The Missionary Review of the World — April 1894
HEATHEN CLAIHS AND CHRISTIAN DUTY
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVII. No. 4.-00 8eries.–APRIL.–VoL. VII. No. 4.:….New Seriu.
HEATHEN CLAIMS AND CHRISTIAN DUTY. * BY MRS. ISABELLA BIRD BISHOP, F.R.G.S., HON. F.R.S.G.S.
It is not as a mission worker in even the humblest department of mission work that I have been asked to speak to-night, but as a traveller, and as one who has been made a convert to missions, not by missionary successes, but by seeing in four and a half years of Asiatic travelling the desperate needs of the unchristianized world. There was a time when I was altogether indifferent to missions, and would have avoided a mission station rather than have visited it. But the awful, pressing claims of the unchristianized nations which I have seen have taught me that the work of their conversion to Christ is one to which one would gladly give influence and whatever else God has given to one.
I have visited the Polynesian Islands, Japan, Southern China, the Malay Peninsula, Ceylon, Northern India, Cashmere, ·Western Thib()t, and Central Asia, Persia, Arabia, and Asia Minor. In each of these countries I have avoided, as much as possible, European settlements, and have scarcely lingered so long as I could have wished at mission stations. My object was to live among the people, and I have lived much iu their own houses and among their tents, always with a trustworthy interpreter, sharing their live's as much as possible, and to some extent winning their confidence by means of a medicine-chest which I carried. Wherever I have been I have seen sin and sorrow and shame. I cannot tell of fields whitening unto the harvest, nor have I heard the songs of rejoicing laborers bringing home the sheaves. But I have seen work done, the seed SGwn in tears by laborers sent out by you, honest work-work which has made' me more and more earnestly desire to help the cause of missions from a personsl knowledge of work in the mission field, but not among the lower races, or the fetich-worshippers, or among the simpler systems which destroy men'a souls. The reason, perhaps, why I have seen so little mis- • From an Address delivered at the anniversary of the Gleaners' V_ion of the Cl1l1rcl1 Mjs. ,iQDaTy I;oc!ety, in E~eter IJ:aJI, Ipndon, Novell!ber 11 189:}. sionary success is because the countries in which I have travelled are the regions of great, elaborate, philosophical 'religious systems, such as Bud- dhism, Hinduism, and Mohammedanism_ Naturally among those at home there is a disposition to look at the work done_ On my own part there may be too great a disposition, pos- sibly, to look at the work left undone, because to me it seems so vast and so appalling. We sing hopeful, triumphant hymns, we hear of what the Lord has done, and some of us perhaps think that little remains to be accomplished, and that the kingdoms of this world are about to become " the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ." But such is not the case, and I think that we may, instead of congratulating ourselves upon the work done, though we are thankful for what God has enabled us to do, bow our heads in shame that we have done so little and served so little. I should like that we should tnrn away from these enchantments, and set our faces toward the wilderness, that great" waste, howling wilderness" , in which onc thousand millions of our race are wandering in darkness and the shadow of death, without hope, being" without God in the world."
The work is only beginning, and we have barely touched the fringe of it. The natural increase of population in the heathen world is ontstripping at this moment all our efforts; and if it is true, and I believe it has never been contradicted, that four millions only have been baptized within this century, it has been also sai<l without contradiction that the natural in- crease of the heathen world in that time has been two hundred millions- an awful contemplation for us to· night. It is said that there are eight hundred millions on our earth to whom the name of Jesus Christ is un- known, and that ten hundred and thirty millions are not in any sense Christianized. Of these, thirty five millions pass annually in one ghastly, reproachful, mournful procession into Christless graves. They are dying so very fast! In China alonc, taking the lowest computation of the population which has been given, it is estimated that fourteen hundred die ev&y hour, and that in this one day thirty-three thousand Chinese have passed beyond our reach. If to-day we were to agree to send a missionary to-morrow to China, before he could reach Chinese shores one and a half millions of souls would have passed from this world into eternity. Nine- teen centuries have passed away, and only one third of the population of our earth is even nominally Christian.
Ve are bound to face these facts and all that thcy mean for us, and t.o ask ourselves how we stand in regard to this awful need of the hrathen world. 'Ve have in England forty-three thousand ordained ministers. If we were to be treated as we treat the heathen, we should have but two hundred and twenty workers for the United Kingdom, of which number seventy would be women. In China alone we have but one missionary for half a million of people, as if we were to have one minister for Glas- gow, or Birmingham, or Manchester, or one of our large cities. I think we may say that to us indeed belongeth shame for this, Ollr neglect. The Moravians, as perhaps most here know, have one missionary out of every sixty of their members. We have but one out of every five thousand of our members. Theirs is an example that we can follow. Were we equally impressed with love and obedience, we should have two hundred thousand missionaries, and our contributions would be $100,000,000 a year. What an object this is to arouse the sleeping conscience with ! We spend $700,000,000, or $15 (£3) a head, upon drink; we smoke $80,000,000, and we hoard $1,200,000,000, while our whole contributions for the conver- sion of this miserable world are but $7,500,000, or 18 cents (9d.) a head! These statistics are dry enough, but they are filled with meaning, and an awful meaning if we would only dwell upon them, each one of us to-night in our own heart in the sight of God.
We are getting into a sort of milk.and-water view of heathenism, not of African heathenism alone, but of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Moham- medanism also, which prevail in Asia. Missionaries come home, and they refrain'from shocking audiences by recitals of the awful sins of the heathen and Moslem world. When travelling in Asia, it struck me very much how little we heard, how little we know, as to how sin is enthroned and deified and worshipped. There is sin and shame' everywhere. Mohammedanism is corrupt to the very core. The morals of Mohammedan countries, perhaps in Persia in particular, are corrupt, and the imaginations very wicked. How corrupt Buddhism is, how corrupt Buddhists are! It is an astonishment to find that there is scarcely a single thing that makes for righteousness in the life of the unchristianized nations. There is no public opinion interpenetrated by Christianity, which condemns sin or wrong. There is nothing except the conscience of some few who are seeking after God, "if haply they might feel after Him who is not far from every one of us. " And over all this seething mass of sin and shame and corruption hovers" the ruler of the darkness of this world," rejoicing in the chains with which he has bound two thirds of the human race.
Just one or two remarks as to what these false faiths do. They degrade women with an infinite degradation. I have lived in zenanas and harems, and have seen the daily life of the secluded women, and I can speak from bitter experience of what their lives are-the intellect dwarfed, so that the woman of twenty or thirty years of age is more like a child of eight intellectually; while all the worst passions of human nature are stimulated and developed in I> fearful degree-jealousy, envy, murderous hate, intrigue, running to sucb an extent that in some conntries I have hardly ever been in a women's house or near a women's tent without being asked for drugs with which to disfigure the favorite wife, to take away her life or the life of her infant son. This request has been made of me nearly two hundred times. This.is only an indication of the daily life of whose miseries we think so little, and which is a natural product of the systems that we ought to have subverted long ago.
It follows necessarily that there is also an infinite degradation of men. The whole continent of Asia is corrupt. It is the scene of barbarities, tortures, brutal punishments, oppression, official corruption, which is worst under Mohammedan rule: of all things which are the natural products of systems which are without God in Christ. There are no sanctities of home j nothing to tell of righteousness, temperance, or judgment to come, only a fearful looking for in the future of fiery indignation from some quarter, they know not what j a dread of everlasting rebirths into forms of obnoxious reptiles or insects, or of tortures which are infinite and which are depicted in pictures of fiendish ingenuity.
And then one comes to what sickness is to them. If one speaks of the sins, one is bound to speak of the sorrows too. The sorrows of heathenism impressed me, sorrows which humanitarianism, as well as Christianity, should lead us to roll away. Sickness means to Uil tenderness all about us, the hushed footfall in the house, everything sacrificed for the sick person, no worry or evil allowed to enter into the sick-room, kindness of neighbors who, maybe, have been strangers to us, the skill of doctors ready to alleviate every symptom-all these are about our sickbeds, together with loving relations and skilled nurses; and if any of us are too poor to be nursed at home, there are magnificent hospitals where everything that skill and money can do is provided for the poorest among us. And, besides, there are the Christian ministries of friends and ministers, the reading of the Word of God, the repetition of hymns full of hope-all that can make a sick-bed a time of peace and blessing enters our,own sick-room j and even where the sufferer has been impenitent, lIc " who is able to save to the very uttermost" stands by the sick-bed ready even in the dying hour to cleanse and receive the parting soul. In the case of the Christian the crossing of the river is a time of triumph and of hope, and" 0 death, where is thy sting ~ 0 grave, where is thy victory 1" sounds over his dying bed.
But what does sickness mean to millions of our fellow-creatures in heathen lands 1 Throughout the East sickness is believed to be the work of demons. The sick person at once becomes an object of loathing and terror, is put out of the house, is taken to an ouLhouse, is poorly fed and rarely visited, or the astrologers or priests or medicine-men or wizards assemble, beating big drums and gongs, blowing horns, and making the most fearful noises. They light gigantic fires, and dance round them with their unholy incantations. They beat the sick person with clubs to drive out the demon. They lay him before a roasting fire, till his skin is blistered, and then throw him into cold water. They stuff the nostrils of the dying with aromatic mixtures or mud, and in some regions they Cllfry the chronic sufferer to a mountain-top, placing barley balls and water beside him, and leave him to die alone. 1£ there were time, I could tell you things that would make it scarcely possible fOf auy one beginning life without a fixed purpose to avoid going into tl'abing as a medical missioaary. The woe and sickness in the unchristianized world are beyond telling, and I would ask my sisters here to remember that these woes press most heavily upon women, who in the seclusion of their homes are p.xposed to nameless barbarities in the hour of " the great pain and peril of child- birth," and often perish miserably from barbarous maltreatment.
This is only a glimpse of the sorrows of the heathen world. May we seek to realize in our own days of sickness, and the days of sickness of those dear to us, what illness means for those millions who are without God in the world; and go from this meeting resolved, cost what it may, to save them from these woes and to carry the knowledge of Christ into these miserable homes! What added effort can we make 1 The duty of all Christians toward missions has been summed up in these words, "Go.
Let go. Help go." The need for men and women is vast, and I see many young men and young women here who perhaps have not yet de- cided upon their lifework. Then go. Young Christian friends, here is the noblest opening for you that the world presents. A life consecrated in foreign lands to the service of the Master is, I believe, one of the hap- piest lives that men or women live upon this earth. It may be that ad- vancement in the professions at home may be sacrificed by going to the foreign field, but in the hour after the fight has been fought, and the prize of the high calling of God is won, will there be one moment's regret for the abandoned prizes of the professions at home 1 "Let go." Help others to go by rejoicing in their going, by giving them willingly.
Then comes the other great question of "Help go," and this subject of increased self-sacrifice has occupied my thoughts very much indeed within the last few months. Our responsibilit,ies are increased by our knowledge. We pray God to give the means to send forth laborers. Has He not given us the means 1 Have we not the means to send forth mis- sionaries, have not our friends the means? . And when we pray to God to give the means, may we not rather pray Rim to consume the selfishness which expends our means upon ourselves? D,are we, can we sing such hymns as " All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to His blood,"
and yet surround ourselves with these" vain things"-the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life? Our style of living is always rising. We are always accumulating. We fill our houses with pleasant things. We decorate our lives till further decoration seems almost impossible. Our expenditure on ourselves is enormous j and when I returned from Asia two years ago I thought that the expenditure on the decoration of life among Christian people had largely risen, and I think so still, and think so increasingly. Now, we have many possessions. We have old silver, we have jewelry, objects of art, rare editions of books, things that have been given to us by those we have loved and which have most sacred associations. All these would bring their money value if they were sold. May we not hear the Lord's voice saying to us in regard to these, our treasured accumulations. "Lovest thou Me more than these 1" It is time that we should readjust our expenditure in the light. of our increased knowledge; and not in the light of our increased knowledge alone, but that we should go carefully over our stewardship at the foot of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the light of those eyes which closed in death for our redemption. There can be no arbitrary law about giving. If we readjusted, by our increased knowledge, personal needs and Christ's needs at the foot of the cross, each one of us here to-night would be sure, I think I may say, to do the right thing. Let us be honest in our self- denial, and not think that we are carrying the burdens of this great, perish- ing, heathen world by touching them lightly with our fingers, but let us bear them till they eat into the shrinking flesh, and so let ns fulfil the law of Christ. Let us entreat Him, even with strong crying and tears, to have mercy, not on the Christless heathen, but on the Christlessness within our own hearts, on our shallow sympathies and hollow self-denials, and on our infinite callousness to the woes of this perishing world, which God so loved that He gave His only Son for its redemption.
In conclusion, let me say that the clock which marks so inexorably the time allotted to each speaker marks equally inexorably the passing away of life. Since I began to speak-and it is a most awful consideration- two thousand five hundred human beings at the lowest computation have pa,ssed before the bar of God. And though the veil of the Invisible is thick, and our ears are dull of hearing, can we not hear a voice saying to each of us, " What hast thou done~" "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." .
The fields are white unto harvest, but who is to be the reaper ~ Is it to be the Lord of the harvest, or he who has been sowing tares ever since the world began 1 Let each of us do our utmost by any amount of self- sacrifice to see that it shall be the Lord of the harvest. And may the con- straining memories of the cross of Christ, and the great love wherewith He loved us, be so in us that we may pass that love on to those who are pcr- ishing. "We know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor," and we hear His voice to-night, ringing down through ages of selfishness and luxury and neglected duty, solemnly declaring that the measure of our love for our brethren must be nothing less than the measure of His own. May He touch all our hearts with the spirit of self-sacrifice, and with the inspiration of that love of His which, when He came to redeem the world, KEPT NOTHING BACK!
-The Missionary Herald.
Alexander Duff, in one of his addresses before going to India, said, "There was a time when I had no care or concern for the heathen; that was a time when I had no care or concern for my own soul. When by the grace of God I was led to care for my own soul, then it was I began to care for the heathen abroad. In my closet, on my bended knees, 1 then said to God, '0 Lord, Thou knowest that silver and gold to give to this cause I have none; what I have I give to Thee-I offer Thee myself; wilt Thou accept the gift ~ , "
ClIR1S'l'lANITY IN Il~DtA
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA.-II.
BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.
It is not necessary here to enter into the history of Protestant missions further than to state that though they date from 1706, there were not more than fifty missionaries sent all through the country, nor more than ten in active service at anyone time. Even during the first third of this century, up to 1833, when the East India Company's charter was renewed and liberalized, the number of missionaries did not average one hundred and fifty nor the ordaiued native ministers ten. For some years after the commencement of the century only six societies were at work with very re- stricted agencies. A few low-caste girls were taught, but there were no * laoy missionaries or high-class schools for boys. It will be seen that in these features, as well as in others, gTeat advances have been made.
From the "Statistical Tables of Protestant Missions" for 1890, issued only at the close of last year, it appears that 47 societies have representa.
tives in India. More or less associated with these were about twenty ladies' associations, while apart from societies were six or eight isolated missions, usually of limited extent and resources. Connected with these various organizations were 857 foreign ordained missionaries, 118 foreign and Eurasian lay preachers, 76 teachers, principally engaged in colleges and Anglo-Indian high schools, and 711 lady missionaries. It will sufficiently indicate the nationality and religious profession of all these to state that, of the foreign ordained missionaries, 129 were sent by Baptist, 76 by Con- gregational, 203 by Episcopalian, 140 by Presbyterian, 125 by Lutheran, and 110 by Methodist societies, and that of these about 460 were British, 186 American, and the remainder from the continent of Europe.
But the native Christian agency is considerable. There is a gTowing consciousness of its importance, and as the native churches have increased, and the openings for evangelistic work and schools extended, the mission- aries have given more attention to the selection and training of native agents. The extent to which this has been done will be seen in the fol- lowing figures. I give the numbers for 1851 as well as 1890, since the statistical tables first appeared at the former date, and they here and in some future instances exhibit the progress that has been made during the past forty years : 1851. 1881. 1890.
Native ordained ministers. . . . . …. . .. 339 586 857 Catechists and evangelists. • • •.. . . . . . . 493 2,488 13,491 • The general efficiency of these has greatly advanced, and among them are many men of undoubted piety, gTeat zeal, and marked ability.
* .. Protestant Missions in Pagan Lands," p. 105, by the ReT. B. Storrow. Publlshed by Snow & Co., London. .. Tbe History of Protestant Minions In India," by the Rev. M. A. Sherring and E. Storrow. Published by the Rellgiou8 Tract Society, London. The increase in the native Christian community is demonstrated by the following figures : 1851 1861 1871 1881 1890 91,092 ————– Native Christians•……… , . ~t17 132,731 224,258 417,372 569,661 Church"" or Congregations".:::::: 14,G~1 971 3,650 4,868 Communicants….. ……………. 2,278 I 21,976 52,816 113,32p 182,7lJIl* Thus it will be l"een that the increase in the native Christian community is great, progressive, and at an accelerated ratio, though the number of converts at the last returns was less than had been anticipated.
And they are increasing more rapidly than any other part of the VlUlt and varied population. The Government census and the high authority of Sir W. W. Hunter, whose knowledge of India probably exceeds that of any other person, justifies this statement. He reported some time ago that. the increase of population throughout British India, in the nin~ years between 1871-81, was at the following rate: General increase. . . . . . . . • .. . .•……….. 10.89 per cent. Mohammedan …•………….•••..•….. 10.96 "
Hindu………… …•.••….••••••.•.. 13.64 " Christians of all races. • . . . . • . • . . . • . . . . . . . . 40.71 " Native Christians…………….. …• .••. 64.07 "
There is no reason to suppose that since 1881 these ratios have greatly changed.
Equal progress has been made in the social status of the Christian community. A fair proportion of the converts are drawn from the higher castes and best·educated classes.
Great care is generally taken in receiving applicants for baptism, admitting members into the churches, employing native preachers, and receiving any of them into the ministry. The entire community, though relatively small, is better educated, more free, hopeful and aggressive than any other. Their morals, virtue, and benevolence are higher-higher even than in the general mass of English and American society, though below the level usually recognized in professedly religious circles. There is, indeed, a small class of so-called Christians, usually found in military stations, who bring opprobrium on the name they bear, and are, unfortunately, the only representatives of Christianity their masters know or care to know. They 'are not interested in missions, and the instances are numerous where they have lived for months near considerable communities of nature Christians without knowing it, and on their return to England declaring that they had never seen a native Christian station, or that the few Christians there were were the refuse of the bazaars. These no more represent Indian Christianity than the crowds of London and New York repre- .. These llgures relate only to India proper. There were also In 1890, 89,182 converts in Bwmah and abont 37,000 in Ceylon, though the returns for the latter are Incomplete. sent the piety and morals found in these cities. As a rule, the missionariefl are slow and circumspect in receiving converts. They could have myriads if they would condescend to allure them by mercenary motives, or accept all those who apply for baptism. In my opinion they err more on the side of hesitation than of haste. Such as they have are usually received after due waiting and inquiry ; they are carefully instructed, and not seldom suffer much in accepting the Christian faith. But what wonder, considering whence they came and what they were, if a residuum of Asiatic, Hindu, and common human defect cleaves to them! But as communities it is a matter of surprise that they have become so free from the superstitions of their ancestors, accepted the great truths of the Gospel, and moved far away from Hindu customs and opinions toward the New Testament * standard of belief and life. The facts I have given speak for themselves j but they could be sustained by any amount of independent testimony. The Times correspondent, for instance, recently wrote, "The status of the native Church is rising every year j so also are the character and acquirements of the agents." And again, on January 24th, last year, "The Decennial Missionary Conference, held in Bombay, had a surprising record to show of the result of missionary work. During the past. nine years with which it deals extraordinary progress is disclosed in every department of evangelistic labor."
But thc results of missions extend far beyond the limits of t.he Christian community. There is a great ehange passing over native society, affecting its religious, moral, intellectual, and social condition j and of the four forces producing it-just and beneficent government, English character and life, education, and missionary propagandism-the last is the most potent. This was the testimony of Lord Lawrence, and few men were as competent to form a judgment: "Notwithstanding all that the English people have done to benefit India, the missionaries have done more than all other agencies combined." They are carefully selected and well trained. They are better informed on most Indian questions than other Europeans. They know the people better, and come more into sympathetic contact with them. They are the enemies of every abuse, superstition, and evil custom, and the advocates of justice, humanity, and reform. They have been the pioneers of every forward movement, from the abolition of sutteeism and infanticide to the emancipation of women. Of all foreigners they are most respected and trusted. None are so disinterested, zealous, or efficient in the discharge of their duties. Though usually living away from social restraints, in the midst of vice and immorality, where it is easy to sin and temptations are great, they live more beneficent, lawful, and pure lives than any other class, native or foreign.
* Neither forms of vice DOr of error, but of moral weakness, characterize the defective side of the HIndu Chnrch. It is more free, for instance, from gross moral defects, loose practices, and extravagant perniclons errors, than were the Christian communities throughout Egypt, Syria, and Greece in the drst centuries, and from ignorance, violence, and lawlessness, than the converts of medieval Europe. Defect of life and character, not unknown among their countrymen, are hardly ever heard of among them. They are observed and criticised in no friendly spirit, and if they fell or failed not a few of their own country- men, now whispering only vague insinuations, would with ceaseless viru- lence and iII-concealed pleasure proclaim their guilt. Even a portion of the so-called religious press in England is in haste to prejudge and con- demn them, as recent incidents have clearly shown. Thus they are work- men ~ho need not to be ashamed. AddeO. to character is their faith. They believe they have a divine message to communicate, associated with which is a power to enlighten and change cvcn the WOl'st of men, such as belongs to no other religion or any philosophical or social system. Thus they are made strong and competent for great and various service. They write and compile and tmnslate many books and tracts. They are zealous educationalists. They are indefatigable preachers, usually offering the Gospel to the poor and ignorant, but ever ready to converse or argue with any class, and doing this habitually not only in the towns where they reside, but over a wide extent of country, in towns and villages, at festivals, fairs. markets, to a crowd or a small company by the wayside. The most learned of them-and they have never been few-have translated the whole Bible into every widely spoken Indian language. They have a book and tract society, with a great variety of publications in three or more languages, in at least six great centres, issuing an aggregate of some millions of pages of good, sensible Christian literatUre each year. They have to aid them not only the 4288 native ministers and catechists already mentioned, but also some thousands of sehool-teachers. As the Tesult of these varied agencies, a vast amount of Christian information is spread abroad, leading more or less to many changes in opinion, sentiment, and usage far beyond the avowedly Christian sphere. This should be noted in any fair estimate of missionary results. And they are part of the inevitable outcome of the attempt to convert a great race, individually timid, speculative, conservative, and collectively drilled through ages to accept without question an extraordinary system of faith and usage. The Christian Church is embarked not only in the attempt to convert individuals who are as difficult to influence as Jews, Romanists, and Mohammedans, but the stupendous task of converting an immense empire, long under the domination of the three most powerful superstitions the world has over seen. The best efforts in the former direction often fail, but nevertheless contribute more or less toward the latter. Education, for instance, is markedly doing this.
The Government is worthy of high praise for its policy in giving, not only a superior education to the rich and high caste, but for providing common vernacular schools for the masses. It is neutral on all religious questions, and it is not easy to prove that it should be otherwise.' But the missionary schools are all avowedly Christian and propagandist. The Bible is habitually read and explained. The best treatises on the evidences of Christianity are used as class books. The common lesson books are saturated with Christian principles and sentiments. The aim to over- throw heathenism and convert the pupils is avowed. These male schools are of three kinds-vernacular, Anglo-vernacular, and colleges, separate, or a department of schools for the special training of preachers and teach- ers. The first, according to the most recent information, numbered 4470, with 122,193 scholars. The second are as open to all as the first, for the missionaries ignore all caste distinctions, but they are usually frequented by the higher castes and prosperous classes. Their number was 460- only a tenth of the former, be it noted-with 53,564 students. The last numbered 81, with 1584 students, a number far below what is required, for the great wants of almost every mission are able ministers, competent teachers, and zealous, well-equipped evangelists.
These schools are the most powerful of all agencies in the sodal, in_ tellectual, and religious "revolution" now passing over India. This will be shown on a future page. There it is, sufficient to point out in evidence that probably not five per cent of those who pass through efficient mission schools retain toward popular or Puranic Hinduism the same mental atti- tude as their fathers and grandfathers, and that on all questions relating to the position of women the alumni 6f Anglo-vernacular mission schools are far in advance of all other classes.
There is good ground for thinking that until missionaries advocated female emancipation with a courage and pertinacity greatly to their honor, and gave practical evidence of their earnestness by opening schools for girls, there was an almost universal neglect of female education j nowhere an avowal of its importance, and nowhere any trace for centuries of girls'
schools. Happily a change has set in, and it is mainly associated with the persistent efforts of missionaries. It is in the recollection of many that while boys crowded to efficient schools, it was only by constant gifts and coaxing that a dozen low-caste little girls could be gathered into a school, while admission into zenanas for purposes of instruction was no- where to be obtained. The change in these directions is as great as it is surprising, as the following figures will show : 1851. 1890.
Day schools …• . . . . . . • . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285* 1,507 Scholars ••••………•.• " .• .. .•. . . . .. 2,919 62,214 Zenanas opent…………………….. none 40,513 The Government has also established a large number of girls' schools, and much instruction is given by natives in houses and schools. Anyone in the least acquainted with Hindu conservatism and jealousy, especially on all questions affecting family life, will perceive the significance of this change.
But it by no means stands alone. The greater part of India is yet • A large proportion even of these were for native Christian girls or orphans, in charge of mis- sionaries. t In many of these there are several pupil_, aud opportunities for interconrse with elder women. almost untouched by Christian influence, for probably more than one half the people have never had the leading facts and features of Christianity clearly placed before them. Nevertheless, in most of the great cities and in extensive districts in Travancore, Tinnevelly, Mysore, Teluguland, Bengal, and the Northwest Provinces, where missionaries have labored for a generation or more, a large amount of Christian knowledge has been spread through Christian schools and itinerating preachers. Of the twelve million or more who throughout the empire can now read, the greater part live in the districts just named, and many hundreds of thousands at least have received all their education in mission schools; others have often heard Christian preachers, and others have learned much from conversations and discussions relative to Christianity among their friends and neighbors.
The great facts of Bible history are known; and probably some of its books-as the four Gospels-are more read than any Hindu or Mohammedan books. So are the leading truths of Christianity relative to God, to the incarnation and atonement of Christ, the nature of sin and of holiness, and the relations of the present life to a future one.
Christian morals are being understood, and their relation to individual, family, and social life. And these are beginning perceptibly to affect and influence opinion and practice. For instance, the Christian conception of God as morally perfect, the Lord and Ruler of all, worthy of universal service, love, and trust, is displacing not only the popular polytheism, but the pantheism which underlies it j and the dreamy concept,ions of transmigration are giving place to the Christian ideas of a future life of the individual conditioned by our moral and spiritual relations to the Supreme in this life.
Brahminical assumption, caste, cruel and indecent exhibitions, the tyranny of custom, the abject submissioTl of the individual to public opinion, have lost much of their power. The manners and customs of the people, claiming more or less religious authority, and prevalent in some instances through centuries, are changing in favor of usages more humane, moral, and Christian. Sutteeism has long ceased. Infanticide, though not unknown, is greatly abated. It is more than a generation since these were declared to be illegal j but their abolition was entirely owing to the influence of Christian principle j and if England had done nothing more than abolish the former and greatly diminish the latter, she would have conferred an immense blessing on India, and merit the admiration of the civilized world.
These were the first signs of the great change inevitably to be wrought in the condition of native female society when brought into contact with Western civilization and sentiment. And they were evils that could be dealt with in a practical and almost summary manner, since they offended against some of the finest instincts of humanity; but a great change is passing over native opinion on all questions relating to the position of women which in its ultimate action will be as beneficent and far more extended than the abolition of sutteeism and the suppression of infanticide. Early marriages, female seclusion, enforced widowhood, the cruel usages associated with widowed life, and the general suspicion and distrust with which all women have been regarded for generations are held by growing numbers to be unwise, cruel, and injurious in their effects on individual, family, and national life. A new life of opinion, sentiment, and aim is stirring throughout India as real, pervasive, and hopeful as the new life of nature in an English springtime. * The facts we have given speak for themselves. But the reader who wishes for more evidence and corroborative information is referred to three sources-to missionaries and their reports, to the testimonies of competent European civilians, and to native sources.
The former are more worthy of credence than is usually supposed out- side what may be termed the missionary sphere. Missionaries profess to be religious men, and by implication, therefore, to be strictly accurate. No doubt they are enthusiasts in a mild way, and if they were not they would not be missionaries; nor ought they to be. But they are not the sinful, cred~lous men some describe them to be. Thcy are not easily deceived. A little of Indian life secures them from that. They yearn for converts, but they must be true ones. Their reports are as candid as any public documents anywhere issued. They tell of loss, defection, failure, and the deferring of hope which makes the heart sick. They tell also of converts, schools, preachers, their number and their locations. These are given in every report of the great missionary societies, and in great detail, of almost every mission station throughout India in the decennial reports of all the Protestant missions. These are open to the public. Societies complain that they are not more bought and read. So the work abroad is open to the closest investigation. Insinuations, indeed, are hinted as 10 its unreality; but how is it that no detailed proof is ever forthcoming that the statements made are false?
Here is a fact worth considerinR. The Indian missionaries know the people as no others do, and they are fully conscious not only of the difficulty of converting individuals to the Christian faith, but of producing any deep impression on the powerful superstition they seek to overthrow; but at the great Decennial Conference in Bombay last December, where more than seven hundred missionaries met from all parts of India, and representatives of all the sections of Evangelical Protestantism, the note of utterance and opinion, with but one individual exception, was confident and sanguine. Next to the missionaries, the higher and more experienced servants of the Government have an extensive and accurate acquaintance with the people and the country. They are seldom partisans; trained to be im- * "Everything in India is in a state of revolution. Happily for mankind, it is as yet peaceable; generally silent, and often almost nnnoticed, and more rapid than that which is going on in Enrope" (" Indian Missions," by Sir Bartie Frere), The,;e words are llQ 1~"8 a<)curate now than they were when written in 1874.
THE RELIGIONS OF INDIA
partial, very careful in their use of language, and deliberate and me&8ured in expressing their opinions, nevertheless a long series of them, from governors-general, governors, and lieutenant-governors downward, not a few of them having spent twenty to forty years in India and filled the highest offices with honor, have testified to the admirable and efficient manner in which missions are conducted, and to the success they have gained. A long list of such testimonies lies beforc me from Lord Lawrence, the Earl of Northbrook, Lord Napier, Sir Charles Aitcheson, Sir W. W. Hunter, Sir Bartle Frere, Sir Herbert Edwards, Sir Donald Macleod, Sir W. Muir, Sir Richard Temple, etc. The cause commended by such men cannot but be worthy of respect and confidence.
Native testimony has a value of its own, since it expresses the opinions of keen observers and prejudiced if not hostile critics; but since the time (f Raja Rammohun Roy, with increa§ing volume and strength it has borne witness to the zeal, courage, and benevolence of the missionaries and the greatness of the changes which are now with ever-increasing force passing over Hindu society in every direction; and although native vanity and prejudice are reluctant to praise what is foreign, the conviction is very general that old things are passing away, that all the old native religions are decaying, that Christianity is the great root-cause of their decay, and that it is growing in numbers, prestige, influence, and power as no other religion. This is not only the testimony-I might add, the lament of the thoughtful-but" the common talk of the bazaars." * Recently, in Cal- cutta, Dr. Pentecost asked a dignified old man if he were a Christian. " No, sir," was his reply. "I am a Hindu, and a Hindu I expect to die; yet I am deeply interested in Christian progress in this land, for I see that Christianity is surely coming."
Christian missions in India are no failure, but a splendid success, for they are steadily and !!Iurely accomplishing the stupendous task for whICh they exist.
THE RELIGIONS OF INDlA.-II.
BY REV. FRANCIS HEYL.
It remains for us to give a somewhat brief sketch of the other religions of India that have arisen or taken root in the land subsequently to those already described. The first in order of date is that of the Parsecs. They arc Persians, originally of the Aryan race, dwelling in the region of the river Oxus. They became estranged from the Aryans, and their religion was somewhat modified from that of the former. Their great teacher * See" Protest,ant MissiollS in Pagan Lands," by the Rev. E. Storrow, pnblished by J. Snow, Lon- don; "Testimonies by the Governors-General of India," Church ~lisBionary Society, London; .. The Great Value and :Success of Foreign Mi~sions," by the Rev. John Liggins, Baker & Co., New York, a book full of iuformation. was Zoroaster, a Persian, the date of whose life is in dispute. They believe in a good principle, Honnazd, and in an evil principle, Ahriman, both emanat.ing from God, who is the uncreated universe, wholly absorbed in its own excellence. The universe is under the control of angels and archangels. They believe in a bodily life and in a spiritual life, in the immortality of the soul and in a Messiah yet to appear. They worship the elements of nature, especially fire, which is never allowed to go out in the sanctuaries. They were driven from Persia by the Mohammedans, and settled first in Gujerat and then in Bombay, where they became noted as ship-builders and traders, as well as for their liberality and public spirit. A strange feature of their religion is their mode of burial. Travellers have often visited their burial·ground* and written about it. In a beautiful, well-kept garden in a suburb of the city, on an elevated spot, are constructed five towers of solid masonry, cylindrical in form. About each tower is a high coping of stone, shutting off the interior from view, and provided with a door of entrance, to which a stairway on the outside ascends. These towers are 276 feet in circumference and 26 feet above ground. The top surface of each tower slopes inwardly to a well in the centre, and is divided into grooves running toward the well. There are also lateral divisions, making three sets of grooves. These are for the reception of the bodies-the outer for men, the middle for women, and the inner for children. The funeral cortege enters the ground and comes to a halt near the towers. The body is then carried by the bearers up the stairway into the tower and placed by them in one of the grooves, after which they retire, leaving it to be torn and devoured by the vultures, who are hovering near the place of burial or sitting upon the coping in great numbers. As soon as the flesh is devoured from the bones the bearers return, and, gathering them up, cast them into the woll, where they are soon decomposed, and the rain falling, carries the deposit through channels lined with charcoal into outstanding wells, the floors of which are also covered with the same material. The object of such a mode of burial is to prevent the earth from being contaminated by the decaying bodies of the dead.
Next in order to the above is Mohammedanism, introduced int.o India in the twelfth century j the same in India as in other lands, but confined to a small number of the.-nhabitants, who are the descendants of the Afghans and Moghul conquerors, and of those Hindus who were converted to Islam by the sword. The two religions, Hinduism and Mohammedanism, have affected each other more or less from their close proximity. The seclusion of Hindu women from the public gaze is due to the presence of Mohammedan rulers. Mohammedans as a general rule do not cat with or associate on very intimate terms with either Europeans or Hindus. The language of the Mohammedan population is a mixture of Hiudee and Persian.
• NaDled .. The Towers ot Silence. " In BODlbay. The Hindus often use the Hindustani or Urdu, which is the Mohammedan language j and some of the missionaries have written tracts for Hindu readers in a mixed language containing both Hindu and Hindustani words. In the early history of Islam a portion of the Jewish ritual was incorporated with their religion, but was afterward discarded. This religion is one of service, consisting of confession, prayers at stated times, almsgiving, festivals, and, last and not least, the pilgrimage to Mecca. In their confession they believe in one God, and in Mohammed as His prophet j but they recognize Moses and David and Jesus Christ as religious teachers. They accept the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels, but plac,e the Koran on the same level as equally inspired, and regard the former as much corrupted. They believe in angels and in beings something between angels and men, which they call genii j in future rewards and punishments of an exceedingly gross and material type, and in the resurrection.
One of their feasts is that of Ramadan, in the first month of the Mohammedan year, during which a daily fast is observed all that month, no food being eaten until sundown.
Another feast is the Eed-ul-Zoha, at which ten kids are sacrificed-a relic of the Jewish ritual. The idea of atonement, once no doubt associated with this festival, is much obscured if not wholly lost. Another great festival is the Mohurrim, a festival of mourning for Hosain, the grandson of Mohammed, who fell in battle on the bloody field of Kerbulla. He had been persuaded to lay claim to the Caliphate in opposition to the Ommeyad dynasty, but was met by superior numbers and overwhelmed, himself and many relatives being slain. The untimely death of one so near akin to the great prophet awakened the most profound grief in all Mohammedan countries, and the sad event has been commemorated ever since yearly on the tenth day of the Mohurrim. The night previous is spent in wailing and other manifestations of grief, and in the morning a procession with solemn music moves out to the neighboring cemetery, where appropriate ceremonies are held in honor of the deceased prince. During this festival the Mohammedan population in the cities and towns of India is in It state of great excitement, and outbreaks often occur.
Last and not least of all is the pilgrimage to Mecca, instituted by the prophet himself. Mecca contains the most ancient temple in all Arabia, and at one time devoted to idol worship. It was 8upposed to have been built by Abraham and Ishmael. Within the sacred shrine is the black stone, which is kissed by every pilgrim who reaches the sacred place, and is supposed to have attained its black color by the contact of so many lips.
Near by is the well Zem Zem, from which Hagar is supposed to have drawn water for herself and child, perishing with thirst. The gathering of pilgrims from all parts of the Moslem world, overwhelmed by the sight of that for which they have toiled and suffered through many weary leagues of journeying, giving utterance to earnest prayers for forgiveness, is ~aid io be a si.ght when once seen ncver forgotten ; but only by a few travellers of other than the faith of Islam has it ever been witnessed, and then at the risk of their lives.
Another religion is that of the Sikhs, or warlike inhabitants of the Punjaub, with its capital city, Lahore. The Sikhs are the disciples of Baba Nanak, born in the year 1469 in a village near to Lahore. From early youth he displayed a devout spirit and associated much with Hindu and Mohammedan devotees, and made many pilgrimages to sacred shrines. He taught the unity of God, and that attachment to God is the essence of true religion, together with association with devout people and kindness to fellow-man. Baba Nanak was succeeded by nine other gurus or teachers, the last one Guru Govind Singh, who lived in the middle of the seventeenth century and formed the Sikhs into a powerful military dynasty, with a view to resist Aurungzebe, the then Moghul Emperor of Delhi. Their religious service is the worship of sacred books-the Adhi-grantha, composed at different times by successive gurus, and the Dashma Padshah Ki Granth, composed in Guru Govind's time. These books are kept carefully wrapped up in their temples, and are both worshipped and read to the people by the Granthee or teacher. The famous temple of the Sikhs is at Umritsar, near to Lahore. This temple is built upon a platform in the middle of a lake, and is approached through a magnificent gateway and across a bridge. The materials used in the construction are marble and gold, and the building is very handsome. There are two institutions among the Sikhs that are worthy of mention, but the description of them would take up too much space. One is the Gurumat, or national council, in which the chiefs meet to consult with reference to a common danger, and the other is that of initiation, in which, with appropriate ceremonies, any native can become a Sikh. In bringing this sketch to a close it is proper to say a few words about a religious movement which has been going on for many years among the educated Hindus, and which has had its origin in the labor of Christian missionaries, indirectly of course.
This movement began more than sixty years ago under the leadership of a young educated Bengalee, Rajah Ramohun Rai. Being a good Arabic and Persian scholar and of good address, he was sent as an envoy to England by the Emperor of Delhi, and died in that country in 1833. It was some three years before his death that the movement began. Before this time he had published a work called" The Precepts of Jesus," in which he evidently regarded Jesus as a great teacher, but not divine. He gave up idolatry and caste, and was in all respects a theist. In the year 1841 the movement, which was confined to Bengal at that time, was joined by Babu Debendranath Tagore, a young man of a distinguished Calcutta family, who threw himself heart and soul into the movement, which now assumed the title of Brahmo Somaj (Church of God). They believed in one God j gave up caste and faith in the Vedas as a divine revelation. In the year 1857 the movement was joined by another distinguished man of wealth and culture-Babu Keshub Chunder Sen-who became very prominent, and the Somaj was now divided into two sects, the conservative and the progressive. The former, known as the Adi Somaj, went back toward heathenism, recognizing the Vedas and wishing to be identified with the Hindus, and to present a form of Hinduism from which all manifest error!' and absurdities had been removed, and which intelligent and educated young'men would accept. The Progressive Brahmos seemed to have adopted the principle that everyone who is in search of truth must choose for himself what he thinks to be true, and must obtain truth wherever he can find it, and have reached the conclusion that individual intuition is the source of all religious knowledge, and have separated themselves from all the traditions of the past, and are therefore nothing more than pure theists.
There have been other forms of the Somaj since the firRt separation into conservative and progressive, notably the Sadharan Somaj in 1878 by Keshub, and the Arya Somaj, under Dayandu Saruswati, in 1880. The latter accepted the Vedas and the Mantras as free from idolatry. The whole movement, while it has been a movement in the right direction, antagonistic to idolatry and to social customs which have been 'a curse to the race, emphasizing the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, exerting an influence against materialism and positivism, cannot accomplish much in the development of positive religious life and the lifting up 'Of the masses of the people, because it does not accept the divinity of Christ, and therefore the necessity of His atonement for sin, which truths make Christianity a life-giving power among men. There have 'been other movements similar to this both in Southern India and in the Bombay Presidency.
On the whole, the religions of India, with the exception of the Somaj's, have degraded and demoralized the people. For centuries India, with its dense populat.ion, its great material resources, the intelligence and civilization of its people, has been a dark, degraded land, and presents to us in every province a condition of things such as is described in the first chapter of Romans. The religion of Christ is the power that will raise the social and individual life of the people to a better state of things, and the work of Christian missions must be pushed on aggressively in spite of obstacles. Christianity has gained ground slowly but steadily, and it is uphill work among the educated and the better classes especially, so deep rooted is the love of their respective systems, and so conservative are the people and so great are the trials endured by those who give up their ancestral faith to follow Christ.
The Church and the Christian men and women who compose it must do their duty in obedience to our Saviour's command. The young men and the young women must consecrate themselves to the work and go forth to be snstained by the prayers and the substantial help of those who remain at home, for in this way only will India in the course of years become a Christian land, and from it will go forth, as Buddha's followers did of old, Hindu ChriRtian missionaries, who will do their part in completing the work of winning the whole of the East to the Saviour.
ADONIRAM JUDSON
ADONIRAM JUDSON.
BY THE EDITOR-D.-CHIEF.
Adoniram JudFlon, the apostle of Burma, stands among the most eminent of modern missionaries. He was born in Malden, MasE., August 9th, 1788 ; died in 1850. When God caned him out to serve Him in the missionary field He chose a man whom He had peculiarly prepared for His mission. He was a man of genius not inferior to that of Duff, of industry not inferior to that of Carey, of piety not inferior to that of Wayland, of spiritual instincts not less keen than that of Schwartz. There is about his career the romance of heroism, tinged with the pathos of se~-ere suffering. Judson was meant to be a pioneer in Burma, and he combined the qualities needed in leaders of great enterprises. He had self-reliance tempered by humility, energy restrained by prudence, industry consecrated by unselfish purpose, and withal that patience and passion for souls which come only to him who is absorbed in God and devoted to a holy mission. Judson peculiarly interests us as one who projected his own theory of missions and put his theory into a successful practice.
He was one of the four now famous men whose offer of themselves for the work abroad became the origin of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; and on the way to India his views upon baptism underwent a radical change, and this became the occasion of the formation of a new organization, the American Baptist Missionary Union, so that this man singularly led the way in the formation of two of the most efficient and successful of all the existing missionary boards.
Like many another heroic soul, his lifework met a disappointment at the hands of God, which proved" His appointment." He started for India as one of the first missionaries of the American Board; he was driven to Burma, and there became the firSt missionary of the new Bapti!;t Board; thus doubly driven out of his course as he had planned it, that he might be driven into his true course as God had planned it. It was another illustration of a barrier forbidding entrance into " Bithynia," and an open door inviting into" Macedonia."
Judson had four qualities that pre-eminently furnished him for his work as the Burmese Apostle.
First, his conversion wa, a fact of which he had clear assurance. Nothing in a missionary can atone for a lack in this respect. If poets are not made, but born, much more are missionaries not made by man, but born from above. No scholar~hip or genius, endowments of nature or attainments of culture, can supply the place of conscious regeneration. We want men who are saved and know they are saved to back by thelr experience the message of salvation. The righteousness of God must be revealed from faith in the messenger to faith in the hearer.
Second, his call to the work of a missionary was a matter of conviction and consciousness. He could say with Paul, " It pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace, to reo veal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen" (Gal. 1 : 15, 16). From the first he heard that voice and obeyed it, and went out not knowing whither he went. It was an example of the obedience of faith, and in the midst of many diF.lappointments the retrospect might be dark and the aspect darker, but the" prospect was as bright as the promises of God. "
Third, the Word of God was to him a Divine book, and cherished with a reverent affection. He believed in it throughout. Michael Angelo"s fondness for the famous Torso of the Belvidere Hercules in the Vatican, the work of Apollonius of Athens, was such that it found expression in sketches of it from every point of view, and when, in old age, sight failed, the blind artist asked to he led where he could pass his hands over this chef d'aluvre of sculpture, and drink in new delight through touch.
Judson's reverence and love for the Word of God made it his constant joy to study it. Beside its infallible teachings the traditions of the elders were nothing, and his aim was to build in Burma an apostolic church in all things according to the pattern showed him in the holy mount. He became a translator, and entered the noble army to which belong Waldo and Lefevre, Wyclif and Tyndale, Luther and Bedell, Carey and Morrison, Eliot and Hepburn.
Fourth, he had a scriptural idea of mission,. He held that the grand business of the Church is to preach the Gospel to the nnsaved. In these days too many are prone to think of this as one among many forms of benevolent work, and to say that missions are an organization of the Church; but is not the Church both the result and the fruit of missions 1 The motto of Judson was, "The Church is both constituted and charged to preach the Gospel to the world." Consequently there can be no sort of doubt that this is the chief work of the missionary. He 'was by nature a man of scholarly instincts and by culture a man of scholarly acquisi. tions, fitted especially to be a teacher. Yet he was true to his principles, and made it his first business to preach Christ; all else, even teaching, took the subordinate place.
Fifth, his scriptural idea of a church must not be omitted, when esti· mating Judson. He held that it is not a worldly association or a religious club, composed of respectable moralists 6r people whose only claim to memo bership is their baptism in infancy. It is not a lawless democracy or a lordly monarchy or a titled aristocracy j no mutual benefit association or , social community for religious culture. He believed the Church to be a Diviue institution, composed of converted people, and its threefold end to be, holy worship, spiritual life, and work for souls. He sought therefore, first of all, to preach the Gospel ; then, as the message was believed, out of converts to form Gospel churches ; to make these churches self-governing, self-supporting, and self~propagating, and so to raise up a native ministry to promulgate the Gospel.
ACROSS THmET
Judson worked on thi~ Pauline pran, and in t.he unselfishness of his heroism lived and died poor, although even in the mission field opportunities offered for personal enrichment, as it became evident even to the Burmese Government what a high order of man the humble missionary was. He thus illustrated that cardinal law of self-abnegation which is the primary condition of a missionary life. As Dr. Maclaren, of Manchester, says, the chord that vibrates most musieally is itself unseen while it vibrates.
Every man's life is a plan of God. Judson believed this, and studied to find out and fiU out that plan. The result was, as it always is, a constant increase of power j his weaker will was energized by the stronger will of God. Again there came a constant enlargement of sphere, for God gave him more and more room to work j and yet, again, there was constant deepening of joy. Partnership with God helped to patient doing and bearing, and, what is hardest, waiting. Last of all there came certainty of success, for God never fails. Well may we learn from Juuson to ':lall Jesus, Lord, as weHas Saviour. When Rev. Archibald G. Brown's daughter was asked what made her go to China, she answered, " I ':lad known Jesus as Saviour and Redeemer and Friend, but as soon as I knew Him as Master and Lord, He said t() me, Am I thy Master ~ Then go to China !" The clear eye to see and the prompt will to obey God's plan, the total self-surrender to service even at cost of suffering and sacrifice-these prepare for that enduement of power without which the highest success cannot be attained.
In Malden, Mass., the Baptist meeting-house bears a memorial tablet: IN MEMORIAM.
REV. ADONIRAM JUDSON.
BoRN AUGUST 9,1788. DIED APRIL 12, 1850.
MALDEN HIS BIRTHPLACE; THE OcEAN HIS SEPULCHRE.
CONVERTED BURMANS AND THE BURMAN BIBLE HIS MONUMENT. HIS RECORD IS ON HIGH.
ACROSS THIBET. * Miss Annie R. Taylor was early led to the knowledge of Jesus. Her thoughts were first directed to the heathen when a school-girl at Richmond. Dr. Moffat's son gave an address on Africa, which greatly impressed at least one of his young hearers. The place and power of women in missions had not then been discovered, and the whole drift of the speaker's appeal was for young men. His plea was, however, so forceful *The following article snpplies some additional particulars in regard to Miss Taylor's joumey Into Thibet, to which we referred in our J anUM" ilsne. that the sympathetic young pupil almost wishetl she were a boy that she might go at once. From that time she read all the missionary literature.
she could obtain, and pondered the theme constantly. Some years later she found that the Lord wanted women for China, that they were being accepted and sent out by the China Inland Mission, and that their labors were blessed in the Flowery Land. When very young she read in " Near Home and Far Off" accounts of that strange, mysterious region so rigidly closed against Europeans, and in this way Thibet seems to have laid hold of her mind. .
Miss Taylor offered herself to and was accepted by the China Inland Mission. In 1884 she went out to China, and having learned the lan- guage, worked for a time in Tau-Chau, near the Thibetan frontier. She was the first English person to reside in that city, and in 1887 visited the Great Lama monastery of Kum-bum, where the French priests, MM. Gabet and Hue, had previously learned Thibetan. Beyond this point no English traveller had gone, though a few Russians had explored the districts.
That great, unevangelized land pressed upon Miss Taylor's heart. In the story of the China Inland Mission she saw how the great interior of China had ieemed hermetically closed until the foot of faith pressed forward, and then strangely and wonderfully it opened before the Lord's servants as they went in to possess; so she believed it would be on " the roof of the world," as Thibet has frequently been' termed by reason of its altitude.
At length she resolved to reach, if possible, Lhassa, the sacred city of the Lamas, the capital of Thibet. This city lies nearer the British Indian frontier than China.
Leaving China in 1888, Miss Taylor came home via Australia and India, and, on returning, went to a Thibetan village near Darjeeling to learn the language. From there she pressed forward to Sikkim (not then under English rule). "I went," she says, "in simple faith, believing that the Lord had called me. I knew that the difficulties were great, and that'
enemies would be numerous, but I trusted God to take care of me, just as He protected David from the hands of Saul." She got not far from Kambajong, a Thibetan fort. Here the natives would ask her frequently what they were to do with her body if she died. She told them she was not going to die just then. They have, however, a custom of ., praying people dead," and to this they resorted, taking care to help their prayers in a very effective manner. One day the chief's wife invited the stranger to eat, and prepared rice and a mixture of eggs for her. Some conversa- tion between the women as she was eating aroused Miss Taylor'S suspicion as to the eggs placed before her, and sure enough, after she had partaken, she became ill, with all the symptoms of aconite poisoning. The Thibetan chief was greatly alarmed at her living so near the border, and came over and ordered her back to Darjeeling. She refused to go there, but settled down in a hut near a Thibetan monastery called Podang Gumpa, living as best she could. . After a year spent in Sikkirn, during ten months of which she 'never saw a European, being snrrounded hy natives only, Miss Taylor was led to see that it was the Lord's will she should enter Thibet by way of China. Her stay at Sikkim had, however, not been in vain. First, she had learned the language as spoken at Lhassa, and, secondly, she had secured a faithful Thibetan servant. This young man, Pontso, is a native of Lhassa. Travelling on the frontier of India, he had hurt his feet and was directed to the white stranger for treatment. He had never seen a for- eigner before, and the kindness shown him won his heart, so that from that time he has been her constant companion and devoted servant, as well as a follower .of Jesus.
Taking him with her, Miss Taylor sailed for Shanghai, went up the great river to Tau-Chau, a city in Kansuh on the borders of Thibet, and surrounded by Thibetan villages. She visited several large monasteries, and became familiar with many phases of Thibetan life and character. In the monasteries she found some intelligent Lamas, free from the grosser superstitions, and willing to lend her what assistance she required.
A year was thus spent on the frontier, and at last came the longed-for opportunity of penetrating the interior. It came about thus: A Chinese Mohl!!mmedan, Noga, had a wife from Lhassa, and he had promised her mother that he would return to Lhassa with his wife in three years. This he wished to do, but having no money, he consented to conduct Miss Taylor to the capital, provided she found the necessary horses and funds. Noga's wife had already become very friendly with the young English lady, because she could speak her language, which the natives on the Chinese side could not do. Thus the way was prepared, and on September 2d, 1892, Miss Taylor and her four servants, two Chinese and two Thibetans, started from Tau-Chau for the interior.
The country is one mass of lofty mountains; a large part of it is above the snow line. The roads are merely mountain tracks, while the people seem to live almost Wholly by brigandage, preying incessantly on the caravans which traverse the country. Hence the account of the long and arduous journey is simply a narrative of sore hardship amid snow and ice, perils from lawless robbers, and yet graver perils from her faithless and false guide, for Noga proved to be a great rascal, whose only object in taking Miss Taylor into Thibet appeared to be to rob and then murder her. In the first he succeeded pretty thoroughly, but in the second he failed, inasmuch as she had " a shield of defence" of which he dreamt not, and she was kept with a sure hand.
Four days after leaving Tau-Chau the little party encountered eight brigands, who were fortunately having tea, and took some time to light up the tinder boxes of their match-locks. Miss Taylor's party had only five fighting men, but these, led by a youlli priest or lama, who was intensely fond of fighting, skilfully kept off the enemy until, after much firing, but no bloodshed, they had to retreat. Three days after, a friendly
THIBET
caravan of Mongols was joined, which much increased the strength of the party. Soon after, the entire caravan was surrounded by' two hundred brigands, firing on all hands. Resistance was useless, and most of the men slipped away, leaving the property to the enemy. Two men were killed and eight wounded, and seven horses and some yak wounded. At / last the lama packed off the two women and Miss Taylor's faithful Thibetan servant, Pontso, calling out to the enemy that they were women. They were allowed to ride away, as it is against the Thibetan custom to fire at a woman. It appeared that this attack was a piece of retaliation, the Mongols composing the ~aravans having previously robbed the tribe now attacking them. To prevent their being followed, the assailants took the chief man among the prisoners as a hostage, to be killed if they were pUrSued. Miss Taylor was amused at the truthful answers returned on all points as to property and as to who was the chief man, but fonnd that absolute truthfulness is part of the etiquette of Thibetan tribal warfare. The people lie terribly in trade or social affairs, but in dealing with an enemy will not stoop to deception.
Meanwhile, Noga began, now that he was fairly in the heart of the mountains, to show his hand, and not only tried to strike and abuse Miss Taylor, but attempted again and again to murd~r her. Humanly speak- ing, she was saved only by the vigilance of her servant and the ready help of some native villagers and lamas.
At length she had to leave Noga and his wife, and with her servant, Pontso, and another Thibetan named Petegn, she pressed on, penniless and comfortless, for the capital. They had many tokens of the presence of God. At one time they lost their way for three days in the mountains, finding afterward that this had been God's method of 'sheltering them from a deliberate attempt at murder planned by Noga. Foiled in these purposes, he spread the report that Miss Taylor had gold and precious stones round her body, this being done to tempt the cupidity of the natives to kill her for the booty. Then he went on to Lhassa and told the authori- ties of her coming. These sent out stringent orders that she must be stopped, but not injured. Thus, when three days' journey from Lhassa, she was arrested by soldiers and brought before an official, who told her that if she resolutely went on he could not stop her, but he would be exe- cuted for letting her pass. She would have no man's blood spilt for her, and so, though on the verge of fulfilling her long-cherished idea, she turned back on a terrible return journey to China. The chiefs from Lhassa gave her two horses, an old tent, and some food, as her tents were gone, s~e ha.ving been robbed by Noga of two horses, a tent, and nearly all the food; but half-way back the food was finished and the tent given away, Miss Taylor being misled by the Thibetans.
Sometimes travelling was so dangerous on account of brigands that the escort dared not stop, and travelling went on day and night. On the way to Lhassa Miss Taylor, with the greatest difficulty, induced them to stay while a tall, strong servant, a Chinese Mohammedan, lay dying of congeRtion of the lungs, calling pitiably on Allah to help.
On the return journey another strong man, a Thibetan, died from the effects of a cold, and Miss Taylor herself at great altitudes had repeated attacks of palpitation. Cooking, when there was anything to cook, was most difficult, as the water boiled with so little heat. Frequently pieces of ice, put in to replenish the pan, floated in boiling water some time before melting. Once she was t.wenty nights in the open air sleeping on the ground, snow falling all the time, as neither tent nor house was to be found. The horses were almost starved, the snow covering everything. The poor animals ate even woollen clothing when they got the chance. A small rat.ion of cheese, mixed with tea and butter, was often all that could be spared for them. Having lost her money, Miss Taylor conld not buy a goat. Raw goat's flesh is an emergency food for horses in Thibet, and they like it. In fact, owing to the absence of grass, Thibetan horses will eat almost anything. Crossing fords was a very tiresome task. At first they crossed on rafts made of inflated skins, with a few branches tied across. Later on, swimming on horseback was the only course, and this meant being up to the waist in water, the horse's head alone visible, and running the risk of tumbling into the torrent and then on the slippery icc.
A most remarkable experience was the meeting with the tribe known as the Golocks, governed by a woman chief, named Wachu Bumo. This is a most ungovernable tribe, amenable neither to Chinese nor to Thibetan authority, and living entirely by plunder: They go out in irresistible parties of five hundred to two thousand, and are so certain of victory that the women and children go out to see the fun. Plunder seems to be profitable, for they are the wealthiest tribe in Thibet. Wachu Bumo took quite a fancy to Miss Taylor, and gave her a royal safeguard. Finally, after many adventures, which will be told in her forthcoming book, Miss Taylor reached Ta Chien-fu, in Chinese territory, on April 12th, having left the Lhassa district on January 22d, the first English lady, and certainly the first messenger of the Gospel, to penetrate to the heart of Thibet.-The Ohri.tian, London.
The following is a prospectus of the Thibetan Pioneer Mission :* l'he object of the mission is to evangelize Thibet, and so remove one of the last barriers to the fulfilment of our Lord's words, "This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations j and then shall the end come."
The field of the projected operations is the country of Thibet itself, and not the border tribes, among whom work is already commenced. Thibet, which lies north of India and west of China, is a large country, covering an area about ten times as great as England and Scotland together, and *lila. Annie R. Taylor's address fa India is, care of Pastor H. Rylalldi·Brown, The Man.Ie, Darjeellng,Illdla. The Hon. Treasurer i. Mr. WllIlam Sharp, 13 Walbrook, London, B. 0., and he Hon. Secretary (pro tml.). Mrs. William Sharp," Roswyn." Beulah HiII. Upper Norwood London, S. E. yet without a single Protestant missionary within its borders. The field is in some senses not a difficult one, as there is no marked hostility to Englishmen, but, on the contrary, the Thibetans have a more favorable opinion of the English than of any other Europeans. The climate is undoubtedly very cold, but dry and healthy. The language to be acquired is by no means difficult when compared with Chinese, Arabic, and other Eastern languages. The Moravians laboring in Little Thibet (under Eng- lish protection) have compiled a dictionary and grammar of the Thibetan language, and have translated into Thibetan all the New and part of the Old Testament, thus removing at once one of the greatest difficulties gen- erally experienced in entering a new country.
The proposal is to start with a band of twelve or more men, waiting until a foothold has been obtained in the country, and some of the rough places made smooth, before inviting women to face the serIous difficulties and dangers that must inevitably exist in any pioneer work such as this.
The band of men go to Darjeeling, which is within a few days' journey of Lhassa, the c!lpital of Thibet, there to learn the language. When they are thus ready, God will open the door, there is no manner of doubt.
Friends in Darjeeling are looking forward to the arrival of this first band, and are generously arranging to rent a house for their use for the year that they will probably be there. In November three or four men had already been accepted for this work, one of them, Mr. Evan Mackenzie, of Dingwall, who is married, taking his wife with him, so that Miss Annie Taylor will not be the only woman in the band. The offers of others were under consideration.
The principles upon which it is proposed to work will be those of the China Inland Mission, except as modified by what follows.
1. As the work is primarily that of evangelization, true-hearted and humble men of God will be welcomed, irrespective of what branch of the Church of Christ they may belong to at home.
2. So far as headship or leadership is concerned, it is proposed to be guided by the principle enunciated by our Lord, "He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." Subject to this, Miss Annie Taylor will lead the work until such time as God manifestly places the responsi- bility upon some other. In all cases requiring special consideration or involving important issues, she will take counsel with all her fellow. workers.
There will be no home board of management unless God should clearly indicate such to be His will, when the assistance of friends in full sym- pathy with the work 'might be sought for.
3. Relying absolutely on God's word, "the laborer is worthy of his hire," and" take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink ~ or wherewithal shall we be clothed ~ for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things"-and believing further that the essential difference, intended to be shown in this regard, between heathen and Christians, was that while all these things are sought after by the Gentiles (or heathen), the Christian is to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness-it is not proposed to seek any sort of guar.
antee of support, or ask for any collections, or apply els~where than directly to God for money; consequently the workers will not be guaranteed any- thing in the nature of a salary. He who feedeth the sparrows will not fail to meet the needs of those He counts much better than they. At the same time all.freewill gifts received for this work will be used in meeting the needs of those whose steps are led of God to go forth to this work in Christ's name. .
4. It will be required that those who. seek to join the mission be sound
1894.J CHILD MARRIAGE IN INDIA
in the faith on all the main points of Christian doctrine, which may be particularized as follows: (1) The Divine inspiration of the Scriptures j (2) the Trinity of the Godhead j (3) the fall of man and his consequent need of regeneration j (4) the atonement for man's sin j (5) justification by faith in Christ alone j (6) the resurrection of the dead j (7) the eternity of reward and punishment. They will also be asked their views on the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the efficacy of prayer, as being points of importance in relation to the Christian life of the missionary.
CHILD MARRIAGE IN INDIA.
BY MRS. GEORGE A. PAUL, BLOOMFIELD, N. :1.
A single copy of a small Australian publication entitled" Little Wives of India" has recently found its way to this country, and has deeply stirred the hearts of the fe~ who have become acquainted with its contents. The author is Dr. Ryder, an American lady physician, who went out at her own expense five years ago to practise among the children of India. Through the influence and help of Pundita Ramabai she acquired much valuable information j also by means of her profession she obtained an insight into the native domestic life, which it would have been impossible to have gained in any other way, and thus became familiar with the horrible cruelties connected with the Hindu c.ustom of child marriage.
Hoping to arouse Christian women to some concerted and effective action for the relief of the little wives of India, she published this volume last year in Melbourne, .and intends shortly to repuhlish it in England and the United States. Meanwhile a partial resume of Dr. Ryder's touching relation will give some idea of the depths of misery to which these helpless children are hopelessly condemned. Zenana workers have accomplished wonders, and already have more doors opened to them than they can enter j but as a rule they are admitted only to the families of the more progressive and liberal Hindus, and then only at stated times, when everything has been prepared for their reception, so that the brightest side is shown. The doctor. on the other hand, sees the dark side of family life j and its darkness is indeed appalling. There is no such thing in India as child life as we understand it. As soon as a girl is born the terror of the mother and shortly of the little one commences, for she must be betrothed, which means irrevocably married for all time, as soon as possible. Should she by any mishap reach eight or ten years before this is don!,), the whole family will be disgraced and persecuted. The strangest part of it all is that the most learned research fails to find child marriage commanded in any of their sacred books.
It is a custom enjoined and enforced by a mercenary priesthood j and such is the terrible hold that the priests have upon the people, that though many a mother would fain keep her little ones with her, and many a father among the more thoughtful Hindus decries the custom as ruinous to the development of the nation, with rare exceptions all continue to observe it. Betrothal takes place at any time from the christening day (the twelfth day after birth) or even sooner, and the husband can claim his wife when he chooses, as his legal right to her begins with betrothal. The claim is generally made when the little girl is eight or ten years, though in hundreds of cases it is still earlier. To quote Dr. Ryder's words, " A man may be a vile and loathsome creature; he may be blind, a lunatic, an idiot, a leper, or diseased in any form; he may be fifty, sixty, or seventy years old, and may be married to a child of five or Um, who positively loathes his presen'ce ; but if he claims her she must go. There is no other form of slavery equal to it on the face of the earth."
As no record of births is kept, and his wife will agree to whatever her husband may say, it is very easy to evade any law setting an age limit. Indeed,. the teeth of little girls are often examined minutely in the vain endeavor to obtain some clew to their correct age. A boy may claim his wife when he is fourteen; but there are a great many more little girls married to full-grown men than to boys, for as thousands of these child wives die in a few years, the boy of fourteen requires another at t~enty, another at thirty, and so on as long as he chooses,said little wife to be discarded at any time it suits her master, and left to wander in the streets like a dog. Her own mother cannot and dare not interfere under any circumstances ; for when the girl leaves her mother's roof she belongs for all time to the husband, and should he die an hour after the betrothal, she still belongs to his family, where she is in the most abject slavery, receiving nothing but what they choose to give her. There is great rejoicing when the son is born; on the mother's part because she will then soon become a mother-in-law, and have a chance of doing as she has been done unto; and on the father's part because the Vedas say, "Endless are the worlds for those men who have sons j but there is no place for those who have no male offspring." Consequently sons must be had, and the husbands must marry different wives until sons are born.
"The factory commission in India gave it as their opinion that it was unjust and inexpedient to burden a child under fourteen with full time labor-this in regard to manual labor for boys. How much more unjust and inexpedient to burden girls of ten and twelve with the trials of wifehood and motherhood!" At even such a tender age they often become mothers j and the babes born of such mere girls are of course half grown and stunted little creatures, "drawing in fear with their mothers' milk," and as they grow living in terror of the inevitable husband and dreaded mother-inlaw. One sad-faced little girl asked Dr. Ryder, "If you ask the great white Queen who lives over the sea, will she let m!l stay with mother and never send me to live with my mother-in-law 1"
Dr. Ryder states that thongh these Indian girls in one sense reach maturity early, in full physical development they are, contrary to the generally 269 accepted supposition, five or ten years behind the children of the West, a girl of ten often appearing like a Western child of six; also that the robust development seen in so many of our girls at fourteen would not be attained there until eighteen, owing to the weak physique inherited from these girl mothers. Is it possible for us to imagine the terror and suffering of a child of ten years wedded to a brute of fifty, and the untold agonies that drive hundreds of these little ones yearly to self-destruction by drowning 1 With regard to the treatment of these little wives, Dr. Ryder says that " while she has met some fine, manly Hindus, who would never treat a wife otherwise than with kindness," she adds, "that for one kind husband there are one hundred thousand cruel ones." The cases culled for this book from the criminal court reports and from the experiences of the women physicians of India, showing what these child wives suffer, are simply heart-rending. Death is the happiest thing which can come to them. Better have left the little infants to perish in the Ganges than to have forced them by law to live such lives of wretchedness. Better have left the suttee in force than to compel the poor widows to undergo the torture of further el'istence.
"A rich husband (merchant caste) brought his wife to me for treatment. He said she was sixteen, and they had been married eight years. 'She was good wife, do everything he want, wait on him and eight brothers, carry. water up three flights stairs on her head; now, what will you cure her for ~ She suffer much. I not pay too much money. When it cost too much I let her die. I don't care. I got plenty wives. When you cure her for ten shilling I get her done, but I not pay more.' I explained to him that her medicines would cost more than that amount, and he left, saying, , I don't care. Let her die. I can have plenty wives. I like better a new wife.' "
The advanced Hindu thinkers would welcome a new statute to ameliorate the condition of the child wives-so they say; yet one of their most enlightened papers coolly remarks "that it is better to sacrifice a few hundred child wives yearly than to meddle with the law." Some educated reformers, who talk much but do not practise what they preach, will never make any progress in a nation where of women alone there are one hundred and twenty millions, of whom forty million women and girls are in zenanas. Twenty-three millions are widows, while there arc twenty million little girls now suffering and yet to suffer.
This gives but a faint idea of the intense interest of Dr. Ryder's book. Many of the topics of which she treats have not even been referred to, as, for instancc, the origin of the custom, its legal and political aspects, remedies suggested, and many other points. Although, from the very nature of the subject, much of the worst that has come to her knowledge as a physician cannot be alluded to in: such a public!'tion, enough is told to make the reader heartsick, and told with a remarkable combination of womanly del-
EDUCATION IN INDIA
icacy and brave frankness. There are some traces of hasty work and some lack of sufficient explanation which it is to be hoped will be remedied in the American edition ; but in whatever garb it comes to us it is a book for every Christian wife and still more for every Christiim mother of girls to read; and if she can do no more for these hapless little ones, she will at least include them in her prayers for her own daughters.
EDUCATION IN INDIA.
CONDENSED FROM THE GERMAN OF REV. GEORGE STOSCH BY C. C. STARBUCK.
Education in India, as now existing, is English in origin and in models. Nowhere has an endeavor been made on any large scale to develop an original Indian system.
The English school system has its incontestable advantages. So much is not learned as in German schools, but it is learned more thoroughly. The system of examinations, definite, graded exactly, stimulates to thorough assimilation, while yet leaving a good deal of play to individual choice. This ascends even to the two chief universities, Oxford inclining to the classics, Oambridge to mathematics. In the universities the professors' lectures provide for freedom and for both scientific and moral enthusiasm, while examinations provide for regularity and law, and the coaching by tutors for a far greater thoroughness of individual appropriation than in most other schools. Everything is so arranged in the university that by the time a man has taken his degrees, especially if he adds honors to them, it may be very probably estimated whether he is to make a mark in the world or not.
Now of all this, the completely developed system of examinations is that which has been transplanted to India, where it rigorously controls the whole system of Government instruction in all its grades, from the elementary school, through the intermediate, to matriculation, First of Arts and Bachelor, and even the Master's degree. The scientific appropriation of knowledge is not at the basis of any of these grades. There are indeed some optional branches, but scarcely any optional books. Sometimes even only a few chapters of a book are prescribed. Everything required is so distinctly kno~n beforehand that it can almost be got by heart. The distance between English and Indian, requirements is seen in the difficulty which the elite of Indian students often find in passing even the preliminaryexaminations at the English universities. They do hest in mathematics, the Indian spirit inclining more to the forms than to the concrete reality of things. The less said about their classical achievements the better.
It has been said that in India learning is for the sake of examinations, not examinations for the sake of learning. E,'en in Europe it has been said: "We used to prepare students for life ; now we prepare them for examinations. " Yet in England there is such a variety of influenc.es, national, moral, religious, even genially merry, as to develop the personality and counteract the deadening influences of mere cramming, to a degree impossible in India. Here the student, before examination, is depressed j if successful, puffed up. A love of free investigation is a rare fruit of the prescribed studies in India. An abiding disgust at it is a more frequent result. The boy brings with him to his schooling little furniture of mind or heart, few ideal impulses. He is now driven forward, from terni to term, by the one motive and terror of an impending examination. The more mechanical the study the more likely is the end to be gained. Of learning communicated from person to person, as in England, there is nothing-much less, indeed, than in the old native system, which, it is true, was limited in influence. Even the Indian instinct, existing in so marked a degree, for free and graceful expression has, under this dry and mechanical system, been broken up, and has given place to a style unendurably confused and bombastic.
It is not strange, then, that since this Government system has been set up, no intellectual achievement of note has proceeded from Hindus. The bright boy makes the heavy man. Some would explain this by the loss of mental force in the wearisome learning of English. But how is it that in Germany the learning of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, not to speak of other tongues, rather quickens intellectual ardor than dulls it? English pours out an infinity of treasures upon the mind of a Hindu, which ought to have the same effect. If it does not, it can only be because his powers of mental assimilation have not been awakened. They are smothered under an alien culture.
Yet even all this could be endured if it rested on a self-consistent theory of the world. Now the Hindu view of the universe is itself full of contradictions; and when to this is added the Christian view, and on the top of that the agnostic, the poor Hindu boy is completely thrown off his moorings. In Christendom the Christian view controls, and unbelieving theories can be judged by that; bnt in India the effect, intellectual, moral, and religious, of all this war of theories of the universe is most disastrous. In England religious motives, views, habits, associations, and worship control the student's life. In India he has lost his own religion. and gained no other. All ethical and spiritual contents depart out of his life, and leave nothing but a vulgar craving for personal advantage. Indian officials are perllaps in character lower than even heathenism, and the Government schools are often a sink of immorality. Respectable heathen parents often hesitate to send their sons to them on this account.
Many of these defects are sensibly felt by the Government. Normal schools have been founded in the hope of raising the teachers above the mechanical monotony of the common course of instruction. Gymnastic exercises have been more or less introduced into the schools; and although the dreamy inactivity of Indian youth is unfavorable to them, and there is little of the chivalrous joyousness of English boyhood which works itself off in these contests, yet in their measure these sports have an enlivening and salutary effect, even in India. An endeavor is also making, of very doubtful results, to substitute a freer method for slavish adherence to textbooks. The prescribed text-books of the native literature, moreover, are shockingly vile and poisonous.
The only effective agent of moral regeneration, however, a purer religion, is anxiously ruled out of Jndian Government instruction. Religious neutrality controls the whole policy of the administration.
The Government assuredly, in propounding its system, had no thought of impairing the influence of missions. It had come to know too well how much it owes to them, and has expressed its sense of obligation in emphatic and sonorous eulogies. Indeed, had the Government introduced its scheme without taking account of the missionary schools, it would have been building on mere vacancy. It had largely in mind the circles outside of missionary influence. It also hoped to induce a greater uniformity of secular instruction. The different missions, so various in the extent of their educational aims, from Dr. Duff and his exalted ideals down, were also uncertain in the methods and aims of their schools. Had it been otherwise, the present Government system might have been a very different thing. As it is, the Government, by its grants-in-aid, has gradually yoked the missionary schools to its own more formal and religiously neutral programme. An independent course makes it difficult for their pupils to succeed in the public examinations.
Thus the missionary system is, by a certain necessity, hound to another which is the child of another spirit, and which certainly has been devised with entirely other aims-lawful in themselves-than that which should govern the missionary schools-namely, " to subserve the evangelization of the scholars." For instance, in 1844 Dr. Ewart begins his school geography with an express acknowledgment of the goodness and wisdom of God as displayed in the constitution of the earth. In 18'72 a missionary published a geography, composed on the principle of religious neutrality, in which such utter silence is observed concerning Christianity that the readers might easily suppose that Buddhism (Brahmanism~) and the Sikh religion were the only religions on earth, and that God was worshipped only in Benares. Even various Christian school-books, expressly allowed by the Government, are largely supplanted by others which, though not anti-Christian, are, in morals and religion alike, distinctly un- Christian.
The school inspectors being mostly heathen, they exercise a quiet and courteons but unremitting opposition, even in mission schools, to the retention of Christian text- books, so completely assuming in their examinations that neutral books are used, as to put th.ose who adhere to the Christian books at a decided disadvantage. Moreover, the examinations in secular branches are made' ever more rigorous, so as to take away both time and strength for the Bible lessons.
In the mission schools religious instruction is still honored, and brings forth rich fruits. Many heathen officials boast of their Christian training, and show the effects of it in a higher moral standard. Yet these fruits are seen rather in the lower than the higher schools. Religious knowledge counts for nothing in the Government examinations ; and the more the pupils advance the more the thought of these weighs upon them. If the pupils of the mission schools ever come short, the officials find it easy to lay the blame on the attention paid in them to religion. And indeed it appears that, by the grant-in-aid system, the missionaries, though permitted to give religious instruction in their schools, are obliged to leave it optional with the pupils.
It is never good to endeavor to unite things which are essentially incompatible. The unnatural conjunction of Christian endeavors with' a school mechanism which works in an opposite direction has ominous effects. Ought not the missions to look forward to a gradual loosing of this tie? Undoubtedly, as all feel, Government supervision has its decided advantages. Indian teachers and scholars find it hard to dispense with the stick of the driver. The general moral standard of the mission schools is unquestionably higher than of the Government schools, and they afford many opportunities of planting germs of Christian faith in the souls of the pupils. Yet it remains true that two contradictory principles are at work in these schools. That which to the missionaries is chief is to the heathen parents for the most part only a disagreeable admixture with which they put up to secure for their children purely intellectual and secular advantages. There is reason to fear that the principle opposed to religion is more and more gaining the upper hand. The heathen officials listen with bland composure to the assurance that the essential end of the mission schools is to advance Christianity. They have a well-founded confidence in the antagonistic force of facts and in the mechanism of a school system animated by so utterly different a spirit.
It certainly behoves the missionaries and missions of India to look the danger which threatens their educational efforts clearly in the face. Union makes strength. A single mission can hardly make head against it. The school boards of India are not as yet wholly inaccessible to missionary influence. Some Christian works on moral philosophy have been, on proposal of missionaries, received among the studies available for the higher examinations. The history of Israel down to the destruction of Jerusalem has, at least for a time, been an optional alongside of Indian and English history. It would be a great advantage if a compendium of Christian doctrine prepared for Hindu youth could likewise be accepted as ttn optional in the university examinations. This would not of itself contradict the principle of religioll6 neutrality. 'Whether it will ever be brought about is doubtful, for unhappily missions seem disposed to adjust themselves to the existing situation as to something irremediable. Mis- sionary endeavors to influence the whole course of instruction were formerly more decided than now. Thp, thought of founding a Christian university in India appears of late to have been suspended, although it is of incalculable significance, and perhaps not impracticable, if followed out with the united strength of all the Protestant missions in India. By the Christianization of the higher instruction and its aims, the lower grades of education also would be far more thoroughly Christianized than is now possible.
This is unquestionable: only positive Christianity can heal the mala- dies of the soul of India. All culture except Christian harms rather than helps this people. The Hindu spirit, yet wandering in the arid waste, can . quench its thirst at no other fount than at that from which proceeds the voice: "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. " – ~4llgemeine Missions· Zeitschrijt.
ED1JCATIO~ AND MISSIONS.* BY EUGENE STOCK, ESQ.
You invite communications regarding your recent articles on Education and Missions. I ask leave to comment on the letter from the Rev. E. A.Watkins, printed in yonr December number.
1. First, let me explain that Mr. Watkins, whom you introduce as " for eleven years a missionary of the Church Missionary Society," was on the staff from 1852 to 186:3, and has therefore ceased to be a missionary for thirty years past. Moreover, when he was a missionary his fieJd was Hudson's Bay, where he labored among wandering Indians and Eskimos. It must not therefore be supposed that he has any personal experience of educational missions. He is a village minister in a rural district of England who reads missionary papers. He has therefore the same authority to write on the subject as thousands of other readers, neither more nor less. His pamphlet has not been noticed in this country. Your pages for the first time give it a world-wide circulation.
2. Mr. Watkins and other writers on the same side mislead the uninformed reader by not distinguishing between different sorts of education. Their attack is upon schools and colleges for heathen boys, but they fail to tell their readers that by far the larger part of missionary education is not for heathen at all. Much of it is for the children of Christian parents, and much of it is for the training of nativc pastors, tl1achers, and evangelists. Dr. J. L. Phillips, in his papcr written for the Bombay Decennial Conference Report-the" suppressed paper/' as it has been • This letter com"" to the edito1'l! with the commendation of high authority, Eugene Stock, Esq., of the Church Mi••ionary Society, London, and ie addressed to the 1II!8ocia~ editor, Dr. Gordon. called, only it has not been suppressed !-does draw the distinction. He urges that our strength be thrown into the education of Christian children rather than into that of heathen children. Mr. Watkins makes no such distinction, and thereby misleads his readers.
3. The Church Missionary Society has now about five hundred and fifty missionaries, not including wives. Not more than twenty or twenty-five of these are mainly occupied in the education really in dispute-i.e., the education of heathen boys, though it is true that a good many more, evangelistic missionaries in the main, have the superintendence of a school or of schools as a part of their duties. Practically the whole of this work is in India and Ceylon. I do not suppose that even Mr. "Watkins wishes us to include that day-by-day teaching of boys to read in Uganda, by Alexander Mackay and others, which has had such wondrous results, though that was strictly the education of hcathen. In China there are little village schools which cost the supporters £4 a year, and which have proved a most efficient evangelistic agency ; aud in Palestine there are schools for Mohammedan children, this being one of the few waYII in which it is possible to get at Mohammedans at all. Tn Japan ,the Church Missionary Society has not uscd schools as the American missions have, and I think wc havc suffered in results through not doing so; but I suppose Mr. Vatkins does not really object to these kinds of education. His attack is against the high schools and colleges of India.
4. But then Mr. "Watkins must alter his figures of expenditure. You quote him as estimating the expenditure of the Church :Missionary Society on education to be £59,514. 1 have no idea where he gets his figures. I am sure they are cntirely without authority; and certainly, in the sense which he wishes to convey, they are grossly and inexcusably wrong. To get any figure at all like that, he must llave included the allowances of all missionaries-including their wives and children-who are engaged in any sort of educational work. Thus if a lady in China is instructing Chinese Bible-women in the Scriptures, to fit them for thcir itinerating work, Mr. Vatkins must toss the cost of that lady's maintenance into the grand total of educational expenditure. I cannot prove that he has actnally done tllis, but I say that his figure could have heen arrivcd at in no other way.
5. Let me now, then, confine myself to the highQr education in India, to which we devote under twenty English missionaries, but in which perhaps an equal number of other men take a certain share. I estimate the cost, including all expenseR of native teachers, etc., and deducting fees, etc., at £8000 ($40,000) a year, one thirtieth of our total expenditure instead of one fifth, as estimated by Mr. Watkins. Still it is a reasonable subject for discussion whether even the smaller sum is legitimate. That. is the question which you, dear sir, raise in so fair and Christian a way; and that is the question which Mr. Watkins has hopelessly confused. I cannot attempt to discUSR it adequately in this letter, but I venture to urge these considerations : 6. The first is that educational missions stand on the same footing as medical missions and industrial missions. In all three cases indirect methods are used to bring the heathen under the sound of the- Gospel. There is no justification for a medical mission apart from the Christian teaching and influence brought to bear upon the patients. There is no justification for an industrial mission apart from the Christian teaching and influence brought to bear upon the people among whom it settles; and there is no justification for an educational mission apart from the Christian teaching and influence brought to bear upon the scholars. Either may be right philanthropically, but neither is right as an expenditure of missionary money, except as an indirect agency for the preaching of the Gospel. All three have their dangers. The educational missionary may be so eager to pass his boys well in secular subjects that he neglects his one great spiritual duty. The medical missionary may be so professionally absorbed in his operations and prescriptions for the body that he loses sight of the soul. The industrial missionary may become a keen trader and be secularized. (Let me say parenthetically that in our judgment Mr.-Duncau's Metlakahtla Mission fell into this danger. The Church Missionary Society's quarrel with him was not chiefly on ecClesiastical, but on spiritual grounds. I mention this because the matter is incorrectly stated in the same number of your magazine. j 7. My second point is that high schools are the surest, if not the only way of getting at the upper-class boys and youths of India. I myself, on my recent visit to India, saw these schools at work. Let me give one example. At one large heathen town I visited a splendid and wealthy temple of Siva, wielding a mighty influence over the whole population. On leaving it I went down two or three streets and came to the Church Missionary Society High School. One hundred and fifty heathen boys of twelve to eighteen years of age were assembled. They had all learned English, and I addressed them with as straight a message about Jesus C~rist as I ever gave in my life. They listened with intense eagerness. Vhere is the bazaar preacher who ever gets snch an audience as that 1 Yet the missionary in charge of that school gets it every day! VithiL. the last three or four years several boys from that school, having arrived at the age when the law allows thcm to change their religion, have embraced Christ, suffered overwhelming social persecution, and stood firm. How could those boys have been got hold of any other way? I may be told that youths of that class thronged Dr. Pentecost's lectures. Yes, but how many of them were converted? And where would his audiences have been at all if educational missions had not prepared his way by spreading at least a knowledge of Christianity and an interest in it?
8. My third point is that, as a matter of fact, the vast majority of upper-class converts in India- have been won through educational mi8Biens ; not always won while in the schools. Often has evangel{stic preaching found its best fruits in those who already had the Gospel in their heads,
GLEANINGS FROM THE RELIGIOUS PRESS OF JAPAN
though not in their hearts. As the Lord Jesus Himself says, " Hereiu is this saying true. One soweth and another reapeth." But let me give an instance of direct results. Fifty years ago two missionaries, Henry Fox and Robert Noble, went ont to a new station, Masulipatam. Fox was a preaching missiouary, and told the story of grace up and down the country for some years, and came home and died. Noble opened a high school on Alexander Duff's principles for high-caste heathen boys. He held on for twenty-four years without once returning to England, and died at his post. What do we find in that mission field now 1 We find the results of the preaching of Fox and his successors in eleven thousand lowcaste village Christians. We find the result of the teaching of Noble and his successors in a hand-full of high-caste Ch:-istians. Are the souls of the latter more precious than those of the former 1 Assuredly not j but these men are the pastors and teachers and leaders of the Church in those districts. I did not myself go there, but two of the ablest native ministers I met in India were converts from that high school.
Let us apply St. Paul's great principle to missions: "Diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit j differences of administration, but the same Lo~d j diversities of operations but the same God which worketh all in all.' , GLEANINGS FROM THE RELIGIOUS PRESS OF JAPAN.
BY REV. JAMES 1. SEDER, A.M., TOKYO.
Two powerful forces are at work to-day making history in Japan-religion and patriotism. They work side by side, co-operative in some things, antagonistic in others. The narrow, exclusive, s~lf-centred socalled patriotism, which desires to know little beyond its own country, traditions, and customs, is at enmity with the broad, all-inclusive liberalism of Christianity, and vice versa. This lies in the very nature of things, and yet there is, on the other hand, also a strong, deep undercurrent of Rympathy and unity.
The religious papers say little about politics, but between the lines it is evident that the religious leaders are filled with thoughts very similar to those of their political confreres. These latter are panting for the revision of the treaties, so as to place them on a footing no less than fully equal to Vestern nations, while Christian leaders are hoping and laboring to subject Japanese ecclesiastical power and authority to the Church in Japan. They assure us that the very best and highest motives actuate them in their efforts. It is argued that Christian work in Japan can never rise to the zenith of all its possibilities until the governing power is more largely and generally in Japanese hands. If this movement continues to include also a corresponding and proportionate ambition for "self-supporting power," not tt. straw should be put in the way of its progress. It is a pleasing proof of sincerity that laudable efforts are beiong made in this latter direction, a few instances of which are here given. In Chiba prefecture two churches have been built recently, largely with funds con- tributed by native Christians. One was at 'l'ogane village, where Christianity was introduced about three years ago hy the Evangelical Association. Nearly fifty souls having beeTi brougllt from death unto life, these felt the need of a church building, and contributed. over two hundred yen (dollars) toward its cost. At the other place the members contributed over five hundred yen.
Among the reports of native contributions for the canse of missions is one from the Orphan Home at Okayama from ~fr. Ishii Juji, the" George Mi.iller of the Orient." The sub!'tance is: "IVe send this $1.50 as the fruit of the missionary society within the orphanage, to he applied toward mISSIOn expenses. It is the tithe of the gains of the trade department, and money obtained by selHng waste papers, and some portion of the money given to the children by Mr. Ishii, besides his own contribution." And here is the soul-stirring report of the heroic deeds of students in the Kobe Girls' School, who had just contributed to the missionary cause, and finding themselves without means to contribute to the summer school, " they preferrcd to take salt (with their rice) instead of any other side food for their breakfast, so as to enablc them to contribute."
Then we have had "self-denial week" among the Kumiai churches (Congregational), the results of which have been such as to make the plan worthy of widespread imitation. A Christian young lady was about to be married at the time during which a church was being built for her congregation. Being an earnest Christian, shc wished very much to contribute also, and not being very well. to do, she persuaded those concerned to allow her 10 dress so much more plainly for the wedding and give the balance to the church. The steps just taken by the Methodist Episcopal, Canada Methodist, and other churches at their recently held conferences, all look toward developing self-support among Japanese Christians. The opinion of the Japanese leaders may be gauged from the following utterance of Rev. Hiraiwa, of the Canada Methodist Church: "Although some ascribe the cause of the present unprosperous condition of the Japanese Church to the conservative reaction or the' New Theology,' I think it is due to the want of an independent and self-sacrificing spirit. We have had, in Japan, three periods in missionary work. First, the period of missionaries; second, the period of the rise of the spirit of evangelization; and third, the period of its decline. In the second period, from 1881-85, all were filled with the missionary spirit. Then no one (native worker) got ten yen per month, the best being satisfied with six or seven. During the year 1882-83 the Kumiai churches increased wonderfully in numbers, rising from eight hundred and fifty-two to twenty-five hundred members in one year. Afterward Clerks, rice-field laborers, and others made real sacrifices to support the pastors with thirty yen per month, but as these received so much (foreign) aid they lost the spirit of self-support. We must cultivate this spirit. Another thing is tIlis : we must have an independent church in Japan."
This extract points out clearly what is one of the great and real hindrances to the greater and more solid progress of the work. Financially the nati,·e. pastors are placed considerably above the average membcr, for it must eyer be remembered that the Gospel begins its work everywhere among the" lower strata" of society. It is scarcely to be wondered at that the average member is no more enthusiastic in giving to the pastor what he can easily do without, but which to the member means often a great sacrifice. There are, of comse, exceptions. Not that anyone enyies the pastors-far from it; but the condition is not normal. Selfsupport and self-government will do most toward an equitable adjustment of the mutual relations of pastor and people, and the consequent normal development of the Church..
The organ of the Greek Church urges its members also to strive hard toward the goal of financial independence. This is the stepping-stone to greater freedom. Within this Church an association has been organized whose purpose is to lay a financial foundation upon which to build" the Independent Greek Church of Japan." Thus this subject is being much and generally discussed in the press and elsewhere; and as long as the movement is seconded by such earnest efforts at self-support as the examples above cited, it is to be welcomed and encouraged, notwithstanding the dangers which threaten from extremists. There is danger here, as at home, that the sound, orthodox teachings of Christianity may be so " watered" as to lose much of their power, resulting in a form of godliness without its power. A writer recently made use of this significant sentence : "In order to Christianize Japan, we must Japanize Christianity," a sentiment which finds frequent expression here. If it means only adapting the outward form to Japanese conditions, little need be feared, and there are arguments in its favor; but how shall the fundamental doctrines and principles of the Gospel be " J apanized" without making them void? The experiment of "Japanizing" might as well be made with a gran,ite rock.
In this connection we also note the opinions of the Christian press on the decision in the" Briggs case." The Evangelist is " sorry to see him thus treated." The organ of the American Episcopalians criticises Dr.. Briggs's views, but i<ays he would not have been flxpelled had he been of that Church. It does not surprise us to find the organ of the Universalists strongly condemning the action of the trial court. The verdict finds hearty approval in The Life (Independent Presbyterian), and among the conservative Methodistic and other papers.
There is also a record of much and persistent opposition by Buddhists. At Fukui, Echizen, in announcing his "preaching services" a priest declared he had come to smash Christianity and put it at once out of existence. In one of his speeches he is said to have taken a copy of the Bible and, violently throwing it on the floor, stamped on it with his feet, declaring that thus the teaehiug of all its adherents should be treated. Near Sendai, where Christian work was being carried on, a Buddhist priest held a three €lays' meetiug, and at length sent word to the Christian preacher to discuss religiou with him at a general meeting. Some thirteen hundred hearers came. The priest was accompanied by teu soshi. With a sword in hand he stood up saying: "I will put away this Christianity." aud only spoke insultingly. The preacher, on the contrary, spoke only of the crucified Saviour, and his words came with telling effect to the hearts of his hearers, who came in considerable numbers soon after to congratulate him on his victory, and to hear more about Christianity. The Buddhist opposition experienced by the recent meeting of the Evangelical Alliance at Nagoya was remarkably shameful. Anti-Christian meetings were held, and, in order the more surely to break up the Alliance meetings, a great clamor, uproar, and throwing of mud and stones took place. The Alliance had rented a large hall in Nagoya for holding their meetings, but when the Buddhists heard that, they came threatening to burn down the house and murder the owner, if he let the house to the Christians. So he broke the agreement, and the Alliance had to go elsewhere. Much more of like nature might be added; but God is grandly carrying forward His work in spite of, and often by means of, His enemies. This keen opposition has roused tge people from their slumber and indifference, gained a hearing for Christianity in new places, and by their unreasoning frenzy Buddhists have convinced many that the fruit of Christianity is superior to that of the old religions. Such is the case at these places.
There is also progress along other lines. The visit of Rev. F. E. Clark has thus far resulted in the organization of some forty local Young People's Societies of Christian Endeavor, with about one thousand members, and the movement is on the increase. The Young Men's Christian Assoeiation, whose first association was organized here in 1878, has now two hundred and fifty such in the empire. The fifth summer school was attended by over six hundred students, a considerable advance over last year. The first Girls' Summer School in Japan has just been held at Yokohama with an attendance of two hundred and forty-one, and was successful beyond expectation. The mission work of the Evangelical Association, at its annual meeting in June this year, was organized into a legal conference, as also a Conference Missionary Society and several local Young People's Alliances, all looking toward greater self-support and independence. Other conferences recently held all show progress, the Baptists reporting two hundred and thirteen baptisms, but sixty expulsions during the year.
The first heathen temple sold to Christians for religious purposes was recently purchased by the Roman Catholics at Kanagawa. While too much importance should not be attached to this, it is nevertheless the beginning of the end for which the Church offers her prayers and tears,
MEDICAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN IN INDIA
treasures of gold, her sons and daughters. 'Western science and philosophy, history and poetry, the Bible and its literature, even Christian methods and appliances are freely made use of by the priests and Buddhist press to prevent the sale of more temples. These newJactors are giving the tottering system a degree of renewed strength.; and yet' the leaders are in such a dilemma that they have loudly and long petitioned the Government to again take them all uuder its protection, and they appear to have greater reasons for hopefulness now than some time ago.
But there are other and unmistakable signs of the impending fall of Buddhism in Japan. At Osaka a number of priests have formed an association for the presentation of a drama on the theatrical stage representing the ten phases of existence as taught by Buddhism. It is a sort of "miracle play," and shows the condition into which the religion has fallen. One paper confesses: "Blameless lives among Buddhists are dead." Old Buddhism can no longer satisfy the awakened moral sense of new Japan. Not from the Christian, but from the Buddhist press itself, do we learn of the inner dilapidated condition of a religious system which has seen better days. Conscious of its weakness, and fearful of a comparison with tha " Religion of the West," the priests have been very reluctant about sending representatives to Chicago to the Congress. However, not to send any would have implied an acknowledgment of their weakness before all the world.
'Ve are still in the midst of the struggle. What is needed now is not "Japanizing Christianity" nor a" new theology," but a faithful preaching and living of the old Gospel, more self-support and self-sacrifice for Christ's sake. The principle, "He who pays, rules," should not be too rigidly held. The force of missionaries should by no means be reduced for the immediate future, but concentrated more upon DIRECT evangelistic work, "going everywhere preaching the Word," with a mighty enduement of " power from on high. " For this outpouring of the blessed Holy Spirit upon native and foreign workers the Church here is earnestly longing and praying. May it speedily come!
MEDICAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN IN INDIA.
BY EDITH M. BROWN, M. D.
The last decade of the nineteenth century is instinct with progress. This especially seems to be the case in some departments of missionary work, perhaps most markedly in the large development of women's medical mISSIons. Twenty years ago there were but very few women in the India mission field who, could pretend to anything like thorough qualification for medical practice among their Indian sisters; but since the American and British schools of medicine have been opened to women students, it has become possible for women to obtain the highest qualifications, and enter, fully eqUIpped, upon the doubly blessed task of ministering to the sick and preaching the Gospel to tlJC zenana women of India.
Almost every missionary society which has for its aim the salvation of women is recognizing the great opportnnities for nsefulneRs which are opeuing on all sides through the ministry of healing; and the nineties have been signalled by the sending forth of several fully qualified lady doctors. Fresh from their professional studies, full of hope and ardor, these women, at the bidding of their howe churches, are taking the field to fight with the opposing forces of ola cllstoms, superstitions, and all manner of atrocious remedies which have hitherto had full sway over the millions of India. In the name of Christ and ill the light of 'Vestern science they are entering upon their difficult task of teaching the simplest elements of hygiene and the first principles of sick nursing to those who, through ignorance, haye often been guilty of real cruelty to their suffering relatives.
One difficulty that mects these new-comers almost immediately on beginning their work is that of finding efficient help, such as seems indispensable even in the beginning of a medical mission to women. A dispensary opened in a fresh town is soon visited by many women, each one with her separate tale of suffering; and an intelligent interpreter is needed, who understands something of ordinary ailments, to expound to the doctor the case before her, and to convey to the patient accurately the doctor's instmctions. Then comes the need of a trained dispenser-one who can not only read the prescription and compound the variolls draughts and pills prescribed, but who can, with endearing terms and many blandishments, persuade the old ladies to swallow them; and can also insist on a distinction being made between a liniment and a draught; and clearly explain that the paper in which the powders are contained need not be swallowed too. These fine distinctions require an extensive vocabulary, not to be attained at once by the newly arrived.
'fhe dispensary started, its daily visitors proyided for, it is not long before another want is urgently felt. Accidents are brought in needingcarefnl surgical treatment; patients from a long distance ask for a place where they may stay while trying the remedies; and the doctor soon feels that without a hospital she is terribly hampered, and can, in fact, do not more than half of the work she has come to do. But a hospital needs nurses; and what a blessing it would be if any nurse were forthcoming who would be free from the superstition and prejudices that are so engrained in the hearts of this people !-some one who would know how to giye a fomentation, apply a mustard plaster, or feed a baby!
Very soon the fame of the lady doctor is spread in the country round, and some fine morning an urgent appeal will come from the district–often fifteen or twenty miles distant-calling her to a woman who must die if she cannot go at once to her aid. 'Vith a dispensary full of patients and some sick ones waiting"in the hospital, how can she leav" to attend this call? She needs an assistant who will be competent to carryon the dispensary in her absence, or whom she might even send to attend to and report on the case to which she was summoned. In the same wayan assistant would be required in every serious surgical operation to give chloroform, and, if possible, a second to intelligcntly help the doctor. And further, should in health or a sudden attack of fever compel the doctor to be absent for a day, or to go to the hills for a few weeks, she could do so without feeling that the whole work mnst be for the time abandoned. All these needs must be met before any medical mission to women can be considered thoroughly organized. Small wonder, then, that at a meeting of medical women, held in Ludhiana, Dccember 20th and 21st, 1893, it was unanimously resolved that an " effort be made to secure a thorough Christian medical education for native and Eurasian r;irls," and that the accompanying resolutions were passed and signed by all present, and finally that the conference, which reprcsented seven of the societies working in the Plllljab and northwest provinces of India, resolved itl:lelf into a committee pledged to do their ntmost to earry the scheme forward, first, by bringing the matter before their respective societies, and should that fail, by an indepcndent appeal to the Christian public to found a Christian medical school for the training of women who shall not only be thoroughly efficient medical assistants, but shall also be imbued with the true missionary spirit. This latter point, which is, of course, of paramount importance, can be only secured, as was felt by all the members of the Conference, by keeping the girls during their time of study under thoroughly Christian influences, ever seeking to lead them to realize the value put upon every human life by the sacrifice made, once for all, and endeavoring, both by example and precept, to impress upon them the high ideal embodied in the life of Him who. " went about doing good and healing all that were opppressed of the devil, for God was with Him."
At a conference of women medical missionaries, held at Ludhiana, on December 20th and 21st, 1893, it was decided to submit to the committees of the missionary societies occupying districts where Urdu and Hindi are spoken, a proposal for the establishment of an undenominational Chris. tian medical school for Eurasian and native Christian girls. The need is strongly felt on the following grounds : 1. It is acknowledged that medical mlsslOnaries are among the mQst useful agents in the evangelization of a country; that such evangelization must depend largely for its development upon thoroughly trained native agents, working under the superintendence of European missionaries; and that hitherto the supply has fallen far short of the demand. Native missionaries do not require the prolonged and expensive furlough, and they can li,-e much more cheaply in India than we can.
~1. In order that these girls may prove effective e,-angelistic agents, it is essential that they should, during the period of their training, be under distinctly Christian influen"ce. This is already the case at St. Catherine's Hospital, Amritsar j but besides the fact that the '"accommodation there is limited, the education there given does not enable the girls to obtain a legal qualification except in midwifery. This fact deters some from enter- ing who would otherwise do so, amI leaves them no alternative but to enter the Government institutions.
III. The existing arrangements in the Government female medical schools both for the boarding and tuition of the girls are unsatIsfactory. The absence of efficient moral protection and Christian influence during the period of training undoubtedly tends to make them unfit for mission work on completing their course, and in some cases it has had yet more disastrous consequences. They begin their training usually at the age of sixteen, and the moral development as yet reached, even by the educated girls of India, is not sufficiently high to render attendance at lectures given by men, and association with male students anything but a very real source of danger.
The following propositions were agreed to at the Conference: 1. That it would be desirable to establish, in connection with the vari- ous missionary societies of North India, a Christian medical school for girls, taught by qualified medical women. 2. That this school should be attached to a mission hospital which shall contain at least thirty beds. 3. That the Rchool be provided with an efficient staff of lecturers-at least four-in order to meet the Government requirements. 4. That the school possess a sufficient supply of diagrams, models and specimens, 'and arrangements for practical anatomy and practical chemistry. 5. That the standard of work be that of assistant surgeons, civil hospital assistants, and compounders. 6. That all students take the Government examinations in midwifery. 7. That, when the school is established, iu addition to the school examinations, Government be petitioned to affiliate the institution and admit the students to its examinations. 8. That arrangements be made with the societies sending out lady doctors to allow some to live at the school for at least one year, while studying the language, and to assist for a short time daily in English tutorial lectures. 9. That the various missionary societies be asked what they will contribute toward· the initial expenses, and what sum yearly toward the maintenance of the school. 10. That a committee be appointed which shall meet once a year, and that every society contributing at least £50 a year have the right to appoint one medical worker as a member of the committee. 11. That for every £20 a year contributed by a society or individual, that society or individual have the right to send one girl on a free scholarship. 12. That . aHer the working expenses of the school are provided for, a limited nnm- be: of girls be admitted on payment of £10 a year, or 12 rupees a month. The probable expenses of such an institution (provided that suit- able buildings can be rented-which seems probable) are estimated as fol- lows: (a) Initial expenses (furniture, apparatus, etc.), £400. (b) Yearly maintenance: For 12 students, £300 ; for 30 students, £450. In addition to this, there would be the salaries for two medical mis- sionaries. The salaries of the remaining members of the staff-viz., of the one in charge of the mission hospital, and of the first-year missionary, would be paid by the respective societies to which they belong. Three places have been suggested at which such a school might be established in connection with a mission hospital already in existence- viz., Amritsar, Bareilly, and Ludhiana. A Provisional Executive Committee was appointed by the Conference, with Miss Brown, M.D., as secretary, and Miss Balfour, M.D., as treasurer.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT
n.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Wha.t Oommerce a.nd Scienoe Owe to To any hesitating Christian it should Missionaries. it be enough to say, as Lord Wellington BY REV. ROBERT H. NASSAU, M.D., D.D., asked of a hesitating questioner, .. What GABOON, WEST AFRICA. are your marching orders 1" True, hu· man orders may sometimes be in error. In asking your interest and sympathy It is on record that the order at Balakin the great cause which I have the lava, that sent the six hundred on their privilege of representing to you to·day, fearful charge, was an error. The brave it should be enough for every Christian men of the Light Brigade knew it as heart for me to open this Word of God, they unhesitatingly spurred to their er· and point to the great commission rand of self·destruction. Down that (Mark 1.6: 15). .. Go ye into all the lane of death they rode, .. cannon to world and disciple every creature." the right of them, cannon to the left of The Saviour, at a supreme moment of them ;" cannon to their front, flinging His life. leaving His earthly farewell iron hail through quivering bone and with His apostles, chose not to speak of muscle, yet they rode on through that the local int'irests of His own village of lane of death, returning only three hun. Nazareth, nor of His capital city Jeru- dred I For what? Waste? No I to salem, nor of His Jewish nation, nor of _ illustrate the moral grandeur of discip· His love for family or friends. It lined obedience, to leave on a page of stands to reason that the subject of English history an example that stirs which He chose to speak at the last every British heart with pride, to leave hour of His earthly life must be not to the world a heritage of courage, for· alone for Him, but for all His follow- ever to be a stimulus to the noble en· ers. the theme of highest interest, call- thusiasm of future youth. An unques· ing for implicit obedience to His last tioning bravery all the more demanding command. In the great army of King our admiration, just because, as in the Jesus there should be obedience as im- recent case of the Victoria battleship, plicit as in any earthly army. No col. where the impracticable order sent four onel qU('8tions his general, no captain hundred men to their watery grave, his colonel, no private asks his captain their general is now known to have co why 1" Doubtless there are men be· made a mistake. But our Captain Jesus fore me to·day with memories of the makes no mistakes. battles of our late civil war. You reo But I choose to·day to close this Bi· member when the orderly rode up to ble, and to insult you and humiliate your captain with an order from your myself by saying that we do not believe coloncl, " Take that battery!" As your in its teachings, that its commands lay captain called for a detail of volunteers, no obligation on us, that Jesus was only and as the detail stepped forward at the a good man among other good men, and double quick, no one said, " Send some that we are not Christians; and then one else," no one asked, " What for 1" standing off on this Christless platform, no one said, "It's no use;" though I will present you rea~ons which even each one of that detail knew that within you in your now ChristIess position five minutes half of them would be dead will accept as valid for the prosecution men. No, you charged, at>d you took of the work of foreign missions. that battery. While you and I were Christians it • Addre•• delivered in Philadelphh, Pa., on was enough for me to state to you cer· eve of departnre of the author returning to West tain facts about mission work and reo Africa. spectfully to leave those facts to make their own 9.ppeal at the bar of your con- He examined the dark object, observed science; but now that I have asked that it was ductile, and asked them you to step thus shamefully away from where they obtained it. " Out in the the Bible, I deem it my deference for forest. from the gum of a vine." They you and lay aside my own preferred led him into the forest and showed him modesty and with the force of the rea- their process of its collection. He rec· sons I shall present to you demand of ognized that he was handling indiayou-yes demand of you, sympathy, in- rubber. It came not from a tree, as in terest and aid for this great foreign mis- Para, South America, but from a vine. sion work. He introduced it to the notice of mer- chants in Boston, but it having been Let me here say that in making cer- careles!!ly collected, with sand and tain statements, I do not repeat to you other admixtures, tIley did not give it what I have heard at second-hand, but much attention; but it was taken up what I personally know to be true in by British merchants, and now enormy own life iu Africa; and in thus re- mous quantifies of it ani exported from pJrtiug you must pardon the necessarily my own region. frequent mention of myself and my own doings. About 1866-1 do not remember the exact year, that is not material to my 1. I ask you to look at some commer- point; What I state is the fact, that cial considerati ons. You are a business when one of the Atlantic cables was man. When any project is brought to being made, and the demand for rub· your attention your first thought is to ber was stimulated in the markets of look at it in its financial aspect. When the world, a large part of the insulating you are asked to invest in any undertak- material of the cable was made of Afri· ing, your first question is, "Is there CHn rubber from my own region. In money in it 1" In asking your aid for my visits in America, in its factories of foreign missions, I unhcsitatingly reply, various industries, I have met, in the " Yes, there is money in it." Not that rubber-mills of Lambertville, N. J., I promise that one thousand·dollar bond and other places, with the gum mixed on which you nre receiving regular with thc purl) Para in certain procEsses annual interest will actually place in -gum that has come from my own your own pocket that same interest if Ogove River, past my own door. For that bond be transferred to a mission tile few thousands of dollars that the treasury (although I am disposed to be- Church invested ill Dr. Wilson's mis· lieve that God does actually make, to a sionary work, this gum discovered by cheerful giver, more than an equiva- l1im in an hour of recreation has made lent in money value; but let that, a return of millions to the commerce of whether it be so or not, pass to-day). the world. Let commerce repay him! What I assert is that money invested in foreign-mission work does return to the T~enty-five years ago I saw my naworld, to your country, to your com- tives at Benita, when they were start· munity (if not actually to yourself) its ing out on a journey to places where value in money. (1) Imports. The they would not expect to obtain hos- Rev. Dr. J. L. Wilson, the pioneer of pitality (for though a people hospitable our Equatorial West-African Mission, to friends, among their very frequent fifty years ago in his itinerations in the tribal animosities they can be cruel and native villages, saw boys playing-as treacherous), I observed that they carboys play everywhere-their native ried with them a certain nut. Without games. They were throwing hack and other food, and nibbling on that nut, forth to each other a somewhat round they would go a day's journey, destidark object, which as it struck the tute of the sensation of hunger, and reground rebounded. The thought of turn with strength unexhausted. That elasticity struck Dr. Wilson's attention. nut is the kola, comparatively recently introduced to medicine. and which your are made not in gold or silver, but in druggist will furnish you as a nervine barter-yards of cloth, soap, tools, and in the form of kola-wine. The nut is a hundred other things-I have myself gathered in my own forest, canoe·loads paid out to mission employes as their of it passing my own door. I knew wages in boating. building, etc., hun- long ago of the onai poison with which dreds of American axes. Standing as our natives smeared the tips of their an unpaid commercial traveller, I may little bamboo arrows, but I did not then say to the hardware trade, .' Pay me know what the poison was. The na- what thou owest."
tives kept it a secret. I only knew that 2. As a 8cientist. – You are a scientific that little arrow was fatal even to a man, you rejoice in whatever adds to large animal, and yet that the poison the sum of human knowledge. Your did not make its flesh inedible. What pleasure is in books and whatever may sort of a poison was this that struck its be added to them. I claim your inter- victim to death and yet left that vic- est in missions for the sake of the con- tim's flcsh fit to be eaten? tributions which missionaries are con- We found that that onai was a long stantly making all along scientific pod of a vine, which we now know to lines. (1) Geograpltical.-You know of be the strophanthus, whose extract what Burton, Speke, Stanley, and Cam- within the last few years your phy- eron have done in AJrican exploration; sicians have found to be a valuable sub- but Missionary Livingstone had preced- stitute for or associate with digitalis in ed tham, not backed as they by govern- its action on the heart. We knew of mental influence, force of arms, and the bean used in the Calabar region as power of money. I give Captain Bur- II. test in the native witchcraft ordeal. ton all praise for his discovery of Lake Introduced to the examination of medi- Tanganyika, but that discovery was cal experts in England, an extract has less a discovery than a realization.
been prepared from it, which in ocular Long before Burton's journey a Ger- surgery is found as valuable for con- man missionary, Rev. Dr. Krapf, at tracting the pupil of the eye as bella- Mambas, on the East Africa Zanzibar donna is for enlarging it. coast, had penetrated inland. His eyes, (2) Exports. -As a busines' man you and the eyes of his asseciate Rebmann.
think it worth while to ~end 'lut trav- had been the first civilized eyes to look elling salesmen, paying their salary, on the snow-topped summits of Mounts commission, and expenses. They go Keina and Kilimanjaro. They first all over the United States, into Mexico heard from natives of a great interior and South America, and even into the lake or lakes. Krapf's first outline map, British colonies. For what? To find made from native description. gave doors for the goods of your trade, or if Captain Burton the basis for his belief there be no open dOOfS to force or make in the existence of those great interior doors for the entrance of those goods. lakes which be subsequently realized Missionaries follow with or sometimes for the geographical world.
precede the emissaries of trade. There The English Baptist missionary, had been foreign commerce in Africa Greenfel, was the first to explore the long botore missionaries went there, but Mobangi, the great afiluent of the Con- we create new wants in the native go on its right bank, its confluence nenr minds and introduce to their desire ob- the equator. Schweinfurth's Welle jects not formerly presented by traderi. had been a mystery. Whither did it In Zululand, under the American flow? Where wns its outlet? Green- Board and the new mode of agriculture fel showed that Welle and Mobangi introduced by missionaries, quite a trade were but one river. The Ogove River irew up in American ploughs. In our of the Congo-Frsnsmis is valued by the own mission, where all our payments French for its present wealth and future possibilities. When I returned in languages to writing, in the compiling 1874 from my first survey of that river, of grammars, and in their tranlillations its value was only partially known of the Bihle and other books, are giv- through the few traders or other white ing to philologists collateral aid in the men who had preceded me. The ad- study of ethnology. It may seem to miral of the French man·of-war, then some a thing not worth naming that a visiting in Gaboon harbor, had an inter- missionary has given to entomology the view with me on his vessel. and taking rare African antimachus, a magnificent notes of my statements considered them butterfly, or that another has given to worthy of transmission to his Govern- a botanical garden the lisorchilus or- ment. A year later, when I had walked chid, once valued at $25. And yet overland the few days' journey be- there are those who would give that tween the Ogove and Gaboon riv{)rs, a sum for a new orchid !
route that white man had tried but Who is it that calls him a benefactor twice before, the governor at Gaboon of his race who has caused to grow asked me for the map of my route and "two blades of grass where before its comparative merits. there was but one"? Equally he is a 2. Natural Hist01y.-On the lines of contributor to science who adds any botany, zoology, conchology, entomol- new fact to the sum of human knowl- ogy, ethnography, and philology, mis- edge. Your fellow-citizen, my friend, sionaries are, each according to his taste, the distinguished surgeon, Dr. T. G.
making collections of specimens and Morton, thanks me for .the first entire writing monographs in aid of those sev- carcase of that strange and fearful beast eral departments of science. This they the gorilla, sent to this country. Its do with no loss of the time or money of mounted skeleton is in your Philadel- th.e societies or boards in whose employ phia Academy of Natura! Sciences.
they are. They do it as an intellectual Three gorilla brains, given by me to recreation. Your missionaries are edu- Dr. Morton, were the first perfect ones cated men, but they have not, as you, ever examined in the study of compar- your means of intellectual enjoyment ative anatomy.
in the library, the lyceum, the club, And Dr. Pepper Provost. of your and the magazine. Without abusing university, thanks me for a collection time belonging to special missionary of native African implements, tools, work. and receiving no pecuniary com- and other utensils illustrative of the pensation for their collected specimens life of those people. So unique and (for a proper rule of our Presbyterian valuable was it considered, that it was Board forbids our engaging in any other placed on exhibition at the World's work that shall bring us financial emolu· Fair. and one of your daily newspapers ment), we gratify our taste and find a (the Evening Telegraph) lately remarked needed recreation in examining the of it that" among the collections to be fauna, flora. or antiquities about us. sent to the Columbian Exposition at In botanical specimens from Peru you Chicago, by the Museum of Archreology are aware that Roman Catholic mis- of the University of Pennsylvania, there sionaries first brought to the knowledge are none more interesting."
of the medical world that valuabJe tree We ask no pecuniary or other reward the cinchona. No collection of shells for these items in the aggregation of the will be considered complete without world's knowledge, but I claim for this specimens from the snow-white strand side work of foreign missions at least of our Corisco Island. specimens noted the credit which you give to other less for their size than for their beauty workers in the cause of science. I do of color and shape. I have sent to not discount the work of Lieutenant America bushels of Corisco shells. All Peary, and his toil, success. and reward missionaries in their reduction of strange shared by his brave wife in the Arctic Sea. Philadelphia does not grudge to aid tawdry jewelry, gaudy beads, and gun- him with $20,000 ou his new adventure. powder and rum. These things of lit· For what? For the solution of certain tIe cost return ed to trade 1000 per cent questions in meteorology. No one ex· of gain, and being fragile and tempo· pects that commerce will be benefited rary, their duplicates were soon needed or that there will be any adequate pe· by the improvident native. Mission- cuniary return. Nevertheless the rich aries there, paying b[lrter, offer to the give of their wealth and brave men ex· natives goods of more permanent value pose their lives, and I commend them. and enduring quality.
I commend their project; but give ye They introduce articles never offered also equal aid and commendation to the by Ii trader. Time is of no value to a work of other brave men and women native heathen. I have attracted his on mission fields who bring their quota attention to a clock as an ornament.
to the altar of science. From it he learns time, and learning to S. In Civilizing.-Perhaps you are of count the hours, he soon tries to put those who regard civilization as the more of effort into an hour. That is lever in the elevation of the degraded industry.
nations. You say, "First civilize, I am always pleased when, in paying then evangelize. " Well, then, I meet a nati va, he asks for a pound of nails.
you as a civilizer, though I might say, Iron is a civilizer. I will show you a as I verily believe, that all that is good chain of se'luences. What will he do in civilization comes from Christianity; with those nails? Pound them into a but let that pass to.day, for this half board. For that purpose he needs 'a hour we are not talking as Christians. hammer. To shape the board hc must Standing simply as a civilizer I claim have a saw. To fashion it he must for foreign missions that, by int"roduc· have a plane. What will he make?
ing better modes of living, and encour- A bench? A table? If a bench, he aging industries, they are lifting hea· will rise a step above the squalor of his then nations to higher planes. clay fioor. If a table, he will no longer The native Africau has but few arts, sit singly and selfishly eating his dish a little weaving, a few with some skill of plantains, but will gather his family in blacksmithing, and many with a taste by his side. But that table will not for carpen,tering; but they have few stand evenly on the inequalities of the wants, and most of these naturc, in the clay fioor; he will need to build a bet· rampant abundance of her fruits and ter house with a plank fioor, and build- vegetables, readily supplies. Naturally ing a better house, he will better treat they have few incentives to exertion. his wife ; and there he has risen many But we come to them, creating new steps in civilization. And it all grew wants and arousing higher d.esires. It out of a pound of nails!
may be objected that trade does all 4, Pltilanthropy.-But perhaps phi.
this, that it does it in advance of the lanthropy is your religion. You look missionary. True, indeed, trade is a upon Jesus only as a good man among civilizer; I welcome it, even though it other good men. You pose as a philan· generally meets aboriginal nations with thropist. You are nothing if not a its worst side. In the end the outcome philanthropist. You believe in the is good; but trade had been at our Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood Gaboon region a hundred years before of man. So do I. I meet you there, our mission came there, aud trade had and as a philanthropist I demand your done very little for the elevation of the aid in my foreign missionary work.
native tribes. It had brought in ex· You say there is work to be done in change for the valuable ivory, ebony, the elevation of the lapsed masses of and other native products only articles our own population. So there is. I Qf e{)hemeral value-flimsy, slaz.y cloth, will ~o with you into tl;le slUl~s of o~ city, with you extend my hand to the winter's cold. there is not many squares hands of that woman of dishonored away the soup-house and charity orbreast ~nd give her another chance. ganization. I say these victims of civ- With you go to the man of ruined life ilized brutality 'have a possible escape and give him another chance. Now or appeal to civilized law and order. my philanthropy is broader than yours. But the hopelessness of women in their It stops not at my city, my state, my status of heathenism, as against the opcountry; but all over the round world, presSions of power or mere might and and knowing no distinction of race or right of possession, is indescribable in color, whether white, red, black or yel. its depth and extent. My poor heathen low, wherever sin has gone debasing. woman has no avenue of escape, no reo I will go to lift up. Wherever there is dress, no tribunal of appeal. She is suffering I will go to cheer. By just simply hopeless! so much as a tribe or nation is degraded and down, all the more because it is And now I fling aside the covering down It has a right to be lifted up, and of Unchristianity, which I cast over you on you and me rest the duty to lift it and my!)elf. and emerging from this up! I went to Africa more than thirty shameful hour, gladly again open this years ago, in the flush of youth, expec- blessed Bible, joyfully read again the tant, hopeful, not knowing what was Redeemer's great cOlIlmand, and appeal before me.' (Thank God we do not to you as Christians. know the future! Perhaps if we did we would sometimes turn back ap- " Is it nothing to 1/OU. 0 ye Christians? palled.) In those years I have travelled Oh. answer me this to·day ! a long and weary way. Thorns in the The heathen are looking to you; path have pierced my feet, thorns have You can go or give or pray. pierced my soul; but in the presence of You can save your soul from blood-guiltinees, the degradations of heathenism, espe- For in lands you have never trod ciallyas those degradations crush down 'I'he heathen are d1/ing every day, women and children, I protest to you, And DYING without God ! sirs, to·day, that in the name of Philan· Is It nothing to you, 0 ye Christians ? thropy alone I could again tread over Dare ye say ye have naught to do 1 that weary, thorny road, if for nothing All over the earth they wait for the light I else than the pity for the life that now And is that nothing to you 1" is, to lift up heathen women and chilo dren. I know. indeed, that some of It is somet-hing to me! And in obedi· the cruelties of heathenism are equalled ence to that command I return to Afri· in the slums of our American cities; I ca, taking with me this Bible, that betknow that women are here sometimes ter than commerce, science. civilization, fearfully outraged and children suffer or mere philanthropy can bring the dreadfully; but I must say that at its fallen back to God. A Bible. perfect worst for that woman, when worst in every page; not a fragmentary Bi· comes to worst, and she can no longer ble, or one for any of whose utterances find tolerance or affection for the heart I need apologize, but in its entirety, the of the human brute who had sworn to Word of God! protect her. but whose hand is now her oppressor, there are police only a few Oyrus Hamlin. * rods away to whom she may appeal. and law that will protect her; and for BY REV. C. W. CUSHING, D.D., WELLS· the child, beaten and outraged, there is a society for the prevention o~ cruelty BOROUGH, PA. that finally steps in to save; and for the starving and the unclad before the Dr. Hamlin tells us that he was not a promising child – was pronounced .. weakly," and with" a head too big." When very young he hated babies, and .. "My Life and Times," by Cyrus Hamlin. Congregational Sunday-school and Publishing Society, Boston and Chlca~o. in one instance threw a stone at some staggered him. However, he was equal which were brought to his home. The to any emergebcy. His life while in stone went through a window and the academy at Bridgton is sketched as smashed a valued piece of china. His with the pencil of an artist. When bills mother called him to account, and he accumulated he could make spoons or says" he always respected babies after spectacles as well as the next (lne. that. .. While a small boy he and his brother stole two ox-goads from a During his course at Bowdoin 001neighbor. Such was the distress of my lege he made a steam-engine, with conmother, he says, that" we never stole denser, air-pump, etc. Hon. Neal Dow again." took great interest in it, and helped him bore the cylinder. The college gave His father had died when he was him $175 for it as a model, and it is seven months old, and his mother now in the Oleveland Cabinet. All brought up the family on a farm. this was good preparation for his future When the ox-yoke was broken he work. showed his genius by making another, as well as by making whatever things Already, in the winter of 1832, at the were lacking fe,r convenience on the age of twenty-one, he had chosen misfarm. sion work in the foreign field for his life work, and Africa as the special A very minute description of these field. early years is given, with some interesting incidents of their dumb animals While a sophomore an element in his -cows, horses, dogs, etc. There is a character was illustrated ill a peculiar simplicity about these stories which is way. Standing alone in an abandoned fascinating. "Old Bose" watching for place, a mile and a half from houses, his master on the coldest nights, long was an old, forsaken, half-demolished after the master was dead, can hardly church, and beside it an old·time gravebe read without moistened eyes. The yard. It was said to be haunted. On death of " old Oarlo, " which had to be a wild, dark, stormy night he detershot when old, is suitably emphasized mined to go there, climb into the old by tender words in doggerel. by the pulpit, and challenge all the ghosts and author: hobgoblins to do him harm, and he would send them howling to the abyss. At length the question of "-life work" Immediately a groan, followed by raps arose. His mother desired for him an on the side of the church! " Hallo education, but means were wanting. there! who are you? what do you It was finally decided that he should go want ?" he asked. Another groan and to Portland with his brother-in-law and more raps. He got out of the house learn the trade of silversmith and jew- as soon as practicable and went around eller. While learning his trade, his to the side to see whence the sounds spare moments were spent in reading came. He soon stumbled over an old good books. He joincd an apprentices' cow, and found a whole herd of cattle cvening school of seventy regular at- sheltered from the storm by the church. tendants. Two prizes were offered for Licking themselves, they had rapped the best essay on profane swearing. their horns against the church. The His sister urged him to write_ .. But I mystery of the ghosts was solved, and have never written anything," he said. he returned to his room. However, he took the first prize. His gradQation from college was with About this time Deacon Isaac Smith honor. asked him, " If he had ever thought it might be his duty to prepare for the His next wor~ was in the seminary ministry." Some resolutions adopted at Bangor, where his life was characby President Edwards led him to a de- terized with usual fidelity and successcision; but the expense of a preparation ful progress, while much time w~s given to outside charitable and religiouli work among the poor, hitherto almost better quarters. Every move arollsed entirely neglected. While in the semi- the Jesuits, who attacked the work in nary he received from Dr. Anderson a series of tracts. Dr. Hamlin replied his appointment as missionary to Con- in a book, .. Papists and Protestants." stantinople. Arriving at Constantino- It was founded largely upon testimony ple, he encountered many obstacles, first from Roman authors, and silenced them in securing a teacher of the language, completely. They attempted to have and thereafter in every step for the es- the Turkish Government suppress its tablishment of the mission. He and his publication, but failed. A message wife, a descendant of the martyr John from Sir Stratford Canning settled it. Rogers, were heartily welcomed at the An Armenian banker said this and other home of Rev. Dr. Goodell; but the like publications sa.ved the nation from missionaries were soon told by Bouti- Rome. neff, the Russian ambassador, that" the Emperor of all the Russias would never 'fhe students were poorly clothed, allow Protestantism to set its foot in and Dr. Hamlin established a workshop Turkey." Dr. Schaufl:ler replied: for making stove-pipe, sheet-iron stoves, "Your Excellency, the kingdom of ash-pans, etc., which were in great de- Christ will never ask the Emperor of mand. By this means the students not all the Russias where it may set its .only clothed themselves, but learned foot. " Catholics, Armenians, Greeks, useful employment; but opposition apall seemed combining with Russia to peared. On one side the mission felt drive all Protestant missions from the that Dr. Hamlin was becoming too country. To intensify the gloom, Lord much secularized, while, on the other, Ponsonby, the English ambassador, had the Turks believed all inventions came contempt for all missions. A change from Satan. Finally the station voted for the better at this time resulted from to direct Dr. Hamlin to sell off the furthe death of the Sultan, which gave ad- niture of the workshop, close it up, and vantage to English authority. pay the proceeds into the treasury. He replied he should immediately sell off In the winter of 1840, after a long the furniture as directed, but as not a struggle, a building was found in Bebee dollar had come from the treasury, he where he could open a school. He must decline to pay the proceeds into opened it with two scholars, contrary that fund. Morcover, the station would to the judgment of the other mission- find it necessary to provide clothing for aries of the station. This was the germ the students. This was a new revelaof Robert College. Here Dr. Hamlin tion, and they voted that "Brother began his famous career as an artificer, Hamlin take his own way to keep out by fitting up a workshop to make philo- rags." sophical apparatus. His ability for any emergency was shown by outwitting The Protestant Church had fierce the Patriarch, When he sent him word struggles while being launched in Turthat all his students would be cast into key; but in spite of all there were oneprison. The school was interrupted for hundred-and-fifty churches in the emthree weeks, and then opened with in- pire in 1893. creased numbers. Some amusing incidents are narrated of his administering The next step to help the poor was justice to culprits who were cowered the manufacture of rat-traps. 'fhis by the belief that he was" diabolos," was a great success. and relieved many, on account of his ingenuity. His but multitudes still were suffering. Yankee wit served 11im a good purpose There was abundance of the finest in confounding the sceptics who con- wheat in the world, but no mills except fronted him. those propelled by llOrse-power. Dr. Hamlin thought of a steam-mill and a In 1843 the seminary was removed to bakery. lIr. Charles Ede, an English banker, offered to advanoo the money requircJ, but the station, as usual, did gor Theological Seminary, where he renot apprcve of it. .. Dr. Hamlin knew mained three years, and until elected nothillg of milling, bread-making, etc., President of Middlebury College. at the and it must prove a failure_" They age of seventy, where he remained for had not learned that Dr. Hamlin was five years, retiring at seventy-five, to an equivalent for any emergency; but the regret of all. they voted, finally, that, " though we have no confidence in the scheme, we 'fhis is the story of a wonderful lire, leave Brother Hamlin to act on his own simply but beautifully told, in reuding responsibility." The story of the which thousands will be entranced and growth of this bread-making scheme, made more heroic. until he was compelled to furnish not only the English hospital, but the por- We feel cOilstrained to add to what tion of the army there, at the rate of Dr. Cushing has said of this remark- 12,000 pounds a day, is a marvellous able book onr own word. It was said , bit of history. Not less interestiug and of Napoleon I., "Nature made him and not less commendable of his skill is the broke the mould." That is equally .story of the conflict endured in secur- true of Cyrus Hamlin. We once heard ing a place for his operations. a Methodist bishop say, "If Dr. Ham- lin were a Homunist, thut Church would The next move in this direction was canonize him as soon after death as the the conversion of beer-casks into wash- almanac would allow." Be that as it ing machines, to wash the cast-off cloth- may, he is and has been one of the ing of the, sick and wounded Russiau strongest personalities of the century; soldiers, by which many poor women an honor to his cImrch, an honor to his were put into better condition than conntry, an honor to humanity. He ever before, while" out of the profits has been statesman, educator, financier, of his beer barrel he built a church." and diplomat, as well as a very success- ful missionary. The mission history His next work in Constantinople was of Tnrkey for the last half century canpurchasing a site for Robert Colle~e. not be understood without the facts em- It was It long and fierce conflict, and bodied in this book. No romance is whcn accomplished his difficulties had more thrilling nor any life-story more only· bcgun. Thc Pasha had deter- fascinatingly told. We know of one mined not to allow a college to be built; young lad who rcad it from end to end, hut through a chain of most interesting charmed with it as if it were only a incidents in connection with the visit boy's stOl·Y. Wc know of one mother of Admiral Farragut, thc Pasha was out- who read it alond to an invalid daughdone and an imperial edict was given, ter, and of groups who have perused it granting much more than he had ever with unabated delight. There is not a dared to ask. A less COUl'llgeous and dull line in it. If twenty-thousand persistent man would have utterly failed copies of it could be sold at once it in this most important uudert!lking. would give a great impetus to missions. Dr. Hamlin is one of the able corps of It should never be forgotten that editorial correspondents of this REVIEW. while Dr. Hamlin was planning and su- -J.T.G. perintending all these various schem2s for the welfare of the people, schemes A Perverted Report. which of themselves would be sufficient to engross the energies of l vigorous An important meeting of representaman, he was never accused of neglect- ti ves of some fifteen mis"ionary ~oci-' ing his work as a teacher; while his eties was mentioned in this REVIEW last career was marked with continued suc- month as having been held in January cess in leading men to Christ. in the Methodist Mission Rooms in Retiring from Constantinople, Dr. Hamlin waa elected professor in Ban- New York. The secular press reports tions started with correct views,. urged of that meeting were in the main cor· rect, but some of the papers grossly the development of lay workers in the misstated some facts and more grossly Church, and brought about the unique made damaging impressions of mission· custom of church discipline for covel· ousness. "
ary economy, by what the newsboys call "scare·heads," in which they put The IDternational Missionary Union, Rev. Dr. Mabie in a false attitude. The " writer of this paragraph solicited a cor· rection of th('se errors from Dr. Mabie The eleventh annual meeting of the himself and received the following, International Missionary Union will be which is gladly inserted.-[J. T. G.] held at Clifton Springs, N. Y., June 13th to 20th, 1894. Arrangements are "Inasmuch as a most perverted use made by the hospitality of Dr. Foster has been made of some allusions of mine and other residents of Clifton Springs on the general topic of self.support at to entertain all missionaries coming for the late conference of secretaries in New the purpose of attending the meeting. York, I submit to you herewith the reo All missionaries are requested to send port which was made both of my ad· the Secretary, before the meeting, their dress and that of Dr. Duncan, as given names, societies, fields, and, years of by the New York Independent of Jan. service. The Union is continuously uary 25th, a report which voices sub. seeking out all foreign missionaries stantially what I meant to say, and who are living or visiting in this coun· which also states the fact concerning try and Canada. The Secretary, Rev. Dr. Duncan's paper." W. H. Behlen, Clifton Springs, N. Y., invites correspondence with all such " The next topic was' The Develop· petsons. Any inquiries about the So· ment of Self·Supporting Churches (In ciety will be answered by Mr. Belden.
the Foreign Field.' The opening ad· The dea.th of TIev. J. E. Chandler, dress on ' The Importance of the Meas. Sr., of cholera, in India, and of Rl'v. ure ' was by Dr. Mabie. of the American Alden Grout, who, after thirty-five years Baptist Missionary Union, and the next of labor in Znlulanll, died, at the age of ninety. at Springfield, Mass., and the paper, on ' The Best Means of Securing death of Hev. George Douglas, D.D., this End,' was by Dr. Duncan. of the Principal of the Theological School of the University at Montreal, might well same Board. Dr. Mabie called special give us pause. Dr. Douglas contracted attention to the point that the self·sup. disease when a missionary in early life port of the native churches dol'S not in the West Indies, which progressed mean the lessening of contributions at till it resulted in total blindness and dis. home, that the work (If missions is con· ability of the limbs, which required ar· stantly increasing. The idea of self. tificial support for years. He was the support has less to do with the relief of Chrysostom of the Dominion of Canadn, the churchcs at hon:e than with the de. and a more powerfully eloquent mOil velopment of the churches abroad; it has not graced the American pulpit or carries with it the idea of devclapmcnt platform. His was a marvellous in· in the line of aggres&ive work and the stance of the triumph of mind over cl)ntrol of their own work. It is es~en· matter. He was a Vice· President of the btieatl ~emeonrtehoevcehr,urtcohtehseanpdrothpeercordmamt·iuonnis. International Missionary Uuion, which ties. Churches built by foreign funds institution has lost from its roll hy inevitably assume the foreign aspect, death eleven members since June last, and there was not that spontaneity of included in which list would be Dr. work that is essential to the hest Ii fe of Nevius, Dr. Douglas, and Mr. Chandler. the Church. As an illustration of the proper methorls by which this may be secured DI'. Duncan gave somewhat full V the rxtremely interesting history of the Ba~sein Karen Mission in Burma, where there are now ninety·one self. supporting churches, and not a single church which is not self.supporting. 'I'his was due chiefly to the fact that the missionary who laid the founda.
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
nI.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
India, * Burma., t HinduismJ BURMA IN MISSIONS. Pariahs. "God hath chosen the weak thinoos of the world to confound the BY REV. A. BUNKER, TOUNGOO, BURMA. mighty; yea, the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are." The idea that our mission work in Burma, after the many years of help Following this lead, is it too mnch to which it has received from us, should assume that I1is children may in some be able to take care of itself has gained degrec, at least, forecast His plans, currency among some good people. when once lIe has begun to unfold them? Some also. looking at the hundreds of millions of China and India, have Now, the providentialleadings which questioned if it was wise to expend so took Judsnn to Burma are familiar to much on the comparatively small popu- all student.s of missionary history. lation of this province as is now being done. At this point we may well pause and ask: Both of these views are taken from a human standpoint. As we followed 1. If our work in Burma is completed, God's leading in entering Burma, it or only jllRt begun? will be safe to continue our work until He as unmistakably releases us. 2. What are the providential leadings now before us ? As the preaching of the Gospel to all nations is His work, and as His ser- 3. 'W hat do recent developments teach vants should follow His leading only, us? we believe it is as unwise to compare missions with missions as it is to set 4. What does the field now offer? off one kind of mission work against 5. What things in our work should another. Domestic, home. aud foreign be emphasized for the future? • missions are one in fact, and &0 the field A somewhat accurate knowledge of is the world. One field of labor is more Burma is necessary to enable us to an· important than another only as it is so swer these questions. in the mind of God. Burma is a part of a great country having intimate relations with many Burma, with its nine millions of in- races and tribes. It cannot be easily habitants, may be as important, in the detached from any plan of missionary mind of God, to the conquest of Asia work which must embrace the whole for Chri~t as are the millions of India. continent of Asia. Its physical geog- The mathematics of God are not those raphy, taken in connection with the of men. The small band, with Abra- peoples who dwell on the plains and ham as leader, who, in the early history mountains; its situation with reference of the Hebrew race, crossed the Eu- to other races, as regards the lines of phrates to an unknown land were more commerce and travel already developed than all the nations of the earth in God's or in prospect; and its importance in plan. His providential leading should its relations to all future development determine the following of His people, should be carefully considered. not numhers. wealth, or worldly influ- Objection has been t.aken to the ence. Clough sought the high.caste phrase, "Bnrma at the back door of Bramins, but God sent him back to the China." But however we may regard its situation with reference to that • See pp. W (.lannary), 99 (February), 172, 179, country. a careful study of it.s relations 212 (Mareh), 247, 267. 270, 281 (pre.ent i ••ue). to the countries bordering upon it will show that the provinces of Szchnan and t See also p. 1:l5 (February). ' Yunan must be brought into immediate i See aloo pp. 179 (March), 254 (preseut issne). relations with Rangoon, the ontrepOt of Burma, in the near future. J'fIr. Up- past than for their promises for the fu- crnft says of the former province, .. It ture.
holds the key of East Central Asia." The frontier trade for the last year It is well to remember that Szclman ha,!! was mme than $2,000,000, an in- fully thirty-five million souls, with one crease of about 5 per cent over the pre- hundred and forty governing cities and vious year, which is a large showing uncounted wealth. when we remember that the govern- Not less important is a careful study ment is even yet engaged in bringing of the various races of Burma, their the tribes of Upper Burma under law geographical positions, and their fitness and order.
or unfitness for use in evangel:zing 'The work of opening up communica- work. tion and facliities for travel has also Again, if we take into consideration gone forward with commendable ra- its past development we slmll be en- pidity. The J udsons and early mission- couraged to see how much the history aries made journeys occupying months of Burma is the history of the work of which now can be made in as many our missionary society in that prov- days. The grand trunk railway, from ince. The Baptist JliIission has been the Rangoon to Mogoung in the north, a pandmaid of the English Government, distance in a straight line of about 600 and its work has been often favorably miles, is nearly completed, and our mis- mentioned by English officials. sionaries are able to travel the length '''hen Judson entered the empire of of the lanu in comparative luxury.
llis golden-footed majesty, nearly four- Military roads have been constructed score years ago, who would have dared into the mountains on the east and to predict the present advanced state of west; telegraph lines have been built, that country? All foundation work in post-offices established, making the the development of a race, or ot a Chris- whole country accessible to missionary tian ci vilization, is of the most difficult work. -Within seven years over 2518 charader, as every missionary well miles of telegraph line has been con- knows, and it makes a small "howing. structed in Upper Burma alone. Dur- Yet most of this work in Burma has ing the last year nearly 1000 miles of heen accomplished. The thirty thou- wire has been laid. Expurts are in ex- sand Christians, gathered from all races, cess of imports, and private trade has organized into churches, associations, increased to 23,000,000 rupees.
aud a convention for foreign mission Nor has the government, often aiding work, with a carefully prepared sys- the missiunaries, neglected the common tem of mission schools, with printing- work of education of the people. How- presses, weekly and monthly papers, ever, of the two hundred thousand pu- dispensaries, etc., has required great la- pils in government and mission schools, bor and patience. The battle of relig- our mission has a seven-tenth part of ious intolerl1nce lIas also been fought, the whole, or nearly twelve thousand aDd the proud, defiant king, who children under its care.
scorned to l,ow to the sceptre of King This is significant, and shows how Jesus, has been swept from his throne, large an influence we have attained in and all his dominions, from the Cam- this land; also brings corresponding bodia to the Bay of Bengal and the duties and obligations for the future.
Gulf of Martaban to the Himalayas, Recent developments are, however, have been thrown wide open to the enlarging our view. The taking of Gospel messenger. 'Upper Burma by the English and the Again, -were one to study the stati~ dethronement of King Thebaw caused tics of the development of. trade and scarcely a ripple on the news of the commerce of this country, he would day; yet how far-reaching the results find them not less instructive for the already appeal' in the plans of God, so far as man can interpret them! railway, which is advancing through The dethronement of the king meant that State to meet the road from Burthe decapitation of the Buddhist Church ma. This, too, will bring a multitude in Burma. The king as the head of of peoples from these brave Hillmen tbe Church being removed, the bul- into touch with the missionary. wark of Buddhism fell. The results are already apparent in the increasing Now we reach the fact which the interest manifested by that people in business men of the Old WorId are not the religion of Jesus. During the last slow to appreciate-viz., Burma as a year there has been reported the first railway and trade centre for Southern instance on record of It Buddhist. village Asia. With these roads completed and expelling its priests and applying to the Euphrates valley road, " tlll~ way of our mission for teachers. the kings of the East," for which a syndicate has been alreatly announced Again, the dethronement of the king in England, and which will connect brings our mission face to face with un- Constantinople with Quetta, in Afghanlimited opportunities for work, and af- istan, the missionary will take train at fords an admirable field on which to Calais, in Prance, and in a few days' train the battalions of Christ already easy travel will disembark in Calcutta gathered in Burma and Assam. or Rangoon; and when the Kunlong Ferry road is opened, it will not be The government having once grasped long before the headwaters of the Yangthe throne of the Alomypigs have tse-Kiang are reached, for this is the since employed its armies in reducing short cut for the trade of Western to order the brave but lawless Hill China. Is it too great a stretch of imtribes, whose countries skirt the whole agination to suppose that a few years eastern, northern. and western frontier will connect· Shanghai with the headof Burma. Fully forty tribes have waters of this river by rail? Commerce thus' been wholly or in part led to ac- will inevitably take the shortest and knowledge the authority of her Majesty the Queen, and to live in peace with cheapest routes o.f transportation, and themsel ves and neighbors. A great impulse lias also in like manner been given more improbable enterprises have alto the opening of the whole country in ready been realized than the connection the matter of roads and railways. Not of Slmnghai and London by rail. only have many roads been completed, but much larger enterprises are under Did Isaiah foresee these days when contemplation. A recent paper an- he said: "And I will make all my nounces the completion of the final sur- mouutains a way, and all my highways veyof a rail way northeast frum Manda- shall be exalted. Behold, these shall lay to Kunlong Fen-y, on the northern come from afar, and, 10, these from the Salwen, a distance of about 200 miles. north and from the west, and these Kunlong Ferry is about midway be- from the land of Sinim." tween Mandalay and a poiut on the Yang-tse-Kiang, by tile wa.v of Talifoo, Again, the era of peace and good the centre of Pantbay power, and is the government which has come to Burma rcndcZ10us for the trade of Western is greatly stimulating immigration from Yunan. all neighboring States. 'rhe ubiquitous Chinaman is seen everywhere pushing This road opens up a great extent of himself into every nook where money country and brings the millions of can be made. It is also estimated that ¥unan and Szchuan into immediate before a decade has passed there will be touch with Burma. over three millions of Indians in Burma.
Again, a railway is projected from This rapid survey would be imperfect Mogoung in the north, through the if we were to pass the Hillmen without State of Manipur, to join the Assam further notice. It is believed that these are to be a great factor in the future evangelizing of Southern Asia; that they are a chosen people, kept and pre- a corps of six hundred and ten trained pared of God for important use in this native pastors, and ,three time8 that work of the Holy Spirit. Though di· number under training, we look for- vided into many tribes and clans, there ward to the conque!t of thc Whole land is a marvellous likeness stamping them for Jesus. as originally one race. Kept from idolatry by their priests and their tradi- We do well here to discern the lestions of a former Jehovah worship, as sons the past has taught us, and, by the well as of early Bible history; allied in help of the Spirit, those which need to manners, customs, worship, and phy- be emphasized for our future work. sique; showing everywhere a wonderful grasp of spiritual truth, when once One of these lessons is that spiritual they have apprehended it; born teach- result!! follow the law of cause and effect ers and preachers, with the simple faith in no small degree. As we sow we reap. of a child-they occupy, without doubt, Our best results have been secnred by a large place in the plan of God for the painstaking, persistent, patient labor. future of Asia. These chosen people, In order to secure an efficient corps of whether found in Assam, Northern and native helpers we have been obliged to Southern Burma, Siam, Cambodia, or carefully train and educate them from Western China, supply us with our the beginning. The best helpers are corps of native helpers. Out of thirty usually the best trained men, other thousand converts in Burma, twenty- things equal. seven thousand are from the Hillmen. We have renched a point where a Their zeal and activity in the past in change of missionary methods Is absoself-support, in education, in evangeliz- lutely necessary. Our successes deing, not only their own people, the dev- mand such a change, and we must emil-worshippers, but in advancing suc- phasize. as never before, the training cessfully to the attack of hoary Bud- of a native instrumentality for onr dhism in its strongholds, cheer us with work. Hereafter the missionary will the great hope that God has been pre- not be merely an evangelist, but the paring a people from the beginning who trainer of evangelists. For such a task should come to the kingdom for this the future of our work demands the time and purpose. Perhaps here we best talent. The necessity that such may discover one of the reasons why men should be leaders of men, many- Judson was turned from other coun- sided, well-balanced, and mighty men of tries he sought to enter and sent to in- faith, is obvious. hospitable Burma. But to raise up this native instrumen- These Hill tribes in Burma are now tality, Christian schools are of prime for a large part reduced to order, and a necessity. Happily we have now five highway has been cast up all over the hundred village schools, over five hunmountains by the English Government dred churches, and not far from one for the missior:ary and his message. hundred thousand adherents of our mis- sion, from which to draw material for It is s3id that it requires greater gen- these training-schools. eralship to secure the fruits of victory than to win a battle. This Christian education is demanded by the new foes which are already mar- The battle in Burma is being won. shalling their forces against our King Now it remains to be seen if we have in all the Orient. Says a missionary in wisdom enough to secure the fruits of a recent letter: " The battle of the fuvictory. ture in ihe East will not be between Chri~tianity and Buddhism, but Chris- The developments of God's provi- tianity and infidelity. " dence teach us that our work here is now fairly begun rather than com- Finally, our '1Je1'Y successes are becompleted. Our view has enlarged. With ing 0'lt1' peril, This fact cannot be too strongly emphasized. 'fhey pnt thfl Church to sleep when they should stim- preachers. The number of native Protulate it to greatly increased activity, for cstant Christians is 5fi9,661, an increase we are a long way from final victory. of 150,000 in ten years. Of these, 182,- 722 are communicant members of We send our missionaries to heathen churches, an increase of 70,000 in the lands, and God gives them surprising last decade. results, but our responsibility has only now begun. How would public opin- ]ofADRAS COLLEGE. ion scorch the name of a military officer who should send forward a forlorn hope ]OIr. lIeston, from Madras College, without proper supports! Sending makes a strong appeal for prayers inforth missionaries carries with it the stead of criticisms in regard to the edurluty of supporting them, not neglect- cational work there. He says: "Praise ing them till they are crushed by their the Lord, one of the students was bapvery success. tized on the first Sunday of December. He was a Hindu of a caste family, We rejoice to believe that there is a though not a llrahmin. Still it must rising tide of missionary zeal all over have been a great wrench for him; his this broad land, and that the churches wife was baptized along with him. . . . of all denominations are rallying to the It was a most solemn thing, and oh may calls of the hour, and that a better day it bring us more prayers. People may is dawning for this work of our Lord. not believe in educational missions. but they might at least pray. It is such a We trust that the time is near when horrible feeling to be doing work in the children of God will do His busi- which there is so little result visible, ness, with the same or greater zeal than and amid it all to be sure that we are they show in their own; when they not backed up by prayer. . . . If peowill acknowledge His Divine right, not ple were remembering us I know I only to a tenth, but to all they have: should feel it more. . .. There are when faith and works, head and heart, some mornings vivid still in my recolshall get together. Then wiil come to lection, and filling me with a joy beyond pass the declaration of the Lord of compare, when I have been able to lay hosts, "The heathen shall know that I hold of some precious Gospel truth, and am the Lord, when I shall be sanctified to hold the attention of the students in you before their eyes." with it for an hour; and these were mornings when I knew that prayers In India there are no fewer than 65 were going up in my behalf. This is Protestant missionary societies direct· the glorious working of God for which ing the work of 857 ordained mission· I could only give grateful thanks. Oh; aries-viz., 16 Pre~byterjan societies, brother, pray for the Christian college. with 149 laborers; 13 Baptist societies, Unless we are terribly faithles~, surely with 129 missionaries; 9 societies of God has some fruit for us to gather even the Established Church of England, now, and still more in the days to come." with 203 missionaries; 7 Lutheran associations, with 125 men and women; 4 Among the Garos in Assam the work Methodist societies, with 110 Gospel am- is moving on with increasing momenbassadors ; 2 Congregationalist associa- tum. At the beginning of the year the tions, with 76 missionaries; 1 Unitas number of communicants was about Fratrum and 1 Quaker society, with 16 2400. :More than 800 were baptized in their employ; as also 7 independent last year. Nearly all of the churches societies, together with 5 women's asso- are financially self.supporting, and a ciations. In addition to these 857 or- genuine missionary spirit evinces itself. dained missionaries there are 711 or- The prospect in Upper Assam. among dained European lay helpers', 114 Euro- the tea-garden laborers, is also full of pean and semi.Europeaularly assistants, much promise. teachers, etc., and 3491 native lay
EntTolnAj, DEl'AR'l'MENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Dr. A. J. Gordon and the editor-in- takers. Regard seems t.o have been had chief have been making a short tour in to fitness rather than to political con- the interests of missions, beginning siderations. The result has been duly February 13th, in Toronto, Hamilton, tabulated. and is considered very accu- Brantford, London (Ontario), and fin- rate. The figures foot up a popUlation ishing with the Student Volunteer Con- in all India of 286,000,000. Of these in vention, Detroit, February 28th to British India there are 220,500,000. Be- March 4th. 'fhe degree of interest de- sides those who are thus directly under veloped has been to us both a most de- British influence, there are 65,500,000 lightful surprise. Instead of confining over whom England" exercises a quasi attention to the subject of missions, we and semi-feudal authority"" What a h!ve sought to lay a foundation for a mass of humanity! And how rapidly true and deep apprehension of the evan- increasing! Since 1881 the increase gelization of the world, by calling at- has been 26,000,000, or nearly 10 per tention first to the Holy Spirit, His per- cent in a single decade; but in the re- sonality, work, and manifold activity cently acquired Indian possessions the as the Spirit of truth, of life, of order, increase has been still more marked.
of power; then to the blessed hope of For instance, in Lower Burma the pop- the Lord's coming and the true char- ulation has multiplied one half since it acter of the present age as preparatory came under British administration.
to His advent, and as the age of out- Tllese facts speak volumes.
gathering of God's people from all na- And what a proof and illustration tions; then to the true relations of giv- here of the celerity with which the ing, both of self and of substance, not Gospel might be proclaimed through all only to missions ohjectively, but to the earth! Suppose that all Chri&tian spiritual growth subjectively, etc. This churches in all nations should simply honoring of the Spirit at the beginning combine during anyone year to under- was uniformly followed by remark- take to "get into contact with the entire able signs of His personal presence unsaved population of the globe, and or- throughout. At Toronto, one and even ganize with like thoroughness!
two overflow meetings became neces- sary, and the interest was most impres- We have a letter of great hterest sively solemn. Over $1470 in voluntary from a cousin of Mrs. Nevius, which offerings were gathered. Dr. G. L. we give our readers. It was addressed Mackay, of Formosa. Mr. Spencer'Val- to our dear friendR, Mr. and Mrs. J. E. ton, of South Afriea, Rev. John Mc- Mathieson, of London. Vickar, of Honan, were among the speakers. Dr. Mackay's account of the CHEFOO, CHINA, Nov. 25, 1893.
work in Formosa we have never heard My cousin, Mrs. NeVIUS, wishes me excelled iu thrilling and convincing to write you for her the sad tidings of power. A special account of the Stu- her dear husband's death, which ocdents' Convention at Detroit will appear curred on October 19th, Thursday morn- ing at half-past ten.
hereafter in these pages. Dr. Nevius wns in very poor health when we returned to China last au- The Iltst census of India was accom- tumn, but for some mcnths past had plishell with marvellous celerity and seemed much better, and had been able thoroughncss and shows an amazing to keep steadily at work all summer on popUlation. It was done chiefly on one the revision and translation of the Biday. Febrnary 26th, 1891, when 1,000,- hIe, and had finished the part ~_ssigned 000 persons wcre employed as census- him.
At the time of his death he wag pre- paring for a trip into the interior of the province to attend a mission meeting Among our duties we put in the front and presbytery at Wei Hien. He had rank a proper and scriptural standard not felt so well as usual for a day or of giving, based on the conception of a two, but on Thursday morning after Divine 8tewa1'd8hip in all property, breakfast had prayers with the Chinese as on other mornings, and went on which is the only solution to the pres- with his preparations. One of the last ent inadequacy of our gifts. We have things he did was to make a list of arti- giving, but not of the right sort. cles he should need for his six days' There are at least ten ways of giving: overland journey. His pulse was going in such a strange, i.' The careless way-giving someirregular way that Mrs. Nevius thought it would be better for him to see the thing to any cause presented, without doctor before starting on his trip, and inquiry into its merits or claims, or sent for him to come. Dr. Nevius met proportionate value as to other causes.
the doctor at the gate. They soon after 2. The impul8i'D1} way-giving as the came in the house and sat down in the study_ The doctor seeing that Dr. feelings and caprices of the moment Nevius looked poorly. asked him if he dictate, as often and as much as love, would not lie down on the sofa. He . pity, or awakened sensibility prompt. replied, "No, I am all right; we will 3. The easy way-lazily to shirk all go upstairs presently." They had a little more conversation, and Dr. Nevius real self·denial hy a resort to fairs, feswas about to speak again, with a smile tivals, and other panderings to the flesh, on his face, but his head fell forward, to raise money for the Lord's cause. and the doctor caught him in his arms 4. The sel.fi81i way-giving because and laid him on the floor. Mrs. Nevius entered the room just at that moment. there is promised some reward of praise, She bent over him, calling him endear- prominence, or human glory.
ing names, but there was not a moment's 5. The calculating way-giving with consciousness, not a moment's pain, reference to some returns in prosperity God had taken him so quickly and so or material benefit. quietly. There were but a few faint breaths, and all was over of this life for 6. The systematic way-laying aside as an offering to God a definite portion him. of income: one tenth, or fifth, or third, My cousin was ill at the time with a or half, as conscience dictates. This is adapted to both rich and poor, and if -bronchial attack, but rallied, and was largely practised would indefinitely in· able to see him laid to rest the follow- crease our gifts. ing day, but has been dangerously ill all these weeks since, and we hardly 7. The intelligent way-giving to each know yet whether the danger is passed, object after a personal investigation but hope she will soon begin to improve into its comparative claims on our be- neficence, and without regard to the more rapidly. appeal of men. )1any friends are urging ?rIrs. Nevius 8. The 8elf-denying way-saving what to write the life of her dear husband, would be spent in luxuries and needless and are praying that she may be raised expenditures, and sacredly applying to up from this illness to do it. I think, purposes of religion and charity. were it not for this work in view, she would hardly wish to come back to the 9. The equal way-giving to God and life which looks so hard and lonely and so changed in every way for her. She sends you her love.
With kind regards, I am very sincerely yours, LISLE BAINBRIDGE. the needy as much as is spent on self, Mr. Mathieson adds: "This will be of balancing personal expenses and be- nevolent outlay. What a corrective to interest to you. Dear Nevius visited all extravagance!
us at Hampstead more than twenty 10. The lteroic way-limiting our exyears ago. I deemed him one of the penditure to a certain sum, and giving wisest and best of missionaries to the away the entire remainder. This is Chinese. J. E. M. " January 16, 1894."
stewardship actually in exercise. This We are desired to republish this short was John Wesley's way, and it is &tatement with regard to giving: J. Hudson 'fa~lor's way. It makes ot a disciple a habitual, conscientious, pro- but silently, secretly, persistently the portionate, prayerful, liberal, unselfish, iptriguing Jesuitical priests have been consecrated giver. at work creating discontent, thrusting themselves into office, and begging for We meet the following erroneous publicfavor and patronage ; and gained paragraph, not for the first time: their point so far as 1.0 place the real condition of affairs almost as intolerant .. The first zenana teaching ever at- and idolatrous as during the monarchy. tempted in the East was in Siam in A short time ago Congress sent a dele- 1851, as zenana work in India did not gate to the Pope, recognizing his legate begin until 1858. Twenty-one of the at Rio City. Councils were ordering thirty young wives of the king com- certain idol processions to be made at posed the class. And the beginning in public expense. Bahia and our other India was on this wise: A certain mis- State legislature gave endowments to sionary's wife in Calcutta sat in he·r Catholic seminaries; and now Bahia parlor embroidering a pair of slippers legislature is considering a proposition for her husband. A Brahmin gentleman to put priests to teaching in public admired them. Mrs. Mullens asked him schools as formerly. A soldier is orif he would not like to have his wife dered by law to accompany any procestaught to make them. He answered sion which he may meet, and goveruyes. That was a fatal word to those ment bands of music are sent to play at who wished to cling to idolatry, but a idol festivals. The name 'citizen,' so joyous "yes" it has proved to be to them. highly prized at first, has become tame. As this lady was teaching the women The priests have had a good opportuof India to twine the gold and purple nity to put the people a&"ainst the repubinto the slippers, she was twining into lic. All are quite certam that the montheir hearts the fibres of the sufferings archy can never be restored, and so in and love of our Lord and Saviour. After general public sentiment that is not in one home was opened to the missionary, hearty sympathy with one or the other it was easy to gain access to others." party is doubtful and despairing. War in Rio has been going on two months This is a mistake. NeitJ!.er Mrs. lIul- to-day (November 6th). Our congrega· lens nor Mrs. Elizabeth Sale, before her, tions and work here are not affected in originated zenana work. It dates back the least by it. Brother Aden fortuyears before to the work of Rev. Thomas nately stopped off here and has escaped Smith, Alexander Duff, and Rev. John danger and delay. I believe this war 1!'ordyce. Having ourselves made such will bring good to the cause of liberty. misstatements, we desire to correct them The people are thinking and learning for ourselves and others. in the hard school of experience. Light, liberty, and equality must come." Rev. Z. C. Taylor, of Bahia, writes of the war in Brazil : A book called "Traffic in Girls, and " To all religious people, priests and Florence Crittenton Missions," has been evangelists, there is an underlying secret in this war. The revolting admiral recently published, written by Miss is in hearty sympathy with the Romish religion by protecting and obeying its Charlton Edholm, Superintendent of chiefs. It is from the Pope's legate at Rio that this fact is made public. the Press Department of the World's There has been no pretension so far of a return to a monarchy. In my humble Woman's Christian Temperance Union. judgment the war is a national chastisement on the part of Rome, because the The contents of the book are not only republican constitution commenced by declaring Church and State separate terrible revelations of the existing facts, and equal rigbts to all. No priest was allowed to vote or be elected to office ; but in our opinion are in some cases al- most too bad to be put on paper " they remind us of wlmt Paul says, "It is a shame to speak of those things which are done of them in secret."
This book, wbich thus perhaps errs in plainness of statement and shocking rev- elations, contains startling facts, warn· ing ministers, mothers, and young women of the plots whereby myriads of " our little sisters" H,re ensnared into lives of shame; and it tells the glad in your Mildmay address, reproduced story of the rescue of thousands by evangelist Charles N. Crittenton, of in your November number, on the king- New York, whom Miss Frances Willard dom. I am delighted with Dr. Gorhappily calls the" Brother of Girls." don's .. Holy Spirit in Missions," and have written an article on it for the In- E. S. telligencer.
All lovers of purity will feel glad that succcssful efforts are made to rescue An Oxford graduate and LL.D., to many more of these girls from their whom a lady excused herself on ac- pitiable life. :Mr. Crittenton will give count of an engagement at the zenana all the proceeds of the sale of the book mission, innocently asked where" Ze- to the mission work. nana " was. Almost as bad as the old There is a royal caste of beggars in lady who wanted to kuow if old Oalabar Nanking. It was founded by Hung was dead yet? or the M.P. who pro- Wu, the first monarch of the Ming tested against sending English troops dynasty. He did this because, having to the deadly climate of Western Afrionce been in the mendicant line himself, ca, thinking Oeylon an abbreviation of he wished to oblige an old beggar Sierra Leone !
friend. "I don't want anything from Dr. E. H. Edwards, whose postal adyour Majesty," said the latter, "except dress is Tien-tsin, North China, writes to have plenty to eat and wear and have to the editor to ask help in finding a nothing to do." He could not have fellow-worker. At Tai-yllen Fu (our put it better. The beggar had his wish. station) there are now ei~ht children be- The caste of which he was the first longing to different miSSIOnary families, chief live in certain large "caves" in and ranging in age from four to ten the wall of Nanking. The police ap- years, for whom we are anxious to enpoints the head of the beggars. They gage a kindergarten teacher. A lady are well off, and their apartments are came out last year and has been teachlofty and airy. From the arrogance of ing the children since then, but now modern tramps, one would suppose they wishes to engage in mission work among belonged to a royal caste. the Chinese. and we expect to lose her services. If you knew of a certificated kindergarten teacher who would under- take the work of teaching the foreign The editor has received a letter from children of our community as mission a very ltigh 8ource. which he thinks he work in the spirit of a missionary, we ought to give in substance to the read- should only be too thankful to welcome ers of the REVIEW. It is written from her. To a competent teacher we would London, and dated January 15th, 1894. offer £50 (fifty pounds) a year, with board and lodging. Of course this is not much compared with what a certifi- My DEAR DR. PIERSON: I enclose a cated teacher could get in America, but letter to Dr. Gordon on educational is more than the teachers at our mission missions. I cannot help feeling that it school at Chefoo receive. I think y'0u is unfortunate that Mr. Watkins's let- know the kind of lady we should lIke. ter was printed. I sometimes think that It would be as well if the lady could your REVIEW, which has gained an im- conveniently see the council of our misportant position in this country, needs sion at Toronto, but this is not absosome one to check the English news, and lutely necessary, as we should be reo see that things are kept in their right sponsible for her passage and salary_ proportion. Our port (Tien-tsin) is closed to steamer traffic by ice about the middle of No- Let me thank you most warmly for vember, so that I fear it will not be posyour admirable article on the" Parlia- sible for anyone to reach us for next ment of Religions." I say Amen to it winter. Steamer traffic reopens about with all my heart, It is curious how March, so that if a suitable teacher little we in England ha ve heard of the were found 8he could be with us next .. Parliament;" just a few fragmen- spring. As we are situated about lati· tary letters, etc. Weare now looking tude 38° N., and our station is 3000 feet out for the authorized report',. which is above the sea, there is no objection to announced for January 16th. one's arriving in the spring instead of the autumn. Also I am truly glad that you stand firm to the grand trutluJ enunciated
GENERAl, MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY BEV. D. L. LEONAlID.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign rial improvement; and for, that we P eriodioals. thank God, for, after all, the material is His as well as the spiritual, and we BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, believe that through our commerce and political dominion England is a fellow- MASS. worker with Him for the blessing of all the earth. INDIA. II And what have we done with re- -" I have often heard it said of the gard to intellectual life? We impart older missionary society that the propa- our Western knowledge and science gation of the Gospel in foreign parts is and culture, and although, in spite of an anachronism; and I for one am at a great advance, only a fraction of the loss to know what is really foreign to great population can yet read and write, England's opportunity. May I ask we are extending with marvellous raleave to give you very briefly my im- pidity our intellectual influence. I vispressions of what we are doing in this ited at 1Iadras, Bombay, and Calcutta respect in our great and glorious Ind- great educational institutions which ian Empire? We have there more than might fairly take their rank with the 280,000.000 souls, over whom, directly greatest in tbe old comitry. I have obor indirectly, we have influence. The served in the villages-and let me tell capital cities there, as Bombay or Cal- you of one peculiar feature which a cutta, are like great European towns missionary should never forget, that in magnificence. and the cities gener- 90 per cent of the people live in villages ally are permeated everywhere with or towns of less than 20,000 people-I English ideas and influence. All this have seen schools in the villages, and has been given to us, and our power everything is being done to spread this and grasp, I believe. are increasing intellectual life. We have done well. every day. The Indian problem is for there is no doubt of the immense redoubtless more complex than ever, and ceptivity of the higher and cultured difficulties are rising up which our classes in India in regard to our teachfathers never knew; but we have only ing. to look the right and the truth in the face and go straight forward, and things "But what is our highest duty to the world calls impossibilities will be God in respect to India? It is to imspeedily solved by the power of the part the moral and spiritual gifts which Church of God. Here we are with this we owe, in the name of Christ. to the great work before us-what have we inhabitants of India. In earlier days done? As to our material gifts, there English rulers in India seemed ashamed is no doubt of the enormous benefits of the name of Christ, and the people conferred on India by British rule. of India believed that we had no relig- Everywhere there are security and ion at all. This shows what arrears we prosperity, which but for the wise Eng- have to make up, and What a little we lish raj would never have been known. have done in this great work. But yet The pall! Britannica extends over more there has been poured forth a marvelmillions of men than the pax Romana lous blessing. The population is inin days gone by ever did; communica· creasing, but the Christian popUlation tions are opened, and everything is done is increasing, I think some sixfold beto draw up that vast population to a yond the general increase. We have higher material condition, bringing all much to do~ butwi,th~n tl,lelallt twenty- Q~r s<;ieu()e and :Qower to bear on m~tfl-
EXTItA.CT!! AND TltAN!!LATlON!!!
·five years there has been an increase years of mission work we never met such as has not been known on earth with a case of what is known in Amerisince the days of the apostles them- ca as • revival work '-that is, a case in selves. We are going on with the work, which persons are so powerfully affectand, in spite of hindrances, want of ed by the Holy Spirit's influences that faith, and the wretched religious differ- physical effects, either in the way of ences which are a cause of scoffing on great distress or in the way of transthe part of the heathen, the opportu- ports of joy, were manifested. Even nity is there, and that opportunity has in cases where there seems to be • conbeen wonderfully made use of to do an victi6n of sin,' it lacks that pungency enormous work in India. You have and vividness which we have seen in only to go to South India, where there other lands, and even where conversion arc vast temples, marvellous in splen- seems genuine it bears more traces of dor, and having thousands of devotees an intellectual change than of somesometimes attached to the service of thing which profoundly moves the the temple, to see that heathenism has heart. We are not arguing whether a great and mighty hold on the inhab- this lack of emotion be a defect or an itants. We have destroyed much of improvement. We simply call attenthe faith of the educated classes with- tion to it as a curious circumstance. out giving them anything in ita place, We never remember to have seen tears but that is not true of the great mass. caused by spiritual emotion in the eyes There the religious spirit is strong, of any native of India but once, and and amid the perversions and the dis· that was in the case of a gray.headed torting medium of idolatry there it is preacher; and yet we have seen many with strength and vitality, and what cases in which persons seemed in the we have to do is to lay hold of what is midst of mighty temptations, to be good in that religious spirit and extin- heartily striving against sin, and enguish what is evil, to raise what is deavoring to commend the religion of good to a higher level, and destroy the Jesus to others by a holy life. Possievil by the power of Christ. Then bly the missionary body are largely acthere is Mohammedanism in the north, countable for this state of things, by less full of ideas, less progressive in reason of the way in which they have spirit than Hinduism, but with a tough- instructed their converts. If this be ness and a tenacity which, except in so, it might be well to review those in- Christianity, are seen in no other re- structions and see if they are as comligion ; and there are points in which plete and weIl·rounded as they should Mohammedanism has a grasp of that be. A conversion which affects men s vital truth that there is one God only, brains and not their emotions has not in whom men live and move and have gone far enough. If this matter be their being. We are confronted with only a race peculiarity, and not an eftwo great religious systems, each bav- fect of training, there is little to be said. ing in it both good and evil, and we It is not to be expected, nor indeed dehave to inspire the one and cast out the sired, that the Christianity of this counother."-BIsnop BARRY, in Church try should in all respects conform to MilBionary Intelligencer. Western models, but we should at least keep our eyes open, and keep defects -" A stliking peCUliarity of the re- from creeping into our congregations ligious life of the Christianity of this in the guise of advantage. "-MAKHZANcountry, as it seems to us. is the lack I-MAsrnr, quoted in Bombay Gum·dian. of the emotional element_ Even where faith is manifest and active there seems -Opportunities are now largely opento be almost no feeling. Perhaps our ing for zenana female missionaries, if experience is exceptional, but in many allowed by the Church, to administer
&lI:NEJUL )IIBSlONAIU INTELLIGENCE
baptism within the zenanas, thereby They have not the least intention of en- sparing Hindu ladies a wrench from couraging or making it more easy for their homes which would leave them their children or their friends to UlIe the outcasts, as well as a pUblicity utterly fascinating drug; but they have the alien to all their feelings. The Witnea8 moral cowardice to urge that what they is inclined, and with good reason, to da1'e not propose to their own country- favor this. Baptism by lay persons, men here, they may safely encourage male or female, is received throughout among the great heathen populations almost all Christendom as valid, and of the East. Our friends ought by this as authorized in exceptional circum- time to know that, though it suits the stances. Indian Government to parade the evi- -" The founders of the Protestant dence of such men, the opinions of Sir churches in India deserve to be held in George Birdwood and Sir William all honor. The labors of Ziegenbalg, Moore on this subject are the ridicule Schwartz, and their coadjutors, will of their own profeBBion. Their admiraever form a stimulus to the Christian tion for opium, and that of their two mlBBlonary. That they did not fully friends, Sir John Strachey and Sir Lepel understand the religion and customs of Griffin, has but one meaning-the millthe country is not to be wondered at. ions of money received by the Indian Sanskrit was sealed to them ; informa- Government from the Chinese victims tion had to be gathered as best it could; of the drug."-MedicaZ MiBBiom.
war and confusion often interfered with -The HOINJe8t Field warmly resents, their work. That they ever achieved as an utter misrepresentation of the edu- so much is a marvel ; that they made cational mlBBionaries of India, the charge mistakes they would be the first to ad- that they regard secular education and mit. One of these mistakes was the science as a preparation for receiving apparent toleration of caste. A cen- the Gospel. It explains that they aim tury of toleration has not eradicated it. to give a complete education, including The evil seems rooted In the soil, and is continuous evangelical instruction, be· /ready to spring up in unsuspected cause the government, in its religious forms."-Ha'l'1JlJJjt Field. neutrality, cannot do this. They can- -" We hear from various quarters not, of course, confine their own Inof friends who are tempted to forsake struction purely to religion. They the anti-opium cause. They are in- must provide for mind, body, and clined to believe that the statements of heart; but the provision for the mind Sir George Birdwood, Sir William and body is not a preparation but a con· Moore, Sir John Strachey, and Sir Lepel comitant of the training intended for Griffin are a triumphant vindication of the spiritual nature. They cannot acthe Indian Government. Apart from cept the government pupils as suffithe fact that they have only seen a ciently trained, nor can they, by refussmall part of the evidence placed be- . ing to provide the instruction which the government does give, drive their fore the commiBBion, a moment's .young men into the government schools. thought would save our friends from such a grave mistake. It is not pro- -" The other Sunday morning, on posed, even by these men, to remove visiting some tea gardens, we heard at the label • Poison' from our laudanum every turn children singing, Yiahu mujh bottles. .With all their professed ad- leo karta pyar (the version in Hindi of . miration for the virtues and innocence 'Jesus loves me '). Praising God at of opium, not one of them has suggest- the thought of this Gospel message ed that it was at all desirable to substi- being caused to resound far and near tute its use in this country for the al- by these all yet heathen children, we cohol which they affect to condemn. asked why they were singing. The an- EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
swer soon came. A prize had been of- MrBCl!ltLANEOUS.
fered by the manager of one of the gar- -Speaking of the hideous barbarities dens to the child who would sing the by which the early English convicts hymn best and most correctly at the and emigrants in Australia almost ex- Sunday-school. Twelve children com- terminated the native race, organizing peted; and all did 80 well (only two regular hunting-parties to shoot down made any mistake) that to each was men, women, and children, and even given a book prize. We may note that dragging them to death at the tails of in this competition the Hindu children their horses, the Macedonier remarks: far outstripped the Christian children, •• Who is it. of the civilized Christian both in expression and in correct sing- world, that has compassion on all this ing. "-Darjeeling News. wretchedness under all this barbarism F -In view of a dangerous surgical Not such men of science as M. Renan, operation lately performed, with entire who has declared that he sees no reason success, by a female missionary phy- why we should ascribe to a Papua an sician, in the case of a Hindu lady in immortal 8OUl. No; it is the Wesley- Lucknow, a heathen journal remarked: an, Episcopal, and the Moravian mis- .. Miracles still occur. Even to-day sionaries, who, constrained by the con- Jesus Christ is performing them descending love of Christ, have com- through the female physicians whom passion on the unhappy lot of these He sends into our zenanas." their oppressed and degraded fellow- -Mr. ALEXANDER EZRA, in the Dar- men." ust Field, thinks that it is easy to overestimate the stiffness and foreign tone -Bishop Temple, of London, preachof trauslations into the Indian vernacu- ing before the Church Missionary Solar. At all events, says he, this fault ciety, touches as follows the question is fast disappearing. The present Ta- of the slow progress of the kingdom of mil Bible is not what Mr. Haigh would God: .. I suppose most of us at first call a mere" transverberation," but al- sight are very much more struck with most a perfect translation. He goes on something that is done with a sudden to protest against plunging the biblical blow, very much more struck with an ideas into the ocean of filth welling out exhibition of power that we see in 80me from Hindu mythology and literature, sudden, vast change brought ahout in an exceedingly short space of time; and declares that India will never be- and we think that there is more evicome robustly Christian unless she dence of Divine power and Divine indrinks deep of English Christian litera- terferencein the rapid than in the slow_ ture. Let the Indian Church remain And yet reflection would rather lead us Indian by all means, but let her, for to look at the other side. There is no Christ's sake, be heartily willing to sur- doubt that when anything is done very render all that part of her nationality rapidly, whether it be in a great conwhich is irredeemably saturated with vulsion of nature, or whether it be in the vileness of the national heathenism. the sudden change in the views and convictions of a large number of men, -The total number of baptized per- there is something very striking in the sons in the American Lutheran Mission rapidity with which God sometimes in the Nellore District of the Madras does work of that kind. But is there Presidency is 14,265, of whom 6178 are not something still more striking in the communicants. They are distributed steady, quiet work that goes on century throughout 425 villages. after century, and shows that the one -The United Presbyterian Mission purpose is held fast long after tllOSC (Scottish) during last year treated 210,- who were first emp],)yell to fulfii ~t 000 patients at its dispensaries. have passed away, and when through genera.tion after generation it was quite Catholicism. The 'Sisters of Charity Impossible for men to keep up anyone are everywhere sent into the most in- purpose, because they passed away and salubrious countries to extend the circle could not hand on the determination of the Christian sway. But they find with which they themselves had been themselves there isolated, without di- actuated? Is it l'Iot still more striking, rect support;- without the maternal au- I say, that there is but one purpose dis· thority which the family procures, espe- played through all these changes of cially among the Oriental peoples.' '
successive generations, and that whrfe men change and pass away from the English Notes. earth, there is still the one great aim steadily followed, there is still the one BY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS.
great work going on? If there be The New Hebrides.-The work of proof of a Divine operation, surely it is evangelizing the New Hebrides conrather here." tinues to extend. Little more than a -In view of the greater susceptibil. year ago Dr. Lamb, graduate of Edinity of the female constitution to the de- burgh University, landed on the island pressing effects of tropical climates, the of Ambrim among 8 crowd of naked question is often raised whether it might savages. As the result of his work, not be better if the greater part of our and the temporary assistance of two missionaries went out unmarried. The brothers named Murray, from Aber- Rernte des Missions Oonternp(}'raines deen, thirty·seven villages have been quotes the following from the Paris brought under Christian infiuence, sev- Eataffete, which is interesting as giving eral places of worship erected, and what may be called the view of a Ro- others in course of erection, and half man Catholic unbeliever. We repro- the island changed. The change duce it without modification. wrought is largely perceived in the remedial effect, both as it concerns the " It is worth while taking note of the body and the soul. Ambrim is beau· advantages which the Protestant mis· tiful for situation, a paradise of cocoasionaries enjoy in virtue of their mode nut palms, and the gem of the group of life, of the influences whieh they of islands to which it belongs. Now it create for themselves in remote coun· is being fring-ed with Gospel glory and tries by means of their families. There illuminated by a light that is brighter are very few houses of pastors, in the than the sun. Indies or elsewhere, which do not thus constitute a centre, a nucleus of rela- The Goapel in lreland.-Mr. Thomas tions more or less mundane, and do not Cannellan has much at heart the spirit. form a permanent focus of proselytism. Ilal interests of his fellow·countrymen. He has issued a booklet for free distri- "The pastors, as is known, are en· bution in order to the more extended dowed, moreover, with an eminent sub- diffusion of Gospel light. In consetlety, more diplomatic than religious. quence of his labors the people are They are excellent to convert and to turning, in increasing numbers, to the control their neophytes. Many are Bible for guidance; and some of the aided in their work by their wives. priests are now advising their flocks to 'These show themselves, in fact, both read the Scriptures. faithful companions and intelligent counsellors. And not infrequently a The Gospel in Bohernia.-Theland of part of the successes obtained by their John Huss has of late been the scena husbands are attributable to them. This of much blessing. A bookseller, who inftuence of woman in the labors and has been converted,l1as begun to pub- in the struggles undertaken by the mis- lish the Bible in divisions or parts, each t sionaries has not escaped the eye of part to cost about one halfpenny. The
lIlNGLIl!I1l NOTE~
house of John Huss himself with its Zenana Work.-Speaking of the wom- grounds has been secured by the Evan- en of India, Dr. R. N. Cust says: geliQaI Continental Society, and will t, They are little better than the sheep be used as a centre of Gospel testimony. which bleat in the fields and the birds As thousands flock from year to year which sing on the trees; they have no to see the house where that great Re- future to look forward to, no idea of former was born, it is hoped that it will repentance for the past, no hopes of an- prove a coign of vantage from which other world, except of being with their the Gospel may sound forth to all Bo- husbands. if husbands they have had, hemia. and passing out of existence, if they have had none."
Oentrrrl.A.frioo.-Mr. William Lucas, Iu view of this sombre description, of Melbourne, Australia, in speaking zenana work is like a jewel set on a of Central Africa from the missionary dark ground. Miss Lyon reports that point of view, strongly holds as the re- in Patna City there are over sixty wom· sult of his own observation that any en in the zenanas who are reading the further accessions to the number of Testament. Others record like prog- missionaries should mean the opening ress, and in some cases the living seed up of untouched areas. Already the has germinated. Mrs. Pollen, of Bu· ppinion widely prevails that there are landshuhr, writes: ., Again and again .. more than sufficient missionaries in in the zenanas have I seen the eyes of the Blantyre province without clashing the weary and sad fill with tears when with each other's operations, unless I pressed home to them the message of very defined areas are decided on." God's love; often and often in one form :M:uch land remains to be possessed, and or another has the assurance been given the call is for large-hearted, devoted from heathen lips that the vain, so- men and women who will work in Afri· ,called prayer, 'Ram-ram, Ram.ram,'
ca on African lines; and by African would be given up, and that their pray- lines is meant for one thing those lines er would be raised to Him who hears which disturb as little as possible tribal and answers, for a heart with which to relations. A colonization scheme Mr. know and love Him." Their sincerity Lucas evidently,thinks more feasible in is shown in their desire to learn to read, fancy than in fact. which for them is slow and hard work: " But it is a great pleasure when, here The Late Bishop J. 8. Hlll and Mrs. and there, we find a woman already HiZZ.-The mystery attaching to God's able to Tead Urdu or Hindi; then from way has been afresh vividly shown in the first day one can put into their hands the sudden removal of Bishop and Mrs. the books which, with God's blessing, Hill, almost coincident with their arri- may lead into the way of life." Mrs.
val at their African home. High hopes Pollen also speaks of the enlarging centred in their outgoing, and the pros- scope of the work. "Since March, pects of the Niger Mission never looked 1892, over one hundred houses have so bright before; but the angel reaper been opened to us, and the work is has intercepted these destined workers now far beyond what we can meet and and cut down the hopes that had en- is still increasing.., twined themselves around their mission. THE KINGDOM. The grief felt is, we believe, more deep and general than is even the expression -It will be a favor very highly es- or manifestation of it. It was said to teemed if secretaries of all missionary Mary, .. Yea. a sword shall pierce thine societies will send early copies of an- own heart also." Even so must their nual reports to the editor of this depart.
experience be who travail in birth for ment of General Missionary Intelli· the world's redemption. gence.
GENERAL lIlI8810liUV fitTELLtGENOE; (Apl'H
-" Go, or l!end"-that is, actually a pig wherewith to make a fine feast engage in life-long service for the for his friends, before the toothsome world's evangelization, in propria per- roast was wholly consumed. to cut oft Bona, or else by proxy, through a sub- carefully a few inches of the thin end stitute provided_ For example, a cer- of tM tail, the same to be religiously tain young clergyman came to the con- carried as an offering to Hiro, the gOd viction that it· was for him to enter the who gave special protection to thieves.
foreign field, and prepared to do so; -A missionary in China, writing of but later it became clear that he was a girl in the mission school under her called of God rather to fit men for the care, says: "Last night Wah N00 told ministry. Nevertheless. he counted me she wanted to be a 'whole Chrishimself under obligation to" send" in tian.' So we had a long talk; and she a way more definite and personal, and told me the different things she had so devotes a sufficient portion of his done that day that were wrong, and salary to maintain a representative on for which she wished the Lord to forheathen soil. And why not? give her. She said: • 1. I did not brush -This was the prayer of Teava, a my teeth as you told me to do ; 2. I convert of the Hervey Islands, who did not take off the lower sheet on the helped to carry the Gospel to the na- bed when I made it up, and I know I tives of the Samoan group, who only ought to always; 8. I got angry witlI nine years before had been the lowest one of the girls; 4. I did not use the kind of a heathen: "0 Lord, Thou art soap when I took my bath; 5. I did 'the King of .our spirits, Thou hast is- not try to do my example in multiplisued 'Orders to. Thy subjects to do a cation. All the other girls did theirs great work, Thou hast commanded wrong, so I thought I would, too. Ask them to prea:ch the Gospel to every the Lord to help me to be a whole creature. Weare going on that errand Christian. ' ., now. Let Thy presence go with us to -The seventh chapter of Numbers quicken us and enable us to persevere is the longest one in that book, one of in the great work until we die." the longest in the Bible, and it is all -" There must be a great exodus of aboutgi'lling. It tells us about the offer- the Christian world, in men, women, ings of the tabernacle. Weare asked money, and spirit, to the heathen to give as the Lord hath prospered us.
world." -J. M. Hodson. The poor widow cast in her two mites, -Mr. Fuller, a missionary in Berar, but it was all her living. The Hindu closes a letter with these words: "Oh. woman said: "I have nothing to give if the people at home could be per- but my tongue; I'll give that."
suaded to live as wholly and as really -The religion of Christ brings com- self-denying for the work at home, as fort to our own souls when we bring they think they would do if accepted comfort with our religion to some one for the field, the ones that do come to else. Andrew Fuller once said: "I the regions beyond would be used of could not comfort my pious people, God in a marvellous manner 1" Or, however and whatever I preached to put it in this way: Live with such self- them, until they began to comfort the denial as they take for granted that souls of the perishing heathen. "
missionaries should possess. -Mr. Chambers, of Erzroom, writes ; -Verily. human nature 1S the same of a recent graduate who had been :all the world over, and the heathen are doing good service as teacher in a vil- ·no better than " Christians.". It was lage school where the people were too in Tahiti and in early days that it was poor to give him even his bread, and the fashion for a man who had s191en who has been waiting to know whether
GE~ERAL :MIiI8ION~RY IN'l'ELLIGJ!tiCB
the mission would be able to give him Humane Society, $45,000 to the Louisi- a small grant sufficient to live upon. ana State Society for the Prevention of At the close of the term, for which he Cruelty to Animals, $15,000 to the Mas- had had so little reward, he said: ., I sachusetts Society for the Prevention did not know for what I was being pre- of Cruelty to Animals, and $15,000 to pared while I was iu school. This is the Quincy Humane Society.
hard work indeed and most trying, but -The Indian Witne&t says in a recent this short experience has given me a little issue: .. The number of missionaries idea of what a grand thing it is to as- landing in India. during the last three sist others toward a higher and better months of the year is so great, that with life." the exception of persons of unusual -If ever the wearing of gems is in prominence no attempt is made to reorder, they a.re surely in this case: cord the names of the arrivals. The •• The Countei18 of Aberdeen wears at steamer Oa'l'thage brought 81 to Bomstate functions a coronet the distinguish- bay, and about the same date another ing features of which are five emeralds, ship landed 23 in Calcutta. The numsaid to be the largest in the world. ber of arrivals in 1898 was greater than These precious stones were presented ever before recorded."
to Her Excellency by the people of Ire- -A missionary in India speaks of the land as an expression of love and grati- difference between those who have fortude for her interest in their welfare merly heard, and those to whom the during the period af Lord Aberdeen's message is a new thing. The latter Lord Lieutenancy." listen, but there is no response of the -The occupation of medical mission- heart. It is hard to speak to minds aries is not yet gone. One of the North which have no idea of God's holiness Africa Mission agents in Algeria met and man's sinfulness.
with a patient in a recent tour to whom -The Quarterly Re'l>iew for January had been applied a remarkable prescrip- contains a very thoughtful and sugges- tion under the orders of a native .. doc· tive article upon the Progress and Pros- tor. " The patient was made to lie on pects of Church :Uissions, relating the ground, the doctor rubbed his heel chiefly to the 20 or more organizations on a hot axhead, then pressed his heel through which the English Establish- into the man's stomach. This was ment gives and labors, but also touch- , done twice. The heel having been ing often and appreciatively upon those again rubbed on the ax, it was pressed of other denominations. The writer on the inside of the elbow joint of the speaks of missions as "a movement left arm. The patient was then told to which is rightly regarded as a criterion drink salt water until it made him sick, of spiritual vitality, an articulus caden- when he would be healed I til 'Del 8tanti8 eccleBillJ," and finds most -Mrs. Charles Brown, Quincy, Ill., abundant ground for encouragement as leaves $800,000 to public charities, and touching the future. two thirds of it goes to local and State societies for the prevention of cruelty -British and other foreign residents to animals. Her nearest relatives are in India give more than $300,000 a year only remembered by 4 legacies of $1000 toward the evangelization of that couneach. She leaves $55,000 and her resi- try, which shows what they think of missions.
dence and furniture, to inaugurate and -In estimating the forces which maintain a home for the aged poor, make for the world's redemption, we $5000 to a home for orphans, $5000 to are not to ignore or belittle even such an industrial home for girls; and other secular and material things as the magic bequests are: $75,000 to the Illinois lantern or the bicycle, and much less
&MEItAL Jl(ljIi[ONABT INTELLIGENCE
the railroad, the steamship, the tele· WOMAN'S WORK.
graph, and the Postal Union which do -What is the good of separating so much to facilitate the progress of the woman's work from the general giving kingdom. of the churches ~ Is it not a case of – Whoso would appreciate South simply robbing Peter to pay Paul?
America as a field for missions must Not so at all. The benefit is very great, needs peruse a masterly article by Rev. and in almost every way. To divide T. B. Wood, presiding elder of Peru, and specialize is to multiply the num- prepared for the World's Congress, and ber of givers; and besides, the Wom- published in Gospel in all Lands for an's Boards are in several respects mod- February. It is both statesmanlike in els of thorough organization. Among grasp and apostolic in fervor. the rest they gather hosts of small sums, and secure from as many as possible -Rev. A. P. Happer figures it out definite pledges of so much a year, a conclusively that the number of Bud- month, a week. The feminine mind is dhists is often rated most absurdly and full of purpose and energy, and of in- preposterously high. Instead of 500,- genuity and tact as well.
000,000, he can discover but 86,500,000 -An aged Scotch woman, living in all told, and of these he locates 80,000,- a room and kitchen house on the south 000 in China, 20,000,000 in Japan, 10,- side of Glasgow, recently gave £500, 000,000 each in Manchuria and Siam, " saved by pennies," to an Aged Worketc. Professor Monier Williams would ers' Home. put the maximum at 100,000,000.
-The Rev. W. G. Lawes some two -The Oberlin Missionary Home (Jud- years since carried through the press son Cottage), with Mrs. S. C. Little in for the British and Foreign Bible So- charge, occupying a temporary build- ciety an edition of the New Testament ing, is filled to overflowing and more, in Motu. one of the languages of New by 10 children, ranging in age from Guinea, and almost the entire cost..,– 6 years to 20, from 8 families, and rep- some £300-was defrayed by the re- resenting fields as far apart as India, peated subscriptions of a Lancashire Micronesia, China, Mexico, and South woman.
Mrica. Only some $4000 is in hand -She did not read the papers. Or for a structure sufficiently large for per- was she surrounded by poor specimanent use. A gift of $1000 has re- mens? Or was her mind blinded by cently come from the children of mis- prejudice? A Russian Jewess had sionaries once resident in the Hawaiian need of clothing for her little child; Islands. The need of enlargement is the doctor brought her some. She inpressing, and donations are solicited quired: "Did Jewish ladies send for rearing the walls, furnishing rooms, these 1" "No, Christian ladies," he etc. Here is a noble opportunity for replied. "Christian? I did not know Sunday-schools and societies of Chris- that Christians could be kind I" tian Endeavor.
-The following is taken from" Our -" Missionary homes" of another Viceregal Life in India," by the Mar- sort are becoming quite common for chioness of Dufferin: "Miss Mitcheson the use of the societies. Not long since told me an amusing thing about 'her the Methodists were provided with one hospital. It is very difficult to get by the great Book Concern, the Epis- women to come into it, and they par- copalians have recently erected the ticularly fear the clean 8heetS! They Church Missions House, and in due sea- think that if they go into them they son the Presbyterians will be housed in will certainly become Christians. They similar roomy quarters of their own. are not nearly so much afraid that the religious teaching she gives them will bership of 7584, being 400 larger than have that effect." ever before. In the employment bureau 3906 were provided with work. Fifty- -A well-dressed Hindu woman wears nine educational classes in 18 lines of but one piece of cloth. It is six or study have been conducted for 1839 difeight yards long and one and a quarter ferent young men. The total attendwide. She wraps it in graceful folds ance at meetings and of visitors to the about her waist, shoulders, and body, rooms aggregated 1,783,825, or a daily lets it hang loosely in some parts, and average for the year of 4887_ tucks it in tight her~ and there to keep it in place, and she is neatly and be- -Says the Church at Home and comingly dressed without the use of Abroad: "The Christian Eudeavor Sopin, button, hook, or string. It is cieties are quickening the life and imnecdless to say the dressmaker has no proving the methods of work in the mission in India. Church of to·day ; but they are doing more, they are training for the Church -A woman much interested in medi- of the future members who will be able cal miilsions has offered two scholar- to work as well as worship; Sabbathships, of the value of £100 and £50 re- school teachers who will have somespectively, to such as desire to educate thing to teach; elders who will be able themselves for medical work in the mis- to conduct prayer-meetings and to help sion field. These scholarships are tena- the pastor, and deacons who will know ble at the Edinburgh School of Medi- how to pray and when to stop. " cine for Women. -Somebody well suggests that since -The Baptist women of the East and Christian Endeavor has begun to push the interior sustain 106 of their own sex missions with such earnestness, its lofty iu the foreign field. and Christlike spirit is set forth by the picture which portrays a woman in the -The Congregational Woman's midst of the angry billows clinging to Board (eastern division) is able to re- the cross with one arm, and with the port $134,778 raised last year, the do- other endeavoring to rescue a fellownations being $4000 more than in 1892. mortal from the same deadly peril.
-The women of the Methodist -The young people of the Presby- Church, South, have set their hearts terian Church, South, not including and their hands upon raising during gifts to the Congo boat fund, or what the current year $100,000 "for the for- was donated through the Sundayeign work alone." schools, contributed to missions $4211 during nine months of last year. -The twelfth annual report of the Woman's Missiouary Society of the -The Attleborough (Mass.) League Methodist Church in Canada (corre- held a missionary meeting recently, sponding secretary, Mrs. E. S. Strachan, and as a result a Young Woman's For- Hamilton, Ont.) is to be highly com- eign Missionary Society was organized mended for containing, in particular, with 67 members, and a collection of what too many similar publications ut- $100 was taken. terly lack, full tables of summaries which give at a glance the facts that -As objects for the offerings to be busy readers would like to gain. This made on Christian Endeavor Day, Febsame society, beginning with this year, ruary 2d, the American Board suggestpublishes at St. John, N. B., The Palm ed nearly 300 schools in Turkey, India, Branch, a neat monthly of eight pages. and China requiring from $22 to $150 each, and for Junior Societies contribu- OUR YOUNG PEOPLE. tions for the missionary vessels. The Woman's Board offered as an object -The Young Men's Christian Asseciation of the city of New York, at its forty-first anniversary reported a memthe salary of Miss Abbie G. Chapin, of -In Alaska a boy under conviction Tung-cho, China. woke and prayed at midnight. The -A .. Sunshine Committee" in an next morning he told his teacher that Australian Society bought an invalid's ,he was " tke Ilin1U!l'eat bug in ,chooZ•..
chair, which it loans to the sick. It THE UNITED STATES. was first used by an old gentleman who had not been out for six years. -The Ohurcl~ at Home and Abroad estimates that between $40,000,000 and -" Take my hands and let them $50,000,000 are 'expended annually in move at the impulse of Thy love." this country for church edifices, and The Endeavor Society in Dr. Stalker's that .. every day in the year more. than church, Glasgow, has taken these words 12 new churches are completed and from Miss Havergal's consecration dedicated to the worship of the Triune hymn, as its motto. God."
-Rev. J. P. Jones, of Pasumalai, -If this is so, and the statement is South India, has established, among the well vouched for, it is high time a few village congregations under his care, 11 live home missionaries were dispatched Endeavor societies, all flourishing and thither. In a certain county of Mis· doing good.. ., One of the chief fea- souri "there are people in plenty, and tures of each society," says Mr. Jones, they have many churches, such as they .. is that all the members go out every are, 22 of one kind, not one or which week to preach the Gospel to the heath- has a pastor. They are supplied by en; and they do it with -enthusiasm, 6 men who all wO'rk at their trades durtoo. And yet most of them are recently ing the week, and preach at 5 or 6 difout of heathenism themselves. Not ferent places on Sunday. They are one half of them can read, and not one paid no salaries [serves 'em right], and half of them earn, on an average, more spend most of the time In the pUlpit than 5 cents a day." fighting the beliefs of other denomina- tions." Ergo," tlt.e type of piety i, not -There are now 217 societies, with a ltigh." total membership of 7806, in the Ger- man Reformed Church. They are at- -But the real Gospel is possessed of tempting to raise annually $1500, which matchleM power to elevate and ennoshall be known as the Christian En- ble. Thus fifty years ago Five Points, deavor Foreign Missionary Fund. Of in New York City, was one of the very this amount for the first year $800 has worst of nests for vice, disorder, and already been pledged. crime. The police of that day found their power tested to the utmost in the -In Kansas City one society has 15 endeavor to restrain outbreaks of wickmembers pledged to give to the Lord edness. Yet in the course of years an one tenth of all their earnings, and in entire transformation has been wrought, Marshfield Hills, Mass., the members and the precinct is now as peaceful and began betimes to prepare for Easter by orderly as any part of New York. This securing each a plant to be cared for result is owing not to the strong arm of until that day, and then the whole num- the law or the efficiency of the police, ber to be distributed among the sick but to the introduction and mainteand poor. nance of practical Christianity.
-" What shall we tell our boys to -What a marvel of growth I Oklado for missions 1" was the weighty homa, only a babe of one year; has a question propounded to a large com- population of about 150,000, and a pany of Episcopal women recently. property valuation of about $17,000,- And with" our girls" added, it is one 000. The capital city, Guthrie, claims which the churches should by all means a population of 10,000. Oklahoma City endeavor to answer quickly and wisely. iii stllllarger, and there are eight or ten Sisters of the Holy Ghost, San Antonio, other towns having from 1000 to 4000 Tex.; the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrainhabitants each. There are 800 ment, Mother Katherine Drexel's comchurches in the territory. generally of munity; and the Mission Helpers, of a very primitive pattern. Baltimore.
-A little more than a dozen years -The Seventh-Day Baptists have a ago the kindergarten had its beginning membership of 9000. The missionary in San Francisco with 2 schools, 109 headquarters are at Westerly, R. I. ; the children, and receipts amounting to income of the society is $5485, with $11,806; but now that city contains 37, $800 from the foreign field (China); the with 3318 pupils, receipts $43,197, and missionaries number 7, of whom 4 are endowments aggregating $451,853. In ordained, with 4 wives and 8 unmarried all 9000 little pilgrims have been started women; 1 ordained native and 4. other in the path of life. native helpers; 8 churches with 82 members, and 8 schools with 67 pupils. -During January and February a rich blessing attended the journeying -In February appeared No.1 of the of Mr. Greig, the successor of Dr. Mc- Mi8sion Voice, a four-page paper to be All, as he passed from Portland, Me., issued quarterly. published by the For- as far west as Indianapolis, and between eign Christian (Disciple) Missionary So- Toronto and Washington. 'speaking In ciety, at Cincinnati. . numerous places and telling what won- ders the Lord is working in France. -" The 15 Bible classes and the little church at Germantown," Pa. (Reformed -Miss Annie Beard, the daughter of Episcopal) contributed to missions last the Rev. A. F. Beard, formerly of the year $8774. "This money supports American Church, Parls, has sailed or more than 100 workers in China, Japan, will soon sail for Paris, to devote her- and India, besides that which is sent to self to the work of the McAll Mission, Africa, Arsbia, and Israel." It is di- el!lpecially among the children. Miss vided between some 20 different ob- .Beard is an accomplished kindergartner. jects. and wlll introduce kindergarten meth- ods into some of the children's schools. -The churches of the Philadelphia As much of her childhood was passed Presbytery contributed to foreign mil!- in Paris, she is thoroughly familiar, not sions last year $18,854, the Woman's only with the French language, but Board $15,157, and the Sunday.schools with the aims and work of the mission. $1571, a total of $85,582.
-During the eight years preceding Canada.-The summary of statistics 1890 the American Bible Society put for the Presbyterian mission In Trinidad into circulation in the South 1,829,971 is as follows: Catechists, 50; schools. copies of the Scriptures, of which 1,029.- 52; pupils enrolled, 4880; baptisms- 911 were donated and 800,000 were paid adults, 180; infants, 198; marriages, 'for by auxiliaries. The cost of this dis- 52; communicants, 596; contributions tribution was $298,000. of native church, $3000. , The expendi- ture on this mission last year was $40,- -The Catholic missionaries are mak- 000, of whieh only $19,000 were from ing steady progress among the negroes Canada-the remainder $21,000 being . of the South. It is stated that there provided by the Gov!lrnment of Trini- are about 160,000 negro Catholics in the dad, and friends of the mission in Trini- United States; there are 21 sisterhoods dad and elsewhere. teaching in 108 schools over 8000 negro children. Four communitiel! are espe- -The work of the Presbyterian cially devoted to the negroes: The Sill- Board of French Evangelization was ters of St. Francis, from England; the begun about fifty-five years ago, when there was not known to be a single -The Church Society not only Protestant among the 600,000 French mOl,lrDS the recent loss of Bishop Hill in the country. The missionary began and wife, of the Niger, but also of Rev. in the homes, teaching parents and chil- E. W. Mathias and James Vernall, of dren, and conversing on religious sub- the same field, while a fifth by serious jects with the fathers of families. sickness is compelled to retire. Evening schools were then begun, with the Bible as the reading book. The -The directors of the London Society operations of the board are now carried have decided to reinforce and extend on in Quebec, Ontario, and New BrunE.- the mission in Matabeleland as soon as wick, with, in Quebec alone, 18 pas- the circumstances of the country pertors, 12 missionaries, 7 missionary col- mit of the active resumption of misporteurs, and 26 teachers at work, under sionary work. It is understood that the whose ministrations a goodly number directors intend to establish an indnsof converts have been obtained. trial training institution, to teach the natives useful manual arts.
EUROPE. -The East London Institute pro- poses to send out in the spring a party Great Britain.-The London Direc- of 5, to reinforce the existing stations tory to Metropolitan Charities contains of the Balolo mission, on the Congo. information concerning more than 1000 This means an expenditure of £800; benevolent institutions, and gives as the passage and outfit of each person the total of receipts during 1893 for the costing some £150. Only two of the maintenance of 756 of these $27,747,470 six leading rivers of Lolo Land are as (£5,549,494). The noble list includes yet touched by the mission; the other such as: 3 Bible societies and 12 book four still wait. and tract societies; 39 missionary societies, home and foreign ;25 charities -The fifth annual report of the Jerufor the blind, 7 for deaf and dumb, salem and the East Fund gives an ac- 5 for incurables; 84 hospitals and 42 count of the work done, which, to some dispensaries; 99 homes for the aged, extent, is encouraging. Besides Bishop 39 for orphans, and 38 for prevention Blyth and an archdeacon, there is a and reformation. clergyman at Jerusalem, 1 at Suez, 1 at Cairo, 1 at Haifa, 1 at Larnaca, and 1 at -The British an.d Foreign Bible So- Beirut. The total receipts from all ciety recently issued in a single month sources for last year were £6151. 7 new editions of the Scriptures, including the Javanese, Polish. Portuguese, -The Cambridge Missionary Union Fiji, Maori, Congo, and Esth. dates from the visit of David Living- stone to Cambridge in 1857, since which -Medical Missions at Home and time it has made notable progress. The Abroad has now in the field 185 medi- building of the Henry Martyn Hall, in cal missionaries who hold British diplo- 1887, marked an epoch, as evidenced by mas, an increase of 20 in a year, and of the following facts: Between 1857 and 60 since 1890. Of the number 25 are 1887, 65 Cambridge men went to the women. foreign field, an average of 2 per an- num; between 1887 and 1894, 75 men -The Established Church has 24,232 have gone out, the yearly average of clergymen, other Protestant bodies departures being now no less than 10. . 10,057, and the Roman Catholics 2511, a total of 86,800. To these are to be The Continent.-The Lutherans of added of missionaries, itinerant preach- Germany sustain 4 selmen's missions ers, Scripture readers, etc.; 5119 men for the benefit of the 40,000 German and 4194 women. The total revenue sailors, to be found on the thousands of of the Establishment fs £5,753,557. German vessels. -Though the Moravians are but a provided with electric lighting, tele- little 1I.0ck, having a membership in phone, and phonograph, that an eleva- Europe and"America of not mucl1 over tor is soon to be added to the carnal 30,000, yet since 1732 they have sent conveniences; and ventures humbly to out no less than 2383 men and women suggest that an intramural railroad to spread the glad tidings. A defect of should soon follow in the vast struc- their work appears in the fact that in ture, provided the deadly trolley can all these 162 years they have ~sed up be dispensed with.
only about 50 native ministers (96, with ASIA. wives included). -Dr. H. C, Haydn thus writes of -Sweden has 5 missionary societies, this continent: .. It Is the largest, rich- all of recent origin, which are indepen- est, and most populous on the face of dent of the State Church : the Mission- the earth! In civilization the oldest I . ary League, the Holiness League, the Mother of great religions, of all the re- Missionary Alliance, the Swedish Wom- ligions worth naming! The great fore- an's Mission to the Women of North runnera of the Christ, and the Christ Africa, and the Swedish Mission in Himself, were Asiatics. Judaism, Bud- China. dhism, Brahmanism, Confucianism, -According to the London Daily Christianity, Mohammedanism-all Asi- NewB the Procurator of the Holy Synod atic- The prophets of the Old Testa- of Russia reports that the Stundists and ment, the writers of the New, and the other nonconformists are steadily in- Book-the greatest of books-are all creasing in spite of all efforts to put Asiatic. The early fathers of the them down. And his Excellency opines Church, whose subtle thought and kin- that .. the extremely religious mode of dling interpretation of Ohristianity are life, the strict moral discipline, the close so influencing modern movements with- sympathy, and the unfailing support in the Ohurch, were many of them Asi- rendered to the needy by the afll uent atic. Why does Asia now stand for so members of these sectarian communi- little? She lost her Gospel and her ties, have all combined to enlist the vol- Christ rather than welcome both to untary adhesion of the simple and ig- dominate her life."
norant peasants." All of which, of Islam.-Scribner's Magazine for Decourse, is too bad-indeed, is scandalous cember gives this interesting item: in the extreme ! .. The most striking peculiarity of Con- -The project of erecting a German stantinople is the immense vitality Protestant church in Rome is being which has carried it through so many pushed with considerable vigor. Near- • deaths.' It is common to speak of ly 150,000 marks have already been col- Turkey as the • sick man,' and to asso- . lected, and recently 154 representative ciate ideas of ruin and decay with one men from the Church of Prussia pre- of the most intensely living cities In the sented a petition to the High Consistory world. But no one who has spent even asking to have a general collection or- twenty-four hours on either side of the .dered for this purpose throughout the Golden Horn could ever conceive of country; 3 provincial synods have anything distantly approaching to stag- sanctioned the project, and Dr. Bark- nation, Coming from Europe, whether hensen, the head of the consistory, has from Italy or Austria, one is forcibly been in Rome and looked into the move- struck by the universal life, liveliness, ment, and activity of the capital. There is no city in the world where so many -The Ohurckman learns that the ven- different types of humanity meet and erable cathedral of St. Peter, through jostle each other and the stranger at ~he enterprise.of Pope Leo, is already every tum. Every natiou in Europe is represented, and every nation pf Asia in the region lying beyond the Khyber as well." P8S8.
-While in Asia Minor the chief lan- -Mr. Bryce, the historian, expresses guage for missionary purposes is the the opinion that ilie only hope of India Armenian, in Syria it is the Arabic In- rising to a consciousness of its own dig– stead. Aleppo, a city of more than nity and power as a nation is through 120,000, is located upon the border be- the English language and the Christian tween the two, but with Arabic as the religion. speech of the multitude. After long trial it has been found by the American -A recent writer exclaims: .. Who Board Impracticable to work this field knows but the mighty .caste system from the north, and so It has been ar- which tooday presents such an obstacle ranged that the Presbyterians from to the higher classes confessing Christ Beirut shall take possession. may yet prove an instrument for bring. ing the people en mOJIse to the Gospel." -As a traveller writes: .. Whoever That is, they may be constrained to wishes to see Palestine in the garb it give up their idolatry. and put themhas worn for unnumbered centuries selves under Christian teaching. must visit it soon. The people are adopting European dress and ways. -The Earl of Northbrook speaks of Our inventions are coming. The tele- having been impressed by a conversagrapb is domiciled; and soon the crook- tion held with .. one of the very ablest ed stick will give way to the plough, nnd most distinguished of the Hindus the camel stand aside or run bellowing in the whole of India," and who told to the field, as I have seen him do, him that his favorite book was" Thomas while the engine rushes on, and the Palestine of Bible days will be no more." a Kempis." Well might the earl con- -The »oa'T/{/eZut tells of a Peraian clude that though he called himself a who one year ago was such a fanatical Hindu, he might yet be not far from Moslem that he would go into a bath the kingdom. every night to wash off the pollution of contact with Christians during the day. – By the census of 1881 there we~ Now he has had his property-and he 18,780,000 Brahmans in the land. These was a man of means-confiscated, and .. thrice-born" souls of such lofty preboth his ears cut off. But undismayed tensions are not, however, a homogenehe yet declared that" Christ is the only ous body, but are split into "a vast Saviour of men." number of classes.., Mr. Sherring says there are 1886 tribes of them. -Mrs. Bishop, a stanch church·woman, after what she saw in loco, and after -The Hindu money-lender is the what she has learned since, concludes great curse of village life in this counthat it would have been much more try. To borrow seems to be the great wise and Christian if the Anglican Mis- temptation for the Hindu Christian, sion (Archbishop's) had kept out of the and in cases not a few debt Is the chief Oroomiah region, and left the Nesto- hindrance to evangelizing activity. The rians to be cared for by the Americans missionary will be met by demands to who follow in the footsteps of Dr. Per- pay the obligations of the native helpkins. ers; and what to do is a perplexing question. India.-At length the British Government appears to be on excellent terms -Rev. J. N. Cushing, American with the enterprising Ameer of Afghan- Baptist, writes of the Was, a tribe very istan, and so the day may be hastened ferocious and little known, dwelling in when the Gospel can have free course Burma and toward the borders of West- ern China: •• They are a people without the most elementary notions of decency or propriety of any kind. They habitUally practice the most savage cus- self a Christian, he. having learned the toms, being unable to sow a :field with- hymns while on a visit to Peking.
out cutting off some one's head and of- -It is said to be quite common in fering it to appease the unseen powers. China for men to write out and post by The state of dirt of both men and wom- the side of the street a prayer which. en is absolutely beyond belief, and Is they wish to address to their god. The only limited by the point beyond which notion seems to be that those who read extraneous matter refuses to adhere to the prayer will in some sense join in it, human flesh," etc. Outside of every and that the god will be pleased at havvillage is an avenue of grinning skulls ing so many people address him, and so :fixed by the hundred upon posts. be more likely to give a favorable an-.
-Dr. Philips, the General Secretary swer.
of the Sunday-School Union, recently -A Bible agent in Chinkiang sums visited the German missionaries in Mala- up a narrative of conversion in these bar, in order to arrange with them for words: "When a :Chinese 60nvert the organization of Sunday-schools for comes three days' journey simply tc;t heathen children, and reports: "The inquire about the Gospel, maintains services I attended at these stations himself while he is being taught, and were the best attended I ever saw in gives presents to his teachers, hurns his India, and the singing of the congrega- idols and tablets, foregoes hig legal tions the best I ever heard ; no other rights and yields to oppression for native Christian assembly can come.up Christ's sake rather than go to law, and. to them_" knowing the persecution that will prob- ably follow, offers his house for a -Rev. John E. Chandler. missionary preaching-hall, and himself takes a lead of the American Board at Madura, who in Christian work-we may have the died of cholera, January 10th, had been assurance that his religion is not vain, in faithful and laborious service only and that there must be something rctwo years less than half a century, going markable about a 'Four Gospels and out in 1846 and having but two visits Acts.' " to America, the last time being 1889-92. He was able to rejoice over abundance -During 1893 Rev. Hunter Corbett" of good seed sown and rich harvests of Chefoo, received 104 into the church gathered. upon confession of faith.
China.-The Chinese have wonder- -The Presbyterian hospitals in Peful memories. Pupils in mission schools king and Canton treated last year 57,541 can often. recite chapter after chapter, cases. and some of them most of the New Testament. -The gods of the Celestial Empire -Mr. Ament, of Peking, reports an must needs be continually on the qui incident illustrative of the power of vive against cheating. A writer in the Christian song among the country peo- North Ohina He'raW, narrates that" in ple. Upon his arrival at one village August last an epidemic was prevail- the leading Christian in it called to- ing, such as is common at that !leason gether a good audience. Among them of the year, but not common at New were groups of children who, greatly Year's. Hence It was proposed to to the missionary's surprise, stood up make the god of sickness think that he before the company and sang prettily had mistaken the time of year, and so several Christian hymns. Other chil- had sent the epidemic at the wrong sea- dren came forward and offered to do son. Therefore, on September 1st, they .the same in order to obtain· some pic. pretended that it was the :first day of tures held up as a prize. They had the New Year, the festivities appropri- been taught by a young man, not him- ate to that season were begun, the crackers fired, and the placards of red paper out the kingdom, 15 of the large cities' were displayed. The authorities co- having already organized and in oper- operated in the attempted cheat, and ation libraries of considerable size. The the people thought that they should library of the Imperial University now thus get the better of the divinity." contains more than 80,000 books in Eu- ropean languages. -The total statistics of the American Presbyterian missions, North, in China -The new religious life is making for last year are as follows: Ordained itself felt among all classes of people American missionaries, 53; total of through the ably conducted religious American missionary laborers, 157 ; or- press. Nearly every denomination has dained natives, 48 ; total native agents, its organ, and even churches having 398; churches, 64; communicants, less than 100 adherents have their pa- 6081 ; number added on confession of pers. The first number of a new maga- faith, 862; number of schools, 203; zine, the JapaneJJ6 lJ}cangelilt, published total of pupils, 4078 ; pupils in Sabbath- in Yokohama, has recently appeared. schools, 2910_ -The oddest timber" corner" in the -The American Methodists have 4 world is one that the Buddhists are try- missions in China with 43 missionaries, ing to form for the purpose of prevent- 86 assistant missionaries, 79 ordained ing Christians from getting any more native preachers, 443 other native help- material with which: to build churches. ers, 6021 church-members, 4684 proba- tioners, and 4225 pupils in 231 schools. -The Mi88io'fIM'JI Herald (A. B. C. F. The Sunday-school scholars number M.) for January has: an interesting arti- 7251. cle on "Applied Christianity in the Hokkaido: An Attempt at Prison Re- -The Rev. L. O. Warner, an English form in Japan." Something is told of Church missionary who has been mak- the 4 prisons in that northern island, ing a journey of exploration in Korea, which contain some 7000 criminals. A writes: "In travelling through the few years since JHr. Oinue was made country we were shown with pride superintendent, and presently reached many memorials of filial piety. In the conclusion that the principles of many cases the turf round the parents' Christianity were needed for the in- tombs was marked by the imprints of struction of the prisoners, and finally the feet, knees, and brim of the hat of secured a Christian quasi-chaplain for the devoted sons who had come every each prison. Every Sunday afternoon day for many years and bowed and all are gathered for a moral address, and prostrated themselves at the tomb of a Sunday-school follows with the Bible their parents, as they offered them their for a text-book. In one prison, out of ,daily food of rice and wine. Filial 1506 prisoners 510 are studying the •piety is considered the highest virtue, Scriptures, and 148 follow a course of and sometimes, when the doctor orders daily readings from the Old and New ,it, a son will cut off his finger and cook Testaments. it, and offer it to his father or mother to assist their recovery. This is con- -Medical Mi88iona at Home and sidered a most righteous act, and is .Abroad speaks of a movement to place generally memorialized by a tablet." a well-bound copy of the Bible in Jap- anese into the hands of every native , lapan.-From the nineteenth annual physician in the Mikado's Empire. report of the Department of Education There are at present about 40,000 doc- these facts appear. The standards of tors for the 40,000,000 of the Japanese ,the middle and higher schools are being people. It is proposed that these Bibles raised. Native teachers are being rap- shall be given by the medical men of idly developed, and begin to take the England and America to their brethren place of foreign instructors. Public in Japan. libraries &re being established through-