The Missionary Review of the World — April 1891

A JESUIT MISSION IN INDIA

MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD.

VOL. XIV. No. 4.-Old &ries.–APRIL. –VOL. IV. No. 4.-New Series.

A JESUIT MISSION IN INDIA.

BY REV. EDWARD STORROW, BRIGHTON, ENGLAND.

The Portuguese found their way to India before aLY other European nation, in ] 497. From the beginning they were zealous, after their fashion, in the spread of the Roman Catholic faith, but their zeal, being neutralized by great moral laxity, commercial greed, and political ambition, the" European idolaters," as they were called, made but few and mostly doubtful converts. But it was seen that India presented a' splendid field f~r the propagation of the faith, so Xavier was selected as " the apostle to the Indies. " He went with every human advantage. Ignatius Loyola sent, him forth with the inspiring words, " Go, my brother. Rejoice that you have not here a narrow Pale8tine or a province of Asia in prospect, but innumerable kingdoms; an entire world is reserved for your endeavors.' , The pope conferred on him the authority and dignity of Apostolic Nuncio throughout the East, and commended him to the respect and protection of all princes and governors. The King of Portugal sent him with every demonstration of interest and authOt'ity, and aided him all through his splendid but erratic career with whatever royal zeal and power could command.

Xavier landed at Goa in May, 1542. For three years he was ceaselessly active, passing from one part of Southern India to another; then, in 1545, he left for Malacca, and after visiting several other islands returned to India in January, 1548. Here he remained for fifteen months, busily occupied in the affairs of the college he had founded at Goa, visiting some of his former scenes of labor, and arranging for the prosecution of the mission, and then, in April, 1549, he sailed for Japan.

It is difficult to ascertain with any degree of precision the results of his " wild but splendid" career. Roman Catholic biographers and historians, having now Protestant eyes on them, are guarded in their statements, but in the past, when not so liable to criticism, gave almost as much rein to fancy as a Hindu panegyrist writing a Purana; By them Xavier is credited with all manner of gifts, natural, supernatural, and spiritual, and with an extraoldinary amount of success, his converts being said to amount to 500,000-" all fervent, and desiring nothing more than to become martyrs for their faith;" while, on the other hand, the Abbe Dubois affirms that Xavier left India in disgust, disheartened at the difficulty of making any real converts.

The latter opinion is the true one. He made many Christians, according to the Jesuit theory, though far fewer than is reported, but the vast majority were Christians only in name. Most were infants, baptized craftily and surreptitiously by the agents of Xavier.* A large number of adults submitted to baptism through fear and greed, and almost all the converts baptized had but a formal and most inadequate acquaintance with the doctrines and requirements of Christianity. That Xavier was himself dissatisfied and discouraged at the inadequate results is proved, first, by the fact that after so brief a span of labor he should have abandoned an enterprise 80 extensive, so splendid, and to which he had been specially appointed; and, secondly, on his owno testimony. In a letter to a missionary in Travancore he writes, in December, 1548 : "If you will, in imagination, search through India, you will find that few will reach heaven either of whites 01' blacks, except those who depart this life nnder fourteen years of age, with their baptismal innocence still upon them." In the following month he wrote to Loyola: "The natives, on account of the enormity of their wickedness, are as little as possible fitted to embrace the Christian religion. They so abhor it that they have no patience to listen to us. To ask them to become Christians is like asking them to submit to death. Hence, all our labor is at present to guard those who now are Christians. Hence, since there is not the least need of my labors in these parts, and as I have also learned of Japan, I have determined to start for that country as soon as possible."t In these letters Xavier obviously refers to the Roman Catholic missions generally, his own and those which had been conducted for the previous fifty years, at least, with the concurrence and aid of the Portuguese Government.

But the most condemnatory proofs of the want of success on the part of Xavier and all preceding missionaries, and of the genius of Jesuitism to adopt" ways that are dark and tricks that are vain," are seen in the methods adopted by the Jesuit missionaries in Madura, and persistently prose- * " When these children," says Father de Bourges, "are in danger of death, our practice is to baptize them without asking the permission of their parent_, which would certainly be refused. The catechists and the private Christians are well acquainted with the formula of baptism; and they confer it on these dying children, under the pretence of giving them medicines."-Lettl'es' Edijlantes, tome xiL, po 107.

t" The Missionary Life of Xavier," po 156, by the Rev. Henry Venn. Some Roman Catholic authorities state the number of converts, soon after .the death of Xavier, at 300,000 iu the western portion of India. In the beginning of the eighteenth century the native converts in the Madura district are reckoned by Father Martin to amouut to 150,000, and each missionary is said to have baptized at least 1000 each yearo Bnt the Abbe Dubois, who labored in India from 1790 to 1815, states the number of Roman Catholic Christians in all India, inclnding half·castes and Portnguese, at 635,000. Now, no one will claim that the Roman Catholic native Christians nnmber more than a million and a quarter; or for the whole Roman Catliolic popnlation more than a million and a halfo Where, then, are the boasted resuits of Roman Catholic missions, of which we hear eo often, and whose methods we are advised to follow l" cuted for one hundred and fifty years, which, as an instance of ,religious imposition, has been declared " to be without a paralleL"

The various steps by which this was done were kept secret, as Jesuit methods usually are, but of the fact there i" abundant evidence, as the following account will show.

Early in the seventeenth century, about fifty years after the departure of Xavier, Robert de Nobilibus, a nephew of Cardinal Bellarmine and grandnephew of Pope Marcellus II., and other Jesuit fathers in Madura, perceiving the strong prejudices of the Hindus against Europeans and the Christian religion, devised a plan, as subtle as it was criminal, whereby they hoped to overcome native prejudices by pretending that they were substantially one with the Brahmans themselves, and that Christianity and Brahmanism were essentially one, only that the former, being older and purer than the latter, should be accepted in its place. Studying the native language carefully; attaining a minute acquaintance with the usages and customs of the priesthood; preparing themselves, by a long course of austere training, for the part they were to act, and armed with writings made to resemble certain portions of the Vedas, and declared to be of equal authority, they entered Madura, not as Christian missionaries, but as Brahmans of a superior order, who had come to restore the most ancient form of the native religion. Their success, at first, was not great, but when charged in a large assembly, specially convened, with being an impostor, who sought to deceive the people, in order to introduce a new religion into the country, Malihilus produced his manuscripts, affirmed that the Romaca Brahmans were of much older date than those with whom he was contending, and in the presence of all declared and made oath that he was really descended from the god Brahma. On this, three Brahmans, impressed by his specious evidence and earnestness, advised that they should not persecute a man who declared that he was one of themselves, and gave such evidence of the truth of his assertions. Thus audacity and speciousness gained a certain amount of credence.

To sustain these pretensions spurious documents were produced,* and the fathers adopted names and usages which gave them a close resemblance to Suniassis, men devoted to the most ascetic forms of Hinduism, and greatly reverenced and feared by the more ignorant and superstitious of the people.

As Father Tachard wrote: "The missionaries have resolved to assume the dre!s and manner of living of Brahmanical Suniassis. This was a very difficult undertaking, and nothing less than apostolic zeal and love cOlild have enabled them to sllstain its hardships and austerities. For, besides * The most important of these was a work pnblished in Paris in 1778, nnder the title, .. L'Ezour Vedam, ou Ancien Commeutaire du Vedam, contenant I'exposition des opinions religieuse. et philosophiques des Indiens, Traduit du Sauscritam paiun Brami." An elaborate and scholarly analysis of this remarkable production is given in the fourteenth volume of the" Asiatic Researches" by Francis Ellis, Esq. He declares it to be "an instance of religious lmposition without a parallel." The author is unknown. abstinence from everything that has life-that is to say, flesh, fish, and eggs, the Suniassis must bathe every morning in a public tank in all weathers, and do the same before every meal. ,,* The Father did not think it expe- dient to add that Suniassis, among others t.hings, must wear an orangecolored dress j rub cow's dung on their foreheads and breasts j have a tiger's skin across the shoulders j have a club or staff on which are seven natural knots, and go daily through numerous .ceremonies, and that all these have a close association with heathenism. Thus armed and equipped did these "Brahmans from the north, " these "Roman Suniassis"

(" Lettres Edifiantes," tome x., pp. 15, 46), go forth to teach idolaters how to worship and serve the true God ! All the missionaries did not resort to these methods. They were adopted by a class, certainly with the assent of some others, for the purpose of winning over, if poss?ble, to the Catholic faith the social and intellectual leaders of the Hindus. It was seen that the Brahmans were excessively hard to wiu, and that between them and the lower castes and out-castes marked distinctions existed, but that if the former were gained over the conversion of the latter would be comparatively easy, if not inevitable. But this method involved the recognition of caste and of much beside utterly subversive of Christian doctrine, and even truth and honesty. "The catechist of a low caste," writes Father Maduit, "can never be employed to teach Hindus of a caste more elevated. The Brahmans and the Sudras have great contempt for the Pariahs. . • . We must, therefore, have Pariah catechists and Brahmanical catechists for the Brahmans, which causes us a great deal of difficulty." And then he illustrates the difficulty thus: A catechist came to beg him to baptize some Pariah catechumens and.to confess certain neophytes. But" the fear that the Brahmans and Surlras might come to learn the steps I had taken, and hence look upon me as infamous and unworthy ever after of holding any intercourse with them, hindered me from going." Subsequently he went, and writes: "I made these poor people go to a retired place about three leagues from hence, where I myself joined them in the night, and with the most careful precautiolls, and there I baptized them"!t Not only had the Pariahs separate catechists, but separate churches j nor ~<luld a Christiau Suniassi enter one of their dwellings to administer the 1allt rites of the Church, though he would do this if the dying were removed out of their own d welling-contamina.ted by low caste or no caRte-into the open air, or a proper caste church. The results of such a policy were such as might have been anticipated. As the Roman Brahmans had their poitas, cow * See "Lettres Edifiantes et Curienses," tome x., p. 324. Paris, 1780.

Also" Systema Brahmanican Fra Paolicio Bartolomeo," pp. 47, 56, 57. Romal, 1791. The leading features of Nobilibu8'8 or Nobilis's course are stated by the Jesuit Jouvincy in his history of the order, and in vindication of the policy pursued when it was subsequently called in question, the Secretary to the Congregation de Propaganda Fide wrote in 1676 to Pope InnQC('nt that Nobilis, although he called himself a Brahman, was not guilty of falsehood I t " Lettres Edi1lantes," tome x., pp. lJ43…!.:.5. dung ashes, and strict ritual, their converts, really few in number, ill- instructed and beguiled into Christianity, rather than intellectually ac- cepting it on conviction, retained with but slight modification the superstitious manners, customs, and beliefs of Hinduism, a residuum or virus of heathenism which has kept the Roman Catholic community of Southern India ignorant, poor, weak, uninfluential, up to the present time.

The boasted unity of the Church of Rome has always been more of an Rssumption than II reality, and these proceedings were too scandalous, es- pecially in the eyes of the Dominicans and Capuchins, to be alJowed un- challenged. An appeal was made to Rome, and Pope Paul V. appointed the Archbishop of Goa to investigate the charges. His report confirmed the charges, and condemned the policy of Nobilis and his party: To this the Jesuits replied with their usual speciousness that the rites and practices now challenged and condemned were merely civil .observances, having in them nothing of a religious nature; that they were neither opposed to the faith nor morality, but were absolutely essential to the spread of Christianity in India, and nothing more than prudent and innocent concessions to native distrust, superstition, and ignorance! On these conflicting reports a Papal declaration was issned, in 1623, condemning some of the practices, and counselling great care on all points in dispute, and to avoid scandal and. exposure, it was sent privately to the Jesuits only. The worthy fathers received it in silence and went on doing as before, so th'lt it was not until fifty-seven years afterward that the Capuchins so much as knew of the existence of such a document!

The Jesuits about ,this time were at the zenith of their power, and so for a long time were able to defy their enemies. And so, like other mortals, they abused their power and acted with more audacity and less caution, so that public attention was again called to their proceedings. So numerous and flagrant were their alleged compromises with Hindu rites and practices, that Pope Clement XI. was moved, in 1702, to send out C. T. Maillard de Toumon, a man of high rank and great repute, as Legate, with power to investigate the charges and report. The decree he issued condemned, among otlier things, the marriage of children six or seven years of age; the hanging of the talz about their necks–the usual Hindn symbol used in such cases; the abolition of certain nuptial ceremonies–" for they overflow with the pollutions of heathenism ;" the disuse of the twig of a certain tree which was emblematic of the Hindu Triad-Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; of the circlets used for averting misfortune; the use of seven vessels filled with growing rice, emblematic of the seven planetary gods. The Christians were condemned for taking a part in idolatrous festivals; bathing at set times, and in tlie manner of the heathen; passing themselves off as Suniassis; using the ashes of cow's dung, with marks on the forehead, chest, and elsewhere, practices common among the" most superstitious Hindus;" and among other things condemned was a feminine ceremonial the decree characterizes as " the festival of immodesty and wanton- ness. ,.

A great outcry was raised against the decree. Father Tachard sent to all the missionaries under his charge a set of inquiries in detail asking if the ceremonies thus condemned were necessary, or could be dispensed with. The answers declared it was necessary to continue the methods in use. And this was affirmed in the following solemn document: "I, John Venaut Bouchet, priest of the Society of Jesus, and Superior of the Carnatic Mission, do testify and swear on my faith as a priest th.at the observance of the rites, as set forth in the preceding answers, is of the greatest necessity to these missions, as well for their preservation as for the conversion of the heathens. Further, it appears to me that the introduction of any otller usage contrary to these would be attended with evident danger to the salvation of the souls of the neophytes. Thus I answer the Reverend Father Superior General, who orders me to send him my opinion as to these rites, and to confirm it by my oath, for assurance and faith of which I here sign my name." Signed, November 3d, 1704, in t.he Mission of the Carnatic, Jean Venaut Bouchet.

" Fathers Peter Manduit, Philip de la Fontaine, Peter de la Lane, and Gilbert Ie Petit took the same oath, and attested it by their signatures; and after like fashion, swore all the Portuguese Jesuits in Madura and Mysore" .<" Memoires Historiques," Luques, 1745, tome iii., pp. 8-10).

Thus the reverend fathers publicly, solemnly, and deliberately make oath that, in these missions, the religion of Christ must necessarily be joined to the idolatry of the heathen, and that the introduction of Christianity alone, and in its purity, would be fatal to the salvation of souls!

This document was carried to the Pope at Rome by Bouchet and Lainez, who did their utmost to have the report of Cardinal de Tournon set aside. In this they were unsuccessful, but with wonderful audacity, on their return to India they affirmed the opposite! Norbert states that on a day when a large congregation of French and native Christians were assembled at Pondicherry, Bouchet "came forward in his sacramental robes, and calling to witness the body and blood of J esns Christ, protested before God that of a truth he had obtained from the lips of the Pope himself that the decree of Cardinal de Tonrnon was in nowise binding, and that the missionaries might permit the practice of ceremonies which the Legate had condemned, because so doing they might the more easily convert the heathen to the faith. ,,* Lainez, now Bishop of St. Thomas, made to the Superior of the Capuchins a similar declaration. These statements were denied by the Pope in a brief addressed to !:.ainez himself, dated September 17, 1712 ; in a letter addressed to the Bishop of Claudiopolis, Cardinal Sacrissanti, Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, encloses a copy of ,. .. Lettres Edifiantes," tome iii., p. 320. the original acts of the Congregation of the Holy Office. "They will show you," he writes, "that the report you have heardin your co'un- tries announcing the suspension or annulling Of the decrees of the Cardinal de Tournon, Visitor Apostolic of happy memory, is false and without the slightest foundation." * The fathers, though hard pressed, were not yet vanquished. They reo ported that the Pope had been misinformed as to facts on which his de- cision had been founded, and prepared a document which was signed by many of their converts and three eminent Hindu Pundits affirming that the rites in question were all mere civil observances. But the contrary was affirmed by other Brahmans, yet with little effect; for the wily Brother- hood held on their way. Again Clement XI., in 1714 and 1719; Benedict XIII., in 1727, issued briefs, insisting on obedience to the decree of De Tournon, to which no attention was paid. But· a yet more ~x­ traordinary instance of disregard of moral obligation followed. Pope Clement XII., in 1739, issued a brief insisting on instant and absolute submission. Every Jesuit bishop and missionary in India was required to subscribe on oath to a most binding document, part only of which can here be given: "I, – – , of tha Society of Jesus, . . . obeying the precept of . . . Pope Clement' XII., . . . issued in 1739, enjoining all the missionaries • • . to take an oath that they will faithfully observe the Apostolic determination concerning the Malabar rites, . . . promise that I will obey fully and faithfully, that I will observe it exactly, entirely, absolutely and inviolably, and that I will fulfil. it without any tergiversation; moreover, that I will instruct the Christians committed to my charge according to the tenor of the said brief, . . . and especially the catechumens, before they shall be baptized, and unless they promise that they will observe the said brief . • . that I will not baptize them; further, that I shall take care, with all possible zeal and diligence, that the ceremonies of the heathen be abolished. . . . Thus, touching the Holy Gospels, I promise now and swear.

• • . Signed with mine own hand, –." t This evidently was designed to be a net from whose meshes no fish should escape; nevertheless, though it was signed by every Jesuit father, the Madura Brotherhood went on their way, systematically doing what~ according to the common understanding of mankind, they had taken an oath not to do !

The fathers yet continuing their methods, another Pope, Benedict XIV., issued a brief, so precise that it was difficult for even Jesuit ingenuity to evade it, and to make it public, commanded that it should be read every Sunday in their congregation, and that all converts should be made to promise obedience to its requisitions. Thus for a century and a half was this deliberate and systematic lying and imposture persevered in, and even then was but reluctantly, sullenly, and partially abandoned, not because it * "MemoireB Historiques," par Ie R. P. Norbert, Lucca edition, tome L, pp. 319-61.

t The original of the brief at full length is found in " MemoireB HiBtoriques," tome ii., p. 465,.' was evil and unchristian, but under the extremest pressure. Jesuitism remained true to its principles of concealment, evasion, and double meaning, if an end is to be gained, and submitted, but did not recant.

And the evil wrought remained. As a Roman Ca~holic historian writes: " In order to take away every pretext for tergiversation, Benedict XIV. issued the bull Omnium Sollicitudium, in which he recited all that had passed on the matter, . . . and left nothing undone in order to put an end to the disputes in regard to the Malabar rites. N6,"ertheless, a leaven of discord always remained between the Jesuits and the other missionaries, aud the latter reproached the formerfor not observing the bull honestly."* What have been the issues of this most shameful and systematic deception, this doing of evil that good might come ~ Ignominious failure, since Christianity has been slandered, the success of missions been hin- dered, and native Christian life and character permanently degraded and weakened! The natives discovered that the Roman Suniassis were, after all, only Feringhees, Europeans in disguise. This enraged and disgusted them. It stopped conversions. It aspersed the Christian name, and men of Western race. It lowered the standard of native Christian life and character almost iJ.leradicably. About twenty-five years after the bull of Benedict was issued, Fra Bartolomeo describes the :Madura Christians as "living in the lowest state of degradation and ignorance." The Abbe Dubois, who was a Roman Catholic missionary in Southern India from 1790 to 1815, gives in his remarkable volume of " Letters on the State of Christianity in India," a most humiliating account of the weakness, ignorance, and superstition of the Roman Catholic converts. Hereis one of his statements: "During a period of twenty-five years tbat I have familiarly conversed with them, lived among them as their religious teacher and spiritual guide, I would hardly dare to affirm that I have anywhere met a sincere and undisguised Christian."

Nor has the evil leaven yet been purged away. In the Harvest Field of this year, p. 329, an experienced and intelligent Protestant missionary in Southern India, the Rev. S. V. Thomas, M.A., thus writes: "Their converts are now to be found in certain districts of South India, in Madura, Trichinopoly. Tangore, and other places. These Catholic Christians, as they call themselves, are living monuments to attest the Jesuit policy louder thatl Pascal's letters or European proverbs. They wear marks on their foreheads as their heathen neighbors do, go to Hindu temples on festival occasions, and bow down before the images of pagan gods, while perhaps they inwardly repeat Paters and Aves. Part of their marriage ceremony is performed in the Christian chapel, and the oouple is blessed by the Catholic priest. When this is done they go home, kindle a fire and walk round it, tie the wedding knot in the presence of Agni, and call upon that fire god to witness the solemn contract. Their church is divided into compart- * " A Continuation of the Church History of Bersult Bercsstei," by Comte de Robiano, tome 1., p. 197. ments, so that the high-class Christians may worship the image of Him who was the friend of outcasts, without being contaminated by the touch of the low-caste worshippers. Christians and the descendants of Christians for several generations, they are sunk in such gross ignorance that, like the good lady in the" Monastery," they are often puzzled to know why Eve forgot to ask the advice of St. Peter or St. Paul before eating the forbidden fruit. Three hundred years of Christianity has left them only where it found themthe slaves of Brahman superstition and of Brahman fraud. Their condition is worse than that of the Samaritans described in the Second Book of Kings, ' Who feared the Lord and worshipped their own strange gods.' "

Such is Jesuitism and its fruits. The leading statements in this paper rclative to the Madura Mission are taken from a remarkable article in the second volume of the. Oalcutta Review, called" The Jesuit Missions in India," by the Rev. Dr. Mackey. The following are the Roman Catholic authorities on which it is principally based: 1. "Lettres Edifiantes et curieuses, ecrites des Missions etrangers, par quelques Missionaires de la Compagnie de Jesus." The original consists of 25 volumes, printed in Paris. The first volume was published in 1717, the last in 1741. The letters they contain were written at various times between 1699 and 1740. 2. "Annales de la Propagation de la Foi." The publication of this was commenced at Lyons, in 1823. . 3. "Memoires Historiques presentes (en 1744) au Souverain Pontife, Benoit XIV. Par Ie R. P. Norbert. Besangon, 1747 j et Luques, 1745. Avec la permissiou des superieurs." Norbert went out as a missionary from Rome to Southern India in 1737. He subsequently held the office of " Procureur General en Cour de Rome des Missions aux lndes Orientales." His work is most condemnatory of the proceedings of the Jesuits, not only in India, but China, and gives ample documentary evidence in proof of his statements. Like the Papal Legate, Cardinal de Tournon, of whose mission he gives a full account, he suffered much from the implacable hostility of the Jesuits.

From the Congo Balolo Mission, Lolongo Station, Lulanga River, Upper Congo, F. Theodora McKittrick writes, correcting a statement in the June number of THE MISSIONARY REVIEW OF THE WORLD regarding the Mission at Lolongo : "Only one lady here has suffered from fever since our arrival fourteen months ago j three of us have enjoyed wonderfully good health. We are living in what appears to be a healthy neighborhood; the combined fevers of all three of us may perhaps have lasted twenty-four hours. "

MI~SIONARY METHODS OFFICIALLY REVIEWED

MISSIONARY METHODS OFFICIALLY REVIEWED.

BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.

Partially owing to adverse criticisms and partly to increased general intelligence in the Church concerning missionaries and their work in heathen lands, large sections of the Church in Great Britain and some in America, have been led to make a patient and thorough investigation into existing methods of missionary work and their results.

The Wesleyan Missionary Society was precipitated into an investigation of mission economics and mission resnlts in India, by the hasty and extremely indiscreet criticisms of a young missionary, only one year in the country, finding access to the home public through an influential journal, and fostered and fended by its popular and vigorous editor. The result was, the society was obliged to make investigations into the charges against it for allowing extravagant living of its missionaries, and for general expenditure to which results were not commensurate, whether judged of in themselves or by comparison with results achieved by others at less outlay. The ill-feeling and general critical attitude of parties, equally eager to ascertain what was right, but working from wholly divergent points, did not place the society in tile best attitude, to ascertain the calmest judgment, of those whose testimony was essential to a thorongh judicial investigation; but it did result in the severest testing of ,all evidence rendered in the case, and the discarding of everything that did not stand the fiery ordeal of a stiff controversy. We think very good results were obtained, but we cannot discern that anything was elicited under this burning.glass that might not have been better reached by other processes. Be that as it may, this was one of the forms in which answers" were wrought out to clitieism of a dam-· aging nature to missions in general and to those of this society in particular.

The London Missionary Society was favored with a more peaceful method of examining its work and of considering all suggestions that were made commonly public, by the agitation of the missionary critics. They appointed a special committee of investigation on all these subjects of metb(~ds, polio cies, and fields of labor. They secured able men to discuss these questions in formal memoranda. They also invited missionaries of recognized standing of the most prominent and widely separated fields, as China, India, and Madagascar, to lengthened interviews with the ::::pecial Committee.

The Free Church of Scotland sent an able delegation to India to examine all these questions of policy and methods on the field. The Church of Scotland Missionary Society instituted inquiries by correspondence with eminent laymen as well as missionaries, especially concerIling educational methods compared with evangelistic methods of work.

We caunot follow these various investigations in detail. They should convince the Church that missionary societies are careful to keep their whole work on the most approved plans, and are ready to make any advance movement that circumstances and experience demand and justify. We select from the topics specially considered a few, and give the result of the iuquiries, not, however, strictly confining ourselves to these official reports.

CELIBATE MISSIONARIES.

The London Society's committee represents the general concensus of opinion in the matter of sending out unmarried missionaries on the ground of economy and efficiency. The conclusion reached was that the system of celibate missionaries was bad. The results in the case of both native and Roman Catholic missions were unsatisfactory and often worse. China testimony was unqualificdly against celibate missionaries, as presenting insumountable obstacles to the work. In every field it was recognized that the Christian home and Christian family were absolutely necessary for exhibition of Christian life. The committee, therefore, made a minute in accordance with the testimony, and condemned the practice of sending celibate missionaries, exccpt in special cases and for a limited time.

LAY EVANGELISTIC MISSIONARIES.

The general drift of thought among those who have given largest attention to the subject in all fields and all societies is undoubtedly more and more favorable to the employment of If much larger number of Jay missionaries. The openings for their labor are increasing constantly along the avenues of commerce, colonization, and geographical extension; and coincident with this condition is a sort of general movement, which it is judged may be divi~ely originated, among great numbers of young men as well as young women, to engage in some form of work among heathen abroad, as mechanics, teachers, professional persons, engineers, clerks, and other secular offices.

The directors of the London Society have decided to accept offers of service from men who have not passed a course of theological collegiate training, and to send them out for a term of years as lay evangelists; the object being to open the door to foreign service, to men of good education and of proved experience as Christian workers, having missionary enthusiasm. They have to admit, besides, that the theological schools are not at present able to supply the increasing demand for workers. They, however, deem i~ desirable that the study of Christian missions, of the history of philosophy and comparison of religions, should form part of the course of preparatory study for all missionaries, especially for those appointed to India or China. The committee after thorough investigation approved of this action of the directors.

NATIVE AGENCY.

It is often urged that native agents should be relied on to meet the great demand, now unsupplied, for workers. But as yet it is plainly acknowledged that such agency is deficient in quality and quantity, and this, in fact, only points out the necessity as yet but partially cared for, of more institutions for the training of a native ministry, and more trained men to develop them j but as yet these trained men are not forthcoming, and the native ministry is not forthcoming as needed, hence the emergency must be met by accepting others whom God has raised up and thrust on the notice of the societies-laymen eager to be evangelists and teachers abroad.

EDUCATION.

The relation of Christian missions to education, and of educational work to results in conversions, was the gravest question that these societies were called upon to investigate. The Church of Scotland invited one hundred persons to give their opinions on the desirability of maintaining their col- leges in India. Of the eighty-five replies received, sixty-eight were favor- able to their continuance and sixteen unfavorable. Of the seventy Pres- byterians to whom the testimony was submitted, sixty voted favorably to the continuance of the schools. The symposium, composed of the sixty- 'eight opinions received in answer to tho crircular letter of inquiry, is in- structive reading, though mnch of it is quite too general and too long to admit of our making such extracts as would do justice to the authors.

Sir William Muir, formerly Secretary of the Government of India, said: " I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it would be a calamity for . India if missionary schools were withdrawn. Apart from immediate con- version to the faith, their influence on the mind of the people has been of. inestimable value. It was the t!cotch schools and colleges which first called forth the sympathies of Hindus toward Christianity. The country has by them been inoculated with Christian sentiment.

•, I take the Brahmo community as the exponent of this new phase of Indian life. The two sheets enclosed are random specimens of the hold which Christian truths and ideas have gotten of the minds even of those who ostensibly reject them. The Brahmo faith, no doubt, is but a poor travesty of Christianity j but it takes the life and teaching of our Saviour for its real basis, and through it vast numbers have access to the Bible and do study it. The process will go on if our missionary schools are maintained i and they are the only means at present available for leavening the minds of the young."

Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G. C. S. I., argues at length to show that the Educational Commission of 1881-83 felt itself obliged to recommend that the IJducation supported by the Indian Government should be religiously neutral, and though the foremost Hindus of the land deprecated that coarse, circumstances had justified the decision. He says: " If, therefore, the Scottish Missions were to withdraw from educational work in India, the state system of public instruction would be deprived of one of the most important class of institutions which have hitherto tem- pered the exclusively secular teaching of the Government schools. Further, as the native religious leaders have been encouraged to give spiritual in- struction in aided schools of their own, the Indian races would be left to the influence of a constantly increasing propaganda of Hinduism and Islam, while the Christian teaching hitherto given by t1>e Scottish Mission schools and colleges would be curtailed. " In short, just as Hinduism and Mohammedanism are entering more largely into the field of religious instruction in the schoob, Scottish mis- sionaries would be withdrawing from it. So far as regards the welfare of the people of India, therefore, I should deprecate any relaxation of the educlltional efforts of the Missions of the Scottish Church."

Sir Charles E. Bernard, Chief Commissioner of Burmah and Home Secretary of the Indian Government, at the close of .an able paper, says: " In so far as the existing educational system leads men to reject Hindu- ism, it prepares the way for Christianity. But if no effort is made to teach Christianity, and if Ohristian Rchools and colleges were closed, atheism would be unchecked until some extension of Brahmoism or some new sect like the Brahmos arose. If Protestant colleges and schools were abolished or greatly diminished Roman Catholics would probably extend their educa- tional work, and would occupy much of the .ground vacated by Protestant missions. "

Hon. George Edward Knox, formerly Sessions Judge, now Legal-Remem- brancer, Northwest Provinces, say~ : " I feel assured of this fact, that educational missions have, under God's blessing, conferred a boon upon India, and have been permitted by Him to be the means of bringing many souls to Christ. Of the extent of the boon, and of the number of souls, we shall not and cannot hope to have a com- plete record, at any rate until the day when we attain perfect knowledge. I have long entertained a belief that His Word is working secretly to an ex- tent which we cannot perceive, and that the day is not far off when the number of those who are added to the Church will be as unexpected as was the draught of fishes after our Lord's resurrection. May we be prepared to me~t it! The practice of employing heathen teachers should, I say unhesitatingly, be abandoned."

Sir William W. Hunter, an unquestioned authority on all things per- taining to India, as preface to a most interesting paper, says: "With reference to the welfare of the peoples of India, I should regard any withdrawal of the Scottish Missions from the work of education as disastrous. The weak point in our system of Indian public instruction is our inability to give any form of religious teaching in our state schools. We cannot teach Christianity, for the great proportion of the tax-payers are Hindus and Mohammedans. We cannot teach Hinduism or Islam, for we are a Christian Government. The result is an absence of religious teaching of ar:y sort, which the natives of India deeply deplore."

Rev. J. Murdoch, LL. D., of the Christian Vernacular Education Society, says: " It would be a great calamity if the higher education in India fell exclusively into the hands of Government, the Jesuits, and Hindus."

We cannot pursue this repertoire of very thoughtful expression of judgment and of most expert testimonv. It is fair to say, however, that the whole question is not covered in the above extracts.

SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES.

But the troublesome kernel of this whole question still remains. Are these schools giving Christian education and reaching definite results in conversion 1 One of the recognized difficulties is the scarcity of Christians competent to do the teaching, and 1ence the employment of non-Christian teachers. The London Society's Committe(; thus conclude on the whole subject: " Ad things stand at present, such a course of instruction as will pre- pare for University degrees and Government service, necessitates the em- ployment of non-Christian teachers. An adequate supply of Christian teachers is not forthcoming. Difference of language forbids the trans- ference of teachers from one part of India to another. The non-Christian teachers are, of course, confined to secular subjects, and work under the eye and control of the missionary. Still, it is evident that their presence and influence detract from the Christian character of the school ; and may even, in some cases, seriously hinder the work and influence of the mis- sionary. By some devoted friends of missions, in India and at home, this danger is deemed so serious that they are ready to abandon our edu- cational work sooner than tolerate the presence of non-Christian teachers in mission schools. The grave responsibility and inevitable results of fluch a course must be fairly faced. It would mean the reduction of our schools to the level of elementary vernacular schools-the surrender of our hold on the young mind of India, in this crisis of its intellectual and moral history, when the first stirrings of ~ national mind are beginning to be felt, and old faiths are tottering to their fall. It would mean the handing over of the cultured youth' of India, the hope of the future, either to schools from which religion is systematically excluded, where morality has therefore no firm footing, and where there may be Agnostic and Positivist teachers as bitterly hostile to Christianity as the heathen; or clse to Rome and the Jesuits, eagerly watching the opportunity to step in and fill our empty place. "

THE EXPLANATION.

A really much more penetrating view of the whole subject is found in the conclusions reached by the Free Church Delegation. vVe do not know how far this has been made public, nor how far we are at liberty to make public what was committed to us witb the implication that it was official matter, for exclusively official uses. But surely the following most impor- tant general points are of too great value, and quite too general to make our use of them obtrusive or too enterprising. They admit that the Mission Colleges do not now produce the number of converts they once did. In fact, they produce hardly any, and they are not to be looked for. This was not the case in the old days. Dr. Duff and his colleagues had a noble band of converts from the college in Cal- 'cutta. So was it in Bombay and Madras. Why should this have been, and yet not even be anticipated now 1 We wish we could give much space to the reasons so ably assigned. 1. In the earlier days of mission colleges and lligh schools there was no balf-way house between Hinduism and all its abominations, and Christianity. Educated young men had to remain Hin- dus and accept what they came to loathe, or become Christians. There is now no such limitation. Oriental scholars have recovered the earlier Hindu faith, which has fewer disgusting elements, and even some elements of morality. There has, besides, been a decided attempt to read the spirit of Christianity into Hinduism. All this makes new conditions ; the then and now are not alike.

2. There is also the position which the higher schools are obliged to take in the Government system of education. The colleges are affiliated to the universities, and must satisfy Government educational requirements. This results in a pressure on the missionary for an amount of teaching which precludes the quiet personal talks on religious matters, and the private companies gather.ed formerly for instruction in Christian truth. The school is in the toils of competitive work and its secular results are essential to its Government revenue, and the teaching force is, at the minimum to reach this secular standard alone. The preparation former1y wont.to be made for conversion in the class is well-nigh out of the question.

3. In the old days baptisms sometimes suddenly emptied the school for a time, but the support of the 8chool being drawn from the missionary treasury, it was financially unaffected; but now these colleges and high schools are dependent on Government because its grants are conditioned on the fees raised in the school, and Ii stampede from the school means a finan· cial collapse in that portion of mission work; aud neither the local mission nor the home treasury is prepared to meet such emergency.

Professor Miller, in the Contemporary Review, October, 1889, cautions the public what to expect of mission high schools. " Education," he says, " is not fitted to bring men of immature minds, whose characters are only in process of being formed, into the organized Christian Church upon any extensive scale. . . . But it is fitted to plant thoughts and awaken impulses which may make the work of the missionary tell more powerfully.

It is in rare cases more than preparatory." There is no doubt that the general opinion is that educational work absolutely mnst be supported by evangelistic work. But there is still another side to this entire question, which has not been touched in any of the quotations or references we have made. What about the schools, the higher schools, as essential to the existing native Christian community V They cannot be educated in Hindu or Moslem schools, and the Government schools are positively negative or worse in religion. What then V We will let R,lV E. W; Parker, D.D., and Rev. E. H. Badley, D.D., of North India, state this case. This is their utterance about the work in the North India Methodist Mission: " Our evangelistic work is bringing in converts at the rate of 6000 per year, with a rapidly increasing ratio, and our s«hools have had and are haying a very important share in this work. We never could have had this work without our schools, and we dare not continue it without them. If we go forward-and go forward we must-we must educate or we will have a heathen Christian Church. "

But the Free Church Commission boldly puts the question also of the relation of higher education to the higher class of the Indian population. It is, they say, the only way of reaching them. They deliberately assert that, " Unless the Christian Church is prepared to abandon its efforts to get a hearing for Christianity among caste Hindus, unless it is prepared to confine its missionary enterprise to the sixty or eighty II ilIions outside Hinduism proper, this higher education must be included among missionary agencies and given an important place."

The Rev. Archibald Turnbull, B.D., of the Church of Scotland Mission in Darjeeling, with its 1200 converts, remarks that the discipline exercised by the monthly Panchayat (church-court) would seriously decimate the home churches. Our Scottish brethren have a high standard, and apply it strenuously.

Our readers already know that another of the "Soudan Pioneer Band," Mr. Helmick, who received the best medical treatment, has, like others before him, fallen a prey to the African fever. His letters show that even his short career in Africa has left the seed of a blessing in that dark soil. Mr. Brooke was also very sick with typhoid, and had to go away for a rest. We fear that too much blame has needlessly attached to other members of the Soudan Pioneer Company, because they refused medical treatment. One of the principal physicians of New York City has recently stated to the editor that if he were going to explore Africa, he would rather trust to the vigor of his constitution, with care as to his habits, than to risk a greater injury to his system by the daily use of quinine. He says the quinine habit is sometimes as dangerous and enslaving as the opium habit.-EDIToR.] Mr. A. R. Miles, referring to Treasurer Dulles's note in November REVIEW, writes from Bogota, that while the silver law has caused exchange to depreciate, the loss this year will not fall on the Boards-at least not on the Presbyterian Board. The appropriations being made on a gold basis, the loss is borne by the stations in the countries where silver is the monetary basis. The salaries of the missionaries of the Presbyterian Board North are fixed on a gold basis, and do not fluctuate from year to year.

Reginald Radcliffe, Esq., writes from Liverpool urgently appealing for greatly increased prayer in behalf of world-wide missions. He says it is time to " call a halt!" that we may consider whether the greatest need of the mission work to-gay be not that believers unite with each other in believing appeals at the Throne of Grace. We believe Mr. Radcliffe is right, and have often urged this as the grand and imperative demand of our missionary work. The laborers, the money, the energy, the enterprise will all be abundant when we get on our faces in penitence, in faith, in obedience, independence; and when our confidence is only in God. Then every door now shut will open. and every door now open wilL.be entered, and every field be sown with the good seed of the kingdom.

LING CHING TING, THE CONVERTED OPIUM-SMOKER

LING CHING TING, THE CONVERTED OPIUM-SMOKER.

BY REV. S. L. BALDWIN, D.D.

In 1863, as the Rev. S. L. Binkley was preaching one day in the Mission Chapel at Ato, in the southern suburbs of the great city of Foochow, China, a mim about forty years of age, seeing the chapel doors open, strayed in out of curiosity, and took a seat with the congregation. He listened with great attention to the preaching; and, at the close of the service, when all the rest of the audience had gone out, he made his way up to the altar, and said to the missionary, "Did you say that Jesus (I never heard of Him bcfore : 1 don't know who He is); but did you say that He can save me from all my sins ?" "Yes," replied, Mr. Binkley, "that is"just what 1 said." " But, ,. the Chinaman responded, "you didn't know me when you said that; you didn't know that 1 have been a gambler and a sorcerer for many years; you didn't know that I have been a licentious man; you didn't know that I have been an opium-smoker for twenty years, and every " one knows that any man who has smoked opium for that length of time can never be cured of the habit. If you had known all this, you wouldn't have said t.hat Jeflus can save me from all my sins-would you 1" " Yes," r-eplied the missionary, " I would havc said just what I did; and I tell you now that Jesus can save you from all your sins."

The poor, sinful Chinaman was bewildered. It seemed to him impossible of belief. Yet there was a charm about the very idea of a Saviour, who could deliver him from all his sins. He went away in deep thought. The next day he sought Mr. Binldey at his residence, to talk with him about this wonderful Saviour j and day after day for many days he came, examining the proofs of Christianity, and bringing his objection~ to be solved by the missionary. But one day he came to the missionary's study with a radiant countenance, exclaiming as he entered: "I know it! I know it ! I know that J csus can save me from my sins; for He has done it !"

He had a gteat battle to overcome his habit of opium-smoking, but seeking help from his new.found Saviour, he soon conquered, and said, " I don't want to smoke opium any more; I don't want to do any of the evil things I have been doing; but I want to go and tell the people of Hok-chiang that Jesus can save them from their sins." When his friends heard of his purpose, they tried to dissuade him, saying, " Don't go down, there j the people are fighting there all the time j they will soon take your head off, and that will stop your 'Preaching. If you will preach the , foreign doctrine,' stay here at Foochow and preach it where you will be safe." But he replied, "No j I must go to flok-chiang. The people there need the Gospel, and they are my people. I came from there, and I must go and tell them about Jesus. "

There was no time for a college course or for theological training. He went out with the Word of God in his hand, and the experience of his Saviour'8 love in his heart. His lSimple message to the people everywhere was, "Jesus can save you from all your sins; I know it, for He has saved me from mine!" He suffered much persecution-stoned in one place, pelted with mud in another, beaten in another, he pressed on with ill.domitable energy, proclaiming everywhere his simple message of salvation. Many listened to his earnest words anrl became followers of Christ.

After a time he was caught by his enemies in the city of Hok-chiang, and brought before the district magistrate, with false charges against him, and false witn~sses to testify to them j and the too-willing heathen magistrate sentenced him to be beaten with two thousand stripes. This cruel sentence was executed with the bamboo upon the bare back of the victim. I well remember the day when he was brought to our Mission premises, apparently almost dead. I well remember the sorrowful countenance of our good Scotch physician, as he came out of the room, after examining his patient, and said, " I don't think we can save him. I never saw such terrible injuries from beating. The flesh on his back is like quivering jeUy. But we will do our best to save him." I remember how I thought over some of the comforting words of Jesus, as I made my way toward the room, that I might try to comfort my brother in his great distress; and I remember, too, the smile with which he greeted me, and how he, speaking first, before I had a chance to say anything, said: "Teacher, this poor body is in great pain just now; but my inside heart has great peace. Jesus is with me ; and I think perhaps He will take m!> to heaven, and I will be glad to go. " And then I could see the old fire flashing again in his eyes, as with effort he raised himself a little from his bed, and said, " But if I get up from this, you'll let me go back to Hok-chiang, won't you ~"

He was in a precarious condition for some time, but soon began to mend; and before the missionaries thought he ought to leave the premises, he was off again to Hok-chiang, preaching to the very men who had persecuted him, and with such effect that some of them were converted, and became members of our church in that city.

He continued to preach with much energy and success for a period of fourteen years. He was ordained by Bishop Kingsley, in 1869. Soon after he was appointed to Teng-tiong in 1876, finding himself very ill, he went to his native island of Lam-yit, hoping to improve in the sea breezes, and under the care of physicians there. But when, after some weeks, they told him that his case was hopeless, and that he could not live many weeks, hc said: "Then I must go back to my station. I only came here in hope of getting well, so as to do Jonger service; but if I cannot, then I want to go where my work is, and die at my post. " So, in his feebleness, he made his way back to Teng-tiong ; and when he could no longer stand to preach, he sat down, gathered the Christians close around him, and talked to them of the love of Jesus, and His power to save from sin.

On Saturday – evening, May 19th, 1877, he sang two verses of the " Saturday Evening Hymn," beginning, " To.night all worldly things we clear away; To.morrow, keep holy the Sabbath day."

Finding himself unable in his weakness to sing more, he slowly repeated the last lines : " Resting on Jesus, my heart has no fear ; I shall reach heaven, my evidence is clear."

Casting a look of tender affection upon his family and the Christian brethren who were present, he gave them his parting blessing, and in a few moments, peacefully breathed his life away, leaving hundreds of converts to Christ, and among them a score of native preachers, brought into the Church through his labors.

Mr. Binkley was obliged to return to the United States, by the illness of his wife, before he had been two years in China. I remember how the tears flowed down his face, as I stood with him on the deck of the steamer which was to bear him away, and he said, " I can't bear to go home, when I haven't yet been able to do anything for Jesus here." But in leading this one man to Christ, our dear brother was honored of God in doing a work which will go on in increasing power while the world lasts.

Our last reports show over seven hundred members, over five hundred probationers, and over fifteen hundred adherents in the Hok-chiang district. Does it not pay to preach the Gospel to the Chinese ~ [The above article has already been published in tract form j it has; however, awakened such deep interest that the editor has asked permission of- Dr. Bald win to reprint it in the pages of this REVIEW. Among all the narratives of the mighty power of God in the conversion of a human soul, we believe that not even the Acts I of the Apostles give a more convincing example. We commend the reading of this tract to those who have charge of missionary meetings and monthly concerts. It is of itself a sufficient vindication of missions. -EDITOR.] Word comes from Figueras, Spain, of thi opening of the new hall and schools, in October last. Over 1000 persons were present, and most decorons was the assembly. Copies of the New Testament and religions tracts were distributed as the crowd dispersed. About $3000 are needed to pay for the new accommodations. The Town Council of Figueras has actually granted £5 sterling to the Protestant hospital or dispensary in acknowledgment of charity exteuded to patients, and there was only one dissenting vote! Here is an act unparalleled in th~ religious history of Spain. The work seems reaching all classes of people. Children from high Catholics are being transferred from the convents to these Protestant schools. We regard this work of Signor Rodriguez as very remarkable and promising.

WHY MISSIONS ARE SO ,MODERN

WHY MISSIONS ARE SO MODERN.

BY REV. DELAVAN L. LEONARD, D.D.

How happened it that the work of evangelizing the world, after centuries of such vigorous prosecution, attended with such marvellous success, was afterward well nigh suspended, and for well nigh fifteen hundred years? This most serious question we answer correctly Dy alleging that Europe became semi-barbarized and half-heathen, that the Church became secularized and religion formal, that Gospel faith, and love, and zeal went into long and almost total eclipse.

But this only leads to another question equally pertinent, and corriing much nearer home: Why, when through the Reformation ensued an astonishing spiritual quickening, a widespread revival of New Testament fervor and force, was not the sublime task at once resumed and pushed as at the beginning? Or, how happened it that for nearly three hundred years longer next to nothing was even attempted, so that the nineteenth century ·of grace was well on its way before the ears of the Christian Church began to be opened to hear the agonizing wail of a dying world? To this latter question let us seek a reply more at length; and also together with it, to the further and pleasanter query, How came it about at length that His disciples began to reperuse their Lord's Great Commission, and, though slowly, began to obey his last command? It is my purpose to set briefly forth some of the principal and more patent causes which hindered the beginning of modern missions and postponed them to a day so painfully and so culpably late, and also other conspiring forces which in the fulness of time made a beginning easily possible, and communicated the heavenly impulse, and then carried the majestic movement onward from strength to strength, from grace to glory.

And, first of all, be it remembered that in God's strange providence Protestantism was compelled at once to engage in a most terrible life-anddeath struggle with Rome, one whose fury did not in the least abate for five or six generations, and which has continued to the present time. The new doctrine must establish a right to existence, must conquer standing ground for itself, define and then enlarge to the utmost its bounds in Christian countries. So that as yet there was neither much time nor energy left to expend upon the vast and even far more benighted regions beyond. In Babylon, out of which they in horror had lately fied, the reformers found a foe ever present. wily, unscrupulous, and most determined to crush them, and commonly with the ruthless civil power in close league and co-operation. The horrid enginery of the Inquisition was steadily at work, and the Jesuits were. plotting destruction night and day. All Germany was in perpetual chaos, social, political, and religious. Recall the unspeakable desolations attending the almost constant "religious" wars of those dark days; the hapless and most tragic lot of the W alUenses and Albigenses; how the Huguenots found no rest from persecution, and finally were slaughtered by the wholesale, imprisoned, impoverished, and driven from France. For the better part of a century little Holland bent the utmost of her almost miraculous energies to save herself from utter destruction by the diabolical schemes of Philip II. and his Duke of Alva. And as for England, in the persons first of the Lollards and later of the Puritans, those who would have none of Rome suffered manifold afflictions from Henry VIII., Bloody Mary, Elizabeth, and the four Stu'arts, for a hundred and fifty continuous years in all j nor was the fearful stress finally over until happy 1688. Therefore, it is not at all to be counted strange that the dreary and bloody sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed no evangelistic crusades to speak of aimed at remote Africa, Asia, America, and the islands of the sea.

But besides the theological and ecclesiastical strifes which began from the Reformation, esteemed one and all by the frenzied combatants " wars of the Lord," were almost as bitter, as exhausting, and even more interminable thau the clash of arms. And, indeed, the task was tremendous, full of difficulty, demanding the .utmost of wisdom and skill, to separate Bible truth from Romish error, with which for more than a millennium it had become worse and worse intermingled. The trouble extended to all matters of both belief and practice. The reformers of necessity resorted to the Scriptures anew and investigated for themselves. The human mind and conscience now jllilt set free from age-long and galling tyranny, of course were altogether unused to untrammelled exercise, and so not strangely they ran riot sometimes, and went to the other extreme of license, lawlessness, anarchy. Sects sprang up by the score, all manner of hobbies got upon their feet and performed their antics before high heaven. While some would bring the least change possible to religious beliefs and customs, others would reject to the utmost, and thus be as unlike as possible to the harlot of the Reven Hills! But the most temperate and conservative were compelled to fashion fresh creeds and church forms. And, should ecclesiastical rule be monarchic or aristocratic, as aforetime, or democratic rather ~ And the confession, should it be of the Augsburg pattern, or of the Helvetic, or the Gallic, or the Belgic ~ Which was verily nearest to God's Word, the Heidelberg, the Westminster, the Thirty-nine Articles, or the Savoy 1 The spirit of war filled the air, fighting was the chief business in all realms, and hence Luther was hot against Zwingli, and both against Calvin, and all three could by no means in the least tolerate the heresies of Servetus, Arminius, and the rest. In England for long it was not only Protestant always against Catholic, but also war to the knife between the Established Church and Presbyterians, and Puritans, and Independent~ and Baptists, and Quakers, etc. Nor, indeed, in the nature of things, could it be any light matter, a short and simple process, to escape altogether from the intellectual and moral night of the Dark Ages, to return fully to the , truth as it is in Jesus, or for Protestantism to come thoroughly to itself, to a knowledge of its sublime mission, and as well to fashion the needed instrumentalities for its accomplishment.

A further difficulty as good as insuperable was found in the fact that everywhertl Church and State, the spiritual therefore and the material, were closely united, and so long had the relation existed that now it seemed to most to be not only eminently proper, but also necessary. This was another portiQn of the evil inheritance received from Rome; but as a result religion had come to be largely a political affair, to be managed in cabinets by kings and statesmen and generals, by them to be fostered and guided, to be defended by the secular arm. Force was in common use to punish opinions and convictions which by theologians, or philosophers, or politicians were adjudged pestilential. And such a wretched caricature of the teachings and example of Christ as resulted was not at all fit to be carried to the ends of the earth. Better wait for generations until this unnatural and unchristian alliance is ended, and a sharp distinction is made between the things of Cresar and the things of God.

And then, in addition, as yet nothing of importance in any realm of activity was undertaken and prosecuted by the individual of his own motion, from an impulse abounding~ within, but every movement was by prescription, authority of pope or king, and under the lead of orders, and companies, and guilds. The day of voluntary associations was not yet, and far in the future. The benighted people were nobodies, but cattle to be driven or clay to be moulded, instruments to be played upon by the few enjoying the divine right to originate, and shape, and manage. As we shall see, what little was done to carry the Gospel abroad was devised wholly and engineered in every case by royalty and privileged corporations. As far lUI possible all this from the glorious days of the apostles and of their successors, when missionary effort was mainly individual, when the entire body of Christ was instinct and overflowing with celestial aggressive force. No world-wide progress could be made uutil such ignoble and enfeebling bonds were in some way broken, and if need be through violent civil .and ecclesiastical overturning, and the rude shock of war. The English revolution, with the sublime outburst of the Puritan spirit, must precede, and the American, yes, and also the French, with the terrible throes and destructions included 'of the Napoleonic campaigns, to end a great host of old abuses, to teach p·riests and nobles an unpalatable lesson in humility and modesty, to exalt the rights and privileges of the many. Above all, the religious world was waiting for the rise of a great people beyond the sea, untrammelled by tradition, God-fearing, intelligent, each one trained to think and act for himself, with democracy in the State reacting upon the Church, a people loving liberty of thought and conviction better than life. Then, at fellgth, the Gospel, free as at the first, left to itself to do its appointed work under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and the guidance of the Word, an<l with reliance only upon spiritual forces, couId enlarge itself indefinitely on every side, and spread around the whole earth.

• There was yet another obstacle to the origin and growth of mIssiOns, well nigh prohibitory, and resident in the fact that for nearly a hundred years after the rise of the Reformation Protestant peoples possessed no point of contact with the heathen world. Hence the existence of any widely extended and deplorable moral darkness was a mere matter of hear- say and untested theory. All navigation to distant paris of the world, all commerce, all colonization were exclusively in the handt! of such z!lalous servitors of Rome as Portugal and Spain. Because Catholics saw with their own eyes they also felt, and sent out missionaries in abundance. It •was not until after the destruction of the Spanish Armada and the rapid decline of those powers behind the Pyrenees that Prot~stant England, Holland, and Denmark stepped forward to the first rank as rulers of the ocean. But a few years more elapsed before colonies were planted at Jamestown, at Plymouth, and on Manhattan Island, while factories were opened in South Africa, Asia, and the Indies, both East and West. And when thus finally the supreme naval and commercial hegemony passed into Protestant hands, it was the Lord's sure token that the pure Gospel was about to fly abroad.

Then, in due season, followed yet other and even more astounding victories for the rising faith of Luther, and these chiefly through British valor and aggressive enterprise. It was nothing less than one of the greatest epochs in human history, especially in relation to the career of all English-speaking people, and the publishing of the message of salvation to all mankind, when almost in the same year Clive conquered at Plassey and Wolfe at Quebec, and thus 200,000,000 Hindus were brought into closest intercourse with English Christians, and the French were driven from this continent to make room for the speedy rise of a " Greater Britain," which should fairly rival the mother country as an ardent evangelizer, and continually provoke her to Gospel good works.

One more step of a similar character remained to be taken, nor was it long delayed. Since the generation which followed Columbus. and Magellan, and the Cabots there had been a litrange and long-continued apathy with regard to carrying forward to completion the discovery of unknown regions. Little progress was made in that direction save by a few like Barentz, and Tasman, and Behring, until Captain Cook's three famous voyages (1769-79). In· particular he turned the attention of the civilized world to such continental land spaces as Australia and New Zealand and New Guinea, and brought to light in the vast and hitherto untraversed expanse of the Pacilic, the South Seas of a century since, islands innumerable, such as the Society, the Friendly, an<f the Sandwich groups. We can little understand. the great stir that was made, the boun·dless en- thusiasm that was kindled by his achievements. The deeds of our Living- stone and Stanley were received coldly by comparison; and the impulse . directly given to the cause of missions was immediate and very great. Two facts in evidence of this must suffice. It was the reading of Cook's narrative that first set Carey's soul on fire with holy zeal, and his original purpose was to proclaim Christ to the heathen in Tahiti. And, moreover, the London Missionary Society, at whose organization such a remarkable wave of religious zeal arose and spread all over Britain, was formed expressly to carry the cross to the South Seas, and in Tahiti its earliest representatives first touched land and opened their work.

A final step remainp,d in preparing the way for successful attempts to turn the heathen from their idols to worflhip the living God. A mighty and widespread outpouring of the Spirit of the Most High had long been the chief desideratum. From various causes in conjunction during the.' latter part of the seventeenth and extending far into the eighteenth, a sad and dark eclipse of faith had befallen the reformed churches throughout both Europe and America, a serious decline of vital piety, a lapse into frigid formalism and rank rationalism. The only zeal left was for an orthodoxy which was stone dead. After the Restoration in England had ensued a woful reaction, a descent into infidelity and immorality. "Never has there been a century in England so void of faith as that which began with Queen Anne and ended with George II., when the Puritans were buried and the Methodists wp,re not born." In 1732, when the Moravian Church came into being, cheering evidence began to appear that the Lord's grace and mercy were not clean gone forever from his apostate people. And a little later began to descend those refreshing showers of divine blessing through the fervid and tireless labors of the "'IVesleys, Whitp,field, and our own Edwards, whereby were supplied to hundreds and thousands a spirit truly apostolic, a zeal fiery and vehement, a faith hardy and venturesome, . like that which inspired the church in the pentecostal age. Without this almost unparalleled anointing from on high modern missions could never have begun to be, but now it was possible for the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

Closely akin to what has just been mentioned, and in great part as a result of the operation of the same spiritual forces, the heart of Christendom began to be strangely touched, and melted, and filled with compassion for the millions who were perishing-that is, the spirit of humanity, of philanthropy, of the Good Samaritan, which is inherent in the 'Gospel, was everywhere active in the early days, but had long since been almost quenched, was wondrously revived. Even Christian souls were in an unfeeling, an inhuman frame, reflecting thus the old pagan and barbarous times. Sorrow and woe found slight sympathy. When the general case was so forlorn little heed was given to the misery of others, especially if .of a different nation, out of sight, !It a distance. But a marked change in this regard was at the door. Howard had started upon his painful journeys to mitigate the grievous wrongs inflictcd upon prisoners; the voice of Wilberforce was lifted up in denunciation of the sin of African slavery, and Raikcs had opened his first ragged school. And all this was but the feeble beginning of an era of reforms which constitute one of the most striking characteristics of the passing century, as well as one of its best claims to be remembered with gratitude in centuries to come. And of this pity and compassion the heathen world presently began to receive at least a portion of its share. '

This brief glance at the Protestant Christian world, extending from near the beginning of the sixteenth century to near the end of the eighteenth, is sufficient abundantly to show that the long failure of the Lord's host to go up and possess the earth for Christ, though in no inconsiderable degree their sin and shame, and because of their indifference and unbelief, was also in yet greater part their misfortune, the result of their evil environments, for which they were not responsible, and which they were compelled to endure. Moreover, those tempestuous years were not by any means wholly wasted, but, on the contrary, were an all-important and indispensable period of extensive seed-sowing in preparation for the magnificent missionary harvest to follow. At length the time was fully ripe. Rome was now so badly battered that no longer need any live in mortal fear lest either by guile or by open assault she should recapture lost territory, and therefore Protestant Christianity could well afford to face some other way than toward the Tiber. Freedom, both ecclesiastical and civil, had extensively become the inheritance of the masses, and to them the printing press and the public school were fast bringing intelligence. There were no more lands to be discovered, and the steamship and the rail car were soon to make easily accessible the very ends of the earth. And, finally, in the nick of time a few, at least, in loving obedience to the command of their risen and ascended Lord, were ready to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.

The news from the Micronesian missionaries, received January 6th, by way of Japan, Was brought there by the steamship Alliance, Commander H. C. Taylor. It is briefly summarized as follows: The shelling of Ouas Ponape and the burning of the mission premises by the Spaniards took place September 20th. The missionaries, Mr. Rand, Misi Fletcher, and'Miss Palmer, were then at Kiti, on the other side of the island. On October 16th, the United States man-of-war Alliance arrived at Kiti, and after some effort, Commander Taylor was permitted to take Mr. Rand, the ladies, and seventeen girls from their school to Kuraie. There are now, therefore, no American missionaries on Ponape. It was useless for them to remain, for the governor had strictly forbidden the holding of any meetings or the opening of schools. It is a sad day for Ponape ; and it is neither to the honor nor to the advantage of Spain, as it breaks stipulations with the United States.-Missionary Herald.

England, Germany, Italy, and Portugal have signed an agreement for the reCiprocal protection of missionaries of these four nationalities who settle in Africa, in regions accorded to their respective States by the recent treaties. For liberty to exercise their ministry the missionaries must have a passport from the government to which they belong. -Missionary Herald.

THE LONDON PAPERS AND INDIA'S WOMEN

THE LONDON PAPERS AND INDIA'S WOMEN.

BY MRS. J. T. GRACEY.

An impression prevails that many of the stories concerning the evils of child-marriage and enforced widowhood in India are somewhat exaggerated.

Upon opening a recent India paper, I read the following: "In one of the largest cities of Southern India a marriage was recently arranged between a young man of twenty-three years, suffering from white leprosy all over his body, and a bright young girl of only twelve. The girl was bargained for, and rupees five hundred were paid down in hard cash. She of course knew nothing of the arrangements made until told by her father, ~hen she quietly submitted to her fate with a resignation characteristic of a Hindu maid."

Turning over the page, another item fell under my notice : "On Sat- urday last a young girl-wife, aged eight years, was admitted into the hos- pital suffering from burns all over her body, caused by her husband having branded her with a hot iron because she was absent from the house rather longer than usual." Still another: "A marriage has been celebrated within the week in which the bridegroom (name given) is aged 35 years, to an infant nine months old!" A marriage was recently performed be- tween a Brahman and fourteen girls belonging to one family. The corre- spondent of a native paper says : " We learned that fourteen Misses Ban- nerji were to be given away; I went to the spot out of curiosity. I saw the bridegroom older than a grandfather, seated on a painted wooden scat, and fourteen girls, varying in age from three to twenty-six years, seated about him in the form of a crescent. The ladies were veiled, and faces east down, as if they were cursing their parents for shambling them in this fashion." This was not done a century ago. It was done in the latter half of this year of grace, 1890.

Instance after instance could be given, but these facts, a few of many occurring within the last few months of ] 890, will surely prove that the statements have not been exaggerated. Then another item attracts our attention: "The number of persons who died by violence or accident in the Bengal Province alone this past year was between thirty and forty thousand; more than ten per cent of these deaths were from suicide, and the greater number of suicides were among women. " Poor women, with life so intolerable it cannot be borne ! .

For several years past the London Times has most ably discussed these evils in its columns. At one time a series of articles appeared gi.ving most startling facts in regard to existing customs, and demanding a reform in the interests of humanity, and when it became known that these articles were written by a Hindu woman, who knew from bitter experience whereof she wrote, a most profound 8ensation was created.

In a recent issue of the paper a very able editorial appeared, headed, " The Fundamental Problem," in which it explains the origin of the social condition of caste women in India, and deals with the general subject of legisla- tion. This is followed by a letter from a Mr. Malabari of Bombay, an Indian reformer and a Parsee, who has for many years been indefatigable in his efforts in India to stir up the natives to' the physical, social, and moral evils of these customs. He has been recently in England, nsing vig- orously both pen and voice in the hope of arousing public opinion, where legislation onght to begin. He sayR: "The system of infant marriages in India has spread under the regis of British-made laws." He has writ- ten a pamphlet entitled, "An Appeal from the Daughters of India." He urges English women to use their influence, and the Government its authority, to help banish these terrible evils.

Rukhmabai, the young and accomplished Hindu lady, whose sentence of six months' imprisonment for refu'sing to marry the husband to whom she had been betrothed in infancy, awakened such sympathy a few years ago, comes out in a very excellent article on the subject ia the September num- ber of the New Review.

And now Punch takes up the subject, having for its text the following extracts from the T!mes editorial : " It is our national boast that odious and cruel institutions cannot long breathe the atmosphere in which the Queen rules. But in India we have long connived at cruelties-cruelties none the less odious because practised in the name of religion, and upon victims that mutely acquiesce in their fate-which need only to be understood to excite profound repugnance and compassion. The time has arrived for the rulers of India to ask them- selves whether they can any longer throw the shield of British law over the tortures perpetrated upon the Hindu child-wife and the Hindu child-widow."

Again: " Before the' silent millions' who make up the rank and file of Hindus, discard the cruelties of their marriage system, their opinions, preju- dices, and habit of thought must change. Nothing is more certain than that they will change slowly j but we hold to the belief that judicious leg- islation will hasten the process more powerfully than anything else."

A full-page cartoon is given to the subject under a legend, " The Shield and the Shadow": "At the feet and clasping the skirts of the armed Island Queen-the Shield, kneels in agony the child-wife or child-widow, behind whom, closely pursuing, is a dark menacing shadow, ' Caste,' " and in a dozen or more ringing stanzas Punch states some very plain truths, and closes with these lines: – " Poor child ! the dark shadow that closely pursues her Means menacing Terror, she sues for a shield, And how shall the strong lEgis-bearer refuse her? '.rhe bondage of caste to calm justice must yield.

" We dare not be deaf to the voice of the pleader For freedom and purity, nature and right, Let Wisdom, high-throned as controller and leader, Meet cruelty's steel with the shield of calm might!"

WOMAN'S WORK

Docs anything practical come out of this agitation? Yes, but it comes ·slowly. In England !J, very influential' committee has been formed including the names of three ex-viceroys of India, as well as several ex-governors and lieutenant-governors, who are familiar with the facts, and such a committee will have influence.

Then the Christian women of England are being stirred as never before, and as a result, a society has been formed called" The Indian Widows' Union." It is an organization of the Christian women of England for the purposeof improving the condition of Hindu and Mohammedan widows in India. The members are" widows only," but any Christian woman may become an " associate member." They pledge themselves to prayer that God will break the yoke and set the captive free. They raise money to be expended in training widows to useful industries, and they gather and diffuse information with regard to the condition of the widows. At the head of this institution is the Dowager Lady Dynevor, and a depot for the work done by the widows has beep. established at West Kensington.

The agitation in India by the native press, and by liberal and advanced natives on the platform, and this agitation in England should, and surely must lead the Government soon to act j but the evil lies too deep for the Government to remove. Nothing but the teachings of the Gospel of Christ will reach the root of the evil, or cure the disease.

WOMAN'S WORK.

The Woman's Board of Missions of Boston (Congregational) held its twenty-third annual meeting in Hartford, January 13th-15th.

Over two hundred delegates represented its constituency in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

At the delegates' special meeting on Tuesday, the subject of first importance was the pressing, imperative need of money. This was ably emphasized in a paper on "Aggressive Work" at home, presented by Miss A. B. Child, Home Secretary.

It marshalled such an array of startling facts that it ought to take every woman's auxiliary by storm, and make "aggressive work" for the treasury of each a success, so that the advan,ce called for this year, $25,000, may be secured without fail. This leaflet, "Aggressive Work," is already in print for circulation.

This Board is invited to meet in Brooklyn, N. Y., III 1892.

One result of General Booth's scheme will be found, we hope, in renewed attention to the rescue work done by the clergy. Looking into an appeal sent out by the Rev. J. H. Scott, rector of Spital fields, we find that in this one parish "during the past year 230 cases [women and girls] have been dealt with, llO of whom were below the age of twenty years j 104 hav~ been sent to rescue homes, 13 returned to their parents, 21 sent to hospitals, 11 to service, and the remainder dealt with in a variety of ways." This is, of course, b,ut one side of the work carried on from year to year in such parishes fiS Spitalfields and WhitechapeI.

THE LIGHT IN DARKEST ENGLAND

THE LIGHT IN DARKEST ENGLAND.

BY FRANCIS EDWARD SMILEY, EVANGELIST.

The.!' Bitter Cry of Outcast London," ., In Darkest England," and other startling announcements of the social and spiritual destitution of our cousins across the sea have conveyed to those, unfamiliar with the numerous agencies struggling to deliver the" submerged tenth," the erroneous im- pression that the misery has resulted from the Laodicean apathy of the churches themselves. We hear so much about the lapsed classes and so little of the saved masses, that the pessimistic world regards England, and especially London, as synonymous with heathendom. So many clouds and so few sunbeams, so much darkness and so little light have furnished 'th~ material for the sketches of rhetorical writers, that one is not s~rprised to hear the question seriously asked, Has the Kingdom of Light in Chris· tian England been overshadowed and blotted out by the Kingdom of Dark~ ness ~ While it is our duty to penetrate the darkn~ss, we can do so more safely and speedily even with tapers to encourage us. Let us hold up a few lights, then, that light even "darkest England" for the encouragement of those at home and abroad who seek to penetrate the darkness and bring the perishing out from the regions of the shadow of death into the light and liberty of a Christian life.

In the city of London, where are to be fomid the darkest spots in darkest England, the herculean efforts of the churches to rescue the perishing are as astounding as the gigantic evils to be grappled with. There are literally hundreds of organizations employing thousands of missionaries, colporteurs, Bible women, nurses, Scripture readers, deaconesses, and teachers, who are striving night and day, on the streets and in the tenements, to raise from the mire the souls and bodies of the "submerged tenth." In no city in the world is there exhibited a more aggressive Christianity, or are more evangelistic agencies effectively organized, or more money spent for philanthropic purposes, than in so-called " heathen London."

If the malignant forces that seek to destroy the moral life of the world's metropolis are legion, so also are the benign influences that oppose with irrepressible energy every evil tendency that manifests itself. If the devil is active, so also is the church or the true diRciples in it.

Among the numerous agencies that hasten to answer the" bitter cry" is the London City Mission. "Lux in tenebris" should be its motto. This single society sends out daily five hundred agents, who occupy as many districts in the poorest neighborhoods of the city. Three hundred halls have been provided in these parishes, wherein the missionary gathers his motley congregation for religious services. The missionary is practically the pastor of the outcasts. He lives among them, is their counsellor and friend. The London Female Preventive and Reform Institute, with its mission- aries, matrons, and seven homes adapted for the classification of all ages and conditions of unfortunates, may be taken as an example of the twenty- five societies engaged in similar work. The girls are induced to forsake the streets for a comfortable home, where Christian influences, motherly sympathy, food, shelter, and employment are furnished as stepping-stones to a virtuous life.

The St. Giles' Christian Mission for men and the Elizabeth Fry Refuge for women are prominent among the numerous agencies laboring among discharged prisoners. Their agents are at the prison gates every morning to invite the discharged men and women to partake of a warm breakfast, and to offer them a friendly shelter and secure for them situations, away from the evil influence of former companions.

Such institutions as the MiJdmay Mission and the Bible and Domestic Mission send out daily hundreds of deaconnesses, nurses and Bible women, who, with food and medicines for soul and body, labor among the inmates of hospitals and asylums, among the toilers in factories and dwellers in the tenements. They visit among the poorest of the poor, nursing the sick, relieving distress, teaching the helpless mothers by simple economic and , sanitary rules the valuable lessons of health and thrift, and proclaiming by precept and example the joyful messages of Christ.

It is idle to attempt in this article even the enumeration of the numerous enterprises sustained by the Christian people for the evangelization of this great metropolis. There are at least one thousand agencies, recorded in the Oharities' R~gi8ter and .Digest, at work relieving distress, both physical and spiritual.

There are two thousand places of worship with all the evangelistic agen- cies for aggressive work. There are, moreover, a number of churches ex- clusively for foreigners.

In addition to their usual services, many of thc London churches carry on mission enterprises among the poor. They send out evangelistic bands to conduct meetings in the open air and call the attention of the thoughtless pedestrian to eternal things. They support colporteurs, Scripture readers, and missionaries, who devote their entire time, visiting among the people of the parish.

To reach those who will not attend the churches, special religious ser- vices are held in concert halls, theatres, and other popular resorts through- out the city, where attractive music, .spirited singing, and brief Gospel addresses interest, instruct, and influence many to a better life. There are special agencies that look after the spiritual welfare of the soldiers j others that care for the sailors. The policemen, firemen, and post-office em- ployes have their special services. There are missionaries that visit the cab-stands, market-places, and railroad stations. There are missions to the Jews, Catholics, and foreigners, w.hile the thousands of toilers along the riV<lr are not neglected. The ~riminal is met as he ('ornes from the prison gate in the early morning j the prostitute is accosted as she plies her trade in the streets at midnight, and urged to forsake her life of sin j and the homeless urchin is aroused from his hard couch, with literally a stone for his pillow, on the bridges and in the parks, and provided with comfortable bed and board, and brought under the influences of a Christian home.

The messsge of salvation is proclaimed through tens of thousands of Bibles, tons of tracts, and numerous volumes of Christian literature, which are scattered broadcast through the agencies of the religious publication societies.

Nor does this charity remain at home. Evangelists are sent out to neigh- boring towns and cities; mission boats cruise about the coasts, visiting the coastguards and lightships in their isolation j hospital ships are dispatched to the fishing fleets in the North Sea, to administer both temporal and spiritual nourishment to the toilers of the deep. Nor does this expensive service diminish the magnificent sum annually contributed to send the Gospel to heathen lands.

In addition to these united efforts there are many individuals engaged in evangelistic work. England's Christian queen becomes an evangelist to the families of the poor crofters in their Highland cabins, and other mem- -bers of the royal family count it a privilege to visit the poor and dis- tressed in hospitals and asylums. Members of the nobility lay aside the cares of State to preach the Gospel to the outcasts. The Christian banker, merchant, and editor supplements his daily labor by mission work after business hours. He erects a building or rents a hall wherein to gather the lost sheep. while he himself. often becomes the pastor of the flock. Sons and daughters of the aristocracy, students of the universities, repre- sentatives of learned professions, have given up their homes to live among the people, and have consecrated their time, talents, and means for thtl, " help of the Lord against the mighty."

Back of all this personal and combined effort for extending the king- dom of Christ, are the sympathy and encouragement of the English Govern- ment, whose sovereign bears the title, "Defender of the Faith." Every- whtlre one sees amid the surrounding wickedness traces of the nation's trust in Almighty God, and professions of Christianity. It is inscribed upon her chief commercial establishment in the humble declaration, "The earth is the Lord's and th~ fulness thereof." Upon her public buildings, her monuments and fountains scriptural quotations are carved in stone.

These evangelistic agencies, stationed like a mighty army throughout the metropolis-contesting every foot of territory against the encroachments of the kingdom of darkness, and winning glorious conquests for the King- dom of Light-have weakened the power of the destroyer and defended London from his complete mastery.

. There have been marked improvements during the last thirty years in the moral and social condition of the people. London is wicked, but Lon- don is growing better. Official statistics testify to a healthier atmosphere, and the Christian visitors notice It decided improvement. The prisons have fewer occupants, the poorhouses fewer boarders, and the public houses fewer customer!!, than three decades ago. The wage-workers live better and dress more neatly. They have discarded corduroy for tweeds, and fustian for more substantial cloth. The wife and mother keeps herself and children more tidy, and her home more inviting. A few pictures or chromos, in rough frame8 or no frames at all, adorn the walls; a flower-pot or box, witb a bright geranium or an aspiring fern, decorates the windows. The people show more respect for the clergy, and welcome the Christian visitor to their humble homes. The minister is invited to the workingmen's crubs, and his address is cordially received.. The deepening interest in spiritual things is manifest in the increased attendance at the churches and other places where religious services are held.

Through open-air preaching, colportage work, and mission services, the people have been brought more into contact with the Gospel. and through the visits and instruction of devoted missionaries, the poor fI~cognize the church as their friend.

We do not mean to imply that this improvement is noticeable uniformly among all the lower classes. It is noted principally among the working people, who a few decades ago were very indifferent to the claims of religion. • Such is the testimony of many of the clergymen laboring in the East End.

All the Christian world is anxiously watching the contest that is being waged in London between sin and righteousness, between the followers of Christ and the followers of Belial. This anxiety arises from the intimate relationship existing between this noble city and the cities of other lands.

The throb of London life is felt throughout the world. If her moral pulse is weak, the effect is visible on people that live afar. Moreover, every city must witness the same struggle within its walls as is now being waged in the British metropolis. It is only a question of time when the fair cities of our own land will house a population as !arge as London. Places that are designated upon our maps to-day as villages will, in a few years, be metamorphosed into citics with teeming populations. The Rame enemies mllst be faced ; the same evils must be resisted that threaten our most sacred institutions. The same social problems will arise. The" bitter cry" will be heard. A" way out" of the darkness will have to be devised. Tbose of us who are laboring in the cities are already in the midst of these burning questions.

We will do well, therefore to turn to the mother country, which has given us so much instruction in art, science, literature, and law, and learn from its Christian activity the methods adopted and the success attained in evangelistic work among the millions dwelling in "the greatest city of ancient or modern times." vye will thereby be better able to grapple with these same evils before they reach the same threatening proportions, and thereby stay the destructive onslaught of the enemy by weakening and scattering his gathering forces. And while we face the" dark forest," let us generously acknowledge the work of the pioneers, who have blazed the trees for our guidance in leading its helpless inhabitants out from their bondage into the light of the glorious liberty of Christ.

Harriett Warner Ellis, No. 64 Mildmay Park, London, North, writlll, with regard to women's work for women: "As one of the oldest survivors of the littld company called together in 1834 by the saintly Abeel, Baptist Noel, and others, and having continued to be a member of that first committee up to the present day, you will, I feel sure, pardon my intrusion. When the first twenty ladies were selected from members of all Christian denominations holding the great vital truths of Christianity, it was suggested by Dr. Abeel, or one of his eo-workers, that four young ladies, who were themselves Christians, should be added to the number, to learn about the work, and so be trained to take the place of others when removed by death or other causes. I was the youngest of those so chosen, not being nineteen. My dear father, John Sherman Elliott, was an active member of the Britil:!h and Foreign Bible Society and other similar work, and missionaries of all names were frequent visitors at our house. The first ladies sent out found, as a missionary's wife wrote, ' our efforts as yet are all among the very dregs; in time all may get access to the higher or more respectable native females.' Miss Wakefield was the first lady sent out to India by the new society. Miss Thornton went, in response to an earnest request from Mr. and Mrs. Medhurst, to Batavia.

" On the 29th of March, 1836, Miss Wakefield wrote: 'All attempts to get at femaleI'! of the higher classes appear to be utterly useless.' In that year, Lady Bryant, who had just returned from India, and who joined the committee, wrote: 'By cautious and persevering efforts it may be done,' and in June, 1837, four native gentlemen in Calcutta gave Miss Wakefield permission quietly to visit their wives to teach them Bengali, from Christian school books, and needlework. But nothing was to be said on the subject in public, and the word Zenana was not to be used, as it might stop the work altogether. In March, 1838, Miss Holliday, afterward Mrs. Leider, obtained the same permission from Mahomet Ali in Cairo.

"Prior to this a ladies' association had been formed in Calcutta to maintain the Central School, established by Mrs. Wilcox, and it had a branch in London. That branch had become extinct before the Female Education Society was formed. While rejoicing that now there are twenty-two ladies' societies, we ask for help, not only as being the first in the field, but because it comprises in its sphere China, Japan, Persia, the Straits, the Levant, and West and South Africa. We have no expense of offices, but still meet at each 'other's houses."

THE CREATION ACCORDING TO KRASI TRADITIONS

THE CREATION ACCORDING TO KHASI TRADITIONS.

BY REV. WILLIAM WILLIAMS, ASSAM, INDIA.

First of all God created the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars. He created also the beasts of the field.

Heaven and earth were connected by a very high mountain, which is called" Heaven's Navel."

The beasts of the field, at the beginning, could talk like men, and the tiger was their king. They had a market also of their own, which is called the Lurilura-market. As far as I can gather, the word Lurilura carries the idea of "confusion" or " hurriedness."

After that God made man out of red earth, and He put him out in the sun that he might become hard.

The tiger saw this" son of humanity" and said to himself, "This one will be the king j" and being filled with the spirit of rivalry, he asked his subjects, the beasts of the field, "Who among you will go and tread under foot that son of humanity ~" No one responded. After that a creature which goes under the name of "Horse-divine" came forward and offered his services, saying, " I will go and tread him under foot." He went and bruised in pieces the son of humanity.

This" Horse-divine" was a red creature, and the descriptions of him remind me of the pictnres I have seen of the " Welsh red-dragon."

Early the following morning God came to see the" lion of humanity," but to his great sorrow he found out that he had been destroyed.

Now God called together all the beasts of the field and asked them who did it,but no one answered a word-there was a great silence !

At last the dog came forward and said that it had been done by the " Horse-divine."

God made man the second time in the same way as before, and commanded the dog to watcJ:!. him lest he should be trodden under foot and destroyed again by the enemy. The dog obeyed and watched. The "Horse·divine" made his appearance again, but the dog barked at him and threatened him, and being afraid of the dog, he went away.

After that God breathed spirit or soul into that " model of man," and it became a living creature and it spoke.

God said to man, " Come to me to-morrow morning." When the morning came, the tiger got to God's presence before man, and God gave him twelve bodily powers j and the tiger went his way. After that man came, and God gave him twelve inventive or mental powers.

Having received these mental powers, the son of humanity wended his way to the market of confusion, and to his great consternation he found the tiger waylaying him on the road that he might kill and eat him. Man went back and told God of it, and God presented him with a bow and arrow in addition to the twelve inventive powers.

Thus equipped, man went back and followed the path in the direction of the above market, and he found the tiger still waiting for him. He proceeded this time, and when the tiger came forward with an open mouth to eat him man drew the bow, and the arrow, to his great joy, went straight into the tiger's mouth, and he died.

God saw that man was very lonely in the world, being without a companion ; and He caused a deep sleep to fall upon man, and when he awoke he found the woman standing by him.

God married them; and two genii, one representing" an oath" and the other" a curse," acted as witnesses, who also received power from God to destroy, or, as they express it, " to eat them," if either would be guilty of bigamy.

The Khasis were most strict on this question and other questions relating to the sexes previous to the coming of the English to the Hills. And it was an attempt among the Sepoys to violate their rules and customs in this respect that was at the root of the massacre which took place on the Hills in the year 1829, when two European officers and several Sepoys were killed.

The next thing in the tradition is the existence of sixteen families in the world; but a separation took place; nine houses or families ascended into heaven by that" H!)aven's Navel" referred to at the beginning, and seven families remained on earth. And for a long time there was a continual intercourse between the two parties, and God used to talk with men.

The Khasis very often call themselves" the children of the seven families," or" the children of the seven nests."

Now God commanded His servants to prepare a throne on earth, that He might- hold a durbar to judge and to administer justice. When the throne was ready, and before God made His appearance, man ascended the throne and sat on it, saying to hims~lf, " I also will judge together with God." God came and saw man sitting on the throne prepared for Himself, and He went away in great indignation.

The communication between heaven and earth was ended. God and man were separated. The pride of man's heart drove away the divine favor and fellowship- aspiring To set himself in glory above his peers, He trusted to have equalled the most High."

God determined to punish man for his pride in aspiring to equal his Creator and Judge, and He caused a great tree, which is called" The Tree of Shame," to grow in the middle of the earth, the branches of which filled the heavens, and the world became quite .dark; it kept away the rays of the sun, the light of the moon and stars, and the dew fell incessantly night and day.

The children of men were in a very great trouble indeed. With such darkness and dampness life became almost unbearable.

A great durbar was held to consider their trying situation, and the best way to get out of it; They could see no better way than by trying to cut down the tree. They all agreed to this, and went in a body with their billhooks and axes and worked hard all day. When the evening came they returned to their homes to rest for the night. The following morning they all went again to their work and found, to their great astonishment, that there were no marks whatever of their work the previous day. The tiger, their great rival and enemy, went there in the night and licked the cut they had made, hence the filling up. This aggravated their situation.

When thus overwhelmed in their calamities, God showed mercy to them by sending a .little bird whioh is called in Khasi I Phreid, something like the wren in size, to teach them wisdom. The little bird asked them, " What will you give me if I teach you wisdom g" The children of men said, ' , We shall give yon grain and Indian corn." The terms were accepted, and the little bird 8aid, "When you go home in the evening do not take your billhooks and axes with you, but leave them at the foot of the tree with their edges pointing outwards, and when the tiger comes in the night to lick the cut he will cut his own tongue." Man believed the little bird, and acted according to its instructions. The plan proved snccessful, and the" Tree of Shame" was felled at last, to the great joy of humanity. The branches thereof fell into the land of the foreigners (the Bengalese and the Assamese), and this accounts for their lands being plains; the enormous trunk remained where it fell, and this accounts for the land of the Khasis being hills !

The tradition we see does not improve as it goes on. It begins well, and in several point~ it agrees with Divine Revelation- (1) The order of creation, man being the last and the best-the" roof and crown" of the whole fabric of the world. (2) Man made of ., red-earth." (3) And God breathed ~pirit or sonl into that model of man, and it became a living creature, and it spoke. (4) A deep sleep falling npon the first man, and the woman standing by him when he awoke. (5) The fall of man, cllUsed by the enemy and the pride of his own heart. (6) The" sixteen families" and the" seven families" (see Gen. 10 : 2, 6, 22).

NOAH I JAPHETH. SREY. HAM. ' 13. Cush, 1. Gomer, 8. EIam, 14. Mizraim 2. Magog, 9. Asshur, 15. Phut, 10. Arpbaxad 16. Canaan. 3. Madai, 4. Javan, 11. Lud, 5. Tubal, 6. Meshech 12. Aram, 7. Tiras, The Khasis also have a tradition of a nniversal flood, and their religions ceremonies are full of the atoning and the mediatorial elements.

Mr. J. B. Braddon, an officer of the Indian Government, wrote: "It would be well if those persons who speak and write 80 earnestly respectin/!: mission work should spend some time among the Khasees, and look without prejudice at the work that is going on there. I feel very certain that they would no longet think that the missionaries labored in vain."

LETTERS FROM EUROPE

LETTERS FROM EUROPE.-I.

MISSION WORK IN THE SCOTCH ATHENS.

BY DELAVAN L. PIERSON.

Scotland is generally known as a religious country. One can readily understand this after walking the streets of Edinburgh on a Sabbath morning, and seeing the numerous and magnificent church edifices lifting their lofty spires on all sides, and the populace thronging the thoroughfares in every direction on tll e way to their places of worshi? Not a street car is to be seen on the Lord's day; and, as a natura] consequence, the vast majority of the people walk, if they go to church at all. Yet the congregations seem to gain rather than lose from this cause, for it may be doubted whether in any city in or out of Britain the average audiences exceed those of this modern Athens.

It would be strange, however, if, as in other cases, there should not be found a darker side to the religions life of the city. One needs only to take a stroll through the Lowgate or Canongate on a Saturday night to be convinced of the truth of that fact. It seems as though the higher the spiritual life of one factor of the citizens, the lower would be the degr~da­ tion of the other. But however that may be, there is at least plenty of opportunity for earnest missionary effort to be expended in behalf of the lower classes of Edinburgh.

In the former residences of the nobles in the High Street and Canongate, some of the lowest classes now have their dwelling places. It seems oddly out of place to see fine panelled ceilings and carved oak woodwork in the homes of the paupers, and it is a peculiar fact that the mansion once occupied by the Duke of Queensbury is now used as a House of Refuge for the Destitute. There three hundred paupers and inebriates find their homes; forty destitute men and women nightly find shelter, and hundreds of the poor buy there daily their twopenny dinner of soup and bread for a penny. Great improvements are being made in the homes of the poor. Dark and dirty closes and narrow winding stairs are being replaced by light and airy courts lined with glazed brick and stairways of iron, so that it is next to impossible for the dirt to find a sticking place. In the lodging houses, too, there is noticeable a vast improvement. Instead of the close, dingy, crowded" metropolitan lodging houses," fit only to breed and foster poverty and vice, " model lodging houses" have been erected that are provided with all necessary sanitary arrangements. Here, at the small price of from four to sixpence per night, so much better accommodations may be had than most of the, poor men enjoy in their own homes, that many leave their wives and families to take advantage of them. A reading-room, with newspapers and Sunday services, is connected with them, and a kitchen with a huge range, where each man may eook his own food. In the washhouse, with its drying room, reminding one of the fiery furnace, a man may wash, rinse, and dry his whole wardrobe in the space of fifteen minutes. Everything is clean, comfortable, and well ventilated. No profanity or vulgarity is allowed, and fines or expulsion are the penalty for every offence. S~arate lodging houses are provided for the women, and each has accommodations for some three hundred and eighty.

But while all this is being done for the moral aud physical improvement of these men and women, their spiritual natures are not neglected. There are missions of every description scattered throughout the city, some of them peculiar to Edinburgh, and all apparently accomplishing a noble work.

The Territorial 'Mission was instituted by Thomas Chalmers, and has continued in a flourishing condition ever since his time. After the disruption he first held his meetings in an old tan loft in the West Port, and in the surrounding district carried out his ideal plan of city evangelization. The church which was afterward erected for him there, and where he preached for several years, is now used as a mission hall in connection with the Chalmers' Territorial Church. In this old church meetings of various sorts; carried on by the members of the church, are held nightly. These meetings include temperance, evangelistic, song, children's, and other services. But the principal emphasis is put upon the" from·house-to-house" visitation, which is carried out most systematically and regularly. Over this mission department of the church work is a missionary, and under the missionary some seventy or eighty workers, each ten having its own superintendent. Each worker visits from five to six families on e,very Sabbath afternoon, so that all of the four or five hundred families in the district are visited at least once a week. Spiritual effects are those sought, and each worker endeavors to become intimately acquainted with the family history and cares of those with whom he comes in contact. Tracts of educational, temperance, and religious character are distributed regularly, and differ in character from Sunday to Sunday. The temporal wants of those who prove worthy are also looked after to some extent. The missionary and workers have lodging house and bakeshop tickets, marked with symbols to denote their worth, so that they cannot be exchanged for drink; these they distribute to the needy, and clothes and food and other assistance are often given when the nature of the case seems to warrant it. Many ladies of the church are interested in the work of reclaiming the fallen women, many of whom are from high familics of the city and neighborhood, and are weary of their wretched life and long for better, nobler things. If Christ is the one whom they seek, some home is usually speedily found for them, and their old life buried as much as possible in oblivion. If, on the other hand, respectability only is their aim, they must agree to spend eighteen months in a reformatory or "home," where they are clothed and fed 2nd are obliged to do a little work. After this a situation is usually obtained for· them, and they may begin life practically anew, apart from all their old surroundings and companions. Open-air services play an important part in the evangelisti,c wo!.k of the church, and every Sabbath f evening they are held in various parts of the city, by which means people are gathered and are led singing down the street to the door of the church, where an evangelistic service is held at eight o'clock. The singers remain without for a time, to endeavor to attract more wanderers, fer music seems to have especial powers over the Scotch nature, and then all are invited in, and the pure Gospel is preacbed to them there.

There are many difficulties and disappointments connected with the work, but one soul saved would put ten thousand misgivings and fears to flight. The scene of the work was, in the early part of the century, the scene of the ghastly tragedy of the" Burke and Hare murders," wheril unsuspecting strangers were decoyed into a so-called lodging house only to come out corpses, sold to the medical students. The body of Burke himself was afterward delivered as that of a criminal to undergo the same treatment that his victims had undergone before him. The most difficult people to) reach are those who have lived in t,hese low circumstances from their childhood. As a rule, they marry early and live a drunken, brawling life. It is those who have falien in some degree at least who appear most susceptible to earnest entreaty. Many are the dangers and inconveniences which the workers are obliged to undergo in carrying on their work, often being called upon to stand between the knives of knavish brawlers or remain up until daylight with those whom they are seeking to reclaim.

Newton's great law of motion seems to apply as truly to religion as to matter, and for every energetic evangelistic action there appears to be an equal reaction in the religious lives of the workers. Never was a church more thriving than the Territorial Church of the West Port. It is noticeable even in the very walk of the members up the church aisle j it is energetic, and not as if the congregation only came to the church to attend a funeral service.

Another excellent example of the Edinburgh mission work is that of the " close" missions. The Carrubber's Close Mission is the most interesting and influential. It was founded in 1858, and for over twenty years carried on its work in small, insufficient, and dingy quarters at the foot of one of the old closes in the High Street. Finally, through the energetic efforts of Mr. D. L. Moody, a fine seventy-five thousand dollar building was erected for their use, with all necessary class-rooms and an audience room with a seating capacity of about twelve hundred. Here meetings are held nightly in connection with the various departments of the work. There are over six hundred workers identified with this mission who, under superintendents, work in connection with one or more of the thirty-two sections. These sections carryon work very varied in character in co-operation with open· air meetings, temperance and evangelistic, together with societies foJ." women, girls, young men and boys, and special work among the J."ailroad men, coalmen, and policemen. During the last year there were 4500 meetings in connection with the Carrubber's Close, including prayer-meetings, open-air services, temperance meetings, Bible classes, and meetings for the young in country and city. There are ten open-air meetings in various parts of the city every Sabbath. A prominent feature of the work is the temperance movement, in conjunction with which a monthly periodical is published, the Gospel Temperance Appeal. Every Saturday evening a temperance meeting is held, at which everything is done to provide an attractive programme of temperance addresses and sacred music. Although m.'lny of the meetings are considerably disturbed by those under the influence of liquor, still often these very men are led to Christ and become earnest and enthusiastic workers. Pledges are to be had at the close of the meeting for those to sign who will, and always a number remain to take the pledge or, at least, be spoken to on the subject. The names of those who take the pledge are written down with the address, and thus they are put into communication with the workers, several of. whom follow up each one and endeavor to help them on in their new stand for the right.

The Girls' Sewing and Bible Class is also very helpful for reclaiming those who have fallen, and for saving many another from a downward course. At a meeting recently of the girls who had been reclaimed through the efforts of the lady in charge of this department, there were present over one hundred and sixty, all in good situations, and leading respectable lives. Need it be said that they have a great affection for their benefactress, and most of them for Christ as well ~ Many tracts are distributed throughout the streets also in connection with the mission work, and have the naHle of the mission upon them· as a guide to those seeking further light.

As an instance of how much influence thc mission exerts for good in the city, we need only cite a letter from the governor of the Edinburgh prison to the Superintendent of the Gospel Temperance Section. It reads : 30 Waterloo Place, Dec. 8, 1890.

DEAR MR. BARCLAY: Will you kindly do me the favor to express to the Directors of Carrubber's Close Mission my thanks for the interest manifested by themselves and their workers in the reformation of the criminal classes. I think you are aware that for many years I have given you the credit of keeping down the daily average number of criminals by about one hundred, and I do trust that you will not diminsh your exertions, as this is 8 very important time for action.

****** ** * Unfortunately, I have not been able to attend so many of your meetings as I could have wished, but when I have been present it has often been a matter of wonder to me, on seeing so many familiar faces, to imagine where they might have been and what trouble they might have got into had it not been for such meetings j although I am aware many of your people have dond much in the way of individual help. With many thanks, Yours very truly, J. E. CHRISTIE.

The Edinburgh City Mission, like those of like character in other cities, takes a large part in the evangelistic work of the city. Its efforts are confined to the poor of no one portion or district, and, unlike other forms of missionary societies here found, employs a number of salaried men to devote their whole time to the visitation and care of the lower classes. For this purpose the city is divided into nine sections of about four hundred families each, and over each section is a missionary who holds services in the mission hall of the district, and whose business it is to visit as often as possible the families in his section, and to care for the general spiritual welfare. There are besides five special departments of the·work for specified classes, having missionaries for each department; these include the cabmen, policemen, lodging houses, prisons, inebriates, and public houses and fallen women. In the division of the city care has been taken not to interfere with any well-organized work of a church or other mission, but there are many churches which work in connection with the city mis- sionaries, thus supplying a large body of workers to assist them in their vis- itation.

The City Mission is entirely undenominational, but is thoroughly evangelical, and in consequence its workers do not as frequently meet with a cold reception at the hands of the Roman Catholic portion of the city. The methods used are very similar to those of the other societies, first and foremost being that of personal contact with the men and women on the streets and in their homes, thus seeking to raise them morally and spiritually, and in raising the individuals from the degradation into which they have fallen to raise the whole community. As a rule, the city missionary is the only pastor and adviser that they have; but the men are well chosen, and keep their hands to the plough faithfully, endeavoring, by becoming all things to all men, to try if by any means they may save some. The results are tangible and encouraging, though the work is one fraught with trials and discouragements.

A fourth form of mission work, and one peculiar to Edinburgh, is that of the" Students' Settlements." These are conducted by the students of the university or theological colleges, and are found to be of the greatest benefit both to the students and to those among whom they labor. The Ponton Street Mission, in connection with the university, originated about four years ago, largely through the efforts of Professor Henry Drummond. Its object is .nominally secular, but much religious work is done by the students who are engaged in the work. A large hall has been erected in one of the poorest districts of the city, and here the students live and endeavor by personal contact, especially with the young men, to raise them intellectually, morally, and spiritually. Classes in wood-carving, drawing, history, and other departments are conducted during the week and, together with the reading·room, furnish an opportunity for the personal contact sought. Sabbath-school and Bible classes, with an occasional evangelistic address, and now and then a meeting for social intercourse, also form an important part of the scheme by which the work is carried on. About five or six students usually live in thE' mission and devote much time to the work, often at great inconvenience to themselves.

The other settlement is in connection with the Free Church College Missionary Society, and has only recently been organized. Its object is solely religious, and avowedly so; other benefits are expected to follow the spiritual uplifting of the community. The" settlers," six in num- – ber, comc into contact with the men, chiefly in the Young Men's Club, where they have an opportunity to converse with them as they at the same ·time endeavor to entertain them at games of dominoes, check- ers, and in other ways. The men's club forms' the chief feature of the work. There is a fee of one shilling a year to entitle one to membership, and the men make their own rules, elect their own officers, and have entire charge of it, subject to the approval of the" settlers. ,. Of their own free will they prohibit gambling and profanity, and are, as a rule, orderly and appreciative. The club is intended to take the place of the public house in the leisure hours of the men, and to afford an opportunity for the students to come into direct contact with the individuals whom they seek to benefit. Other departments of the work are the Sabbath-school,- chil- dren's church, Band of Hope, library, savings bank, Boy's Brigade, Bible classes, prayer and temperance meetings, and meetings for women, chiefly under the charge of ladies from St. Andrew's Church, which works in connection with the students.

The subscribers to each of the various departments of mission work form the society from which managcrs, directors, and the variolls officers are elected, and who guarantee the financial support of the mission.

There are many other, and private, missionary enterprises carried on by individuals and churches, besides many charitable societies for the relief of the poor and distressed. • Few cities of the size seem to be so thoroughly and energetically cared for as this home of Knox and Chalmers, and the results of the labor ex- pended may be seen as much in the spiritual life of the churches as in bet- tered condition of the poorer classes. But there is no l.ack of room for workers, and in spite of all that has been done or is being done, the con- dition of the poor in many districts seems as wretched as can well be im- agined. The workers, however, continue faithful, taking to themselves the consolation and promise given in the word.s. " Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not. "

. EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, January 17, 1891.

Few things impress one more in all Scotland than the old gate in Dundee, where the martyr, George Wishart, preached to the plaguestricken people gathered outside the gate, while the inhabitants of the city were gathered just inside. What a type of the true missionary, standing between a living church and a dying world, and preadhing the gospel of spiritual healing!

THE TELUGU MISSION

THE TELUGU MISSION.

BY C. B. WARD.

This Telugu Mission was born in a prayer-meeting, February 22d, 1879, in Goolburga, Ii railway station about three hundred miles from Bombay, in the dominion of H. H., the Nizam. Two persons were present, a padri and an engineer: the padri, a member of South India Conference, pastor at Ballory, and thc engineer a district officer in the Public Works Depart- ment of the Nizam's Government.

This event took place at the close of the great famine of 1876-71'1, in which five millions perished.

The Bombay Guardian, editor, George Bowen, missionary, first announced the" new arrival" in its last issue of February, 1879, and commended the" little one" to the confidence of the good. March 12th, 1879, we took over from a famine poorhouse, kept up a yenr on private charity, five boys and girls. Here began the actual work.

In the order of Providence, Rev. T. S. Burnell, over thirty years an A. B. C. F. M. missionary at Melun, Madura district, South India, had the honor of taking the firiit financial share in the new concern. His] 0 rnpees were received by us March 20th, almost one month from the prayer-meeting. March 29th on this Rs. 10 we took 14 more waifs from an overcrowded famine camp at Adoni. These, with 2 more taken at Goolburga by Mr. Davis, gave us 21 in all-Telugu; Canerese, and Mohammedan, both sexes.

. The Bombay Guardian of April 5th published progress, and declared rising faith and intensifying purposes.

April 1st the padri got married, and received for the orphan work Rs. 50 from an unknown friend, who continued to do the same thing monthly for a long time. We have since learned he was the great-hearted Henry Conder, Esq., General Traffic Manager of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway.

And so the work went on. At a later date we took up ;30 new ones, at a later, 50, and a later, 13, and the la"t large accession, September 30th, 52 boys and girls from Adoni. A few more scattering ones came in, till about October 1st we found we had actually collected over 180 orphans at Mr. Davis's place in Goolburga. Death did so quick work, however, that we never reached above 122 on hand at anyone time.

The Bombay Guardian, the India Methodist Watchman published our testimony and helped us much.

Thus began the work. God's Word supplied the base for the faith the Holy Spirit inspired in our hearts. We boldly avowed our purpose to trust God and never solicit, except in prayer. The Holy Ghost was chancellor of the exchequer, and in the first six months He called in from whom He would about Rs. 2000.. And in this time the bulk of the care of all these little ones feU upon Mr. Davis. He wrought not by proxy. His own hands fed, dressed, washed, assisted, and he spent hours a day trying to impress these precious souls for God; and surely we shall meet some of those little ones who passed away with Jesus' name upon their lips and His truth in their newly opened hearts.

I saw now the providence of God in the last ten years of my life-from the plough to four years of student life, one and a half years of work in Chicago among the street Arabs of Halsted Street, till William Taylor (now Bishop) found me in December, 1875, and sent me to India.

God's Holy Word, Finney's" Autobiography," and ~Hiller's " Life of Trust" were the pabulum our souls thrived on in those days. How won- derfully the great God led us! Starting as we did without bank or missionary treasury, from the very beginning we b'"gan to cast about us for a productive footing somewhere. We dreamed and prayed over factories, farms, industries, etc. But the Lord had us in hand, and first gave "r the orphans some public road-making on which they realized something like Rs. 100 in a short time. e had no idea of greasing our wheelsforever with charity, but rather designed to repay to the Lord the charity money lent us, and send workers to the " regions beyond" and support them there.

We cannot follow in detail the wonderful history of these ten eventful years. But what have we now ~ 1. C. B. and E. M. Ward and their children, Wesley Asbury, William Taylor, George Fletcher, Susanna Ruth, and Nellie Marion, in all 7 souls.

2. Eurasian orphans, boys, 8, and girls, 5. 3. Native families, 19, blessed with 24 living little ones. Unmarried boys, 4 j girls, 2. One widow with her son-in all, 67 souls. Grand total of 90 -adults 50 and children 40. So we cannot, as of old, say" orphan children," for we are become a colony of families. 4. Of the whole number, 40 are full members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and another dozen we rank probationers. In most of these honesty, diligence, observance of the Lord'tI day, prayer, testimony, and general upright character give us much ground for believing a work of grace is wrought. We have no tobacco, or liquor, or jewelry Christians in our" little church in the wilderness." 5. When we gathered up famine waifs we found them from five to twelve years of age. All our native people except one, my assistant, Nunsoya Naidu, have been a full ten years with us. Our Eurasian orphans have not been with us so long, but most of them during eight years. 6. For years stern necessity has made us two houses: one in Secunderabad, where Mrs. Ward, our children, and the unmarried girls stay with one or two pairs of the married ones as servants j and one in the district, wherever I may have work for all the field force of our colony, migrating as work leads us on railway construction and mining. The bulk of the family have been in camp with me for about four years now. We find much to encourage us in the Christian character of those we have spent ten years with, for Jesus' sake. They are our" seals." '1. The entire work which we have had upon our hands has cost about Rs. 10,000 per year (ovcr $3000). This includes not only our own mission work, but doing something to help other work. We have spent outside of our own work in this time several thousand rupees-contributions to other missions and support of other missionaries, distribution of religious literature, the publication of tracts, and our own India Watchman, etc.

Of this Rs. 100,000 passing through our hands in ten years more than half are our own earnings. Formerly contributions exceeded, but for four years our earnings have by far exceeded the gifts made to us. In the whole ten years our receipts from places outside of India fall below R8. 5000. Our contrihutions have always come unsolicited, except in prayer. Weare not concerned about money, and never beg. But we do believe and plead God's promises, as they are neither lies nor out of date.

8. Weare not in debt. In an honest and rather daring endeavor to realize the capital needed for a Chr~stian colony, on a large railway contract we lost Rs. 20,000. But God enabled us to make it up and pay the loan with liberal interest.

9. God started us in orphan work in 1879, and kept us closely to it and learning the language up to 1883. In these years God cheered us with the genuine conversion of half a hundred of our orphans.

Then came three years (1883-86) of very steady and vigorous evangelistic work, in which we were much blessed, but the only abidirtg, visible fmit was the conversion of two natives, who are both preachers now.

Insurmountable difficulties in the way of acquiring any land under the Mohammedan Government made dropping into the present" two house" arrangement a necessity-No. 1 at Secunderabad, No. 2 at Beersheba or Dothan, as good grazing leads us. Wonders hath God wrought for us during these years. We can only bless and praise Him.

10. We hope to publish soon a report for the ten years, in which we shall try to rccord something of the goodness of our prayer-hearing God.

11. In the years of our history God has been good, but it has been hard to understand all His ways. Three of his handmaidens, than whom we expect no more spiritual and successful workers in India-Cecilia O'Leary Moore, Hapley Freer, and Hester Ann Hillis-God took from us, each one suddenly. They did work that lasts, and now enjoy reward everlasting. One lady after leaving us became the wife of a Baptist missionary in Bengal. One from iII health was compelled to return to America. Our brethren, Ernsberger and Blewitt are now both honored members of India Methodist Conferences. The latter took away from us Ruth Freer, a good worker with us, a good wife with him. One young man apostatized fearfully. One found the work uncongenial. Miss Bell went to study inedicine in Hyderabad Medical College. One native preacher and wife, lent to us, stayed but a little time. One of our converts left us, and is now promoted to the post of head native preacher in Conference work.

12. Eight little ones hath God taken. Our firstborn first; after him seven other children in our native families. Six of our native orphans have died, ~ giving us their testimony to Jesus' saving power. They surely await us. Three Eurasian orphan boys have died, of whom we have hope, one a poor, ,suffering epileptic all his life. Several have fallen back into the world. Some Eurasian orphans, after two or three years with us, were taken by friends or relatives. A few have died, leaving us no certain word. Our total death-roll in ten years reaches a little over 20.

13. But the best of all is, God has at last answered our earnest prayer in giving us a large piece of land (over' 2000 acres) on an annual rental of Rs. 800. This is what we have besought of Him for years. Our utter extremity has become God's gracious opportunity. And now what! Our migrations may cease, our two homes become one, and our colony be the base of supply for dozens of workers. We may again get into shape for vigorous evangelizing. Our 20 families of native Christians have of their own efforts acquired cattle and caris, and cash to the amount of about Ra. 2000. They are not paupers, and are ready to go to work at once in our village. The rental we can as easily pay as the rent of Secunderabad house. And we believe God has arrangements on foot for the small capital required for the immediate restoration of the entire village, thereby making it worth at an early day several thousand rupees per annum.

We have no complaints, but we can clearly see it has taken ten years to f;ubdue the missionary aristocracy in us, and teach us truly humble, economic, and New Testament lines of life and labor. We have also learned that physical labor is conducive to health in the tropics by these years in India, and are just ready for many more, if it please God.

Trusting God, we have begun work upon our village, and with a home and a promise that" we shall be fed j" with a fine field of souls about us, with our years of experience among the people, and naturalized in India, we look forth after this ten years' journey-not forty, as the Israelites hadto a grand future in this goodly land God has glven us.

Bishop Thoburn recently recognized us fully as a part of the great Methodist Church, and henceforth our members shall have a place in Methodist totals, as they have not had for a few years lately, though we have prided ourselves upon the fact we belonged there. Our only contention has been to be le;ft alone as non-subsidy workers. This is now granted us, and God is with us.

The hard work is not done. Years yet must be spent teaching native Christians confidence in their own ability, and teaching them how better to utilize and develop the resources of the country, making foreign aid unnecessary either for their support or such work as they should do for tIle salvation of the heathen. We have some fine specimens of natives who, under God, will make good business men and women for Him, and some who will make good Christian workers and preachers.

We believe God is with us j we need no other aid to live upon or learn by. God has given us, as capital, strong bodies, common sense, rich soil, aU tributary to our faith. Our prayer has been for a piece of land, that

A. B. C. F. M•

with this productive base we might maintain a whole force of Gospel workers in the surrounding country, whose lifework, and exchequer and methods of filling it, might all be open to the gaze and study of the surrounding heathen. God has schooled us for ten years to ·fit us for the work before us, and now given u!' the land, and here we are a happy family, a monument of God's care in the midst of a heathen land, subjects of His continued love-a little church of Jesus Christ of His own planting. To God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost be all the praise and glory, world wit-hou-t e-nd-I – – – – On January 20th last, a party of five sailed for Secunderabad, India, to join the self-supporting work of Rev. C. B. Ward. One of the party-' Rev. M. F. Smootz-who already spent several years iu this work. bas now married and gone back to the Deccan, India, for life. Rev. R. H. Madden, wife, and son, who accompanied him, have been doing successful mission work in New York City.

There sailed the same day for South America, Mr. T. W. La Fetra and an experienced teacher, Mrs. Anna Dodd. Mr. La Fetra has already spent seven years in mission work in Santiago as auxiliary and helper to his brother, Rev. I. H. La Fetra, in the large college in Santiago. He visited the United Stateil to purchase a complete outfit for printing-costing about $5000-a religious paper and books for educational work in South America.

A. B. C. F. M.

A despatch from Nagasaki, Japan, published recently in the daily press, stated that the United States steamer Alliance, in its visit to Ponape, found that the war between the natives and the Spaniards had been instigated by the American missionaries, who on that account were forced to retire from Ponape to Kusaie. "The story," says the Missionary Herald, "is so absurd as to be comical. The only Americans at the point of conflict on Ponape were two women, who at the time of the difficulty between the Spaniards and the natives sought to their utmost to preserve peace, but failed. And when the revolt occurred, these two women, aided by a native teacher, risked their lives to save from destruction two Spanish priests and some soldiers. And they succeeded in their efforts, only to be accused by the Spaniards of having incited the natives to their deeds of violence. "

The following item is found in the report of the Hiroshima circuit (Methodist), given by Rev. B. W. Waters in the Missionary Reporter: " Hiroshima has been well chosen as the centre for our work in that part of . Japan. But the city itself, a strong Buddhist centre, is not as open to Christianity as some of the smaller neighboring towns. Neither the city nor the country work ought to be neglected. But owing to school-work and passport regulations, it is difficult for one man to carryon both. We really need two additional men for Hiroshima and for the work that proper- ly can be connected with it. "

THE MISSIONARY'S SHOES

THE MISSIONARY'S SHOES.

BY A. J. GORDON, D. D., BOSTON, MASS.

The homely and the sublime were never more closely conjoined, we venture to say, than in the following from the history of Herrnhut : Zinzendorf sent one day for a Moravian brother and said to him : "Will you go to Greenland to.morrow as a missionary F' The man had had no previous intimation of his call, but after only a moment's hesitation he replied: "If the shoemaker can finish the boots which I have ordered of him by to-morrow, I will go."

Need we say that if such a spirit of prompt obedience were universal in the Church, there would be no highways unoccupied or byways untravel1ed in all the regions beyond now waiting for the Gospel. But we have not to tarry even for a day for our shoes to be done. What saith the Scripture, and how much it saith in a single comprehensive sentence ~ "Having '!lour feet shod with th,e preparation of the gospel of peace." The law said to Moses: " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." Grace says: " Put on thy shoes upon thy feet, for the place where thou standest is missionary ground. " "All roads lead to Rome," says the proverb j but since the day of Pentecost all roads lead from Jerusalem j "that remission of sins should be preached among alnations, beginning at Jerusalem." Therefore Christ's witnesses were sandalled at the outset for their journey j and of this we desire briefly to speak.

The Gospel is its own preparation. For our shoes are not the preparation for, but the preparation of, the Gospel. The tendency is inveterate and constantly recurring to introduce some forerunner of grace into the missionary field in order to make ready for its coming. Even those who firmly believe that" Christ is become the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth," have not infrequently thought that they must take their starting-point from Sinai, again employing the law as a school, master to lead men to Christ. The story of Henry Richards's experience on the Congo-which has made such a profound impression of late wherever recited-has its chief interest in this idea. Brutal and bloody savages, among whom the murder of innocents was a sacred rite indispensable for the solemnizing of the funeral of their chiefs, and man·slaying a medical prescription to be adopted as a matter of course on the order of the witch. doctors, what impression could the Gospel of the grace of God make upon such sonls if immediately applied ~ No wonder that the thunders and lightnings of Sinai should be invoked as a necessary prelude to the sweet strains of redeeming love. "Grace, of course," said an old Scotch preacher, "but did you ever know a woman to sew without a needle? So I say unto you, thrust in the needle of the law till the sinner is pricked to the heart and cries out, and then you may draw as long a thread of Gospel consolation as you choose." But these degraded sons of the C;ongo did not wince in the least under the needle of the law. "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not steal"-instead of" kicking against these pricks," or being in the least wounded thereby, they were absolutely insensible to them. As for being sinners, when this charge was made against them they blandly conceded that while the missionary and his countrymen might be such, they certainly were not.

But now, after the seven years' fruitless ministry, comes the great change. In translating the Gospel of Luke, and reading therefrom the story of the sufferings and death of Christ, and pressing home upon the people the message, " And all this for you," tears began to fall, exclama- tions of astonishment began to be heard, and then conversions began to occur, till within a few weeks more than a thousand were added to the Lord of such as should be saved. As this story has been repeated of late before churches and theological students, the missionary has rarely been allowed to stop at the expiration of an hour; cries of " Go on !" break- ing out at every attempt to pause. "So astonishing; so well-nigh incredible !" people say.

And yet it is but the repetition of an old stQry, though on a larger scale. What student of missionary history does not know of the work of Hans Egede in Greenland, with its long, weary years of moral teaching, ending with the farewell sermon, " I said I have labored in vain and spent my strength for naught g" And then the translation from the gospels of the story of the Saviour's passion, by John Beck, the Moravian missionary, and the astonished exclamation of the listening savage, Karjamack, " How was that ~ Tell me that again, for I would be saved ;" and through this Word the savage changed into a Christian and a faithful preacher of the Gospel to his countrymen? So it was when Mr. Nott opened the third chapter of John to the hit~erto stolid and unconcerned South Sea Islanders. When reading the golden text of redemption, " God so loved the world," a man rose and demanded, "Is that true ~ Can that be so? God love the world when the world does not love Him ~ God so loved the world as to give His Son to die! Can that be true f' And as the verse was read once more he burst into tears, and the long-delayed blessing began.

It is a lesson which we have constantly to relearn, that" the preaching of the cross is the power of God." Not that evangelical Christians are likely to doubt the efficacy of such preaching tor accomplishing the one thing of bringing peace to distressed and penitent souls; but that it can also effect the opposite result of bringing contrition to hardened and indifferent souls, it is difficult to credit. Yet this is one of the paradoxes of Christianity, that the cross, which is the highest exhibition of divine compassion, should also serve as the most powerful instrument for human conviction. It has proved true a thousand times over that by His wounds we are wounded, as well as that " by His stripes we are healed." As the same sunlight can warm and comfort when falling gently on our persons, or scorch and blister when focussed by a burning glass, so the same love of God revealed on Calvary- can be Ilsed by the Spirit to bring the most tender consolation or the most poignant contrition. 'l'herefore, the Gospel in first, and its fulness, to the most degraded heathen!

Then let us refer to the sandals of education which have so often been bound upon the feet of the Christian herald.

One may well wonder why the temptation has been so constant for the missionary to turn schoolmaster. "No greater than for the pastor to turn pedagogue," it may be truly replied. Yes, and here is the most serious defect of our present-day Christianity, that it is leaning on crutches when it ought to walk by faith, undertaking to accomplish by culture what God has ordained to be effected" by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. " Art, architecture, music and ritual, how prominent the place which these are coming to occupy in our modern churches! Ask their promoters why 1heyattach snch importance to them, and they reply, " For their educational influence. " But we make bold to say that their tendency has generally been to educate away from Christ rather than toward Him, prepossessing men with forms, sensible impressions, and so disinclining them to the things of the Spirit 1 We have more faith a thousand times over in the regenerating power of the simple Gospel than in the educating power of all these elaborate accessories of Christian worship.

But we are speaking of education in the strict sense of the wordgrammar, arithmetic, and·· the arts, as introductory to the Gospel. Has 8uch a dispensation of teaching ever proved really helpful in preparing the heathen ,mind to receive the Word of life ? No more probably than a gymnasium in the basement of an American church, with its curriculum of dumb-bells and vaulting-bars, has conduced to a change of heart in the young men who have entered therein. The tendency is inevitable for these preparatives to become substitutes so prcoccupying the interest and attention with themselves as to render thc heart less accessible to the Gospel than before they came in. Education by all means! But in the school of grace the law seems to be not" know, in order that you may believe," but " believe, in order that you may know." Culture, when set forward as a forerunner of Christ, has constantly failed to become such, because it Ja~ks the humility to say: "He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose." It being true, according to our Lord's own words, that the Father hath" hid these things from the w'ise and prudent, and revealed them unto babes," it cannot be the missionary's business to make men wise lind prudent in order that they may receive the Gospel, but rather to tell the wise and prudent, that except they repent and become as little children, they shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.

A wide observer of missionary operations in Japan has recently expressed the opinion that the chief occasion of solicitude.for the country is found in the excess of education over evangelism, and that the wisest missionary policy would be a bold immediate movement among the lower classes, who are as yet untouched by Western 'culture. Let this call be heard, then, all over our country-not for more teachers merely, but for more evangelists.

Concerning industrial and mechanical forerunners of the Gospel we may speak with equal emphasis. So ingrained is the notion that what has been called" a propredeutic dispensation of civilization" must prepare the way for Christianity, that colonization has not infrequently been proposed as a John the Baptist to evangelization. Ninety years ago Wilberforce lent his influence to a great scheme for ameliorating the condition of Africa by this plan. Artisans with saw and hammer and anvil were despatched to- her western coast, with the understanding that after a considerable progress had been made in civilization, missionaries should follow up tho ~ssault with Bible and catechism. But the onterprise had not momentum enough to reach its destination, and proceeded no farther than Sierra Leone.

Even had it entered the field, its work would have been a gratuitous one.

For the trce does not bear the root, but the root the tree. As certainly as the planted acorn produces the oak, so surely will the incorruptible seed of the Word yield the fruits of righteousness and social order when believingly re~eived into the human heart.

David Brainerd gives a remarkable testimony to this fact, when sum- ming up the results of his labors among the American Indians at Cross- weekslllJg. Indeed, his witness supports all that we have been saying in this paper. Lest any should accuse his work of being the outcome of excitement and fear inspired by the preaching of the terrors of the law, or charge that his converts were only such as had been" frightened by a fearful noise of hell and damnation," he says: "God left no room for this objection in the present case, this work of grace having been begun and carried on" by almost one continued strain of -Gospel invitation to perish- ing sinners." Not the law of Sinai, but the cross of Calvary must have the credit for this remarkable work. Amid the multitude of inquirers and the urgency of the claims of perishing so~ls, he had little time, he tells us, to inculcate moral reforms or social llnd domestic improvements.

He could only sound out the message of salvation 1>y the blood of Christ, "and eternal life through faith in His name, and pass on. But note the result, as he records it : .

" When these truths were felt at heart, there was now no vice unreformed, no external duty neglected. Drunkenness," the darling vice, was broken off from, and scarce an instance of it known among my hearers for months together.

The,abusive practice of husbands and wives in putting away each other and tak- ing others in their stead was quickly reformed, so that there are three or foul' "

couples who have voluntarily dismissed those whom they had wrongfully taken, an(l now live together in love and peaco. The same mignt be said of all other"

vicious practices. The reformation was general; and all springing from the internal influence of divine truths upon their hearts, and not from any external restraints, or because they had heard the~e vices particularly exposed and repeat- edly spoken agaim.t. Some of them I never so much as mentioned-particularly that of the parting of men aud their wives-till some, having their conscience awakened by God's Word, came, and of their own accord, confessed themselves guilty in that respect.

" The happy effects of these peculiar doctrines of grace, upon which I have so much insisted, upon this people, plainly discover, even to demonstration, that instead of their opening a door to licentiousness-as many vainly imagine and slanderously insinuate-they have a directly contrary tendency; 80 that II close application, a Bense and feeling of them will have a most powerful influence toward the renovation and effectual reformation both of heart and life."

By as little pains as Brainerd labored to introduce" Christian Civilization," by so much are many modern missionaries anxious to exclnde if -from their fields. Its avant-coureurs in these days are the whiskey bottle and the powcer-flask. " If only we can keep out European and American civilization," says an earnest missionary in Africa, " there is hope for our work in the Dark Continent." On the whole, what a mockery there is in this much-vaunted word! And how little apprehension of the subject does an eminent writer on the evidences of Christianity exhibit in saying that" The wisest modern missionaries admit that they mnst civilize heathen nations in order to make Christian institutions permanent. " No! ~ot the sandals of law, of education, or of social science for the missionary of the Apostolic school j but" feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace." The first take but tardy steps, and rarely those condescending steps that reach the sinner where he is j but the latter: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace j that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation. "

THE BURMAN BIDLE.-The first edition of Dr. Judson's translation of the Bible into the Burman language was in three large quarto volumes, twelve by nine inches. The second edition was printed from the same type but upon thinner paper, and was bound in one volume. It bears this imprimatur: "Maulmain: Printed at the American Baptist Mission Press for the American and Foreign Bible Society and the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions; 1840. " Now after the space of fifty years a third edition is published by the American Baptist Missionary Union at its Mission Press in Rangoon, copies of which have just been received in America. It is a royal octavo, much smaller and more convenient than the earlier editions, having been newly set up and stereotyped, with many corrections noted by Dr. Judson himself inserted in the text by the careful hand of Dr. E. A. Stevens. This translation of the Bible into Burman was made amid great difficulties, Dr. Judson being obliged to make ~is own grammars and dictionaries as he went on, but it is remarkable as being one of the most accurate and idiomatic versions of the Bible in any language. It is an imperishable monument to the great ability of America's first missionary to the heathen, Adoniram Jlldio1on.-Baptist Missionary Magazine.

EXTRACTS ANlJ TRANSLATIONS FROM: FOltElGN PERIOlnCALS

EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS.

llY REV. C. C. STARllUCK, ANDOVER, MASS.

-The Church of Scotland, Home and Foreign Mission Record for January 1st, 1891, has the following statement: "A collection on behalf of the Committee of Correspondence with Foreign Churches is appointed to be made in all our churches and chapels on Sabbath, the 18th inst., provided always that wherever this day may be unsuitable the collection shall be made on another Sabbath.

" The great object of this committee is to foster friendly relations with the Reformed Churches of the Continent, ani to give aid to those who require it. We are especially brought into contact with the Reformed churches of France, Italy, Bohemia, Switzerland, and Belgium. With these churches the Church of Scotland in former days maintained constant correspondence, and it would be a loss both to them and to us should· such communications cease. Since the last appeal was made in 1888, deputies from the Church of Scotland have been present at one or two memorable meetings (If Continental churches. The celebration of the Bicentenary of the glorious return of the Waldenses took place in August and September, 1889, when the Rev. Dr. Mitchell, of South Leith, represented the Church of Scotland. At the jubilee of the formation of the Missionary Church of Belgium, which was celebrated in June, 1890, the Rev. Duncan Campbell, of Rosemount, Aberdeen, represented our Church, and received a cordial welcome. To enable the Church worthily to maintain these relations, and to bestow assistance in accordance with the needs of the struggling communions on the Continent, the present collection is made. "

-Says the Record: "A correspondent in Aberdeen reports a much appreciated visit of our Foreign Mission Convener to that city. Dr. M'Murtrie preached an impressive and an appropriate sermon to the students ill the university chapel 011 the 7th ult., and addressed a crowded congregation in Rosemount Church at night. On the Monday morning he addressed a full meeting of divinity professors and students, to whom he stated that the Mission cause was now attracting to its service a portion of the flower of our divinity halls, and that no less than twenty-four of our present missionaries (including missionaries' wives) in the foreign and Jewish mission fields came from Aberdeen and its neighborhood. At noon, on the same day, Dr. M'Murtrie addressed the South Church Ladies' Work Party ; in the afternoon he took part in the monthly meeting of the Ladies' Association Committee, and in the evening he addressed successively the Rosemount Young Men's Guild, and an Old Muchar congregational social meeting. Verily our Convener does not spare himself !"

-We give two of the collects of the Church of Scotland for the Week of Prayer. For Tuesday: " 'Ve beseech Thee, 0 Lord, on behalf of Thy Church Universal, in all lands and places, under whatever name or form, worshipping Thee in various tongues, and approaching Thy presence in the name of Jesus. We pray for union, for unity of spirit, for love; that Christian life and teaching may be increasingly subject to the Holy Ghost; that Christian people may witness unto Christ by living in godly love; that we no longer be opponents or rivals, but all one in Christ Jesus; and that for His sake, Amen." For Thursday: "For Thine ancient people, o God of Abraham, we earnestly pray that the veil may fall from their eyes, and that they may be turned tu the Lord; and for our Home Missions in the darkness still found in our land, we beseech Thee that the labor of Thy servants may be blessed in bringing many to the cross: through Jesus Christ, thy Son, Amen."

-In the Conferences Fraternelles, held in Paris, last October, various judgments were expressed of Roman Catholicism; but Pastor R. Hollard seemed to strike the centre when he gave as its damning sin, " It destroys the conscience." J esuitized Catholicism values blind obedience above everything else. It will be a sad thing for France to recur to this as her best conception of Christianity. But the leaders of intelligence seem to be awaiting the issue. Professor Atlier said: "The University is deliberating whither it shall go. It has made the round of all the systems, and now is eager to reach a goal. One of its professors said to me, ' My ffiend, count us as belonging to whosoever shall know how to conquer us.' "

Pastor Hollard thinks that Protestantism is not qualified to take the place of Catholicism in France until it understands better than now to respond, in evangelical simplicity, to those spiritual wants which Catholicismconsults the instinct of adoratiou and the craving for unity. Why should Pere Hyacinthe and the Protestants with the same aims be so little inclined to friendship ¥ The sentiment appeared to be very decided, that evangelizin~ work and charitable work ought to be carried on by distinct agencies. At Geneva, M. Ernest Favre attests, evangelization has been much more effective since this separation was made.

-The indian Standard, speaking of a recent Church Congress, allows that sanitation is important, but very reasonably insists thaI; the Kingdom of God and the Cross of Christ have not lost their prime importance. Speaking likewise of Brotherhoods (whose result!! in India do not thus far appear very marked), it wishes to know why the absence of God's unit of human society, the family, should be so highly esteemed. And asks why Archdeacon Farrar contends for vows where a celibate life appears a call of duty. Semi· monastic Sisterhoods and Brotherhoods, as Count Gasparin long ago pointed out, are apt to be of dubious results on Protestant soil. Every plant has its native and congenial habitat.

-The Rev. C. A. Schonberger, through the Jewish Herald, reports " that notwithstanding the sad fact that all open preaching to the Jews is prohibited in Vienna, yet they are constantly flocking, as inquirers, to the missionary's house, where Bible and other classes are regularly held. The Bible-class is largely attended, and this branch of the work is most encouraging. "

– " Regions Beyond," quotes Mr. Stanley's description of the proud Wahuma race, which he discovered, "being clearly of Indo-African origin, possessing exceedingly fino features, aquiline noses, slender necks, small heads, with a grand and proud carriage; an old, old race, possessing splendid traditions, and ruled by inflexible customs which would admit of no deviation." Stanley pronounces the features of the great KafEr race to be ., a subtle amalgamation of the Hindu and West African types." Although the foraying W ahuma have abundance of heathen vices, yet their higher type, mild and courteous manners, and salubrious country, render them hopeful for missions. To Stanley they brought up thoughts of "those blameless people with whom the gods deigned to banquet once a year upon the heights of Ethiopia. "

~ ".'. -The Universities' Mission in Central Africa, which now has 2000 adherents, is rejoicing in the ordination of its first native priest.

– " The Paris correspondent of Evangelical Ohristendom," says the Indian Standard, writes: 'There is a fearful increase of crime, conwadicting strikingly those who hoped that 'schooling' and 'good behavior would go together.' Increased schooling and increased crime proceed pari passu. Youthful literates, fifteen years ago, were 68 per cent, now 78 per cent. "The evident failure, in a moral point of view, of education without religion, is throwing weight into the Roman Catholic scale; children are crowding their private schools."

-Mrs. Dods, of the McAll Mission, says: "The old hall at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli, where the dirtiest of people used to crowd in night after night-some said to get warmed-has disappeared; its successor- Boulevard Sebastopol.-has come and gone, and now in its place are not one, but two or three large halls in densely crowded streets-St. Denis, Temple, and Salle Rivoli-the last redeemed from its evil uses as a rendezvous of atheists, anarchists, and lovers of guilty pleasures j wafihed and purified materially and morally, and consecrated, with its 600 seats, to the service of the Lord."

-Charlie, a convert of the Universities' Mission, having fallen into the handt,; of the heathen Gwangwara, was asked by them, " Why do not these white men and you fear us, seeing that we can kill you all~" He answered: "Because you can only kill our bodies with your spears; it is our souls we care about, and you can't touch them, and so we don't fear you." I heard from others at the time that Charlie had made this answer, and that the Gwangwara were not only awed but actually made afraid by these words. Doubtless it was the first intimation they had ever received that there was anything about a man they could not kill. Yet they believed it when Charlie told them, and, cowards at bottom-like all bullies-they trembled at the news."

-It has been decided in India, says the Bombay Guardian of January lOth, that if a full. grown minor appears capable of caring for himself he may lawfully be baptized against the will of his guardian. But a violent persecution against the Wesleyan Mission at Banknra, Bengal, has been excited by such a case, resulting in the burning of a school.

-A Christian New Year's Mela (or fair) has been held on the banks of the Jnrnna (as lately recommended by the S. F. G.) attended by Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians, meeting " in oneness of spirit, as sheep of one fold." It was held in the Presbyterian grounds.

– " Several thousand representatives of the eight chief Indian languages," says the Indian Witness, "lately met and transacted all their business in English. And no one seems astonished."

-The Ohinese Times, as quoted in the London and Ohina Telegraph, says, of Chinese appropriation of Western science, that it has as yet had very little effect on the national life. "Her dalliance with the skill and science of the Vest is rather a species of coquetry than honest wooino-. The truth is that powers less tangible and material, yet far more pote~t than railways, telegraphs, balloons, or phonographs, must be evoked before any deep or lasting impression upon this slnmbering mass of stagnant life can be expected. Spiritual forces cannot be conquered with material weapons."

tNTERNATtONAL DEPARTMENT

II.-INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.

The Religious Attitude of the Ohinese which he is entering, is somewhat like Mind. a scientific farmer who studies and BYREV.W. A. P. MARTIN, D.D., PRESIDENT OF analyzes the soil into which he intends to cast the precious seed. He may find THE IlIIPEBIAL TUNGWEN COLLEGE, that that soil was produced by the disin- PEKING, CHINA. tegration of many kinds of. rocks, some deposited from water, others thrown up Religion consists of two elements by the action of internal fires, others thought and feeling. Its thought i~ yet affected by atmospheric influences. directed toward the mysterious prob- We find, in a similar manner, the lems of existence. In this aspect mental soil of China composed of three every religion that emanates from hu- leading elements which have been comman thought is, to a certain extent, to mingled and brought into interaction be regarded as a philosophy, hence in such a way as to present to the superworthy of careful study, not as throwing ficial observer a homogeneous aspect. light which to us would be valuable on These are known as the three religions the question of human destiny, bdt as -Confucian,Tauist, and Buddhist. throwing light on human character on national character, and the relation's of Before attempting to point out their nations to each other. The religious interaction, which, after all, is the objecexperience of the Chinese people, the tive point, allow me briefly to sketch the elements forming their religious beliefs, leading characteristics of each, as they constitute the subject which I have to rise successively before our eyes. I discuss. No field could perhaps be of shall not be able to go into detail in greater interest, partly on account of the our allotted time, nor would it be demultitude of people who are affected by sirable, inasmuch as I have in mind the these views, partly on account of the distinct object of pointing out only a vast antiquity, presenting records reach- few salient features by which these reing back, without a break in the chain for ligions have acted upon each other. many thousands of years, and also because that great people have been seg- The Confucian system did not origregated by mountain chains and ocean inate with Confucius. He said: "I am breadths, from intercourse with the rest an editor, not an author." He took the of mankind, to a very large extent for records of remote antiquity and sifted the greater part of their national exist- them, in such wise, however, as to exert ence. In order that our lessons may be in a most effective manner the influence of value, it will be important that we of an editor, giving to the readers of all should take them out of the stream we succeeding ages only that which he may say, at a point prior to the in'flux wished to have produce its effect on the of the living waters of Christianity; national mind. We consequently date for Christianity has to some extent Confucianism from the beginning of his affected the modes of thought of that people beyond the pale of Christian com- twenty~ records, from the time of Yao and Shun munities which, for the last three hundred years, have been growing up in his favorite models of virtue, that land. But the systems of which I have to speak date back far beyond that tw~ two centuries before the Christian era time. The missionary, thoughtful, and accustomed to study the field upon Viewed as a religion, it' presents leading features: the first is the worship *Addrc•• before the American Society of Com- of Shang-ti; the second is the worship of the spirits of men under the title of anparative Religion. cestors. Shang-ti signifies the Supreme Ruler. Coming before us in some of the most ancient books extant in any language, that august being suggests at once the Jehovah of the Clll:istian Scrip- show, by the influence of other religions, tures-the Lord, the Most High, who more or less corrupting even the com- was worshipped not only by those who parative purity of the primitive ideas. are recognized in the canon of Scripture as' possessing the guidance of inspira- Confucius was himself strongly in- tion, but by such men as Melchizedek, clined to agnosticism. In his intimate the King of Salem, who was both king conversations with his disciples he re- and priest. We find the earliest sov. fuses to give them any positive state- ereigns of China combining this double ment in regard to the things beyond the function of king and priest, signalizing reach of hnman sight. He said: " We their accession, especially in the case of know not life. How can we know founders of dynasties, by going to death, or what lies beyond the grave? mountain tops, the highest points ap- We are unable properly to render service proaching to heaven, and there offering to onr living parents; how should we up burnt sacrifices to the king of know how to render fitting service to heaven, by whom kings reign and those who have passed into the other princes decree justice. If there were any world ?" Yet he enjoined service to doubt as to the lofty spiritual conc~p­ those who have passed into the other tion connected with this grand object world as the cardinal dnty in his reo of worship of the one alone to whom all ligious system, and it is that, more than kings and princes were recognized as anything else, which makes it a religion accountable, we may find it in a single potent and living to this day. The worpassage among many scores that I might ship of Shangti, the Supreme Ruler, cite to you if I only had time. The grand as it is, is nevertheless like a ray founder of the dynasty of Chow, eleven of the sun falling upon an iceberg, so hundred years before the Christian era, far as its influence on the publio mind is leading a small army to attack the in concerned. It is limited to the empowerful host which upheld the thron-e peror and to a few remarkable and au· of a tyrant. On the battle-field, before gust manifestations of public ritual, but the critical engagement, he addresses an you do not find it in the household. eloquent harangue to his soldiers, and You do not find it on the lips of the the most eloquent passage is that in people. You do not find that God in which he points upward and says: " The that form has taken up his abode with Most High God, the Supreme Ruler, is ' men. He is still far remote, on the sum· looking down upon you. Let not your mit of an icy Olympus, as it were, hearts waver." The worship of Skang- although to a certain extent dimly per. ti, the Most High (for that is almost a ceived by the mind of the Chinese naliteral translation of the name), contin- tion. ues to the present day, the sovereign now on the throne acting, as did his Tauism rose next. The founder of predecessors of four thouand years ago, Tauism preceded Confucius, but by a as high priest for the empire. On an kind of paradox his religion is of later altar within the walls of Peking he offers date. The founder of Tauism goes by up burnt sacrifices to the Supreme the name of Lautse, which signifies the Being. In the earliest days, however, .. old philosopher," probably because this worship was impure. We find no he was old when Confucius was young. point in Chinese history where it was They were contemporaries. The Tauist not mingled with the worship of sub- system is not found clearly developed in ordinate deities, nature.gods-gods of the only book which bas been transmit. the hills and rivers-and that intermix ted to us from the hand of Lautse, and ture not only continues to the present the authenticity of which has been to a day, but it has b!)en very largely in. large extent questioned. His followers, creased, as I shall have occasion to however, deduced from the obscure hints contained in that book two ideas, or rather one idea, which afterward sub. divided itself into two. The one idea genii. The term genii we usually em· was that by persistent effort we may ac- ploy as a translation for shensien or quire a mastery over matter in such a sien)in, both forms being used, which is way as to command all its potencies, and the word the Tauists apply to their employ them in accomplishing objects adepts, those who obtain the precious which would seem far beyond the reach gift, the elixir of immortality. This of human power, unless it were elevated view may be illustrated by the following by this process of discipline. The mat- lines from a Chinese poem : ter thus spoken of is subjectively that of our own bodies, the discipline of " A prince the &ought Immortal went to seek, which would result in a possible immor- And finding it he soared above the spheres; tality, and objectively the material objects surrounding us, but chiefly the In monntain caverns he had dwelt a weekelemental forms, the careful study of Of human time It was a thousand years." which would enable man finally to transmute the baser metals into gold, and to The Tauist system, deifying, as it were, accomplish many things which have the matter, being essentially materialistic, air of miracle. You perceive at once laid hold upon that august and sublime how naturally from this root conception conception of the ruler of the universe, springs the two fundamental ideas of and incorporated it into the material alchemy-the transmutation of metals world. Not only so, having arrived at into gold and the attainment of immor- , the idea of the five elements, it subditality. These came forward under the vided the idea of the supreme ruler, influence of perhaps the two leading de- and made five gods, each a god of a 'sires which characterize human exist- special element. Thus it corrupted the ence-the first to be rich, the second to idea of God, and it has been one of the live long, or to Iive forever, in order most fmitful sources of corruption in to enjoy wealth. This system has, how. the history of the Chinese mind, introever, a close relation to what preceded ducin" a multitude of favorite idols, it as a cause and explanation of the nature·gods of material origin, which power with which it took hold of the continue to be worshipped to the preshuman mind. I have just l18id that ent day. Confucius was something of an agnostic. He dealt largely in negations-refused The Buddhist system came in, as you to give any light beyond the grave, or are aware, early in the Christian era, the to hold out any hope of immortality, Emperor Ming Ti having sent a mission although that is to some extent implied to India to bring Buddhist priests and in the formal worship of ancestors. books from that country in the year 66 The longing of the human mind for a of the Christian era. The occasion for future life sought satisfaction in the the introduction of Buddhism was, on Tauist conception of a possible immor- the one hand, the eclipse of Confuciantality which was to be conquered by a ism, and, on the other, the religious long and laborious discipline, and which thought, or phases of thought, stimucould not be the heritage of the many, lated and introduced by Tauism. The but Which might become the possession defects of both were supposed to be of a very few. supplied by the stronger, more intel- lectual, and more spiritual creed of In- This system, at the same time, im. dia. The eclipse of Confucianism was parted a kind of life to all nature; every not caused by the ascendancy of a rival form of matter is instinct with an in- creed. It was caused by a political revextinguishable, divine essence, which is olution. The buililer of the great wall capable of assuming personality. In rose up in his might and conquered the this way it peopled the whole world with rival kings,-and resolved that he would a new Pantheon of gods, fairies, and extirpate the feudal system. He was made to believe that without extirpating the books of Confucius he never could eradicate that system, and that though he might overthrow one king after an- a very powerful attraction in contrast other, yet after he should pass away the to the meagre promises of Tauism and system would again spring from the the cold negations of Confucianism, pages of the Confucian books. He re- which preceded. This was connected solved to burn the books, and then, lest with the doctrine of the transmigration these books should be reproduced from of souls, which "Was common to almost the memory of able scholars, he put all Indian creeds. The Indian philosthem to death, and thus flattered him- ophy on that subject regarded transmiself that he had swept away Confucian- gration as something amounting to a ism from the face of the earth, and with physical necessity, that it is absolutely it the whole of the feudal system. It impossible for a man to extinguish his was during this eclipse of Confucianism, being-that he has, as it has been exwhich lasted for about two centuries, pressed, come into this world without that the Emperor Ming Ti sent his em- his own choice and will go into the next bassy to India. without his own choice, and thence go on in a succession of changes forever. The Chinese people, having got the This succession of changes is described, idea of immortality from Tauism, were under the figure of a wheel, the turn of at first fired with it, but disappointed destiny, or wheel of fate, which is repthat through that system there was no resented as revolving rapidly and drophope for any but a very few; they were ping out human souls to be born again fascinated with a report they had heard in the form of man or of some higher or of a blessed religion in India, which lower being, there being six categories offered salvation to all. Hence the em- in all, according to the Buddhist diviperor sept his embassy to India and in- sion. The religious view of the founder troduced this new religion, which had of the faith was pessimistic. To escape perhaps to some extent already found from this series of changes constitutes its way into China, and begun to exert happiness, and he devised a method for some influence, but which from that day that purpose. In the Northern School became a potent factor in the develop- of Buddhism, especially in its popular ment of the Chinese mind, and contin- phase, we seldom meet with this idea_ ues to the present day to be the leading We meet more frequently with the idea religious influence in that country. I that to rise in the scale of being is hapmay say, as an illustration of the posi- piness. Sakyamuni had in his system tion which Buddhism acquired and no heaven. The Northern Buddhism, holds in China, that I hold in my hand which has prevailed in China, has a a document never given to the world in heaven, borrowed, it may be, from the the English language, nor, perhaps, so Christian's Paradise. It has, presiding far as I know, in any other Western over that heaven, a goddess of mercy, language, showing that if in the year 66 borrowed, perhaps, from the Catholic an emperor was so impressed with conception of the mother of Jesus Christ. Buddhism as to send an embassy to the Many other ic!eas present a transforma- West to introduce it into China, four- tion-Iwill not say a travesty-of Christeen centuries later another emperor tianity. was so much influenced by it as to send an embassy to introduce the Buddhist Weare asked particularly the relation classics from Thibet. (The paper, which and the interaction of these three syswas an edict of the Emperor Yungloh, tems which we have thus briefly 1412, was here read.) Various doctrines sketched. You have noted that they are alluded to in that paper, only one rose one after the other, each of them or two of which I will touch upon. I introduced by a felt want, and that each have already referred to the full and 'was preceded by a yearning of the hnbounteous offer of salvation and immor- man soul for something better; consetality made by Buddhism as furnishing quently, in a religions point of view, each one may be considered as an ad. to the doctrine of immortality, in the vance upon that by which it was pre- duty of worshipping departed spirits. ceded. They were a long time antago- But this is faint, very faint, in compari. nistic, sometimes even inciting bloody son with the religious teaching of the persecutions, but in this day they have other two sects. Buddhism has been become comparatively quiescent, like especially potent in instilling ideas active chemicals, which, being brought which are so nearly akin to those prop· into juxtaposition, exert for a time their agated by Christianity as again to pre. various qualities, but which soon be. pare the way for the introduction of ancome quiescent and inert, until they are other system. Buddhism, no doubt, brought into contact with some more en· vastly enlarged the area of Chinese con. ergetic agent. We shall find that in ceptions, To borrow a mathematical Christianity. A remarkable illustration illustration, the religious ideas of the of the quiescence of these long, active, Chinese were limited, before the intro. and conflicting systems is found in the duction of Buddhism, to two dimenfact that there are in some parts of sions, something th!t may be described China little shrines or temples where as a "flat-land," with length and the three religions are seen represented breadth, but no height. Buddhism by their founders-Confucius, Buddha, gives it height, soaring up to the heav_ and Lautse-all sitting sid" by side and ens and developing the conqeption of a receiving at one and the same time the universe, the grandeur of which perhaps homage of worshippers who acknowl. nothing can exceed. Is it possible that edge all three. You might object that after this universe of three dimensions it would be a strange mind that would we shall have one of four dimensions? acknowledge and swallow all these Mathematicians tell us that with space creeds, yet there are many who assert of four dimensions it is possible to 'do that the three creeds are identical, if you many things which cannot be done could only get down to the bottom. In without it. There is, in my view, room fact, nothing is more contradictory. The for the fourth dimension, or, to drop the Confucian system is essentially ethical; figure, there is room for a fourth stage the Buddhist system is pure idealism, in the progression, one which Ohina is as pure as that of Berkeley or Hegel; waiting for-that is, the introduction the Tauist system is materialistic, be- of Christianity. Each of the previous ginning with gross materialism. How religions was ushered in by a felt want. is it possible that three systems so Christianity alone can supply the de· utterly divergent should ever be recon· fects of all the systems and present one ciled? The fact is, they are irreconcil· harmonious unity. If I were to express able. Each one presents some one thing in one word what Christianity is to con· which meets a human want, Qut recon· fer upon China, it would be this: Not ciliation there is none; peace, union, a God seated far away, upon some reo harmony, there cannot be, though 0. mote Olympus, as in the Confucian systruce, a permanent truce, seems at pres· tem ; not a God inherent in matter, as ent to exist between them. They are in the Tauist system; not a God, as in' no longer belligerent. The question the Buddhist system, who has risen from may be raised, What benefit has each the ranks of the disciples of virtue, a one of these conferred upon the Chinese mere deified man, but God, the Spirit people? Each one has enlarged and of the universe, in Christ Jesus, coming widened the speculative thought and reo into the human Boul, taking up his abode ligious conceptions of the peop] e. Con. there and working by his Holy Spirit a fucianism gave them, or, at least, pre· regenerating influence such as none of served for them, and preserves to the these creeds has ever possessed, and of present day, the grand idea of the Suo which they have presented only a faint preme Ruler, and it bears witness, too, and dim frophecy. This I believe to be the mission of Christianity, and I be- tombs. Here these mounds are, howlieve the Chinese, though it may be un- ever, the great hieroglyph of Americaconsciously, are waiting. for it and up in the mining regions of Michigan, reaching out after it. a thousand miles up the Missouri River, all over the Ohio and Mississippi basins In reply to a question as to what re- five hundred of them, if our memory ligion preceded Confucianism, Dr. Mar- serves us correctly, in one county of the tin said: State of Ohio alone; and all over the Southern tier of our States. How old "Confucius edited the canonical they are is an antiquarian's conun_ books 'of China, the earliest of which, drum. Trees have been found growing or rather the records contained in it, go .upon them with upward of four hunback twenty·two hundred. years before dred rings, recording their annual Christ. These two religious elements growth; and these, the" primeval forof the Confucian system, worship of est" of our forefathers, were a second Shangti (conjoined with that of the growth on the .. primeval forests" of hills and rivers) and that of deceased the civilized races, on whose graves ancestors, were in full flower at that they have grown, and who, some think, time. These mUl!lt have taken some retreated from the Ohio valley two time to attain the form in which they thousand years ago ! appeared. As to the idea of the Supreme Ruler, which, so far as it goes, But monuments they are of a people is very analogous to the Christian's idea of settled life, who had organized inof God, whether that is from a pa- dustries, habits of intelligent work-as triarchal tradition, as I am inclined to skill in masonry and pottery, and in think, I will not affirm." weaving and spinning cloth; and who could mine and move blocks of copper The Mound·Builders of America. ore weighing sixty tons.

We are paying large attention in these Who they were and whence they days to 'he antiquities of Oriental coun- came will be a scientist's riddle for tries. But the more one pursues the many a year to come. .Had half the atstudy of the antiquities of the pagan tention been bestowed on the dead lanpeoples of our own continent, the more guage of these sun·dried or burned interesting does it become. brick books which has been bestowed on the brick books of Babylon, and had The study of the mounds of North the arrow-headed alphabet of these our and South America is equal in interest own prehistoric peoples received the to those of Egypt or Assyria, and no one attention that has been given to Asc.an now say how important their study syrian research, it might not now be 1<0 may become. mortifying a failure to try to answer this question. They are the .. lost All the pre.historic mounds of North tribes of Israel," say some; Malays, and South America are of one type from say others, whose empire, maritime and Peru and Yucatan to Mexico and the commercial, and whose fleets of great Mississippi and Ohio valleys, in being ships reached all over the Pacific island a terraced elevation. Some, possibly, and to Peru; Phcenicians, cry others, once furnished the foundation of a the great colonizing navigators of anbuilding, as did those of Guatemala tiquity. Not so, say others still; they and Southern Mexico, where ruined are" Atlantics," from the lost" islands stone edifices still remain on the sum- of Atlantis," a portion of the American mits of similar earthworks. It is high- Continent now below the waters of the ly probable they were constructed for Atlantic Ocean, which once stretched in religioUI!I uses, some say, giving indica- neighboring groups from the West Intions of sun.worship and other sacred dies to the Allorefl. But, leaving all symbol, while othel"S think theIr} only these external theorizings out of view, arrested at the instigation of the eccle- we have two most adverse theories of siastical authorities on a charge of pub- scientists to amuse U8, if they do not licly performing religiolls services not satisfy us. sanctioned by the Rcman Catholic Church. On a hearing before the Crim- First, the civilized life of the ancient inal Court in November, it was proven Mexicans and Central Americans origi- that his religious services had been nally began and reached its climax in conducted privately within closed doors, South and Central America, and extend- and entirely within the' limitations of ed itself with gradually lessening com- the law, and he was acquitted; but in- pletcness over large portions of Ameri- asmuch as the parties urging the prose- ca, the civilization being less perfect as cution appealed the case to the Superior the colonies were remote. Second, the Court he was remanded to prison. The theory of the modern passionate evolu- Superior Court, after visiting the site of tionist, who would show that the begin- the chapel, affirmed the decision of the nings were everywhere, the gradual de- lower court and directed his release ; velopment reaching highest in Mexico, when his enemies again interposed, and Yucatan, and Peru. by appealing to the Supreme Court, suc- ceeded in having his imprisonment pro- These diyergent schools teach-the longed. Mr. Hicks, of the United States one that this is a great prehistoric race, Legation, telegraphed on the 16th of with arts of civilized life, reading, writ- January, that he bad watched the case ing, and aJ:chitectural decorations, and closely, and had had almost daily prom- skill not to be excelled by the best of ises of Mr. Penzotti's release, which tlie our constructors and decorators. These Foreign Office deemed certain; but al- ( find in the mounds of the United States though his imprisonment has con· evidence of a civilization such as the tinued for more than six months, a race of Indians known to history could decision dops not seem to haTe been never have produced. The other school rendered as yet. thinks there is nothing about these earthworks that may not be accounted Penzotti is an Italian subjeet. He has for after the most ordinary manner as been twenty-five years in South AIDer- belonging to the modern Indian. More ica. He was converted in Buenos Ayres entertaining literature is not easy to and became a colporteur of the Ameri- find, though it be only a babble of can Bible Society. He was some while books. ago placed in charge of Bible distribu- tion on the west coast of South Amer- -A brother kindly sends us a note ica. For threE years, amid a great deal stating that we inadvertently used the of persecution, he has been selling wrong title when we alluded to the Bibles in Peru. The priests had him "Church of England Missionary So- arrested and thrown into prison, where ciety," in Persia, in the February num- he has remained till now, among the low- ber. He says the missionaries whose in- est and vilest criminals in a dark filthy trusion in the Persian Presbyterian mis- cell. The charges cannot be sustained; sion field is complained of are an .. in- but, under Peruvian law, he must prove dependent mission under the special himself innocent. The Italian minister direction and patronage of the Arch- at Callao has sought his release as an Ital- bishop of Canterbury, and receive part ian flubject, and the American Bible So- of their funds from the Society for the ciety has appealed to Mr. Blaine for pro- Propagation of the Gospel." tection of certain property and other rIghts of Americans involved in the At the meeting of the American Bible case. But meanwhile Mr. Penzotti is Society in February, letters were pre- behind those barH, the representative and sented from the society's agent in Peru, champion of religious freedom. who has been in prison at Callao since the 25th of July last. Mr. Penzotti was

EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS

III.-EDITORIAL NOTES ON CURRENT TOPICS.

COMPARATIVE RELIGIONs.-The New which Dr. Martin himself was good York University has shown commend. enough to reyise and place at our dis- able appreciation of the thought.need posal. We present it now, with the im- of the age, in establishing a Lectureship pression that it is one of the very best on Comparative Religions, and is to be and most suggestive papers we have congratulated that it has secured Rev. published. We are also pleased to an- F. F. Ellinwood, D.D., as Lecturer. nounce that we hope to present, in an We understand that two courses of lec- .early issue hereafter, a paper from Dr.

tures are given. In the first, Dr. Ellin- Martin on "American Influence in wood considers Hinduism, Buddhism, China." G.

Mohammedanism, Zoroastrianism, and Confucianism, giving a large proportion A NEW MISSIONARY CYCLOPlIllDIA.-We of attention to Hinduism, as embracing soliciteil from Messrs. Funk & WagnaIIs all phases of the religion of the Hindus for temporary use, some advanced sheets from the first Aryan faith through Brah- of the new "Missionary Cyclopredia"

manism, Buddhism, Philosophic Ra-· they are about to issue. We were so tionalism of the schools, etc.-in a delighted with the excellence of the word, all that belongs to the> composite work, that we venture to violate a rule which may be called Hinduism. In of the house, admirahle though it be.

the second course he subsoils these It is, we believe, understood that their same fields with a more thorough study, own books are not to he presented in taking also the ancient religions of the this way in their periodicals. It is our world, studying them with a view to the pleasure to establish that rule by an ex- light which they throw on the question of ception. It is not too much to say that a primitive Monotheism, the testimony for more than a dozen years a missionary which they give by their traditions to the cyclopredia has been a desideratum.

general truths of Christianity. He con- We do not know of an edition of New- siders also Tauism and Shintooism, comb later than 1860. Aikman's Cyclo- and the religion of the Druses. He predia appe'ared in 1859, and reached a takes up particularly the relations of the second edition in 1861. Hassell's" From Dhammapada and the Bhagavad Gita to Pole to Pole" and Elliot Stock's Christianity. . He gives a full written "Handbook of Christian Missions"

lecture. He also furnishes lists of books were issued in 1872, as was also Boyce's to be read in connection with the lec- invaluable" Statistics of Protestant Mis- tures. His classes, as a rule, are enthu· sionary Societies, " which was published siastic in this study. Out of these only for private circulation, but worth courses of lectures has grown the organ- its weight in precious metal. Grunde- ization of "The American Society of man's "Allgemeiner Missions-Atlas,"

Comparative Religion," which though Vahl's" Missions-Atlas," and Werner's young is enterprising. On February 6th "Atlas der Evangelischen Missions,"

last it secured Rev. Dr. A. P. Martin, are of high value within their sphere, President of the Imperial University at but are not in English dress. There Peking, China, to deliver before it a lec- are smaller works, as Badley's" Indian ture on " The Religious Attitude of the Missionary Directory" and Dobbin's Chinese Mind." As the lecture was not " Foreign Missionary Manual," and the a written one we solicited the kind admirable "Missionary Year Book."

offices of the Corresponding Secretary But the great gap is unfilled. We of the Society, Rev. C R. Blauvelt, want a comprehensive, well-digested, Nyack, N. Y., in securing for publica- historical, geographical, and statistical tion in our columns a report of the lec- Bummary-a vast dictionary of mis- ture, and he 'furnished a full synopsiS, sions, And at great cost and pain!! that desidemtum is, we are confident, China is a greater scourge than war or now to be met. We base our judgment pestilence." These China Christians on some two hundred pages which we are taunted with having adopted the re- have examined and tested, by working ligion of "the foreign devils, who are with them for a month. Those who making China into a hell by their opi- know the nature of such a production um." Worse still, the poor, weak lit- will not expect a faultless volume. It tle Christian church in the Celestial Em- will not be free from some inaccuracies. pire is being well nigh decimated by Biographically, it will be like heaven: the use of the drug. G.

one will find persons there he did not expect to see, and miss persons whose -" Maokay of Uganda" has been is· sued by the Armstrongs. Alexander names he thought certainly would be Mackay was styled by the Pall Mall Ga- ·zette the ., St. Paul of Uganda." Stanthere. That is inevitable. But, after ley, Grant, Jephson, and scores of the great Afrioan "lights" have poured all such natural and necessary exception their vials of odors on Mackay's grave. We doubt if he is not to stand out the is taken, this promises to be a mission- foremost missionary layman of the cen· tury. This book is one to " read, mark, ary cycloprodia on a scale and of a char- learn, and inwardly digest." It is a religious tonic. acter such as we have not had. It will be hailed heartily and studied dili- gently. Missions represent more than anything but the Bible the nnity of Protestant Christendom. Manyare eager to get a glance at the whole field down to date. We believe from what we have seen of these sheets they are not to be disappoin ted. Our readers may observe that, for unity's sake and convenience of refer- The leading articles which we have ence, we have assigned to each month a general field, as follows : examined, snch as "Buddhism" and January: The general outlook of the "Bantu," must have been written by world field.

persons speoially competent to furnish February: China, Thibet, and Con- fucianism. them. We understand that.llpeoial care Maroh: Mexioo, Central America, has been exeroised in the assignment of West Indies, Cuba, and Evangelization of Cities. the several classes of work, by which the April; India, Ceylon, Java. Brahmanablest talent has been brought to bear ism.

upon the whole wvrk, which is editorially May: Burmah, Malaysia, Siam, Laos. Buddhism. in the oharge of Rev. E. M. Bliss. June: Africa. Freedmen in North The publioation of such a book or America.

books, for it is in two large volumes, July: Islands of Sea-Polynesia, Me- lanesia. Utah and Mormonism. North requires the investment of a large sum Amerioan Indians. Chinese and Japan- ese in Amerioa. of money, and deserves the encourage- August: Italy, France, Spain. Papal ment of the Christian publio, as furnish- Europe. Bulgaria.

ing a thesaurus of missionary informa- September: Japan, Korea. Medioal Missions. tion. Dr. Rufus Anderson's axiom Ootober: Scandinavia, Germany, ought not to be lost sight of-" The Switzerland, etc. Turkey, Persia, Arabia. Mohammedanism. Greek interest which truly Christian people Oh~roh, Nomu.al Christianity take in missions is equal to their correct knowledge of them." G.

-There is a traot entitled" Christian Woman of North China to the Christian Women of England upon the Opium In-· iquity." In' this these Chinese Christian women deolare to all Europe and to all nmnkind that" forei6n opium in November: South America. Y. M. Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia C. A. Home Missions. Papacy. to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews? These provinces as well as December: Syria and Jews. Green- Roumania, Montenegro, and Greece, land. Educational Missions. were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Pal- A remarkable movement, headed by estine as rightfully belong to the Jews? It is said that rains are increasing, and MT. W. E. Blackstone, of Oak Park, Ill., there are many evidences that the land is recovering its ancient fertility. If is on foot to present an overture to the they could have autonomy in govern- ment, the Jews of the world would rally leading nations of the world, to buy Pal- to transport and establish their suffering brethren in their time-honored habita. estine and put it at the control of the tion. For over seventeen centuries they have patiently waited for such a Russian Jews, for occupation. The list privileged opportunity. They have not become agriculturists elsewhere, because of signatures to this document, already they believed they were mere sojourners in the various nations, and were yet to obtained, include editors, lawyers, mer- return to Palestine and till their own land. Whatever vested rights, by poschants, and men in every secular call- session, may have accrued to Turkey can be easily compensated, possibly by ing, as well as clergymen of every de. the Jews assuming an equitable portion of the national debt. nomination, inclusive even of Roman We believe that this is an appropriate Catholics. We have seen no document time for all nations, and especially the Christian nations of Europe, to show for twenty years that so impressed us kindness to Israel. A million of exiles, by their terrible sufferings, are piteously with its five hundred signatures. appealing to our sympathy, justice, and humanity. Let us now restore to them The following is the text of this me- the land of which they were so cruelly despoiled by our Roman ancestors. morial: . To this end we respectfully petition " What shall be done for "the Russian His Excellency Benjamin Harrison, President of the United States, and the Jews? It is both unwise and useless Honorable James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, to use their good offices and into undertake to dictate to Russia con- fluences with the Governments of their Imperial Majestiescerning her internal affairs. The Jews Alexander III., Czar of Russia. have lived as foreigners in her domin- Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. ions for centuries, and she fully be. William II., Emperor of Germany. Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austrolieves that they are a burden upon her Hungary. Abdul Hamid II., Sultan of Turkey. resources and prejudicial to the welfare His Royal Majesty Humbert, King.of Italy. of her peasant population, and will not Her Royal Majesty Marie Christina, Queen Regent of Spain, and, with the allow them to remain. She is deter- mined that they must go. Hence, like the Sephardim of Spain, these Ashkena- zim must emigrate. But where shall 2,000,000 of such poor people go?

Europe is crowded and has no room for more peasant population. Shall they come to America? This will be a tre- mendous expense and require years.

Why not give Palestine back to them?

According to God's distribution of na- tions it is their home-an inalienable possession from which they were ex· pelled by force" Under their cultiva- tion it was a remarkably fruitful land, sustaining millions of Israelites, who in- dustriously tUled its hillsides and val- leys. They were agriculturists and pro.

ducers, as well as a nation of great com- mercial importance-the centre of civil- ization and religion.

Why shall not the powers which un- der the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Government of the Republic of France, and hopeful that our Government should and with the Governments of Belgium, initiate this friendly movement, to give Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, these wandering millions of Israel a set- Roumania, Servia, Bulgaria, and Greece, tled and permanent home. to secure the holding, at an early date, of an International Conference to con- " The President listened attentively to sider the condition of the Israelites and Mr. Blackstone's remarks, and promised their claims to Palestine as their ancient to give the subject serious considerahome, and to promote, in all other just tion." and proper ways, the alleviation of their suffering condition." The editorial staff of this REVIEW is now unusually complete. It embraces, Several petitioners wish it stated that besides the editor-in-chief, Rev. Drs. the lews have not become agriCUlturists, Gracey and Gordon, leading Methodist because for centuries they were almost and Baptist divines, Rev. C. C. Staruniversally prohibited from owning or buck, an Episcopalian, Rev. D. L. Leontilling land in the countries of their dis- ard, a Congregationalist, besides a leadpersion. ing Presbyterian clergyman whose name does not appear. Neither effort nor ex- On March 5th, Mr. William E. Black- pense is spared by the publishers and stone, of Chicago, presented this remark- editorial staff to make this the leading able paper, with its signatures of the review of world-wide missions. Mr. most prominent men of the country, to Starbuck, who has charge of the foreign the President of the United States; and exchanges, is seeking to make his dethe following is the report of the inter- partment the American review of review, as found in the daily press: views.

"Mr. Blackstone explained to the The greatest embarrassment which President and Secretary Blaine that the attends our work is perhaps the lack of memorial was the result of a conference trustworthy statistics, or rather, conof Christians and Jews, recently held in sistent and uniform statistics. One of Chicago, and called especial attention to our correspondents complains of the the fact that it did not antagonize Rus- statement on page 232 March issue, of sia, but only sought, in a peaceful way, the work in Africa. He compares this to give the Jews control of their oIa with the figures of Mr. Liggins in his homes in Palestine. He pointed out ., Value and Success of Foreign Mismany evidences of the possibility of sions," page 31, who reports 175,000 great development of ihat country, both communicants and 300,000 baptized agriculturally and commercially, under members of churches, etc. Now we ask an energetic government, and said that our friend to bear in mind, first, that the railroad now building from Joppa Mr. Liggins's estimates, published in to Jerusalem, if extended to Damascus, 1888, were probably taken from reports Tadmore and down the Euphrates, can- made in 1887, and covering the year not fail to become an international high- from 1876-77. These estimates in the way. He said that the poverty of the REVIEW are from the most recent reports Turkish Government gives emphasis to available. But most of all must it be the proposed indemnity by funding a borne in mind that scarce any two portion of the Turkish national debt statisticians proceed on the same printhrough Jewish capitalists, and that only ciple of estimate. A Baptist connts only peaceable diplomatic negotiations are baptized adult believers; an Episcoasked for, to the end that all private palian or Catholic would reckon every ownership of land and property be care. baptized infant; and some high churchfully respected and protected. In clos- men have been Jmown to reckon all the ing, he said that, being on such friendly household of a baptized communicant. terms with Russia, and having no com· plications in the Orient, it is most fitting For years we have been seeking to get not detect the fact that on page 149, some uniform basis for such tables line 17, immorality would read better adopted, but in vain. If we could have for another" t". If any reader thinks uniform forms for such tables, no errors that proof.reading is a sinecure he or contradictions would seriously occur. should try it. For example, if we could have a column for baptized adults, one for baptized in- By some strange oversight in the brief fants. etc., one for adherents, etc., we article on "Missionary Training might prevent confusion. As it is now, Schools," page 300, Vol. III. of thid our only way is either to discard figures REVIEW, no mention is made of the Interentirely, or else publish such as we can national Medical Missionary Society and get, and ask our readers to take them Training Institute, at No. 118 East fortyfor what they are worth as approxi. fifth Street, New York. This institu· mates. We say this once for aU. tion was founded in 1881 and incor- porated in 1886, its objects being, "to Another esteemed correspondent heal the sick and preach the Gospel in thinks the word" boasts," on page 205, New York and other cities, and train March issue, a "venomous word to young men and women to go abroad as thrust at a bishop." The editor will medical missionaries." The medical only say no such indignity was intend· director and founder of the institute is ed. The word was used in a mild sense, Dr. George D. Dowkontt, a devoted misof a perfectly lawful exultation at a very sionary and able manager. creditable increase. This word has a legitimate use. Camp. Psalm xliv., 8. Seven dispensaries have been estab- lished-6 in New York and 1 in Brook. In his annual report of the Congrega. lyn, and upward of 25,000 cases of distional Union's work, Secretary Cobb ease have been treated. suggested, and Dr. Taylor advocated. for promoting the progress of mission. In 1889, 59 students, 12 of whom were ary enterprise: (1) a clear presentation, ladies, were received; and missionaries at least once a year, in every pulpit, of from this training I>chool are working in the work of the various departments India, China, and Africa. of Christian service in the light of the latest facts; (2) the adoption by every At the time of writing the artiC'le, we church of a plan by which offerings of had in mind general training schools, money shall be made, precisely the same and not medical. Hence the inadvert· as offerings of prayer and praise, to ence. carryon the work of the on.coming kingdom of God; (3) a greatly awakened A writer in the Christian suggests that apprehension of the fact that evangeliz. a good service could be rendered by ing work is rapidly growing, so that mllny Christians if they would write let· funds which sufficed twenty.five, or ters to missionaries in foreign lands. even ten, years ago can by no PORS;- There are many who can write a few bility do the work demanded to.day. simple sympathizing lines that would cheer lonely hearts, but perhaps could Our correction in the February num· not otherwise do much for the Master. ber, page 142, needS correcting. The There are also many earnest believers line misplaced on page 51 of the Janu· whose interests would be widened if ary number belongs on page 50. And they were to write to missionaries in in the February number, page 83, line different fields, for wherever their let- 12, Siberia, should, of course, read Libe· ters go their hearts would go thereafter. ria; and even Dr. Gracey's eagle eye did In most cases such letters will be an· swered, and thus new and holy bonds would bind together the hearts of the writer and the lonely workers in far· away fields.

THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS

IV.-THE MONTHLY CONCERT OF MISSIONS.

BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.

-Asia is the most populous of con- ism, in the strict SQnse of the word, they tinents. But its population is un- say is, what may be called a cellular sysequally distributed. Taking the whole tem of society, where the cells are built area of Europe, it has a denser popula- up separately, and kept from all possition proportionately than Asia has. It bility of coalescing by an elaborate sysaverages 90 to the square mile, while tem of boycotting in food and in mar- Asia averages only 46. riage. And this has given rise to a hab- it of thought which is the deadliest foe But four countries of Asia-India, to Christian aggressive work. The one Java, China, and Japan-with five- sin which the caste Hindu regards as sixths of the total area have double the unpardonable is to think and act for population of Europe. himself. Individual responsibility, one of the most important elements in Chris- INDIA- BRAHMANISM. tian morality, is the one great sin to the caste Hindu. The individual is noth- The population of India is roughly ing, the caste is everything. If the classified as : (1) Hindus, (2) Aboriginal caste Hindu is to accept a new faith, tribes, (3) Mohammedans, (4) Miscella- then the probability is that he will come neous sects-Buddhists or Jains, Parsis, to it by a movement of masses and not Sikhs. The first two are estimated of individuals_ at 206,000,000, the Mohammedans at ronndly 50,000,000, and the miscellane- This finds at this moment an emphatous at 6,000,000. In counting the Hin- ic illustration in North India, among dus and Aboriginal tIibes together, we the Methodist missions. A great movedo not mean to say that Gonds, Rhonds, ment among certain low-caste peoples Santals, and the Hill tribes are Hindus. has taken place by which the communi- Many of them are so counted, but per- ty, as such, is turning to Christianity; haps 20,000,000 of them, at a low esti- and 5000 were baptized last year, and mate, are not even Hinduized, and pos- perhaps as many more were ready to be sibly 50,000,000 of them must not be baptized, but the missionaries preferred counted as Hindus. they should wait for further inRtruction and testing; yet they will, notwithstand- Of the 186,OOO,000-if we reckon it so ing this repression, baptize at least 5000 high-of the Hindu community, a large more this year, and have at least 10,000 number are out.castes by the system, eagerly awaiting baptism. It is a moveor are very low·caste people. These, ment much like that in Ongole among strictly speaking, are religiously with- the Baptists, and in NellorEl also. out privileges and socially without standing, separated necessarily and In the Deccan, this Scotch delegation eternally from the body politic of the thinks, the family feeling is stronger four castes which constitute the Hindu than the caste feeling in the depressed community. classes, and they think that there, the aggression will be along the family line. Professor Lindsay and Rev. J. F. Dr. Sheshadri's success is based on the Daly, deputized last year to visit the family as an indirect agency in the prop. Free Church missions in India, report- agation of the Gospel. It is confessed ed that caste Hinduism includes all man- that the mission does not show the sa~ne ner of religions in our Western sense of proportion of results in conversion the word, varying from a refined theos- among the strictly caste Hindus, but it ophy down to what is little better than is certain that, through mission and govrude fetich worship, and has no com- ernment schools, and other contact with mon creed, although beneath all there Western civilization-in society, letters, lies. a curious pantheism which is the one common religious basis. Hinducommerce, and laws-caste Hinduism is community, . which challenges fresh being seriously undermined and greatly effort on the part of the Christian modified.* Church; for it shows that, after all the European scholarship has disclosed to advance of the Christian community in these Hindus their own original scrip. India, there were more heathen in India tures, now overlaid with the debris of at the end of the decade than at its be- Iustful and foolish idolatry and fetich- ginning. Itmustnot be a source of dis.

ism; anu. whole segments of this commu.i couragement, however, for the Christian nityare breaking from the strict social community in India was shown to have order and organizing at a sort of half.way increased at nearly double the ratio of house between Hinduism and Chris- the non-Christian population. Then we tianity, while individuals in large num- must not overlook t.he fact that Brah- bers have swung to a stage of infidelity manism has been deteriorating for a in all religion. India to·day is not thousand years. It has died at the top.

the India of even fifty years ago. The It has been struck in the head; as a re- British Government steadily urges a ligious sYRtem it has been brained. It European standard of morals on the has added nothing to its philosophy for community. The pressure brought to centuries, nor to its aggregate of re- bear on them just now on the family and ligious force. If because of its exten- marriage life is in illustration, by which sion among depressed masses it has the" age of consent" has been raised found geographical or communal ex- to ten years. Gross abuses forced the tension, it has yet seriously declined in government to this action; but what us its purity. If there are more Brahmans, feel more hopeful is that the public there is less Brahmanism. It has even sentiment of the native community has been compelled to take a back seat on been elevated so far as to fortify the gov- the school forms, while European schol- ernment in this action. This gives en- ars should teach it what its sacred books couragement to hope that the govern- say it is. It is a learner and not a ment may be induced to press the mar- teacher of its own literature.

riage laws of India in the near future A preacher of the Brahmo Somaj is yet nearer to a standard becoming a reported as saying in a sermon : Christian nation. But in considering the " Men's minds have become restless. contact of Christianity with Brahman- Their minds now are filled with doubts ism, high caste or low caste, it is always regarding those things which formerly well to bear in mind that it is an absolutely local religion. It is confined to commanded respect. . . . A great flood the soil; crossing certain geographical has come and swept over the face of the boundaries, a caste Hindu loses his caste. Caste HindJlism, therefore, can have coun'try, carrying away the roofs of the no geographical extension. It is also edifices of past creeds and customs. confined within blood boundaries. It Drowning men, in their despair, are catching at whatever they find nearest their hands. They are finding it diffi- cult to obtain peace of mind."

can only be propagated along race lines. The New Light, an organ of the Brahmo The only possible increase, therefore, of Somaj, has the following: the Brahman community is as the " Christ Jesus … is as much necessary birth.rate exceeds the death.rate. If in this age and in India as He was 1800 the census can be relied on, Hinduism years ago in Judrea. As sinful children (not Brahmanism) increased in the re- of men, we, the people of India, are as cent decade six per cent. This marks a much in need of the Living Son of the great aggregate increase if a heathen Living God as the people of Judrea were in days gone by."

• The part of this official report of the Free But let us not overestimate the utter- Church of Scotland delegates to India, which an~es of the more intelligent classes. we have followed, would make a very excellent Below them is still the vast horde who tract. eat. drink, and are given in marriage, The extensive influence of the San- caring only how to plough, and reap, and skrit language on the Javanese is in evi- trade, and keep from starvation, not able dence of long intercourse. Every to read, not caring what the brains of language of the Eastern Archipelago will India are occupied about at all. Only be found to have engrafted upon it a 11,000,000 out of a total of 250,000,000 quantity of Sanskrit proportionate to the can read. extent of its own cultivation. The Kavi, / Mission work was never more neces- a language of Java, is chiefly SanskTit. sary, never so vast, so intelligent, so co- One sixth of the Malay language is San- operative, so compacted, so jealous of the skrit. The Mohammedans came in 1478, efficiency of its own methods, so intro- and Arabs and MaJays drove out every spective as now. The ratio of conver- description of Hindus, even a sect of sions steadily advances as weil as the Sivaites, who attempted to propagate ratio of the Christian community rela- their peculiar worship. tive to other portions of the population. Bishop Thoburn is authority for the Islam, so modified as to form almost statement that the largest missionary a distinct religion known as Javanism, conference in the world meets monthly remains the religion of the Javanese in Calcutta. race, and is reported to have rapidly ex· tended. The Sundas, who occupy the The next Decennial Conference of the west end, are less civilized than the Jav. ruissionaries will be held in 1892, and anese, who occupy the rest of the island. we have no doubt the summary of re- Politically the country is divided into sults will be greatly uplifting. 24 governorships. It has the electrio telegraph and two railroads. JA.VA.. Missionary work on this island as Java is about equal in size to one a:c.d nearly records a failure as in any part one-third of Great Britain, and count- of the globe. The Christianity of the ing little Madura, in its bosom, with Netherlands has had this eighteen or less than one·fifteenth of the area of the twenty millions of people within touch whole Eastern Archipelago, it has more for two centuries and a half, and enrolls than half the population of the group; not perhaps more than 4000 Christians. and its population is rapidly increasing. The Netherlands Missionary Society has It is the third in size, but first in trade labored here. The Dutch Missionary of the group. It is the granary of the Society commenced work among the archipelago. It is the most noted, too, 4,000,000 of Sundanese in Western Java for its ruins. Brambaban abounds with in 1863. It has schools and perhaps stupendous relics of Indian origin, the nearly 1000 in its congregations. It hilS remains of an extensi ve and splendid translated the entire Scriptures into city, while prodigious monuments of an- Sundanese. The Dutch Reformed Mis- cient Hindus appear in every direction. sionary Society labors in Central Java. The finest Sii ecimens of Buddhist stat- It reports a remarkable movement in ues in the world are in Java. Boro the last two or three years among the Buddha is the most magnificent relic of populations ruled by Moslem Sultans, Buddhism remaining in any country. notwithstanding that no missionary can Three hundred Buddhist images are preach without a government license, here. Buddhism was the prevailing re- and that license restricts him to one po· lision of the ancient Javanese. Civili- litical division. Over one thousand zation spread from West to East in the souls were reported converted in one Indian Archipelago. district where permission to preach hIlS beE'n persistently refused, and no min. The Javanese trace their origin to In- ister allowed to administer the sacra· dia. Probably commercial intercourse ments. The Mennonite Society, or- existed between the Coromandel coast g,an"iz._ed–in. 1849, made Java its first neld and Java from time immemorial. but it reported not more than 133 adhe- tered the field in 1813, by the ap- rents in 1889. pointment of four missionaries. This Board has given great attention to the (lEYLON. establishment of a well-ordered educa- tional system. They have had encour- Ceylon, the natives say, is the" Seat aging results in the way of self-support. of Paradise." Its 3,000,000 of people They now enroll 1477 communicants, are crowded about 118 to a square mile. and number 3116 adherents and 328 na- It is about two_sevenths the size of Great tive workers. The contributions of the Britain. It is called the "adopted native church last year amounted to country of the persecuted Buddhists." $4878. Singhalese and Tamils are the two principal races of the island. These are The Wesleyan Missionary Society endifferent from each other not only in tered Ceylon in 1814. The story of Dr. language and religion, but in vigor, in- Coke dying on the way to found this telligence, and personal characteristics. mission is a familiar one. The Church of England Missionary Society entered The Tamil is industrious and enter- in 1818, and the S. P. G. in 1838. prising, while the Singhalese is just the opposite. The HindUIsm of the Tamils In a large public square in the northdiffers but little from Hinduism in South ern part of Calcutta missionaries preach India. They are mostly devil-worship- every Sunday afternoon to large and repers, and devil trees and temples are spectful audiences. Recently a man common. The Buddhist Singhalese, like appeared in the audience interrupting their Tamil neighbors, have retained the preacher. He was remonstrated many of the lower forms of superstition. with, but continued his impertinent questions. Suddenly a native police- Ceylon has been mission ground for man arrested him, though he called nearly four hundred years, and has been loudly on the Hindus to rescue him; made the victim of some of the most re- and he was taken to the police station markable experiments in Christianiza- where, before the magistrates, he con- Hon that the world can anywhere show. fessed that he was a paid agent of the Its missionary history may be divided Madras Hindu Propagation Society, sent into three epochs, corresponding to the to Calcutta to put a stop to street governments which held it : the Portu- preaching! This illustrates the tactics guese, the .f)utch, and the English. now being pursued in India. When the Portuguese held most of the island, the Roman Catholics, in the be- Dr. W. A. P. Martin, in the librum, ginning of the sixteenth century, sought contradicts the impression that China to introduce Christianity, but it was lit- will menace the world's peace. Chinese tle less than paganism itself. The traditions are opposed to war. Defence, Dutch, in 1556, made the great blunder not conquest, is the aim of her military of seeking to turn the natives from Ro- organization. Internal improvements manism to L)ltheranism, by offering are progressing. To meet the needs of government offices only to such as were commerce, the rich coal-fields of the baptized in the national church. They Empire are being developed. These banished the priests, Catholic rites were mines are connected with the sea by a forbidden on pain of death, and the railway. Soon other railroads will be people were commanded to become built. China, Dr. Martin says, will Protestants. The 30,000 Christians soon mine her own iron and produce which they soon reckoned were of little her own steel rails. She is mining for worth, and there is only a feeble rem-. silvel.' and gold, and is prospecting for nant of them to be found. petroleum.

The English Baptists came in 1812. They number now about 1000 communicants. The American Board en-

GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE

V.-GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

-The North Afrjca Mission has in lem are in protracted unhappy friction.

all 58 missionaries engaged in its field Complaint is made by the Society that of operations, embracing Morocco, Al- the bishop'S late charge, instead of geria, Tunis, Tripoli, and North Arabia. being primarily addressed to his clergy, -·Last year the Foreign Mission Fund was evidently intended for English of the English ;Presbyterian Church High Church friends. More deplorclosed with a debt of £3100. able, it magnifies "points of external service and ceremony," to the exclu- Italy-Evangelical Alliance.- The sion of the truths of the Gospel of president of the Roman branch of the Christ. Other charges ar~ made which Alliance had the honor of a private audi- mark strained relations. As the Society ence with King Humbert, before whom provides a large proportion of the bish- were laid the arrangements for the ap- op's salary, some change is inevitable. proaching international conference at Bishop Blyth decla.res that he will not Florence. He expressed his cordial in- resign. terest in the meeting, and hoped that the Alliance would ~e warmly greeted Archdeacon Maples. – Rev. James by the Italians. The subjects for dis- Johnston has recently, in Manchester, cussion comprise" Religious Thought listened to this nobly devoted worker, in Italy," "Florence and the Reforma- identified with the Lake Nyassa branch tion," "The True Unity of the Chris- of the Universities' Mission, over which tian Church," "The Divine Authority Bishop Smythies presides. The archof Holy Scripture," "The Relation of deacon belongs to a family of eminent the Church to Modern Society," "In- solicitors in London, and was educated ternational Christian Co-operation," at the Charterhouse and University Col- "Christianity and Social Questions," lege, Oxford. Upon taking holy orders, and " Foreign Missions." in 1876, he left for East Central Africa, where he has bravely remained, an inde- India-Salvation Army.-By the fatigable missionary pioneer. He gives toilers continued advance is reported a cheery account of the conquests and throughout Ceylon and the Indian Em- prospects of the Universities' Mission. pire. In 1886 the Army had 15 corps, One of the chief trials which the Uniwith 39 European and 41 native officers, versities' missionaries have to face is the while in 1888 some 56 corps had been irritating effect produced on the nerves established, represented by 166 Euro- by the malarial climate, and the consepean and 102 native officers. The re- quent difficulty of dealing justly and turns for 1890 show 96 corps, 171 Euro- gently with the natives. ~'his may pean and 273 native officers. Out of a partially account for, though not excuse total of 4673 conversions there had been the cruelties practised by secular ex- 263 Europeans, 317 Roman Catholics, plorers in many parts of Africa.

592 native "Christians," and· 3501 East Africa.-A Berlin correspond- "raw heathens saved." In December ent of the London Times telegraphs that last 55 new officers embarked for India, the Central Board of the African Society where some of the Army's social work of German Catholics has granted 25,000 is being attempted. As regards the marks toward the fund for placing a.

position of the Salvation Army in the Wissmann steamer on Lake Victoria, United States, the figures are 86,662 on condition of the success of the enter- members, 40 church buildings, and 287 • prise being otherwise assured, and fur- halls, with sitting accommodation for ther sums, amounting to 75,000 marks, 102,261 persons. for the promotion of missionary enter- -The English Church Missionar,}" prise in various districts of German East Societs and the Bishop of Jerusa- Africa. Although Major VOIl Wissmann, on his return to Berlin, last summer, in and Christian manner," and continues, comparing the work of Catholic and " I shall never forget ODe time, when Protestant missionaries in East Africa, speaking on this subject with his late awarded to the former the palm of much Highness the Maharajah of i Travancore. greater success, his statements were His Highness said the day of rest was stoutly challenged and, in some cases, observed by his Government in the certainly disproved. jails, public offices, etc., but he asked, Would it not be a strange thing if he, English Wesleyan Missionary So· a Hindu prince, had to interfere to ciety.":-The discouraging statements make Christians keep the Sabbath? ' " made in the January issue of the REVIEW The missionary concludes by observing relative to English Wesleyan finances that the question is one which, so far may now be considerably modified. as the obse"ance of the day of rest is With the disappearance of the contro- concerned, "very closely affects Chrisversy on the Society's Indian policy, tian missions." which led to a serious decline in receipts in Great Britain, there is reported at Hindu Child Marriage-" Age of the opening of 1891 a "marked improve· Consent" Bill.-Moderate as the Inment." Fresh sympathy has been awa· dian Government measure is to raise kened. From Tonga good news still ar· the minimum age of a girl capable of conrives. With the return of religious sent,ing from ten to twelve years, it is liberty the native Wesleyan chapel is some advance toward the removal' of a regaining the ground which it lost by shameful abuse in relation to Hindu the recent persecution. child marriages. By the majority of representative subjects in India the bill India.-The eminent Baptist minis· will be deemed inadequate. It was ter, Rev. E. G. Grange, of Bristol, who only a few months ago two thousand has just returned from India, says that Indian women asked that the consenting the style of life in which missionaries age should be fourteen yearli. This live does strike a visitor as being luxu· memorial to the Viceroy was supported rious, but it is inevitable. His general by fifty.five ladies practising medicine impression is that the life is a trying in India. For this step in legislation one, and nothing save the love of God great praise is due to Mr. lblabari, or the love of money would keep a man whose efforts have been of the most in India. self·denying character. He thought that fourteen years might be adopted, Indian Factory Commission.- an opinion similarly held by the medi- Although this commission, at the con. cal profession, and likewise long recogelusion of its sittings in 1890, recom· nized by the Parsee and Brahman commended important amendments touch. munities. The Rajpoots have lately fol· ing the excessive working hours of lowed this examp1e. Fortunately, the women and children, there is a further l'rincipal Hindu reformers are press. call for humane -legislation in such na· ing amendments by which to strengthen tive States as Travancore, where the the rights of parents in withholding Factory Acts have no operation. A their daughters from cohabitation with friend of the writer, the Rev. J. Knowles the husbands they have married as mere (L. M. S.), Travancore, South India, re- children, till they have reached a proper marks that" professedly Christian men age. It is admitted that the Viceroy may and do work women and children has escaped being charged with violating from dawn to dark, with only a short outrageously social custom and ecclesipause of about twenty minutes in the astical tradition. The ultimate developmiddle of the day." Referring to the ment of this measure is scarcely less imneed of intervention, Mr. Knowles says, portant than the virtual abolition of " The only thing I am pleading for is the legal status of Indian slavery in 1843. that things shall be done in a humane Monthly Bulletin. year of 42,124. All the Methodist de- nominations in the United States nUll!- -The Christian Alliance has some ber 54,711 churches, 31,765 Dnnisters, suggestive words on taking secondary and 4,980,240 communicants. places in service for Christ. We must learn to help as well as lead, if we would -The Deaconess movement is spread- be used of God. It is a great thing to ing. In connection with the Baptist be wiIIing to be second, or third, or Forward Movement, a new Deaconesses' fourth, or hundredth, if need be. Paul Home was recently opened in London. went out second, but God soon reversed Ladies will be trained in nursing and the order, and so it reads now, " Paul other work among the poor, and will be and Barnabas," not" Barnabas and placed under the direction of such Saul." Andrew Milne was refused as churches as may desire t.heir aid. missionary, and then offered to go as a servant. Be blacked Robert Morrison's -The Rev. G. W. Morrison, of the shoes, and did a servant's work for a American U. P. India. mission, may be time, bnt became at length one of the compelled to return to this country this greatest missionaries of the world. spring to bring his motherless babe.

-There are in the United States, -The Rev. J. Kruidenier, of the Canada, England and Scotland, 34 American U. P. Egyptian Mission, who women's missionary societies, and they has been laid aside for :five months with have 1397 missionaries in the field. critical illness, has recovered, and has resumed his work at Assiout. -The work of telegraph building in South Africa has pushed far ahead of -The Rev. Dr. Lansing, of the railroad enterprise. A line now reaches American U. P. Egyptian Mission, is the new capital of King Khama, 1700 slowly recovering his health, and is bemiles in an air line northeast of Cape ginning to take some part in public ser- Town. Savage Africa will thus be vices. Be is at La Grange, Mo. joined with civilization by electric wires. Two hundred and sixty wagons, -Dr. Pentecost reports the outlook each drawn by from ten to twelve yoke for India most hopeful. The older misof oxen, have taken their way northward sionaries are .full of expectation. Imloaded with nothing but telegraph wires. portant conversions are occuring at all No recent enterprises of the sort surpass the stations. Be emphasizes the fact, in magnitude, or in the energy with however, that the mission field is sadly which they are being pressed forward, undermanned. Be appeals to all Christhese railroad and telegraph projects, tians in America for special prayer for now far advanced in South Africa. India, for the outpouring of the Spirit upon the workers and on the people. -It is said there are about thirty Be pleads also for increased gifts to the thousand children of school age in Chi- mission boards. "Let our men of cago who are not in school, and not at wealth double their SUbscriptions, work. This means that, in most cases, and let one hundred of our very best they are on the street. Verily, there is young men offer themselves. It is need of Gospel work very near home. absolutely of no use to send second- class men· to India. _ . .. Do not -The Methodist Year BooTe for 1891 believe the report of the unbelieving gives many interesting facts. The spies. God is able to give us the land." Methodist Episcopal Church in this Dr. Pentecost presided lately, at the country has a membership of 2,283,154, Town Hall of Calcutta, at the annnal a net gain of 46.691 over last year. The prize distribution of the boys' and the den()mination is serv~d by 14,792 min- girls' schools of that city, and Mrs. isters. It has 2,264,832 Sabbath·school Pentecost gave away the prizes. Dr. scholars, an increase over the previous Pentecost's work among the Englisheducated Bengalis is declared by the home with ruined habits. The Rev. Indian Witness to have been attended Eugene Dunlap, for many years con- with much blessing. One address, at nected with the American Presbyterian Duff College, made a profound impres- Mission at Siam, is making the arrange- sion. Young Bengalis present have ments, Up to the present time only since signed a solemn covenant to take four young men from Siam have been Christ as their Saviour, declaring they educated here. One. is now in the will make a public profession soon. Auburn Theological Seminary. " 'rhe feeling prevails among all classes who know the facts," says the Witness, -October 2d, 1792, the Baptist Mis- " that we are on the eve of a mighty sionary Society waa organized, the first work among this class, who have so long society in the world organized exclusivestood at the very threshold of a Chris· ly for sending the Gospel to the heath- tian life." It is a notable fact that thA en. The first offerings amounted to Englishman, the leading daily paper of about $66. Now there are 223 evangel- Calcutta, gave a sympathetic as w,ell as ical missionary societies, 5594 foreign elaborate account of Dr. Pentecost at missionaries (over 3000 of whom are orthe outset of his mission. It ascribes dained ministers), 33,543 native helpers, much of his success to his striking per- 681,503 native communicants, and in sonality and manner. 1890 the contributions reached $11,42::1,- 58.8. -From Tahiti and the adjacent islands a band of not less than 160 -There are several excellent training evangelists have gone forth, carrying the schools for nnrses in Japan. One of message of salvation to other benighted these is under the direction of a lajy tribes, and yet less than a century ago who left the superintendency of a Bosthe ancestors of these evangelists were ton hospital for her laborious post in lying in the grossest darkness and su- Kyoto. Another school in Tokyo is perstition. raising money for a building. Its man- agers consist of both American and Jap- -A Young Men's Christian Associa- anese ladies. tion has been established in Jerusalem, and modern methods of reaching the -Recent reports from the Presbytemasses are to be instituted in that his- rian mission in Shantung, China., are of toric city. a most encouraging character. The meeting of Presbytery at Wei Hien -The Rev. Dr. R. Hamill Nassau, a brought together about forty mission_ Presbyterian missionary on the Ogove aries full of enthusiasm, besides a goodly River, West Africa, is preparing to re- number of native preachers_ This Presturn to this country with his motherlells bytery has twenty organized churches on little daughter. Mrs. Nassau died in the its roll, with applications forfour or five wilds of Africa, with no white person new organizations. Four hundred and near except her husband. Dr. Nassau fifty-eight additions to t)le churches expects to reach Philadelphia about the were reported for last year. It is estifirst of May. mated that there are fifteen thousand in- quirers in the different districts. -Arrangements aTe making by the King of Siam to send six young men to -The Young Men's Christian Assothis country to be educated. They are ciation work in India is most encouragto enter Westminster College, at New ing. The number of members on the Wilmington, Pa., an excellent United roll of the Madras Association increased Presbyterian institution. The reason in three months from 85 to 165, 50 of given for bringing them here is that whom are active members. The influsimilar experiments in England have ence of the work is great, first in failed, the young men having returned strengthening and enconraging those I who are Christians, but who are exposed the Britons. They were too lazy and to many temptations, and then also in illiterate, he said, for any good. The reaching those who are not yet Chris- darkeys saw the point. It is a good tians. thing to look at the hole of the pit whence we were dug, especially when -British papers announce the death we are impatient enough to say that the at Newchang, China, of the Rev. J. H. lower races about us cannot be civilized. Fitz Simon8, missionary of the Irish Presbyterian Church. He had been -Leading Hebrews in San Francisco, only three weeks in his chosen field it is said, have dt!cided to raise a fund when called home. of a quarter million dollars for the re- lief of their persecuted brethren in Rus- -It is said that not more than one sia. The plan includes the purchase of eighth of the people of Japan live in a million acres in Mexico on the Pacific cities having more than 10,000 inhabi- coast, which will cost only one dollar tants ; the vast majority are farmers or an acre. This tract will be divided into fishermen. small farms, on which large numbers of these Hebrew exiles, who are mostly -The Evangel, the American Baptist farmers, will live. Colonists are to be mission steamer on the lower Congo, is sent out through the English Society of the first vessel to make the passage from Israelites. All the rabbis and rich the mouth of the river to Matedi in a Hebrews of San Francisco ar(}active supday. porters of the projE!ct.

-There are said to be 11 provinces in -The Shah of Persia, it is said, re- China, with 982 walled cities, in 913 of cently paid a personal visit to the Amerwhich there is no missionary. ican mission home and school in Te- heran. This is the first visit ever paid -The American Baptist Mission on by the Shah to a private foreign resithe Congo has founded a new station on dent, and it is not surprising that it the upper river at Irebo, 375 miles made quite a sensation. His Majesty above Stanley Pool and 750 from the was greatly pleased. sea. -From the report of the Japanese -Two new editions of the Burman Minister of Education it appears that Bible are being printed by the Baptist there are nearly three million pupils in Missionary Union, one in Rangoon and the public schools of the Empire of Jaanother, from reduced plates, in Boston. pan. The cause of education is rapidly advancing. -The American Baptist missionaries on the Upp!'r Congo have made discov- -The Rev. A. W. Thompson, the eries which show that Lakes Mantumba new Presbyterian missionary to Triniand Leopold are connected and form a dad, was recently designated at Dursecondary course for the waters of the ham, Nova Scotia.. Mr. Thompson Congo. The Upper Congo Valley is one leaves with the full confidence and the vast network of lakes and rivers. earnest good wishes of his church.

-There are three mission steamers on -The Rev. John M: Greene, D.D. the waters of the Upper Congo. They now for some years at the head of the convey preachers and teachers to the Presbyterian Missions in Mexico, was various stations on the great river and obliged, some six months since, to decarry supplies when needed. sist from his manifold labors and cares, and return home to recruit his health. -A missionary in South Afriea was We are gl ad to learn that he is now reading Cicero's Orations with his negro again in nearly fnll strength, and expects students. He came upon the passage to return to Mexico at once. where Cicero advised the general to make slaves of all the prisoners except -On November 29th last Dr. Henry ing the high passes of the Himalayas H. Jessup, so long of the Presbyterian and fording dangerous streams. They Syria Mission, had the pleasure of wel- have not seen a European for ten years. coming a son as a recruit to that mis- sion. The Rev. William Jessup and -The Presbyterian Mission in Chili wife arrived that day in Beirut. Mr. has five organized churches as well as Jessup left Syria when a little child in preaching halls in the principal towns 1864, and now returns for the first time. in the country, Evangelists make long Educated in Princeton, he was ordained tours, sowing the Bread of Life. There by the Presbytery of New Brunswick are two schools: an elementary one at last April, married to Miss Faith Jad- Valparaiso, attended by 200 scholars, win, October 15th, and sailed for Syria and a superior institution at Santiago early the following month. He is now with 80 scholars, some of whom have stationed at Zahleh, on the eastern side come from homes in Peru and Bolivia. of Lebanon. A young Spanish pastor, M. Francesco Diez, who studied at Lausanne, has re- -The Rev. Hunter Corbett writ~s to cently settled at Santiago in connection the Presbyterian Banner from China: with the mission. " During a journey of two months in the interior visiting churches, stations -McCormick Seminary has at present and schools, forty persons were redMved 40 young men who expect to enter the into the church on confession of faith, foreign field. They appeared before making ninety-two this year. Three Presbytery lately, and asked permission church.buildings were dedicated. Two to visit the churches to present the work of them are built of stone and the other so dear to their hearts. They hope by of brick. These buildings cost the these meetings to stimulate large lib- ChriRtians no small amount of self- erality, so that when the time comes denial." During this year about five the Board will be able to accept them. hundred members were added to the They received the hearty endorsement churches in the Presbytery and five of the Presbytery. men were ordained to the ministry. -As showing the vitality of the sim- -Cardinal Lavigerie proposes to re- ple old Gospel, a missionary from China claim large regions of the A.frican Sahara says: ., If there is anything which lays by monkish settlements. He is organ- hold of the poor people in that country izing a French Sahara Brotherhood, who it is the simple story of the crucifixion will live as engineering monks, and of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not the after five years' trial devote themselves morality, or the miracles of the Gosfor life. They will be posted near old pel, or even the wonderful sayings or wells in the Sahara, and will reopen teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, those wells and start new ones and but the old story of the cross, of the plant fruit far~s to form a series of blood, of the sacrifice, of the satisfacoases in the desert. They will make it tion of Christ in dying for sinners on their special work to gather the scat- the tree, that is the power for good in tered nomads, suppress their slave trade, touching the heart and awakening the and convert them if possible. The conscience … system is to extend itself until vast tracts are fertilized, as was the case in -The anti-rum congress at Khartoum the time of ancient Carthage, seems to have been a vigorous one. It was held at the same time with the anti- -AMoravian missionary and his wife slavery congress in Brussels. Bishop have been laboring for thirty years at a Taylor's magazine says: "While the station in the mountains of Thibet, Christians in Brussels were resolving to with the nearest post-office fourteen • search all vessels and dhows suspected days distant and reached only by cross- of having slaves on board, and to con- fiscate the vessels and return the slaves,' the Arabs were adopting a resolution are also 27 80cieties on the continent of • to surround the entire coast of Africa Europe. As to results, it is said that with a cordon of armed dhows and con- within the past seventy-five years 100,- fiscate every European vessel contain- 000 Jews have been baptized, and that ing liquors, and sell .the crewS into sla- the number of Hebrew Christians with very.' " their children reaches a quarter million. Many of the converts are men of influ- -It is said that for what it costs to ence. fire one shot from one of our largest cannon, a missionary and his family can -The work among the Chinese in be supported over two years in Japan. America has a very important bearing Would we not better spike the cannon on the evangelization of China. The and send the Gospel abroad? number of Chinamen converted in thi's country who go back to extend Gospel -The Woman' B Executive Committee influences in their native land is surpris- of Home Missions of the Presbyterian ingly large. They are valued helpers in Church has for several years prosecuted the stations of both the Presbyterian educational and industrial work for Ind- and AmericllnBoardmissions, and some ian children and youth in schools in of the strongest churches have been New Mexico, Indian Territory, Arizona, founded by Chinamen who have been Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin, with converted while living in California. In gratifying results. There are now un- four or five cities natives who are either der the care of this band of Christian now residents of the United States, or women thirty-two schools, where chil- who have sojourned there, are provid- dren are thoroughly instructed in gos- ing the funds for evangelistic enter- pel truth, and through the influence of prises. There is said to be less opposi- which many savage homes have been tion to the Gospel in those sections from transformed. Chapels have also been which there has been emigration to built, and the precious seed of living America. These facts should urge us to truth scattered broadcast. greater activity in behalf of the Ori- entals now among us. -A Methodist medical missionary in India makes a strong plea for a prelim_ -Here is a pleasant item from Glas- inary service in the home field for those gow, Scotland': "Mr. Quarrier was vis- who go abroad, Such experience would ited the other day by friends from the not only be a test of their qualification, West Coast, who laid on his table £2000 but would also be educational, prepar- in bank-notes, saying they wished to ing them for wiser and more efficient build a house for the orphans in mem- service when they enter the foreign field. ory of a beloved husband and father. They were most anxious that no name, -Dr. Tucker, who succeeds the heroic not even initials, should be published. Bishop Hannington in Equatorial They refused to take a receipt, saying Africa, under the appointment of the to Mr. Quarrier, "You have got the Church Missionary Society, found his money, and that is enough." journey to his post at Uganda one of great peril. But for the opportune help -It is not pleasant to read in the of German soldiers the missionary would Christian World that ., Black Mass" was , have shared Bishop Hannington's sad celebrated in 250 Anglican churches on fate. All Souls' Day. Prayers for the dead were offered, and the altars were drapeu -It is usually supposed that mission in black. Straws show which way the work among the Jews does not yield wind blows, and when 250 of them blow sufficient results to encourage its con· in the same direction it is not difficult tinuance. But our friends in Europe to decide the tendency of the prevailing do not appear to share this feeling. breeze. Other indications of 8 Bomish Great Britain has 14 missionary soci- eties. which employ 312 agents. There tendency are furnished by English Epis. the Roman Catholic, and the Anglican copal clergymen in abundance. Church have missions in Alaska.

-The London City Mission has 300 -Yes, even our aborigines can be Gospel halls in which religious services touched and renewed by divine grace. are held during the week, in many cases To the wildest and worst of them, a livevery night in the year. ing Indian can be a good Indian. For Bishop Hare, who knows whereof he -The American Bible Society has reo writes, exclaims: "Nine Sioux Indians ceived from the National Bible Society nobly working in the sacred ministry! of Scotland a copy of the New Testa. About 40 Sioux Indians helping them as ment translated into Tannese by the licensed catechists. Forty branches of Rev. William Watt. the Woman's Auxiliary among the Sioux Indian women. Seventeen hundred -One consecrated man may set in Sioux Indian communicants! Sioux motion great influences for good. Sir Indians contributing nearly $3000 an- Keith Falconer founded a mission at nually for religious purposes! But Aden, in Arabia, and with his last what impression have all these solemn breath begged that it be not given up. but cheering facts made upon the pub. The Free Church of Scotland has ac. lie mind as compared with the wild cepted it as a legacy, and Professor Lan- antics of the heathen Sioux Indians, sing, of New Brunswick, is preparing which excited the attention and stirred some young men for the mission. Mean- the feelings of the country, and daily while a German, reading the life of occupIed column after column of the leith Falconer, was moved to give newspapers for weeks ?" himself as a missiopary, and proposes to enter upon the work of evangelizing -Woman's work for woman in forthe Bedaween Arabs who dwell around eign lands, which had its beginning Mt. Sinai. So the torch is passed from only about 20 years ago, has been atthe dying to the living, and new con- tended by a marvellous development. secrated men are never wanting to take In all 70 societies are in existence, supthe place of those who fall in the field. porting a force of 1468 missionaries, and gathering and expending last year the Organized Mi.~ona.ry W"ork and Statis- snug sum of $1,692,963. Of these so- tics. Edited by Rev. D. L. Leonard, cieties 34 are found in the United States, Bellevue, O. 10 in Canada, 24 in Great Britain, and one each on the Continent and in South -England has 8 Jewish missionaries; Africa. The American societies alone Scotland: has 5 ; Ireland 1 ; and these sustai~ 926 missionaries, and raised organizations in all employ 312 agents. $1,087,568 last year, or almost three- There are 27 societies upon the Conti. fifths ~f the entire amount. nent, and in the United States 7, with 34 in their employ. The total of organ_ -In connection with the Day of izations designed especially to carry the Prayer for Colleges, statistics appeared Gospel to the Jews is 48, and their mis- of an interesting and important charsionaries number 377. acter from 24 colleges having" substaJ;l. tial relations with the Presbyterian -According to Dr. Sheldon Jackson, Church." These figures throw welthe Presbyterian Church now has 7 mis- come light upon one or two weighty sions and 4 churches, with from 70 to questions. Omitting the colleges for 80 communicants each in Alaska. The women only, and including only the church in Sitka has 360 communicants. students in institutions for men, or Besides the Presbyterian Church, the those where co-education exists, it ap- Moravian, the Protestant Episcopal, the pears that 82 per cent of the attendants Methodist Episcopal, Congregationalist are church members in the college classes proper, or 61 per cent if pre- the women 28. The visits made aggre_ paratory students are included. And of gated 22,766. They conducted 2946 the 1509 students, 361 are reported as church, cottage, and mission meetings, "meaning to be ministers." Making 549 children's meetings, 235 tent meetall due allowance for women found in ings, and taught 2163 Sunday-school the mixed colleges, the conclusion is that classes. The number of visits made to not less than one in three has the minis- saloons was 1932, and the number of try in view. inquirers professing conversion was 2729. It is evident from these figures -The educatiox{al work of the vari- that while a large proportion of time is ous societies is always to be borne in zealously devoted to Bible study and mind as only second in importance to attendance upon lectures, attention to the direct preaching of the Gospel in " applied Christianity" is by no means pagan lands. And the aggregate of neglected. In vocal classes 448 were schools of all grades, and of pupils as taught, while 74 received private inwell, is cheeringly large. Thus the strnction for the voice, and 91 received London society alone supports no less private instrumental lessons. than 1615, with 105,980 in attendance_ The Church Missionary Society has -No friend of missions can watch 1796 schools with 75,581 scholars, and that unparalleled movement known as the American Board 1025, with 47,319. the Partition of Africa, without wonder- The Methodist Church, North, is edu- ing what is to be the effect upon the cating 30,049 in foreign lands; the Pres- well-being of the 200,00,0,000 that inbyterian Board, North, 23,935, and the habit the vast spaces of the Dark Con- Baptist Missionary Union, 20,615. The tinent, or without hoping that it will be schools sU'ltained by the various Ameri- blessed in almost. every particular. can societies contain almost 175,000 Eight European nations ~re concerned pupils, and the 12,000 Protestant mis- in the colossal affair, if we count the sion schools are training to Christian Congo Free State with its 1,000,000 intelligence an aggregate of not much square miles, as Belgium'S share in the less than 600,000 children and youth. " deal." France easily leads in the ex- tent of her acquisitions, having her hand -The first annual report is out of upon Algeria, the Sahara country, and Mr. Moody's Bible Institute for Home other regions farther south, or a total and Foreign Missions (and Chicago of 2,300,000 square miles. Though, if Evangelization Society), and will be a to Great Britain's 1,910,000 in South surprise to many. Three departments and Central Africa we add her most exhave been in operation during the year, cellent prospects in Egypt and the Souone for men, one for women, and one dan, and the superior soil and climate for instruction in music; and the num- of her possessions, then her share is ber of persons enrolled in them is most valuable by far. Germany, just at 173, 80, and 578 respectively-in the present, is content with 1,035,00,0 square two first named 253, or a total of 831 miles, Portugal with 775,000" Italy with students. Upward of 20 denominations 360,,000, and great expectations as touchwere represented in the attendance, ing Tripoli, while Spain brings up the and more than 3.1> States of the Union. rear with the trifle of 210,000. Upon Sixteen came from England, 15 from the entire continent-some 50,0,0, by 50,00 Canada,· 9 from Sweden, 4 from Ire- miles in extent-are found some 12,00,0,- land, 4 from Germany, 3 from Norway, 000 square miles, of which only 2,500,- 2 from Turkey, and 1 each from Russia, 000 remai!l unassigned. It can scarcely Bohemia, and Finland. They came be but that roads, the locomotive, and from 51 secular occupations, and 41 stable government will Boon follow; and were ministers or evangelists. The so let the Lord's people make haste to average age of the men was 30, and of go up to possess the land for Him.