The Missionary Review of the World — November 1895
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UAL NEEDS OF KEY TO TIlE BLACK MISSIONARY SOUTH AlIERICA MAP OF SOUTH AllERIC!. maybe Judged by the darkness Date of Founding this map. All cen- Wk. In S. America. tres where American 17'65. Moravian Missionary or European Protes- tant missionaries are Society (9). statioued are 1815. West IndIan Confer- shown by the white dots ence (Wesleyan) (11). numbered to 1821. London MIssionary refer to the Key. (The Society (12). boundaries of 1824. British and Foreign the fourteen States of Bible Society (14). South America are 1836. American Methodist Episcopal North (5). indicated m white, 1840. Plymouth Brethren (16). as also the principal 1844. South Americau Missionary Society (10). rivers.) 185.,). Dr. Kalley's Churches" Help for Brazil" (8). All parts printed 1856. American Presbyterian (North and South) (2 and 3). black are either Ro. 1:l61. Society for the Propa,ration of the Gospel (13). man Catholic, hea- 18M. American Bible Society (15). then,or uninhabited. 1875. American Methodist Episcopal, South (4). The population of 1879. Southern Baptist Convention (1). South America is 1880. Bishop 'raylor's Mission (7). estimated at 37,000,- 1889. American Episcopal (6). 000. Of tltese pmb- 1889. Salvation Army. ably le88 than 4,000,- OOOhave been t·eacheel FALKLAND I! by the Gospel, leaving 33,000,000 wholly un- ", evangelized. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF' THE WORLD.
VOL. XVIn. No. 11.-0ldSerie&.-NOVEMBER.-VOL. VIn. No.ll.-NBIII&riu.
THE MIRACLES OF MISSIONS.-XXV.
WHAT JOHN WILLIAMS SAW IN THE SOUTH SEAS.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
Two specific predictions in the Old Testament seem specially to refer to missionary labor. One is this: "The isles shall wait for His law," which has been literally fulfilled in the South Sea archipelago.
John -Williams, who is most closely identified with this wonderful story of missionary heroism and success, is known as the "apostle of the South Seas." Born June 29th, 1796, and murdered at Dillon's Bay, Erromanga, November 20th, 1839, his life covers only fortythree years, but it abounds in proofs of the Divine interposition and wonde.r-working. At twenty years of age he offered himself to the London Missionary Society, and was sent to Eimeo, one of the Society Islands, whence he removed to Huaheine, and afterward to Raiatea, the largest of the group. After five years of apostolic success, he visited the Hervey Islands and founded a mission at Raratonga. Continuing to reside at Raiatea until he learned the language of the Society Islands, he then returned to Raratonga, where he prepared books and translated a portion of the Bible. In a vessel of his own building he conducted a four years' exploration of nearly the whole of the South Sea Archipelago, establishing the Samoan Mission. Then he spent four years in England-from 1834-38 -publishing his Raratonga Testament and his narrative of adventures in the South Seas, raising $20,000 for a new missionary ship, planning for a high school at Tahiti, and a theological school at Raratonga for the training of native missionaries j then returning with sixteen additional laborers, he visited Samoa, sailed for the New Hebrides to plan a new mission, and fell a martyr on the shores of Erromanga. Such is the outline of that marvellous life which we are now to trace, somewhat in detail, as a missionary career crowned with apostolic 'success and abounding in moral miracles.
Many islands in this archipelago are belted with coral rock from two t<l'
THE lIIRACLES OF mSSION!
twenty yards in width, against which the waves dash with terrific violence; they burst against this rocky bulwark, curling their foamy crests over the top of the reef, and spread in harmless vengeance upon its surface. What an apt symbol is this coral belt of the ramparts of superstition and idolatry which encompassed these islands! The moral darkness of the people was so deep that the idea of the true God had almost disappeared from their minds, and also the conception of the brotherhood of man, which is so akin to that of the Fatherhood of God. These ferocious savages were constantly engaged in desolating wars, and their cannibalism was but the crown of a system of iniquity, the like of which has seldom been found elsewhere. Even the printed page would blush to present a true picture of their licentiousness before the rays of Christian light touched and transformed them. It is a shame even to speak of those things which were done of them in secret.
Women were barbarously treated. Their condition was very low.
They were under the bondage of a Tabu system similar to that which pre- vailed in the Hawaiian Islands. They could not eat certain kinds of food, or live under the same roof with their tyrannical lords. Children were cruelly strung together by skewers, and old people pierced with javelins or beaten to death with clubs. There were among the people two captivities: one to the gods, and the other to the king's servants. The first rendered one liable to be offered up as a sacrifice; the other, to have his house entered, and to suffer the greatest depredations without even the right of remonstrance. Of course wars among such a people were very sanguinary. Female prisoners were generally put to death lest they should become mothers of warriors. Captive children, with spears passed through their ears, were borne in- triumph to the temples, and the skulls of other conquered foes were beaten in and their brains spread on bread-fruit leaves as an offering to the gods.
The mission work, which extended through twenty-two years, was, as has been hinted, a triumphal progress.
The Mauruans, who formerly attributed every evil that befell them to the anger of " evil spirits," learned to worship the true God, and pointed to demolished Maraes and mutilated idols as proofs of the great change. In some cases the spears used in warfare were converted into balustrades for pulpit stairs, and no vestige of idolatry remained. Oro, the war god, and other grim-looking wooden idols were degraded into props for the roof of cooking houses or wood sheds. It was a common thing for- the temples to be destroyed and the idols to be burned or surrendered to the missionaries as trophies. In Aitutaki not a single idolater remained, and a large chapel was built nearly two hundred feet in length. Recitations in the catechism, prayers to God, and grace at table displaced unsightly gestures and obscene songs. A people that eighteen months before had been the wildest Mr. Williams had ever seen had become mild, teachable, diligent, and kind. The rapidity and thoroughness of these changes have probably no parallel in all Christian history, and furnish a striking fulfillment of the prediction, "As soon as they hear of Me they shall obey Me j the strangers shall submit themselves unto Me" ( Ps. 18 : 45 j 2 Sam. 22 : 45).
A little more than a year after the discovery of Raratonga the whole population had renounced idolatry and were erecting a place of worship six hundred feet in length ; and at a meeting held, the chiefs from Aitutaki were the principal speakers. The means which God used made the work more astonishing. Two humble native teachers were the instruments of this wonderful change before a single missionary had set foot upon the island. And yet it. was at Raratonga that Mr. Williams, in 1827, met the greatest concourse he had seen since he left England; the people, walking in procession, dropped at his feet fourteen idols, the smallest of which was about five yards in length.
Mr. Williams drew up an elementary work, translated the Gospel of John and the Epistle to the Galatians, which were printed a few months later, and from that time the progress of the people distances all comparison. The manner in which the Raratongans spent thcir Sabbaths shames most other Christians : A preparatory prayer-meetillg at sunrise, conducted by themselves; a service of worship led by the missionary at nine O'clock, prior to which they met in classes of ten or twelve families each, distributing among themselves 1;he portions of the sermon which each individual should bring away, carefully noting the divisions of the discourse, and marking opposite to each the chapters or verses by which it was illustrated.
A code of Christian laws was adopted. The inhabitants had alwaYIil been systematic thieves, and before the introduction of Christianity their punishments were little more than acts of vengeance. The friends of the aggrieved party would take from the offender by force any article of value, destroy his trees and crops, break down his house, and sometimes murder the thief himself. Christianity brought with it a proper code of laws, with judges and juries, in place of this method of private revenge. Theft, trespass, Sabbath-breaking, rebellion, marriage, adultery, and "land-eat· ingt> or the forcible and unjust possession of another's land, were all regulated or restrained by law, and deliberate murder was punished with death. Plurality of wives became unlawful ; wedlock was honored with becoming ceremonies. The Raratongan women were completely transformed, even in outward appearance; they became more industrious, neat in person, modest in manners, faithful in their households, and helpful in all Christian work.
The chiefs themselves commonly led the way in the conversion of the people, and sometimes in the advocacy of the Gospel by public addresses. Knees bowed in prayer to God, and tongues were unloosed in supplication on islands which had never before known prayer to Jehovah. Sometimes the public destruction of idols was attended by vast crowds, and presided over by the chiefs in person, who disrobed the gods of their gaudy trap- pings and flung them into the fire. In some cases all the relics of idolatry were destroyed throughout an island in a few hours, and the erection of a place of worship for Jehovah immediately succeeded. When Tamatoa and his followers arrived at Opoa, a multitude met them on the beach, shouting welcome in the name of their gods, and expecting to receive war captives; but as the chief's canoe approached, a herald shouted back: " We have brought no victims slain in battle i we are all praying people and worship the true God i'! and holding up the books which the missionaries had written, cried : "These are the victims, the trophies with which we have returned."
Soon after the arrival of Tamatoa at Raiatea the inhabitants were told of the work of grace at Tahiti, and urged to yield to the Gospel, and about one third of them agreed to the proposal. Tamatoa shortly after being taken very iII, one of the Christians proposed to destroy Oro, the national idol, lest perhaps Jehovah might be angry with them for not having done this before. After consultation, a courageous band proceeded to the great Marae at Opoa, took the war god from his seat, tore off his robes, and fired his temple. The heathen party, determined to fight the Christians and destroy them, built a sort of wicker cage of cocoanut trunks and bread fruit trees in which to burn them alive. The Christian natives spent hours in praying and planning defense against the fury of these foes. Their attack upon the Christians was turned into a panic, for they were seized with consternation, and after a short resistance threw away their arms and fled for their lives. Instead of meeting with such barbafous treatment as they would have inflicted had they been the conquerors, they met at the hands of the Christians not only mercy but loving kindness. A feast was prepared at which nearly a hundred large pigs, baked whole, were served with bread fruit and other vegetables, and when these defeated heathen sat down to eat they were unable to swallow their food, so overwhelmed were they by the astonishing events of the day. One of them arose and said: "Let everyone act as he will i but, for my part, never again to my dying day will I worship the gods that could not protect Us in the hour of danger. Tho we were four times the number of the praying people, , with the greatest ease they have conquered us. Jehovah is the true God. Bad we been conquerors, they would now be burning in the house we made for the purpose i but, instead of injuring us or our wives or children, they have set for us this sumptuous feast. Theirs is a religion of mercy. I will go and join myself to this people."
Such was the effect of this address that everyone of the heathen party bowed his knees that very night in prayl31' to Jehovah, for the first time, and actually united with the Christians in returning thanks to God for the victory which had been accorded to those whom they had sought to destroy. The next morning, after prayers, all parties united in destroying every Marae in Tahua and Raiatea, so that in three days more no vestige of idol worship could be found in either island, tho at this time there was at neither of these islands any missionary !
A most affecting story is told of a spiritual beggar known as Buteve. There were six or eight stone seats, held in much veneration as connected with ancestors or great chiefs, and formed of two smooth stones, one serving as a seat and the other supporting the back; and here, in the cool of the day, would be found certain persons ready to chat with any passer-by. Mr. Williams noticed a man getting off one of these seats and walking upon his knees into the center of the " parent path," shouting, " Welcome, servant of God, who brought light into this dark island! To you we are indebted for the Word of Heaven." He asked this cripple what he knew about heaven, and found his answers so intelligent about Christ and His atonement, the future life, the approach to God in prayer, and the work of the Holy Spirit, that he said: "Buteve, where did you obtain all this knowledge ~ I do not remember ever to have seen you where I have spoken ; and, besides, your hands and feet are eaten off by disease and you have to walk upon your knees." Buteve answered: "As the people return from the- service I sit by the wayside and beg for a bit of the Word; one gives me one piece and another another, and I gather them together in my heart, and thinking over what I thus obtain, and praying to God to make me know, I get to understand." _Thus a poor cripple, who had never once been in a place of worship, had picked up crumbs from the Lord's table and eagerly devoured them.
These natives, rapidly converted, became evangelists, and made tours of the islands to bring others to Christ, and sought to leave no heathen settlement unvisited and no idol remaining. They proved to be prayerful, zealous, and successful, faithful and singularly benevolent, so that their gifts averaged far beyond the gifts of members of Christian churches in the most favored lands in proportion to their ability.
Once, when Mr. Williams explained how English Christians raised money to send the Gospel to the heathen, the natives expressed regret at not having money to use in the same good work. He replied: "If you have no money, you have something that takes the place of money, sometaing to buy money with;" he then referred to the pigs that he had brought to the island on his first visit, and which now every family possessed; and suggested that every family should set apart a pig for cau8ing the Word of God to grow,. and when the ships came, sell the pigs for money. The natives eagerly followed the suggestion, and the next morning the squeaking of the pigs which were receiving the" mark of the Lord" in their ears was everywhere heard. On Mr. Williams's return to the island, the native treasurer put into his hands one hundred and three pounds, the product of these sales. It was the first money they had ever possessed, but every farthing was given to the cause of Christ.
At Aitutaki, Atiu, Mangaia, and Mauke all these changes were due to 806 THE MlRAOLES OF MISSIONS. [November native missionaries, no European missionary ever having resided at either island.
The eagerness of the people to welcome missionaries probably has had no parallel. When Mr. Williams went to Savaii, he was met with extravagant joy, which the South Sea Islanders invariably show 9Y weeping. He learned that Malietoa, with his brother and the principal chiefs and nearly all the inhabitants of their settlement, had embraced Christianity and built a chapel holding seven hundred people, which was always full j and that, in the two large islands of Savaii and Upolu the Gospel had been introdu~ed into more than thirty villages, and the great body of the people were only awaiting Mr. Williams's arrival to renounce heathenism. When he met Malietoa, the chief remarked, " My heart's desire is to know the Word of Jehovah." In the afternoon Mr. Williams preached to not less than a thousand persons, and was followed by the chief himself, who urged all Savaii and Upolu to embrace this new religion, and pledged his whole soul to encircle the land with the Word of Jehovah j and when Mr. Williams proposed to return at once to his native country to bring back more missionaries, he replied, "Go with all speed j get all the missionaries you can, and come back as soon as you can j but many of us will be dead before you return." What pathos lay in that short plea!
The public renunciation of heathenism was often accompanied with most interesting ceremonies. For instance, every chief of note had his Etu-some species of bird, fish, or reptile iu which the spirit of his god was believed to reside-and the way to desecrate the Etu so that it could no longer be regarded as sacred was to cook and eat that in which the god was believed to dwell. For example, the Etu of one of the chiefs was an eel, and an eel was caught, cooked, and eaten, in order to evince his sincerity. Seeing that no harm came from such acts as these, like the inhabitants of ancient Malta, the spectators changed their minds' and said, " Jehovah is the true God."
In the museum of the London Missionary Society is a relic which Mr. Williams himself brought from the South Seas, and known as Papo. It was the god of war attached to the leader's canoe when he went forth to battle, and was held in great veneration, tho only a piece of old rotten matting about three yards long and four inches wide.
The apostle of the South Seas, in concluding his own narrative of these remarkable experiences, says that he was especially impressed with the rapidity of the work i whereas at Tahiti, fourteen or fifteen years of toil and anxiety passed before a single conversion; and at New Zealand the Church Missionary Society wrought for nearly twenty years before the natives showed any general desire to be taught j at the Navigators' Islands, in less than twenty months chapels were erected and the people clamoring for instruction.
,!he new religion was so highly esteemed by all classes and the desire for the missionaries was so intense that at many stations the people built places of worship, and, having prepared food on Saturday, came together at six o'clock on Sabbath morning, sitting for an hour in silence, and repeating this silent waiting on God a second and even a third timy during the day. Truly the isles did" wait for His law. "
When Mr. Williams first visited Raratonga, in 1823, he found them all heathens; when he left them, in 1834, they were all professed Christians; and, in the stead of idols and Maraes, were three spacious places of Christian worship, with an aggregate of six thousand attendants. He found them without a written language, and left them reading in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. He found them without a Sabbath, and when he left them there was no manner of work done on the Lord's day. He found them ignorant of the nature of true worship; he left them with family prayer every morning and evening in every house in the island ; and what was true of Raratonga was true of the whole Hervey group. In ten years' time a dark and bloody idolatry, with all its horrid rites, gave way to the triumphs of the Gospel. To the close of his life he witnessed one series of successes. Island after island and group after group were successively and rapidly brought under the influence of the Gospel, till no group or island of importance could be found within two thousand miles of Tahiti, in any direction, to which the good news had not been carried. When the late Bishop of Ripon laid down the story of Williams's missionary career he said: "I have been reading the twentyninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles !" Surely those who feel no interest in the work of missions either have not the Spirit of Christ or are ignorant of the facts of missionary history.
Mr. Williams's death was the result, undoubtedly, of misapprehensions. Injuries received by the natives of Erromanga from the crew of a vessel which shortly before had landed there had irritated them, and the sight of foreigners awakened resentment. Mr. Williams, when approaching the shore, was struck with a club by one of the natives, then pierced with several arrows, and his body was drawn into the bush, and probably the greater part of it eaten by these cannibals.
In 1889, the fiftieth anniversary of John Williams's martyrdom, a monument to his memory was erected at Erromanga; and the man who laid its corner-stone was the son of that very savage who dealt. the deadly blow; while, at the same time, another son of this murderer and cannibal was preaching the Gospel in Australia !
THE IMPORTANCB OF FRONTIERS
THE IMPORTANCE OF FRONTIERS.
BY REV. W. G. PUDDEFOOT.
There is no question before the churches of America of greater importance than the home missionary work on our frontiers. In proportion as we attend to the work at the front, every benevolent society goes forward, or stands, or retrogrades. Had the churches kept pace with the growth of the frontiers there would not only have been an abundance of men for the foreign field, but no lack of money to have sent them.
The great mass of church-members have the most vague idea about the frontiers. The time was when the frontier was well defined, and was supposed to have settled about twelve miles from Boston. After a long period it stretched away into Western Massachusetts, and then the churches of Massachusetts and Connecticut began to think of missions to the heathen in America.
Within a generation men have proposed calling a conference in Ryracnse "the northwestern," but an old gentleman hinted that it might be possible that conferences would yet be held farther north and west, and the name become a misnomer. Within the last twenty-five years the frontier has seemed to recede as fast as does the horizon as the traveler walks toward it, and to-day men are heard saying, "We have no frontier j all the land is taken j" but the real facts are, we have more frontiers than ever, and there is much land to be possessed.
The land is settled in spots, and each new settlement sees new frontiers to be conquered. Where the fathers had a well-marked frontier, the sons have four, and, paradoxical as it may seem, our frontiers are in the interior.
One of the great obstacles for successful evangelizing of the land is the fact that 70,000,000 are scattered over a field that can support 1,000,000,000. Settlements are constantly formed that grow into great cities with all the luxuries of modern life, and yet within a few miles the wilderness spreads out in all directions, growing wilder as it recedes until it begins to meet the next center of civilization, and this in hundreds of cases.
In the beginning of this century Detroit was the largest and most important city west of Albany. There was no Buffalo, but a place called Buffalo Creek j and long before Chicago was started men were doing business at Sault Ste. Marie and at Sugar Island. I sat at breakfast a short time ago with Dr. Bacon, whose father was the first white boy born in Detroit.
Detroit was a stockade fort j most of its popUlation composed of English traders, half-breed French Canadians, and Indians. Before that boy died, Michigan had a popUlation of nearly 2,000,000, and the country over 50,000,000. The frontier of to-day is in many instances as it was in Peter Cartwright's time. There are large settlements twenty years old that saw the first buggy last year, and where the minister needs to go armed, on ac- count of the wild beasts he lllay meet coming and going from his church services.
Maine is a frontier State with much land to be possessed. Alabama and Georgia have millions of acres of virgin soil and primeval forest yet to be settled. Some States such as the Dakotas were settled at the rate of a thousand miles a day north and south, and three miles westward for some time, while the five settlements in Oklahoma were en masse " yet rapid as were these developments, the great Northwest was faster. Texas yearly has It gulf stream 70,000 strong pouring in upon her. One part of the country will have 70 per cent. Scandinavian, another almost 80 per cent. German, while still another is Russian. On the frontiers in New Mexico and Arizona we have old Spain and Protestant churches, often seventy and a hundred miles apart. County after county is without a church, so that to-day we have towns, villages, and hamlets by the thousands without a church.
To take the number of church sittings and the popUlation of the country, and show how everyone can go to church on Sunday may be very comforting to people that do not think. Hundreds of thousands could not get to church were they to start with a fast horse and ride all day, while thousands are born, grow up, and die without once hearing a sermon. There is no civilized land on earth to-day in the condition of ours in regard to church privileges, and where crime of a serious nature has made such rapid growth.
The Superintendent of Home Missions in Canada wrote to me in answer to my question as to the number of unchurched towns in the Dominion of Canada: "Not one that he knew of had not some church," was his reply. Canada, with her 5,000,000, had eleven murders last year. We had reported through the Chicago Tribune, which makes a specialty of these statistics, 9800 homicides. Life is cheap on the frontier; and, apart from violence, the poor settler often literally dies for those who come after him. The loneliness of the women especially on the great ranches and prairie farms often leads to insanity and early death. Thonsands of our city roughs to-day were born and raised in the outposts of civilization where no Gospel privileges exist.
Last winter I had a letter from a friend who keeps a reading-room in the Rocky Mountains. One day a bundle of papers was sent out by a freighter to leave at the lonely homes on the ranches. A letter came back from one poor woman, saying the reading had saved her from suicide. Another man, writing to me, says: "I am building a church in His name -the first in 9000 square miles. Very little money in this region; one of my members does all her sewing with thread that she gets from the cotton flour sacks. A man who had managed to get a little wool geared his grindstone so as to spin it, and is making stockings on his grindstone. This man gave us eight days' labor for the church." Little as the peopIe care for the Church under ordinary circumstances, when dcath co~es they like to have a minister. Let me give you a recent case. The man has traveled 25 miles. His horse is bespattered with mud. There are no bridges, the roads are mere trails. He pleads with the missionary to go with him. The missionary is an invalid. He asks, "How can I go 1" " I have brought a thick strap, and I will buckle it around my waist, and you can hold on, and I will ride slow over the bad places and through the rivers. We ain't quite heathens, but we are pretty near. I won't ask you to say much; just read a bit and make a prayer," and away goes our missionary to carry the consolation of God to this stricken family. Thewife and mother is dead. The grown-up children are weeping around the coffin. For the first time they hear the words: "Let not your heart be troubled," and beside the grave the triumphant questions and auswer of St. Paul : " 0 death, where is thy sting ~ 0 grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be unto God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord." They want to know more, and beg for the missionary to stay and tell them about it. Back in the little cabin is the missionary's wife. She has gathered a class, and they are going to have a Christmas tre3. Some of them have never heard of such a thing.
One young woman wants to know whether there is any connection between Christ and Christmas Day. "Why, we keep Christmas Day to commemorate His birth." " Yes ; but there never was any Christ, was there 1" ""Vhere were you born, dear 1" "Here in this State ;" and then for the first time she hears the story of redeeming love. Had this happened in China or Japan we should not think it strange; but here in America, where there are over 21,000,000 church-members, with millions of dollars to spare and a country to save, it seems strange indeed. Within a month I have seen people on the frontier who had already been to church on a week day driving ten miles to Ilcar the Gospel again that night. On Sunday many came twenty -miles, some attended three services. In a hundred different places you can find the people ready to put out chairs and furniture to make room for a service in the house, so crowded that they cannot sit down. Women and men weep as they hear the old hymns, and beg the minister to come again. Like the exiles by the rivers of Babylon, they wept when they remembered Zion.
The poverty in the new settlements is almost past belief. They often pay 3 per cent. per month intereet. In hundreds of homes there is nothing to eat but flour and a little milk. Fresh meat is a luxury not thought of. It is in the great farming districts of the frontier where the most good can be done, and often where it is most neglected. The towns and villages Qf the newer parts are in a constant state of flux. In the great lumber regions, where there are tens of thousands of men, scarcely anything has been done for their spiritual welfare.
The miners, too, are shifting people, and live too often where vice of every kind-is made alluring, and the Church too feeble to cope with it, or not there at all. In the Southwest we have over 400,000 Mexicans speaking the Spanish language, ignorant, superstitious, and mostly left to themselves. Utah is another great field white for the harvest; indeed, there is not a Western State or Territory to-day that could not profitably employ from two to three hundred missionaries, and not one of them need build on another man's foundation.
It is true that eight new churches are built and dedicated every day in the year, while one thousand new post-offices are added yearly j but many of these churches are built where they are not needed; they are built too often to preach an " ism," and not the Gospel. The Church has property valued at $670,000,000, but the added wealth of the nation is more than that daily. And grand as are the proportions of the Church's growth and her riches, it still remains true that there are more places to-day upon the frontiers without a church than at any previous time in our history. Churches expend thousands on decorations, thousands for music for hundreds they give to missions. It costs more to run an average city church than the denomination to which it belongs gives for the support of missions in a great State. There is not a great denomination in our land but has members whose incomes are more than the amount given by its entire membership for missions.
Five hundred thousand dollars for wedding presents to a couple that don't need them, and 500,000 church-members can't raise as much in their love for Jesus for home missions! In looking over the gifts of the churches fifty years ago the amount seems small compared with the great aggregates of to-day; but when compared with our ability, we don't give as much with all our array of figures. Meanwhile, the missionary has to pay the deficiency out of his meager salary, or, what is often ha~der for him to do, drop his work or be kept from the growing fields that invite him.
Take the brightest view that we can, pile up the gifts to home and foreign missions, add all the expenses of the churches for all departments, add $34,000,000 for gifts this year to colleges, and then remember that two cents per day from every church-member in the United States would come to more than the whole amount and leave millions to spare.
The frontiers of any country are its weakest places morally, and its most dangerous characters are there. This is true on the borders of old countries, much more so of ours. When the great denominations get enough of Christ-Spirit in them to rejoice when anyone of them raises His standard in a new town, and say with Abraham: "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, for we be brethren," then new light will break out over the frontiers ; but so long as we see new churches being erected in New England in towns of 1200 inhabitants, where there are five or six already, just so long will the frontiers cry in vain for us to come over and help them; and until Christians give their Lord's cause at least as much as they spend on luxuries, we shall be paying out, as we now do,
BRAZIL THROUGH AN EVANGELIST'S EYE
four times as much to care for the criminal as we do for his reformation. But once let the church-members of the land rise to the sublime sacrifice of two cents a day for Christ, and then " will the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose j" but that time will not come until the man in the pulpit is at least interested enough in missions to take one annual collection for them.
BRAZIL THROUGH AN EVANGELIST'S EYE.
BY REV. D. G. ARMSTRONG.
The humble parentage of great events is one of the surprises of his- tory. The cackling of geese saved Rome. A vagrant spark has wrapped many a beautiful city in flames. A pebble from the brook delivered Israel from the Philistines. A storm of wind dispersed the Spanish armada and saved Protestant England from papal dominion. A cordite cartridge went whistling to the heart of a recent liberal ministry. The history of Brazil also furnishes a notable instance of this connection of great issues with trivial circumstances. In the year 1567, on the shores of the beautiful Bay of Rio de Janeiro, where now stands the large and important city of the same name, an insignificant battle was fought whose issue was fraught with mOllientous consequences. It was the battle· between the Roman Catholic Portuguese and the French Protestant Huguenots. For some time after the discovery of Brazil by a Portuguese navigator little was done toward its occupation and colonization. About the middle of the sixteenth century the Huguenots of France, whose religious convictions had b~ought them into disfavor with their crown and countrymen, conceived the plan of establishing a colony on this vast unexplored continent, where they should have freedom to worship God. Admiral Coligny favored their plan and aided them by providing ships and soldiers. The colonists established themselves, first on the little island of Villegagnon, in the bay of Rio, and thence went across to the neighboring mainland. They succeeded in winning the confidence of the natives, and, in spite of many internal dissensi.ons, were obtaining a firm foothold in this new territory. But at this juncture the Portuguese, who had meanwhile planted a colony farther up the coast, incited by envy and by Jesuit priests, began a war of conquest and extermination. They attacked first the French fortifications and drove the colonists to the mainland, where, in the short, sharp, bloody encounter just referred to, the French were defeated, and the hope of Protestantism perished on the South American continent until revived by the arrival of Christian missionaries less than half a century ago. An insignificant battle, followed by three centuries of Romanisma result of awful significance to Brazil and South America! Sappose the issue had been decided differently! What room for speculation upon this acorn of possibilities, like the historical acorns imbedded in the careers of Gustavus Adolphus and Napoleon Bonaparte! Certainly the destiny of Europe would have been changed had these two important struggles issued differently. What might the outline of Brazilian history have been had the event of this first battle left the tracing pencil in Protestant instead of papal hands! Have we no right to believe that a country so vast in extent, so accessible and resourceful, with a soil so rich and productive, a landscape so varied and beautiful, and inhabited by a people not sparingly endowed with natural gifts, might have attained to a higher place among the world powers, and discharged a nobler mission had she not been dwarfed and blighted and cursed by the Romish Church ~ Professor Agassiz, in his very interesting book on the fauna and .flora of Brazil, . ~rites as follows: "There is much that is discouraging in the aspect of Brazil, even for those who hope and believe, as I do, that she has before her an honorable and powerful career. There is much, also, that is very cheering, that leads me to believe that her life as a nation will not belie her great gifts as a country. Should her moral and intellectual endowments grow into harmony with her wonderful natural beauty and wealth, the world will not have seen a fairer land." Why this want of harmony between nature and man, between man and his Maker, between possibilities and actualities ~ Nay more; why a want of harmony with her sister nation, the great republic of North America, in development, in social and moral progress ~ The shores of both are washed by the same ocean, both have received lavish blessings from a kind Providence, and both entered the arena of history about the same time. Why, then, this disharmony in destiny and development ~ The only satisfactory answer is that one was committed to Protestants and the other to Romanists. Three centuries of Romanism, and to-day-what 1 Irreverence; no Bible, no Sabbath; religion and morality divorced.
The reader will observe that we are concerned in this article not with Romanism in her ideal form as exhibited in the life and teachings of some distinguished prelate, nor even as modified and held in check by close contact with a dominant Protestantism, but with Romanism pure and simple, where her sway has beeu undisputed for centuries and no restraint has been laid upon her influence over the people in molding and directing the social and moral life of the nation. We dare not enter here upon the exposition of the gigantic social evils that exist in Brazil, for which the gross and notorious immoralities of the priesthood are largely responsible. We shall here be concerned with a practical consideration of Brazil's religious condition as revealed in some general characteristics.
Irreverence? Can the gentle reader imagine what name one of the States of Brazil bears ~ A glance at the map will show Espirito Santo (Holy Spirit). Many a town in the interior of the country has the same name. One can imagine the holy horror with which the missionary-1tears the brakeman on the train call out, " Next station, Holy Spirit." Ask a friend how he is, and he answers, "Very well, grapas a Deus" (thank God). Speak to an old negro in passing, and he responds, " Sao Ohristo"-i.e., " May you have the blessing of St. Christ," thus revealing his theology in his salutatiou, as in his ignorance he means to classify Christ along with St. Paul, or St. Patrick, or any other saint of the Roman calendar. One hears frequently a gambler, after a night at the gaming table, remark th&t he has been very successful, "grafas a ])eus" (thank God). The object worthy of true reverence, God, with His titles and attributes, is treated in a light, thoughtless manner, while one frequently sees the men on a street car take off their hats as the car passes a Romish church, whose chief claim to sanctity is its being the receptacle of the wafer and images of Christ, the Virgin, and certain saints. Hence a prime nece8sity i8 to awaken the consciences of the people to the awful majesty of the Divine name and the guiltiness of him who, willfully or thoughtlessly, in pleasantry or in passion, takes that name in vain.
No Bible.2 Yes, it is strictly true that the people in general have not the Word of God, except, of course, where and since its circulation has been effected by our Protestant Bible societies, the American and English both having representatives in Brazil. The Bible is a prohibited book; the people are told by their priests that reading it will have an injurious effect in unsettling their minds and raising doubts as to matters that should be accepted without question because taught by Mother Church and Father Confessor. It is often distressing to hear the people contend for their religion with sophistries drawn from human experience and Romish books, without a single reference to the Word of God. The priests have tried to forestall the sale of the Bible by circulating the malicious slander that the Protestant Bible is a falsified book, notwithstanding the translation commonly used by the missionaries was made by a Romish priest and differs only in minor details from another translation that has the sanction of Pope Pius IX. But, in spite of this opposition, the good seed of the word is being scattered broadcast over the land, and from time to time springB"up in some thrilling instance of conversion to testify that the labor is not in vain. I recall going once to a town where, on account of the bitter opposition, I could not obtain 'a house for a public meeting. Content to mingle with the people in private intercourse, I at last sold a Bible and several books treating of religious subjects. On my return to this place some weeks later, one of the young men who had purchased the Christian literature had meanwhile been made chief of police, and through his help and protection I obtained a house and held in safety a public meeting that wa~ well attended. Brazil's great need is not the schoolhouse, advancement in the arts of modern civilization, and such like, but the Bible, to teach her that "the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul."
No Sabbath? True, in many of the large cities, like Rio and Sao Paulo, all the chief stores are closed and many of the wheels of business are stopped on Sunday j but this is not due to any religious motive or any recognition of man's moral obligation to keep the Sabbath. It is due only to the force of circumstances. The clerks and operatives combined and demanded of their employers one day in seven for rest and recreation, and the employers were forced to yield. But instead of spending their forced leisure in the refreshment of mind and body, both employers and employed while away the day in dissipation and pleasure, attending the theater and race-course, and perhaps walking through the streets in some idolatrous procession headed by Romish priests, thus ending the day more jaded than if it had been spent in the routine of business, and ill prepared for the week's labor. In the interior towns there is literally no Sabbath, not even a suspension of business. All the stores are open, and trade is generally more brisk than on any day during the week, as the people from the country come in, avowedly to mass, but always take special care to bring their wares and produce along with them and to do the week's trading. If there is to be a dance or a concert of any kind, Sunday night is generally chosen. At the celebration of the mass, no religious instruction is imparted, tho sometimes a distinguished priest will avail himself of this occasion to discuss a current topic of interest. The presence of a few Protestants in his neighborhood is also very likely to furnish a priest with " juicy matter for homiletical exploitation." The Sunday of worship and religious instruction is still a desideratum for Brazil except where Protestant influence has introduced it. The effect upon the nation, both morally and socially, of this failure to observe a day of rest and worship is incalculable, for, as Mr. Guizot well says, "Social stability requires character; character requires religion ; religion requires worship ; and worship requires a Sabbath." Edmund Burke ascribed the horrors of the French Revolution to the abolition of the Sabbath by the French Government. The overtaxed nerves and overworked brains of that high,strung, hot. blooded people plunged them into an unparalleled abyss of cruelty and excess. It is doubtless due only to the Brazilian's constitutional indisposition to haste, to doing to-day what may possibly be postponed till to-mor· row, that has prevented through all these years It similar uprising of his overtaxed nerves and brains.
Religion and morality divorced? This is a very grave charge; is it a just one? Let us see. It is very common to meet people who enjoy the reputation of being very religious. They go to mass regularly, take part in all the processions, are well versed in the peculiar doctrines of the Romish Church, contribute their money liberally, help the poor, and, in short, display an unusual religious zeal. Does it follow that they are likewise very moral and upright? Perhaps a business transaction would be a conclusive answer, as one is likely to carry away the impression that he has the worst of the bargain. Take, for example, the priests, who are very attentive generally to their round of religious ceremonies and duties, but whose lives are grossly and notoriously immoral. Many of them make no secret of keeping paramours in their homes, and their shameless inter· course with the women is a common subject of remark. On one occasion, while I was engaged in preaching to the people, an assault was made on my life by a band of drunken ruffians, led by the priest of the village, who had given them liquor from his own shop with which to incite them to this deed of violence. It frequently happens that, where Romish influence is particularly strong, a whole community will be set against the Protestants, whose lives are without reproach and who are seeking only to do good, while in this very place the same influence has exalted the most immoral men to the highest positions in Church and State. Many a time has the priest spent the time allotted for his discourse in abusing the few humble, harmless Christians worshiping quietly in another part of the town, tho he had not a word of censure or warning for the notorious sinners before him, who doubtless were the chief supporters of his church. We have here an explanation of the singular fact that in those papal lands where Romanism seems to have the strongest hold in the affection and devotion of the people the proportion of crime is greater than in Protestant countries. For example, the rate of illegitimate births in London is 4 per cent. ; but in Paris it is 33 per cent. ; in Brussels, 35 per cent. j in Munich, 48 per cent. ; in Vienna, 51 per cent. Religion and morality in the Romish system may meet and embrace each other in a given individual-the probability is they will not. I do not affirm that the papal Church in Brazil, any more than Ellsewhere, openly makes light of good morals and a holy life, or formally rejects the fundamental truths of God's Word. No, she dare not do this ani still seek to palm herself off as the Christian religion. Just here we find the difficulty that causes so many to hesitate in condemning as apostate a Church that makes such high pretensions, claiming apostolic sanction, appealing to her many charities, and citing the lives and teachings of many eminent saints within her communion. Can a church with such a record and with so many professions of attachment to Christ and His religion be false and apostate ~ The proper way to deal with such objections and to consider the Church of Rome is to examine not her ostensible, but her real nature; not her professions, but her practices; and thus looking beneath the surface, to find if, under a profession of Christianity, there is not something in doctrine or practice that in effect makes void the Christian truth and life. Applying this test that searches the real character of Romanism and is not baffled or diverted by her ostensible nature, the arrogant pretensions and great swelling words of vanity, we are bound to believe that she has actually made a mock of virtue and put a premium upon vice j and instead of operating as the light of the world, and making herself felt throughout the earth as a preserving salt, she has, on the contrary, corrupted it by the teaching of errors, the sanctification of abuses, and the hatred and scorn exhibited toward the faith and purity of the saints. Coleridge, who was himself a Romanist, has left this remarkable testimony : "When I contemplate the whole system as it affects the great fundamental principles of morality, the terra finna, as it were, of our humanity i then trace its operation on the sources and conditions of national strength and well- being ; and lastly consider its woeful influences on the innocence and sanc- tity of the female mind and imagination, on the faith and happiness, the gentle fragrancy and unnoticed, ever-present verdure of domestic life, I can with difficulty avoid applying to it what the Rabbins fable of the fratricide Cain, after the curse : that .the firm earth trembled wherever he strode, and the grass turned black beneath his feet" (Shedd's edition of Coleridge, vol. vi., p. 103).
From these general features of Brazil's religious condition I turn now to call attention to several obstacles one encounters in the practical work of evangelization.
I mention, first, family and national pride. The traditions of the past, social and political as well as religious, are connected with the Romish Church. Hence many of the oldest and most aristocratic families are un- willing to sever their connection with that which has become sacred and venerable with age. There is to-day many a man in the Romish Church of Brazil solely because his father was there. This pride has deluded many into the belief that the Church herself is all right, and that the undeniable corruptions are the work of the clergy. The literal meaning of this is that.we will hold on to our Church at any hazard! Another obstacle is the system 'of spon8ors, by which nearly the whole population, of towns and districts is bound together in a network of artificial ties. A child at its baptism has sponsors along with its natural parents. At marriage. other sponsors are appointed. Thus, these numerous ties, supplementary to those of consanguinity and affinity, bind each man and each family so closely to nearly every other man and family of the neighborhood that oftentimes those who would otherwise attend the Protestant services are kept away by the fear of giving offense to some one of their numerous connection, who, perchance, is a strong Romanist. The Church of Rome has gone to the spider and has proved no sluggard in learning his ways.
The other obstacle I wish to mention is a prevalent infidelity, found not only in Brazil, but in all Romish countries. The human mind at last revolts against the slavery, the mass of absurdities and superstitions, and the frightful abuses and immoralities, as well as the preposterous dogmas of the Romish system, and unfortunately, tho naturally, rushes to the other extreme of infidelity, skepticism, and atheism. As a distinguished theologian has said : "By a fatality of error which seems to be characteristic of this grand apostasy, the Church of Rome is at once the patron of atheism and the parent of superstition." In the rebound from religious shams and a galling bondage the mind will not brook restraint, but converts its liberty into license and rushes headlong into wild excesses, forgetful of its own limitations and necessities, seeking rest in its own speculations and in the deductions of an impotent philosophy. Confounding two things so dissimilar as the Church of Rome and the Christianity of the New Testament, these free-thinkers indisciminately denounce both. They treat with contempt any effort to bring them under the power of a religion that bears the faintest resemblance to that from which they have just escaped. Hence the great disadvantage one labors under in papal lands from the verbal and apparent similarity between Rome and Christ, between the vital organism of Christian truth and that which is an empty shell, without the informing spirit and power of godliness. An apostate Ohristianity is Satan's masterpiece!
The question is sometimes asked: "Well, with what success do you meet in your work ?" "Are you making any impression upon the people and gathering, many converts 1" Only the careful observer who has lived in Brazil for some years and can look beneath the surface at the undercurrents of thought and action is competent to answer properly such questions. The cursory traveler would be impressed with the crowds that accompany the religious processions on feast days and throng the churches on the occasion of some imposing ceremony, and he would be surprised at the comparatively small Protestant congregations. Thus, he might at once infer that Romanism was still overwhelmingly triumphant. But a longer experience and a more intimate acquaintance with the people would disclose the fact that a large proportion of those who attend the processions and the churches are infidels and free-thinkers, entirely out of sympathy with the priests and their religIOn. They are willing t{) be found in such company for the excitement and pleasure. One never sees in Brazil the harmless social diversions and sports that form so attractive a feature of American and English life and act as the safety. valve of society; and as edncational and literary facilities are very limited, life would be dre~rily monotonous were it not for the constantly recurring feast days and the elaborately arranged processions and church ceremonies. These break the routine of business and serve to divert the minds of the people. The Church engages to provide amusement, and, in fact, has so entwined herself with the civil, social, and domestic customs and life of the people that the civilization of a Romish country gravitates about the Church and is regulated and controlled by her shaping, powerful hand. Hence, if one could analyze the crowds in the processions or at the festivals, he would be surprised to find how few are devout Romanists and how many are merely seeking excitement and pleasure and the society of the women who, attired in their prettiest costumes, are always present in large numbers. I should also add that many break with the Church as the dispenser of religion who are unwilling to avow openly their alienation, and thus expose themselves to an inevitable" boycott" and lose their means of livelihood. From this exposition of the Church's seeming popularity some idea may be formed of what it costs a humble man or woman to come out boldly on the Lord's side-the setting aside of cherished tradition, the endurance of social ostracism by friends and relatives, and the sacrifice of business interests and prospects. When we add the claims of the papacy to be the true
BEFOBHS IN CHINA
Church of Christ, and the plausible sophistries by which she seeks to support her pretensions, we readily perceive how loth men will be to run counter to their customs and prejudices and embrace a new doctrine and order. To dislodge Romanism from the carnal heart of man, which she can allure so well with her seductions, and where she has entrenched herself so strongly, is a slow and most difficult task-one that can be accomplished only by patience, tact, and persevering prayer. But, thank God, the Saviour already has His blood-bought trophies in Brazil, and they are numbered by the thousands! So far as I can judge, the evangelistic outlook is brighter and more encouraging now than it has ever been.
Is there not a lesson for us Americans and for the world in the fact that an overruling Providence allotted Brazil to the papal Church, and the United States of North America to the Protestant ~ These Western continents appeared above the horizon about the time Protestantism was born in the throes of the great Reformation, when the papal power was supreme and possessed of the fairest of earthly regions. At this juncture the two contending systems were transplanted to the virgin soil of the New World to work out their respective destinies and exhibit their respective natures and tendencies untrammeled by the prejudices and pre-existing institutions of the Old World. Three centuries have rolled by. In our free and glorious republic we have the product of Protestantism j in Brazil we see the fruit of Romanism! "By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ~ Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit j but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. " With this unmistakable and Divine object-lesson before our eyes, when Rome has the preposterous audacity to invite us, with soft words and arrogant pretensions, to seek rest and the solution of all our problems within her bosom, shall we go ~ God forbid !
REFORMS IN CHINA.
BY REV. GILBERT REID, CHINAN FU, CffiNA.
For months the eyes of the whole civilized world have been turned to the two nations of the Orient, Japan and China, with augmented glory to the former and shame to the latter. To the Christian what is of more importance is the increased volume of prayer which has ascended to the Sovereign over all-more, if anything, for China than Japan-because of the weakness and peril in which the former has been placed. More than ever could Christians in China thrill with hope when they think of this power coming to their aid. But will China learn from these lessons and begin to reform ~ Will she, as well as the missionary, look up to the true God and throw aside her errors, evils, and misfortunes f We dare not
REFORMS IIi CBIl'I'A
prophesy, but we believe that these are d!lYs of providential interposition, hastening on the coming of the kingdom.
One thing we may safely do, and that is to examine calmly the ques- tion of the reforms in China, for which intelligent men are looking with dubiousness or wonderment. While ranking personal conversion supreme, I now deal with reform just as it receives attention at home.
First, then, let us notice the reforms which are needed. In China, both among foreigners and Chinese, there are two conceptions of reform. One class is inclined to emphasize material reform j the other, moral re- form. One class dreams longingly for more wealth j the other for more honesty. One class advocates a stronger navy and army, trained according to the Occident, railroads, mills and factories, new roads, mines, and currency, increased trade and commerce j the other class, beginning with virtue, would eradicate the present peculations and corruption, adopt a better judicial system, establish schools and universities, bring in new professions, advance religious instruction, and then, subordinate to all, encourage every factor of material growth.
Of these two classes we emphatically plead for the second. Better the old conservative civilization, slow and heavy, with the ever-increasing opportunity for missionary ingrafting, than a new civilization wherein military glory is sought and military defense made supreme. Better the quiet workings of the leaven of Christianity, as seen the last thirty years, than a feverish ambition for wealth, with the increased development of the already existing mercenary proclivities of the people.
No j reform in China, as in Paris, London, Chicago, or New York, means the destruction ji"lJt of vice, dishonesty, fraud, and lawlessness. Without this starting-point I dare not hope for any permanent improvement as a result of the war. The overruling power of God must surely be for things moral, spiritual, and divine, and without an overruling power of God I for one look for no blessing from this needless unjustifiable slaughter of life and waste of money. It -was only the other day that the British minister, himself a Roman Catholic, remarked to me : "China, first of all, must learn honesty and adopt honest methods. "
In true reforms, then, and with a correct mutual inter-relationship, we specify the following: 1. A change of official custom, so that bribery and extortion would be forbidden, and wherein every officer, high and low, would have a definite and increased salary, beyond which no one should step with safety. 2. The establishment by the government all over the land of schools for teaching Western branches and for emphasizing ethics as one of the branches, and the resuscitation of the educational commission for sending young men to be trained abroad. 3. Change in the laws of the land, the opportunity for appeal without the necessity for bribery, the removal of the custom of extorting confessions by means of cruelty, and the gradual establishment of a respected profession of barristers acquainted both with Chinese and foreign law. 4. 'the extension of religious toleration, so that a man could hold office without any religious re- quirement. 5. Along with all these, I would favor the material improvement-hardly to be called reforms-such as railroads, mining, improved agriculture, factories, and, if necessary, a navy and army. Moral first and material second.
Secondly, we are to consider who are the Chinese to initiate and favor these reforms. The American, living amid republic institutions, is apt to look to the creation of popular sentiment. This, to be sure, is an aid in China not to be despised. The people have a voice, even tho the system of government be monarchical. Of the two great Chinese philosophers, Confucius and Mencius, the former emphasized the power and duties of the ruler, while the latter the right of the people. To initiate anything pertaining to the country, the all-important factor is the ruling classes. Others may bring pressure to bear, even to the point of revolution j but the men in power, and placed there by the decree of God, are the responsible agents to be moved. They, so far as China is concerned, are the ones to start reforms. H they are corrupt, as most people suppose, they mnst begin with themselves. Hence the first moral reform which we have indicated is that pertaining to the officialdom. With this unchanged, the country will be unchanged.
H reforms a century and more ago could take place in British officialdom, why may it not come to-day in China ~ An a priori argument, however, is not enough. China can't be studied by analogy.
Looking at the leading men in China to-day-and if reforms come, they must probably come through such-we mention certain names and make certain specifications.
First of all, the name which occurs to all is that of the Grand Secretary and Viceroy, Li Hung Chang. He has been for years conspicuous for his progressiveness. He was the one who advocated the navy, a railroad, the telegraph, and Western medical science. All save the last are in the line of material expansion, and this has been about the proportion of material and moral reform in his own mind. While thus extolled as the man of progress, he has had around him a herd of corrupt officials. He has never sought to rid the nation of this corruption, but has himself amassed wealth. His conscience has never been equal to his brains. Hence his foes and the mass of the censors have denounced him and all his satellites as rolling in corruption and bringing ruin to the country. In talking with a foreigner who has been with him for years, and expressing my fear that the changes which Li would bring if he should succeed in making peace would only tend to augment the corruption, his reply was, "Li has learned much of late, and knows pretty well the men ~round him j he will not allow such corruption again, but will make real changes. "
A rival of Viceroy Li in the provinces is the viceroy now located at Nanking, Chang Chih-tung. For years he was regarded as anti-foreign, while seeing the necessity of foreign inventions. Some two years ago, when visiting the city where he was then a viceroYt I learned that he had not yet received the American consul, altho he was at the same time building a massive foundry and cotton-mill. As for moral reforms, he has always been regarded as personally incorruptible, but never exerting himself to check it in his subordinates. Since the war he has shown greater friendliness to foreigners as such, and might almost be called more pro-foreign than his former rival, and more opposed to corruption. Aside from his visionary and somewhat fickle disposition, he may be put down as one of China's reformers. In all this Rev. Timothy Richard has exerted an influence for more than fifteen years.
The rival of Viceroy Li in the counsels of the court has been the imperial tutor, President of the Board of Revenue, and now member of the Grand Council, Wung Tung-ho. In point of Chinese scholarship he ranks ahead of even the other two. He has been opposed to the railroad and to spending money on an army and navy. He has. been, hence, the great anti-foreign leader. At the same time, he has been a man of upright habi.ts, not working for money, and anxious to see the government rid of its existing peculations. Largely through him edict after edict rang forth through the winter against the corrupt military officers, as well as against Li. He was head of the war party, because he believed the attack and inroads of Japan were unjust. As for being anti-foreign, I may say that, when I saw him in my first interview in early March, I was never treated with more courtesy, this distinguished official dressing himself in his robes and escorting me on my departure clear from the guest hall to my cart on the street. I certainly reckon him as a moral reformer, and properly convinced he may yet favor material improvements from abroad. With him I would also place a former imperial tutor, now seventy-five years of age, Li Hung-tsao.
High in the government is Prince Kung. Before his retirement in 1884 he was considered pro-foreign and a friend of Li. At that time the censors got at him, along with three others in the Grand Council, and denounced them all for peculations in connection with certain mines in Yunnen province. From the experience of the war he is still more in favor of change, and would probably include therein moral reforms.
Above all these I have mentioned are the emperor and his aunt, the empress-dowager. The latter has been the advocate of peace and the former of war. Of moral reforms I would have more hope from the young emperor aided by the imperial tutor.
Thirdly, and very briefly, we may consider the aid which missionaries, and, in fact, all Christians, may render. First, there is prayer, and this power, backed by God's promises, is incalculable. Let us all " continue instant in prayer" for China's regeneration, and so of reform. Secondly, there is the spiritual leaven of the heavenly kingdom, and as the leaven affects the whole lump, so the kingdom is affecting the whole empire.
A TREE WITHOUT BOOTS
With the experience of the war I am sure masses of the people can now be led to inquire the way of salvation. Thirdly, direct influence on the officials themselves. More than ever is such work needed. It is a crisis in China, and men actuated by the highest spiritual motives are wanted to counsel, exhort, and aid, as Providence, hearing the prayers of His people, shall guide and command. Denominational boards may shrink from such work as not their legitimate function, but it is a duty none the less for the Church. It is also a calling for the missionary that these men in power may see that their truest friends are those who are not ashamed to call themselves the ambassadors of God to save, through the Divine redemption and the Spirit's regeneration, both individuals and nations. Then will the song sung 2300 years ago be fulfilled, "Gentiles shall come to His light, and kings to the brightness of His shining."
A TREE WITHOUT ROOTS.
BY REV. CHARLES C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.
The REVIEW, having received from the learned author a complimentary copy of the essay noted below, * ought not to neglect taking some notice of it. Undoubtedly much in this paper is valuable and sound. We note some points. The religious faculty, tho not always much developed, is an essential part of the human constitution. The essential postulates of religion,' martyrdom, miracles, prophecy, high morality, the apprehension of a future state, pure and self-devoted lives, the brotherhood of man, and to some extent the Fatherhood of God, are found expressed and influential in religious documents of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, India, Persia, China, and other countries. Some men out of the line of either Testament, like Socrates and Buddha, have uttered thoughts which the world will not easily let die. There are accumulating evidences that God will have all men to be saved, and that many souls in all lands, even as weighed down by unworthy superstitions, have felt His renewing power.
On the other hand, outside of the Greco-Roman ideas, of Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, few systems of moral and religious apprehension have been developed, and fewer still have survived in any continuous influence on the life of mankind. Those less coherent systems were not crushed, but died of their own incoherence.
There are many other things in the essay of great value as illustrating the SJlrit of God struggling with tho sins and low conceptions of mankind, * Essay on the Ancient Religions of the World, before the Great Anno Domini, contributed to the Tenth International Oriental Congress, held at ('",neva, September, 1894, by Robert Needham (Just, LL.D., Honorary Secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Hertford. Printed by Stephen Austin & Sons, 1894. winning many anticipatory victories, and preparing the way for a final and conclusive victory under the leadership of Christ.
The essay, however, has some serious faults, and we are obliged to say that in our view the faults much outweigh the merits. Not to mention a comparatively trifling one, the somewhat pedantic and oversolicitous spirit of classification, which does not give a very strong impression of clean cleavage, of striking always through the main joint.s of the subject, tho certainly more successful than a classification once made by Dr. Cust in the Intelli9~r, the author seems to have made an extraordinary rebound from a position of rigorous orthodoxy, or even hyperorthodoxy, to something that might almost be designated a modern Marcionism, not, indeed, as teaching a greater and a lesser God and a phantasmal Christ, but as using a tone of most contemptuous disparagement toward the Jewish race, which is necessarily reflected on the Old Testament.
Before remarking on this, however, we will remark on these words: "All expressions of abuse, or disparagement, or praise of the subjects discussed are out of place; all contrasts of one with another, favorably or unfavorably, are equally avoided. There is not the least reason for attributing to the writer any laxity or haziness in· his own religious persuasions; quite the contrary ; they are dearer to him than life, but they are placed on one side in this discussion as they would be in solving a mathematical calculation," etc. Now, this appears to us a wholly false position. Of course a Christian believer, if gathered with a large company of unbelievers to consider religious phenomena scientifically, will use good sense and courtesy, but it is hard to see why he should conceal his own belief, and,. so far as occasion serves, the grounds of it. Assuredly unbelievers do not conceal their unbelief and the grounds of it. Who ever heard of a scientific meeting, at which, if the discussion turned on religion, an unbelieving member held himself bound to a colorless neutrality? Why, then, should a believer be bound to it 1 This seems both spiritless and unscientific. Moreover, it is impossible. The whole tone in which a real Christian treats of religion will of absolute necessity show him to be a Christian. The almost complete success, therefore, with which the author of this essay has succeeded in discharging all Christian complexion from his religious science is not precisely the strongest evidence of a faith dearer to him than life. He does, indeed, so far forget his non-religious attitude in discussing religion as to refer to Christ as the Divine Wisdom who assisted in the creation of the world, and who appeared in "the great Anno Domini. " But this passage is so detached from the essay at large as to sound somewhat perfunctory and formal.
The author, however, when he comes to handle the Jews, forgets all his previously assumed obligations of courtesy and neutrality, and pours out on them, and by implication on much of the Old Testament, a torrent of disparagement, we might almost say of contemptuous abuse, which might well delight the heart of an Ingersoll. Every disparaging epithet addressed to them by Moses or the prophets, when contrasting their actual character with thll high ideal to which they are called of God-epithets, therefore, which simply show them to be a true specimen of mankindevery such style of address is uRed by him as implying a contrast of inferiority to the human race at large. He describes them as " a nation of slaves"-as if every people of Europe had not until lately been a slave nation. The most that an aristocratic English family ventures to boast is that the shape of its instep shows that it has had no slave in the line for four hundred years. The author, while dwelling with scornful satisfaction on their successive states of vassalage to neighboring great powers, which, nevertheless, as he knows, had very little to do with their internal development, has nothing to say of the lordly consciousness and exploits of warlike valor which illustrate the Old Testament and the Apocrypha, and which gleam with lurid magnificence in the closing agonies of Jerusalem. He puffs at the kings of Israel as " petty rajahs," and computes that their dominions would make two good-sized Indian districts, such as he has had the honor to help administer. We believe the smallness of Palestine is pretty well understood, and had supposed that the Old Testament brought out with sufficient distinctness its great political and military inferiority to Egypt, or Assyria, or Persia. Nor, we believe, has the Christian world had to wait for Dr. Cust to inform it that the greatness of Jewish kings rests mainly on the trust which they had to guard, and is not to be measured by the standard of mere physical bigness, which, in consequence of the author's Indian experiences, seems to have laid as overmastering a control on his imagination as if he were a Mr. Jefferson Brick holding forth on Independence Day. Small as the Holy Land is, how· ever, we believe that it is a good deal larger than either Attica or Latium, neither of which territories exactly suffers by a comparison of its historical significance with the biggest of those Indian provinces which have contributed to Dr. Cust's sense of his own importance, as has sometimes appeared before in a manner a little verging on the ludicrous. Never having had the honor of administering an Indian province, ·or even district, we criticise easily a temptation to which we have never been exposed. However, we know of no law of the kingdom of God which forbids the author of this essay to approve himself as enjoying as high a place in the history of mankind as David or Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah or Josiah. Whether he has this, posterity will decide.
The author attacks and reviles the poor Jews on every side. The trifling initiatory excision of Judaism is magnified by him into a portentous mutilation which ineffaceably brands its adherents as belonging to the ignobler races of mankind. Because the Israelites agreed with most of the ancient races of mankind in expressing the sense of sin and the need of self-devotion by animal sacrifices, and because their peculiarly deep sense of sin caused these sacrifices to be developed into peculiarly large proportions. he scoffs at them with a tone of lofty superiority which reminds us just enough of Paul's mention of " the weak and beggarly ele- ments" to startle us by its utter incongruity with it. '
The author does not seem able adequately to give vent to his scorn of the Jews, to his sense of their immeasurable inferiority to their neighbors, Eastern and Western. Nothing that they are, have, or do can please him. It is even a count in the indictment against them that nobody but themselves used their written character, tho he does not make apparent of what earthly consequence this fact is, inasmuch as the character is easily learned, and as the Old Testament has acted chiefly on mankind through its innumerable translations. He carps at the Hebrew language because it is so inferior to many others in subtlety and symmetry. This inferiority is undisputed. It was not appointed to enshrine the wide range of sec- ondary ideas, or even all the ramifications of spiritual maturity. And by the very fact of its comparative unsusceptibility on this side, it has all the better, by its intuitive simplicity and vivid figurative distinctness, and by a uniformity correspondent to the nature of religious emotion, established in the center of mankind those deep foundations of primary relig- ious thought and feeling on which the great Christian fabric has been built up, and without which it would certainly tumble into cureless ruin. And even when the necessities of a wider spiritual development, appointed for all mankind, made requisite that the Gospel of the kingdom should be expressed in the ampler proportions of the Greek, it was a Greek that could only be fitted for its sacred charge by becoming thoroughly colored and imbued with the simplicity of Hebrew intuition, which even then could not remove a certain pagan chill from the new tongue, until at last the New Testament, having fashioned Christian tongues, could then ponr itself into vehicles combining Hebrew intuitiveness and warmth with Hellenic amplitude. But of all this Dr. Cust says not a word. The Hebrew is ill adapted, certainly, for metaphysics, altho we have been informed by Dr.
Schaff that the elder Thiersch once held a conversation in Hebrew with a Polish Jew on the Hegelian philosophy. It is probably still worse adapted for reproducing the pessimistic mysticism of the Hindu Upanishads. But it was not providentially appointed for this. Why' does not Dr. Cust object to it that it would be with great difficulty that anyone could render into it the astonishing vocabulary of our athletic world ~ It has nobly served and still nobly serves its one great appointed end, which is, in the words of the Athenceum, as the great and simple language of a great and simple people, to embody eminently the temper of wise wonder in view of this universe of ours, and of noble humility before that God" in whose great hand we stand."
It redounds, 'in Dr. Cust's view, by no means to the honor of the Old Testament as compared with the sacred books of other lands, especially of the extreme Orient, that while the Jews are supposed to have borrowed some- what from Zoroastrianism, the great conceptions of the East borrowed nothing from them and did not even know of their existence. What a fatuous conclusion! Then if it should appear that there are ootional inhabitants of Mars, we could comfort ourselves that we are at least immeasurably their superiors, inasmuch as until lately we knew nothing of their existence, and have not even yet borrowed anything of them! Dr. Cust must have been hard pressed for a stone to throw at t.he Jews when he can use such a style of reasoning. Not to say that the latest studies, those of James DarIlletester, appear to leave it probable that the later Mazdeism is a cross between the earlier Mazdeism and Judaism, does Dr. Cust mean to deny that it would have acted like a clear wind passing over a heavy sky.if India could have been purged of her nebulous confusion between the Creator and the creation by a faith in the living God coming upon her from the Old Testament ~ It is certain at least that eminent Hindus begin now to signify that their religion is doomed ·unless it can in some as yet incomprehensible way reconcile its historical continuity with the theism of Israel and of Christendom. As to China, would Confucianism have become that arid system of mere social ethics, constantly tending to degenerate into mere social etiquette, which it now is, if, for the vagueness of an impersonal heaven, its founder had laid hold of belief in the living God, Creator of heaven and earth ~ Would the profound and sublime speculations of a Lao tse, coming at so many points nearer the Gospel than perhaps anything else outside of the Gospel, have degenerated into a system of vulgar jugglery, had this great sage been able to root it into historical deeds of the self-revealing God ~ No one denies, certainly no Christian, that the Old Testament of itself is incompetent to redeem the world. The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than the greatest of the prophets. But it is none the less true, as has been well said, that the Old Testament, with the New, is written from the nucleus of human nature. And the Old Testament alone gives its historical place in the world to the kingdom of God. Christendom has no meaning without Israel. If Jesus is not the Messiah, He to whom Israel looked forward, He is only a vagrant and transitory phenomenon of religious hallucination, as, indeed, those so-called Christians, who, like the Gnostics of old, divide Jesus from the Christ, seem to be coming to regard Him. This is certain, to treat Christ as the wisdom of God, and at the same time to pour contempt upon the Jews for having in the Old Testament accounted themselves as centrally placed in the world, is, as says the prophet to Israel, to " limp" between two incongruous and incompatible positions. Certainly at this present, Christendom is central in the world, mentally, ·morally, religiously, and civilly; and Christendom is sprung out of Israel. Undoubtedly there may be found in Eastern and Western religious philosophies abundance of deep and valuable religious thought, which, absorbed and digested in the consciousness of the Church, will greatly enrich it. As saith St. Hilary, truth, by whomsoever spoken, is of the Holy Ghost. Yet it is none the less true that, as was once reo marked by that great admirer of the East, Max Miiller, to Principal,Fair. bairn, it is a great advantage when the Bible can be treated coordinately with the other religious books of the race, inasmuch as only in that way can its immeasurable superiority over them all be adequately displayed.
Dr. Cust's professed reverence for" the great Anno Domini" turns to something that sounds very much like mockery in the bitter remark, borrowed from Voltaire, and certainly very slightly mitigated from his hatred, not only of Judaism, but much more of Christianity : "It is a comfort to think that none of the elder religious conceptions of the world were intolerant, .or propagandist by the arm of the flesh, or were possessed with that evil and aggressive spirit which became the feature of the conceptions dating after the Anno Domini." Now, what does this mean but that the coming of Christ, of its own proper force, developed a spirit of evil and cruel aggressiveness in the world, which is a true characteristic of his religion and shows it to lie on a lower plane than the earlier religions ~ This certainly is the natural inference unless Dr. Cust had taken pains to say that this persecuting spirit was a stage through which Christianity must pass, but which was alien to its true nature and which it is fast overcoming. Yet so far from taking pains to say this, he has taken pains not to say it. The remark retains in his mouth the unrelieved malignity of a bitter sneer.
To this malicious declaration of Cust we count it enough to oppose the words of the illustrious Italian theologian and philosopher, Vincenzo Gioberti: "Voltaire is fond of repeating that Christianity is the only religion that has kindled religious wars ~ that the blood shed by it has been immense. Most true. But this is just what proves the greatness of Christianity ; because the abuse corresponds to the use, and the corruption of the best is the worst. This engendered a phenomenon till then unheard of-war for ideas. Before Christ men used to fight only for gain, for ambition, for power. After Christ, they fought ofrell for the consubstantiality of the Word, justifying grace, etc. This scandalizes the lightminded- Voltaire, Gibbon [Cust], etc.-but it is sublime. Good is found in the very evil of Christianity and progress in its regress. "
It is very evident that Dr. Cust interprets the religious neutrality which he was bound to observe at this convention in a very peculiar sep-se. We will venture to say that there was not an unbeliever present who would not have been ready to say to him: "My dear sir, if you are a Christian, I can only hope that the number of such Christians as you may rapidly increase."
The author would do well to bring some important points of his scholarship nearer to date. Thus he tells us that Cyrus was not an idolater, notwithstanding that Cyrus's proclamation, discovered several years ago, which he issued on entering Babylon, boasts of the devout worship which he rendered to all the gods of Babylon, and the care which he took of their temples. Indeed, it is now known that genuine Zoroastrianism was not restored in Persia until the time of Darius Hystaspis. So also he
REV. I!Hl!lLDON JACKSON. D.D
boasts in behalf of Buddhism, that in spite of all our Crusades and Inquisitions, it has a far greater number of nominal adherents than we, as if the high authority of Dr. Legge and other Orientalists had not shown that the number of Buddhists in the world cannot at the outside be put beyond 100,000,000, except by throwing in the whole population of China, who, apart from the monks and nuns, and probably a small number of laity, do not dream of calling themselves Buddhists, altho they very commonly call in the monks to celebrate the imposing funeral rites of their religion.
This essay is too vituperative of the Jews and too sneering and bitter in various allusions to Christianity to be well entitled to a place in science j it is too large in its praise of various pagan systems, and too scant in its praise of the Gospel, to be well suited for a Christian tract j and it is traversed by somewhat too many expressions of reverence for the Redeemer and the prophets to be well suited for circulation by a Freethinkers' club. On the whole, without impugning the author's good faith in declaring that his Christian belief is dearer to him than life, we must in all frankness say that he has, as appears to us, evolved a document which is fitted for nothing so well as for the use of" the foolish people who are serviceable neither to God nor to His foes."
REV. SHELDON JACKSON, D.D. PIO~"'EER MISSIONARY TO ALASKA.
BY OSCAR E. BOYD, NEW YORK:.
Dr. Jackson was born at MinaviIIe, New York, May 18th, 1834. He was educated at Union College and Princeton Seminary, and was ordained to the ministry in 1858.
He began his missionary life in Indian Territory among the Choctaw Indians the same year. Failing health compelled him to leave this mission and seek a colder climate. He became a home missionary in Wisconsin . and Minnesota. His zeal and success in his work quickly carried him into the front ranks, and he was appointed general missionary of Southern Min- , nesota, and tshortly afterward to the general superintendency of that vast field embracing Western Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, Utah. and Idaho. Over one hundred churches owe their existence to his labors.
While working in this field his sympathies were awakened to the- hope- less condition of the women and children of the Indians, the Mexicans, and the Mormons. The ministers of the Gospel were unable to reach them. If reached at all, it must be through the agency of woman j thus the teacher became a necessity in order to prepare the way for the minister, and to be an aid in his work by mingling with the people in their homes and by daily teaching the Gospel truths in connection with the elements of an ordinary education. With his usual zeal Dr. Jackson began to plead by pen and voice with the women of the Presbyterian Church that they organize for the purpose of raising money for the support of teachers. These appeals, combined with those of other zealous and enlightened missionary workers, resulted in the organization of the Woman's Executive Committee of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in December of 1878, whose marvellous success in raising funds for missions is one of the miracles of this missionary period.
Dr. Jackson is not only the founder of missions in Alaska, but is also their untiring promoter. In fact, he might be called the embodiment of all Alaska missions. He has intimate knowledge of every station and of the workers. His writings abound with information regarding the resources of the country, the manners and customs of the people, and their need of the Gospel. His presentation of these needs is so earnest and convincing that his hearers are not only impressed by his pleading, but thrilled with desire to give liberally.
When his attention was first called to the needs of the people of Alaska, he planned to visit them as soon as Providence opened the way. The Board of Home Missions made this possible by sending him on a journey of exploration into the northern limits of Montana and Idaho. Upon his arrival he learned that nothing could be done there because of an Indian outbreak, and he determined to push on to Alaska. Gaining the Board's permission, he passed on to Portland, Ore., and was there further encouraged to go at once by Rev. Dr. LiIidRley, who had made several personal attempts to open up missions in Alaska, but had not been able to secure a permanent missionary. Dr. Jackson took with him Mrs. McFarland, and after seeing the wretched condition of the natives, he left Mrs. McFarland at Fort Wrangel and returned to the East fired with zeal for the relief of these degraded people. His appeals were first made to Presbyterians, who responded generously and opened the first missions in· Alaska. Other denominations soon awoke to the need of work there, and began to consider the calls to establish mission stations. Great wisdom was needed at this time to so direct affairs that several stations be not opened on the same field. Dr. Jackson arranged with the different denominations willing to undertake Alaskan missionary work, and by common consent a portion of the. vast territory was assigned to each. His wisdom and open-hearted frankness in the arrangement of the details of this scheme won all parties. All who know him know well that he is one of the most unselfish of men, and that he has no private ends to advance in his undertakings. His joint offices of United States Agent of Educa- , tion for Alaska and General Missionary for the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions gave him rare opportunities to develop this scheme, while his ardor and undaunted energy fitted him to overcome all obstacles in the way of its accomplishment, many of which would have disheartened other men. His long and perilous journeys, so unostentatiously made over land
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN NORTH KOREA
and into far Arctic seas, are characteristic of the man. No thought of personal danger or isolation hindered the accomplishment of his object.
During his first visit to the Arctic Eskimo he saw the necessity for in- troducing into that desolate region the Siberian reindeer, and thus saving f•tohremneartliyvefsurfnriosmheda food famine, which was inevitable. The walrus, which the chief food supply of the natives along the coast and . islands of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, had been nearly exterminated by whalers. who wantonly shot them for their ivory. By far the greater number of these huge mammals, which were destroyed for their tusks only, were not utilized for food, but were simply left to perish. This destruction of their main dependence made it an imperative necessity to introduce some other. The moss which grows in such quantities in all this region was found to be the same as that which is the chief sustenance of the rein- deer in Siberia. The conditions of climate being similar, it seemed certain that they could be introduced with every hope of success. With this thought in mind Dr. Jackson returned East, and at once began to impor- tune congressmen, politicians, ministers, editors, and everyone whom he could influence until he secured an appropriation from Congress, and the beginning of this most iIllportant undertaking was assured.
In his next trip to this region he secured by purchase sixteen reindeer and turned them loose' upon one of the Aleutian Islands. The next year one hundred and seventy-five were purchased in Siberia and taken to Port Clarence, July 4th, 1892. These increased until in September, 1894, there were five hundred and eighty-eight domestic reindeer in Alaska.
Thus there has been started a nation-saving food supply, the value of which to the future inhabitants of this region who can tell. When these few hundreds of reindeer have increased to many thousands, and the people are assured of their daily food, then will we begin to see the magnitude of this conception of Dr. Jackson. If he had done no other thing than this, his name would deserve the praise of all lovers of humanity.
THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT IN NORTH KOREA.
BY REV. SAMUEL A. MOFFATT, PYENG YANG, KOREA.
The persecution which arose at the time of the stoning of Stephen, resulting in the scattering of the Christians from Jerusalem and the wider heralding of the Gospel, with the establishment of the Church in many places, finds its counterpart in a measure in the persecution of the Pyeng Yang Christians. * In this latter case the Japan-China War has caused the troubled state of the country which followed the persecution, as the Roman occupation * MIsllIOlfABY REVIEW, September, 1894. of J udma caused constant unrest in Jerusalem. The Lord knows better than we how best to make all things work together for the carrying out of His plans and the establishment of His Church among the heathen, and so i~ this case" all were scattered abroad except the missionaries" (apos- tles), and they" went everywhere preaching the ·Word."
The sequel of the persecution, and the way in which God is yet bringing good out of j,he turbulent times in Korea, will be of interest to those who delight in the work of " calling out a people for 1Iis name."
The persecution with the severe beating of Kim and Han, two faithful witnesses of the power of the Gospel, took place under the administration of one of the powerful and well-known Min family, who was then governor of the province. Our little flock was scattered, and the enemies of the Lord prophesied a repetition of the bloody massacre of the Roman Catholics which took place nearly thirty years ago. Fear took possession of those who had begun to inquire into the truth, and for several weeks none but a faithfnl few dared to come near the missionary's lodgings where services were held. Those wore days of fervent prayer and strong supplication, and the faith of the few was visibly strengthened.
The Lord heard us, and soon, through the mediation of the God-fearing American Minister, meted out punishment to the persecutors, and compelled the haughty Min to return the money which had been extorted. News .of this spread quickly through the province, and great was the surprise and exultation of the people that some one had been found who could secure the punishment of one of the Mins. Curiosity to know what this Jesus doctrine is was rapidly growing, and the Lord had His plans for sending His witnesses throughout the province that they might herald the good news unto all these inquiring ones. Already Japanese soldiers were in Seoul. Already the Christians who had gone to the country had scattered books here and there, and had returned. Soon war was declared, the palace was taken by the Japanese, and the Chinese soldiers poured in from the north and took possession of Pyeng Yang. The hearts of all were failing then for fear, but in tho midst of it the oourage and faith of the Christians showed strong and clear, and never before had the name of God been so widely proclaimed in Pyeng Yang. People in fear and trembling sought the Christians and the missionary, asking what they should do, and day after day women came to the wife of our evangelist, one of them remarking: "It is good to come here; it is so restful, for everywhere else all is confusion and fear." Then came the Japanese march on Pyeng Yang. Under the expected bombardment of the city the Chinese general kindly gave me an escort of troops as far as his scouts had gone, and I went to Seoul to await the issue of the battle. Koreans by the thousands had fled, and when the Chinese rout took place, after the battle on September 15th, those who remained fled in wild confusion.
Han and Kim, who had shown such courage under persecution, now showed their faith in God by remaining through the battle, protecting the property and still witnessing of the truth.
The Christians and their families, inquirers, and those who had only heard the name of God and of Jesus, and had witnessed the persecution and the punishment which followed, and the steadfastness of the Christians even under trial, were all scattered in every direction, and wherever they went they carried news of the Jesus doctrine. In the villages in which they settled the Christians assembled their families for prayer. Fathers and mothers, wives and children who before had scoffed, who had reviled them for becoming Christians, now listened to the preaching of the Word, and knelt as prayer was offered unto the only living and true God in the name of His Son Jesus. Some of them have since asked to be received into the church, while probably all have become friendly to the preaching of Christianity. The mother of one of the Christians had in her hasty flight snatched up some clothes, and with them a tract which her son had been reading. In the country village she ran across this tract, and immediately asked her son to read it to her that she, too, might learn to fear no more.
One of the Christians with his family fled to a village where a most earnest inquirer lived, a place which I had visited a short time before, and where tracts had been sold. He was heartily welcomed by. those who had become interested in the truth. They provided for his physical needs, while he set himself to instructing them in spiritual things. Be had been there several months, and in company with the inquirer referred to above, had gone from village to village and house to house proclaiming the good news. In two places they gathered the men for services on Sunday and more thoroughly instructed them. This spring Mr. Lee and I were able to visit this place, and our hearts were made glad as we listened to the accounts of the labors of these men and saw what the Lord had done for them. Each humbly gave all the praise to the other, one saying that he had only gone about sowing the seed while the other had followed and cultivated the field. It was our privilege and joy to enter into their labors and reap the harvest. We enrolled thirty most hopeful, sincere, and earnest catechumens. They have been meeting every Sunday for several months in these two places, fifteen miles apart, have evidently been studying the Scriptures to some purpose, as their intelligent questions plainly showed and as was evidenced by the lives they were living and their joy in Christ's service. As they came from various villages, each man brought a little sack of rice on his back, and this the good wives.and mothers of the Christians in the central villages cooked for them that they might stay all day without expense to their host. We held a number of services with them and met many inquirers. We heard their plans for building churches, for which they had already begun the collection of money, and we rejoiced that the work was being undertaken on the basis of self-support. It was an iI),teresting fact that these Christians had not been interfered with by the Tong Haks, who had arisen in rebellion and who were producing great confusion in that province. They recognized the fact that Christians are the true friends of oppressed Korea. We were in this village in the very midst of the Tong flak excitement, and were visited in a most friendly way by three of the leaders, one of whom I had known before. We held our services in the largest building in the place, which had been used by the Tong Haks as their headquarters, but which was offered for our use. We pointed them most plainly to the only real remedy for the oppression and injustice against which they have arisen, and we were given close attention. While not able to countenance their position, and unable to approve in the slightest the methods they have taken in order to rid themselves of their unjust, wholly unprincipled and cruel officials, yet seeing the so-called "rebels" in their own villages, hearing others describe the raids of the soldiers who march through the country, beating, murdering, and pillaging the inoffensive and helpless people, and knowing as we do the thoroughly corrupt practices of the officials and their underlings, our hearts go out in sympathy toward the poor, misguided Tong Haks, who are more sinned against than sinning.
Since we left there reports have been received of the continued activity of the Christians, and 1 write this on the eve of another visit to them, when I shall hope to baptize a number, organizing them into a church.
In another village to the north of Pyeng Yang a similar work has been going on. Just before the persecution one of our catechumens had invited me to his house that I might preach to his fellow-villagers. Spending a few days with him some twenty men began to assemble· regularly on the Lord's Day to study God's Word. The persecution in Pyeng Yang, with the report that the officials had ordered the arrest of the Christians in this village, caused some to drop out, hut others firmly adhered to their determination to serve Christ. They came to Pyeng Yang, received counsel and encouragement, and soon after were rejoicing over the victory which the Lord had granted. This village being near the main road, it, too, was invaded by both the Chinese and Japanese armies in turn, and these Christians also were most of them scattered that they, too, might more widely witness of Christ. Later, coming back to their homes, they again took up their work. Some of the women became sincere and firm believers, as also several boys of from fifteen to eighteen years of age. Among the latter were two who had been greatly distressed by evil spirits. Over these prayer was offered, a number gathering and, with strong crying and great faith, appealing to God to drive out the evil spirits. Their prayer was answered, and that whole neighborhood bears witness to the fact, that whereas before those two boys were possessed of evil spirits, now they are clothed in their right minds. Those Christians, too, began to plan for a church. They collected some money, and with the aid received from t.he Pyeng Yang Ohristians bought a house and have converted it into a church, the first chu1·ch in Korea wholly provided for out of native funds. This house was said to have been greatly disturbed by the presence of numerous evil spirits, and so they were enabled to get a good strong tiled house for a very small sum, $24 in silver being the price paid for it. I have just returned from a visit to this village, where I baptized seven men and received sixteen more as catechumens upon public confession of their sin and of their desire to serve Christ as they grow in knowledge of His will. This gives us art enrolment of forty-one believers, in- Cluding catechumens, besides a number of women, whom I have not yet been able to meet. The Lord has done great things for this people, and it is a joy indeed to hear them give thanks for the way in which He has led them and relieved them of all their former fear of evil spirits.
This is the kind of work for which the Lord has been preparing, and we bless Him now for the persecutions and troublous times through which He has led us, only that He might work out His own most wise purposes.
As I write this I have been interrupted by my teacher, who hands me a letter from another inquirer twenty-three miles in the country, who writes that in his village there are now twenty men who wish to become Christians. The work is growing faster than we can follow it. Already my plans are laid for visiting three other places, and I do not know just when this call can be heeded. However, the work is the Lord's, and I thank Him that it is His work, and :know that He will provide for it. Inquirers come in daily from all over the two provinces saying they have heard of this doctrine from the men who were scattered from here. They are getting books, they are awakening to a sense of sin, and are going back to gather together all who will join them in the worship of God and in the study of His Word. One man who met me to-day walked in eighty miles on purpose to find me and learn of this doctrine. Oh, for a baptism of the Spirit that we may be used of the Lord for the gathering of His people-a work which He is accomplishing here at this very time!
From Brother McKenzie, a. Nova Scotian Presbyterian located in the western part of Whang Hai province, comes news of like precious blessings and of a similar work of the Spirit. He was there when the Tong Haks rose, ami at first they were suspicious and unfriendly, not knowing what Christianity was.
Last winter he wrote me as follows : " I know you all have borne me continually on the arms of faith and prayer before the Father above. I feel satisfied if that were not so, and so many praying for me in America, that my life were not spared till now. Twice I made ready for death, expecting to have to leave in a few hours. I am thankful if friends who visited me in the darkest hours saw no fear, but I could tell of the power of Jesus to bear us over life's troubles. The darkest hour was brightened by His presence. Saw Kyung Jo started out in the night to see a leader of the rebels who formerly was a friend. He found to his surprise a Testament in his possession. On into the night they conversed over the book, Saw showing him the deeper meaning of God's Word and who Jesus was. He promised his protection. Several times lawless bands came to our neighborhood to wipe out the name of Christ from the land, but were prevented, so that when the crisis was over the passing bands only came to see the foreigner. Far and near they came for medicines and books. One man bought fhe or six Testaments besides a dozen others for his friends to read. Tong Haks and anti-Tong Haks, Christians and anti-Christians joined in erecting a pole near the house I live in to unfurl the banner of Jesus, white with St. George's cross. As it was unfurled we joined in singing, ' All hail the power of Jesus' name.' All were glad to have the banner of peace waving over the village. They first suggested it themselves through our wonderful deliverance and peaceful appearance in the midst of such trouble, while others from far and near were filled with fear:'
The Lord had taken them through these experiences for a purpose, and all these troublous times were to be made to work out His plans. Under date of March 1st Brother McKenzie again wrote: "We are waiting for the snow to clear to begin building the church, the first Korean church with Korean money alone. Already 1000 nyang ($40) is signed by them, besides all the wood given and work gratis. The contract is given out, 800 nyang for the woodwork alone. We would ask you to save up your spare papers and magazines to paper the church. Three Tong Hak chiefs are studying in their homes the Jesus doctrine, and have contributed to the church.
"Ten houses cleaned their homes of tablets last New Year, and no longer worship them nor sacrifice. Sixty or seventy meet twice on Sunday and at prayer-meeting on ·Wednesday night. Their lives are indeed reformed. Every day inquirers come from far and near. Next Sunday we make a new move, going to a near village to preach in a large sarang offered for our use. The women can be in an adjoining room listening. Several boys who can sing will go with us, besides Saw Kyung Jo and one or two others. I purpose securing similar privileges in as many villages as possible, and send them out by twos or more. The Sabbath is well observed in about ten houses. The church will be on the spot where devils received homage a year ago. We have started a school. God has converted a carpenter and farmer who knows Chinese, and he is chosen as teacher. His wages are 250 nyang, five bags unshelled rice, and a suit of clothes. I went this morning on the track of a tiger who visited our village last night and took off a dog. I tracked him to the mountains and got near him, when he roared and ran, leaping from rock to rock. He was within a few yards of me, and only that he disappeared so quickly behind the rocks I would have shot him. I am hoping to get his skin ere I am through with him. If so, I hope to build a church with it. He was quite a monster, and has frequently visited our village this winter.
THE JEWS IN PERSIA•
•• The Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. The prayers of God's people have done it all."
Thus it is that God is working in Korea. Thus it is that He is establishing His work, and one of the most hopeful features of it is that the nat;ives themselves are diligently preaching wherever they go, and that from the start it is planned on the basis of self-support. With such a work developing wit,hin two days' journey of this city, the Pyeng Yang station, consisting of but two ministers (a doctor is under appointment), calls loudly for another man, that one of us may give his time to the work in the farther north around Eui Ju, which is a six days' journey from here, one hundred and seventy miles. There, too, we have two hopeful churches and many inquirers who have not been visited for a year and a half, a young native evangelist alone looking after them. May the Lord send more laborers into this field white already for the harvest.
THE JEWS IN PERSIA.-II.
BY s. G. WILSON, TABRIZ, PERSIA.
The eccentric Wolff visited the Jews in Persia in 1823 and in 1828-33. In 1844 the London Society for the Jews sent out four missionaries, with Bagdad as a center. In 1846 Mr. Stern, of this company, took up his residence in Ispahan. A state of anarchy compelled his withdrawal. In 1852-53 he again visited Persia. In 1866 this mission was suspended.
Work for the Jews has been carried on as part of the work of the Presbyterian Mission in North Persia, and of the Church Mission Society at Ispahan.
Beginning our review of this work at the northwest, our mission has an evangelist among the Jews in Salmas. In Oroomiah some interesting events have occurred among the twenty-five hundred Jews. In 1875-78 there was a movement among the Jews. About twenty-five families rejected the Talmud and traditions. This made a commotion, and the new party was cast out of the synagogue. Persecution followed, and some were fined. They afterward came to the missionaries, wishing to put themselves under the instruction and protection of the mission. A school was opened among them. The government opposed, to prevent our getting a foothold among them. In 1888 this work had a fresh impulse. A boys' school was opened. A sewing and Bible-class was organized with thirty or forty Jewish women in attendance, and a girls' school with thirty-two pupils. The government closed the school for boys, and only half of the girls dared to continue. In 1892 the first fruits of this work were reaped in the baptism of four young Jews, who stood firm, tho beaten and expell~d from the synagogue. An evangelist is working among them in Oroomiah. In Nakada, Suldooz, an evangelist preaches to the one thousand Jews as well as to the Armenians. Once a story was circulated that they had celebrated the passover by drawing a picture of Jesus on the cross and maltreating it. The Mussulmans collected and nearly tore down thcir synagogue. I was invited to this synagogue one evening. It is a plain, mud-plastered room, with a raised platform in the center, upon which I and the rabbis with open Bibles sat down, and about fifty Jews stood around. I attempted to show them Jesus as the Christ, but one cried one thing and one another, like in the theater at Ephesus, and soon it became evident that they were nearly all tipsy. The more sober ones said, " Come in the morning," which recalled Peter's proof of the sobriety of the apostles.
In Upper Kurdistan, including Soujbulak, Mianduab, and Sokkus, there are about two thousand Jews. In Soujbulak we have a school among them. There I attended morning prayers in their synagogue. On the doorpost, inclosed in a glass tube, wert) the Ten Commandments. In one corner were benches for circumcision and the bier. Each worshiper had portions of the Law bound on his arms and forehead with leather cords, and thrown over his turban a thick white veil, which hung over his shoulders. The service, led by three or four rabbis, consisted of prayers from the Psalms and Talmud, and of reading from the Law. Each man held an Old Testament in his hands, and they read in concert or responsively, with frequent hearty amens to the prayers. The attitude varied, being sitting, standing, or bowing prostrate. The climax of the service was reached in the procession of the Law. The manuscript roll was inclosed in a cylindrical case covered with scarlet broadcloth topped with two silver pomegranates, with pendent silver bells, such as hung from the high priest's robe. It was carried in p'rocession through the synagogue, each one devoutly kissing it j the women who had previously held aloof coming forward to take part in this ceremony.
In Mianduab a peculiar case occurred. Rabbi Benjamin had also opposed us. In his school I had had discussions with him, in which he strongly maintained his position. Afterward he was led to profess his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. He thus preached in the synagogue and aroused opposition. His income from the people was cut off, consisting mainly of his fees as teacher and priest and his portion from every animal slaughtered. His wife desired to drive him out of the house. He appealed to us for support. Having been deceived by some" loaves and fishes" converts, we insisted on his finding some means of supporting himself. Meanwhile, the Jews persecuted him. Once they took him to the river and ducked him, thinking to exorcise the evil spirit which the Christians had put into him. Finally he yielded to their threats and went back to Judaism. The Jews immediately presented him with a sum of money, a donkey, and an aba (cloak). He went into a vineyard, bought a quantity of grapes for winter use, loaded them on his donkey, and covered them with his cloak. Coming out of the garden, he was detained for a few minutes, and when he bethought himself of his business, donkey, grapes, and cloak were gone, having been stolen. He remarked, "That is a punishment to me for denying Chl'ist."
In Teheran * considerable work has been done toward evangelizing the Jews, and some have become Christians. In 1875 there were special signs of encouragement. A hundred Jews attended the church services. A school was established which has continued with success until the pres- ent time. Great opposition developed in 1883. The Jewish rabbi who was assistant teacher was compelled to withdraw with his pupils. The principal was threatened with death and hIS scholars beaten. Many left from fear. He, being a Christian, appealed to the government for protec- tion. His persecutors were arrested and fined.
In 1886 a letter was written from the Jewish chief rabbi of Jerusalem to the Shah, complaining against the Protestant school as turning away Jews from their faith, and especially accusing Rabbi Baba, the teacher, of doing harm by inducing many t9 come to school. Baba was thrown into prison by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, was cuffed and beaten, his head was shaved, a chain put on his neck, and his feet made fast in the stocks. Direct appeal on his behalf being linavailing, the good offices of the English and American legations were besought for him, and his release was secured. Other Jewish converts were persecuted at the same time. Baba's father, a physician of note, was imprisoned, but a high official whom he had cured procured his release. This persecution was instigated by' a hostile Jewish rabbi in concert with an oppressive chief of police; but retribution soon overtook them. Within less than a mouth this officer was imprisoned, bound with the same chain, and treated in the same manner because he had accepted a bribe to release a prisoner. He was fined two thousand tomans and dismissed from office. The persecuting Jewish rabbi was turned out of the city and was not seen for days.
One of the teachers in the Teheran school was Nurullah, a baptized convert. He had studied in the Shah's college. Afterward he studied in the Hebrew Missionary Training School in London, spending his vacations in Morocco. He returned to Teheran, and later to Ispahan, where he has a school of forty-five boys, supported by the London Society for the Jews.
Jewish evangelization in Ramadan began to bear fmit in 1875 under Pastor Shimoon. A considerable number of Jews during 1877-80 professed an interest in Christianity. Popular slander reported that a powder mixed with their tea by the preacher persuaded them to become Christians. According to their own statement, forty men, besides women and children, accepted Jesus as the Messiah. They met with much persecution. Ostracized from social intercourse, excluded from the baths and schools, their business was interrupted and their shops were threatened.
* See Bassett's Eastern Missions, pp. 167, 238, and Foreign Missionary, 1886, by Dr. Torrence.
THE MOHAMMEDAN UNlVElU!ITY IN CAIRO
Appeal was made t:> the authorities in Teheran to put a stop to these persecutions. Repeated orders were given. One order of the government declared, "Let thc Jew choose the Christian faith or a Christian the Jewish faith, they should not incur opposition or molestation from anybody. Give such exertion and attention to the matter that hereafter eternally no liindrance shall be placed in the way of those certain individualR of the Jews and Armenians who wish to enter another faith." Notwithstanding these and repeated orders persecutions continued. Several of the prominent Jews were arrested on a false charge, imprisoned, and fined. The chief officer went to them repeatedly in prison and beat them, saying, "You have become filth, turn now and become Mussulman." They answered, "If you cut off our heads we will not deny Jesus." Word of these troubles was telegraphed to Teheran by Pastor Shimoon, and the following day the imprisoned brethren were severely bastinadoed. Inquiry was made from the Foreign Office at Teheran. The governor, enraged at this, called the pastor, reprimanded him for sending word, and having taken seventy tomans from the Jews, commanded the pastor to telegraph to Teheran a message of satisfaction with the governor, and that no money had been taken. On his refusal he commanded him to be bastinadoed. His feet were bound to the stick, but Ibn the entreaty of Dr. Raheem, a Jewish brother who was in favor, he was released. The congregation next addressed a complaint against the governor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the dishonor put upon their pastor. The latter, fearing further violence, took refuge with the Khan of Sheverine, and afterward fied to Teheran. There he laid his case before the Annual Meeting. After a short time he returned with a proper order for his protection.
Shortly after this Rev. Mr. Hawkes went to reside in Hamadan and open up a regular station. Of these baptized Jews, some turned out timeservers, some became Babis, some, as Dr. Agajan, died in the faith, some continue to this day faithful. The younger converts who have been trained iII:, the schools are much more stable. In 1892 I had the privilege of hearing their recitations, preaching to their congregation and communing with them. The work for this remnant of Israel seemed full of hope.
THE MOHAMMEDAN UNIVERSITY OF CAIRo.-The Azhar at Cairo is the great university of the Mohammedan faith. It was founded A.D. 1000, and from 10,000 to 12,000 students are always in attendance, gathered from all parts of Africa. There are 321 sheiks or instructors. The instruction is very superficial, and largely consists of committing to memory and reciting, the subject being the Koran and the traditions founded on it. When their education is finished, some of the students return home, while others, who are to be missionaries, join a caravan, and soon disappear into the heart of Africa.
INTERNATIONAl, DEPARTMEN'r
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEY. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
'rhe Utility of Protestant Missions in partial, that the character of the Mexi- My Native La:nd. cans may be bf.ttcr understood.
1. Speaking in general terms, the * BY JUSTO M. EUROZA. MEXICO CITY. Mexicans are of medium height and are MEXICO. well proportioned. They have low, re- 1. Genel'al .Aspect of the Oountry. ceding foreheads, s:>ft. expressive black eyes, strong teeth, beautifully white 1. The Republic of Mexico is situ- and even, thiele, straight black hair, thin beards, and dark skin, almost oliveated between 14° 80' and 82° 42' south tinted. Deformity is rarely found among the Indian tribes. These are by latitude and 88° 54' 80" and 119° 25' no means repulsive in appearance. The women are usually beautiful; some 80" west longitude from the meridian are fair, with rosy cheeks, and these charms are enhanced by a soft voice, of Paris. pleasing manners, and natural modesty.
2. It is a 'Very mountainous country; 2. The five senses are well developed, especially that of sight, which remains its Cordilleras are a continuation of the good while life lasts. They seldom suffer from skin diseases or stomach Andes. running the entire length of trouble. As they enjoy excellent health, it is not uncommon for them to live to the country. In their sloping to the be a hundred years old.
seacoast, fertile and extensive table- 3. They are very temperate as regards eating, but unfortunately very much lands are formed. given to strong drink.
8. In this wonderful country three 4. The Mexican mind is capable of cultivation in every branch of human distinct climates may be clearly de- science. We boast of good mathemati- cians, renowned architects, sublime fined: (1) The hot country, extending poets, and, among the Romanists, good theologians. '1'he best proof we ha.ve from the coast to an altitude of 8000 of the intelligence, natural talent, and real genius of the Mexicans is this feet above the sea-level; (2) the tem- fact; the conquerors of Mexico, While they undervalued, oppressed, and deperate zone, extending from 8000 to stroyed the conquered nation, had nevertheless to confess that they pos- 5000 feet; (8) the cold zone, which in- sessed a high state of civilization.
cludes all those places having an alti- 5. The Mexicans, like all families of the human race,are at times ruled by tude of more thah 5000 feet.- passion; but are neither so impetuous nor vehement as the people of some 4. It is this difference in altitude other countries.
which causes such differences in prod- uc~. < Gold, silver, copper, iron, zinc, lead, mercury, antimony, arsenic, sulphur, cobalt, opals, turquoise, topaz, garnet, amethyst, etc., are found in i~ mineral regions.
Many valuable woods are found in i~ forests. In the hot zone abundant crops of coffee, sugar· cane, tobacco, and cotton are produced; while in all par~ of the country the common cereals may be advantageously cultivated.
II. Okaracter of tke Ywican People.
In treating this most delicate subject I desire to be perfectly just and im- * The author of this article is presiding elder 6. By Dature they are slow in all their movements, and for Int»icate work reof Hidalgo District Mexico Methodist Episcopal quiring much time and attention they Conference, and is the first Mexican ever lIlIIde are possessed of an admirable amount presiding elder. of patience. Their resignation amounts latter destroyed by a course of thorough, to heroism, and their gratitude toward systematic training. their benefactors is great. They not only lack confidence in foreigners, but III. Institutiona. are deceitful and even treacherous with 1. Scarcely had we passed the horrors them; but this is the logical result of of the war of conquest when it became the way in which their conquerors necessary, in order to avoid certain abused their good faith and loyalty. evils and abuses, to form a colonial gov- ernment; but instead of preventing 7. Naturally they are grave, taciturn, these abuses, they increased, and and dignified. To them virtue is a brought about such oppression and duty which brings its own reward, tyranny that the result was the cry of while vice must be severely punished. independence raised by the never·to·be- forgotten Miguel Hidalgo of Costillo. 8. One great distinguishing char· 2. Years of war and bloodshed folacteristic of the Mexican is his lack of lowed this outburst. and when, in New interest in temporal things. Gold is not Spain, the throne of the Spanish kings an idol to him; he earns it by the sweat tottered and the public mind was fully of his brow, and scatters it freely and persuaded of the immediate triumph of ungrudgingly. the insurgent armies, then Iturbide changed his political creed and entered 9. The indifference of the Mexicans, the ranks of those who fought for the not only as pertains to temporal neces· independence of Mexico. sities of life, but for those for whom When independence was fairly won they labor, causes them to refuse to do he placed himself at the head of affairs, the work required of them; hence they and with fond dreams of a monarchy have the name of being lazy. But the caused himself to be proclaimed Emhonest fact is that in this beautiful coun- peror of Mexico. For this he was contry there is no one more industrious demned to death by a people who were than the pure· blooded Indian. born to be sovereign and free. S. From the ruins of the ephemeral 10. Respect for parents and for old empire of Iturbide the Conservative age is innate in the llexican. The love party arose with renewed determination of the parents for their children is great, to fight incessantly to dominate the as is also that of the wife for the hus- public mind, appealing to the darkness band; but, alas, the husband is too apt of fanaticism to oppose the high aspito care for other women too. rations of the Liberal party. For these desperate struggles between brothers 11. Their courage bursts into daring no one is responsible save the enemies in time of danger, but this extraordinary to free thinking and dignity among daring is easily quelled by the stern the Mexicans: these latter having been glances of the ones who are over them. corrupted and downtrodden by their This may be easily explained by remem- conquerors for more than three hundred bering the shameful treatment to which years, allowed themselves to be ruled they were subjected by their con- by ignorance, superstition, and fanati· querors. cism-tbe crowning work of villainous priests who, in the name of God, sought 12. They are superstitious, like the to annihilate from the Mexican mind ignorant people of all nations. Their all thought of independence. exaggerated and boasted propensity to 4. At last, in spite of unheard·of diffiidolatry is equal to that of any pagan culties, the republic arose with its country. Let it be distinctly under- admirable constitution; and if a few stood that all of the above refers to the ungrateful sons of Mexico, in their despure.blooded native Mexicans, not to peration, yielding to the ambitious those whose blood has been mixed with that of European nations. Undoubtedly there is much…,that is good in the Mexican character and little that is bad. The first may be cultivated, and the schemes of some Europeans, sought to religion. Some were social vultures, wipe ont the republic and establish in now they are transformed into harmits stead an imperial throne for a de- less doves; some were tyrants in the luded prince, it only proved more dis- home, now they are tender parents, astrous for them, bringing down on loving husbands and wives, worthy themselves the censure of all, making citizens, and within the sphere of their them a curse in history. ability participants in the actual prog- ress. These changes are due to the 5. To-day Mexico with her reform influence of Protestant missions, for laws, which originated in the brain of wherever these are established the conher own eminent sons, has begun a new version referred to takes place among era of existence. The independence those who before had professed the and sovereignty of indi vidual conscience Roman Catholic faith, 'W hether it be are one result of these laws. The among the high mountains, Or in the Mexicans may embrace whatever relig- villages, or in the great centers of progion they choose and be protected therein ress and learning. by law. 4. It seems unnecessary to say it, but, 6_ Taking advantage of the above, following the plan I have adopted, I Protestants have sent their representa- must say here that the influence of tives to preach the" glad tidings" of Protestantism sanctifles the home, perthe Gospel of Peace. To.day there are fects society by the self-denying pre-_ twelve different Protestant missions cepts of the lowly Nazarene; and by represented, all of whom have begun the education of the masses, respect for work since 1871, and whose progress is the powers that be, promotion of the most apparent to everyone in Mexico. spirit or liberty. and the teaching of the principles of equality and fraternity, IV. Influence of Protestantism in Protestantism is and ever will be the Memco. grand support of the existing political institutions of Mexico. 1. Here, in this priest-ridden country, it is not to be supposed that Protestant V. Practical ReauZta of P'rotll8tant missionaries will be received as In Missions in Mexico. pagan. countries. Romanism, frantic because of its decline, seeks to preju- In conclusion, it remains for me to dice the popular mind against Protes- give two or three facts. tants by saying that they are working for the annexation of Mexico to the 1. The great majority of the inhab- United States; but this and similar itants of this country are pure-blooded ideas are confined to a few fanatics who Mexicans, whose character we have still have simple faith in what is taught already outlined in this article. This them by the Catholic priests, those great majority remains indifferent to enemies of progress, who claim for them- the institutions by which we are govselves the honor of being God's repre- erned; and. generally speaking, they sentatives on earth. are sunken in the ignorance and super- stition left them by their conquerors in 2. In spite of their cowardly and place of their former freedom and cruel attacks, the educated people, the riches. With this people plunged in great Liberal party, the thinking people, abject misery, Mexico never will prosdeclare that in Protestantism there is per, for no country has ever prospered something superior in every way to that while under the power of the Roman which is taught and practised by ROo Catholic Church. . manism. 2. The intelligence and aptitude of S. To the careful observer of social the Mexicans, their proverbial tenacity revolution in this country this fact is and patience (when these. are necessary) presented in all its splendor in the rad- when well developed and educated, in ical change in the mode of living among evangelical schools, will give to Mexico those who have embraced the Protestant such worthy men as Juarez, men of miles above the city of Agra, in January, culture like Manuel Altamirano, and 1888. It had been debated for some others whom we will not mention here. time whether it would be wise to ent~r such a field. Some thought that it 3. When the Mexicans rise above their would be useless, as Hinduism was so present condition, when they are taught intrenched and the people so bigoted the healthy principles of science and that there would be no converts, and virtue, when they feel themselves to be the time of the missionary and the equal to all mankind and cbildren of precious funds of the mission would the universal Father, when they are only be wasted. Others thought that thoroughly Protestantizcd, then and it would be a good thing for Methodism not till then will Mexico, with her "bank- in India, which had been successful in ing, scientific, and beneficent institu- other fields, to come in contact with tions, take the place that rightfully IIinduism at the center, and, so to belongs to her on account of her national speak, beard the lion in his den. One prosperity. of our good missionaries had had a mar- velous dream about the place. He tells The Liberal party has done much for us that he was awakened three times the people-brought them liberty and one night by a voice saying to him disreligious freedom; but it canrwt bring tinctly, "Send some one to Muttra." about their 8piritual regeneration. The So distinct was this impression that he forming of the character of the future awoke his wife and told her of the wongeneration is not in its hands; this is derful communication; and as soon as the work of Protestantism, whose mis- opportunity offered he hastened to lay sion it is to diffuse the doctrines of before his -brethren what he had heard Christ and push forward on the work in that strange way, and to urge that of elevating the people. the mission be opened In this strong- hold of Hinduism. I also had a strong Thus, dear reader, Protestant mis- desire to go to Muttra. It is difficult sions in Mexico are and always will be for a man to analyze all his motives, useful, and merit your support and your but as far as I can, at this distance, prayers. after seven years have passed, read the thoughts that were then predominant The Founding of the Methodist Epis- in my mind, it was an impression most copal Mission at Muttra, India. singular and mysterious, such as I had never had before. that there was some BY REV. J. E. SCOTT, S.T.D., PH.D. special work that the I,ord had for me to do at Muttra. I had never been in .. Forasmuch as many have taken in the place. There was no worldly Inhand to set forth in order a declaration ducement for me to go. I had a wife of those things which are most surely and child. The mission owned ~no believed among us, even as they de- property there, nor was it likely that it livered them unto us, which from the would be able to purchase property beginning were eye-witnesses, and min- there very soon. It turned out that isters of the word, it seemed good to there was no house even for rent. me also, having had perfect under- There was a small travelers' bungalow standing of all things from the very where I alone found sbelter for a week first, to write unto thee in order that or two. Then we were able to rent a thou mightest know the certainty of couple of rooms in a large house; but those things, wherein thou hast been the hot weather coming on, we were instructed. " driven out of that by the heat into a house in the cantonment, from which I was transferred to the town of we were in turn driven by the military Muttra, a place of 60,000 souls, the birthplace of Krishna, the eighth incarnation of Vishnu, and a hotbed of modern Hinduism, standing on the right bank of the sacred river Jumna, 30 authorities, who required the house for fore was but a field of sand became a their officers. center of life and industry. In the middle of the year before, I had suc- But now notice how the Lord will ceeded in taking over a small school in provide. A committee came and selected the heart of the city. The teachers the best and really the only desirable were all Hindus, and there were no site anywhere near the city, and said, Christian pupils. That was to be the .. This is the place," and took the next Central Christian Boys' Boarding train for home. I said, " 0 Lord, this School. Soon the hired house became is the place." But when I hunted up too small and another was taken, and a the owner I found that he was a rich Christian headmaster employed. Con- Hindu priest in the city, and that be verts coming to us, the boys were sent would not part with his ancestral prop- to the school. Then we cast about for erty to anyone, and especially not to a site on which to erect a suitable boys' Christians; but still something seemed school-house and hall for evangelistic to say that that was the spot where we services in the city. The best site, it would found our mission. It so turned seemed. was tbe one just in front of the out, for in a few weeks the priest made house in which the school was held. the astonishing proposition to rent me A Mohammedan oWll/'!d it. It was the land I desired fore"er, and soon right in the very heart of the city. the perpetual lease was executed and Temples and mosques were all round registered. Money was borrowed, and it. The Mohammedan said he would by the end of the year we were living sell. He paid off a mortgage held by a in our new house overlooking the city Brahman on it, and sold the whole site of Muttra. Just at that time a benevo- to me. This made some stir in the city. lent gentleman living in the city of A petition was sent to the government Chicago was anxious to find a suitable protesting against tbe transaction, but place to found a deaconess' home and as the land was bought fairly no objectraining school as a memorial to his tion was made on the part of the govparents. His attention was called to ernment. But there was no money to the new mission at Muttra, and he at build. In a strange way the same friend once sent the money, and directed that intimated his willingness to help; or the home and school be built; but rather his mother-in·law turned her where was a site to be had? The place thoughts toward this enterprise as StlJtwas the rest of the priest's laud adjoin- able to serve ItS a memorial for his Ing the mission house, already built. daughter, a young lady who had re- But upon being interviewed he declared cently been taken home. Through her that he would not rent or sell; and, munificence Flora Hall was erectel! in indeed, could not, as the land really 1893, in the very heart of the city of belonged to a minor, and he could not Muttra. In the mean time, the girls' sell it away from him or in any other school was growing, and it was becomway dispose of it. To show his oppo- ing necessary to erect a suitable schoolsition, he, one rainy Sunday, threw up house for it. God has promised to a mud wall between that portion of the supply all our need, and soon word land and ours, and planted a great came from our aged sister, who had number of fruit-trees, and said that built Flora Hall, that she would also henceforth that would be his garden ; build the new Gracie Hall, in memory but in a few days, strange to say, he of another dear departed granddaugbter. changed his mind, and rented that land Work was started among the soldiers to us on the same terms as the otber, in the station, and soon it became adand so we were free to build. By the visable to build a chapel for them. end of 1889 the new building was ready The land was secured lree from the and occupied. Dormitories were soon military authorities, and soon a chapel, erected, and the place that a little bereading and prayer-room and coffee heart of a heathen city to Sunday- shop were erected. Tents were needed school. Do missions pay? If the for evangelistic work. and large camp- heart of a millionaire could only get meeting tents, in which hundreds of one real look at it, and take in its sig- people could be gathered for Gospel nificance for this world and for the meetings, were provided ; and so from next, he would throw all his gold into nothiug, inside of seven years, has the lap of Jesus, and say, "Blessed sprung up a well-equipped mission. Lord. give me such an opportunity to do good." But houses are nothing without souls. ,Have there been any souls saved? A Bless God, every man has a chance proper question. It is enough to say to do good. The work is not all that Muttra has become the center of a done here. Who will build boys' dor- presiding elder's district; that around mitories ? Who will send money to it lie five circuits in which there are employ much-needed evangelists and more than a thousand Christians, where teachers for these poor people, who are seven years ago there was not one; that themselves too poor to pay? Who will the schools are filling up with Chris- erect a few simple school-houses and tian girls and boys; that" Flora Hall" chapels for these people? Who will is full every day with scholars and send a few scholarships for the board- twice on Sundays with hearers of the ing-schools ? There is plenty to do• Word; that there is not only a training .. He that doetn these sayings of Mine school for women, but also one for shall be likened unto a man who built men; that every department of mission his house upon a rock." "Inasmuch work is being carried on, and that on as ye nave done it unto the least of every hand there are inquirers who are these, My brethren, ye have done it seeking the way of life. Last January unto Me." was held on the hill, that six years ago was only a sand-heap, the third session Prc>gress in Brazil. of the Northwest India Conference, which reported nearly nine thousand EXTRACTS FRO}! A LETTER OF REV. baptisms during the year 1894, and stated that within the bounds of the W. A. WADDELL, ARRANGED BY REV. Conference, where there were none when Muttra was opened, there are W. A. CAURINGTON_ now more than 35,000 Christians; and the cry ie, 8tilt they come! Progre88 in Supporting PasWr8.-In 1890 Rio and Sao Paulo churches sup- "Not unto us, not unto us, but ported pastors. unto Thy name, 0 God, be glory." Every day two large Troy bells ring To-day Rio, Sao Paulo, Jabei, Botuout the glad sound from the towers of catu, Sorocaba, Rio Claro, Mogy Mirim, "Flora" and .. Gracie" halls, letting and Cabo Verde support pastors. Guarathe people know that Christ has come. pU3va, Corityba, Araguary, San Carlos, Christ has come to Krishua's strong- Rio Feio, Santa Cruz, and Faxim would hold. He has come to stay. He has were there men available to serve them. come to these priests of Muttra, and will never leave till all the impurity Reason: the eagle and the stirred-up and greed and worldliness is driven nest. from the place and from the hearts of men. Come with me on Sabbath Progre88 in Supporting Students for morning. I will show you a sight that the Minist1'f/.-In 1890 all students for will make your soul rejoice. It is a the ministry were supported by mislong procession of white-robed girls sions. and boys on their way through the To-day all theological students (five) are supported by the church, which pays all current expenses of the theo- logical seminary. Some (follr) students who are preparing for the seminary are studying in connection with the .seminary ; others in the Mackenzie College accessions have been made. Mr. Fin- (five); still others are with different ley's work in Sergipe, Mr. Kolb's in ministers (three or five). Of these Bahia, and Mr. Rodger's in and about preparatory students some are sup- Rio have held Rio PreSbytery up to old- ported by the church, some by the time figures of growth-64 per cent in missions. three years. In S110 Paulo Presbytery growth has been about what it should Pl'ogresa in Joul'nalism.-In 1890 the be in old churches, 18 per cent in three missions had a paper apiece-the domes- years. Here most of the growth has tic mission board one, the young men been in fields where foreign workers as- of the church another, while two or sisted. Minas Presbytery as a presby- three more semi· private enterprises were tery has stood stilll and but for large between life and death. To-day the gains in a single field would have gone various mission papers have been back seriously. dropped, and all efforts concentrated on a general journal and a child's paper, Taken as a whole, the synod increased, supported entirely by Brazilian fnnds. according to official statistics, between June 30th, 1891, and June 30th, 1894, Other Enterprises. – The Brazilian from 3780 to 4365, or 15 per cent. It Boards of Foreign Missions, Church is probable that the gain was a little Erection and Ministerial Relief are be- larger. ginning to receive s:Jme attention. The Tract Society is getting on a Bound The :fact seems to be that in their zeal footing. to boom the financial movements the pastors forgot some other things, and Financially there has been an advance with the losses due to the death of all along the line. This great advance many workers, a serious check was felt. is not due to any increased ability on the part of the Church, but to an in- Relation to the Misaion.-By means creased willingness on the part of the of battles and compromises we are ap- members, stimulated by an increased proaching the basis of a free church and zeal on the part of the Brazilian minis- a free mission. We will get these some ters. Had the missions been able and time. willing to meet all the wishes of their ordained and licensed helpers, nothing A Note from Mount Hermon, would have been done. In the north, where there has been no tendency on Miss Charlotte H. Brown, writing the part of the mission to withdraw from Shebaa, Mount Hermon, Syria, help, the contributions of the Church have diminished. under date of August 5th, 1895, says: Spiritual Progres8. – 1. Discipline. .. I feel as if I knew now more about The various acute crises of this transi- tion period have resulted in the righting medical mission work than I ever did of some old wrongs, and the opening, if not cleaning and healing of some old before, and if all medical missionaries sores. Unfortunately impersonal zeal for the purity of the Church, joined are so besieged as Dr. Mary Eddy is, with charity that is sensible, is even rarer in Brazil than in the United States, I pity them. We have just spent three and discipline has degenerated into a series of quarrels. weeks together in a village several 2. Evangelistic progress. This pre- hours away, and now she has gone for sents a sad picture. The Presbytery of Pernambuco has presented no statistics a week to another place, and I have during the past three years. It is in- 'ferred from what iii k.:nown that few come here to this village, high upon the slopes of Hermon, to pass the remainder of my summer, the nearest Americans at present being three or four hours away .
.. Kufair, where I have just come from, has been touched by the Ameri- can fever, and it seems strange to hear those ignorant men and women, most of them unable to read their own lan- guage, talk of .. America," .. New York ~"hi"cFhotrht eWiraiyentte~r"s and .. Brazil " from come. As to which is larger, "America" or .. Fort Wayne," many would not be able to cfally the last meeting, when perhaps tell. three hundred assembled-a good-na· tured, but rather noisy crowd-around H The regular dispensing-days were the ladies, the organ, and the two Syri. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but an teachers of the schools in the Village. some CRses had to be treated every day, and each time the numbers increased, " The buzz, the hum, the stir in the until the crowd was so great that time Sunday-morning meetings, when people and strength did not suffice. As word crowd into the school·room from the spread to the surrounding villages of Greek church, are something one has to the doctor's fame and skill, people be· experience to appreciate. First the gan to come in from aU directions, ar· girls and then the boys have to be sent riving. a very few on animals, most out to make room for the incoming walking, reaching the housc before we older people, and many of t.hem then were out of bed. The doors had to be stay outside and make remarks. I kept bolted till the hour for seeing the have come to the conclusion that the people. These had to be let in grad· most effective missionary work is done, ually by a discriminating assistant, a not in a crowd hard to control, but young Syrian woman who has proved with the few, whose attention can be herself invaluable. A doctor's assistant gained and lleld in some quiet little must have certain qualities in this coun· private meeting; and so the doctor, try (and I suppose in all countries), for with her one or two patients at a time in her own room, can really do more she must be able to discriminate be· good perhaps than one Who sits outside tween the people who can and those and talks to a restless, impatient crowd. who cannot pay the six cents for treat· ment, the poor being received if they "I had hoped to tell you a little of bring papers from the priest, the teach· this interesting village, some 6000 feet er, or the sheikh; she must be quick above sea·level, with its clustering of eye and ear to help, and she must houses on the steep hill·side, its ice-cold have a strong arm also, to be able to fountains, its Moslem and Christian in· quickly push the door and bar it when habitants, but space and time forbid." people insist with all their strength upon coming in before their turn. James Liddell Phillips, "My part was to read and talk to Only a hurried line could be inserted the people as I had opportunity, and partly through real eagerness, and partly When the news reached America of the through the desire to win my favor, and so use me as a go·between to allow death of Dr. Phillips, of India. Dr. them to be seen out of turn, I always found them ready to listen to my story Cyrus Hamlin presently after wrote as or my portion of Scripture. Some· times a few at a time were anowed in follows: "Our beloved Brother Phil· the wide hall that ran the length of the house, sometimes a good many would lips has left us and gone up higher. be there at once. a most forlorn groupwomen with sick babies, all sorts 'Of The Master came and called for him. people with poor eyes, from the goat· herd from Ain Attar to the women I have a sweet and savory remembrance from Meinas who kept 0. badly in· flamed eye covered. Several people of him. He was affectionate, impul· troubled with partial paralysis were also treated, the "lightning wheel" sive, full of life and vigor, earnest in being a never·failing source of enter· tainment to the onlookers. Several his Master's service, working to do pitiful cases of leprosy also were pres· ent. and an opportunity was granted to good to all men as he had opportunity, point them to Christ, the Physician of the soul. especially to those of the household of " At home you have lectures. can· faith. IllS name was in his forehead; certs, international meetings to entertain you; the people of Kufalr had for three he has had the white robe given unto weeks the excitement of having In their him; he has become 0." king and a priest midst two American ladies (one a doc· tor) and a baby organ, with almost unto God and the Lamb. Hail to thee, nightly meetings, either in the house or at the grape-press near, for singing and Brother Phillips I" India has become prayer, all of them well attended, eape· a mourner, and the tribute to the worth, the spiritual loveliness of character, and the active usefulness of Dr. Phillips pour out over the pages of the press from one end of Indio. to the other.
The India Su,nday.&hooZ JournaZ says that during his thirty·three years of mission life he opened up a new district to Christian influence. He committed come to this country, remain till they the Santali language to writing, and become naturalized. then return as citi- saw many hundreds of Oriyas and San- zens of the United States permanently tala brought to Christ. When he left in tbeir native land. This is a matter India he received the thanks of govern- that so far interests persons on many ment for his work among the Santals. mission fields,that we venture to quote He had a working acquaintance with from the report of Dr. Samuel L. Beiler, sCleral Indian vernacular tongues. D.D., Vice·Chancellor of the American The Calcutta Missionary Conference, University, Washington, on the result the largest body of missionaries meet- of an interview of a committee who ing monthly anywhere on the globe, waited on Secretary Gresham concern- held a special memorial service, at which ing protection to Armenians who have Rev. George Kerry presided, and ad- been naturalized here and returned to dresses were made by eminent men. Armenia. Dr. Beiler addressed the At the time of his death and since communication, from which we make 1890 he was the Secretary of the India the extract, to Secretary Leonard, of Sunday-School Union, by appointment the Methodist Missionary Soeiety, and from the London Sunday;School Union. the whole appeared in the Ohristian He was seemingly ubiquitous, from the Ad'/lOcate. All that is relevant to the Himalayas to all parts of the Continent illustration now sought to be furnished of India, and far away to Malaysia. is the following: Humanly speaking, he was too young " There is a class of Armenians who to die. come to this country and are natural- He was the son of Rev. Jeremiah ized, and then return to Armenia and Phillips, D.D., who went to India in claim protection 8S citizens of the 1886 with Mr. Noyes to open a Free United States. Concerning such there Baptist mission in Orissa. James Lid- was an attempt at a treaty some years dell Phillips was born at Balasore in ago, but while it was pending a differ- 1840; his mother died when he was ence in the construction of one clause six months old. From 1852 to 1865 he arose. The clause was that a natural- was in America, receiving his educa· ized Armenian (that is, naturalized in tion. He then entered upon the work this country) who should return to Ar- among the Hill tribes in Santal. He menIa and remain there two years received his degree of J'lLA. and M.D., should then forfeit all rights as a citi- and later LL.B. ; and his own college, zen of the United States, and thence- Bowdoin, conferred on him the degree forth be treated as again a subject of of Doctor of Divinity; but he worked Turkey. The Turkish Government among his brethren and all others as construed this as meaning those who plain Mr. Phillips, simple in character had returned before this treaty should and life as thc children whom he had be fully enacted. Our Government in· always loved, and loved to the end. sisted that it should be prospective also, He died June 25th, 1895. or apply to all who should return in J. T. G. the future. The Turkish Government refused to sign the treaty as thus con- Adopted American Oitizenship. strued, and there is no treaty to this day covering such cases. It is not There seems considerable misappre- known yet that any such persons were hension both at home and abroad as to killed or injured in the late troubles.
the right and the obligation of the If there were, contrary to the rights of United States to protect its naturalized such persons under the provisions (gen- subjects when within the territory eral) of international law, our Govern- whence they came to this country. ment will certainly look after such Many suppose that Asiatic peoples may cases. There have been, independent of the late reported massacre, C8.8eS of ar- about three Armenian priests who hon- rest and imprisonment of such natural- ored Mr. Knapp; and by following the ized and returned Armenians, and our cablll misprint last month, the noble Government has protested against it, devoted Miss Mabel C. Hartford, who holding that all Turkey has a right to barely escaped martyrdom at Kucheng, do is to send such persons out ot her was rendered Hartwell. Miss Hartford domains. Turkey now denies the priv- has arrived in this country; she suffered ilege of return to Turkey of these natu- a great shock, and needs rest.
ralized Arm()nians on this clear ground. The opium question, in its relation to First, the United States, in the face of the native Church, was also discussed. a treaty with China, has denied admis- The Church in China gives no uncer. sion to this country to the Chinese, on tain sound, and opium-smokers are dealt the simple ground that they are Chi- with. Japan has prohibited opium to nese. Second, on an appeal case, under her people. The fact was referred to this law, the Supreme Court of the that the use of opium was on the in- United States decided that it was con. crease in the United States, and that it stltutional, as it was one of the essen- was more extensive than was supposed, tial rights of sovereignty to say who and that there were opium plantations should or should not come within its in the country. domains. Turkey simply takes the same grounds, and denies admission to Great Britain's threatening attitUde Turkey to these returning Armenians, has seemingly brought China to terms simply on the ground that they are Ar- in the degradation of the viceroy remenians. Our Government can only sponsible for the Szchuan riots. Many insist that Armenians who have re- think, however, the riots will not cease turned, or may return with the consent until the government is still more strictly taken to account, and civilized Or knowledge of the Turkish Govern- nations take for each offence a slice from her territory. This would be felt ment, shall not be held In Turkey for by the government as no money indemtrial and imprisonment under Turkish nity will ever be, or any other penalty laws, but shall be sent out of the coun- which falls chiefly upon the people. try as we propose to send the Chinese out."
In these times when China is much Even the degradation of an official is In evidence, a great many people be- not sufficiently severe.
sides those interested in missions will find it a great convenience if they have Oonstantinople Riots.
Miss Burt's map of China on the wall The Armenians, perhaps somewhat for ready reference. It is on cloth, has encouraged by the sympathy manifest- the stations of forty-six Protestant mis- ed toward them in England and Ameri- sionary societies, all the provinces de- ca, have been in conflict with the Con- fined in bold boundaries, and a compen- stantinople police, and the result has dium of much valuable information. been over one hundred killed and more Address Miss M. Burt, Springfield, 0., wounded, and the end is not yet (Octo- and secure the revised edition of this ber 4th), though the Turkish authori- map. ties believe they will have no trouble in restoring order. The Moslems, espe· Not" many infallible proofs" come cially of the lower class, show no hu- from the compositor's room. Our Ar- manity in their treatment even of un- menian brethren must have been sur- armed and peaceful Armenians. The prised to find that in a compiled article city is being patrolled by troops, and in a mid-summer number" Armenian" no such terror has existed since the was turned into •• heathen," in a phrase days of the Greek revolution.
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
III.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. PIERSON.
South Amerioa,* Frontier Missions,t the Mormons.
SOUTH AMERICA. matchless network of natural water- way it affords, this river has been called What has been said (p. 614) in our the Mediterranean of South America_ August issue regarding Papal Lands The soil of its basin, one or two million and the Papacy is eminently true of square miles in area, and fertile enough South America. There we find Ro- to supply the inhabitants of the world manism at its worst, and the difficulties with food, is for the most part covered of coping with it very many and great. by sombre, primeval forests-pathless, All the republics except Bolivia and impenetrable-the largest extent of ar- Ecuador have now some Protestants boreal growth in the world. working in them, and enjoy more or less religious liberty-generally speak- Titicaca, the largest lake in the New ing, l1!88. In all this continent is 4700 World south of the St. Lawrence bamiles long and over 3000 wide, a stu- sin, belongs to this stately and colossal pendous contine'nt, 7,000,000 square continent. It is 170 miles long by 70 miles in area-over twice the size of broad, and could float Cyprus, Crete or Europe-containing one eighth of the Corsica, at an altitude of 200 feet above land surface of the globe, the most mag- the summit of Mount Etna. Its lonely nificent system of river drainage in the waters have no outlet to the sea, but world, a coast line 16,500 miles long, are ~uaJ'ded on their southern shores by ~lgantic ruins of a prehistoric emand a: rOl(ky mountain backbone of ex- pire, silent palaces, temples, and for- tresses-mysterious monuments of a traordinary magnitude and sublimity. long-lost golden age. Lying away in the Southern Seas is South America, well called, from a In the great song of redemption, tbe spiritual standpoint, the "neglected con- chorus of renewed humanity, can the tinent." We give the following sum- millions of a continent like this be mary of the continent and work from dumb and God not miss their jubilaa pamphlet of the South American tion? Evangelical Mission of Toronto, Ont.: Can one eighth of the globe be left In the far northeast its tropic Orinoco out of the reckoning of the coming surpasses, by 100 miles, even the flood kingdom of Christ? Can the spiritual tide of the Ganges. In tlie sub·tropic state of its 37,000,000 people be immasouth, the Rio de la Plata is 150 miles terial to Him? What is that state? wide as it sweeps into the sea, after its Who are these people? What has 2200-mile course, and pours into the been done to bring them "into the ocean more water than any other river way of peace" ? in the world-but one, for South America possesses a mightier stream than SOUTH AMERICA'S SPIRITUAL STORY. these. The whole of France, or of the Ottoman Empire, might lie in the lap South America is divided into fourof the monarch Amazon, the largest teen great countries, and includes repriver in the world-equal to the Indus resentatives of almost every Tarietyof and the Nile put together. From the race and language-from the degraded Fuegians of Cape Horn, who, when * .. The Neglected Continent," Miss Lucl, discovered. had drifted so far from Old World traditions, that they retained no Gninness ; .. Spanish-American Republic8.' word for God, and the Indian tribes of Theodore Child; .. Adventures in Patagouia." "sad, calm aspect" scattered on the Titns Coan; .. Allen Francis Gardiner," J. W. pa.mpas plains or among the virgin Marsh. Also pp. Z7 (January), 802 (present forests of the Amazons, to the Angloissue). Saxon and Latin leaders of civilization in the free republics. The negroes and t See pp. 422 (June), 601 (Augnst), 808 (present half-castes of the north and central Issue). States, with the Mestizoes (a mixed race of Spanish, or Portuguese and Ind- ian blood), are numbered by millions, while the imported Chinese coolie classes, and foreigners from almost every country under heaven, drawn hither by the fabled silver wealth of churches in the Guianas on tIle north- Ecuador, Peru, and the Argentine, east coast, and the scattered centerH on complete the tale. The Spanish and the Atlantic borders of Brazil, one may Portuguese element is politically domi- say that the continent is almost unnant, while the .. redmen" constitute touched by aggressive Protestant misthe main stock of the population. sionary effort. . Discovered A.D. 1500, by the Portu- Venezuela, more than nine times as guese Pedro Cabral, South America has large as England and Wales, two and been for nearly four hundred years part a half times larger than Germany (arca of the parish of the Pope. In contrast 593,943 square miles), with a populawith it the north of the New World, tion of 2,323,527 men and women, has Puritan-prosperous, powerful, pro- only one missionary. gressive-presents probably the most Colombia. larger than the total area remarkable evidence earth affords of of Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Greece, the blessing of Protestantism, while the Roumania, the Orange Free State, Bulresults of Roman Catholicism left to garia, Servia, Switzerland, and Belitself are writ large in letters of gloom gium (area 504,773 square miles), more across the priest-ridden, lax, and super- than three times as large as all Japan, stitious south. Her cities "among has nearly 4,000,000 people, and only the gayest and grossest in the world," three missionary stations of the Amenher ecclesiastics enormously wealthy can Presbyterian Church. and strenuously opposed to progress Ecuador, called after the equator, on and liberty, South America groans un- which it lies, has no missionary, and der the tyranny of a priesthood which, never has had. Quito, its capital, the in its highest forms, is unlllumimid by, highest city in the world, with 30,000 and incompetent to preach, the Gospel souls; Guayaquil, its principal com- of God's free gift, and in its lowest is mercial eenter, and all its 1,270,000 illproverbially and" habitually drunken, habillmts scattered over an area of 120,- extortionate and ignorant." Altho the 000 square miles, are wholly unevanspirit of the age has, in our nineteenth gelized as yet-unless ceremonial can century, transformed all her monarchies save, and the wafer-god be divine. The into free republics, Ecuador still pro- present struggle for a change of governhibits any but Romish worship. ment in Ecuador has as one of its objects Only the fringe of this continent- the emancipation of the people from more than sixty times as large as the priest rule, and the proclamation of re- United Kingdom-has been touched by ligious liberty. It is hoped, therefore, the message of free 8alvation. On the that the door of Ecuador may soon bo frozen rocks of Fuegia, fifty years ago, opened to the Gospel. Allan Gardiner and his immortal band Peru, with its 2,621,844 people, its of companions, to the undying honor 650 schools, its magnificent railways, of the South American Missionary· So- well-equipped army and navy, and ciety that sent them forth, kindled a world·famed products (If bark, silver, spiritual beacon light that to·day shines and ~uano, has but twelve missionaries right around the world. Four thou- withm its borders. India has one missand miles away, in the deadly tropics sionary to every 165.000 souls; Peru, of Guiana, t,he heroic MoravIan breth- twelve missionaries to nearly 3,000,000. ren died and died till deathless blessing Bolivia, an enormous inland State for multitUdes sprang from their tombs (area 567,680 square miles), modelled, -both extremes of the continent prov- like all the Routh American republics, ing the lowest of earth's races capable on the constitution of the United States of becoming new creatures in Jesus of America, with its president-elected Christ. Between these two extremities every four years-its congress, unlver· thirteen different missionary agencies sal suffrage, and 2,019,549 souls, bas have undertaken labor in this great received one or two passing visits from harvest field. 'rheir entire efforts are itinerant colporteurs of the noble Amerirepresented on. the black map which can Bible Society, but has no resident appears as a. frontispiece for this issue. missionary, and never has had. lIave they been commensurate with the Brazil, which alone is larger than tbe whole United States (area 3.209,878 needs of tve sphere? By those efforts judge whether or no square miles, 296,000 more than the South America merits the title" neglect- United States of America, and more ed continent." than three times exceeds all British India), has 14,002.335 people, of wbom THE BLACK MAP Am> ITS MEANmG. not more 2,000,000 can possibly hear the Gospel from Protestant, missionaries Omitting the group of Christian there working, leaving 12,000,000 in
AMERICA'S SpmITUAL
The above diagram (915 squares) represeuts the npoepvuelraytioonne of South Amenca-37,OOO,OOO. Each square=40,OOO persons. of the 400 Mi88iouarles in South America could reach 10,000 persons, only the central White squares would be evaugelIzed.
Black squares=unevangelized population.. 827 !l25x40,OOO= 37,000,000. l White.. =partially evangelized popu- f lation •. ., •• 98 DIAGRAlII (No. I).
COUNTRY AND POPULATION. POPULATION UNREACHED.
GUIANAS, 890,000 (partially evangelized.) PARAGUAY, 400,000–5 ml88ionaries. 850,000 unreached In Paraguay. URUGUAY, 750,000–5 mleslonari;". EcuADOR, 1,260,ooo-no missionaries. 700,000 Uruguay.
1,260,000 Ecuador.
BoLIVIA, 1,450,000.. . 1,450,000 nnreached in Bolivia. no mlSSlOnarles.
PERU, 3,000,000 ••..•.•. 2,910,000 unreached In 9 missionaries. Peru.
CHILI, 3,300,000 2,690,000 unreached In ChilL 61 missionaries. 3,730,000 unreached In ARGENTINE, 4,000,000 the Argentine• 27 missionaries.
COLOlllBIA, 4,200,000 12 mi88ionaries.
BRAzIL, 16,000,000 14,S40,000 unreached 116 missionaries. in Brazil.
DIAGRAlII (No. m.
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE SPIRITUAL :NEEDS OF THE TEN REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA, Reckoning that each Missionary could evangelize 10,000 persons. The above diagram (915 squares) represeuts the population of South Amerlca-87,OOO,0iJ0. Each square=40,OOO persons. If everyone of the 400 Missionaries in South America could reach 10~OOO persons, only the central ,Vhite squares would be evungelIz{·d.
rt Black squares=unevanl;elized population.. 827 9215×40,000= 37,000,000. White" = partially evangelized popu- lation .. .. .. 98 DIAGEA)! (No. I).
COUNTRY AND POPULATION. POPULATION UNREACHED.
GUIANAS, 890,000 (partially evangelized.) PARAGUAY, 400,000—5 missionaries. 350,000 unreached in Paraguay. URUGCAY, 750,000-5 missionaries. ECUADOR, 1,260,OOO-no missionaries. 700,000 "Uruguay.
1,260,000 Ecuador.
BOLIVIA, 1,-150,000 1,450,000 unreached in Bolivia. DO missionaries. 2,190,000 unreuched in Venezuela. YE"EzeELA, ~,200,OOO 2.910.000 unreached in 1 ll1i~sionary. Peru. PEne, 8.000.000 2,690.000 unreached in Chili. g lllb~ionaricB. CHILI, 3,:lOO.()00 {jl lllb~ionurie8.
ARGENTI"E. 4.(~lO.OOO 3,730.000 unrouched in the ArgentIne. 2i' llli~::,iollarie8.
COL01fRIA. -t:.!OO.OOO 4,080,(KXl nnrearherl in 1:2 mi:::;!::iollarics. Columuia.
BUAZIL. 10.00n.noo 14,840,000 11llrcarhcd 11ti 11li~~iullarks. in Brazil.
DIAGRA" (~o. II). DIAGRAM SHOWING 'l'HE COMPARATIVE SPIRITUAL NEEDS OF THE TEN REPUBLICS OF SOUTH AMERICA, Reckoning that each Missionary could evangelize 10,000 persons.
FmLD OJ!' MONTHLY SURVE!"
Brazil only, wholly unevangelized. of the caption of this article, attention The rest of the wide, dark spaces we is called to the following translation of leave to utter their own plea. a part of an article which appeared in the Monitor Oatlwlico of October 7th, Persecution is suffered in many parts 1894 (this journal is the official organ of the Archbishop of Bahis): 'Peoples of the country at the hands of priests nations, as well as individuals and fam: ilies, seek and invoke the Virgin Mary, lind people. We give the following because she has been the tutelar angel of the fortunes of humanity, the bow communication, just received from of promise suspended between the two testaments. Lima, Peru, which tells of a recent .. , In truth, who more than she has persecution in the interior of Peru: interested themselves in the felicity of .. Tumult has arisen. Prefect urges men, even in this world, than the glorius to leave. Advise us." We cannot ous queen of angels, who hypothecated tell how serious this may be, and are all . the treasures of her most loving anxiously awaiting further news. Their heart, who sacrificed her own Son, the last letter, dated August 5th, informed life of her life, so that G:>d might be us that both were seriously ill in bed, Mr. Jarrett with smallpox, and Mr. reconciled with men I Peters with similar symptoms. .. , In the hours of deepest agony for .
In appealing to the British Consul- men, behold her always at His side, in- General of Peru he laid the trouble be- terceding with her Son for men, and fore the President, who has telegraphed to the Prefect of Cuzco, thereby hoping always ministering to them the means to prevent any fresh outbreak; but of regeneration and moral tranquility.' Cuzco is many miles inland, and practically ruled by the priests, who Insti- .. The balance of this article narrates gated the mob, therefore their lives are the ~lorious character and attendant still in danger, and we cannot tell if blessmgs upon the devout use of the they will be able to maintain their ground. rosary. " Recommended most highly by Leo This is the first attempt to open a permanent mission in the interior of XIII. in an encyclical as the most pow- Peru, and we request the prayers and erful and most efficacious means of resympathy of all who desire to see the alizing the moral equilibrium of famwork of the Lord prospering in this needy land.* ilies and nations. " In view of the foregoing, it would Is Romaniam Ohristian? is a ques- seem incrediable that Romanism could tion asked by Rev. J. B. Kolb, of Bra- be termed Christian. It is true that she does teach some of the essential zil. In answer, he writes as follows: doctrines of the Scriptures, but this is simply to save appearances and 10 de- .. December 8th was a notable day in lude. Altho the encyclicals and pastile city of Bahia, Brazil-notable in torals of Pope and bishops are sown the fact that the whole city was given with Scripture quotations, they do not over to the adoration of the Virgin weigh anything, like the small dust of Mary. During the previous night bells the balance, in comparison with the eswere tolling, bombs and rockets explod- sential and practical doctrine and pracing, all to announce the grandje8ta; of tice of the Church respecting the Virthe succeeding day. The Feast of the gin. Intelligent and well-informed Immaculate Conception of the Virgin men will affirm, with all the intensity has taken a deep hold on the popular of deep conviction, their faith and consympathies. To raise a voice against the Virgin, or, as she is more properly fidence in the power of Mary to save termed, • Our Lady,' is to bring down them. So far as the masses are conupon one's head the most bitter re- cerned, the article cited above exactly proaches and persecution. However, expresses the conviction and belief of this is not to be wondered at. when from pulpit and press the glories and the popular heart. Divine attributes of Mary are being .. The last element in the perfection constantly proclaimed. In justification of Mariolatry was the declaration of * Any friends desirous of further information, the 'Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,' thus putting her on an equal- 01' wishing to help forward the Gospel here, may addre.. A. R. Stark, care of British Consul, ity with her Divine Son. Callao, Peru; or Dr. GuinneBB, Ha.rley House, .. Surely, the wily adversary has r,ti~~~~ !te:d'~giB ~~~K~atlY needed to main- made this people believe a lie, and has so bound about this people the meshes of his net that there can be no possible egcape, exceptiug by coming out from the midst of her and accepting the plain, simple truths of the Gospel of our ers as were incorrigible. Brigham Young, commenting on this doctrine, Lord Jesus Christ. These blinded said: .. I have known a great many ones merit our sympathies and prayers. men who have left this church, for May the Holy Spirit break the scales from off these blinded eyes!"
whom there is no chance whatever for THE MOlU.t:ONS. exaltation, but if their blood had been Interest in the Mormon question has spilled it would have been better for been recently revived, owing to the ap- them." . " .. The wickednes8 and Ig- proaching entrance of Utah into the norance of the nations forbid this pdn- rights of Statehood. The wisdom of ciple being in full force, but the time permitting this step is still doubtful in wilZ come when the law of God will be in the minds of many, but all hope for the fullforee. This is loving our neighbor best results from an apparently favor- as ourselves; if he needs help, .help able beginning. l!im; if he wants salvation. and it is •• Mormonism is not essentially a re- necessary to spill his blood on the earth ligion ; it is a secret political institution in order tbat he may be saved, apiU it."
in the form of a secret order, with ex- II Will you love man or woman well ceedingly worldly ends in view." enough to shed their blood? That is Its thorough organization is said to wluJt JesU8 OMist meant. I could refer rival the papacy, and is as nearly per- you to plenty of instances where men fect perhaps as anything human can have been righteously slain in order to be; but the doctrines, having been add- atone for their sins." Seven months- ed at different times and under different after this one hundred and twenty-nine conditions, are so much at variance emigrants were II .blood atoned" at with one another as to defy any at- Mount Meadows by a force under com- tempt to include them all in any sys- mand of Mormon priests.
tem. The Adam-deity doctrine was first Opportune II revelations" came, how- preached by the II Prophet, Seer, and ever, at various times to grant desired Revelator" in 1852. This is his lan- privileges in financial and social spheres. guage: .. Now hear it, 0 inhabitants Their II god is progressive," they say, of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and •• and able to meet' emergencies as they sinner. When our Father Adam came rise." A new emergency has recently into the Garden of Eden he came into arisen under the Edmunds law, making it with a celestial body, lind brought it expedient for them to annul the mar- Eve, ono of his wives, with him. He riage revelation, or at least to suspend helped to make and organize this world.
it, or in some way (nobody seems to He is lIichael the Archangel, the An- know just how) to render it inopera- cient of days, about whom holy men tive II for the present." have written and spoken. He is our Polygamy has secured loyalty to Father and our God, and the only God Mormonism of those born under it, with whom we have to do. Every man since one is compelled to uphold it or upon the earth, professing Christians or confess his illegitimacy. It also se- non-professing, must hear it and will cured to the Mormons desired Ilecluslon know it sooner or later."
from Christian civilization, since de- This doctrine holds out to the faith- cent people wish to keep far from such ful the hope of becoming gods, as the a community. following rhyme by one of their poets The doctrine of blood atonement was shows: invented by Brigham Young as a pro- " • . • 'Tis no phantom that we trace tection against apostasy and opposition Man's ultimatum in life's race; of infidels. This fearful doctrine fast- This royal path has long been trod ened upon faithful Mormons the duty By righteous men who now are gods, of shedding the blood of all such offend- As Abram, Isaac, Jacob, too, First bebes, then men to gods they grew_
I'DIiLD OF MONTHLY
As man now is, onr God once was ; and commandments to Individuals, As now He is, so man may be, churches, rulers, nations, and the Which facts unfold man's destiny. world; to appoint, ordain, and estab- So John asserts: • When Christ we see lish constitutions and kingdoms; to Then we like Him will truly be.' appoint kings, presidents, governors, Ah, well, that taught by you, dear Paul; Tho much amazed, we sec it all ; or judges, and to ordain or anoint them Our Father, God, has ope'd our eyes, to their several holy callings ; also to We cannot see it otherwise. instruct, warn, or reprove them by the You're right, St. John. supremely right, word of the Lord" (" Key to Theol- Whoe'er essays to climb this height Will cleause himself of sin entire, ogy," p. 73). Of course it is impossi- Or else 'twere useless to aspire." ble for a man who claims such powers The Mormons worship a deified man to be loyally subordinate to the consti· instead of an incarnate God. They set tuted authorities of our country, or to the living priest before the crucified be willingly subject to our laws or to Christ, and tithes and offerings over conscientiously and faithfully teach his against regeneration. They teach that people so to be.
the faithful must" gather" into seclu- And the men under such a leader, or- sion, in opposition to the command of dained by him to "the priesthood and Jesus to " go into all the earth." But apostleship after the order of the Sons then their motives are different and op· of God, are His representatives or am- posite. bassadors to mankind. To receive The Mormons seem to have a peculiar them, to obey their instructions, to faculty for seeing things in reverse po- feed, clothe, or aid them, is counted the sition. Brigham Young once said that same in the final judgment, as it aU had .. the Presbyterian God is the Mormon's been done to the Son of God in person.
devil, and vice versa." He recognized On the other hand, to reject them or his reverse attitude toward Christianity. their testimony or message or the Word Mormonism can hardly be called a of God through them, in any matter, is union of Church and State. If that counted the same as if done to Jesus were all, there might be a dissolution Christ in His own person.
of that union so as to meet the require- "Indeed, such ambassadors will be ments of our constitution, but with the final judges of the persons, rulers, them the Church is the State, or the cities, or nations to whom they are State is the Church, as you please. sent. And all merely human religions There is an identity of Church and or political institutions, all republics, State which is an essential feature of States, kingdoms, empires must be dis- Mormonism, and which cannot disap- solved," etc. (" Key to Theology,"
pear until they abandon the whole p.73).
business in good faith. From this very significant language, It is a theocracy recognizing no right taken not from a platform address, but of the governed tq participate in the -from one of their standard books, which affairs of the government either by per- is now and has been for more than sonal vote or representation, and claim- forty years published for the instruc- ing for its leader Divine prerogatives tion and comfort of the Mormon peo- and entire exemption from the duties ple, it must appear very clearly what and obligations of citizenship under is the mission of the Mormon Church any earthly government. He is sup- and its priesthood. Such a pretentious posed to be God's vicegerent, and as system, boldly asserting its powers and such is superior to all constitutions and prerogatives, and publisWng far aRd Iaws of this or any other nation. He wide its purposes concerning the insti- .. holds the keys of revelation of the tutions under which it is tolerated, Oracles of God to men upon the earth, would have been stamped out of exist- the power and right to give laws ence by any monarchy, it not upon the first publication of. its program, cer- these valleys to me" and told me to give tainly upon the first effort to enter ac- them to wbom I pleased. Anyone tively and aggressively upon it. who goes to a government Jand office for his title is a traitor to the kingdom The people of the United States have of God, and will be treated as such." given little heed to the hostile attitude To this remarkable utterance the audiof Mormonism, and have been slow to ence, led by the eight apo~t.Ies who believe and disinclined to resent their were present, responded " i men. " insults to the flag. It is but ten years since they hauled down the flag which When one of the State presidents said had been unfurled by loyal citizens on to a missionary in Utah, "You are a July 4th in Salt Lake City. Had it citizen of the United States and not of not been for the military force and the this kingdom, and therefore have no large number of non· Mormons in the rights to the privileges of citizenship city, the insult to our national emblem here," he was but expressing the alien woul$! have been carried to the last ex- character of Mormonism and the imtremity. About the same time they possibility of a man's being a loyal citihauled down the Stars and Btripes zen and a Mormon at the same time. from a mission house and trailed it in The principles and purposes of the Latthe dust, and in its stead ran up a filthy ter-Day Saints are so hostile to our fragment of a rag carpet. In another American institutions, that it Is imposof the smaller cities of Utah, the Mor- sible to hold to the one without despismon city authorities refused to allow ing the other. They cannot dwell in the 1lag-the property of the city-to peace together. be run up on the pole that stood in the public square, or to be used in any way It would be a pleasant, a grateful whatever on July 4th; but on the 24th, privilege to be able to believe that the the anniversary of their entrance 'into Mormons have abandoned theIr fundathe Salt Lake Valley, they unfurled it mental principles, discarded the whole to the breezes and marched in grand theory of Mormonism, and become loyal procession to the bower where their citizens. They have a constitutional orators predicted the ultimate conquest right to their faith and worship; but of "the kingdom" over the Govern- they have no such right to maintain an ment of the United States, and rejoiced alien and hostile government, to perin the hope that the 4th would then be petuate practices which are at variance forgotten, and the 24th take its place with the laws and customs of our comlas a national holiday. try, to abridge the common rIghts of citizenship, to inculcate principles To those who were familiar with the which are destructive of domestic peace teaching and spirit of Mormonism these and social purity, or to deny to any demonstrations were no surprise. It law-abiding citizen the privileges and was never their custom to regard Inde- Immunities guaranteed to every such pendence Day as worthy of their notice. citizen by the Constitution. The birthday of these great facts in natIonal life, freedom of religious opin· They need a more extended pupilage Ion, liberty of thought and speech and under the wholesome and generous auworship, and a government •• of the thority of the Government, the educatpeople, by the people, and for the peo- ing influences of the churches and the pie," stirs no cmotion of pleasure in a schools, and the contact with intelligent Mormon heart. and enterprising Gentiles in social and business relations which have alreadY Their prophet, on July 22d, 1875, accomplished, by God blessing, so much said, while addressing a large mass· for Utah. There are about 170,000 meeting of !Iormons: "The Govern- Mormons in the United States, most of ment of the United States has no right whom reside in Utah.-Preabyterian to a foot of land in Utah. God gave Bom'd Pamphlet.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Correspondents will please observe thing that establishes right, honorable, that the editor's permanent address is and pacific relations among men pro· changed to 1127 Dean Street, Brooklyn. motes the kingdom of God, which il:l righteousness and peace, as well as joy The March of Events. in the Holy Ghost.
The deputation of the A. B. C. F. M., The mission press in Turkey is kept referred to previously, sailed September under constant surveillance by the ab- 12th for Japan, from San Francisco. surd and often comical apprehensions The practical questions to be adjusted of the government. "All the manuare not controversial, but economical. scripts must be submitted to examina- They concern the expediency of the con- tion at Constant,invple before being tinuance or withdrawal of the mission· printed. Some are rejected or returned aries; and, if they are to remain, their In a mutilated condition, while those relati ve position as to the native Chris- accepted are kept a long time and the tians and workers._ Rev. J. H. Pettee printing delayed. Books that have resuggests six topics to be covered by the ceived the sanction of the government investigation: The nature and tendency may be seized and destroyed at any of the theological movement; future time upon a foolish pretence, such as the co·operation of the mission with the coloring of a map in a geography. Two Kumiai churches; relation to the Doshi- men were imprisoned and their books aha; the property question; the desira- confiscated, not for selling their geogbility of enlarging the miosionary force raphies, but for procuring them for the in Japan, and the changing of meth· governors at their request." ods of work. Dr. D. O. Greene, of the Japan Mission, published not long ago All this reminds us of a recent occuran account of the declaration of inde- rence in Russia, when a cable despatch, pendence on the pilrt of the Home Mis- in cipher, from a family in America, sionary Society. Japanese Christians read, T1'Y again, and was interpreted to are desirous to assume the responsibili- mean that another attempt should be ties of the evangelization of their own made to blow up the Czar! country, and to be no longer a burden on the American churches; and this is Japan has had a serious visitation of most commendable. The deputation cholera. The terrible disease made its should be followed by earnest prayers. appearance among the troops at Pesca- dores, Port Arthur, and Chin Chow, its The compact between Salvador, Nica- germs having been carried home by reragua, and Honduras provides for a turning soldiers, and the government United RepUblic of Central America, made strenuous efforts to check the mainly in the interests of defence and spread of the disease, but the situation permanent peace. Executi ve power is was greatly complicated by the fact to be lodged in a diet, with one deputy that the plague germinated from over a from each legislature and one member dozen localities simultaneously. from each repUblic. How far this political movement is to affect missions, The Oongo Railway. which is all that specially concerns this REVIEW, will appear later on; but no Work on the Congo Railway is being such union, if secured in the interests pushed. Kimpise, the half-way point of mutnal wellbeing, can be other than between tide-water and Stanley Pool, helpful to all missionary work. Every- will be reached by another year. The remaining portion c~n be ):milt muc~ more easily, as the dIfficultIes of englneeri-ng will be much less. The Eng- to us to be without excuse or even lish Baptist Missionary Society reports pJausible pretext. and to be one of the in the Congo Basin a line of stations great outrages of the century. 1000 miles long. This region, unknown twenty-five years ago. has an area greater than that of all India. Already in ten of its one hundred languages the While some boards are retrenching. Gospel is being preached. It has been some are strengthening cords and traversed in all directions. and the only lengthening stakes. For example. at religion of the people is a degrading a recent board meeling in Fort Wayne, fetishism well called devil worship. Ind., the United Brethren In Christ Cheers rang through the House of voted, thirty-nine to.one. to open a new Commons when it was announced that mission in Japan thIs year. They al- " Her Majesty's government have come ready have on hand for the work four to the conclusion that it is necessar~ to or five native preachers and teachers, most of whom have been educated in make the railway to Uganda." The this country. They have es!ablished British protectorate is to be extended this year a mont~ly ~agazme! T~e over the territories between Uganda Search-Ligltt, for dlssemmating .mte,Ihand the East Coast. The railway will gence throuO'hout the denommatIOn open the continent, both to travel and upon the subject of missions. It has to commerce. It is practically the also been determined to build a home route to Uganda over which Bishop or sanitarium for missionaries on Mount Hannington went to his death that 'the LAefirciceastear~adbotoveoFpreenetuopwnin, WcoenstnCecotaiostn. proposed railroad will follow.
with the Rufus Clark and Wife Train- ing School at Shaingay. West Africa, IJ, EJrench operations in Madagascar can- medical department, in which to place not but awaken lively interest among two physicians with a view bo~h. to all friends of missions. The first con- instructmg graduates of the trammg flicts with Hova forces were generally school in a regular medical course and to service among their own people. these victorious for the French, but the cli- . physicians befng at liberty also ~o pracmate was their foe; and the Christian tise medicine in the mission statIOns.
queen has done her best to avert war.
She is said to have given utterance to her convictions to an English corre- spondent, thus: Siam is to follow the example of "I and my people must go forth to Japan in establishing a. parliamentary do battle with that great nation. Tho system of government. The king rewe may have less men and poor arma- serves the right of choosing the memments to withstand them, yet shall we bers of Parliament. and of nullifying trust in God and our righteous cause its action, and of abolishing it; but to sustain our hands and keep us a free perhaps, after it has once been set up, people and kingdom. I trust in my it will find means of enlarging its own people and in God, who I daily pray powers. The king has been much imwill guide us. It is better that, as a pressed by the success of the Parliafree nation, we should disappear, or be ment of Japan during the past four exterminated, than become the servile years, and especially by its submission subjects of France. or any other for- to the authority of the Mikado. The eign power. I ask all of you who are population of Siam is only about 8,000,- Christians to pray for us in this deep 000. but it is not so homogeneous as that trouble, because, tho we desire peace of Japan. It consists of four or five above all things, we are obliged to fight. races and of a variety of castes living We have wronged no one, we would under a. social system which must make make war on no one, and all we now liberal institutions difficult to work; ask is to be allowed to live at peace but these innovations show that Siam with all men in the land that God has is sincere in her desire to gain the good given to our forefathers and to us. Let will of other powers and keep up in the French keep their land ; we shall keep ours. Then we shall be glad to be good friends with them. as with all Christian people the whole world over."
The movement of the French seems the march of the ages.. Distribution of Bibles in Ma.ny La.nds. Progress of Ohristianity in the United According to the seventy-ninth an- States.
nual report of the American Bible So- The census rcport on religious statis- ciety, the society has distributed more tics just printed shows that 20,613,000 volumes of the Scriptures in China dur- people belong to churches, including ing the year than in any preceding year spiritualists, theosophists, altruists, since it began its operations within the etc. There are 165,177 congregations. and 142,521 edifices. The value of all confines of the Celestial Empire. In church property used exclusively for purposes of worship is $679,630,139. Japan, too, a great work has been done There are 111,360 regular ordained min- isters. Five bodies have more than among the soldiers of the .Tapanese 1,000,000 communicants, and ten more than 500,000. The leading denomina- Army. tions have communicants in round num- bers as follows: Catholic, 6,250,000; Uore than one million and a half lIethodist. 4,600,000; Baptist, 3,725,- 000; Presbyterian, 1,280,832; Luther- Bibles, Testaments, and portions of the an, 1,230,000. There are 130,000 Jew- ish communicants, 13,500 Russian or- Bible were printed by the society within thodox, 10,850 Greek Catholics, 8742 of the Salvation Army. In number of the period treated of in the report. and communicants and value of church over one million of them were printed property, New York leads, and Pennon the presses in the Bible House and sylvania follows. hut in the number of more than half a million were printed organizations and church edifices, Pennin foreign lands. Through purchases sylvania is first and Ohio second. The of additional volumes, the total num- increaRe in the value of church property ber printed and procured by the society since 1870 has been $325,146,558, or amounted to 1,958,674 copies. Of nearly 92 per cent, while the number these, 947,103 volumes were issued of churches has increased 42 per cent. from the Bible House, and 634,025 in The increase in the number of organiforeign lands. Of the volumes issued zations is 126 per cent. from the Bible House, 101,196 copies were sent to foreign lands, and are not The testimony of the United States couuted among the issues in foreign countries. Minister to China, Mr. Denby, should The work in the home field has not be put on record, as recently received been neglected by reason of the unlooked ·for success met in distant lands, at the Department 01 State. He says: and of the iS8ue of 947,103 volumes from the Bible House, 845,907 have " I think no one can controvert the been for the home supply. The num- fact that the Chinese are enormously ber of familics visited by the American benefited by the labors of the mission- Bible Society and its auxiliaries was aries. Foreign hospitals are a great 516,798, of which 119,244 were found boon to the sick. China, before the to be without the Scriptures. Desti- advent of the foreigner, did not know tute families were supplied to the num- what surgery was. There are more ber of 34,299, and individuals in addi- than twenty charity hospitals in China. tion to the number of 19,982. which aTe presided over by men of as great ability as can be found elsewhere In the year 1890, upon the completion in the world. Dr. Kerr's hospital at of the fourth resupply of the United Canton is one of the great institutions States, the Board of Managers entered of the kind in the world. The Viceroy. upon the most extensive and important Li Hung Chang, has for years main· work which it has eyer undertaken- t.ained, at Tientsin, at his own expense, namely, "The Bible for every child a foreign hospital. In the matter of who can read," and solicited the co- education the movement is immense. operation of pastors, Christian parents, There are schools and colleges all over Sunday.school superintendents, and China, taught by the missionaries. I teachers. "The importance of this have been present often at the exhiwork," the report says, "has been em- bitions given by those schools. They phasized by the various ecclesiastical showed progress in a great degree. bodies, and cordially approved by the The educated Chinaman who speaks Sunday-school associations in almost every State, yet it must be confessed, altho there has been steady advance in this supply. the demand for Bibles for the children has not come up to the expectations of the managers." English becomes a new man. A long book existed only in Arabic, which few time before the present war the Em· in India understand, or in ambiguous peror was studying English, and, it is paraphrases. Now that it Is in torm to said, was fast acquiring the language. be read by the common people there is Nowhere is education more sought than a panic in the camp of Islam. Two in China. 'fhe government is, to some Mohammedan copyists engaged on the extent, founded on it. There Is a Chi· translation have abandoned Islam in nese imperial coJIege at Peking, the disgust. • The Word of God I it is not Tung-Zoen, presided over by our dis- even the word of a decent man,' they tinguished fellow-citizen, Dr. W. A. P. said. This translation is the outcome Martin; also a university, conducted of the events referred to in this maga- by the Methodist mission. There are zine for February in the editorial para- also many foreign orphan asylums in graph, • A False Prophet,' and indi- various cities, which take care of thou· cates a most encouraging break in the sands of waifs. The missionaries trans- solid ranks of Mohammedanism. The late into Chinese many scientific and converts to Christianity are a unit in philosophical works. A former mis- their testimony as to the character of sionary, Dr. Adkins, translated a whole Islam. It is • earthly, sensual, devil- series of school readers. Reflect that ish.' " all their benefactions come to the Chi- nese without much if any cost. Where The following, printed by the 0 hU1'cl~ charges are made they are exceedingly small, and are made only when t~ey .A.dvocate, deserves to be preserved and are necessary to prevent a rush, whlch, in this vast population, would over- hung up in some conspicuous place for whelm any institution. There are va- rious anti·opium hospitals, where the frequent meditation: victims of this vice are cured. There are industrial schools and workshops." THE BIBLE.
Lord Macaulay said in his speech It was never known who composed the following description, found in in the British House of Commons, Westminster Abbey, nameless and dateless: lIarch, 1843: •• That to discountenance .. A nation would be truly happy if it a religion which has done so much to were governed by no other laws than those of the blessed book. promote justice, and mercy, and free· .. It is 80 complete a system that dom, and arts, and sciences, and good nothing can be added to it.
government, and domestic happiness, .. It contains everything needful to be known or done. which has struck oft the chains of the .. It gives instructions to a senate, slave, which has mitigated the horrors authority and direction to a magistrate.
of war, which has raised women from .. It contains a witness, requires an impartial verdict of a jury, and fur- .servants and playthings into compan- nishes the judge with his sentence.
ions and friends, is to commit high .. It sets a husband as a lord of the household and the wife as a mistress of treason against humanity and civiliza- the table, tells him how to rule and her how to manage. tion." .. It prescribes and limits the sway The Baptist Mi88ionM'1J Magazine of the sovereign, the ruler, and the au- thority of the master, commands the says: subjects to honor, and the servant to obey, and promises the blessing and .. A deadly blow has been struck at protection of the Almighty to all that 1Ylohammedani&m in India by the trans· work by its rules. lation of the Koran into simple, idio· matic Urdu, the language of the com· .. It promises food and raiment; and mon people of a large part of Northern limits the use of both. India. Mohammed forbade the translation of his book, and his superstitious .. It points out a faithful and eternal followers ha ve believed it could not be guardian to the departing husband and put into any language except Arabic, father, tells him to whom to leave his the language in which it was written. fatherles,q children, and whom his wid- The translation into Urdu is the work ow is to trust, and promises a father to of an able Mohammedan convert to the former and a husband to the latter. Christianity, and it has caused consternatIon to the defenders of Islam. .. It teaches a man to set his house in The power of Islam has bcen that its order and know his will ; it appoints a dowry for his wife, and entails the rijl;ht of the first·born, and also shows fiber of his being. There was a ring how the young branches shall be kept. in his voice and In his crisp sentences which attested his sincerity, and a .. It defends the rights of all, and re- manliness in his bearing which won for veals vengeance to every defaulter, him instant respect." over-reacher, and trespasser. .
.. It is the first book and the oldest book: in the world. .. It contains the choicest matter, In the archives of the Presbyterian gives the best instruction, affords the Board of Foreign Missions, in this city, greatest pleasure and satisfaction that there has just been found an edict prowas ever enjoyed. .' mulg'!-ted by the Emperor of China more than half a century ago, it being " It contains the most ancient an- dated 1844, with relation to the treattiquiti€s, strange events, wonderful oc- currences, heroic deeds, and unparalleled wars."
ment to be accorded to all those within Rev. Dr. Behrends on June 9th paid the domain of the Chinese Empire who a fine tribute to Henry Martyn Scudder, professed the religion of the " Lord of D.D., his predecessor in the Central Heaven." The edict was called forth Congregational Church, Brooklyn. As by disturbances which had arisen to his life generally, character, and through some misbehavior of the missionary career, he says: French Catholic missionaries, and in the .. It was a long life, beginning in course of which many of the innocent 1822 and coming to its earthly close on had suffered at the hands of the natives.
June 5th, 1895 It was a cosmopolitan The edict was in the form of a memolife. He was born in Ceylon, educated in New York City, spent twenty years rial of Keting, Imperial Commissioner in India, held pastorates in Jersey City, and Viceroy of the Canton and Kwang- San Francisco, Brooklyn, and Chicago, Se provinces, to the Emperor. Among labored for scvcral years in Japan, other things contained in this document crossed the Pacific once more for the health of a dear daughter, who died in is the following statement, which, in Southern California, tarried for a sea- view of recent events, will be found of son in Chicago, and then went to Win- deep interest: "Now, according to the chester to wait for the end. It was a request of the envoy of the French navaried life in personal experience, cov- tion, Lagrene. that the virtuous profesering the whole range between ecstatic sors of the said religion in China shonld gladness and bitterest anguish, during be exonerated from blame, it appears all of which his cheerful courage and suitable to accede thereto; and it is sunny faith never suffered eclipse, proper to request that henceforth with though for two years his constant prayer regard to all persons, whether Chinese had been that the Lord would take him or foreigners, professing the religion of home, for he dreaded that his disease the Lord of Heaven, who do not cr('ate might make such progress as to render disturbance nor act improperly, it be him helpless and bed-ridden. From humbly entreated of theimperJal benevthat he was most mercifully spared, olence to grant, that they be exonerated and his mind was clear to the very last. from blame. But if such persons re- It was a very busy life, for he never sume their former ways, and indepenspared himself, but worked to the ut- dently of their professions commit other m(Jst limit of his energy. He was an crimes and misdemeanors, then they Oriental scholar of no mean ability, a will be dealt with according to existmaster in Scripture exposition, an able ing laws. With regard to the French and instructive preacher, a devoted and and the subjects of other foreign nasympathetic pastor. His fellowships tions who profess the aforesaid religwere wide and ~enerous. He had no ion, it is only permitted them to build taste for theologlcal subtleties, and no churches at the five ports opened for patience with dogmatic controversy. foreign commerce, and they must not Yet he was intensely and emphatically improperly enter the inner land to difevangelical, and on the doctrine of the fuse their faith. Should any offend incarnation he firmly and enthusiasti- against the regulations and overstep cally maintained the ancient and uni- the boundaries, the local officers, 8.Il versal faith. He had a passion for soon as they can apprehend them. shall souls, an enthusiasm for humanity immediately deliver them over to the which made him democratic in every consuls of the di1lerent nations to be punished; but they must not rashly fossils. The Japanese are a bright, inmdict upon them the punishment of tellectual people, lovers of the beautiful, and are much more open to the claims death. " of the Gospel than are the Chinese.
Sunday Papers in Japan. The Pope of Rome is planning to send more missionaries to Jltpan. The Mika- do has appointed Christian chaplains in In the July issue of this year, pages his army, and he has on more than one 517 and 558, will be found two con- occasion shown his kindly feeling tow- trary statements as to the Sunday issues ard Christianity. The whole of his em- pire is as open to the preaching of the of the papers and periodicals published Gospel as England or the United States. In Japan. As frequently must happen There is indeed a crisis in the affairs of where different members of an editorial Japan-a place. as Dr. Pierson puts it, staff draw information from different "where opportunity and responsibility meet. " The Christian world should sources. condicting testimony appears improve the opportunity and meet the now and then. In this case the state· responsibility by sending hundreds of ments were so diametrically opposed missionaries into this white hatvest field. that careful inquiries were made to It takes an American from four to six years to learn to speak the Japanese lanlearn the facts. Professor Stanley says: guage correctly. It is one of the most .. I based my statement on what I had difficult languages in the world. The or had not seen while several years a best way, therefore, to prepare misresident of Tokyo, ag also on two peri- sionaries for Japan is to reach the Jap- anese in this country with the Gospel. odicals' statements in this country this When converted, they become enthusi- year. " astic evangelists, and are eager to return The authority for the counter state- to their native land. About two years ago the Hanson Place ment is Rev. J. D. Davis, at A. B. C. Baptist Church, of Brooklyn, opened a mission for the Japanese young men F. M., and the well"known professor in the Doshisha seminary, one of the best who are in this cluster of great cities. authorities on Japanese matters. He There are about 400 of them, and dur- ing these two years more than 90 have says that the other statement-that of accepted Jesus Christ as their. Saviour. 600 papers, none of them issues a Sun· From this mission two have already day edition-" is so utterly at variance gone to Japan as missionaries, one at with all he has ever seen or heard, that his own expense, the other supported by a good Christian woman. Two more he does not believe there is a paper In are at Northfield preparing to gCl, and Japan which does not issue a Sunday several are ready to present themselves edition. To be certain, he asked a whenever the way shall be opened. Japanese student in Oberlin College, Twelve of these bright young men have been baptized into the Hanson Place who substantiates his own statement, Baptist Church, and in giving their exand says that he has never hcard of any periences they showed that they knew such regard for the Sabbath, tho a few what they were about. Their views of dailies may issue only six copies week- Christ and the Bible were clear cut; there was a deep conviction of sin and a ly." The bulk of testimony, as we are hearty turning from it unto the Saviour; sorry to conclude, confirms Dr. Davis's and every one of them knew just why position. Dr. Knox says: "Newspapers' they wanted to join the Church. are issued on Sunday as on other days." This is the only mission for Japanese in New York, Brooklyn, and Jersey Citv, and the time has come when it I Rev. A. C. Dixon, D.D., of Brooklyn, ought to be enlarged. We have, there- fore, rented a house, 54 Sands Street, sends us an interesting bit at news : "FOR CHRIST .AND JAl'AN." near the Brooklyn end of the Bridge, and opened a" Japanese Christian In- Just now the most interesting heathen stitute." We.desire to make it a home country in the world is the Mikado's for the Japanese Christian youn~ men, empire. By its valor and resources in an evangelistic centre for reachmg the war it has stepped to the front with unsaved, and a training school for Japcivilized nations, and Japan hereafter anese Christian workers. It seems to will not be classed among the national me that we have a sort of apostOlic college for the evangelization of Japan. This is an age of reading circles and clubs. Let the idea be applied more About $2000 a year will be needed to definitely to missions. Foreign miscarryon the work as it should be. We sions are not supported, simply because expect large returns in the way of con- the Ohurch does not know about flu W01'k versions among the Japanese, but :still in order to feel about it. Set the laf/~er returns in the future through Church to reading on missions, history, biography, peoples, religions, state and theIr work in Japan. Mr. Frank Tishiro, need of the work, duty, etc. All this one of the converts, gives all his time can be done best by method. Form circles in the churches, organize someto the work of the mission, and among thing, give certificates or seals. With his fellow-Ohristians are several very the reading will come light and inter- est and giving." spiritual, earnest soul-winners. There is scarcely a meeting without a conver- To all which we have often said, sion." " Amen.
Dr. Dixon closes with an appeal for From Vitolla, Turkey-In-Europe, funds to carryon this work, which has in view the twofold object of reaching the Japanese in America and of preaching the Gospel to the whole em- pire of Japan.
No wonder a process of demoraliza- June,3d, 1895, a correspondent writes tion goes on in India through drink to the editor of the Voice: sent from England. There passed through Madina in one week, as shown .. My RESPECTED 8m : Please pardon your slave if I do not this letter trans- late precisely into your language, asfrom the posted daily returns in Liver- sisted by my lexicon. pool, 900,000 cases of gin, 24,000 butts "Many Christian newspapers, In America particularly, upbraid our race, of rum, 30,000 cases of bra~dy, 28,000 and our must gracious ruler, the Sultan, cases of Irish whiskey, 800,000 demi- because on account of the, what you johns of rum, 36,000 barrels of rum, call, Armenian .ontrages, concerning Christians In our country. 30,000 of Old Tom, 15,000 barrels of ab- .. These severe censures are not sinthe, 40,000 cases of vermouth; and equitable to my mind and to my patriyet we send missionaries to elevate and otism. Let us look. You say our Sul- tan treats the Armenians with cruelty, save this same people I but how have your Christians treated Dr. Oyrus Hamlin, long an American the first owners of America? I mean the Red Indians named the aborigines. missionary in Turkey, was sitting at You have four hundred years of persemeat with a Turkish governor, when cutions which you celebrate with yOUl' Columbian Exposition. the latter took a piece of roast mutton .. You have also one war of four In his fingers and politely passed it to years, where 1,000,000 Ohristians were the missionary. "Now do you know by their brother Christians killed. what I have done 1" asked the gov- What is one small village of rebels killed 1 ernor. "Perfectly well," replied the .. Then you had some of African slamissionary. "You have given me a very. worse degraded and cruel than delicious piece of roast meat, and I Moslem slavery, 4,000,000 slaves. have eaten it." "You have gone far " Slave-sellers are not benevolent and humane very. from it [have missed its real meaning]," said the governor. "By :that .. Statistics from America say that one half of the money for the support act I have pledged you every drop of of the United States is taken from immy blood, that while you are in my ter- post on intoxication drink, and 100,000 yearly die, caused by this vice. Our ritory no evil shall come to you. For Sultan kills a small village of heretics, that space of time we are brothers." traitors. In your Koran, which I ad- mire, there are such words like this: • Take the beam out of your eyes and Rev. T. J. Scott, D.D., missionary quickly you are able to see clearly and to India, asks: . take the mote out from your kinsman's "Why do not missionary societies eyes.' take up the' Reading Circle' idea more fully? There is a grand thing in it. " Your obedient slave, " HAMDI-NuZRET."
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGJ!:NCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign up to the mountain-sides on either Periodicals. hand, these are covered below with BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, mulberry groves, cotton plantations, MASS. and trim tea grounds, which arc often disposed in artificial terraces, which CHINA. sometimes also bear corn. Higher up, -" JAP HAN CmONG, one of the as far as the mountain will consent to pastors of the Amoy American Re- be • clothed,' grow woods, among formed :Mission, is probably the senior whose leafage the light leaves of the ordained native pastor in China. Two camph:.Jr·tree, the reddish leaves of the years ag.) he celebrated the thirtieth an· tallow-tre:J, and the dark-green lea.es niversary of his ordination, a great oc- of the arbor 'CitCJ occupy a conspicuous casion in the town in which he is set- place; but there are also found cedars tled, marked by kindly words and gifts and cypresses. And where the wood from missionaries and from Chinamen, sinks into shrubbery, it frequently con· non· Christian Chinamen as well as sists of azaleas and similar plants, which Christians. He is pastor of the church we grow in greenhouses or windows at Sio·khe, the western center of the fronting the south, and which in the American Reformed Mission, where flowering time afford a spectacle of they have a large hospital. His high dazzling beauty. There are also found character, spotless reputation, good groves of roses or jessamines. On the judgment, and kindly feeling and man- whole, there are many very beautiful ner have jnstly won for him a place in landscapes in China. Nor are there the affection a:ld esteem of all who wanting wild mountain regions of an know him, and even exceptional Influ- Alpine character. Deserts there are ence with Chinese officials. He is one none; but, on the other hand, there of the noblest fruits of the Gospel in are dreary and melancholy marshes, China. His wife is like-minded. Their and the coasts are often flat and tire- lives and work have been of signal ser· some.
vice to the cause of Christ. "-The "While plant life is thus richly de- Ohronicle. veloped in China, the opposite is true ._" There are," says the Dansk Mi8- of animal life. There is certainly no sions-BEad, .. more building stones in region on earth where it plays so slight the Great Wall of China than in all the a part and is so scantily represented as buildings of England and Scotland to· here. The greedy and reckless children gether. What are the pyramids of of men have consumed or expelled the Egypt to this ?" beasts of the field and the fowls of the air. "-Ibid_ -" Let anyone place himself in the middle of one of the beautiful river -The Blad mentions, as a corre- valleys of China, southward of the sponding work in literature, answering • Yellow Earth,' the soil of the valley to the general "voluminouGness" of is clothed with light green or yellow Chinese matters, the "Conversations· rice-fields, through which the water- Lexikon" composed about 1403, in the course winds like a glittering silver rib· course of four years, by a committee of bon; along the stream, or on either 2000 scholars, and existing (unprint- side of the valley. wave the delicate ed) in 22,937 volumes. A similar but leafy crowns of the bamboo reeds, bow- briefer one, printed in 1726, contains ing to the slightest breeze. If we look only 5000 volumes. A copy of this
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
latter has lately been added to the Brit- my people happy, every one after his ish Museum Library. condition. This have I endeavored The Blad remarks that, after having after with steady solicitude, incredible advanced beyond the Immovable Chi· zeal, and unwearied toil, so that now l nese types, we are now returning to am broken and worn out in body and them by our stereotype plates. soul. Kings, dignitaries, officers, sol- diers, people-in short. all of every rank -The present Muntchu Dynasty, show their devotion to me by lament- which, as we know, has governed ing that my years are so advanced. If China since 1644, seems to have fur- my long career is now. drawing to an nished some very capable and excellent end, I leave life with contentment."
emperors, especially Kung. hi, who The Chinese emperors have always reigned from 1661 till 1722, and who, at least had a high ideal of public duty, after a reign of sixty·one years, died at and many of them seem to have made the age of seventy. His last will and not unsuccessful efforts to fulfil it.
testament, given in the Dansk MissioruJ. This goes far to explain the long en- Blad, is the more impressive as it is said durance of the nation.
to answer very truly to the character -" The Church at Home and Abroaa of the man and of his reign. " I, the affirms that nothing has stood so much Emperor, who honor Heaven, and in the way of China's prosperity as whose calling it is to undertake ameli- her disinclination or incapacity to read orations in the State, issue this ordi- the signs of the times. I allow that the nance and say: Never among rulers, disinclination and incapacity of the who have governed the world, has there Chinese to read the signs of the times been anyone without feeling himself has been great-very great; but it must bound to honor Heaven and resemble be said in excuse of them that the avahis forefathers. The true way to do ricious policy of foreigners, especially of this is to treat men afar with kindness, the English and French, could not fail and men near by according to merit. yet more to strengthen the Chinese in Thereby one brings about repose and their indisposition to learn of the outabundance for the people, he makes the landers. Righteousness and good-will, goods of the world his goods, the heart when joined with patience and firmof the world his own heart; he fortifies ness, do not find the way barred even the State against coming dangers, and into the heart of a civilization which, obviates future calamities. I have like the Chinese, has been said"-with lived long enough: I have owned as very. decided exaggeration-" to have, many riches as are found between the for three thousand years, taken no step four seas ; I am the father Of 150 sons either forward or backward, and which and sons' sons, and of many more is represented by a mass of population daughters; I leave the kingdom in embracing nearly the third part of the peace and gladness, therefore my pros· total population of our planet. We perity may be called great; and if noth- see this, among other facts, by the uning even yet occurs to cross it, I die expected solution of the long-disputed content. Altho I do not venture to question of the audiences demanded by say that I have bettered evil morals, or the foreign ambassadors."-Missionary helped every family to superfluity or J. GENAIIR, in Be1'ichte de:r RheiniBchen even every man to necessities, even as Mi88ionB- GC$dlBcha,ft. I, moreover, cannot be compared with the pious rulers of the earlier dynas- _" Whatever one may think as to ties, yet I believe myself able to give the question whether, as Rocholl ex- -assurance that during my long reign I presses it, China and Japan will ever have aimed at nothing else than to pro- accept the Christian religion • as such'
cure the realm deep peace and render –i.e., as State r~ligion-one thing, how-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
ever, remains certain for us; even if in Lord; and the Lord Himself says (Luke Eastern Asia there should no longer be 12 ; 47); • He that knew his Lord's will sal vable peoples, yet there are at all and did it not, shall be beaten with events salvable 8ouls, and on them the many stripes.' "
might of the love which rests on the -The Danish Missionary Society havfaith in Jesus can and should approve ing taken up work in China, the Blad itself. To seek them out and to gather has been publishing a series of articles them in; to grasp the hands of the sink· on China, in every aspect equally thor· ing, to lay them at the feet of the great ough, popular, and interesting. They Physician; and where the hand of love deserve to be translated into English in cannot reach, to interpose with the arm full, omitting only the local Danish of prayer-this must, from day to day, references. be more and more recognized by us as our holy duty. There are yet many .. Chinese boys come to school richly sheaves lying out upon the tield, which endowed by ancestral inheritance with should be gathered into the garners. an unbounded reverence for consti· • Pray ye therefore the Lord of the har- tuted authority, and for the teacher's vest, that He will dri'1Je out (eklJalto) la- authority in particular. They come borers into His harvest.' "-Ibid. prepared not only to obey, but to wor· ship you. Mind, they do not come -Concerning those easy-going Chris- prepared to love you. Love on the tians who think that it lies entirely part of a pupil covers in Europe a mulwithin their own good pleasure whether titude of sins on the part of a teacher; they will do anything for this work but the Chinese boy never loves his abroad, Herr GENAHR says: "In the teacher. The very idea of it is unin- Book of Judges, fifth chapter, twenty- telligible to him. He does not love his thIrd verse, we find: "Curse ye Meroz, parents. He reverences them."-Ohisaid t.he angel of the Lord, curse ye nese Rewrder.
bitterly the inhabitants thereof; be- -In China the form of life seems to cause they came not to the help of the have been 80 extraordinarily developed Lord, to the help of the Lord against as almost to have destroyed the sub· the mighty." In lin old book we tind stance of it. Indeed, the ReC<:Yrder goes the following questions and answers on to say; "Chinese boys, who are all upon this verse: singularly deficient in the matter of "Who has commanded to curse emotion and feeling, have generally an Meroz ? Answer: The angel of the amount of :.esthetic feeling which you Lord. rarely find in European children• .. What had Meroz done? Nothing. There is inborn in Chinese boys are· .. How? why, then, is Meroz cursed? fined sensibility to the impressions of Because she has done nothing. form. Witness, for instance, their deli- .. What should Meroz have done? cate perception of what is pretty lind Come to the help of the Lord. graceful in rites, ceremony, and eti· .. Could not the Lord, then, have quette. It is for you to take advan- succeeded without Meroz? The Lord tage of this :.esthetic feeling, which in did succeed without Meroz. the case of the whole Chinese nation " Then has the Lord met with a loss forms the essential basis of both rellg· thereby? No, but Meroz. ion and morality. They have no true " Is Meroz, then, to be cursed there- religious feeling, no genuine moral sen- for? Yes, and that bitterly. timent, such as you know European "Is it right that a man should be children possess as their Christian birth· cursed for having done nothing ? Yes, right. Their religion is all reverence; when he should have done something. their morality springs with them not " Who says that? The angel of the from an inborn God·consciousness, but,
ENGLISH NOTES
as it was with tile Greeks of classical !tovement initiated by the Church Mis-.
antiquity, from an inborn, !esthetic sionary Society over seven years ago, feeling of propriety and good form." that society has furnished an object- This may remind us of what James lesson of what faith, under God, When Parton says, evidently with complacent supported by courage, can accomplish.
approbation, of Thomas Jeft'erson, that During this period no suitable candi- religion was with him not a conflict or dates, no qualified missionaries have an agony, but" a supreme etiquette." been refused on financial ground8; the consequence has been that the number :English Notes. of missionaries, exclusive of wives, has lIY JAMES DOUGLA!!. increased from 333 to 634, and the number of single lady missionaries The Kumaon Mi88Wn.-This branch from 32 to 193, while the receipts last of the London :Missionary Society's year exceed by more than £20,000 those work, since its establishment forty-five of any former year.
years ago by the late Mr. Budden, has Bouth &aa.-Thenew steamshipJohn grown most promisingly, including to- Wi1liams is proving of immense service day all the usual round of Christian to the agents of the London Missionary agencies. In addition to schools for Society. By her means a long run to boys and girls, boarding-houses, wom- the northwest out-stations has been en'shome, orphanage, and hospital, the safely and satisfactorily accomplished list includes a flourishing and well- in forty-four days, ,ess than half the managed leper asylum, out of 121 in- time required by the former bark, bemates of which 94 are Christian. Miss sides allowing longer time for each Budden, now in England, hopes on her visit. Captain Hare reports that" teachreturn to be free to push forward the ers and people were delighted with the work in.to Bhob, along the borders of ship; and the only discomfort the dep- Thibet. utation had was the quickness with Addre88 by a Samoan Queen.-The which they passed from one station to address delivered by the Queen of another." It was literally "from isl- Mantua, on the occasion of opening a and to island. " Before the excitement new church in the capital town of the of one visit had time to subside, they group, May 26th, 1895, is now reo were at a fresh destination.
ported in full in the organ of the 1,on- Medical Mi88Wn8. -The estimated cost don Missionary Society. It is full of of the Church Missionary Society's praise Godward, and has as its chief medical missions for the current year is burden manward the inculcation of £5170. Last year over 4500 in·patients brotherly love. " My last word to YOIl and. over 370,000 out patients were is to urge you to accept and obey treated. This means more than the Christ's new commandment, which He saving of many lives and the imparting gave to His disciples and to us each of much physical benefit in various and all: 'Love one another.' How ways. As the report points out, the can a people be blessed if God's Word medical missionary is an evangelist first is not obeyed? And this is His special and a physician afterward. By his command to us, to you all, that we means much misconception about ChrIs- should all strive to have love, the one tianity is removed, while hundreds of to the other. May God bless and help thousands are brought under a hear- you all to obey Him, and then will true ing of the Gospel, and often become blessedness come to these islands of themselves bearers of the truth to parts Mantua." of the country whither no missionary The FO'1"1J)ard MOtJem(Jnt in the Churclt has ever come.
.Mi~ionary Society.-In the Forward Upper Congo.-The Rev. J. H.
GlllNERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
Weeks, of the Baptist Missionary Soci. never pass from Korea to work here, ety, reports the baptism of the first and 'Vice f!61'Bd" because there is no ho- Bangala converts, four youth who for mogeneity of race or language or any- six months have given proof of saving thing whatever. The Church has to chango of heart. As three of these are open an absolutely ncw field of work town lads, free born. they will, by rea· here. Who will open it Y Please re- son of the status of their families, be· member our needs in your prayers."
come men of position and influence. One in OhriBt.-In the Presbyterian missionary organ an interesting account Madaripore.-Three new chapels are is supplied of the power of Christian to be erected in this district in connec- love in the mutual relations of Chinese tion with the operations of the Baptist and Japanese Christians in the Pesca- Missionary Society. Of these two will dores. When the Japanese took posbe memorial chapels-one in memory of session of Makung, the inhabitants, the late John Chamberlain Page, and among whom was a group of believers, the other in memory of the late Mr. retreated to the north of the little isl- Sale. Both Mr. Sale and Mr. Page lao and. Afterward, the Chinese returnbored hard for many years in the Back· ing to Makung, the Christians asked ergunge and Furreedpore beelB, and that their church might be restored to their names are still fragrant in the them; and this being granted by the memory of thousands.
" The Oongo for 0 l;,ri8t: the Story of Japanese, Divine service was held in it the Oongo Mi8sion." -Such is the title as in former time. No sooner did the of a new work published by S. W. Christians in the Japanese force learn Partridge & Co.• London, price lB. 6d•• of this Chinese Christian church than and written by the Rev. J. B. Myers, they came to join them in their wor- Association Secretary of the Baptist ship. In each case the New Testament Missionary Society. The work on the and hymn-book in .. character" help to Congo has, in several places, passed the make the service interesting to those to pioneer stage, and there the harvest is whom otherwise it would be in an un- already in course. The most promis- known tongue. The plan adopted is ing feature in the movement concerns to hold a Chinese service in the morn- " the evangelistic efforts of the native ing, the Japanese attending, and in Christian churches. This especially ap- the afternoon the service is in Japa- plies to the little church of San Salva- , nese, to which also the Chinese Chris- dor, the male members of which have tians come. Mr. Barclay writes of for seven years devoted themselves to " this beautiful Christian union" with the gracious work of making Christ a glad and thankful heart.
known in the neighboring towns and Soutlt Afriea,-An S. P. G. mission· villages. A further feature of promise ary of mark has just fallen in South in the work is the extent to which the Africa, who, after devoting many years duty and privilege of contributing to to the work of the Church in Natal, the work of Christ have taken hold on had just volunteered to take part in the converts. the more arduous work that has to be Manchuria.-Tidings long delayed, done in the diocese of Lebombo. We owing to the disturbed state of the allude to the Rev. H. T. A. Thompson.
country, have arrived from the Rev. As a man of means, he laid his gifts as F. W. Doxat, S. P. G. missionary in well as his life on the altar. Ordained Newchwang. He writes: "Oh, I wish in 1881, he was stationed at the famous we had missionaries here! The time mission of Springvale in 18S6, and of suffering before us would be times since 1892 has labored with much suc- of BOwing, if there were only some one cess at Euhlouhleui, where his school to carry the seed. Korean workers can and church were as an oasis in the wil· demess. Mr. Thompson did important -Dr_ R. N. Cust says: "Prayer and service in translating into the Zulu praise to the Lord of heaven and earth tongue the Book of Common Prayer and reading and teaching of the Word and the Bible. of God are heard at every hour of the day in all the chief languages of the THE KINGDOM. world, in every part of the world ac- cessible to the Anglo-Saxon, by every -Can a Southern Presbyterian, asks race of mankind, black, brown, yellow, The Mi88ionary, who is lukewarm on red, or white, under the leadership of tbe subject of foreign missions, be English-speaking missionaries." loyal to his church when on her banner, from the day of her organization, -Is it not perfectly erroneous to talk she has affirmed that preaching the of the failure of missions, when they Gospel to every creature is the g·reat started with 120 despised Galileans, and end of Iter organization , when now there are at least l20,OOO,000 of Protestants, and they have in their -St. Theresa was aged and indigent power almost all the wealth and almost in the extreme, but with only three all the resources of the world !-Archsous for a beginning, she set out to deacon Fa'l"l'ar. build an orphanage. When taken to task for her "folly," she answered, -It is said that the Christian natives " Theresa and three sous are nothing, of the South Sea Islands prepare their but Theresa, three sous, and God are Sunday food on Saturday. Not a fire everything. " is lighted, neither flesh nor food is cooked, not a tree is climbed, nor a. ~He who plants missions, and he canoe seen on the water, nor a journey who conserves that which others have by land undertaken on God's holy day_ planted, are among the immortal bene- Then it might not be amiss to import factors of mankind. He who in mod- some shiploads of them into Christenern times announces the name of Christ dom to show the saints how to carry to men who have never before heard themselves on the Sababth. the incomparable word, ranks with the disciples and apostles who announced -A. writer in the Foreign Mission the name that is above every name. Journal (Southern Baptist), from the Livingstone is the spiritual father of startling, but eminently sound postu- Africa, and is in the list with Moses, late, « The Missionary a Human Being." who personally touched but a corner in sets forth to make reply to some critithat great land. The law·giver went cisms, which tho common are absurd. to Egypt to get God's people out of Surely, never before have Christian Africa, but Livingstone explored the missions been brought into public no· Dark Continent so that those people tice so often and with such prominence might re-enter and occupy the almost as for a month or two since, and in conunknown equatorial regions.-Ohicago nection with the troubles in Turkey Advocate. and China. Criticisms have been sharp, but the answers have also been abun- -Instead of the cry" world-wide dant as well as fully adequate to the evangelization I" which acceptll no fur- occasion. The value of this discussion ther responsibility and awaits but little in adding to the hosts who look and laresult, I would substitute the motto, bor for the word's redemption can .. World-wide victory I"-the world scarcely be overestimated. for Christ; the Church in every land; every church a witness for Christ; -In particular, one of the wiseacre every church more and more trium- critics essayed to laugh down by a carphant, till Christ, through the Church, toon in a. noted comic paper those who shall rule over aU I-Edward A. Law- would carry the Gospel to the ends of rence. the earth, and the legend; .. Our church charities cannot see the misery man, as a surgeon who undertook cases under their own noses at home." that would not be risked in Philadel- Whereupon the Independent and the phia. In this country, he estimated that Dr. Kerr might get. $75,000 a year. ohurchman proceeded so to belabor Yet that missionary, • the peer of any living surgeon in the world to-day,' him with facts and logic as to make who hilS treated three quarters of a his case pitiful in the extreme. million patients, lives on a slender sal- ary for the sake of Christ and the so- -The Illustrated MiBBionary Nll1JJs is called celestial." responsible for the statement that" it is not perhaps generally known that, -We must wait and look afaT to find counting clergy and ministers of all de- aught more significant than the recent nominations, Bible-women, catechists, proclamation of Li Hung Chang, the etc., . there are as many missionaries eminent Chinese statesman, who stands working among the 4,000,000 of Lon- next after the Emperor himself. It don as there are among 800,000,000 of leaves nothing to be desired as a testiheathen and 200,000,000 of lIohamme- mony to the moral worth of the misdans abroad. Therefore if the cry of sionaries and the value of tbeir work. outcast London is loud and stirring, the These words contain the gist of his tesbitter cry of outcast heathendom is 250 timony: .. Now having examined the times as loud and 250 times as pierc- doctrine halls in every place pertaining ing. .. And yet, tho similar statements to this prefecture, we find there have can be made as to New York, Chicago, been established free schools where the and every large city in Christendom, poor children of China may receive inthe smart cartoonist commiserated struction; hospitals where Chinamen above is pained to note that .. Our may freely receive healing; that the ch'ITch charities cannot see the misery missionaries all are really good; not under their own noses at home." , only do they not take the people's pos· sessions, but they do not seem to desire -Count Tolstoi, the Russian philan- men's praises. Be it known that forthropist, calls attention afresh to the eigners here renting or otherwise setfact that the martyrs to wrong-doing ting up halls do so to save and to help far exceed the martyrs to right-doing. the poor and that there is not the least He says: " In 1800 years 380,000 peo- underhandedness. .. ple suffered voluntary or involuntary martyrdom in the cause of Christ. -Bishop Galloway condemnll .. him Count now the martyrs of the world. who canonizes the man who goes to You will see that for one martyr to Africa to save the negro, and ostracizes Christ there are a thousand martyrs to the man who stays in Chattanooga to the world-martyrs whose sufferings save the negro." That is aimed at the have been a thousand times more cruel. center of the target.-North and West. In the waTS of the present century alone 30,000,000 men have been killed." -It is truly comforting I and even Add to these all the victims of lust for hope-inspiring I I to learn that after a wealth, and fame and pleasure, of dev- year's effort on the part of the Chicago ilish passion and animal desire, and Methodist preachers to persuade the how insignificant the number of those Pope, who simply dotes on the freedom who have lost their lives for Jesus' of conscience which Catholics enjoy in sake II this land, to use his good offices to miti- gate the sharp pains and penalties visited -" Those who scorn our missionaries on Protestants in certain States of South may be forgiven on the same petition America, to hear straight from the lips that Christ-offered for His murderers- of his Holiness that, if Indeed there be viz., • They know not what they do.' intolerance down there, it is purely a Our consul-general in Canton, China, pointed out Dr. Kerr to a newspaper civil matter with which he cannot med- a salary of $18.000 a year. And yet dle (ah, no I), and that, moreover. he our sisters can scarcely expect that such has actually written thither to ascertain openings await their coming in all misthe facts in the case. sion fields.
WOMAN'S WORK. -Chaplain McCabe, under the title "A Faithful Steward," tells how a Methodist saint. Mrs. Adeline M. Smith, -In the department of " Women and of Oak Park, Ill., administered an es- IvIiBBions," Gi8t relates the following : tate valued at $125,000, and left by her .. In a company the question was reo husband. By prudent care and ecocently asked, • What event of this cen· nomicalliving she increased it by more tury is most important and far-reaching than $10,000, and distributed the whole in its power for good to the human to various churches, missIons, etc., at race? ' Answers followed in quick home and abroad, including large sums succeBBion: • Discoveries in medical to establish a Biblical Institute in Tokyo, science,' 'New interest in sociology,' Japan, and in Mussoorie. India. and a • Explorations in Africa,' 'The appli- hospital in Nanking, China. cation of electricity to the service of man.' When there was a pause one -Regions Beyond for April contains said, • The higher education of woman, an interesting sketch of women's forand her service in giving the Gospel to eign miBSionary societies in Great Britthe secluded women of the world; in ain. It says: "The women of Great a word, the organization of woman's Britain and Ireland are sending to wom· en, by meaus of 12 different organizaboards of missions.' "-Tlte Helper. tions, 770 women, of whom 38 are medi- – Woman'8 Evangel (United Breth· cal workers, 20 being fully qualified ren) urges concerning September 29th : doctors. These reach 20 different " We want to make this a 8pecial wom- countries, employ about 2000 native an's day-we have a special object in helpers, and manage 900 schools, in view. All of our collections on this which brsnch of their work 64,000 girls day are to be used in the building of and women are brought under Chrisour sanitarium in Africa. The women, tian teaching. It is impossible to reckyoung people, and children are asked on the thousands of lives they dally to raise $1000 for this purpose, to be touch and infiuence in their evangelispaid through our association. We have tic, zenana, and medical work. a nucleus of $250. What if we should bring an offering on woman's day ag- -A.nother noble woman has died at gregating $750, and our 'Bome of the post of duty. The Society for Pro- Rest' for our missionaries be assured!" moting Female Education in the East bas lost one of its earliest and most ac- -The Woman's Baptist Foreign Mis- tive missionaries by the death of Mrs. Sionary Society is pushing a good work. Buckley, of Cuttack, Ori888. Mrs. It is erecting at Newton Centre, ncar Buckley was appointed to take charge Boston, a building for the young wom- of an orphan Bchool in Berhampore. en taking at the Newton Theological OriBSa, in 1841, so that at the time of , School a course of study preparatory to her death she had compl~ted over 53 foreign missionary work. It is a three- years of active service in miBBionary story builuing, colonial in style, and work. Among her pupils were girls equipped with all needed privileges for rescued from the Khonds, who stole or study by day and rest by night, while purchased female children, whom they the class-rooms of the school furnish fattened to sacrifice alive to the goddess opportunities for instruction. of the Raldi fields. She was permittcli -An American woman, Mrs. Ellis, to see much fruit from her labors among is physician to the Queen of Korea, at them. and to train many of them to be teachers to their own people.-The pel's. They have made dolls for the Ohurchman. Christmas manager of the primary de· partment of the Sunday-school, and YOUNG PEOPLE. have prepared games and a large scrap album to make other little people -The Christian Endeavor Union of merry. A very important association the Maritime Provinces has just held is the Earnest Watchers' Circle, whose its sixth yearly meeting, about 400 dele- work it is to avoid scandal and help gates being present. During the past others. This circle has given a year's year 84 new societies had been enrolled, subscription of the Silver Cross to the making the whole number 595. Of King's Daughters room, and visited and these Nova Scotia has 381 ; New Bruns- provided for the comfort of a poor wick, 162; Prince Edward's Island, woman who is bed-ridden, money for 62. The total membership is about which was raised at a lawn social."- 37,000. During the last' year 2500 as- The Temple Magazine. sociate members passed into the ranks of the active membership, and $7000 -Alice M. Douglass, in Woman's were raised for missionary and other Home Missions for September, names Christian work. " one hundred ways for little people to raise mission money." Let children -Some Methodist young people of and youth scan the list carefully, select Washington, D. C., recently held a what will :fit their case, and go to service with a unique program. One work: of the officers spoke on the topic, .. Look up," another on " Lift up." an- By making and selling: Dish cloths, other, "Read up," another, .. Brush sweeping caps, holders, pin-balls, pinup." The secretary's talk was on cushions, lamp lighters, glass wipers, .. Write uP." the treasurer's, "Pay emery bags, book marks, needle books, up," the Junior superintendent's, slumber robes, broom-holders, shaving "Grow up," while the president eon- cases, hair combers, hemstitched wash cluded the exercises with a brief ad- rags, clothes bags, wristers, knit reins, dress entitled" Summed up." pine pillows, slipper cases, bread cloths, hairpin cases, " scratch-my· backs," toil- -According to this statement, Rev. et sets, sachets, kettle holders, splash- Russell Conwell's young people must ers, flower-pot covers, boxes for burnt constitute a veritable hive of holy ac· matches, book covers, paper weights, tivities: "The Doork.eepers' Circle of knit garters, Christmas wreaths, Christ- boys has provided birthday cards for mas cards, Easter eggs, Easter cards, the primary department of the Sunday- card cases, photograph holders_ school, raised money for an open-air By selling: Old rags, hair-combings, fund, given a package of horse-car flower seeds, soap grease, paper bags tickets to a poor woman who could not to the grocer, vegetables, fruit, cur- have a vacation during the summer, rants, hens' eggs, milk from mission and has carried to a number of poor cows, old papers, old boots and rub- children packages of good things at bers.
Christmas. The Ever-Ready Circle of By gathering and selling: Wild flow- young girls meets once a week, except ers, herbs, berries, teaberry leaves, cat- during the summer, holds a little pray- nip, plantain, chick weed, pepper grass, er-meeting, learns the commandments, cresses, sassafras root, cat-tails, thistle reads the Bible, and dresses dolls for puffs, autumn leaves, potted ferns~ the children of the poor. The Little pressed ferns, flr and pine for pillows, Pilgrim Circle is a society of young wild rose leaves for sachets, dultz, girls who try in their spare moments to snails, scallop shells, sand, soil for lend a hand at home and also to gain plants, feathers from fowls.
control over unruly tongues and tem- By "thank offerings," the placing a: penny in your mite-box, under the fol- -Oberlin is increasingly proving lowing conditions, thus thanking God itself to be the paradise for missionathat blessings increase and faults de- ries home on furlough and their chilcrease; and by fines for your faults. dren who must be educated in this Every time you are honestly rebuk- country. Just now 8 adults are resied, read a book, favorite plant blooms, dent here, with 45 boys and girls, while receive a present, forget to say" thank enough more have recently departed, you," speak cross, speak ungrammati- or are soon to arrive, to raise the numcally, use a slang phrase, an oppor- ber to 70 for the current year. These tunity for doing good is wasted, forget represent 7 countries-Africa, China, to close the door gently, receive a re- India, Japan, Mexico, Micronesia, and ward of merit, receive a letter, are Turkey-and 14 missions of the Amerispoken kindly to, have a new friend, can Board. Judson Cottage will hold are deservedly praised, can speak a scarcely half who desire to enter, and good word for an acquaintance, learn several thousand dollars are imperaa new chapter in the Bible, learn a new tively needed for the new building. song, can' play a new piece of music without a mistake, etc. -Theodore Roosevelt. in the Sep- tember Forum, speaks thus wisely on -AI!, a missionary possessed of a racy the enforcement of law; "In the end style, and who is sure to write what the we shall win in spite of the open oppoyoung will be sure to read, Rev. L. D. sition of the forces of evil. in spite Morse may be named, whose letters ap- of the timid surrender of the weakly pear quite often in the Messenger and good, if only we stand squarely and Visitor (Baptist, St. John, N. B.), un- fairly on the platform of the honest ender the title "Sights and Sounds in forcement of the law of the land. But India." if we are to face defeat instead of vic- tory. that would not alter our convic- UNITED STATES. tions and would not cause us to flinch one hand's breadth from the course we -The Boston street-car company this have been pursuing. There are prices year gave to the poor 20,000 tickets for too dear to be paid even for victory." free rides on the electric cars. -The influence of the work done -It is stated that Cambridge, Mass., among the Japanese in San Francisco has been eight years without a saloon. is far-reaching. The majority of young Its population is over 80,000. The se- men coming in personal contact with cret bars have been rooted out, and it missions sooner or later return to their has long been difficult to procure in- native land, and in many instances toxicating liquor in the city. Mean- carry back with them new purposes while, the valuation of the city increased and high ideals. At the present time from $59,703,000 to $76,282,000, and 4 young men who were converted in the same rate of taxation produces this city are practiSing physicians in $130,000 more than formerly. The Japan. Others are teachers in Japaonce 122 saloons have been turned into nese schools. One is professor in the stores or dwellings. Government Agricultural College at Osaka. Others are evangelists among -Booker T. Washington, Principal their own people. of Tuskeegee (Ala.) Normal and Industrial Institute, has won a notable vic- -At the last annual meeting of the tory for himself and his race, in receiv- American Missionary Association. Proing an invitation to make an address at fessor T. S. Inborden said; "What has the Atlanta Exposition. He has al· this society done for the negro? It has ways Ipaintained that the best element caused some of our Southern boys and of the South would recognize and hon- girls to put a part of the English Bible or the negro as soon as he proved himself worthy. into the African language. It has New York, and hopes eventually to or- made college presidents of some of our ganize a church of converted Chinamen.
bootblacks. It h!l.S made preachers of EUROPE. truth and righteousness out of our ho- tel boys. It has made college profes- -Between 5000 and 6000 tons of sors of the first order out of cotton- opium are sent from India to China anpickers. It has given us lawyers and nually, as an article of English trade, doctors of whom you cannot be asham- from which the Indian Government deed. It has filled hundreds of public rives at the present time an annual revschool-houses with teachers who give enue of about $82,000,000. And what honor to thcir profession. " is this but an enormously large and odorous fiy in the ointment of British -After 81 years of most laborious Christianity, which grievously pollutes and devoted service, and at his own re- the air of this lower world, and smells quest, Dr. M. E- Strilby retires from to heaven. his place as Senior Secretary of the American Missionary Association, a so- -Look, indeed, on that picture, but ciety which has no peer for benefits also on this. The spiritual vitality of spiritual and intellectual conferred upon the Church' of England is undeniably the Freedmen. proven by the large number of faithful men in her communion who at much -Luther Sunday was inaugurated sacrifice of worldly gain give themby the General Synod in 1888, and since selves to the ministry of the Word. then 12 annual offerings have been The Rev. J. W. Ingram, the head of made, each one larger than the preced- Oxford House, writes of the spiritual ing, until the sum total for 1894 was needs of the East End of London and over $10,800, the entire 12 offerings ag- numbers of young men who are ready gregating over $70,000.
-It is pleasant to find the following to give themselves to this work. He in the .A8lle'Tl/JJl1l He'rald, in an article says: under the headIng, "The Embargo .. It is the pick of the universities, Lifted:" "One of the most distressing lhe captains of the boats, and men who consequences of the heavy deficit with are the life of the universities who want which the Board of Foreign Missions to come into East London work. We closed its last fiscal year was its action will provide 10UO men if you will pro- declining to send any new missionarIes vide stipends for them. They only ask to the field unless special funds were food and lodging; and if you will give provided for the purpose. To the them that they will come and work for praise of God's grace and the honor of you."
the Presbyterian Church we now re- A church which produces such men as cord the fact that provision has been these need not fear that IdiQ1Jod will ne made for 82 mi~Bionaries under appoint- written on her temple walls. She ril- ment, leaving but 2 or 3 still to be pro- mains established in the hearts of the vided for. This has been done without people and endowed with the Holy any pressure from the board other than Ghost, and will not suffer from any a statement of the facts." form of disestablishment and disen- -The first Chinaman to enter the dowment which Parliament may enministry in New York State is Hui Kin, force upon her.-Indian Witness.
who was ordained recently at Univer- -The North Africa Mission hopes sity Place Presbyterian Church. He .. the coming winter to increase the has been educated under the care of the number of missionaries in Egypt. It presbytery, and has been very success- is just over three years since the first ful in mission work among his country- party of our workers went there. They men. He will hold Chinese services In have been encouraged by the entrance they have gained and by the number San Sebastian. This event was un- who come to talk on religious matters, precedented in the land of Isabella.
but need more help to enable them to The more than 1000 male students of go out on the waterways in the boat the university were astounded at the that has been provided to facilitate our presence of the two girls taking their conveniently reaching the villages of examinations. Once, when tbey had the Delta. It is hoped that 7 new occasion to visit the university library workers may be sent out this season to refer to some books, the students from among those who have been study· formed two lines on each side of tbe ing Arabic here. It is proposed also staircase, threw down tteir caps for to send 3 more new workers to Tripoli the girls to walk upon, and, as they and 1 to Tangier-11 in all, all of whom passed along, sung the Royal March.
have some knowledge of Arabic gram· After a week's examinations came the mar. The new session for the study of climax. Four grades are given: apro..
Arabic, etc., began on September 2d bado, bueno, notahle, and 8ob'1'e8aliente.
with Bome 6 or 7 new students who will The last means .. overleaping every· commence their labors. These, with thing," and testifies to a most unusual those now studying, who will not be degree of attainment. In every exami· ready to go out till after Christmas, nation these Spanish girls received 80- will bring our numbers up to 12 or 14." bre8aliente. The professors were much -In this great work of instruction astonished, and especially when they the Society for the Propagation of the found out that the girls had been taught Gospel is bearing a very prominent part by a woman. What this incident means not only in Asia, but also in Africa, for Spain it would be hard to estimate. America, and the West Indies. There It is a missionary triumph of the first are now 87 English colonial and mis- magnitude.-Euhange.
sionary dioceses, the bishops of which -It is an interesting result of the control education in no less than 53 Ian· work of the Waldensian Church in Italy gnages, having 680 ordained mission· that from Girgenti, one of the most aries under them, of whom 119 are na· bigoted and intolerant towns of Sicily, tives of Asia and 38 natives of Africa. there has just gone the first evangelical There are in the Society's colleges about missionary from Italy to China. Other 2500 students aud 2300 lay teachers, Waldensian pastors have entered upon mostly natives employed in the various mission work, but they have gone from missions in Asia and Africa, in the the native churches of the valleys of schools of which 38,000 children are Piedmont. This Is the first fruit of under instruction. These facts show their work farther south. The Wal· to what extent the Society for the Propa. densian theological school at Florence gation of the Gospel is assisting the has 155 students, 106 of them coming gQvernment in the great work of edu· from the Waldensian valleys, and from cation.-MiaBion Field. their number 2 missionaries have gone -One of the most noteworthy of our to the Zambesi and 1 to Lessouto.-In- American missionary enterprises is Mrs. Alice Gordon Gulick's girls' school at dependent.
ASIA.
San Sebastian, Spain. This noble in· Islam.-It is a sad reflection, well stitution is rapidly proving to the chiv· says the Bishop of Hereford, that more alrous Spaniards that women are capa· than 1800 years after the death of our ble of as lofty intellectual attainments Lord, over all those Asiatic districts as themselves; Two of Mrs. Gulick's in which He preached, and in the very girls this year took the degree of Mas· home of His birth, for a man, woman, ter of Arts at Madrid University, hav· or child to be a believer in Christ is to ing completed the required studies at be exposed to the risk of nameless atrocity and outrage, and to death and seeking instruction in lieu of a silver shame. bracelet which she brought. This " maid" lmd counted the cost, was -It is stated that in 1822 the Turks quite prepared to "forget her ornamassacred 50,000 Christian Greeks in ments," if only parting with it would the Island of Chios; in 1850. 10,000 secure that knowledge for which she Nestorians and Armenian Christians in was prepared thus to deny herself.- Kurdistan; in 1860, 11,000 Maronites &rvicejol' the King. and Syrian Christians in Lebanon and Damascus; in 1876, 10,000 Bulgarian -A Russian Hebrew is said to hav!> Christians in Dnlgaria; and in August, devoted a large sum to establishing a 1894, 16,000 Armenian Christians in Jewish university in Jerusalem, ;.n Sassoun. This makes a total of 97,000 which special attention is to be paid to official murders. It is not too much to the Semitic languages and Hebrew litassume at least 3000 uncataloged, un- erature. official murders of Christian subjects during the last 75 years by the Sublime -In a recent article the New York Porte. At a low estimate the grand Observer says: "The Bible itself is a total would be 100,000 Christians Wall- missionary In Arabia. Its Oriental tonly murdered by Turks since 1820. character makes it acceptable. Books are greatly valued by the Arabs, and -The mills of the gods grind slowly, the Old Testament, with its stories of but they grind to powder. Let the Abraham, Ishmael, and Job, is pargood work of disintegration and demo- ticularly pleasing. The New Testalition go on in the Sultan's domain. It ment is acknowledged as God's Book, is pleasant to recall that during the as having come down from heaven, and century Turkey has lost a very large an inevitable result of an honest study part of its territory. Greece, Cyprus, of the Gospels by the Mohammedan is, Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, Montene- at least, a logical conviction that the gro, Batoum, and all North Africa, we prophet has fearfully misled his follow- – may almost add Syria. are free from Turkish government. There remain ers. Nothing can be more encouragonly Albania and Roumelia in Europe, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Arabia; ing, therefore, than the fact of continand Turkey's hold on these is very weak. ually increasing Bible sales."
-May the recent dreadtul barbarities -" The Arabian Mission Field Rein Armenia prove as fruitful in good port Number Fourteen, April 1st to . :results. The Lebanon massacre in 1860 June 30th, 1895," has for the opening opened up the sympathies of Christians sentence: "The best thing to report for . in England and elsewhere, and soon 30 thi~ quarter is the reinforcement of the schools had 3000 children under in- mission, not only by the arrival of Dr. struction. The work of Mrs. Bowie Worrall, who fills the place so long Thompson and all associated with her pleaded for, but also the engagement has borne abundant fruit in Damascus, of two additional native helpers, made Beirut, and Tyre, and in no other coun- possible by the grant of the American try have the efrects of the Church Mis- Bible Society." The book sales for the sionary and Female Education societies quarter were as follows: In Busrah, been attended with more cheering re- 22 Bibles, 40 Testaments, 406 portions, sults. Beirut has a large and important 468 Scriptures, 84 religious books, and training school, in which 70 boarders are 116 educational-total, 668; in Baheducated as teachers, many of whom rein, 24 Bibles, 44 Testaments, 556 porare greatly valued in their own and ad- tions, 624 Scriptures, 125 religious joining countries. Not long ago a bookS, and 129 educational-toml, 878. young girl came to the boarding.school A large proportion of these sales was to Muslim; Christians come next, and , some of the sales were to Jews and ligious Reforms," etc. In one of her . Hindus. lectures to a large audience she con- demned in unmeasured terms the vices Iodia.-The Revue des Mi88ions Oon- which are at present eating into the tempo1'uines has it that at least in some vitals of Hindu society, and advocated sections the Hindus much desire to have the days return of the precious very eloquently the cause ot female EllSt India Company. which by its offi- cers guarded the wealth of the pagan education. She belongs, we are told, temples. So much so, indeed, that to the Arya Samaj, and is traveling in ," last year the notabilities of the city the important cities of Upper India of Iirupali petitioned the viceroy to with the object of rousing the Hindus take charge of the preservation of their of those places to their sense of duty in temple possessions, and native journals matters of religious and social reform, on all sides vehemently urge the same and insisting upon them to ameliorate measure with regard to all the temples. the condition of their women by giving The reason for this is that it is every- them education on all lines.-Indian where acknowledged that the priests, Me88enger. preoccupied solely with their own self- interest, speedily diminish the wealth -In 1893 no less than 21,213 persons of the temples to which they are at- perished from snake-bites in India, and tached, and the people believe the only 117,120 of these venomous reptiles were remedy for this state of things is again slain. to commit to government the adminis- tration of these affairs. The viceroy, – Where is the romance of mission- however, returned a categorical refusal ary life in India during the summer to the petition." solstice, according to the statement of Rev. S. C. Kinsinger, of the Lutheran -A new society known as the Maha General Synod Mission, Guntur? "At _ Bodhi has been created for the purpose first one does not suffer much from the heat. The heavy walls-two and a of reinvigorating Buddhism. Its gen- half feet thick-protect one from the eral secretary is Mr. A. Dharnapala, hot blast. After a time, tho, the wind who represented Buddhism at the Par- warms them through. Then they be· liament of Religions in Chicago last gin to emit their pent-up heat. The year. With Calcutta as headquarters bungalow seems like a dry house then. and with corresponding members Everything inside it becomes warm. throughout Europe and Asia, the society Whatever one touches feels hot. Then proposes to make _known to all nations a person becomes about as uncomforta· in a thoroughly modern way" the sub- ble as he can well be, and there is no lime teachings of the Buddha Sakya escape from the situation. If he sits Muni, and to rescue and restore the down on a chair it Is hot. If he picks light of the holy tree at Buddhagaya, up a book it is hot. When he sits where the Buddha attained supreme down to the table the dishes are all wisdom. "-Standard. hot. Should he seek refuge for a little while in a bath-tub when he comes out -Some of our North Indian contem- he finds the towels hot. If he takes a poraries speak highly of an Indian clean white drill suit from his tin-lined woman preacher, by name Pundita boxes, where they are kept, to protect .Surendrabala Devi, who is evidently them from being devoured by white trying to follow in the footsteps of ants and other Insects, it is hot. In the Pundita Ramabai. She Is described as evening when he retires his night of good education and a fiuent speaker, clothes are hot He lies down on the and has lately been delivering l'tirring bed, but the bed clothes are hot-actu- addresses in and about Lucknow on ally hot-as hot as if they had just such subjects as " Public Good," " Re- come from the ironing board. Some times relief is sought by dipping the itors. We constantly come across the bed·clothes into water just before reo effects gf his life and conversation in tiring," etc. villages which he has no official con· nection with." -But, besides, there is torrid heat of another sort, and even harder to bear, -This is how they" take up a col· and which a missionary of the Ameri· lection" in South India! Easter Mon· can Board hints at in these words: day was set apart for an " ingathering "After the missionary, pastors, and service" at Zion Church, Madras, and preachers had formally received these theRev. W. W. Clark reports : .. Words people to the Christian faith, had laid cannot express the readiness and cheerout the site of the church with prayer fulness with which all the members reand an address, and had visited the sponded to this appeal. All sorts and houses of the different familles to en· varieties of articles, such as sheep, turcourage and instruct them, I returned keys, fowls, ducks, cotton, linen and to my tent and said to myself, ' This is woolen goods, fancy articles, brass ves· delightful, but oh, the storm that is sels, jewels, vegetables of all sorts, going to break over these poor people! books and refreshments were brought. What shall I do? what can I do to These were all arranged in a large help them? t Instead of resting peace- shamiana or tent, which was erected in fully, the missionary agents and new the church compound. A short thanksconverts have to brace themselves for a giving service was held in Zion Church, fight-a long, bitter, and cruel fight. after which the congregation moved to Eight of the ten years of my mission· the shamiana, where all the articles ary life have been spent in Mandapasa· were exhibited, and afterward sold by lai station, and I assure you, with the auction to the members and friends asexception of the few weeks spent at the sembled under it. This was the second hills, no month has passed that I have service of the kind in the pastorate, and not been in hot water. With 4000 I am glad to say it proved a success. Christians in 120 villages, if the wave About $70 were realized from the sale of persecution is b<laten back from one of the offerings, as against $40 in the village in one part of the station, it previous year. " rolls in with power and force on the Christians of another village in another China.-The Chinese in Singapore part of the station. " number about 100,000; Yokohama, 100,000; Sumatra, 100,000 ; California, -Mr. Rowland Bateman, of the Nar- 100,000; Cuba, 60,000; Peru, 60,000; owal Mission, in North India, writes of Siam, 25,000. In all in foreign parts, Chowdry Mansabdar Khan, who was probably not much less than 1,000,000. baptized about two years ago: "Man· sabdar Khan is a pe1'S6tJ. of considerable -A retired Episcopal bishop of importance, both in and out of the China, the Rev. S. E. J. Schereschew- Christian circle. His baptism and his sky, has recently left America to com· change of life since it took place have plete the translation of the Bible into been and are a constant theme of con· Chinese from the original tongues. He versation among the Mohammedans. has already finished the stupendous He is an elderly man, not easily moved, work of translating the whole Bible an enthusiastic horse·breeder, and into Roman characters, and on his arspends most of his time day and night rival in China will begin the task of reamong his mares. But tho he cannot producing the manuscript in Chinese take his eyes off his pets, he is always characters, after which it will be print. ready, and able, too, to give a reason ed. Since his health compelled him to for the faith that is in him, and to press give up active missionary service 13 the truth of Christianity upon his vis- years ago, he has been engaged in this work, and its completion will probably the recent atrocities in the Foochow tak-e 3 years more. region we are compelled to recall the ·-Dr. Hu King Eng is the first Chi- long catalog of wrongs inflicted upon nese woman with a medical degree from Chinese in this country, including sevan Occidental institution to practise in eral cases of wholesale slaughter, of China. She is about to inaugurate a which the one at Rock Springs, Wyo., new era of woman's work among worn· is a specimen.
en. About a year ago she graduated Korea.-The Oentral Ohristian Ad- from the Woman's Medical College of vocate says: "Bishop Ninde has had Philadelphia, and since then has take:Q. an audience with the King of Korea, a post-graduate course and dispensing at the special solicitation of the king course at the Polyclinic in that city. himself. No bishop ever before stood She has made a special study· of dis- in the presence of royalty In tbe Hermit eases of the eye and ear. Her work Nation. The notable feature of the will begin in Foochow at the Woman's conversation was the utterance of the Hospital. She will also try to build up king. 'There are many, many Ameri- a regular practice among her country- cans in Korea. Weare glad they are women, some of whom would almost here. Thank the American people; rather die than be attended by a man. and we shall be glad to receive more The doors of rich and poor would be " teachers. ", It happens that there open to a woman, and a great influence are scarcely any Americans in Korea could be wielded for good by a woman but' teachers. ' If the king wants more who is at once missionary and physi. of them it is significant, to say the clan. Tho Dr. Hu King Eng is a pure- least. "
blooded Chinese, she never was a hea- -The Korean cost9mes of both men then. Her grandfather was one of the and women are described as pictufirst native converts in Foochow, and resque; consisting of padded socks, her father one of the first native minis- trousers fastened together at the ankle, ters ordained in China.-Evangelical a short jacket with long silk ribbons in Ohurchman. front, and twisted paper sandals. The -If anybody is of the opinion that women add to this a short skirt tied Christianity is a failure in China, let very high above the waist. The hair him read What Eugene Stock has t~ is simply arranged, plastered down and say in the Westmin8ter Gautte. He tied in a knot, at the back of the head .. points triumphantly to the 13,000 for a woman and at the top of the head Christians connected with the Church for a married man ; bachelors wearing of England in the northern part of thc theirs in a pig·tail, tied with a ribbon province of Fuh·Kien, where the re- bow at the end, in the manner of school· cent massacre occurred, to an equal girls of the West. The children of number belonging to the American Korea are said to be pretty, but with Methodists, and a smaller body to the their faces whitened with chalk, and American Congregationalists. To the their hair oiled, parted in the middle, south the English Presbyterians and and plastered down on each side, one Congregationalists have much the same may suppose that they are kept whole- report to give. 'And then,' adds Mr. somely ignorant of the fact of their Stock, , we have only looked at one of good looks.
the 18 provinces of China, and the ex- lapan.-The Rev. J. C. Ambler tensive operations in other provinces of writes from Tokyo as follows: "A the China Inland Mission In particular postal card recently received from a reare not touched upon.' .. turned soldier tells of the deep impres- -Alas I that as often as we American sion made by a Christian village in Christians are inclined to wax hot over China, where the Chinese treated the Japanese soldiers quartered upon them around. About 22,097 patients from with a courtesy in marked contrast to that in other places, illustrating very over 420 districts and villages were clearly. as he stated, the principle of Christian love. Upon a recent trip I treated in the out-patient department was much impressed by the composi- tion of the company of Japanese who in the last year. . knelt together at a communion service. There was a farmer who is a notorious -Mr. Wilcox:, of Groutville, writes instance of wonderful reformation, ow- that some Christians now in Zululand, ing to the power of Christ. There was formerly connected with Groutville and a reformed maker of seals, whose wife Mapumulo, . have been building a was once a dancing girl; but both are school-house and chapel, employed , now earnest Christians. Besides these, t~eir own teacher and preacher, and the wife of the chief of police in the have lately sent for a church bell. At place, and a clerk in a rich store, all another point on the banks of the exemplary Christians, were there as- Tugela an interesting work has been I sembled together." opened by a boy only sixteen years of age, who is holding several meetings a AFRICA_ week. Mr. Wilcox adds: II I know of 8 places where they are only asking that a missionary may visit them occa- sionally and help in starting schools."
-The following table of distribution -African chieftains are able to disexhibits the growth of the work of the tinguish between true and false friends. American Bible Society in Egypt dur- When lIsidi, once king of the Garening 30 years : ganze, was urgenly pressed by the Arabs not to allow Mr. Arnot to settle From 1865 to 1874, inclusive…… 6,630 copies in his kingdom, bringing the gravest charges against the white man, Msidi " 1875" 1884," 45,586 " replied that he did not know an Eng- lishman, never having seen one, but he : " 1865" 1894, .. …. 116,474 " added: "One thing I know; I know you Arabs." With this knowledge in , During this same period the British:and his mind, Msidi was willing to receive the missionary in total disregard of the Foreign Society also has accomplished charges made against him.
a great work, through its own colpor- -Great is the rejoicing in Pretoria, the capital of the South African Reters, and also through the cooperation public, over the completion of the Dela- goa Bay and Pretoria Railway reached 'of the Church Missionary Society, and that city.
:to some extent of the Presbyterian Mis- -When a deputation of the leading men of the colony recently waited upon sion. Probably the total distribution Mr. Cecil Rhodes, to insist that the government prohibit public entertaineffected by the British Society has not ments on that day, in his reply the pre- ~very greatly differed from that of the mier said: "Without entering into the religious part of the observance of the :American Society. So that it would be Lord's Day, as a politician I believe one of the chief mainstays of good govquite safe to say that during the 30 ernment is religion, and the most im- portant factor in connection with religyears as many as 325,000 copies of the ion is thestrictrobservance of the Lord's Day." . Bible in whole or in part have been scattered through the land.
-The Church Missionary Society has issued an urgent appeal for funds to build a new hospital and dispensary in Cairo. The committee have given a grant for the site and for houses for the doctor and lady nurses, but a fur- ther sum of at least £2700 is needed for the hospital and dispensary. Already a good work is being done in connec- _tion with the medical mission, not only among the poorer inhabitants, but among the fellaheen of a large district
The Missionary Review of the World — September 1895
llu8BA:SD. (iC)·fU:l'WEEX. BR[DE
A JAPANESE MARRIAGF. CF.RE~IONY.
A WRITING LF.'i'iOl' -NATIVE EDUCATIO N. MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVIII. No.9.-OldSeries.-SEPTEMBER.-VOL. VIII. No.9.-Ne'/II&riu.
"A NEW PROGRAMME OF MISSIONS."* BY THE EDITOR-IN-QHIEF.
History is, to the devout ouscrver, also prophecy. Current events have a predictive value as a hint of coming developments. Our Lord Himself intimates this when He rebukes those who were more careful in watching the weather signals than in observing and interpreting the signs of the times.
Mr. L. D. Wishard, so well known in connection with the international work of the Young Men's Christian Association, has recently launched a new book of modest pretensions upon the world-sea, and it is safe to predict for it no little importance and significance in its mission. It is freighted with instructive lesRons and useful suggestions as to the perplexing problem of a world's evangelization. Its novelty lies not in bringing to us any new facts, but in grouping those facts into such impressive arrangement as compels confidence that they are part of a Divine plan, articulated into a system. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, himself a profound student of missionary problems, in his Introduction confesses that he is " impressed by" Mr. Wishard's " statement of facts, by the conclusions which he draws from such facts, and by the bright and vast outlook into the future which his book suggests."
As Mr. Wishard projects before us a " new programme of missions," we are bound to give it a careful, critical study. Anything that proposes a new solution to the greatest practical problem ever before the Church is entitled to more than a passing glance. Kepler, in his patient application of eighteen hypotheses to the mystery of the planetary motion, and in his rapturous enthusiasm when he found the key that fitted the lock, saying: " 0 almighty God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee !" may well furnish a model for the modern student of missions. What a reward to our patience in working and waiting, in trying method after method, if at last *" A New Programme of Missions," by Luther D. Wishard. New York: F. H. ReTell & Co,
"A NEW PROGRAMME OF MISSIONS."
we may discern God's mind and plan, and think God's thought after Him upon the question of a world's evangelization! .
The old "statistical" solution of the missionary problem has been tried and found wanting. No doubt the combined churches of Protestant Christendom could, from 40,000,000 communicants, supply 500,000 mis- sionaries, or one for every 2000 of the unevangelized, and could furnish sinews of war in the shape of $600,000,000 a year for the support of this army of missionaries. But in view of the fact that, with all the tremen- dous facts of human need bzfore the Church of Christ, and all the inspir- ing history of missionary labor and triumph to incite to zeal and sacrifice, we have as yet less than ten thousand foreign missionaries, and less than $14,000,000 a year to apply to the whole work, and even now are hampered by immense debts which threaten the whole work with collapse; we are compelled to abandon the hope of bringing up the Church to the point of supplying fifty times the present working force and forty-three times the present money basis for the work.
Here, then, is Mr. Wishard's proposition: " Convert the colleges offor- eign mission lands into strongholds and distributing centres of Ohristianity; make them academies of the Church militant, to train leaders for the present crusade of evangelization. "
This solution is not a new one, for it has already had practical trial both at home and abroad, as the Oxford Holy Club, the Haystack meeting at Williams College, the Yale revival under President Dwight, and the Intercollegiate Y. M. C. A. have proven. But the scale, on which Mr.
Wishard proposes to have this method put in operation, is new.
It is now nearly twenty years ago that, on the Day of Prayer for Col- leges in 1876, a rain of spiritual refreshing came down on Princeton Col- lege, which became the source of, a new river of spiritual energy, which was parted into two streams : one was thorough organitation of the Christian element in the colleges, and the other was co-operation among the colleges.
Hence the so-called intercollegiate association work, whose sublime aim is to bring out every student fully upon the Lord's side, and then organize a vast student army for work in extending the kingdom. The three methods relied on for reaching these results are Bible study, joint prayer, and per- sonal work for the unsaved.
One inevitable outcome of this movement has been that students have been confronted with the question of missions. It is impossible to study God's Word, draw near to Him in prayer, and come into close touch with needy souls, without having passion for world-wide missions awakened.
And hence the intercollegiate work almost unconsciously took on a mis- sionary department.
Careful research reveals already results at once surprising and stimu- lating. Not only is it found that the Bible has never before been so dili- gently studied, but over 25,000 students have been turned unto the Lord since 1876, and fully three times that number been enrolled in the associa. tion. Thirty-two hundred have been led into the ministry; and within nine years, since 1886, when the Student Volunteer Movement began at Mt. Hermon, Mass., over 700 have gone forth to mission lands.
These student volunteers have adopted as their motto the cry of the new crusade which the writer of this article was strangely led to suggest: " The evangelization of the world in this generation." Five hundred institutions, with over 30,000 students, are already embraced in the intercollegiate system, which now reaches out like a banyan tree, and bends down to take root in new soil. Ten years since it reached the University of Berlin, and has started a new Reformation in Germany.
Six years ago God gave signs that so-called heathen nations were to take part iII the new crusade. In the summer of 188~ the students, meeting at Northfield, Mass., were startled by a cablegram from the Sunrise Kingdom, in which the Christian students of Japan conveyed this sublime message: "MAKE JESUS KING." Great enthusiasm was kindled, and that message, finding its way to Sweden, where it constrained Scandinavian disciples to call a conference of students in 1890, representing Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, became another war cry of the new crusade.
The students of Great Britain and Ireland have likewise united the university forces of their Western island empire, and the missionary volunteers already number hundreds there also, of whom 90 per cent are in the foreign field.
The awakening among Christian converts in the Orient, as in Japan, naturally suggested a new plan for missions. To students in mission lands the work is one of home evangelization. Why not, then, organize in the colleges of lands, yet to us foreign mission fields, a student volunteer movement for home missions! And so, while in the Occident we are raising a foreign contingent, rely on converted young men in the Orient to supply a home contingent, and together push the work of a world's redemption.
The moment that such a plan is, by the very voice of events, suggested, we naturally ask whether any actual work thus far done by such converted young men in heathen lands justifies the hope that they will undertake such home evangelization.
Mr. Wishard has collated a few very convincing illustrations. For example, the Sapporo Band. . When President Clark, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, taught fur one year, and through an interpreter, a class for Bible study in the island of Hokkaido, thirty-two students openly confessed Christ and formed a society of "believers in Jesus." Six years since one fourth of the students in the Hokkaido Agricultural College were professed disciples, and the city of Sapporo was permeated by their Christian influence. It was a letter from this body of students to their fellow-students in the Massachusetts college, upon whose model the Japanese was formed, which first prompted the embracing of students in mission lands in the new movement or crusade started in America.
The Kumamoto Band, in the southern part of the Island Empire, fur. nishes another illustration of God's leading in the same direction. In 1871 an American teacher was put in charge of an institution which Dr. Davis, in his" Life of Neesima," states was founded and supported by professed opponents of Christianity. When the new instructor was hired on a five years' contract, it was not known that he was a Christian believer, and at first he had to proceed cautiously. But eventually the students, in order to be furnished with weapons against Christianity, consented to study the Bible, as did Gilbert West and Lord Lyttleton, for a like purpose, and with similar results. The opposition of unbelief and disbelief was slowly but surely broken down; and it was found by a few of the young men that they and others with them were secretly cherishing belief in Christ, until the avowed believers reached the number of forty! Their avowal brought a baptism of fire. But they endured it. In January, 1876, while the new revival in Princeton was starting the fire in America, they, on Flowery Hill, covenanted with each other and Jesus to be as a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid. Persecution ensued, and the school was disbanded; but thirty of these. converts entered Joseph Neesima's school at Kyoto, and half of them completed in the Poshisha their theological course, and to· day the record of their character and work is written large over the Christianity of Japan.
The Poshisha revival is a still further illustration of the possibilities of student work in the East. Some twelve years since a sceptical spirit prevailed in this college of the Single Aim, as to the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit, and there was a demand among the students for some adequate proof of His claims to being more than a vague Divine influence or effiuence. Of course such doubts do not go alone j the inspiration of the Word of God and the vitality of spiritual life were alike in peril.
Now our Lord teaches us in that significant word of His in the Gospel of John (3 : 8) that the Spirit breathes where He will, and, like the wind, can be known only by the sound of His going. Being invisible, He can be traced only by His effects.
Dr. Davis, one of the missionaries who was greatly troubled by this scepticism in the Doshisha, said nothing to the Japanese doubters about his purpose, but boldly threw himself on God, appealing to colleges and theological seminaries in America to offer special prayer for the Holy Spirit to come on Japanese students. Such prayer was offered in January, 1883. There was, however, nothing done in Kyoto which could in any way account for the stupendous events which shortly followed.
One night a spirit of remarkable prayerfulness took sudden possession of a few students, and an almost sleepless night followed. Before day dawned a river of grace was pouring through the Doshisha, and its flood rose until almost if not quite every student was turned to the Lord; and shortly a deputation went to the surrounding churches to carry the sacred waters of salvation. The Spirit had taken His own way of proving his personality and deity. The" Wind" proved its existence by bowing the oaks and cedars before its mighty sweep. No doubts have since prevailed in the Doshisha as to the Spirit of God. In fact, no nation rivals Japan in the keen sense of the Spirit's personality and power, existing among Chris- tian disciples.
Tungchow College, China, and Pasumalai College, Madura, South India, are other illustrations of God's plan for the evangelization of Oriental lands by converted and educated' young men. The former institution, presided over for a quarter century by Dr. Mateer, has sent out over fifty graduates, not one unconverted! and the latter has, during a half century, given over five hundred Christian workers to the field.
Mr. Wishard further calls attention to the startling rapidity with which this Christian movement has pervaded the colleges of the missionary field abroad. Almost simultaneously in Ceylon, China, and Japan there began a manifestation of desire and readiness to co-operate with Occidental stu- dents in the world-wide work.
While in the Presidency of Madras the missionaries were considering how to secure a special worker among the students of the capital, Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, visiting America and being present at the students' summer school at Northfield, in 1889, pleaded for the interposition of the International Committee of the Y. M. C. A. in the promotion of a movement among the students of India similar to that which he saw at Northfield, and an appeal subsequently came from Madras itself for a young man to be sent by the committee to India to take this work in charge.
This proposal led to Mr. Wishard's four years' tour of investigation. He went to 216 mission stations in twenty different mission lands, and met personally over a thousand missionaries, and many thousand students. He held interviews with merchants, educators, pastors, government officials, everybody who could help him to understand the questions he was studying.
He found the higher educational institutions of foreign lands to contain about five hundred thousand students, less than one tenth of whom are professing disciples. And while education unsettles the old superstitions, if students are not grounded in Christian faith, they drift into materialism, agnosticism, and open infidelity. They cast away their old gods, but get no new God in their place. It is, therefore, now or never for many of them j and it needs not to be argued that no body of men are more likely to reach, touch, move, and mould the students of the East than their fellow-students of the West, who have pursued similar lines of investigation, have felt similar intellectual perplexities, and are at a similar age exposed to similar temptations. From the student body of the Occident we may naturally expect the hand of fraternal sympathy and co-operation to be extended to and warmly grasped by the student body of the Orient. Such is the theory and such are a few of the facts, further reinforced by the following.
Christianity, Mr. Wishard says, is now firmly entrenched in nearly all of the Christian colleges of Japan, China, Burmah, Ceylon, Persia, Turkey, Egypt, as well as some of those in India. As a rule, the majority of such students outside of India are Christian communicants. Christianity has made some progress even in Government institutions not openly under distinctive Christian control. In 1889 one fourteenth of the three thousand students in the seven leading Government colleges of Japan were Christians.
Mr. Wishard, like others, observed a surprising readiness on the part of students in the Sunrise Kingdom to examine the proof as to the deity of Jesus Christ, and to respond to His claims as Lord and Saviour. Several weeks of special meetings at the Doshisha resulted in the baptism of nearly one hundred and fifty students. Similar results followed similar meetings held by Mr. Wishard and Mr. J. T. Swift, at Union College, Tokyo, Kumamoto, Osaka, Kobe, Sendai, etc., as also in the Methodist College, Foo Chow, China, and in India, Ceylon, and Asia Minor. Moreover, these converted students exhibit a remarkable passion for souls and genius for organization. Nearly fifty colleges on the mission fields of the world have already Young Men's Christian Associations, Japan alone having fifteen; and the best-organized association of them all is in Tungchow College, China, where every most approved method of Bible study, personal work, and evangelistic effort is already in active operation. In this last Chinese college a foreign missionary flame has been kindled that leads to the support of a Zulu student in the school at Natal! And the self-sacrifice displayed by these converted Chinese in extending Christianity puts to shame the benevolence of Christian lands.
The pioneer college Young Men's Christian Association in Asia was formed in Jaffna College, Ceylon, in 1884. Those who wish proof both of the evangelistic spirit and organizing facnlty of Asiatic students, should watch these Ceylonese young men, undertaking to evangelIze a neighboring island hitherto without a convert. They visit the island at stated seasons for conversation with every inhabitant. In order to support the work they not only contribute money, but put aside a tithe of their rice supply, which they sell for the benefit of the work; and they cultivate a banana garden, a committee of twelve students being appointed to work an hour each day for three months, drawing water from the wells and filling the trenches. The whole year's work yields but $20, yet how is this small gift magnified and sanctified and glorified by the altar on which it is laid!
India has long been ranked as the Malakoff of missions. Yet even here the approaches of the students from the 'Vest are warmly reciprocated. Mr. Wishard and Mr. McConaughy, who is a Y. M. C. A. secretary in India, issued an appeal to their fellow-students in the great Oriental empire; and Mr. Wishard says: "Never were messengers more warmly received." A large meeting of students assembled in Madras, and the Hindu students joined enthusiastically in " Coronation," and heard with sympathetic interest the words addressed to them. In like manner in Rangoon, Oroomiah, Bitlis, Harpoot, Tarsus, Robert College, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Bulgaria, Chili, South Africa, the response has come to the signals of the Western crusade; and the great army seems already mustering from all lands to undertake the final assault on the citadels of Satan.
The first national conference of Asiatic students convened in Kyoto, in 1889; five hundred men, representing ten Government colleges and twelve Christian colleges, were in attendance. Annual conferences have followed, and now there are two held yearly, the gathering of 1893 being attended by six hundred. India has had since 1891 a national union and annual conventions. During the six years since 1889 eighteen Asiatic conferences have been held, whose three thousand delegates have come from fifty colleges; and during those six years over three hundred students have been added to the army of believers and warriors for Christ.
These are interesting and overwhelming facts. And the question only remains, Does this movement give promise of permanence, or is it an evanescent awakening of enthusiasm ~ Only time can certainly answer this question. But meanwhile signs of permanence must be acknowledged. For instance, the aggressive spirit of evangelism pervading these Oriental student bands, alike exemplified in Japan, China, among Armenians and Tamils. 'Witness also the persistency and energy of the Japanese and Chinese ; the intensity of conviction, which leads to such tenacious holding fast the faith in the face of ostracism, caste prejudice, and open persecution.
Nothing is more shining in its promise than the well-known prayer power, for example, of Japanese converts, who have been known literally to pray all night, having literal confidence in the promise that where two or three gather in the name of Christ, He is in the midst of them. And the high standard of habitual and self-denying giving which prevails among Oriental Christians adds to all the other proofs of lasting qualities in their piety the essential element of self-sacrifice, so lamentably wanting in the Occidental world.
It is not to be wondered at that Dr. McCosh characterized t;he Student Volunteer crusade as the greatest missionary revival since the first century, and that those who have watched this latest development of the Y. M. C. A. should regard it as the Divine outcome of that marvellous uprising of young men which, starting a half century ago, has by its unifying influence upon Christian believers of all denominations been, as Dr. R. D. Hitchcock said, such " a mitigation of the deplorable effects of our too disintegrated Protestantism. "
Mr. Wishard's brief but startling book closes with a threefold appeal: "Pray ye; go ye J' bring ye-a call to supplication, service, sacrifice." Twenty-five men are shortly to be occupying strategic points in the educational centres of the three continents, South America, Africa, Asia. Many more will be needed-are now needed. Here is a work in which all
'l'HE YEAR 1895 IN JAPAN
churches can harmoniously unite, magnifying essentials, minifying nonessentials, joining in a common cause without sacrifice of individual preferences and convictions. Here is a work in which ministers of Christ, unordained lay workers, and business men, can combine their piety, consecrated learning, youthful energy, and dedicated money..
Surely Mr. Wishard's" New Programme of Missions" commends itself for its philosophy, as sensible, spiritual, scriptural; and for its factual showing, as having demonstrated its feasibility and possibility. But, above all, there is in this very remarkable interweaving of providential developments something which looks to us as though the Divine Weaver were sitting at His loom, and with His grand shuttle weaving these strange threads in one pattern; and that our duty is to mark that design and submit ourselves and our sons and our substance to be wrought into the warp and woof of His blessed purpose. Other methods, however promising, have proved unpractical or impracticable. Is God leading us to the master stroke of modern missions, the raising up and enlisting and equipping of a native agency in the educated youug men of the Orient, who shall constitute a special home missionary contingent on foreign missionary fields to carry Christ's banner among their own conntrymen and take possession of these Oriental empires in His name 1 Is it not possible that the last great signal of the Captain of our salvation is now sounding, and that Jericho's walls are about to fall ~ THE YEAR 1895 IN JAPAN.
BY REV. GEORGE WILLIAM KNOX, D.D.
The world has followed the course of events in the far East during the year past with an attention which renders unnecessary any repetition of the story. Last year a postscript was added to our" review" announcing the beginning of the war. A twelvemonth has sufficed for Japan's complete triumph on land and sea, for the couclusion of peace, and the Emperor's triumphant return to Tokyo. One brief year has witnessed the advent of a new power among the nations and a transformation of the situation in the far East.
THE NEW POWER.-For the first time in the modern era a non-Christian nation takes position abreast of the States of Europe and America. At 'last an Oriental people demonstrate their ability to care for themselves and their fitness to be taken seriously.
Europe has looked on Asia as its prey, to be consumed at convenience. Its one safeguard has been the mutual jealousy of the nations-a weak defence, as Tonquin, Siam, and Burmah show. It has been feasible to conquer an empire with a few regiments of trained troops; but a new era begins. One Oriental nation not only defends itself, but makes its infiu-
HALL, DORMITORY OF THE ~mIJI GAKUI~
(The Mciji Gukuin is nn Academy nnd Seminary of the Church of Christ in Japun.) A JAPA~F.SF. l~~.
THE YEAR 1895 IN JAPAN. 64{1
ence felt beyond its bounds. It is courted as an ally and feared as a foe. It has mastered the mechanism of war; its troops can march, shoot, fight; its commissariat is amply supplied; its medical service meets modern scientific requirements; its ordnance is of the latest pattern; everything is foreseen, provided for, and well carried out. The greatest and most complicated of machines subjected to the severest tests works smoothly. Not even Germany in 1870 was more completely ready than Japan in 1894.
THE NEW SITUATION AT ROME.-SO Japan proclaims itself master of its own destiny. Its supremacy at home is complete, assured. No power, no possible combination of powers can conquer the island empire on its own domain. Of all non-Christian States it only exists, not by sufferance, but by its own strength. Without interference it will work out its own salvation or its own ruin. It only, of all, dares claim a career of its own.
The new treaties sign and seal the triumph. Japan resumes all its sovereign rights. Again, it only of non-Christian States has jurisdiction over Christian foreigners within its bounds; it only forms treaties on the basis of absolute equality. The treaties with Great Britain and the United States were negotiated before the war had given its unquestioned proof of Japan's military and naval strength. They are the willing recognition of the nation's progress at home-a progress so great that it shows again that " Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war."
Thus is secured the object so long desired. An element of danger and difficulty is removed. No longer can demagogues use this topic to excite popular discontent and ill-wiil against all foreigners. Missions should gain as Japanese self-respect and laudable ambition are gratified.
With victory, military and diplomatic, comes evidence of a juster estimate of self. The terms imposed on China are themselves proof of the wisdom of the men who rule_ No victor could be more reasonable and self-controlled. And when Russia, Germany, and France interposed to deprive Japan of a portion of the fruits of victory, again the soundest and most far-sighted policy prevailed. The men who lead Japan to-day know at once their power and their limitations. The empire is safe in their hands_ Not less remarkable is the attitude of the nation. The modification of the treaty was a great disappointment, and the interference of the three powers was taken as a national humiliation. But the wisest self-control is everywhere manifest. Self-constituted critics have taken it upon themselves to fear insolence in the day of triumph_ One even thought defeat desirable lest the conceit of the nation become "insufferable." The event has shown how vain was the fear. There is no undue exaltation, but, on the contrary, the people have acquired just views of the progress made, and of the work remaining to be done. Doubtless there is a new self-confidence, a certainty that the career of progress has been no mistake, and that the lessons learned have not been superficial. There is a consciousness of strength, and an attitude born of the knowledge that Japan has merited the recognition so generally given it.
It turns,with earnestness to the works of peace. It knows that even military prowess in our day rests on wealth. It would prove itself also great in agriculture, commerce, and the commonplace business of every day.
The war has united the nation. For a year factional political strife has ceased. All have supported the government. There have been no dissentients. This is the more remarkable, as nowhere has party strife bep-n' more bitter or more unreasoning. Since peace was made there is evidence that the better counsel is to prevail, and that the nation will seek more calmly and unitedly its constitutional development.
THE NEW SITUATION ABRoAD.-Abroad the situation is threatening. Victory may be only a prelude to another and more serious conflict. In Korea Japan has a task of the last importance, but of the gravest difficulty. Japan fought that Korea might be independent; but Korea can be independent only as it is worthy of freedom. It is surrounded with enemies, and must be strong if it is to remain a nation. But it has not an element of strength. It is poor, ignorant, misgoverned, corrupt. The government is a confused centre of discord and intrigue. It needs reformation root and branch, but the very leaders who are pledged to reform and the new regime plot and scheme and seek their personal advantage. Korea needs regeneration. Can Japan give that? And over against Japan stands Russia, hostile, watchful, greedy. England in Egypt had a light task in comparison.
Formosa, too, has difficulties and dangers only less than Korea's. If Japan succeeds, it will prove itself worthy of a place among the very first. It needs the qualities England only has shown. It will be sharply judged, and by critics who will find their own gain in Japanese failures.
In seeking such unmeasnred responsibilities and duties Japan has entered upon a new phase of national being. It will need every power if it is to maintain itself. One doubts, but the history of the twenty years past has been a history of the triumphant silencing of such doubts.
THE CHURCH.-It is not surprising that the gain in converts has been small. Public attention has been fully occupied with other things; yet has there been much progress made.
The Church has proved its loyalty. Strange that it was doubted. But Christianity has been held a foreign religion, something of the ancient prejudice has remained, and the uncompromising teaching of the Bible making Christ Lord has been thought inconsistent with whole-hearted obedience to an earthly sovereign. The war has been more efficient in dispelling this charge than countless books and sermons. Persuaded that the war was" righteous," none has been more self-sacrificing and patriotic than the Christians. They have been wanting in no duty which pertains to good citizenship, and their conduct has been marked and approved in high quarters. So, toe, has the government shown its impartiality. It has been charged with hostility to Christianity, and in isolated instances subordi- nate officials have given occasion for the charge; but during the war the government has directly aided efforts put forth by the Church and the Bible societies. This has been the more noticeable as the war might have served as a pretext for a different attitude; but no pretext was sought, as'none was desired. Prince Komatsu, commander of the Imperial Guard, gave permission to distribute copies of the Bible to all in his command, thanked the workers, and appointed men to assist. Mr. Loomis, of the Bible Society, was given special permission to visit. all garrisons, and the missionaries and Japanese Christians in Hiroshima, the headquarters, had full opportunity for evangelistic work. Finally, two Japanese clergymen were allowed to go to the seat of war on the same terms as the Buddhist priests.
With the national triumph the Church feels an increased responsibility.
It has long talked of foreign missions, now it begins the work. A united effort is making for the evangelization of Korea. As part of this work it should be noted that some of the Korean students recently come to Japan have been sent to the school in Sendai which is maintained by the Re- formed (German) Church in the United States and is under the control of the Rev. M. Oshikawa.
At home more than ever the Church talks of independence. This is peculiarly manifest in the Kumiai churches (Congregational). Two years ago the General Conference decided to admit no church to membership which is aided by the American Board, and this year (the first; week in May) the Conference voted to receive no further subsidy for its horne mis- sionary society. .
Were this action the result of heightened national feeling only, it perhaps need not be regretted. One hesitates about it, and fears it is premature, but in other lines of action such hesitation and doubt have been proved mistaken. Why not in Christian work also? But the doubt is increased as we are told that the action is also from a desire for greater freedom of thought-in fact, of complete emancipation from all creeds.
No matter what a man may think about Christ, no matter what i!'l his belief about God, if only he seek to live the life of our Lord and to extend the kingdom. Some of the leaders, we are told, hold "not Christianity at all, but simply the Confucianism of olden times." And though" most of the pastors and evangelists are within the limits of a reasonable ortho- doxy, yet with almost perfect unanimity they stand for freedom of thought. " That is freedom for men who find" no room at all for an objective revelation," and eliminate from the "definition of God all that we of the West prize in the idea of personality." As neither the funds nor the missionaries of the American Board stand for such " free- dom, " complete independence is declared.
At the same time it must not be forgotten that the Kumiai churches are not the whole of Christianity in Japan, nor its only representatives. The other Protestant bodies stand firmly by the faith once delivered to the saints, and show no desire to widen their boundaries so as to include men who do not hold the common evangelical belief. During the year past the leading men of the Nippon Kirisuto Kyokwai (Presbyterian Reformed) strongly resented a public charge that they are untrue to their creed.
PROSPEOTS AND PROBLEMs.-In State and Church prospects were never fairer, nor problems more perplexing. The State has won victory and complete independence. It has conquered a peace, and the first demand is that the fleet be so increased that it may be invincible in Eastern seas. It commands the future of Korea, and its wisest statesmen are perplexed by the intricate difficulties disclosed. It possesses Formosa, and finds itself heir to many ills. It has shown its equality with the West, and already the politics of Europe influence its destiny. It has accomplished much, only to find itself forced to accomplish more. It has sho.wn its strength, and it has learned its dangers. In aU things it deserves our sympathy and best wishes. If it demonstrate that an Eastern nation may maintain itself, if it stop Occidental spoliation of the Orient, if it teach Europe to respect Asia, if through it the international law of Christendom extend throughout the world, it will have rendered a service to the West not second to its service to the East. Japan is said to desire a strong, self-dependent, progressive Orient, and every Christian must say, Amen.
The Church has never had fairer prospects. It has had official recognition, and that counts for much. It is representative of that spirit of Christ which aU the nation has honored in the work of the Society of the Red Cross. Confucianism in its stronghold has been shown unable to make citizens patriotic or officials honest. The influence of Christendom has been proved more effective in practical humanitarianism in a generation than was the influence of Buddhism in a millennium. The hostility excited by the old treaties against foreigners has been removed by the re- VISIOn. Missionaries can reside and travel without restrictions. The Church responds to its new conditions and undertakes with zeal work at home and abroad.
As the Church thus finds its opportunity, so does it find its difficulties increased. With Japan unevangelized, it must begin work abroad; as it comes on to self-support a minority deny the essential faith; with its increased self.consciousness and strength, it finds the greater difficulty in co-operating with foreign missionaries, and the foreign missionaries may· well question whether their increased facilities are not too late for the most efficient service.
Our prayer is that the Church may accomplish the work whereunto it is called. Our sympathies are all with it. Its triumph will be the vindication of foreign missions. Its success will mean hope and salvation to the lands beyond.
JAPAN'S DEBT TO CHRISTIANITY
JAPAN'S DEBT TO CHRISTIANITY.
BY REV. JAMES I. SEDER, A.M., TOKYO.
At this time of. comparatively slow progress, humanly speaking, of Christianity in Japan, it may be especially fitting to take a brief retrospect over the work which has already been done, and, with ihe gratitude to God, from the success of the past, take courage for the future.
In counting up a few of the mile-posts which Japan has set along the highway of her modern and marvellous progress, I set out with this funda· mental postulate: God is spirit, light, love, life, creator, and cause of all being. The spiritual is the genesis of the material. Spiritual light among men is the genesis of the merely intellectual, both together are the means of originating all that is good in the institutions and conditions of human society. Christianity is the embodiment of the highest spiritual or moral light, the genesis of the highest intellectual enlightenment of the race, a~d thus the source of the highest civilization. Being perfect as a doctrine of light and life, it is not responsible for the evils which attend t.his highest civilization. These result from man's perverted use of this light. If it be remarked, therefore, that some of Japan's progress is due to civilization rather than, or as well as to Christianity or to the work of missionaries, we confidently answer that ours is a Ohristian. civilization, itself the undeniable fruit of Christianity. Japan, too, has been made a partaker of the blessings of Christianity and its civilization, and thus has become infinitely a debtor.
The first doctrine, a tl'l1th fundamental to the whole superstructure of this nation's modern progress, and for which she is indebted to Christianity, is the idea of a personal God, who is at once supreme, absolute, eternal, infinite, self-existent, intelligent, spirit, and the creator of all things. This conception is utterly wanting in the old religions of Japan. At an interview with a leading Buddhist priest of the famous Nikko temples he told us that the universe was not created, but was caused to appear by a god called Bonten. This god sustains no further relation to the world, does not guide and control it, and the tiniest infant may in time also become a god capable of creating worlds. This is nothing more than the old atomic theory that possibly there was a great first cause which caused matter to exist, and out of which the world was evolved. It fails to perceive that the Being who caused matter to exist and made the laws of nature also executes them.
The teaching of the priests generally must, to judge by the results, be as much confused as the ideas of this priest, if not more so. The superintendent of schools of a certain city recently tested the religious knowledge of his pupils. He chose 118 of them, their average age being fourteen. To the question as to what is to be understood by the word" god," 97 of them, or 82 per cent, answered: "Our imperial ancestors and benefactors reverenced by us." These are really without God and without hope in the world; and this is the fruit of the old religions. Ten only replied that God is a spiritual Being outside of mankind, one adding that He is the Creator of the universe. This latter is clearly the result of Christian teaching, the fruit of missionary sermons, prayers, and gifts in the home land and of like efforts here. In God's own time these figures will be reversed.
Christianity has also given to this people the knowledge of the person- ality and immortality of the soul. In theory Buddhism teaches the trans- migration of the soul; but there are multitudes who do not know what " soul" is, nor that there is such an existence. Missionaries often experi- ence great difficulty in getting people to understand and believe that there is a soul. Out of the 118 pupils before named, 62, or over one half, denied the existence of any soul. Fifty-two believed in the existence of the soul, but 25 of these denied its immortality. Thus three fourths do not believe in an immortal soul. Said an intelligent old Samurai to the writer: "Th.ere is no immortal soul. When my body falls into the grave that is the end of me. " So these people think, believe, are I Deduct from the a~ove 118 the number of those who believed in God and those who no doubt had come under the influence of Christian teaching, and the remaining per cent of those who intelligently believe in the existence of the soul is extremely small. And yet it seems not unreasonable to infer that if the parents had any clear conceptions about the matter, the youth must have caught their ideas, so that it is not greatly unfair to apply these proportions also to the adult population. Then, too, the most hopeful thing the common adherents of the old religion have to look forward to is transmigration. The farmer or betto who maltreats his horse in this life becomes a farm-horse with a man's head in the next I Compared with the doctrine of the resurrection what a contrast I Said an old Japanese Christian lady, as she was nearing the end of her life, and after hearing a sermon on the resurrection: "The old people of Japan, for the most part, have nothing to look forward to but to fondle their grandchildren and die. How different with us who are Christians! How glorious and beautiful the new life that will be ours I"
The old religions contain no adequate conception of sin and its heinous- . ness. This is a logical consequence of their lack of the knowledge of a personal God as moral governor, and the soul as a responsible subject. When these religionists see a man who was born blind they ask, as did those of old: "Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind~" (John 9 : 2). The evil that man experiences in this world is the effect of misconduct in the former world; and by good conduct a person may again rise to high degrees of virtue, even out of hell itself. That sin is the transgression of a just, perfect, holy law of a perfect moral Being of supreme authority, and that to break this law is infinitely sinful ,and degrading, is something scarcely thought of even among the priests. The worst feature about sin-e.g., lying or stealing-is to be caught at it. Hence the degradation and utterly corrupt moral condition of even the priesthood, so that a few years ago the government found itself constrained to give warning that the priests must reform, or punishment must be meted out to them-something never before known in the history of the nation. And if such is the moral, or rather immoral, condition of the shepherds (as even the Buddhist papers bewailingly ar:;sure us), what must needs be the condition of the flock ~ But even this, though of deep significance, is not yet the worst. Bud- dhism does have some vague conception of sin and its final punishment: Pictures of paradise, of hell, and judgment are on sale, and the representations of the latter are certainly awful enough; but its devotees know nothing of a personal Saviour from sin, of effectual repentance, pardon, peace, and a joyous salvation. Only through the Gospel do they learn the words and power of the song : " I have a Saviour, He's pleading in glory, A dear, loving Saviour, though earth·friends be few. II The priests tells us (and statements in this article are based on conversations with priests and observations of the people rather than on books) that a man may, by reading the Buddhist books, become sufficiently free from evil desires to become a Buddha-i.e., attain to perfect happiness before or at death. But when asked whether anyone, as a matter of fact, did really attain to such a state in this life, he could think of but one living priest who was so far perfected that he was entirely free from the desire to steal and the like. Thus it is evident the prospects, the hope of deliverance from sin, even among the priests, is extremely small. And what, then, of the laity ~ It is only through the Gospel that the dark night of despair has been illuminated and filled with hope. Buddha, or S.akya Muni, did not die for the sins of the people. Christ did, and Christianity offers, in place of the unattainable and scarcely desirable ideal of salvation by works, that by faith-present, positive, perfect, free- Christianity has, moreover, given to Japan the best literature of which the Bible is the foundation-stone. The best of foreign missionary and Japanese talent had been for a long time engaged on the work of translation, and by the best Japanese scholars the Bible in the vernacular is pronounced one of the best translations of any book in the language. The various Bible societies, with t.he co·operation of missionaries and colporteurs, are doing a grand work in spreading the Bible. The Japan Scripture Union proposes as one of its objects, to give every man in the country, who is able to read, an opportunity of possessing the Bible for himself. The Christian Physicians' Society of 70 members proposes distributing the Bible among the 40,000 physicians of the empire and the 1000 new men who annually enter the medical ranks. Until the funds permit giving the whole Bible, the Gospel of Luke will be distribut~d, 'fhil? work has already been begun, and is now being carried on. In creating a Christian literature a colossal work has been done. In books, magazines, papers, tracts, leaflets, the number and influence is almost beyond computation. Of the school-books many contain lessons from the Bible. A Japanese youth who refnsed to listen to stories from the Bible, willingly received them out of the Third Reader. The great non-Christian dailies and weeklies often unawares bring their readers stories, anecdotes, and illustrations Christian in source, sentiment, and tendency. But with this I would not make the impression as though Japanese newspaper literature were morally of a particularly high grade. One daily paper recently contained columns of information day after day concerning the gross immoralities of the" Remmonkyo," a Japanese new religious organization. No respectable and patriotic Japanese would translate it into English because of its vileness.
But Christianity has also come in, and by its varied agencies stirred the stagnant moral life of the nation. Gospel temperance work is carried on with vigor, and the crusade is directed also against the smoking of the " filthy weed," which was introduced into Japan by the Portuguese three centuries ago. Prostitution is licensed by the government, and parents still sell their daughters into these physical and moral death-pits with the sanction of the authorities. But Christianity has uncovered the shame of this inhuman business, and sentiment has been created against it. Women themselves have taken a prominent part in this agitation, notably also the woman's magazine. In some parts of the country these public places of shame have been abolished, and the tide is rising higher.
Lying, too, is considered in a different light than it once was. Christianity is setting forth the high ideal of perfect truthfulness and is pressing its claims. As an instance of far-reaching influence upon the whole national life, which shows that veracity and truth is being songht, it may be mentioned that some of the best scholars of the empire are engaged in sifting the national history and mythology in order to ascertain the facts. Truth is coming to be valued and desired ; and although it still meets with great opposition, it will win its way here as elsewhere. Here is another instance from the humbler walks of commercial life. Said a Buddhist orange merchant to the writer recently while praising his oranges: "I don't lie; I am a Christian." Although at the very moment he spoke his foot slipped from the path of truth, as the idols and shrines in and about the house testified, yet the restraining ideal was present. The more that missionaries and Christians generally speak and live the truth among this people, the more will its power and influence spread.
In religion in general, Christianity is substituting optimism for the former pessimism. The old religious ideal was "to leave the world of suffering" and enter Nirvana, or be absorbed into the universe and prilctical nothingness ; the new is to stay in the world and help reform it. This exceeding pessimism and materialism is justly charged to the old religion. It may be due in a large degree to the ill prospects for the future world as held out by its teachings, and as believed in at least by the common people. But yesterday I studied a pair of Buddhist paintings. The one represented paradise or heaven, with Buddha sitting in a huge lotus flower as his throne, surrounded with the sacred lotus flowers and absorbed in peaceful contemplation. The angels were beings with female faces and upper extremities, and having the wings and tails of peacocks. Similar forms were in a boat on the lotus pond gathering these sacred flowers and presenting them afterward to Buddha. This, with some minor details, was to represent paradise, heaven. It was extremely commonplace at the best, and but little calculated to create any strong desire in anyone to go there. Nearly every detail of the Christian's conception of heaven was conspicuously wanting.
The second was a representation of the final judgment and hell. It was certainly awful enough. Children were there as well as adults. Among many things else was a big brown demon who, amid streams of gore, was extracting the tongues of liars. Then there was also Pin Mountain (a mountain made of pins and needles with the points upward), on which scores of women were suffering and streams of blood were flowing. These were women who had not been as careful in this world as they ought in the use of pins. Such is the pessimism of the old religion as popularly believed. What a contrast between these and Christian ideals! Not that the hell of the Bible is described in any less terrible words and figures, but through the Gospel this present life has become worth living, and our heaven is unspeakably more lovely and worth gaining, and if! accessible not only to priests and their kind, but to all who trust in Christ for salvation.
Christianity has given to Japan an ideal for home life, such as had never been known in this land before-a Christian home. Not that it has changed all or even a very large per cent of Japanese homes as yet. Quite the contrary; but the model is here, criticised by the unthinking few, but admired and desired by the intelligent many. The ideal Christian marriage, the foundation of the Christian home, is based on individual freedom, mutual acquaintauceship, union of hearts in reciprocal love, and respect for mutual rights and obligations. The custom of Japan is that partners for life, or rather for a while, are selected by a "go-between." I say" for a while" advisedly, as one third of the marriage contracts are broken by divorce, to say nothing of other kinds of unfaithfulness. In Christian America, sad to sa], the proportions of divorces to marriages are one to sixteen; but here they are one to three. Christ allows but one reason for divorce-adultery-and that to both man and woman. Confucius, the Chinese sage, after whose ideas the Japanese laws, customs, and practices on this subject are modelled, allows man, and him only, seven grounds for divorce-disobedience, barrenness, lewd conduct, jealousy, leprosy or any other foul and incurable disease, too much talki.ng, and thievishness. Christianity is justified, therefore, in setting up her ideal for Japan's imitation, and it is to the credit of this country that she is accepting the best. Christianity has also set a stake to concubinage, which was introduced into Japan while Confucianism was regnant.
The social status of woman is much improved, and her rights are being recognized more and more by "the lords of creation," by the law, and in the courts. They are, moreover, being admitted to superior educational advantages in the various government and mission girls' schools, and are winning their way to eminence in literature and art, music, poetry, painting, and other vocations. Formerly woman was regarded as so much inferior to man, that by the teachings of Japanese Buddhism she was denied entrance to the higher joys of the future world. Christianity knows no such distinctions, and the work of woman's emancipation in Japan has at least been well begun.
Even for her general educational system and progress Japan is in no small degree indebted to Christianity. Early education was in the hands of Buddhist priests, and the studies were the Slltras. Three centnries ago Confucianism came into power with the rise of the Shogunate, and from that time on, the Confucian and Chinese classics were learned by heart, and instruction was imparted in the national history and literature. Meagre as it was, and excluding women as it did, with the revolution of 1868 the old system of education fell with the Shogunate, and an entirely new start was made. Americans, notably missionaries and mission schools, exerted a strong moulding influence upon the trend of the new Japanese education in its early days. Rev. Dr. Verbeck was the organizer and for some years the head of what is now the Imperial University at Tokyo. He was also for a long time educational adviser to the· government, and thus in a position to exert an influence for immeasurable good in behalf of Japan. The common school system of Japan was modelled after that of America. Dr. McCartee, now over fifty years a missionary in Japan and China, was also a professor in the university for some years.
Nor should the names of Griffis, Janes, President Clark, and others be forgotten in connection with the establishment of the new educational system, all of whom exerted a strong Christian influence and gave it direction and momentum. Should anyone think that Christian ideas have not yet sufficiently penetrated Japan's education, let him ponder what Professor Chamberlain, of the Imperial University, says of this people's original condition: "What is the situation g The nations of the West have, broadly speaking, a common past, a common fund of ideas, from which everything they have and are springs naturally, as a part of a correlated whole-one Roman Empire in the background, one Christian religion at the centre, one gradual emancipation, first from feudalism and next from absolutism, worked out or now in process of being worked out together, one art, one music, one kind of idiom, even though the words expressing it vary from land to land. "Japan stands beyond this pale, because her past has been lived through under conditions altogether different. China is her Greece and Rome. Her language is not Aryan, as even Russia's is. Allusions familiar from one end of Christendom to the other require a whole chapter of com- mentary to make them at all intelligible to a Japanese student, who often has not, even then, any words corresponding to those which it is sought to translate." All this and much more is fact, and in view. of this it may with truth be said that in the educational line a work of magnificent pro- portions has already been accomplished j and through mission schools and other agencies, Christianity is still exerting a widely felt and lasting influ- ence for the highest good, educationally, of the nation.
Under the Tokugawa regime more than five persons were not allowed for any purpose to club together under penalty of law. Associations and societies for mutual aid or for the common weal were impossible. The hand of God was in its overthrow, and since then Christianity has come in and originated a varied and organized charity in Japan, as it does wherever it goes. Orphanages and homes for the needy poor have been established and are receiving constant support, and their number is increasing. The Roman Catholics alone report 17 with 1772 children j then they have a hospital for lepers with 86 inmates, and another for the aged. Protestant missions have 3 hospitals with 760 in-patients treated during the past year. Then there is the Sanitary Society with over 6000 members, the Red Cross Society, under immediate patronage of the Empress, both of them Christian in spirit and purpose; but besides these there are a number of other hospitals, orphanages, relief societies and charitable organizations springing up throughout the land, the legitimate fruit of Christianity and its civilization.
Absolutism, moreover, has had to give way to a constitutional form of government which pledges itself to respect the rights of the governed and promises religious liberty to Japanese subjects, if that liberty be not set aside by the government's interpretation of the twenty-eighth article of the constitution. That reads: "Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prejudicial to peace or order, and not a:ntagonistic to their duties as subjects, enjoy freedom of religious belief." It will be seen, by a careful reading of the article, that there is still considerable room for absolutism to curtail the religious liberty of Japanese subjects by acts of tyranny on the part of heads of departments of government and other officials. In point of fact this tyranny has been, and still is being exercised against Christian soldiers, school-teachers, scholars, and others, and the question may well be asked, " Is Japan dealing fairly g"
And yet the promulgation of the constitution and the institution of a representative legislative assembly, both of which, let it be remembered, are in their origin distinctively Christian, was a magnificent step upward. True, the one is not absolutely perfect, nor the other working t~o smoothly; but that is only repeating the history of representative governmente! in Western lands. Continental European history furnishes ample proof of this.
In this same line other and important reforms, all for the amelioration of the condition of the people, and for their elevation and civilization, have been inaugurated. Local self-government has also been established. The social disabilities of the pariah class, or eta, have been removed, a law passed against nudity in cities, the samurai have been forbidden to wear their barbarous sword, the burden of land-tax lightened by one half per cent, new and more civilized, and it may justly be said Christianized, laws and courts established for the whole country. And all this within a little more than a quarter of a century. Now, many of these are unquestionably permanent Christian institutions, and will remain comparatively unaffected by the ebb and flow of pro or anti-Occidental sentiment. Thus the foundation of a new nation has been laid deep and strong, and it now remains to continue the building.
When the present treaty ports were opened trade was at a very low ebb. Long ages of aristocratic feudalism, with its vexatious and ruinous restrictions, had dwarfed trade, and put it into the hands of a class of traders utterly unsuited to produce a national commercial prosperity. They were of low caste, but of a commercial morality still lower, " tricky rather than clever," and "the largest dealer did not consider it a breach of moral obligation to break a contract which went against his interests even in a trifling sum." The standard of business morality has, however, been greatly improved since their contact with the better business methods and morals of foreigners; and there still is room for improvement ad infinitum.
Commerce rests on intelligence and mutual confidence, on character for honesty and truthfulness. Native businessmen recognize this, and are seeking to establish these. Christianity promotes these. Thus domestic trade has been resurrected, so to speak, and since the opening of the country to Western nations, Japan's domestic and foreign trade has marvellously developed. In 1879 its foreign trade was estimated at only $66,000,000 ; ten years later it had more than doubled, being $136,000,- 000 in 1889 ; and since then it has largely increased, the Trade Report for the past half year indicating a foreign trade of over $210,000,000 annually. About 70 per cent of this is with distant Christian America and England, while her near heathen neighbor, China, had only 11 per cent of the above. These figures and proportions cannot be altogether without significance. Without speaking of the numerous and important industries which have arisen within the last two decades, and without entering the subject farther, it is evident that Christianity has made work and honest trade honorable as well as in many respects profitable in this land.
These are some of the indications that Christianity, in its widest sensQ, iii by no means without influence in this land. Christianity has given
THE OPEN DOOR OF KOltEA. 6&1
Japa.n the highest po!!!!ible religiou!! and ethical ideals a.nd teaching!!, the basis for her highest possible intellectual, moral, and material development; and although internal forces were at work which would have brought about a revolution, even if outside influences had not come in, yet from former revolutions, as compared with this last, it is evident, that the impact of Christianity and its civilization has given to Japan such direction and momentum as have made the Japan we see to-day, and has opened a most brilliant and promising future for the nation. But infinitely more than all that, the Gospel has come and brought eternal life to the shores, the homes and the hearts of Japan, and still proposes to itself the great task of saving this land of the rising sun.
THE OPEN DOOR OF KOREA.
BY C. C. VINTON, M.D., SEOUL, KOREA.
A few remarks upon the advantages enjoyed by a missionary in Korea may be especially welcome just now to those who have been accustomed to think of Korea as the far-off Hermit Kingdom, yesterday guarded at every loophole against the intrusion of a single foreign idea, to-day brought miraculously in contact with the blessings of civilization through the good office of a recently transformed neighbor.
Ten years and some few months have passed since missionaries first gained a foothold in this exclusive land. In that time they have taken many steps toward an understanding of its people, customs, and institutions. One fact, early perceived, and more fully realized with fuller knowledge, is that this spirit of seclusion is not a characteristic of the people themselves, but is part of the subtle scheme by which China has held them for centuries in her toils. As the child shuns the garret because it has been told there are goblins there, so the confiding Korean has learned from generation to generation to dread contact with those outer barbarians whom his kind protector, the Chinaman, told him knew only guile. Once when, three hundred years ago, a horde of such barbarians actually gained an entrance and overran his land, he found it quite as the Chinaman had said. Now it is not my wish here to discuss the premises or to call in question the conclusion itself. I seek only to draw attention to the fact that the Korean, when left to himself, is not by any means an exclusive individual, as his Chinese neighbor s~ems naturally to be; that his dislike of foreigners is based really upon ignorance, and that whatever grounds have been thought to exist for the opposite view may be readily explained by his failure to understand the foreigner and the foreigner's failure to understand him.
Simple and childlike in all but the mark of sin the Evil One has stamped upon him, the native Korean is ready to sit at the feet of whoever will instruct him. At China's feet he has sat thus long because she has con- strained him by force and persuaded him by arts. She has told him that her knowledge, her faith, and her customs arc all·sufficient, and all others false and bad; and he has believed her because he had no means of know- ing otherwise, except to let in the very evils against whose entrance she persistently warned him. So, when at last the foreigner really came with peaceful intent, there were no standards by which to judge him but those China had taught, and by these he proved lamentably deficient. How ignorant, how stupendously ignorant he was I He could not even read. For surely no civilized man would call that reading matter which was not expressed in those grand old Chinese characters, the only perfect language. How comical his dress I How undignified his gait I Both utterly unworthy the bearing of a man of breeding. How debasing his habit of performing tasks fit only for a servant! Witness his tennis-playing. Witness his gardening. Witness the personal dressing of wounds by the foreign surgeon. And, then, how violent the language he used over small things! So often petUlant or even positively angry merely because the horses he had hired for to-day have since been let out to another. And withal how impious! Since evidence can be found neither of reverence for his ancestors, nor for the spirits of his abIding-place, nor for any tangible god. How wanting in good manners, in good looks, in good taste I How incomprehensible in everyone of his traits! Altogether how contemptible a barbarian !
From the Korean stan point, yes. Quite as much as the Korean from ours. How much, there: .re, of mutual concession and adaptation was needful before any common ground of appreciation and sympathy could be reached.
But, as was said, steps have been taken-and not alone upon one side. In these more recent years the missionary has come to be able in some degree to put himself in the place of his neighbor. He understands somewhat better the modes of thought, the ambitions, the various pursuits and employments, the family life, and the superstitions of those around him. If be has not come to feel as they do, he can at least appreciate in many respects their feelings; and, on the other hand, they, if they do not appreciate his, have lost no small measure of their distrust for him. They have gotten to understand how large a measure of humanity is common to mankind, and so have joined in seeking a possible plane of mutual intercourse.
It is due, perhaps, to this gradually changing attitude most of all, that the door has been opened so widely of late to admit the Christian preacher. That such is the case no one doubts who' is cognizant of the facts. The missionaries' ability to present the Gospel acceptably and the native's willingness to receive it have increased manyfold within a few years. Of casual hearers to-day, a larger proportion manifest an interest in sacred trutbs than formerly. Of those in whom a first interest has been awakened, more prove to b~ sincere inquirers. From among inquirers, an increasing number seek admittance to the church. Such a stage exists in the prog- ress of any field toward Christianization. It might be called the stage of mutual confidence. The missionary has learned the character of his hearers and knows how best to direct his shafts. The native has learned the character of his teacher and puts confidence in his sincerity and wisdom.
Korea's door was from the outset said to stand wide open; and it did. From the day when Dr. Allen first opened that door at the point of his lancet, the missionary has gone frcely in and out. He has been forbidden to preach publicly, never privately. He has conducted educational enter- prises, in government employ as well as under the home board. He has freely treated and conversed with patients of high and of low degree alike. He has enjoyed perfect freedom of travel and of quiet intercourse with the people. Many in official circles have listened to the explanation of Chris- tian truth, as well as those of lesser degree ; and many of the people heard gladly, and praised the doctrine, and made little objection and-failed to believe. It was as the seed that fell upon stony places. The door was indeed open, but few regarded him that entered.
The door may be no wider open to-day, but they that are within give better heed. The formal prohibition of public preaching is not removed, but it has long become a dead letter, so that foreign missionaries and . native evangelists discourse freely to few or many by the roadside, in the hostelry, or in established chapels. The schools now number their pupils by scores instead of by singles, and hours of Bible study replace those formerly given of necessity to heathen classics. Patients refuse less often the surgeon's knife, recognizing that Ilis dependence is on God. Where preaching before was barren, inquirers are wont to appear. Scattered liter- ature begins to fructuate in readers seeking further light. A better soil has been reached. Korea not only admits, but welcomes.
This change had been gradually coming about during a period of sev- eral years, when last summer the war cloud burst over Korea. No wonder the poor little nation lost its wits. With impetuous onrush the dreaded Japanese swept over the land, hurling before them the forces of her ancient protector and destroying the illusions of a thousand years. The subsequent political changes, if not many in fact, are significant. A new era has dawned,-the Kaiwha-the era of reform. The former cabinet of Chinese sympathizers has been replaced by one of Japanese proclivities. Europeanized dress, coinage, and police are being introduced. A printed newspaper is issued every two days, and has a fair native circulation. A newly established Department of Education contemplates the inculcation of modern knowledge. Railroads are planned, and a train is in actual oper- ation from Pyeng Yang to the river mouth. At the palace and in all the public offices Sunday is observed as a day of rest. Honest men are being sought to take the responsible office of magistrate in country districts.
The suggestion for these reforms originates with the conqueror. They were upheld at the outset by the strong arm of a military occupation; but they are not repugnant in the main to the nation. They meet with the hearty favor of the Iring, who is really a beneficent sovereign, and who never held with the Chinese party to whom he was obliged to bend. Many of the higher government posts are filled by young men of noble Korean blood who have lived abroad, in several instances for more than a decade. Having experienced the blessings of enlightened government, they have returned to become the standard-bearers of social reform in their native land. Shopkeepers, farmers, and the other substantial classes hail the prospect of an honest collection of taxes and an honest expenditure of government funds. Gradually throughout the first few months of its propagation the Kaiwha has accumulated prestige, until now public opinion is almost unified in its favor. Foreign ideas, foreign dress, foreign implements, foreign laws, foreign observances, foreign learning are everywhere being spoken of as good, the ancient customs of the past as foolish and unprofitable. Rumors of expected fresh innovations fill the air, not only at the seat of government, but in far-off country precincts; and such rumors elicit oftener the approval than the objections of their hearers.
With these social and political changes the new era brings also a changed attitude on the part of the government toward Christianity. Of the new cabinet and their immediate supporters several are professed Christians, members of churches in the foreign cities where they have lived. Many others have experienced the benefits of religious freedom. Both king and queen have heard during the past winter, and willingly, from medical missionaries in attendance upon them, something of the truths of salvation. Officials in high position request, read, and discuss copies of the New Testament and other religious books. In such an atmosphere the law of death to those who profess Christianity is forgotten, and such persecutions as that of the previous spring at Pyeng Yang become impossible.
This interest in Christianity in high qua_ters may be taken as an evidence of that on lower social planes. This spring, as never before, the people flock to hear the preaching of the Gospel. Chapels are crowded. The throng surround windows and doors to the full radius of the speaker's voice. Street preachers draw larger groups than ever before. Hearers at dispensaries give closer attention than nsual. In country districts a. wider circle and a higher social stratum are reached. Men who have hitherto disdained the missionary now seek his attention, and this not by ones and twos, but everywhere in numbers. Men who have lived in open sin come confessing, repenting, and taking up the cross. As an inevitable consequence of this growing interest, sessions and examining bodies find their work growing burdensome. At every communion season there are numerous admissions. Nearly every Sabbath some baptism occurs. The lists of catechumens are full to overflowing. With all due caution as to seriousness and permanency of impression, this steady increase continues.
To the missionary, looking backward, then forward, it s~ems that an era. of unlimited Christian exteneion hae come on Korea, that very period for which he has been longing and praying, for which so many prayers were offered during the month-long visit among us last winter of the saintly Bishop Ninde. Vistas of rapid church growth, of multitudinous con"versions, rise before him, of speedy extension into every province and magistracy and larger town. What is God's wiII? The Christian community in Korea waits to learn it-waits not, but presses onward to preach at His bidding and to see what great things He will do.
The nation is in expectation. They look for the changing of all that is past. They are not more wedded to their old religious ideas than to those of daily social observance. The nation nevcr had a religion-only a superstition. With scholars it is the following of the precepts of Confucius j with the common people the propitiation of local spirits. Shall ever a more favorable season occur for the wide uprooting of these beliefs and the presentation of Christian truth?
What is to hinder? Chiefly the lack of workers. There is already more laid upon those in the field than they are equal for. Enquirers at every hand, new avenues daily opening, country districts one after another giving the invitation to come and preach, here a group of newly born converts in need of careful nurturing, there a slightly stronger community building themselves a church and calling for the meat of the "VOl·d-this is all as we would have it j but the hands that are ready and willing to work are weary, and drop powerless with its magnitude.
Such a crisis in religious things as passed over Japan two decades ago is to-day passing over Korea-a time when work counts double, when the first harvest is ripe and calls for garnering, when the land may be rapidly won or slowly lost-the land spoken of as a whole, as we speak of the Christian nations. As in Japan, through fewness of laborers, are opportunities and advantages to be lost? Or shall the force be so increased and so speedily that Korea shall be won while yet a fair and unbroken jewel for Christ?
The open door does not fail to be seen by those who have lately been pushing it farther open. The Christian churches of Japan have not been slow in organizing to send missionaries across the straits that separate them from Korea. Their coming is looked for and longed for by those already in the field. May Japan crown her labors by proving not only the civilizing, but the Christianizing power of the far East. From her shores yet another body of propagandists have bp,en still qnicker to embark, and are spreading their cult with a zeal not heaven-born. Throughout the southern provinces, under the guidance of a horde of Japanese monks, the revival of Buddhism progresses with a rapidity which indicates a ready acceptance for higher forms of faith. Christian missionaries do not dread them. It is not for their teachings that the heart of the sinner hungers. They preach a dying faith, and its revival can never infuse real vitality. Would that God might see fit to rouse His people to come hither and labor 8S these are doing.
THE MISSIONARY WORK OF THE LORD JESUS. [September _
THE MISSIONARY WORK OF THE LORD JESUS.* A PLEA FOR MEDICAL MISSIONS.
BY W. P. MEARS, M.A., M.D.
As in spiritual, moral, and social life, so also in mission work the Lord Jesus Christ is set forth in Holy Scripture as the Great Example to be followed.
Thus in regard to mission work He says: "As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you." "As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I sent them into the world" (John 20 : 21 j 17 : 18).
In undertaking mission work, therefore, especially to the heathen, it is of first importance to inquire in what way the Lord Jesus carried out the mission on which He was sent, so far as concerned His work as a Man among men.
Limiting the inquiry to the Gospel of St. Matthew, the description of the first missionary journey (Matt. 4) is utilized for the illustration, by various typical examples, of the method Jesus employed in carrying on His mission work, just as the journey itself was used for the preliminary instruction of His disciples.
The Method of Work is set out first in summary. "Jesus went about all Galilee (a) TEACHING in their synagogues, and (b) PREACHING the Gos- pel of the kingdom, and (c) HEALING all manner of sickness and all manner of disease, . . . and they brought unto Him all sick people, that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and (a) those which were possessed with devils, and (f3) those which were lunatic, and (y) those that had the palsy: and He healed them." . Not only are three modes of work mentioned-viz., preaching, teaching, and healing-but also three distinct varieties of healing j for of the" divers diseases and torments" there were three groups-viz. (a) that consisting in the possession by the devil of the soul as well as of the physical organism j (f3) that comprising disorders of the mind; and (y) that constituted by diseases of the body.
The method of work is then described in detail: (a) As to Teaching.-He taught His disciples, in chapter 5, first, what manner of spirit they must have, since "theirs is the kingdom of heaven j" secondly, what kind of work they must do that others might see their" good works," and glorify their Father in heaven j and that they themselves, as children of Him who does good to all alike, might be perfect even as He is perfect. Thirdly, in chapter 6 He taught them that -whether for spirit or for body, for life toward God or life toward man- * This paper is but exteuded extracts from what is perhaps the most superb appeal for med- ical missions to be found in the literature of the subject, and which originally appeared in the (Jhurch Missionary Intelligencer, September and December, 1894. With great reluctance we have been compelled to abridge it, feeling that abridgment approaches mutilation. But we hope our readers may be led to send to Salisbury Square for a copy of the entire addrcRs.-A. T. P. implicit faith in their Heavenly Father for every detail was essential (verses 1-34).
(b) As to Preaehing.-In chapter 7 Jesus turned rather to the mul- titude, for we are told" the people were astonished at His teaching." In so doing He changed the character of His address somewhat, preaching rather than teaching. First, He reproved, invited, and encouraged His hearers (v~rses 1-11). Secondly, He drew from all that He had said the practical application: "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Thirdly, He appealed to the people to accept His message- proved true, as it was, by its fruits of good works of love and mercy- and to " beware of false prophets," whose message was in human words and not in God-like deeds. Lastly, He closed with a terrible warning as to the inevitable fate of those who might hear His words, but not do His works.
Through both teaching and preaching the same dominant theme runs -loving faith toward God issuing in loving work toward man.
(c) As to Healing.-While the summary statement indicates how broad is the meaning of the words "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" (4 : 23), the detailed examples in chapter 8 show how wide is the sense of the expression" all sick people" (4 : 24).
These examples are four in number, and cover all classes of men-viz. : The unclean by the Law physically-a Jew, a leper j the unclean by the Law ceremonially-a Gentile, the centurion's servant j the follower of Christ-Peter's wife's mother; the possessed of the devil-many of the people. * " He healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, ' Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses' " (8 : 17).· It was part of the mission of Jesus to share in all the troubles of every man, and to save every man altogether, body and soul, in or from all. So He healed all who came of all sickness, not merely or only as a sign of His M:essiahship, nor merely to draw people to Him, but rather as an integral and essential part of His mission (11 : 5). Jesus identified Himself with those with whom He came into relation, putting Himself in their place, coming down to their level, and drawing them to Him by His deep sympathy with their seemingly small troubles (e.g., in the cases of Bartimoous, the Syro-Phcenician woman, and the hungry.multitude). Does it not seem as if the Holy Spirit at the very outset laid special emphasis on the practical side of the mission of Jesus for the salvation of the whole man-body and soul? Dare we overlook such an Example, so emphasized in a record inspired by God Himself ?
The result of all was that the multitudes so pressed on Jesus that He * Dr. Mears might have added that these four ailments were manifestly typical: Leprosy, of the guilt ohin ; palsy, of the impotence of sin ; fever, of its inflamed lusts; and demoniacal possession, of diabolical control.-EDITOR. was obliged tu go away across the lake. Meanwhile, on the part of the Pharisees and others, jealousy and opposition were steadily on the increase.
Then came the first apparent check. The cure of a demoniac coupled with the judgment of sin (in the case of ihe keepers of the swine) resulted in a request from the people that He "would depart out of their coasts." So ended the first missionary journey.
In His own district He encountered a second apparent check, not for healing the sick and judging sin, as in the last case, but for healing the sick and forgiving sin, in the case of a palsied man. This event, as a lesson to His disciples, preparatory to a more extended missionary journey, gave the key to the view taken by Jesus of His work. Sickness no less than sin was one of those works of the devil which He had come to destroy.
Thus, in the first place, He spoke of an infirm woman as one" whom Satan hath bound." So, too, Peter described Him as " healing all that were oppressed of the devil." So Paul spoke of his own bodily afHiction as " the messenger of Satan;" so in Hebrews it is said, " Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also • • . took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death-that is, the devil-and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
In the second place, Jesus here based His action on an argument which, as a syllogism, stands thus: The cure of sickness and the forgiveness of sins are equally the pre- rogative of God; I heal sickness without usurping that prerogative (i.e., committing blasphemy); therefore I forgive sins without blasphemy.
Or, the cure of sickness and the forgiveness of sins are identical in nature; I heal sickness; therefore I can forgive sins.
In a similar way, in the cure of a demoniac, Jesus argued: By the finger of God (or Spirit of God) only can cure be wrought; I cure; therefore I cure by the finger of God (or Spirit of God).
No man, as a mere man, can make the statement in the minor premiss of either apgument. Just as no mere man can forgive sins, so no mere man can cure or heal. A farmer merely sows the seed, but God gives the increase; a doctor merely gives treatment, it is God who cures. A medi- cal man, going in the power of God among the heathen, and showing the practical mercy and love of the Master, would, if but wholly filled with the Spirit, undoubtedly come very near to a modern representative of Jesus as He appeared to the men among whom He lived. • After the record of the two checks, there follow examples of teaching in a centre of opposition-to opponents and questioners-arising out of the preceding cure. Immediately after that cure Jesus, making His healing power a text for His preaching, used a further application of the same argument to confute the objectlOn of the Pharisees that He associated with sinners, and said in effect: "I came not to heal the whole but the sick, the sick in body and the sick in soul, sinners and not righteous men." Then come examples of healing in a centre of opposition. There in His own district He could not openly work because of the unbelief of the people. To the wilfully blind there was no revelation, to the voluntary unbeliever no sign. Still He refused none who came to Him. Hence it happened that in such a district He helped those who needed His help secretly or under pledge of secrecy.
Thus He raised to life the daughter of J aims, one of the class most opposed to Him (the people being excluded) ; He healed the woman with an issue (no one seeing) ; He cured two blind men (" in the house," so that" no man might know it") ; He drove out a devil (presumably in His own home).
Starting again on a second missionary journey, Jesus at first worked alone, "teaching • . • and preaching. . . and healing every sick- ness, . . . "as on His first journey. Healing was part of His work in private as well as in public. So heavy was the work and so great His compassion for the people, that after prayer He appointed the twelve to assist Him.
In this and six other places Jesus is spoken of as being" moved with compassion;" and in every case the objects were persons suffering from some 'purely temporal trouble. In sending out" laborers" He gave them power, while preaching, to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. The arrival of the kingdom was to be shown by the good done by the messengers. The other passages are as follows: The trouble of Bartimreus and his companion; the sorrow of the widow of Nain ; the need of the hungry multitude; the sickness of the multitude and the sickness of the leper; the adversity of the demoniac of Gadara.
Next come the names of the apostles, and then the terms of the commission -viz., " Go . • . preach . •. heal."
Jesus then" departed thence to teach and to preach," and soon came first into contact with the truly good, and then into more violent conflict with the bad. '
First He referred John the Baptist for proof of His Messiahship to His good deeds coupled with His good message, associating together as one heal- ing and preaching. He referred the people, as He had referred John, to His works, saying, "The works which the Father hath given Me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me that the Father hath sent Me." Jesus did not in His public work lay weight on His fulfilment of prophecies concerning Himself, nor on the testimony of John the Baptist, but rather on the fact that His works of mercy, humanity, and healing were proofs that He was come from God the Father, and that His message of love and good-will was God-given.
He condemned the cities of Galilee, not for refusing to believe His words, but for refusing, in face of His works, to accept Him as the Mes- senger and Representative of God.
Rapidly the opposition grew. In contending with the Pharisees Jesus first argued that ., mercy is more than sacrifice," and that the satisfaction of even the temporal real need of man must take precedence of the ceremoniallaw, and even of the law of the Sabbath; that the greater law of whole-souled love to God, and of beneficent and philanthropic love to men, fulfilled all the canon of tbe law of Moses.
Jesus next illustrated this by the healing of a man with a withered hand. Nor did He lay the least stress on the miraculous power shown, but compared the bealing of the man simply to the lifting of a sheep out of a pit-to a deed of mercy which, being in man's power to do, ought therefore to be done. In a still more striking case-an infirm woman bent together-Jesus put this view forward very emphatically, saying in effect, " If it would be considered cruel and unmerciful to keep an ox tied up from the watering, would it not be far m01'e cruel, even inhuman, to rifuse to loose this woman, it being in one' 8 power to do so ? OUGHT not; the woman -if only as a deed of common humanity, how much more of God-like love-to be loosed eVen on the Sabbath day?" These passages give us not only the strongest indirect command, but the strongest logical argument for rendering benevolent, and especially medical help to all who need it.
In a rage the Pharisees went out to plot against Him, while He went out to continue His work of mercy among the" great multitudes" who were following Him, for " He healed them all."
The opponents of Jesus seized the occasion of His next recorded deed of healing-of a demoniac-as a pretext for ascribing His good works of mercy and love to the devil. Once more Jesus endeavored to show them how the devil is a destroyer and not a healer. Following up His withdrawal from open teaching and open works, He afterward spoke openly to His disciples only, but taught the people in parahles, because they would not see that He was the Healer not only of the body, but also of the soul, lest they "should be converted and He should heal them." So under a darkening cloud of conspiracy abroad and scandal at home, He brought His second missionary journey to a close in " His own country." It will be noticed that the works of Jesus produced three effects : (a) The people were attracted, andglorified God for what was done. (b) The religious leaders of the people were filled with malice. (c) The governors of the nation were undisturbed, or were rendered tolerantly curious. In His third missionary journey, immediately after the rejection and murder of His great forerunner, Jesus carried out His intention of withdrawal from open teaching and healing, and so ., departed into a desert place apart j" but, followed by the crowd, "was moved with compassion toward them, and He healed their sick," even in His retirement carrying on His work of benevolent love. To get clear of the people and to secure freedom from observation, Jesus dismissed the multitude, sent His disciples over the lake, and followed them Himself. Landing northwest of the lake, still bent on withdrawal, He went toward Phamicia, but was hindered in His progress by His work of healing. As soon as the. inhabitants heard of His landing, "they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto Him all that were diseased, and besought Him" to heal them. What exact and literal repetitions of this scene occur in the experience of every medical missionary ! It is because Christians, as a rule, pass their lives in Christian lands, and are so accustomed to regard as entirely distinct the organizations for spiritual work and those for so-called philanthropic work, that philanthropy has ceased to be a distinctive sign of Christianity, and that Christians fail to realize the urgency and paramount importance of the close association of Gospel preaching and philanthropic labor, which is the most striking characteristic of the work as missionaries of our Lord and of His apostles; which, too, in the present day is proving to be the great lever by which alone, apparently, the fanaticism of the Mohammedan belt of Central Asia from Turkey to Thibet, and the utterly dead indifferentism of the small world of China, can to any very visible extent be moved.
Jesus passed beyond the Jewish pale and reached" the coasts of Tyre and Sidon," Himself the first to carry the universal Gospel to the Gentiles, by recognizing the faith of the Syro-Phamician woman, and by healing her daughter (15 : 22-28).
Passing thence, to avoid publicity He "went up into a mountain and sat down there." As before, He could not be hid. "Great multitudes came unto Him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them," so that the people " glorified the God of IsraeL" So with the medical missionary of to-day. The sick are brought to him from all parts, and are literally cast down at his feet for him to cure, with the result in many cases. that the patients and their friends have been led to glorify the God who has put such love in the hearts of men, and has given them such means for the carrying of it into effect. All the power to heal, all the medical and surgical knowledge we have, is given directly by God for the use of men through men. Are Christians like their Master when they keep to themselves gifts such as these through which their lives have been so benefited-gifts which the Master used so liberally for all, Gentile and Jew, saint and sinner alike?
Here, as if to drive this lesson right home, Jesus suddenly called His disciples to Him, and said: "I have compassion on the multitude." For what great cause? For nothing more than so ordinary a trouble as a temporary want offood. If so small a bodily want excited the compassion of Jesus, and led to so markedly delibemte an exhibition of it, how can His Church of to-day neglect the great inarticulate wail which hourly rises to heaven from half the population of the whole ,globe, as they vainly cry out in their sickness and miser,!!, theil' helplessness and hopelessness? If help for them does not come from the Church, whence can it come? These signs were quite insufficient for the religious leaders of the people, who wished for Rigns of power rather than of love. So once more refusing any further sign than His Resurrection, "He left them and departed. "
After coming back to His daily life, Jesus, in response to an appeal for mercy and help, incidentally healed the lunatic whom His disciples had failed to cure. On them His Spirit had not yet wholly fallen. So He showed them that to work as He did they needed the qualifications of the successful missionary-aggressive faith j prayer and self-denial (fasting) j self-sacrifice and daily surrender with reference to what He had just previously told them j and confiding trust as children of the King, in their Father in heaven (17 : 20-27).
Steadfastly setting His face for His great trial, Jesus left Galilee and came into Judrea, and healed the great multitudes which followed Him.
When He left Jericho for Jerusalem, with a heart as full as ever of pity for the troubles of men, whether of soul or body, seeing and hearing blind Bartimreus and his companion, He " had compassion on them" and healed them.
Arriving in Jerusalem, there in His Father's house, where He first went about His Father's business, He finished the mi~sionary work which His Father had given Him to do. And how did He finish it 1 "The blind and the lame came to Him in the Temple, and He healed them.' I So ends in this Gospel the record of the missionary work of Jesus among the people.
In an epilogue, as it were, in speaking of the final judgment, the Lord Jesus sets forth that only those shall enter into the kingdom of heaven who have shown that in this present life they have followed in the footsteps of the Master, who" went about doing good" -who in simple faith and for His sake have fed the hungry, given drink to the thirsty, provided for the solitary, clothed the destitute, cared for the sick, and visited those in any bondage.
Christians are in this world as their Master was in this world. It is by seeing their good works-as once they saw those of Jesus-that men are to be led to glorify the Father. As to what those works are, they are an indissoluble combination of verbal testimony to Jesus with such practical work as is to-day only just beginning to receive recognition by Christians generally-the work, namely, of a typical medical missionary. Can this combination be separated without direct challenge of the method of J esns ~ Is it not tautology to talk of missions and medical missions 1 Are those not the same if they resemble those of Jesus and His apostles and disciples 1 It is true that the work of preaching and the work of healing must be generally in different hands. Is not the one kind of work, however, the necessary complement and supplement of the other 1 Are they not the two sides of the same thing-the human and Divine sides of the gospel of goodwill ~ Joined, then, as these are by God, can they be put aiunder by any man without detriment to the work of God ~ II. Possibly it may be thought that the WORK OF THE APOSTLES after the bestowal of the Pentecostal gifts took a special departure in the direc- tion, chiefly, of two of the three methods of work described in the Gospels -viz., those of preaching and teaching; leaving that of healing to occupy a very secondary and temporary position.
A special study, therefore, of the missionary work of the apostles, as recorded in the Acts and as illustrated in the Epistles, becomes of impor- tance, whether as showing the continuity or otherwise of the indirect work of the Lord when He was "working with" the apostles, through His Spirit, with His direct work, while He " went in and out among" them in the flesh; whether as indicating the exactness or otherwise with which the apostles strove to imitate His example in the carrying out of that work.
In one respect the apostles had to commence and carryon their missionary work under conditions different from those obtaining in missionary effort of the present day: 1. They should be ready to carry the Gospel at once into all quarters and to varions nations; 2. They shonld have power to force home its teaching on men's hearts and consciences and to defend its doctrine against the evil ingenuity of men's minds; 3. They shonld be able, in their practice, to recommend its message of mercy by deeds of mercy.
The apostles and their co-workers and immediate snccessors, therefore, were endowed with special" gifts" for these various ends; and for only so long as they were needed until (a) the Church was firmly planted in the various great centres of the world, and (b) placed under the immediate charge of native presbyters and deacons, in whose hands were written narratives of the life of our Lord and epistolary doctrinal instructions from His apostles.
The special gifts were: 1. Of "divers kinds of tongues" and of "interpretation (understanding) of tongues;" 2. Of " the word of wisdom" (prophecy) and of "the word of knowledge" (teaching) ; 3. Of " the working of miracles" and of "gifts of healing. " None of these gifts are specially given now, because no longer necessary. The missionary of to-day has every means of instrqction at his disposal. As to the first, he can obtain a full Bible in every principal language, with grammars and dictionaries and scholars to aid him; and, as to the second, he can stndy it in the light of its own completeness, and of the teaching of a long line of commentators. Thus, by God's help, he can go out fully equipped as a preacher. Ro, too, as to the third, he can learn to wield a power of healing which would have seemed to be an actual" working of miracles" to the people among whom the apostles moved-as it does seem still to be to the heathen of to-day-and can go out fully equipped as a healer. Special gifts are no longer necessary, not only because the Church is firmly established in the world, but also because its members have (so-called) natural means at their disposal, wholly unattainable in the days of the aJlostles. There is no record of the performance of miracles where " na~- ural" means were available. But though special gifts are not now given in the same openly manifest way, the same Power, who gave them, works in the members of the Church still, and for the same ends, and the same spirit which pervaded the work and teaching of the apostles 8hould pervade their teaching and their work. As there is no longer a special gift for the healer, so there are no longer special gifts for the preacher, the teacher, 0]' the evangelist. If it be said that healing as a part of missionary work should not be employed, because there is not now a special gift of healing, will it not follow that teaching and preaching should cease also, since for these equally with healing there are not now special gifts? Preaching and healing constitute the Divine and human sides of the one Gospel message-a message which promises an "adoption, to wit, th~ redemption of our body" following on the reception of "the Spirit of adoption, whereby" our spirit is led to " cry, Abba, Father."
If the passages in the Book of the Acts are taken seriatim in which the work of the various apostles as missionaries is described, their work, as such, will be found to be a direct continuation of the work of the Master.
The apostles glorified Jesus, whose work they were continuing, and made healing of the body a proof of the truth of their message of healing for the soul. This proof they more particularly emphasized before the Sanhcdrim, who "beholding the man which was healed standing with them could say nothing against it." In the first and only recorded general prayer of the Church, there were only two petitions: "Grant unto Thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak Thy word, by stretching forth Thine hand to heal." The answer came immediately, for" they spake the word of God with boldness," "and by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought, . . . insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, . . . (and) there came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem bringing sick folks, . . . and they were healed everyone." Is not this record identical with that of the work of Jesus-viz., a record of mercy and healing for all, everywhere, in body and soul?
Such work was not restricted to the apostles only. Stephen," full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people." The people "with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did, for . . • many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed. h Healing and good works seem to have been recognized and essential parts of the work of the missionary, whether he were an apostle, a deacon, or an evangelist, going hand in hand with the preaching of the Gospel, and preceding, accompanying, and following the delivery of its message.
Further on Peter found a man sick of the palsy and healed him, pointing to Jesus as the real Healer. Also he raised Dorcas. He called upon Gentiles to come to Jesus, as to One" anointed with the Holy Ghost, who went about doing g'ood and healing all, . . • for God was with Him. " The healing of the body was to Peter a direct work of God, given as a sign of God's love and pity; as a necessary part of His message of mercy, and as a proof of itR truth. That proof Jesus had elaborated when He showed that healing of the body and healing of the soul were possible to God alone, since the one act was the correlative of the other. The same argument, reversed, is therefore used by Paul when he says: "If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies." In other words, the giving of life to the soul is a proof that life will be given to the body. The argument holds good either way.
Like Jesus, the apostles cared for every bodily as well as every spiritual need. Saul and Barnabas took a long journey to carry" relief" to the poor brethren in Judrea; and in their journey spoke" boldly in the Lord, which . . . granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. " An example of their method was given at Lystra in the cure of a cripple.
Then comes St. Paul's first recorded address to the heathen: "This man has been healed by God, who has not left Himself without witness, in that He does good, filling our hearts with food and gladness, and enabling us to do these works of mercy." This address is very like a medical missionary's text and sermon.
It is remarkable that. these "miracles and wonders that God had wrought among the heathen by them" formed the sale reply which Paul and Barnabas gave to the Jewish Church, when questioned as to their mission to the Gentiles. That God was willing that the Gentiles should be healed in body was a sufficient proof that He had opened the door of salvation to them.
In hIS second journey Paul cured a demoniac at Philippi. In his third journey" God wrought special miracles by his hands, so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them." Paul restored Eutychus; he did not wait until he had finished his address, but he went at once in the middle of his sermon. Just as his Master went on healing to the last, so also did he ; for in the last chapter of the Acts he is described as healing the father of the governor of Melita, and" others also which had diseases in the island. "
In the Acts the means and methods employed are only incidentally touched upon, but quite sufficient is said to show that the apostles continued to work precisely as their Master had done. They made deeds of benevolence by no mians a secondary matte1', but did them so commonly and so constantly as to show that they considered them an essential part of their Gospel work and message.
III. Turning to the Epistles, it must be remembered that they give instruction in the truth to believers, while the Gospels and the Acts record missionary work among unbelievers. Naturally, the doctrine taught is deeper and fuller in the former case than in the latter, but it is the same doctrine. If searched through, there will not be found a single exhortation to Christians generally to evangelize, or a single appeal to them on behalf of the heathen around. Are we therefore to conclude that missions are not in accordance with the teaching of the apostles? Certainly not. For the same reason it cannot be urged that healing or work of benevolence is no part of mission work, more especially since these are several times referred to in the Epistles. In the life of Jesus, in His repeated instructions to His disciples when He sent them out, and in the record of the Acts, the duties of missionaries are plainly and sufficiently indicated. In the Epistles, on the othcr hand, the main objects in view are the building up of believers in the faith, and the giving of directions for the government of the Church. Yet on the question of benevolent work the Epistles are very clear. The practice and example of Peter and of Paul have been already dwelt upon. What say the Epistles to the Hebrews, and those of James and John?
The Epistle to the Hebrews says: "Remember them (the apostles) that had the rule over you, which spake unto you the word of God; and considering the issue of their manner of life (marg.), imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to· day , yea, and for ever. . . . Through Him, then, let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make cOllfessl:on to His n«me. But to do good, and to communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased" (R. V.). Here the sacrifice of praise in witnessing for God is coupled with a similar sacrifice of praise in doing good to men, the one work being to the writer, apparently, as important as the other for the pleasing of God.
James asks, " What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith and have not works g • • • If a brothel' or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food (or be sick or in any other temporal trouble), and one of you say unto them, ' Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled (or cured or relieved) ; , notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit .?" The question at the beginning is repeated at the cnd. The kind of works to be done is indicated intermediately, works obviously similar to those before described in the first chapter as an essential part of " pure religion." St. James also indicates that it is the duty of the presbyters to look after the sick, and to use what means they can use to cure them. In this last-mentioned passage, healing of the body is once more coupled with healing of the soul: " The Lord shall raise him (the sick man) up, and, if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."
John says: "Whoso hath this world's good (Gr. j3{o~, anything and everything which appertains to living), and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" What language could possibly be stronger? Having this world's good, if money, we must give to the needy; if power to aid, IlS by- lifting- another man's sheep out of a pit, we must give our help j if benefit of medicine for ourselves, we must share it with those who have it not. Otherwise," how dwelleth the love of God in" us ?
With these words before us, and with the example of the apostleseven were we without the record of the Master's life-we should be guilty if we did not regard benevolent, and especially medical work, as an essential and important part of mission work. How much more shall we be guilty with the Master's example-four times repeated-confronting us, and with His injunction upon us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to " go (as tp.e Good Samaritan went) and do likewise" for all others, no matter whom, whether friends or enemies, wherever and whenever we find anyone in any trouble, sickness, or need. In our primary and supreme anxiety for the soul's welfare we arc often, and quite naturally, apt to lose sight of one not nnimportant point in regard to this injunction which the parable of the Good Samaritan brings out. Our Lord did not say that those who passed by the injured man were, for example (and as we might have supposed), a Pharisee and a Sadducee, professors and self·appointed teachers of religion, and His own special opponents in doctrine and practice j but He implied that those who were guilty of neglect were a priest and a Levite, men specially set apart by God for religious work, men with whom Jesus is never reported to have come int~ collision, to whom, on the contrary, He, the Great Fulfiller of the Law, had shown all deferences, as in the instances of His cleansing of lepers. Why did Jesus select these men for unfavorable contrast? Did He not mean to imply that they were wrong in interpreting their position to be one in virtue of which, as special servants of God, they were to be so exclusively occupied with spiritual things as to be warranted in passing by merely temporal sickness and trouble as something to them" on the other side" of the way-the merely human side of the way of our life here-something which did not fall within their proper sphere of duty ~ Did He not mean to show that the cultivation of His spirit of practical benevolence and mercy and healing was specially incumbent upon them as ministers of the sanctuary j and that in the service" of the true Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man"-in which He Himself is the Great Minister-the exercise of that spirit, for His sake, is of primary importance, and" a more excellent way" of service than the' striving for the best gifts, the exercise of the highest powers, or the making of the greatest sacrifices ~ Surely it. was with the teaching of this parable, and with the text upon which our Lord founded it, in his mind and heart, that St. Paul, in writing to the Galatians and through them to Christians of the present age, gave, as the final summing up of his long argument on legal bondage and Christian freedom, this one concluding sentence for Christian practice and life: "For all the Law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' "
TIlE BA.SIS A.ND RESULTS OF MEDICAL MISSIONS
THE BASIS AND RESULTS OF MEDICAL MISSIONS.
BY R. H. GRAVES.
Though all humanitarian work may meet with the Divine approval, .the Christian feels much better satisfied when he has a " Thus saith the Lord" as the basis of his action and a Divine command as the great motive to his work. In speaking of medical missions, I wish, therefore, in the first place, to speak of the place of healing in the Divine plan for the redemption of our race.
In creating man, God made him with a soul and a body, and these two have the most intimate relations with each other. Sin in its origin affected and still affects the soul through the body; and body as well as soul suffers from its penalties. In His thoughts of mercy to our race God pities the body as well as t1le soul of man. Both were created by God, both have felt the curse of sin, and both are to share in God's redemption. As the soul infinitely transcends the body in value and duration, of course this is the chief object of God's solicitude, and still the body is not beneath His notice or His care. In the ministry of the Christ on earth He healed the sick as well as preached the Gospel. His tender heart was touched with pity for the lame, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the palsied, the maimed, and the leper. At the grave of Lazarus, while He wept tears of sympathy for the grief of the broken-hearted sisters, we are told that He was" indignant in Himself" as He thought of the havoc which death had made in the fair form of his friend Lazarus. He saw Satan's work in men's maimed bodies, as well as in their ruined souls, and "went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil," thns fulfilling His mission to " destroy the works of the devil."
So in sending forth His followers, the healing' of the body had a place in the thoughts of our Lord as well as the salvation of the sou1. And here let me notice a distinction which is not without significance in showing the place which medical missions should occupy in our scheme for the evangelization of the world. In sending forth the twelve who were His apostJ ~s, those to whom were specially entrusted the continuance of His work and the interests of His kingdom, He says: "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise tile dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons." Their great work was preaching; healing was subsidiary (Matt. 10 : 7, 8). In Luke 10 we have an account of His sending out the seventy. Here the commission is, " Cure the sick, and say to them, The kingdom of God is come nigh to you." Notice the healing of the sick occupies the first place, and the Gospel message is to be announced to them. Here we have the warrant and the work of the medical missionary-as a physician to heal the suffering body, and as a messenger from God to tell his patient of Jesus. Thus we have two classes of laborers sent out by Christ: ordained preachers, who are to preach and found churches, and employ healing as im aid to their great work, and those who are to do the preliminary work of healing, but never to forget the immortal soul while caring for the perishing body.
If we turn to the Book of Acts we find the apostles working on these lines. The first great triumphs of the Gospel under Peter and Paul were accomplished by the preaching of the Word, but in Acts 3 and 5 we see how important a place healing occupied iu the early spread of the Gospel. So Paul mentions " he~ling" among the gifts of the Spirit.
I think we are to learn from this that the llealing of the sick should occupy the first place among the helps to the preaching of the Word. As being the only one mentioned in Scripture, it should take the precedence of schools, orphanages, and other agencies.
As the seventy were to do a preliminary work, so now Wi) find medical work of special service in preparing the way for the fuller preaching of the Gospel and founding of churches among the heathen. In China we find it especially useful in opening new stations, by overcoming the prejudices of the people and showing the benevolent aspect of Christianity in a way that the simplest may understand. We can often rent a house for a dispensary where it is impossible to secure one as a preaching-place. After the people understand our object and hear Christian truth privately their opposition melts away, and they are willing to have public preaching in their midst. Thus medical work serves as an entering wedge for the Gospel.
Having spoken of the Divine warrant for medical missions, let U3 now glance at the human need. In God's Providence the concomitant evils of sin and suffering have afflicted our race in every age and every land. In this same Providence the desire and ability to relieve suffering have accompanied the religion of Jesus. While perhaps one may be justified in saying that in God's mercy suffering is less acute among the ruder tribes, where the ability to remove it is small, and the capacity to suffer has increased with the nervous tension which is the result of civilization, and with the growth of medical skill which is able to relieve it, still the great fact remains that sickness and suffering are universal. As a general thing, heathen people have but little ability to remove or alleviate this suffering. Even in the more enlightened heathen lands, as China and India, men have no real knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and pathology. Microscopy, which is so important a factor in modern physical science, is entirely unknown. Their religious views or hoary prejudices prevent any minute investigation of the true causes of disease. Their theories are crude and unscientific, and their practice is mere empiricism. In China, as in Europe several centuries ago, the most disgusting and inert substances are prescribed as remedies for disease. One has but to read the Pwan Tsao, the standard dispensatory of China, to see this. In surgery the knowledge of the Chinese is almost nil. The overweening value they ascribe to astrology has dislocated what little practical knowledge they may possess. I have seen the charts of an army doctor, where the wounds are to be treated according to the hour of the day in which they were inflicted rather than the parts injured or the instrument which dld the injury. Female complaints go almost entirely unrelieved, as prejudice prevents their calling in even their own ignorant male doctors, and they have no female physicians, except a few women who deal in what we call" old women's remedies." Hence we see the need for educated and trained physicians, both men and women, from Christian lands.
The tendency of heathenism is to dull and harden the heart; and those who suffer from disease receive very little of that sympathy which we have learned from our Master, and which has become an essential part of our Christian ei vilization. A Red Cross Society has been organized at Tientsin by foreigners, to attend to the Chinese wounded. One writing from there says: "The Chinese indifference to their wounded has been to me the worst feature in this war." The statement is published that the Tao tai, the highest official there, when: appealed to, said: "Vhat do I want with wounded men q The sooner they die the better. China has plenty of men." This heathenish eallousness to human suffering seems strange to our ears, but is perfeetly natural to an officer trained in inflicting the tortures which are so common in Chinese courts. When God " makes men's hearts soft" through sickness and pain, they are often better prepared to appreciate Christian sympathy and to receive the Gospel message of comfort and hope.
That the heathen appreciate the efforts of missionary physicians to relieve their ailments is shown by the multitudes who crowd to the dispensaries and hospitals, especially in India and China. In China we sometimes have an amusing illustration of this, in the way in which native quacks try to palm themselves off as agents of foreign institutions. Some thirty years ago, after my dispensary had been opened for a few years at Shin Hing, a city seventy-five miles from Canton, the following handbill was circulated by a man who claimed to have been sent out by me : GREAT ENGLISH PILLS AND POWDERS FOR CURING DANGEROUS DISEASES.
This panacea is respectfully presented to you. In the early years of the Emperor Tau Kwang's reign we came into possession of a recipe, which was given to the foreigners by the great English sage, Jesus, at His appearance on the earth, and transmitted by them entire and unaltered to our house, where the medicine is now compounded. When this remedy is distributed in any place, the public health of that place will be restored in less than ten days. It is truly as efficacious as if given by the gods. Within the past two or three years the people of all classes, from laborers to gentlemen, have crowded the roads and the ferries in all quarters, pressing forward to our shop to obtain the medicine. They have therefore begged us to take the medicine to all the departments, districts, market towns, fairs, and villages of the land, that we may save men's .lives by its free distribution. These pills can cure cholera. Anyone having pains, cramps, diarrhooa, dysentery, paralysis, or children suffering from fright, may come. Men and women, the old and the young may be cured by a single pill. Swallow it and drink a little rice gruel after it. A.s soon as the pill reaches the stomach the disease will be perfectly cured.
Many have counterfeited these pills, but we have the only genuine article. These men sell their medicine through love of gain, but we do not take a single cash. Signed, Messrs. Ng., Hall of Tranquil Veneration.
P.S.-Sundays and days for seeing patients, as follows: etc.
Some of these quacks put some amusing attempts at English on their posters and handbills. In Canton, on the walls may be seen in large letters, " Dr. – – , Physician to Leprosy-nor Doctors' Fees Discharged," by which is meant "leprosy cured, or the doctor's fee returned." In Macao is a sign, " Ip. healer, can doctor to surgery line, medicine line, • all kinds illness dispensation." Ent enough of this.
H we look at the results of medical missions we will find them most encouraging. They were begun by Dr. Peter Parker, who was sent to Canton by the A. B. C. F. M. in 1835. The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, which has trained so many missionaries for the work in city slums and in foreign lands, was the outcome of lectures delivered by Dr. Parker in Great Britain. The Medical Missionary Society in China has held its fifty-sixth annual meeting, and in 1893 there were 1608 inpatients and 25,542 attendances at the hospital dispensing.room, and 31,637 at the dispensaries in various parts of the country and city, auxiliary to the hospital, making a total of nearly 60,000 patients prescribed for during the year. They report that hundreds have given up idol-worship, and scores have been brought to Christ as the result of Christian teaching here.
The London Missionary Society's physician at Amoy reports that ] 2,000 to 14,000 towns and villages are yearly represented at the hospital, and that, as the result of the cure of one man seventeen years before, no less than seven Christian congregations had been formed with a membership of from 30 to 100 each.
The English Presbyterians at Swatow report that of their 20 country stations, 7 or 8 had their origin through the hospital patients. In 1885 out of an attendance of 5500 patients over 80 publicly declared their faith in Christ and earnestly desired to join the church.
So we might go on with annual attendances of 5000, 10,000, 15,000 at the hospitals and dispensaries connected with various missions in different cities and towns of China.
From Formosa Dr. McKay reports that from the visit of one man to the hospital there exist four congregations of Christians with a membership of 350 souls and double that number of adherents and flourishing schools.
Korea, the country to which the eyes of the world are now directed, was opened to Protestant missionary efforts by means of medical mission work.
H we turn to India, we find 8000,16,000, 40,000, 43,000, and 89,000 given as the annual attendance at various hospitals and dispensaries, and numbers of conversions reported. Medical missionaries have unlocked the doors to the dominions of natil'e princes before closed to Christian evangelization.
In Syria and Persia we read of good results among the Mohammedans through medical mission work. Everywhere God's blessing seems to rest upon this form of Christian effort.
These hospitals and dispensaries are not merely institutions for the relief of present suffering, but they are training schools, where the natil'es are taught W"estern medicine and surgery and sent out among their feHowcountrymen as intelligent, useful practitioners. Thus the benefits go on to future generations.
In all these missionary medical institutions the truths of the Gospel are taught publicly or by-the bedside, and Christian Scriptures and tracts are given to the patients to read and to take to their homes. Thus the good seed of the vYord is cast into soil prepared to receive it by the ministry of suffering and the solace of Christian sympathy. May we not confidently hope that much of it will bring forth fruit unto the glory of God ~ I am glad that you have organized yourselves into a society to help forward the work of medical missions, and trust that your efforts may be crowned with success. Let me remind you that as the great object of medical missions is to employ the healing of the suffering body as a meaus of benefiting the immortal spirit, so the work must be undertaken not from mere humanitarian motives, but in a spirit of prayer that God may use the skill of the physician aR the means of saving the soul of the patient. Only then will the doctor be a missionary-God's messenger to the deathless spirit of man.
There are two theories of medical missionary work: The first divides it into two categories, one medical and philanthropic, aiming to gather kindly disposed crowds; the other, spiritual and missionary, seeking to lead men and women to Christ. According to this theory, medicine is a means to an end, and if the same end could be reached by any other plan, as by doles of bread or cash, it would make no difference to the Church.
The other theory is that a medical missionary is representative of the men sent forth by Christ, with the instruction, "Heal the sick, and say unto them, The kingdom of God has come nigh unto you." They were clothed with miraculous healing power-a power possessed temporarily and intended to magnify their Master's omnipotence, His truth, His compassion, and the fulness of His salvation to soul and body. The IJ}{)dern medical missionary is therefore a man clothed with a healing power-that is the fruit of the presence of the spirit of Christ among men; a power which is one of the marvellous gifts of God, which has been slowly evolved through the centuries till now it is a magnificent inheritance, and in the hand of increasing knowledge moves with surer aim to overthrow disease; a power which is permanently present in the Church, and which is to be possessed in constant union and under the direction of the Spirit for the service and glory of Christ.
According to this theory, medicine is not a means to an end, but is an integral factor. in the work of presenting Christ to the heathen. Along the lines of diligent and patient study the modern Christian enters npon this possession of healing power, and goes forth into heathenism to reveal in deed and in word the Master whom he serves as a mighty and compassionate Saviour, whose salvation embraces soul and body, and who permits His servants to evidence and to seal the power, character, and extent of His lIalvation.-Medical Missions.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMEN'r
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY BEV. J. T. GBACEY, D.D.
India's New and Opening Fields. glad ring to his voice: "Thank you for that last word you said on leaving BY J. L. PHILLIPS, M.D., CALCUTTA, the other day. It was just what I FIELD SECRETARY INDIA SUNDAY- needed, and I went away and prayed SCHOOL UNION. for faith and for the blessings I craved It is very cheering indeed to find for our field; and you had not been American and European missionaries gone an hour before a Brahman pundit who are coming to see more in the pos· from that large village yonder, stood on sibilities and the promise of the Chris- this very veranda begging me for a tian Sunday-school as an out-and-out Christian man to teach his pupils the and successful missionary agency than Bible on the Sabbath. I have supplied ever before. In this, as in every other him with a teacher, and hope others department of effort, it is to us accord- will come now with a like request."
ing to our faith. I may illustrate with This is by no means a solitary case. I a case in point, for as a medicaJ. man I think we all are coming to see and seize naturally think more of cases than of our opportunity in the Sunday-school pet theories or stock arguments; and as never before; hence I look for larger I may add that I believe intelligent ingatherings from the non-Christian Christians attach more importance to ranks.
real cases than to finely spun theory, These children of our Sunday-schools be it never so pleasant. It was away are already beginning to be real mis- down in the very south of India that I sionaries of the cross, and are bringing had been at work for several days ad- their friends to Christ. I am constantly dressing men, women and children, hearing of cases where the whole fam- theological students, and Bible women, ily has been brought into the congre- on how to improve and increase the gation and the church through the lov- Sunday-schools, and I was going on to ing labors of a little child. Those another station. On bidding the mis- words of Isaiah's prophecy, "A little sionary good-by, he said something like child shall lead them," are being beau- this: "You must not expect to find tifully illustrated before our eyes in things so far on down here as in Upper these days, and our glad hearts are India; for instance, we've never heard thanking God in the very words of of a Brahman pundit coming to the Jesus when He said: "I thank Thee, mi2sionaries begging for a Christian to o Father, Lord of heaven and earth, come and teach his boys the Bible for that Thou didst hide these things from an hour on the Sabbath. Such cases the wise and understanding, and didst are quite unknown in these parts, but reveal them unto babes: yea, Father, I'm glad you have them in the north." for so it was well· pleasing in Thy Still holding my friend's hand, I was sight."
moved to say: "In all our work it is The rise of intelligent, hence sus- always according to our faith," and to tained enthusiasm among Christian ask him, ,. Have you been praying and workers here in this special effort for looking for this in your field?" After reaching the young with the blessed a few days I was once more his guest Gospel, I count a far greater token of on my way north. Standing on the cheer than mere numerical increase of veranda to welcome me, just where he schools and scholars, for it means a had bid me good-by, and while still large accession to our working force.
holding my hand, he said with such a Teachers are wanted now on every hand. Whereas twenty-five years ago ers, and about one hundred aud ninety- we were seeking the children of these two thousand pupils, of whom the populous lands, now, such are the mar- non-Christians are decidedly in the ma- vels of God's grace, the children are jority. About one third of the pupils seeking us. Had I ten thousand new are girls, a fact for which we have ;rea- and competent teachers to-day I should son to be sincerely thankful. Female have no difficulty whatever-such is the education is making rapid strides in rising demand for Bible instruction these Eastern lands, and the Bible is among all classes-in finding schools doing more for girls than all else com- for them all next Sunday. Our mis- bined. These five thousand Sunday- sionary superintendents on all sides are schools are taught in scores of lan-, crying out for more helpers. This guages, but the following ten are most growing demand is pushing us to more used, perhaps-i.e., Hindi, Bengali, prayer first, in obedience to our Lord's English, Urdu, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi, express command; but it is pushing us Karen, Kanerese, and Singhalese. But to more preparation as well, for this in scores more of the many tongues of noble work. Normal classes for the this very polyglot place-this broad and older scholars of our classes were un- beautiful field of ours-we should open known five years ago, but may be seen Sunday-schools soon. Few at most of doing grand service now in the way of the youth of the land can be brought training up teachers; and preparation under direct Christian training in any classes for Sunday-scbool teachers are other way than that of the Sundaybecoming quite common now in all school. Our great missionary societies churches throughout this broad field. will never be able to provide secular India's own hearty response to the ris- education for all these millions, but a ing plea of her millions of little ones thoroughly roused Christian Church begins to be heard, and hundreds of may hope, by God's help, to feed all the voluntary teachers, native and foreign, lambs of this great fold in India. The are enlisting in this delightful service. Master's command is urgent: "Give The year 1894 was one of marked ye them to eat." progress. By the organization of the For more than four years the friends Central India Sunday-school Union the in the Straits' Settlements had been work of planning our Sunday-school calling for help. This spring my work campaign for all India was completed. in British India permitted me to visit We are now thoroughly organized for them, and Singapore has organized a aggressive effort throughout India, in- Sunday-scuool union auxiliary to India. cluding Burma and Ceylon. In seven Here the churches are Anglican, Ameriof the ten Auxiliary Sunday-school can Methodist, English Presbyterian, Unions-viz., those of Bengal, Burma, and Plymouth Brethren. The mission- Central India, Ceylon, Northwest Prov- ary work is almost all in the hands of inces, South India, and Central Prov- the lIethodists and Presbyterians. I inces, there has been a decided growth find good schools opened and flourishin the number of schools, teachers, and ing, and a few small Sunday-schools. pupils. In all ten of these auxiliaries The prospects before this branch of our there has been an increase in the num- Sunday-school Union are most cheerber of teachers, which is very cheering. ing. At Penang also missionary work More accurate statistics, I hope, will is well started by the same societies, prove next year that there has been a and I hope another auxiliary Sundaysteady growth in every part of our school union will be organized there. field. The annual report presented to By prudent pushing of practical Sunthe Convention at Calcutta last Decem- day-school methods I hope our present ber gives us about five thousand Sun- statistics may be doubled within a day-schools, about ten thousand teach- twelvemonth. In this crown colony of England's, as in India, special atten- Christian work. It was good to look tion mnst be given to the training of into the animated faces of these men, teachers and to the creation and circu- to hear them sing the praises of our lation of Sunday-school literature. anorable Lord, and to tell them of scores and hundreds more like them, From Singapore to Batavia, the chief whom in seminaries of every church all city of Java, and capital of Dutch East over British India and Ceylon I had Indies, is but five hunded and fifty met face to face during the last four miles, and at the instance of interested years. Here were two men from Dutch friends I have been over there for a New Guinea and some from the west week, with a view to seeing whether coast of Sumatra. Meeting these Chris- Netherlands India would join hands tian Bataks from Sumatra brought to with British India in promoting Sun- mind a veteran missionary's graphic day-schools. My brief visit has been account at a convention several years pleasant and on the whole satisfactory, ago, of how his sailing-ship was once and I hope next spring to have more becalmed off this very coast, and the time for visiting the principal mission- cannibals were rowing out to them ary stations of Dutch India-viz., Java, greedy for capture and carnival, and Borneo, Celebes, Sumatra, etc.-and or- how in answer to prayer the gracious ganizing the workers for aggressive breeze sprang up and filled the flapping effort in behalf of the children. On sails and bore them beyond danger and the French mail steamer in which I toward their port in Siam. Now I was went over to .Java were three German told there are no cannibals in Sumatra, missionaries going to New Guinea. It and there are more than a hundred nawas very pleasant meeting them, and tive Batak missionaries publishing the our fellowship was sweet. Their field glorious Gospel of our Lord Christ. is in Northeast New Guinea, in German What a grand field for missionary effort possessions, and although occupied for i~ all this land of Netherlands-India! eight years, the first convert has not I wonder so few men from Holland are been welcomed to the church. The coming to reap those golden harvests. climate there has been found extremely There must be from thirty to forty trying for foreigners, and several of millions living on these islands of the the toilers have died there. In their Asiatic or ~'Ialaysian Archipelago bebehalf, as well as in behalf of all other longing to Holland alone. Surely the distant and lone workers in the great old Dutch Reformed Church, the State fever fields of the Church, I would beg branch of it and the Free together, the special prayers o£ the churches should be doing betler and more for at home. Letters from home reach this immense constituency. Motley German New Guinea but once in two and Prescott and others have told the months. These brethren will have to world how the Christian patriots of the wait weeks in Java for a steamer to Netherlands beat back the invader, take them on to their destination. Ger- flood or foe, and defended their hearthmany has sent out many noble men and stones. Let that spirit of loyalty to women into all these Eastern lands, God and home now show itself in orand some of the hardest and most un- ganized evangelization of these fair promising fields of Asia and Africa fields. Almost five centuries ago Islam have been supplied by her self-sacrific- conquered Java, crushing the old Hindu ing sons and daughters. faith, and to-day her twenty-four mil- lions are chiefly followers of the False The brightest thing I saw in Java Prophet. Now may the Cross conquer was the Theological Seminary at Depok, the crescent, and these millions bow at twenty-one miles from Batavia. There His feet who is Lord over aU blessed were forty-five young fellows from all forevermore. I long to hear the chil- Netherlands-India, Borneo, Celebes, Java, Sumatra, etc., in trainin~ fOl dren's hosannas on all these islands. of the world, but to one that bad turn' The bulk of the present adult popula- ed aside after strange gods, and been tion may die in sin, but if the Church sold into bondage to a heathen people. of Christ does her duty by their chilo He found the same condition we find dren, God's promise to rebellious Israel in the Oriental world to·day-the same will be once more iIIustrated and ful- physical suffering, the same poverty filled, when He said: "YOUR LITTLE and degradation, the same turning to ONES WILT. I BRING IN." magicians and enchantments for relief, the same cruel torture from the un· SINGAPORE, STRAITS SETTLEMENTS, skilled and unqualified, would·be heal· April 23, 1895. ers. .. She had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all Medical Work Among the Women and that she had, and was nothing better, Ohildren of the Heathen OOllntries, but rather worse," are the words used to .describe the condition of the one BY MARIA WHITE, M.D., PUNJAB, INDIA. healed by Christ, yet the cruel torture this woman suffered is by no means ex· I present this as a humane institu· pressed in these words, and the more tion, as a means of preaching the Gos- physicians the more cruel her torture. pel to the people. To have a correct idea of the benefits The work of the medical missionary derived from medical help, we must dates from the beginning of Christ's first look at the lives and condition of public ministry, and the fact that the the people. The picture may be a sad healing of physical suffering was to be one, and may cause many to inquire, a proof that Christ was the Divine. Does she mean us to understand this as loving, and compassionate Son of God, stated ? and I will here state that in willing to give Himself that we might this paper I will speak only of things be redeemed from greater suffering which have occurred in my own practhan that of this life, is contained in tice and are literally true, facts that can the answer returned to John the Bap· be attested by all doctors of India, and tist to the question, " Art 'l'hou He who may be known to the mass of the mis· should come, or shall we look for an· sionaries present, yet I can only give other?" "Go tell John the blind see, you a glimpse into the sorrows of the the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dumb heathen women. Much that my eyes speak, and the poor have the Gospel have looked on is too terrible to describe preached to them." Christ's field of in a public paper. My field for eight ministry was not the same as those of years was in the Punjab, India, but as His followers who are laboring in civ· I returned to America I had the privilized lands to-day – lands moulded ilege of visiting the Malay Peninsula, by the light of the Gospel, till every South China, and Japan, and find in breath we draw tells of the Son of each a corresponding condition, only Righteousness who came with healing varied in accordance with the customs in His wings. As we look over these of their country. Enter with me into fields we find cleanliness and an organ· a native city of India, and look on the ized means of promoting proper sanita- heathen as they appear to open view. tion and to check the spread of disease; The streets are thronged with ox·carts, hospitals, asylums, and homes for the donkeys, dogs, and the multitude of relief of the suffering people, builded people, men, women, and children— by the light which Christ brought into the halt, the blind, the deaf and dumb; the world, are on every side; but what the fever cases, with burning cheek and was the conditio!! of the human family panting breath; small·pox in the stage when He first entered on His public of desquamation, scattering the germs ministry? to all around; leprosy, with the unmis· Christ was a Jew, born a Jew, and came to the then most· civilized nation takable signs of the first stage or per- foot-fall is never hushed to lessen their haps the advanced stage, sitting at the suffering, no anxious mother or sister corners begging, showing hands and ever places a dish before them to tempt feet from which fingers and toes have their appetite, no skilful doctor or nurse dropped; scurvy cases, that dread dis- is called to administer to their wants. ease supposed to develop in persons de- Supposed to be possessed of some evil prived of vegetable diet and dependent spirit, they are objects to be dreaded, on salt meat, developed to the most in- and every possible cruelty must be re- tense form in those who have never sorted to that it may be expelled. seen salt meat or tasted meat of any Placed in the darkest, dirtiest room of kind, victims to a hot climate. and a the house, without light or ventilation, purely vegetable diet; the miserable their bed the most filthy of rags, de- beggar, or perhaps those who are not prived of food and water, often for beggars, but who, like Lazarus, are full days they are forced to inhale the of sores from head to foot, undressed, fumes of charcoal, given off from a uncared·for, and alive with worms. smouldering pot, which is always placed Take a glance down the two sides of by their bed, and are subject to burnthe street and mark the naked infants ing from hot irons and many other on their hard stools, lying in the burn- cruelties to expel this spirit. A few ing sun, left to fret their little lives examples in my experience will illusaway while the mothers are earning the trate their condition. daily pittance. Enter the doors of You will first visit with me the home some of the homes and take a clearer of a Muhammadan Molvi, a teacher of view. Do you find the well-regulated the Muhammadan religion, and one of homes of Christian lands? The hon· the best homes, one where both wife ored father, teaching both by word and and children are loved by the husband example the love and respect due to and father. that mother who has borne all, sacrificed On a bed lies a little child of three, all, suffered all for them; the children unconscious, a true case of infantile clustering around the mother's knee ecampsia (convulsions due to disease of pouring their tales of joy and sorrow the cerebro-spinal system). The father into their ears, or watching with long- and two brothers are seated, nativeing eyes for the return of father? No; fashion, on the bed at her head, the there is nothing in their religion to mother, sister, and two or three female sweeten life or elevate the human fam- friends on the bed at her feet, all so ily. It degrades women with an in- close as to prevent the possibility of finite degradation, dwarfs their intel- air of any kind reaching her: As we lects, so that women of twenty or thirty enter, a barber has jUilt finished shaving are but as children of eight or ten. De- the hair from the head just over the prived of every comfort, regarded as frontal sinus (the place where the brain mere cattle, the property of their hus- can be seen pulsate in an infant's head, band, bought and sold as other mer- and is called by the natives of India chandise, till all the worst passions of "the door to the brain".), and a Muthe human nature are stimulated and hammadan doctor lifts a red-hot piece developed, here envy, jealousy, hate, of iron from the fire and presses it to and revenge run to such an extent, the exposed part, destroying the tissues that I have often been begged and of- to the skull, and to my cry of horror fered money if I would take away the and dismay the father, in an agony of life of some objects of their loathing. sorrow, answers: "Oh, Miss Sahib, Contrast the condition of their sick for many days that door was open, and with those of our Christian homes. an evil spirit entered there and must be The tender hand of love and sympathy destroyed, or our child will die." never cools their fevered brow, thc An old blind woman was left on my veranda. After removing her to the for Vidhata's visit have been made, indoor department of the hospital I food consisting of a coarse graham learned the following: For years she flour and coarser brown sugar, equal had supported her husband by begging. parts, wet and kneaded together to be and this day losing her way, had walk- eaten raw, has been prepared for the ed into an open well. She was taken famished mother, but both mother and out alive, but hopelessly crippled. child are unconscious, and the foreign After having been fined for dirtying doctor is called in to bring them back the well, and beaten by her husband again to life.
for what he called her carelessness, but, Place the medical work at its lowest as she quaintly expressed it, for not standard, only as a humane institution, dying when crippled so as to be no is there any more noble profession than more use, she was left at my door as a that which relieves from physical suf- means of freeing himself from a use- fering the human family? And when less burden. we can enter such homes, rescue the I will take you to but one more helpless infant from such cruel barbari- home, the house of a high caste Hindu. ties, bring the women from their dark A mother and child of six days lie un- and dirty rooms and mud floors to open conscious. The mother has survived courts and bedsteads, give water to the nameless barbarities of the native those perishing from thirst, cool the midwife. and both are now dying of burning brow, sustain and support the hunger and neglect. Every step of weak with nourishing food, teach them her treatment has been laid down in how to care for their little ones and their sacred book. I cannot in this pa- the importance of cleanliness, clear and per describe the cruelties practised cleanse their mass of living disease, and during the hours of her suffering. For bind up the sores of the beggar-are we the first three days she has been <'Ie· not following closely in the footsteps of prived of food and drink, and on the the Divine Master? And when we bring third aHowed only onc grain of rice. them out from their homes, take them Her room has been prepared by placing into hospitals and give them the same her in the darkest and dirtiest of the care and treatment we would give the house, with the most filthy of rags, on a sick in America, are we not filling one mud floor for her bed. A cow's skull of the highest missions in the annals of painted red. an image of Sasthi, the history? But this is a position that can goddess who presides over the destiny be filled by any skilful doctor; the of women and children, made of cow- medical missionaries have a higher aim dung, is placed in a conspicuous posi- than the mere relief of physical suffer- tion. This and the pot of smoulder- ing.
ing charcoal, the only furniture, are They look beyond the body of clay placed there to expel the evil spirits and see in every patient a soul perish- tIovering around. During her three ing, eternally perishing, one for whom weeks of uncleanness neither father, Christ died, and the awful responsibil- mother, hUSband, nor sister can come ity to God for the souls of those who nigh her, leaving her to the care of the have been under our care is ever before barber's wife. Ou the fifth day the us, and this brings us to the most im· filthy clothing is removed and the room portant rart of our subject, medical cleaned, as on the next is to be the work as an evangelistic institution.
worship of Sasthi, and that night Vid- The position the medical work holds hata will write on the child's forehead as a means of promoting the spread of the main events of his life. The day the Gospel and winning souls for Christ has arrived, Sasthi has been wor- can be better illustrated by quoting the shipped. The woman has been given words of a high caste Hindu, when a cold bath, all necessary arrangementll asked as to the progress made in Indil by the Christian religion, and what in God 's Word wIthout some tangible method was most likely to con vert their proof.
people to Christ, answered: "We do not fear the usual method of mission work, such as the school, printing' The Mis~onary Outlook at Foocnow, presses, and bazaar preaching, but we Ohina. do fear your lady zenana·worker, lind we dread your lady doctors; they enter BY REV. J. H. WORLEY, FOOCHOW, our homes, win the hearts of our wom· CHINA.
en, threatening the foundation of our religion. " Another year of blessed fellowship One instance in my experience will with and service for the Master bas show how this method of giving the been granted us. Although at times Gospel had taken hold of the women there has been danger of riots on ac· of Sialkot, Indill. For the first three count of the unsettled state of the coun· or four years I had been accustomed to try caused by the war, we have been close the doors of the dispensary on kept in peace and safety.
Sabbath, that both myself and assistants Now that there seems prospect of might have an opportunity of attending peace the threatened rebellion by the church services, but the women, not vegetarians at Ku·Cheng, about a hun· satisfied with their opportunities duro dred miles from here, has subsided, at ing the week, though the Bible was least for the present. In the beginning taught throughout dispensary hours, it was pretended they were attackIng asked me to hold a special service for the Christians, but this was only a ruse, them on Sabbath morning, and I open· as their real object is to overthrow the ed the doors of the waiting-room, and government, and they are only a part for the last four years have held a of the great secret societies with which chapel service for heathen women, of China is honeycombed. Whenever the whom there were from forty to sixty government is imperilled they always present. After a few days the hus- come forth. The present outbreak was bands, learning they were coming only on account of the Chino·Japanese War.
to study the Bible, Objected, and the ", When the district magistrate under· women begged me to give them one or took to punIsh the leaders he was over· two little powders on Sabbath, only powered and compelled to beg pardon flour, they said, that they might show from the rebels. Several times the day to their husbands and be permitted to was fixed to pillage and burn the city, come. Some had themsel ves attempt. kill the magistrate, and drive out the ed to prepare powders, but the hus· mIssIonaries. When the magistrate bands knew the hospital paper and skil· was ovm'powered the people became ful wrapping. Often in conversation alarmed and began preparations for with women who had received relief, self-defence. The city wall was reo when in answer to their questions of paired, the gates barricaded, and the what brought me to India, I would tell citizens took turns patrolling the streets them the story of the Great Physician, and city wall, and a request was sent they would answer: "Truly your God to Foochow for soldiers, the soldiers at is a good, kind God; none other ever Kucheng having joined the rebels.
sent help to the women. " The medi· Most of the rebels were in the villages.
cal mission is a means of presenting the so the plan was to keep them from con· Gospel to the heathen that they can centrating within the city wall. For feel and appreciate, and speaks of a several days no one was allowed to pass living, loving, and acting God. Their in or out of the city, and nearly all intellects are so dwarfed as to make it business was suspended, and it was difficult to grasp the truth as set forth feared the rebels would lay siege to the city and starve them out; but just as years 1894-95 will be known as the matters were coming to a crisis word birth-time of the new era, the Renais- came that soldiers were coming from sance in China… Now is our greatest J!'oochow, and the rebels surrendered opportunity and responsibility. Will and signed a treaty of peace. How the Christian Church awake to her op- long the treaty will be kept depends portunity and responsibility as China is on how the war terminates. No one awakening to her need? has any confidence in their sincerity. If the war come to a speedy and satis- The past year was the most hopeful factory close, and the government gets in our history. The statistics are very on its feet, they will not dare to make significant, yet they give but a faint disturbance; but if not, then we may idea of the work done and good accom- expect serious trouble in this quarter, plished; increase over the preceding and perhaps all over the empire. year: Members, 616; inquirers, 1662; day-schools, 35; day-scholars, 358; As the schools were all broken up Sabbath-schools, 39 ; and scholars, 1545. and the scholars sent home, the lady The number of Scriptures, books, and missionaries have come to Foochow, tracts sold was several times greater but the gentlemen still remain to look than last year. Two years ago on the after the work.· The missionaries de- Foochow District we had 5 day-schools serve great credit for their patience and with about 100 pupils; last year, 15 fortitude during those trying days and day·schools with about 300 pupils, but nights. this year we have 110 schools and over 2500 boys studying Christian books. Weare now waiting anxiously to Every school is a regular preaching- know the terms of peace. It is rumored place, where nearly every Sabbath and that several of the European Powers several times during the week the Gos- wlll not allow Japan's claim. We only pel is preached to the parents and hope that nothing will be done by them friends of the pupils. Most of these to hinder Japan from completing the schools have been opened by request good work already begun. If she is from the people, and there still remain left alone she will effect such material places where we have been invited, but changes that many of the greatest ob- cannot enter for want of men and stacles to Christianity will be forever means. Only two days ago a man swept away. Crush Chinese egotism came nearly twenty miles to get me to and conservatism, and with them will go to his village of several thousand be buried superstition, and a wide door inhabitants to preach and establish a opened for the Gospel such as the world Christian school. Similar requests come has never witnessed. Before China is every few days, and, oh how hard it is redeemed these changes must be effect- to turn them away with the cold an- ed, and if Japan, as she seems to be, is swer that we have no money. or there the instrument to accomplish it, we bid is no one to teach you I Yet our won- her God-speed. During the last twelve- der-working God is raising up helpers month she has gotten the work well beyond our highest expectations. Many under way, and we hope that nothing more literary men than formerly are will be allowed to cut it short. being saved who, with minds already trained, soon develop into excellent Whatever the terms of peace, we are workers, either as teachers or preach- confident a brighter day awaits China, ers. Were it not for these men we and the spread of the Gospel will be ac- could not enter half the open doors. celerated manifold. The conversion On the other hand, many friends are of China is the greatest undertaking being raised up in America and else- which has engaged the Christian where who are furnishing the money Church, and the success of the enter- over and above the missionary society's , prise hinges on the next few years. This is II crisis, a turning-point. The appropriations to carryon this marvel- Chinese college and the theological semi- lous work. It is the Lord's doings, nary, who visit the day·schools and and is marvellous in our eyes! To His preach Sundays, we are reaching tens name be all the praise ! of thousands, and God is blessing our Barriers are melting away like frost efforts. This is only one district, and before the morning sun. One of our does not take account of the woman's Bible-women was abused and her dress work of our Church and the" other two torn off for preaching in.a certain town missions operating here.
last year. Now we have a prosperous I can give you only a few of the en- school there and regular preaching. couraging facts which cheer us from A formal and most polite request came day to day and give us hope for the from the village elders. Not long ago future.
the native pastor on an adjoining cir- Nothing is more encouraging than cuit and I visited this town, and for the growing desire on the part of our two hours preached to several hundred native preachers and members for a most attentive hearers. We could es- richer experience. The great awaken- tablish several more schools there if we ing probably had its origin in the hearts had the means. The ringleader and of the members. Revival meetings sevcral others who insulted the Bible- where men and women are convicted woman are now inquirers. and gloriously saved are more and more At another place, where there is a common. Inclosed is a native artist's large public building erected to enter- crude drawing of a great tent meeting tain the viceroy when he passes through held last fall, also a short description the town, the village elders sent an in- of it. Such meetings produce a pro- vitation with their cards for me to ap- found impression. I personally know point a certain Christian man whom of many who date their determination they knew, to teach a Christian school to be Christians from this meeting. The for them. Already several influential two on the rostrum are meant for Bish- families have given up their idols and op Ninde and J. H. Worley, the former joined the church on probation. preaching and the latter translating.
At the beginning of the present Chi- M. E. MI~SION, FOOCHOW, CHINA.
nese year (in February) I appointed a student to act as pastor-teacher at a place where a student had been sta- tioned during last summer vacation. Ohristian Unity in West Ohina. Not long ago I spent a night there; and for more than two hours we preach- " With this I send you a poster used ed to a crowded house of eager listen- by the several missions at Chungking.
ers, and eighteen persons publicly gave The title of this tract is "The Great up their idols and joined the church. Doctrine for the Salvation of the Over twenty had previously joined. A World. .. On the margin are the names man gives his house free for church of the four missions laboring in Chung- and school. I came from that place king, Methodist Episcopal, China In- laden with old, abandoned idols, and as land, Friends, and London Missionary I write my desk and floor are covered, Society, with the places where their notwithstanding I am constantly send- chapels, hospitals, etc., are. These ing them to America: one of my col- posters are stuck in every part of the porteurs came in only a few moments city by the Christians connected with ago bringing three, their owners hav- the several missions. I write of this to ing recently been saved. show how practically we on the field Thus with 25 pastors, 10 colporteurs, labor together; but this is not all.
110 day-school teachers, and about 60 Regular monthly assemblies are held teachers ~nd students from the Anglo- by the native Christia.ns together with the missionaries for the deepening of ince is to be held at Chentu, the capi· the spiritual life and for fellowship and tal, and all are looking forward expectprayer. Such meetings are useful in ing a time of great profit spiritually, helping to emphasize the idea of unity. and by the discussion of our common Always Olle will hear the natives in problems we shall be brought yet closer their conversation with the heathen em· together, becoming more truly a unit. phasize the fact of the unity of the different missions, and yet they are H. OLIN CADY. strongly attached to the missions where M. E. MISSION, OHENTU SZ'CHUAN, they were converted. At Chinese New via HANKOW." Years, when there is more of leisure among the natives, the native Chris- Death of J. L. Phillips, M.D. tians form in small bands, irrespective of the missions to which they belong, We bad just returned to the printer and with the missionaries post these the proof sheets of the article" India's tracts, distribute others, hold meetings New and Opening Fields," when the in all the principal streets during the following note was received from Rev. day, and at evening come together at Dr. T.•T. Scott, of India, at present one of the missions each in turn for temporarily at Delaware, O. He writes prayer and testimony and to listen to under date July 15th: the unfolding of some teaching pertaining to the Christian life; thus a My DEAR GRACEY: Kindly mention week is spent. These meetings year as an item of missionary news that Dr. by year prove of greater interest and Phillips, of India, is dead. No particu. power. The Christian Church, as dis· lars; as I got the news from the Suntinguished from heathenism and Ro- day·school secretaries at London, and manism, is in the minds and thoughts they had got it by wire. You may reof heathen and Christians a unit: but call that he was General Secretary of such a spirit in the native church would the India Sunday·School Mission, supnever have been developed if the mis- ported under appointment of the Lonsionaries had not recognized each other don Sunday-School Union, by the chilas fellow·soldiers. There is a decided dren of the International Bible Readers' brotherly feeling among all the mis· Union. He was doing a grand work in sions and missionaries. For the main- inspiring enthusiasm in Sunday·school taining of the unity and the minister- work in India. He had travelled thouing to the spiritual growth of the mis- sands of miles annually, and lived to sionaries a regular Thursday evening see all India, Burmah, and Ceylon overmeeting for prayer, testimony, and mu- laid with Sunday·school auxiliaries, thus tual instruction is held. These meet· binding this vast extent of Eastern counings are led in turn by the different try into one organization. He was a missionaries, and have been a great aid fine leader and most effective platform to holy living: some of the meetings speaker, ready in utterance, magnetic have been seasons of wonderful bless· in touch, and full of tact in managing ing when the Holy Spirit seemed poured an audience. He had eminent qualifiout on all present. These meetings cations as a leader in Sunday·school afford an opportunity for the mission· work, being a great lover of children. aries and their families to meet socially He never forgot their names, and was and so become closely united. always sending them charming little messages in his letters to their elders. What is true of Chungking is true in A grand missionary leader has dropped spirit of all Sz'chuan, and especially from the roll in India, and his place will of the cities where several missions lao be hard to till. bor together. Next January a confer· ence of all the missionaries of the prov-
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
III.-FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY D. L. pmRSON.
Japan,* Korea,t Medioal Missions,t Ohinese and Japanese in the United States.§ JAPAN. The aborigines of Japan, the Ainu, The Sunrise Kingdom has passed live in the island of Yezo, or Hokkaido, through the period of dawning great· and number about 17,000 against 350,- ness, and to·day shines forth brilliantly 000 Japanese on the same island. The as the foremost nation of the Orient, and Church Missionary Society started work one of the great nations of the world. among the Ainu in 1878; the first con- The Mikad'l, claiming direct descent vert was baptized in 1885, and there is through 122 Mikado ancestors-nine of now a church membership of nearly whom have been women; the first em· 200. The language has been reduced peror, Jimnu, having founded the em- to writing, and parts of the Bible and pire 660B.c.-has forsaken the traditions other books have been translated. The and customs of his ancestors in all things Ainu are small in stature and much save religion, and now seeks by every given to drunkenness and attendant means in his power to make Dai Nippon vices; they live in wretched little huts, a thoroughly civilized country. It is de- and the women are much oppressed.
voutly hoped and confidently believed Three schools and a hospital are doing that he will soon find that this is impossi- much to elevate them mentally and mor- ble without making it at the same time ally, and relieve them physically. The Eta is another ancient but dea thoroughly Christianized country.
Although there are over 3000 islands graded race of Japan, who live in many belonging to the empire, only five of small villages on the main island. They them (including Formosa) have any are ignorant and immoral, and difficult considerable size or support a large of access; but efforts are being made to population. The area of the empire is reach them by the Society for the Propa- now about 170,000 square miles, and gation of the Gospel and others. Japan the popUlation nearly 42,000,000. The has no State religion; but Shintoism, Japanese have never been conquered by having 10 sects, is considered the most an outside nation, and have had but one patriotic, and had, in 1887, 192,359 tem- civil war, which occurred in the last cen- ples. Buddhism is largely followed, tury. and has 12 sects and 40 creeds, with 71,991 temples. Many of the priests are * See pp. 18 (January), 127 (Febrnary), 221 ignorant and immoral, and the Govern- (March), 289 (April), 342 (May), 445 (June), 582 ment has recently passed a resolution (August), 648,653 (present issue)… The Mikado's that they should be better educated. Empire," W. E. Griffis; "Japan," David :Murray. Ph.D.; "The Religions of Japau," W. E. The common people of Japan are full Griffis; "Life and Letters of J. H. Neesima," of superstitions, and have peopled the A. S. Hardy; "Story of Neesima," J. D. Davis; earth, air, and water with imps who "Japanese Girls and Women," Alice M. Bacon; cause the thunder, wind, earthquakes, .. An American Missionary in Japan," M. L. and storms. As a nation the Japanese Gordon; ,. Prince Siddartha, the Japanese Buddha," J. L. Atkinson; "The Ainu of Ja- are very ceremonious and polite, though pan," John Batchelor. not always acting in accord with West- ern ideas. Mrs. F. S. Curtis, of Yama- t See pp. 15, 62 (January), 290 (April), 450, 458 quchi, writes an interesting account of a Japanese dinner party, of which we (June), 661 (present issue). .. Korea, the Her· mit Nation," and" Korea, Without and With· in," W. E. Griffis; "Korea, from its Capital,"
George W. Gilmore. give extracts as illustrating some of the :I: See pp. 208 (March), 666, 678, 686 (present social customs : Issue). "Medical Missions," John Lowe; .. Murdered Millions," George Dowkontt. "The Japanese Christians make their § .. The Chinese in America," Bishop Burt. annual social an aU<day affair, lasting from ten A.M. to five P.M•. At the last sauce, puts it on the rice, and takes up one about seventy people came to the a mouthful of the rice, fish, etc., all tohouse, and I kept passing wafers and gether. The rice bowl is held in the tea in tiny Japanese cups until dinner. hand and brought even with the lips The house was bright with flowers ; the while the rice is pushed into the mouth chrysanthemums and roses were from by the chop-sticks, which can be done our own garden. lllustrated books and very daintily. Soup and all liquids are photographs were on the tables.. with sipped from the bowIs with a sound like maps and fresh Japanese newspapers, drawing the breath through the teeth. and were enjoyed until dinner time. This sound is much heard; in sipping At about noon we went to our school next tea, and even in making polite observadoor, which is arranged in eight class- tions or returning thanks, it is usual and rooms, with muvable partitions, Japan- polite.
ese fashion; the partitions were re- "After dinner, most of the people moved and left a long room, where the wrapped up the bean paste and lotus in little dinner-trays were set out with the paper on which they were laid and everything on but the soup. The guests put them in their flowing sleeves, as is were seated in a row around the wall customary. (Alway8 take home what and in a double row, back to back, in you can't or don't eat, for it would be the centre, so that the rows faced each r'ude to leave it.) The guests then scat- other. It would never do to put them tered about and took part in games in- in two rows all around the room, for doors and out; there was singing in one would be sitting in front of the other. Japanese and English, after which all .. A regular Japanese meal was served gathered together for games with for- -,-soup, fish and vegetables, rice, cold feits, as they always do, with great mer- stew (of potatoes, meat, chestnuts and riment. The pastor, for his forfeit, had carrots, all cut up in mouthfuls), raw to sing and dance a sword dance with a fish sliced thin, with Japanese turnips ruler for a sword. It is a stately affair, and radishes shaved into small strings, and he did it well; he used to be a warand boiled yellow chrysanthemums- rior in the time of the revolution. About these last three were eaten with soy five o'clock they all dispersed to their sauce, and were what we liked the best of homes." all. They were laid on a long strip of pine, as thin as paper and doubled over; Educational work is one of the most the soy was in a tiny cup in the centre, and the other things in bowls. Wafers successful and interesting departments and some sliced orange (sliced skin and of missions in Japan. Doshisha Uni- all), and slabs of sweet bean paste (very versity, at Kioto, founded by Joseph good if well made), and boiled lotus-root cut in strips were on pieces of paper laid Hardy Neesima, has now graduated on the mats in front of the trays. nearly 300 young men, among whom " When all were seated, some of the are many pastors and Christian workschool girls brought in the little covered ers, 130 being from the theological delacquered bowls of hot soup. When all were served, Mr. Curtis asked the partment. Over 2000 have attended pastor to pray, and afterward, bowing without graduation; and last year there to the guests, said, ' This is exception- were in attendance 556 men and women.
ally poor food ; but please to eat.' All, The education of women is rapidly bebowing in return, said, ' It is an honorable feast.' We then all removed the coming a recognized feature in all covers from the soup and took up our schools, and the governmental Minister chop-sticks and fell to. The rice is of Education has recommended higher boiled very dry, and is so sticky that education: of women in all departments. one can soon learn to pick up little or much and carry it to the mouth. The A" ragged school" has been started by fish s~up was very nice, and must be the Friends this year at Sapporo. " It eaten with the chop-sticks.. Three girls is attended twice a week by from 25 to were kneeling on each side, holding 70 boys and girls ranging from six to trays and waiting to refill the emptied rice bowls, which they did repeatedly. sixteen years old. Many come regu- After all· were satisfied with rice, the larly, rain or snow, when the red lantea cups were refilled time and again. tern hangs at the door. They make ex- When eating the raw fish, one takes a cellent progress in their studies and in nice thin piece between the chop-sticks (which are both held in one hand), takes their habits, and were it not for lack of up a little of the turnip radish with it, funds to keep the school open regularly, dips them into the little cups of soy much more might be accomplished." A. wonderful work has been going on bath for a moral address, after w•hich a among the Japanese prisoners. Sunday·school is held, attendance at which is optional. In one prison, in "Convicts whose sentences range which Christian instruction was begun from twelve years to life service have latest, where there are 1506 prisoners, 510 been sent for some fourteen years past are studying the Bible and 148 pray daily to the wilds of Hokkaido (Yezo) to pre- and follow a course of daily Bible readpare the war for settlers. There are ing. While there is no chance during four great prISons, and a fifth is soon to prison life for a public confession of be opened. A few years ago these pris. Christ, the radical change wrou~ht in ons were entirely independent of each the character of some of the men IS such o~er, and the Government was lax. as greatly to impress those who have Two years ago they were all put under witnessed it. Many of the prisoners are one superintendent-a man feared and an example to believers. So few of the liked by the prisoners, and thoroughly prisoners have yet been released, that respected by everybody. His insight public attention has not been attracted convinced him that the principles of to them yet" (Mi8sionary Herald). Christianity are what are needed for the instruction of prisoners. When he be- The Greek Church has a membership came general superintendent he intro· of 21,239, and the Roman Catholics duced a Christian teacher into each claim 46,682 adherents. The following prison. There are many inquirers about are the statistics compiled by Rev. H. Christianity in each prison. The pris· Loomis for 1894 ; oners are obliged to assemble every Sab· .S j. , 2 iI . ~a:i ~I ~~.b~{)?-1- § ~~ a~l . =:g ~I Missionaries. S ~~~~ ..0~…. ~~a"d=~:'l.~ Q~)~~ '0~S50o.. S~~1;2 'W -; 'dd r~ggI >gj. Q~ 0~ Q) ..= p.: : ; 1'r~ao .~>~- "<"l)..~. +0::'l"'E'":o~t"- a '" NAME OF MISSION. .S::l 1-.4~'- • §'" "0.~d~ "<I~'"r0:<,.0I":~ «1 1=I"d p..Q ~Q)'o::tI o:l Cj.oj • Q) ~…. !:: ci. 0 ,,:@;j:S0,,» II S ~~I ~ ~~ ~E i ~ ~ ~i ~~ ~ ~ gt ~~~~ ~ >< ~PE-< illoo~ . . . . P-r-e-sb-y-t-er-ia-n-C-'h"'.o"'f-U–"-~S"""",.=-(-1-18-59, 20 20 59 10) 20 .. -'-"-'I~ E-< E-<ZPO Reformed Ch. in America 118591 10 8 27 'I 115 …….. .. 20 3 17 …… . U. Presb. Ch. of Scotland 1874 2 .. 3 1 ~8.2. 72 1,123 ii',126c 41 75 113 24,697:20 The Ch.ofChristinJapan …. 1 140 .. …. …… .. .. .. …… .. Reformed Ch. in U. S… '11879 5 2 11 1 I 14 .. …. …… 29 .. .. …… ..
Presb.Ch.in the U.S. (So.) 1885 10 8 24 6 Women's U.M.S., U.S.A. 1871 4 4 1 .. .. …. …… .. ……. . Cumberland Presb. Ch.. 1877 4 7 15 3 J 12 .. …. .. 2.. ii r American Lutheran Miss. l 1892 2 3 12 11 f!"c 22 io 2 … 2i:40 33 200 1,684 20 39 3,101.74 Amer. Prot. Epis. Ch. (a) 1859 14 9 77 …. 40 9 /41 29 17 7 84 .2.,.4.0.6…5.8 ….21'S 8,201 I .. Chnrch Missionary Soc.. 1869' 25 30 13 30 ..
Nippon Sei Kokuwai. … I …. Soc. for Prop. of the Gos. {l1873, 12 10 28 5 10 11 … . 1,260 11 9 12 Wyckliffe Coli. M. (Can.) 18881 3 1 7 111 2 1 6 44 4 36.69 English Ch. In Canada.. 18921 2 1 5 4 3 24 76.08 68 2 1 3 Amer. Baptist Miss. Union 1860 14 16 44 9 79 19 184 1,597 12 6 37 1,373.09 Disciples of Christ .•.•…. 1883 6 6 18 1 9 3 55 286 2 5 3 75.00 Christian Ch. of America.. 1887 2 1 4 1 24 4 21 225 5 2 11 538.48 BKuamplt-isatiSC'htsh.eAr.nBC.Co.nFv.eMn.t(iobn~ 1889 3 6 24 l' 9 38 4 21.88 18691 26 31 83 12 170 7( 670 11,079 65 42 97 23,204.18 AmericanMeth.Epis.Ch.(a 1873 19 23 58 10 67 55 424 4.006 61 41 18 8,357.00 Canadian Methodist Ch.(a 1873 6 15 27 7 23 1£ 116 1,981 2 16 19 4,562.37 Evan~. Assoc. of N. Amer. 1876 5 10 2 10 13 95 705 10 13 16 1,052.26 Methodist Protestant Ch… 1880 4 2 10 3 15 4 32 312 4 3 13 347.89 Amer. Meth. Epis. Ch. (So.) 1886 15 3 31 9 32 10 83 532 14 15 1,567.6*3 ScandinavianJapanAII'nce 1891 3 7 12 12 29 24 84 2 7 Gen.Evang.Pr.(Ger.·Swiss) 1885 2 3 1 2 1 6 208 6 2 2 50.00 …..* Society of Friends, U. S. A. 1885 2 2 5 1 2 . . 23 61 . . . . 6 50.00 Inter. Missionary Alliance. 1891 3 1 , , 1 … . Unitarian ……….. .. … 1889 1 .. 1 1 5 2 .. .. i7 2 ii Universalist …………… 1890 3 5 1 7 3 25 149 11 2 6 128.26 Independent.. .. .. .. .. …. …. 3 3 7 2 . . 4 13 to72 4 1 t550.00 Tot. of Prot. Miss., 1894….. 226 210 625 134 750:1:364 3,422 39,240 353 258 536 72,217.72 (a) Statistics to June 30, 1894. * (0) To December 31, 1893. (c) Including 1,474 classed al * No Report. .. children. " t Approximate. 78 Self·supporting. • The Fukuin Domeikwai, or Gospel manly spirit. Their main objection to Alliance of Japan, representing the Christianity is that it is joreign, and Protestant churches of all denomina- when they accept it they want to make tions, recently met with 140 delegates it distinctly Japanese. Such elements and appointed a committee to consider in the national character are likely to work in Japan's new territory. Besides produce stability in the future Church.
the missionary societies, many other Nevertheless, this spirit of independence organizations are at work separately or may lead to grave mistakes on the part with the societies. The Y. M. C. A. is of those who are still babes in Christ.
doing 8 very Important work, and the The danger is greatly increased when Y. P. S. C. E. has a very large mem- it is remembered that among the mis- bership; the W. C. T. U. and missions sionaries are Unitarians, and that among to police, postmen, soldiers, prisoners, European books produced in Japan a railway men and others are doing ag- large proportion are infidel or semi-infi- gressive work. del literature.
Dr. Joseph Cook mentions among the There are 123 towns in Japan, each with a population of 10,000 to 1,000,000, reasons for encouragement in Japan : but the missionary force is as yet dis- tributed in only 40 of them. There are "1. Her island position, making her besides 4512 towns, with populations the England of the Pacific and her peo- from 1000 to 10,000. About 25,000,000 ple a nation of sailors, brave and dar- live in still smaller Villages. mg. 2. The Japanese are patriotic, and obey their federal leaders. 3. Japan The great need for Japan at present has marvellous power of assimilation. is united prayer for the missionaries and They copy the West, but their importa· converts already in the field. tions are digested, and their scholarship becomes Oriental as well as Occi- KOREA. dental. 4. The Japanese obey superiors and make good soldiers and sailors. The " Hermit Nation," or " Land of The reverence for those in high place Morning Calm," has an area of 82,000 has a Divine basis. The transfer of square miles and a population of about their reverence for authority to Christ 11,000,000, among whom labor 40 Protwould make them eminent Christians. estant and 20 Roman Catholic missiona- 5. The Japanese have a fine physical ries. The first missionaries were the and mental organism. Jesuits, who entered in the seventeenth century, but suffered much persecution " Japan is also confronted with dan- from 1840-66. Evangelical work was gers. The people also have faults we begun by Rev. John Ross, of ~Ian hope will be overcome, among which churia, who translated the New Testaare conceit, caste, and false faith. As ment for Korea. The first evangelical the foremost nation of the Orient the mission was founded in 1884 by the Japanese have much ground for con- American. Presbyterian Church (North), ceIt. They are still in danger from the door having been opened through caste. The old families may arise to the medical work of Dr. Allen. Besides claim the advantages which have come this society, which has now 28 missiona· to-the nation. Divisions are possible by ries (including 8 ordained and 4 mediwhich late gains may be lost. Except cal) and 209 communicants, in five stathe country become Christian there is imminent danger from agnosticism and false faith which would handicap the national advance. Japan needs to copy the vital faith and not the doubt of the West. Neesima's last word was: 'Free schools and Christian churches will make my nation great and noble. ' "
tions, the Canadian and Australian and The great danger for Christianity in United States Southern Presbyterians, Japan is connected with characteristics the Methodist Episcopal (North) and the of the people which are noble and fine. Society for the Propagation of the Gos- They love their country; they are of a pel are at work.
EDITORIAl, DEPARTMENT
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The March of Events. ern society, it will not be because energy. patience, and prayer have not combined Of course the event of the month of in the effort. July was the gathering of the 50,000 Christian Endeavorers in Boston. from The convention may be thus summed the 10th to the 15th. 'fhey had a right royal welcome, and left a fine up: impression on the whole, though there was no little criticism on the sight- There were 250 delegates from 22 seeing which occupied too much time on countries, who spoke in 250 pulpits and the Sabbath. The peril of this noble halls. Westminster Abbey gave resociety will be twofold: first, pride of served seats to the leaders of the differnumbers; and secondly, conformity to the ent countries, and a temperance sermon world. If they can escape these two was preached by the Bishop of Dover, risks, which numerical prosperity and in Which he welcomed the delegates, enthusiastic popularity inevitably in- and said the temperance cause was sacur, and can develop a thoroughly mis- cred, and was made light of only by the sionary spirit and a systematic giving, ignorant or thoughtless. It is probably and keep out of politics, no one but God the first time that a woman's organizacan foresee the future of this organiza- tion has ever been recognized in the tion, whose unparalleled growth is like most historic of the English cathedrals, that of a mushroom, and which is now about to call a world-wide convention There was an excursion to Windsor of Y. P. S. C. E. at Washington in Castle, a garden party given to 1000 1896. White Ribbon women by Lady Henry Somerset at the Priory, Reigate, etc. Meanwhile, a convention, not less significant in its way, had been meeting in The annual addresses of the two presithe world's metropolis in June. The dents and the resolutions adopted by the Wo?'ld's Women's Christian Temperance two great conventions, the" World's" Union celebrated its third biennial con- and the" B. W. T. A.," cover every vention by meetings in Queen's Hall on phase of that modern movement by Wednesday and Thursday, June 19th which Christianity is being applied to and 20th, Miss Frances Willard giving the customs of society and the laws of her masterly presidential address, whose the land. The Polyglot Petition will be scope was well-nigh universal, covering presented to the British Government, the problems of poverty and misery, of and afterward conveyed to the various temperance and purity, of color lines governments of the world. This will take a year or more, after which the petition will probably be placed in the archives of the British Museum.
and prison reforms, etc.
The Polyglot Petition by Women di- The Island of Formosa, about the rected against the Drink Traffic was fes- middle of May, was threateneo. with tooned about the Albert Hall on Thurs- anarchy, by the resistance of the peo- day evening, covering the whole fa<;ade ple to the recent terms of the treaty of the balcony and box sections-thir- with Japan. Chinese soldiers besieged teen immense rolls of paper pasted on the governor's castle; a young Chinese linen, containing over 7,000,000 signa- literatus named Chu was reported to be tures in over 50 languages, and repre- elected king, and to have repudiated senting all countries, the whole petition Chinese rule, and to be prepared to re- being occupied with this monster remon- sist annexation by the Japanese. Riots strance against the demon of the cup. were said to be of daily occurrence, and It these godly women do not succeed that Hakka had proclaimed himself in abolishing this greatest evil of mod- king of the northern part of the island. and many had joined his standard. The has long been a vexed question, and is Chinese and Japanese were in control not easily settled. Rev. Dr. A.shmore, of affairs at last accounts. of Swatow, has recited a "heart-rend- ing case," as he calls it : Reports from Chins indicate a con· A convert applied for baptism who siderable excitement in the Celestial bad two wives. He was told that he Empire, and repeated attacks on for- must put one of them away. The eign mission premises. The Canadian question arose, which one? and the an- Mission hospital, dispensary, and chapel swer was, the one married last. But at Chung Kung are said to be looted the first wife had no children, and the and burned, and eleven places of wor- second wife had several. On hearing ship, both Romanist and Protestant, what the decision was, the discarded were destroyed. The reports are some- wife went to Dr. Ashmore and put her what sensational, and perhaps lack con- case before him in this wise: firmation up to date of this writing. "But, teacher, he is my husband, But it is said that heavy ransoms have and I am his wife. You say that he been exacted as the price of personal ought not to have taken me; but he safety; that missionaries and their fami- did take me before he knew of your lies have been compelled to find hiding new religion. He is the father of my places in dirty holes and lofts from the children. I have a right to look to him mob; and that though the soldiers' bar- for companionship and for protection. racks are within five miles, no assistance You make my children illegitimate. has been rendered, and protection rude- You should not do that; you have no ly refused. right to injure my children in that way.
You have no right to put me in the posi- Correspondents have called attention tion of a disreputable woman, for he to what had not escaped us, that in the lawfully married me according to the July REVIEW there appear contradic- usage of China. I had a husband; now tory statements as to the issues of Sun- I havc no husband. I had a home; day newspapers in Japan (pp. 517 and now I have no home. If I go and 558). There is a conflict of authorities, marry another man I shall break the and we have written to Japan to find law. I had one to whom I could go as out the exact facts. This REVIEW is the father of my children; now I can divided into departments under separate go to my children's father no longer, members of the editorial staff, and such nor may I dare to speak to him." conflicting statements cannot always be avoided, as each editor in charge has Dr. Ashmore added that this led to his own sources of information. But his" studying anew the New Testament we seek, when such contradictions ap- teaching on the subject;" and the late pear, to reconcile them or correct mis- Dr. Happer said that, under like cirleading statements. cumstances, "after a long study of the subject," he "would not have inflicted such a trial upon that poor woman as Secretary Merriam, of the A. B. M. U., to deprive her of her husband, her home, calls our attention to a misleading para- and her children in the name of the graph on page 595 of the August num- merciful Redeemer, whose Gospel is ber. In the published report of proceed- best portrayed by His own words, ings we read: "A present attempt to 'Come unto Me, all ye that labor and estdblish such a union of treasurie8 would are heavy laden, and I will give you work confusion and not harmony," etc. rest.' "
(see p. 5).
This matter of how to deal with The action of the committee appointpolygamy, in case of heathen converts, ed to report to the next Assembly on this matter will be awaited with inter· .~ est. The question is not an easy one to of the tree, on the south shore cf Lake settle. There may be reasons such as Bangweolo, under which lies buried led that wise legislator, Moses, to deal the heart of Dr. Livingstone.
as he did with the matter of divorce.
But it is obvious that all polygamy vio- The statement in the June number lates the normal order; "from the be- that Dr. Cochran, of Persia, is dead was ginning it was not so." a mistake. It should read, the wife of Dr. Cochran. Thtl item was taken from Ed ward Evans writes from the Mis- another journal, in which the mistake sionary Home and Agency, Shanghai, was made.
China, as to the form in which money should be brought or sent from the In view of the famous so·called States, that a banker'8 draft on London " quadrilateral" basis of Church unity, is the most valuable and available form. it may be well to give it a permanent Gold has to be exchanged into currency, record.
post-office orders have to go through an The four principles of Church unity exchange, etc. An American banker's proposed by the bishops of the Prot- draft at from sixty to ninety days aftej' estant Episcopal Church at Chicago date saves interest on the time occupied in 1886, and amended by the Lambeth in travel, and is practically a demand , Conference of 1888, are as follows: draft when it gets round to London. 1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as containing all The Cross Bearers' Missionary Read- things necessary to salvation and as be- ing Circle continues to grow, and its ing the rule and u.Itimate standard of programme for 1895-96 is as follows: faith.
" Lives of Henry Martyn and J. H. Nee- 2. The Apostles' Creed, as the bap- sima;" "Chinese Characteristics," by tismal symbol, and the Nicene Creed A. H. Smith; "New Acts of the Apos- as the sufficient statement of the Chris- tles" and MISSIONARY REVIEW by the tian faith.
Editor. The membership fee is but a 3. The two sacraments ordained by half dollar a year, and Rev. M. L. Gray, Christ Himself-baptism and the supper St. Louis, Mo., is the President. of the Lord–ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and The rumored death of explorer E. J. of the elements ordained by Him.
Glave, on the Congo, in Africa, isdoubJy 4. The historic episcopate, locally sad news in view of the youth of the adapted in the methods of its administra- brave Englishman. He was but seven- tion to the varying needs of the nations teen years old when he followed Stanley and peoples called of God into the unity in his expedition into that unknown re- of His Church.
gion for the first time ; and yet he soon became a trusted lieutenant, and was A well-known missionary writes: left in command of the camp at Luko- "In the April REVIEW was a letter lela. Despite his many African and from the German missionary, Mr. K6zle, Alaskan explorations since then, he had of Persia, regarding Mohammedan only celebrated the thirty-second anni- work. This account, as published in versaryof his birthday a little while be- Germany, fell under the eye of the Per- fore he set out upon this last trip to in- sian Minister at Berlin, who called the vestigate the African slave trade. It Persian Government's attention to it.
would be a fitting grave for him to be The withdrawal of the missionaries was buried in the Congo Free State, which demanded inside of ten days. The Ger- he helped to establish; and it is a curi- man Minister made objections (?) and ous coincidence that almost the last act the time was extended to thirty days.
of his life was the finding and marking Meanwhile Rev. lHr. Kozle died of typhoid-fever, and his associate, Dr. velop the missionary life in the Church."
Zerweek, with his bride, have left Per- It is called" The Missionary Pastor,"
sia. The ground of expulsion is that and is by Rev. James Edward AdamB, they came to work among Jews, but and has very helpful charts prepared by began to evangelize :Mohammedans." Robert J. Kellogg. It discusses mis- sionary methods, meetings, classes, Among new books calling for our books, and charts. It is little more reviewing, we mention con amore the than an outline, and is so designerl.
memoirs of Mrs. William Booth, "110- But jf any pastor cannot find here ther of the Salvation Army." They enough helpful hints to keep him busy, are in two bulky volumes, edited by and enough ~hintful helps to aid him in her son·in-law, Booth-Tucker, and are developing missionary interest, we are a perfect thesaurus of riches. We in- much mistaken.
tend to give these volumes a very large space hereafter in a more formal reo "Modern Missions in the East," by view of contents. Meanwhile, let it be the lamented Edward A. Lawrence, said that this biography will take rank D.D_, is from Harper Brothers' press.
alongside of the" Life of O. G. Fin· Though so recently issued, this book ney," and Hodder's "Life of Shaftes- has already taken its place by general bury," for cosmopolitan interest and consent in the foremost rank of the litera- pregnant suggestion. Everybody who ture of missions. First given in the cares for a high-toned character and a form of lectures at Andover, New world-wide service should read this Haven, and Beloit, before students, it is book. Its cost is $3.50 per set, post- the record of twenty months spent in a paid, and the publisher is Revell & Co., missionary world journey for the spe- New York. cific end of a personal acquaintance By the same publishers appears W. E. with the mission field at large. It is not Cousins' brief but valuable" Madagas- too much to say that it is a unique and car of To-day." This also will have remarkable volume. It is full of infor- more extended notice hereafter. We mation, carefully collated facts, inspir- have all learned that the story of the ing suggestion, and withal a devout Hovas is among the most thrilling in and loving spirit that rises above all nar- missions; and Mr. Cousins, himself row denominationalism, and sees good magna pars re!'um, here tells the story. everywhere, but not without impartial Read it, ye who love God's work, and perception of all defects.
lend it to others. The closing chapter, on the spiritual Revell also sends out Sir William expansioll of Christendom politically, Muir's book, " Mahomet and Islam," at industrially, intellectually, morally, $1, half the price of the former issue. spiritually, is a fair specimen of the 'rhose who know of the distinguished whole work; and while we may not author will understand his competency agree with every sentiment expressed to write of his theme. And this ques- in these three hundred and thirty pages, tion of the creseent and the power of we regard this as one of the most prince- the green banner of the prophet is one ly of modern contributions to missions, of the burning questions ot the day. and it is the more lamentable that so gifted a pen will write for us no more.
F. H. Revell Company are just pub- lishing a new book which seems to us Rev. Samuel H. Anderson, of Paris, decidedly an advance upon two thirds after two years' perseverance, has got- of the existing missionary literature in ten ready a most interesting" Histoire de its compactness, brevity, pertinency, Jesus, " a " history of the life of the Son and general availability for the supreme of Man, in all the words of the four Gos- purpose which it announces-to "de- pels, and the very words of His contem· poraries." He was led to this attempt have from that time been used as by intense pity for the masses of French chapels. In one of these we now have a native church of 126 members, and people, who do not know the thrilling the old man who gave us the building details of the acts and teachings of the is still the leading spirit in the work.
Lord Jesus. Multitudes of anti-clericals The work in the other temple has not in France regard the Gospel as a " cleri- been so prosperous, but there are now 14 members and several inquirers. cal" book, and so will have nothing to "In 1874 two more stations were do with it; and many who will not read opened, these in two cities about 80 an "Evangile" will read a " Histoire." miles apart; and that year 14 were bap- The four narratives are here combined tized. In 1875 another country station in one, so that the reader has a continu- was opened, a branch from the tirst temple, the native Christians providing ous story. Possibly some whom the the building, the mission providing the Lord has blessed may be glad to aid evangelist. Here we now have a mem- bership of 39. Pastor Anderson in the circulation of this valuable message of life, and will "Another need was apparent-viz., the need of having books in Romanized send him help at 37 Avenue de la Grande colloquial for our illiterate Christians.
Armee, Paris. He is known to us to A beginning was made by transferring the Ningpo primer into this dialect. be a most worthy man and self-sacritic· Then the New Testament was begun and completed in 1881, printed on the i~g minister. premises by men who had never done — A correspondent calls in question such work before. It has been in con- tinual use ever since. some statements in " Notes on Africa" published in the May REVIEW. He " I shall not soon forget the delight which the first sheet produced when says they" do not agree with the state- my wife took it to her women's class.
ment of Rev. Henry Richards, of Banza She had no sooner begun to read Matt. 2 than she was interrupted by them say- Manteke, who says he never saw or ing, 'These are our words; we can heard of a cannibal, and does not be- understand them!' and they wanted lieve there are any in Africa," etc. To copies at once. Other books followed, which we only reply that Jamieson, of such as 'Peep of Day;' the Book of Jonah, printed last year; the Psalms, Stanley's rear guard, was severely'cen- just finished.
sured for drawing and sending home " Up to 1890 the average increase pictures of a cannibal feast which he was about 14. During that year the witnessed.-D. L. -Po number baptized was doubled, and our little chapels began to be crowded.
Reaping time was clearly at hand; but W. D. Rudland, of the C. I. );I., we were not prepared for such an in· writes of the rise and progress of mis- crease as we have since had.
sion work in Tai·chow : " In 1891 another station was opened .. Tai-chow is a prefectural city in in a large market town, where we al- southeast Chekiang, famous for little ready had several native Christians. A else but robbers and opium; looked considerable amount of opposition was upon as the despised Nazareth of China. manifested by some of the leading man The populaion is about 120,000, mostly of the place, and one house had to be agricultural folk, with few shops and given up. But we soon found another no manufactories of any note. 1 came which was larger, and so reaped an adhere in 1870. The station bad been vantage. Now the Christians have so opened about three years, and two men grown in lAumbers as to be able to had been baptized. One of them is still lease an a<!!foining house at a cost of living, and his eldest son is one of our $50, all native contributions. There is most valued native evangelists. now a church of 78 members and near· " The country was very unsettled, on ly 100 inquirers. In another station the account of the recent Tientsin massacr(', native Christians opened an out·station and the prospect was not encouraging. in a village about four miles distant, But in May, 1871, two more were bap- paying the rent and doing the preach. tized. one of whom still lives, and is an ing themselves. evangelist. In 1873 six persons were ,. The year 1892 was one of organiza- baptized, In two villages, 40 miles tion and consolidation more than of ex- apart, idol temples were given to us, tension. But the number of inquh-ers the owners having been converted, and increased so much that the number bap· tized was 141-nearly three, times the and continued by Miss Cooke, proves number of any previous year. During itself an invaluable help to Chinese misthe last week of prayer we asked the sions by training up a body of Christian Lord for 500 souls during this year. We Chinese women, able to do good work, have already baptized 181, and still have either as teachers and Bible women, or about 400 inquirers. as wives and mothers of Christian fami· lies. Two years after Miss Grant's " Of our 13 stations, nine have been school was commenced she had the joy provided with preaching places by the' of seeing three of her pupils baptized natives themselves; three of them were into tLe Church of Christ. At that once idol temples." time the Chinese were greatly opposed to Christianity, and Miss Grant was A year ago Miss Rosamond Anne often in actual danger of her life. Dur- Webb, Secretary of the Society for ing the ten years of her stay in Singa- Promoting Female Education in the pore, however, a great change was East, wrote a letter, which simple press- wrought, and when :Miss Cooke arrived, ure of other matter has hitherto crowd- in the year 1853, all these difficulties had been removed, and she found not only ed out. She says: a peaceful and secure home established, "That society has been at work for but also a staff of native girls fitted to be teachers, and many houses open to fifty years in Singapore; the school, be visited. Three girls were baptized the Chinese girls' school (boarding), the Sunday after Miss Grant's deparand one or two other ones (day) have ture, and the work went fOIward rapidbeen nurseries for heaven. The Lord ly in Miss Cooke's hands. Making use has richly blessed the work. Many of of her native girls as interpreters, she the native young women educated there commenced Bible readings in some of are active Christian workers, and others the houses, and many women came to have gone forth as missionaries to for- these meetings. Noticing that men eign lands. By this post I send two would often stand outside listening to numbers of the society's little magazine, the Gospel, Miss Cooke was stirred to the Female Missionary Intelligencer, consider what could be done for the which give information on the subject -the article in that for February being men. just a reprint from the Malaysia Mes- The London Missionary Society, sage. Yet the Rev. W. J. Oldham, in his article on 'Malaysia' in the MIS- which for many years had flourishing SIONARY REVIEW (May, 1894), com- missions in Malaysia, had removed their pletely ignores this work, although he last man to China about seven years bewas appointed to Singapore some nine fore Miss Cooke's arrival, and the work years ago, and it is hardly within the among the Chinese had entirely ceased, range of possibility that he should have although Mr. Keasbel'ry was still carryknown nothing about it. Justice to the ing on his work among the Malays, and, devoted laborers in that island, to whom to some extent, among the Malaythe Lord has given many souls for their speaking Chinese. The entire field, hire, compels me to draw attention to therefore. was unoccupied. neither the this omission." Church of England nor the Presbyterian The information she refers to is as Church making allY attempt to reach the Chinese. Accordingly Miss Cooke follows: began to teach two men in her school- " The Society for Promoting Female room, with the assistance of a Christian Chinaman, the men walking twelve Education in the East was not estab- miles there and back every Sunday. lished until 1834, but, previously to that The number soon increased to twelve time, Miss Newell (subsequently Mrs. men, and the Church of England Chap- Gutzliff) had begun work in Malacca. lain, the Rev. W. Humphrey, becom- She was succeeded by Miss WaUace, to ing interested in the movement, advised whom the first grant ever made by this Miss Cooke to fit up a small bungalow society, a sum of £50, was allotted; and in her compound (originally built for a in 1835 the committee sent lIiss Thorn- billiard.room) as a chapel. Services ton, a missionary of their o~n, to assist were held regularly, and the con~rega her. After eleven years of labor, Miss tion soon increased to seventy or eIghty. Thornton returned home, and the com- The simplest Church prayers were semittee gave up Malacca as one of their lected, and were read by the interpreter, who was required to prepare his notes stations. for the sermon in English, so that Miss "Later. a school for Chinese girls Cooke might know what he was preach- ing. These services were continued was opened at Singapore, and as China was at that time closed to mission work, thus until the chaplain persuaded his a most important outpost was thus gained. for, through Singapore, China could be reached. To this day the school then commenced by Miss Grant, I
EDITORIAL
English congregation to employ cate· the Indian school at Carlisle, Pa. This chists, after which Miss Cooke gladly order has an advantage in missionary relinquished this branch of her work work. It is not only work for young that it might be carried on by other Indian women, but it brings them into hands. In like manner, the Scotch its membership and gives them an op- Church was stirred up to undertake portunity to work with others for the work of a similar kind. same cause. Other circles correspond " In the mean while, the work of the with these, and so keep in touch with Chinese Girls' School was progressing, the work done by each in its respective and waifs and strays and various cases field. 'The work.' says Miss Shafner of distress were frequently brought to (matron of the school), ' has a peculiar the school by the police and others. At charm for these Indian girls. The sim- one time six young women were brought plicity of its obligation, the modesty of to the school from China; two of these its purpose, its creed that it is better to became Christians, of whom one died be than to do, all find a ready response after twelve years of bright Christian in the timid but honest nature of our life, and the other remains a consistent Indian sisters.' The meetings are con- Christian. ducted by the leaders, all of whom are " In the year 1860 six little children of the school facultY', assisted by the who had been bought in China by president of each CIrcle, who are all some Malay sailors were taken from pupils. The weekly meetings are held them by the police and brought to Miss every Wednesday evening for prayer Cooke's school, grew up, and became and Bible study, and letters from out- true Christians,* and they are now the side circles are read, and other neces- wives of Chinese (clergymen, or) catc- sary reports are presented. Sunday chists belonging to the Church Mission- afternoon the circles unite for prayer ary Society. One of these five workers and Bible reading. There is corredied of cholera in 1873. One of the spondence with absent members who girls who was in the school in Miss have returned to their homes in the Grant's time is now the wife of a mis- West, and letters are also written to sionary to the Chinese in Melbourne. other girls to encourage their effort for " Another girl married a Chinese shop- good. Last year they made three quilts keeper in Batavia fourteen years ago, and sent to a hospital in Sendai, Japan. and her consistent life has been such as They pay one share of $50 for a bed in to cause others to bring their daughters, the New York Hospital for Women and begging that they might be educated Children. Fifty yards of flannel and here. One native catechist, sent to a $20 in money were contributed to sup- peculiarly difficult and arduous Chinese- ply clothes for Indian children in South speaking station, where he met with Dakota. Twenty-five dollars are annu- continual opposition, said he could ally sent to purchase Christmas gifts hardly have stood his ground without for Indian children in the West. A the support and courage and sympathy pulpit Bible worth $18 was given to of his Christian wife, who had 'been a mission; Gospel song books were trained as a pupil in the Chinese Girls' bought and presented to the Y. M. C. A.
School. of the school. They have raised funds " Such have been a few of the wonder- to help a Sabbath-school in Japan.
ful influences for good which have gone Thirty pin-cushions have been made forth from a school which has never and sent to hospitals in Philadelphia been able to boast of more than about and Indianapolis. In valid rolling chairs forty pupils, but where the great aim and other helpful things have been given of the teachers has always been to bring to the hospital of the school.
the pupils to a saving knowledge of "The ways in which the money is .Tesus, and early to instil into their hearts earned are many. Fancy articles made that simple piety for which so many of by the circles are sold at the annual fair; them have been conspicuous in after some of the girls earn money during life. " their summer vacation, and others while at the school. At the State conven- tions of the Y. M. C. A. the association As to the Indian Circle of King's of the school is always represented; Daughters, Miss Luzena Chouteau the Indian delegation is always asked to writes from Chicago : speak, and they always respond. It is "Interesting branches of the King's hoped that these organizations may not Daughters are found in the four circles at only be the means of giving an oppor- tunity to the white people to help the * One died soon after her arrival, from the Indians, but will unite them in each other in this one great efrort to better elfects of the 'cruel treatment [she had received on board ship. mankind."
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTEI.LIGENCE
V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extraots and Translations from Foreign ceeds village, surrounded by bamboo Periodicals. groves, their darker green picturesquely contrasting with the brighter green of BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK, ANDOVER, the rice fields. Thr~ugh the latter wind MASS. the silver threads of canals and irrigat- ing ditches. In the background rise CmNA AND JAPAN. the mountains in terraces of increasing height as they recede, until in the far -Missionary KUNZE, in the Missions- distance they lose themselves in the F'1'6und, gives some pleasing descrip- vaporous blue. The fresh green of the tions of landscapes iuthe province of growing fields is everywhere the foun- Canton. "The region through which dation of natural beauty in China." the East River pursues its course is, as almost everywhere in the Canton prov- -" English people are beginning to ince, mountainous. One mountain val- understand how the absence of interley follows another. The mountains communications makes the parts of are often bald. or only overgrown with China which are distant from the seat dwarf fir trees. Yet there are here and of war quite safe for missionary work. there romantic forest ravines out of Dr. Griffith Jobn, writing from a place which, it is true, an idol temple usually some days' journey further inland than rises, thus lowering our delight of the Hankow, says that the people' appear natural beauties around. Behind the to take as little interest in Peking and ranges of hills which line the banks of Canton as they do in Canada and the river rise higher and yet higher Wales. ' He has been making a most mountains, over which, on the north, successful tour in places where no Eurorises still higher Mount Lofen. This pean missionary, but only catechists, is more than 4000 feet high, and is cov- have hitherto labored. At Pah-tzeered with various Buddhist monasteries. Nau, Tien-Men, Tsau-shih, and Mau- It is said that among the monks are kia-po the mandarins were friendly, the many people of rank. The story goes opposition was silenced, and many conamong the people that mandarins, who verts were baptized. At the last·named had reason to fear deposition or con- town the ancestral hall was cleared and demnation to death, have feigned them- used for service. Out of 200 candidates selves dead, had themselves borne into for baptism, 66 were baptized, coming the mortuary hall, have there escaped from 14 villages. There are candidates from their coffins, and joined the monks for baptism in 12 more villages. This of Mount Lofen. In this way they part of the Hupeh Province is therefore saved their lives and saved their wealth very hopefuL" – Ohurch Missiona;ry Into their families, which, in the event of telligencer. their execution, would have escheated to the State." -" By the time this issue comes be- fore our readers, the Japanese occupa- -The station at Tshu-thong-au is tion of Formosa will have begun. There thus described: .. A beautiful chapel will almost certainly be some initial was built there, together with a helper's difficulties with the Chinese city popudwelling, and dedicated on Palm Sun- lations, and a firm hand may be required day, 1890. From the neighboring hill to insure the establishment of the new you have a splendid view over the whole regime. But if Japan continues to show valley. The region is very populous the skill and determination and adminisand wonderfully beautiful; village suc-
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS
trative power which have been so mani- years fallen. The idea, it seems, pre- fest during the war, it will not be long vails, even in our great missionary so- before she is able to inaugurate a new cieties, that medical missionaries are era in the island by developing its re- not needed any longer for .Japan. 'In sources and improving the condition of Japan,' I am told, ' there is such progress its people. One thing will be looked that we do not now think it needful to for with eager interest. How will the send medical missionaries tbere.' Com- new government bear itself toward the ing from Japan as I do, it is news to me two Protestant missions which now pos- that its people do not need this agency.
sess a network of some 80 stations over Many skilled physicians there are in Ja- the island? We have the expectation pan, it is true, but these are not available -perhaps we are too sanguine-that for the poor any more than your leading she will not interfere with the mission consultants and skilled private practi.
work already existing, but will rather tioners are within the reach of the poor rejoice in its presence as a factor in the of your cities. Hospitals there are in interests of peace and civilization; and Japan, duly officered and appointed, that she will put no hindrance in the but among a thousand beds in these efforts to spread the Word of God still hospitals you would scarcely perhaps further. Japan has yet to find a relig- find a hundred apportioned to the poor- ion for herself in room of the old faiths est of the people. I only wish that from which she is now casting herself those in this country who are blind on loose; and it may be that in facing the this subject could know Japan as it is, problem of the government of a great and could have their eyes opened.
Chinese popUlation, she has to learn .. But now for a few words about the some lessons concerning the ultimate Bibles which you have, as an associa- principles of righteous rule which may tion, helped me to distribute among the lead her to consider more carefnlly the Japanese doctors. There are, as I have claims of Christian truth."-Medical said, many doctors in Japan-about 42,- Missions. 000 altogether. I myself have personal acquaintance with from 500 to 1000 of -At the annual meeting of the Medi- them, and I have found them always cal Missionary Association, held in Lon- most cordial and kind. The ready ac· don, May 2d, Dr. Whitney, of Tokyo, cess one has had to them one's self sug- Japan, said: gested the thought of seeking access among them for one's Bible as well ; "I stand here to represent Japan, that country in which so many are now and the naval and military surgeons interested; and also to represent the who were actively engaged in the war work of the distribution of the Bible to were our first care. .
the Japanese medical men. With this "To 160 naval, and to nearly 1000 work the lIedical Missionary Associa- military doctors, we have accordingly tion of London has been closely identi- lately sent a Testament and a book of fied, sending me at different times con· Psalms bound up together and printed siderable gifts from medical men and in the Japanese tongue. [Here Dr.
other of its constitnents-gifts which Whitney produced a small, nicely have very materially helped forward bound, tempting-looking volume from the distribution. his pocket.] Within we placed an in- "Since the opening of the country scription stating that the book was a thirty or forty years ago, medical mis- gift from medical men in America and sion work has been carried on in Tokyo, England who, knowing for themselves Kobe, Osaka, Niigata, and in many the value of its contents, were desirous other places. But I want to correct a that their brethren in Japan should also very erroneous notion into which I find find them to be spirit and life. Many that people in England have of late acknowledgments have reached me, and
GENERAL MisSIONARY INTELLIGENCE. [Septemb&r
parts of some of these you too may care lied medical missionaries in China, the to hear: • We thank you very much for better; but everyone from England your precious presents and for your should know at least something about kind writings. ' • There shall be no medicine, for whether he happens to greater happiness to me than if I get the know anything or not, medical work he truth for the grace of God's.' 'Cer- will have to do I" tainly I will read it with attention, and hope that I may not make your kindness It appears that even personal experivain.' 'Your work in distributing ence cannot rid some of the Chinese of Bibles among the doctors is doing much their fixed persuasion of the evil pracgood.' Here is one letter superscribed tices of the foreign doctors. Dr. Rigg without 'To my beloved teacher.' It says: " A little old woman came to me is, you see, rather of the lengthy order. one day who did not present a very [Here Dr. Whitney unrolled a letter pleasing appearance. Her eye was Which had rather the appearance of a swollen up. I wondered whether her parliamentary petition, trailing from the eyeball was injured, and did what I rail of the platform to the floor and could temporarily pending a fuller exalong for a length altogether of perhaps amination. Meanwhile my wife gave ten to twelve feet.] Time is so nearly her a cup of tea and some bread and up that I will not tell you all the'thanks butter, all of which she disposed of. that this letter expresses. " -ilfedicaZ though she had never seen bread and MisBion8. butter before, or had milk and sugar in her tea. The visit over, she went away -Japanese doctors are real physi- and told her neighbors, 'They gave cians; but, as we know, Chinese doc- me medicine at the dispensary to make tors are for the most part mere quack- my head dizzy, and then the foreign salvers. On the same occasion Dr. teacher took my eye out.' The next Rigg, C. M. S. missionary in Fuh-kien, day she came back to us, this time with remarked: "We have been told this her brother, a barber, who was greatly afternoon that medical missionaries are enraged with us for having excised his wanted for Japan-and that although sister's eye. The swelling having by there are 42,000 doctors in the country. this time somewhat abated, I was able And I can assure you that they are to open the eyelid and show the brother wanted in China, though there are that the eye was there all right enough, plenty of doctors there too. I am sure whereupon the old lady went back to I may say, indeed, that there are many her neighbors and informed them, • My more than 42,000 doctors in China; but brother went with me to the foreign I may add that for the whole lot of teacher and threatened him, and frightthem I would give-well, not much ened him so much that he put my eye more than twopence! Two helpers at back again.''' We see that this woman our hospital, the cook and another man, would be able to confirm the stories thought once upon a time that it would about the missionaries from her own exbe a fine thing to go into the medical perience, as according to her it was only line for themselves. So they left us, the valor of her brother that saved her bought some spectacles, and set up in eye from being used for the unhallowed business. In due course of time they dtsigns of the foreigners. quarrelled, and the partnership was dissolved. But this is a fair specimen of " A gong sounds at six, and patients the way in which many and many a throng to the dispensary, each of them Chinaman enters the medical profes- carrying a little bowl. This is for their sion. The fact that these men know so physiC. We have to take care only to little makes anybody who comes from give them a dose at a time, or they England useful. The more fully quali. would drink it all up at once. They are excellent takers of medicine. Cas- tor-oil is swallowed to the_last drop
1895.J EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONfl
without a wry face, and pills they will It poor heathen soul at this mission from eat if you do not look after them. the slavery of sin and death. There is Among the crowd as the morning went a knock at the door. The black sexton on, you may see a well-dressed student enters. "Morena 0 t8osicle!" .. Rure, dressing some loathsome ulcer. Three MO'l'ena 0 t80sicle /" are the mutual greetor four years ago this student shrank ings. sensitively from everything that was repulsive; but one day he chanced to read The same salutations greeted the misabout our Lord's washing His disci- sionary as he soon appeared in his vestples' feet, and from that day no service ments in the joyful· assembly_ The haa been too mean for him to perform whole congregation, men and women, for anyone of the patients. The ulcer young and old, were present. cases he has made his special charge; s:) much so that I have to take him off They came from a distance to a joythem at times and give them to a junior ful Easter festival. They were all neatstuden.t, for he is now one of our seniors. ly dressed, with joy visible in their There are as good Christians among my faces. No word was spo!o:en, but all students as there are in this hall. It is eyes were turned toward the reddening well worth all the trouble it has given horizon. Soon the Easter sun loorps me to have had the joy of training such forth which once before showed the men. It is well worth your while, any risen Lord. The Easter tones of the of you Christian parents who may be bell sounded now from the church here, to train up your children to such tower. The procession formed, the two work-to set medical missions before missionaries with the native helpers and your boys and girls, and to put them in teachers in advance, followed by the the way of preparing for the service. congregation. They go to the cemetery We must have missionary parents if we near the church to celebrate Easter at are to hope to have missionary chil- the graves of the departed. They stop dren." at the hill which holds the grave of the missionary Kobolde, who had been be- Ea.ster Oelebration in Africa. loved and had died young. The tolling or'the bell ceased. After a short prayer At two o'clock in the morning, as a jubilant hymn of praise breaks forth light began to dawn upon the quiet re- in this home of the dead in honor of gion, there was also an awakening tq Him who took away the sting of death life in the vicinity of the German mis- and brought immortality to light. sion in South Africa. Here and there black forms appeared between the fields There were also many Hollanders and corn gardens, singly or in small (Dutch peasants from the neighborhood) groups, on their way to the mission. present. The miSSionary therefore read Near the tower of the little church the the Easter Gospel in Dutch and made a. guests assembled. "Morena 0 tsosicle /" short address in the same;Ianguage. The (" The Lord is risen I") the tones of the festival sermon then followed from the bell proclaimed to the new-comers. other missionary in Sessutho (a native "Ru'l'e, Morena 0 t80sicle /" (" He is language), to which the white listeners truly risen I' ') was their answer. The also gave attention. The service was missionary stood at the window of his closed with hymns and prayer, a beaustudy and looked out into the dawning tiful, fitting Divine service. It showed Easter morning full of thanks and that this congregation, which once conpraise to Him who here again in Afrk-a sisted of heathens who had no hope, had shown Himself a risen and living now was composed of happy Easter Saviour, and who had also saved many Christians by the grace of God, for whom also the light of eternal life beamed across the dark portals of the grave.-li'rorn the Lutheran Kirchen- f'l'eund.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
English Notes. throughout Tinnevelly, and aggressive and earnest efforts are being made in BY JAMES DOUGLAS. many quarters, a root of bitterness has Ohu'l'ol. Missionary Society.-Not only sprung up, owing to the order of the the friends of this society, but of evan- diocesans that caste titles should be gelical missions generally, will be in- omitted in the pUblication of the banns clined to view as an augury for good of marriage. The result has shown the proclamation of a British protec- how deep-seated is the spirit of caste torate over the States intervening be- among those who as Christians should tween Uganda and the East Coast. have given it up altogether. Still all Though the Uganda :Mission has been are not tainted. A band exists of men in no way dependent on man's arrange- full of faith, of prayer, and of the Holy ments, yet it does seem as if, in the Ghost.
overruling providence of God, the way London Missionary Society.-The bearof the Gospel was being further pre- ing of the French invasion of Madagaspared through the introduction of set- car on evangelical missions has been tled government into the heart of Afri- seriously complicated by the Lenten ca, and the decision arrived at by Her pastoral of the Roman Catholic Arch- Majesty's Government to make the bishop of Paris, who speaks of the railway to Uganda. It is hoped that French expedition as a crusade on bethe pax Britannica, like the pax Roo half of Catholicism. This sentiment is mana of old, may greatly facilitate the re-echoed by the other bishops of France, progress of the Gospel as the means of and coupled with the stronglyanti-Britearth's regeneration. ish feeling which finds utterance among Oentral Asia.-Dr. Neve's recent arti- the French Colonial party, seems to cle on Central Asia as a further field point to anxious days in the future.
for occupancy has already borne fruit Lifu, New Oaledonia.-A wondrous both as regards offers of personal ser- work of grace has recently taken place vice and of substantial contributions. on this island. the like of which had As the editor of the Missionary Intelli- never been seen on the island before. gencer points out, every region beyond The results appear to have far exceeded that is entered, every fresh enlargement faith and expectation. "I confess," of the missionary field to lands still writes Mr. James Hadfield, " that when more remote, reacts fa vorably on the I started these revival services one chief other spheres which are already before idea in my mind was that I should be the churches. The new does not preju- furnishing the pastors with a weapon dice the old, but strengthens the organic which might be of value to them in the development of the whole network of future, when they had learned to use it agency. with effect; but a stronger hand than ours has used the weapon and left us Negro Mis3ionarie8.-The Bishop of all, teachers and people alike, under a Sierra Leone, believing that the Church profound sense of God's willingness to in West Africa would be much helped help us, and of the ease with which He if negro missionaries from across the works," As a result of these services, Atlantic could be procured, has gone to conducted throughout the island by the West Indies to see who among the four of the native pastors, no less than colored Christians are willing to offer 564 natives have decided for Christ, and themselves for this work.
South India.-It is reported that while the whole island has been roused to re- the congregations at the Palamcottale newed faith and zeal. One of the pas- Tamil Church are as large as ever, tors described the movement as a true numbering over 1200, and while bap- "Penetekosa," and records that while tisms are almost daily taking place working in a remote district a somewhat
ENGLISII NOTES
severe hUlTicane came on, but the peo· as much ehristian &1 many IIlf our home pIe would not allow of the meetings villages. There !tre few houses where being interfered with, earnestly protest- family worship is not observed. Let ing that it was no hurrieane, bjt sim- people try to realize what that means, ply the rushing of a mighty wind to ac- and they will rejoice and give God company the descent of the Spirit. In thanks as I did and do."
some of the villages there is scarce one Dr. .iJjJleck Scott.-The Blantyre Misleft who is not either a church-member sion of the Church of Scotland has sufor a candidate for admission. fered a grievous loss in the death of Dr.
Hankow, Ohina.-Dr. Griffith John W. A. Scott, at the early age of thirty- writes concerning the new leper home three. His words at starting for the at Hiau Kaw, and the prospects gener- Dark Continent were, "What a glori- ally in that neighborhood: "It is now ous thing to help to save Africa 1" In about twenty years since we began labor he was unsparing of himself, and work in that district. From the begin- though his time on furlough was long ning we have been greatly encouraged overdue, he refused to leave till a suc- by evident tokens of God's favor. But cessor would come to take his place and never have we seen so much to inspire his work. His career is brief but in- us with confidence as now. The whole spiring ; and the mantle of such a man district is being leavened with Christian cannot fall to the ground.
truth, and everywhere an interest in the Baptist Missionary Society.-Great truth is being awakened in the minds of grief is felt at the early and lamented men. .. We want more men. When death of Sidney Roberts Webb, M.D., shall we have them !" of the Congo, after a short two years of Prayer of a Hunan 0 hristian. -" 0 missionary service. Skilful in the sci- Lord, Thou knowest that Hunan means ence of medicine, he had an earnest south of the Lake, and Hupeh north of evangelical spirit, and was especially • the Lake; the Lake is Tung Ting. successful in attracting the Congo boys Thou knowest, Lord, that there are to his person and touching their hearts more people in these two provinces than by his appeals. The letter of his young there are fish in the Lake, and Thou wife, narrating the circumstances of his hast sent us to be fishers of men. In last illness and departure and burial at many places the Gospel net has not sea, is unspeakably touching. One who been let down, and there is no means of well knew him writes: "Sidney Webb catching the fish, nor is there any fish- died as he lived; and he has carried erman. We pray Thee, Lord, to grant with him the character and capacity that in every place there may be a Gos- formed by the experience and discipline pel net and skilful fishermen. " of earth,"
Presbyterian Ohurch of England.- Wesleyan Mi8sionary Society.-The Writing of a visit paid to the mission "'Wesleyan Missionary Notices" constations in Formosa, the Rev. John tinue still to be occupied with addresses Watson, M.A., says: "The brethren in given at the annual meetings by breth- Formosa have been unduly depressed ren from the foreign fields_ There is an by the relapses of which they have told unmistakable ring of faith in their utus among the Christian aborigines. I terances generally, while the results, as spent a few days at Awgulan, in the summarized, show in several cases gratinorth of our district, which is virtually fying progress. Educational agencies a Christian village. The people are all are carefully fostered, and evangelistic aborigines, or Sek Hoan. They speak efforts unfiaggingly sustained. Speaktheir native dialect, and also Chinese. ing of the Galle district of Ceylon, the Some twenty-five years ago they first Rev. Robert Tebb says, "Of the 500 heard the Gospel. Now the village is members there, many of them are work-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
in~ for Christ, and are endurin~ for ·~The la.te Rev. E. A.. Lawrence lays Him in a way to be compared with that down this dictum, which is eminently of the noblest members at home. . . . Christian: .. Every church should work Then in the educational work we are out in. a mission, and every mission very thankful indeed that we have some should work out into t1 church. " 6000 childl'en in the day schools and Sabbath-schools." The testimony of -The Spirit of Mission8 is privileged the Rev. W. Arthur Cornaley. of Wu- to be able to state a fact which unforchang, Ohina, is no less valuable: "Dur- tunately is notable because so unusual: ing the nine years I have been out there "For a long time we have received the membership of the district has al- from the same anonymous contributor a most exactly doubled. Among those regular weekly gift of $5 for missions. 650 members there are more than double We recognize it by the address on the the number of workers there were in envelope_ It shows a constant thought those earlier days. We know our num- for missions which is very gratifying." bers now. They have been tested by the riots. Not one left us under the -Bishop Potter, of New York City, stress of that persecution and excite- takes a "vacation" by going into the ment. The living influence of some 650 heart of the crowded tenement district Christians must be enormous." of the East Side, and individually tak- ing part in the mission work among the THE KINGDOM. poor. His object is twofold. First, he wants to learn for himself the character -Paul is the prince of missionaries, and requirements of that particular misand Chapter viii. of Second Corinthians sion field. Secondly, he desires, by peris the most stirriug passage relating to sonal direction of the mission, to exthe missionary spirit that his pen ever emplify his idea of the cathedral, produced. If the Christian Church were which is, that it should be a church for only to learn those twenty-four verses all classes of the people, a free church, by heart, the world's redemption would for the poor as well as for the rich. be nigh, even at the doors. The place of beginning should be at the fifth -Truly, the Scudders rank high verse, which tells how the saints of among royal families, for they have MacedOnia first gave their own selvll8 to supplied 30 missionaries to the foreign the Lord. field, and have given 529 years of toil for the salvation of India. -" Do the next thing." That may be nothing but to stand still and see the -As the New York Sun reminds us : salvation of the Lord. Thank God, His " Two centuries elapsed after the disfaithfulness and power are not dependent covery of America by Columbus before upon our faith! Our faith may fail us, Europe began to turn America to much but if we obey simply, humbly, in the account, but a single century after Ausdark, God's light and power and salva- tralia drew the world's notice saw the tion will be clearly manifested at last. full flower of civilization there. The After all, we shall find that obedience is most of Africa is the discovery of the but faith with folded wings. As Bishop past half century, and yet we know far Thoburn puts it, " God's promises are more of that great continent in all its His commands." If we cannot always aspects to-day than was known of Amerreceive the Divine message with the ica three hundred years after Columbuoyancy and cheerfulness of faith, we bus had discovered it." can receive it with the determination and the faithfulness of obedience.-Ind- -After a meeting of Babus in Bow ian Witnes8. Bazar, Calcutta, the Rev. J. F. Hewitt was questioned by a man who was on the border-line between theosophy and Hinduism. An inquisitive crowd quickly iathered, questions and answers de· which art in Heaven, above .!.mericlI I veloped into a rather lengthy discus· Hallowed be Thy name, in Am8rica. sion, which was cut short in a very Thy kingdom come, in America. Thy pleasant way. ~Ir. Hewitt writes: "A will be done, in America, as it is in negro, a pure African, thrust his way heaven. Give us this day our daily through the crowd, and, taking the bread, in America; and forgive us our Babu by the arm, besought him most debts as we forgive our debtors, in earnestly to accept the Lord Jesus as America." his Saviour. Then he told them that he was once a heathen, but a black -The Church of Rome is in princi· bishop named Crowther came to his pIe about as tolerant as a Bengal tiger. country and told them sweet words When the tiger is in his cage he submits about the Lord Jesus, which he had be· to various circumstances which he does lieved, and by which he had become a not tolerate when free to follow his own Christian. It was a sight which I shall wishes. In the freedom of the jungle . not readily forget. It did one good to we see exactly what the nature of the bear a black, rough·lookingnegro plead· animal is. And if we would know ex- – ing earnestly in broken English with actly the principles of the Church of this educated, intellectual Babu, and ex· Rome and her theories concerning the horting him to accept Christ." -Ohurch religious rights of those who are not in Missionary Intelligencer. her own communion, we should study her procedure in those countries where -Two replies come to the time·worn she is virtually at liberty to carry out and slanderous allegation that only dead her own ideas.-Indian Witne88. Indians are good. First, the tables are fairly turned upon us whites when the -For a long period, the Dutch au· Indian preachers very earnesly assure thorities in Sumatra tried to win the . their hearers that there are good white Mohammedan population by excessive people, as Miss Collins declares they do. deference and even by special privi- And then in Boston the other day Lone leges. They thought to awaken the Wolf confessed, "that is true; but gratitude of the Moslems and gain their how? I am a dead Indian, because the adherence by spending lavishly on their fire of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus temples and religious arrangements; Christ has killed the Indian that was in the ruined mosque of Atschie, in Suo me." matra, was splendidly rebuilt at the cost of the Government, and the Dutch -It appears that something besides rulers went so far as to regard the work climate is concerned in making of West of missions as PCllitically dangerous. Africa a graveyard for missionaries. They even believed that the Mohamme· One who bas suffered there writes: dan insurrection in Borneo in 1859 was " It is said, 'So many die. ' And why provoked by the missionaries. But late· do they die? Simply because the nig. ly a change has taken place, and three gardly giving of Christian people com· years ago it was emphatically declared, pels them to do and risk what no hu· in an assembly of men thoroughly ac· man being can endure in any climate. quainted with the circumstances of the One man was left with work that at Dutch colonies, that missions were a home would employ ten, and then, if great help to the Government, and the Lord doesn't work a miracle to keep should be furthered in every possible him alive, it is attributed to 'the dread· way.-Evangelische8 ]tIi88'ionsmagazin. ful African climate.' " WOMAN'S WORK.
-This revision of the Lord's Prayer -It is said that the W. C. T. U. is has been made for those who do not be· the first women's organization to receive lieve in foreign missions: "Our Father official recognition in Westminster Abbey. At the late World's Convention ate course in medicine, and then return some of the most notable sessions were to Liberia, able to do better work in the held in the abbey, and the Bishop of line of medicine. I look forward to a Dover preached a sermon there eulogiz- long life to do good and help build up ing the organization. Surely the world Africa."
moves-even that part oj' it encompassed -Thirty-five deaconesses have gone within the British Isles. out from the Chicago Training School -A young English woman, a physi- this year into active work. They are cian, was l'ecentlyescorted from India distributed as follows: Chicago, 9; to Afghanistan by a special embassy Lake Bluff Orphanage, 4; Milwaukee, from the Ameer, and her ministrations 3; Fall River, 2; Minneapolis, 2; made an impression so favorable that Omaha, 2; Africa, 2; Peoria, Freeport, she accompanied the Buite of the St. Louis, Grand Rapids, La Crosse, Ameer's son to London. Providence, Eureka Springs, Des Moines, undenominational work in -This is written concerning woman's Chicago, each 1. Two others are can- day at the recent meeting of the Inter- didates for foreign work in India or national Missionary Union: "The most China.
interesting feature perhaps of the exer- -Two Chinese girls from Kiukiang, cises was Mrs. White's presentation to China, stood the highest in the recent the audience of three silver-haired ladies junior examinations of the medical dewith this record: Mrs. E. C. Scudder, partment of the University of Michigan. 21 years in India; Mrs. Henry Blodget, They came to America three years ago 40 years in China; Mrs. J. C. Hepburn, at the solicitation of Miss Howe, a mis- 50 years in China and Japan. The lat- sionary from Ann Arbor, hardly knowter, with half a century of good works ing a word of English, and graduate upon her, sat a queen among us. Full next year to return to China as medical of dignity, her narrative flashed with missionaries. quiet humor that brought out in happy relief the earnestness of her life. " -Miss Hu King Eng,M.D., who is -Miss Georgia L. Patton, M.D., born soon to return to China well equipped a slave, tells us this about herself: " I as a missionary of the Woman's Forworked on the farm until I was seven- eign Missionary Society. was baptized teen years old. My mother died when in China in her infancy by Rev. S. L. I was sixteen. I have attended Central Baldwin, D.D., Recording Secretary of Tennessee College since 1882. I have our missionary society. She is the been able to be in college only a few granddaughter of one of our earliest months each year, being compelled to converts in China.-Zion's Herald.
stay out and work to pay my expenses. -One of the most successful of girls'
I have paid my way and supported my- boarding·schools in the foreign field is self mostly by teaching district schools. Beirut Female Seminary, which has In 1890 I complcted the scnior normal been for many years a most valuable course, and in February, 1893, complet- part of the missionary work in Syria.
ed the three years' course in medicine. Other schools have been added to this I go to Liberia for the good I want to beginning and have had a great effect, do for others, to relieve the suffering, even upon the Mohammedan communi- and to assist in radiating the light of ties. One day-school, taught in Beirut Christianity and civilization to other by Miss Taylor, a Scotch woman, has parts of Africa. I expect to both prac- in it about 40 Mohammedan girls of the tise medicine and to teach school in better class. In self-defence, the Mo- Liberia. After two years I hope to re- hammedans started a girls' school of turn to this country, take a postgradu- their own, but it waS not successful. GENERAL MISSIONARY IN'rELI.IGENCE.
YOUNG PEOPLE. topics were considered: "An Efficient Missionary Committee, " " The Mission- -Again has the Christian Endeavor ary Meeting" and .. Systematic Givmovement astonished all Christendom ing." There was a large attendance of by the hosts it brought together at the those interested in home and foreign recent Boston convention. The names missions. of 56,435 delegates were registered, and 10,000 more are reckoned to have been -A novel method of awakening zeal present as visitors; and the spiritual and prayer in behalf of missionary work quality of that notable week's gathering has been adopted by one Christian Enfairly matched its prodigious propor- deavor Society, which has undertaken tions. The growth of the last year the support of a native preacher in the amounted to 7750 societies, making a Madura Mission, costing, above what total of 41,229, with 2,473,740 members. the people themselves raise, $40 a year.
In the sessions the place of honor among This makes 11 cents a day. A card is topics was accorded to good citizenship prepared for each day of the year, and and missions. More than $10 each had the member of the society taking that been raised by 5557 societies for the card pays the 11 cents and promises to spread of the Gospel among the nations, pray especially for that helper on that and it is estimated that the total of mis- particular day. Thus alms and prayers sionary offerings reached $425,000. The go together.
Friends reported that their Endeavorers -A call has been issued for the first sustain 15 missionaries wholly or in national convention of Young Lutherpart. Well might the Boston Adver- ans, to be held in Pittsburg, October tiser exclaim: .. What other human 30th and 31st. The object of the conconcern, belief, hope or ambition is vention will be" to promote Christian there, be it politics, business, pleasure, fraternity among all Lutherans in the knowledge, or sport, that could bring to United States, to organize a national asthis New England shore in midsummer, sociation, and to quicken practical from every State and Territory and Christian activities." province of North America, and from Australia and from Great Britain, and -One of the most interesting of the from ' the land of the midnight sun,' a missionary societies in mission fields is representative convention of 50,000 dele- the Missionary Children's Missionary gates ?" Association in Western Turkey. Its members are the sons and daughters of -The Chicago Tribune sent a staff of missionaries; its headquarters are in reporters and artists to Boston to " cov- Constantinople, and it has local societies er" the Christian Endeavor Convention; with suggestive names, such as " The the work was admirably done, and the Fishers of the Bosphorus," " Marsovan Tribune deserves the thanks of all Gleaners," " Mountain Jewel Seekers, " Christian people. in all the 7 stations of the mission. The -The Baptist rally was an amaze· local societies hold monthly meetings, ment to many. Where did all these and the annual meeting occurs in con- Baptists come from? was a general nection with that of the mission. For question. The session was full of in- a time the association supported an Ind- terest. Professor Vedder presided, and ian girl at Hampton Institute, and later greeted his fellow Endeavorers to " the the funds-about $50 a year-have been largest Baptist meeting ever held, not appropriated for schools in China and only in Boston, but in the world." Ceylon.
-The Brooklyn Christian Endeavor UNITED STATES.
Union has held a conference of mission- -The census report covering the ary committees, and the following statistics of churches has just been issued. It is a work of more than SOO Talladega must be a healthy spot for pages, with colored maps. The total of humanity, both black and white. communicants of all denominations is 20,612,806, who belong to 165,177 or- -This is a brief abstract of the hisganizations or congregations. These tory of another institution in the same congregations have 142,521 edifices, State: "Fourteen years ago Booker T. which have sittings for 43,564,863 per- Washington was still at Hampton, and sons. The value of all church property lmd not even heard of Tuskegee. He used exclusively for purposes of worship reached here in June, 1881, and all there is $679,630,139. There are 111,036regu- then was of the school was on paper. lar ministers, not including lay preach- It has closed its fourteenth year with an ers. There are 5 bodies which have enrollment of 809 students-150 in the more than 1,000,000 communicants and model school, and 66 teachers and super- 10 more than 500,000. intendents. The school owns about 2000 acres of land and has over 40 build- -The Ohicago T1·ibu.ne says that the ings either completed or going up. It total donations by gift and will in this rents 15 cottages off from the school country since January 1st. counting iIr grounds, and about 10 of the teachers dividual sums exceeding $1000, are as live in homes of their own. At least 25 follows: January, $1,698,900; Febru- industries have been carried on during ary, $1,873;300; March, $736,550; the year, covering almost every kind of April, $1,311.100; May, $4,239,300; pursuit necessary to the support of June (to date), $575,600. Total, $10,- more than 1000 people. In all of these 434,150. Of this amount colleges and operations $73,348 have been expended, universities have received $4,075,750; about one fifth of which has gone into hospitals, $1,593,000; churches, $789,- permanent plant, the balance to current , 000; and libraries, $208,000, or nearly expenses. Out of the above sum the two thirds of the total. The remainder, students received a benefit of $41,000, $3,768,400, has been distributed among which they paid in labor at an average museums, art galleries and various of 5 cents per hour toward their exclasses of charity: penses. "
-President De Forest is at the head -Rev. Dr. E. W. Gilman, one of the of a missionary institution in Alabama, secretaries of the Bible Society, has jnst and has lately informed the Ohristian been informed by its agent in Peru that public as to what it is not. Here fol- a number of Bibles consigned to him lows one paragraph from several: some time ago have been admitted " Talladega College is not a factory for through the custom house at Oallao. the making of dudes and dudesses. This result follows about eighteen Next to wickedness nothing is more months of persevering effort and litigapersecuted here than affectation, con- tion occasioned by the influence of the ceit, and finical foolishness. The long Roman Oatholic Ohurch officials, who trail is stepped on ; the stove-pipe hat tried every means to keep the agent, gets its banging; and the gold-headed Rev. A. M. Milne, from obtaining the cane, if it appeared at all, would be Bibles for circulation. made a stick for the owner's back. Neither display in dress nor the spread- -The July issue of Gospel in .All eagle in oratory command a premium ; Lands has an admirable article on « How while hard-handed industry and pains- to Run a Ohinese Sunday-School," by taking economy are advocated and de- Rev. F. J. Masters, of San Francisco. veloped. Pretence, display, and shams It ought to be reprinted in tract form, of all kinds are here persistently dis- and be in the hands of every teacher of couraged. They do not thrive in this Ohinese, whether West or East. particular latitude and longitude." –New York City continues to be GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
blessed with evangelizers of an heroic churches. The Spanish are cared for and energetic mould. Missionary Park- in New Mexico and in Brooklyn; the hurst has found a wortby coadjutor in French in New Hampshire, Indiana, Theodore Roosevelt, albeit the latter be- Chicago, and Philadelphia; the Bohe· longs away down in the secular police mians in Cleveland and Baltimore; the department. Note well these excerpts Portuguese in New Bedford, etc.
from one of his discourses : -Rev. A. Ben Oliel, of Jerusalem, " We suffer from over-legislation and has been baptized in the Jordan, has joined the Baptist Church, and already from lax administration of legislation." is stirring up his new-found brethren to " The American people will not ulti· plant a mission in the Holy City.
mately sanction the systematic violation -The Missionary Board of the Cumof law." berland Presbyterian Church is no long- er to wait for missionary candidates to " I had to choose between closing all apply for appointment, but is to search the saloons and violating my oath of out in the churches suitable men and office. I chose to close the saloons." women,and then proceed to "call" them (Hear!) to the work. And why not 2 " I would rather see this administration turned out for enforcing laws than see it succeed by violating them."
(Hear! hear!) , -A deputation from the American "I am an executive, not a legisla- Board to Japan, consisting of Secretary Barton, Mr. W. P. Ellison, of the Prutive officer. I indulge in no theorizing dential Committee, Dr. A. H. Bradabout the performance of duty." (..:1 ford, of Montclair, N. J., and Dr. J. G. Daniel I) Johnson, of the New England Church, Chicago, has been charged with an ex- Why, he could not have enunciated ceedingly important mission_ Japan's doctrine more orthodox or pungent an growing spirit of independence has put he were duly ordained by PreSbytery, bishop, or the Pope himself !
-Hillsdale College, Michigan (Free the missions there in a critIcal condition.
Baptist), has always been characterized Evidently leading strings will not be by a missionary spirit. As early as 1856 tolerated much longer by the saints 2 of its students went as missionaries in the Land of the Rising Sun; and it to the West Indies. Frequent visits bids fair to be a most difficult question from returned missionaries and the pres· to settle, just where and how to endeavor ence of students preparing for mission- to assist them with counsel and with ary work, especially the graduation of funds, and when to withhold influence, 4 of Dr. Jeremiah Phillips's daughters, leaving them to follow their own con· who entered the India field, has left the victions.
college in touch with mission interests. EUROPE. Of the stlldents, 28 have gone to the for- eign field-l to Africa, 3 to Jamaica, 2 Great Britain. – Well does tbe Evan- to China, and 22 to India, and 14 have gelical Ohurchman remind us that not all ,been home missionaries, with work titled personages are as a matter of course chiefly among tbe colored people of spiritual nobodies: .. It may be news Cairo and Harper's Ferry. to some on our democratic continent that in the great religious meetings held -In the aggregate a vast amount of during M.ay and June in London many labor has been expended in this country members of the House of Lords take a upon the foreign-born. The Method- prominent part. Scarcely a day passes ists, for example, minister to the Chi- without a peer baving taken part in a nese in New York, as well as to them meeting at Exeter Hall. Lord Bennet, and the Japanese on the Pacific Coast. son of tbe Earl of Tankerville, has been In Utah light gleams forth from 20 out on a preaching tour among the villages in the neighborhood of Chilling- -Shades of Sydney Smith and all ham Castle, the family seat in North- other mockers at missions! Read this umberland, and Lord Overtoun has been from the Reporter: co It is perhaps not conducting a number of services in too much to say that never since Sir Glasgow, and has presented a site valued James Stephens's article on the Clap- at £16,000 to the Y. M. C. A. of that hamites has the Bible Society attained city. All the members of the upper such literary recognition as it receives house are not followers of the turf and in the recent number of the Q:uarterly the prize-ring. A very large number Review. In many ways the notice is of them take a deep interest in all Chris- even more satisfactory than Sir James's, tian undertakings. for he only brought in our work be· cause it w~,s the pet scheme of the men -Dr. Pentecost is trying to mend he was dealing with. The Qnarterly things at the Marylebone Church. He Reviewer, on the other hand, starts is not satisfied with the weekly offer- with the work; to him the men are ing. He says that about 600 pennies what they should be, God's instruments, are deposited in the collection baskets by whom the work comes to pass. So every Sunday, and fears these coins may the Annual Report for 1894, and the represent the gratitude of 600 'people. co Gospel in Many Tongues," appear for And assuming that one person puts in the first time in that numbered list, at several pennies, he makes the sugges- the head of the Review, which many tion that it would be a .good plan for books have desired to enter into and those who give as much as threepence have not been able. We cannot do to take those three penny pieces on the more than urge our readers to look it Saturday and exchange them for a through, and our deputations to make threepenny bit, claiming that this opera- use of it, for it catches our society's tion " would be more honoring to God," operations from the true standpoint of and would be co a step in the evolution historical continuity, and confesses that of beneficence"-from copper to silver. 'in this work every gift is sanctified, -John Bull at the best is far removed and no pains are superfluous.' "
from sinlessness, or even saintliness; but well does the Indian Witnes8 enter -Dawn in India thus sums up the this protest; "Professor Thoumaian work of the Christian Literature So- and the Rev. A. W. Prautch are ad- ciety: "Fifteen hundred separate pub- dressing joint meetings in England on lications have been issued in 18 different , The Iniquities of Turkish Rule in Ar- languages of India, and of these more menia and the Iniquities of British Rule than 20,000,000 of copies have been in India.' The Anti-Opium Society in sold. Thirty-two missionary societies England deserves to fail if it permits its regularly take advantage of our books agents to do their work in such a ques- both for evangelistic work and for the tionable manner. What confidence can use of the converts. More than 1000 the public place in the reliability of men Christian teachers have been trained in who put England's treatment of India our institutions, most of whom are now alongside of Turkey's treatment of Ar- teaching in village schools, employed menia? Professor Thoumaian can by missionaries. There cannot have plead ignorance of India in extenuation been fewer than from 50,000 to 60,000 of his course; but a missionary who under their influence. In some cases knows India, and who reads the English churches have been formed and the papers on the Armenian atrocities, has teachers turned into evangelists and no excuse for libelling a government pastors, and 71 pupils are under train- that immeasurably surpasses all others ing in the institutions at Ahmednagar.
in just and generous treatment of sub· In Bengal 8000 children attend the cir- ject races." cle schools, and more than 40,000 chilo dren have passed through these schools. been sent out from Sweden, who are in The 15,000,000 of readers who have connection with the International Alli- come from government and mission ance of New York, and are supported schools loudly call for pure and Chris- by that association.-London Ohri8tian.
tian literature. This is the most urgent need of India. We have created the ASIA.
appetite, and if we do not provide wholesome food, the devil through his India.-Mount Maru, writes the F.ev.
agents in England and India will tempt T. Williams, of Rewarri, is, of all the them, and with the grapes of Sodom and sacred mountains of the Hindus, the the clusters of Gomorrah." most sacred. Its height, according to the Puranas, is 672,000 miles, or be- The Continent.-According to Evan- tween twice and three times the dis- , gelical Ohristendom, the Roman Catholic tance of the moon from the earth! Mr. Church in France, in providing schools Williams has lately been in the region of for the education of children free from the supposed site of this mountain, and governmeut control, in ten years has has been able, by geographical demonspent more than 30,000,000 francs. In stration as to the position of rivers and Paris there are more thau 200 such other mountains, to show the impossischools, with 76,000 scholars, and in the bilities implied in the myth. whole of France 1200 monasteries and nunneries, containing 30,000 men and – " It is the custom generally among 130,000 women. As home missionaries the Singhalese," writes the Rev. R. T.
there are 8500 priests, 33,600 nuns, and Dowbiggin, of Cotta, Ceylon, "to re- 3600 friars. ceive a dowry with the bride, and this -From the twenty· fourth annual reo varies from 50 rupees to 20,000 rupees, port of the Evangelical Church of Italy according to circumstances. A. dowerit appears that in connection with this less girl has not much chance nowadays body there are 26 churches and 35 sta- of getting married. However, there are tions, with 132 places visited regularly. exceptions. A young Christian man The ordained ministers number 21 ; evan. fell in love with a very poor fatherless gelists, 10 ; colporteurs, 8. There are girl, who at the time was also a Budteachers and Bible-women, Sunday- dhist. He wished to marry her, but schools, and associations for young peo- would not do so until she became a. ple. The communicants number 1697, Christian. He put her under the care and the adherents 6315. of a catechist and his wife, who taught her, and he paid for her board and lodg- -In 1887 the Swedish Mission in ing. After a few months she was bap- China was formed, and it has now in tized, and a month later married, the China 21 missionaries. This mission is bridegroom paying for her wedding atassociated with the C. I. M. In 1890 tire. The bridegroom wished to be the Holiness Union began work in married in our church, but in order to China. This mission. which has about do so had to travel a distance of eleven 10 missionaries, is also connected with miles in bullock carts, which took four the C. I. M. The same year the Swed- or five hours each way. ish l'Iissionary Union and the Swedish Baptist Mission took up work in China. -F. Becker Shawe, lately returned These societies have 20 workers in from Leh, on the borders of Thibet, China, but they are not connected with tells this about one of the" religious"
the C. I. M. In 1891, 50 Swedes were institutions of that country: "These sent out from America, who are sup· prayer mills contain a few written repe- ported from small Scandinavian congre- titions of some Buddhist pray,:, proba- gations in that land, and are also con- bly the six-syllabled formula, 'Om nected with the C. I. M., while 45 have mani padme hum.' Each twirl of the machine is supposed to multiply the -Miss Alice Ford thus describes in prayers placed within it, and so in- Helping Hand a jungle chapel in Bur- crease a store of good works for the wor- msh : "Some of you would have hesi- shipper in view of the future transmi- tated at the steps-two long bamboo grations of his soul. If he is wealthy poles side by side, with notches for foot- and can set up a big prayer mill to hold, and nothing to hang &n by, and contain thousands of prayers, and to be the doorway on a level with your kept in rotation by wind or water, then heads. By a helping hand above and he is supposed to be laying up a store encouragement from below, we man- of merit very rapidly. If you introduce aged to scramble up to the fioor, which steam' power into Thibet to·morrow, presented almost as many terrors as the probably the first use made of it would stairs. It was of the same kind of bam- be to turn a praying wheel. There are boo poles in splints, and where their huge cylinders in some of the monas· smooth curved sides were uppermost, teries with a million of prayers inside you stepped as if on ice. Being loosely them. One turn of these praying ma- laid down, they are apt to spread sud- chines is, however, too expensive for' den1y and let the unwary foot through.
the poor layman; he must content him- The cracks Were convenient at luncheon self with slower methods of amassing time, however, when we repacked the good works, such as twirling his own baskets, and there' were plenty of gaunt prayer mill, and purchasing little flags dogs underneath to dispose of all we or flat stones on which the lamas have threw down, to say nothing of the inscribed the sacred formula. There is chubby urchins, who are just as fond of quite an avenue of mani walls on the morsels of cake as home urchins are.
way up from the Indus to Leh. The There was matting stuck between poles flags will be placed in trees or on high but half way up the sides, so the Euro- places to flutter in the breeze. The in· pean part of the congregation spread scribed stones will be laid upon a umbrellas, and sat cross-legged on the mani, or long wall loosely built by mats, as did the native part of it. "
thousands of similar stones." -Bangkok was occupied as early as -In Dingah, Punjab, the missiona- 1840. Two tracts of land have been series of the Church of Scotland have met cured, the larger one for the church, with much opposition from the Hindus building for the press, and houses for (Sikhs). But one of the most prominent the three families. The purchase money of the adversaries had just been won for the smaller tract was given by the over in a remarkable way. He asked Siamese. For the first time the entire for a private interview with the mis- Bible in Siamese is ready for use. Sinsionary, who expected a fierce expres- gle portions are also bound. All the sion of hostility, and was immensely binding is done by native workmen. surprised when the man pulled out a The missionary medical work plays a New Testament an!! said: "Sahib, I strong part in Christianizing Siam. have read this book, and I find it to be Nearly 3000 in·patients have been treatpure and holy_ Up to ten days ago I ed. There are 13 schools and 307 scholwas a bitter opponent of yours. I gave ars, with 555 in Sunday-schools. There a public lecture against you and against are 7 churches, with a mission force of your work. Then I resolved that I 45. This includes 8 missionary wives, would expose your book. So I began lady missionaries, medical missionaries. to read it in order to pick faults in it ; native helpers and teachers. Siam has but, do you know, as I read I was contributed $2121, and its mission press drawn to it. My heart was captivated, has printed 4,600,000 pages.
alld now I cannot oppose you. I know China.-In Woman's Work/or Wom- God's light is in that book." an we read: "One of our inland missionaries went to the coaRt and • enjoyed of the country. The Buddhists are said shopping.' It had been four years since to threaten retaliation by a process simshe had been inside a store to make a ilar to excommunication. purchase. Her journey of 800 miles, taken in a mule litter with two children, -Rev. J. D. Davis has this to say had required 25 days on the road. This about Doshisha University. in whose is one of the superficial differences be- founding the remarkable life of Joseph tween life in China and in the United Neesima found its culmination: .. It States." has sent out over 400 graduates from its collegiate department, most of whom as -In Fatshan, China, the missionary Christian workers are helping to lift up doctor was stoned at first. Then they Japan; it has graduated more than 150 brought him hunchbacks, and chal- from its theological department, and lenged him to heal them. Happily they they are scattered up and down through brought a man who had lost his nose the land preaching the Gospel; it has sixteen years before. The doctor put a sent out several classes from its Girls' new nose on him, and the fellow bought School, and these young women are, as a looking·glass and became a mission- wives of pastors and of others, or as ary. He brought in a blind beggar, teachers in Christian girls' schools estaband his cataract was removed by the lished by the Japanese, exerting a surgeon's knife. Still the authorities mighty influence to regenerate Japan; were hostile until an explosion mutilat- it has sent out classes of trained nurses, ed 13 unfortunates. They were about who are to day found in the hospitals to drop these all into the river, as the of the army and among the sick in other kindest way to end their sufferings, places wearing the badge of the Red when they concluded to call in Dr. Cross and preaching the Gospel by their Wenyon. He saved 10 of them. Now words and by their works ; it has sent he is no longer" the foreign devil," but out more than 2000 undergraduates, the "angelic healer from beyond the many of whom are earnest Christian seas."-North and West. workers. "
-It is reported that a petition has -The Chicago Record has a special been sent to Pekin from South China correspondent in Japan, who makes the praying the Emperor to introduce con- following statements: "The number of stitutional reforms, to remove incapable converts to Christianity among the officials, to abolish the queue and foot- higher classes and the educated men of binding, and to allow freedom of speech Japan is comparatively small, but nearand of the press. If to any extent this ly everyone will acknowledge that the represents the feelings of a large mass influence of the missionaries upon civil of the population, it is a significant fact affairs and the progress of the country that such a petition, advocating West- has been immeasurable. One of the ern reforms, should be presented. common sayings is that the only exports from the United States to Japan are Japan.-The banishment of Buddhist kerosene oil and missionaries. Compriests from Formosa by the Emperor menting upon this the other day, an of Japan is a fact significant of the eminent statesman of this country, himprogress of the Sunrise Kingdom tow- self an unbeliever, remarked, 'Yes; ard religious freedom. The reason for both have brought Us light-light for their ejection is that so many spies were the eyes and light for the soul.' The caught posing as priests, and the pleas- progress of Christianity in Japan has ing consideration is that the Emperor been greater than in Ilny other country. does not fear to proceed to enforcement Church spires may be seen over the of a just precautionary measure against roofs of every city, and through the a cabal hitherto powerful in the affairs schools the greatest good ·has been and from Cape Colony, whose advent neceswill be done. A child who is trained sitated a partial dispersion of the Rietin the truths of the Bible seldom fails fontein Settlement. Locusts, drought, to follow its teachings in after life, and famine have also proved factors untowto close the missionary schools of Japan ard to the development of the nine would be to deprive the Christian faith Namaqua stations. Their progress of the fountain that feeds it here. It nevertheless, especially in the south, would be better to take the preachers has excited the warm appreciation of away and leave the teachers here, espe- Major Leutwein, though a weak spot is cially those who manage the kindergar- revealed in the inefficiency of the mistens and the primary and the normal sion schools, which, unlike those of schools. The portrait of the Emperor Cape Colony, are as yet uncountenanced hangs in every schoolhouse, and the by State grants. In Hereroland, the dechildren are required to bow before it spised Bergdamras, in contrast to the as they enter and leave the building. dominant race, have evinced a wider Patriotism is taught in every possible and more deeply rooted desire for the form and on every possible occasion." truth, displaying proclivities better cal- culated than those of the restless Here- AFRICA. ros for the formation of settled com· munities. In Ovampo, which since -The Brussels treaty nominally pro- 1870 has been worked by Finnish mistects the Congo Free State from the sionaries, the two Rhenish stations share liquor traffic; but actually it does noth- with them all the difficulties incidental ing. The traders are greedy to get to a hostile and irresponsible heathen gain in, a term of three years. They environment.-Church Intelligencer. patrol the front of factories, with a glass in one hand and a bottle in an- -Rev. A. B. Fisher, of Uganda, other. Workmen are compelled to writes to the London Chri8tian: "The take part of their wages in whiskey. native Christians are doing grand work. But notwithstanding this, the sales of In fact, what could we do without liquor are only one third as great as them? Praise God for the numbers of they were five years ago. The coast whole-he•. ~~ed, out-and-out helpers that traders are being Christianized. When we have here. I believe there are they are converted, these negroes will numbers of young men coming on, 1)f not touch intoxicants. The trader whom you in England have never heard, wanted to forbid the Presbyterian who will eclipse in preaching power and Church at Batanga from excommuni- general information all the older men, cating members who sold rum. who are much slower to learn. By far the ablest man here is Thomas Sem- -The recent disturbances in German fuma, one of the lay readers. He is the South Africa have naturally carried most fearless Gospel preacher that ever with' them disadvantage to the opera- I heard, and his sermons are of no mean tions of the Rhenish Missionary Society, order. Mackay bought this man's life whose sphere of influence coincides with for two tusks of ivory when a boy that of the Protectorate. The mission, Christian. I am convinced that God's which for five decades has worked in Word will win the day here. Oh! that Great Namaqua and Damara lands, and the Holy Ghost would touch the hearts since 1891 in Ovampo, has fully shared of those having means to send us Bibles the difficulties, social and political, in- so long as there is a man, woman, or duced by the last ten years' agitation child without one. Bibles are silent between the Nama Hottentots and the missionaries. If, therefore, Christian Hereros. In Narnaqualand the situa· people in England cannot come them. tion has been intensified by trekkers aelves, let them send us Bibles."
The Missionary Review of the World — April 1893
BRA.HlIU.NIBM PAST AND PRESENT
MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.
VOL. XVI. No. 4.-0ld &riel. – – – APRIL. – – – VOL. VI. No. 4.-New &riu.
BRAHMANISM PAST AND PRESENT.-I.
BY REV. PROFESSOR T. M. LINDSAY, GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.
Mr. John Lockwood Kipling, in his fascinating book on " Beast and Man in India," uses some excusably strong language about the general misconception of Indian life and character created by the conventional pictures of scholars who work from a dead and done-with literature. "Nothing," he says, "could be more scholarly, amiable, sentimental, or mistaken." And he adds that the administrator, the schoolmaster, and the missionary have' equal grounds of complaint.
The subject of this paper almost insensibly tempts one to follow the example of these arm-chair expounders of the Hindu's faith. I have no wiRh to fall under Mr. Kipling's ban, and therefore begin by saying that it is scarcely too much to assert that there is no such thing in the India of to-day as Brahmanism in the true sense of that word; or at least, that it is the religion of a trifling number out of the millions of India. And yet the system potent in by.gone ages, buried in "a done-with literature," has sunk so deep into Hinduism, that the present religious condition of India would be greatly misapprehended if Brahmanism and its undying influence were not understood.
Let me state it more directly. I have seen ordinary middle-class Hindus worship-and by worship I mean kneel and pray with many genuflexions, or make offering of a few grains of rice or jowar or pulse, or burn incense in a cocoanut shell-the following variety of objects: (1) Trees of various kinds, especially the pepal-tree and the Tulsi plant in many places over India; (2) stones, either single uncouth blocks, or smaller ones of curious shapes, also in many different parts of India; (3) a jutting bit of rock, spared by the capricious discharge of blasting powder on the Ghat from Ellora to Roza; (4) a pillar erected to a distinguished officer at Mahabaleshwar; (5) a curiously shaped hummock on a hill near Secunderabad; (6) a fossil, an ammonite, the stone worn smooth by the lips of the worshippers; (7) snakes, monkeys, goats, and cows; (8) a plough; (9) bullocks by the owner of the team; (10) a heap of stones set up on- the Wai Ghat, at a place where a sudden rush of waters had driven a pony carriage and its occupants over the precipice j (11) rivers j (12) the palanquin of the Marathi poet Tukaram in a field near 8aswad j (13) the tomb of an old Anglo·Indian who had hanged himself in his garden on the banks of the Muta·Mula near Poona j (14) de- parted heroes, such as Khandoba at Jejuri and Pal j (15) a newly erected mile-stone near Ahmednuggar j (16) a telegraph-post on the Jalna road j (17) a walking-stick, which had a handle somewhat like a snake's head, in a stand with several others for sale at a shop-door in Mahaba- leshwar; (18) a locomotive engine j and (19) a fat boy who was waiting for the train at a Bombay station, and who placidly ate candy while his worshippers, who believed him to be an incarnation of God, knelt around him. And I venture to say that if to these be added some hundreds of deities, whose names never appear in books which profess to describe the Hindu religion, these commonplace divinities are worshipped in every-day religious life by tens of thousands, while the deities of Hindu pantheon are worshipped by hundreds only.
But there is another side. When exploring the jungle paths among the steep Ghats at Mahabaleshwar, I found myself one day, after some difficult descent, on a great ledge where a small village stood in a jungle clearing. On the slope of the cliff there was a great bJack bowlder, some fifteen feet high, embedded in the clay. The bowlder had a curious cleft in it. At its base there was an altar or shelf of dressed stone, with bells, lamps, cocoanut shells, and other utensils of worship. In front, a paved court, which was surrounded with a wall of stone and lime. While we were in this enclosure the villagers, headed hy an old patriarch with rich dark-brown skin and gray hair, came about us. The old man had a roll of dirty white cloth on his head, and a still dirtier wisp of cloth about his waist, a brown cotton plaid hung on one shoulder. The people, we were told, were low-caste 8hangars, who buried their dead and ate flesh when they could get it. We had a talk together. The bowlder was the village -goddess j the villagers prayed to it : they prayed for rain, for a good harvest, for recovery in sickness, that small pox and cholera might keep away from them, and occaRionally that a tiger might visit the neighborhood j a tiger was a clean-feeding animal j when it killed a buck it only ate part of the animal, and the villagers got the rest, so they prayed for a visit from a tiger. "But do you really mean to say that the great black stone can hear your prayers and answer them?" "8aheb," said the old man, drawing himself up, "there is but one 8pirit of God, as there is but one spirit of man-one spirit of man, and it is in you, 8aheb, and in the least of your servants, in me, 8aheb j so there is but one Spirit of God, 8aheb, and He is in our goddess here, and in Khandoba at Jejuri and in Vitoba at Pandharpur." Further questioning showed that this subtle pantheism, thus suddenly evoked from a man utterly uneducated and in social standing outside the pale of Hinduism, was a mere habit of mind, the thought of a people rather than the intelligent expression of individual belief. But it was there j and the question is, How came it there ~ My own reading, combined with personal observation, makes me think that the curious polytheism I have described is'" not so much the offspring of Brahmanism as its child by adoption;" that its ideas are not necessarily Hindn, still less Brahmanic; that though Brahmans can always explain these ideas by their aU-pervading symbolism this symbolism is but an afterthought entirely independent of the mood of the worship- pers; that, in short, this polytheism would exist if there had been no such thing as Brahmanism. The subtle pantheism, however, pervading it all, which can always be evoked among all classes of Hindu worshippers, is quite another thing. I do not mean to say that Brahmanism is the vital !'ource of this pantheism, which may, after all, be a strange subtle side of all Oriental thought; but on any supposition we have in the old historical Brahmanism, dead and buried for centuries as a popular creed, the ideal of what is dimly apprehended but really held by all Hindus in the present day.
Let it be understood, then, that in what follows I am describing what is ancient, what is no part of modern Hinduism, save in the vague sense above mentioned. If the editor permits, I may be able in a future article to describe its power over the present every-day religious life of the.
Hindus, and how it has created, by its action upon the living germinating polytheism, the Hindu pantheon described in most books upon Hindu religion.
Brahmanism, strictly so called, is a stage in the evolution of the latest form of Hinduism, standing midway between the old Vedic religion of the early Aryan invaders and the complex religion of modern India. It had peculiar historical, social, and religious surroundings. It belonged to that period of the Aryan invasion when the conquerors had mastered the "Middle Land," when they had leisure and resources to divide into classes, when they had a great slave population under them. It hardened into a compact system of social organization, religious rites, and theoso- phist speculation in its conflict with Buddhism-a conflict from which the aristocratic pantheism of the Brahman at length emerged victorious over the democratic atheism of Buddha.
In the" Land of the Sacred Singers," the Punjab, the old Vedic deities, personifications of the powers of nature, had held sway, and Indra, the rain bringer, was the chief deity. "I will sing of the victories of Indra.., of the victories woo by the God of the Spear; on the mountains he smote the demon of drought; he poured out the waters, and let the rivers flow from the mountains; like calves to cows, so do the rivers hasten to the sea." In these old days caste was unknown; the housefather was the family priest, and the chief led the devotions of the clan. .
When we see the same people in the "Middle Land," the country watered by the Jumna and the Ganges, with its great cities-Delhi, Oude, and Benares-and its amazing fertility of soil, the lapse of centuries has brought great changes. The fertilizing rivers made them almost inde pendent of rain, they had no call to pray for heat, the forces of nature were slowly uniform in their action, and the fecundity of· the earth made them meditate on the productive power of nature. They thought and sang, as did Tukharam centuries later in the Deccan, " For the new-born nursling who the milk prepareth ? Mother, child-each shareth His great mercy. In the fierce hot season when the leaflet springeth, Who the moisture bringeth Which it drinketh ?"
Religion had enwrapt itself in a stately ritual, and demanded men who were minutely acquainted with the old Vedic hymns to lead the devotions. The land had been thoroughly conquered, and it was no longer necessary for every housefather to be both husbandman and warrior; he could sit under his own tamarind-tree, none daring to make him afraid. The warriors became a class distinct from the cultivator, the king's followers at home his fighters on the frontiers. The dark-skinned aborigiu"es had become a great slave .population, held in the strictest bondage, which forbade them even sharing in the religion of their masters. A people of clans ready to become a ciVIlized society, but not yet a nationality.
This is the environment out of which Brahmanism slowly grew. It is almost impossible to trace the stages of growth. Early Indian literature is not historical. The criticism of documents based on internal evidence alone is extremely unproductive. The supreme canon of the higher criticism, that a document which really dates from a given period must show itself instinct with the life of that period, cannot be applied when we have no history to tell us what that life was. The Brahmans became the custodians of the old literature, and have changed and interpolated the text to suit their pretensions; but when we come to test the extent of these interpolations, and to arrange documents in chronological order to show the gradual growth of new institutions, then we fail utterly and are very much left to conjecture. Setting aside conjectures about how it slowly evolved into existence, Brahmanism fully formed has four sides or phases, which may be called social, ritualist, philosophical, and mythological.
The social side is the Oaste system. Brahmanism taught that the human race existed in four great divisions-the Brahman, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra. The Brahman came from the mouth of Brahma, and was priest and teacher. The Kshatriya eame from the arm of God, to rule and defend the people. The Vaisya, who came from the thigh, was the trader and the husbandman. The Sudra, who came from the foot, was to serve the other three. These distinctions were to be perpetually maintained by the higher caste rigidly boycotting the lower in all intercourse, in food, and intermarriage. The Brahmanic writings further aIlsert that this fourfold caste system is not a mere classification of the human race; it represents four kinds of men. The lower animals are made in classes-elephants, tigers, bullocks, and dogs; and the creation of men followed the same order. A Brahman is a distinct kind of man from a Kshatriya, just as an elephant is distinct from a tiger. In this view of it, caste is an institution to preserve purity of class or clan by pneserving purity of blood, which can best be done by preventing intermarriage, and may be further guarded by proscribing intercourse in food and drink. Evidence, however, remains in the Brahmanic writings themselves to overthrow this idea of a rigid, fourfold classIfication of men. The earliest separation was into a free' and a serf or slave class. The oldest caste regulations were evidently designed to keep the Sudras, or conquered peoples, slaves. They were to be kept outside the Aryan community, and were denied the right of worshipping the Aryan gods. The three higher castes, on the other hand, had a certain brotherhood. They were the " twice born," they all wore the sacred thread, and they all took part in the same religious worship. The eternal supremacy of the Brahman caste disappears before traces of long rivalry between them and the Kshatriyas for pre-eminence, and for the right to perform the great public sacrifice. The contest between the two sages, Viswamatra, of the royal warrior rank, and Vasishtha, a Brahman, the story of which runs through the whole Veda, typifies the struggle, and in the end the warrior establishes his title to perform the public sacrifice. Nor was the separation of castes rigidly maintained. After the Brahmans had established their priestly supremacy, due pro.bably to their unique family knowledge of the old Vedic hymns, Kshatriyas thrust themselves up into the priestly caste, and Vaisyas became warriors, while Sudras were admitted into the number of the twice born. This fourfold caste system no longer exists in modern India, where society is broken up into thousands of castes, who neither intermarry nor eat together; and it is doubtful whether it ever did exist save for a limited time and in the" Middle" land. It is rather a programme of how the Brahmans thought society ought to be constituted than a picture of Hindu social life at any period.
The ritualist side of Brahmanism is contained in the Brahmanas. The old Vedic hymns had been collected in the Rig-Veda, and two priestly selections were made from it–the Sama Veda or hymn-book for the higher order of priests, who sung selections from it during the performance of sacrifice, and the Yajur Veda, the liturgy of the lower priests. These hymns are known asMantras, and the debasement of thought is stereotyped in the fact that the word means" charm" in modern Sanscrit. The Brahmanas are a directory or rnbric for the proper use of the Vedic hymns. They show us that, according to Brahmanism, the due presentatio. of sacrifices is the kernel of aD religious observances. The meaning of sacrifice is gradually evolved. It is at first simply thank-offering from man to the gods; thcn nourishment required by the gods them- selves; then a means of wresting boons from the gods; and lastly an instrument to attain superhuman power and exaltation to heaven. Even the gods have won their immortality by sacrifice. Sometimes, but rarely, we find the idea of atonement for sin; but this is foreign to the whole circle of Brahmanic thought, which rejects the idea of trusting to anything but self-righteousness for salvation. Hence Brahmanism taught that every man must rest his hopes on a perpetual succession of oblations consumed by fire, culminating in the last offering of hiriH,elf in fire on his funeral pyre.
Pltilosophical Brahmanism is commonly, but not altogether correctly, represented as the recoil from this elaborate ritualism and sacerdotalism. It is contained in the Upanishads, which are supposed to reveal the hidden spiritual doctrine of the Vedas. It is not philosophy in the Western sense of the word, for it is not a search after truth; nor is it theology, in the Christian meaning, for it does not express the soul's desire to be released from the burden of sin. But having said this, the European expounder has a more serious difficulty to face. He can use no Western theological or philosophical term which is not thoroughly misleading. If we say that the essence of Brahmanical speculation is to show how the spirit of man can be liberated from the bondage of the necessity of transmigration or repeated existence, and reunited with the Supreme Spirit, as a river is reunited with the ocean, we insensibly attach to the word " spirit" a meaning which belongs to none of its Sanscrit equivalents. In Western thought the terms "spirit," "soul," "self" all imply the Western idea of personality, which even on the attenuated Aristotelian definition-a person is what can be the subject, but never the predicate of a preposition-signifies a central spiritual point which can never be dissolved away. Without this thought of spiritual personality the ideas of existence will invariably take the form of confined or bounded and unconfined or boundless existence, and however such ideas are etherealized, they are descriptions of matter and not of spirit. Brahmanical thinking has no such thought of a central spiritual personality. In its philosophy personality is always an external integument, which. prevents the confined essence from diffusing itself in the unconfined or all-pervading essence; or, to speak more subtly, it is what exists when the external integument confines the essence. Hence Brahmanism is always an etherealized materialism.
The Brahmanical philosophy recognizes the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, which have existed and must exist throughout all eternity. The two are not distinct; the living spirit of man is the " Spirit of God limited and personalized by the power of Illusion (Maya); and the life of every living spirit is nothing but an infinitesimal arc of the one endless circle of infinite existence." This human spirit is joined to a mind and clothed with a body, and so can perceive, think, and will. The body consists of more than one integument. First, there is the subtle body, which, enclosing a portion of the universal spirit, makes it a living individual person; this subtle body is swathed in a grosser body, which may be earthly, intermediate, or Divine. It is Divine when it encases a god; intermediate when it clothes the subtle body after death and before another gross body is inhabited; or gross, which is the outer cuticle during earthly existence. The body is, of course, part of the external world to which the Brahman gives the name Illusion, and the torment of personal life is the being forced through a succession of bodily existences which are all illusory, but from which he cannot escape. Bliss comes when the human spirit, freed at last from confinement in material integuments, melts into the diffused essence which is God. The existence of the material universe is the puzzle of Brahmanical philosophy, which their four schools of thought try each in their own way to explain. The explanations are beyond the limits of this paper, but speaking very generally, they practically come to a substitution of the dualism of a male and female energy, from whom all things created come, for the one pervading essence-the monism or pantheism becomes a dualism.
Mvthological Brahmanism is the popular theology or exoteric doctrine for the common people based on the philosophy or esoteric doctrine reserved for the sages. In it the thought of Maya or Illusion, which is the despair of the philosophy, becomes a useful instrument in expounding Brahmanic symbolism to the people. This theology starts with the idea of one sole self-existent Supreme Essence, the only real Existence, submitting for His mere good pleasure to the entanglement of an illusory creative force, and in and through this contact bringing forth endless manifestations of Himself in infinite varieties of operation. All things seen and unseen-stones, plants, trees, animals, man, demons, gods-are emanations from the one Eternal Entity, like dTops from the ocean or sparks from a fire. Everything is a portion of Deity, partitioned off, in separate existence, by Illusion. These emanations are arranged on a graduated scale, whether gods, men, or things. The highest earthly emanation is man, and the human emanation nearest the real Supreme Existence is the Brahman. None of these emanations can alter their existence while in their present gross body, be that a Divine, human, or other body; but on the dissolution of the body they may rise to higher or sink to lower grades of being.
On this basis the Brahman theologians raised their pantheon. The only real Supreme, Existence they called Brahm or Brahma. When Brahma was first overspread with Maya or Illusory Creative Force, the male god Brahma emerged, the first-born of all creation and the evolver of all else. Creation implies preservation and dissolutiou, for it is an endless chain of birth becoming and death. Hence, with Brahma, coequal with him, like him, but one stage removed from reabsorption into real existence, are Vishnu the preserver, and Siva the destroyer and reproducer (for death
INDIA 01' TO-DAY
is the sacrament of new life). They alone of all emanations cannot suffer transmigration; when their integuments of subtle and gross (but Divine) bodies dissolve they will pass back again into the real Supreme Existence. They are equal, their functions interchangeable, and they are represented in the figure of the Tri·murti, three majestic heads springing out of one body, or in the triangle. Of these three Vishnu is the most nearly connected with humanity, and to rescue men he has undergone various incarnations which are also gods in the pantheon and objects of worship. The best known incarnations are the heroes of the poems Mahabarata and Ramayana, Krishna and Rama. The three gods have their consorts or female energies-Sarasvati, Lakshmi, .and Parvati-and their offspring also belong to the Brahmanic pantheon. Beneath these, in grade after grade of emanation, are lower gods and demons (to the number of three hundred and thirty millions), men, animals, plants, stones, all liable to run into each other and incapable of strict separation in thought.
Though every man is really God, he is under the power for the time being of the separative or illusory creative force, and no individual soul can recover identity with God save by liberation from the power of illusion. This liberation may be made easier by union with a higher being, it is ensured by union with Brahma, Vishnu, or Siva. Hence the motive to worship those gods, although, like men, they are under the power of illusion. Again, one means of obtaining liberation is by paying homage to the Supreme Existence, and this may be done by turning the thoughts inward; for this Supreme Existence is in every human spirit, and meditation is the highest act of worship ; or it may be done by worshipping according to proper ritual these emanations of the Supreme Being which are the gods ; or even by paying homage to His manifestations in persons and inanimate objects. Thus exoteric Brahmanism is a net spread to catch every form of worship from the rudest fetichism up to the most sublime mystical contemplation.
Such is Brahmanism in social life, ritual, metaphysic, and popular theology. It has done much to mould Hindu religion, it has undying influence upon Hinduism, but it would be a gross mistake to suppose that it represents the living germinating polytheism of the India of to-day. Its present power and its present weakness must be the subject of another paper.
INDIA OF TO-DAY.
EY THE REV. JAMES JOHNSTON, BOLTON, ENGLAND.
The march of empire over the "Eye of Asia," the name by which India is occasionally designated, presents features of deepening interest, and prophetic of more remarkable changes. Advances in her moral and material condition and in civil and religious development plainly indicate that India is assuredly taking a right place among the progressive nations east and west. The pacific revolutions of the last generation or so in her social and national life have amazing significance. Those degrading heathen customs, the self-immolation of widows on the funeral piles of their ,husbands, the dedication of favorite daughters at idolatrous temple services, the trampling to death of imbeciles, the drowning of aged persons, the universal practice of female infanticide, and the cruelties of childmarriage and widowhood, have been wholly or partially swept away, and, at the present day, fresh campaigns initiated against the abominations which still linger on the horizon of India's humanity. A grand new page is opening in the history of India, and Christianity, in its widespreading embrace, is throwing far out the net of the kingdom of God for the ingathering of India's millions.
In point of population the Indian census offers an array of figures not easily grasped. The British possessions contain 221,172,950 souls, and the feudatory States 66,050,480, making a grand total, for these two divisions, with the territories of Upper Burma, North Lushai, and Kashmir, now included for the first time, of 288,000,000 of human beings. Natives in British provinces occupy an area of 962,070 square miles, and those of the feudatory States 595,310 square milesl The pressure of population on the land during the last decade has risen from 227 to 249 per square mile in British territories, and from 107 to 123 in the native States, or if the whole of India, inclusive of the new tracts, is tabulated, the British divisions give 230 persons and the feudatory States 111, or an average of 184 to every square mile of greater India. Pressure of population on the soil has its highest provincial density in Oudh, returned at 522 persons to the square mile; in Bengal, 471 ; in the Northwest Provinces, 411 ; in the Madras native States, embracing the crowded shores of Travancore and Cochin, 385; in Baroda, 294 ; in the Madras Presidency, 252 ; in Bombay, 207 ; and Ajmir, 207 ; the last two being the remaining provinces or States which have an aggregate density of 200 to the square mile. Upper Burma, with an area of 83,500 square miles, has a population of 35 to the square mile, and Kashmir 31. Comparing these figures with countries having dense city populations, a condition of existence uncommon in India, there are 498 people to the square mile in England and Wales, 21 in the United States of America, and 5 in the habitable parts of Canada. The returns of the current census denote an' influx of people from congested Indian centres to regions of virgin soil, an increase more noticeable in the feudatory than the British States. Just in proportion as the feudatory States are safeguarded by laws does the Indian peasant feel himself tempted to migrate into new pastures. The first advance across a British feudatory frontier is effected by marriage relations, by daughters being given as wives to villagers on the other side of the borderline. In many cases the rural emigration has not passed this initial stage, which shows a marked percentage of females over males. Save in certain localities an extensive migratory movement from British to feudatory States is unreported.
From the aggregate returns of population there is not, it appears, a uniform increase of both sexes. In the British provinces the females have increased faster than males, except in Assam, Bombay, Sind, and Bengal. This increase, again, is more significant in the feudatory States, with the exception of Hyderabad, the Madras native States, and Mysore. The British Indian rate of increase per cent is 9. 63 fo~ males and 9.80 for females, and in the feudatory States 14.81 for males and 16.29 for females. With regard to populations in country districts and towns, India differs widely from Europe. England, for example, denotes a steady increase in population at large centres, whereas in India, with an aggregate population of 288,000,000, the towns have not more than 9t per cent of the population within their radius. In provinces which have the most populous towns, as, for instance, Bengal, where a population of 74,500,000 exceeds that of all the feudatory States of India put together, or the United States of America, the immense rural populations swamp the urban centres. This growth of population in rural areas has been gradually rising, showing an aggregate increase of 9.40 per cent. Throughout India the average proportion of women to men is given at 958 of the former to 1000 of the latter in 1891, while in the towns it does not exceed, as a whole, 886 females. Some of the city populations of India are making rapid strides. Bombay has 821,760 people, and Calcutta, with its two adjoining suburbs, a population of 741,140, or, counting the dwellers in the environs, where the growth is specially noticeable, Calcutta has a return of 978,370. The population of Madras is 452,520 j of Hyderabad, 415,000 j of Lucknow, 273,080, and of Benares, 2]9,470. In 22 other cities there are populations of 100,000 or upward, and in 48 towns the populations average from 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants_ The natives of India, occupying a country equal in size to the Continent of Europe, excluding Russia, speak 106 different languages, as distinguished from dialects, and of these 18 are used by more than a million persons. Racial differences are further accentuated by social and religious prejudices and conflicting material interests. Every type of humanity has its representatives on the arena of India. Ghonds, Pathans, Rohillas, Belochees, and numerous fierce tribes, half clad, bloodthirsty, head.hunters, wielding stone weapons and indulging in degrading superstitions, dwelling in caves, on the hills, and in forest deeps, are the survivors of prehistoric times, in contrast to whom stand the Parsee and Brahmin, the embodiments of polished manners, scholarship, philosophy, commerce, and Western ideas. Beyond its own vast possessions British rule exercises no little supervision over 117 native States, the theatres of loose tribal communities, warlike chiefs, and princely rulers.
Very curious facts are furnished bearing on the religions of the myriads of people in India. The difficulty to register these is increased, because of the indistinct lines which separate IIindooism, Sikhism, and kindred systems. 'Vhen the lower superstitions, such as ghost-worship, tree and animal worship, or demon-worship, are taken into account, the perplexities are intensified. Amid these peculiarities it is evident, from recent enumerations, that Hindooism is absorbing steadily the hill and forest tribes, accustomed to practice strange, primitive rites. If these animistic tribes, together with the 3050 Brahmos and 39,950 Aryas, be added to Hindooism, the combined groups of Hindooism, semi-Hindooism, and reformed IIindooism number 751 per cent of the total; Mussulmans, 19.96 per cent; Buddhists, 2.48; Christians, 0.80; Sikhs, 0.66; Jains, 0.49; Parsees, 0.03 ; and of miscellaneous beliefs 0.02 per cent. In July last Mr. Naoroji, a member of the Parsee community, was elected a Member of the British House of Commons, an event warmly greeted in India, by which it is hoped the "dumb millions" in that Jand may have a greater voice in regard to their nation's interest and policy. Putting the religious census in another form, Hindooism claims 207,500,000-the term, it may be remarked, signifying "any religion which is not Mohammedan;" Islam, 57,000,000; Buddhism, 7,000,000, and Christianity, 2,225,000. The Jews count 17,180, and the Parsees in all 89,887 persons. Of theists, agnostics, and atheists 289 are enumerated. Taking the" animistic group" alone, they represent 3.23 per cent of the whole population, which allows them to stand next to the Mussulmans in numerical strength. Hindoos and Mussulmans have increased 10.74 and 10.70 respectively, in proportion to the growth of population; Buddhism has increased 24i per cent at a pace with the growth of the general population in Lower Burma; while the Christians have multiplied at the rate of 22.16, including large conversions from the forest tribes, particularly in the Chutia Nagpur territories. Gratifying results of the triumphs of Christianity come from the Punjab, the Northwest Provinces, the Karen districts in Lower Burma, Madras, and the west coast seaboard, where the native Christian population is growing at an astonishing rate. These fruitful issues give weight to a remark by Dr. Martyn Clark, that India's fields are not only white for harvest, but the sheaves are waiting, and equally so to the sanguine views of Dr. Pentecost regarding the spiritual regeneration of India.
Of " Young India," considering the population as a whole to the age of fifteen, the Indian return shows that 93.90 per cent of the boys and 82.47 of the girls are unmarried ; and of the married under fifteen years of age, 5.90 boys and 17.02 girls. In every 10,000 of the population there are left as " widowed" 20 boys and 51 girls under the age of fifteen years, and of this" widowed" category 20 per ccnt of the boys and 33 pcr ccnt of the girls are under five years old. The state of education presents terrible backward features in the adult sections of the population, where, again, there is disparity between the two scxes respecting capacity to read and write. From returns affecting 262,000,000 of people, itl is tabulated that 89.1 per cent of the males and 99.4 per cent of the females are unable to read or write. In the male section, consisting of 133,500,000, only one in 9 can pass this double test, and in the female division, comprising 128,500,000, barely one in 173 women! Of the total population in India having a knowledge of reading and writing in English the census makes a return of 360,000 natives. For the training of the young, public and private institutions number 138,054, and pupils, 3,682,707. Allowing, therefore, that 18,000,000-a liberal estimate-of India's people have the advantage of an elementary education, it leaves the enormous number of 270,000,000 of Hindoos buried in calamitous ignorance. Out of the few millions able to read and write a very small proportion have any acquaintance of English.
These shadows, so painful to contemplate, are not entirely uurelieved. Of India is it true that " . • • Long lost in night, Upon the horizon gleams the light Of breathing dawn."
In bright battle the social, medical, religious, and philanthropic auxiliaries are engaged for India's deliverance from myriad woes. During many years that unwearied worker on behalf of the suffering and neglected of India, Miss Florence Nightingale, has made the causes and possible remedies of the unhealthiness of small Indian towns and hamlets a special study. Mainly directed to Bombay, her labors llave had considerable success in combating the frightful condition of sanitary matters. Miss Nightingale is immediately occupied, as the debates on the Bombay Village Sanitation Bill indicates, in providing on a wide scale a good village organization for village sanitation, a measure which had the support of the recent International Congress of Hygiene. By her earnest and effective advocacy of a question vitally affecting the lives of millions of the rural population of India, the gentle heroine of the Crimean War has won the thanks of multitudes of the lowly poor. Next to this admirable work ought to be named" The Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India," founded and organized seven years ago by the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, who has exhibited, in furtherance of her humane enterprise, rare capacity, generous benevolence, and unswerving purpose. Established on broad lines of an unsectarian and national character, it relieves alike the women and children of the poorest class and zenana ladies of wealth and station. The three principal objects of the fund consist of medical tuition, medical assistance, and the supply of trained female nurses. According to the 1890 returns, 411,000 had medical treatment, compared with 280,000 in the previous year. Its proportional increase of in-patients was greater for the same period, which were returned at 8159. Thirty hospitals and 20 dispensaries are affiliated with or governed by the association, and 13 lady doctors and 27 assistant surgeons are working under the auspices of the fund, 9 of the ladies having gone out from England. A strong staff in future days will be obtained from the 238 native pupils drawn from the Parsees, Brahma- Somaj (Veda Hindoos), and Eurasians, who are now studying at the various medical colleges and schools. The cultured and estimable young Hindoo ladies, Rukhmabai and Cornelia Sorabji, have studied at the London School of Medicine for Women, preparatory to undertaking the medical calling in their native land. The approbation of the fund, expressed some two years ago by the Maharajah of Patiala, that it "will earn the gratitude of untold generations of natives of India," cannot fail to have universal echo. In the person of Lady Lansdowne the good cause of her beloved predecessor has fallen on worthy shoulders. To its income native princes, mostly of the feudatory States, and the humble people, in proportion to their scanty means, creditably give support.
Medical education is adv~,ncing steadily in other quarters. To illustrate this from the Nizanis dominions, the last report gives 85 students in the medical school, 3 of its outgoing students being females. Dr. Laurie, the Director of the Medical Service of Hyderabad, states that there are 8 hospitals in Hyderabad and the suburbs, and 59 in the districts, with as many dispensaries. Activity is seen in the city hospitals, which had over 110,000 patients last year. Medical branches of zenana missions belonging to American and British societies are multiplying in stations and workers rapidly. This wing of operation appeals strongly to the native mind and prepares the way for the music of a deeper healing. What force lies in the observation of that chivalrous Christian lady, Mrs. Bishop: " There are so many zenanas which would be closed against the zenana missionary, but where the medical missionary gains admission under the best possible circumstances." Some idea of this gracious type of ministry may be gleaned from the medical station at Batala attached to the Church of England Zenana Missionary Society, which reported for 1891 over 18,000 patients' attendances, 31 in patients, and 617 medical visits to homes. In the zenana labors of the Free Church of Scotland at Madras, Miss Macphail and Dr. Janet Hunter made a return for the same date showing 20,547 attendances by 7823 patients at the two dispensaries, 460 visits to the missionaries' homes, while 1183 visits were paid to the patients in their own homes. Since the report was compiled news of thedeath of Miss Hunter from cholera has caused profound sorrow in Scottish and Indian circles. A young lady of the highest medical attainments and of the sweetest Christian disposition, Miss Hunter's memory will be revered by thousands of Hindoo women. Like fruitfulness attends the manifold branches of zenana spiritual missions. Mrs. Lazarus, an eminently qualified judge, whose opinion has wide corroboration, remarks that the difficulty six years ago of getting admission into a Hindoo home is vanishing, and the difficulty to-day is to find women enough willing to take up the cross of honor and enter the additional open doors. In these dark chambers the light is breaking, the presage of the salvation of the daughters of India and the dominion of missions. Educational claims are not overlooked, special attention of late being devoted to the great cry from the higher classes for English education. Unless this is speedily grappled with and supplied on a Christian basis, " the education of the ruling classes will fall more and more into the hands of anti-Christian agencies." Every year happily, so far as England is concerned, the number of university men with good degrees who join the missionary bodies is increasing, a fact which has a hopeful outlook, inasmuch as " the policy of the Indian Government is to retire from the field when voluntary institutions, either native or missionary, can be found to take the place of Government institutions," making it clear that the future English education in India lies in the hands of the natives and the missionary organizations, the latter hitherto having held the front place. In the propagation of religious knowledge a~ong the Hindoos the Christian Literature Society merits hearty acknowledgment. Consequent upon the advance of education and religious teaching on the one hand, and the spread of anti-Christian works on the other, the Society's resources were heavily taxed to meet the situation. In its admirable enterprise the Society had the support of the Indian services and of gentlemen most conversant with the wants of India. Founded over thirty years ago by Lord Lawrence, aided by a committee of men of strong religious sentiment, the Society had subsequently enjoyed the fullest sympathy of British and American societies. Its indefatigable secretary, the Rev. James Johnston, F.S_S., has few superiors in a knowledge of India and its people. Several branches of the leading Bible societies and the department of Sunday-school institutions are growingly potent allies in forwarding India's redemption.
Changes of grand import are springing up in IIindostan, many of which furnished indications of an approaching unity in Hindoo nationalities not previously seen, and~ by the awakening and wonderful openings among the low-caste and non-caste populations and their future elevation, the Christian Church was summoned to a task of imposing magnitude. Nor could the Mohammedans of the empire be forgotten. To this influential class in Calcutta alone, 250,000 in number, the Rev. Jani AlIi was the solitary torch-bearer of the true faith. In a reference to the great Mohaminedan population at the English Methodist Conference in Bradford, the Rev. William Arthur said that" it was a tremendous force in the world, and in India, if the power of the English should ever be broken, the Hindoos and the Mohammedans would be brought into conflict with each other, and the latter would win." This weighty deliverance will have the earnest consideration of the workers on India's shores.
If the masses of the people are nominally Hindoos still, the once impregnable front is tottering. Hindooism, described by one of its chief supporters" a religion which has failed to satisfy the cravings of the soul of the educated natives of India," has been shaken to the foundations by the Christian religion_ Prophetic vision was not required to see that in
THE HELIGION OF THE JAPANESE AINU
the numbers of seekers after light, the candidates for baptism, the remarkable expansion of the native Christian churches, and the increasing respect for the message of Christianity, the races of India were drawing nearer to the kingdom of God. Says Sir Charles Elliott, Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal: "The growth of Christianity in India has been a solid fact, and sufficiently rapid to give all needful encouragement to the supporters of missions." By the broad pathways which the Gospel was cleaving through the Indian Empire it was becoming the refuge and delight of countless thirsty souls. Granted that the struggle of Christendom during the century gone has been in the main an affair of outposts, the battalions of Christian chivalry were throwing themselves quickly on the field for the possession of a mighty prize. Signs of this decisive issue were visible, which the forthcoming Decennial General Conference of Indian missionaries of all the Protestant churches would voice in resonant tones. In such a noble crusade for the accomplishing of God's purposes among men Ward Beecher eloquently declared: "Of all the triumphs of the Church, of all her signal victories, I believe that which will stand higher than all others, in the future, will be the work which she has attempted to do for the scattered community. I believe that the work which has been done by the Christian religion for the outcast and outlying populations of the globe will stand in the last day higher and more sovereign than any or every other part of the work of the Christian religion on earth." The emancipation of India's millions calls to the Church of God in many climes to inaugurate a forward missionary policy which shall carry the flag of the King over the plains of a continent possessing a land boundary of 6000 miles and a seaboard of nearly 9000 miles, by which the flanks of the peerleRs Himalaya ranges shall ultimately become the frontiers of a worldconquering faith.
THE RELIGION OF THE JAPANESE AINU.
BY REV. F. F. ELLINWOOD, D.D.
Miss Bird, authoress of "Unbeaten Tracks in Japan," has given currency to the idea that the hairy aborigines of the great island of Yesso have no conceptions or observances which are worthy the name of a religion. Miss Bird made only a hasty visit of a few weeks before writing her book, which was certainly interesting in many respects; but Rev. John Bachelor, for fourteen years a missionary of the Church Missionary Society to the Ainu, has had better opportunities, and he has found a very interesting religious system among these people. This difference of authorities is an old story again repeated. Where hurried travellers or adventurers have declared that this or that obseure race were destitute of all ideas of God, and anthropologists have quoted their superficial statements with all the conclusiveness of scientific facts, the prolonged residence of a more careful investigator has led to very different conclusions.
Miss Bird says: "It is nonsense to write of the religious ideas of a people who have none, and of beliefs among a people who are merely adult children. The traveller who formulates an Ainu creed must evolve it from his own inne7' consciousness. I have taken infinite trouble to learn from themselves what their religious notions are, and Shinondi tells me that they have told him all they know, and the whole sum of it is a few vague fears and hopes, and a suspicion that there are things outside themselves more powerful than themselves, whose good influences may be obtained or whose evil influences may be averted by libations of sake. "
Mr. Bachelor, who uses the word Ainu as a plural without the s, says, on the other hand: "Every one will agree that it would be ' nonsense to write of the religious ideas of a people who have none, and of beliefs among a people who are merely adult children;' but Miss Bird is clearly in the wrong when she implies that the Ainu are without religion, though they may be 'merely adult children.' As a matter of fact, these people are exceedingly religious; and, however true it may be that a mere' traveller who formulates an Ainu creed must evolve it from his inner consciousness,' yet, as one who has spent more years with them than Miss Bird did weeks, I shall venture, in a later chapter, to give an Ainu creed. This creed will be evolved from their daily life and words, and from their highly prized, carefully transmitted traditions."
It is not claimed that the Ainu possess what is generally known as a book religion, or any formulated system of beliefs, but in fragmentary form their religious conceptions are interwoven with their daily life, and they are transmitted in unwritten folk-lore from generation to generation. There is no esoteric system of beliefs monopolized by a priestly class, for there seems to be no priesthood, but the Ainu are reserved in the presence of strangers who seek to learn their faith, and it is only the missionary who has won their confidence, and who, in close and continued contact, has studied their inmost thoughts and habits, that can judge intelligently of their religious faith. According to Mr. Bachelor the Ainu religion fltarts with the monotheistic conception of one supreme creator and upholder of all things. He is not, however, the administrator; on the contrary, having created a great number of inferior deities, and having assigned them to the administration of different departments of the on-going world, he leaves each of these plenipotentiaries in full charge of his particular sphere, where he is practically supreme. It would be a discourtesy for an Ainu to worship one 'deity in the rightful place of another. When fishing or in peril upon the sea, he may call only upon the god of the sea for help or success. The god of agriculture must be appealed to for abundant crops, and the mountain gods for success in hunting. The Ainu do not ordinarily call upon the Supreme Being for help or in any way practically worship .Him, for they understand that He has farmed out His dominions to subordinates whose authority He respects. Practically, therefore, the religion of the Ainu is the polytheistic worship of many gods, who owe their origin to one supreme creator. This rationale of their system is interesting as bearing upon the question whether the growth of religion has advanced from scattered germs of fetichism to an organized system, with monotheism as a final result; or whether the early conceptions of different races have started with the notion of crootorship, leading on to a multiplicity of subordinate gods, as each condition and exigency of life was supposed to require, or as new objects were discovered to have an imaginary efficacy. With the Ainu the latter process seems to have obtained. Their explanations of their system are perfectly logical so far as they go. They trace the distribution of authority among their subordinate deities precisely as they would that of their subordinate chiefs, from its supreme source in their head chief. In answer to the question why they do not offer their prayers directly to the Supreme God, who created and upholds all things, they are represented as saying: "As God has appointed these intermediaries as channels through which we are to approach Hita, we certa~nly ought to do as He directs us, and not as we wish in this matter. ' , But although God always acts through subordinates with respect to human affairs, and never communicates directly with men, so far as experience goes, yet He is not supposed to be idle or indifferent. He superintends all departments of administration and sees that His servants discharge their fuulltions faithfully. If anything is done amiss, it is only a fault in the administration.
The Ainu account for the evils of the world by a theory of dualism and of conflict between good and evil, and they believe that there are not only remiss and unfaithful servants in heaven, but that downright fiends are found among the angels of light. The struggle between good and evil has always existed and steadily increased, and it will never end. Over against each subordinate god, in whatever department, there is an evil one whose business it is to thwart him.
While all things originated in the Supreme God, His subordinates have had a part in the details of creation, and have not always done their work in the most approved manner. The following legend affords an illustration: "It is said that the island of Yesso was made by two gods, a male and a female, who were the deputies of the Creator. The female god had the west C08st allotted to her as her portion of the work, and the male god had the south and eastern portions assigned to him. They vied with each other in their tasks. As the goddess was proceeding with her work she happened to meet with the sister of ' Aioina Kamui '(the first ancestor of the Ainu), and instead of attending to her duties she stopped in her work to have a chat with her, as is the general custom of women. While they were talking the male god worked away and nearly finished his portion of the labor. Upon seeing this the female god became very much frightened, and, in or~er not to be behind time, did her work hurriedly and in a slovenly manner. Hence it is that the west coast of Yesso is so rugged and dangerous. ' , Whatever else the Ainu may be, they are not pessimists; they accept their hard lot and will allow no grumbling. For the ways of Providence they are always ready with a vindication, even though it be a seeming nuisance that is to be accounted for. For example, an old man who had been annoyed at night by a rat which had tried to gnaw off some of his superabundant hair for a nest, reproved the good missionary for speaking too harshly of rats. He gave his reason thus: "After the Creator had finished making the world He came down from heaven to see how all things looked. As He was viewing His works the evil one appeared and derided Him, saying, 'Doubtless you think you have done a very good action and have made all things for the best j but look at this bramble bush and thistle: what can be the use of such things as these l' God was angry at these remarks, so he put his hand behind his back and secretly created a rat. As soon as the rat was created it sprang into the mouth of. the devil and gnawed off his tongue, and it has never grown again. Let us bear with rats a little," sai~ the old man, "for they did one good thing in biting out the tongue of the evil one."
The very shiftlessness of these people is at least devout. An old man was once working for Mr. Bachelor iu his garden. It was in the early spring and the proper season for digging up the ground preparatory to planting seeds. When directed to improve the ground by digging in some manure, in order 1'0 secure a good crop, he said, with surprise: " What! will you, a clergyman,a teacher of religion, so dishonor and insult the gods 1 Will not the gods give due increase without your attempting to force their hand or endeavoring to drive nature 1" The old fellow was not joking. He was thoroughly in earnest. Evidently he had never heard that Adam was set to dress and cultivate even Paradise, or that he is the true benefactor of his race who makes two spires of grass grow where only one grew before.
From incidents like these it is evident that the Ainu cherish a belief in the care of a Divine providence, and accept their hard lot with a cheerful spirit. If their land begins to show exhaustion they simply remove to another plot. It is the gods who cause the earth to yield her increase j man must learn to labor and to wait.
Under these circumstances it seems remarkable that the Ainu do not go farther and evince a sustained and consistent life. One would suppose that their sense of dependence would lead to regular and systematic prayer and worship j but there is very little of this. They pray only in emergencies or for selfish ends. They pray when setting out on a dangerous bear-hunt, or when they wish good luck in fishing. All prayer is a business transaction, never the breathing of a devout soul. It is simply calling upon the proper divine deputy for his official or departmental aid. Sometimes an Ainu returns thanks before eating, but this depends somewhat upon the quality or quantity of what he has to eat.
Another charge, still more serious, we have against him, and that is that he never allows his wife to share in his devotions, and, of course, there can be no such thing as a family religion in which, as in so many nations, the patriarch is the priest of the household.
"The women," says Mr. Bachelor, " do not worship the gods even separately; and they can take no active part in the religious feasts, excepting to provide the food. The reason they never pray is not a belief tM.t they have no souls to pray for or no life in the future world. The very curious reason commonly given is very likely the true explanation- viz., that the men are afraid of the prayers of the women, in general, and of their wives in particular.
"This idea may appear at first sight stupid and irrational, but in reality it is consistent and in full accord with the principles of the Ainu religion. Moreover, it is a logical and intelligible reason.
" The Ainu believes in various gods who hear and answer prayer; he is aware that his wife is not treated as kindly as she ought to be, he knows that his own laziness must be compensated by extra labors on her part, and he recognizes the fact that his inveterate drunkenness is the ruin of his family. Hence his fear of the prayers of women, and of his wife iu particular."
The reasoning here is quite unique. Everywhere heathenism oppresses and degrades woman, and different types of heathenism have their special theories or pretexts upon which they justify the outrage. The grounds here given by the Ainu are entirely original, and they are about the meanest and most cowardly of any yet known. Conscious of abusing their wives here in this world, they contrive to cut them off from all communication with the unseen world, lest the mills of the gods which grind slowly but surely should work out just retribution for their evil deeds.
The religion of the Ainu has traces of that widespread sun-worship which was known in Egypt, Babylon, India, Persia, Mexico, Peru, and many other nations. The Shintoo faith of Japan is of the same general character, the sun-goddess having been regarded as the ancestor of the Mikados; but the Ainu treat this goddess as only one of the deputies, though she is pre-eminent among them. She has a variety of functions, and is a sort of general care-taker and friend, like the Vishnu of the Hindus and the Apollo of the Greeks.
The Ainu havc no priesthood, no altars for sacrifices or offerings, no temples, no stated days for worship. The nearest approach to altars and temples are the inao, mere pieces of wood whittled into shavings, which are left still attached at one end. These are set up as tufted stakes near the house or the fishing-place, or wherever they wish the favor of the respective gods to be shown. They are merely tokens or reminders i they are scarcely fetiches. According to Mr. Bachelor, if an Ainu were to formulate hi& creed of religious beliefs and superstitions, it would be something like this. At any rate, almost every Ainu would assent to the following items as a concise summary of his belief: 1. I believe in one Supreme God, the Creator of all worlds and places, made by " God the maker of places and worlds and possessor of heaven."
2. I believe in the existence of a multitude of lesser deities, all subject to this one Creator. They receive their life and power from Him, and they govern the world under Him.
3. I believe there are also many evil gods, who are ever ready to inflict punishment for wicked deeds.
4. I believe in Aioina Kamui as our ancestor, a man become divine, and who has now the superintendence of, the Ainu race; in a goddess of the sun; in a goddess of fire; in goddesses of rivers; in gods of mountains and forests ; in the gods of animals; in the gods of the sea and of the skies and all things contained therein.
5. I believe in demons, of whom the devil is chief, and also that there are demons who preside over accidents and all evil influences.
6. I believe that the souls both of human beings and animals are immortal ; that separated husbands and wives will be rejoined hereafter; that all people will be judged, and the good rewarded and the evil punished.
7. I believe that the souls of departed animals act as guardians to human beings.
8. I believe in ghosts; that the departed spirits of old women have a mighty power for harm, and that they appear as very demons in nature.
9. I believe that there are three heavens, called respectively" the high vaulty skies," the "star-bearing skies," and "the foggy heavens." I also believe that there are six worlds below us.
The religion of the Ainu differs from most other systems of the East in these particulars : 1. It is free from pantheism. 2. It holds to a real creation instead of any form of evolution. 3. There is no trace of asceticism. 4. There is no jugglery, hypocrisy, or priestly imposture. 5. There is no organic form of religion in the tribe or even In the family, and there are no records. 6. The system is greatly lacking in moral earnestness. The idea of future rewards is vague, and heaven has little attraction. A gospel of light and hope ought to be readily received.
The progress of Christianity in Japan is alarming the Buddhists, and among some of the plans formed in opposition is that of an organization whose members. promise they will have no relations of any kind with Qp,ristiaus, · .
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PWOS
SOMETHING ABOUT THE PWOS.
BY REV. L. W. CRONKHITE, BASSEIN, BURMA.
And particularly about the Bassein Pwos. They used to be written Pghos, but neither that nor Pwos is quite right, for no letters in our alphabet w~Il just fit the native term. Thl.'y differ in Malect from all other Karen tribes, and to some extent also from each other, as locality varies. They are found mostly in Burma, though they are said to extend also into the country on the Siamese border. A gentleman connected with t.he English Forest Department in Burma-Burma is, of course, under the sway of Queen Victoria-told me several years ago that he had followed them for seven hundred miles down the interior of Tenasserim, the long and narrow extension of Bnrma down toward Malacca. However this may be, it is well ascertained that'there is a large mass of Pwo Karens lying in the interior, to the east and sontheast of Moulmein, and it is painful to be obliged to add that no work for Christ has as yet been done among them. Father Brayton, our veteran worker among the Pwos for the last fifty-five years, saw something of them many years ago. The old man has long been calling for a family from America to go and take up life among them, and I cannot write this without a prayer that the eye of their future missionary may rest upon it.
Like other Karen tribes, the Pwos have been wonderfully prepared for the Gospel by their singular traditions handed down from their forefathers. These said in substance, " In olden times we had the Word of God, but lost it in time of famine. Presently our younger brother, a white man, will come in a ship from the West, and will bring it again. " Often the writer has heard the native Christian preachers appeal to this tradition as pointing to the American missionaries. Their traditions of the creation, Eden, and the fall are mysteriously parallel with the Christian Scriptures. The comparatively small numerical resnlts which have been attained among th~s people are chiefly due to the smallness of the mission force which has been employed among them. In a lesser degree it is due also to the fact that they, most of all the Karen tribes, have been attracted by the Buddhism of the Burmese, and not a few Pwo villages have their Buddhist monasteries, and support Burmans as their priests. The people as a whole are, like other Karens, demon worshippers, or rather demon fearers. Practically one might sum it up thus : There is somewhere a God, but He is good and will not hnrt us, and therefore we need pay Him no attention j but the streams and the trees and the fields and the hills are full of malig· nant spirits from whom our sorrows come, and them we must propitiate. It is a great day when the head of a heathen household hands over to a Christian preacher the common old junk bottle which he has used in his propitiatory feasts. and which he holds eminently sacred. We have a hymn and an address and a prayer in view of the magnitude of the occaSlOn.
God seems to have put the work for the Pwos, as for most other Karen tribes, chiefly into the hands of the American Baptists. We have now two central Pwo stations, the one covering the Rangoon-Maubin field, and the other the Bassein district. The first, in charge of Rev. Walter Bushell, has seventeen churches with seven hundred and fifty members, and the Bassein field twenty-nine churches with a membership of about fifteen hundred. Besides these there are several hundreds of Pwos connected with the Karen missions at IIenthada, Moulmein, and Tavoy j so that there are probably in all some twenty-eight hundred Pwo brethren and sisters in Christ. Of course these represent three or four times that number of adherents. The work in the Bassein district was begun in 1854 by Brother II. L. Van Meter, who labored ardently until his death in 1871. His faithful wife followed a year later. Re,'. S. T. Goodell and later Rev. J. T. Elwell were, with their wives, in charge of the field, and continued the laying of broad foundations of self-help among the disciples gathered. Both these brethren have gone to their rest. The present writer and wife succeeded to the work in 1884. Misses Higby, Tschirch, and Black are also connected with this mission. The people for whom this Bassein branch labors number perhaps fifty thousand. The entire Bible has been translated into the Pwo language under the superintendence of "Father" Brayton, now past eighty. The first meeting among the Pwos that the writer was ever privileged to attend-in January, 1884was the praise meeting of all Christian Pwodom, held at the neat village of Thayagone, to celebrate the completion of this work. I remember old pastor Mee Coo, the leading spirit of the Bassein association, pleading at that meeting that every Pwo Christian possess himself of a copy. He argued that, as neither husband nor wife wishes to wait for the cigar which the other may happen to be smoking, much less should the couple reckon a single Bible sufficient for their united use. He is a quaint old man with little education, but built large, and all the time thinking.
Alas ! for that word heathen. Of course we cannot get on without it, and it is true enough in some of the senses in which we use it j but when it comes to mean on all occasions an untutored savage, sitting on the seashore or in the darkness, with a gun in one hand, a spear in the other, a sword in his belt and his whole being calling out for blood, it isn't true j and yet that really is not so far from the picture that that word heathen calls up in the mind of Christ's average disciple at home. The deepest conviction, except one, that my missionary life has wrought into me is that all men are brothers, not simply in the judgment of charity, but as per the facts of the case. People have been surprised when I have said to them that I have worked among the Pwos for months at a -time without the thought ever crossing my mind that they are of a different race from myself. Once in a while it flashes over me, Why, these people are Rarens! Now this is not because I carry a tomahawk and thirst for blood, but because I really cannot see much difference between a Pwo Christian in a jungle in Burma and a Christian at home. They dress differently, of course, and their habits of thought differ in some marked particulars, but for the most part they live in the same spiritual latitudes.
I have in mind two of the former pupils of our school, Myat San and his gentle wife, Nahn Yeng. The former spent four years as a missionary among the Karens of Northern Siam, in the vicinity of Lakon. To reach the scene of this new work required a journey of a month on foot across the mountains, and by boat along the streams. Myat San, after his four years of work, returned to Bassein on furlough, and nearly three years ago was married to Nahn Yeng, to whom he had been for several years engaged. How well I remember this girl, her patient, never-varying sweetness and earnestness of character, her searching of the Scriptures, her constant watch-care over her younger brother and sister in school with her, her natural refinement, and the sweet face which mirrored her heart within! After the wedding in our large school building, the young couple set their faces toward Siam j but not until rumors of war and the gathering of dacoits or banditti along their route had reached them. Her husband wished Nahn Yeng to remain behind rather than risk the dangers of the journey, but she insisted on sharing them with him. They left us in March, 1890. For nearly two years no tidings came from them, except that she had been very ill with fever the early part of the way. Presently came inquiries from the little flock in Siam as to why their missionaries had not returned to them. At length it transpired that they, together with three of the converts from Siam who accompanied them, had been cruelly massacred by the Shan men whom they employed as guides. Four men received, I believe, five dollars each for their bloody work, having been hired by one who had some grudge against the Christians. The Church's martyr-roll was lengthened, and the two whom the mission had spent years in training for their work were in an hour transferred to higher service. The tender flock in their Siam home was left, and is still left, without human care. Our Society is, I understand, waiting for an American family to go to this Karen work in Northern Siam.
Perhaps seven years ago there came to us two young men, strangers, and evidently much stirred. They hastened to tell us that they had been sent from a remote village in a densely heathen district. Some time before, one of the villagers, while away from home, had come upon a copy of the Burmese tract, " Who is Man's Lord 1" written by the elder Haswell. He had brought it home with him, it had been read in the village, much interest had been stirred, and these two had been sent the long distance to Bassein, where, it was understood, a Christian missionary could be found. They were to seek further instruction, and to make inquiries about schools which,. it was said, the Christian missionaries conduct for the Pwo race. I can never forget their intense earnestness. The next tenn, Aung Poo, the younger of these two messengers, entered our Bassein school. He has remained under training ever since, and I have never seen any pupil of any nationality, American or otherwise, show more Christian pertinacity in the pursuit of knowledge. He must have been nineteen when he began. All this is to prepare himself for a life of proclaiming the gospel to his heathen nation, and he is now an honored student in the Karen Theological Seminary. When traveIling with him a few months ago, I was struck by the singular tact, as well as the eager intensity, which characterized his preaching among the heathen whom we visited. Tt is interesting to add that a church was organized in his village not long after his conversion, and that the other messenger who accompanied him on that first visit to the city has ever since been a leader in all good works.
It is pleasant to explain, by instances like these, why it is that the Christian Pwos so win both our esteem and our tender love. When one thinks back over the numbers who have borne estrangement from kindred for Christ's sake, he scarcely knows of which to speak. There rise in mind an old couple who, much of the time for thirty-five years past, have lived alone among scoffing heathen neighbors, and .who all this time have borne brave Christian testimony. It was my privilege three years ago to· witness the baptism of six of the family of one of our brethren who for thirty years had stood alone for Christ. A long seed-sowing, but he had his reward. Not all who are threatened with estrangement from friends are so fortunate nor so shrewd as was one of this man's relatives. His wife with outrageous clamor had averred that the day of his baptism would coincide with the day of their separation. Our quiet friend one day suddenly disappeared. No one could say where. As the days passed his wife began to find the house lonely. She began to make inquiries. Then she began to be anxious. Presently she began to be broken.hearted. She averred that if only her husband would come back, .he might be baptized or anything else, and welcome; and thereupon, after two weeks of voluntary exile, our friend reappeared as suddenly as he had disappeared.
The love of money is s~arcely a root of evil among the Pwos, though wasteful use of it sometimes is. They are very generous among themselves, and carry the same spirit very largely into their church relations. None of the churches receive outside aid, nor do their village schools. American funds are drafted upon for the salaries of the American missionaries among them, for rather less than half the cost of the work done by native evangelists among the heathen villages, and for a part of the expenses of the central schools, including plant. The Bassein plant is now worth about twenty thousand dollars. The entire membership of the twenty-nine churches give on an average a tenth of their incomes for Christian work. Noticing last year that the boys in the Bassein school were not using their new foot-ball ground, though the game is one to which ~ey are devoted, I inquired the reason. After some hesitation the fact waa elicited that they could not afford a new ball. Nevertheles!'l these same boys were giving into my hands every month more than the price of one. One Sunday last dry season, a young man who had just entered the school as teacher, having been for some years a pupil there, brought an offering amounting to twenty-five rupees, or about nine dollars. Some months before he had decided with himself that if ever he came to have a salary of his own, the first-fruits-that is, the pay of the first monthshould all go to the Master's treasury. This nine dollars was the first month's salary. For years he has given heavily of his scanty means. During the past seven years the pupils and teachers of the town school have contributed twenty-two hundred rupees through their" school subscription," in addition to about eight hundred rupees through other channels. At present three rupees about equal one dollar. These contributions have sufficed for eleven hundred feet of good fencing, two or three hundred books for the reading-room, a large glass case, for the incipient museum, cost of painting the new school-room, a covered walk, and for many other things. The missionaries in charge of the school have joined in these contributions, but to no such degree as to make it other than a genuine Karen enterprise. It should be remembered that the children's parents live in houses averaging from twelve to twenty dollars each in value, and I may add that I once, at a loss to myself, purchased a native house for forty cents. Families average probably a little over a hundred dollars each annual income. There have been many touching instances of selfdenial practised by these children and by their Pwo teachers in making these offerings."
But, after all, in the end how truly such giving has its reward! "There is that giveth and yet increaseth." Three foot-balls have been given to the boys since the incident of last year. and I now cry, Hold, enough '! To Son Tay, who gave the first-fruits, God returned within' a few months several times his donation; and the disciples at large rejoice, not only in the increase of their churches and jungle schools, but also in the marvellous way in which God has led them in providing increased facilities for the work of their central school in Bassein. This has one hundred and forty pupils. Five substantial buildings have been added-a chapel and schoolhouse combined, a home for the American ladies who teach in the school, a large dormitory for the girls, one for the boys, and recently a dining-haIl-besides land, grading, fencing, furniture, and apparatus. While speaking of this development of the school, one should not omit to say that every year a large proportion of the older boys and girls, instead: of going home, spend the first two months of the vacation in preaching and teaching in remote heathen or newly Christian villages. Most of our churches come into being by such means. These pupils, when the hot season has so far advanced that not even a native can work, return to their homes for three or four weeks of vacation before the rainy s~ason brings the new term of the town school.
'l'BE Elm OF T11E MOR:lO'N bIJ:LUS10N. rApn'
In connection with this school I can only mention further its flourishing Christian Endeavor Society, its very useful anti-betel-and-tobacco society, and the stirring kindergarten department in charge of Miss Black. The Karens are fine singers when trained, and render difficult selections in English with great sweetness and power. All are taught musical notation. The school having used for several years the Gospel ltymns Nos. 1-4, a supply of Nos. 5 and 6 has just been sent them, largely through the kindness of Mr. Sankey.
Finally, the heathen Pwos have shown for the past few years a marked willingness, not to say eagerness, to listen to the Gospel and to possess schools. To such an extent is this true that the writer has not at all been able to respond to the numerous calls from heathen villages for evangelistic visits; and it is not strange that under such circumstances it well-nigh breaks one's heart to be compelled to leave the field in impaired health. When shall we have money enough and men enough to provide each field with at least two reasonably congenial male missionaries, in addition to the ladies to whom chiefly is committed our indispensable school work 1 THE END OF THE MORMON DELUSIONo BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, OBERLIN, O.
Not, indeed, of the notorious Mormon creed and practice as a whole, but only of its worst, at least most obnoxious feature, polygamy j and besides, the mortal sickness of theocratic rule, another feature utterly un-American, and without which the amazing scheme of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young could never have attained to such frightful proportions or maintained itself so long. No doubt Mormonism as a " church" will live on and on, clinging to not a few mongrel ideas and customs, but no longer above the law of the land. by all possible means fighting Congress and the courts, hoping. by hook or by crook, in the end to win. From henceforth the Latter-day organization, relegated to an " innocuous desuetude," will take its place with various other odd and outlandish sects, very likely the least Christian and most absurd of them all, but to be opposed only with weapons intellectual and moral.
The course of events which justifies this optimistic statement extends backward at least ten years, and found its culmination in the recent amnesty proclamation issued by President Harrison for the relief of all offenders against the Edmunds law. That executive document may properly be regarded as the formal conclusion of the cause celebre of the U n~ted States V8. the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Therefore, as a matter of history, and in what may happily be regarded as an obituary notice, or brief funeral discourse, it cannot but be profitable to take note of some of the most' prominent steps attending the growth, and also the
TIlE END Olr TIlE MORMON DELUSION
decline, of what is without doubt the most astounding religious phenomenon to be found during this century within the bounds of Christendom.
Our backward glance will cover a period curiously close to exactly fifty years-1843-93. For though the vile beginnings may be traced to Kirtland, 0., and to 1831, yet the formal "authorization" of "celestial marriage" dates from the famous" revelation" given to the" saints" in Nauvoo in 1843. And the origin of Mormon polygamy is to be attributed to a threefold cause: first, to a religious fanaticism which knew no rational bounds; next, to an absurd conception, or exegesis, of the Scriptures wherehy what was permitted to the Hebrew saints was made the obligation, at least the privilege, of the saints of our times j and, finally, the accompaniment in the "prophet" and divers of his most influential followers of morals which recognized no law but selfish, carnal desire. By these prominent" elders" polygamy was practised in secret and increas. ingly for years, and then at length, to regulate the perilous innovation, and to prevent scandal and rebellion among the faithful, the" revelation" was duly coined and promulgated, in a quiet way, to all such as could be trusted, bnt to all the world besides for years was denied on all occasions and with language as forcible as could well be framed. Such utterly shameless paltering in a double sense has never been indulged outsid/l the Mormon " church."
Next, by a calamitous happening, soon after ensued the exodus from Illinois to Utah, and more than twenty years of isolation and independenee, freedom from interference and from observation even, with the Rocky Mountains and a thousand miles of the "Great American Desert" between them and any legal control. Hence all manner of vagaries and insane projects found unparalleled opportunity to live, thrive, and unfold themselves. Fixed thus in his secure nest, with the number of his helpless followers wondrously increased by an influx of converts from Great Britain, in 1852 Brigham Young felt strong enough to defy all opposition, and so proclaimed polygamy, defended it from reason and Scripture, and sent out a cloud of elders into all lands to advocate this "restored" boon, this institution so indispensable to humanity's weal. Meantime at home means most unscrupulous and inhuman were employed to compel assent and obedience, and for several years (1854-58) the so-called" reformation" ran its frenzied and infernal course, with" blood-atonement" teaching. and practice as one of the prominent features, and the Mountain Meadows massacre as one of the horrible results.
It was in these same days of stark madness that the hierarch Brigham presumed to play the rebel against Federal authority, and so an army was sent to bring him to terms. Though the immediate result was a miserable fiasco, yet from this time forward Congress undertook to frame measures to end the iniquity and shame. Thus in 1862 soldiers were sent to occupy Fort Douglas, in the immediate vicinity of Salt Lake, and have remained there to this day. It was in the same year also that the first bill against polygamy was passed. This being found insufficient to accomplish the end in view, in 1874 the Poland bill was put upon the statute-book; but the theocracy enthroned and supreme in Utah were able to nullify this law also. But finally, in 1882, the Edmunds law was enaeted, which, with various decisions of the Supreme Court to establish and define it, as well as certain amendments since made, with such eminent judges as Zane and such prosecuting attorneys as Dickson "to enforce it, has accomplished tIle herculean task. The entire polygamous fraternity was disfranchised, by the hundred the many-wived were clapped into prison, with heavy fines imposed, while a larger number fled and lived for years in concealment to avoid such evils. All which was a surprise at first, but presently sore diBappointment deepened into dismay.
As for the leaders, for a long period they were stout-hearted, full of bluster and defiance, while they called loudly on the brethren to stand firm for "conscience" and "religion," promising that in due season victory and peace would come to " Zion," while their enemies would be brought to confusion. At length, however, even the most deluded and determined began to see that no hope remained of being able successfully to resist the will of the nation. Brought to bay, though not in the least to repentance, in October of 1890 " president" Woodruff, the head of the church, uttered a piercing cry for quarter in the shape of a manifesto, or " revelation, " alleged to have been received from the skies, suspending indefinitely the practice and teaching of polygamy on account of the evil times on which the church had fallen. But much more, and decisively, in December of 1891 the officials of the Mormon church united in a petition for amnesty for past offences, coupled with solemn pledges that never more will they withstand the law. After waiting a full year the boon thus humbly sought has wisely been conferred. Thus, exit polygamy as a public question, a national menace, and source of continual disturbance . and disgust.
Thus far I have spoken only of what the law has done working through the President, Congress and the courts, as though it was by such weapons alone that the great battle had been fought and the victory had been won j bu~ at least two other forces have been at work, and most efficiently, throughout the entire period of struggle, without which the consummation over which we rejoice could scarcely have been secured, at least its advent would have been indefinitely postponed. The first is quite material in character. My reference is to the discovery in 1863 of rich mines of silver in Utah, and by the soldiers from California, who the year before had been sent to Salt Lake to keep the "saints" within bounds. This for the first time introduced into the territory a large population ready to " bid defiance to Brigham and his practices, and able to keep the nation well informed of what was said and done in the Great Basin. With these " Gentiles" the newspaper also made its advent, and when the story ot the downfall of polygamy is written, most honorable mention will be made
AT A MISSIONARY'S GRAVE
of the prominent part played by the Salt Lake Tribune. Then finally the telegraph and the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 entered the longsecluded realm of the polygamous theocracy, and so the nation was brought into closest contact with the enormity, and the mortal struggle was joined. The scream of the first locomotive was the death-knell of the" twin relic" of barbarism.
Happily to these two mighty foes of Mormon error and iniquity was joined a third, equal to either in efficiency, and which not only hastened the day of jubilee, but made the fruits of victory vastly more substantia1. Though late in beginning, at length the Christian churches of the land bestirred themselves, and in 1865 the first emissary of as pure gospel entered the valley through Emigration Canon, and in the person of Rev. Norman McLeod, sent by the Congregational Home Missionary Society. Two years later the Episcopalians followed, and the Methodists and Presbyterians two y~f1rs later still, when the railroad was completed. From that day to this ministers and teachers by the score and hundred have plied their vocation in the presence of the " saints," diffusing intelligence, proclaiming the truth as it is in Jesus, and setting an a~tractive example of godliness.
How encouraging is this outcome to all lovers of righteousness, and, how favored is this generation above most, which has been permitted to behold the end of both slavery ,and polygamy!
AT A MISSIONARY'S GRAVE.
BY A. J. GORDON, D.D.
Passing through the historic town of Northampton, Mass., one January day of the present year, I stopped over a train in order to visit a grave. True to the end of the chapter is the saying of John: "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not. " The highest saints are often hidden from the eyes of those among whom they dwell while living, and their sepulchres are soon forgotten when dead. Before entering the gate of the old cemetery I inquired of several passers-by if they could direct me to the grave of Brainerd. "I never heard of him," was the reply, though those of whom I asked the question were by their own confession old residents of the place. I succeeded, however, through the kindness of a Christian gentleman of the town, in finding the grave; and brushing away the snow with which the tablet was covered, I read the inscription: " Sacred to the memory of REV. DAVID BRAINERD, the faithful and laborious missionary to the Stockbridge, ])elaware, and Susquehanna Indians of America, who died in this town, October 10th, 1747. Aged 30."
DOE)s it savor of saint-worship or superstition to be thus exploring old graveyards, wading through snow-drifts, and deciphering ancient headstones in a cold day in midwinter 1 Perhaps so, on the face of it j but let us justify our conduct. What if the writer confesses that he has never received such spiritual impulse from any human being 'as from him whose body has lain now for nearly a century and a half under that Northampton slab 1 For many years an old and worn volume of his life and journals has lain upon my study table, and no season has passed without a renewed pondering of its precious contents. "If you would make men think well of you, make them think well of themselves," is the maxim of Lord Chesterfield, which he regarded as embodying the highest worldly wisdom. On the contrary, the preacher and witness for Christ who makes us think meanly of ourselves is the one who does us most good, and ultimately wins our hearts. This is exactly the effect which the reading of Brainerd's memoirs has on one. Humiliation succeeds humiliation as we read on. How little have I prayed how low has been my standard of consecration " is the irresistible exclamation j and when we shut the book we are not praising Brainerd, but condemning ourselves and resolving that by the grace of God we will follow Christ more closely in the future. An early biographer states the case exactly, we believe, when he says of this remarkable man: "One must be either a very good or a very bad man who can read his life witboQt blushing for himself. If ardent piety and enlarged benevolence, if supreme love to God and the inextinguishable desire of promoting His glory in the salvation of souls, if persevering resolution in the midst of the most pressing discouragements, if cheerful self-denial and unremitting labor, if humility and zeal for godliness united with conspicuous talents render a man worthy of remembrance, the name of Brainerd will not soon be forgotten."
But our interest in Brainerd's grave lies especially in this: that, standing there, we stand at one of the founta~n sources of modern missions. We doubt if any single life has given such powerful and such permanent impulse to the great movement for the world's evangelization which we are now witnessing as that of this young man, who died at less than thirty years of age.
Within a few rods of his last resting-place stands the old elm which marks the residence of Jonathan Edwards, that theologian and Christian philosopher whom Robert Hall pronounces" the greatest among mortals." This may be an extravagant estimate, but it is the opinion of one of the greatest men of another of the greatest. Edwards in turn gives this estimate of Brainerd: "I never knew his equal, of his age and standing, for clear and accurate notions of the nature and essence of true religion and its distinctions from its various false appearances." We know something of the influence of Edwards in inaugurating the era of modern missions, but perhaps we have thought too little of the influences by which he himself was moved.
Let us recall the fact that in 1747 he issued his famQus appeal, entitled "An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and vuible union 01 God'~ people in extraordinary prayer lor a revival 01 religion and the ad- vancement 01 Christ's kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture promises and prophecies concerning the last time. " This appeal was the echo of one issued a year before from Scotland. It had such a powerful effect upon one Englishman at least that a recent writer names it as one of the chief factors in "the making of Carey." But what especially moved Edwards in the writing of it g Our reply is more than a conjecture. During this year (1747) Brainerd was dying of consumption at the house of Mr. Ed- wards, in Northampton. In his sickness he was pouring out those incom- parable yearnings for the effusion of the Spirit and the advancement of God's kingdom in the earth, which we now read from his own.diary and from Edwards's report of them. We give one example from many. "He said to me one morning, as I came into his room," writes Edwards, " , My thoughts have been employed on the dear old theme, the prosperity of God's Church on earth. As I waked out of sleep I was led to cry for the pouring out of God's Spirit and the advancement of Christ's kingdom, for which the dear Redeemer did and suffered so much.' . . . He expressed much hope that a glorious advancement of Christ's kingdom was near at hand, . . . and on his deathbed a full persuasion that he should in heaven see the prosperity of the Church on earth and should rejoice with Christ therein." Turn now to Edwards's appeal and note its phraseology and spirit, and ask how much these yearnings of Brainerd had to do with it. Did he speak only from conjecture when recording his opinion that " however, Mr. Brainerd, during the last four months of his life, was ordi. narily in an extremely weak and low state, often scarcely able to speak j yet he was made the instrument 01 much more good in that space 01 time than he would have been if he had been well and in lull strength 01 body. " The greatest teachers are they who are the most docile scholars. Weare strongly convinced that Brainerd's deathbed was Edwards's missionary college, and that the latter meant all he said when he expressed his gratitude to the Providence which ordered that the devoted young missionary should pass away at his house, thus enabling him" to see his dying behavior, to hear his dying speeches, to receive his dying counsels, and to have the benefit of his dying prayers." It is enough that we ask the reader to note that it was during the months from July to October, 1747, that Brainerd was dying at the Northampton mansion, giving utterance continually to those earnest heart-breathings for the spread of the Gospel throughout the world j that during this same year Edwards issued from that mansion the appeal which has been named the "trumpet-call of modern missions j" and four years later, in spite of the urgent invitations to high positions which his acknowledged genius had won for him, the great divine chose the calling of his departed friend, and went, in 1751, as a missionary to the Stockbridge Indians.
If we thus infer how strongly, through Edwards, Brainerd wrought for the making of Carey, we know that he influenced him directly and strongly in his life in India. Weare familiar with the story of Charles Simeon, of Cambridge, hanging the portrait of Henry Martyn just over his study table, that those earnest eyes, looking down upon him, might perpetually admonish him to faithfulness in Christ's service, as if he were saying, " Be in earnest; don't trifle, don't trifle." In the same way did Carey hang up before him a mental portrait of the devoted young missionary to the American Indians, that he might feel its constant inspiration. For in the spiritual covenant which he drew up for the guidance of himself and his brother missionaries at Serampore occurs the clause: "Let us often look at Brainerd, in the woods of America, pouring out his very soul before God for the perishing heathen, without whose salvation nothing could make him happy."
Are we mistaken, then, in our impression that in standing at Brainerd's grave we are at one of the most potent sources of modern missions 1 Let us follow still further this stream of missionary influence. In Cambridge University, Henry Martyn one day heard Rev. Charles Simeon talking glowingly of the work of William Carey in India, and of " the untold benefits resulting from the services of a single missionary." This conversation put a thought into the heart of the young prizeman which did not find immediate development or expression. A little later he read the memoir of David Brainerd. "He was much struck with Brainerd's biography," says the writer of his life, "and, filled with holy emulation, he resolved to follow the noble example of a man who had jeoparded his life unto death on the high places of the heathen field." Thus did the impact of Brainerd's consecration move and determine another whom the Church reckons among her most eminent missionaries. Indeed, the character and career of Henry Martyn more nearly resembled that of Brainerd than any with whom we are acquainted. As we follow him to India and read the entry in his journal: "In my conversation with Marshman, the Baptist missionary, our hearts sometimes expanded with delight and joy at the prospect of seeing all the nations of the East won to the doctrine of the cross ;" and as we read another entry, " I lay in tears, interceding for the unfortunate natives of this country, thinking within myself that the most despicable sudra of India was of as much value in the sight of God as the King of Great Britain;" and again, "I found my heaven begin on earth ; no work so sweet as that of praying and living wholly to the service of God," we say, " Surely the mantle of Brainerd has fallen on Martyn." As strikingly alike as were these two missionaries in their ardent consecration, so were they in the circumstances of their early, death. Yet once more is the powerful influence of Brainerd traced in the making of a missionary. In the journal of Robert Murray McCheyne, we find this entry: " June 27th1 1832 : "Life of David Brainerd, Most wonderful man! What conflicts, what depressions, desertions, strength, advancement, within thy torn bosom! I cannot express what I think when I think of thee. To-night more set on missionary enterprise than ever."
McCheyne did not live to become a laborer on the foreign field, yet indirectly he was one of the most influential of missionaries. To him it was given to see clearly the relation of the conversion of Israel to the final ingathering of the Gentiles. "To seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel is an object very near to my heart," he writes. "I feel convinced that if we pray that the world may be converted in God's way, we shall seek the good of the Jews." How active and influential he was in in- augurating missions to the Hebrews need not here be told. Only let us not forget to what large proportions the humble beginnings of his day have grOWN, so that now there are not less than fifty missionary societies en- gaged in making known to Israel the claims of Jesus Christ as their true Messiah. Brainerd, Martyn, McCheyne-what a trio! They all died under thirty-two years of age, and yet how effectually they wrought! It was one power which moved them all; and yet we have seen how, by a kind of spiritual laying on of hands, the first was honored of God to com- municate apostolic grace to the others.
But we have wandered far away from the Northampton grave. Let us return to it for a little: I' When you see my grave, then remember what . I said to you while I was alive." So the young missionary said to the members of the Edwards household not long before he died. There could not be anything of ostentation in such a request, for Brainerd was one of the humblest of men, and the privilege of reading his instructive journals we owe to Edwards' refusal to regard the dying request of his friend that they should be destroyed.
~et us heed the injunction, and recall a few things which he said in his last days. " He dwelt much on the great importance of the work of min- isters," says Edwards, "and expressed his longings that they might be filled with the Spirit of God. Among many other expressions he said thus: 'When ministers feel these special gracious influences of the Spirit on their hearts, it wonderfully assists them to come at the consciences of men, and, as it were, to handle them with hands j whereas without them, whatever reason and oratory we make use of, we do but make use of stumps instead of hands.' "
Alas! is there not too much of this clumsy haudling of consciences in our day ~ The clumsiness of culture without the spirit, the illiteracy of that literacy which can read all books but that of the human heart-how much we see of this on every hand! By the Holy Spirit alone can we " come at men's consciences." As the Holy of Holies was lighted only by the glory of the Lord, so with man's inner court, which is called the spirit. It is only the Spirit of God that can illuminate the spirit of man. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him j neither can he know them." So have we read a hundred times, and yet how slow are we to believe the words! The pre- sumption of scholarship is visible on every. hand in these days. Men use " the scientific method" in the handling of the Word of God and the logical method in handling the hearts of men, with, alas ! too little recog· nition of the Spirit in many cases. And what is the result ~ As Uzziah, the king, presumed to enter into the sanctuary to offer incense unto the Lord, and as a judgment from the Almighty became leprous in the fore- head, so with those who make their learning the great qualification for ministering in divine things. They became rationalistic whose first care should be to become spiritual. And what is rationalism but leprosy. in the forehead, the brain disease which is begotten by unsanctified learning! The great missionary spoke from his own marvellous experience when he recommended the power of the Holy Ghost as the great qualification for reaching the hearts of men. With everything against him, the besotted and brutalized character of the congregation, on the one hand, and his own ignorance, in some instances of their dialect, on the other. he yet witnessed marvels of gospel triumph, so that once, having as his mouthpiece only a drunken Indian who acted as interpreter, he saw a veritable Pentecost fall on his savage congregation. Yes, noble missionary, here is the secret which all ambassadors for Christ at home and abroad have need to relearn of thee.
Another lesson closely connected we do well to heed. Mr. Edwards says: "The reader has seen how much Mr. Brainerd recommends the duty of secret fasting, and how frequently he exercised himself in it ; nor can it well have escaped observation how much he was owned and blessed in it, and of what benefit it evidently was to his soul. Among the many days he spent in secret prayer and fasting, of which he' gives an account in his diary, there is scarcely an instance of one which was not either at~nded or SOOT/. followed with apparent succe8S, and a remarkable ble3sing in special influences and consolations of God's Spirit, arid very often before the day was ended. "
This example and the accompanying comment are worthy of careful study. Only let the reader recur to the story of Brainerd's fast-days and prayer-days as they stand written in his own journals. No human experience which we have ever read brings us so near Gethsemane. Sometimes his intensity of supplication is such that his garments are wet through with his sweat; sometimes his self-abasement is so deep that he cannot lift up his head before God; and sometimes, again, he rises to such heights of spiritual victory that he seems able to grasp the whole world in his arms and lift it up before God.
When we think of the obscurity and humility of Brainerd's work, wrought as it was among a decaying race, and in the depths of forest through which he journeyed without companion or coadjutor, and then mark the vast influence of his life upon the great missionary movement of our times, we can reach but one conclusion-viz., that the greatest instrument which God has put intu thf) hauds of men is prayer. 'rhis agency truly mastered constitutes the missionary irresistible in the power and per- suasion of his work among the heathen, and enables him to open a fountain of influence which shall bless distant generations after he is dead. There is a beautiful paragraph of Fenelon's about" the community of spiritual goods," as he names it, the having in common of the inner experiences of grace which characterizes the brotherhood of Christ, so that, however divided, the Church has divine proprietorship in all the saints of all the ageR. The aptness of this observation deeply impressed us while standing at the Northampton tomb. This young missionary, toiling in prayer, in the solitary wilderness, was, though he knew it not, laying up a rich store on which those of other generations should feed. Read the memoirs of Payson, and learn how he was impressed and enriched by this devoted life. To McCheyne, Brainerd's journals seem to have been a kind of spiritual directory. "I yearn to climb near to God, to love and long and plead and wrestle and stretch after Him." So wrote the Scotch saint in one of his letters; but a marginal note reminds us that he is repeating a prayer of Brainerd's. Setting out on his mission to Palestine, McCheyne writes again: "I do hope we shall go forth in the Spirit, and though straitened in language, may we not be blessed as Brainerd was through an interpreter 1" Thus the inspiration lived on. Martyn was moved, as we have seen, by both Brainerd and Carey ; and in his early missionary days we find him holding sweet fellowship with the Serampore brethren, and entering with them into that spiritual covenant which brought Brainerd's picture before them at every reading. Puritan, churchman, and Baptist, they have all things in common; neither does any count aught of spiritual goods which he has his own. Not only possessions but p~ssessors are the general inheritance of the Church. " They are all ours; they who spake another speech, the dead who can never die. Chrysostom and Henry Martyn, buried at Tocat, are brothers with us in the same resurrection with the saintly Crocker as he lies in the hot sands of the African coast, and Judson, sleeping till the sea shall give up her dead. Stoddard, with his astronomy ending in the star of Bethlehem as he teaches it among the Nestorian Hills; John Williams, yielding his back to the smiters at Erromanga ; Morrison, giving the Bible to China; the faithful Moravians in the north-who shall separate us from these 1" * A community of spiritual goods truly, but more than that, "The goodly fellowship of the prophets and the noble army of martyrs" are all one and have all as one.
UNIVERSAL BELIEF IN GOD.-Fred Stanley Arnot found everywhere in Africa, he tells us, first the conception of a Supreme Power, and second. ly a future beyond death, so that we have these instincts everywhere to appeal to in our missionary work.
.. Dr. S. L. Caldwell's sermon, .. The Missionary Resources of the Kinl:dom of Christ."
THIRD DECENNIAL CONFERENCE-INDIA
* THIRD DECENNIAL CONFERENCE-INDIA.
BY REV. HOMER O. STUNTZ, NAINEE TAL, INDIA.
Allahabad had the honor of entertaining the first Decennial Conference in India in 1872 ; Calcutta played the host in 1882, and Bombay takes this rdle in 1892-93.
THURSDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 29TH, at 10 A.M., the third session was opened in the Wilson College, Chowpatty, Bombay, Rev. D. Mackichan, D.D., in the chair. The sight was impressive. The large hall was packed in every part. Between six and seven hundred missionaries, representing more than thirty societies, were present. Hero were men and women from the borders of Thibet, from the wilds of British Bhutan, from the jungles of Santhalia, Berars, Southern, Central. and Northern India. Men and women whose names are household words were being pointed out when I entered the hall.
The programme embraced twenty main subjects with all their ramifications. I can only speak briefly of a few of those which seem likely to be of the most general interest.
Work Among the Depressed ClasselJ and the Masses was the subject for the first day. It is widely known that the last five years has witnessed mighty strides in missionary work among these down· trodden ones. Op' position' to this work has been keen, and not always courteous. The discussion of this theme was not only evangelical, but, strangely enough to some of us, it did not bring out "so much as one discordant note. Some had come braced for a struggle to maintain their positions as workers among the submerged sixth of the empire, but their occupation was gone.
The discussion fell under three heads: (1) Nature of Instruction Given (a) before Baptism, (6) after Baptism j (2) Moral and Spiritual Results Produced j (3) Best Methods of Work for the Future.
There was a wide divergence of opinion and practice on the first point. Rev. A. Campbell, Free Church Mission, Manbhum, Bengal, said his work among the Kols had taught him to deal with each case on its merits. Hard and fast rules laying down certain memoriter lessons as conditions precedent to baptism in every case were a yoke that no missionary among these classes is able to bear. Instruction given must vary with the intelligence of tjle candidate. He required candidates for baptism to give intelligent responses to questions about their faith in a personal God, and in the Lord Jesus Christ as a present and eternal Saviour from sin; to promise renunciation of all heathen and idolatrous customs, and to pledge themselves to abstain from all intoxicants-the latter statement being loudly applauded. He had known one good old man who tried ih vain to memorize the Lord's Prayer and some portions of a simple catechism who .* The programme in Inll has appeared in the Jannary number, p. 55, and remarko on some of the papers in March, p. 205. yet had great power in Qxhortation, whose life was one long act of devotion, and whose prayers in the congregation led the people into the very presence of God. "It is not the man who has the most knowledge who is the best Christian." Other speakers agreed substantially with Mr. Campbell, Rev. D. Sutherland, of the Scotch Church, Sikkim, being inclined to be more strict as to the amount and character of instruction given before baptism -generally the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, and the Shorter Catechism, with baptism delayed usually six months.
Instruction after baptism was of many kinds. Broadly it might be said· to be such as would be suitable for and profitable to readers and non-readers respectively. With the former post· baptism instruction was tolerably easy of impartation. The regular divine services, the Word of God in their own tongue, tracts and periodicals, afforded opportunity for this work. With non-readers the task was great. Mr. Campbell and others alluded to the difficulty of getting the dwellers in remote villages together for meetings. In the day they are out earning their livelihood; at night they fear to venture from their huts in the jungle, for fear of wild beasts and serpents. For these, house·to-house catechising secured the only way of post.baptismal instruction.
As the last point, "How best to work for the future," Mr. Campbell said he knew nothing better than the advice of Paul to Timothy: "Preach the Word ; be instant in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." It was shown by several speakers that word is being passed along the lines of these depressed classes that in Christ alone is there hope for them in this world, and in all that may come after this world. The movement is not confined to anyone mission nor to anyone part of the country.
The loyalty of these converts from despised classes was shown in some thrilling incidents. Mr. Sutherland told of a Gurkha who was baptized in British Bhutan at dead of night, and who, after the keen edge of his clansmen's anger had been blunted, began to preach Christ in the bazars and streets. His tribesmen came upon him one day while so engaged and said: ' , You must not speak any more in this name. If you begin it again we will kill you." The brave man answered: " Very well~ kill me j but remember that if you kill me God will raise up ten men in my place to do this work. "
Rev. A. Campbell declared it was not, as some had asserted, a low motive that led these sweepers and other pariahs to desire Christian education for their children. "Should we not rejoice that these, who have been so long down-trodden and despised, should begin to feel the stirrings of manhood and desire to assert their right to take a position along with other men ~"
On tlle whole, the discussion revealed a remarkable unanimity of sentiment regardiug the great advance among the lower classes, and the feeling was that we should unfeignedly rejoice that God is taking the poor Indian beggar and outcast from the dunghill and setting him among the princes of the kingdom of God.
Work Among Lepers was the subject of one of the sectional meetings in the afternoon. The speeches by Rev. G. M. Bullock and W. J. Richards dealt with the asylums under the care of the speakers. Great things have been done in the asylum at Almorah. Opened by a Christian civilian in 1849, it was made over to the Rev. J. H. Budden and his wife soon after, and has remained under the care of the London Mission at that point ever since. It has now 136 patients. Twenty-one of these received Christian baptism at one service recently j 500 have accepted Christ while within its walls during the fifty years of its history. One convert, Musuwah, Mr. Bullock described as the grand old man among lepers. He was III the asylum for thirty years, and totally blind for twenty years. His work for his brother and sister lepers was Christlike and tireless. His songs, his prayers, his faithful, loving rebukes all worked for the salvation and edification of those who were with him in the loathsome bonds of leprosy. After excruciating agonies, borne with" a triumphant patience,". he passed last year to the pure and painless life at God's right hand. Inmates live in small cottages containing four each. These are built in rows of six, and each row is under the care of a man or woman overseer from among the patients, called a pathan. These puthanB form the panchayat, or Committee of Control. Separate Bible classes are held for men and women. Attendance upon these and upon all other religious services is wholly voluntary. But when the poor leper hears of the hope in Christ, the dark cloud of his despair lifts. He hears that there is hope for him, and the message is so sweet that compulsion is not needed to secure his attendance at the services. Separation of apparently healthy children from leprous parents has often proved effectual in preventing the appearance of leprosy in the children. Authority to compel separation is lacking, and parental love is not always unselfish.
Rev. W. R. Winstone, Wesleyan, Upper Burmah, told of starting an asylum in Mandalay in 1890. All classes of the public were ready to help. Money came from Buddhists as well as from Christians. God has blessed the beginning. Sixty inmates have come in in the year and a half of its existence. No help had been received from outside of Burmah except one subscription from the Prince of Wales. One civil officer gave five hundred rupees ($170). There have been a few conversiqns. One old woman with feet and arms both rotted away, and with her eyeballs eaten out by the awful disease, crawled moaning to the door soon after the asylum was opened. She was admitted, and washed j her wounds were mollified with healing oils, and she was told of Jesus and taught to pray. A few days after, being in unspeakable agony, she cried: " Oh, Isa Masih, take me, a poor, dying leper j wash out my siu, and take me to live with . thee. " These were her last words. Who shall doubt that her cry was heard ~ Mr. Winstone placed a high estimate on the evidential value of leper work. It is "fruit meet" for followers of Him" who went about doing good," and will do more to commend our purely spiritual work than we can estimate. .
It was the unanimous opinion of all present that government should be asked to segregate lepers by law. At least all who appeared as public beggars should be rigidly secluded in asyhlms.
SECOND DAy.-The Native Ohurch in India-Its Organization and Self-Support, was the subject discussed.
Thoughtful papers by Mr. Kali Charan Banerji, B.A., B.L., Calcutta, and Rev. Jacob Chamberlain, D.D., Madanapalle, Madras, were in our hands. Mr. Banerji is a convert of Dr. Duff, and was a member of the Free Church of Scotland. He has now set for himself the task of uniting all the churches in India under one" canopy," which has been called" the Christo Soma,j." The drift of his contention and proposal may be gathered from the following short quotations from his most suggestive paper: " That the missionaries of India, the majority of whom represent for- eign missions, should, in confe"ence assembled, embody in their pro- gramme the conception of ' the native Church,' is an indication of mo- mentous significance. It signifies on their part a readiness to recognize the ideal that the native Church in India should be one, not divided j native, not foreign. Nay, it conveys the promise that henceforth they shall not impose by rule upon the converts they are privileged to gather the accidents of denominational Christianity, at once divisive and exotic, with which theY themselves happen to be identified. . . ." Mr. Banerji calls essentials" substantive" Christianity, and thc accidents of organiza- tion and creed" adjective" Christianity. This will explain the next quota- tion: "The ground being thus cleared for Indian Christians to lay a foundation of adjective Christianity for themselves, they should, in view of unity and native development, start with as simple a basis as possible, admitting of initial union and of concerted progress toward a more com- plex goal. There must be no cutting or clipping when substantive Chris- tianity is in the question. Not one iota of it should be sacrificed at the altar of adjective unity. But as regards matters of procedure, the bond of union should be so formulated as to allow freedom on points, the ac- centuation of which might lead to dismemberment. Such a plan of opera- tions is called for at the present stage to enable Indian Christians to op- pose a united front against the array of unbelief against them, as also to secure the needful co-operation of leaders of Indian Christian thought to work out a suitable system of adjective Christianity for natives of India. . . . Subscription to what is known as the Apostles' Creed and the appointment of committees to regulate the maintenance of Christian .ordinances and of missionary effort might be sufficient for the purpos~ of a starting point j and such a basis, we believe, would lay an effectual foundation for the native Church in India, if only the foreign churches in' the field were prepared to exercise the forbearance of faith. "
Dr. J. L. Phillips, Secretary of the India Sunday-school Union, said he would offer the testimony of one of the oldest, wisest, and most spiritual native pastors in India as his own testimony. This old man had said to him recently: "We are not ready for union. We are not ready to trust one another, and we have not properly trained our children. Only the Holy Ghost can lead in suc)l a far-reaching matter, and we must work on in love, ready to follow His leading when God's time comes for union." So he would say with the Revelator, " He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear- what the Spirit saith unto the churches."
~ev. J. Shilliday, Irish Presbyterian, Guzerat, said he was reminded of a proverb, "Catch your hare before making your soup." He would emphasize the gathering rather than the organization of the Church. First get the Church. Life always compels an organization for itself.
Self-support was also thoroughly threshed out so far as it could be on paper and platform. All recognized the vital need of securing an allarollnd self-support at the earliest possible hour. Mr. Kali Charan Banerji deprecated making self-support a mere matter of rupees. He would have it include the supply of an indigenous pastorate and the erection and care of churches, together with aggressive missionary work.
Rev. F. Hahn, Gossner's mission, spoke at length in favor of a minute scheme for even taxiug assistants and communicants, as well as foreign missionaries, so as to swell funds raised in India. In these latter suggestions he met with no sympathy. He urged receiving contributions in kind. Let the people bring their vessels of rice and wheat, and drive their kids and cattle to God's house, and let the proceeds be put into the Lord's treasury. Insistence upon support in money only hindered self-support among the poor villagers. In his mission it was no uncommon thing to sec a farmer lead his bullock to the church and fasten him to the doorhandle as a token that he was an offering of substance unto the Lord. He also pleaded earnestly for keeping the expenses of the mission machinery at the lowest possible figure. " Weare working for a condition of things which poor people can perpetuate." Pastors should be trained men, and trained men cost money. An inferior order of pastors was being started among them.
Bishop Thoburn said our efforts toward self-support had begun at the wrong end.We have been thinking of and planning for the cities. We must plan for the jungle villages. In December of 1903 there willbe a million Christians in India. What shall be done then? A trained pastorate will be utterly out of the question. We err in making the percentage of giving demanded from our Christians too high, because salaries of pastors are too high. V{e ask native Christians to give two annas in the rupee-one eighth. Have we thought what that percentage would mean . for ourselves? He had proposed one pice a family per week (two cents a month). Let the circuit system be worked, and a few hundred families in contiguous villages could support their own ministry. We must plan for the villages. The strong men and the resources are there, poor as the out- look seems.
THIRD DAY.- Work Among· the Educated Classes of India occupied the forenoon session.
Mr. Modak called attention to the rapidly increasing number of educated Indian youth, whose education had .driven them from their old anchorages, but had left them wholly adrift on " the sunless sea of doubt. " Many were atheists. They must be evangelized. Many are convinced, but wait for relatives. He had an uncle who was supposed ready for baptism, but who had gone to bring his wife, and had not returned.
Rev. H. U. Weitbrecht, Ph.D., of the Punjab, pleaded for more intimate social touch with these educated classes. He said we must treat them as men and brothers. We must get close to them if we would win them for Christ. Love could not be simulated. None are more keen to the mere simulation of love and sympathy than the educated Indian. He differed from the position of Mr. Slater in the paper before the conference. He believed we needed dogma. Mr. Slater pleads for" less dogma and more life ;" he knew no dogma worth the name which was not built on facts, and these were the corner· stones of all trnth. Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, of Lahore, said that the greatest hindrance to work among these young men which he had found in the Punjab and Northwest India is the society known as the Arya Somaj. Its members were in open and constant antagonism to the Gospel. His greatest difficulty was to get to see what they thought about things. When he could see what their thought was, then he could plan his campaign to win them. We who would work among educated Indians must interest ourselves in those things which interest them-social, mental, and political. Young Hindu students founded a regular prayer-meeting at his college, and when the founder died the missionary was called in to offer prayer. He saw encouragement in this. A native Christian, now in government employ, had told him that )lis conversion was due, under God, to letter after letter written him by a busy missionary who once travelled seventy miles in the hottest time of the year to see him about his soul's salvation. Rev. Maurice Phillips, L. M. S., Madras, said that the painful part of this whole question is that the only organized opposition which Christianity has yet had to meet has been from the efforts of Hindu graduates of our universities. They remain as bigoted and as bitter against the Gospel as the most ignorant village gura. The Hindu Tract Society had for its president a graduate of the Madras Uni. versity. His creed was almost violently idolatrous. lIe was convinced that this conference should make a call to all the home churches for especial efforts to save this large and growing class of the Indian community. (This statement was enthusiastically applauded.) Rev. H. Haigh, Wesleyan Mission, Mysore, called for sympathy for thc,.;c youug fellows ill their mental difficulties. Thcse were great. Ve should put ourselves iu their places. Their education had made it impos- sible for them to be honest in a profession of orthodox Hinduism. They hear of educated unbelievers in the Yest, and, from their own position, conclude that just as education in India produces a mental revolt against local orthodoxy, so education in England produces a similar revolt against English orthodoxy. 'Ve must sympathize with them, and be patient and hopeful. He saw many signs of hope. A highly educated Brahman said in his hearing not long ago: "The best thing for us all would be to go to sleep to-night and wake up Christians."
Rev. R. A. Hume, M.A., Ahmednagar, said we must approach the whole man as the Y. lf. C. A. are doing. We must keep Christ to the front. Our work will succeed among this, as among other classes, when it is done in the Spirit of Christ and for the glory of God.
On Sunday the various pulpits of the city were filled by visitors, but at three P.M. we all met at Wilson College Hall and heard a magnificent resume of the first century of modern missions. The speaker was the veteran Baptist missionary, Rev. G. Kerry, of Calcutta; the text, He thanked God and took courage, Acts 28 : 15. Space forbids even a brief account. Following the sermon was the united holy communion. I shall leave the reader to imagine the scene, which proved in a marked way how rapidly our Lord's thrice-repeated prayer for the oneness of His people is being answered.
FOURTH DAY.-The subject was explosive. Many braced themselves for warfare-mild perhaps, but nevertheless for war. Education as a Missionary Agency is a theme which might easily provoke a sharp discussion. Critics have not been wanting who have most severely arraigned the whole policy of education on both a priori and posteri01'i grounds. Happily only one interruption marred the perfect harmony and Christlike spirit of th!) session, and that was at once suppressed by the cool firmness of the chairman, Dr. Hooper.
Dr. J. C. R. Ewing was the first speaker. He still believed educational mission work legitimate and as important as any. No one department could claim all success. Bazar preaching is often barren j so aiso are zenana work, medical work, literary ·work. But shall they therefore be given up 1 Never! As the first requisite for success in higher educational work the school or college must be permeated by a Christian spirit. Next, the Bible must be carefully and enthusiastically taught. " It is the Gospel of the Old and New Testaments, and not our thoughts about them, which we must give our pupils." The school-room is the educational missionary's preaching-place. Intimate personal relationR must be kept up between the professor and his pupils. The comparative barrenness of this work in recent years is due largely to the organization of so many half-way houses as the various somajes of India. Fair and candid criticism is welcomed. We who are in the work are the first to acknowledge how much we fall short of our ideals. More and more should all engaged in this work seek the enduement of power from 011 high.
Rev. L. B. Wolf, M.A., Guntur, reviewed the papers which were in our hands, concluding (1) that the New Testament had no prohibitive will against higher education as a missionary agency; (2) that such work fills a gap between the ignorance and superstition of Hinduism in general and the dangers incident to a morally colorless education such as might be had at purely government schools; (3) that it is necessary, if wc would leaven the thought of educated young India with the Gospel; (4) that educational missionaries preach the Gospel of Jesus .Christ, full and free, and if results are slow iu appearing they should not be charged with the blame.
Bishop Thol urn prefaced his remarks by saying that he wished there might be a hundred more colleges like the one whose abundant hospitality this conference is sharing. Many rush to the extreme of criticism by making the mistake of supposing that because something is best, other things are not good. We need to remember that all our lives converge upon one point. He had not found an ideal Christian college even in America. Asking us to remember what he had said at first, he hoped the time would soon come when, following providential in.dications, we could have Christian colleges i.n India in two senses : Christian pupils and Christian teacher,. Make the atmosphere as thoroughly Christian as possible, frame the work with a view to Christiav- pupils, and let it be understood that Hindus and Mohammedans are welcome if they will come on these terms. He agreed with Dr. Ewing in believing that that which makes an institntbn of real missionary value is the Christian atmosphere pervading the class-rooms. He had learned since coming to the conference that many supposed the mission he represented to be opposed to educational work. Two colleges in Lucknow and all the system of primary, secondary, and high schools feeding these colleges ought to be sufficient reply to such a baseless claim. He believed a great, overshadowing Christian university for India to be the goal toward which we should pray and labor. Then from bottom to top it could be wholly Christian.
Kali Charan Banerji and Dr. Mackichan opposed the idea of a Christian university, on the ground that it would separate the native Christian from their non-Christian brethren, and thus a powerful factor would be dropped out of the problem of winning these for Christ.
In the afternoon an interesting Sabbath discussion took place, in which the suggestion of the Rev. F. W. -Warne, B.D., of Calcntta, that a Sab· bath union should be formed, was heartily endorsed.
FIFTH DAy.-The Social Oondition of the Lowe?· Glasses was discussed in the forenoon. The question affects South India chiefly, and has arisen from the discovery of the semi-enslaved condition of the pariahs there. It was agreed that the surest way to elevate them is to evangelize them. Something, howe'er, might be done by way of seeking governmental interference on their behalf. Missionary Comity occupied one of the sectional meetings in the afternoon.
Rev. A. Clifford, C. M. S., bishop-elect of the see of Lucknow, advocated the old district system pure and simple. He would have all extension take the form of occupation of new territory. If we did otherwise we were not working according to the mind of the Spirit.
Bishop Thoburn closed the debate. He said that India has tried the district system for a hundred years, and it has utterly failed. District lines are not observed even by those who advocate them, as every missionary of experience knows. Besides, no good purpose would be served if they were observed. No real work of God hinders any other work of God. Is it possible that we cannot work together? He was surprised that the members of the conference dared to hope for a condition of things on the mission field which was impossihle of attainment in the life and work of churches in' England and America. At every stage of his missionary life of thirty-three years he had been met by this charge: "You are interfering." He began a Sunday-school in Naini Tal years ago, but had to shut it up because it interfered. If this policy which is being advocated so strenuously had been strictly adhered to they would not have seen him at this conference. In all probability he would have been still shut up in the little mountain province of Gurwhal, safe in his district! When he entered Cawnpore he was told he was interfering. Souls were there to whom no one was even pretending to minister; but when he- went to them, in response to a clear, providential opening through which God had given many souls, opposition was at once aroused. Just now he had in his· pocket earnest entreaty from 15,000 people in a district to come and preacli the Gospel to them, but he could not go to them without an infraction of the rule advocated. And why should he go? Because the mission claiming to occupy that field not only does not, but cannot work for the people who send this request. Oannot, because they have not been led, as our mission has been led, to the poor and lowly, and have learned how to approach them. Will not, if the history of the mission and the declared pnrpose of the staff can furnish an answer. What shall be done? Here are people ready to accept the Lord Jesus Christ. They seek instruction with a view to being discipled unto Christ by baptism, but instruction may not be given, nor, indeed, any advance made, because the territorial liJ;l.e of another mission which does nothing for those people is in the way. He was ready to go beyond others in the matter of taking workers from other missions. He was prepared to say he would not take them at all. His speech was well received, and made a deep impression.
The third decennial conference is over. The chief value will come in the line of deepened fraternity and charity, and more definite expectations that the kingdom of God is really coming. Such a force of godly workers, bending every energy to this work and seeking guidance and power from the Spirit of the living God, must bring to pass the salvation of many souls.
INTERNATIONAL D~PARTMENT
II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND OONDUCTED BY BEV. 1. T. GBAOEY, D.D.
Mexioo, in the Toils of the Papal Power, even from Jesuit historians. Thirst Struggling for Liberty.* for gold led Cortez to commit the most inhuman and atrocious cruelties; but BY BEV. CHARLES W. OUSHING, D.D., they were endorsed by the Archbishop of Mexico. With the lands divided into ROCHESTER, N. Y. large estates and given to the Spaniards, miserable huts built for the natives, The picture of the seventeen states wages fixed by the landlords, regula- south of the United States in the year tions preventing workmen going from 1851 was a very dark one. Among the one estate to another without approval 48,000,000 in Central and South America of the landlord, Romish churches which -a population exceeding that of the they were compelled to attend, and the United States and Canada combined- Inquisition to enforce all, their condithere was not one evangelical mission. tion was as deplorable as could be imary speaking their language. Nearly agined. every ruler was bound to make Romish interests supreme at any cost. Neither The Church amassed enormous the Bible nor light from any other wealth. In 1850 the Minister of Public source was tolerated. Santa Anna was Works said it was not less than $180,- the chosen tool of the papacy in Mexi- 000,000 ; others said it was $300,000,000. co, and Spain supported the terrible The priests were the recognized banktyranny of Rome. In our prosperity ers. Thirty.two hundred and twenty. we had well. nigh forgotten this down- three ecclesiastics spent$24,OOO,000 antrodden people. Webster said: "Our nually. Twelve bishops had $539,000, greatest danger is, that we have a sis- while the Archbishop of Mexico had a ter republic on our southern border, salary of $130,000. Wilson says he almost in mortal agony, and no one owned nearly one half the property of among us seems willing to lend it a the city of Mexico, holding mortgages helping hand.'" upon the houses of multitudes, who were thereby subject to his will. The Pope had assumed to give to Spain absolute authority of all in this The sums lavished upon churches and new world-souls, bodies, property and the paraphernalia of priests is almost service of all, for all time ; reminding incredible. The figure of the" Virgin one of the scene when the devil pro- of Remedies" has three petticoats decoposed to give to Christ all the kingdoms rated with diamonds, pearls, and emerof this world. when he had no rightful alds, at a cost of $3,000,000. The claim to a square foot of it. largest of fifty convents in the city cov- ered four large blocks. After it was The conquest of Mexico by Cortez, confiscated the author purchased 185 the destruction of the historical records, feet of it in depth for the mission of and the conversion of the people to the Methodist Episcopal Church; and ROll1anism (Christianity). rather than this was not more than one-fiftieth of die, is an awful chapter of history. the whole building The extravagant statements of Cortez in regard to his own victories, as well as Rome controlled all the forces of soto the number of human sacrifices of. ciety: If rulers were hostile, they were fered in Aztec worship so fully endorsed bought or deposed. Hence there were by Prescott, are shown to be unreliable, 50 governors in 41 years.
• H Mexico in Transition; from the Power of The degenerate character of this reo Political Romanism to Civil and Religiou. ligion, the shocking immorality of the Liberty." By William Butler, D.D. New greater part of the masses and of the York: Hunt & Eaton. $2,00. doctrines of purgatory, together with the doomed men, be said: "Your masthe bald idolatry of the worship of the ter, Spain's minion, for one life might Virgin Mary, could have no other effect have saved YOl1 all. So deadly was bis than to degrade any people who should hate, that he would sacrifice three hunbelieve and practise them. dred of his friends rather than forego tbis one sweet morsel of vengeance! ' Fortunately there was an occeasional Even I, who am no viceroy, have three priest, as there is to-day, who had inde- hundred lives for my father's; but pendence and courage enough to resist there is a nobler revenge than this. Go! this tide and openly declare for the You are all free! Go find your vile mastruth. Foremost among these was Hi- ter, and henceforth serve him if you dalgo, the first Governor of Mexico can!" With streaming eyes they rushed by" the national will," and the ., Patri- to their deliverer, gave themselves to arch of Mexican independence." He his cause, and remained faithful to the had been teaching his parishioners the end. use of some industries; but the viceroy ordered the industries destroyed, and In 1820, under fresh kindling of there was much talk of turning Hidalgo hope, renewed efforts for independence over to the Inquisition; but undaunted, were made in which the infamous Iturhe organized his forces and declared the bide figured, being crowned emperor as independence of Mexico, as ,. captain- Augustine I. His treachery being disgeneral of the forces." He was finally covered, he was banished ; but returnbetrayed, captured, degraded from the ing fourteen months later, he was exepriesthood, bound with chains and fet- cuted. This was the end of the empire, ters, and handed over to the civil au- and a republic, without religious freethorities for execution. Fortunately dom, was established in 1824, with for the cause another brave, honest General Victoria as President, which priest, Morelos, had joined the patriotic continued until 1829. host–and two braver men than these never .lived-who at once became the Following this came the struggle leader. He organized a CongreRs to which rescued Texas and California give the movement a natioual character. from the dominion of papacy. In Mexi- Taken prisoner November 15th, 1814, co, in 1847·, during the war, Bibles were he said: " My hfe is nothing if tbe freely introduced. and many of the peo. Congress be saved." Degraded by the pIe met together to read them ; but as bishop, and handed over to the civil soon as the army was gone, the priests power, it was determined that he wherever possible seized these Bibles should be shot in the back as a traitor. and burned them with indignities. Evi- Following him, the two Bravos, father dence is not wanting to show that Rome and son, were among the most sacrific- was oppoRed to the United States, and ing patriots. When the father was taken that she was planning for the overthrow prisoner and condemned to be sbot, the of our Government. viceroy offered him his life if he would persuade his brother and son to join the Her intolerance has been shown in royalists. The offer was scorned. At every country where she has held the this moment the son had three hundred power. An illustration is found in Spanish prisoners, many of them men Ecuador, where the treaty was negoof influence, whom he offered to ex- tiated with Antonelli, the Pope's Secrechange for his father ; but the viceroy tary of State. The first declaration refused. So great was the grief of young was: "The Roman Catholic and apos- Bravo that he ordered all these prison- tolic religion is the religion of the Reers to be shot. At sunrise, when his public of Ecuador. The existence of army were confronting the prisoners any other workship, or the existence of ready to obey the order, riding before any society condemned by the Church will not be permitted by the repUblic. The education of the young in all public and private schools shall be entirely eluding religious liberty. The Congress conformed to the doctrines of the Ro. devoted a full year to framing a consti.
man Catholic religion." Hence says tution on the basis of the "law of Lord Palmerston : ,. In countries where Juarez." Of this Mr. Seward said, he Roman Catholics are in the minority, "considered it the best instrument of they instantly demand not only tolera- the kind in the world." But backed by tion but equality; but in countries the influence of the Pope, it was fought where they predominate, they allow by the clerical party, who undertook to neither toleration nor equality." terrorize the people by threatening to Early in the reign of Pius IX. he de- shoot, without investigation, all who ceived the people of Rome by making supported this constitution.
them believe that he was ready to give Less than three years after Louis them a liberal constitution. Leading Napoleon was placed in power in France men in America rejoiced-as they do to- he overthrew the republic and an- day-in the new spirit which had taken nounced himself as Emperor of France.
possession of the Pope; but alas! when This was quickly endorsed by the Pope, the people demanded the fulfilment of' and, says Victor Hugo, "by the clergy, his promise, he assumed to believe that from the highest to the lowest."
his life was in danger and fled to Gaeta Louis Napoleon now turned to the in the disguise of a lackey, The Ro- establishment of a monarchy in Mexico, mans proceeded at once t0 organize a with the avowed purpose of dividing constitutional assembly. closed the In- republican influence in America. In quisition, provided means for education, Rome and at Miramar efforts were made and then invited the Pope to return as to hasten the departure of Maximilian the head of the Church. reserving the for Mexico. He had already accepted right to control in civil affairs. This the crown. Warnings made him hesi- was spurned by the Pope, and he called tate, but reassured- he hastened his upon the Catholic powers to rescue him preparations. As Napoleon's army ad- by force of arms. Louis Napoleon re- vanced the Mexican President was sponded with 40,000 men, who, with forced to retire from the city of Mex- Austria, crushed for the time these lib- ico.
erty-loving Romans. Restored to au- All things being ready, Maximilian thority, the Pope was more malignant went to Rome for the papal benedic- than ever. One hundred and eighty.six tion. Receiving full assurance of the persons were shot in Bologna alone, but perpetuity of his dynasty and the in the widst of the cruelty there stands "blessing of heaven upon his enter- out one ruler, Charles Albert, king of prise," the Pope intimated that when Sardinia, who, aided by the immortal he had succeeded in Mexico he might Cavour, kept his little province from then exert his influence upon" the being stained by the blood of the per- other disorderly republics of the new secutors, world." The Senior Director of the In 1853 Santa Anna was again made Press of the Cabinet of Maximilian de- President for one year. Without delay clared that" the object of Napoleon in he overthrew the republic, announced the intervention was to checkmate the himself as permanent dictator, recalled United States." The ostensible pur- the Jesuits, and proceeded to establish pose was to elevate the races by bring- a monarchy. The excitement which ing them under monarchical and papal followed caused his overthrow, trial for rule. Strange that Rome dare boast of treason, confiscation of property, and her love for education and power to ele- sentence to – be hanged. President vate the people, while the history of Juarez commuted his sentence to ban- Italy and Spain is open before the ishment for eight years. Then followed world!
the attempt to establIsh a free State, in- Maximilian soon found it impossible to carry out the schemes of the Pope, directed that the three chief offenders should be tried legally by court.martial. and in consequence was abandoned by Maximilian declared court-martial in. competent to try him. The trial lasted him. Finding himself deceived by the two full days, and all that the most able lawyers could do was done. The fact representatives of the hierarchy of that the legation of Spain, France, Prus. sia, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and Eng- Rome, he did not hesitate to tell them land had protested against the bloody rule of the men he had kept in power, so. He had been trying to draw to his and that in spite of this he had ar- ranged to perpetuate this reign of tersupport some of the Mexican republi- ror, told powerfully against him. When condemned, the Emperor of Austria, cans, even proposing an interview with Queen of England, and Emperor of FranQe besought the United States Gov- President Juarez, with the hope of se- ernmentjo use any legitimate means in its power to prevent the execution of curing concessions which would result Prince Maximilian. Accordingly,Mr. Seward very delicately sent this expresin Juarez's co.operation with him, The sion to Mr. Romero, but without avail. After Maximilian was sentenced to be dignified and patriotic reply of the shot he again attempted to escape through intrigue. The officer who had President dispelled all hope in this him in charge received through Prin· cess Salm Salm, a devout Roman Catho· direction. Driven to extremities, Maxi. lic, the offer of two drafts of $100,000 each, drawn by Maximilian on the immilian lost his magnanimity, and be. perial family in Vienna; on condition that he was allowed to escape. The came vindictive in the extreme, an· officer was only to close his eyes and turn his back for ten minutes, and all nouncing that sympathizers with the would be accomplished. The plot being disclosed, the princess was compelled republican cause would be regarded as to leave for San Luis Potosi.
brigands, to whom no mercy would be Maximilian was shot on the morning of June 19th, 1867 ; but the war did not shown. stop. Marquez, Maximilian's command- er-in-chief, prolonged the siege of Mex- Meanwhile Napoleon had grown weary ico for seventy days. Finally, through the representative. of our Government, of his thankless undertaking, and in urged by other foreign ministers, it was arranged wiih General Diaz of the 1866 determined to withdraw his troops republican army that the foreign legion, mostly Austrians, should be spared on and the grant for their support. Alarmed condition that they cease hostilities, shut themselves in the national palace at this desperate state, Carlota deter- and remain there; whereupon the white flag was raised over the Halls of Montemined to cross the ocean alone for the zuma. When the army took possession of the city it was found that the inpurpose of securing help ; but Napoleon famous Marquez had during the night escaped with his booty; but it wal!l was deaf to her appeals, Austria's power had been broken by Prussia, and 'her forlorn hope was aid from the Pope; but alas! her appeals even for sympa· thy from him were fruitless. All this so affected the despairing Carlota that she lost her reason.
And now, despairing of further aid from Napoleon, and apprehensive of fur.
ther disaster, Maximilian resolved se· cretly to leave the country; but Mar- shal Bazaine refused to allow him to embark unless he should formally abdi- cate. The Church party, alarmed lest their plan should fail entirely, rallied with men and money for Maximilian, so that for a time success seemed as- sured. '
Napoleon, compelled by our Govern.
ment, evacuated Mexico March 11th, 1867: Maximilian, fearing that his own generals were to abandon him to save their own lives, offered to surrender on condition that his life be spared; but anything less than unconditional sur- render was refused. President Juarez understood that political Romanism in Italy to enter Rome. Victor Emmanuel, Mexico was dead. though urged by the people to do it, re- fused to 88sume control of the govern- July 15th, 1871, the 'Wife of President ment, until by vote of 50,000 people de- Juarez returned from the long exile in claring for him as their ruler, against 49 the United States, sent home by the only for the Pope, he took possession of United States revenue cutter Wilderness. the city. It was not strange that the President Juarez arrived from the north poor old Pope should declare that he the llame day. Great was the rejoicing was abandoned by his own children ; but at the capital when, with the political the mayor of the city declared at a pubpower of Romanism crushed, the people lic banquet that" the people of Rome met their loved and trusted President, to rejoice togelJier and celebrate the triumph to would rather see their city perish in if constitutional republicanism and religi<nts ashes than again be subjected papal domination… liberty. This noble man was worthy of all honor which could be conferred upon Nevertheless the Pope appealed to him. The laconic message of Victor the governments of Europe to unite to Hugo adtiressed to him on June 20th, restore to him his throne. Be declared 1867. told the story: ., America has two to Emperor William that any baptism, heroes, Lincoln and thee-Lincoln, by Protestant as well as Romanist, gave whom slavery has died; and thee, by him claims and control over all who whom liberty has lived. Mexico has had received the rite, to compel conbeen ~ved by a principle. by a man. formity to the rest of Rome's require- Thou art that man !" ments.
In 1867 the body of Maximilian wss Equally swift retribution followed asked for by his brother, Emperor of Emperor Napoleon. His surrender to Austria. The request was promptly Emperor William at Sedan is most piticomplied with, and the remains were ful. Approaching the majestic old em- peror, he said: " Unable to die at the sent to Vera Cruz at the expense ot the head of my army, I tender to your maj- esty my sword." Says Mr. Gladstone: Mexican Government, with an escort of " History records no more striking ex- 100 dragoons and a number of officers. ample of swift retribution of chimerical ambition. " The two lawyers who defended Maximilian declare that President Juarez, Of Maximilian and tbe beautiful Carwith his cabinet, gave them every facil- lotta nothing more need be said. Of the ity which they could desire, and that his Jesuits it is enough to say that they, trial was as fair as could possibly be with all their compeers, monaRteries, asked. nunneries, and Sisters of Charity, were expelled from the Republic of Mexico, With much interest the author traces never, it is hoped, to be allowed to rethe indicationll of Divine retribution on turn. the leaders in this plot to overthrow constitutional liberty. First in im· Of the vast resources of Mexico, of portance is the overthrow of the tem. which Baron Humboldt says: "This poral power of the Pope, following so vast empire, under careful cultivation, quickly after the declaration of his in. would alone produce all that commerce fallibility. "The very day after the collects together from the rest of the proclamation of this dogma Napoleon globe," there is no room to speak. The III. unchained the furies of war, which one thing for which most to be thankful in a brief time swept away the Empire is the legitimate outgrowth of this triof France, and with it the temporal umph of constitutional liberty: the es· power of the infallible Pope." "In tablishment of evangelical missions. just 47 d~ys two of the greatest The fruit of this is seen in lifting the armies Europe ever saw" met in con· people to a higher plane than would be flict, and the overthrow of Napoleon at Sedan opened the way for the Liberals of possible without religious liberty. The .An Important Movement Among Native opposition to this on the part of the Romish priests was bitter and often at Obristian Ohinese.
the risk of the lives of those who per. DV. ABTllUB H. SlIUTll, SJIANTUNO. ClIlNA..
sisted in the work. About three years ago the announoe· In 1872, appointed by Bishop Simp. ment was made that a number of native son, the author of this book established Christians belonging to several denomi- in Mexico a mission for the Methodist nations in Canton had organized an as· Episcopal Church. A portion of the sociation, the object of which was to monastery of San Francisco, elsewhere lend good books to those who could referred to, was purchased for head. read them, but who would not be likely quartftS of the mission. At Puebla, to buy them.
the ecclesiastical capital of Mexico, a From a letter written by Dr. Chal· portion of the old Inquisition was se. mers, of Hong Kong, to the Ohina Mail, cured. When this building fell into the we now learn something both of the hands of the republicans search was modus operandi of this society, and of made for friends who had been missing. what it has already done and intends to Some were found alive; but it was do. It appears that the constituents of found that the thick division wallK were the organization are the Chinese them- in some places hollow. On making selves, both in China and out of it, for· openings, twelve individuals were found, eigners having no connection ,with the some of them women, manacled and in society. The centre of administration their daily clothing, Who had been is in Canton, where bi-monthly and an· walled in here While alive, sacrificed for nual meetings are held, attended by sub· freedom or for Christ; one other victim scribers or their deputies, and matters was found While preparing the building are there discussed and voted on as they for the mission. Under the floors were would be in similar gatherings in Exe· found tiers of skeletons closely packed ter Hall. The object of the society is together and thinly covered with earth declared in its printed regulations, to and cement near these martyrs' cells. be the circulation of good literature; These appalling revelations show us the object is not to form churches, nor the spirit of the Romish Church wher· to meddle in any way with term8 and ever she has had dominion. Ever since dogmas, nor to preach, lest trouble the introduction of Protestant missions should ensue, but to circulate its litera· no les8 than fifty. eight have been strick. ture in every city, market town, and en down by the fury of these deluded hamlet in the province.
fanatics. After two or three years the book·lend· In this fearful struggle for liberty we ing is to be followed by a general offer- have seen some of the noblest heroes of ing of prizes for the best essays by non- any age ; but in the midst of it is that Christians on Christianity and kindred saddest picture of misguided ambition, SUbjects. The various missions inter- Maximilian, over whose mournf)!l ested will ultimately be invited to come though seemingly just fate we can but in and take a share in the wide field drop a tear. thus opened, in order to form and build Would that the men of our nation up churches.
might look into this mirror of history "There are eighteen very practical and learn that wisdom which cannot be rules laid down for the conduct of book.
gained too soon. lenders. They are to be plain, honest, peace-loving men, chosen from the Can.
ton churches, who are willing to serve Our ohurches should be centripetal in this capacity for a consideration of for life and light and centrifugal for $6 a month. They take with them, be- service. side the books, a small supply of sta. tionery for sale, by way of introduction may serve as a basis for a few words of to schoolmasters in the villages. Books comment. It is a lIignificant circumare of course to be lent only to school· stance that this movement was originatmasters and such other respectable resi· ed and developed by the Chinese themdents as can read; and they are lent on selves, and is under their own manage· trial with the prices marked, a register ment. being kept of the place, the pePson borrowing, the date, and the book lent, Everyone who is interested in the and an intimation given that the lender welfare of China desires that the read. will return, say a month after, to in- ing men of the empire, of whom there quire and effect a sale or an exchange, are unknown millions, should be as may be desired. The lenders are to brought in contact with the best avoid disputes with the natives, are not literature of the West. As to the par. to resent rudeness, but to take it as a ticular kind of literature which is thing to be expected, and even if harm .. best," there are considerable differ. is done to the books, they are to be con· ences of opinion. Some are convinced tent with the smallest compensation or that ,. the Bible, without note or com· apology. The only literary qualification ment," is the great want; others desire necessary in a lender is ability to keep the Bible-or parts of it-but with notes his register and make his report, which and comments; others again prefer is to be transmitted every two months tracts as a beginning ; and still other~ through the nearest mission station." wish to see China enlightened by works on practical science, popularized and According to Dr. Chalmers, whose illustrated. Much has been already opinion ought to have great weight, if done toward carrying out ench of these the report and the regulations now pub- views. The Bihle societies have a large lished were translated into English as staff of nntive workers, and the annual good as is the Chinese, they would as· sales of tracts run high into the mill. tonish Englil:!h readers, whether friends ions. Scientific book-depots have been of missions or not, by their complete- established, the receipts of which have ness of detail, by their eloquence of ap- surpassed all expectations. But it is peal, and perhaps most of all by their still as true as ever, that· China, as a thoroughly business-like character… It whole, remains unaffected by western is no exaggeration to say, that for ear- literature. nestness of purpose and breadth of view, these tracts resemble far more Yet if there is to be any substantial chapters of General Booth, edited by improvement in the attitude of the in- Mr. Stead, than any utterance of na- tellect of.the empire toward western tives of Canton," and the impression thought, the first impulse must unquesupon the mind of the reader is said to tionably come from this western literabe .a. feeling that" the conquering of ture put into attractive forms. Such the province is no mere dream." The literature the educated men of China books to be lent are carefully selected will not buy. Many of them would not by the managing committee, and noth- take it as a gift. But there is reason to ing is asked from foreign sources except hope that by judicious management the books, for the purchase of which a some of them might be induced to exfund amouming to $1379 has been amine it, if offered as a loan. The Chiraised. About $400 has been sub- nese respect for letters is innate. The scribed for expenses of book-lenders, presumption is always in favor of readfour of whom are actually at work, and ing a book, until prejudice begins to good reports have been already received act. By the system of lending books, of progress made. the evils both of the promiscuous giv- , This much space has been devoted to ing of books-now generally abandoned a lIumm.ar~ of these relorts, that the~ -and of mere sale as of any other com- modity, would be decidedly ameliorated, and added dignity would be imported The Sixth National SOIlial Oonferenoe in to the circulation of western literature India, in China. Twenty.five years ago India was with- At present it is well.nigh impossible to get at the higher classes at all. But out the check and guidance of a public if a book.lending system were in opera· tion in each of the fifteen hundred sentiment. Under the example and countries of the empire, it is a moral impossibility that within a single gen· fostering care of Great Britain that coneration the results should not be greater than they seem likely otherwise to be dition •has been materially changed. for a century to come. There are many enlightened Chinese who would be glad One result and at the I18me time one to order special works, such 8B those on medicine, mathematics, etc., who do cause of this is found in the assembly not know where or to whom to apply, the commercial facilities of China being of prominent natiTe gentlemen, from much limited by lack of newspapers, and of a postal system. The book·lend· which Europeans are excluded, which sr would be the natural agent for such sales, and it is probable that the busi. meets annually for the purpose of ness thus developed would surprise the most sanguine. There is also reason to formulating the views of the native expect that the demand for mechanical and scientific appliances will prove to people on public questions, political, be a large one, when the long closed door to the Chinese intellect shall once have social, or religious. From the proceedbeen opened, and perhaps even money· wise the scheme would in some of its ings of that which met at Allahabad, bebranches prove a profitable investment. In any case good literature is a seed for fore us, we select some of the resoluwhich the Chinese mind is a seed·bed, such perhaps as W8B never elsewhere tions adopted December 31st, 1892. known in the history of mankind. They show a growing power and mark From whatever point of view it is considered, the Canton book.lending the spirit of progress among them. Tho plan seems to be a great idea. Like many other great ideas, it is simple, but far. second resolution comes just in time to reaching. It ought to commend itself alike to consuls, merchants, and mis. open the way for the attendance of sionaries. and to be put at once into operation wherever it is possible to caste-men at the World's Fair. make a beginning. It is perhaps the best available way of sowing light broad. 1. That in the opinion of this Confercast in China. And we cannot be far astray in the conviction that a few years ence, it is necessary to curtail marriage of book.lending in those provinces most hostile to foreigners-could such work and ceremonial expenses, and the Con· be carried ont-would do more toward preventing a repetition of last year's ference recommends each community riots than could be effected by volumes of diplomatic dispatches, or by all the to lay down fixed scales of such ex- ~I}re't~ q~ t¥e ll,se o~ ~or«!e~ penses and provide measures for the enforcement of their rules.
2. That in the opinion of the Confer- ence distant sea-voyage or residence in foreign countries should not by itself involve lOBS of caste.
ph~3siTzehatthteh e Conference would em- necessity of promoting female education in every possible way, and making an organized effort in each district and province for the purpose.
4. That in the opinion of the Co~fer.
ence it is essential that the marrlage- able' age of boys and girls should be railled and that all castes should fix minin::a varying from eighteen to twenty-one for boys and twelve to four- teen for girls, according to their circ~m.
stances, the final irrevocable mamage Tite (saptapadi or phera) be postponed till the bride becomes fourteen years old. 5. That every endeavor should be made to promote reunio~ among ~l1b.
divisions of castes, and mtermarnage among those sections whieh can freely dine together. 6. That the Conference reaffirms its second resolution passed last year re- garding the discouragement of polyg- amy.
!l T~at the disfi~ureI1le~~ of (lldd-
lB93.1
widows, before they attain the age of verts and inquirers already gained, that eighteen and even after that age, with· often no strength is left for entering out the consent of the widow recorded thousands of unentered but open doors. in wrIting before a Panch and a magis. Can our sisters in Protelltant Christen. trate, be discouraged by forming caste dom permit this to continue? organizations to arrange for social penalties to be in1licted on those who aid India has fifty million Mohammedans in disfiguring child·widows without -a larger number than are found in the their consent. Turkish Empire, and far more free to embrace Christianity. Who will come 9. That in the opinion of the Confer· to work for them? ence, it is desirable to discourage the cllstom, wherever it exists, of turning Scores of missionaries should be set marriage into a monetary transaction, apart to promote the production of and exacting a pecuniary consideration Ohristian literature in the languages of in respect of it. the people.
10. That this Conference earnestly Sunday.schools into which hundreds of urges upon all interested in social reo thousands of India's children can read· form the absolute necessity of organiz- ily be brought and moulded for Christ ing social reform committees in all dis· furnish one of India'lI greatest oppor. tricts, or at least one such committee in tunities for yet more workers. each province, on the principle of self· sacrifice and employing at least one full Industrial schools are urgently needed time-worker for the purpose of educat- to help in developing a robust oharacter ing public opinion on the subject of so· cial reform. in Christian youth, and to open new avenues to honest work for them. These 11. That this Conference reaffirms oall for capable Christian workers of resolutions 4 and 5 of the last Confer· special qualifications. ence regarding the remarriage of child· widows, and the abolition of imprison. The population of India is largely ment in execution of decrees for resti. rural. In hundreds and thousands of tution of conjugal rights. villalZes there is a distinct mass move· ment toward Christianity. There are An Appeal to the Ohnroh at Home, millions who would speedily become Christians if messengers of Christ could The Third Decennial Missionary Con. reach them, take them by the hand, and ference of India, assembled in Bombay, not only baptize, but also lead them overwhelmed by the vastness of the into all Christian living. Most of these work, contrasted with .the utterly in. people belong to the depressed classes. adequate supply of workers, earnestly They nre none the less heirs to our appeals to the Church of Christ in Eu. common salvation; and whatever ad· rope, America, Australasia, and Asia. mixture .of less spiritual motives may exist, God Himself is stirring their We re.echo to you the cry of the un· hearts and turning their thoughts tow· satisfied heart of India. .With it we ard the things which belong to Ris pass on the Master's word for the per. kingdom. ishing multitude, " Give YE them to eat." An opportunity and a responsibility In the name of Christ, and of the un. never known before confront us. evangelized masses, for whom He died, we appeal to you to send more laborers The work among the educated and Eng· at once. May every church hear the lish.speaking classes has reached a crisis. voice of Christ saying: .. Separate Me The faithful labors of godly men in the Barnabas and Saul for the work where. class·room need to be followed up by unto I have called them." In every men of consecrated culture free to de. church may there be a Barnabas and vote their whole time to aggressive work Saul ready to obey the Spirit's prompt. among India's thinking men. Who will ings! come and help to bring young India to the feet of Christ? Face to face with two hundrl'd and eighty-four millions in this land, for Medical missionaries of both sexes are whom in this generation you as well as urgently required. We hold up before we are responsible. we ask, Will you medical students and young doctors the splendid opportunity of reaching the not speedily double the numb"r of souls of men through their bodies, laborers?
The women of India must be evangel. Will you not also lend your choicest ized by women. Ten times the present pastors to labor for a term of years number of such workers could not over· among the millions who can be reaohed take the task. Missionary ladies now through the English tongue? working are so taxed by the carQ of con. Is this too great a demand to make upon the resources of those saved by Omnipotent love?
.At th,e beginning of another century
tN'TEtuiATtONAL DEPAR'l'MEN't
of missions in India, let us all " expect munificence of Dr. Henry Foster, found- great things from God, attempt great er of the celebrated Sanitarium. All things for God." missionaries are urged to attend, as For the reflex blessing to yourselves, as well as for India's sake, we beseech there is no meeting similar to this, nor you" hear what the Spirit saith unto as helpful to them. It is a great counthe churches" The manifestation of cil of missionaries, in which missiona. Christ is greatest to tho~e who keep His ries only take part, though it is open to commandments, and this is His com- the public, and everybody is invited. mandment: "Go YE INTO ALL THE WORLD AND PREAOH THE GOSPEL TO EVERY CREA· The list of those who signify their in- TURE." tention to be present is already large.
A. MANWARING, The World's Oongress of Missions.
J. L. PHILLIPS, The World's Congress of Missions ,Secretaries of Bombay Decennial Auxiliary of the World's Columbian Ex- position of 1893 is confidently expected Conference. to contribute much to the progress of January 4, 1893. Christianity throughout the world. Every known Christian missionary so- New Guinea Mission. ciety is being invited to send repre- sentatives-one from the administrative The Anglican Church Mission in New department of the society and one or Guinea has secured a ketch-rigged boat more missionaries or converts from the of fifteen tons for service in the waters society's fields of labor. of that island. The vessel has a length over all of 52 feet, and on water.line of It is expected that the entire proceed- ~O feet; beam, 12 feet, and depth of ings, including stenographic reports of the addresses and discussions, will be hold, 6t feet. She is constructed of the published by the Congress Auxiliary.
finest seasoned timber, keel, stem, and The Congress of Missions, as well as stern-post beingof the best selected hard- the other congresses, will be held in the wood, planking and decks of kauri, and Memorial Art Palace on the lake shore, copper-fastened throughout. The cabin Chicago. The time allotted to the Con. has accommodation for six passengers, gress of Missions is eight daYB-Sep. fitted up with varnished kauri and dark. tember 28th to October 5th, inclusive. brown upholstery. The crew's quarters Three seRsions will be held each day. are roomy and well appointed. This The Woman's Congress of Missions will vessel has been built in Sydney, and has be in session simultaneously in the same been named the Albert Maclaren, after building during Monday, Tuesday, and the pioneer missionary of the Anglican Wednesday, October 2d-4th, with two Church in New Guinea, who fell at his sessions each day. Other missionary post from fever in 1891. services, as many as may be desired, may be held in the same building dur- ROBERT STEEL. ing any of these eight days. The com· SYDNEY, January 23, 1893. mittees Rre not supplied with funds to provide free entertainment for this large The Interna.tional Missiona.ry Union. body of missionary representatives.
Some erroneous statements as to the A prominent feature of the congress date of the Tenth Annual Meeting of will be the World's Missionary Sunday, the International Missionary Union hav- on which, it is hoped, all the churches ing had wide circulation in the press, and missions will hold special services, we re-announce that this Union meets in support of this proposition-the unievery year at Clifton Springs, N. Y., on versal, immediate evangelization of every the evening of the second Wednesday nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. of June. Hence, this year the dates are June 14th-21st. All persons who It is also earnestly requested that in are or have been foreign missionaries the midweek prayer-meeting, during the will be entertained ~tuitously by the conference, all Christians may unite in a world's concert of prayer and suppli- cation to God for the overthrow of the great obstacles to the progress of evan. gelization, especially the rum and opium traffic, and for a gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the work and the workers in every part of the world.
DEPARTMEN'f OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR
III.-DEPARTMENT OF CHRISTIAN ENDEAVOR.
CONDUCTED BY PROFESSOR AMOS R. WELLS.
In the following graphic way Dr. other low bow from every one in the Clark describes a Christian Endeavor room says silently, ' I thank you.' 4£ter meeting in Japan: "Inside the church the address another song, a prayer, and are some benches and a little cabinet benediction, and then what? A grab.
organ. Thin paper screens keep out bing of hats, and canes, and overooats, the chill air to some extent, and a and a' break' for the door? Ah, no ; wooden box, with a little bed of live the Japanese have not learned thus to coals, in the middle of a large bed of close their worship. All drop into their sand, is kindly placed near us, so that seats again ; for a full minute they sit we can toast our numbed fingers over with covered eyes and bowed heads, and it. Sometimes a hand.warmer would be then slowly and reverently pass out of given us. This is a little tin box filled church or break up into little groups.
with ignited charcoal and covered with This is another method worth taking up cloth, and can easily be clasped in one by the roots and transplanting into every hand. On one side of the church is a church and Christian Endeavor society board on which are hung from hooks in America. After twice bowing low to sixty or seventy or more pieces of wood all the friends that come to greet us, we with Japanese characters upon them. say, 'Sayonara' (good.by), one of our These, we find, are the names of the three Japanese words, get into our lit· church.members ; and when one dies or tle carriages, and are trundled off as we moves away, his name.card is taken came, through crowded streets, past down. Ts not that a method worth open stores and houses and peddlers transplanting into our Endeavor socie· and beggars and children and babies, ties? That visible roll.call would be a saying to ourselves, 'After all, young constant reminder of obligation and people are the same, and Christian En.
duty. Soon the meeting begins. The deavor is the same, and faith in Christ same old tunes, the same sentiment, the is the same, and genuine spiritual prayer same aspirations, the same prayer, meetings are the same, all the world breathed in song, even though the over.' "
words are Japanese. The growth of the Christian Endeavor Then comes a series of prayers, earn· movement has been notably accom· est, devotional. strong in utterance. Our panied and promoted by the growth of hearts are lifted up to God, even by this Christian Endeavor literature. Nearly foreign tongue. Then follow Scripture all of the State unions now conduct verses, testimonies, and more songs; papers in the interest of the work, near· and then one who has the gift of the ly all of the large city unions, and many 'interpretation of tongues' stands up a local society. The progress of the with us, and tells the audience what we work in Australia is wonderfully aided in English are attempting to say con· by that vigorous little sheet, The Golden cerning the work of God among his Link. Only recently, a German paper, young people in far.off America, and Der Miiarbeiter, has been established in Australia, and England. Japanese au· this country, solely for the aid of socie· diences are models of politeness. No ties of Christian Endeavor that speak one yawns, snaps his watch, shumes his the Gflrman tongue. The Ohinese llltls· feet, or goes out, even though the speak. irated Nl'/IJ)s has established a Christian er is talking in an unknown tongue. Endeavor department. Canada has her Every eye is upon the speaker. When Christian Endeavor papers; and the he begins to speak, he is greeted by a latest addition to the goodly fellowship polite obeisance from every one in the is the Christian 1!Jndeavaur, the u in whose audience; and when hI! concludes, an.' name would be enough to indicate that it is published in London. The already Here is a. revival experience reported rapid increase of the societies in Eng. from a United Bre~hren church in Cleve· land will be' made still more rapid by land, O. : "One young lady under <lon· the work of this new ally. viction could not make up her mind to accept Christ until a Christian Endeav· The missionary conference of the or pledge was shown her. The wording Christian Endeavor societies of the Re· presented the essentials of faith and formed Church has already held two ses· service so plainly and fully that she sions, in January and February of this there gave her heart to the Lord." year. The first meeting brought to· gether representatives of about fifty so· A union of the Christian Endeavor so· cieties. Rev. A. DeWitt Mason was cieties of all Australasia is contemplated. elected chairman. Missionary addresses Of course such a nnion must be formed were enthusiastically received. At the sooner or later. A union has already second meeting the societies represent. been formed in Tasmania. ed pledged amounts aggregating $1500 for the support of a "Christian En. Christian Endeavor societies have in· deavor missionary" to India, and the creased in number in Louisiana suffi. building of a second ,. Christian En. ciently to warrant the formation of a deavor church. .. A general missionary State union. That, with the recently conference of the Christian Endeavor formed State union of South Carolina, societies of the Reformed Church is leaves Mississippi, Nevada, and Wyom· soon to be held. ing the only States whose Christian En. deavor societies are not thus organized. Presbyterian Endeavorers are being There are also three unorganized terri· roused to missionary enthusiasm by tories-Arizona, Alaska, and the Indian similar methods. In January, at the Territory. New York headquarters of the Presby. terian boards, a Christian Endeavor mis- Christian Endeavor Day was 01:ftlerved sionary conference was held, with Rev. this year more widely and enthusiasti· H. T. McEwen in the chair. Brilliant cally than ever before. The most fa· missionary addresses were eagerly listen- mous and eloquent speakers addressed ed to, and a plan was matured for bring· immense audiences in the cities, and in ing missionary work and its needs very all the quiet country towns gatherings clearly befoTe the Presbyterian Endeav· were held that were filled with the same orers of New York. The Presbyterian splendid enthusiasm. Dr. Clark's sug· boards have recently added several gestion of a week of self·denial for misworkers whose principal efforts are to sions was very generally adopted. be among the young people. Mr. Rob. These ardent young people entered upon ert E. Speer, of the foreign board, is ex· their task with a te~der conscientious. ceedingly popular in Christian Endea.v. ness and a warm love for their Saviour, or gatherings. Mr. Grant, of that that produced noble results. It is too board, Mr. Penfield, recently added' to early to give exact statistics, but enongh the force of the home board, and Miss is known from isolated reports to assure Elizabeth M. Wishard, secretary of the us that the missionary contributions of Indiana State Christian Endeavor Union the day were more generons than ever since its organization, but recently add. before. The novel missionary exercise ed to the force of the Woman's Execu· furnished by the United Society of tive Committee of the home board-all Christian Endeavor was very widely these will devote their main energies to used, and everywhere the observance of rousing the missionary enthusiasm of the week and the day took on, as it was the young. When, before the Christian intended to, a most decided missionary Endeavor movement, would such a thing aspect. Truly the Church of the next be even thought of, and what a promis. decade will be a missionary church. ing sign it is ! There exist already in Japan twenty ChristiaD Endeavor societies, most ot them formed since Dr. Clark's visit, The Lutheran Christian Endeavor So- while more are in process of formation. ciety of Mount Carmel, Ill., has under- Most of these Japanese Christian En- taken to build a prayer·house in an deavor societies conform to the custom India mission field.
of the country, and are for one sex only. Last fall the Clarendon Street, Bos- Wherever the public sentiment will ton, Baptist Society of Christian En- permi!; it, however, the boys and girls deavor assumed the support of a young are brought together in Christian En· man, one of their own number, who deavor meetings, and this serves still went out as a missionary to Africa.
further to break down thtl artificial dis- This requires the raising of at least tinction between the sexes, that stands $600 every year. At a recent meeting in the way of the best ohurch work. of deep spiritual interest held by this The Wesleyan Christian Endeavor so- society, the last hundred dollars for the cieties of Victoria, Australia, at the re- year was subscribed.
quest of the Wesleyan Foreign Mission· In one of her letters, Mrs. Clark gives ary Society, have entered zealously upon this pleasant account of some Christian the subscription of funds for a large Endeavor children in China, in one of whaleboat, to be used in a branch of the mission schools : "There were about the Fiji mission. One society heads II hundred boys and young men there, the list with £10. The boat is to be most of them members of a Christian called The liJndeavcyur. Endeavor society. They read the Scrip- The Baptist Endeavorers of Victoria, ture lesson, each one in turn reading a Australia, have entered upon a quadru- verse, and then the hymn was given ple crusade, whose four goals are (1) out, and a little twelve-year-old Chinese an Endeavor society in every Baptist boy went to the organ and played the church in Victoria; (2) increased mis- tune very correctly, and the boys sang sionary activity among Baptist societies; a gospel hymn as well as any Endeavor- (3) a union Baptist missionary commit- ers in America would sing it. There tee, made up of the chairmen of mis- was one dear little Chinese baby at this sionary committees of the local Baptist meeting, and he also took some part, societies; and (4) a week of evangelistic aside from singing, in the meeting.
services, to be held every yellr by every For some reason-perhaps because he Baptist society. This is a large and was a Christian Endeavor baby-he came glorious programme. in his mother's arms, instead of on her A Junior Endeavorer, belonging to back. He crept down the aisle to the the society in the Centennial Methodist platform, and stood up, patting his lit- Church of London, Canada, is certainly tle hands on the floor, and applauding in earnest about missions. She hates to the speakers in baby Chinese, as well as make beds, but nevertheless she has any little American baby would do it.
asked permission, and rises half an hour If that baby goes to Christian Endeavor earlier every morning to make her little meetings before he is a year old, what brother's bed. For this labor she re- do you suppose he will do when he is a ceives one cent a week, which she man? Boys and girls at home, will you proudly deposits in the missionary col- pray for your little brothers and sisters lection. Good! in China? Will you talk about them to Two Christian Endeavor societies your fathers and mothers at home, and have just been organized in the Ran- invite them to come to your missionary goon College Baptist Church of Ran- meetings and bring their pocketbooks goon, Burma, one using the Burmese with them? Will you give some of your language, the other the Karan. Seven money to China? We cannot do every- associate members from these societies thing, but let us not be satisfied till we have lately joined the Church. have done all we can."
ltDlTORlAL l'>Ei>ARTMEN'1'
IV.-EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
The editor finds that some readers only add that, had he been himself a have taken exception to the paragraph Baptist, these same words might have in the editorial notes of January as to been written. Since coming to London the Free Church Congress in Manches- to undertake the occupancy of the pulter in November last. The charge has pit that dear Spurgeon so long filled, I been made that for the editor of an have been met by not a faw who call unsectarian missionary review to make themselves "Baptists," who not only such an " unjust and un-Christian" at- disbelieve in the intelligence and scriptack on "members of the Baptist de- tural candor of "predobaptists," or nomination," etc., is the very" essence "sprinklers," as they call them, but of sectarian bigotry ]" have written to me calling in question the saved stale of any professed believer Surely such readers must overlook who has never been, as they say, " baptwo facts: tized"-i.e., immersed.-A_ T. P.
1. That the editor especially refers to Persecution of the Russia.n Stundists. "those Baptists who either cannot or will not see," etc. This surely is no at- We have before us a letter from a tack on Baptists as a body, but only on friend in Russia confirming the reports certain people who call themselves Bap- of the persecutions of the Russian tists, who hold these views or manifest Stundists. It seems almost impossible this spirit_ of belief that such brutal deeds should be permissible in this enlightened nine- 2. The simple fact is that at this con· teenth century. There have been, from gress certain persons of this characte1" some quarters, denials of the severity were present and thrust their views and offioial charaoter of these persecuupon the body, maintaining that there tions, but it lieems that the truth has is but one mode of scriptural baptism, been mollified rather than exaggerated. and that there can be no true fellowship We give a few extracts from the letter: with so-called believers who neglect a plain duty, etc. These parties did all "I have made inquiries into many of they could to break up the congress, the alleged atrooities against these poor and their conduct was a matter of criti- wretohes, and, I am sorry to say, things cism even by the more liberal-minded are worse than I had antioipated. Womof the Baptists. The paragraph in en violated and horrihly beaten, chilquestion was not designed as a reproach dren terrorized, houses wrecked, beasts to Baptists as such, as the editor thought killed, impossible fines inflicted, imany intelligent reader would see. prisonment-this is what is being borne by these Stundists, and borne often with Moreover, is it likely that with such a serenity and patience beyond the a man as Dr. Gordon on the editorial understanding of westerners. I have a staff and a very intimate friend, any long record, and a horrible record it is, such attack on Baptists, as such, would of these cruelties. It seems as though it be made by the editor-in-chief? Is it were the Independent or Stundist wing likely that, at the very time when of the Russian Protestants which most preaching to the largest Baptist church suffers. The Baptists are more or less in the kingdom, and treated with such organized, and somehow they Beem to unparalleled generosity by English Bap- be gradually gaining a footing in the tists; the occupant of the pulpit of the toleration, if not in favor, of the gov- Metropolitan Tabernacle is dispused to ernment. Perhaps the reason may be speak or write disparagingly of his Bap- that the Stundists draw more converts tist brethren? direct from the orthodox Greek Church, Regretting exceedingly that his words were so misunderstood, the Editor will
ll:bl'l'ORIAL DEPARTMENT
while the Baptists almost invariably are time into eternity: '" Que c'est bea¥ ; recruited from the Stundists." mais que c'est donc beau, tout II fait exceptionnel! Ce n'est pas difficile, et The directors of the East India Com- moi qui croyait qui ce serait si difficile I pany, early in the century, placed on Je passe! . . . Je passe ..• " et Bon record the following : "The sending of ames 'envolait vers Dieu.' " Christian mi8sionaries into our Eastern possessions is the maddest, most expen- Madame Reck's farewell to the little sive, most unwarranted project that was church was that of a true mother in ever proposed by a lunatic enthnsiast." Israel. ,. My children, " she said, " you Severe as was this arraignment at the know how much I love you. I left time, it was not repndiated by the judg- France to teach you the name of Christ, ment of the bulk of the English people. the only name by which you can be But there were a few men of faith and saved…. Cling to Jesus. Abide prayer and entbusiasm who thought close to Him. Dwell in peace; and otherwise, and were willing to invest may God bless you." their means in sending the Gospel messengers to the perishing of India. The veteran Coillard's sorrow and Eighty fi ve years afterward, Sir Rivers success in the Barotsi Valley is a plain- Thompson,Lieutenant-Governor of Ben- tive story. "Heathen Africa," writes gPol, said: "In my judgment, Christian M. Coillard, "can find no parallel to missionaries have done more real and their state. . . . The whole land is 8 lasting good to the people of India than Sodom; and the benighted people, all other agencies combined." This whose conscience is dead, glory in their convincing testimony is from a witness shame.' , After seven years' toil, and who has had every opportunity of form. just at the time of Madame Coillard's ing an honest and intelligent opinion, death, the first convert is ~ained and and whose word oarries immense weight. four other young men are lirought in, one of them being Litia, the king's eld- British Notes. est son. "What a spectaole," writes the long_tried missionary, "was that of llY REV. JAMES DOUGLAS. 8 Bar-olsi toeeping-and weeping for his sins! This was the last meeting at An artiole of exoeptional pathos and which m~v wife was present on earth. power, from the pen of Luoy E. Guin- Could I have desired a more beautiful eS8, appears in the Regions Beyond, set. sunset to close her career ?' , ting forth the soope and work of the Societe des Missions evangeliques de The Societe des Missions evangeliques Paris. Out of a population in Basuto- de Paris, which was founded in Novem. laud of over 218,000, 11,000 souls have ber, 1822, attains its seventieth birthbeen gathered into the Church, so that day, and its sixtieth anniversary of its the proportion of adult Christians to Missionary Training Institute. heathen is about 5 per oent. There are 24 European workers. Three espe- The Presbyterian missions have unitcially heavy losses by death have be- ed to form the Church of Christ in fallen them this year: Dr. Eugene Cas. Japan, with 13,000 members, adopting olis. Madame Reck, and M. Louis Du· as their doctrinal standard the Apos. voisin. The last words of the latter-a tles' Creed and two or three appended noble soul of large benevolence and doctrinal paragraphs. A few years bsck true humility-afford a radiant glimpse it looked as if Japan was to be gained beyond the veil. He had feared death, for ChriBt by a rush. Matters wear a but, writes M. Boegner, "when the different aspect now. The tension upon gate of heaven opened for him, he was faith is great. But He knows the meas. heard. to murmur in the passage from ure of strain to apply or to permit. Happily the strain which proves too muoh for Pliable, (,lnly spurs Christian on the more in the way by necessitating acknowledged that it was. ., Then am a firmer grasp of Christ and the Gospel. I not right in reading and teaching it ?" " But how about Mohammed?" " That The Rev. J. E. Hanauer, a convert is for you to say. My faith is in Christ from Judaism, supplies in the January and His Word. He is my Saviour." Jewish Missionary lntelligencer a thought- Mirza Abraham was then kiclfed and ful paper on "the Jewish Quarter in beaten, together with the Christian Jerusalem." His comments on the brother at whose house he had been spirit of inquiry there spreading are arrested. But he was undaunted. To couched in a serious 1.one. He cannot the Serperast, who had himself kicked regard the critical tendency as rightly him terribly, he said: "You may shoot rooted. There are two main directions me from the cannon's mouth, but you of this tendency answering to the two cannot take away my faith in Christ." schools of Jews in Jerusalem-the old Eventually, after being put. in prison, school and the new. The first study and witnessing there a good confession, the New Testament" to find occasion he was sent on to Tabriz, to await the for cavilling;" the second do this in royal sentence. The case is crucial, as order to find, if possible, a modus vivendi a direct issue is joined. Will the Shah -" some way in which Jews mayas- put a man to death for leaving the Koran similate with Christians and yet remain and following the Gospel? One thing Jews, .and, as such, unpersecuted.' , we know: His sheep shall never perish. We gather, then, from this witness, that the old school of Jews study the Word An interesting letter has recently apfrom unbelief, and the new school from peared in the Ohristian (December 29th, a double heart. Nevertheless, let us 1892) from the pen of F. S. Arnot, on pray that the honest heart may be the subject of African industrial miswrought in them by the Spirit in the sions. He differs toto erelo from Bishop Word. Taylor's project of evangelizing Africa through the children. His contention A South Sea Island teacher has for is, speaking from large experience, that some time been at work in Tupuselei, children are more difficult to obtain in New Guinea. Mr. Pearse, of the Lon- Africa than in England. Such as can don Missionary Society, referring to be obtained must be bought, and to this, says: "If you were to ask me favor this is to encourage kidnapping; which is the best station in New Guinea for the Africans will not sell their for missionary work, I should say own children, though they will sell Tupuselei. There are not mOl'e than readily enough the children they can 350 people in the village, and certainly manage to steal. The conclusion, therethey are in every respect Christianized. ,. fore, at which Mr. Arnot arrives is, that He also tells of considerable gains in his such preliminary and education work own mission work at Kerepuno. as Bishop Taylor recommends is a mere waste of time at first; that the first In Persia a bold stand for Christ has thing is to aim at the conversion of the been taken by Mirza Abraham, a Mo- people; and that such direct ministry hammedan who was baptized about three is not" love's labor lost," for, as this years ago. He had been at work preach- devoted missionary says, "I have seen ing Christ, and when demanded by the the truth of God illuminate darkest Serperast, ,. Why should you, a Mos- hearts and minds." lem, be teaching the Christian doctrines ?" Mirza Abraham. taking out Upon the Mildmay Mission to the bis Testament, asked in reply.•f Is not Jews, chiefly in East London, the blessthis InjU a holy book ?" The Serperast ing of God has, during the past year, rested in a pre.eminent manner. An confessed Christ in " similar way some unprecedented awakening and turning months sinoe. to God among the Jews coming in con· tact with this mission has taken place. In the Chureh of Scotland Mission Rec. Between thirty and forty have, during ord the conversion is recorded of Pro. 1892, given clear testimony of a heart sonno Coomar Vidyii.rutuii., a Sansorit faith in Jesus Christ. Recently, at the scholar of eminence. The Rev. G. C. close of an address, Mr. Baron asked all Laha, minister of St. Andrew's Bengali the Jews present who in their hearts be· Church, Calcutta, in reporting it, says, lieved in the Lord JeRus. though still un· .. When a profound Sanscrit scholar baptized, to stand up, when over thirty like him declares openly in hill ripe age, immediately rose to their feet. Thanks after mastering all the ancient and sa· be to God that it is given us to see in cred books of the Hindus, that there is these latter days, in growing numbers, no salvation out of Christ, we may rest that there is still in connection with assured the advocates of Hinduism will Israel" an election according to grace… not find it an easy task to defend it, and will have ere long to give up the The opening article in the Church. Mis· attempt altogether." sionary Intelligencer (January, 1893), by T. A. Gurney, would be worth quoting .. Oompromise as an &pedient in Re· in extenso. It is fervid and spiritually ligion" is the topic of an address to incisive to a rare degree. The theme is Hindu gentlemen, delivered by James "The Epiphany of the Fulnessof Ghrist." Munro, C.B., at Krishnagar. It is a The following must serve as a sample: searching exposure of Hinduism as a " A church which realizes its own insuffi- religion of compromise. The appeal ciency apart from Christ is the church to toward the close is most timely. We make known the sufficiency of Christ to trust that with some at least it proved others. The church which rested" on its telling, Now that the Christian doo. social position, its temporal endow- trine of a Mediator has been propound. ments, its national authority, its ancient ed in Brahmo circles, the danger is lest history, its orthodoxy of faith, would be the spirit of compromise enter and the a church sufficient without Christ, and result be ruined. A sentence or two of no • wine' would be forthcoming then. this admirable appeal we subjoin: ., Do But the true mission of tho Church is not follow the ensnaring policy of com· to draw out Christ's fulness with empty promise-do not forget that as God is pitchers, and carry it to those who need one, the one God of all creation, so the it, the supply being proportioned to the Mediator also can only be one-one for destination and measure of our faith, all men-one for east and west-one but otherwise being inexhaustible and for you and for me. Do not, instead of infinite." the perfect Man, put Keshub Chunder Sen, as it is proposed to do, nor place The work in connection with the anyone in that office but the only per- North Africa Mission is being prose. fect Man who has ever trod this earth cuted in the face of every discourage. -the Man Christ Jesus,who lived and ment. The workers among the KabyleR, died for us all, who is the only Media. at Djema Sahridj, are, however, cheered. tor because He is not only perfect man, They have had considerable trial, but but the Divine Son of God. Why take rejoice that the young converts are the shadow of the idea of mediation growing in grace, and the people seem from the west, and leave the substance? increasingly interested.' Why put your burden of sin on the shoulder of an imperfect human being, MiS's Trotter reports the baptism of a when you have the Son of man and Son Mohammedan woman who!!e husband of God waiting to carry it for you ?"
THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS
V.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.
India.* a.nd Oeylon-Brahmanism.t THE MISSIONARY STATISTICS OF INDIA, arrangement of the returns, but others are much required; and if the mi5siona- BURMAH, AND CEYLON. ries, at one of their great conferences. BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, would come to a general agreement on ENG. such questions as the following, their The fifth issue of these valuable tables relative returns would be much clearer has recently been published. and of more value: .. Are missionaries'
The series was commenced in 1851 by wives to be counted as missionaries ?" the late Dr. Mullens, solely on his own authority, but based on returns collect· .. Who are included under' Native ored from every part of India, and with dained agents' ?" "Are the' native lay the warm encouragement of the Calcutta Missionary Conference. preachers' solely engaged in mission This was followed in 1861 by a similar labor, or are some of them engaged in but more complete body of tables, and business and occasional preachers a book of great value t embodying an only?" ., Should not accessions by immense amount of accurate informa. conversion from non-Christian religions tion, supplementary and elucidatory of the statistical tables. The Church of be distinguished from growth by natu- God owes much to Dr. Mullens, for so ral increase?" "What marks the dillmuch of accurate and encouraging in- tinction between a station and an outformation on the whole subject of Indian missions as it possesses. His amaz- station ?" ing energy, accuracy, and insight alone produced these first reports; they were There are 47 distinct societies in used and quoted in newspapers, maga- India with 6 isolated missions; but zines, reports, and speeches as no other some of the former include small groups missionary documents have ever been, and it is to his example mainly we owe of auxiliaries, the Australian Baptist the subsequent decennial reports, col· lected and published under the auspices Mission including 5 such. The number of the Calcutta Missionary Conference, probably the largest association of mis- pf women's societies cannot be satisfacsionaries found anywhere, and belong- torily named, because, while some are ing to seven of the most important mis- distinct societies, others, apparently as sionary societies. important, are branches or auxiliaries The tables just issued are for 1890, and report, therefore, the results of nine of great general societies. years' advance instead of ten, so as to The number of missionaries is more bring them into line with the great decennial statistical reports of the govern- clearly defined ; and if to them be addment. ed the male and female foreign and Some changes have been made in the Eurasian teachers in mission schools, and, therefore, largely engaged in Chris- tian work, it will be seen what progress there has been of late made in foreign agency in India apart from Burmah and Ceylon.
1881. 1800.
Ordained Foreign and Eurasian Missionaries. .. ….. . .. .. .. . .. 586 857 Foreign and Eurasian Lay Preachers…. …………… 72 118 Foreign and Eurasian Teachers. 98 75 Lady Missionaries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479 711 * See also pp. 26, 47 (January), 205 (March), .. TotaL………………….. 1,235 1,761 and 248, 276, 292 (present Issne).
+t See p. 241 of this issue. If the Eurasians are omitted, the latter "A Brief Review of Ten Years' Missionary Labor in India. between 1852 and 1861," by Joseph figures will closely approximate to the ~u.lletl8" C,C, " . . ~overnmeIl,t ceIl,sU!I returns for 1890, which report the foreigu agents, mall! since 7 societies have mIssIons there, and female, as 1686. This only gives but 2 of them give no returns. one foreign agent to each 165,000 of the popUlation-a proportion far below what So far as appears from page 26 of the India requires. report, the number of foreign and Eura. sian missionaries is 37, the lady work. The following figures will show the ers 4, and the native pastors 115; but progress in various directions that has these numbers are difficult to reconcile been made sinoe the returns for 1881 : with the returns on page 48. There is a serious difference between the number 1881. 1890. of native Christians in 1881 and 1890, Native Ordained Agents…. 461 797 the returns being 35,708 for the former Native Preachers not Or- year, and only 22,442 for the latter- 3,491 the difference much more likely arising dalned…….. .•••. .••.•.. 2,488 4,863 from imperfect returns than actual de. Congregations. . . . . . . . . •. ., 3,650 559,661 fections. The educational returns call Native Christians ……..•• 417,372 182,722 for little notice; the pupils in 428 Communicants. .. . . . • . . . . .• 113,325 schools for boys numbering 29,027, and 1800. in 111 schools for girls, 9510. The Sun. Male Education. day.sohools number as inany as 384, 81 with 16,557 soholars. 1881. 1,584 Theological and Training 1. Returning to the Indian report, it 460 is disappointing to find that the ac· Schools …………….. . 56 53,564 oelerated rate of inorease in the native 4,770 Christian oommunity. notioeable in the Pupils………………… . 1,235 122,193 returns of 1861, 1871, and 1881, has not been sustained. It would be interest· Anglo-Yernacular Schools •. 385 ing to have explanations of this from missionaries in various parts of India, Scholars………………. . 45,249 since the rate of inorease in the gteat provinoes varies greatly, and, from the Vernacular Schools……..• 3,020 oharaoter of the different raoes, may be expeoted to vary. But the question is Scholars ……………… . 84,760 not inopportune, and could be justified -has preaohing to the heathen, with Female Education. 1,507 an earnest aim for their conversion, as Sch,lols………………… 1,120 62,414 large a share of the efforts of missionary Pupils…. …………….. 40,897 40,513 and native evangelists as it should Zenanas Open……… ….. 7,522 32,659 have? Pupils …………….. '" 9,132 2. The progress within the Christian In Burmah 7 sooieties have representa. community oompares favorably with its tives ; the oldest and most influential extension from without, excepting in being the American Baptist Missionary one feature-the number of student!! Union. The entire number of foreign being trained either as teachers, pasand Eurasian missionaries was 52, and tor~, or evangelists, is smaller than agof lady workers 46-no less, however, gressive Christian effort or the care of than 16 of the latter being absent on the churches require, or the qualifica. furlough. The native pastors numbered tions of the converts could supply. We 146. The only item on which a com· have heard with pain and surprise of parison with the past can be instituted aggressive work diminishing, even al. is in the number of native Christians, most ceasing, through the pastoral reo who in 1881 were 75,260, and in 1890, quirements of the Christian communi- 89,182; no fewer than 33,037 of them ties being so great that they demand albeing communicants, and of these 30,- mos~ 1,111 the resources alike of miEsioJ),a,- 646 belonged to Baptist Union churches.
Education by missionaries is not as prominent a feature as in India, nor is it so much needed.
The Anglo-vernacular schools are reported as 31, with 1490 pupils; the vernacular schools were 484, with 10,119 scholars ; and the girls' day schools as 8 only, with 3554-if correct, a si,Ilgular disproportion between schools and scholars.
The Ceylon statistics ale imperfect, ries and assistants, and additional con- There is some defect in the figures reverts would bring responsibilities that lating to zenanas, as the explanatory • could not be met without additional notes appended to the report admit. aid, for the baptism of each man brings " They are incomplete and inadequate, usuRlly six or seven of a family, most but reliable so far as they go." The of them very weak and ignorant, on the returns, for instance, give the number missionaries' hands-at least for social of houses open as 40,513-a remarkable protection and moral and religious in- increase-and the pupils as only 32,659 ; struction. This is a state of affairs that but as most houses contain more than should not be allowed to continue, either one female, and many contain several, by the societies at home or the mis- we presume the latter number indicates sionaries abroad. An adequate staff of only those who properly are scholars, missionaries should be maintained in taking no account of the varying numevery important station, and they should ber of women who from time to time check the demands of native Christians assemble in zenanas to hear the lady on their time and resources, for the lat- missionary, with her native helper, ter are not always wise or unselfish, and speak, read, or sing, or instruct others. their most efficient way to meet all true Certain it is that in houses thus visited requirements is to train for Christian thousands of women hear of Christ and service as many of their converts as Christianity who otherwise could not have the reqnisite willingness, con- and would not. joined with grace and good sense; and the natural gifts for high Christian ser- 4. A brief report is given of medical vice are as abundant in India as any- missionary appliances, from which it' where. appears that the foreign and Eurasian medical missionaries in India proper 3. It is a good feature that education were 96 ; the native Christian assistants, is so advancing. Thanks to the govern- 168, and the hospitals, etc., 162. No ment and the missionaries, the Hindus returns of the kind have hitherto been are rapidly becoming an educated peo- given; but though there has been a pIe; and the education given by the considerable increase in such agency of latter has advantages of a special kind. late years, the returns just given require It is most thoroughly Christian. It explanation. Some of the 96 are by no powerfully influences native and gov- means exclusively medical missionaries. ernment schools. It is the most power- Many of the native assistants are not ful of all weapons with which to smite practitioners, and the" etc." after hos- Hindnism. It is the most paying of-all pitals covers very subordinate establishforms of missionary effort, since the ments. school fees go far toward meeting school expenses. It supplies us with a large 5. Sunday-schools have grown much proportion of our' best preachers and in number and popularity. In 1881 teachers, and it prepares the way for there were only 1867 schools, having many reforms. The remarkable change 61,688 scholars; in 1890 there were 3503, of sentiment passing over the more in- with 135,565 scholars. fluential classes of society on most social and domestic questions is mainly 6. A comparison of these results with owing to its influence; and of these, the census returns of the government, femRle education is the most important. so far as yet ascertained, are interesting The increase of girls' schools, of houses and corroborative of the general acopen to instruction, and of openings for curacy of the missionary reports. The lady missionaries is distinctly trace- government census for India gives the able to the education given for some Protestant foreign agents, male and time in Anglo-vernacular schools for female, as 1686; the native Christian boys more than to any other source. agents, 4288 ; and the total Christian population, including Europeans, Syr- ians, Roman Catholics, and Protestants 6S 2,159,781 ; and of these, 559,661 ar; and pernicious domestic and social cus· Protestant native Christians-goodly toms relating to the status and influ.
numbers, doubtless, in themselves, but ence of women are rapidly changing.
small in comparison with 279,684,203 of Christianity and Hinduism are now in the splendid empire; the larger number deadly conflict, but the issue cannot be only 0.77 of the whole, and the latter uncertaiu.
0.20.
But there are some features of Chris- tian progress of which none of these fig. -Miss Margaret W. Leitch is author· ures take account. They cannot be tabu- ity for the statement, which may well lated, but they are of immense impor. make the saints of Christian lands to tance-probably, indeed, as significant blush, that there· are in North Ceylon of success as the tables are-and they 2700 native Christians, gathered into 22 deserve a much higher place in the esti. native churches, the majority of which mation of professing Christians than are entirely self.supporting. The native they receive. Christians not only support their own 1. BeRides the avowed and baptized pastors and a number of resident work- adherents to Protestant missions, there ers as evangelists and Bible.readArs, are Dlultitudes who have an intelligent and give to the support of the Bible So- knowledge of the great truths of Chris· ciety, Tract Society, and to educational tianity and more or less believe in institutions, but they also support 13 them. There is also an inner cirole native missiQ71aries, whom they send out containing a large body of secret disci· of the peninsula to labor in the" regions pIes. Every missionary of experience beyond," As a rule they are accustomed knows of imch or has heard of them. to give one tenth of their entire income to Their number of course cannot be ascer· the service of God. Those who reoeive a tained, but it ~as been estimated by salary give one tenth of that amount.
those whose opinions are entitled to Those who are farmers give one tenth deference as probably equal to that of of the produce of their fields or gardens, the avowed believers. and the firstling of the flock and of the 2. Again, anywhere, but especially in herd. The women daily set aside one India, more than individual conversions handful of rice in aid of their foreign are to be taken into account. We are mission work, diminishing the amount engaged there in the most stupendous of food which the family was accustomed enterprise the Church of God has ever to use day by day by this quantity.
undertaken, not excepting the conver. And an English Church missionary sion of the Roman Empire. It is being tells a similar story of giving which done. But much that is done is not costs: .. You know about the Bhalaj been. Probably more bas been accom· church being seated by a widow there plished that is not seen or tabulated in memory of her husband. Another than is. It i~ certain that the whole member of the Bhalaj congregation has system of popular beliefs, superstitions, offered to erect a pulpit (a table and and customs springing out of them are desk have hitherto been used). Last changing and giving place to opinions, Monday I visited a member of the Na.
sentiments, and usages more or less riad congregation, who is ailing, and be- Christian. Polytheism is giving place fore I left he handed me 50 rupees to .to monotheism. Transmigration theo. be used in connection with the Nariad ries of the soul are losing their strange church. A member of our church in power. Caste is weakening. Brahmani_ Anand here sold a piece of land 8 week cal inftuence is waning. Christian con. or two ago, and brought me 25. rupees- ceptions of morals and of a future life a tenth of the price-to be used for the are spreading; Rnd all the rAstrictive good of the church." D. L. L.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
VI.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD.
Extraots a.nd Transla.tions from Foreign tinctively Lutheran, it was welcomed Periodioals. by the Church, which was then glad of its aid against rationalism. As this foe BY lIlilV. C. C. STAllBUCK, £NDOVXR, lIUSS.
receded, the ecclesiastical and doctrinal THE CONTINENT. senso grew stronger, and in 1845 the -The Rev. William Boyd, in the Lund Society was formed on a strict U. P. Record, describing the Vaudois Lutheran basis. In 1854 it came into valleys, givos a new impression of them. connection with the rigorously Lutheran He says: "The valleys are extremely Leipsic Society. In 1856 the Fosterlands- beautiful. The vegetation is rich. sliftung was formed for both home and Shrubs and flowers, confined to the foreign missions, and one that is both.
conservatory with us, grow luxuriantly the Lapp Mission. This represented in the open air, and all around on the a more free church tendency; but since terraced hills are vineyards, in which I the formation by the Waldenstromians saw red and white grapes hanging in of the Swedish Missionary League, in luscious clusters." The Scottish Pres. 1881, it has assumed a position nearer byterians, instead of aggravating the that of Lund. In 1874 the Church of divisions of Italian Protestantism, by Sweden herself organized a missionary setting up churches of their own, more board, whose six members are chosen wisely help the Waldensian Church. In by the Quinquennial Convocation, the the same magazine he also says of the archbishop also being ex.officio presi.
Free Church of France: "Thill chul'ch dent, and a permanent secretary having -fonndedin 1848, when the Eglise Re- the immediate direction. Lund and formee, from which she seceded, rejeot. the Swedish Society have fused them- cd by a large majority her ancient Con. selves in this. The Fosterlands.stiflung fession of Faith-has not advanoed in remains distinct, though friendly and number or in influence as was at first co-operative. The Tamil Mission is expected. But the principles for which still in connection with Leipsic, and the she contended have advanced. and that Swedish Society retains its distinctness in a very remarkable degree. I don't in the Lapp Mission..
think the Synod of the Eglise Reformee, -Missionary Charles E. Faithfull, of if it were to meet now, wonld repeat the the Seamen's Rest, 38 Quai du Port, vote which led to the disruption, more Marseilles, France, publishes from time than forty years ago. The wave of to time attractive reports in fac.simile, rationalism has subsided. A very large the last including three months' work. majority of the French clergy are now We make some extracts: "January 2d. decidedly evangelical, and the same can Was our annual jete. Abt,ut 60 sailors be said of the members of that church, present, representing several nationaliwho number about half a million peo· ties. One of the French pastors presid. pIe, While it is admitted that the happy ed. and other friends gave valuable as· ohange is in no BmaH meMure due to sistance, making the soiree pleasant and the influence of their lesB imponapt instructive. After music, recitations, sister." and refreshments, brief gospel addresses –The earliest Swedish missionary so- followed in French and English. By ciety was formed at Gothenburg in the kindness of the director of the 1829. The Swedish Missionary Society McAll Mission, Ml". Lenoir, it was held (absorbing the former) was formed in in his fine hall next door. It pleases Stockholm iu 1835. Though not dis. God to try our faith in the mattel" of
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIO;NB
means; several times lately a few pence his family with the necessaries of life, was our only visible fortune, but on every he went to the Bishop of Wilna, who occasion help came in trme to meet all showed him great kindness. .. The reclaims. • Jehovah jireh! '-With mul- sult has been the establishment of a titudes the world over we mourn the de- concurrent Lutheran and Greek miBBion parture of dear Mr. Spurgeon, in whom to the Jews in Wilna. I lose a personal friend and subscriber. -Februa.,ry. Profiting by the visit of Dr. -The Rev. L. G. Hasse, of the Mora- Loba and Mr. Reveillaud, of the MeAl! vians, who within a few years ha'Ye rs- Mission, a special service was held; sub- acquired legal reoognition in Bohemia ject, 'The Greatest Voyage in the World.' and Moravia, where they now have five Both friends spoke powerfully, and with congregations, writes: ,. This whole evident appreoiation, on the sailors' part. locality teems with reminiscences and A noteworthy fact the local papers traditions of the Ancient Brethren's kindly announced the meeting free of Church. Almost every name is familcharge.-Again this month it has been iar. Here among the hills of Reicheour privilege to help on their way either nau, the Unity of the Brethren was ingoing or returning missionaries labor- stituted ; some one has cut the figures ing in India or China.-March 20th. Mr. 1457 into an old fir tree which stands C. Cook interested the sailors by pris- on the hillside at Lhota. Here the first on experiences. 31st. Visited the Aus- synod assembled; here, at Brandeis, tralian liner; a Christian sailor is on was the last hiding-place of Comenius. board; he takes with him a parcel of This neighborhood is the cradle and the books, besides some New Testaments. grave of our ancient Unity of the Breth- The reading-rooms continue to be well ren." frequented; 5195 visits have been paid during the past four months, of which – " Old Catholic Congress at Lucerne.- 3911 were French, 592 English, 505 The second international congress of Scandinavian, 113 Germans, 12 Dutch the Old Catholics, which took place at or Belgians, 5 Greeks or Italians, 12 Lucerne in September, was an event ol Spaniards or Portuguese, 45 Russians, mOfe than ordinary interest. Not only 1 Swiss. The hospital has been visited wefe the Eastern churches, which stm regularly. Please pray for the sick claim to be Catholic, represented by in. ones, who for the most .part are doubly fluential dignitaries, but the invitation worthy of pity, as, in addition to their was extended to the Protestant churched physical sufferings, they are frequently of the West. The Reformed communtreated far from wisely or well. I know ions of Germany and Switzerland were of one who has teen there for more specially asked to send representatives, than three months with a broken leg, and the gathering at Lucerne also inand for five week!! he had not a drop of cluded bishops of the Church of Engwater wherewith to wash his face and land and notable English Nonconformhands. The French, as a rule, fea1.' water ists. The Russian Church sent a promiin sickness. . .. . nent ecclesiastic, who was spoken to • very plainly by some of the English "As to the gold and sil ver, I have visitors on the subject of the Stun.Ust only to thank the Lord and His servants perpecutions. He listened to their refor the comparatively liberal supplies, monstrances quite courteously, but always more at this time of year, owing seemed unable to understand the Brit. to the customary visits to the Riviera ish ideas of religious toleration."-Misand Switzerland." sionary Record (United Presbyterian, Church of Scotland.) -From Russia Mr. Friedmann writes, in Jewish Intelligence: "A Jewish rabbi PALESTINE. applied to me for instruction and baptisin. Being unable to provide him and -To the sons of George Foy, whether they are still found within the COIU-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
munion dating from him or not, noth. oult for some to abandon the many ing is more gratifying than the revival forms find oeremonies to whioh the peo- of missionary zeal within it on distinot- ple in this oountry have been acous- ly evqeli081 lines. Those Christians tomed for so many oenturies. We now whom we call Ritualists are doing a vast number thirty.seven members, besides amount of most excellent work. Yet, as five birthright members. We hope, as The Christian well remarks, it is good to the new-born babes reoeive physioal hold up, against some reoent rather growth and strength, that they may alarming reorudesoences of mere sacer- grow spiritually in the Christian re- dotalism, the recent growth of numben; ligion.
and zeal in the Sooiety of Friends-a "In the days before the Friends swiety whioh has ministers, indeed, began mission work here, many of our but has neither" clergy" nor" laymen." people were thieves and robbers. They One of the most beautiful missions of often fought and troubled each other the Amerioan branoh of the sooiety is and their neighbors; but now all is the Eli and Sybil Jones Mission in the changed. The people oome quietly to Holy Land. This has established a the meetings, and there is no need for monthly meeting at Ramallah, north of aTtns. Although the good ohanges are Jerusalem (held by Ewald to be Ramah slow, they are sure, and we oan be en- of Samuel), from whose epistle to the oouraged for the future. The ohanges New England yearly meeting we give seem like the new moon-not easily some extraots. It is signed by two desoried at first, yet as it approaohes Arab olerks of meeting• the full, oan euily be seen by the weak- • •• DEAB FBIENDs: • Graoe and peaoe est eyes.
be multiplied unto you through the .. Although far separated from you in knowledge of God and of Jesus our body. yet we feel that we are spiritually Lord.' The many blessings which have united. Our oountry, language, and been given us by our heavenly Father oustoma greatly differ from yours, yet through you oonstrain us to send you 'by one Spirit we are all baptized into greeting at this, the beginning of a new one body, … hether we be Jews or Gen- year. We realize that you are sending tileR, whether we be bond or free, and of your sustenance to this far· off land, have all been made to drink into one to elevate us, both temporally and spir- Spirit: itually. Not only this, but you have " Finally, we ask you, when you pray, given and are giving for our benefit your not to forget us who are connected with very selves. Those of your own hon- you in the bonds of Christian love. We ored membera have oome to us. First, especially ask you, in the meeting now we would mention the sainted Eli Jones, assembled, to lift up your hearts to the who, with his noble wife, was the only high and true God; to ask Him to founder of the mission. The good work riohly bless His work in this country, so well begun by him only eternity will where our Saviour Jesus Christ lived reveal, and the blessed memory of those and died, and to make this mission 8S a dear people of God in this place. will minaret upon a high hill, to slline out ever remain and be transmitted to our and bleBS all around. May the graoe of children and children's children after God be with youa11. In behalf of us. They are now saints in glory; but Ramallah Monthly Meeting of Friends I others of your numbE'r are walking in in Palestine. Your brothers in Christ, I their footsteps and have taken up their •• SALBl!llII: SAADU, . work. " CLEAII AUDI, ., Spiritual worship beoame wonderful " Clerks."
and beautiful to our people as they were carefully guided to an nndersl.anding of -If every member of another denomi- its meaning, although it was very dun- nation who is of Quaker desoent would
EXTRACTS AND
Bend 'one dollar to William T. HU88ey, days were like the spring oi Europe. North Berwick, Me., this exercise of The health of the people and the prod. .. natural piety" WOUld. we are Bure, uce of their fisheries were both good. bless both the giver and the receivers. In this land of perpetual hardship every mitigation is a matter of specia.! thank. MISCELLANEOUS. fulness. The grippe. it is true, visited the people, but was fatal in only a few -" When it is a time like that night cases. on the Sea of Tiberistl, when they labored in vain, who knows bot that, as -The Moravian congregations in yonder the Stranger on the shore called Jamaica are beginning to develop spe- to them, 'Cast the net on the right side cial interest in their East African Mis- of the ship!' 80 the Lord is already sion. The Presbyterians of Jamaica making ready the hour when the nets have long been specially connected with shall be found full and more than foil, the United Presbyterian Mission in and the word shall pUR, as in John, ' It West Africa. Perhaps these are the is the Lord!' Who knows, moreover, first·fruits of a mighty refluent influ· how the Lord will uplift the hearts of ence from the children of Africa upon His servants, having already prepared the motherland. for them the meal upon the shore. at which they may rejoice in His pres. -The quiet little Moravian Mosquito ence, and all questions sink into silence Mission is changing it1l face. "The before the one joyful consciousne88: Mosquito Reserve is no more the little • It is the Lord!' He was with them in laud, still and far from the 'World, in • the nigbt of waiting; He will be with which our missiollaries were the only them in the dawn of blesaing."-The authority. More and more is it coming Very Reverend Superintendent WJ:BNIIB, into the circle of the world's commerce. in Evangelisch·LutMrisclies Mi.tsionsblaU. This, in 80me respects, has its evil aides ; but it lays out a wider range of respon. -Great uncertainty has been felt over sibility before our Mission as the Lord the final rellults of the great abundance gives into our hands an ever wider and of Christian labor in Jamaica. Even more important field of activity." the present writer, after spending ten years in the island, knew not what to -" What David Livingstone is to the say at the end. It is therefore encour. tribes of Africa, Henry Martyn is to the aging that Bishop Romig, of the Mora. people of Persia. These clever Moham· vians, says: "We find the black people medans could argue point by point in owning land and hooses, a number of favor of their own religion ; but the fact small pe!8!nt proprietors, industrious, of this noble, Belf.8!lCriiicing life, so like honest, and God·fearing ; acquiring and the Christ he came to commend, either practising, year by year, those habits convinced them or sent them away of steady application; intelligence, and bsmed. The fact that so few were con· self·reliance so essential to Bucce88 in verted under Martyn, and that so few the black or white man. Among their have been won since, shows what a dim· . number to·day are lawyers, doctors, cult task the Church has before her. clergymen, and schoolmasters, talented, This work is not to be done at our ease, successful and respected members of with the mere surplus of onr wealth and their professions." The Moravians and the fragments of our time. It demands Presbyterians have been especja.!ly suc. all the ellergy, and faith, and prayers of cessful here in developing solid char. the Church. It is a dead lift, demanding acter among their people. the redeeming grace of the Almighty God working through man doing his -The Moravian brethren report that best. The Church of Christ is slowly the Greenland winter and spring of 1891 awaking to this fact…- The Ohurch were uncommonly mild. Some of the Manthly.
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE
THE WORLD AT LARGE. For the Church's marching orders see -Dr. Paton says it is demonstrated Matt. 28 : 19, 20, and passim.
by figures that in the South Seas ~ soul –As the .Mis.~ionary Ilerald reminds is ssved for every $5 expended upon us: .. Eighty-Ii ve years ago the directors missions. of the East India Company placed on -These are the words of David solemn record : • The sending of Chris- Brainerd, with reference to his toil in tian missionaries into our Eastern posbehalf of the Indians, and they cOLtain sessions is the maddest, most expensive, the secret of his success: "I cared not most unwarranted project that was ever where or how I lived, or what hard· proposed by a lunatic enthusiast.' A ships I went through, so that I could few months since the Lieutenant·Govbut gain souls for Christ. While I was ernor of Bengal ssid: • In my judgment, asleep I dreamed oC these things, and Christian missionaries have done more when I awoke the first thing I thought real and lasting good to the people of of was this great work. .,11 my desire India than all the other agencies com· was for their conversion, and all my bined.' "
hope was in God. " -All this happened only a hundred -A recent visitor to Northfield and years ago : A bishop of the Church of Mount Hermon, Mass., writes thus con- England said he had in his diocese a cerning what he saw: .. As one looks very good clergyman, but one who was around he must be impressed with the VfAry eccentric, and gave as proof of it massiveness of these foundations on the fact that the said clergyman actually which these great schools are estab· believed the Indians of North America • lished-the massiveness of the faith and could be converted! Three years after energy of one living, loving, and devot· Carey had arrived in India the Assem. ed layman ; and one asks himself the blyof the Church of Scotlanddenounced question, 'Suppose evel1/ layman and the scheme of foreign missions as "illuevery clergyman were equally devoted, sive," "visionary," "dangerous to the what would be the results to the church good order of society," and as " im. of Jesus Christ 1" proper and absurd to propagate the Gospel in heathen lands so long as there -The Moravian Church, after ten was a single person in Scotland who was years' provisional admlliistration, has withoutthe means of knowing the way finally assumed permanent control of of life."
the Protestant Lepers' Asylum at Jeru. -In a clarion call for a crusade in be· salem. half of the world's evangelization Canon -Things old as well as things new Farrar expostulates: .. If all the inhab- have a place and a value; therefore reo itants of the globe were to pass by us in call this : It is related of the Duke of long procession, two thirds of the whole Wellington that when he was in India innumerable multitude would be fetish many friends of missions would ask worshippers, or fire worshippers, or him, "Do you think, Duke, that we are idolators, or followers of Confucius, or making progress here? Do you think . sunk in the thinly veiled negations of India will ever be Christianized?" The Buddhism. Would this have been pos- old duke was wont to draw himself up sible if the Church had retained the and answer, "What do I think of mis· fervor and enthusiasm of her early faith sions? Will India ever be Christian· and had sent forth not merely an iso.
ized? What is ihat to me? Tell me lated preacher here and there, like a Paul, or a Boniface, or a Columba, or a the marching orders." Xavier, but·· an adequate number of laborers into fields already white unto " • Forward!' the captain's cry ; the· harvest ?" Theirs not to make reply, Theira but to do and die." -A missionary in Japan protests fluence of these truths to lead them to vigorously to the Missionary Herald abandon their old evil practices. I find against the use of the term heathen as that this plan answers better than any applied to the non-Christian peoples of negative teaching could possibly do."
Asia, and appears to make out his case. -This is Stanley's story of what one This is his language: "The Japanese Bible accomplished: "In 1875,. Miss are very sensitive over this word. It Livin~tone, the sister of David LivinglIeems to them an offensi ve and rude stone, presented me with a beautifully term, a word of inferiority or even of bound Bible. On a subsequent visit to contempt. It was from our English Mtesa I read to him some chapters, and Bible, doubtless, that it came so widely as I finished it flashed through my mind into use. Yes; but go to the Revised that Uganda was destined to be won for Version, and not one single passage in Christ. I was not permitted to carry the New Testament can be found with that Bible away. Mtesa never forgot this word in it. Christ and His disci- the wonderful words, nor the startling ples never used it. They spoke of na- effect they had upon him ; and just as I tions with respect and hope; never of was turning away from his country to heathen, pagans, outsiders. The revised continue my explorations across the Old Testament, too, has largely done Dark Continent, a messenger who had the same. Our new Bible is pretty well travelled two bundred miles came to me cleared up, so far as the word heathen is crying out that Mtesa wanted the book, concerned. The worst people in our and it was given to him. To-day the so-called Christian civilization use this Christians in Uganda number many • word most freely. Gamblers, hard thousands; they bave proved their faith drinkers, pharisaical moralists, and low at the stake, under the knobstick, and politicians cannot ring changes enough under tortur9 until death." on it. 'The heathen Chinese,' • the heathen Jap,' are the words of human -A Greek Christian in Turkey has beings who never had a noble thought sent to the treasury of the American toward the people of another nation, Board a draft for $1820, and wrote in nor a spark of true patriotism. So that the letter which conveyed it : "Feeling I would raise the question: Isn't it time that God has placed me under g~eat that we missionaries part company with obligations for blessings bestowed, I those who roll the word heathen under have decided to keep a part of the sumR their tongues as a sweet morsel of con- He has given me as a trust to be admintempt? Shall we Christians at home or istered for His glory, and a part I send in mission fields be courteous in preach- you to be used as herein directed" ing the gladdest tidings on earth, or This man became a Christian some years ago, while at Constantinople. He not?" Query.-Will not the same plan work has done much evangelistic work, enas well in Christian lands? Dr. Paton tirely at bis own expense, has been does not tell the cannibals to whom he the object of protracted persecntion, has ministered so successfully what has been often iu prison, and from the errors of teaching they must avoid, nor first bas calmly faced the probability of does he dwell even on the sins which losing all his earthly possessions.
they commit. But rather he tells them -Eugene Stock. of the Church Mis- that Jesus offers them full redemption sionary Society, after a wide observation from sin, and calls them to abandon sin of the facts in the case, is thoroughly and serve Him. Bishop Patteson, labor- convinced of "the unwisdom of trying ing among the same people, said : ,. I to create missionary interest by getting don't even tell them that cannibalism R parish or a SundaY·Rehool to support or taboo is wrong. I simply teach them a catechist in India or II child in a Mel- great positive truths, and trust to the in- anesian boarding-school." He repudiates " the idea that. missionary interest. AMERICA. is fostered at all by the plan of thus con· centrating attention upon one spot and United States,-Surely, groBS merone individual;" and affirms that·· had cantilism and materialism are not unione half the energy expended in get- versal even among wealthy Americans, ting a few pounds together for a local for the Oongregationalist is able to reoord object. been used to tell of the vast these as among the events of a siugle needs of India or Africa, and to band week: "John D. Rockefeller has added the praying people together to meet $1,000,000 totheendowmen&of theUniand read and pray and stir one an- versityof Chioago, to which, wit.hin four other up, the results would have been years, he had previously given $2,600,- much better." 000. Dartmouth College has been the reoipient. of $180,000. Miss Mary Gar- -The Medical M'18sionary Record of rett has given $400,000 to endow the New York has prepared with great care Women's College of Medioine at Johns a list of all the medical missionaries in Hopkins University, Baltimoro, while the world. It contains the names of Gammon Institute, in Georgia, haa just 359, of whom 74 are women, and only become tho legatee of an estate valued those poasessing full medical qualifica- at $750,000. Mr. George W. Vanderbilt tions are included. The Presbyterian has given' his art gallery building, Church of the United States has 48 ; the valued at $100,000, to the American American Board has 32 ; the Methodist Fine Arts Sooiety of New York City." Church, 30 ; the Church Miasionary So- The totalis$2,430,000," made known to ciety, 25 ; the Free Church of Scotland, the world within 168 hours." 20; the United Presbyterian Church, 10; and the Church of Scotland, 8, and -Perhaps, all things considered, Dr. the Presbyterian Church of Canada the Daniel Kimball Pearsons, of Chicago, same number. The United States has among living givers approaohes nearest 173 ; Great Britain, 169 ; Canada, 7 ; and to the ideal. Within five years his Germany, 3. As regards countries occu- benefactions have reaohed a round millpied, China has the largest number- ion, and in his giving he makes a spe- 126 ; India, 76 ; and Africa, 46. cialty of spurring others to open their purses. "I'll bestow this-sum on– -Bishop Levering, when asked how college, or theological seminary, or hosit came about t.hat the Moravians were pital, if you will secure this other sum so noted for their self-denial and activ- within a given time," ity in missions, replied: ., When the converts join the Church we try to get -It is estimated that it oosts well-to. them to realize that they are joining a do people in this country $125,000,000 great missiol1ary society." yearly to support oharitable institutions. while about $500,000,000 are invested -The Lutheran churches of Christen- in permanent buildings, where the dom sustain 40 missionary societies on ueedy are cared for, Add to this one 22 fields, occupied by 700 stations, 1000 item in the paragraph preoeding; add missionaries and 4000 native helpers, in also the cost of all our academies, col. charge of 210,000 members; 1600 com- leges, theological seminaries, eto.: to mon schools, with 60,000 pupils, and 25 this add the oost of our prisons, hoshigher institutions. Annual income pitals, etc. ; add also what we pay for and expenditures, $1,200,000. There tea and coffee, for fashions and all manare 20 institutions for the training of ner of personal indulgence-not to name missionaries, and the circulation of mis- tobacco and liquor; and is it not clear sionary periodicals is nry large. So that our 65,000,000 expend a hundredstates Professor W. Wackeroagel, of fold more upon themselves than they Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa., in do upon the 20 times 65,000,000 in the the Lutheran Observer. world outside? -The American Institute of Sacred like an educational plan-but by an Literature, of which Dr. W. R. Harper earnest Christian woman, who pitied is president, has students in 15 differ- the children of her sex who were being ent countries, including Korea, Hawaii, sold as victims of the lust of agents and Burma, AfI8am and Bermuda; 3000 are miners. fur traders and adventurers. It enrolled in the Hebrewand Greek depart- would be impossible to exaggerate the ment, and thousands more in the English importance of Christian iniluence in elementary and advanced Bible study. checking evil in Alaska, or the heroism -It is estimated that the public and of missionaries of various denominaprivate hospitals of New York City con- tions who are pushing their work up to tain 11,000 beds, and during a year min- the gates of eternal ice in Bering Straits…
ister to between 50,000 and 60,000 pa- -In justice to the smaller denomina- tients, at a cost of $2,500.000. In addi. tions, as, indeed, also some of the larger tion, at the 50 or more public and pri- ones, it should be borne in mind that vate dispensaries upward of 664,000 they have but few men of wealth in persons receive annually medical or their membership, and hence their mis- surgicalllid. At least so much is done sionary societies receive but little or in the metropolis to solve" the problem nothing from bequests-a source whic):J.
of sickness." Rev. George S. Baker, supplies to the stronger societies a large pastor and superintendent of St. Luke's part of their income.
Hospital, states these facts in the -Our Baptist brethren rejoice at the Ohurchman. prospect of raising $1,000,000 to cele. brate the centenary of foreign missions. -There are now 4 Jewish-American John D. Rockefeller has contributed papers which favor holding synagogue $50,000; James B. Colgate, $10,000; services on Sunday. Upon this subject Charles L. Colby, $7000, and J. Lewis the Jewish Tidings says: "The other Crozer, of Philadelphia, $5000; while Jewish journals will soon fall into line, from one Baptist church $25,000 is exfor they certainly cannot long oppose pected for this same fund. the inevitsble. The sentiment of the majority of the Jews of America is un· ·-Chaplain McCabe puts two things questionably in favor of the introduc- together in this fashion: "The total tion of Sunday services, and come they income of the Roman Catholic propamust. " ganda in 1891, with all the world to collect from, was $1,271,947. The in- -The Boston Seaman's Friend So- come of the Missionary Society of the ciety dates from 1827, has an income of Methodist Episcopal Church for 1892 nearly $10,000, and has recently pur- was $1,269,483. Only about $10,000 chased a piece of property for its uses, of this came from our foreign miBBions. paying $32,000 in cash and giving a An increase of $3000 more in our in. mortgage note for $40,000. Vessels are come, and our Methodist Missionary So. visited and religious services are sup- ciety will pass the Roman propaganda. plied, as well as meals, lodging, etc. But, in justice, we ought to add to what the parent society raises all missionary The British and Foreign Sailors' So- offerings, such as the Woman's Foreign ciety raised over £21,000 (including the Missionary Society and the Woman's Bums raised for local purposes), and the Home Missionary Society, and Bishop Mi88ions to Seamen's Society (English Taylor's work. This brings the grand Established Church) raised £28,000 during the last fiscal year.
-Said Dr. F. F. Ellinwood recently: total up to more than $1,8oo,OOO-far be- " The beginnings of faithful work among yond the highest sum ever reached by the the Indians of Alaska were made, not Roman Catholic propaganda. We are by government agents-though the gov- fully half a million beyond Rome in ernment has now undertaken something our annual offerings." WOMAN'S WORK. Mount Lebanon, Baalbec, Tyre, etc., -The first woman's foreign mission- also schools for the blind and a staff of ary organiiation-the Society for Pro- 31 Bible.women, hareem visitors, and moting Female Education in the East, Scripture readers. The number of of England-was founded in 1834. The schools is 29, with the highest entry of first woman medical missionary was Dr. 3500 pupils. The sum needed for the Clara Swain (Methodist Episcopal), who maintenance of these various agencies reached Bllreilly, Northwest India, in . is £6000 per annum.
1870, and the work in which she was a – The Ladies' Association for the Suppioneer i~ now carried on by not less port of Zenana Work and Bible-Women than 75 of her sex. in India and China, in connection with -At the 32d annual meeting of the the English Baptist Missionary Society, Union Woman's Missionary Society (the occupies 22 stations in India, with a staff oldest in the United States), recently of 56 zenana visitors and assistants, and held, the treasurer's report showed the 160 native Bible.women and schoolreceipts for the past year to have been teachers. There are 64 girls' schools. $54,505 and the balance for 1891, $1398. RepresentativllS are to be sent this The expenditures for 1892 were $47,581, year to China. The expenditure was leaving a balance of $8322. £8600, and an increase of £1200 is urgently called for. -Of the $1,000,000 centennialoffering proposed by the Baptist Missionary ~Herr von Donner, of Hamburg. be- Union, the Woman's Society undertakes lieving his wife's recovery from a danto raise one fifth part-$200,000. gerous illness to be due to the skilful treatment of Dr. Michelsen, a woman -The Society of the Methodist Epis- physician, has given $500,000 to found copal Church has.12 hospitals and dis- a woman's hospital in her honor in that pensaries, in which, during the last year, city.
some 35,000 women have received care. EUROPE. A girl, a Hindu waif, once in the Bareilly orphanage, has since received a medical Great Britain.-According to a cataeducation, and is now in charge of the logue recently published, the library of woman's department of a government the British Museum contains copies of hospital. This society has promised 2700 different editions of the Bible, and Bishop Thobum to raise the money re- complete Bibles in about 90 tongues. quired to educate 500 girls, at an annual cost for each of $10. -Yct again does Saul appear among the prophets, for the London Times -The Society of the Reformed (Dutch) comes to the defence of missionaries in Church maintains a library committee China. It says: "The only real interwhich has in charge to loan to auxilia- preter of the thought and progress of ries a missionary library of some 50 vol- the West to the millions of China is the umes. Books can be kept two weeks. missionary; and when we remember A catalogue is printed, giving the post. that European knowledge of China is age of each book. Every copy loaned derived almost wholly from the works contains that most impressive chart with of missionaries, we may fairly say that :figures, "A Mute Appeal in Behalf of these men stand as interpreters between Foreign Missions." the East and the West. As to the char- ity, we can only answer that China had -The Daughters of Syria Society, no efficient hospitals or medical attend- of London, formed in 1860, has a ance until the missionaries established training institution in Beyrout, with them, and,in truth, she has no other branch day schools for Mohammedans, now; and when her great men, such as Druzes, Jewesses, Oriental Christians, Li Hung Chang and Prince Chun, are in and Protestants, in Beyrout, Damascus, serious danger, they have to go to the despised missionary doctor for that effi· dence of the pUblic. Some of the solcient aid which no Chinaman can give diers are doing a grand work in the them." mission field abroad, others are labor- ing in every city and town in the king- -If one is of the opinion that Britons dom, others again in villages: Laborare only selfish and greedy to possess houses, training.schools, coffee.houses, the earth, let him examine almost any prisons, public institutions, are reaping number of the London Ohristian and the bllnefit of the organization of the learn better. Entire pages are covered Church Army." with the names of all sorts of benevolent enterprises, and a banking firm -During 1892 the Board of Examiners in a single issue reports donations reo of the Propagation Society (S. P. G.) ac· cei"ed for no less t,han 116 societies cepted 15 clergymen and 15 laymen for which minister to the poor, the sick, mission work, and with regard to destithe distressed, and the heathen. nations, the 30 are distributed thus: 11 were sent to Africa, 2 to Newfoundland, -In the year 1833 the Rev. M, Jen- 4 to Canada, 3 to the West Indies, 2 to nings, a curate in Norfolk, gave an Australia, 2 to Corea, and 6 to India. apple-tree to the wife of a farmer in whose house he was lodging. When it -The Church Missionary Society has was planted, she promised that as long been holding meetings to agitate for a as she lived she would sell the apples large increase of non-ordained persons and devote the proceeds to the Society in the field. The key-note was struck for the Propagation of the Gospel. This by Mr. James Monro,late chief commispromise she faithfully kept for fifty-nine sioner of the Metropolitan Police, but years, during which time the tree only recently engaged in mission work in failed to bear a crop twice. Of the India, who suggested that the mission. exact sum received no account has been ary call was not to a select few among kept, I?ut it is known to exceed £50. the clergy, but was to the whole Church -to the laity as well as to the clergy. -Quoth the Evangelical Churchman One result of this exclusion of the laity (Toronto): "It is said, on the author- was that the number of missionaries ity of the priest in charge, that at the had been very much limited. It had shrine of the great heathen god at Cal- also created the impression in the minds cutta, not long ago, a sum equal to of the natives of India that laymen had $1,500,000 was given in one day as the nothing to do with religious teaching. devotions of the people to their god. He thought that the society would have Yet England, with all her wealth, can to follow up its scheme of associated lay only raise $5,000,000 ina whole year for evangelists by one of associated female missions, although she spends $600,000,- evangelists. 000, it is said, for drink. The very heathen shows us the spirit of sacrifice." -The East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions was found· -The Salvation Army idea is taking ed in 1872 to train men and women for root. The London correspondent of the mIssIonary service. Upward of 3500 South~ Churchman writes: "The work have applied, coming from upward of of the Church Army is growing with 30 countries and from almost every dethat calm, quiet growth that means so nomination. Of those accepted, 120 are much. It is growing as the Church now in the midst of their course, and grew, as the oaks grow, with the roots about 640 have entered upon their work deep down in the soil. There is no sud- in the service of 30 societies. What den, gourd.like shooting up, no wild nobler monument is possible to the extravagance; all is solid and real. The founder, H. Grattan Guinness? men are carefully trained and proved, and are winning their way to the confi- -Colonel Evans, of the Salvation Army, explains in this way the phenome, nal success which has attended that or- at Kaiserswerth has 664 deaconesses, 192 ganization : ., The real moving, heart- , probationers, and 16 deaconess pupils.
stirring, soul.saving power has been the One of the deaconesses is a native of fire of the Holy Ghost. It is this fire Arabia.
that has enabled the weakest to face and -The persecution of the Jews in Russubdue the most brutal and vicious. It sia has had one admirable (?) result. It is this fire burning in their souls that is reported that some 30,000 of them have has made the prison.cell a palace and been forced by their misery to become the darkest dungeon a mansion of light. Christians, and they are kept corraled With it they have been able cheerfully apart from other Jews, under strict to bear poverty, hunger, suffering and watch and instruction, for fear they will trial. This, and this alone, is the hid- apostatize. den, secret, vital force that has placed the army where it stands to-day." A Moscow merchant has become the godfather of 400 Jews who have The Continent.-Light in a dark been baptized to awid persecution.
place. The Missionary Church of Bel- He promised to remember in his will gium has 25 pastors and 20 other agents, every one who should be certified to have who provide for 28 congregations and 63 received the sacrament once a year, Sunday-schools, and carry on evangel- and only two have so far reported them- istic work in 100 localities. They also selves.
have about 40 halls, and hold an aver- The March of Civilization.-Tramcars age of nearly 8000 meetings a year. are to run -erelong in the streets of Their growth varies from 500 to 600 con. Thessalonica. The concession has been versions every year. These are mostly obtained by Hamly Bey, a local Crmsus. _ among the poor miners and working- men, who give liberally and show great ASIA.
activity. Still it is impossible for them Turkish Empire.-Robert College, to meet all the expenses involved, and Constantinople, has issued its 29th anearnest appeals have been made to Eng. nual report, which is full of cheer. land and this country. Any persons in- The bulk of the expenses of the college terested in the work may forward funds was met by the students. The number to Mr. Louis Bichsel, 114 West Twenty- of pupils increased from 159 the prefirst Street, New York. vious year to 194, embracing 12 nationali- -The Berlin City Mission Society is ties, the Armenians, Bulgarians, and more successful than ever in its sermon Greeks being most largely represented. distribution. The weekly edition is now The number of Turks in the college will 130,000. Of these 18,000 are used in continue to be small so long as the gov- Berlin among those whose work does erDment maintains its hostility to fornot permit them to attend the church eign and Christian schools; but Presiservices; 67,000 go to other parts of dent Washburn believes that the time Prussia; 25,000 to other German coun- will soon come when this policy will be tries, and 6500 to other parts of Europe. abandoned. A new science hall is al- The Dresden Society publishes an edi- most completed, a professorship of tion of 12,000 each week, of which about chemistry and mineralogy has been es· 1300 go to other countries than Saxony. tablished, and a flourishing Young Men's Christian Association has been organ- -The Deaconesses Mother House at Kaiserswerth recently celebrated its fifty- ized.
sixth anniversary. There are now 63 -Dr. Balph, of Kessab, Asia Min<!r, mother houses, with more tban 9000 sis· holds a clinic in the morning. One day ters in 2800 fields of work. The total a man brought his wife to have the docincome was 8,000,000 marks during the tor treat her eyes. He asked him if any past twelve months. The original house one had treated her before. He replied, " No; I took her to a physician, and he an infidel's disfigurement of the classi.
asked me to pay two liras (about $9), cal work of Mohammedan theology. Bu t and I told him I did not want to waste in the end he was led to open the book so much money on her. Why," he con- and read a few lines, which so impressed tinued, " 1 would sell Iter for half. that him that he read on, and then expressed amount." his astonishment that there existed -If to be "mad" is a sure indication among infidels a man who apparently that" the gods" are about to send de· understood Beidhawi as well as an or· struction, it looks much as though the thodox doctor. time of " the sick man" was short. It is pleasant to read this in the London India.-Rev. W. H. Ball says that 90 Ohristian Leader: "The censorship in per cent of native converts in India are Turkey over the religious press is be. won by native preachers, men of won- derful eloquence.
coming intolerable, and Her Majesty's -The Rev. Abdul AU, of Banda, a representative has declared that the lineal descendant of the prophet Mo· Christian Scriptures must be admitted hammed, has died after more than intact. The censors have been erasing twenty years' loving and successful ser· , J~w' and 'Hebrew' in all places, vice in the Gospel ministry. He gained and inserting the word' Christian' be· converts from all classes, his first confore sinners, ,thus: 'Jesus came into vert of distinotion being a learned the world to save (Christian) sinners'- Maulvi. Another of his converts was as if no Turks could be sinners." And, one of the Maharajah's pandits. No further, the shocking intelligence comes journey was too difficult, if only he that a Mohammedan mob has burned could win the inquirers to whom he the fine new college building of the went to Christ. American Board at Marsovan. -A native paper of Bombay-the Dny. And why should not redemption be uno.daya-calls upon any person who brought in part by the locomotive? has found in any of the Hindu sacred Scarcely had we read of the completion books the thought that God hates sin, of the railroad from Joppa to Jerusalem to point out the passage, quoting chap. before we are informed that another is ter and verse. It says that it knows no under way from Acre, under Mount Car. utterance affirming that God desires mel, through Esdraelon, past Cana and that man should be saved from sin and Nazareth, across the Jordan, and thence made pure in heart. north to Damascus; that a French com· pany has broken ground for a third -There are more missionary socie- from Beyrout aoross the Lebanon range ties represented in India than in any to the same city; and, finally, that a other country of the world; there are Belgian company will soon build' a more missionaries, more sohools, more track from Samsoun, on the Black Sea, churches, more communicants, a wider to Ceyas, on the Mediterranean. thus opportunity for every form of Christian opening up the heart of Asia Minor! endeavor, the use of every weapon of Let His Serene Highness look out for Christian warfare, the application of the engine. every Christian principle. And well -Professor Fleischer, who died a few may it be so ; for the population num· years ago, was an uncommonly fine bers 288,000,000, and the idols wor· Arabic scholar. One of his works, an shipped 330,000,000. And besides, In· edition of Beidhawi's" Commentary on dia is under the especial care of Chris· the KOI."an," was submitted to the Sheik. tian Britain.
ul·lslam at Constantinople, the highest -Hindus show their piety in build· of all Moslem dignitaries, who consid- ing hospitals for mosquitoes, snakes, ered it beneath him even to glance at . and scorpions, but allow their wives and mothers to' die a do~' s death when at- react upon their thonghts and charactacked by disease, rather than expose ter." them to the touch, or even gaze, of a physician. -The editor of a Madras yernacular newspaper, himself" an astute, stanch, -T. G. Scott, of the Bareilly Theo- and orthodox Brahmin of a renowned logical Seminary, pleads with his Meth- priestly family," takes thlS gloomy view odist brethren to send him $20,000 for of the situation: "We entertain no enlargement: " The call ii for pastors more any hope for that religion which and. evangelists. In the history of this we consider dearer to us than our life. seminary 200 preachers have been sent Hinduism is now in its deathbed, and, out, but we now should send them out unfortunately, there is no drug which at a much more rapid rate, and here is can be safely administered into it for the deadlock. A Moslem college close its recovery. There are native Chrisby has been lately endowed with a sum tians nowadays who have declared a terwhich makes $20,000 look paltry; and a rible crusade against the entire fabric of Hindu temple is being completed at a Hinduism, and many men of splendid cost of some $2,000,000." education are also coming forth, even from our own community, who have al- -The Dublin University mission to ready expressed a desire to accept Chris. the diocese of Chota-Nagpore has settled tianity; and should these gentlemen in Hazaribagh, a town of 30,000 inhab- really become first Christians, and then itants. A number of buildings belong- its preachers, they will give the last ing to the military station, abandoned deathblow to mother Hinduism, because by the government ten years ago, have these men are such as will never turn been made over to the mission for a their backs from the plough after having nominal rate, and will serve the mem- been once wedded to it. Every moment bers for dwelling-house, hospital, dis- our dear mother (Hinduism) is expected pensary, chapel, and school. to breathe her last. This terrible cru- sade is now carried on by the native -The Missionary Herald of the Pres- Christians with a tenacity of purpose byterian Church in Ireland, referring and a devotion which in themselves defy to the fact that the missionariel! in failure." Gujarat ancl Kathiawar mourn over a want of vital godliness, a lack of spirit- -The famous Hindu god Lingam is ual progress, and the comparatively low now owned by an English gentleman, standard of morality among the con- who paid a sum equal to $13,000 for it verts, well says: "The converts have at an auction sale of East India relics been steeped in heathenism, with its in 1888. This image stands but 121 uncleanness and abominations of all in~hes high, but, small as it is, it is well kinds, from their earliest years. Their worth its weight in first-water diatastes and connections and habits ",nd monds. The base is of pure hammered beliefs have all been moulded by hell- gold, and around it are set 9 gems-a thenism. They have centuries of hea- diamond, ruby, sapphire, chrysoberyl, then teaching behind them. Even when cat's.eye, coral, pearl, hyacinthine, garthey see and believe the truth they can- net, emerald, and moonstone. The not in a moment shake off all the past apex, which is in the shape of a pyra. and attain the same strength of char- mid, is encircled with a plinth set with acter and purity of heart and charity of small but very fine diamonds. The spirit as those who have always lived pinnacle is a topaz in the shape of a in ",n atmosphere laden with Christian horseshoe, the centre being a cat's eye truth. The Dheds, from whom many of exceeding brilliancy. of our converts are taken, are the outcasts of Hindu society, the lowest of the When the last king of Delhi was exlow, and their degraded position must iled to the Andaman Islands, his queen seoreted this idol, and it 'Was nev'lr seen people are flocking in much mo,e rapid.
again until recent research brought it to ly than the missionaries can reoeive light. them. Last year the increase of con- -A Methodist church was organized verts was from 8000 to 10,500. If the about a year ago at Quetta, Afghanistan, olergy were doubled in number, and the and a new house of 'Vorship has since native agents multiplied by three, there been dedicated. would still be too much for them to do. The candidates for baptism are kept in -How far that little candle throws his the catechumenate for two, and even as beams! That is, what a world of good many as five years. can be accomplished in the Orient with a ridiculously small sum of money. China.-A miRsionary writes: "One Thus Bishop Thoburn finds that for $10 day we went to visit the giant Buddha each, boys and girls can be maintained of Foh.hsiang. At a height of Bome 600 for a year in boaraing-schools in the feet from the ground great niches have Northwestern Provinces, and he calls been cut out in the solid rook of the for enough to start 1000 on a course of mountain, in all of which are idols, and education. in the largest of which sits the Buddha himself. He is wade of the u~ual straw -This is a sample of how the heathen and clay, painted and gilded, and is no Hindus give, at least at Neyoor,. in the less than 100 feet in height. His feet native State of Travancore. We must are 12 feet in length, a toe-nail being premise that, in order to gain a certain the size of a man's head." privilege, he was ordered to be weighed in gold, and this gold made into coins -A Chinaman came to a missionary to to be distributed to the Brahmins. On ask for baptism. When asked where he the morning when the ceremony was had heard the Gospel, he answered that performed the Maharajah visited the he had never heard the Gospel, but had royal temple, where he spent some time seen it. He then told of a poor man at in worshipping the idol and repeating Ningpo, who had once been a confirmed prayers. He then retired to his palace, opium-smoker, and a man of violent put on his royal apparel, and armed temper. This man had learned about with a shield and sword, again went to the Christian religion, and his whole the temple, where there were assembled life was altered-he gave up the opium all the Brahmins of the State. 'fhe and became loving and amiable. "Oh," king then walked round the scales three said the candidate for baptism, " I have times, prostrated himself before the sa· not heard the Gospel, but I have seen cred part of the temple, and, receiving it. " permission of the priests, he mounted the scales_ Gold coius were put into -At a meeting of Chinese womell the other side until the Maharajah, with held at Winchow, a missionary read shield, sword, and all his ornaments, some extracts from the autobiogrose high in the air. This ceremony, raphy of John G. Paton, missionary to in which the king was •• worth his the New Hebrides, and suggested that weight in gold," cost 200,000 rupees, or prayer be offered for the degraded peo- £20,000-all given simply that the ruler ple of those islands. Afterward the of the State may have the privilege of women came bringing a contribution, seeing the Brahmins at their food. But which they had taken up of their own even then he is not allowed to eat with accord for Dr. Paton's work, saying, them, as he is considered to be of lower "We must think not only of those near, caste than they. but also of those afar off, for they also are our brethren.' , -Rev. H. G. Downes, of the Propaga.
tion Society, diocese of Madras, states -The records of the Medical Mission- that the outlook is most hopeful. The ary Association of China ,,-h.()'Y ~l}.at l!}6 foreign mIssIonary physicians have this though it is ten times more diffi· labored among the Chinese since 1834. cult for a Chinaman there to earn a dol. lar than it 'is for us in this land. The -The Chinese Recorder has some in. giving of that company for ten years ag· teresting statistics on medical mission. gregates $23,703. Thus even the China· ary work. In 1890 there were in the man is not altogether of the earth empire 61 hospitals, 44 dispensaries, earthy. and 100 mediaal students; the patients treated in one year heing 348.439. In -The China Inland Mission, laying 1891, in Shanghai alone, the number of foundations for solid and permanent patients treated was 56,933. work, is about to expend in Chefoo, a treaty port in Shantung province, £5000 Dr. J. G. Kerr, during his nearly forty in the cunstruction of a collegiate school years of work, has made this record: for boys and girls, primarily for the Over 1,000,000 attendances to the sick benefit of the children of its missiona· and suffering; over 35,000 operations ries, of wh0ll.l there are now 172, and in performed; some 30 volumes of medical order to save the cost of sending them to and other works translated; besides the Christian countries to be educated. But training of 100 or more native Chinese the children of other missionaries will as mediCal missionaries. For twenty be received as well as those of mer· years the desire of his heart has been to chants, etc., who object to patronizing see a lunatic asylum established in Catholic scb ools. China. To build and equip this will cost some $50,000, but when once started Japau.-A Japanese by the name of it will be almost. if not altogether, self· Jujii Ishii, who is termed the Oriental supporting. George Miiller, has an orphanage of Okayama, with 207 children in it-146 -Can these bones live? Yes, when boys and 61 girls. SOlDe are learning the Divine Spirit blows upon them. to print, some to be barbers, some to And a missionary of the Methodist New weave, and more than 170 are learning Connection records this marvel, which to make matches. There is a kinder. may well rebuke unbelief and lead us to garten for those under seven years. expect to see great things in China: English and agriculture will be taught. " But the whole village have renounced the boys, and the girls will be taught the gods of their fathers, and removed all the important work which will make every vestige of idolatry from their them good housekeepers. In Nagoya homes, and are ready to sweep away many children were left orphans by the from their midst all trace of a worship earthquake, and Jujii Ishii took them of which every other hamlet, town, and and started another orphanage. city in the empire has its monuments, and to have only a house for the wor· -This is the testilDonyof Dr. DeFor- ship of the living and true God. Prac. est, writing from Sendaf: .. That a wide tically, Tsai ChiI' is a Christian Village. Christian influence is coming in every- It is said that every family is, or inclines where throughout the empire is a fact to be, a Christian family. We have 44 of no doubt whatever. It is safe to say members (30 men and 14 women), and that the thirty years of missions in 'the remainder are either candidates, Japan, together with contact with Chris. linquirers, or hearers. " They propose to tian nations, has resulted in a wider build a church upon the site of a ruined and deeper Christian spirit in the govheathen temple. ernment, in education, in public opin- ion, in family life, in sO!,ial standards, -The Reformed { ncch) Church in than could be found at the end of the America has a body of disciples in third century in an empire that had be. Amoy numbering 968, who contributed come confessedly Christian." during 1891 the sum of $3382, or at the average rate of about $3.50 each. And