… _…………………………………. .
Laborers Employed.
Nnmber of ordained Missionaries (11 being Physicians) ……………. . 167 Number of Physicians not ordained, 8 men and 4 women …………… . 12 Number of other Male Assistants …………… _…………………… . 11 Number of Women (wives, 160; unmarried, besides 4 Physicians, 122) .. 282 Whole number of laborers sent from this country _…… _………… . 472 Number of Native Pastors………. _…. __ ……………. _….. _……. . 162 Nnmber of Native Preachers and Catechists…………… _………. __ . 448 Number of Native School-teac.hers……………………………….. . Number of other Native Helpers …… _…………………………… . 1,253 268–2,135 Whole number of laborers connected with the Missions…………. . 2,607 The Press. Pages printed, a.s nea.rly as can bl! learned.. " …………… …………… …….. 18,650,000 The (!hurches. 338 Number of Churches..•……….•…………..•…………•…….•……•…..•… 38.546 Number of Church Members………………………………………………… . 4,388 Added during the year……………………………………………………… . 105,477 Whole number from the first, as nearly as can be learned……•.•……………. : Educational Department.
Number of Theological Seminaries and Station Classes……….•…•…………. " 1'1 Pupils ……………………………………………………………………… . 251 Colleges and High Schools……….. , ………………………………………… , Number of Pupils in the above……………………………. , ……………… .. 00 Number of Boarding Schools for Girls…………………………………. , ….. .. 3,947 Number of Pupils in Boarding Schools for Girls………………………………. . Number of Common Schools…………………………………………………. . 50 Number of Pupils in Common Schools……………………………………… .. 3,068 Whole number under instruction…………………: ………………………… . Native Contributions…………………………………………… , ………… .. 892 34,81i5 42,733 8124,274 CONCLUIlION. I It regrets .. that while the receipts of the The secretaries ask for !I. reinforcement Board have been larger during the past of forty ordained missionariAs. nille physi- year, the increase has no~ been proportioned cians, and thirty single women, to sustain to the increased necessities of the work, and enlarge the work, and also for an ad- while the grand total of receipts for the vance of 8150.000 in the contributions of the missionary work of the Church has fallen off churches. more than 81,800 for the year. Nor can we "No figures," say the secretaries, Ucan afford to overlook the fact that only four do justice to the wide work of this Board- congregations and five ministers have been to the moral and social cha.nges wrought in added to the list of co-operating ministers the life and character of hundreds of thou- and congregations during the )·ear. Far sands. yea, of millions of our fellowmen. less than one-half of our congregations, and Yet figures may help direct attention to but little more than one-third ot our minis- some of the agencies employed, and help us ters, appear to be co-operating with our to realize in some feeble manner our obliga- Board in what you justly regard as the most tiOns toour greatLeaderfor His blessing the vital work of the denomination." We are past year. It is our privilege to report 1,050 glad to learn of the marked increase in the centers of evangelical effort-seventy more work of the Woman's Board, and also note than ever before; a net ga.in of one ordained with pleasure the resolution of the Woman'lI missionary, and of twenty young women Convention, at its recent meeting in Clinton connected with theWoman'sBoards; again Mo., to raise 810,00() for the Foreign work of nine pastors and fifty-five preachers; a during the current year.
gain of eleven churches, and of 4,388 in these Among the recommendations 01 many lands and languages who have made the committee we have space only confession of their faith in Christ-a larger for the following: number than in any previous year since the great ingathering at the Sandwich Islands; .. 8. That the Board of Missions take ima. gain of 1,000 young men and young women mediate steps toward establishing a thea-, in our high schools and colleges, till the logical training school in Japan. and that number approaches 7.000, who are 8rought the force of missionaries in that great field under the direct personal influence of thor- be increased as rapidly as possible. oughly cultured Christian teachers. Add to these over 34,000 children and youth in ., 9. That the movement toward organic common schools in which the Scrivtures are nnion among the mission forces and native daily read and prayer offered, and some con- Christians of different denominations in ception may be had of the vast work of Japan is, to us, an occasion of grea.t rejoic- Christian education in our hands, and of its ing. And if the union between the Congre_ prospective influence on the futnre of the gationalists and the United Church of missionary enterprise. Hardly less signifi- Christ, which consists of all Presbyterian cant in its bearings on the question of inde- Churches in that country except our own, is pendence and self-support were the contri- brought about, our mission is encouraged butions from native sources for various to enter said union. It this broader union, Christian objects, amounting in all to on the basis of the "Brief Statement" of 8124,274." doctrine proposed, should not be accom. plished, our mission is advised to ree.iprocate Oumberland Presbyterian Ohurch. auy overtures for union that may come from the United Church of Christ. If Cum- EXTRACTS from annual report for berland Presbyterians in Japan are satis_ 1887-88. made to the General Assem- fied to become a part of said United Chnrch, bly in May last. upon the basis of the exceptions to the Westminster Confession of Faith that artl The report of the Committee on Missions set forth in the Declaratory Act of the deals plainly with the condition of things. United Presbytsrian Church of Scotland, such a step will meet with the approbation received on profession. 4.308; received gain of children, 2.188 ; Sunday-school teachers. of this General Assembly." 2.606 ; Sunday-school scholars. 19.869 ; paro- chial school teachers. 272 ; parochial school STATISTICS. scholars. 11.484; contributions for educa- tional purposes. 828.415; home missions, Total contributions for the year: Home 814.538; foreign missions, 85.946; Orphan's Home, Church Extension, etc.• 819.477 ; for missions. 813.071 : Foreign. 89.418. the support of the gospel, erection of The Woman's Board of Foreign Missions churches, etc.• 8437.411. Some 38 years ago the Rev. Lars P. Esbjorn. then the only report 811.212.63. 1887. 1888. Incre""e. Swedish Lutheran minister in America, Ministers. .. .•. . . . . 1.563 1.584 21 was induced to come East and attend the convention of the Pittsburg Synod at North Licentiates…….. 240 246 6 Washington. Pa.• in order to collect fund& for the erection of two or three small Candidates. . . . . . . . . 247 262 15 churches in Henry and other counties in Illinois. where a few poor emigrants from Congregations.. ..• 2.540 2.1148 lOS Sweden were seeking to make a home for themselves. These are certainly astonish- Communicants…. 145.146 .151.929 6.783 ,ing results. Sunday-schools. … 82.883 85.890 3.027 General Oouncil of the Evangelical These statistics do not include the Col- Lutheran Ohurch in America, ored Cumberland Presbyterian Church. THE Foreign Mission work of this which numbers about 15.000 communicants. church is carried on mainly in the Reformed Presbyterian Ohurch in U.S.A. Godavery District, India. among the STATISTICS from March 1,1887, to Zelugus. Dr. Smucker, the English March 1, 1888 : Secretary, kindly sends us the statis- • A year of .. exceptional success" is reported. The two main fields are Latakiyeh tics of the mission as made out from and Tarsus. At the former mission there are four schools in efficient operation. having a July, 1887, to June 30, 1888: total of 659 pupils, an increase of 153 over the previous year. Added to the church, 31, Missionaries in field during year… …. 5 making the total membership 176. Number Wives in field during year. 4 of missionaries, 7; employees, 41. At the Tarsus Mission there are 506 pupils in the Native Ordained Pastors…………… 2 schools. 43 communicants. 15 baptisms dur- Native Unordained Evangelists and ing the year. 4 missionaries, 416 helpers. A school has been opened on the island of Catechists………………… …. '1 Cyprus .. and there are not wanting many Teachers-Rajahmundry, 8; Other indications," says the report. .. that the Lord is ca.lling us to preach the gospel III Stations. 54…………………… 62 Cyprus. This island has an area of 2.288 square miles. and contains over 190.000 in- Total Mission A.gents…………. …… 80 habitants. of which 80.000 are Greeks, 30.000 Total Scholars-Rajahmundry. in va- Turks, and the remainder Roman Catholics. Maronites and Armenians; and for their rious schools.. . .. .. . . .. .. .. . .. .. .. 767 spiritual wants no provision has been ma.de." Baptized. 1880;……………………… 124 The total receipts for the year were 1881…….. ……… ………. 170 816.691.15, nearly $500 less than the previous 1882 ……………………… 262 yea.r, while the expenses were 818.775.47, an 1883 ……………………… 356 excess of 82,573.78 over the receipts. This 1884 ……………………… 482 decrease· is attributed to a falling off in 1885 ……………………… 311 U specia.l contributions," not in congrega- 1886 ……………………… 364 tional collections. 1887……………………… 235 January to June. 1888. ……. 170 Swedish Augusta.na Synod (Lutheran) Confirmations…. ………………….. 7 Total baptizcd Christians ………….. 2,169 THS official minutes of the twenty.ninth Communicants……………………. 805 annual convention of the Synod, just pub- Total Contributions. Rs.• 204. 15. 10. lished, contaiu" statistics concerning the origin aud condition of each of the churches The Ohristian Oonnexion of America. composing the Synod, showing a most re- markable progress. We give a summary of THE Secretary, Rev. J. P. Watson, the most important items: Congregations, . 545; church edifices, 383; pastor's houses, writes to us, under date of Sept. 22, 179; value of church property, 82.079.700; debts on the same. $382,512; communicants. 1883 : "0,224; baptisms during the year. 5.345 ; con- firmations, 2,858; received by letter. 1.502 ; .. The Christian Connexion of America. are doing foreign mission work in Japan only. The roll of members and probationers has Rev. D. y. Jones and wife 'l.re our only risen from 219 to 587, and the value of'prop. American missionaries. The headquarters erty used for church and school purposes of this work is Ishinomaki, Japan. There from $67,900 to $175,000. About $40,000 a and at Ichinosaki they have organized year are now expended for the work in all churche" and Sabbath-schools, with a mem- its branclles. A total of some 75 men and bership of 34atthe former, and nat thelat- women from this single denomination are tel' plaee,July 5th,1888. The native men work- devoted heart and soul to the overthrow of ers are 7, a.nd women Bibl,e workers fonr. the evils long- en throned in the Great Basin." We carry the work of this year on $1,500. Tokio and several other centers are also be- General Baptists of America. ing visited and served ministerially. We hope to send two ot er missionaries yet THIS Church, though organiz",d thl. year. We entered the field Jan. I, sixty-five years ago, numbers less .]887, a.nd were expecting to organize a third than 20,000 members, located mainly church in Tokio in August. We have been in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Tenwonderfnlly blessed in our work, and are nessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. They greatly encouraged. I think onr Woman's have had no independetlt Foreign Board have reported their work to yon." Mission organization till the present year. They have raised a small sum, Utah Mission of the Methodist Episcopal and hope soon to have a missionary Ohurch, in the foreign field. We trust this is the beginning of new life and greatly THIS mission recently held its an- increased strength.
nual meeting in Salt Lake City. We American 'free Baptist Mission in Southern Bengal. are indebted to our editorial corre- STATISTICS for year ending March spondent, Prof. J. L. Leonard, of 31, 1888 : Oberlin, who keeps himself posted Number of Churches………………. . 10 on Mormon matters, for the follow- of Communicants. , ……..•.• 654 of Nominal Christians …….• 1,266 ing interesting report: of Sabbath-school pupils…… 2,701 of Pupils in all the Schools…. 3,058 .. Among the rest was received a report from Supt. T. C. Iliff upon the existing CASH RECEIPTS. stat,us, and a review of the checkered years of toil in this' the most difficult mission From Government, ……… Rs. 6,204 0 0 field on the en tire globe,' 'the hardest ground into which the Methodist plow has Foreign Mission Board (for ever been thrust.' The setting forth of work accomplIshed and well under way, education) ………….. 3,516 3 0 Was full of features, hope-inspiring and stimulating to courage. Enlargement and Woman's Board ………… 4,581 10 11 a. fierce assault all along the line are evi- dently in the programme of these fervid New Brunswick Woman"s brethren. In partioular, a comparative statement Was made showing the marked Board………………. 328 12 9 growth of the last fi ve years, and which is sLfticient to prove, if proof were needed, – – – – Special Donations ………. 8,526 4 8 that nothing is too hard for the Lord of Total Rs. 23,156 15 4 Hosts, and that through His grace the most barren field may be made to bud and blos- Reformed Episcopal Ohurch. som. IN response to Out· request for in- "These impressive figures set forth the chief features of Success so far as they are formation we received the follow- external and visible. In 1883 only 10 mis- sionaries were employed, but now 25. Then ing: 16 teachers were in service, to·day 40. The .. I can only state to you that our Church churches (edifices) have increased from 8 to 28, and the parsonages from 4 to 10. Of' has as yet no Foreign Missionary work of Sabbath-schools there ~ere 7, there are now ber own. We are a, very ytlung denonlina.. 24; while the number of officers and scholars tion, and have not had time to develop onr has iI,lcreased from 640 to 1,600, and of pupils energies in that direction~ Our parbhes, in the day schools from 560 to 1,400. Of however, do contribute to foreign mi~8inns these latter 970 are of Mormon parentage. through the Union societies-mainly through the Woman's Missionary Union Society. Collections are made every year for this purpose. I cannot give you the amount of our contributions. We have sent, in this
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
way, some thousands of dollars to the work has nearly doubled itself during the same of foreign Missions.• period•.
Very truly, RECEIPTS FROM JAN~~~~~ TO DECEMBER 31. WM. R. NICHOLSON" £ 9. d. £ B. d. We trust the time is neal' when this vigorous branch of the Eyangel- General Fund..••….• 8,713 8 9 ical Church will take root in the mission field and bring forth much fruit Nyassa Fund……… . 864 410 to the glory of God and to her own enlargemen t. Usambario Funds….. . 556 12 9 Oentral African Mission (Universities' Drug Fund ……•…. 215 5 2 Mission,) Miscellaneous……… 546 19 5 FROM the report fOI' 1887-88 we glean the following facts: ll62 4, 7 At the head of this mission is Bishop Steere Memorial Fund 91 4, 3 Smythies, and in its service at present ar" 97 missionaries, including laymen and Children's Fnnd …… 2,346 9 1 native helpers. Its missions are located in Z:l,nzibar, and the Districts of Rovuma, • Less Expenses…… 12 9 9 Nyassa and Magila. Its income in IbS!! was £13,034, in 1887. £15,505, an increase in the – – – 2,333 19 4 live years of only £2,550, while the mission Ladies' Ass'n C.A.M .. 115 1 10 Mbweni Chnrch Fund 9013 1 Receiv'd in Zanzibar 11,128 2 7 .. by Arch. Far- ler and Mr. Wallis.. 550 0 0 – – – – 1,678 2 7 Gnild of S. Luke. ….. 200 0 0 £15,505 12 0 Total expenditnres for the £17,916 year……………………… ..
1II.-CORRESPON DENCE and GEN ERAL INTELLIGENCE.
Scotland. wish to represent to the Imperial Government that this crying iniquity not only antagonizes [SUBE'we are that the following communica· tion will be read with painful surprise on this the work of Christian missions, bnt challenges the wrath of Almighty God, whose holy comside of the water. where the action of Parlia· ment was supposed to be equivalent to an mandmen ts it tramples in the dnst, on the civil actual and final repeal of the iniquitous act. government that defies His laws. That which God has prohibited under awful Profoundly do we sympathize with our breth· ren in Great Britain, and join with them in in- penalties of retribution, no Christian govern- ment has the right to sanction and license. dignant protest and in earnest prayer to God What must the heathen think of the religion which our missionaries offer as the only divine for deliverance. The copies of The Sentinel relil(ion when the illustrions Christian uation of sent ns bear ont fully the charges of olllcial Great Britain, honored by Her Majesty, Queen perfidy and "double-dealiug" on the part of of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress •,I Iu- dia, throws the regis of her anthorization over tbis the Indian OJl!ce and Government, as well as system oflegalized lust, wbich even the m. ral- prove the lack of decision and honest determi· ists of Paganism inhibit? The Board of Mannation on the part of some leading statesmen in agers are moved respectfully to protest against the licensure of this terribl e iniquity, and urgently Eugland to have the resolution of Parliameut to implore the Imperial Government, of Great made effective. The whole Christian world has Britain to repeal all laws that anthorize and an immense interest at stake in this matter. legalize fornication, against which God thunders His retribution! The memorial of the Methodist Episcopal We are, gentlemen, by anthority, and on he- half of the Board of Managers of the Missionary Church of America to the Imperial Government of Great Britain so well voices the sentiment of SOCiety of the Methodist Episcopal Chnrch, most respectfnlly, the whole American ChurCh, that we venture to Your obedient servauts, qnote it in this connection: J. N. FITZ GERALD, MISSION RoOMS 0" THE METHODIST EPIS- Vice-President of Board of Managers. COPAL CHURCH, 8O.S BROADWAY. NEW YORK, Jnne 27, 1888. J. O. PECK, ' Corresponding Secretary. To tke Imperial Government of (heat Britain: [Ens., GENTLEMEN.-The Board at Managers of the KEMNAY, ABERDEEN, Sept. 7, 1888. Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, a society contributing $1,200,COO annn- DEAR EDITORS: I observe it is stated In a ally for missions, and employing in its work over 8,000 laborers, and whose missionaries are note on page 676 of the MISSIONARY REVIEW Oll' laboring for the evangelization of the people of India, at a meeting held in New York, June 26, THE WORLD for September, that the British 1888, unanimonsly resolved to memorialize the Imperial Government of Great Britain to reDeal Parliament has repealed the legislation by which the laws of India licensing the social evil. They vice is licensed in India. Allow me to make a * In 1885, the receipts reported for two correction which, alas, is one of mnch moyears were $5,851.88. Probably they are considerably more now.-EDS. ment. Parliament resolved that the legislation In qnestion ought to be repealed: bnt ,that was all; and, unhappily, actual repeal is a different matter. The resolution of Parliament has no legislative foree. It lies with the India OJl!ce, and the government of India, to give effect to said, .. The soil is capital. There is nothing needed bnt water." what Parliament has resolved. And I grieve to You will fiud a great many large gardens in say that this is not being done. There are pre- India. These are outside of the city walls, and some very beautiful. The natives seldom have tenses and assurauces in abuudance, but that is grounds about their own houses, but are fond of spending their evenings in these public gardens. about all. It is evident that a battle will have Every inch of ground must be constantly irri- gated, and the growth is rich. to be fought to get the Parliamentary resolution Our missionary work has been carried on thns carried out. The horrible syetem seems to far in the same lines. There are a great many gardeus. If we could only stay in the gardens pOison all who have to do with it, and all man- and forget the wilderness. But we dare not. What are we going to do f Shall onr missionner of arti1lces are resorted to to prevent its ary societies keep on irrigating their little gar- dens? This is better than nothing; but is there being swept away. Our church sent a deputa- nothing better than this P God has said, (Is. xli : 17-18), "The poor and needy seek water, tion (of which I was a member) to Lord Cross. and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst; I, the Lord, will answer them; I, the We saw his lordship on the 12th of July-a God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open rivers on the bare heights, and fouutains in month after the discussion, and resolution in the midst of the valleys : I will make the wilder- ness a pool of water, and the dry land water- Parliament-and nrged on him the duty of giving springs." Yes; the wilderne88, the dry land, and not little patches here and there. Does immediate effect to what Parliament had re·· not this promise hold for great, thirsty India P solved; but he pretty much staved the thing Last night was one of the clearest starlight ulghts I have ever known. While standing on oft, ma!tIlified what had heen done, and made the flat roof of our honse I was lost in gazing at the heavens which declare the glory of God, and no concessions. thought can a little thing like I pray and be an. swered by this great God f, Quick, as if from I write you because it is important that the heaven, came the answer, .. Concerning the work of my hands, command ye me." We command Christian world should know how the case HIM I really stands, and what need there is for con- Yes, the responsibility is with us. If India and other heathen lauds are un-Chl'istiauized, tinued prayer and effort. I think it is very de- we must answer. DeliYer us from bloodguilti- nes8,.O God I sirable that your most valuable REVIEW should God has given the Son of His love; a gospel direct attention to a matter which is so closely which is the power ot God unto salvation; the Holy Spirit ready to convict the world in respect bound up with the interests of missions in Iudia of sin and of righteonsness and of jndgment. He gives ns the·one command-to evangelize. and elsewhere. It is not onr work to mourn over the lamenta- I sent by bookpost the last two numbers of ble state of the world. It is lameutable, indeed; but God has not appointed us mourners. As The Sentinel, the former containing, among Joab said to Abishai and his army (1 Chron. xix : 13):' .. Be of good courage, and'let us play other things, an account of our deputation, and the men for our people, and for the cities of our God; and the Lord do that which seemeth him the latter showing what double-dealing we have good." In this particular case we know what seemeth God good. It is that the heathen be to contend with, and how far we are from having given to His Son for His iuheritance and the ut- termost parts of the earth for His possession. the system of State-regulated vice overthrown. Oh, let us play the men!
Believe me, dear sirs, yours with great Christ- .. J esns, I my cross have taken, All to leave aud follow thee; ian regard, JOHN DYMOCK, Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, Convener of Free Church Committee on State Thou from hence mine all shalt be."
Regulati6n ot Vice, etc. At the Inter-Seminary Missionary Alliance held in Oberlin, October, 1887, we had a solemn India. consecration service on Snnday morning. A theological student rose and read these lines, LETTER from Rev. John N- Foe- … Jesns, I my crOSS have taken I' No," he said, man: FATCHGARH, July, 1B88. Less than two weeks ago this conntry was parched. Everyone was talking about .; the rains." When will they come f Dust everywhere. Dust-storms frequent. A missionary wrote to us from his station, .. We live III a mist of dust." But .. the rain," have come, and what a change! Everything is clean. The trees are washed from the dust which has been gathering for months. The air is clear as a crystal. Grass is springing up everywhere. The farmers are busy plowing and planting. I had heard of ..'the rains, ,. but I never expected such a change as this. In the midst of our missionary work this tnrns our eyes to the need for spiritual raina. There is a great drought in India, such as iu America we never dreamed of.
A few days after landing in this country, 1 was traveling with a godly Englishman In a train which passed through a stretch of land where, for miles, we saw littl~ but withered grass, ~crnbby shrubbery and stnnted trees. My fl'iend " I never took any cross for Christ. 'All to leave and Calcutta. These men come out at their Own and follow thee I' I never left anything for charges and live the simplest lives. for the love Christ. 'Naked,'poor, despised, forsaken.' Yes, they bear to Christ and the people of India. my Saviour was that, but I am not." Sir W. W. Hunter, the Director-General oC Is the same true of us? Is this the secret of Statistics to the Government oflndia and Comthe world's ullevangelizatiou ? piler of the Imperial Gazeteer, who knows more of India than any other man living, declares We sometimes wouder at the mysteries of that these missions are in the line of success. God's dealings. It is strange how a godly father They fulfill the conditions required by the popuand mother may have a son who IiYes and dies lar ideal. Tbey have cut themselves off from godless. But here are a couple who have neg- the world, aud they approach the natives with' lected their boys. These have run in the worst the simple message of Christ·s transcendent love company in the town. They have had every- for men. The Cambridge Miseion at Delhi have thing to pull them down and nothing to lift them in their college 600 students from the best up. One dies young of dissipation, another is classes of the popUlation. They are, besides, imprisoned for life, and the third is hanged for training up a band of native Christian workers. murder. Can the parents console themselves by They are ascetics, and as such appeal to the rethinking of the mysteries of divine Providence? ligious instincts of this great people. They are There is no mystery. the followers of the Oriental Christ and Panl. Dr. Hunter believes that the time has come for A billion unevangelized souls. A hundred a great upheaval. The seed has been sown. thousaud dying every day without Christ, every Christian ideas and a Christian llterature have tick of the watch oue, every breath you dmw been spread over the whole land. What is four. A mystery in the divine dealings? No needed now is a leader-one who by his own obmore so than in the case of the three reprobate vious self-denial and love for tbe people is capasons of negligent parents. God has made us as ble of initiating a great popular movement to directly responsible for the heathen as parents Christianity. for their children. Self-denial and work and prayer are required in both cases. That India is ripe for such an awakening, or ratber for such a leader, is undoubted. Eng- In all, the chief point is this: There is given lish schools have been established in every to us here, in India, to say nothing of the equally town of the empire. Our universities are turnimportant tleld, China and Africa, a tremendons ing out hundreds of graduates in arts, law, work, but not an impossible work. Its being medicine and science annually. En;>;lish is the done or remaining undone depends on us. Do language of the courts, tbe schools, tbe railwe want it done? Let us answer not in words, ways, post-offices, telegraphs, etc. Educated but in actions, in consecrated lives and proper- men are to be found everywhere. These men ties. are without a teacher or leader. They have no faith in Hinduism, and they know little of God waits to give slwwers of blessing, yea, Christianity. FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND. But all hangs on human responsibility, and that means our How many of the three thousand young men responsibility. and women in American colleges will volunteer for this work? If they cannot come out at An American University Mission for their own charges, still, if they are content with India. the life led by their Oxford and Cambridge brethren, it will be an easy matter to support A POWERFUL appeal from Rev. them. The sum of $~5~ a year will suffice for James Smith: all real wants. True, tbat slim will not pro- vide them with all the retlnements and luxuries AHMEDNAGAR, INDIA, Aug. 27, 1888. of a Western home. But it will support them in DEAR EDITORs.-Even in far-off India we gl'eater comfort than has ever been experienced have heard of the revival of missionary enthusi- by three-fourths of those for whom they labor. asm in American and English Colleges. Manv a weary, overburdened missionary is looking for- The necessarieg of life are cheap in India. ward to the tlrst contingent that shall arrive to The majority of our pupils spend no more than assist or supersede him. There is abundant two to three dollars a month while in school, work for the whole 3,000 new missionaries in and perhaps less than twice that snm in college. India alone. The question has not yet been There are several missionaries whom I know solved as to who is to snpport them. The China whose expenses for a family of three or four do Inland Mission has sent out its hundreds of new not exceed $ioo a year. missionaries within the past ten or twelve years, without any pledges as to support. The Salvation Here in Ahmednagar the A. B. C. F. M. have a Army have added a hundred officers to their high school, a college, and a theological semiforce in India in a year. They are under com- nary. All of these are only half-manned, and mand of " Commissioner" Tucker, an ex-civil- men cannot be got for money. "A comfortable ian who gave up a large salary and a good for- support" i. given by the Board to all its misbiontune to the work of saving souls. The Univer- aries, but all the same we are in great straits sities of Oxford and Cambridge have established for men. Now, who will come for love? Who their missions to educate men in Bombay, Delhi, will make the great renunciatiOn' Who will resting, took passage on a little Japanese! leave his Western home, with its loved sur- steamer for our final destination. roundings and associations, and adopt the primitive simplicity of the East? The change will This voyage was our first taste of life among be great, but really not, unpleasant. The sacri- the Japanese, and we certainly found them infice is nothin~, if made for Christ, who had not quisitive. This steamer, nnlike small Japanese so much as where to lay His head. steamers, had two little staterooms unfurnished, except for a carpet spread over thick matting. I am making no plea for foolhardiness, for a It was necessary to go through the "first, second and third-class" compartments to reach a prodigal waste of life and strength, for self- our room, which was directly over the propel- ling screw. This room was about 5y' feet sqnare denial which will undermine health or shorten and four feet high, and had a little windo,, life. None of these things are necessary. We through which the air came in plea&antly. Beare only to adopt Oriental simplicity of life. It ing provided with blankets, a rug and little pildoes not even imply the adoption entirely of In- low, the need of berths was not too much felt dian food and clothes. It only implies that we for a single night; but during the day, as there live so as to bring onrselves into touch with the was no deck except for standing room, our nations, and throw off our foreign character and chairs were perched upon the fiat top of the litmethods, which do little more than denation- tle, low, third-class cabin, and we were on exalize the people. hibition all day "as specimens of natural his· tory." However, it did not spoil our enjoy- Japan, ment of the beautiful island scenery through which we were passing. It was very pleasant LETTER from Mrs. Helen P. Curtis: to end our long journey (for this was its final [Mrs. Curtis is a danghter of our .tage) and feel that we were at last in onr own beloved associate, Dr. Pierson, who, home, bnt the first night there did seem strange. with her husband, went as a mission- We had no fnrniture, and our boxes were not ary to Japan a few months since. expected for several weeks; but the friends Her numerous friends will be pleased here had laid a mattress and comfortables on to hear of her safe arrival and first the fioor, and made all other necessary arrangeimpressions.':"-J. M. S.] ments for our comfort.
HIROSHIMA, JAPAN, May 19,1888. At present we are sharing, with Miss Cuth- My DEAR FRIENns.-You probably have bert, a small Japanese house, and all taking our heard, through home letters, of our safe arrival meals with Mr. and Mrs. Bryan (who live next in this country, and possibly of our coming to door), which is a very pleasant arrangemeIt. Hiroshima. We have been in our present home In the fall they expect to move into a new house, for over two weeks, and believe we shall like it and we shall begin housekeeping in the Japanese very much. Our co-workers, Mr. and Mrs. house they now occupy. By that time I shall Bryan and Miss Cuthbert, received us so cor- have a little more knowledge of the language, diallyand have made us feel so much at home, which will make it easier to train servants. that we have had scarce any chance to be home- You cannot ima.:ine how strange it seems at first sick. to live in a Japanese house. Of the matting and • Since leaving Philadelphia we have passed sliding screens one hears so often, but forms no through many new scenes, and, as a whole, our real idea of what they mean until they are actexperiences have been pleasant. The long ually before the eyes. It may interest you to steamer trip was comparatively comfortable, hear of our first experience among these new but we were much delighted to land on the 7th surroundings. We left tbesteamer about 5 P.M. of April-twenty.days after sailing. in a native boat or "sampan," which is pro.. Yokohama was gay with cherry blossoms, and pelled by scull-oars, and Mr. Bryan having the fields and terraced slopes, as seen from come to meet ns with Jin-rik-shas, in a few .. The Blnff" where the foreigners live, and moments we were seated in them and movwhere we spent our first Sunday, looked very ing briskly along a hard, smooth road, skirting mnch like the California fields and hills which the canal, which passes from the harbor through we had so recently left, only here and there were a portion of the town. You probably know that patches of brilliant yellow among the green a "Jin-rik-sha" is a Japanese two~wheeled This yellow is the blossom of the rape-plant, vehicle drawn by men. After fifteen or twenty from the seeds of which the Japanese mak" oil, minutes ride, past green wheat fields, where the and through all our journey the country was grain stood nearly two feet high, we saw the brightened by large fields of it. We had very Jin-rik-sha men gesticulating vigorously and pleasant visits in Yokohama and Tokio for pointing down the road where we discovered three days, and were sorry to be obliged to two ladies standing outside the gate waving hasten away. their handkerchiefs, and we were not slow to At Osaka, the headqnarters of the "Western respond. Japan Mission," we stayed ,,!ith the Rev. and Mrs. Fisher, and were delighted with all 'lur The first meal and evening were quickly surroundings, and after a week there, spent in passed, and every minute improved, for it WaS some months since anyone from the outside piazza). Perhaps, then, you can imagine a little world had beeu seen by the missionaries here, of the feelings that wer13 taking possession of and even stale news was fresh to them. So me as I went to bed that night. .The full amid home friends, and in a very home-like strangeness of it all came over me gradually, room, we had no opportunity to feel strange. and I began to wonder if I conld ever become accustomed to it. Lying there so near the fioor, And now imagine yourself entering a little with so little to separate us from the ontslde square court or vestibule, in which is a smoothy world, and in the midst of thonsands of people polished wooden platform extending all the way who could not understand ns or we them, one across the inclosure; a large fiat stone is sunk felt helpless and alone as far as all earthly aid in the earth in front of the platform. You walk was concerned. I~ was the Jlrst realization of into the court and on to the stone, on that you life in a foreign and uncivilized Jand. The are expected to leave y6ur shoes or outside foot fact that it is also a heathen land has not covering, then step in stocking feet on the plat· even yet become real to me-it seems imposform, and thence into the hall, which is opened sible. The revelation will probably come to me by a sliding partition. When the Japanese when I am able to talk witb the people, bnt not enter, tbey Mve simply to stand on the stone, before. and, lifting the foot from the wooden or straw sandal, place it on the platform, but the foreign- We have begnn onr language study, but now ers must stoop down or sit upon the platform are only just beginning to know the Japanese and remove tbeir more elaborate foot-gear. characters by Sight, and have not begun to Many of the foreign ladies wear slippers with translate. We have been able to learn only a rubbers over tbem, and remove only the latter, few words and phrases for daily use. So the and others simply carry a white cloth covering time when we shall be able to converse seems a which they slip over the shoe when about to long way off, tlnd work and patience are the enter, Wben you step from· tbe vestibnle you things that lie Jnst before us. At some later may find yourself in a long hall or a small time I hope to write and ten yon of the work sqnare one, but either usually opens by sliding that is being done here. partitions on all sides.. Through Olle of these you are escorted into a reception room. With many prayers that your interest and loving effort may continnalIy increase. The fioors of hall, living and sleeping rooms alike are covered with thick, soft mats of straw, LETTER from Rev. 1. T. Swift: eacb mat being bound with black cloth. They [Mr. R. p, Wilder writes us respectare very pleasant to walk npon, and often are so ing this young missionary: "He is a white and nice that shoes seem out of place Yale graduate of the class of '84. A treading upon them. In our house the recep- few months since he signed our 'voltion room is spread witb two large rugs laid unteer' pledge, and soon after sailed over the matting. The room is long, but not nar- for Japan." This letter is addressed row, and has a dark wood ceiling. On two to a friend in this city.-EDS,] sides it opens on to a narrow piazza, which rons half-way around the house, and in front looks TOKIO, May 28, 1888. ont upon a typical little Japanese garden with a My DE….n —.-As I think of you in the miniature lake where the tide flows in and out, mid"t of preparation for the Summer School of and tiny rocks with flowering shrubs and trees Northfield, I cannot bnt ask you to let me, scattered about picturesqnely. I said the room throngh yon, testify to the great blessing which opens on two sides, and did not mean it in the God gave me there last year. It was at Northsense I once wonld, for tbose two sides, to the field that I was enabled to decide tbat my life height of six feet, consist of sliding partitions, mnst be devoted to foreign work. I do not covered nearly to the fioor with strong white think that I was at the time particularly enthnpaper pasted to the framework of the partition. siastic over missions-it is diJllcl1lt for one to Each pane is about the size of a Gleaner page. ye enthnsiastic over that which he cannot ap- These, as you will imagine, are the nsnal preciate-but I knew that sollis were perishing J,I'panese windows. They can be removed in lands where the gospel was not preached, and without diJllcnlty, and then the room is entirely I felt that I ought to witness to tham of the love open on two sides; b1,lt as the garden is in- of Him who had died for them and me. I closed with a high fence one can still be knew, too, that Jesns had said: "The harvest screened from public view. Onr bedroom, truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few: which is upon the ground fioor, is a:so open PR….y YE THEREFORE the Lord of tbe harvest upon two sides in the same manner. At night, that He will send forth labourers into His harfor safety, wooden partitions are placed along vest." I couId not pray Him to.send others and the outside of the piazza, but even these are not let me stay at home. Nor do I believe that any very secure. earnest Christian student with strong body and mind can obey that injnnction of his Saviour's, When we reached here, in onr little room earnestIy pleading that laborers be sent into the there was no furniture buta bed made np on harvest, and say, " I pray thee have me excused." the fioor, and our two chairs (our bathroom being next, to be reach~d only by the littIe There were at the tlDle, apparently, great obeta of heaven will not stir It. .A BuddTr.i3t'3 eles in my way, but my duty was plain; aud I greaU3t dMire i8for the Munce of all de8ire. 'I thought if Dr. Dowhoutt could cross the Atlan- often think of tbose dear old days at Glendale tic to a laud where he had no friends, trusting College, wben Dr. Potter nsed to pray that all simply to Isa. xlii : 16, that I could do the same. the students might at last dwell In the pres- In almost six mouths'time I was on my way to ence of God, where tbere is fnllness of joy, and Japan, and now I am enthusiastic. God is true at His right band, where there are pleasures to every one of His promises. The harvest out forevermore. I long to go tbere, and would lik" here is truly plenteous, and ob, if the men from to lead myriads of these poor Buddbists with Yale and Princeton who came so close to God me, but they will not come unto Him that they last July could realize what preciousness there might have life. is in those words, "He tbat reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal,"-if The only Siamese newspaper for this people, they could only know tbe happiness of days which started with so much promise last year, spent in working amongst those who are anx- has already been suspended because it was too ious to know about J esus-I am sure there would good. It advocated the abolition of slavery, be but the one response, " Here am I, 0 Lord; government by established laws, the restriction send me." I bave much more work than I can of Chinese emigration, and tbeir uniform taxado. This demand for English-speaking scbool tion with the Siamese, and claimed tbat all childteachers is increasing. Tbe money wages are ren of Chinamen born here of Siamese mothers small, but the love of Cbrist more tban compen- were subjects of the King of Siam, and should, sates. Let opr motto be, " Forward all along tbe therefore, render both civil and military service. line." Pray for the stodents of Japan, or Chins The paper also favored education and the proper and of India; pray tbat laborers may be sent to reward of learning, bonesty and industry. The them as they sit hungering for tbe love of a editor was Nai Pleng, a young native, who began mighty Saviour, aud a loving Friend. his Englisb education in the King's School, Bang- kok, under Dr. McFarland's care. He was Northfield will be earnestly remembered in afterward seut to England, where he studied Japan, and I know that from India fervent Inwand was admitted to the bar. Tbe paper prayers will rise, and may there be .. showers of was thorougbly loyal to Siam and her interests blessing." and tried to uphold Bnddhism, the state religion: At the same time It almost quoted Scripture, Siam. and it cited Bible examples to enforce Its prin- ciples, notably the year of Jubilee, as an argu- LETTER from Miss M. L. Cor~ : ment for freeing one's own people from bond- age. I'ETcHABUBEE, Aug. 2, 1888. I am now preparing a little book of helps to lt was a marvelous paper for Siam, but was Bible study for our native preacbers. They too liberal and wide awake for old conservahave no concordance, no reference Bibles, and no tives, and so it is doomed to silence. When will Siam a wake, never to .Iumber more f text-books. While busy with this work I got into quite a discussion with myoid Siamese teacher, Our mission, the Presbyterian, will soon begin who has been with the missionaries eighteen the publication of a small Siamese religious years and knows the Bible from Genesis to Rev- newspaper. It is also our purpose to publish a elation. He wishes he had never been, and if calendar once a year, that all of our people may through death he might escape both heaven know wben Sunday comes. The Siamese do not and hell he would gladly consent to die. I count time as we do, and often get as "ay_ We asked him, "Where is Nijon Nirvana?" "No- are still in the genesis of work, but God has where," said he. "Wbat is Buddha now? " said, "Let there be light," and there shall be " Notblng; a llame that has left the candle, and light. that is what I want to be." "Would you not rather be a happy aerial spirit in heaven?" Afrioa. "No, for I would still have form and occupation. I do not want to be formless air, for even THE CONGO MISSION. that must move and blow. If God had offered me life before I was born I would have de- [Richard Grant, Esq., sends us the clined It." following letter from Rev. Bradley I quoted from the Bible about the clay and the potter, and acknowledged tbat life is a Burt, one of Bishop Taylor's Cong-o great mystery, and we cannot understand all missionaries,l'ece:;.tly sent ont.-EDS.] the why. and the wherefores, but since God had given us life in this world wbat had we bet- KIlIlPOKO, June 13, 1888. ter do f I asked: "If a bird should suddenly ON May 26, after a very long journey, Mr. and find itself dropped into the sea should it calmly Mrs_ Walker and myself reacbed here. We fold its wings and drown, or should it swim started from Vivi three montbs ago, but were and fiy for sbore ?" "It should make for shore," , delayed at different points by the difficulties of said be. " So should you strive to enter heaven," travel during the rainy season. After securing I quickly responded, but I fear my words fell men for our more necessary loads we were on a heart so hard and dead that even the joys ohlil!;ed to move slowly because of, the many swamps and swollen streams to be crossed. If a stream was found only neck-deep seven or eight men would get under a hammock and carry Mrs. statistics of J~wi;h evangelization that has ever Walker above their heads. Mr. Walker and I been printed. Within the last half dozen fears would strip and wada through-pleasant enough Leipsig has become the central burean lor all unless we had fever, which sometimes happened. information in regard to this work, and Dr. When a stream was over six feet deep and very Dalman's careful compilations can thus be swift we were forced to camp and wait for it to fairly rel(arded as being as complete and reliable subside. If uuloaded we could crOSS by swim- as could be gathered, They constitute a vlllnming, but could not get our loads across. You able addition to religiOUS and missionary statiswill understand some oC the dimcnlties of travel tics in a department where it is extremeIJ dUllin the rainy season when I tell you that I have cnit in the nature of the case to secure the ,walked two hundred miles in search of carriers, necessary information. added to the four hundred and eighty miles to Kimpoko and return to Vivi, crossed the Congo Dr. Dalman has been able to secure omci.I eleven times in native canoes, and all of us to information, more or less complete, oC no less gether, with our fifty loads and carriers, have than 47 Proteslant lIlissionary societies devoted crossed the rh:er three times. At Isangala we exclusively to the evangelization of the Jews. crossed two miles above the Calls, where the He thinks, though, that they must number over river is over a mile wide. We crossed in small 50, and without including such organizations as dugouts, one of which upset, wetting some of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the onr loads, but we lost "Jne. Mrs. "'alker had American Tract Society, and others who engage' never been in a canoe before, yet stood the trip in the work incidentally, although in some cases bravely where a slight indiscretion might have doing more for Israel than a large number of the upset the frail craft and sent us over the faUs or societies established especially for this purpose to the crocodiles. Well, the Lord was good to accomplish. '.rhus the Britlsb and Foreign Bible us during the tedious journey. • . . Of the Society publishes Delitzscb's Hebrew translavery abundant supply of provisions sent with the tion of the New Testameut, which, in more than party in April, 1888, but a small portion reached 60,000 copies, has etrected almost a revolution in Kimpoko, owing to the dimculties of transporta_ the thought of the Oriental Talmudic Jews, partion. I am iuclined to think this was fortunate, ticularly iu Southeastern Russia and' Siberia. for from the first we were compelled to rely upon This society publishes also a number of otber the food olthe country-kwanga, peauuts, sweet Hebrew, Jewish-German and Jewish-Spanish potatoes and hippopotamus beef. so when a box books, and has special colporteurs and missionoC good things comes to ns from Vivi we enjoy aries for the Jews also. But tbe 47 regular it very much, but have the sattsfaction of feel- societies employ 3:7 laborers of various kinds at ing that if no more are to Collow we can get 135 stations, and have an annual income of about along without them. . • • The Lord supplies our every need, keeps us in health, and is won- $500,000. In 1881, Heman. a careful statistiCian, derfullY bleSSing our work. The people like us was able to report only 20 societies, with 270 very much, and we hope soon to be able to laborers, and an income of about $250,000. This preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to them in comparison shows that the nineteentb is the their own language. We have five bright boys greatest mis"ionary ceutury since the Apostolic in our station from the adjacent village; one lad era in Jewish missions also. is called Kasai, from the river of his country. He is the best native boy I have ever seen, and I The distribution of these societies among have every reason to believe heisa Christian. He Christian nations is an interesting stndy. Her., takes an activo part in prayer and class-meetings, too, England takes the lead in men and money. but the strongest e"idence of his new birth is his The list is headed by the famous London daily life. Another bright lad promises to emu- Society, with 135 laborers at 29 stations, and late him. So you see God is with us, and the an income of $175,000. The otber 7 Engli.h sheaves are being gathered in away up here in societies swell the number of laborers to dark Africa. 214, the stations to 55, the income to about GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. $300,000. Scotland has 7 societies, n laborers Jewish Mission Statistics and Work. at 17 stations, with an income of $60,COO. Ire- land has 1 society, with 21 laborers at 9 stations [This valuable article we transfer $15,000, making a grand total for the British from The Independent of this city.- Isles of 312 Jewish mission workers at 81 sta, EDS.] tions, and an annual income of more than $315,- 000. Germany proper has 12 societies, the In- DR. DALMAN, one of the active co-workers complete reports of which show only 13 laborers with theelder Delitzscb in the seminary for the at 6 stations. Switzerland has 1 society, with education of Jewish missionaries in Leipzig, an but a single laborer. It should, howe"er, not authority in post-Biblical Hebrew, and one of be forgotten in this connection that many of the the be.t-informed men in Christendom on the best men in the employ oC the English societies gospel work that i. carried on among the child- are German and Swiss. QUite a number of the ren of Abraham, has published what is proba- pupils from the Chrishcona Missionary Institute, blythe most complete record of the· work and at Basel, are thns en::aged. lierely to mention the names of Gobat, !senber::, Krapf, sbows how nseful these men have been to the Christ- ian societie. of Enl:land. The Netherlands have 3 societies, with 3 laborers at 3 stations. Dr. Dalman tbinks it impossible to give com- France has but 1 society; the Scandinavian plete statistics of the converts from JUdaism to conntries have 6, with 6 laborers at 8 stations; Christianity. For a number of reasons many of Russia, i. e., the non-Orthodox Chnrches, has 5 the societies do not publish statistics of their societies, with 8 laborers at 5 stations; North successes, although these successes are more en- America has 7 societies, with 34 laborers at 33 couraging than many would believe. Bot Dalstations. man is willing to accept the compilation of De Ie Roi, the. well-known Jewish worker at Breslau, The oldest. of these organizations is the and a statistician of good repnte, who thinks that Edzard-Slijtung, of Germany, established in since the heginmng of the present century 'it 1667. It fonnd no imitators; bnt in 1808 the least 100,000 Jews have been haptized. Accordgreat London Society was organized, and since ing to this it is a fair e"timate to say that there that day the impetns to most of the work in this are now ahout 250,000 Jewish Christians in the field has come from English Christians. The world. These statistics include, also, those who majority of the Continental societies were estab- have been won by tbe Roman Catholic and the lished either by English agents or were copied Greek Churches. The latter, for instance, beafter English organizations. The missionaries tween the years 1836 and 18,3 reported 37,950 are scattered over the whole civilized world, Jewish accessions. In the Roman Catholic wherever the Jewish Dinspora gives them an Church Jewi.h evangelization is a part of the opening. In London no less than 58 are en- general mission work of the Church. gaged, in Birmingham 3, in Manchester 2, in Liverpool 4, and in fonr other English Cities, -PrQgress of Missions. Bishop each 1. In Scotland there are 3; in 18 cities in Littlejohn, of the Diocese of Long Germany about 40; in Austria, in 5 Cities, 22 ; in Switzerland, 1; in the Netherlands, in 2 cities, Island, said in a recent address at 8; in France, !l; in Italy, 5 ~ in Sweden, 4; in Russia, in 9 cities, 1j ; in Rumania, 3; in Tur· Boston: key in Europe, in 3 statiom" a5, of whom 33 ar'e engaged in Constantinople alone; in Tnrkey in It is alllrmed on good authority that the for- Asia, in 7 stations, 83, of whom 31 are in Da- eign field for the past twenty years has yielded mascus and 28 in Jerusalem; in North Africa, more converts in proportion to the work done in 5 stations, 25, of whom 13 are in Tunis alone; than the home field. In more than fifty islands in Abyssinia, 8; iu North America, about a of the PaCific a great company has been redozen; in India, 2. ThiS distrihution of work- claimed from idolatry and superstition. The men in no ,vise corresponds to the distribution largest congregation in the world, numbering of the Jewish Dispersion. It varies the whole 4,500 memhers, is on the island of Ha waii, reway {rom 1 missionary to a Jewish population covered from a savage type of false religion or 900 in Sweden to 1 missionary to 2.25,000 Jews within the memory of Jiving men. Over 93,000 in GaliCia, in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Feejeans gather regularly for Christian worship Palestine has 1 for every 1,OW Jews, Egypt for who within the present generation feasted on every 1,143, England for every 1,487, ASlOtic human fiesh. Not twenty years ago, Madagas- Turkey for 2,895, European Turkey for 3,143, car had only a few scat'tered and persecuted con- Tunis for 5,615, the United States for 12,121, verts. Now Its qneen and 2OO,OCO of her sub- Germany for 13,060, France for 35,000, Austria jects are ranged on the side of the cross. Fifty for 71,474, Russia for 176,471. The total Jewish years ago there was not a native Chribtian In tho population of the earth is about 6,400,000, and Friendly Islands. Now there are 30,000, who there is thus one missionary for every 16,976 of contribute $lj,OJO a year to religiOUS objects. this nation. On the western coast of Africa are over 100 or- ganized congregations. In Sierra Leone W,OOO The organization of these societies falls civilized Africans worship the God of our fathinto three periods, running parallel with the ers. Two thonsand miles of sea coast ha ve heen times when these strange people attracted spe- wrested from tte slave trade, and the church cial attention. The first of these periods is the and the scbool substituted for the slave-peu. In beginning of the present century, when tbe po- Asia, the citadel of cultivated and intellectuat' litical emancipation of the Jews hecame a burn- paganism, PersIa and Hindostan, Japan and ing question in England, aud thEn on the Conti- China, have thmr story to tell. In the last alone nent. At that period the great London, Berlin missions have been established in forty walled and Saxon Societies were organized. The sec- cities and 360 villages. And all of this, rememond period is the establishment of the Anglo- her; has been done ID .spite of serions draw· PrussJan Bishopric of Jerusalem, in 1841, when, backs at home and most formidable dilllcultnew societies were org,nized iu Englaud, Scot- ies abroad. There may be those who will unland, Ireland, Germany, the :Netherlands and dertake to belittle even the achievements of the Norway. 'rhe tbird and model'll period is partly past seventy years. But let them bear in mind connected with the general misslOll zeal of the that the first century of onr Lord, <1nd that the day, bnt to a great extent IS the Chrbtian reac- one of miraculous gifts, closed with less than twn to the political and socmlautl-Ser::!itlC agita- 500,000 discjples of Christ, or less than the half tion III Central Europe. Since 18~0 fully twenty of one per cent. of the populatIOn of the Roman new societies have been organized. Empire. The positive achievements of modern miss:ons are wonderful. People who were thought beyond the reach of divine grace have often Buddhist, Taouist, Confucianist bellO brought under the sway of the gospel, and and ancestor-worshiper, all in one. turned from a savage state into civilized and Taking Chl'istians and Mohammedans Christianizedcommu!lities; andyet the promise together, it is probable that there are of the near future, if the Church be true to her trust, is brighter than ever before. False faiths from five to six hundred millions of are decaying and losing their hold on the people, people who believe in one God, Crea- and whichever way we tnrn our eyes we see the tor and Governor of the world, who' signs of God's graciOUS working. beckoning us has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, to .. go forward." Best of all, Christians are hearing the call aud begiuning to realize tte while it is extremely improbable that truth of the word that with God nothing is im- even a third as many are so agreed on possible. any other creed.-Church Review.
-Asiatic Heathendom. Dr. Abel -A hundred years ago and now. Stevens, writing from Yokohama, Dr. George Smith, of Edinburgh, at Japan,says: the Conference, read a paper on mis- sions a hundred years ago. He indi- .. I have been iuspecting the great Asiatic bat- tlefields, and I report the general conviction of both foreigners and intelligent natives here cated nine points of contrast: that the epoch of a grand social and religious (1) A hundred years ago the missions of revolution has set in in India, Burmah, China Christian churches were isolated; now the for- and Japan-that this old Asiatic heathendom is eign missionary seeks to be used to do good generally giving way before the continually in- work in co-operation with others of dilferent / creasing power of Western thought and Christian societies.
civilization. The present is the most propitious (2) A hundred years ago there was a great hour that has ever dawned on Asia since the want of toleration on the part of the govern- advent of Christ. Let us hall it, and march into ments of the world in regard to the liberties of these great open battlefields with all our flags missionaries and the circnlation of the Bible; uplifted. I am not carried away by the enthusi- now every.Christian power, even Russia, allows asm of the heroic men and women I have met in the Bible free course, and, except Russia, prac- these fields; I know well enough the difficulties tices toleration. that still remain, and can criticise as well as any- .(3) A hundred years ago literature made the body grave defects in the campaign; but I feel very missions their butt, and did uot abstain sure that the hoary paganism of this Asiatic from scoffing at them; now the Sydney Smith world is tottering to its fall; that the fiual . school of scolfers has taken revenge in sarcasm Christian battle is at hand here, aud that Meth- agaiust missions as not producing reforms 10 odism ought to be foremost in the glorious com- life and character. But missious have come to bat." be recognized as the pioneer, not only of scien- -The number of Christians has in- tific and commercial advance, but as essen- creased century by century until now tially elevating social life, andelfecting mtellect- they far outnumber th!' adherents of ual, moral, and spiritual reformation, and tend- any other faith. The ordinary sta- ing to raise to self-government, which is the tIstics by which Buddhists are made idea of the English·speakiug peoples, eveu for the savage races temporarily intrusted to them.
to outnumber Christians are totally (4) A hundred years ago the human race num- misleading. The difference between bered 73 1,OOO,COO, of whom 174,000,000 were Quakerism and the Church of Rome Christians of some type, and 44,000,000 were of is trifling as compal'ed to the differ- the Reformed churches; now the race is doubled, and the ChristianR number 450,500,000, ence between sects who are all classed of whom 165,OOO,COO belong to Reformed togethel' as BuddhIsts, but who have Churches. An analysis by impartial statisticians almost nothing in common except shows that the Christians, and the dark races the name and a few merely outward intrusted to them. under the good iufiuences of ChristIanity, are increasing at a rate far beyond and material resemblances. To call the growth of those outside these influences, all Mohammedans Christians would many of whom have died, and are dying out. be much more reasonable than to con- The churches, since 1858, do far more than keep sider as adherents of one religion all pace with the growth of the human race. who call themselves Buddhists. And (5) A hundred years ago Christendom had not one representative among red Indians and this is not all, for in China, which negroes; now there are upward of one huudred contains most of the adherents of organizatIons, representing 2,250,000 jildians and Buddhism, this is only one belief other foreign people. among many, and the same man is (6) A hundred years ago educated Christian men and women conld not be indnced to become missionaries; till 1813 the only mission- follow up her denunciations and demands with aries were peasants and artisans, chiefly from prayer to God, and the use of her influence upon Germany. paid by English money; now the legislatures and executive authority, to bring Chnrch sends its best to the forlorn hope and about a marvelous change.-New Yqrk Oll- vanguard of the Christian host, and receives back those who do not fall in the field to be new server. sonrces of inspiration. –Everything goes to rebuke the con- (7) Foreign missions a hundred years ago fidence with which skeptics wrote a followed one method, therefore left great por- few years ago concerning references tions of the heathen and Mohammedan world to Egypt and Canaan in the early untouched that are now reached. Then It waS books of the Bible. The facts men- thought a chimerical project. It was declared tioned in Scripture were treated as that the conver5ion of a Hindu was a miracle as unhistorical, and reduced to the un- stupendous as the raising of the dead. substantial myths of an illiterate age. In The Contemporary Review for (8) A hundred years ago, in aU the non-Christ- August, Professor Sayce refers to ian world of 570,()CO,OOO, there were not 8()0 "the great event of the season "-the evangelical converts; now 3,000,000 are num- discovery in Upper Egypt of letters bered. In Brahminical India, since Henry Mar- and disp.ttches sent by the governors tyn's despairing cry, the native Christians in- and kings of Palestine, Syria, Meso- crease at the rate of 81 per cent. each decade. potamia and Babylonia to Egyptian monarchs. Evidences of this active (9) A huudred years· ago the snpporters of literary intercourse go back to the missions showed a painful contrast to the sup- date of. the Exodus. Henceforth, in- porters now. The supporters of missions stead of regarding the period of prayed more regularly and earnestly, gave more Joseph as fabulous, it is evident that earnestly, and lovingly and liberally, tban a schools of literature then existed; large number oC the niere nominal supporters and Professor Sayee avers that the do now. The lesson of the centmy shonld be, discoveries are likely to have most pray and labor. Pray and organize, tIll every important bearings upon the criticism ~ member of the churclllS working as a mission- of the Pentateuch. ary in One form or another. Africa.-African Slavery. A meet- -An Impetus to Missions. Already work- ing was held in London, August 1, ers in distant flelds have heard of the great by the British and Foreign Anti- Conference, and others will hear of it. The Slavery SOCiety, to listen to an ad- very antiCipation of snch an assembly must have dress from Cardinal Lavigerie, the archbishop of Algiers and Carthage, of quickened their pulse and called forth their on the subject of African slavery. The meeting was presided over by thanks to God. But as they read the acconnt Lord Granville, and eminent men its acts and proceedings they will be more were present from the Church of Eng- deeply stirred with gratitude. Tl:.e isolated land, the Roman Catholic Church, workers abroad will no longer regard them- and all other Christian bodies. The selves as lone skirmishers, carrying on a sort of chairman well remarked that the guerilla warfare. They will realize that they presence on the same platform of are the vanguard of an oncoming host. The Inost disting-uislled persons, ministers Church of God is beginning to awaken, and and laymen of all denominations, these Christian workers will be reinforced. accentuated the fact that, tho)lgh in Their support will be more cheerfully fortbcom- many tlnngs they differed, there was ing tban ever. The prayers for their success cordial agreement among them in will be more fervid and more frequent. Realiz- reference to slavery and the slave ing this, tbe far-oft toilers will work with renewed trade. Cardinal Lavigerie, who has hope and zeal, and as tbe result we shall have detel'mined to preach a crusade further glad tidings of accessions to the kingdom against African slavery in every cap- of Christ. The Conference dealt boldly with the gigantic evils that stand in the way of the progress of the gospel abroad. The sins of Christian nations in Africa, India and China were talked abont III severest terms. All this will have Its effect. The Christian Churcb will not cease to lift up her voice in solemn and in potent protest against the traffic carried on by Christian nations in the lands she seeks to con- quer in her Master's name. The denominations will be as one in this. They will denounce Eng- land's opium traffic in China, her traffic in vice in India, and the New England' rum traffic in Africa. And we know that in these niattets the wnted Church oC Christ has ouly to speak, and Ital in Europe, made a striking ad- of Algiers and Carthage," and" Pri- mate of Africa," who has been en~ dress, in which he affirmed that Cam- gaged for more than twenty years in mission work among the Arabs of eron understated the case when he Algeda and Tunis, preached to a vast audience in Paris on a recent said that half a million of slaves, at Sunday afternoon, taking for his least, are soid every year in the in- subject" The Northern and Central African Slave Trade." terior of Africa. Within ten years " The horrors of the trade," he said, "are litwhole provinces have been absolutely tle known in Europe, and are difficnlt even to imagine. The poor wretches, who have souls depopulated by the l~lassacre~ of. the like our own, are hnnted like wild beasts, and slave-hunters. If tIns state of thmgs far more are destroyed than are sold. When caught, the unmarketable ones are either killed continues, the heart of Africa will be or left to die of hunger. The women are usnally violated, and then bnrnt. The nnmber of' an im penetrable uesert in less than slaves sold annually he declarl'd to be not less than 400,000, and to capture these at least 2,000,- fifty years. The cardInal severely 000 are massacred. If this is allowed to go on, the continent of Africa' Will soon be depopnawl'al'sai~o'onmemditthteiAnrgabinfoAr tfhriecwa,roanngds he lated. There is a regular "human-flesh mar- he ket, " he said, at Morocco, and another in Egypt, on the north of the Red Sea. A great empire charged directly upon Islam the in South America has just set a noble example by shutting np a market to which these poor crime of encouragmg thls slave- wretches were sent. The whole trade is only the effect of a terrible thirst for gold." trade. Things have come, to such a .A.ustria.-Bitter Hostility. Not only pass in the vicinity of the Great do the Romanists oppo~e the wOI'k of our mission, but the ministers of Lakes that every woman or child the State Iteformed Church are using all theit influence against the preachwho strays ten rods away from the ing of evangelical truth. Mr. Clark village has no cel'tainty of ever re- asks earnestly that many would pray turning to it. He depi.cted III a ~ost for his flock, that "we may have st!'iking way the terrIble suiIerlllgs gl'eat patience, wisdom and faith unwhich the slave captives have to en- der the relentless fire of persecution."
dure on their way to the marl,ets. Under date of June 27, Mr. Clark says: Cardinal Manning, Bishop Smithies, " One of the trying things of working In this of the Universities' Mission, Rev. country is the surprising need of fighting the same battle over again in every connty, or part Horace Waller, and Commander of a county, where we begin work. 'rhese e' J- Cameron followed the address of the culties are thrown in our way to discourage us cardinal with stirring words, and a and to frighten the people. In one place,ol the false charge from a priest that our helper resolution was passed calling upon was preaching SOCialism, the chief man in a small connty has forbidden anyone but actnal the nations of Europe to take need- member. of our church to attend the meetings. We appeal and shall win; meanwhile the priest ful steps to secure the suppression of rejoices in his temporary triumph, and in scat- tering false reports about our work. Arab marauders throughout all ter- " In Pisek the mayor and City council go ont ritories over which they have any upon the street and entreat the people lot to attend onr meetings. All poor people receiving control. any alms from tlie city, if they attend our meet- ings, forfeit thereby all snpport. A mechanic -The discussion in the House of Lords on there who joined onr chnrch lost hi. place. The euemy in Pisek has sncceeded in reducing al East Central Mrica has served a !(ood purpose in drawing public attention to the serious dangers to which, by reason of recent events at Zanzibar and on the Zambesi, British commerce and missio~ary enterprise are now exposed, and also in eliciting from the Government a declaration of its intention to protect these interests. The civiliz- ing and Christianizing of this vast tract of coun- try mnst, as the Prime Minister intimated, be mainly the work of individuals and private or- ganizations; but these agencies have a right tt> demand that the Government shall render them all possible legitimate and peaceful assistance aud protection, and especially shall do ali that honorable statesmanship can do in suppressing the cursed spirit-selling and sla,e-hunting, the latter of which is said to be now displaying re- newed vitality. The assurances of Lord Salis- bury on this point were, on the whole, satis- factory, but the official attention having now been roused on this subject, it must not be per- mitted to slumber "gain. Readers 01 Prof.
Dl'ummond's '·Genlral Africa" will remember that he recommcnGs that, as a means 01 pacify- ing the whole equatorial region, a firm and un- compromising stand should be taken at Zan· zibar, which is one of the keys of the sitnation -Cardinal Lavigerie, "Archbishop audience of over'one huudred souls to twenty- One hundred persons could find work here. We five. To be a true follower of Christ in this have only asked, for the pre.ent, in view of land costs much self-denial, yet we move for- other important claims on the church, about ward in firm hope and trust. Meetings in most one-tenth of that number. Books are mnch places are well attended."-Miss. Herald. needed in Mandarin, the spoken dialect of this province, which, with variations, is common Chlna.-In view of the great need of more to three-fourths of the empire, and also III the missionaries in the province of Shantung, written or classical language, which is read in China, Shantung Presbytery has made an ur- all of th" eighteen provinces, and Manchnria, gent appeal to the Presbyterian Board of For- Korea, Japan and Thibet. There is mnch reason eign Missions for an addition to the working to hope that a new era is dawning in China. force of 10 ordained ministers, 2 physicians, and New ideas are at last changing the thought and 3 unmarried ladies (at least one of whom should policy of this intensely conservative people. be a physician). Rev. Dr. John L. Nevius Telegraph and railroad lines are projected and writes us from Cheroo: "This province, con- being built. The present outlook is full of taining about 27,000,000 Inhabitauts, was eu- promise, and young men now entering the mis- tered by our missionaries In 1861. There was sionary wotk in China may hope to live to see, not a single convert, and the language had to be with God's blessing, the regeneration of the learned before direct mission work could be be- Chinese Empire. We appeal to young men and gun. We have now 17 ordained missiouaries, young women looking out into the world for op- 14 wives of missionaries, 5 unmarried female portunities to serve the Master to come and missionaries, 1 ordained native minister, 29 take part in this work. 'l'he field is open. The unordained helpers, 2,203 communicants, and climate is bracing and comparatively healthfnl' –871 pupils in Christian schools, and in the in- -New York Observe". terior more than 100 stations and sub-stations, i including 15 organized chnrches Four board- Indio.-India's need of the gospel becomes ing-schools (one the high school or college, at more evident as her political life and power are Tung Chowfu, having about seventy students) asserted. In an important article in the current absorb a considerable proportion of onr work- issue of The Ountemporary Review, Sir William ing force. Some of the younger missionaries Hunter powerfully sets forth the social awaken- are as yet only preparing for work by the study ing which is now progressing in the peninsular of the language, and others will soon be obliged Empire. Altogether independent of English to leave in consequence of Impaired health or poliCY, the people are aspiring to self-govern- other causes. Our country stations are suffer- ment, and Sir Wilham, who well knows whereof ing, for want of sufficient supervision. In the he writes, is of opinion that encouragement capital of thIS province, Chinanfu, where there should be given to these aspirations. For three is an nnusually hopeful opening for chapel years a National Congress has been held, repre- preaching and for work In the country in every senting all classes of the community, from the direction, we have at present only three or- Mohammedan princely honses and the Hindu dained mIssionaries (including one principally rajahs, down to the petty tradesman, the occupied in the study oi the language) and one artisan, and the peasant; and the wishes of physician. This force is wholly inadequate to all sorts and conditions of the people have found attend effectively to the work _reqUIred in that vigorous expression. It is now proposed to city alone. The country work suffers. South establish an Indian political agency in London of Chinanfn there is a region of great import- on the model of the various colonial agencies ance, which we have been desirous of entering which have already become recognized in- for the last ten years, still unoccupIed by Protest- stitutions in the metropolis. Oh, that India ant missionahes, Throngh it passes the im- could have dIvine light, as well as national perial canal. During the last few years a tele- life! Prayer should be offered to God at the graph line has been established lIlong this canal, present time, that He will vouchsafe to those which will in all probability be followed by a in authority, wisdom that the phenomenal social trunk railway, connecting the central provinces activity which is now being developed may be and the great river with Peking and Shanghai. directed into proper channels. It is, moreover, About ten years ago ')York was commenced in increasingly important that Christian light this pi'rt of the province by the late Mr. MeIl- should shine brightly in India.-London fJhriBt- vane, in the important city of Chiningchin, and ian.. the towns and cities in its vicinity. A few con- verts were baptized there, and a happy infinence -Missionary Influence in India. exerted on the whole surrounding conntry. I should like to say a few words from Since his death, about seven years ago, for want my own personal experience in India of reinforcements, the work at Chiningchin has of the influence which Christianity only been continued by occasional and irregular is exercising upon that great con- visits. The Romanists are making strenuous tinent. Now, by the admission of efforts to occupy that field, and are already our opponents, our success as mis- reaping fruit of our sowing. We have a rented sionaries has been most pronounced house at Chiningchin awaiting an occupant. and indubitable amongst the abo- riginal tribes-the low-castes and the no-eastes-throughout the country. strous to say that men like that, giv- We can claim, I believe I am right ing their whole devotion and their in saying, something like 500,000 lives to the cause, are to be met converts to Christianity, chiefly from with anything else than respect and among that class of the community. love.-Sir Rivers Thompson, at the Bilt we live now in days when a good C. M. S. Annual _Meeting. deal more than that can be said of the results of our missionary work in Japan.-The vital moment, Dr. 'India-work which can be directly William Elliot Griffis, the author of shown to be the outcome of the labors of Protestant missionaries "The Mikado's Empire," says in a throughout the country, and especi- recent number of The Independent: a.lly in connection with the circula- tion of the Bible. I was noticing " The average man of cnlture in Japan to-day the return last year when the British has no religion. He is waiting for one. Shall and Foreign Bible Society held their it be Christianity? It certainly will not be meeting in connection with the Shinto, or historic Buddhism, or any past pro- Jubilee. It showed that in the year duct of Japanese evolution. What will it be , 1837 the issue of Bibles from the central depot in England to India .. Just here it is of interest to all who want to amounted to 45,000 copies of the see Japan a Christian nation, to know that the English edition. In the year 1886 'reformed' BUddhists expect to furnish their that total had increased to 318,000. countrymen and all inquirers with a religion. Of course, you may say that that is Alert, keen, not over-scrupulous, they will only the English Bible, and that they doubtless have a neo-Buddhism all ready. They can have very little effect in a coun- are already patrons of Western learning; have, stndied at home, in India, at Oxford and In try like India. America, the situation; have introduced physi- Then I must tell you that there are cal science in their splm;tdid, new brick-built colleges in Kioto; make the New Testament a six auxiliary societies in India in con- text-book, and the Bible aud its learning snb- ject of lectures. They will Buddhaize Christ- nection with the parent society at ianity, if they have power and opportunity. Let home, and as President of the Cal- Christians study the past and take warning. cutta Society during the last three Unto the awakening mind of the people of New years of my residence there, I speak Japan, shall a pnre or a distorted form of the with authority when I say that the j esns religion be preached? demand for the Bible (which is never " It is no cry of an alarmist. It is the ontcome given, but always sold) is shown from conviction from all who know the facts: by very striking figures in the last Japan's crisis is at hand! Before the end of two years' reports. In the year 1885 this century it may be decided whL 'her Christ· the number of Bengali Bibles issued ianity or its connterfeit shall Il8ve th • Land of was 50,000; in 1886 it was 86,000. In Dawn. 'l'he missionaries in the field s.,v that Madras in the year 1885 it was 109,- now is the vital moment, and they are right." . 000; in the year 1886 it was 119,000. There are many things I could Jews.-A Pan-Judaic Synod. The J,ambeth say which would bring home to you Conference snggests the advisability of a gath- how true it is what a great work still ering of Jewish ecclesiastics, to consider those remains to be done in the moral and questions connected with Judaism which are spiritual development of India. It is either nusettled or which need reviewing. A a pitiful thing to sneet· at the mis- Pan-Jndaie Synod has more than once been ad- ,sionary. It is worse than pitiful to vocated in these column" ; and, nnless the exist- ing system of laissez-faire, with its inevitably ignot·e the sublime results of his la- disastrous consequences, is to continne, some bOI·s. The men who go forth now, such expedient will have to be adopted to as you have heard from the report, strengthen the position of Judaism. The Lam. from our public schools and from OUl' beth Conference is assembled chiefly to consider colleges and universities, are just the the a~titnde and the dutieR of the Church In view same men who, if they had stayed at of modern difficulties. Its objects are mainly practical. And, while a Jewish Synod of mem- home, would have been at the bar, bers hailing from all parts of the world wonld in the church, or in other profes- find much of an abstmct chamcter to dis~us", sions; and yet they go forth work- the qnestions it would consider with the most ing for nothing, lookingfor no hu- profit are those which arise out of the exigen- man reward, thinking of no earthly cies of modern everyday life. There are, to be sure, many theoretical points of the deepest in. , recompense; passing lives exposed terest upon which earnest·minded Jews wonld to the most terrible climate and fear- be pleased to have some anthoritative declara- ful malaria. Many places in India tion. The limits of Scriptnral inspiration; the are strewn with the tombstones of missionaries who have hazarded their lives to the death. It is monattitude of the synagogue towards the latest from the department of pharmacy, and 21 comteachings of such sciences as geology and biol- pleted the course of instruction in the preparaogy; what the Jew is bound to believe in con- tory department. During the same week the nection with the doctrine of the Messiah and Young Women's Literary Society held its annithe idea of the restoration of ilaCritice-the!e versary. A notable featllre in this was the pres_ are matters about which guidance by competent ence of a Mohammedan sheikh, who expressed hands would be heartily welcomed. But the himself as greatly pleased with the SOCiety and very uncertainty that prevails in respect to such interested in its sllccess. Dr. Jessup reports questions, an uncertainty which has ever existed that an unusually large number of Mohammedan iu Judaism, warns us against expecting any sheikhs and effendis were present at the college agreement about matters of doctrine from an as- commencement, and that one 01' the Mohamme· sembly of Jewish divines, however learned and dan journals on the next day spoke in the highearnest. It is otherwise with practical questions, est terms of the occaSion, especially commendthe discussion of which is better suited to the ing the spirit and language of the opening prayer, Jewish intellect, and which press far more ur- which was offered by the Rev. George A. Ford, gently for settlement. The necessity of discuss- because of the petitions which were made in being the direction in which Jewish law may safely half of the Sllltan, and of the supplication it conbe modified in obedience to the demands of tained that the students of the college might be modern life will be apparent when it is remem- the most faithful subjects of his imperial majesty. bered that no authoritative codex of practical The Beirut press continues to be busy in scat· Judaism has been compiled for more than tering the leaves of the tree of life for the healing three hundred years.-Jewlsh Chronicle. of the nations. During the IIrst six months of the cnrrent year more than 15,000 copies of the -The Hebrew New Testament. Arabic Scriptures and parts of the Scriptures One of the most remarkable phenom- were issued, a larger number than ever before ena in modern literary annals, says in any similar period. What is especially notethe Old Testament Student, is the worthy is that every copy bore the followiRg rapid spt'ead of the Hebrew transla- stamp: .. By permiSSion of the Board of Public tion of the New Testament by Franz Instruction of the Ottoman Empire." This Delitzsch, published by the British can scarcely be construed as less than a seal of and Foreign Bible Society. In less than ten years over 60,000 co.pies of approval from those in allthority.-ClIurck at the work havp- been disposed of. The greater number have been distrib- Home and Abroad. uted among the Jews of the Austrian. Empire ar.d South RUSSIa. Of late Tnrkey. – Hon. Oscar S. Straus, United years, starting from TOIllSk, it has States Minister to Turkey, reached Washington gone upon its mission to the very for the purpose of conferring with Secretary of eastern borders of Siberia. Within State Bayard preparatory to returning to his the past year it has started on a west- post on September 29th. Just before leaving ward course also. The emigrant Constantinople Mr. Strans made an argument missionaries at Liverpool, and more before the Turkish authorities ID support oC an especially in New York, have found application of the American Bible SOCiety of the readers a1I!ong the emigrating Jews Levant for permis5ion to print New Testaments for hundreds of copies. Stations have and Biblical tracts in the Turkish langnage. been established at Baltimore and The privilege had been denied by the Minister of Chicago. The book is also being eag- Public Instruction. Word has been received erly taken by people living around that the desired permission has now been the Seaof Tiberias, and in Stockholm granted by the Porte, and the American Bible it has found many friends. SOCiety has already formally expressed its thanks to Minister Straos. The British Bible Syrla.-Influence of Mission Colleges. It IS SOCiety and similar organizations of otber gratifying to learn from H. H. Jessup. D.D.• of countries will onquestionably receive the same Beirut. Syria, that 46 young men have just com- courtesy at the. hands of the Porte, and Mr. pleted their course of training ID the varIOUs edn- Straus will be entitled to their thanks. cational instItutions of that CIty in connection with onr church. Six young men were gradu- MIDister Straus is a Jew. yet here we find ated from the theological seminary, who are hIm helping two BIble societies to circulate the spoken of as well-equipped for the work of the Old and New Testaments. It will not be for- ministry. Twelve received their dIplomas from gotten, either, how much we are indebted to the college proper, 6 from the medical collel:e, 1 hIm for the reopening of the Christian schools in Syria.
-A London gentleman ha,. offered the Irish Presbyt"rian Church to pay the salary for three years of a medICal miSSIOnary, and also the salarIes of two native a>s!st- a.nts to assist lllm 10 hl" work, The appoint ment must be to a statIOn not bltherto cupied by a medIcal missionary.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAJ.. MIS- SIONARY UNION."
Ohristian Evidence and Experience pretation that when two passages of among Native Races. divirr ') revelation are seemingly con- tradictory, the earlier revelation IN presenting the evidences of must be expounded in the light of Christian revelation to non-Christ- the later one; the later abrogates ian peoples there is need for judi- the earlier. Now, as the Quran is cious discrimination and adaptation the latest revelation, such passages to the state of progress, as well as to in the Jewish and Christ,an Scripthe ethnic tendencies of the people tures as teach the Trinity either were with whom the missionary deals. interpolated or have been falsely in- terpreted. Even Christian commenta- There are large portions of the tors, he said, acknowledge "various Moslem population among whom the readings," and" councils" have been historico-critical faculty is suffi- called to determine the teachings of ciently developed to demand the the Scriptures. The Muhammadan most thorough acquaintance with thought is, that God has made a later the latest critical knowledge of Christ- revelation by Muhammad to save the ian evidence, as well as of Christ- world from these errors of false interian theories of inspiration and exe- pretation and interpolation. gesis. Japan, too, is so far lacquered with imowledge of modern methods On another occasIOn a MOSlem govof thinking as to requiJ'e a wise use ernment official asked what is the of this class of thought; and even ground on which one should conyoung Bengal has acquired suffi- clude that any Scripture was a cient familiarity with Western criti- divine revelation. If it is intrincism to make it necessary to be sic goodness, then, as portions of thoroughly cal'eful in the method of the Hindu Shastars are excellent, presentation of Christianity. must it not be admitted that those parts, at least, of Hinduism An illustration or two will perhaps are of divine origin. If the antibest emphasize the need we have quity of the record is an evidence of a specified. In a conversation once revelation, the Hindus will set up the had with a Moslem moulvi the Christ- claim of their ancient sacred books. ian doctrine of the Trinity was ob- If miracles are the evidence of injected to as implying the divisibility spiration, then Muhammad worked of the Godhead. "Either," said he, miracles. He was asked how hein- "the entire TI'inity became incar- terpreted those passages of the Quran nate, and died on Calvary, or the in which Muhammad disclaimed hiS Trinity is a triad and not tri-unily." ability or purpose to work miracles. He said those mean no more than The missionary modestly ventured the writer of the gospel meant, when to suggest that as the Qur[m asserts he said Christ could do no mighty the Christian SCl'iptures to be an in- works in given circumstances and spired revelation, the difficulty 01' places because of the unbelief of the mystery that. was implied in their people. In a long discussion which teaching was no more his than it was followed, on the credibility of Moshis opponent's, as both were oblJged lem hIStorians In general between to take the New Testament state- the Hegira and the days of Othman, ment of facts as they found them. it was said that there was a lack of His reply was that Muhammadans hold the theory of gradual revela- tion, and lay down as a law of intercontempol'ary evidence to Muham- and heathen lands, The defense of mad's miracles. His reply, translated herself against the "reviewers" has literally, was: "First, contemporary made the Church unwittIngly furnish evidence is not atways nor necessa- herself with the burnished weapons rily true. Second, later evidence is for aggressive warfare in the ends of not always nor necessarily false. the earth. But the vast Brahman, Third, when Abu Bucl' collected the Buddhist, and nature – worshiping Suras and collated the Quran, he had communities of the world do not it proclaimed through all the coun- have this critical faculty developed, try, and no one al'Ose to challenge nor are they likely to have It till, its accuracy. Fourth, much of the further on, Christianity shall create gospels and of the Old Testament it. Miracles are to these communi- histo,ry could not, from the necessity ties only wonder-works, matched any of the case, have been written with- day by the haditional stories of tl1eir out some interval bet ween the occur- gods, or by their current exploit", rence of the event and the record, No man who understands ethnic ap- and it seems to be a question as to petences would be likely to approach what interval will invalidate testi- these peoples on this side, The in- mony." ternal evidence which Christianity As to the objection to Muham- furnishes is what is forceful among mad splitting the moon because these peoples; combined with that there was no reference to such an which is always impressive to an occurrence in the literature of the Asiatic, the material development of Bactrian and other neighboring na- the Christian civilization which is tions, he thought that of no greater alleged to be the immediate result or force than the objection against the product of the Chrislian religion.
miracle of Joshua stopping the sun, He has firm faith that your religion as lacking any contemporaneous evi- is good for you, but is of no avail for dence in the literature of the Hindus him, because he believes in ethnic and Chinese. ,revelations. But when, coming to That man was not a Christian the Christian Scriptures, he finds a " inquirer," but he was sincere, and prophetic description of himself, his unsettled in his faith in Islam, and pains, his prbblems, his unrest, his regretted having trained his children soul-aspirations, his longings for as Muhammadans. He l'epresents a some hopeful glimpse into the future, class of Moslem controversialists he comes into touch with something daily met with by the missionaries that necessal'ily suggests that the III the bazaar and village itineraries. book must have had an author who It appears providential, that simul- knew him. As it proposes to give taneously with the geographical ex- him soul-rest, and tells him the tension of Christianity through the "whence" and the "whither" of modern mission to the ends of the himself, he is led to test; and when, earth, the modern "critics" should so far as he tests the Word, he finds have compelled Christian scholars to it to fit, as key to lock, to all the ex- re-examine, re-forntulate Christian ercises of his soul, he is drawn to it doctrine, and re-expound our noble and convinced by it, without know- SC1'iptures, ready for presentation to mg, or caring to know, anything all classes of minds to be J'l1et with in about its external evidences. The all the world; and,amidstour splendid great bulk of the heathen world, fl"om later resources for research, to forge philosophic Brahman, and medita in the fires of controversy the very tive Buddhist to Indian spu"it-wor- weapons needed by missIOnaries of shIper, and Afl'ican and Oceanic fet- the Protestant propag'anda in Moslem ish devotee, IS In just this case. The great bulk of men of heathendom no solace but transmigration, possial'e, therefore to be reached at pres- bly to heavier woes and deeper deent on this plane. spair; no ultimate hope but Nirvana, which he does not compr~hend. It II. As with Christian evidence, so is not so much the command" Rewith Christian experience, Each na- pent" that will arouse him, but tion must get its own line of Christ- "Come unto me, all ye that labor ian evidence, and each ethnic class and are heavy laden." His great must be allowed to develop its own normal, first Christian experience is, type of Christian life and character. that in accepting Christ he finds soul- It must be encouraged to cherish its rest, mental quiet, and heart solace. own spiritual expel'iences, not those Do not quarr~l with him, because he of some other nation. is not overwhelmed with convictIOn of sin, and does not apprehend your Our Western Christian life and ideas of judicial pardon. All that thoughtJ have been largely molded will take care of itself. Meanwhile, by Roman ideas of government and he may develop a church that will jurisprudence. Our Western anthro- teach the West some lessons in leanpology is in its rhetoric, Roman. It ing on the bosom of the great Allmay be that it expresses views of Father. If you think of God as a man's relations to God, and the eter- Governol', do not quarrel with him for nal principles of rightness in a way thinking of Him as a Father. If you which will ultimately commend it as think of the pl'inciples on which God appealing to a universal conscious- can pardon as a Governor and Judge, ness; but it is scarcely to be doubted do not bothel' because he thinks of that it thrusts into large, if not dis- the pleasure with which the Father proportionate, prominence a single accepts those who seek Him. If you phase of Christian thought. "Justifi- studythe equity of God's law, do not cation by faith," is worthy of all the interrupt him if in unquestioning hold it has obtained among Protest- surrender he submits to the eternal ant Christians, but it is nevertheless sovereignty of 'God. It is possible true that the commentary on Paul's that both are holding views of God Epistle to the Romans has been found which are the complement of each in Roman jurisprudence. Yet this other. It is just possible that in the doctrine is not the only possible first mighty upbuilding of this temple of view of spiritual life, and may not be God, his thought is essential to the always the best with which to begin. placing of the capstone. Possibly his Even if it be held that these views contribution to Christian experience are inherent in human nature, and is necessary to the total 'mosaic of must, on knowledge, come to be ap- Christian life; that, his strain lackpl'ehended and received by all na- ing, the symphony of the redeemed tions, there is still a question of pre- would be maned. The heathen cedence and adaptation, in the order wOlld, redeemed to Christ, is to furof presenting truths and Christian nish ,the complement of all that now experience. is, and to tend to the" perfecting of the saints." A Hindu seeks, first, last and all the time, religious rest. He is weary Five Hundred Years of Islam in Turkey. and heavy-laden with poverty and injustice, and oppression and over- BY REV. CYRUS HAMLIN, D.D.,LEXING· reaching, and usurpation and false witnessing; with sorrows and be- TON, MASS. reavements, and spiritual darkness and nightmare, and with religious (Concluded from page 785.) ceremonialism that takes his time, his fortune, and his faith,but affords IT is maintained by some that. the . Moslem missions in Africa have very great success, and that they are do- centuries into the account, and the comparison loses all its force. The ing' more for Africa than Christian wonder is that Africa has not be- come altogether Moslem centnries missions are doing; that the Moslem ago. missions are rapidly advancing in all The Moslem missionary goes into parts of Africa, while Christian mis- Africa with some manifest ad'an- tages, in the human view,ovel' the sions have barely made a lodgment Protestant missionary.
at a few points. He disembarrasses himself of a family by divorCing hlS wife, and if Now, I wish to examine as thor- he have children, making an arrange- ment for them. On his mission field oug'i1ly as time will allow this re- he contracts a new marrIage at pleasure, which he dissolves if he mark~ble exaltation of Moslem mis- should ever return. He is thus saved a vast deal of expense. He may sions over Christian missions. marry and divorce at each end jnst as often as he passes from one to the And, first of all, we reply, that the other. If his famIly do not wish to go with him, or If he has not the fundamental elements of the Moslem means for the journey, he is justified in so doing. His .course is a necesfaith and social life being as we sary one, was so decreed, was in the preserved tablet from all eternity, have shown above, no true cIvili:r:a- and in doing so he is still a true ser- vant of Allah. tlOn can result from success ever so You will tasily see that the Mosgreat. Let all Africa become Mos- lem missional'les are a vast body, facile of movement. receiving the lem, It will have the social structure alms of the.faithful, but finding sup- port almost anywhere for their sim~ we have exhIbited. Its monotheism pIe lives.
cannot sav'e it nor elevate it. It re- The great advantage, however, which the Moslem mIssIonaries to deems heathemsm from some of its Africa have over all others is their connection with slavery and the abominatIOns, but c1Ln never come slave-traders. Slavery, as we have seen, is a very essential part of their into comparison with spIritual Christ- system, ciVIl, social and religious. The Arab slave-traders have made ianity. It IS of the earth earthy, Africa their hunting-ground for slaves for centuries. As the eastern and can never redeem a single soul shores have become exhausted, they have pushed thell' fierce and bloody from sin. raids farther and farther into the interior. But these slave-h'aders are Another point in the comparison all good Moslems. For the safer prosecution of their bloody enteris of great importance to be kept in prises, it is of vast importance to have Moslem villages and towns mind: . along their routes.
Islam has always been a mission- The missionaries go to a few ary. religion. Its missions in Africa are twelve centuries old. ChristIan missions are but just beginning in good earnest. They cover only a part of this century.
The Hedjra was 1,266 years ago.
1tfuhammed had been for twelve weary years a preacher of the faith.
He was a solitary missionary, gain- Illg few proselytes until he took the sword. His success was then in pro- portion to the valor of hIS soldiers.
The tongue and the sword worked to- gether with intens('st energy and with marvelous succe6S. And yet twelve hundred years have not been sufficient forthe conversion of Africa.
There are no proofs of any new mis- sionat'y zeal on the part of Moslems.
Aft'ica has of late, very unwisely, been brought forward in proof of the great success of Moslem as compared with Christian missions. Take the heathen villages still off the track of be kept up. Their number is very these raids. Their message contains large. If in Constantinople there are nothing to arouse hostility. A new 1,000 harems, there must be 8,000 religion, with some simple, ennobling eunuchs. If in the Turki;;h empire truths, a sensual paradise, or mem- there are 5,000, t,hen 15,000 eunuchs, bership in the universal brotherhood and 45,000 or 50,000 boys have been of the prophet of God. They have· slaughtered to secure them. They only to repeat the formula of belief are short-lived and the number in God and HIs prophet and erect a must be kept up by constant drafts mosque or chapel surmounted by the upon Africa. Carry this very mod- crescent, and the village is thence- erate estimate out to all the Moslem forth safe from the slave-catchers, world and the;;ubjectpresents a fear- for no free Moslem can be enslaved. ful amount of sanctified cruelty-of The heathen village, accepting the this annual slaughter of the innocents "true faith," has saved itself from -compared with which the Herodian the most cruel fate that could befall slaughter was a trifle. However re- it. But at the same time that It is volting the subject may be, it is an ft'eed from the danger of being en- essential part of Islam. You have slaved, it has the fullest sanction of not penetrated the interiot, of this religion and law for becoming slave- faith in its social organization if you owners or engaging in slave-catching leave it out. I haye touched it as and slave-trading. The heathen are lightly as possible. I have not un- all to be exterminated unless they covered its horrors.
accept the faIth. To kill them or to Much has been ;laid of late about enslave them, and thus make them the triumph ')f Islam over certain Moslems, is equally meritorious. portions of Africa, all the people be- At all events, this newly converted ing converted.
village must aid the Arab slave- But to understand that we must traders m every case of necessity. know the circumstances. We will sup- We will suppose, for example, a suc- pose a region of one hundred large vil- cessful raid has been made upon some ages; forty of them becorpe Moslem, heathen villages, the old and infirm and are safe; sixty are raided upon have all been killed, the strong and and captured or destroyed. That healthy manacled, and say forty or region IS now reported as converted.
fifty little boys of three to five years It is held up as an illustration of the collected. These boys will bring effectiveness of Islamite missions, by them $25 to $30, but changed into the side of which Christian missions eunuchs will bring them $300 to $500. make a poor show. It is not conver- I have been assured by a Turkish. sion, it is death, it is desolation that gentleman, formerly a commissariat reigns over the region. Travelers, officer in the army, that under the explorers, have frequently noticed most favorable cil'cumsiances three of frUltful regIOns from which the pop- every four die, and sometimes nine ulation has disappeared. It had be- out of ten. If a dozen cases out of come a l.tIuhammedan missionary fifty survive it is a good speCUlation field, on which the sword had done for the. slave-traders. The Muham- more than the sermon.
medan villages are made the hospi- I deny that there is anything in the tals and graveyards for this nefarious missions of Islam that can be example work, and but for them there could be or guide to us. It is a religion which no success in it. But it is a good and holds great truths, but so counter- pious, as well as a.profitable work, and balanced by great errors that it can pleasing to Allah and the Prophet. only lift the heathen half way up Now this supply of eunuchs must from the filth and degradation of their condition. It does not renew Christian missionary is emba.rrassed the soul. It does not cha.nge the on every hand. The shameless and character essentially. It does abolish idolatry and intemperance. It abol- abominable lives of so-called Christishes cannibalism and human sacrifices. It is better than heathenism. ians, who are enemies to the cross of It acknowledges God and His proph- Christ, are a great obstacle to their ets, and His government, but holds work. They deliver their mllssage, the soul fast in ponderous chains of but here comes a counter message, error, from which the gospel alone audible, and visible, and pernicious. can set it free. The worst thing of all is that I cannot close this paper without Christian governments authorizeand noting a remarkable feature of the l-loslem character which does not protect the traffic in opium and alcoresult from the Koran, but which holic liquors, with equal stupidity the Koran has done nothing to remove. and wickedness. China and Africa are filling up with rum and opium It is the universal belief iIi charms faster than with missionaries. This and magic, and astrology, and the astounding measure of Christian power of the evil eye. It pervades governments will prove as injurious all classes, and holds officers of gov- to enterprise and commerce as to ernment in miserable bondage. The missions. converted Turk, Selim Agha,. a man of intelligence and respectability, told Hitherto Christian governments me that in early life he purchased· a have never demanded that those ring with a blue stone in it as a Moslem peoples who are dependent charm against the evil eye, and epi- upon them. like the Turks and Egyp· demics, and· accidents in peace. and tians, should have the same freewar. He had worn it for many years, dom to become Christians that the and attributed to it all his good luck. Christians have to become Moslems. He had given about $50 for it. He af- If this rule of the simplest justice terwards gave it to me. It was of iron should be practically enforced it and glass, and not worth twenty-five would open the door of access wide cents. It had its divine power from and free to the Moslem mind. A finea great Moslem saint, who had worn looldng young officer of the army it next his person and breathed upon once assured me that many Moslems it. Wherever Moslem missionaries go are waiting for that day. in Africa they sell these charms and obtain a large revenue hom them. It is time for the Church of God to Every believer must have from one arise and demand that Christian govto a hundred. In heathendom the ernmentsshall not antagonize Christpeople bear a heavy load of super- ian missions. It may be said withqut stitions, and in passing to Islam they exaggeration that hitherto Islam has only change the load. found its strength and security in the unchristian acts of Christian govern- Christianity has done but little as ments. On the great subjects of yet to meet the Moslem problem.' It temperance and equality it has apis terri bly handicapped by Christian peared before the heathen as more governments. While in Islam every- humane, and in their ignorance they. thing good and evil-polygamy, slav. will not discriminate between the ery, divorce, the death penalty, con- mISSIOnaries and their governcubinage, the eunuch system-work ments, or between the gospel and together with the Moslem mission- Christian monarchs. But, notwith- Mies, and help forward their work,the standing this, Christian missions have exhibited a nobility of charac- ter in the Livingstons. Moifats, Lind- leys, Hanning-tons, and I!o divine philanthropy of acbievement, to which school sustains to the evangelical the Moslem faith offers no parallel. agencies of the church admirably , They can offer no 'instances of con- adapts it to home and foreign misversion from a fierce and bloody to a sionary work. We find, as a matter pure, holy an.d benevolent life, like of history in our home missions, that that of the great Zulu chief,Africaner, the Sunday-school is a most successwhose name was a terror in South ful missionary pioneer. l'he order Africa, but who became a humble of progress and extension in our follower of the Lamb. church work at home is usually-al- most invariably-this: a Sunday- Moslem missions, involved in vio- school is organized in a destitute lence and blood, turn the poor African neighborhood, and a few persons are heathen from one form of an earthly employed as teachers. They soon life to another, and to a somewhat become deeply interested in the better in some respects. Christian work, the children are pleased, and missions turn them from darkness to carry home to their parents and famlight, from the kingdom and power ilies the interest and enthusiasm inof Satan unto God. spired by the school, and thus the attention of the whole community is The Sunday-School as a Missionary attracted to the new enterprise. The Agenoy.* Word of God is read and studied, and as a result always attending this, a BY REV. W. G. E. CUNNYNGHAM, D.D., religious interest is awakened, the services of a minister are solicited, NASHVILLE, TENN. regular preaching is established, and It church founded. This is the way THE history of the modern Sunday- in which the Sunday-school becomes school mQvement ,is contemporane- a pioneer missionary at home. "And ous with that of modern missions. a little child shall lead them "-and The same religious impulse that led so the children do lead whole comto the organization of missionary munities to Christ. societies for the purpose of evangelizing the heathen nations of the We find a similar result (modified world, dou_btless prompted more spe- in many respects by the peculiar cil·. cific and earnest efforts among Christ- cumstances under which the mission- -ian people for the religious training ary labors) attending the Sundayand salvation of the children at school in our foreign missionary home, especially for the children of fields. The most hopeful class in the neglected poor. The first Sun- all countries is the young people, day-schools were distinctly mission- not only because they are the most ary, and had for their object the same impressible and docile, but also beend that is now contemplated by our cause the future depends principally home missions. The two enterprises upon them. The old al'e fixed not only had a common benevolent in their opinions, and fortified by origin, but have moved on in paral- national and race prejudice against lel lines ever since; for we find to- the missionary and his teachings. day that those Christiall communi- Not so with the young. All things ties most deeply intel'ested and act- are new to them, and if the mission- ive in foreign missionary work are ary can reach them in time with the also most diligent and earnest in lessons of truth and purity which the their efforts to cultivate the home gospel teaches, he may hope to save fields, and especially tel- train their them, and to turn the whole current, own children in "the nurture and of their lives into a. new cbaIinel, admonition of the Lord." to Itlld thus give a Christian cast the The relation which the Sunday- .Read before the International Missionary Union, 1888.
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS. N6v~
religious sentiments of the coming .God has greatly blessed the Sun. generation. The gospel, like a grain day-school as an auxiliary means of of mustard seed, thus planted in the grace, and through its agency thouhearts and minds of the young will sands at home and abroad have been grow; or, like "the leaven," will brought to Christ. If the children pervade the whole mass. to-day in heathen lands were gathered into Sunday-schools, it would be but The subject of Sunday-school train- a generation until the world was ing has all the promise of other edu- Christianized. cational agencies employed by the Christian missionary, with the addi- If the foregoing observations be tional advantage of being specifically correct; the place of the Sundaydevoted to moral and religious sub- school as a missionary agency ought jects, or, in other words, in being one to be recognized, and provision made form of preaching the gospel. Of by our Mission Boards for its organicourse, there is no intention here to exalt the Sunday-school into a sub- zation and equipment in all mission stitute for the regular preaching fields. It also suggests the expedienof the gospel by the ordained minis- cy of organizing juvenile missionary ter of God. I claim no more for the soci~ties in all our Sunday-schools at Sunday-school in the mission-field, at home, where our young people may home or abroad, than I do for it in be instructed in the duty of doing our own midst; but I do think that, something for the conversion of the if judiciously conducted, it will fill heathen, and an opportunity offered the same place as an auxiliary to the them of putting their knowledge into preaching of the gospel, both in for- practice by contributing to the cause eign fields and at home. As a mat- of missions. The children in our ter of fact, the Sunday-school has Sunday-schools should be taught to been successfully introduced into give and do for others, and not to many foreign mission-fields, and in think only of themselves. If the most places the number of .children Sunday-school is a missionary agenreported in Sunday-school is equal to, cy, the children ought to have the and in many places exceeds, the missionary spirit, and be taught to number of native converts. do missionary work.
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
BY A. T. PIERSON, D.D.
SOUTH AMERICAN STATES. permitted the Southern continent to THAT wind bearing south-west, and come under the sway ofPapal crowns. that flight of paroquets which provi- And so this vast peninsula, with its dentially diverted Columbus from fourteen States, waits to be "discovthe mainland of North America to ered" anew,and evangelized by Protthe Bahamas and the mouth of the estant Christians. The conditions Orinoco; that divine interposition strikingly resemble those of Mexico; that swept the caravel of Amerigo Papal dominion stamps all countries Vespucci at first to Paria and after- alike with a stereotyped political, so- cial and moral life, so that from one ward to Brazil, left the continent of we may infe~ the rest. In proportion to Papal control, ignorance, super- North America to be discovered by stition, priestcraft, formalism, a fet'- John Cabot and Sebastian Cabot, the terQd intellect and a perverted convassals oC the English kings, Henry science prevail everywhere. VII. and Edward VI. The same hand· of God which thus gave this Our missions in South America are land to England and Protestantism, planted in four only of her great not love spiritual religion, but they States-the vast empire of Brazil, the see Protestantism everywhere linked narrow strip of country between the with civil and religious freedom, -Andes and the Pacific, known as a.ggressive enterprise, good govern- Chili, Peru, and the United States of ment, and national prosperity j and Cclombia, which touches the Isthmus as they look at their own condiof Panama. In these four countries tion-without intelligence or intelwe have in all fifteen stations, one lectual progress, with low moral only In Colombia, at Bogota j three in standards and lower moral practices, Chili, at Valparaiso, Santiago and In bondage to a Jesuitical priesthood, C.onception j one recently started at and living as slaves rather than free- Callao, Peru, and ten in Brazil, at men-they naturally turn to Protest- Bahia, Campos, Rio de Janeiro, Sao antism as a help to political and Paulo, Sorocaba, Rio Claro, Brotas, national progress. Caldas, Botucatu and Parana. In all these stations we have only about Where Pl'Otestant missions are twenty-four ordained preachers, and once planted and firmly rooted, thirty-six women and other teachers marked changes begin in the whole and helpers, some sixty in all.• The social life. Bibles begin to be scatpopulation of these four States can- tered, schools established, a pure gosnot fall far short of 17,000,000, and pel preached, and instead of the they cover an area of 4,000,000 square atheism that springs out of the rnins miles. of Romanism, evangelical doctrine and practice burst into bloom. Missionaries to South America have found everywhere two things, Amongthe SouthAmerican States, spiritual destitution and formidable Chili takes the front rank in intelliantagonism. And yet these priest- gence and enterprise, as Brazil does ridden masses are weary of their in territorial area. thraldom, though scarce ready for the liberty of the gospel. Especially Chili, that has been independent of among the men and youth, there is Spain since 1818, and recognized as no love for" the Church "j at the best such since 1846, within twelvemonths only a superstitious fear. Deism and expelled the Papal Nuncio,suppressed practical immorality are fearfully the attempt of the clergy to incite prevalent, with no conception of a revolution, carried the triumph of spiritual type of piety to antidote theLiberal party through both houses general religious apathy. of Congress, enacted important re- forms in the shape of laws for civil The priests threaten all who even cemeteries and civil marriages, and attend Protestant worship, with the declared in favor of final and comban of 'excommunication, and often plete separation of church and state. lead In lawless violence toward missionaries and mission property. Civil The mission work has some notable war, with the anarchy 1t brings, often features j conspicuous among- them interrupts mission work, and yet it the seminary at Santiago, which is a is plain that God IS "overturning" in training school and theological semipreparation for His reign whose right nary to prepare a native ministry. it is. Alex. Balfour, Esq., of Liverpool, who in many ways aided the work, Material progress is visible in bet- assumed for five years the expen~es ter dwellings, farming implements, of Rev. Mr. Allis, who has the semiroads, bridges, factories and mills, nary in charge. railroads, steamboats, telegraphs-in fact, all the marked features of a Brazil,whose territory covers about hIgher civilization. The people may half the cQntinent of South America, issued its declaration of independence· in 1822, and was recognized by Portu_ gal as a free and independent state Would that they could be multiplied in 1825. It is the only monarchy in as the loaves and fishes were! We South America. Dom Pedro, who has have but one Protestant missionary l'eigned since 1841, is a progressive to 600,000 souls in South America.. sovereign. In 1866 he emancipated God is greatly blessing the itinerathis own slaves, in 1871 passed a law ing tours, which, after the example providing for gradual abolition of all of Paul, distribute the labors of these slavery in the country, and in our Cen- few men over a wide field, preaching tennial year visited the great Expo- the Word over extended districts, sition in Philadelphia; made our and preparing the way for the local schools, manufactories,- political and preacher and pastor. educational systems a study, and then visited Europe; l'eturning to his own Now is the golden opportunity for people to make his throne the center evangelizing South America. All of all humanizing and civilizing in- times of transition are crises. The fluences. During his absf:'nce, the old is broken up, but what the new Romish party used the opportun- shall be is ours under God to deity to hinder Protestant missions; tQrmine. God has given us convincbut on his return a cabinet was ing· proofs that Protestantism ill the formed in sympathy with the ad- leverio uplift these people to a higher vanced and liberal policy of the Em- plane. Prompt and 'igorous occuperor, and the growing popular sen- pation of the ground, earnest, consetiment and the mission work received crated evangelism, what might they a new impulse and impetus. The not' do for South America! With Papal power is broken, freedom Protestant schools, colleges and semof worship established, missionaries inaries, with an evangelical press to are protected, and another door, scatter the leaves of the Tree of Life; great and effectual, is opened by God .vith churches gathering converts to Christian evangelism. and organizingthem into evangelists; with earnest Christian men to become Though a monarchy, Brazil has a lawyers, doctors, statesmen, judges, Genel'a! Assembly with Senate and educators, we might see a religious Chamber of Deputies, similar to the revolution from the Isthmus of Pan- English Parliament or the American ama to the Antarctic Circle. Congress. NOTES ON ROMANISM. The Huguenots were the pioneers in the effort to evangelize Brazil; THE Council of Trent decreed that Admiral Coligny, the heroic martyr reading of Scriptures in native or of St. Bartholomew, as early as 1555 vulgoar tongue rather a damage than planLed to colonize the Brazilian a benefit. Hence laity forbidden, and coast as a 'refuge for Huguenot exiles, even priest, without consent of and they settled on this island, at bishop in writing. (See Latin and VIllegagnon, but this colony was Portuguese editions of decrees.) short-lived. The Methodist Episcopal Church, which has the honor of GOD has a people in the Roman leading the American churches in Catholic Church, and he addresses mission work in South America, from them: "Come out of her. my people, 1836 to 1842 maintained a station at that ye be not partakers of her Rio de Janeiro. The Presbyterian plagues. " Church has now vigorous missions in the United States of Colombia, Chili, "CROWN Him, Lord of all." and Brazil, with over 80 missionaries, Who is it that Romanism crowns? male and female, now at work. But The bishops oi Brazil went to the what are these among flO many? Vatican Council. 'fhe bishop of Rio Janiero on his return said the church was to be congratulated on the patronage of St. Joseph, who was England, it is not satisfactory to tile " twice omnipotent." That being the Roman hierarchy, nor has the dereputed spouse of Mary, the mother ot God, she was subject to him; and nomination attained the proportions – as Jesus was" subject to his parents," Jesus also was subject to St. Joseph. in the United States expected by its So that, through two dis~inct chan- adherents when the acquisitions of nels, St. Joseph ordains for Omnipotence itself I Roman Catholic territory and the accessions by immigration are takeD; Similarly in Naples, a priest, when into account. the city had been illuminated by burning candles arranged by images "The Oatholic Mirror of Baltimore of St. Joseph, and the candles had claims that there are 8,000,000 of Ro-_ been put out and the images torn man Catholics in this country, but down by the lazzarohi~ who love dark- adds to this that, considering the ness, he said to them, "You don't emigration to this country from Paunderstand what a powerful patron pal populations and their descend- St. Joseph is,"and then he invented ants, the purchases of Louisiana and a. blasphemous fable to illustrate it. of Mexican territory, there should-be He said that a poor Neapolitan lazza- at least 20,000,000 of Catholics in this rone went to heaven and asked for land. The Mirror makes the followadmission, but was refused by St. ing confession: 'It is our opinion Peter, and sent to the infernal that a vast deal of unmeaning stuff regions. There he met the door- has been talked about the progress keeper by a remonstrance tha~ he of the Catholic Church both in Engwas under patronage of St. Joseph, land and America. It is true there and the doorkeeper sent him back to are 2,000,000 Catholics in England heaven on the ground that none who and 8,000,000 in America. Ninewere under patronage of that dis- tenths of those in the former country and three-fourths in the latter are of Irish blood."
Hereafter the relative increase of tinguished saivt ever go to hell. Roman Catholics will be much less Whereupon he again appealed for than it has been for the last forty admittance in heaven. St. Peter re- years, unless Mexico should be an- fusing, he appealed to St. Joseph, nexed, which may possibly occur in and the controversy was carried be- the distant future, but is by no means fore the Father, who sided with Peter. probable. And the Oatholic Stand- Thereupon St. -Joseph ordered the ard admits that the Roman Catholic Virgin Mary and her Son Jesus to Church cannot easily keep within its leave the court, and Jesus ordered fold the young people who grow up • aU the redeemed saints to follow, in even Catholic families in this and so St. Peter and the Father were country, by insisting that in view of compelled -to yield and let in the the decrease of Catholic im~grants Naples beggar I and the proportionate church de- AN old patriarch of Brazil, when crease, the Catholic Church must brought into contact with the gospel, look to parochial schools for the sup- said to Mr. Chamberlain, then a ply of its membership.
young man of tweny-two, "What POPERY does not stand well nearest was your father doing that my headquarters. Out of 1,298 newspafather died, never having known that pers published in Italy in 1884, only there was such a book as the Bible?" 189, or 5 per cent., favored the Pa- SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. pacy, while the remaining 1,100, or Rapid as has been- the growth of 95 per cent., antagonized the Romish Catholicism in this country an4 in Church and the Pope.
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
VI.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS: MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Presbyterian Alliance.-The fourth be added, if various disputed claims were General Council of the Presbyterian admitted, another 200,000. England's posses- Alliance unanimously adopted the sions and U sphere of influence,n not includfollowing propositions as embodying ing Egypt, are set down at about 1,000,000 square miles. British trade with A~rica is the general principle of the organic estimated to be worth about $125,000,000 union and independence of the annually, while that of France is about $100,000,000. The eommerce of Germany churches in the mission field, and re- with the Great Contin'lnt is as yet insignifi- cant. The total value of exports and imsolved to leave it to the allied ports of Africa is estimated at $375,000,000 annually. An enormous sum truly. What churches to carry out the principle a field for commercial enterprise the Great on these lines in the management of Continent is I And what a field for mission- ary enterprise I-Miss. Herald. their various missions: -It is officially announced that the forces 1. It is in the highest degree desirable that of the Congo Free State have re-captured mission churches should be encouraged.to the Stanley Falls station. It is two years become independent of the home churches, since this station on the Congo fell into the i. e., self-supporting and' self-governing" hands of the Arabs. It is an important self-government naturally following upon point, 1,400 miles from the mouth of the self-Rupport. river and 350 above Stanley Pool. Stanley. established it in 1883 on an island in the river 2. It is desirable that churches organizeii' just below the falls. In 1886 fifty black under Presbyterian orders, and holding the soldiers under European officers guarded it; Reformed faith, should be placed under a a female slave took refuge in the station. Presbytery within territorial boundarie'= Her owner, an Arab chief, demanded her suitable for effective government; aUfI that surrender. The refpsal to comply led to a such Presbytery, wherever constituted, three days' battle, and the Congo soldiers should, as far as practicable, include all the had to retreat because they had exhausted Presbyterian churches within the bounds their ammunition. Since then the Arabs by whatever branches of the European and have held it until now and resumed their American churches originated. slave raids from it as a base.
3. In the incipient stages of the native -Advices from Stanler Fal1s state that Church, it is most desirable that the foreign Professor Jamieson, who was engaged in missionaries should be associated with the organizing an expedition for the relief of Presbytery, either as advisers only or as Stanley, died of African fever at Bangalas, assessory members with votes. on the Congo, August 17th. The organiza- tion of another relief expedition is now re- 4. It is nndesirable that Presbyteries or" garded as hopeless. Officials of the Congo ,native churciles should be represeuted in Free State believe that Professor Jamieson, Supreme Courts at home, the development ha.ving become convinced that, owing to and full organization of the independent the treachery of Tippoo Tib, there was no native churches being what is to be arrived chance to make further arrangements for at, whether these are founded by a single his expedition, was returning when he was foreign church, or by two or more such stricken down with the fever. A letter churches. from an offiCIal of the Congq State, dated July 26th, reports a pitiable state of affairs -Rev. Mr. Wigram says that the great at Aruwimi. lesson taught him by his journey around the world IS the utter inadequacy of the mis- -In the s~ools of the Scottish Free Church sionary force to avail itself of the inviting Mission, at Bandawe, Lake Nyassa, AfrIca, openings in all directions… Terribly under- no fewer than 1.179 pupils were III attendmanned" is his description of almost ev.,.-y ance the day before they were closed for mission district in Ceylon, India, China and vacation. Of these one-third were girls. Japan:-Spirit Of Missions. Thirty-eight native teachers are at work in the schools. The Arabs have cut to pieces Atrlc8.-Territorial Acquisitions. After a friendly tribe at the north end of the lake, what The London Times calls the scramble and attacked the mission storehouse, but for Africa, which has been going On for were beaten back. The slave thieves dared years and is now practIcally ended, it is said to imprison and maltreat the British consul that only about four and one-half millions of a.nd haul down the British flag. the eleven millions of square miles in AfrICa remain unattached to some European ~Of 140 persons who have gone out in conpower. Of these unattached portions more than half lie within the desert of Sahara. France hits about 700,000 square miles; Ger- many 740,000 square mIles, to whIch should nection with Bishop Taylor's African mis- men, settled among them, and were married sion, he reports that 15 have died, and 34 to chiefs. Their descendants form a sepa- others have left the service. A large pro- rate tribe called "the white people." Al- of portion of this loss may be charged to two though no mission work had ever been done causes. 1. Want of care in the selection for this people, the missionaries found them those who were sent out. 2. Insufficellt kindly disposed. Thus far only three have provision for their health aud comfort after been converted.
they reached Africa. China.-The North China Methodist Epis- -The news from the English Church Mis- copal Mission has extended its line of mission sion in Uganda, Central Africa, still shows stations east of Peking to Shan Hai Kuan, a.
a disturbed condition. Mr. Gordon still re- city which will probably be of great mili- mains at the capital, but he is under sur- tary and commercial importance 'in the new veillance and has had to stop the sale of China of the near future. The old foreIgn Christian literature. Mr. Walker had sailed residents in China are almost unanimous III from the south shore of the lake for Ugan- predicting a sudden and thorough awakenda, and King Mwanga had sent b~ats to ing of the long dormant energies of that bring the Roman Catholic Bishop to his mighty nation. ~'he demands of the times court. Mr. Mackay was at Usambiro. Mr. are imperative, and the old conservative Ashe is with Mr. Mackay translating the barriers are no longer able to withstand Scriptures into the language of Uganda. the encroaching power of modern civiliza- Australia.-The progress of the Presbyte- tion. Royal permission for the extension rian Church in Victoria durin!;" the past of the railroad from Tientsin to Tung Chou fifty years has been very great. Taking in has been granted. This would bring the the whole Of Australasia, we are told that . railroad within fifteen miles of the capital, there are 571 Presbyterian ministers, 672 and its completion to Peking would not long 'charges, and 51 presbyteries-all within be delayed. Missionaries are alive to the the past fifty years. The other Protestant fact that there will soon be a gr_eat demand churches have also increased -with great for Western knowledge from all parts of rapidity. uhina, and that if this demand is not an- Brazil.-Rev. Emanuel Vanorden writes ticipated by Christian schools and colleges, from Sao Paulo: "Through God's mercy I it will be supplied through the modern athe- arrived safely in this capital after a pros- istic school, whose teachings are quite ac- perous voyage of twenty-three days. The ceptable to the IIterary classes of China, whole country is more or less in a state of and who exhibit an almost missionary zeal excitement on account of the emancipation in promUlgating their views in nations just of the slaves; many planters are completely emerging from heathenism. The new Cath- ruined, and have to learn to use their own olic cathedral in Peking will soon be com- hands and brains to earn their bread and pleted. The buildings of the Catholics in butter. The opportunities for evangeliza- – Chungking, which were destroyed during tion are daily increasing. Last night there the riot in 1886, are being replaced by still arrived a letter from a young colporteur, more extensive and elegant structures. The saying that in Ouro Preto, the capital of Methodist Missiou in the Rame city is also Minas Geraes, a hotbed of Jesuitism, he had rebuilding. The steamer built to ascend the sold 239 Bibles, and in the neighborhood, 90. Yangtze River to Chungking is lying idle at To give you an idea of the magnitnde of the Shanghai, not being allowed to make the at- Lord's work herp., I would mention, with tempt. The breaches in the embankments great thankfulness to God, that Rev. Mr. of the Yellow River, made last year, are not Landes received, on profession of their repaired, and the summer rains make the faith, 53 Catholics III Campo Largo, 40 in condition of the people in that ill·fated Guarapicava, and 30 in Rio Feio. The region most deplorable.-The Independent.
Methodist Conference is In session here now -Among those pr~sent at the Northfield (July 31), and is laying ont its plan of cam- Conference was Hudson Taylor, of the China paign for the coming year. Bishop Cran- Inland Mission. A writer describes him as berry bronght two new men from the States, .. a great power at the conference, his words 'l-nq these are wanted in /lfty places. and his prayers seeming to be from one really Bnnnah.-The Bovmanas, an independent moved upon by the Holy Ghost." We can tribe of Ka.firs, among whom the mission- remember the day when Hudson Taylor and aries of the Scotch United Presbyterian bis infant mission were "made as the filth Church established a station last December, of the world," even many good Christians have an interesting history. When they deriding and condemning his methods. Now came to their present territory':"about 150 he and the mission are set on high. When years ago-there were but few of them. they began work, out of the 18 provinces in Now they number from 20,000 to 30,000. In China 11, were without a missionary. In 10 those early days two white women, who of these unoccupied provinces the mission were saved from the wreck of an East India- now has its workers. They number 294 misslonaries, of whom 169 are unma.rried. There without faith, without bope, without love' are also 132 native helpers. The s~ations and out-stations occupied number 129. There and to whom the gracious and glorious mesare 66 organized churches, with 2,105 communicants and 119 chapels. The income of sage of the gospel communicated a new life the mission last year was $165,000. Some iO of the missionaries, howe.ver, have private and joys of infinite sweetness; We can see property, and work at their own expense. it in these thousands of workingmen'8 fami- -Dr.Wenger's work among the Chinese in Calcutta is growing in Importance. As the lies, where· peace, happiness, the welfare of American and Australian Governments are endeavoring to prevent the immigration of the children, attendance at divine worship, Chinamen, It is likely that India will, in the near fliture, alrord asylum to thousands of and fireside comfort, have taken the place Chinese people. The number ot Chinamen In Calcntta in 1881 was returned at 865, and of quarrels and profane language, love of is now belieV'ed to be much larger. Dr. Wenger is trying to get in touch with the China- low company and of the public bouse. These men of Darjeeling. The good seed is also being sown among the Hindu popUlation of thousands of living witnesses are raised up Calcutta. for the glory of God's .only Son, and who now ·-In beginning one of her touchingly simple and pathetic talks on mission work in China, feel the need of bringing others to those· Mrs. Stott told how she had been led to adopt the plan of systematic giving to God's fountains of living waters.where they have cause; even In times of great personal need she had been enabled to adhere to this plan, themselves drunk, quenching their thirst and God bad greatly bonored ber desire to carry it out. The sytematic method she be- with long draughts." lieves to be far the best, as it relieves one from all care and anxiety in the matter. -The total attendance at the McAll meet- She went on to tell some of bel' missionary experiences in tbe Province of Cheh-kia.ng, ings in Paris is said to be about 43,000. The in carrying the gospel to the people. Visitation among tbe outlying villages is a very McAll Association in America has rais.ed interesting part of the work carried on by her busband and herself, and they are for this work during the past year nearly greatly encouraged iu it. As the fruit of their labors tbey have now ahout 300 pro- $3Il,OOO. fessed and baptized Christians, besides 300 Eagland.-The following table has been more under regular instruction. The cry is prepared under the direction of R. W.Dale, for more laborers. .. I am not nearly so con- LL.D., to show the number of teachers and cerned about the money as about the right scholars in the Sunday-schools of England klnd'of men and women. If they are sent and Wales: . out, God will see that their needs are sup. Teachers. Scholars. plied, even ifit be done through the heathen Church of England Sunthemselves. Let every Christian see that day-schools ………. . 195,522 2,222,800 he does bis share in sending forth conse- Wesleyan Methodists .. 121,187 825,665 crated workers to carry the ligbt into the Congregationalists …. . 86,812 686,956 dark places of the earth." Baptists ……………. . 45,325 426,5~0 PrimitiV'e Methodists.. . 57.148 869,522 France.-A summing up of the re- Methodist Free Church 25,905 186,667 sults of the McAll Mission is given in Calvinistic Methodists. 23,288 176,981 Methodist New Connecthe eloquent words of M. Reveillaud, tion …………….. .. 11,013 81,800 68,011) editor of the leading Protestant pa- Presbyterians ..•……• 6,591 36,5U per of France: Bible Christians…….• 7,4116 Unitarians …………..• 3.535 26,435 .. Whatever, from a religious point of Friends ……………… 1.403 26,81i2 view, a:re to be the future destinies of 'Veslevan Reform Union 3,IiO 19,715 France, one thing, at least, will remain New Church (Swedenfrom this vigorous impulse which Mr. McAll L:~;'¥r~~~i~gdon· Con:: 769 6,428 has communicated to all our French Pro- testantism-this something which is Im- nection …………… . 400 4,625 mense· and ~hicb eternity will appreciate 3,3;lO better than ·the present. We can see it in Moravia.ns ………… . 510 the thousands of sonls who lived formerly Undenominational Mis- sion and Ragged Schools………….. . 3,289 32,411 Total. . .. . . . . . . . . . … 593,427 5,200,776 -The annual report of Geo. Muller'S orphan houses, near Brist 01, tells once more a tale of a sustained flow of benevolence towards an institution which employs none of the ordinary means of attracting the attention of the charitable. Two thousand and Courteen orphans haV'e been under the care of tbe houses during the past year, and there are still many va- cancies for orphan girls, with whom no money is expected. In May last the balance In hand is stated to have been £1,078, only enough for two weeks' support; but contr!- butions, sufficient for their needs, have con- tinued to pour in. The total amount re- ceived sillce· 1834, when the houses were started, is stated to be £1,153,004, 106,672 persons have been taught in the schools en- tirely supported by the funds of the institu- tion, not to speak of the schools assisted from the same source. During the period five'large houses, at an expense of £115,000, table of Indian Sunday-school statisttcs. It hav" been erected. Is incomplete, but Its figures, as far as theY' go, show an increllse betwean 1881 and 188'7 Germ.ay. – The Kaiserswerth Deaconen from 1,992 schools to 2,837.. and from M,728 lIome has lasted fifty years, having been f."unded by the faith and foresight of Pastor scholars to 89,233. The American Mission Fliedner. From the Annual Report it appears there are now nearly 600 deaconesscH stands first in numbers, having 27,915 who look io it as their Mother-House. The scliolars. Nine other American societies great majority of them are employed in have 23,589 between them. The Church of Germany in schools and h.ospitals, but they EnJ.!"land has 13,646, of which C. M. S. ha.s are found also III Foreign Mission fields, in 11,290 and S. p, G. 2,447; the English Wes- Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, a.nd l"yans, 5,983; the Welsh Methodists, 4,290; Constantinople. In Smyrna and Beirut they Free Church of Scotland, 3,172; London Mish~ve magnificent educational establish- sionary Society, 2.206. ments; in Alexandria they have au hospital which is a model of skillful arrange- -The success of the gospel In the Punjab ment and Christian benevolence. The is seen in a comparison recently made by deaconesses take no v~w of celibacy, but Rev. Dr. Bruce. He was a missionary in the give trained and organized services in spe- Punjab about the time mission work began. cial branches, and there Is no waste of u I remember." he says, u taking a tour there power or financial resources. 25 years ago with Mr. Patterson, a Scotch missionary. It he and I were privilege<l to lDdla.-Rev. W. Burgess, ofIndia, said re- baptize one or two converts, we thought ita ' cently that .. upwards of 2,000,000 of the great success. The other day I got a letter youths of India were to-day receiving a lib- from Mr. Patterson to say that his son was eral En:;lish education. For the most part carrying on the work, and that he and his It was purely secular. The spread of Western colleague had baptized 2,000 converts in the knowledge was opening the fiood-gates of last two years. infid..lity, of non-religion; it left the people in a state not only creedless, but godle.l!s. Indians.-The President has made He knew an English Judge who boasted of an excellent choice oC Indian Comhaving imported .into India Bradlaugh's missioner in the place of Mr. Atkins • Tracts for the Times.' ' Every school estab- in the person of Mr. Oberly. The lished by Missionary agency was a standing announcement of it at the Indian protest against all that. There was no in- Conference at Mohonk a few days stitution In IndIa that had attracted half the popularIty of the Christian College in since was" received with applause." Madras. Education had done good work in weakening superstition, in pulling down At the same meeting prejudice. But the religious sentiment in the Hindu was there to-day and craved"'r Gen. Whittlesey, Secretary of the Board IIOmething more permanent. The India of a of Indian Commissioner~, read official stafew years ago was de:<d ; the India of to-day tistics showing that since the last annua wa.s a vigorous stripling. impatient of child… report of the Indian Bureau there have been ish restrIctions, with a manly stride moving on the variolls agencies over 3,300 allotments tow:<rds the light. One of the results was of land, to the extent of 333,000 acres. The the foundation of the Brahmo-Samaja, to reason why further allotments are not made which they ~i~bt, without lowering their is the failure of the appropriation. During eoiors, reach out a hand of sympathy. He the year ending June30,l888. there were in knew families where the Bible to-day was a operation 126 boarding and 107 day schools, household book. Hindui2m contained many a total of 223, with an enrollmf'nt or 16,000 followers of the Lord Jesus who were nn- pupils and an average of between 12,000 and known to acknowledged Christians… 14,000. Of these schools 70 were Govern- ment boarding, and 85 Government day -The Bombay Missionary Conference has schools,5 training schools, and 3 8chools for resolved to perpetuat.. the memory of the which special appropriations were made by late George Bowen, for many years a diligent Congress. There were 49 boarding and Il2 servant of Christ in various spheres in In- day schools conducted under contract. The dia. It is proposed to erect a memorial attendance had more than doubled during the past four years. building, which shall include a native Christian Institute and a hall, to serve as a center Judge Draper, New York State Superinof missionary effort. Such a. scheme will,it tendent of Education, spoke of the India.ns is thought, represent the catholicityof spirjt on the New York reservations. The allegawhich was a marked trait of Mr. Bowen's tions made a.t the last Mohonk conference character, and also ca.ll attention to tile had, he said, been substantiated. The conpurpose for which his life was· given to ,dition of these Indians was deplorable, but Ind.a. they were not entirely depra.vec;l.
-The Indian Evangelical Review ha.s a. -Gen. Armstrong, in the :f!iew York Evangelist, gives an interesting ac- count of what is being done at our several mission stations among the tion, and to make the present theological Sioux Indians. The view he takes is and academic schools departments of a. unihighly favorable. He has little crit- versity. In view of this proposed enlargeicism to offer. The work bears the ment, contributions have been asked from scrutiny of one who is well entitled prominent gentlemen in Japan, a.nd in. The to be regarded as our greatest expert Japan Mail of July 28, a list of subscriptions appears from some of the most eminentmen and enthusiast in this line of benev- of the empire. The proposal is to establish a. olent endeavor. The General 1:Jas, distinctively Ohristtan university. For this however, been quick to discover and purpose Count Okuma, Minister of )foreign make known that better school ac- Affairs; Count Inouye, late Minister of commodations are much needed at Foreign Affairs, but who has recent.ly reone point-the Good Will Mission. turned to the Cabinet· as Minister of Agri- culture and Commerce, have subscribed 1'hese ought to be provided at once 1,000 yen each. Viscount Aoki, Vice-Minister before the winter sets in, if possible. of State,gives 500 yen, while six other promi- So good and successful a work should nent officials and bankers have given tobe encouraged by all necessary ap- ~ether 28,500 yen. This is a striking fact as pliances. Above all things, it ought indicating the. progress of opinion in Japan. not to be crippled just at this junc- But it must be borne in mind that this sum ture of special promise and growth. is not towards the $50,000 needed for tl:!e ex- We would call special attention to isting theological and academic depart- ments. When Japan is doing so much, it the matter, in the hope that some would seem that the friends of Christian eduone or more individuals or churches cation in this !and would be impelled to furnish the $50,000 repeatedly asked for for will feel constrained to act, and that the Doshisha. Other government officials have contributed 50,000 yen as an endowspeedily. Itwill be a wise expenditure. ment for a ladies' institute, the object of which is to give instruction to women, free Ita1r.-,Signor Gavazzi of Rome. at the from religious bias. An effort is·to be made Pan-Presbyterian Alliance, gave an accouut to increase this endowment to 100,000 y…. of the doings of the Free Christian Church The religious character of the instruction in Italv. There are 14 ordained pastors, 16 given in the Christian schools now provided evangelists, a theological college in Rome. for women is not agreeable to those Japanwith several promising students, 30 regular ese who oppose Christianity.-Miss. Herald. churches, and 4 out-stations regularly visited. The communicants number 1,600, and Siam.-Siam, for its population of eight the catechumens 300, all of them native millions Siamese, has but eight ordained Italians and converts from Romani_ro,. There are elders aud deacons in good order missionaries, all but one of the Presbyteriau and number, three colporteurs, a Bible- Board. There are, besides, on~ or two Bapwoman, and numerous Sunday-schools and tist missionaries laboring among the Chiday-schools, from whom it is hoped there will come many who will be faithful mem- nese in Bangkok. The harvest is beginning bers of the Church of Christ. Speaking of in Siam; 547 converts are in the churches, the aggressive character of the work, Sig- 522 children in the schools; scarcely a letter nor Gavazzi described it as fighting, with- but brings glad tidings of the welcome given out bloodshed, agajnst Romanism on the to the truth, and of additions'to the churches one hand, and skepticism on the other. The battle is not against conscientious Papists, far greater in numbers than in any previous individually, but against the many errors of the Romish Church in general-against year. the human impositions of Popery, whereby the Scriptures are kept from the people. Sweden.-The missionary activity of the Going to the Italians with the sword of the Spirit, the Bible-only the Bible, and the Swedish churches is a considerable factor whole Bible, the inspired and infallible in the missionary movement of our time. Word of God-the Free Christian Church endeavors to preach the gospel of Christ From an interestingand comprehensive vidand Him crucified, and intends to follow the imus of the operations carrIed on by the var!- Captain ofSalvation,marching on to victory. ous Missionary Societies accompanying the -Dr. Post 01 Beirut, Syria, says there are June Missions-TidniflU, we give the followmore copies of tile Word of God to-day, after ing notes: The total contributions (not insixty;vears of missionary labor, than there were in Christendom in the days 01 Constan- cluding the Mission to the Laplanders, which tine. There is also an Arabic Concordance is carried on by means of itinerant preachers which took ten yeal's to prepare. A convert and Schools or Children's Homes) for 1887 in Beirut has issued thirteen volumes of an Arabic cyclopredia and dictionary. The were £20,000, the expenditure .£21,459. In revival of learning is a part of the reforma- East Africa they have 3 stations, with S tion before the reformaticrn in Asia Minor. ordained missionaries, 3 female mission- aries, and 17 native assistants; in South -A revival has been going on simultane- Africa 4 stations, with 3 o)'dained misously in different parts of Japan. As a sionaries, 5 female missionaries, and 2 result, the increase in all the churches of native assistants; on the Congo 2 sta- Tokio cannot be much les8 than a thousand. tions, with 6 ordained missionaries. In In- Yokohama has alHo enjoyed a rich blessing, dia they have 9 stations, with 14 ordained and reaped a glorious harvest. Many of the missionaries, 9 female missionaries, and 57 cities and towns of the empire are now won- native assistants. They have 2 ordained derfully stirred up. missionaries at Behring Straits, and 5 or- dained missionaries among the Jews. They -A most remarkable fact is reported in con- send 15 ordained pastors to minister to nection with the Doshisha at Kyoto. Mr. Scandinavian seamen in foreign countries, Neesima.and his Ja.pa.nese friends ha.ve for In addition to the above, 2 Swedish misa long time desired to enlarge the institu- sionaries are in the service of the China Inland Mission, and 1 laboring with the Santa! Missioll..
18S8.] STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
VII.-'-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
Statistios of Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions of the United States from 1877-87.* ,, ,, <: , ~~..- :a o..·..~d ~ Z~''a"..- ..- ~ "'.~ ~ .~ "'" "'~ d .~ ~"O • d• ~ "'"" ….. ~ ~ '" … •.~ … ~Q)OOZ ~8~..-:!!l … ..-..- "0– Q) < ." 0 American Lay :r: ,;, d M.issionaries. ;:l'; …;. ~[i ~ Income . 8";:; 8~ "0 :;:: .d ~ 0 M. F. Z 0 r:JJ – – – – – – – – – – — — 1878…….. 124 55 109 9 181 484 10,391 16,039 $463,851.66 51~ 1879•……. 122 72. 115 9 115 11,366 17,104 427,6'd1.M 1880…….. 125 63 147 11 209 516 12,607 17,791 581;,844.82 1881. ..•…. 130 89 111 13 2'20 536 14,588 18,260 590,650.49 1882•……. 140 34 128 18 240 607 16,484 20,064 592,289.68 6.56,237.99 1883•….. ,. 159 92 133 21 265 585 18.6.56 21,253 1884…….. 163 108 143 24 285 746 19,897 25,914 693,122."0 813 21,051 25,269 699,983.70 1H85…….. 173 117 163 23 287 731 20,294 24,144 745,164.46 1886……..• 172 122 164 29 297 1887…….. lTd 134 154 30 298 756 21,420 23,329 784,157.59 Statistios of the Amerioan Board of Oommissioners for Foreign Missions from 1877-87,* , ', , , .S="ad~ American ,,d,'~ " 0. ~O '"ll$ Helper~. …'"~ Q:r:i .; .~ .; .; …;. Income . .~~.~ Others. Po< d "0. d ;:l'; ~ … Phys. – – – ~-gJJ .; 0 ~.s . …. ,,0Q) ~.~ ~"Q,')" S";:; .d "0 – – -r:JJ '" " " 0 M. F. S~ — ~ ~ ~~ ~ r:JJ .d – – – – – – – – 0 r:JJ :;:: ~IJ)Q) — Z ~ Z — Z- – 0 — — 1879… 19 144 (7 P.) 6 5 216 126 263 789 13,737 &53 26,170 $482,204.73 1879… 75 150 (7 P.I 7 5 234 132 300 739 15,125 690 26,930 518,386.06 1880… 75 156 (7 P.) 6 8 246 142 425 702 17,165 775 28,098 613,539.51 1881… 81 159 (5 P.) 11 10 250 141 365 1,211 18,446 858 33,360 691,245.16 1882… 82 155 10 10 261 148 438 1,3~6 19,755 910 31,95a 651,976.84 1883… 80 154. (6 P.) 9 7 26.3 144 369 1,314 19,364 930 35,625 590,995.67 10 7 245 H2 362 1,317 21,176 913 32,364 588,353.71 1884… 79 151 1885… 83 156 (6 P.) 12 6 248 147 212 1,824 23,210 913 30,941 625,832.54 18)<ij… 85 159 (10 P.) 11 7 257 151 412 1,441 26,129 90;3 37.762 658,754.42 1887… 89 168 (11 P.) 13 10 271 155 393 1,489 28.042 976 41.151 679,573.79 Statistios of the Amerioan Baptist Missionary Union from 1877-87.* Missionaries N . h' • Members (in Hea- Income. (M., F.) atlve Preac er" then Countries.) 1878 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138 558 27,580 $278,168.63 1879 ……………. 141 548 38,466 252,677.61 1890 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 616 40,087 290,851.63 1881 ……………. 170 680 42,226 288,802.84 1882 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 663 46,017 302,584.19 1883 ………..•…. 190 686 50.691 307,195.04 1884 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194 812 53,649 328.527.21 18&S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 791 55,941 362.026.50 1886 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2'!6 785 56,440 384,996.73 1887…. · ……….. 248 780 58,108 353,109.46 .. These Comparative Tables were prepared for us by Rev. Charles C. Starbuck. Andover, Mass.-Ens.
of Income and Expenditure of the Missions of the United Brethren for the Year
RECKIPTS. £ B. d. £ •. d. £ B. d. DISBURS&III1NTS. Buildings and 00 Journevs• HousekeepiKg. I Total•• L Contributions from Members of the I. Expended for the several Missions :- a! Brethren's Congregations: £ 8. d. £.. d. £ 8. d. 1. Greenland …………………….. .. 76 5 5 540 14 6 616 19 11 1. On the continent of Europe ..•.• 924 1 10 2. Labrador………………………. . 369 17 1 2. In Great Britain and Ireland…• 1,177 3 7 869 17 1 a 3. Alaska ……………………….. .. 3. In North America………… … 452 5 1 4. Indian Mission in'North America .. . 496 i2 i 496 i2 i From the Brethren's Society 5. Moskito Coast………………….. . in Pennsylvania for Propa- iil5 '2 1,229 17 6 1,414 19 9 6. Demerara ……………………… . 150 I') 0 ting the Gospel….•..•……. 1,800 0 0 7. Surinam……………………… .. 2:i:i i4 10 725 7 8 150 0 0 —-2,252 5 1 959 2 6 8. South Africa; Western Province..• 539 16 4 892 211 931 19 3 4. Mission Proviuces- II. .. Eastern Province .. .. 491 I) 8 1,199 7 10 1,690 17 6 West Iudies, Eastern Province 5.5 18 4 36 8 10 – – – 10. Australia ……………………… .. 189 4 2 189 4 2 " Western" 29611 8 fl5;J 16 10 ~ 11. Central Asia ………………….. .. Surinam ………………….. . 136 19 0 35+ '5 2 II- 229 6 2 4,582 16 8 2,253 10 9 5,219 18 4 7,4TJ 9 ~ IL Contributions from Friends in other 12. West Indies-Grant for the Year 00 Christian Churches :- 1687 (including £199, ISs. for Jour- neysand Outfits)……………. .. ::! Add Deficiencyon the West India 1,099 18 0 fA 1. On the Continent of Europe- a. From the Societies and Dia- spora, exclusive of grant to Training School Account …….••• 370 3 9 ~ latter from Mission Fund .. 1,508 6 0 8,943 10 1Q =~ b. Missionary Associations and 363 6 3 Individual Friends……… 3,615 15 7 II. Trl!'ining for ~issio~ari~s at Niesky and :?!I – – ' – – 5,124 1 7 III England……………………….. .
2. In Great Britain and Ireland…. 1,995 9 3 Ill. For Sustentation……………………… 5,975 9 9 i 3. In North America……………. 68 17 5 3,759 17 8 m. Legacies and Endowments:- 7,188 8 3 Deduct Interest of Funds…… ..
1. Legacies- 2. Provision for Missionary Children:- – – – – 2,215 12 1 n. On the Continent of EUrope 1,961 3 2 a. Educa.tion, etc.. …………..••• ~ b. In Great Britain and Ireland 223 19 0 00· c. In North America……….. 20 0 0 IV. Exp<lnses of Management:- 1. Contribution to Mission Department 6,7971710 II: of the Unity's Elders' ConferesC6 I – – – – 2,205 2 2 2. Agents' and BOokkeepers' Salaries, 549 11 10 2. Interest of Endowment Funds- "Rents, Stationery…………… . 3. Postage and Freight………….. .. 939 Ii 2 ~ a. On the Continent of EUrope 1,1191 6 5 4. Books and Publications (including b. In Great Britain and Ireland 617 19 6 loss on sale of Missions Blatt, £12. Is.9d) ………………………… . – – – – 2,009 5 11 4.214 8 1 163 3 8 IV. From Mite Societies :- 1. On the Continent of Europe …•. 2. In Great Britain and Ireland.. .. 652 12 4 54 8 3 11 17 6 8. In North America………….. . 1,707 0 6 V. Interests, more received than paid .. . 43 0 0 V. Miscellaneous :-Grants in Aid ………. .. 133 8 6 'l'O'l' 910 OJJl.ciai Journeys …… .. TOTAL RECEIPTS ••••••••••••••••••••• 109 18 6 – – – – z – -32 -10 -0 165 18 8 TeTAL ExPENDITURE………………. .. £20,193 6 0 o Deficiency on the Year's Account…. £16.803 1 4 3.300 4 8 ~ £20,193 6 0 -.Periodical Account.t /01' SeptMnlJer;1ssS.
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S J(ISSIONS
Statistios of Missions, December 31st, 1887.
.; s~~~~~ :~'~0~=;i~<~;~~.i1~~;"~'1Z–~:~"fcct'o~~~uicg'~.l-:ai~~Sl> ~ ::-8'~s8" as- . ' : ~ ~" ~ ————- – – – – 1U MISSION PROVINCES. . ~ '8~.~§ ill – ;~ :'~.Eag8l£~~~~ -~ !) ~§… 5,…l. tl s;l ~'1c:o1 ~ '1:1" – – Eo< — Greenland …………………… , 6 17 &Q! , – -~- ~~fd 1'~'1 Labrador.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . 6 40 , -~ – -I"~ -l – Alaska ………………………. 2 6 12 80 31 6 108 225 i2 North America……. ………… 5 9 275 5,792 2,739 215 7,259 16,Ga; West Indies (West) Jamaica….. 20 ~ Wsr4~~~~!E:~.r~t. San*……. 5 2 6 50 1,289 125 59 824 2,2117 St. Croix…………….. ……. 3 3 3 73 1,363 340 f>l 661 2,427 Antigua …………………..~ 9 13 6 136 3,482 1,220 127 2,634 7,463 St. Kitts……………………. 4 3 2 l~ 1,480 841 146 1,5';2 4.039 Barbadoes…. ………………. 4 4 i2 1,525 242 2159 1,'15 3,241 ~ 1,~~ ~ 1,~ 2'6~~ ~~'T:ko1bi~arcg,o;~.~.;.;.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:….:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:. 13~ 2 320 1,446 a.294 SSsu' rtl'~nra!mca,..:.r..e. 17 4 33377 490 1,036 :iii •6• 226 28,,235186 71,,470380 11,,761440 38,,50313 296,,223652 1~ 71 ………………… 3 123 8a77l 294 1,117 1,007 a,295 t………….. …. ~ 10 23 48 112 .• rICa, as.. .. .. .. .. .. .. . .. . .. Australia ……..,…………….. a2 6 11 4 27 42 Central Asia…………………. 8 -127- –288- –4-811-1-,6-1-~1-~-,,-70-7- 16,722- 5,000" 31,869 84,201 *The statistics of the North American Indian Mission and of that in St. Thom~s and St. Jan are to a great extent the same as those for 1866, as no returns, or only very Imperfect ones, have come to hand from those fields.
A ffiassified Oatalogue Undenom. Chartered New England ,Society, OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISES OF ALL THB 1662 A.D. Mildmav Training Home. PROTESTANT CHURCHBS, AND OF THB GREElt Harler.·House, Bow, London, and ORTItODOX CDURCH. TO THE NON-CHRISTIAN Chffe, Derbyshire.
WORLD, BY ROBERT N. CUST, LL.D./t LONDON. Episcopal. Church of England Diocesan Mis- [In TaE MISSIONARY REVIEW tor August, sions. p. f>lS (to whic~ we refer tl"e reader), Propagation of the Gospel. we spoke of thiS catalogue and gave a West India Mission to Rio Pongas. brief summary of it. Beinll' of gen- Cambridge University. ' eral permanent value, and showin~ at a Oxford University. glance the number and location of the mis- Universities. sionary agencies that are at work in the Cowley, i:lt. John, Oxford. world. We give the full catalogue so far as Promoting Christian Knowledge. the name and locality of each society is con- Melanesian. cerned, its church relation, and whether independent or otherwise. We would like to Gordon College. Church Missionary. !l"ivethe nature of the work in which each Coral Fund. IS engaged and its particular field of labor Missionary Leaves. (which are given in the catalogue), but we Church of England Zenana. cannot spare the space. South America.
A.-GREAT BRITAIN AND ITS COLONIES. London Jews.
DENOH. Whateley Establishments.
Undenom. British and Foreign Bible. Tabitha Mission (Arnott). .. Trinitarian. Mildmay Medical Mission and .. Baptist Translation. Hospital and Deaconesses. Religious Tract. …. Christian Vernacular Education. Episcopal Church of Scotland. China Inland• Missionary College, Dorchester. Turkish Mission Aid. Missionary Oollege, St. Augus- tine's, Canterbury. Freed Man's Mission Aid. Missionary College, Warminst!'t'. British Jews. Missionary College, Burgh, Lm- Rabinowitz's to the Jews. colnshire. Mildmay Jews. London Moravian Aid. Incorporated Society for Ad- North Africa. vancing Christian Faith, Methodist. Wesleyan London Conference. Santal Home Mission Aid. Primitive. Female Education in the East. U India Female Normal. British Syrian. New Connection. Welsh Calvinist or Presbyterian.
Zenana Medical. United. Salvation Army. Lethaby's Mission. Congreg'l. London Missionary. Mission to Lepers in India. Presbyt'u. English Church.
London Bible and Domestic Fe- • Scotch Church. male. Free Church. Woman's Mission Home. United Church. Lebanon Schools. Irish Church.
China Book and Tract Society. Original Secession Church. Presbyt'n. National Bible (Scotland). Inde~~nd. St. Krischona. lIiission (Basel). Mission Romande (Neufchatel). Frie~?s. ~/::~~~:}li~r~~~iation. General Protestant Evangelical (Glarus) Society. Bibl" Ch'n. Foreign Missions. FRANCE. Baptibt. Missionary Society. . E"angelical Mission (Paris). .. General alias Free Will Society. DENMARK. Ply. Breth. Blandford's Miss1On. •. Beer and others' Mission. l'ltate Mission. Bowden and others' Mission. Evangelical Missionary. :.!d~~~~:~f.:'s~o~~hers' Mission. SWEDEN. .Miscel. Miss Steer's Mission. Church of Sweden. Cornelius' Mission. Lund of Sweden. Hocquard's and Macdonald's Mis- Evangelical National Society. Missionary Union. Slone Allsgarius Societies~ Miss Gillard's Mission. Oster Gothland, Ausgarius So- Eoll's and Francombe's Mission. Arnott's Mission. ciet,y. Eyles' Mission. Woman's Missionary Society Winship's Mission. Miss Taylor's Moslem Schools. (Stockholm). Miss Reade's Mission. Forster's Mission. NORWAY. Wilmot Brooke's Mission. Independ. Missionary Society. Foreign Christian Miss. Society. .. Skrefsrud's Committee. .. Bishop Schninder's Committee.
(l) CANADA. RUSSIA. Episcopal. Church of Canada. Finland Missionary Society. Presbyt'n. Church of Canada. Greek Orthodox Church. Methodist. Wesleyan Conference. Baptist. Missionary Society. NETHERLANDS.
(2) NEW ZEALAND. Missionary Society, Rotterdam. Episcopal. Church of N'lw Zeaiand. Missionary Union, Rotterdam. Baptist. Missionary Society. Missionary Society, Utrecht. Mennonite Union (Baptist).
(3) AUSTRALIA. Lntheran Society. Java Committee. Episcopal. Chnrch of Aust.ralia. Reformed Missionary Society.
Methodist. Wesleyan Conference. Ermelo Mission. Baptist. Missionary Society-Victoria. .. Missionary Society-Queensland. Christian Reformed Church. Baptist Missionary Society. Missionary Society-New South Central Committee.
Wales. Reformed Church, S. Africa. Missionary Society-South Aus- Bible Society. . tralia. Presbyt'n. Church of Australia. Union for Egypt.
Episcopal. Bishop of Perth's Committee. UNITED STATES, NORTH AMERICA.
Undenom. Aborigines' Protection Society. Episcopal.Church Foreign Mission. .. Methodist Church, North. (4) AFRICA. Methodist Church, Sonth. Episcopal. Chnrch Cape Colony and Natal. African Methodist Church. Congreg'l. Union. .. British lII. E. (Colored Church). Presbyt'n. Gordon Mission. Methodist. Wesleyan Conference. Methodist.Bishop Taylor's Mission. Lutheran. Colonial Missionary Society. .. Protestant Chnrch. Episcopal. Church of Sie. ra Leone. Free Will Missionary Society. .. Church of Lagos. African Zion Church. Congreg'l. Board of Foreign Missions. (5) Il'IDIA. Presbyt'n. Board of Missions, North. Independ. Bishop W. Taylor, self-support- .. Board of Missions, South. United. ing. Santal Bethel Mission. Cumberland. Santal Home Mission. Reformed General Synod. Gopalgung (Native Missionary). Reformed Church of the United B.-FoREIGN COUNTRIES. States. nal'~ist. Missionary Union, North. GERMANY. Southern Convention. Seventh Day. Moravian. Consolidated American (Colored). Berlin, No.1 Missionary Society. Barmen (Rhenish). Free. Bremen (N. German). Mennonite Conference. Gossner (Beriin, No. II.). Southern Colored, Africa. Leipzig. Tunker (German). Hermansburg. Lutheran Moravian Aid. , Schleswig-Holstein (Breklun). .. Church General Synod. Bavarian. Church Synodical Conferencr Neukirchen (Westphalian). East African (Berhn). Evangelical Mission, Ge1…c1 a: Stainger's Establishment. Conncil. Syrian Orphanage. Reformed German Church. Berlin Jerusalem Society. Friends, lIlissionary Aid Society. Kaiserwerth Deaconesses. Undefined, Reformed Chnrch. Dutch. Frauenverein (Berlin). Missionary Association. Frauen flir Morgenlande. H Bible Society (Basel). Bible Society (Bremen). EvaD:g-elical Association. Independent Lutheran Mission ForeIgn Chri8tian Miss. Society'. lIledical Missionary Society. (Zieman). United Brethren of Ohio. .. Associate Ref. Synod, South. Undenom. Bible Society. .. Tract Society. SWITZERLAND. Basel Mission. •• Woman's Union Mission.
The Missionary Review of the World — April 1888
PAUL'S MISSIONARY PRINCIPLES
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XI. No. 4.-Old Series.-APRIL.-voL. I. No. 4.-New Seriu.
I.-THE LITERATURE OF MISSIONS.
PAUL'S MISSIONARY PRINCIPLES.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] LOOKING back through the long aisles of the ages and tracing the history of missions, we behold a grand procession, or succession, of devoted men and women, whose names constitute an alphabet of glory. yet back of t4em all, farther removed into the distant past, stands "Paul the Little," yet the colossal, commanding figure that even distance cannot diminish-the pioneer, in a twofold sense, of missions to the heathen. Noble as are the names of the missionary host, and inspiring as is the story of their heroism, there is no nobler name, no more heroic career than those represented by the Apostle of the Gentiles.
It may be well to try and analyze the principles that underlay that grand missionary life which, leading all the rest in point of time, has led all the rest in point of excellence and eminence; for the history of man has furnished no higher pattern save only as found in Him who made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and undertook the original mission to universal man.
1. In Paul's life as a missionary we observe first a peculiar law oj evangelization: the occupation of otherwise unoccupied fields. " I have strived to preach the gospel not where Ohrist was named, lest I .should build upon another man's foundation; but as it is written, To whom he was not spoken of they shall see," etc. His special aim was "to preach the gospel in the regions beyond" (Rom. xv. 20, 21; 2 Oor. x. 13-16).
The right and left arms of Ohristian activity are these two-education and evangelization. Weare first to proclaim Ohrist where he has not.been named, and then to train converts into active, stalwart disciples and workers. There is undoubtedly a work of building, but foundations must first be laid. And this necessity cannot be too much emphasized. The mission work is sometimes treated as though it were all one; and so indeed it is in principle. But practically there is a great difference between those who have heard of Ohrist and those who have not; between the indifference of apathy or habitual resistance, and the indifference of downright ignorance and habitual surrender to the tyranny of superstition.
You ask, Why should a man go to Africa? Are there not souls needing the gospel in Nebraska and Iowa, and even in our own cities? I answer, There are unsaved souls perhaps in your house, but their destitution is not to be compared with that of millions in the interior of China and Africa. These people are without saving faith in Ohrist ; those are without saving knowledge of Christ. With one class it is light unused, with the other it is darkness unbroken. Paul did not deny that there were hundreds in Jerusalem who had seen Christ's mighty works and heard his divine words, who yet needed salvation, but he yearned especially to reach those who had not even heard ~( him. Theirs was a double destitution-first, not having Christ; second not having the knowledge of Christ.
Take our most destitute mission districts. Can you find a town or settlement in the remotest frontier where there is not at least some pious man or woman who is competent to guide an inquirer? One of our missionary superintendents went to a small group of hamlets on the Rocky Mountains, where there was neither a church nor a Sunday-school, but there he found a poor but pious widow whose humble home was the gathering place for prayer-meetings, and there was not a soul in that village that would not know where to go for counsel. But when Stanley crossed the Dark Continent, from Zanzibar to the Congo's mouth, over all those 7,000 miles he found no native that had heard of Christ! And in China a poor man who had been convicted of sin journeyed sixteen hundred miles to find an American consul, who, as he thought, could tell him about the God of the Christians. Were the question before Paul afresh for decision, where he would go to preach the gospel? He would go where no one else 1vould-where there was the greatest destitution and degradation. If other men feel attracted to the work of building on other men's foundations, let them do that work; but Paul yearned to press into regions beyond, where Christ had never been named, and so within the life of a generation he carried the cross over the known world west of the Golden Horn.
That principle of evangelization must be the law of our Christian life if we are ever to overtake the regions beyond. We must practically feel that the call is loudest where the need is greatest and the darkness deepest. Then, while we shall pass by no really needy field nearer home, we shall press with untiring zeal and contagious earnestness into the farthest corners of the earth.
II. Paul's life was regulated also by the principle of obligation. " I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise." He was a debtor, owing and owning a debtsomething was due, from a man who had such ample revelations of truth, to the rest of mankind.
We often speak of the family of man. God's universal Fatherhood involves and implies man's universal brotherhood, and this brotherhood implies a mutual bond of obligation. Weare each our brother's keeper. Huber, the blind naturalist, observed that a wasp or an ant would not stay alone to enjoy some precious morsel, but go to the nest and return as leader of a host that might partake of the same delicacy. If I have found the bread of life, lowe a duty to my hungry and perishing brother to supply his needs, especially since the more I divide my loaf the more it multiplies. He that is content idly to enjoy gospel blessings, without caring for the starving, dying millions, is guilty of inhumanity. There is such a thing as encouraging a monopoly in salvation. And monopoly is monstrous in proportion to the value of the article monopolized.
How can any man contemplate the moral and spiritual ruin of the race and be unmoved! nave we not all one Father? And we, are we not all brethren? What would be thought of a family that should allow a member of the household that was living thousands of miles away in destitution and degradation to go unthought of, uncared for, unaided, because remote from home? Is not that very remoteness a reason why the heart goes out in especial tenderness in that direction? Let a Ohristmas season come, aud the annual love tokens be distributed, and the first child provided for will be the absent one, nay, even the alienated one. Such is the love of God and the love born of God: it seeks the farthest, neediest, poorest, first of all, because the more liable to be overlooked.
Indifference to foreign missions is the natural outcome of infidelity and materialism. Deny the unity of the race in Adam, the oneness of the human family; make man the offspring of the monkey or the clod of earth, and a true manhood the result of development, and the logical effect is apathy toward a pagan world. The Hottentot is a brute. The French governor of the Isle of Bourbon is right: "You may as well attempt to convert oxen or asses as to make Ohristian men out of the Malagasy." According to the creed of Huxley, Darwin & 00., these superstitious fetish worshipers are brutes, at best only on the long road toward manhood. Why not let them alone and take care of the higher products of evolution! Let these millions of cannibals die eating each other; it matters not if they are never evolved!
But the instant you heartily believe that God has made of one blood all nations of men; that the family of man is one; that there is no human being however embruted or brutal that is a brute; that behind the darkest skin and most bestial physique an immortal soul burns like a gem buried in the dust; that the Maori, Papuan,Terra del Fuegan is my brother and yours, and capable of a future equally glorious with that of any other soul-the moment you accept this truth, such indi:ffer~ ence cannot survive.
III. The Lato of Accommodation. "I am madeall things to all men, that by all means I might save some." This means nothing less than that Paul identified himself with every class of men whom he met and sought to save. Even now Ohristian character is sometimes rigid and frigid in its inflexibility. We know very little about bending and stoop~ ing. We have our Inborn, inbred peculiarities; we call them charac~ teristics because they seem inseparable from character. Our high intel~ lectuality lifts us above ignorance, our refined taste above coarseness, our wealthy associations above the environments of poverty. Weare prone to consult our affinities. And so society separate/! into little groups of those who are like-minded. Self-love degenerates into selfish~ ness; we become comparatively isolated, and do not touch the great mass of humanity sympathetically, helpfully, savingly. .
This great apostle had everything to tempt hi~ to a similar isolation and separation. He was a man of royal mind, enriched with imperial culture. The· schools of Tarsus had done all for him that Greek wisdom and Roman civilization could accomplish, and the schools of the prophets with Gamaliel as teacher had added to all the polish of secular learning the strength and solidity of sacred knowledge. He was fitted for a Oorinthian column in the structure of society, for he had the solid, massive, substantial education of Judean scholarship surmounted by the elegance and grace of Athenian philosophy. Besides all this he had refined sensibilities. He was delicately organized. All his emotional and affectional nature was built on the most exquisite pattern. He had the strength of manly courage and fortitude, with the tenderness of womanly sympathy and sensibility. He was aggressivelyactive, yet his energy and activity were qualified by the passive virtues.
Such a man was one most likely to retire into the comparative exclusion and seclusion of a few cultured friends. He might have been at the head of an academy, or a court, or an army, but he would have been naturally the center of a small circle of intimate associates. But Paul had beneath his life a principle of accommodation. He sawall men in 11 lost condition, and so terrible was spiritual alienation from God that in those measureless depths all comparative differences were lost, as in the star-sown depths of illimitable space. And he forgot his intellectual gifts and graces,his fine sensibilities and selfish affinities, in one burning desire to save men. To the Jew he was a Jew, that he might gain the Jews; to those who were under the law or without law, as himself in the sam£, condition, that he might save them. He sacrificed no prin~ eiple, he denied no truth, he compromised no eternal verities, but he got down to every other man's level and from his point of view looked at life and duty, law and penalty, sin and salvation. Beside a poor man he felt poor; beside the rich man he imagined himself encompassed by the snares of greed; with the ignorant he forgot his learning, and with the gross his refinement. The idolater and sorcerer found in him a man who could sympathize with a mistaken religiousness and a temptation to impose on popular credulity. Chained to a soldier as a common convict, he became interested in the soldier's life as an armed defender of the state, and became for the time himself a soldil'r, and as day by day he was chained to a new member of the Prretorian guard he told anew the story of the cross till so he had preached the gospel to the whole guard in turn. Whether in the palace of the Cresars or the Philippian jail; whether in the house of Lydia or the synagogue at Thessalonica; whether on Mars Hill or the Temple stairs; among the barbarians of Malta or the disciples at Antioch, he never anywhere held himself aloof from human souls. There is no lofty air of superiority in the presence of the lowest and no servile air of cowardice and flattery in the presence of the highest. 'rhis accommodation might almost be called assimilation, for it brought him into such vital, honest, sympathetic contact with man as man.
I have a friend who holds weekly in his church parlors a theological clinic. He brings in convicts, the vicious, the abandoned, the profane, the infidel, and asks them questions concerning their life and opinions and notions of men and things, that, to a band of Christian workers, he may by a kind of dissection of spiritual experience unfold the mysteries of that strange thing the human heart. Paul's life was one long spidtual clinic. He studied men that he might know them, and sought to know them that he might reach them.
IV. Again, Paul was moved by the principle of self-abnegation. "Not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many that they may be saved." Mark, not even his own profit. There are many who get where they forego pleasure for others' profit, but Paul surrendered even his own profit. He simply lost sight of himself in his passion for souls.
Only in the light of this marvelous enthusiasm for God can we interpret Paul's self-limitation. "I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified." Wisdom of words he could forego lest the cross of Christ be made of none effect. Literary ambition beckoned him on to receive its shining crown, but he forgot all else in that absorbing passion. He could say with Count von Zinzendorf, "Ich hab' eine Passion, und die est Er, nur Er."
In this flame of devotion to his Lord all else was consumed. The lust of gain, of applause, of pleasure, of office, of power, of achieve~ ment, all burned as to ashes in those inward fires that left only the image of his Redeemer to survive and glow the more brightly. Of this self-abnegation there is no expression more sublime than that in the epistle to the Colossians (i. 24), "Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church."
To be crucified with Christ was a reality to such a man. It meant a cross and a death to self in order to save others. Christ's death saved no human soul. It only made salvation possible. The word of God is but the declaration of the terms of salvation. The Holy Spirit must take of the truth and blood and apply them to the soul. But how does the application come? By lttlman agency. A believer, one to whom salvation has come by faith and faith by hearing, becomes the missing link that joins Christ on the cross, in the word and in the Spirit, to the penitent soul. The believer is a witness and a herald; he tells the story of redeeming love, and he adds his own experience to attest tho word. The Holy Spirit uses that believing testimony to convince the reason, persuade the heart, and move the will. It may be reverently said that the blood of Jesus plus the witness of the word, plus the work of the Holy Spirit, plus the believer, save sinners, for, each in its own place, all together are used by God to accomplish the salvation of the lost. God might have saved men immediately. He chose to do it mediately. Hence Paul needed to fill up what was behind of the sufferings of Christ in his own flesh for his body's sake. He had no need to atone. for men, for the work of atonement was "finished;" he had no need to furnish the Holy Scriptures of truth, for they were all embraced in the Bible; he had no need to act as a divine physician to apply the balm of Gilead. The blood, the word, the Spirit were provided; all he had to do-but that was still lackingwas to get human souls where the blood could sprinkle them, where the word could reach and teach them, where the Spirit could touch and transform them. And to do this he was content to suffer with Christ and bear in his body the marks, stigmata, of the Lord Jesus, as one literally crucified with him.
Paul's success in evangelism is no mystery; it is all an open secret. Give us one man, moved by such principles of evangelization, obligation, accommodation, abnegation, and again the history of humanity shall show a man who in one generation will compass the known world with the network of his personal labor and make a continent echo with the trumpet voice of his testimony!
DAVID BRAINERD
DAVID BRAINERD.
[EDITORIAL.-J. M. S.] HAVING briefly outlined his Life in a previous paper, we proceed II. To SET FORTH IN BRIEF OUTLINE BRAINERD'S CHARACTER. An analysis of his character is not difficult to make, for the leading traits or qualities of the man stand out in bold relief and challenge our observation and admiration. 1. The first thing that impresses the reader of Brainerd's life is the genuineness, depth and thoroughness of his personal piety. We see at once that there is nothing superficial, transient, doubtful, half-hearted about it. Weare brought into contact with a Christian character, and a Christian experience, and a Christian life, most rare and extraordinary in many of their elements and features. There is something startling and awe-inspiring in the depth and intensity of his religious "fra!pes" and" exercises," as recorded so frankly and faithfully in his diary, running through several years, with no expectation that any eye save his own and God's would ever read them. " He belongs to a class of men," as one has well said, "who seem to be chosen of Heaven to illustrate the sublime possibilities of Christian attainmentmen of seraphic fervor of devotion, and whose one overmastering passion is to win souls for Christ and to become wholly like him themselves. " The Law made thorough work with him. His sense of the evil, guilt, and awfulness of sin, of his own deep moral corruption and desert of God's wrath, his personal unworthiness, and entire dependence on divine grace, and his constant need of the Holy Spirit to cleanse, enlighten and sanctify, was most profound and ever present with him. He could not find language strong enough to express his hatred of sin and desire to be entirely and forever cleansed and delivered from it. He longed and strove after holiness, after complete victory over sin and the world and the devil, after entire conformity to the will and likeness of Christ, with a strength and intensity of soul that seem almost; superhuman, 2. His consecration to the Master's service was, seemingly, entire and sublime. Not since the apostolic age has the church produced a grander illustration of the power of the gospel to subdue human selfishness and the love of ease and pleasure and self-indulgence, and to make Jesus Christ supreme, "an and in all," in the affections and life of the soul. Like Paul, he made a total surrender of every faculty and power of body, soul and spirit, to the divine Son of God, and at the same time an unreserved, absolute consecration of his life and being to his service. He could not love and serve God enough. lIe was jealous of his own heart and life lest he should not render every day and hour a tull measure of love and labor. He kept nothing back. From the time he gave himself to Christ he devoted his life and strength and attainments and acquirements and opportunities to the work of saving souls, without recreation, without cessation, sparing himself in no par- ticular ; serving God to the full extent of his ability, and even beyond.
The amount of work he did was almost incredible. He broke down his constitution in four short years, by exposure, privation, and labors of every kind; literally wore his life away in the cause of his blessed Master. It is affecting in the highest degree to read the entries in his journal from day to day, of what he did, what he attempted, what he longed to accomplish; and in the midst of his incessant labors to hear him bemoan his shortcomings, his barrenness of spirit, his unfruitful- ness, and pray God to forgive him his unfaithfulness and grant him a new baptism of love and zeal. Here is a specimen : "Here I am, Lord, send me; send me to the ends of the earth; send me to the rough, the savage pagans of the wildernesfi; send me from all that is called comfort in the earth; send me even to death itself if it be but iq thy service and to promote thy kingdom."
And it was no ascetic or misanthrope that wrote thus, for he adds: " At the same time I had as quick and lively a sense of the value of earthly blessings as I ever had, but only saw them infinitely overmatched by the worth of Christ's kingdom. Farewell friends and earthly comforts, the dear- est of them all; the very dearest, if the Lord calls for it: adieu, adieu; I will spend my life, to my latest moments, in caves and dens of the earth, if the kingdom of God may thereby be advanced." .
He was affianced, as is well known, to a youthful saint of rare gifts, the youngest daughter of Jonathan Edwards; and such a pure, intelli- gent and sensitive nature as his would have enjoyed, in an eminent degree, the felicity of domestic life. But he sacrificed even this, and plunged alone into the wilderness and passed his years with savages, that he might win them to Christ. The little patrimony left him he also devoted to the education of a poor young man for the ministry soon after entering upon his missionary work.
3. Hi8 love for 80uls amounted to a pas8ion, 1IJkich nothing cmtld cool or conquer. No miser ever clung to his treasure as he grasped this idea and made it an ever-present and supreme object with him. No matter where he went, or what were his surroundings, the ruling bent of his soul was manifest. In health and in sickness, in his wigwam among the Indians, on his numerous and solitary journeys from settlement to settlement in the wilderness, and in his occasional visits to New Eng- land, his supreme desire was to convert souls; and no occasion, no opportunity, did he fail to improve, however weary or racked with pain, or weak or broken down from disease. This intense, ever-burning passion often finds expression, as when he Wl'ites in his diary: "0, how I longed that God should be glorified on earth! Bodily pains I
lSS8
cared not for, though I was then in extremity. I never felt easier; I felt willing to glorify God in that state of bodily distress, so long as he pleased I should continue in it. The grave appeared really sweet, and I longed to lodge my weary bones in it: but 0 that God might be glorified! this was the burden of all my cry. 0 to love and praise God more, to please him forever ~ This my soul panted after, and even now pants for while I write, 0 that God might be glorified in the whole earth! Lord, let thy kingdom come! • • • o the blessedness of living to God! • • • Spent two hours in secret duties, and was enabled to agonize for immortal souls, though it was early in the morning and the sun scarcely shone, yet my body was quite wet with sweat. • • • With what reluctance did I feel myself obliged to consume time in sleep! I longed to be a flame of fire, continually glowing in the divine service, and building up Christ's kingdom to my latest, my dying moment."
Is it any marvel that many souls – even the souls of such ignorant and degraded savages-were given to him? And he never regretted his q.evotion and self-sacrificing zeal in: this work. Read his thrilling words as he hung over eternity while in Boston: "I declare now I am dying, I would not have spent my life otherwise for the whole world."
4. His humility and spirit of self-denial and cheerful submission to deprivations and hardships for the gospel's sake are touchingly illustrated in his life. According to President Edwards' testimony, he was a young man of "distinguished talents;" "hali extraordinary knowledge of men and things;" had "rare conversational powers;" "excelled in his knowledge of theology, and was truly, for one so young, an extraordinary divine, and especially in all matters relating to experimental religion." "I never knew his equal of his age and standing, for clear and accurate notions of the nature and essence of true religion." His "manner in prayer was almost inimitable, such as I have very rarely known equaled." He" had a very extensive acquaintance, and engaged the attention of religious people in a remarkable degree." He had also many invitations to settle in his own New England, and an urgent and oft-tepeated call to "East Hampton-the fairest, pleasant~ est town on Long Island, and one of its largest and wealthiest parishes." So that he did not give himself to the missionary work, as is often though unjustly said of other missionaries in these days, because he could not succeed at home. His talents, gifts, and Christian attainments made him the peer of New England's most gifted preachers, with few exceptions.
But he put from him all these tempting offers, and all considerations of a merely personal and temporal nature, and gave his whole self for life to the work of teaching the poor American Indians the way of salvation. And he had no thought that he was doing anythingUJonderful, or that he was degrading himself, or throwing away his talents and Hfe by so doing. On the contrary, he evidently felt that God had greatly honored him in calling him to such a service; and he consecrated his heart and soul and mind and strength and life to it with as much hearti-
DAVID BRAINER1;l. [Al'RIL
ness and enthusiasm and ambition as though he were ministering to a highly cultured people in some conspicuous and wealthy parish.
So real and great was his humility that he often expressed his sur: prise that he was called to such a noble service; that the Indians should have any respect for him, or show him any attention, or that any good should come from his labors. His privations and hardsltt"ps likewise were such a few missionaries have ever experienced. An extract or two .
will serve to introduce the reader to his mode of life: " My diet consists mostly of hasty-pudding, boiled corn, and bread baked in the ashes, and sometimes a little meat and butter. My lodging is a little heap of straw, laid upon some boards a little way from the ground, fsr it is a log room without any floor, that I lodge in. . . . I have now rode more than 3,000 miles [on horseback] since the beginning of March [8 months].
. • . Frequently got lost in the woods. . . . At night lodged in the open woods. . . . Crept into a little crib made for corn and slept there on the poles." .
And yet not one word of complaint do we hearfrom him. Even in his times of extreme melancholy and dejection, and they were frequent; when sick and racked with pain; when lonely and disconsolate, not one breath of murmur rises to heaven. His forest home was often a "Bochim," or as the "valley of Baca," as it respected the outward man and his surroundings. And yet, even then and there, like Jesus after the temptation of the wilderness, angels comforted him and his soul often exulted while he magnified the God of his salvation, "who giveth songs in the night."
5. He exemplified the law of Ohristian meekness and forgiveness in a pre-eminent degree. The unusual attention which his extraordinary career and saintly character attracted, at home and abroad; the sympathy and interest manifested in him by many of the most eminent ministers of his day, among whom were Jonathan Edwards, Bellamy, the Tennants, Pemberton, Aaron Burr, and Jonathan Dickinson, and the high esteem in which he was held py the Ohristian world, especially toward the close of his life, did not tend in the least to elate him. On the contrary-as in all cases of real and eminent worth and superiority -it only tended to make him more humble; it induced Ohristian meekness, and filled him with a profound sense of his unworthiness. The expressions of this feeling in his journal are frequent, emphatic, and evidently sincere.
In all the annals of human life and experience, excepting those of the God-Man, we have no more striking example of Ohristian forgiveness than the life of BRAINERD furnishes. Take a single particular.
He was wronged-wronged as few men in similar circumstances ever were wronged. He was wronged by a public institution; wronged before the world; nay, it is not uncharitable to say that he was perse- cuted, insulted, outraged, and all redrQss refused, and that against the united, solemn, and earnest protest of such men as President Ed-
18!8.] DAVID
wards, Burr, Dickinson, Pemberton, and many others of the most distinguished men of the times. He was wronged in a way to mortify, humiliate and injure a young man of his ambition and talent and gen~ . uine manliness 'and high Christian character and standing, to the ntmost possible extent. The wrong was persisted in, with iron determination and rtlentless severity, even after he had made the most manly and ChriJiian acknowledgment and confession that it was possible for the college authorities to exact, or a gentleman, respecting his own manhood, truth and righteonsness, could consistently make.
And that he felt the wrong exquisitely, and smarted under it, and carried the memory and the scar of it to his grave, his diary affords abundant and affecting proof. This ill treatment at his tender years had much to do with his dejection. It preyed upon his sensitive nature. He felt as if a brand was placed upon his forehead. Most of all he mourned over it, because he thought religion suffered in consequence of it. Noone can read the entries made in his journal during his visit to New Haven a year after his expulsion-at the time when he would have graduated but for that unjust procedure-afraid to show himself in the town for "fear of imprisonment," hiding away in the house of a friend in the outskirts of the town as if "guilty of some open and notorious crime," and there spending Commencement day in prayer and sweet converse with Christian friends-and not feel his heart rise in rebellion against that stern and unrighteous decree which on that occasion crushed his last hope of redress! Earnest application was made on his behalf to the authorities of the college by a "council of ministers at Hartford," and by Edwards, Burr, and many other distinguished men in the various colonies, that he might be allowed to take his degree with his class. But all in vain. Yet here is the entry he made in his diary in this bitter hour of disappointment: "Sept. 14. This day I ought to have taken my degree [this being Commencement day], but God sees fit to deny it to me. And though I was greatly afraid of being overwhelmed with perplexity and confusion, when I should see my classmates take theirs; yet at the very time God enabled me with calmness and resignation to say, 'The will of the Lord be done.' Indeed, through divine goodness I have scarcely felt my mind so calm, sedate, and comfortable for some time. I have long feared this season, and expected my humility, meekness, patience, and resignation, would be much tried; * but found much more pleasure and divine comfort than I expected. Felt spiritu- ally serious, tender and affectionatfl in private prayer with a dear Christian friend to-day."
But notwithstanding the wrong done him was so great and was so obstinately persisted in to the last; and notwithstanding he suffered in his feelings as only a man of such exquisite natural and moral sensibilities could suffer, not once was he known to speak harshly or unkindly of those who had committed the injury. Not a line is found in his diary * Had he been allowed to gradnate he would have been at the head of his class. a.nd that class the largest that had ever graduated at that college.
BRAINERD
alluding to the matter· that breathes other than a spirit of Ohristlike charity and forgiveness, while he was fervent and frequent in his prayers in behalf ofthose who had" so ill used bim." The same spirit that cried out from the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," animated the heart of this youthful disciple while living, aud to-day encircles his brow with a halo of Ohristlike glory.
6. But the crowning excellence of Brainerd 10as the l!8-ge measure of the spirit ofprayer which characterized his life. Prayer was his chief reliance and the secret of his remarkable success. Much of his time was spent in prayer. Days and nights were thus passed, and he grieved when anything interfered to keep him from his knees in solitary and prolonged intercession and communion with God. Closely in this respect did he follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Prayer was his solace, his inspiration, his strength. No part of his diary or journal is of more thrilling interest to any and every Ohristian worker, either in the home or'the foreign field, tban the numerous entries in relation to his seasons of secret prayer. Few saints this side of beaven ever got so near to the throne of God in prayer, ever so "wrestled with the angel of the covenant," ever experienced such communion with the Father of spirits until his soul exulted and overflowed with the fullness of "ineffable comforts." Read a specimen or two: "Had the most ardent longings after God which I ever felt in my life. At noon, in my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my dear Lord, in a sweet calm, that he knew I desired nothing but himself, nothing but holi- ness; that he had given me these desires, and he only could give me the things desired. I never seemed to be so unhinged from myself and to be so wholly devoted to God. My heart was swallowed up in God most of the day. Felt much comfort and devotedness to God this day. At night it was refreshing to get alone with God and pour out my soul. Oh, who can conceive of the sweetness of communion with the blessed God but those who have experience of it ! Glory to God forever, that I may taste heaven below! . • • Retired early for secret devotion, and in prayer God was pleased to pour such ineffable comforts into my soul that I could do nothing for some time but say over and over, 0 my sweet Saviour! 0 my sweet ~aviour!
whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. If I had a thousand lives my soul would gladly have laid them all down at once to have been with Christ. • • • My soul was this day at turns sweetly set on God; I longed to be with him that I might behold his glory. I felt sweetly disposed to commit all to him, even my dearest friends, my dearest flock, my absent brother, and all my concerns for time and eter- nity. 0 that his kingdom might come in the world, that they might all love and glorify him for what he is in himself, ;l.nd that the blessed Redeemer . might' see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied!' Oh come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen."
Is it wonderful that such a habit of prayer and such experiences in prayer in the, closet should have made his social and public prayers edifying and striking in a remarkable degree? President Edwards'tes- timony on this point is very explicit and noteworthy: "I know not
THE BffiLE IN
that I ever SO· muoh as heard him ask a blessing or return thank8 at table, but there 1vas something remarkable to be observed both in the matter and manner of the performance." Prayer, in secret and personal communion with God, will temper the whole spirit of a Christian and put its impress upon his social and public habits. If you witness habit- . ual fervency and fullness and power and a wrestling spirit in prayer on the part of any disciple, you may be sure the habit has been acquired in secret intercourse with God upon his knees. Prayer is not so much a gift asa grace, implanted, nourished and matured in long and intimate communion with the Hearer of prayer.
The end of such a life, as we might anticipate, was peace and joypeace in fullness of measure, and" joy unspeakable and full of glory." A glance in his dying chamber reveals the fact that it was" quite on the verge of heaven." Says President Edwards: " On Tuesday, Oct, 6, he lay for a considerable time as if he were dying. At which time he was heard to utter, in broken whispers, such expressions as these: 'He will come, he will not tarry. I shall soon be in glory. I shall soon glorify God with the angels.'. . . The extraordinary frame he was in that evening could not be hid. His mouth spake out of the abundance of his heart, expressing in a very affecting manner much the same things as are written in his diary. Among very many other extraordinary expressions which he then uttered were such as these: 'My heaven is to please God and glorify him, and to give all to him'and to be wholly devoted to his glory; that is the heaven I long for-that is my religion, and that is my happiness, and always was ever since I suppose I had any religion; I do not go to heaven to be advanced, bu't to give honor to God. It is no matter where I shall be stationed in heaven-whether I have a high or a low seat there-but to love and please and glorify God is all; if I had a thousand souls, if they were worth anything, I would give them all to God.'"
THE BIBLE IN INDIA.
By REV. JACOB CHAMBERLAIN, M.D., MADANAPELLE, INDIA.
THE Bible contains a plan devi5ed for the redemption and elevation of mankind. Take the Bible, then, !1S an engine thus devised for the performance of a certain work, and test it well and see whether it does that work or no. And it is to this view of tlie subject that I particularly ask your attention.
Is this old Bible, given centuries ago among the Jewish people, now calculated to do the work for which it was designed? or, in this day of progress and of the intermingling of nations, do we find it antiquated, and its day of adaptedness and usefulness passed away? This is, emphatically, an age not alone of changes, but of improvements. Fast mail-trains and the telegr~ph hiLVe taken the place of the old mounted mail-carrier~ with his mail-bags thrown over the 4ors6 upon which he rode. The four and six horse stage-coach has' given way to palace cars. The quiet stitching of the seamstress is replaced by the hum of the sewing machine. There is scarcely ~ piece of machinery, of any kind, now in use that was used even by our grandfathers. New books, new systems of sciences, new methods in the arts-aU, all is new. Have we made a mistake, then, in holding on to our" old Bible" too long? If so, let us acknowledge it like men and try to replace it with something better; but first let us put it to the proof and see.
Now, in testing a machine or engine it is necessary to try it in all the different circumstances in which it is to be employed, especially in the worst. The government of India sought to introduce the best machinery for ginning and spinning and weaving the cotton growing there. A proclamation was issued, and published in every country where machinery was made, offering a princely premium for that machinery that should best do the work. And when, after near a year for preparation, the machinery was gathered from the four quarters on the banks of the sacred Ganges, when the viceroy and his council and the judges had assembled to test it, it was tried not alone wit.h the cotton grown there on the banks of the Ganges, but cotton was brought from the base of the Himalaya Mountains, and from the plains of Tinnevelly, near Oape Oomorin, from the hill country of Berar, and from the plains of Bellary, and the country a~out Bombay; and the machinery that best did the work in all, the long staple and the short, the coarse and the fine, it was that that won the prize, and that is now doing the work in India. So if an ocean steamer be launched, it must be tried not alone on the smooth waters of the bay or river on whose banks it was constructed, for until it has crossed the ocean, breasting the mountain billows in a storm, no one can tell whether after all it be a safe vehicle for human life. So with every kind of machinery-it must be tested in the 1IJOrst circumstances in which it will be called to act.
For the last score of years I have been engaged in putting the Bible to just such a test, and that in the most unpropitious circumstances. India is Satan's stronghold. Hinduism, with its handmaid caste, weaves iron fetters around its votaries. With much of truth in its scriptures, the Veda'l, it has degenerated into the worst of polytheism and idolatry; with .its defective view of God and man, it has had no conservating, elevating influence over its votaries. The Hindus are at once a very religious and a grossly immoral people. Intelligent, sharp, quick-witted, immutable in their nature, wedded to their ancient system, which is a splendid one though false, the Brahmanists are the most able and determined adversaries of what they term the" new religion." If the Bible will work in India, then we may safely COllclude that it will work anywhere. How, then, does it work in India? Let us test it and see.
For example, does this "old Bible," given so many centuries ago among the Jews, describe the human heart of to-day, and the condition of man in different lands? or is it antiquated and defective in this respect? On a certain occasion, some fourteen years ago, I went into a native city in India, where the name of Jesus had never been heard, there for the first time to show them and give them these Scriptures, and to preach to them of Christ and His salvation. As an introduction, when we had assembled an audience in the street, I asked my native assistant to read the first chapter of Romans; that chapter which those who call themselves liberal-minded tell us is too black to be true; that chapter that describes the heart of man wandering away from God and into sin, and conceiving vile conceptions of God, and then wandering away farther, until at last, "though they know the judgments of God, that they which do such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them ;" the chapter which many tell us is a libel upon human nature. That chapter was read. The most intelligent man in the audience, a Brahman, stepped forward and said to me, "Sir, that chapter must have been written for us Hindus. It describes us exactly." The photograph was recognized. It had ICen taken centuries before, and among a Jewish people; but the artist .vas divine, and the heart that was photographed was that, not of a lmo, but of a man.
On another occasion I went into another city, there also for the first time to proclaim Christ as the way of life. As we entered the native town and passed up the main street, I noticed a small Hindu temple, built upon the side of the busiest street, with its doors open and the idols in at the farther end, so that passers-by could worship as they went. At the side of the door sat the Brahman priest of the temple on a pedestal, unclad down to the waist-that he might receive the homage, the demi-divine worship which the people were wont to render him-with a platter by his side to receive their offerings as they went in and out of the street to their business or their work. I noticed it and passed on. Going up the main street, and looking here and there and finding no better place, we came back to this temple; and as I politely asked permission of the Brahmin to address an audience from the steps of tho temple, he as politely gave his permission; and singing a song to bring the people together, we soon had the street packed with those who wondered what we had come for, and I preached to them. I took for my theme "the character of any being whom the intelligent mind of man in any land would be willing to call God ;" and from the necessities of our natures, I attempted to show them that in order to call any being God, we must believe him to be stronger than we and stronger than any powers that might be arrayed against us;' that he must be omnipotent, or we could not trust him; that he must be wiser than we and wiser than any intelligences that might be combined against us; that he must be omniscientj that he must be able, in all parts of his dominion, at the same time, to be and to notice all passing events; that he must be omniprB8ent; that he must be a God of love, a Goq. of jus~ tice, and so on. I had painted to them the character and attributes of God as we find them given in our Bible-not telling them where I found the picture, but drawing this characterization of God from the necessities of the soul of man. The intelligent men in the audience at once acknowledged the picture to be a correct one, as I went on from point to point, and admitted what I said to be true. At last, complet~ ing the picture, I said to them, "Now, who is God, and where is God?" The Brahman priest sitting there on his pedestal, seeing how intently the audience of his worshipers were listening to my description of God, so di:tIerent from that enshrined in the temple at my side, and seeing at a glance, with his keen mind, that if this description of God was ac~ cepted as true his employment was gone, seeking to create a diversion, straightened himself up, and with his finger drawing a line around his stomach, he said, "Sir, this is my God; 1IJhen this £s full, my God is propitious; token this is empty, my God is angry. Only give me enough to eat and drink, and that is all the God I want." Turning to this same old Book, I gave him that scathing denunciation of Paul of those "whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, and whose end is destruction." And then turning again to the audience and reminding them of the pure and holy character that I had described, I told them that "this poor, miserable wretch here is willing to call his belly his God." Amid the sneers and scorns of his own worshipers, he sprang from his pedestal, slunk around the corner of the temple, and vanished down a side street. And oh~ how the audience listened while I described to them Him in whom all the fullness of this Godhead was manifested bodily, even Jesus of Nazareth, the Saviour of all of them, in all the world, that will believe in Him!
On another occasion I was reading from the seventh chapter of Romans that declaration of Paul of the power of sin over us, where he says, "When I would do good, evil is present with me, and the good which I would I do not, but the evil which I would not that I do." As I read it the most intelligent man in my audience spoke up, saying, "That is it! that is it! That is exactly what is the matter with us Hindus. Now, does your Book tell us how we can get rid of that evil disposition, and do the good we would and avoid doing the evil that we would not?" How gladly, from this same old book, did I point them to Him who can create a new heart and renew a right spirit within us; who can give us not only the desire but the power to do good: "For I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me."
On another occasion and in a di:tIerent city I read the description of the forty-fourth chapter of Isaiah, of the making and worshiping of images. When I had completed the reading, a sharp man in the audience, a Brahman, st9pped out and said, "Now, sir, we have caught
THE MIRA.CLES OF MISSIONS
you. You told us that this was an old book, given long ago in another part of the world to tell us how we might find God, and, how worshiping him we might attain to peace with him; but, sir, that which you have just read you have written since you came here and saw how we Hindus managed it." The photograph once more was recognized.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-NO. II. [EDITORIAL.-A. T. p.] THE LONE STAR MISSION.
THE Romance of Ongole reads like a fairy tale. This station is some two hundred miles north of Madras, in the Telugu country of India. Some thirty-four years ago Dr. Jewett, missionary from Nellore, in the service of the Baptists of this country, touring in this thickly settled region, climbed the summit of a mountain near Ongole, and surveying the country besought God to send there a missionary. For thirteen years that prayer seemed to be lost. But God was not unmindful, and he was preparing a workman for this "lone star" field, which in 1853, at the anniversary meetings in Albany, it had been almost determined to abandon as a fruitless and hopeless enterprise.
Mr. Clough, a civil engineer, became strangely impressed that he was called to this field, and that God would there give him ten thousaud converts in a great and marvelous ingathering. It seemed to be the wild fancy of a vagarist or dreamer. The Baptist Board hesitated to send such a fanatic to the field. But he persisted, and was finally appointed to the Lone Star Mission. Blessings have crowned his work that have thrilled the whole Ohristian church with amazement and gratitude, and which deserve record among the Miracles of Missions.
The Lord has often used the locusts and caterpillars as his "great army," and he used the famine of 1877 as his messenger to prepare the way. It has been estimated that in the presidency of Madras alone three millions of people perished in consequence, and in Mysore and Bombay districts two and a quarter millions more. While the Brahmanic priesthood and the heathen people, even the rich, looked on with selfish and stolid indifference,Ohristian England sent a relief fund of $4,000,000; and the distribution of !Such noble charities among this alien people made a profound impression on the native mind and compelled a comparison of the two religions, which by no means was favorable to Brahmanism and its kindred faiths.
During the severest pressure of famine it became obvious why God had chosen a civil engineer for this emergency. Mr. Clough was studying to provide work for the suffering masses round about him. He went to the authorities of the government and proposed to undertake the construction of three and a half miles of the Buckingham Oanal, in order to furnish employment and food for these starving thousands. The offer was accepted. After the day's work was done these people gathered in camps and the gospel was preached to them; meetings for prayer and praise were held, inquiries were guided, and converts taught and encouraged. The spirit of God began to work in a way and on a scale which probably has had no parallel since Pentecost. Seed that had been sown now rapidly sprang into blade, ear, and full-grown corn in the ear. Idols were fiuug away by the thousands, and even the hundreds of thousands, as useless. The missionaries were througed by inquirers, and had no leisure so much as to eat. Lest the sincerity of the motives of the converts should be questioned, they were kept on a sort of probation until after the famine had been relieved and there was no longer the temptation to seek the church as a charity organization.
As soon as it was safe to receive professed converts they poured by the thousands into the church. Between June and December, 1878, nearly ten thousand were after diligent and careful examination received into the fold by baptism. These marvelous ingatherings were undoubtedlyof such as were being saved. '['hey have proved unusually faithful, and after ten years the work still goes on. The prayer offered on that mountain has been conspicuously and gloriously answered, and no miracle of apo.;tolic days more plainly shows the finger of God. The immense congregations, the character of the converts, the theological seminary at Ramapatam with its two hundred students, and the transformations to be seen in society all through the Telugu country, prove that the Lone Star has been and still is shining with supernatural beams in this great darkness.
Mr. Clough has been permitted to do efficient service in another direction, in striking a heroic blow at the monstrous caste system of India. His first arrival in the country was hailed with joy by. the highcaste Brahmans, who rejoiced to have a prospect of good schools for their children. They promised their support, and they kept their word; they placed under Mr. Clough's instruction sixty-two of their sons and paid well for their education. The prosperity of the schools seemed to be on a firm basis, and no restraint was put upon the teaching~of the truth. This spontaneous and generous welcome to Ohristian schools was the opening of a new and wide door of service.
But a perplexity arose. Three men of low caste presented themselves as converts and were welcomed as became a missionary who believed in a church where there was no barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, male or female, but all one in Ohrist Jesus.
The caste spirit was aroused and the aristocratic Brahmans indignantly threatened that if Mr. Clough had any more to do with the outcast Sudms and Pariahs, all the support of the higher classes would at once be withdrawn from him and his schools. While he hesitated and wavered, scarcely knowing what course to take, two more low-class converts knocked at the church doors, and the genuineness of their conversion demanded a prompt decision. The crisis of the mission had arrived. The horns of an inevitable dilemma threatened to impale the missionary, and to escape the one was to cast himself upon the other. If he refused the low-caste converts, what became of the democracy of the Ohristian church? If he admitted them, what became of his aristocracy and the schools dependent on the high caste for support?
He consulted his wife, and they both retired by agreement to separate rooms for prayer. H 0 God, guide us in this extremity of the mission," was the groaning of two hearts whose deeper prayer could not be uttered. Simultaneously, in their different rooms, the husband and wife each took' up a 'l'estament from a pile lying before them for distribution among Eurasians; and without any intention of open'ing to any particular place, both husband and wife, involuntarily, unconsciously opened to the same passage and verses -1 Cor. i. 26-31 : H Ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called: but God hath chosen the foolish, weak, base, despised, the things which are not," etc. 'I'o each of them came the same thought: H I see it: I have not been building on God's plan; this structure must come down and I must begin anew." The wife and husband started to meet each other and communicate with each other the direct answer to prayer through the Word. H See here," said Mrs. Clough, H what I have been reading." H But I have been reading the same verses," replied he; "did you know it?" H No, indeed." Thus by a remarkable coincidence God, at the same moment, by the same means, made their way clear as day. They were to build the church like a pyramid, from the broad base of the lowest classes upward, and the base must be broad enough to take in the masses of the poorest and basest and the weakest and most despised.
They had the heroism to follow the divine guidance. The very next morning they made their decision public. Every pupil l~ft the school, and the financial bottom of their enterprise collapsed in ruin. The friendship of the high castes was changed to bitter hostility. They began anew. The base was now broad enough to embrace all who would come, however poor or low. And on that basis another structure was reared, in which, strange to say, m.ore upper-caste converts have been built than under the former aristocratic system!
We do not wonder that those who have studied the work of God among the Telugus have said: " It is without a parallel in the history of modern Christian missions in heathen or in civilized countries. In some cif its features and aspects it always suggests the Pentecostal period and its wonderful scenes. The present condition of the mission is full of promise and prophecy. Stili greater successes in the near future may be confidently expected. This mission demands, must have, and is sure to receive, the best care and the most munificent contributions of the Baptists of America. But we have been standing off and e;aziu~ ill amlloZemen,t at tbe ;l.chievements of divine 15l'ace and power amon9' the ignorant and degraded Telugus. The time has come when we must move closer up to the work, more vitally and practically link ourselves with that work. We must without delay prepare to assume the weighty obligations and to discharge the grave responsibilities which success has created and is daily pressing upon us. A short time ago and a few brief paragraphs or sentences, uttering only depreciation and discouragement, if not something akin to contempt, constituted all the annual statement which the executive officers of the Missionary Union had to give the denomination relative to the mission among the Telugus. Now many pages of the yearly exhibit are required to present only the merest outlines of the surprising successes which continue to crown the toils'of the working forces in the Telugu field. Last year large and eager audiences assembled and listened with breathless attention for nearly two hours to Dr. Clough while he narrated, witho~t embellishment or emotion, the simple, extraordinary, almost incredible facts of his labors among the Telugus. No mission in the world, prosecuted by any Christian denomination, can so compel, arouse and enlist the attention of a public assembly; no mission in the past or in the present has such a marvelous record; but this very success calls for immediate and vigorous effort, for prompt and generous gifts of money, to provide for the deep and pressing necessities which spring up with and out of that success-necessities which cannot be neglected or inadequately met without jeopardizing the best welfare of the mission in the future.
"Education, both secular and religious, must be instantly and amply pro- vided for. It is gratifying and encouraging to learn that this want is at this hour being felt and to some extent provision is being made to meet it. At Ongole, the great centre of that large field on which the blessing of God has been so bountifully lavished, a school has been established, for which, since Dr. Clough's recent return to this country, $10,000 have been subscribed for additional buildings. Besides this he has also raised $10,000 for the erection of two mission-houses in Madras. The prOVision being made for the enlarge- ment of the high school at Ongole should haNe the hearty and practical co- operation of all interested in the training of the converts in that field. The high-caste people will not, cannot be reached and inlluenced by the Christian diSCiples in the Telugu churches until ignorance gives place to intelligence. God is able to work without the mental training and discipline of the Telugu Christians; so is he able to work without their intellectual inferiority and crudeness. The theological seminary at Ramapatam, under the manage- ment of the energetic President Williams, iii doing a large and splendid work for the training and equipment of a native ministry. On the )st of last July there was completed and occupied a building that will favorably compare with anything of the kind that can be found among the other missions of Southern India. At Nellor~ is soon to be built the Bucknell Female Seminary, a school for the training of Bible-women and female teachers for girls' schools. For this building one gentleman, Mr. Bucknell of Philadelphia, has given $3,500.
" While these efforts are being made and these projPcts are being pushed forward to provide for the necessities and the advantages of secular and Christian culture, the work of evangelization is being carried steadily and vigorously on. The conversions and baptisms since the great awakening and ingathering in 1877-78 have averaged over 2,000 souls a year. There are now 13 central stations and 205 out-stations in this mission. There are 37 Ameri- can missionaries, including the women of the company. The number of na- tive preachers, ordained and unordained, is 174. There are 21 Bible-women and other nativ(,! helpers, making a tota.! working force of 323, There are
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE
now 84 churches, comprising a membership of nearly 25,000. There were baptized in 1886 in this mission nearly 3,000. Besides the high school at Ongole and the theological seminary at Ramapatam, there are 180 mission schools with nearly 4,000 pupils; and all this the growth of about eighteen years! True, there was much of sowing, praying and weeping for some years prior to this large and splendid harvest. But what a harvest! "
MISSION WORK IN PAPAL EUROPE.
By R:EV. WILLIAM OLARK, D.D., FLORENCE, ITALY.
IN my brief paper in the January REVIEW, "Mission Work in Papal Europe," I alluded to woman's work, some features of which I desire now to give more in detail.
The school in Greece has had great influence in awakening in the women of southern and eastern Europe a desire for higher education, for social and industrial freedom, and has awakened also a consciousness of higher privileges, rights, duties and responsibilities in society and in the state.
This school was established and has ever been sustained by American women. Mrs. Emma Willard, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Phelps and Mrs. Hill will ever be remembered as honored names in connection with the founding in Athens, Greece, of a college for the higher education of Greek young women. . When Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Sigourney visited Europe, about 1835, it was not merely to seek health and pleasure, but they sought to do a most noble work. They became deeply interested in the condition of women in Greece, and returning to this country Mrs. Willard organized a society called" A Society for the Advancement of Female Education in Greece." In regard to this enterprise she said: "Is not improvement in female education an important feature in the grand system of moral advancement now going forward in the world? Should we not strengthen it at home and send it abroad?" For this object she offered $3,000, and this sum she would have given herself had not the ladies of Troy nobly come forward to her aid.
This school, carried forward by Mr. and Mrs. Hill, has been the cause of the education of more than 20,000 in that country and in the colonies of Greece in all parts of the Orient. In all the centres of Greek civilization-Oonstantinople, Smyrna, Salonica, Seres, Adrianople, Philippopolis and Janina-are found the best schools for girls, whose teachers have been trained in the American school in Athens. In 1874 a pupil of this school was invited to Oonstantinople to take charge of a Greek seminary fOl' women, and soon she became principal of the" Zappion," the greatest female college in that city, and this position she still holds.
Fifty years ago Athens and the East were dead in regard to higher female education, but by the sympathy and interest of noble American women there was set up a great agency which has been a most power· ful civilizing influence thronghout all southeastern Europe, and which even sheds its light and joy far into western Asia. It has trained an admirable band of well-educated teachers and sent out hundreds all over Greece and its oriental colonies. TheI;e is no question that Greece owes its rapid progress and Greek instruction to its women.
This school has awakened in them a love for the study of the works of their ancestors, which, pervaded by a lofty spirit of patriotism, have made them more alive to their responsibilities at the first reappearance of their national life.
There is in Greece among women a consciousness of their rights and duties and an activity in benevolent work hardly to be found in any other European conntry. There are also large charitable organizations, composed of prominent ladies of Athens and other cities, and recommended by her Majesty the Queen, which confer great blessings upon the poor and needy. The work done by these associations received medals and honorable mention at the Vienna Exhibition. And in all this culture and benevolence, so marked in Greece, there is a spirit of warm patriotism, a' religious nature untainted by fanaticism, and a philanthropic and hospitable heart.
It is also of this American school at Athens that Mr. Botossi, the Greek consul in this country, speaks with so much enthusiasm, saying in substance that to be a graduate of this school is to have a diploma for the best manners, the most thorough education, and the highest and purest. morals; adding at the same time that here his own sister was educated, and also the daughters of all the best families in Athens. He also said that the Greek papers were filled with the highest praise of this institutiou. In such favor is this school with the government that it is visited by the queen, and a few years since the king thanked the American principal in the name of the nation for her fifty years of devotion to the cause of education for Greek women.
How large and widely extended is this noble mission work accomplished by a few large-hearted Ohristian ladies! Pupils of thilil school who have taken high rank in social and domestic life have been found at Smyrna, in remote eastern Asia Minor, at Oonstantinople, in Bulgaria, Hungary, Austria and Italy. Indeed 'we can safely say that the highest and best educational and religious culture in 'all southeastern Europe and western Asia can be traced to the institution for women at Athens. And I am happy to say that this same school is at present most generously aided by one of the best women of our land.
There is also another institution in Europe which by its energetic and wide-spreading influence has done much for the intellectual and religious culture of young women. I refer to the one at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, for the education of German deaconesses as teachers and nurses. Here Florence Nightingale was educated previous to accomplishing her great work at Constantinople during the Crimean war. There is an indescribable charm about Kaiserswerth as a seminary of higher female education, and in home work and mission work throughout Europe and the Orient the results have been wonderful in awakening a desire among women for high literary and religious culture. Their institutions, embracing normal schools and colleges for the training of Ohristian workers are everywhere recognized as agencies of the purest benevolence, characterized by a lovely Ohristian spirit, and agencies also of a high intellectual culture. It is impossible to speak sufficiently in praise of this noble agency for woman's highest mental and spiritual improvement. At Kaiserswerth at present there are about 260 deaconesses. More than one thousand have been sent forth. They have 103 stations, many of which are in Germany and Southern Europe. Nineteen are in the East-at Smyrna, Oonstantinople and other citiesand all are in charge of some 50 deaconesses. At Florence, Italy, there is an institution of 70 pupils. It began with 20, and in two years it was self-supporting. In some places these labors are under the direction of' a committee of ladies. The deaconnesEles are religious, cheerful, loving and earnest in spirit. The only critici~m that I could make in regard to all these schools would be that they should be of a still higher literary grade, in order to respond more fully to the wants of the people. These noble-hearted deaconesses, however, going forth two by two in V the various countries of Europe, are doing a great work and are signally blest. Their policy is the true mission policy, and the only successful mission policy that can be employed in mission work for all the Papal States of Europe.
In conversation with the late Dr. Mark Hopkins, President of the American Board, only a short time before his death, I spoke of the culture and religious influence I was endeavoring to secure for young women in Oentral and Southern Europe, and I referred to the work of the German deaconesses establishing religious schools in the East and in other countries, with their wonderful success. He replied, "Why cannot the Ohristian women of our own land do a similar work? Let there be an organization and perhaps an institution in this country or in Europe like the one at Kaiserswerth, to prepare young women thoroughlyfor this special work; call them deaconesses-I see no objectionand send them forth two by two to establish evangelical schools; it would be a noble work." And when I referred to the aid I was then seeking for this very object he said, as President of the American Board, " We are doing no better work in any part of the world than you are doing in Southern Europe; if I had money I would give liberally, but poor as I am I wish my name and the name of my wife associated with this enterprise;" and saying this he gave me a donation for himself and also for his wife.
Only a day or two after, in speaking with Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., of my work in Europe, after words of high commendation and approval he said, "It is a grand work, and I wish to show that I fully endorse and appreciate it." He then gave me a donation for this object.
In the same day these two men, first in our country in culture and first as leaders in benevolence, finished their work on earth.
It is by means of such influences as have gone forth from Kaiserswerth and from the college in Greece that woman is now earnestly calling for a higher and better Ohristian culture. Feeling that she has in the past been held back from her higher sphere of action, numerous organizations are now everywhere being formed for improving her condition. Her claims for education, for social and industrial freedom, and for political enfranchisement are earnestly advocated by the first women in every department of art, literature and philosophy throughout Southern Europe.
Most marked and happy was the influence upon the educational condition of wome~ in Europe coming from the admirable exhibit of our American system of education made at the expositions at Vienna and Paris. Residing at Vienna and the south of Europe at the time, I could give many interesting proofs of this. For instance, at Vienna, shortly after the Exposition, a princess of one of the first families of the empire said to me, "Do you know what we want at Vienna? It is an institution similar to the best female schools and colleges in the United States. We need it for the education of the daughters of our nobility. I am fully persuaded that your system of female education is far superior to that in our church under the direction of the Jesuits and the convents." And she added, "If you will persuade the good ladies in England and America to aid in initiating such a system of education and establish a college here at Vienna, I will be a patroness of the institution." Such were the wonderful words of a lady who belonged to the representative Oatholic family of Austria.
So also in Italy. Once visiting the highest school of female education established by the Italian Government at Florence, being struck by some improved methods of instruction, I asked the lady principal some question in regard to them. She replied in substance, "You will recognize my system of instruction in many points to be distinctively American. I was at the Paris Exposition, and there day after day I faithfully studied your American methods, and these I have introduced as far as possible into my school." This lady expressed the wish that our American system of schools, with a true religion, might everywhere be introduced into Italy, and she believed that such schools would be the salvation of the country.
Here is opened before us a mission work in Europe, in our opinion second to no other-a workfor ~ooman and to be done by ~ooman.
In close contact with mission life for a long series of years, in all that I have seen and done, I cannot form a conception of a nobler mission work in this or any other age than that of' carrying our best culture, with a true religion, at the present crisis of woman's history, to the Papal countries of Europe. Evangelical schools of higher female education are the agency, and the agency that is desired in Italy. Not schools without religion, but schools with religion.
It is well known that the Italian Government is now doing much for education; but having banished the Jesuit and the priest from all educational institutions, their schools are all without religion-from the primary to the highest-no religion. But the Italians of the beUer class have much religious sentiment, and wish their daughters to be educated in schools under religious influences. They say, Religion has in the past occupied so prominent a part in our schools, what is now to take its place? The schools are becoming more and more irreligious, and there is reason to fear that ere long the people will appeal to the government for the priests to be returned to give religious instruction in the schools. For this reason they ask us to hasten to their help. One of Italy's first scholars and ablest statesmen not long since said: "The weakest point at present in Italy is the religious education of young women. In our schools there is no religion; and why," he asked, "do not benevolent men and women in America and England see it and come to our help, bringing to us the superior culture of their schools, with a true religious influence, and thus aid in emancipating our system of female education from the control of the convent and the Jesuit? They could confer no greater blessing upon It~ly." Thus speaks a noble Italian, who has the best interests of his country at heart.
Immediately after the formation of the kingdom of Italy, which seemed like the springtime of life to the nation, many courageous women arose to take part in her literary regeneration, and these gave a marked impulse to higher female education. As early as 1869, at the :request of some of the first ladies of Italy, we made an appeal to the Italian Government for the establishment at Florence of a "Ladles' International Oollege." We had several conferences with the Minister of Public Instruction, and the project was received with great favor. The United States minister wrote several letters to this country to interest friends in the enterprise. But Florence was then the capital, and unfortunately a building in that city could not be found for the purpose. But the establishing of such an institution of high literary culture was regarded of supreme importance to Italy. Un.sectarian in its character but vUaUy Ohri.stian in its influence, it would prove far superior to any direct denominational mission agency ever introduced into the country. It is thus, as Sir William Muir of the University of Scotland said, "establishing evangelical schools of higher female education in Papal Europe, is mission work of the highest imuortance."
THE GREAT WORLD COUNCIL. [APRIt
THE GREAT WORLD COUNCIL.
[EDITORIAL.-A. T. P.] THERE are those on both sides of the sea that look forward to the coming month of June as the time for the convening of a Council second in practical importance to none that has ever met since the day of Pentecost.
A general Missionary Conference is then to be held in Exeter Hall, London, from June 9th to 19th, which will embrace representatives of all the great missionary societies and Christian denominations. Missionary workers, native converts and helpers from every part of the mission field will be present and participate; information of the most comprehensive and accurate sort will be furnished as to the world-wide work and field, and the practical questions to be covered in the discussions and addresses are of supreme importance to the prosecution of the great missionary campaign and conquest.
For example, the matter of missionary comity. There is a great deal of work that overlaps. While some fields are wholly destitute, others are comparatively over-supplied. . The time has fully come for a mutual understanding between Christian denominations and their societies and representatives as to the limits of their respective fields, interchange of workers, transfer of converts, etc. We need to have it determined what is to be regarded as preoccupation and what as intrusion. Certain principles need to be agreed upon as to the policy to be pursued in dealing with such questions as Chinese ancestral worship and East Indian caste; there ought to be a consistent plan for developing a native ministry and making native churches self-governing, selfsupporting, self-propagating. A common scale of salaries for native helpers would remove the temptation of a mercenary motive in seeking .larger wages, etc. A hundred questions that now present practical perplexities would be no longer embarrassing could Christian disciples agree upon a standard for the conduct of the work.
The place of education in the work of missions needs to be determined. The need and value of schools, the scope of their educational schemes, coeducation of the sexes, the language in which teaching should be conducted, the character of the teachers to be employed, the question of copartnership of different societies in college work, the importance of higher education, and especially theological training, the shortening of preparatory courses for those who cannot spend the full period of preparation ordinarily required-how many and vast are the problems of education demanding solution!
Then the whole position of the native agencies needs definition and determination. How to secure a large efficient body of capable native workers, how to fit them for service and set them at work and support them in the work, how broad to make the basis of their training without raising them unduly above the people for whom they labor, how ample to make their pecuniary support without putting before them the temptation of avarice or elevating them to a false level-here is a whole continent of thought needing exploration.
The methods of mission 1vork demand adjustment and agreement. The qualifications of missionaries, physical, mental and spiritual; their course of training, the question of a medical education for the ordinary worker, the establishment of missionary professorships and lectureships at home and abroad, itinerant and local evangelism, industrial and medical missions, adaptation to existing usages and customs, and the attitude of the missionary toward the government and society at large-these are matters vital to a large success.
Then the creation and dissemination of a Christian literature; the power of the press and its utilization; Bible translation and distribution, and the multiplication of tracts and books; the newspaper, apologetic literature, children's papers and periodicals; and last but not least, the way to get and keep before Ohristians the facts of modern missions through a cheap, comprehensive and frequent form of printed statement-here again the conference might busy itself for the ten days of its sessions.
Consider again all the intricate matters that concern the development of the chu,rch at home. The monthly concert, missionary maps, missionary conventions, simultaneous meetings; the increase of gifts, but above all of prayer / the education of children in knowledge and love and systematic giving; woman's work, its range,' its opportunity, its grand utility; the consecration of wealth' and the organization of the mites into millions-behold here another class of questions engaging the best thought of our day.
These and scores of other subjects will occupy the sacred season of prayer and conference in June next in the world's metropolis. One of the editors of this REVIEW may well be permitted to feel a very special interest in this approaching conference. As long ago as 1881 he published an appeal, which was widely distributed in this and other lands, calling for a world council of missions. That appeal closed with these words: "Let us have an ecumenical council, representing all evangelical churches, solely to plan this world-wide campaign and proclaim the good tidings to every living soul in the shortest time! Let the field be divided and aistributed with as little waste of men a,nd means as may be. Let there ~e a universal appeal for workers and money, and a systematic gathering of offerings that shall organize the mites into millions.
"The grandeur of the proposition thrills the very pen that puts it on paper. And yet, after studying to look at it calmly and coolly, I can see nothing to hinder such a glorious result, save the lack of the divine anointing."
At the Northfield convention of believers in August, 1885, Dwight L. Moody presiding, the great assembly by a rising vote adopted a similar deliverance calling for a "great council of evangelical believers to meet at some great centre like London or New York t.o consider the wonder. working of God's providence and grace in mission fields, and how fields now unoccupied may be insured from further neglect, and to arrange and adjust the work so as to prevent needless waste and friction among workmen, and so to greatly further the glorious object of a world'!! evangelization." That appeal closed thus: "We earnestly commend the suggestion to the prayerful consideration of the various bodies of Christian believers and the various missionary organizatioll!'l. What a spectacle it would present both to angels and men could believers of every name, forgetting all things in which they differ, meet by chosen representatives to enter systematically and harmoniously upon the work of sending forth laborers into every part of the world field! "
This deliverance was signed by seven representatives of different denominations, as a committee: Arthur T. Pierson, Philadelphia, Presbyterian, chairman; A. J. Gordon, Boston, Baptist; L. W. Munhall, Indianapolis, Methodist; George F. Pentecost, Brooklyn, N. Y. Congregationalist; William Ashmorc, missionary to Swatow, China, Baptist; J. E. K. Studd, London, England, Church of England; Miss E. Dryer, Chicago Avenue Church, Chicago.
There will be many who will regard this council, now called to meet in June, as the answer to many fervent prayers. For one, the writer of this article looks forward to this meeting as surpassed in importance and possible results by no other ever held. In fact it may be doubted whether it be not the first of its kind. When before have Christians of every name and land met, without regard to any denominatioual lines or limits, to represent on the one hand the entire body of Christendom and on the other hand the entire field of missions, pagan and papal, Mohammedan and heathen! This will be an ecumenical council in fact. And think for what a purpose they meet who gather there and then! To map out the world-for Christ's war of the ages! To cover every district of earth's surface with the network of missionary effort; to plant the cross in every valley and on every hill ; to put the Bible in every hamlet and hut; to prevent all waste of men and material and means; to distribute work equally and equitably; to accelerate the progrelils of missions so that in the shortest time the witness may be borne to all people and to every soul! Is there any purpose on which the whole Christian church could so heartily and confidently invoke and implore God's blessing?
There is one outcome of this council for which we look with greater confidence and hopefulness than for all other results combined. How heavy has our heart often been over the wide spread apathy and lethargy of the church itself in respect to missions! Even where missionary effort is found, how often are its methods excessively conservative, stereotyped and often even secular. Dependence is frequently placed on mere organization. A transient enthusiasm is awakened that is like the morning cloud or early dew, that passes as quickly away. How little avidity in welcoming news from tbe field! How little prayerful solicitude for the progress of missions! How slow and spasmodic the inflow into the Lord's treasury !
What the church needs just now above all else is a baptism of prayer. 'fhe world has invaded the church with its secular spirit and its skeptical spirit. Confidence in the supernatural is practically undermined. " A life of faith" is often sneered at as fanaticism, and" dependence solely on prayer" is regarded as a mere pretense or an indirect mode of advertising and appealing. Men show the grade of their own piety and spirituality by their construction of the motives and methods of other disciples. A Ohristian who sneers at George Muller, Francke, Dorothea Trudell, and who speaks in depreciation if not deprecation of J. Hudson Taylor and the heroic African bishop, William Taylor; he who will embark in no enterprise where he has not a human security, has the flavor and savor of the natural man and does not perceive, or certainly receive the things of the'Spirit of God. -The Christian church needs to pray and pray in faith, believing and expecting great results. Mathematics and measuring lines cannot compass God's power. There is a supernatural sphere and an omnipotent energy at work in that sphere. The God of Pentecost is not dead. The Holy Ghost can" demon.,trate" what no argument can prove to a soul whose spiritual perceptions are dulled and deadened. There is a logic of moral conviction that God only can wield. He who takes up the isles as a very little thing knows how to raise a continent to a higher level; He who can say "Let light be" can flood a world with glory. Where is the faith in prayer that made the place where primitive disciples assembled to shake with the presence of God; that caused Peter's chains to be riven and his prison doors to open of their own accord; that made the palace of the Oresars a vestibule of heaven, and turned infidel Thessalonica into a pulpit of evangelism?
If that conference in London shall not issue in a new baptism of prayer, the highest result will not be attained. We believe that from the first that great gathering in which all disciples forget their differences and join hands and touch hearts in a common purpose to promote God's glory will prove a new Pentecost. We expect to see even the visible tokens of the divine presence. Let the whole Ohristian church unite in one mighty and moving entreaty, that in these latter days it may come to pass that God shall pour out his spirit upon an flesh and Joel's prophecy shall at last find its grandly complete fulfillment.
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS FROM FOREIGN MAGAZINES
MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS FROM DANISH, SWEDISH, DUTCH, SWISS, FRENCH, AND OTHER FOREIGN MISSIONARY"
MAGAZINES. .
[Translated and arranged for THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD by REV. CHAB. C. STARBUCK, Andover, Mass. Scores of our exchanges in other tongues have been patiently gone over for these interesting facts and statements.-EDS.] THE Swedish Lunds Missions Tidning gives the whole number of missionaries (male and female) that have gone out from Protestantism as six thousand.
The Missions Tidning, in an obituary notice of the eminent Swedish missionary Dr. Andrew Blomstrand, says that one of the motives he assigned for going abroad was his wish" to see whether missionaries could not live in peace with one another!" Having once; during his 27 years' stay in Southern India, been exhorted to come home for rest, he answered: "As it so often happens that missionaries, without any sufficient reason, leave the missionary work, I hold it my duty to give others a good example, and it is therefore impossible for me to leave our mission with a good conscience so long as God upholds my health and powers. With broken health I shall be glad to die in the dear homeland, if such were God's will. If I should return home well and strong but without a good conscience, I should be unhappy and should not be able to occasion joy to the dear ones at home. But if I stay in India so long as God wills, my letters will occasion joy to my dear ones."
The Tidning, speaking of the Ziegenbalz, a memorial church in Tranquebar, remarks that" even heathen have gIVen a very decent amount toward it. They hold it a good work to contribute,to religious ends in any form. Some do this without any further thought. But others again are convinced that the Christians' God is mightier than theil'S. Thus lately a heathen told me that when his grandchild was ill he was thinking of calling me in to baptize it before it died. But as the child recovered he let the matter go by, in fear of his kindred, as usual."
The question of caste in India has many complications. Herr Horberg of Tranquebar, giving an account of a primary school of which the native pastor had taken charge at the request of the heathen, and in which all the teachers were Brahmans, remarks, "To send our Pariahs to it is quite out of the question. A single one would suffice to put teachers and all the pupils to flight."
The Neueste Nachrichten aus dem Morgenlande, spea~ing of the lepers' asylum at Jerusalem says, "The only pastoral offices in this are Protestant. It is true we should not in principle object to admitting the pastoral visits of a Catholic or Greek clergyman if they were desired. But they are not desired, either by patients belonging to these communions or by the priests. ThQ Greek and the Roman church alike see in the lepers only men thrust out of society and appointed to death, who are no longer of any value as concerns the extension, power, and glory of the visible church on earth, since they noflonger have any influence in the family or the community. And far less does Islam advance any claim over the religious instruction of Moslem lepers."
The Danske Missions-Blad published at Copenhagen, remarking on the late spread of missionary interest in the colleges and seminaries of England and America, laments that there is so little in Denmark's one university. There is, however, it appears, a missionary conference in the University of Copenhagen, at present numbering- one hundred aud fQur lllembersl and C(msisting not only of theological students but of various others. It holds eight meetings a year, in whiCh the missionary cause is handled in what migh- perhaps appear to us a clumsy and roundabout way, but, on the other hand, with that scientific thoroughness and expendIture of thought and previous research which is more characteristic of European than of American schools. What appears to us very strange is that no theological student has yet offered himself to go abroad. Danish as well as most German missionaries are laymen, mostly of the working classes, who, after offering themselves, receive a special preparation in special seminaries at the expense of the missionary societies which send them out. But the interest, more and more felt in the more cultivated circles of society in England and in America, seems to be making a decided impression among Christians on the continent.
The Blad has an interesting autobiographical account of a Chinese con- vert, describing his first meeting with the missionary who brought him to Christ. "In the great famine I was helped by Mr. Hill, an English mission- ary. After having distributed gifts he offered a prize for an essay on Christ tian subjects, and to facilitate its composition offered the loan of Christian books to those who might wish to compete. I presented myself, and my essay won the prize. I was to receive the money in Ping-Yang-Fu. I had heard that the Christians could. bewitch people, and was therefore afraid to • approach them. Yet I went to Ping-Yang-Fu, taking my brother along. On our arrival my brother undertook to procure the money for me, but came back with the message that the foreigner wished himself to see and talk with the man who had composed the essay. I was now in a strait: on the one hand stood the fear of being bewitched, on the other hand the fear of losing' the money. At last I decided to go. As I neared the house I met three of my countrymen coming out of it, who I found had been helping him. I asked them if they were not afraid of being bewitched. 'No,' said they, 'nor will you be when you learn to know him.' Accordingly one of them introduced me to missionary Hill. A look, a word was enough! As the stars pale before the dawn, so vanished all the evil reports I had heard; every trace of fear disappeared, my heart became at rest. I saw his mild eye, and remem- bered the words of Mencius: 'Where a man's heart is evil his eye betrays it.' I felt that I stood before the face of a noble man."
The following words of M. Dieterlen, a French missionary in South Africa, found in the Journal des Missions Evangeliques, are often as hard for mis- sionaries to take to heart as for natural parents. The secular incapacity of Rome to comprehend them is what has chiefly converted her presidency, in so many nations, from a blessing into a curse. It has been simply an obsti- nate refusal, continued through ages, of a missionary society to provide for the gradual withdrawal of its own oversight. "I have striven," says M. Dieterlen, "to gain the confidence of my people by exhibiting confidence toward them, to develop their individual conscience and judgment, and to teach them to depend not on a man, but on Christ himself. The thought with which I have endeavored to be constantly inspired has been: 'They must increase and I must decrease,' a word which ought, so soon as it can safely be applied, to become the motto of every missionary, and which, car- ried out in wisdom, will bring us, without any revolutionary shock, to the establishment in our missionary churches of a regular government and of a native pastorate,"
The African races are far enough in arrear of civilization, but they have the instincts of despotism in a high degree. The following description by one of the French Protestant missionaries on the Zambezi, :Mr. Coillard, presents this on both its ludicrous and its atrocious side: " Kabnkee, a lad of fifteen or sixteen, the king's son and the viceroy elect, seems as yet illinstrncted how to bear the weight of his novel dignity. He grimaces like a coqnettish girl, .winks, twists his month, trifles with a rhinoceros-horn, as if he fonnd his hands in his way; he drinks the native mead, said to be as strong as brandy, and surronnds himself with all the ceremonial of his father's court. He had not been half an hour at the station when he began to show all the qualities of a practiced beggar. He had all manner of wauts to satisfy. He coveted above all one of our wooden chairs, and, undannted by two refusals, returned a third time to the charge, so that I was fain to capitulate. And now this seat, glistening with ochre and grease, is borne everywhere before him as the symbol of his high position. The elder chiefs, onr old friends, are, in the presence of the beardless yonng prince, as mean and cringing as they had been hanghty. They appear like greatfnnctionarles disgraced and fallen. bnt still in a measnre indispensable. When they visited the capital the king did not kill a single beef or even goat for them; he gave them only fish to eat. No wonder, then, that they are moody and taciturn. Lewanika has made a distribntion of the wives of all the murdel'ed or fugitive chiefs, but all the children-those dear little children, of whom some are so intelligent and so amiable-have to the last one been mercilessly put to death. We have received harrowing details of this horrible tragedy."
The Journal remarks that at present a singular conflict is going on in Africa : " Civilized Enrope protests against the Arab slave trade; the Moslem merchants lift their voice in return against the alcoholic fioods-il2,420,0921itres in one year from the two ports of Bremen and Hambnrg-which to their eyes represent Christianity. Is not the work of missions interested in these facts'? Ought not our missionary enterprises, our missionary agents, onr missionary prayers, to form, as it were, a dyke against this poison in which the colonial civilization of the nineteenth century would fain steep Africa?
.. But there is in all these facts a Christian interest of a more general order. We cannot too often repeat that in the impulse which at this time Is directing the activity of Europe toward distant countries and especially toward Africa, we onght to behold a sign of the times. Almost always the signs of the times contain appeals to the chnrch of Christ. As the Reformation was, in the plans of God, a parallel current to the Renaissance, so also to-day Christian missions ought to be our response to the contemporaneous colonial movement. May the Lord, who has caused us to live at this honr, give ns the spirit which ought to animate ns I The new routes opened throngh the hnge African continent, the great commercial crises, the creation of new colonial empires, the birth of international states, the chivalrons enterprises for the rescne of a valiant soldier; the encroachments of Islam, which is everywhere forming its odions slave-cofles, and pnshing them like mere cattle toward the coasts; the corrnption which our merchant ships discharge upon these same coasts, and Which insinuates itself into the veins of these vigorous populations to enervate them; the perseverance of our miSSionaries, who alone in the night of paganism, like sentinels of a forlorn hope, watch the horizon in hope of discovering the arrival of new recruits, not isolated but in serried ranks; the Christian constancy, in the midst of torments, of negro colliessors, the blood of martyrs -do they not instrnct us that the hour of God has strnck for missionary efforts snch as shall surpass all that has been done hitherto? Do not all these events cry ont to us, 'Where is there to-day in the church the love of Christ which constrained a Paul f' "
M. Duvoisin, of the French Protestant mission in South Africa, writes: " A considerable part of our work, and we may well believe not the least solid, is that which is wrought, so to speak, In the deep places of th~ earth, and which consists in restoring the conscience and in laying ,n human sonls the very beginnings (les assises) of that moral fonndation on which some day may rise the fabric of a living and spiritual faith. Here is a work which escapes our hama. standards.of valnation, and which, nevertheless, is so precions that it would be worth the consecration ot one's life to it, were one never to have the joy of registering a single conversion."
Dr. Casalis, from among the Bassutos, writes to his father, describing a visit to a remarkable waterfall : "The river has cut itself a bed 300 feet lower than the rest of the platean, before arriving at a narrow gorge surrounded by frightful precipices, and there it makes a perpendicnlar leap of 620 feet. I do not feel myself capable of describing this wonder of nature. I have seen Niagara; I have visited the Staubb..ch, the Reichenbach, the Giessbach, etc., and nevertheless I have fonnd the Maletsnnyane more overpowering still. Tbe gorges are something extraordinary, rising perpendicularly almost 900 feet, like a titanic wall of a reddish granite veined with white qnartz. Here again rises a tower of more than 5,600 feet; you might thiIlk it the tower of an old cathedral. How is it, that during more than forty years the missionaries of Lessouto have never snspected the existence of such a marvel f"
CONDITION OF FEMALES IN INDIA
Occasional visits to such a resort will be a wonderful restorative to the spirits and health of the missionaries.
Says the Journal des Missions Evangeliques : " The history of Christian missions on the west side opens with a characteristic and most mOving incident. In the middle of the eighteenth centnry ten Moravian missionaries established themselves on the Gold Coast. In 1770 they had ali snccumbed to the murderous climate of this region. Count Zinzendorf declared, in a memorable and prophetic epitaph, that the ten seeds thns laid in the soil of the dusky continent should yet spring forth in a waving harvest. The Basel Missionary Society in 1828 succeeded to the Moravians. In 1840 the sole snrvivor of this second company of volnnteers retnrned to Basel. They had been faithful unto death. Canon Taylor has good rcason to say, however disparagingly he may mean it, that the chnrch has made great sacrifices for Africa. The pretended Moslem missionaries lay waste the land and massacre without pity entire popUlations. The servants of Jesus Christ, aner the example of their divine Master, lay down their lives if need be to save that which is lost.
" What is the present state of the Basel missions on the Gold Coast? They reckon in the ten stations nearly 8,000 adherents, of whom 2,995 are communicants. The work is directed by 82 European missionaries, 19 native pastors and 116 evangelists and schoolmasters. And this is only one of at least twelve missionary societies which are sending laborers into these homes of fe"er and death, among which we are glad to be permitted to mention our own modest work in Senegal."
Canon Taylor's Moslem missions do indeed have their dark side, as witness the following, from the Journal des Missions Evangeliques: .. In 1855 peace and prosperity reigned in the country between the Opara and the Niger; fertile fields sustained the nnmerous villages which filled the valleys, according to the testimony of the traveler Clapperton. When Richard Lander traversed these countries in 1830 he no longer fonnd there anything but slight traces ofburnt villages and here and there a banana plant struggling with the weeds; the howling of apes and the cries of paroquets alone disturbed the silence and solitnde. The fanatical Fulbes had passed over all things like a destroying wave. Some bands of fugitives, rem nants of more than 150 villages burned and destroyed, sought refnge in a cavern near an immense clilr of porphyry. There they fortified themselves and named this asylum Abeokuta-that is to say, • Under the Rock.' "
The history of the steadfast Christian church of Abeokuta and of Yoruba is well known.
CONDITION OF FEMALES IN INDIA.
[From a discourse delivered to a company of ladies in the castle of a German baron, by Rev. Mr.
RUDOLPH.] "A WOMAN when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour has come; but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for the joy that a man is born into the world." But in India the poor mother has additional anguish, of which mothers in Christian lands know nothing. For months she has petitioned the gods to grant her a son; she has tried to propitiate them by gifts and promises, and now in the hour of pain and danger she looks eagerly at the women that surround the bed. At the decisive moment she watches to receive the glad tidings from their lips, "It is a son and not a daughter." But who can describe the disappointment of her attendants when they have to 8.nnounce to the poor mother that her hopes are not to be realized? How sinks her heart within her! how does she wish the child were never born! No expression of joy greets the little stranger; the little daughter is received as an intruder upon the family, that has no claims on a mother's affection. Caste distinction may peremptorily demand that an end be put to her existence forthwith.
If she is permitted to live, the father assumes the grave responsibility of seeing her married within seven or eight years. A Brahman would lose his caste if his daughter remains unmarried at the age of eleven years. But proper marriage alliances are not easily affected in India. A girl must marry in her own caste, but not in the same subdivision to which she belongs, nor in one that stands lower than her own. For those subdivisions, therefore, that stand highest in honor and reputation, it is often absolutely impossible to form proper marriage ties, and hence the only way of escape from such; difficulties is to put the little girls to death as soon as they are born. A skilllui pressure on the neck or a small opium pill would be resorted to wherever the vigilance of the English Government was but little feared. In most cases now, however, the parents try to obtain the desired end by other means. The child is untended and uncared for in every possible way. Unsuitable food is given; it is exposed to the inclemency of the weather in a state of nudity. Cleanliness, so important to a young child, is often not used.
If, however, the girl survives the neglect and the hard treatment she has received from the hands of those from whom she might have claimed love and affection, she is allowed to grow up without ever knowing what it is to have loving parents. They do not rejoice at her unfolding beauty or the ripening of her understanding. She receives no education to make her a fit helpmeet .for the lad that may enjoy the privileges of a good school. A mother in India has no wish to see her daughter beeome wiser than she herself is. The poor little thing has reached the age of seven, and the family' barber is commissioned to look out for a family with whom an alliance may be properly conduded. This important functionary must give himself no rest till he has found one that can fulfill all the conditions as to caste, wealth, standing in society, etc. He now puts himself en rapport with the barber of that family, who informs his employers of all he has ascertained about the little girl and her family.
An engagement being agreed upon, and the gods having been asked through the Brahmans, whose good will is obtained by gifts, a sum of monpy, a few dishes of sweetmeats, or afew bags of grain are sent into the house of the girl. The betrothal is followed in a year or two by the marriage of the little couple. Vast preparations are made to celebrate it with due pomp. Sums of money at exorbitant interest are often borrowed by the father, which it is impossible for him ever to repay. Astrologers are consulted as to a lucky day when the ceremony may be performed; near and distant relations and friends are invited to the marriage feast.
Musicians and dancing girls are engaged for the amusement of the men outside, while the women sit pent up in small apartments trying to eatch a gbnce, through the lattice-work of a small window or from behind a curtain, of the festivites carried on outside. The bridegroom is the centre of all; the bride is of no aecount.
Vhile the marriag'e procession on horsebaek and all kinds of vehicles, and accompanied by music, is passing through the streets of the town, copper and silver coins are scattered among the sight-seeing crowd at random. Strong young men thus reap a rich harvest, while they thrust the poor weak beggars, for whom the offering was intended, unmercifully aside. These often go away empty-handed.
The Brahmans have been feasted; they now recite with great rapidity the marriage rites in the Sanskrit language, which fortunately bnt few understand, for many expressions are far fl'om delieate. They walk three times round a fire, tie the garments of the two ehildren into a knot. The bride has to take seven steps, a ring is drawn through her nose, and now she is the wife of a lad perhaps a year or two older than herself, She continues to live in the house of her father till she is of age, when she is sent away under the disagreeable howling of the women of the house to the dwelling place of hel' husband. Here she enters another labyrinth of dark passages, small damp apartments and dirty inclosures, which look very much like the abode she has been accustomed to. She is now closely watched by fault-finding mothers-in-law and severe aunts, and she is envied bitterly by widowed young maids who were less fortunate than herself, having lost their boy husbands before they knew them, and who are now condemned to perpetual widowhood. The position of the young wife is not to be envied though. The house being uncomfortably arranged and thickly peopled by the members of the family, she has no' opportunity to be alone with her husband. In fact she sees him only in the evening by the flicker of a small lamp or on the flat roof of the house, by moonlight. In the presence of a third, not even her own children, she never sees him unveiled. All that she knows to teach her children is to fear their father.
Within a few short years she may have to share her rights as wife with another hated rival, who may soon succeed in pushing her and her children out of her position altogether. At best life with her is a continual struggle. The children grow up to hate each other; strife and quarreling among them is the rule of the day. If she happens to be childless she :;;ubmits to her fate with impatience, and possibly she may yield her affections to the children of her adversary; for whom else has she that she can love?
Who would dare to describe the abuse and neglect, the angry words and blows to which the poor women have to submit in a land where it is not reckoned a shame if her husband lifts his haud against his wife? But if she survives the hard treatment she has received in her younger years, the time comes when she will revenge herself on her lord. In old age, when passion has done it utmost to efface from her heart and countenance everything that is lovely, she generally manages to regain her lost position. It is now her turn to change the house into a hell of strife to her husband as well as to all the younger members of the family. Her old, weak, emaciated husband has now to submit, and if he does not she may sue him in court for the means of support or the restoration of jewels. Public opinion is now against him, for in India old women are well esteemed, while younger ones are treated as dirt, and girls are ciphers that have no claims of any kind. Anxiously waits the decrepit old man for the day when he may purchase a rupee's worth of fuel to burn the remains of her that hath embittered his old age so much. And after her decease he is not slow by any means to show the contempt he regarded her with, and the satisfaction he feels in being released from such a companion. Ask him why he neglects to shave his beard, and he may answer, Will I shave when I have lost an old shoe?
It is not so when she survives her lord. Her voice will be the loudest among all the mourners in the house and she will most scrupulously perform every prescribed rite that she may believe to be capable of procuring his happiness in a future world. You meet an old woman alone on the highway, unaccompanied by any attendant or friend; as she passes you, you ask her where she is going, and you are told in reply that she is on a pilgrimage to the Ganges, and that she carries the last remains of her deceased husband into the holy stream, to secure his final happiness. But where is the box that contains these remains? Ask her, and she may open the corner of hel" coarse veil and show you a piece of charred bone that she has picked up from the ashes, at the cremation of the corpse, and that she regards as a sufficient representative of her departed lord.
Bad as the condition of a Hindu wife may be, that of a widow is still worse. She may never have known her husband, he may have died when still a boy; she is condemned to perpetual widowhood, and this means a life worse than death.
At the decease of her husband she is deprived of her hair, her jewels, her good clothes. The coarest food and the hardest treatment is good enough
THE BABOO CHUNDER SEN
for her. She is excluded from all festivities in the family, she is treated henceforth as a slave. She ought to have been burnt with the body of her husband, but the English Government has forbidden it, and the widow there- a: fore remains source of anxiety in the house of her father-in-law. She is sur- rounded by the grossest immorality, and who would dare to lift the veil as to the temptations that her chastity is exposed to, and the consequent danger to her life? Poison is a convenient means to hide a multitude of sins, and the report that she died of cholera may save the honor of the family. If childmurder was an easy means to relieve the father of the difficulty of providing a suitable husband for his new-born babe, the cremation of the relict with the body of her husband used to be another means to strike at the root of all the difficulties that a widow might create to a family, and intoxicating drugs would be a powerful help to secure her consent. The watchfulness of government hinders the perpetration of this crime, and thus a life of unspeakable humiliation and misery is prolonged to the widow, but in many cases only in order to be cut short still by the cup of poison. And here government can bring but little relief by laws and regulations, because life in a Hindu family is too much hidden from the eye of the public observer.
Only the gospel can bring here effectual relief-the gospel with its enlightening, softening, consoling influences. And as the missionary cannot carry the Bible into the family, but female missionary agents can do it, we must beg that these be sent in large numbers, so that the blessings of the Christian religion may be brought to the families of the people of India.
THE BABOO CHUNDER SEN.
INDIA originated the two religions most widely spread of any, Brahmanism and Buddhism. Lately a third religion seemed strugglinginto life-an Eclectic Theism. The Eramo Somaj of India aims to combine whatever is best in all religions, Christianity rating highest, in one new faith for all mankind. Under the influence of Dr. Duff, the great missionary at· the mouth of the Ganges, arose Rommahun Roy, who died in 1833. To him succeeded Tavoal the Bengalee, who carried out the same views, accepting the Vedas, and forming a theistic society, a "Natural Religion." Of these two men Chunder Sen was the lineal descendant and heir. He was a man of magnificent physique, thoroughly honest and sincere, not profound, and scorned all books unless they be the bibles of the religions. It has been said that there are in India ten thousand Emersons; he was the greatest-ambitious, politic, exceedingly devout and emotional, not at all of an analytic or philosophical mind, not an Occidental but an Oriental in every sense of the word, a mystic, throwing himself wholly upon the intuitional in himself. More than any Quaker he believed in conscience, in an Inner Voice. No man held more heartily than he to the doctrine of an overruling Providence, to prayer, to an inspiration which answers to illumination. He considered himself gifted with an indwelling spirit, and yet that the spirit of the prophet ·is subject to the prophet. Our Scriptures he accepted as above all other bibles, the book most from God, and yielded to it avowedly when in conflict with his own "inspiration." He believed that in and by him the Holy Ghost revealed a new dispensation which shall result in the unification of all religions. He detested Unitarianism, and denounced its one representative in India; and he opposed materialism, agnosticism, atheism. He had his own idea of a trinity, regarding Christ as having existed from eternity, but" as an attribute of God." He was impetuous, possessed of the noblest oratory, completely the master of himself in every emergency. His English was. simply perfect. Every Sunday he preached in the City Tabernacle, but his chief place of worship was in his own house. Here his disciples came together
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW
every day of the week. Seated upon a raised platform, he entered upon the service, after music, in a very long prayer, the most intense petitions of which he and his disciples regarded as inspired. Often his disciples kissed his feet, but that is a not unusual sign in India of reverence only, not of worship. After music another long prayer was offered, sometimes by a disciple. When two or more such prayers were in agreement, that agreement was considered to be by inspiration and recorded as such, the truth thus revealed being accepted as infallible. These services often lasted five or six hours. At the close a poet, to the accompaniment of an instrument, indulged in an improvisation which was taken down from his lips by a stenographer. Over 1000 such Hindu hymns have been preserved, accepted as inspired scripture. When advised to read this book or that, the suggestion is rejected with scorn. "No, never," they reply; "we prefer to gaze in, and by prayer into the face of God." A vessel of oil is placed during their services upon a central table and set on fire; sticks of fragrant wood are cast into it, with the exclamation over each, "Thus perish our lust, our pride, our self-will!" During prayer a pause of some minutes occurs, in which each supplicant is supposed to be making an absolute surrender of himself to God. At the end of the service is the cry of all present, "Victory to God!" and the benediction follows, "Peace, peace!" The Baboo used dances, theatricals, processions, singing in public, and every other means of disseminating his religion. He abhorred caste, idolatry, child marriages, transmigration, and all forms of infidelity, while a hearty friend of temperance and every philanthropy. Yet, alas, when challenged to do so, the new religion could not produce a dozen individuals reformed by its agency from drunkenness; in a word, its practical results are very few and faint, and tha,t after thirty years of effort and the organization of 200 societies over India. The whole thing is but a beautiful bubble, knowing nothing of an atoning Saviour or a regenerating Spirit.
BRIEF NOTES ON NEW BOOKS OF A MISSIONARY CHARACTER.
Christianity in the United States. From the First Settlement down to the Present Time. By Daniel Dorchester, D.D. 8vo, pp.795. Price, $4.50. New York: Phillips & Hunt.
This is a noble volume in size and mechanical appearance as well as in its contents. The author, so well known for his work on "The Problem of Religious Progress," has given much time and patient labor to the production of the present volume, which is of the highest interest and value, and will long remain a standard work on the subject.
Dr. Dorchester has taken up the work of that eminent historian of Religion i'fl, America, REV. ROBERT BAIRD, D.D., and is carrying it forward with distinguished zeal and ability, and is doing invaluable service for Christianity. No attempt has here been made to write the history of our various religious denominations, but a bird's-eye view of the field is presented under the threefold classification of the three great competing forces in the religious life of the aation-"Protestantism, Romanism, and a variety of Divergent Elements." As to the Protestant churches, the beginning of each, the organic changes, schisms and reunions and the evangelizing agencies employed by them are sketched. The Roman Catholic Church has also blilen fully, fairly and generously dealt with. The Divergent Elements, existing only as drifts of sentiment and mainly unorganized, have been skillfully handled. The statistical exhibits of all the religious bodies are the best their own'official Minutes or Year-books make possible. The numerous and carefully prepared statistical tables are invaluable. We have already availed ourselves, in anticipation of the book, of some of these statistics in this REVIEW, and shall frequently have occasion to refer to them in the future. We congratllate the author and the publishers on the completion and pUblication of so grand a work bearing directly on the status of the American Church and the cause of Christianity.-J. M. S.
Protestant Foreign MiSBions. By Theodore Christlieb, D.D. Only Authorized American Edition. Congregational Publishing Society, Boston.
While this little work has been some time before the public we gladly call the attention of our readers to it. It has run through several editions in Germany, and been translated into French, Dutch and Swedish. It is a laborious and careful work, giving a "universal survey of Protestant Foreign Missions" down to the date of its publication in 1880.-J. M. S.
Ohrist mid the Gospels. By James P. Cadman, A.M. Chicago: American Publication So- ciety of Hebrew. Chas. Scribner's Sons, N. Y. Price, $1.50.
This is a life of our Lord in the words of the evangelists, and after the Re- vision of 1881. It has already passed its sixth edition, and deserves it. It contains a synopsis of the Gospels, explanations of the text, a Life of our Lord in Bible words, together with a brief history of various translations, indices of persons, places and subjects, maps, diagrams, etc.
The four Gospels are here made to throw their combined light on the career of the Lord Jesus. The true chronological order is, as far as can be ascertained, followed after the method of Rev. S. J. Andrews.
So far as we have examined this admirable book it is a very great help to any devout student of the New Testament. A simple but complete method is pursued by which at a glance,the analysis is presented of the entire con- tents of the Gospels, together with the improved readings of the text, and Scripture parallel references in full. A full and complete index is found at the close. Bible class teachers will find in it a helpful companion to the study of the Gospels. We began the examination of the volume WIth little interest, but laid it down with a conviction that it is a valuable contribution to Bible literature.-A. T. P.
The Story of Smyrna Medical Mission, in Connection with the Church of Scotland.• R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh, Scotland. Price, sixpence.
While this mission is a branch of the operations of the Jewish Mission Com- . mittee of the Church of Scotland, it receives no share of the ordinary church collections forthe Jewish missions, but is sustained by special aid from friends and churches, The account given in this little work by Mr. Scott, one of the missionaries of the society, is highly interesting.-J. M. S.
The Crisis Of MiSSions. By A. T. Pierson, D.D. Price,35 cents.
The Carter's have brought out a paper-cover edition of this wonderful work, of which many editions have been sold in a single year. It is a marvel in cheapness, considering the size and excellent quality of the letter-press.
The same publishers have brought out a new edition, the fourteenth (price, $1. 25, 12mo, pp. 406), of Moffat's" Southern Africa," with a brief sketch of his life, condensed from the "Lives of Robert and Mary Moffat," published by the Armstrongs and which we reviewed at considerable length in these pages in our January issue. We need not repeat what we there said. Moffat was an extraordinary character; his long missionary career in laying the founda- . tion of the South African Church was extraordinary; and this book, written by him on a visit to England (1839-43), considering the period at which it was written was, in some respects, the most extraordinary work on Africa ever written. We read it at its first appearance with a degree of interest and excite- ment we have seldom felt. His vivid pictures of African scenery and life, his perilous adventures, and his experiences as a missionary explorer and pioneer over all that region which his son-in-law Livingstone, Stanley, and others have since laid bare to the civilized world, have scarcely ever been exceeded. The impression of the book on our mind, after a lapse of over forty years, is almost as vivid as the day we read it.-J. M. S.
The Teaching 0/ the Apostles. By Prof. J. Rendel Harris. Baltimore: Publication Agency of the Johns Hopkins University.
This is a newly edited and superb edition of this remarkable work, with lac-simile text and a commentary for the use of this university. Through the negotiations initiated by Dr. Hale with the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the co-operation of Mr. Henry Gillman, the United States Consul of that city, a complete series of photographs of the" Teaching" have been obtained and are here given, thus securing in the most complete form possible the publication of the recovered memorlal from the early days of Christianity. It is a work of great intrinsic worth to the whole church of God.-J. M. S.
A Budget 0/ Letters/rorn Japan. By Arthur Collins Maclay, A.M., LL.B. I'p.391. New York: Armstrong & Son.
From a missionary point of view this is a book of decidl'd interest. It is written by an intelligent man after close observation and the best of opportunities for judging the Japanese. A long chapter is devoted to the missionary work. He says they are "champion listeners. They wear an ordinary man out. They are insatiate. They come three or four times a day, urging a continuance of the speech. I knew one missionary who began at four o'clock in the afternoon, and when he was exhausted his native helpers carried on the exhortation until nine o'clock at night. Of course sermonizing is not resorted to. Simply the barest recital of the Ii fe, the work, the agony of our Redeemer seems to chain their attention. The people then disperse. Very few of them, perhaps, will be baptized. But curiosity has been awakened to know about this extraordinary religion; books are bought; and when the missionary makes his next visit he will find a number of earnest inquirers after the truth."
Other chapters give discussions of the claims of Christianity as compared with Buddhism, and the need the heathen have of the gospel of salvation, and of the results effected by Christianity as compared with the results of Buddhism. This discussion is conducted with great ability and fairness. The author gives a clear and concise account of the early efforts of Protestant Christianity and the results down to 1877, the time when he left Japan.
Mr. Collins tells the following story as characteristic: "The Mitsui Bank in Tokio is a national bank, backed up with the money of the government. Young Japan had been especially educated abroad to carryon the banking sy!'tem on approved foreign principles. They were intelligent, capable and shrewd. They made excellent cashiers, tellers, bookkeepers, and clerks, so far as the merely executive qualities were concerned. They possessed every intellectual requirement necessary for carrying on a bank, but they were too intelligent. They were so thoroughly acquainted with financiering that they understood many little methods ofdeflecting cash from the treasury into their own pockets. And there was no power except fear that could prevent their doing so ; and fear had but little effect, as there was hardly any fear that the capitalists, composed of effete daimios and of government officers unfamiliar with banking, could detect how the cash disappeared. In this predicament, one of the bank officers, with great candor and solicitude, came and explained the situation to one of the missionaries. He frankly admitted that he did not believe in any religion whatsoever. He claimed that the Japanese intellect was of too philosophical a nature to accept the Jewish myth called Christianity. 'But,' said he, 'your religion does something that our religions cannot do. It makes men honest. Now, we wish our employees at the bank to be carefully instructed in these principles, so that they may learn to discharge . their duties with scrupulous integrity.'''
Mr. Collins says that the missionaries meet their greatest discouragemenij from the foreign community. "The cause of this hostility is easy to see. The presence of missionaries is a continued rebuke to the greater part of the foreign community, who are leading lives they would not think of leading at home. The natives are soon taught that these foreigners are living beneath their duties and privileges. They soon learn to point this fact with cutting and contemptuous observations, which gall the recipients thereof exceedingly. And they soon begin to draw a line between the two portions of the community: one portion is bent on gain, it is selfish and grasping, it abuses its servants, deals harshly with the natives, and is licentious; the other portion acts justly toward all, so that servants are anxious to secure them as masters, and the merchants are always on the qui vive to open accounts with them. They learn the language accurately and elegantly, and instruct the people carefully and thoroughly, and the people soon begin to love and respect them. "-J. ]H. S.
Mary and I. Forty Years with the Sioux. By Stephen R. Riggs, DD., LL.D. Pp.437. Price, Sl.50. Boston Congregational Publishing Society.
The reader who takes up this book is quite sure to read it through. He will recognize in the Mary of this story a worthy pupil of Mary Lyon and Miss Grant. Cultured and attractive, she cheerfully left her Massachusetts home and plunged into the wilderness of Lac Qui Parle. She found a " home" for five years in the upper story of Dr.Williamson's log house. From the letters written at the ijme to friends in the East, we get vivid pictures of the privations, discouragements. dangers, and triumphs of those who devoted their lives to giving the gospel to the Indian. How bravely she bore up in that terrible midnight flight from Hazelwood, and the long perilous journey to St. Paul through the pelting rains and wet swamp-grass, and with murderous savages upon the trail!
"The other partner in this firm," says Prof. S. C. Bartlett in his brief Preface, "needs no words of mine. He speaks here for himself, and his labor speaks for him. His Dakota Dictionary and Bible are lasting monuments of his persevering toil, while eleven churches with a dozen native preachers and 800 members, and a flourishing Dakota Home Missionary Society bear witness to the Christian work of himself and his few colaborers. , Forty Years among the Sioux,' he writes. ' Forty Years in the Turkish Empire' was the story of Dr. Goodell. ' Fifty Years in Ceylon' was the life work of Levi Spalding. What recol'ds are these of singleness of aim, of energy, of Christian work, and of harvests gathered and gathering for the Master! "-J. M. S.
The EvangelizatilYn oj the World. A Missionary Band. A Record of Consecration and Appeal.
This is a volume prepared especiallyfor the student volunteers. It contains 242 pages. Published by L. Morgan & Scott, London, 12 Paternoster Buildings. The price is not given, but if we remember it is 18. 6d. sterling. It was published under the name of "The Missionary Band," and has run through fifteen thousand. It is now enlarged and published under this new title. It contains skillfully arranged extracts from Spurgeon,Arthur,Griffith,Vaughan, Moule, Somerville, Radcliffe, Loudels, Alden, Guinness, Pierson, Cust Haig, Hudson Taylor, etc. It is one of the best books conceivable to put into the hands of young men and womeq. Its paragraphs are a history, a poem, a prophecy, all at once. Short, suggestive, on fire with God's Spirit. The themes so briefly treated are: The Needs in India, China, Africa, e!c.; Benefits to the Church from Missions; Injury to the Church from Neglect, etc. ; The Missionary Spirit; The Men and Women Wanted; The Work of Missions; Truths Essential to Success; Prayer; Personal Consecration; Spiritual Anointing; Woman's Work; Y. M. C. A.; Universities and the Missionary Volunteers; Helpful Books; Missionary Societies, etc. There are 20 full-page illustrations, alone worth the price of the book, besides three maps, four musical pieces, and six portraits.-A. T. P.
Hodder', Li/e Q/ the Earl 0/ 8ha/tesoor1l. 3 volumes. London and New York: Cassell & Co.
We do not hesitate to say that from this book, which we read with enthusiastic delight, we got more inspiration and help in the direction of missionary labor at home and abroad than from any other biography we ever read. Shaftesbury was a rare and unique example of a man who deliberately turned his back on temptations to wealth, position, rank and power, pleasure and self-indulgence, to undertake the uplifting of his fellow men. Without regard to their position, degradation, or depravity, with utter contempt of casteocracy, he devoted his time, his money, his whole soul, to the work of reforming abuses, abolishing outrages, and improving conditions. For sixty years of his public life he never swerved from his purpose. He accepted as his divine calling this sublime vocation, to lift up the fallen, and to take out of the way of the poorest and most easily tempted the enticements to evil. Where he found a man ignorant of Christ he sought to inform him; where he found the most abandoned criminal he sought to touch the tender spot where capacity of response still remained. He fought for half a century to see the abuses of the insane asylums, factories, mines, and workshops abated or removed, and meanwhile stood at the head in all true labors to bring the. gospel to bear on the darkest and most abandoned quarters of the great cities, especially London. Every intelligent and earnest man or woman ought to read this book. Those who cannot afford to buy it ought to borrow it. The copy we own is a part of our "circulating library," and we rejoice to see it worn out in service, as its heroic subject was. As a model biography, as a biography of a model philanthropist, as a book which combines the value of a history with the beauty of a poem and the fascination of a novel, we cannot speak in terms high enough to express our appreciation of Mr. Hodder's magnificent work.-A. T. P.
Modern Olties and Their Religious Problems. By Samuel Lane Loomis. New York: Baker, Taylor & Co.
This is a book that deserves to be widely read. It touches wisely and discriminatingly some of the most practical problems of the day. The author has manifestly spent years in the personal and painstaking investigation of the questions he discusses, and his suggestions throw a flood of light on the method of dealing with the cities. The Introduction, by Dr. Josiah Strong, is itself worth the price of the book. But this iii! not meant to deprljOiate what follows. The growth, social composition, and menace of the cities is plainly set before the reader; and then the best and most successful methods of Christian and philanthropic work are presented, with extended references to the actual examples of such work in London and Paris. The last chapter abounds in useful hints, as to the increase and employment of working force, the nature and frequency of such service, the value of the parish system, etc. The two chapters on Christian work as performed in London, with the ex- tended and detailed description of the methods employed, furnish in themselves a volume rich in valuable contribution to the practical solution of the great perplexities now before the church. This book should be set side by side with" Our Cquntry," and read by all earnest and thoughtful men and women. -A.T.P.
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE
II. -CORRESPONDENCE and GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
The Missionary Meeting. Ages. The carrying of the gospel to the modern nations. St. Augustine, Cyril and Methodlus ; [Letter from Mr. H. N. Brainerd, a St. Patrick in Ireland, etc. (c) Study of Boman graduate of Harvard, who expects to Catholic and Jesuitical missions. Francis be a foreign missionary.] Xavier, Loyola, etc. Dlustrative of the wrong method of working. (d) Modern missions. How shall we make our missionary meetings Awakening of Protestants. History of societies, both profitable and interesting? This is a ques- especially of the early movements in our own tion often asked, and for nOne is a practical country. (Si Study of particular missions, as answer more important than for the members of China Inland Missions, missions of Polynesia, the missionary bands now to be found in nearly the Harmannsburg MiSSion and the rest. (4) all our colleges. Perhaps a few suggestions may Study of missionary heroes, as Carey, Brainerd, be helpful. John Eliot, Judson, Bishop Patteson, Living- stone, Moffat, Henry Martyn and hosts of others. 1. Give the missionary meeting a status. De- (5) Study of the actual life and work of the various termine upon the number which may be reason- missionary stations. This may be got from reably expected to be held, and make no devia- turning missionaries, always glad to speak of tion, providential events alone excepted. If pos- their work; from the various publications of sible bave a regular date assigned. This will the different SOCieties; from current literature. sllow of thorough preparation. especially periodicals, happily not now indlfi'er- ent to these subjects. (6) Study of blessings 2. Give the missionary meeting an efficieut or- other than religiOUS, arisiug from efforts of misganization. Ifyour association has a missionary sionaries, as translations of the SCriptures and committee, see that the most active and de- other books, the foundations of new literatures, voted of the band are among its members. If schools. The cessation of idolatry, cannibalism, possible choose those who are in some way con- infanticide,. and modificatiou for the better of nected with actual missionary work. A record many superstitions. (7) Contributions of misof the meetings and proceedings should be kept. sions to science, such as is found in the Ely It wlll be valuable for future reference. volume. The missiouary exploration of Africa.
S. As to the meeting itself. The course of the Subjects like these ought to be interesting to meeting may be turned in several directions: every one. The Christian college man Is just the person who should be familiar with this A. The religious or ethical. In this attention kuowledge. If on no other ground, Christianity should be turned to the spiritual features of the is worthy of attention for its respectable infiumissionary question. This may not differ much ence in history, to be seen nowhere more clearly in kind from the ordinary prayer-meeting. Snb than in this. jects like these might be taken: C. Auxiliary helps. These are important. (1) The Ground of MIssionary Work. John These are: iii. 16 ; Luke ii. 10 ; Mark xvi. 15; Matt. xxvlti. 18-20. (2) The Need of Missionary Work. (1) Books. Every association or band should Psalms xiv. 2,3; Eph. ii. 12; Rom. x. 13-15; .have its missionary alcove, or shelf for books on Acts xvi. 9. (8) The Purpose of Missionary missions. (2) Maps. These are almost indis- Work. Luke xix: 10; Acts xxvi. 18. (4) The pensable to a successful meeting. They may be Siu of Standiug Aloof. 2 Kings vii. 9 ; Judges v. had at reasonable rates. (3) Charts and publica- 23; Matt. xxv. 25, 26. (5) The :Motive. Luke tions of the dlfferent societies, as "Gospel in all xvi. 5; 2 Cor. v. 14; 2 Cor. viti. 9. (6) Ways of Lands," M'wBionary Herald, THE MISSIONARY Helping. Isa. vi. 8; 2 Cor. i. 11; Matt. ix. 38 ; REVIEW, American Baptist M'f88ionary Maga- zine, and many others. They may be got always, Acts ix. 61; Col. iii. 23 ; 2 Cor. ix. 7. (7) The Re- either free Or at a merely nominal cost. (4) Curiosities from missionary fields. These may ward. Prov. xi. 25 ; Job xxix. 13; Matt. xxv. 28. not be in the reach of all, bat they render a (8) The End of Missionary Work. Matt. xxiv. meetiug very interesting. Copies of Scriptures, 14; Isa. ii. 18: Hab. ii. 14; Rev. xi. 15. objects relating to customs, productions, an- tiquities, are all profitable. (5) FInally seek and This list is not exhaustive. Many others will obtain the co-operation of your president and suggest themselves. professors. They can often aid very much in rendering an evening spent on any of these topics B. The practical and historical. This side of one worth the attention of all the students. missions is as vast and as varied as the world itself, for "the field is the world." We might In closing let me say that these topiCS are suggest here : simply intended to be suggestive. That which must be at the base of all missionary work-a (1) Study of dlfi'erent fields, as China, Japan, consecrated, active, senSible heart and mind, India, Turkey, etc. Information of the people, full of the Holy Spirit-Is most necessary here. customs, tongues, climate, productions, advantages, state of society and religion in these countries. The caution here Is not to undertake more than can be thoroughly handled. (2) Stndy of history of missions. (a) Ancient missions, which ended in the Christianization of the Roman Empire. (lI) Missions of the Middle To sueh a one these suggestions will, I trust, be pit aud looks down tnto thousands or sonls but a beginning-the first-fruits of a plentiful whose darkest night has never shimmered with harvest. Above all, let every member of the eveu a starlight ray of God's blessed and savtng band take especial interest in the meeting. Let gospel. We find ourselves here in a town ot him make it a constant theme for prayer. Let about 30,000 tnhabitants, to whom only two men all who are to contribute in any way to the are preaching Christ in the vernacnlar. The meeting hold a previous period of prayer and direct need at home is scarcely so straitened consecration together. Such efforts the Holy as that, and yet this place is supposed to be well Spirit loves to bless. supplied with missionaries and preachers."
From a Student Volunteer. NOTE FROM ANOTHER VOLUNTEER. The" Student Volunteer Movement for For- HAVB read with keen pleasure the circular, eign Missions" is still increasing. Names of .. Student Volunteers for Foreigu Missions." I volunteers are coming tn every week. Stnce favor strougly having one college each mouth the New Year Grove City College, Pa., has enwrite a somewhat similar letter, sketching the listed her sympathies and a number of volonuhistory of Its own foreign missionary movement, teers tn this movement, and also organized togiving any ideas as to their methods of organiz- support a foreign missionary, and they say they ing, increaSing numbers; stirring np snrround- can do it. ing churches, etc., as may seem helpful, and then The report that comes from this college cheers filling the remainder of the letter with snch stir- the band in Union Seminary. This seminary is ring facts as are fonnd in that circnlar, and get- betng stirred on this subject. Prayer-meetings ting as many copies printed as would place one are held each night on the different fioors for in the hands of each of the 2,800 volunteers, and the purpose of awakening a missionary spirit. send them to all the colleges. Gro,"e City College had its attention directed to this movement by a single student to whom a Suppose Yale send one iu January, Prince- letter was written on the subject. ton in February, Harvard in March, Toronto in April (and the others when they will), why Letter from Rev. W. Alfred Redwood. each letter would be a source of iuspiration to the other schools and wonld draw them together MALVALLI, MYSORE TERRITORY, INDIA, with sympathy in the same cause. December 29, 1887.
At the end of the year-the college year-if the IT is a great pleasure to me to find THE MISletters were preserved, each volunteer would be SIONARY REVIEW evangelical iu these days of so loaded with facts that his summer's work "new-fangled notions." If it had a grain of could not fail to be of great power. Try it. How sympathy with such theories as " Future Proba- I long to see the .. volunteers" pull together; tion" I certatnly should not, for one, welcome what a power they must be if only focused! The it under my roof. 2,800 should shake about (yes, altogether) $2,300,- 000 more out of our churches annually than is THE REVIEW tn the past had great sympathy now beiug given for missions, if they" get hold of "with independent missions-I mean work not the church and the Spirit gets hold of them. dependent on a society. It may be glad to know .. Come, it may be that the Lord will work for us; that I am a child of that school and am opening for there is no restraiut to the Lord to work by up this fresh ground to the light of the gospel in many or by few." _ dependence on God alone for all I need both for myself, family and work. And I am bound to .. I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do say, to the honor of his name, that he has never much, but I can do somethiug, and all I can do I allowed me to want. I have been engaged tn ought to do, and by God's grace will do." mission work for abont five years in India, but only a year'-and some months tn this neighbor- What One Did. hood. I have taken up two .. talooks " (dis- trictS) to work which contain about 200,000 Less than eleven months ago Mr. H. F. La- heathen and Mohammedan sonls, the former beflamme joined the" Student Volunteers for For- tng more than 95 per cent. of the whole. Most eign Missions." Six and one-half months after of these people have never heard the name of his decision he sailed for India under the .. Ca- Christ, and their moral condition is too terrible nadinn Board of Missions." Before sailing he to describe. Though not professioua1ly a docand Mr. Davis had appealed to the churches of tor, I give away medictnes to all who apply, and this denomination tn behalf of their foreign have a school, which is well attended, where the work; as a result about $3,000 were added to word of God is taught daily. When we came that denomtnation's foreign missionary tncome here the people were afraid of us, but now they -an income which was scarcely $14,000 the pre- come around us and show much love for us. cedtng year. Mr. Lafiamme writes as follows: .. Cocanada, India, Dec. 9, lSS7.-God can level We suffer of course some privation, from'the mountatns. I reached here just three weeks place being far away from any town where proago aud have had scarcely time to look around, visions can be got, but nothing serious. We still I am ready for this remark. The need here find much more pleasure than pain tn worktng loo!ted large to me when 11,000 miles away, but tn such a place, though there Is not at present a awful wheu one stauds ou the very verge of the suitable house In the neighborhood for Eurnpeans, and our strength Is very small. If we whole gospel, full salvation, Africa for Christ." can buy our present dwelling, the only one of I expect my brother, J. H. Harned, to send me brick in Malvalli, which we rent from govern- a valuable box of medicine which I need immement, we might in time be able to enlarge it, as diately iu my practice, which is already large. the Lord enabled us. The government will There is no doctor in this part of the country, sell it for 700 rupees, i.e., about £50 or $250. My support will come in great measure from this source. Bishop Taylor's Self-supporting Mission. Ha.ve Not I Oommanded Thee? [LetterfromMissionary Harned and wife to the Treasurer of the Society.] [Letter from Miss Grace E. Wilder, written on her way to India.] CAPE PALMAS, LmERIA, Oct. 8, 1887. DEAR BROTHER GRANT: We arrived in port BEFORE conversion, in connection with the here last Saturday. We had considerable diJIi- command "Be ye reconciled unto God," these culty in getting our goods ashore, as there are words arouse deep concern. but few boats, and these boatmen are never in a hurry; but the captain kindly lent two of his What of their message after conversion f boats, which facilitated matters somewhat, but Have not I commanded tkee, redeemed one, most of us staid on board and came ashore with bought with precious blood f Can the pronoun the remainder of our goods Sunday morning. be any less personal as I read " Go ye into all After breakfast we all went to he little old stone the world and preach the gospel to every creachurch, where the Lord graciously poured out ture. Have I not commanded thee f" his Splrit. Mr. Harned was blessed in preaching "God so loved the world that he gave his Ab, we say this .. thee" means the church. only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth It should be Interpreted as an indefinite or a disin him should not perish, but have everlasting tributive and only in exceptional cases as a perlife." In the evening Brother Cadle preached, sonal pronoun. We are like the father who after which an altar service was held aud many after an earnest appeal for missionary workers seekers went forward. We have three services asked for volunteers from his congregation. every day: one at seven in the morning, One at Among the first to rise was his own daughter. 10:00, and the regular revival work in the even- Agitated, he hasteus to whisper to her, "My dear, ing. Many are being gloriously saved, for which I did not mean you." Not alone are fathers and we praise the Lord. mothers saying this, but some are saYing, My son, my daughter, Ohrist doesn't mean you. Friday, Nov. 11, 1887. Even ministers are urging caution. Do they Mrs. Harned commenced this letter, and finally fear a literal apostolic obedience f Alas, the I found time to write a few lines. Of course you church is far from this, for" they were allscstrealize that I am full of business these days. tered abroad, and they that were scattered God is wonderfully with me while attending to abroad went everywhere preaching the word." the very many details of landing aud caring for our effects. I would be glad to write you about me' But, says one, how can I know that Jesus' last the voyage, but present matters press heavily, and I shall write concerning the work. Five of command is for the stations ou the Savilly RiTer have honses Does not much of the doubt over this question completed, and Baraca on the coast is ready for occupation. There are two stations in this large arise from a failure to Bee that God's scheme of tribe, one of which is on the bank of the river service is as wide as his scheme of salvation? and one back in the bush. We are to go to the .. Whosoever will may come; let him that hearstations this week, say about 16th or 17th. eth say come." With confidence we say the Sister Amanda Smith is here with us, work- first of these promises applies to every sinfnl ing as usual with power in the meetings. She is soul, but does not the second as unconditionally not strong, while not really sick. She will not apply to every redeemed soul? Do we meet be able to attend us on our trip up the river. a struggling, timid seeker with the question, Are When we get to our station I shall write a letter you sure God has called you to be saved f God with some description of the work. I would forbid. Satan asks this question. God forbid say for your encouragement that our goods were also that we should create doubt in the heart of landed here without the loss of an article, either a young Christian by asking, Are you sure you from the lot from New York or Liverpool. are called to serve God f As surely as the atone- Brother Pratt seems a fIIithful agent for the ment leaves no doubt as to God's yearning for work. My dear brother, I have no fault to find, the lost, it leaves no doubt as to his purpose for but in the name olthe Lord Jesus get men and the saved. Calvary not only rescued our souls; women of sound body and good sense who can it purchased our service. "He died for all, in accommodate themselves to any circumstances order that they who live should not live unto for Christ's sake, and find out if possible what themselves but unto him who died." This author- kind of doctrine they intend to preach. We go izes us to give him all-heart, soul, strength, to work with great hope of success. The Lord time. Is it not then the privilege of e'lJery Chris- God Is with us; our motto Is" All for Jesus, a tian to make the evangelization of the world the business of life f It is a fearful thing to limit service to a few believers, for this limits salva- tion. Is it not due to this that the church must now face the fact that in the last century while
CORRESPONDENCE AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
she has been gaining 3,000,000 converts hea- own hands f Yes, and we must, for God hall thenism has Increased 200,000,000 1 placed It In our hands. Human choice Is a gill; we must use after salvation as well as before. The Earl of Shat'tesbury says, "Dur1ug the Did not t/le prodigal take the plan of life into latter part of these (eighteen) ceuturies it has his hands when he resolved, " I will arise and been In the power of those who hold the truth, go , " Yet no man cau come nnto me except having means enough, having knowledge enongh, the Father which hath sent me draw him. Ezra and having opportnnity enongh, to evangelize came to Jerusalem accordiug to the good hand , the globe fifty timee over." of his God upon him, for Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord and to do it. What a tonchstone of guilt is the qnestiou, Have Nehemiah forms a definite piau and takes his not I commanded thee? in the light of these three desire to God. "Prosper, I pray thee, thy serfacts' Christ redeemed the world, and with the vant this day and give him favor in the sight of emphasis of his last desire asked us to;evangelize this man." the world. "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I Into the world, that I shonld Mr. Mackay, who celebrated his fonrteeuth bear witness to the truth. As my Father hath anuiversary in Formosa with 1,213 converts, sent me into the world, so have I sent you. When and has during a tour of ten days baptized 1,200 this gospel shall be preached for a witness, then persons, writes: "While superintending the shall the end come." Can I, dare I say, if God work of two hundred workmen I also dispensed wants me to witness he will put me into the medicines to hundreds, preached the gospel for work; if he wants me to be a missionary he will hours at a time, taught the students at night, give me a missionary spirit? Is there the slight- and in three months traveled over 1,600 mUes." est ground for an if here' Are we not holding I don't believe in those cant phrases, "Trust iu the rebellions position of him who says, "If God God and all will come right," unless the rest be wants to save me he wi11 do it ?" He longs to added, Trust In God bnt cut the trees down; save, but he has conditioned salvation. "When trnst in God but burn them; trust In God but ye shall seek me with the whole heart, then shall plough the soil. ., Trust In God but sow the seed ye find me." Panl recognized this 800king at -sow it in tears. I believe we should think, any coot, as also the condition of service. "I plan, pray, and toil as if all depended on our fol(Qw ajt.er, if that I may apprehend that for work-excuse me, as if th.ere were no God. But which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus; I pree8 stop I At the same time conscious we cannot toward the mark of the high calling of God In hold the pen even without the power of our Christ Jesns." Conscious of the awfnlilmiting great, living and adorable Redeemer." Is not power of human inertia, he writes, " Stir up the this truth confirmed In the life of Paul and In gift that is In thee." the experience of every Christian f " Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, Which is the greater, responsibilities In serv- for it is God that worketh in you." The divine ing or the responsibility of not serving' One and human are linked In every action. A divine says, I wonld not dare to be a missionary with- promise of Canaau was not realized for forty out a missionary spirit. But can you dare to years because of human unbelief. The promise, live withont it' Where lies the responsibility The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the if I have not the spirit? Perhaps it is not God's Lord, !bas waited fulfillment 1,800 years. Why f What more subtle and effective, way conld Satsn gift for me. "Let this mind be in you which devise than the unbelief of refusing to take was in Christ J esns." God's revealed will as his will for men? I have not the qualifications. "Who is able TWO NATIVE SIAMESE. to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think?" I am empty, so can't rnn [THE following thrilling letter will over. " Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it." be read with great interest. Though But am I eutitled to appropriate as miue the the editors withhold names, these high aud holy work of wituesslng for Jesus young Siamese are now 'in this coun- where he is not known? Keep and 800k all the commandments of the Lord your God. He has try, personally known and loved by given us the opportnnity of treadiug in the very US.-EDS.] footsteps of Jesus; like him to leave home; like him to be a stranger, despised, rejected; like My DEAR DR. PIERSON: him to seek and save the lost, the privilege of entering into fellowship with Christ's suJferlngs, I am constrained to appeal to yon, my good aud in him have it our meat and drink to do the friend of many years, for counsel and aid, If pos- will of the Father. Is it strauge that God should sible, in this time of need. You know some- not give such attainment until we covet them thing of the circumstances under which, when earuestly? Where was Dauiel when Gabriel In 1876, forced to leave Siam, my home for thirty touched him? "I set my face unto the Lord years, my wife's health brokeu down com_ God to seek by prayer and snpplication with pletely, we brought with us, to be educated In fastings." Again the conditiou appears In Ga- the United States, two Siamese lads, then each briel's words: " At the beginniug of thy supplica- 11 years old. One of these-the expense of whose tion the commandment came forth." passage home aud educatiou we took upon our But, says one, would not seeking to be a mis- sionary be taking the plan of our life Into our
selves-was the son of a true Christian woman- heading was executed stonce upon my poor boy's a treasure to the ladies in charge of the girls' mission boarding school in Bangkok, founded father; his mother and the other native wives by my wife, where she is native matron and teacher. Her heart's desire and prayer for her (the English wife with her babe made good boy was and is that he may become a preacher to his benighted countrymen. her escape to Englaud) were made slaves in tlie The other was the eldest son of one of the king's rice mills, and all the property was con· most intelligent and enterprising young noblemen in the kingdom, high in favor with the fiscated. The boy's graudfather and his two progressive young king, as were also his father and brothers, understanding, as they did, ma- uncles, once great favorites' with the king, were chinery, the steam-engine, photography, gasmaking, etc. The boy's grandfather was super- that same night arrested, sepiuztedinbycthhaeincs~oawnn.d intendent of the royal mint and a member of their houses and property the Idng's privy counCil, and the father had charge of the government gold mines at Pachim. And in chains they stilllu. It would seem as if They 80 earnestly requested us to take the nothing else than the ruin of the family could lad to Amel'ica with us, to be thoroughly educated as a civil and mining engineer, that we satisfy their vindictive enemy. And yet the could not refuse them, desirous as we were of still doing all in our power for the good of the king knows he had none more capable of servland and the people we so reluctlantiy left. So we brought on both these brave littie fellows ing him, but he is powerless against the exwith us across the seas. a~ members of our family, and in due time were established with regent, who in fact put him on the throne. I them in myoid home. I shonld have mentioned as to the latter of these lads that his friends, who cannot but believe however, that on the death were wealthy of course, were to defray all his expenses. of their foe (aud he is quite and old man) this I had been home littie over a year w hen cer- family will be restored to favor. . tain financial reverses left us with a home of our own to be sure, but without income, and with Notwithstanding these unexpected calamities the boy we had undertaken to bring up on our hands. One lad, however, still paid his expenses. which have befallen us, we have persevered iu Two years more passed away, and he too was thrown upon us for support. The story will our purpose to give these boys a thorough edusound like romance, but alas it is too true. cation, both for their own sakes and for Siant's The father had incurred the grave displeasure of his sovereign by strangely elopiug with the sake. They are intelligent and amiable, and, daughter (by a native mother, but highly educated i~ England) of the English cOJ:lsul-general better still, are, we trust, sincere Christians, In –carrying her oft' in a steam yacht, which he owned, to the mining works at Pachim, where 1880 both of them, desiriug to acknowledge behe was a sort 'of viceroy. Unfortnnately for the young noble, the ex-regent, the most pow- fore men the Saviour in whom they believed, erful of all the nobility, had a grudge against his family, and now was an opportunity to gratifY it. and beiug judged worthy, were baptized and re- He took advantage of the king's displeasure to bring charges against him ofembezzlemeut, etc., ceived to church membership. It strangely and when he returned from his three weeks' wedding trip to Bangkok, had him arrested. happened that the very next day there came He was whipped to extort confession, imprisoned, aud throwu into irons. across the seas the uuexpected aud terrible Mr. Consul- General, who at first had been tidings to the young noblemau of his father's exevery angry, now espoused the cause ot his new son·in-law and demanded his release, threaten- cution, hls mother's Slavery, and graudfather's ing a bombardment of the city by an English fleet, and actually ordering up from Siugapore an and uucles' imprisonment, aud of the loss of all. English gnnboat. The Siamese stood firm, however, and dispatched an envoy to England de- Poor boy I he had secured the unfailing Friend manding the consul's recall. This was fiually granted them, the English Government pro- none to soon. nouncing his interfereuce unjustifiable; and on the consul's leaving and the envoy's return They are both promising lads, Uniformly triumphant some months after, sentence of be- good reports as to their deportment and diligence have been received. The professor in charge of their class writes, "They are doing well in their studies," are H industrious land capable." One of them at the close of the first term" ranked .fifth in a class of 3·1," which is certainly very creditable to a boy from a heathen land in a New England school. They maintain too their Christian character and an earnest purpose to fit themselves for usefulness in the land of their birth. They are both 23 years of age. The young noblemau bears a strong resemblance to his unfortunate father whose career ended so tragically, and in looks is a good speCbneu of the better class of Siamese.
It may be that yon have iu the circle of your acquaintance those who could be induced to take an iuterest in the8e Siamese youth and carry them through their educatiou, and thus through them aid not a little in the work of Christianiz- ing and elevating that interestiug kingdom from which they come.
Tribute to Missionaries. I have of- ten been asked, "What of the mis- sionaries of the East? Are they true, and do they serve their Master?" And I have always been a swift witness to say-and I say it now, solemnly and emppa.tically-that if anywhere on it does not need the gospel; .and secthe face of the earth there exists a ondly, that there is any nation so low band of devout Christian men and down in degradation that it is incawomen, it is these. I personally know pable of receiving the gospel. The many men and women, and the names first has been exploded by the triof Dr. and Mrs. Riggs, the names of umphs of the gospel among the most Woods, Bliss, Pettibone, Herrick, accomplished, progressive nations, Dwight, and others spring up in my like India, China and Japan. As to memory most vividly. Their work is the other fallacy, let me mention one of that kind which will in future be or two facts. When Dr. Vander productive of the greatestgood. They Kemp went to labor in Cape Colony live and die in the work. One I know he found over the doors of nominally has been in the work fifty years. They Christian churches this sentence: are God's people and they should be " Dogs and Hottentots not admitted." remembered and sustained by us.- They classed the Hottentots with the General Lew Wallace. dogs, and would not have them even in Christian churches. When the Setting all religio1s questions aside, the civilizing power of the missions; Church Missionary Society went to the revolutions which have been consequent on their work; the coloniza- labor in Madagascar the French govtion, of which they were the pioneers; ernor of the Island of Bourbon said to the growing empires, founded on the missionaries, "Youmightjust as European and American civilization, well attempt to convert the cattle and of which they laid the foundations; sheep as to convert the Malagasy." the enlightening influences which And as to the Australian aborigines, have spread among barbarous nations it was thought at first that they were from their points of labor-all these so far gone that they could not apprecommand the profound respect of all ciate even the fundamental vital men of sense. The one great fact, truths of the gospel, putting them that the spread of the power of the into the simplest language in which English language as the language of you could clothe them. And yet commerce and advancing civilization, what has been done? The grandest receives an assured impetus from mis- victories of the gospel in the ninesions of English – speaking people, teenth century have been among makes these missions of paramount these very people. Madagascar has importance to the spread of British become a Christian island within less and American commerce.-.rournal than fifty years; and what triumphs of Oommerce. have been won among the Hottentots and the Australian aborigines! Taking pagan lands, we find two things. First, the people have lost Proposed New Missionary Society. faith in their religion. Sometimes The organization of a new misthey are not ready for any other faith sionary society is now being con- sidered by Christian workers in the because they are reduced to a condi- United States. Almost simulta- neously suggestions upon the subtion of skepticism or infidelity. Some- ject came from. China, Africa and times they nurse a secret faith until Chicago, to Dr. Dowkontt of the the deathbed, "that detector of the New York Medical Mission. The heart," reveals the real state of things. China Inland Mission and Bishop Sometimes they come out openly, as Taylor's Mission in Africa, which are in Southern India, and confess Jesus self-supporting, are the models set Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the before the friends interested. It is Father. Secondly, the gospel, by its proposed that the new organization triumphs, has exploded these two shall embrace some of the peculiar greatfallacies: first, that there is any features of the&e tWQ missions, and nation so high up in civilization that have in it the element of medical in less than 240 years it amounted to JDlSSlOns. The originators desire to take Canada into.. the organization more than two and a half millions of and make it a representative inter- dollars. And I asked myself whether national missionary society. The God would not make a dollar laid name which thus far commends itself up for him grow as rapidly as it does is " The Evangelical Medical Mission- by the laws of trade." GIVE 1 ary Society." Dr. Jefferis, the leading Con~ The Hope of Paganism. Christian- gationalist in the Sydney pulpit, de- ity is confessedly the greatest power clares that the most degrading in- . in the world. This is so politically, fluence in New South Wales is that commercially, intellectually and mor- of Parliament, which is characterized ally. There are other faiths, as by the intemperate use of strong Buddhism, with a more numerous fol- drink, clouding the faculties of its lowing, but none with comparable members and rendering legislation power. The powerful and ruling na- impossible. tions are Christian nations. The ag- gressive force, the elements of con- Afrlca.-As an instance how entirely quest and molding influence-wealth, the German authorities in East Africa learning, enterprise, progress-are all are attempting to make the mission- in Christian hands. It is a significant aries subserve to their colonizing pur- fact that the political power of poses, not only are German terri- Christendom dominates almost en- tories to be made the preserves of tire paganism, whilst one-third of Protestant missionaries from Ger- paganism is under the absolute sway many to the exclusion of other na- of Christian rulers. All the forces tionalities, but arrangements have of modern thought are Christian. been made with the Pope to establish The eyes of heathenism are turned an ApostolicPrefecturein EastAfrica to the centers of Christendom. The to be occupied by German priests heathen world, dissatisfied with its alone. The French missionaries of religion and civilization, not less the well-known mission atBagomoyo, than with its poverty and misery, is opposite the island of Zanzibar, have looking toward Christendom for help. been constrained to place themselves They are· waiting for deliverance temporarily under German protec- without knowing what it is they are tion, and to continue in their office waiting for. Heathenism cowers and until German priests are duly quali- shrinks away in conscious weakness fied to take their place and develop before Christian thought and Chris- the German language and German tian institutions. Christian truth sat- influence. This appears to be a death- urates the atmosphere of the globe. The very essence of Christianity is blow to real spiritual missionary that it reconstructs man and makes him anew creature. Itnot only recasts work, as the missionaries will degenhis ideas and practices, it resets his erate into German officials, doing the affections and will. It is a life. It is work of chaplains to the German this fact, more than its external vic- settlers and state educationists, and tories, that gives us the confidence deprived of all free action. The that it will possess and remake the French priests set a bad example of world.-Bishop R. S. Foster. preaching France and Christ, and they have found now that the Ger- Dr. Deems relates that one of God's stewards once said to him: "I sat man Government is ready to play the down a night or two ago and calculated the increase of a dollar at same game with a much stronger compound, interest, and found that hand.-Church Miss. Intelligencer.
Life on the Congo. The Rev. W. Holman Bentley, an English mission- ary, has published a. book entitled .. Life on the Congo." Mr. Bentley has been longer in the Congo region than almost any other missionary, have been recently surprised by calls from the Paranapanema district for .and his book contains much that is the govermnent to send Jesuit mis- sionaries to catechise, corral and bapvaluable on the physIcal character- tize pro forma the Chavantes and Guatos, who were coming into the istics and climate of the country, the frontier plantations by fifties and hundreds. Heretofore it has been home life and superstitions of the the fashion to hunt these" buqres" and shoot them for sport like any natives, the experiences of the mis- other wild game; but a few warm- hearted men tried the other plan, sionaries, and some of the results of that of treating them liko human beings, and the result is that they are their labors. It is not yet ten years begging to be taken care of. These tribes are of a peculiarly timid and since the first missionaries at'rived in peaceable disposition, and only at- tack the white settlers when forced the country, and yet already there are to retaliate. The whole district lying between the Paranapanema and the native Christian churches at Mukim- Tiete is peopled by these tribes.
bungu, Lukunga, Banza, Manteka and Here is the finest chance in history for those of our Christian friends who San Salvador; there being about 1,500 do not believe in missions in papal countries. A million of native Americonverts, whose sincerity is attested can pagans; 20,000 immediately ac- cessible! There is a large class of by the self-denial and consistency of so-called "tame Indians" scattered throughout the empire, whose conditheir lives. There are more than fifty tion is wretched almost beyond de- scription, and who know nothing of missionaries, but the greater part of Christ Ot· his salvation. Thecondi- tion of the wild Indian of these souththem have but recently arrived. ern provinces is simply that of a wild animal, naked and unspeakably Mr. Bentley believes that Bishop filthy. Has he a soul, and have Christian people a duty toward him? Taylor's self-supporting idea is im- The work of the government is a farce, so far as any serious attempt practicable in Africa, and that it to evangelize the Indians is concern- ed. The frontiersman shoots him "could only be entertained by those without compunction, the Jesuit en- slaves him in the most literal sense. ignorant of African life and circum- Who is interested in the poor Indian, and who believes that Christ died for stances. This will be a matter of him ?-Brazilian Missions.
painful experience." He gives the France.-The Huguenot Church in France is just now appealing to following illustration of the risks and American friends. By the terms of the Edict of Nantes which received difficulties of some. men with whom the signature of Henry IV. May 2, 1598, the utmost freedom of worship he was acquainted: granted to the Protestants of Paris was the freedom to assemble outside "A few months ago a faith-healing mission, a party of four men, sent by Mr. Simpson's church in New York, started for the Congo. They held this same notion of selfsupport, and of being able to establish mission work far into the interior with a small sum of money. I saw the leader of the party, gave him the fullest information and more advice than was agreeable. They reached the Congo, and ignoring medicine the leader died in a week or two, the rest were obliged to abandon their principles, and the mail of May brought a message from them that the:y wished they had followed my adVICe. They had come to the end of their means; differences had arisen; without money enough to return home they were hoping to get some employment on the coast and thus to earn sufficient to return. Such a story nt'eds no comment, but certainly ought to be known."-Spirit of Missions.
Brazil.-The fact that there is a round million of wild Indians on the plains and in the selvas of Brazil is practically ignored by the Christian world. We who live in the country the city walls. In the suburb of church throughout all France if Charenton, accordingly, they built a another Protestant sanctuaryj ·how- Christian tern pIe. It had provision e,'er humhle, is built on that ground for 8,000 worshipers. The lj,l'chitect so memorable and sacred and from was the famous Debrosses, designer which the blood of the martyrs cries. of the palace of the Luxembourg. In that church outside the walls India.-As an instance of inquiry worshiped a multitude of the faith- among the educated classes in Inful of whom the France of that day dia, it is stated that in Calcutta a was not worthy. well-known Brahman recently called on Dr. Baumann, who in the course On the 22d of Octoner, 1685, just of conversation asked him whether 202 years ago, the revocation of the he had ever read our Bible. The man Edict of Nantes was registered and on looked at him and then slowly rethe day of the registering the destruc- plied, "I have read the New Testation of the great Protestant church at ment eighty-three times and the Old Charenton was begun! Not one stone Testament twenty-seven." was left upon another. The Huguenots residing there were cruelly per- There are thousands of towns and secuted and dispersed. cities in India and China with a pop- ulation ranging from 5,000 upward, For nearly two hundred years Cha- accessible to Christian life, that never renton has had no public Protestant have hdd a single missionary to tell worship, though the popUlation is them of the way of life. If the Im- 60,000. About ten years ago, how- man family are equally divideo, male ever, Professor Charles Clouet, con- and female, there are 500,000,000 of nected with the Belleville station of women and girls who have never had Mr. McAll's wonderful mission, be- a chance to heal' the name of Jesus. gan mission preaching at Charenton. In unbroken procession, one by one, He has already gathered a church of they would, in passing your door, 286 Huguenot members, poor in this consume thirty successive years. world's goods but rich in faith. These members have been worship- Bombay is a perpetual wonderland. ing in an old workshop, dingy and 'Vhence came the 800,000 inhabismall, and for years have hoped to tants? Last week a Greenlander build a sanctuary. During these called, seeking work. Two days aftel' years, despite their poverty, they I>. man from Australia wrote me askhave paid for a lqt costing $3,600. ing a fayor. A few weeks ago a West They have succeeded in laying by Indian came to attend to repairs on $1,000 toward a building fund. A my house. Last Sunday night I crisis, however, has come. In April preached to a congregation at which next the workshop is to be taken sat, side by side, a Russian from the down for business purposes. There Baltic, and an Armenian from the is no rental available for them, ex- foot of Mount Ararat. Among my pacept at ruinous rates. Therefore, rishiont'rs are an Abyssinian, Turks Professor Ciouet, bringing letters of from the Dardanelles, Greeks from warmest commendation and most tile Adriatic, Sidhee boys from, Zanearnest appeal from such men as zibar. Norwegians and South Afri- Monod, De Pressense, Bersier and cans live, do business and <lie in this McAIl, is now here for the raising of human hive. Is it not a wonderland? $5,000. God is working in this city. I found the Greenlander trusted him, the The churches of our country, with- Abyssinian wept as she talked of him out distinction of denomination, and the Sidhee boy from Zanzibar ought to take up the work and Cl'own needed him. it with speedy success. It would give inspiration to the Huguenot Miss Tucker ( "A. L. O. E.") went to India in her fifty-fourth year, and is now in her eleventh year ofservice under the preaching of Mr. Knowles, there. She has been enabled not only an Englishma.n, and his colleagues, to learn the language but also to visit members of the North India Meth~ habitually in more than one hundred odist Episcopal Conference. Mr. Knowles has been in the mission work zenanas, besides influencing in a very for a number of years. He has been considerable degree various portions led to feel that greater privileges of India by her writings. belong to Christian believers than have been generally realized; that Native Christians. Rev. E. Mac- through faith the gift of the Holy kenzie Cobham of Madras says of Spirit might be received in large the native Christians in India: measure both for one's self and others, and that through this gift God would .. I went one day to our chief conunissioner do his own work of conversion far of police in Madras to ask for the criminal more grandly than we had ever bestatistics of our presidency. First of all lieved. Accordingly, when preachhe told me who were the worst people in ing at the" melas " or great religious Madras. Government divides the population gatherings of the Hindus, he has into three classes-Christians, Mussulmans, been wont to press upon his hearers and Hindus. In Madras, a city of 400,000 the importance of °an "immediate people, which of these three classes is the decision." He declares himself ready best, which the worst? Government says: to baptize immediately, without fur- 'The statistics which we have received say ther test or instruction, any who will this: The Mussulmans are not the best peo- come forward and publicly avow a ple, the Hindus are not the best, the Chris- belief in Jesus Christ as their Saviour. tians are the best people.' Out of every A large number of baptisms have thus 447 Hindus we have a criminal; out of every been made of those who, up to the 700 Mussulmans in the city of Madras we moment of preaching, were thorough have a criminal; but it takes 2,500 Chris- Hindus, in full caste relations. tians to make one. Out of every 100,000 Hindus throughout the 31,000,000 of the Ma- The same course is pursued by the dras Presidency we have 49 criminals; we American United Presbyterians in have 06'2 criminals out of every 100,000 Mo- the Punjab, and thus far with unusual hammedans; but we have only 16 out of success. Whole villages have come every 100,000 Christians. That is the testi- to Christ and called for instant bapmony of governm,mt. The fact is, that if tism, which has been given, with full all the population of the Madras Presidency admittance to the church. The Methwere Christians, we should have 12,000 fewer odists and the Church Missionary criminals every year than we now have. Society prefer, as a rule, not to allow Christianity in South India has won the instantaneous baptism. The advorespectand esteem of the whole community. cates of instantaneous baptism ask, Not long ago one of my evangelists met in "Is not this the' way, after all, in the street a Hindu with a troubled counte- which the bulk of the people of India nance, a man who had a great deal of money are to be brought to Christ-not by with him. He had gone to the town to col- preliminary education, which can lect what seemed a bad debt, oand he haa reach only a few at a time, and may got it. Hehad tied it round his waist. Then draw men away from Christ instead came the trouble to keep the money. He was of toward him" (meaning evidently afraid, since he was in a strange town, that that such may be the effect of instrucitmight be stoleu, and that he might be tion in speculative and metaphysical murdered. He met my evangelist, and saw dogma), but by conversion, with inby his dress that he was a Christian, he stantaneous baptism to seal the act. saw by his face that he was a Christian; for God puts a bit of sunshine beneath a Mr. Lawrence gives a most interbrown skin, you know. He said, 'Sir, I esting account of successful work in should like to stay at your house, if you Bombay, and especially of the only please, to-night.' 'Oh I but,' said the evangelist, 'my dear sir, I am a Christian, you are a Hindu; there are thousands of Hindus here.' 'Yes, it is just because you are a Christian I want to stay with you. I can trust a Christian, but I cannot trust a Hindu.'" Is not one such testimony worth a volume of sneers?
"Instantaneous Baptism." Remark- able conversions have taken place self-supporting native church in the done everything that malice could city, and of the work it is doing. invent to annoy and impoverish the colony. "They seized," said he, .. The working force of this church is or- "our church, our village hall, our ganized into a kind of Christian Endeavor cannery, sa.wmill, store and work- Society. having from fiftEen to twenty men shop. They have taken from us over and women connected with it, who do regular 80,000 feet of lumber that was in unpaid work for Ohrist. His last night in stock at our sawmill, and white men India was spent at a tea-meeting of this have been sent to the old village and society. The hostess was a native lady, a ordered to take arms against our member of the church, who was supporting people if we attempt to bring away and teaching a school of native children in the buildings I have named. The one of the most thickly settled portions of poor people are almost afraid to go Bombay. Her husband is a Christian in for their personal property, and nothgovernment employ, and it seems to be his ing would gratify our enemies more· highest aim to have a little independent than to see the people driven to deschurch near his wife's school, where as a peration and commit some breach of layman he may regnlarly preach the gospel. the peace whereby the law, so called, Altogether I may say I have never found a might be invoked to punish them." church at home more full of the true spirit He also refers to his hope for a grant of the coming kingdorn, more ready to learn of land from the American Governand teach, to prayand labor, to receive from ment, and says that the Governor of God,andgive and do for God, than this com- Alaska has sent to him a commission pany of ninety-six Indian Christians in the of the peace, which makes him an city of Bombay." American citizen.-F. G. Carpenter.
Alaska.-The New Settlement of Madagascar.-Mr. and Mrs. Stowell the Indians in Alaska is to be called Ashwell have safely arrived attheir New Metlakahtla, and from a letter destination in the centre of the island written by Dr. Duncan, October 29, of Madagascar. Mr. Ashwell has I find that it is bravely under way. been sent out to take charge of the Eight hunared .of the Indians have society's printing establishment at crossed in canoes from British Colum- the capital. He is delighted with that bia to this point, and the work of important institution, and thinks the clearing the forest is now going on. greatest credit is due to his predecess- A line of huts nearly a mile long has or, Mr. Parrett, who had the training been built among the big trees upon of the staff of workmen.-Chronicle the shore, and a steam sawwill has London Miss. Society. been erected and is at work. The natives have built a 1l1rge salmon Pamare,Queen ofTahiti and Moorea, cannery, 100 feet long by 34 feet died at seventy years of age. At her wide, and this will be used as a birth not one convert had been made church and school until other build- in the South Sea Islands. At her ings can be provided. The Alaskan death, after years of faithful Chris- Indians are deeply interested in the tian life, more than 300 islands were new colony, and a number of· them wholly evangelized, and the gospel leaven is permeating the entire lump. have visited it. Dr. Duncan has the plans ready for building a guest- The Woman's Missionary organihouse to take care of strangers, and zations in this country and Great he hopes to extend his civiliiing work Britain report 19,286 auxiliaries, 5,193 to the Indians of his new territory. bands, 999 missionaries in their vari- The Sunday services during October ous fields, 2,219 Bible readers and were held in the open air, but at the teachers, 2,305 schools and 59,318 time of writing he expected to have pupils. Their aggregate increase the big building ready November for 1886 was $1,221,649.57, an increase 6, and they are probably in it at on the preceding year of $68,947.96. this time. In his letter he states that the governments of British Columbia and Canada and the ecclesiastical party of the English Chm'ch have
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
III.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D., OF THE "INTERNATIONAL MISSIONARY UNION."
The Spiritual Element in Mission Work. ject, that of devout waiting before THE leading article of this "de- God. And yet the" shortcomings" partment" for the March REVIEW, was on the impulse got from well- of Christians when measured each by conducted" simultaneous meetings." It must have been remarked that the his own ideal so faithfully analyzed special aim of those meetings was by the Ven. Archdeacon Richardson not primarily to convey instruction, as "the coming-short" . • • "found but to develop the truly spiritual ele- in the development only in some and ments necessary for the successful the shrinking· of other parts," must prosecution of the work by those at naturally have quickened their spirhome and those afield. The "simul- itual perceptions. Rev. Hadley C. taneous meetings movement," origi- G. Moule thought no sort of missionnated by the Church of England mis- ary meeting was so likely to be made sionary secretaries, has been followed a vehicle of calling out personal servby another phase of the same general ice and calling out from those who effort to restore the devout element could not go personally, just that to missionary work. The committee spirit of prayer and self-sacrifice of the Church Missionary Society in- which would result in personal servvited their friends to join them in a ice of others, as this sort of meeting. " Whole-day Devotional Gathering" Information was not enough, general on Wednesday, January 11, saying appeals were not enough. He shrank thatitseemed tothemthat the present from criticising missionaries, but he was ,. a time when 'the members of knew from themselves their manifold the society are specially called to ap- temptations, by the solitudes of proach the throne of grace in solemn Africa, by the society of India, by supplication, confession, intercession, external success, by working for ten dedication, and praise." The place years without a convert, and by facset for the holding of this meeting ing heathenism. Rev. Canon Hare was Exeter Hall, London, and the knew there were periods of special programme divided the devotional manifestation of God's powel' "in a topics as follows: Morning meeting, way not known at other times." So "Spiritual Shortcomings;" afternoon it had been in the history of their meeting, "Spiritual Possibilities;" own missions-men had toiled and evening meeting, ." Spiritual Deter-· died one after another and their minations." Eminent men were se- wives had died. From 1804 till 1816 cured, three for each session, to pre- there was in Africa not one single sent these topics. The remarkable baptism, and then the fountain was thing about these addresses was that opened. So it was in New Zealand. they were not remarkable at all. They had toiled on without success Tp.ey were just such familiar utter- from 1814 t.ill1825-eleven long years ances as one hears over and often in -without a baptism. So it had been exhortations to holy living and even in Foo Chow. They had gone on in prayer-meeting addresses. This, for eleven years toiling without one we suspect, was deeply intentional. baptism till there was a great discus- A brilliant address might have di- sion whether or not the mission verted attention from the main ob- should not be abandoned, and one young man-he remembered him well as a Scripture reader at Margate who used to come over to him at Rams- General Assembly of Proteetant .Mis- gate to talk about missionary work, sions in Mexico.
and who had gone to Foo-Chow- OUR correspondence from Mexico when everyone said it was to be just now is full and intensely intergiven up had said, "You may give esting. The topic which is most up the mission, but I will remain." prominent is the General Conference That very year baptisms began, and which the several missions carrying a shower was poured forth from on work have held in the city of Mex- God. ico. Pan-denominational conferences are not a novelty on other greater The Rev. C. A. Fox said it was by foreign mission fields, but this was cleansing and purging that all the churches must be fitted for their the first attempt within the Republic great and glorious work. There of Mexico to bring together repre- were indeed open doors everywhere. sentatives of all the Protestant The Bible was open in 300 languages. churches and societies in the country.
The world was open all round as it The societies, missions and agents had navel' been before. The doors who took part in this conference, arwere open everywhere. What was ranged chronologically in the order wanted was the open windows of of the beginning of their work, were: heaven pouring out such a blessing 1. The Baptists (Northern Convenas they could not even measure. tion). who commenced work May, And there must be the fourth bap- 1869, and now operate in six states of tism which they read of in the Epistle the republic. 2. The Protestant Epis- -that they should all be baptized copals, formerly "Church of Jesus" into one body. Christ claims us, said (1869), but adopted by the Protestant Episcopal Church by General Con- Rev. Evan H. Hopkins-claims own- vention, 1886, and are now carrying ership, claims possession, claims con- on work in Central Mexico. 3. The trol. God undertakes for us. Sir Friends, who began in 1871 and con- Arthur Blackwood, speaking of spirit- duct a mission at Tamaulipas. 4. The ual determinations, said it was rather Central Presbyterian, who began in spiritual determination, not of the 1872 and operate in the Federal Disparticular resolution that they might trict and several states. 5. The Presbe inclined to form, but of the atti- byterian mission of Zacatecas (1872), tude of soul in which they were, the working in five states. 6. The Methdetermined attitude rather than the odist Episcopal Church South (1873), individual determinations. The now a conference with six districts in blessed result which they desired fifteen different states. 7. Methodist would depend not on the numbers o[ Episcopal Church (1873), working in the Federal District and seven states, their gatherings, not even on the now organized as an annual confer- scripturalness of the addresses that ence with three districts. 8. The might be given, but on the attitude Methodist Episcopal Church South of soul in which those gatherings left has frontier conference since 1874, them. working in seven frontier states. 9.
These brethren of the English The Southern Presbyterian Church Church have set the example, and it (1874), working in two states. 10. The is worthy of imitation. A whole-day Reformed Presbyterian Mission (1880), missionary prayer-meeting, in which also working in two states. 11. The we pray not so much for missions and Southern Baptist Church (1881), work- missionaries as for the missionary i.ng in four states. 12. The" Ameri- spirit-the consecration and spiritual can Board" (1882) mission in Chihua- uplifting that fits for the work. hua. 13. The same society's mission in J alisco (1872), abandoned 1880 and This subject, we may be allowed to re-establishedin 1882. 14. The Friends say in passing, is one of wide inter- (1886), with work in Central Mexico. est. The standard Romish versions 15. The Cumberland Presbyterian of the Scriptures in Spanish are two mission (1886), operating in Aguas -Scio's and Amat's-both from the Calientes. 16. The "American Board" Vulgate. The Protestant text is (1886), at Sonora. 17. The "Church mainly that of Valera. At present of Jesus," a small independent body, this is the text followed by the Amerso called, still under Bishop Riley, ican and the British Bible Societies and which has refused to be received for· Spanish America, though the' by the Protestant Episcopal Church. American Bible Society has issued por- 18. An independent English mission, tions we believe of other translations. under charge of James Pascor, a con- Valera's style is that of the sixteenth verted miner, who works among the century, and as various attempts Indians of the State of lfexico. De- have been made to modernize it the nominationally, perhaps, he is a sort result is, several, at least seven, differof "Plymouth" brother. This com- ent texts are in print with sufficient pany represented twelve different variation to create great confusion in churches or denominations, carrying their use; while Valera's text itself on work in every state of the Mexican was defective, and its style is, of Republic except Campeche and Chia- course, archaic and mystical. pas. Dr. Patterson of the Methodist The opening service (Jan. 31) was Episcopal Church South presented addressed by Rev. Dr. Green, who the subject of territorial division of preached to about five hundred per- the country between the different sons in the Presbyterian church. The denominations, and after a warm formal opening of the Assembly in discussion a resolution was presented the fine audience room of the Trinity to the effect that in all towns of over Methodist Episcopal church was on 15,000 inhabitants more than one Feb. 1, the representatives sitting by church might establish missions, but delegation, and after an hour of in towns of less population only one prayer was organized by appointing society should enter; and if two or a Spanish and an English secretary. more societies are now opel'ating in Dr. S. P. Craver (Methodist Episco- such towns the field should be a!Janpal) read an essay on the attitude they doned by all except the society which should assume toward the Roman first began work in that place. The Catholic church, and then the ques- entire subject was referred to a comtion of Bible translation was pre- mittee, consisting of one from each sented, Rev. H. P. Hamilton (A. B. S.) denomination present. speaking of the need of revising the Spanish version of the Bible, and also Among the topics treated were of translating the Scriptures into the "Self – Support" and "Gambling." vernacular of the native Mexican peo- During the discussion of "Education ple. Rev. H. B. Pratt of Virginia, an of the Ministry," Rev. P. Rodrigues eminent Spanish scholar, who was of the Protestant Episcopal Church sent specially by the American Bible advocated the establishment of one Society to attend this Assembly, ad- preparatory school for all Mexico. vocated the revision of the Spanish translation, and pressed its impor- The Assembly sent its congratulatance among sixty millions of J?eople tions to the President of the Repubspeaking the Spanish tongue. The lic. Amongtbe distinguished visitors whole subject was referred to a com- to the Assembly were Bishop Harmittee of one from each denomina- grave and Dr. Morton (M. E. Church tion represented. South), Bishop Thos. M. Bowman, Dr. Wm. Butler, founder of M. E. Church missions in India and Mexico, and Dr. J. M. Reid, senior secretary of the foreign missionaries are chilof the M. E. Missionary Society. dren of ministers.
The statistics of the several mis- The Situation and the Outlook in Ohina. siot;!s were carefully prep~red by Rev. John W. Butler of the City of Mexico, BY REV. C. A. STANLEY, TIENTSIN, as follows: Number of centers of CHINA.
operation, lil6; of congregations, 393 ; LOOK at the map of China and take ordained foreign missionaries, 48; in the size of the country. It ex- tends over about 20 degrees of latiassistant foreign missionaries, 44; tude and 24 degrees of longitude. It foreign lady teachers, 43. Total for- contains 2,000,000 square miles of eign workers, 125; ordained native territory and has a coast line from preachers, 88; unordained, 65; na- southwest to northeast of over 2,000 tive teachers, 96; other native help- miles. Its dense population is variers, 49. Total native workers, 300 ; ously estimated at from 250,000,000 total of foreign and native work- to 400,000,000-we will say about ers, 4550. Organized churches, 177; 300,000,000. It is an old nation. It church members, 12,444; probable possesses an extensive literature, one adherents, 30,000; theological schools, book of poetry comprising 900 vol- 10 ; scholars in same, 66; boarding umes. Its culture and civilization schools and orphanages, 15; scholars are hoary with age, and are well in same, 687; of these 109 are sup- worth our study. They are practiported by indigenous resources. Com- cally what they were centuries ago. mon schools, 71; scholars in same, Her laws are spoken of as " copious, 2,187. Total unde1' instruction, 2,516. consistent, free from intricacy, big- :sunday-schools, 199; teachers and otry and fiction," and as little infeofficers, 367; scholars, 4,817. Total rior to the codes of Europe. The membership of Sunday-schools, 5,256. "Ritual of Chau," B. C. 1130, formed Publishing houses, 8; papers issued, the type of construction for the" Six 10; most of these are issued monthly, Boards" of the present government. two semi-monthly and oue weekly. Total pages of religious literature To understand the situation we issued from the beginning, 49,471,295. must look at the past. Note the ex- Number of church buildings, 73; ceptional opportunity the Chinese approximate value of same, $333,400 ; people had throughout centuries to number of parsonages, 39; value of develop their individuality in peculiar same, $93,260; educational buildings, circumstances, in their own way, and 16; value, $147,200; value of press amid the best conditions. (1) They property, $39,500. Total value of were to no perceptible extent affectmission property, $594,260. Of the ed by foreign influence or intervenchapels and churches sixteen were tion. They have been a nation apart, built without aid from home boards, separdte, as few nations have been, and nineteen received only partial and that while time grew hoary. aid, which is encouraging and indi- This will become apparent if we concates a disposition to aim for "self- sider that (a) as a nation China is support." Bro. Butler notes also in isolated geographically. On the his correspondence that the Mexican south and east it is guarded by the church can make sacrifices for Christ's ocean. On the north it is separated cause. She has already added fifty- from the Mongolian plateau by high nine to the-" noble army of,mar- and precipitous ranges of mountains, tyrs." He remarks also that two reinforced by the great wall, which native preachers are sons of former stretches its serpentine length of workers, three foreign missionaries 1,500 miles across its northern borare children of missionaries, and nine der. The western frontier is correspondingly hemmed in by moun- religious system so much as a moral tains, thus making its geographical philosophy, although it contains position unique. But (b) China is many religious elements. Not only isolated by its language. This has no its moral tone but its distinct moral affinity with or similarity to any utterances surpass in my opinion the other of the Oriental tongues. It has teachings of any other non-Christian no alphabet. It is monosylabic. It nation. And although terrible wick- has not grown away from its original edness and corruption prevail the simplicity of structure. The speech moral sense of the nation and the of to-day is essentially the speech of laws are wholly on the side of virtue, three thousand years ago. The char- truth and honesty, and can always acters remain as they were construct- be appealed to with the certainty of ed at the first. The idiom is the same. a response. The teachings of Con- As they thought then so they think fucius have molded and govern the now, and so they speak. Moreover social and family relations, and the (c) the surrounding nations were small principle of filial reverence, exagger- in extent, weak in power and defi- ated by him into the real worship of cient in attainments, and sought the ancestors, has thereby perhaps kept Chinese as guides and instructors. woman from the degree of degrada- Their literature, culture and civiliza- tion which prevails in most other tion were derived from China. Its heathen lands.
sacred books became their sacred Here I would call attention to four books in many cases. Hence there points of politieal significance in the was little fear of invasion. Possessed growth of the country, and which of extensive territory, there was owe their existence, I think, to the equally little occasion for aggressive Confucian teachings.
warfare beyond natural limitations. 1. China has mu.intained demo- It was therefore left free relatively to cratic ideas under a purely despotic develop its own institutions, and es- theory of government. The entire pecially its literature, according to local village and clan administration its own genius and after its own is essentially democratic. Patient un- model. der oppre~sion, this spirit is manifest But these conditions alone could when the people rise in a b6dy against not have developed such a national oppressh'e rulers and exacting offi- life, such a continuity and uniformi~ cials, and assert theiL' rights and se- ty of endurance, language, custom cure them temporarily. In such up- and habit. We must seek other rising's the people are helped by the causes for these wonderful results. teachings of the sage, and conversely They are very largely found (2) in the a beneficent ruler is equally strength- moral and social teachings of the an- ened by an appeal to those precepts.
cient sages and rulers during the in- 2. The rights of the subject have fancy and simplicity of the race, and been respected by giving them the reimpressed by Confucius more than protection of law. It may seem to twenty centuries ago. Confucius' ~s cruel and arbitrary and be badly claimed that he was not an origina- administered, but it is settled and tor. He reverenced the sages of the largely.known among the people.
past. He strove to revive a love for That subjects have certain rights is them and lead the nu.tion back to the acknowledged.
observance of their teachings. In 3. The sovereign is held amenable doing this he dwelt upon seemingly to a higher power for continued swav.
trivial matters of observance. But Any extensive calamity is consider;d .
he knew his people, u.s is evident to be in consequence of misrule or from the influence his teachings ex- , maladministration of law and calls ert to 'day. Confucianism is not a for humiliation, confession and repentance on the part of the emperor " opium war" began. This issued in and his subordinates. We not infre- a treaty which opened the five ports quently see calls to righteousness in of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo the way of edicts from the throne and and Shanghai to foreign residence. witness the humble presentation of These were occupied as speedily as petitions at the temples by those possible by the missionaries who had highest in authority, including the been waiting long on the borders. emperor. In 1843 active operations were begun within the empire. Later treaties 4. The domination of feudal, hered- opened other ports. In 1858 came itary and priestly classes has been the second war with Great Britain, prevented by making elevation to when the allied forces of England _ and promotion in office depend on lit- and France bombarded the Takoo erary examinations. Here is an old- forts at the mouth of the Pei Ho, protime civil service of merit. Although ceeded to Tientsin and secured the it has been and is abused, yet proba- promise of further concessions. On bly much more than half the officials the departure of the invading force hold their positions regularly. the forts were restored and strength- ened, the promises were disregarded Two facts of a religious nature, and little came of it all until the fall which though negative have yet ex- of 1860 when the allies again proceederted an unquestioned influence in ed north, marched on Peking, dethe formation of the national charac- stroyed the" Summer Palace," and ter, should be mentioned in passing. secured the opening of other coast 1. So far as I can learn, human beings and river ports. Since then the have never been offered in sacrifice whole country has been practically for sin. 2. Vice and sensuality have open to travel with a passport, and never been deified. The way of the we can go anywhere at little risk, if sinner has not been made easier by careful, preaching and distributing causmg it to pass through a temple Christian books. Residence is grantand giving it the sanction of religion. ed by treaty only at the "treaty The natural result of all this was ports," but missionaries have generpride, conceit,. arrogance, in view of ally been able to secure residence at China's own attainments in compari- interior places by rental or purchase. son with the surrounding countries, Honan is the only province we have to whom "The Middle Kingdom" been unable to enter for residence. had given much while it had receiv- ed little in return. They and all Viewing the work by decades the " outside" peoples became despised growth has been as follows: In 1853 in the eyes of Chinese. Such in brief there were 350 enrolled church mem- '»as the people and such the situation bers. In 1863 there were 2,000. In when the gospel was first borne to 1873 there were 8,000. In 1883 there them. were 22,000. And now there are not less than 30,000 Christians scattered The first missionary, Rev. Robert among the towns and villages of the Morrison, reached Canton in 1807. eighteen provinces; for all that I He could only study the language have said refers to these alone and and do preliminary work. There was not to the dependencies. Not less no opportunity to reach the people. than 14,000. children are taught in the The missionaries sent out had to la- different mission schools. There are bor entirely among the Chinese of eighteen hospitals in which 150,000 the "Straits Settlements." Morri- patients receive treatment annually. son died in 1834. The outlook then was "nearly as dark as when he Look at the work in a smaller field landed." Only three Christians could be found in Canton in 1835. In 1841 and for a fewer number of years- the troubles which resulted in the the North China field. Rev. H. Blodget reached Tientsin on Nov. 8, 1860, nifica.nt utterance. Further, censors going north in one of the transport have memorialized the throne, recomships of the allied fleet. His mission, mending that western studies be the A. B. C. F. M., now occupies six placed on the list with their own stations and is opening another. classics for the examination of those Five, or, including Shansi, seven seeking degrees and promotion. This other societies, have since entered seems to be receiving favorable con- this northern field. There are now sideration. enrolled over 30,000 Christians in less than twenty-seven years of labor. It Such, briefly and very imperfectly, is estimated by careful observers that is the situation to-day. The whole in' addition to the more than 30,000 country is open and full of opportuni- Christians in the empire there are ties to do effectiYe work for the Mas- not less than 50,000 to 70,000 who ter. Not that there are no difficulhave lost all faith in other systems ties, no opposition, no hindrances and of religion, if indeed they have not occasional local and temporary inter- abandoned them. But this is not all. ference and stoppage of the work, as The prejudice of exclusiveness, pride, everywhere, but these do not alter bigotry, contempt for all outside of the great fact. The outlook is indi- China, and conceit of themselves, cated in the array of facts above given have gradually given way and sus- -churches, hospitals, schools, 30,000 picion has been overcome as the Christians and double that number years have passed. Steam has been of "adherents" scattered throughout introduced on the water and on the the land; prejudice and suspicion land, and its power is felt deep down largely disarmed; hundreds seeking in the mine. The telegraph and the western knowledge and science; the telephone arethere. Schoolsfor teach- government not hostile. Surely there ing the knowledge of western lands is no cause for anything but encour- and the English language and fitting agement. Great enlargement seems young men for official positions have not far distant. been established by the government. There is an increasing demand for Death of Rev. George Bowen.- western knowledge and science. It is becoming apparent to all that the The cable has brought the news of work of missions must be enlarged so the death of Rev. George Bowen at as to include a complete education in Bombay Feb. 5, 1888. Some time such western knowledge as is adapt- last fall he met with an accident in ed to the needs of a rapidly develop- alighting from a tramcar. We do ing country. The demand for this not know any of the particulars of knowledge is increasing, and if facil- his death. He was born in the ities for acquiring it are not furnished United States in 1816. He went to by the church which are thoroughly India as a missionary of the Ameri- Christian it will flow in skeptical can Board of Foreign Missions Jan- channels, and much of our work be uary, 1848. The following year he lost or have to be done over again. resigned his salary, but his relation Then, too, there is the edict issued to the society continued until 1855. from the throne early in the year and For seventeen years following he. ordered to be published all over the was not connected with any mission- empire. It speaks of the missiona- ary society. In 1872 he joined the ries as "guests," and directs that Methodist Episcopal Church in Bom- they shall not be interfered with in bay, and in 1873 the missionary . their labors since they have come to staff of that church. From 1854 to teach morals. However little it may the time of his death he was editor accomplish at once, it is a very sig- of The Bombay Guardian, one of the most vigorous and best-balanced Christian weeklies of the foreign mission field. Among the produc- manners. He subsequently abantions of his pen are a "Life of Mo- doned this course, being convinced hammed," "Discussions by the Sea- that it did not im,rease his influence side," "Abiding 1'Iliracles of Proph- or usefulness among the natives. ecy," "Friendly Words to Roman- Yet there is something thrilling in ists," "The Religion that Man the example and the honest experi- Needs," "Did Christ Rise Again?" ment made by a cultured Christian "Some Friendly, Words," "Friendly gentleman who had traveled in Words to Educated Natives," "Paul Europe and knew French, German, the Christian's Pattern," "Is Infant Spanish, Italian and other European Baptism Unwarranted?" But those languages, besides some Oriental by which he is most known and tongues, as Hindustani and Marathi. through which many thousands He was later secretary of the Religlearned to love him though they ious Tract Society, residing at their never otherwise knew him are" Daily depot and managing their affairs Meditations," "The Amens of without fee in addition to all other of Christ," and" Love Revealed." his duties. He was a cheerful, self- sacrificing, devoted missionary and a The preface to "Daily Meditations," loving and lovable friend. " There written by the Rev. Mr. Hanna, gives was a man sent from God, and his a brief sketch of the author of the vol- name was"-George Bowen. ume. In early life he became quite a skeptic concerning the Scriptures The London Oommittee's Appeal. from reading a chapter in Gibbon's history. For eleven dreary years he The Oommittee of Oonference, to the FJuropean, wandered in the darkness of infidelity. American, and Native M'1,8sionaries of all A Bible bequeathed to him with a P"oleslant Ohurches lalxffing for the Salvadying request that he would read it tion of the Heathen in all parts qf the HalJ. was faithfully perused, but he never itable World. doubted for a moment that his views concerning it were correct. He was BELOVED BRETHREN: We, your fellow-laboraccustomed to get books from a pub- ers aud .. companions in the kingdom aud palic library, and on one occasion asked tience of Jesus Christ," salute you heartily iu for a volume and when nearly two the words of the apostolic beuediction, " Grace miles away to his surprise he found and peace be multiplied unto you, through the he had" Paley's Evidences" instead knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." of the book he had called for. He could not go back, but he would not We greatly rejoice with you in the blessings read the book. Before putting it which have accompanied your labors and those away he glanced at the first sentence; of your predecessors dnring the past hundred he read one page, another and an- years of modern missiouary effort, whereby other, and was pleased with the about three millions ,from amoug the heathen style. Halfway through the vol- are at this honr fouud gathered into the fellowume he offered the prayer, "Help ship of the church below, while at the same thou my unbelief." When he reached time large tribes of our fellow-men, who were the last sentence his dOlJbts were all sunk in the grossest barbarism and snperstition, gone. have been socially elevated, and have derived manifold secondary benefits from the preaching As a missionary Mr. Bowen was of the gospel of.Christ. true to his convictions wherever they might lead. He made a fair experi- We rejoice also over the many millions more ment of increasing his influence by who have passed within the veil, after testifying becoming self-supporting. He earned by their consistent lives and peacefnl deaths to $15 a month, and for many years the regenerating and consoling influences of the lived in the native bazaar, adapting grace of God-many of them having been faithnative dress, we believe, and food and ful witnesses of Jesus Christ, not only by taking joyfully the spoiling of their goods, but by en- dnring manifold tribulations in the flesh, and suffering even unto death for His Name's sake.
But while we are unceasingly grateful to God for the great things accomplished in the past by the inadequate means employed, we lament over the feebleness of the efforts put forth by the churches of Christ, and we mourn over the great and increasing mass of heathenism which still
MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
confronts the church in this nineteenth century of one mind; doing nothing through faction or of the Christian era. It is one great object of through vain glory, bnt in lowliness of mind, the Conference to be assembled in June to look each counting other better than himself." this appalling fact fully in the face, and byapplying the lessons taught by the past to the con- Pray that, under God, the Conference may be ditions of the present, to awaken the church of the means ofintroducing a new era in missionary Christ, by every possible effort, to a due sense of enterprise. That it may hasten the day when the obligation under which she lies to the perish- " the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the ing heathen and to her Divine Head and Lord. Lord," and when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Our great object in now addressing you is to ask you to unite with your brethren of other de- We do not fix hours nor prescribe snbjects nominations, if such there be in your neighbor~ for prayer. The one special gift which includes hood, or in solitary stations with your converts, ail " good things" is the gift of the Holy Spirit, in earnest and united prayer for a Pentecostal whose presence we seek in all the plenitude of blessing on the Conference, on Sunday, the third his grace and power. of June, to Tuesday, the 19th of the same, >eing the week before and the ten days during which Let us, dear brethren, encourage one another the Conference will be in session. in the thought that unnumbered brethren throughout the whole world are uniting in the Pray that the presence of God, the Father, same prayer. We have good reason to hope Son, and Spirit, may be in our assemblies, and that this will be the most universal cry that has that gracious manifestations of his power may ever gone up from this sinful world into the ear be displayed in the midst of his people gathered of" the Lord of Sabaoth." Through the promfrom all parts of Christian and heathen lands. ised help of the missiouary societies this re- That the spirit of union and peace and love may quest will he sent ont into all lauds, wherever reign in and among us, and that all our deliber- the feet of the messengers of the gospel of peace ations may be "in the Spirit." Pray for the have trod, and will be read in the languages of single eye and the undivided heart, for strong almost all the natious upon earth. faith and ardent zeal, and for that "wisdom from above," which is "first pure, then peace- But most of all would we strengthen our muable, gentle and easy to be intreated, without tual faith, by the promise of the Father, as partiality, and withont hypocrisy;" and that learned from the lips of his only begotten Son : in all our assemblies we may "be of the same " If ye then being evil know how to give good mind, having the same love, being of one accord, gifts unto your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him."
V.-MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
MISSIONS IN INDIA. missionaries either to Africa or St. BARTHOLOMEW ZIEGENBALG, found- Thomas. After some hesitation he er of missions in India, was born on yielded, but on reaching Copenha- St. John's day, 1683, a little over two gen he found that Tranquebar was hundred years ago. His mother their destination. The vessel which called her four children to her dying bore them bore also secret instrucbed and: committed to them a" treas- tions to the governor of Tranquebar ure" she had laid by for them: "Seek to oppose and crush the mission. it in the Bible, my children; there Through the long voyage of nearly you will find it; there is not a page eight months the ship became a uni- I have not wet with my own tears." versity of Christ, where they were Ziegenbalg learned of Fmncke at learning daily new lessons in holy Halle, that men who heard were living, both from nature and the bound to spread the good news, and Divine Word. that he ought at once to begin. So when a tutor at Merseburg he or- Ziegenbalg's heart was greatly ganized prayer-meetings,Bible classes stirred at the sight of the heathen and Bible readings, and became the whom he saw on the Coromandel center of godly influence. coast, as he entered the harbor of While preaching neal' Berlin he Tl'anquebar July 9, 1706. But the received a letter proposing, in behalf captain of the ship gave them no aid of the king, that he and Pliitschau, even in landing, and when they did .his old fellow-student, should go as land the governor did eveL"ything he dared to drive them back. The first Protestant missionaries that ever Obstacles such as confronted Zieg- stood on the soil of India found them- enbalg have been met by few even of selves literally without a place to lay the most heroic missionaries. The their head-destitute, abandoned, and governor was the implacable foe of alone. We talk of "India for the mission, faithful to his secret Christ;" but there had to be some- instructions. Meanwhile there was thing deeper than a sentimental en- a fire in the rear, for at home thusiasm in those two pioneers who both friends and funds were scarce.
stood under the midnight skies, Liitkens, the chaplain, died, with his homeless, strangers to the language last words breathing a blessing on the and peoples of India, facing the most mission. Ziegenbalg went home, told subtle and seductive of false faiths, his story to the king, sped through the most gross and sensual forms of Germany and Holland like a flaming idolatrous worship, and that mon- e'angelist, and returned to India to strous caste, which is the most sa- find the hostile governor displaced by tanic system of organized opposition a friend of missions. Two years more to human brotherhood and Christian of hard labor, and on New Year's progress ever yet devised-a radical day, 1719, his voice was heard for the denial of all fellowship based either last time, and Feb. 23, 1719, not Jet in nature or in grace, deifying hu- 36 years old, he died of cholera. His man selfishness and sanctioning its last exclamation was, "How is it so own exclusiveness by penalties more bright! It is as though the midday terrible than death. sun shone full in my face!" The Zeigenbalg and Pliitschau found eternal glory had already broken up- temporary shelter through the mere on his dim dying vision and dazzled pity of one of the governor's suite, him. While they sang "Jesus, meine and then in a house upon the wall Zuversicht," he fell asleep.
close by the heathen quarters. Six To that man, so brave, wise, calm, days after they landed Ziegenbalg is resolute, of such commanding pres- studying Tamil, though he has no ence and such winning piety, mis- lexicon, grammar, or even alphabet sions in India owe their true begin- to guide him; and yet within eight ning. He planted there that germ months he is talking Tamil intelligi- whose growth is yet to cover with bly! Three ,years Jater it was as a healing shadow and fruitful bour-hs vernacular to him, and then he pre- all India. Yet when he died all the pared a grammar and lexicons con- visible or tangible results were a few taining40,OOO words. He had scarcely hundred converts and the translation been two years in India when his of the Bible into Tamil.
translation of the New Testament Count Zinzendorf is another link in was begun, and within three years it the chain of Indian Missions. He was finished and he began the Old came under the contagious influence Testament, himself not yet twenty- of Francke, at Halle, when a lad of seven years old! ten years, and at fifteen founded the From Madras to Cape Comorin "Order of the Seed Corn," whose this young German had already be- pledge and symbol was the conver- come a mighty power. In Tamil he sion of the heathen. Ziegenbalg on proclaimed the wonderful works of his short stay at home had been the God, and in the broken Portuguese guest of Zinzendorf, and the count of the half-breeds all along the coast, had felt the fire within him burn which was the relic and remnant of with new fervor as he came into con- ancient Portuguese possession, he ad- tact with the ardent glow of Ziegen- dressed the slaves at Tranquebar and balg's evangelism. The Moravian gathered five of them into the church exiles who founded on Zinzendorf's a!) first-fruits of India unto Christ. estate the site of Hernnhut became the great missionary leaders of the tions and conflicting armies. On he Lord's host, and still continue in the went, until he died at 72, in Tanjore, van of missions. A procession of preaching, gathering converts, or- missionaries more than 2,000 strong ganizing churches, opening new sta- moved out from that little communi- tions, training native workers, shel- , ty that never numbered over 70,000 tering orphans, doing every good in all. The Moravians kept the mis- work that can accompany good sion fires burning on the continent, words. When Hyder Ali invaded the and many a heroic life got its inspira- Carnatic and Tanjore was in a state tion unconsciously from those vestal of starvation, Schwartz induced the altars. farmers to bring in their cattle, pledg- Almost while Ziegenbalg was dy- ing his word alone for their payment.
ing, Christian Frederick Schwartz After his death the Rajah of Tanjore was preparing to take up the apos- and the East India Company each tolic succession. He was born Oct. erected to his memory costly monu- '
8,1726, dedicated from birth by his ments.
dying mother to God's service in the Henry Martyn is the next promi- ministry. He likewise got his train- nent link in this fascinating history.
ing in Francke's Orphan House at From his birth in Truro in 1781 to his Halle. There he met Schulze, come death in Tokat in 1&12, only thirty- home from India to superintend one years old, his story bas a thril- the printing of the Tamil Bible. ling missionary interest. When a Schwartz caught fire from this bless- young man of 21 his father's death ed contact and told his father that he turned his thoughts to a holy life and must go to India, and, in that very the mission field, and in 1805 he sailed bedchamber where the wife and for India. For years he traveled in motiler died, the husband and father India and Persia and preached the learned to give up his boy to the gospel, studying the native tong-ues heathen and to God, with'such success that he was chosen Schwartz studied Tamil with the to superintend the translations of the missionary and was able to preach in New Testament into Hindostanee it within four months after his land- and Persian, and had already made ing in 1750. Schwartz is probably no little progress in an Arabic ver- the most prominent figure in the In- sion when his frail health gave way, dian Missions of the eighteenth centu- and on his way home he was laid to ry. He went often on foot, tirelessly rest in Asia Minor. His career was journeying and tirelessly preaching. short, but it cannot be measured by Himself a living epistle, he made years. Close by the river at Seram- preaching almost unnecessary by the pore, a small deserted idol fane was eloquence of his life. He won uni- fitted up as a bungalow, and there on versal confidence. The Rajah of the open platform overhanging the Tanjore made him on his deathbed river Martyn would kneel in prayer guardian of his adopted child. Hy- for India's millions. That spot has der Ali, the stern warrior, the ruthless become to Christians one of the chieftain, the scourge of the Car- world's Meccas. The ceaseless labors natic, said to the Madras rulers, of that devoted man, who at Dina- "Send me Schwartz, the missionary; pore and Cawnpore welcomed the him only can I trust." The humble most abject vagrants to his garden man who walked with God while he and bore ridicule and abuse without talked of God, and whose talk was so a murmur of impatience or even a subduing because his walk was so sign of annoyance, that he might sublime, was at once the minister of read to them the sweet words of God, and the minister plenipotentiary God, have never been lost to India to lllediate betweell contending fac- or to the church at home. Thebrokell ;flask has only let out a pervasive dorf, Schwartz and Carey, Martyn perfume. Dr. Stevenson has well and Duff•. are destined by God to tri- said that in the annals of Christian- umph? ity there is "nothing grander than the picture of Henry Martyn, with MISSIONARY TEXTS AND THEMES. the Bible in hand, alone and un- supported in a strange country, chal- Preach, i.e., proclaim the word. lenging the whole strength of Mo- The gospel should be preached and hammedanism to a conflict." The in as nearly as may be the words of memoir of that sublimely conse- Scripture. crated life has perhaps stirred to a , like devotion more disciples than his 1. Because these are God's words. life itself would ever have reached. 2. Because his message is the only thing we are commanded and com- At but one more link in this chain missioned to preach. have we space to tarry. William 3. Because it is the only thing that Carey was the first great gift which it is profitable to preach. England gave to missions in India 01' 4. Because the Spirit is most likely indeed to the world in these modern to use his own inspired utterances as times. The full century has not to the vehicle of his power. passed since, in 1792, Carey organized 5. Because as a fact conversion and that first Baptist missionary band !)anctification and all comfort are which may fairly be called the pio- traceable to the very words of Scrip- neer of all the existing societies. ture. When William Carey died, in 1834, 6. Because not our words but his India had become the established word has the promise of not return- field of missions. The broad founda- ing to him void. Is. .lv. tions were laid on ¥i hich such men as Rev. Dr. H. B. Smith's outline ar- Alexander Duff were to rear a struc- gument: ture so grand that no civil revolution 1. The spirit of missions is th~ or political convulsion can ever over- spirit of Christ, etc. Christianity is throw it. That pious shoemaker of a doctrine, teaching an incarnate Paulerspury became the uuremitting God, an atonement, a new birth, and student of the languages of the Ori- a new life; teaching and exemplify- ent, and with his colaborers, Marsh- ing a love that is universal and im- man and Ward, he was the means of partial and manifested mainly in un- making forty different dialects of selfish effort for souls. Asia channels for conveying the .2. Christianity is solitary in this: news of salvation to as many differ- teaching one blood for one race of ent tribes. At Serampore he estab- man, and one blood of redemption lished that large successful mission- applied to one blood of creation and arypost of his denomination, taught, one curse of sin. in the college at Fort William, the 3. The Experimental argument: Bengalee, Sanskrit and Mahratta Christian Europe and America, as tongues, and made valuable contri- fruits of missions, vindicate the meth- butions to the natural sciences. Three ods of missions. He who would not • years before Carey's death Alexander send the gospel to heathen peoples Duff met him at Serampore and the must first ask himself, What would aged apostle of India gave his bless- I have been but for missions? The ing to the young Highlander who purpose of missionary enterprise is to was to thrill not only India but the do for present heathen what has been world with the electric energy of his done for the present Christian nations utterance. Who can doubt that J:Uis- when they were in the same condi- sions which present such a chain of tion. workmen as Ziegenbalg and Zinzen- Itis admitted that sometimes there is slow progress. All great und per- manent results are slowly wrought. Espeeially, changes ~f intellectual, receive the grace of God's Son the sociaJ and moral life are necessarily chains are struck off and the prison slow. Moreover, in many cases it is thrown wide open.-Dr. Edward must be borne in mind that the work Judson.
is preparatory, like the breakwater on A Beautiful Legend.-In the hill the coast, or foundations of Eddystone country of India is a touching myth lighthouse. of a queen, greatly beloved by her 4. Historical argument: Where the people, whose life was devoted to spirit of missions is found, there is their interests. – In olden times the the Spirit of Christ-i. e., Holy Ghost. people of Chambra suffered grievous And wherever a church or a disciple distl'ess for want of water. The is indifferent to missions, there the queen, taking the sorrow of her sub- flame of a renewed life is with great· jects greatly to heart, consulted the est difficulty maintained at all, if in- will of the gods how the constant deed any really exists. curse of drought could be removed.
SUGGESTIVE PARAGRAPHS. The reply, "If the ruler of Chambra lVho his Own Self Bare our Sins.- – die for her people, abundant water Some time ago a war raged in India shall begiven." "Here am I," respond.
between the English and a native ~d the generous queen. Bravely monarch named Tippoo Sahib. On standing on the lofty position des- one occasion several English officers ignated by the gods, the devoted were taken prisoners, among them woman was buried alive for the sake one named Baird. One day a native of her people. Thereupon a fountain officer brought in fetters to be put on of pure sweet water flowed from the each of the prisoners, the wounded spot, descending to quench the thirst not excepted. Baird had been se- of the people of Chambra, visiting verely wounded and was suffering each hut and bearing to each its life- from pain and weakness. A gray- giving blessing. We by whose haired officer said to the native offi- homes the pure waters of salvation cial: are constantly flowing need hardly " You do not think of putting be reminded that they gush from a chains upon that wounded young grave, and mingling with the music man?" of those sparkling waters comes the "There are just as many pairs of echo of worqs spoken, commission fetters as there are captives," was the given, "Whoever shall do and teach answer, "and every pair must be my commandments Rhall be called worn." great in the kingdom of heaven."
"Then," said the officer, "put two Stimulated by this promise, mission pairs on me. I will wear his as well work has ever been carried on.
as my own." There is an honor in contributing The end of the story is that Baird in however small a measure to the lived to regain his freedom, lived to spread of God's church in the world.
take that very city, but the generous When the walls of the House of friend died in prison. He wore two Commons were about to be orna- pairs of fetters. But what if he had mented with cartoons, Haydon, the worn the fetters for all in the prison? eccentric historical painter, besought What if, instead of being a captive Parliament that he might be one of himself, he had been free and great the favored artists, or if this might and had quitted a glorious palace to not be, that he might paint one live in their loathsome dungeon, to figure, or put on a few touches, or at wear their chains, to bear their the least mix the colors or hold the stripes, to suffer and die in their brushes for those who were per· stead that they might go fl'ee! Such mitted to do the work.
a thing has been don~. For all who
PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS-MONTHLY BULLETIN
V.-PROGRESS AND RESULTS OF MISSIONS- MONTHLY BULLETIN.
Africa. – Rev. George GreenfeIl, the world, take back with them to lately returned from the -Congo, re- their homes slaves of both flexes.
ports "Christianity spreading even This is the case at Constantinople, where missionaries had not labored. for though the traffic is prohibited by As he approached one town in which law, evasions are winked at. The no Baptist missionary had ever 1<1- trade is wholly in the hands of Mos- bored, he saw a band of native evan- lems, and the open market which gelists coming out of it to preach the makes the trade profitable is under gospel to their native brethren, and the shadow of the shrine of their that town, a few years years ago, was prophet.
sunk in heathenism." Ceylon.-The Church Missionary -The last Congo mail brought Society's baptized native Christians good news from all along the line in Ceylon are 6,378 (2,861 Singhalese from Lukolela, Nshasa, Stanley Pool, and 3,518 Tamils). The adult bap- Ngombe, SanSah'adorand Underhill. tisms last year were 126 Sin~ha "The brethren report good health lese and 81 Tamils, and there are 273 and much and manifest blessing." adult candidates for baptism, 142 -The Congo Free State embraces Singhalese and 31 Tamils. '['here over 1,000,000 square miles of the terri- are 6 Singhalese and 6 Tamil natory tributary to the Congo, having, tive clergy, 156 Singhalese and 187 it is supposed, a population of about Tamil native lay teachers, and 9,735 ~7,000,000. It thus occupies about scholars in the 192 schools, 5,841 be– one-tenth of Africa, and includes ing Singhalese and 3,952 Tamils.
about one-seventh of her estimated China.-Rev. J. L. Stewart of the population. Of course the sover- Southern Presbyterian Mission in eignty of King Leopold exists only China, in a review of the progress of ad extra, being felt as little in- the gospel in China, gives these spe- teriorily as the sovereignty of the cial points of encouragement; State of Nebraska ovm,·the swarming .. Books for the study of the English lan- towns of her prairie-dogs. But it is guage and on the Western science, written a great fact even thus, doubtless, to in Chinese, meet with an extensive and inbe the parent of greater facts. creasing demand. A dozen daily newspa- pers, all founded within fifteen years, are -The slave trade between Africa obtaining a wide circulation throughout and Arabia is far from being sup- the empire. These are spontaneous appeals pressed. According to L'A/rique on the part of the Leathen Chinese for more there is, on the borders of the Red light. Add to this the voluntary attendance Sea, a regular price current for slaves. on the hundreds of schools and chapels, Girls from 10 to 15 years of age bring wherever opened in the empire; their re- spectful attention to the preaching of the from $80 to $100; boys from 7 to 11, Word, to the quiet talks by the roadSide, in their places of business, and in their homes, $60 to $80; young women from 16 to and it sums up a mass of evidence that the 22, $50 to $79; young men from 15 • Chinese mind is in an attitude of attention to 26, $30 to $50. The slave caravans and inquiry. n rarely have men who are above 25 -The City of Naiyen, north of years of age. It has been a question Ningpo, SUbmerged about 1,000 years as to what became of these slaves ago, has recently been exposed to view after they entered Arabia. It is now and a nurnber of vases, plates and affirmed that Moslem pilgrims to other utensils of the Sough dynasty Mecca, coming from various parts of have been recovered by the natives. .. '" "' India. Of the 50.000,000 of that faith in India, 24,000,000 are in Bengal. el° From the most careful census reports ci … ever taken in ,India it appears that the followers of Islam increased dur- 0 g8§g~§§888g88888§g~ 0:", ing the nine years 1872-1882,2,145,472 or at the rate of 10.96 per cent., the ~~~~~&~§~~~~&~&~~~~ 'C ~otz5 whole population increasing at the :0 qq,qqrSqqqqqqqqqpSoo rate of 10.89 per cent. The actual gains of Mohammedans were 15,000; 1il>~o oj ca this shows how much faster they in- creased than the whole population. :010: ~ Q A careful thinker would not concede 0-0 all of this number to proselytism. A t-O~O~OCl1':lO'OlO':>t-CO:::>lQ~l.~eol.C i0ii small increase in the health and lon- ~1"""'1~~1'""4W<:,!….-I (N T"'<1"""1 gevity of the Mohammedans would IIl<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ wipe out aLI the gains. But we would ::::::::::: .:. think that a church of twenty mill- "<X'"l0_ ions of members that only gathered : : : : : : : : : ; : ; : : z 1,666 members a year more than an- >" ;0:: other body, that made no converts and could make none, was not a model 0: of progress. The case grows darker 0 for Mohammedan success when we 0 remember that few have left Islam in Bengal, although several are far from ''""0: being as orthodox as of yore.-Indian oJ ::::::::::: : : ;.~ Witness. z ~J) :!l~ ~ ~ 3 d ~ d ~( : :….: ~ : :~ ~;:; ~.~ :. : 0 Japan.-Eighty-five thousand Eng- 0 ==bn~.§.~:..~cg '~~? Ec!·.~~..;~~~~~'£f-=:9:';!0]'r~C,i ='~f'9C;1l §c~6.-~!§ =co'!~)~~ 6gC ~Z0 lish and 119,000 American books were 0: imported last year, an increase of nearly 100 per cent. A lamentably Po. large fraction of this importation consists of skeptical anQ agnostic ~~o~wo~~~ww~w~~~~~~ writings.
India. – There are 42,000,000 chil- -The missionary fields in Japan demand more men and more money. dren in India who ought, according to There are now 200 churches with 15,000 members and 100 ordained their age, to be at school. Only about Japanese ministers. The Congrega- tional churches number 4,000 mem- 3,50G,000 of these are receiving any bers.
education, and less th[1n 200,000 of – The Japan newspapers report the ceremonies at the opening, Dec. this comparatively small number 15, of the last link of the railway connecting Sendai with Tokio. The are learning the truths of Christbn- line was opened from Tokio to Ko- riyama, 137 miles, in July last. The ity. Many adults (even in the Tamil- section just completed is 87 miles in length, and now Sendai, the most speaking districts, where mission northern station of our mIssion, is in quick and easy communieation with work has prevailed most extensively) the capital city of the empire.
who learned to read at school are for- getting the art because of the scarci- ty of books.
-The Church Missionary Society send out eight clergymen on a " win- ter inission" for India two by two, visiting all the stations of the society in India and Ceylon, stirring up the native churches to the work of evan- gelization, and preparations have been made on an extensive scale for wel- coming them and furthering their work. General Haigstates that "there are already Christians enough in In- dia, were they baptized with fire and endued with power ·from on high, to carry the gospel to every town a~tl village and hamlet from Comorin to Peshawur. In Southern India the native church ought to be able even now to take in hand and complete the work of evangelization with little European assistance."
-General Haig furnishes statistics concernmg Mohammedan progress in Italy.-Rev. T.D. Malan of Geneva tion was made for the poor heathen writes: The Genevan Italian Mission, founded in ] 882, has yielded good re- and sent to the treasurer of the sults from among the many thousands of Roman Catholicswho fiockinto that Auxiliary Bible SOCiety of Halifax, town from all parts of Italy and Italian Switzerland. The mission was and forwarded by that society. constituted into a church in 1884, and granted the use of a chapel by the Amount, £8 13s." This, says Dr. Bill, Genevan Presbytery, and much good has been attained, notwithstanding may be regarded as the commencemanifold difficulties. Owing to the fluctuating state of part of the Italian- ment of the foreign mission enterprise speaking population in Calvin's city, from 500 to 600 new hearers are every of the Baptists of the maritime provyear brought into contact with the gospel from the Roman Catholic inces.- W. J. Stewart. / Church. Thus far 114 of them have been received as members of the Russia.-In Russia there are 32,000 church. An important branch of the work is the Italian Young: Men's schools, having an average of 36 Christian Association, Circolo Diodati, so called in honor of the trans- scholars each. This is one school lator of the Italian Bible, Giovanni Diodati, who helonged to the Geneva for 2,300 inhabitants, at a cost of less Italian Church of the Reformation. than one cent a head of the popu- Korea. – The first Protestant church has been organized in connec- lation. In Austria, with 37,000,000 tion with the American Protestant llllSSlOn. Fifteen members are en- inhabitants, there are 29,000 schools rolled, and others are calling for baptism. Though contrary to Korean and 3,000,000 scholars. The average law, the government is reported as raising no question. It is but a score number at each school is 104, and the of years since the organization of a Christian church in Japan was not cost per inhabitant 20 cents. In Italy, only contrary to the law, but would have been visited with severe punish- for 28,000,000 inhabitants, there are ment, yet to-day there are more than 15,000 church members in thatempire. 47,000 schools, one school for every Mexico. – A convention of all 600 people, at a cost of 17 cents per Pl'otestant mission workers began in the City of Mexico Jan. 31 ult. Dele- head. In Spain there are 3,000,000 gates from all quarters, bishops from the United States were present. Ser- scholars, 29,000 schools, giving an mons were delivered in the ancient Franciscan convent, now used for average of 56 in each school, and one mission purposes. school for every 600 inhabitants, as Nova Scotia.-The Baptist Association of Nova Scotia met in the year in Italy. The school bill comes to 30 1814 with the church in Chester, N. S. Among the records of the association cents a head. The number of schools I find the following important statement for that year: "A contribu- given for England is 58,000, which is one for every 600 inhabitants, with an average attendance of 52 per school and a cost of 37 cents per head.
The Germans have a school for every 700, giving a total of 60,000 schools with a hundred pupils in each, at 40 cents per inhabitant. France has 71,000 schools, being one for every 500, with 66 in each school.
Turkey. – The Government and Mission Schools. Dr. Barnum, of Harpoot, India, writes to the Miss.
Herald that the Turkish Government, constrained by the remonstrances of the American and other ministers to respect its own laws in regard to mis- sionary schools in its territory, has now" determined to change the laws so that it may defeat the aims of the missionaries in a legal form. Mr.
Straus, the American minister, learn- ing that a new law for schools was under discussion at the Porte, claimed that as a large amount of American capital is invested in educa.tional in-
STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS
stitutions in the Turkish Empire, in the Sultan himself. [Such a document is not easily obtained.] 'fairness the American minister ought .. 2. No Ottoman subject shall be allowed to be consulted in regard to it, in or- to attend such a Ecbool until after he has had a course of religious instruction in one der that these interests might be of his own schools.
properly protected." He was fur- ··3. Foreign schools are to refrain entirely from religious instruction. nished with a copy of the proposed "4. That all foreiirn scboolsalreadyestablaw. It provides: ' lished which do not conform to this and to certain other conditions, and obtain the "1. Tbat no foreigner shall be allowed to Sultan's permission within six months, shall open a scbool without a special firman from be permanently suppressed."
VI.-STATISTICS OF THE WORLD'S MISSIONS.
Home and Foreign Missionary Statistics 1841-1885, Amer. Tract Soc. col's ….. 13,148,659 1866-1885, Amer. Bible Soc. col's …… 12,~91,460 of the United States. 1855-1£8.5, Presb. Board of Pub. col's.. 2,879,586 [WE are under additional obligations to Rev. James H, Ross of South Total visits, representing 190 years .• 31,577,433 Norwalk, Conn.,' for these "latest statistics," which he has prepared Average number of visits per year.. 1C6,197 with great care and thoroughness, acknowledging his indebtedness to PRAYER-MEETINGS HELD. 520,C51 Dr. Dorchester.-EDs.] 70,7f8 1840-18E5, by missionarieS Bapt.HM. S. 439,247 The statistics of Home Missions cannot be tab- 1854-1885, by col's of Bapt. B'd of Pub.. ulated satisfactorily. But tbe results attainable 1841-1885, by col's ofAm. Tract Soc …. are not pe!simistic. They indicate advancement. The worst feature of them pertains to the pro Total by agents of three boards …… 1,030,086 rata giving as tested by the estimated wealth of ADDITIONS ON CONFESSION TO H. M. CHUROHES.
tbe Christian portion of the population of the 1826-1E85, A. H. 1I. S. churches.. . . . . . .. 326,862 United States. Mr. Moody has said that the 1870-1885, Presb. H. M. Board chs.. …. 115,804 next characteristic revival within the churches 1832-1885, Am. Bapt. Mis. Soc." …… 97,919 is to be a revival of beneficence. Total additions to churcbes of 3 boards. 540,085 The total number of missionaries and helpers in the care of Americau evangelical home mis- YEARS OF LABOR RENDERED. sionary societies in 1885 was 8,482, and the number of missions or stations served or aided was 1826-1885, by Am. H. M. S. missionaries. 38,811 13,367. In 53 years, by Baptist H. M. S. mission- BELIGiOUS VISI'rS BY MISSIONARIES AND COL~ PORTEURS. aries (incomplete) ………………. . 7,357 1840-1885, Bapt. H. M. S. missionaries. 2,367,151 1870-1885, by Pres. H. M. B. miseionaries, 13,951 1824-1885, Bapt. Pub. Soc. agts. or col's. 890,574 1850-1885, by Pres. Bd. of Pub. .. 1,329 In 45 years, by Baptist Bd. of Pub. mis- sionaries (incoroplete) …………… . 1,029 III 49 years, by Am. 'r. S"c. colporteurs. 5,550 Total by agents of 6 bds. in 296 years. 68,327 RECEIPTS OF HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETIES.
—————–S-OC-I-ET-IE-S.—————– 1881 to 1887. 1820 to 1887. Presbyterian Old School, North, and Presb. New School, North…..•….. $3,666,186 $13,334,850 A. H. 1I. S. (Cong'I) ……………………………………………. . 2.847,210 11,586,891 M. E., Domestic ……………………………………………….. . 2,505,848 11,164,539 Protestant Episcopal, Domestic ………………………………….. . 1,187,904 4,762,136 American Ch. Miss. Soc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . •. . . . . . … . …… . 133,158 1,103,945 Reformed (Dutch) Ch…………………………………………… . 217,143 963,642 Am. Bapt. H. M. Soc……………………………………………. . 2,256,6.56 6,556,142 Seamen'S Friend Soc……………………..•…………………….. 378,234 2,020,535 A. 1I. A. (Cong'I) 1816…………………..•………………………. 3,257,567 9.302,665 Wn~~~e~~~:,~~O~i~~~~n::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::: 630,616 1,626,616 494.225 1,598,521 Southern Bapt., Domestic…………….. "……………………….. . 455.399 1,601,256 Y.M. C. A. (1851-1887) …………………………………………. . 7,&'iO,OOO 22,165,000 Disciples………………………………………………………. . 410,500 l,372.70'Z United Presbyterian……………………………………………… . 296,890 Southern Presbyterian……………………..•…………… "……. . 853,352 495,788 1,076,149 Cumberland Presbyterian ……………………………………….. . 184,734 Free-Will Baptist………………………………………………. . 103,900 394,021 373,827 M. E. Church South ……………………………………………. . 1,001,495 4,061,495 Lutberans ………………….••………….•••…………••……… 221,905 747,835 Aggregates.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .• $28,655,258 $96,666,119 Contributions to the Freedmen's Aid Soci- and United Presbyterian churches, and to the eties of the Methodist Episcopal, Presbyterian Christian Commi"sion, increase the total for the last six years to $30,486,573, and for the last 67 by the American churches, exclusive of the years to $103,019,308. The contributions of the American McAII auxiliaries, chiefly of ladies, Reformed Presbyterian and German, the Mora- numbers 203 stations, 2,125 sub-stations, 1,273 Vian, and the Protestant, Free Wesleyan and Af- official laborers of all kinds and both sexes, rican M. E. churches are uot included because 115,542 communicants, 2,123 pupils in day and not available. boarding school8.
OOMPARATIVE RECEIPTS. AMERICAN EVANGELICAL MISSIONS IN ASIA.
Yearly average. The lands included are Western Asia (Asiatic 1820-1829.. … ……………. ……. $23,382 Turkey, Persia, Syria, and Asia Minor), India, 1830-1839…………………. …. … 234,271 ,Burmah, Siam, China, Thibet, Korea, and Japan. IB40-1849.. .. . . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . . . . 006,235 Tbe totals for aU denominations are 237 prinCipal 1850-1 Bfi9 …. " ……………. ,……. 1308,010 stations, 2,606 sub'stations, 533 ordained foreign 1860-1869 ………………………… 2,101,571 missionaries, 843 foreign lay helpers, 632 native 1870-1800, , ' , ….. , … , ' , … ' , , …….. 2,842,923 ordained helpers, 5,479 natiye lay belpers, 7,487 1881-1887…… , ' ………………. '… 4,000.000 laborers of all kinds, 120,890 communicants, 100,560 pupils in day and boarding schools. Foreign Missionary Statistics. IN AFRICA AND MADAGASCAIt. THE latest foreign missionary statistics of the evangelical churches of the Uuited States are The missions are chiefly along the coast and in indicative of progress. The numbel~ of church the centre of the continent. Tbe total figures members disinterested in foreign missions is a for all denominations n1¥Il ber 55 principal stalessening fraction. The nnmber of disciples is tions, 255 snb·stations, 138 ordained foreign misincreasing who realize the force of Christ's sionaries, 81 foreign lay helpers, 57 native orteachings and commandments, that tbj3 field is dained and 788 native lay helpers, 1,064 laborers the world, that the dnty of the Christian is to of all kinds, 15,426 communicants, and 16,920 pucover the whole of it by prayer, gifts and labor- pils in day and boarding scbools. ers, in person so far as possible, by representation so far as individnals are limited by time and IN POLYNESIA, space. We give the following facts, before tbey are pnblished in complete form in any other inclusive of New Zealand (Seventh Day Ad· pnblication : ventists), Micronesia and Sandwich Islands (A. B. C. F. M,), tbere are 5 principal stations, 33 MISSIONS o.F AMERICAN EVANGELICAL CHURCHES sub-stations, 8 foreign ordained missionaries, 13 foreign lay helpers, 11 native ordained mission· IN EUROPE. aries, 35 native lay helpers, 67 laborers of all kinds, 10,852 communicants, and 2,500 pupils in Tbese consist cbiefly of missions among Rom- day and boarding scbools. isb and lapsed rationahstic populations in Austria, Austria- Hungary, Bulgaria, Denmark, IN NORTH AMERICA, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Norway, Roumania, Scandimivia, Spain, Switzer- inclnsive of Greenland, Labrador, work imong land, and European Turkey. It would seem as the North American Indians (States and Alaska) if the American churches might do more to ayail and the Chinese in Oregon and California, Mexthemselves of the wonderfnl opportunity existing ico, Central America and the West Indies, there in France, even if they were compelled to work are 181 principal stations, 823 sub·stations, 44, Rolely on lines developed hy the McAlI missions. foreign ordained miSSIOnaries, 253 foreign lay Dr. Mutchmol'e of Philadelphia, now making help',,"s, 168 ordained native missionaries, 1,419 the tour of the world to stndy foreign missions, native lay helpers, 2,287 laborers of all kinds, ~ays, "France is in a wonderfully receptive 56,269 communicants, aud 26,214 in day and mood. . . . God has opened new avenues on boarding schools. all sides. It is as if tbe windows and doors of all French dwellings were snddenly thrown .IN SOUTH AMERICA, open to the light." Mrs. DoddS, the widow of the Rev. Theophilus Dodds and a successor of inclusive of Brazil, the Argentine Republic (Chili her husband in tbe MeAl! missions, says ;hat the and Colombia) and Guiana, there are 28 principal workers want ," everything except opportuni· stations, 84 sub'stations, 100 foreign ordained ties." The Enropean work in hand, supported missionaries, 37 foreign lay helpers, 15 ordained native miSSionaries, 454 lay native helpers, 715 laborers of all kinds, 12,724 communicants, and 4,597 pupils in day and boarding schoole.
RECAPITULATION.
– -St-at-ion-.s.- – Laborers For. miss'aries. Native Helpers, Total Communi- Pupils in Or- Lay Or- Lay labor· cants in day and ers. mission boarding dained. helpers. dained. helpers. scbools. — churche~. —- — — — —- – – – – Prin·Sub- stations. cipals. —- 1,123 Europe…. , . 203 2,125 41 34 245 396 1,273 115,542 Asia …….. :!37 2,606 533 843 632 5,479 7,690 120,890 100,560 Africa……. 55 255 138 81 57 788 1,184 15,426 16,920 N.America.. 181 823 447 253 168 1,419 2,287 56,629 26,214 S. America .. 28 84 100 37 15 454 715 12,724 4,597 2,500 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Polynesia….533813 11 35 67 10,852 —- — –~ Aggregate.. 700 n,9'?6 1.267 1.2M 1,128 8,571 13,216 332,063 151,914 The statistics are largest for Asia, the native are fewer pickers but more grspes; while in home of Christianity. The number of foreign or- the far distance the clnsters are dead ripe and dained and lay missionaries, and of native or- not a man to pick. Another student said: "I ~ained helpers is about equal. The relattve thought of one minister to every 600 ofpopulafigures are 1,261, 1,261, and 1,128. The harvest is tion in America, and I thought of one man to white,the laborers are few, the total of all kinds every 5OQ,OOO in the foreign field; of South 13,398. At Mr. Moody's college of colleges, America, with one man to 600,000; of the Congo, Northfield, Mass., last summer, a Princeton with one man to 40,000,000 of people." student stated the matter of " a call" to work at home or abroad, as follows: Near the gate I THE REOEIPTS find many pickers and few grapes; further on of the foreign missionary societies of the United States, in receut years and the totals since their origin are as follows: SOCIETIES. 1881-1887. Totals 1810-1887.
A. B. C. F. M …………………………………. . •$4,488,112 $22,452,817 Am. Baptist missionary Union ……………………. . 2,;)27,239 9,057,119 M.E………………………………………….. . 2,756,251 9,346,661 rr~!~~~e~!nPJ~~~~~I::: …: … '.. ~ . '.. '. '.. ~ ~ '. '. '. '. '. ~ '. '. '. : : : : : : : : 916,246 3,992,454 4,744,533 14,746,588 Southern Baptist………… '. .. .. …. .. …… .. 472,411 1,457,353 American and Foreign Church Union……………… . 129,625 2,404,331 Reformed Church……………………………… . 413,290 1,724,401 Evang(')ical Lutheran…. …. . .. . . . . . .. . . .. . :<57,089 557,089 Evangelical Association…… . ………………. .. 85,000 334,000 United Brethren ………………………………… . 200,000 750,658 United Presbyterian.. . . . . . ………… . 616,610 1,626,239 Southern Presbyterian. . . . . …………. . 498,570 1,033,511 Reformed Presbyterian.. .. . .. ………… . 185,732 Disciples…….. ……… …… . …………. . 93,600 218,742 Free-Will Baptist………………………………. . 185,565 466,362 Methodist Episcopal South ………………………. . 126,000 2,119,439 719,439 TOTALS ……………………………….. . $19,028,980 $73,074,115 Complete retnrns from 1881 to 1887 would make 3,000,000, and more than one-quarter as much for about 21,000,000, or an annUal average of about last six years as Cor the last eighty-six.
COMPARATIVE TABLE.
MISSIONS. 1850. 1880. 1887.
Stations……………………………….. .. 77 129 175 Ordained missionaries, foreign and native. .. . .. 438 1,7E2 2,395 Lay laborers …………………………….. . 4,167 Total laborers ………………………….. .. 829 : 9,832 Communicants ……… .. …………… …… . 1,267 5,959 13,398 Day and boarding scholars …………………. . 47,266 205,132 332,060 29,210 65,825 151,914 During the last thirty-seven years the number quite recently pagan women were almost wholly "'f foreign missions has increased more than two- nnreached. Oriental customs account for the fold, the number of ordained missionaries over failure. The organization of Christian ladies in five-fold, the nnmber of lay helpers twelve-fold, the home churches to aid missionary work in the total number of laborerR over ten-Cold, the the foreign field has been one of the characternumber of communicants seven·fold, the number istics of the last quarter of a ceutury. There of day school scholars five-fold. are now 26 female foreign missionary societies in the United States, in 16 denominations (count- Since this decade began, the mission communi- ing subdivisions of one type of denominationcants have increased 126,928, or 60 per cent.; the alism). The "Woman's Union Missionary Somission day-scholars 86,189, or 130 per cent.; the ciety," organized in New York City in 1861, still total laborerS 7,391,or 124 per cent. exists as a Union Society. The latest available statistics, except for their receipts, are those of The average yearly receipts since 1880 have the year 1885, when there were 15,867 auxiliaincreased about one million dollars over the av- ries, 3,454 bands (of girls and young ladies). The erage for the previous decade, and they are aggregate receipts of 12 of these Women's Fornearly seven times as large as the average from eign Missionary Boards is 8,571,706, from 1860 to 1840 to 1850. 1886. This is exclusive of the receipts of 12 of these boards, so recently organized that their WOMAN'S WORK. statistics are not available.
Thus Car the number of female converts to Christianity from paganism is small. Until TOTAL AVERAGE YEARLY RECEIPTS, HOME AND FOREIGN lIIISSIONS.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1850………………………… $675,000 $557,1:!!3 $1,232,123 1,450,479 1860.. .. .. .. . .. . .. .. .. .. .. . . .. . … 1,075,070 2,472,246 2,525,549 3,389,845 4,225,952 1870.. … . .. . . .. …… ………… 1,753,700 4,000,000 5,989,845 7,000,000 1880………………………… 2,600,000 1886.. •.. . •. .. .. .. ••. .. •.. . •. . . . . . 3,000,000 ACTUAL INCREASE.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1,384,426 1850 to 1860. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 400,070 983,356 1,700,403 1860 to 181"0……… '" ……… 678,636 1,021,767 1,763,898 1870 to 1880…………………. 846,294 917,604 • RELATIVE INCREASE.
Foreign Missions. Home Missions. Total. 1850 to 1860…………………. 59 per cent. 160 per cent. 105 per cent. 1860 to 1870. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 70 67 1870 to 1880. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. 48 37 42 The increase of the otrerings for foreign mis- priests. The rapid increase of Roman Catholics sions in 30 years was about four-fold, and for in Scotland oflate has been due chielly to immihome missions about six-fold. The total annual gration from Ireland. The increase of priests in receipts in 1886 are $7,000,000 as against $6,000,- Enl(land from 1871 to 1885 was 636. 000 in 1R8O. Although it is claimed that the Church of PRO RATA TESTS. Enl(land has a majority of one million adherents over all other creeds, this claim is seriously Average per questioned hy Dissenters. If the actual senti- Inhabitants member for H. ment of the people were taken, it might be Members. per member. & F. Missions. found that in England as well as in Scotland the Established Church is really in the minority. 1850.. 3,529,988 6.57 35 cents. Until 1871 the Established Church of Ireland 1860 .. 5,240,554 6.00 48 was Protestant Episcopal, though it represented but a fraction of the population. At present 1870.. 6,673,396 5.78 63 there are fonr Roman Catholic archbishops in Ireland and 23 bishops. The Roman Catholic 1880 . . 10,065,963 5.00 591-2 c. population in 1881 numbered 3,960,~91. The Protestant Episcopal Church had, at the same 1888.. 12,132,000 (estimates) 579-10 c. time, two archhishops, ten bishops, 1,560 clergy, 1,550 churches and 6.."0,000 members. There Multitudes of members have given nothing, or were iu the same year 470,734 Presbyterians, only a few dimes, and those spasmodically. The 48,839 Methodists, 6,210 Independents, 4,879 average is still less then % of one dollar. Baptists, 3,645 Quakers, and 472 Jews. From 1851 to 1861 the decrease of Catholics in Ireland Religious Statistics of Great Britain. was 43 per cent., of Protestants 10 per cent.; 1861-1871 the former decreased 8 and the latter THE Church of England has two archbishops and 31 bishops. In 1881 there were 14,926 civil Yo per cent. In 1871 the Catholics numbered parishes, with 14,573 churches and chapels; the clergy in actual service numbered 21,663. Ac- 4,141,933, so that in 1881 there was a further decording to an estimate made in 1883, 13,500,000 crease of 181,042. The Jews in Great Britain persons in England and Wales were adherents number about 70,000, of whom 40,000 are in of the Establisbild Church, leaving 12,500,000 to London. It is claimed that nine-tenths of the other creeds. The Wesleyans, Independents, inhabitauts of Wales are Dissenters. The Baptists and Presbyterians are most numerous Quakers in Great Britain, now numbering 15,- among dissenting bodies in England. The Wes- 219, are said to have been constantly on the inleyans have 13,270 chapels; the Independents crease during the last 20 years. 2,603; the Baptists 2,243. The number of dissenting ministers in 1881 was 9,734. The total A German authority gives the following as the number of denominations in Great Britain is ]80. religions statistics of the world: In Scotland the Established Presbyterian CHRISTIANS. Church has 84 presbyteries, 16 synods, 1,307 parishes, with 1,587 churches, chapels and sta- Catholics. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. 190,000,000 tions, and about 1,700 ministers. In 1884 there Protestants. . .. … . . ……. . ……. 108.000,000 were 556,622 members, an increase of 12,653 Greek Christians.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SO,OOO,OOO over the preceding year. The Free Church of Other churches… . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16,000,000 Scotland has 1,096 ministers, 32.5,000 members, while it is claimed that the adherents number Total. . …. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 393,000,000 945,000. The United Church has 594 ministers, Ii59 churcheS and about 179,891 members and ad- NON-CHRISTIANS. herents. The Episcopal Church of Scotland has seven bishops, 220 churches,255 clergy, and a Jews ……………………….. .. 7,000,000 claimed adherence of 76,939 souls. Mohammedans ……………….. . 85,000,000 Buddhists …………………….• 500,000,000 The Roman Catholics of Great Britain are es- Hiudus ……. .'………………..• 190,000,000 timated at two millions. There are 15 ecclesias- Heathen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . … 280,000,000 tical dignitaries in En~land, and in Scotland there are two archbishops aud four bishops. In Total. ……………………… 1,062,000,000 England there were in 1835 1,269 chapels and This makes thirty per cent. of the earth's popstations, and 2,256 oftlciating priests. In Scot- ulation Christian, of whom less than one-half land there were 305 chapels and stations and 320 are Roman Catholics.-Dr. J. H. W. Stucken- berg, in H()TT!iletw Review. S Foreign Missionaries. .b., I ' Date Native Unordalned Commu- Pnpils ContrIbntions of Ordained Nat;"e nicants. in by Q.I Name of Society_ Mission Men. Wlves. IWSoinmgelen TotaI. Ministers. Helpers. Schools. Native Churches. .~ —————– 1 London Missionary Society……… 1807 28 21 11 60 8 69 3,595 2,186 –.,——- 1:1.l $17,200.00 2 A.B. C. F.M………………….. 1830 29 25 12 66 8R 1,545 ::Q;s) 3 American Baptist, North . . . . . . . . . . . 1834 21 559 180.00 5 2 i:Q 4 American Protestant Episcopal …. Ita; 5 12 4 16 371 145 279.26 410.76 S 5 American Presbyterian. North .. " . Itlil8 10 6 1 17 22 21 362 900 6 American Reformed (Dutch) ……. 1842 45 34 19 98 19 176 3,786 1,932 2,448.88 .~…
00 7 British and Foreign Bible Society .. 1843 5 5 3 13 5 19 820 124 2.076.29 114 ~ 8 Church Missionary Society……… 1844 13 7 20 'i2 2.507 2ji;z 3.ioa:so 171 1,062 450.00 <11 9 English Baptist………………… 1845 26 19 8 63 1 8 3,349 160 ~ 43 1,084 3,473.57 Q) ;;<11 19 15 34 87 24 10 Methodist Episcopal, North ….. " . 1847 "7 1,641 36 1,175.61 CD 11 Seventh Day Baptist……………. 1847 30 27 14 71 7 1,808 232 654.00 ~ 1 1 1 3 24 3,553 598 Io:ol'-~o 12 American Baptist, Sonth ……….. 1847 370 3,920.00 13 Basel Mission …………………. 1847 13 10 9 32 60 200 35 222 725 ZiO::i4 <11 ·14 Engli~h Prespyterian …………… 1847 20 15 3 66 80 ::s ~ ~ 935 520 600.00 15 Rhemsh Mission …………….•.. 1847 21 15 7 43 5 84 17 105 8.00 p !.; 3 6 1,218 162 16 Methodist EPiSCOlJil, South …….. 1848 3 3 14 6 273 100.25 C!:l'tS 7 '634 50 11 Berlin Foundling ospital. ……… 1850 8 7 4 29 173 250'.00 ::r:.: 5., 1,932 ~ 18 Wesleyan Missionary Society……. 1852 1 1 6 "5 ':ii "77 401.34 r:.1' 6 306 tIl 19 Woman'c Union Mission ……….. 1859 19 8 5 32 … 34 83 260 240:00 :~-;::.::~~~ 5 25 5 Eo< 20 Methodbt New Connexion ……… 1860 5 .'".. 13 1,765 72.00 21 Society Promotion Female Educ…. 1864 11 …1……2 73 …. .5.2.7. o". 22 United Presbyterian, Scotch …….. 1865 ::: I 7 5 42 97ii.oo 1 5 …..2. 11 30 80 ~~ o<11 4 70 . ….. E:: 6 12 .5.0.0. . ….. § .~ 23 China Inland Mission ………….. 186.5 1~ '46 . … . … <11 24 National Bible Society of Scotland .. 1868 4 52 .9..0 265 . … .. :i2 …… 25 United Methodist Free Chnrch ….. 1888 2 6 '60 . … …… ~ t.3. ~ . … 26 American Presbyterian, South…… 1868 3 3 6 "30 . ….. ……0., .o., Eo< 40 . ….. 27 Irish Presbyterian ……………… 1869 10 6 4 20 32,260 . ….. o ~ 28 Canadian Presbyterian …………. 1871 13,777 . ….. 29 Society Prooagation of the Gospel. . 1874 3 3 '" ~ 4,260 =..'!l 30 American Bible Society ………… 1876 198 "4:00 31 Established Church or Scotlaud …. 1878 2 2 .".2. 4 Q) 4 2 $38,236.70 8 4 8 12 $19,862.14 <11 3 3 "i 6 3 4 9 3ro2 Berlin Mission ………………… 1882 4 '….. 1 …..3, .2.1. 8 General Prot. Evang. Society•…… 1884 1 1 ………… 34 Bible Christians ……………….. )885 4 5 …"….i,, ~ 35 Foreign Christian Miss. Society …. 1886 5 2 .'".. 7 ~ 36 Book and Tract Society .••….•…. 1886 1 1 2 37 SOCiety of Friends……………… 1886 1 1 2 – – – – – – – – – 38 Independent Workers ……..••…. -…-. 4 1 3 8 @ ..-. …. 489 320 221 1,030 175 ~ — ,~.. — – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Total-December, 1887………• 1,316 Tncrease .over 1886……•…•…. …. 43 4 64 121 ·35 20 — –_._-
m4 EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS
-Roman Catholics in India. Ac- about a million and a quarter among oording to the official return pubiished the 260,000,000 of India-the result by the Propaganda last year the num- of 300 years of labor. ber of Roman Catholics in India is -There are some 200,000,000 wo- 1,185,142; churches and chapels, 2,677; men in India of whom 20,000,000 are stations, 417; EUropean missiona- in enforced widowhood. The English ries, 940; native missionaries, '150; Baptist Zenana Mission has been do- ,elementary schools, 1,566; scholars, ing a good work among them. It 64,357; orphanages, 73; orphans, commenced in 1867 with a revenue of 4,837, This does not include the $1,500. Now H! has 18 stations, 42 Catholics of Goa, under the Portu- lady visitOl'S, 25 assistants, 42 native ,guese, who are at feud with Rome at teachers and Bible ,,"omen, and 41 girl present. Together they will number schools containing about 1,500 pupils.
——– VII.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.
THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT Office be so modified as to give entire free- AND MISSIONS. dom to the various missionary societies to conduct their educational work on Indian FROM the Bible Society Record we reservations in their own way, without inquote: ~";;'Jerellce on the part of the government; .. On the 2d of November last a delegation .. II. That the regulations be further modof gentlemen, headed by the Hon. William fied so as to allow the use of the native Strong, ex-Justice of the Supreme Court, tongue in schools supported, in whole or in ,and represeHting theAmerican Bible Society, part,. by t,he government, so far as such use the Presbyterian Boards of Home and For- may be desirable as a means of acquiring eign Missions, the American Missionary a knowledge of the English or of imparting Asso~iation, the Missionary Society of the moral or religious instruction. Methodist Episcopal Church, the Board-of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church, .. This interview with the President gave the Board of Indian Commissioners, and the warrant for the hope that the order would be various organiz.ations represented at the so far modified as to remove all objection Mohonk Conference, waited upon President to it on the part of those interested in it. But Cleveland with a statement and a request. we deeply re"ret to say that this hope is blasted, and that the latest order from the .. The occasion which led them to seek this Indian Office is open to the gravest obj~c interview was an order issued some time be.. tion as an attempt on the part of a single fore by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, officer ot the government to restrict religrigidly and positively forbidding the giving ious instruction and to dictate to missiona.. of instruction in the Indian language in any ry societies how they shall give instruction Indian school, and threatening to close ev- in religion and morals. ery school maintaine,d at private expense which did not comply with the regulation. .. The delegation asked, as a matter of pub- lic policy, that in schools in which govern- U The delegation expressed its accord with ment funds are employed the teachers might the department in its desire to have the be allowed to make use of the native tongue English language take the place of the na- as a means of teaching English, or of teachtive dialects as soon as possible, but re- ing their pupilH how to become good men spectfully questioned' the wisdom of at- and women. The answer is precise and pas.. tempting to secure this end by forbidding itive: 'No textbook in the vernacular will teachers to employ the only language which be allowed ;' ~ no oral instruction in the ver~ their pupils have known from childhood, nacular will be allowed at such schools;' or to use interlinear books in those lan- • the entire curriculum must be in the Engguages, especially in schools where the at- lish language.' tendance is Sure to be irregular and the period of tuition very brief;' and further- .. Furthermor'e, they asked, as a matter of more represented that it is' not within the civil and religious liberty, that missionary province of the govetnmeRt to enter any societies, intent on promoting the welfare private institution and say that Indian chil- of the aborigines, should be allowed to condren shall not be taught to read the Ten duct their eaucational work in their own Commandments and the Lord's Prayer in way, without interference on the part of the their own tongue. ' Government, using the primer, the hymn- book, the bool< of devotion and the Holy .. The delegation, believing that the best Scriptures in Dakota at their discretion. sentiment of the nation would sustain them ion it, made this twofold request: .. This appeal also is disregarded. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs assumes .. I. That the regulations of the Indian to know better than the missionaries. Bishop Hare must not teach his catechU' mens to read the Dakota catechism. Mr. perhaps is a little more-than the original Riggs must not use as a textbook the ver- was. It is a great pity that so important a. sion of the Bible which his father prepared matter should not be managed more sensiwith so much patience and scholarship. Mr. bly." Williamson must not write on the blackboard the T"u Commandments expressed in For ourselves we are amazed at any words his Indian boys have ever heard this" rebuff from the U. S. Governin their wigwams or on the playground. The ment." Our worthy President canbook, the printed page, the written words, not afford to have this action of his are under the baH of tbe United States Gov- subordinate stand. It is a grievous .,rnment. Its edict is, • Thou shalt not teach indignity to the missionary sentiment an Indian boy to read a word in his own of the age and directly contravenes a tongue." 'No person,' says the Commission- fundamental principle of our instituer, in his order, dated Jan. 18, 1888, • other tions. It is quite bad enough for our than a native Indian teacher, will be per- politicians, in national, state and mitted to teach in any Indian vernacnlar ; munidpallegislation, to show markand these native teachers will only be al- ed partiality to the Roman Catholic lowed in schools not supported in whole or Church for the Rake of political influin part by the government, at remote points ence; but when a government officer where there are no government or contract arbitrarily interposes and forbids our schools where the English language is missionary societies, in schools estabtaught. ", lished and wholly supported by them, from conducting them as their wis- That this high-handed and imper- dom dictates, it is quite time a halt tinent action on the part of a gov- were called and the pulse of the peo- ple felt. The order excluding the ernment official will be acquiesced in Dakota Bible from every school by the religious public, especially by where its reading can do any good is our missionary societies, we do not only paralleled by the recent attempt for one moment believe. The posi- of the Turkish Government to suption taken by the conference at Mo- press American schools in the Otto- man Empire-an attempt against honk ,Lake last summer is the only which our Department of State cprrect one, and our presumptuous through Mr. Straus, our minister, Indian Office will be forced to see it : so earn2stly protested as to defeat the attempt. No less earnest should .. No policy can be endured which forbids be the protest of the American people Christian 'IlUJn and wO'l1UJn to teach Ohristian against an arbitrary order which dictruth, or to prepare instrul'tion in it in any tates to their missionary societies the way theydeen. right, in any part of this com- metho.ds which they must pursue as monwealth, that is consistent with that civil a condition of being allowed to work and religious liberty which is unhampered for the conversion of the Indian race. in every other part of our land, and must So long as this order stands the Dehereafter be unhampered within all Indian partment of the Interior will be in a reservations. " position of direct antagonism to the Christian sentiment of our land.- The Christian Union well says: J. M. S.
.. It is monstrous that there should be a THE INDIAN BUREAU AND THE CA'l'HOsquare mile of territory in the United States in which the National Government should LIC CHURCH. be able by despotic decree to determine the conditions under which a free religions soci- THE American Protestant Church ety which asks no support and no favors has another serious matter to settle from the government may carryon its work. with this same secretary. Something We should be glad to have religious societies is evidently wrong in his department, appeal to the President to have this order and it is quite time some light was rescinded, not because they wish to use the let in upon it. We quote the follow- Indian vernacular, but because they demand liberty to make their own rules and regulations without let or hindrance of any kind from the Indian Bureau."
Says The Congregationalist: .. The simple facts are that the order of the Indian Commissioner, which has bAen modified, was absurd and unjust to begin with, and that whoever has attempted to modify it has bungled his task so that the result is not much more satisfactory to intelligent and patriotic people-although it ing froIn The Independent of this president and Rev. Joseph S. Stephan direc- tor, which devotes itaeJf to forwarding the city, and commend the startling facts interests of the Catholic Church with the government. Contracts for Catholic Indian here disclosed to the serious attention schools are made with Father Stephan. The energy of this bureau deserves high of our readers. We know that New commendation. Not simply the contract schools, but the government schools, sup- York, Brooklyn and other cities, as ported wholly by the government, are also rapidly passing into the control of this well as many state legislatures, have bureau by the appointment of Catholic teachers, even where the Indians are all long discriminated in favor of Roman Protestant. If we are not mistaken the chief of the department of schools in the Catholic as against Protestant insti- Indian Bureau and his assistant have both tutions; but here is evidence of such been Roman Catholics. The government marked, gross, iniquitous favoritism has given them all it could, not, we suppose, on the part of our National Govern- out of any preference to Catholics, nor bement as to shock one's sense of justice cause it believed the Catholics to maintain and demand an investigation. Such any better schools than the Protestants, an administration of our Indian but simply because it is believed that the Bureau as these two items disclose administration has something to gain politshows it to be a disgrace to the nation ically by favoring this one church at the and to President Cleveland's admin- expense of all others. "-J. M. S • istration! A WOMAN died in Philadelphia on .. What we say is in no way designed as a criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. the second of January who has in We respect it for its enterprise and activity. herself done more to solve the prob- That its activity has been wonderfully fa- lem of how to heal the breach bevored by the Indian "Bureau at Washington is tween the so-called "higher" and all that we propose to show. The statistics "lower" classes than all the wise we give need no eloquence to teach their plans and resolutions adopted by meaning. The government expended last ecclesiastical bodies. She was heryear the sum of $308,299.98. Of this sum the self a woman of elegant refinement, Catholics got $168,959.13, and all others, in- wealthy, beautiful in feature and cluding Hampton and Lincoln, got $139,- character, lovely in disposition, gen- 340.85. For contract day schools the gov- erous and charitable. But instead of ernment expended $9,847.27. Of this the identifying herself and all her family Catholics got $7,632.92, and all others $2,- with one of the wealthy and aristo- 214.35. The government paid for the educa- craticchurehes she deliberately joined tion of Indiau youth in contract schools the a church mostly and almost exclusum of $318,147.25, of which $176,5~2.15 went sively composed of the working peoto Catholic schools, and $141,555.20 to all ple. She became a teacher in the other schools. The Catholics comprise from Sunday-school and practically the one-tenth to one-sixLh of the population; pastor of the entire parish which her the amount allowed to their boarding and large class constituted. She visited day schools is 55).2 per cent. of the total each member of the class systematiamount expended ou these schools. The cally, and they were not social calls non-Catholic population of the couutry is either, but spiritual visits, dealing from five-sixths tonine-teuthsof the whole ; directly with souls. When they the amount allowed to their Indian schools were sick she went to them, Qn foot is 44).2 per cent. of the whole. In 1884 the and in humble attire; she carried government expended on Catholic schools them little dainties, she read hel' the sum of $35,263. In 1885 it was $90.142. Bible at their bedside, she knelt and In 1886 it was $134,197. In 1887 it reached prayed with them, she inquired of the sum of $176,592, five times as much as their spil:itual condition and directed in 1884. them to Jesus. No pastoral care be- .. When asked how it happens that Catho- came needful where that woman lic schools got so much, Mr. Atkins a.nswers that they ask for more. This is not a fair answer. Protestant schools find more dif- ficulty than Catholic in getting what they ask for, besides the fact that the govern- ment iuterferes less with Catholic than Protestant contract schools. But Catholic schools are very diligent in their asking. There is in Washington a bureau of Catholic Missions, of which Rev. P. L. Chapelle is went. She declined invitations to score of such men and women as this social parties that she might be free and we can close up the slums in our to devote her time to the Lord's great cities, build a chapel in every work. She might be bearing a sor- forsaken quarter, put a missionary in row that would have crushed another every remote hamlet, and girdle the woman, but no one would ever sus- globe with a zone of missionary pect it behind that cheerful face. labor. We are scarcely sincere when She was one among the people with we talk of insuperable obstacles in whom she was identified. There was the way of evangelizing the cities or no sign of conscious superiority. In- the world.-A. T. P. to the prayer-meetings and missionary circles and Dorcas gatherings she LIVINGSTONE at first had no thought went, just as though she had no high of being himself a missionary. Feelblood, nor social pank, nor ample ing that" the salvation of men ought purse. Everybody loved her. The to be the chief desire and aim of every poorest work – women would drop Christian," he had made a resolution everything and go at her call 01' her that he would give to the cause of beck as though they were serving a missions all that he might earn bequeen. Her last act was to rise from yond what was required for his subher dying bed, as her disease suddenly sistence. The resolution to give himdeveloped fatal symptoms, and write self came from his reading an appeal out checks to cover various benevo- by Mr. Gutzlaff to the churches of lent expenditures, and among others Great Britain and America on behalf a contribution to the church of whi9h of China. It was" the claims of so she was a member, and which just many millions of his fellow creatures, then was making heroic efforts to and the complaints of the societies of cancel a large mortgage debt. She the want of qualified missionaries," wrote her checks with a clear firm that led him to aspire to that office. hand, and went back to bed to die. From that time, apparently his When the news of her decease came twenty-first year, his efforts were like a thunderclap from a clear sky, constantly directed toward that oba hush fell on' the entire people as ject without any fluctuation. David though the ground were trembling Livingstone said, "I am a missionwith an earthquake. They could at'y heart and soul. God had only scarcely speak to one another. The one Son, and he was amissionary."- prayer-meeting turned to sobs and A.T.P. tears.
We talk of missions. There is no ONE of the most pathetic stories of trouble in reaching souls, but it takes missions is that of MarialIathsdotter. .a soul to do it. When we are in As she followed the reindeer over the dead earnest-when all else is practi- silent hills around her father's house, 'cally trampled under foot in our in- the needs of her people seemed to tense desire and determination to call her. She wept and prayed for bring souls neal' to God-when self- the ignorant Lapps until their condiindulgence gives way, and even self- tion forced her to decide. Their need love, before the burning, consuming was the voice of God. It took her flame of devotion to Christ and those three years to learn the Swedish for whom he died, we shall sweep language. Then, clad in ottel' and earth as with a conflagration lOne reindeer skins with the Lapland skid- Paul, in thirty-three years, made a del'S on her feet, she walked in winter, journey afoot over the greater part 600 miles to Stockholm. It was a ·of the known world west of the long journey over the dreary moun- Golden Horn and bore the gospel tains and dismal forests. But suc- .into the regions beyond. Give us a cess crownfld her efforts. The Lord was with her. The king of Sweden THE editor of The Church at Home granted her request. Her people and Abroad, our esteemed brother were provided with schools and Dr. Nelson, calls our attention to the churches.-A. T. P. fact that the article on "Beginning at Jerusulem," which we reviewed in WHEN Dr. H. H. Jessup, for so the March number of this REVIEW: many years a missionary in Syria, has already been met by "clear and was offered the secretaryship of the conclusiye" counter statements in Presbytel'ian Board of Foreign Mis- the same magazine in which the artisions, after enumerating the reasons cle first appeared (The Church, Jan. why he should remain in the foreign 1888, pp. 67,68). We would simply field he closed by saying' : add that a distinction ought always to be made between attacking a sen- .. One thousand Presbyterian churches timent and assaulting a man. We give nothing for the spread of the gospel in were reviewing an argument whic·h heathen lands I What a mournful minor we regarded as unsound and unscripstrain rises from that sentence amid the tural, but we had not a thought of glorious harmonies of that ever-memorable antagonizing its author, who is yet assembly in the city of Philadelphia! One to us unknown, nor above all of holdthousand churches giving nothini!': Sccres ing the editor of The Church responof young men graduating from our theologi- sible for all the sentiments of articles. cal seminaries, and ahnost none wiIIiEg to that appear in the various depart go to the heathen. A devoted lady teacher ments of that organ of the Boards. from a foreign field, spending a year in America, invitin~ a young woman to return In our opinion the only way to conwith her to a delightful field of missionary duct a Review is to deal frankly, labor, and obliged to return alone I Appeal honestly and impartially with all· after appeal sent for a teacher to aid subjects. If any published line of Miss Everett in the interesting- female sem- argument seems hostile to the best inary in Beirut and no oue found to come 1 interests of the cause of missions, we mean to do our best to expose its fal- H Is this the time for us on the ground to lacy. And we expect at others' hands leave onr work and go home? Not until the the same treatment and shall not Great Captain calls us htlme.'" complain. We felt sure Dr. Nelson would agree with us in our strictures No wondel' he refused. upon the article in question.
SAID the Earl of Shaftesbury, upon FROM a very valued and influenthe occasion of his taking the presi- tial foreign correspondent the editors dency of "the English Missions Aid have received a letter full of wis- Society" III 1860 : dom. He congratulates the eaitors on the grand conception and great •. I do not believe that in the whole history u~efulness of the REVIEW, and hopes of missions; I do not b@lieve in the history our plans will be fully carried out. of any negotiations carried on between man He thinks the tone of the REVIEW and man, we can find anything to equal the should be at once independent, imwisdom, the soundness and the pure evan- partial and uncompromising in its gelical trnth of the body of men who c,msti- rebuke and exposure of whatever tute the American mission in the East. I is wrong OL' hostile to the best inhave said it twenty times before. and I will tel'ests of missions; that there should say itagain, for the expression appropriately not be too much license in attacking conveys my meanin6'-they arg a marvelous missionary societies and committees combination of common sense and piety. or defending acts on the part of Every man who comes in contact with these missionaries :which are indefensible misslOnaries speaks.in praise of them. Persons in authority and persons in subjection all speak in their favor. I know of no man who has ever been able to bring against that body a single valid objection. There they stand, tested by years, tried by their works and exemplified by their fruits, and I believe it will be found that these American missionaries have done more toward uphold- ing the truth and spreading t.he gospel of Christ in the East than any other body of men in this or in any other age." -simply in a partisan spirit. He be- speak out with unflinching voice when lieves a missionary should be loyal to a thing is done which is wrong, and the society with which he is engaged, point out faults um;paringly, yet in and not take up arms against the Christian love." To all of which we agency which placed him in the field, have only to add that whenever auand suggests as our motto" audi al- thenticated facts are brought to our teram pe,rtem." He deprecates ex- notice demanding faithful reproof, travagant praise and undue epithets, we mean that there shall be found in and even thinks Bishop Hanmngton our pages no cover or cloak to evilcannot in any proper sense be called a doing. 'Ve believe that the law of martyr as he did not die for the Faith, "truthing it in love" is one of the but like any other indiscreet traveler. foremost laws of Christ's kingdom, In this we disagree with our friend, and that nothing' is gained by the while giving;place to his friendly stric- concealment of wrong or the veiling tures. The word martyr is one of of it in apology. wide scope. Hannington certainly was a witnQss for the Faith, and will- NOTHING is needed more in these ingly surrendered life that he might days than an entire reconstruction, purchase the way to the heart of not of our systems of giving only, but Africa with his blood, which is not our very ideas of giving. The most true of any mere traveler. princely sums given to the Lord's work are miserably and shameflllly Our correspondent thinks errors of a iNadequate to the demands of that most serious sort are springIng up and work on the one hand and wretchedshould be unsparingly exposed in such ly disproportionate to our average a Review. He asks, What could justi- ability and personal expenditures on fy the appeal of Mackye and Ashe for the other hand. One great church help from England to rescue them of 700,000 members raises a dollar a and their native conv:erts? "'hat year for foreign missions-less than could justify the American mission- one-third of a cent a day for each aries in the Caroline Islands making member !-and calls that generous. their converts, who were subjects of Another church, far more numerous. Spain, keep the 4th of July? or the raises a million and sets all its church Presidentof France giving the Legion bells ringing for a jubilee! of Honor to the French mi5sionaries in Basuto Land, within a British col- We find ourselves lacking $50,000 &ny, "for advancing the interests at the end of a fiscal year, and word of France? What can justify the goes out to the various missionary French Government expelling the stations that all expenses must be re- American mIssionaries from the Ga- trenched; and accordingly schools boon? The Germans have expeJled are closed, mission stations abandonthe Engli'lh Baptists from the Came- ed and all aggressive work ceases. roons,and the Basle missionaries have The" Salvation Army," at whose vaoccupied their place. Missionaries garies we laugh, at whose extravaare beginning to ill-use the natives gances we sneer, finds need of $50,- of Africa; they habitually beat them, 000 for an onward movement and and some men have died under their they raise it in one week by simple- hands. In Madagascar all the mis- self-denial. They impose it on them- sionaries-S. P. G., Norwegian, L. M. selves to limit their supply of food so S., Friend-use slave labor in their as to realize the needed sum. houses; all the native pastors, once slaves, buy and sell them and are not We have just passed the holiday ashamed." season. We have not one word to say in discouragement of exchanges With regard to such things our cor- of friendship and family love-tokens, respondent says the REVIEW" should although we feel confident that this. thing is carried to an absurd and of- "The account for last year iii as follows ten idolatrous extreme; but if one- for foreign missions: tenth of all lavished in Christmas gifts had been simply saved for Christ Parent society …………….$576,914 and his kingdom, the treasuries of Woman's Board …………… 167,000 every great benevolent agency in the world might now be bursting with a Total for last year……… $743,914 superfluity of funds I-A. T. P. This year We have appropriated for ERRATA. Foreign Missions…………..$635,000 Woman's Board…………… 228,000 AN unfortunate error occurred in our January number on page 33. To Total , ……………….. $863,000 Sir Monier Williams's admirable "The point is, !1lways remember to count paper an extract is added purporting our women in if you count those of other de- to be from Prof. Max Miiller, but nominations. " which is a part of the address of Pro- fessor Williams delivered on another ON page 130 (Feb. No.), in a note from occasion. The first speech was before Prof. Wilkinson, several errors occurred. the Church Missionary Society at the Read the work goes on for the world moves annual meeting in Exeter Hall, in on. The name of the missionary is Witter May last; the other is from an ad- iustead of Willis, and Naza Hills should read dress before the Bible Society at its NagaHilis. annual meeting in 1886. The error is easily accounted for. The second OUR MISSIONARY MAP OF THE WORLD. extract was put in THE REVIEW just as we cut it from one of our ex- WE bespeak the attention of our changes, where it was credited to readers to the publishers' offer of this Prof. Miiller, and we unhappily trans- great map on terms that bring it ferred both the extract and the error. within reach of every mission circle, Sunday-school and church. We OUR attention has been called to a know from long experience that such discrepancy in our figures given in the a map displayed at the monthly con- February number, of the receipts for cert or in the Sundav-school or at mis- 1887 of the Missionary Society of the sionary gatherings·would add vastly 'Methodist Episcopal Church. On to the interest and the profit of such page 118 we give the sum of $576,- meetings. Well do we recall the 914.74, and on page 156, $828,000. In widespread interest and enthusiasm the former case our figures were offi- awakened by "Bidwell's Missionary cial, taken from the society's last re- Maps," a generation or so ago, and port. In the latter they occur in a many thousands of them were sold table of statistics, copied from and in this country and abroad. " Col- credited to the Missionary Herald. ton's," which our publishers offer, is a We wrote to the editor of the M. H., "thing of beauty," and immensely and he replied that his figures were superior to any ever before produced. obtained by conespondence with Dr. It would be money well expended for McCabe, Secretary of the M. E. C. a church or Sunday-school to take Society. Dr. McCabe very kindly up a collection and possess one, if it responded to our request for informa- can be got in no o!her way.-J. M. S. tion with the following gratifying statement: THE patience of our patrons has been and may still be tried by delay "The discrepancy arises frOm a failure to in getting our REVIEW 'after subscrib- count the receipts of the Woman's Foreign ing for it. The demand has so far Miss. Society. The Presbyterian Board" outstripped our editions that three [to which we referred in our note] "counts editions Of the January and two of the receipts of the Woman's Board. the February have already been printed and more will speedily be called for. Fortunately the work is stereotyped and hence the largest demand can be supplied. This delay, however, will only be temporary.- J.M. S.