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Vol. XXXVII
OCTOBER, 1907
No. 10
MISS ELIZABETH S. PERKINS
Missionary Miss Mary I.Ward, a teacher Personals, in the girls' boarding school at Marsovan, arrived for her furlough on August 13th. Miss Elizabeth C. Clarke, who lias charge of the kindergarten in Sofia, Bulgaria, reached Boston September 2d, coming for a year of rest and study of new methods, and Mrs. Marden, of Constantinople, has made us a flying call. Miss Emily McCallurn, of the Collegiate Institute in Smyrna, is in her home for her furlough. Miss Elsie M. Gar- retson, of the girls' school in Foochovv, who has been spending the summer in this vicin- ity, has returned to the West, expecting to sail for China in November. Miss Eliza- beth S. Perkins, of Alfred, Me., received her commission in
her home church, September 1st, and sailed from Seattle, September 10th, in company with Mrs. Gracey, wife of the consul at Foo- chow. She goes to take the place in the Abbie B. Child Memorial School, at Diong- loh, China, made vacant by the marriage of Miss Evelyn Worthley. Miss Elizabeth H. Viles, of Waltham, and Miss Clara H. Bruce were commissioned, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Burr, at Waltham Septem- ber 1st, and the four sailed from Xew York for India two days later. Rev. H. G. Bissell and family were also in the party, returning after two years, not of rest, but of strenuous service in this country. Miss Viles is a grad- uate of Smith, and will probably take the work of training the Bible women in Ah-
MISS ELIZABETH H. VILES
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MISS CLARA H. BRUCE
Alice S. Browne and Miss Helen B. Calder — have performed its important duties, and have won a warm jDlace in the hearts of our young women. Now Miss Lam- son holds the portfolio of our Foreign Sec- retary ; Miss Browne has charge of a girls' boarding school in Tung-chou in the North China mission ; and Miss Calder becomes Assistant Secretary, helping in various ways, as need arises. We are glad to introduce to our readers as the new Secretary for Young People's Work, Miss Lucia C. Witherbv, a graduate of Radcliffe in 1907. She comes with warm interest in the work, and will carry on worthily the faithful service of her predecessors.
mednagar. Miss Bruce, the daughter of Rev. H. J. Bruce, for thirty-five years a mis- sionary in the Marathi field, is a graduate of Wellesley, and has taken post-graduate courses at Radcliffe. She goes now to the mission where her parents are working, and expects to go into educational work. Miss Mary Metcalfe Root, of the Madura Mission, has returned to the field after a furlough somewhat prolonged on account of delicate health. She sailed from New York in Sep- tember.
Our Secretary of Since this impor-
Young People's Work, tant office was estab- lished, in 1893, three women — Miss Kate G. Lamson, Miss
MISS LUCIA C. WITHERBY
A Call to A call to teachers. We need at once ten women, with col- Comrades. lege or normal training and experience, to fill vacancies in schools in Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan and Mexico. In addition to these, our missionaries are calling for as many more to take up new work or to be in training against future needs»
A call to kindergartners. One worker is asked for to conduct a training
Editorial
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school in Western Turkey for teachers who, after graduation, will open kindergartens in the different villages. Another kindergartner is needed to fill a vacancy in Harpoot.
A call to Bible students. While all our missionaries, whether teachers, nurses or evangelists, must be teachers of the Bible, workers are called for who will give all their time to training and supervising Bible women. Our Japan mission needs four such women, one of whom would have as her parish a field of half a million people.
A call to philanthropists. A large settlement work in the Far East is waiting for Christian women who can go at their own charges to make their homes in the midst of the ignorance and suffering and sin of large heathen cities. Their presence would be a source of strength to the mis- sionaries and a living gospel to the people. Two such women are needed in Osaka, Japan, a city of more than a million inhabitants, only three thousand of whom are professing Christians.
A call to Christians. In the light of this great need, the failure to supply which is causing physical and mental suffering to our missionaries and a serious crippling of our work, the loudest call of all is a call to all Christians to be " comrades of the Cross," who will obey their Lord by praying that he will thrust forth laborers into his harvest, and who will strive by offer- ing themselves or their daughters and their substance to take up the cross and follow him.
Our Contributions The gifts for the regular pledged work, between
for the Month. July i8th and August i8th, were $3,591.93 ; a gain
over similar receipts in the corresponding month of 1906 of $495.79 But this gain leaves a loss in the ten months already passed of $388.16. And this loss comes when we very much need a full treasury to maintain the work now in hand. Our president gives a fuller statement of the situation, and makes some pertinent suggestions as to the way of meeting the emergency in the article on page 464.
More Readers for Life and Light wants more readers ; for the sake Life and Light. of the women in our churches who need to know the facts that can reach them only in the pages of this little magazine, and for the sake of the work whose voice it is, the work of our Master ; work that halts and fails for lack of the gifts and the prayers of the women who know little about it. Will you help to secure these readers for us? If you will send us the names of friends who you think will read the magazine, we will send the last three numbers of 1907 free to such women, hoping they will grow sufficiently interested to become subscribers. We have no paid agents and no club rates, and rely on the co-operation of our readers, who are all our friends, for the necessary help. This means you, and now.
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Wanting is — One who has faced many problems in the work at home What? and solved some of them says: Life and Light would be even more helpful if it could bring us more of the experience of other home workers. The thing wanting, it seems to me, is that one and another should write frankly about their successes and their failures, their problems and their encouragements, in holding meetings, in interesting others, in gaining subscribers to Life and Light, and contributions for the W. B. M., in securing more prayer in meetings, and so on. The editor feels the truth of this, and asks now, here, as she has many times asked personally, for just such help. Why not have a department of " Discoveries " as in Good House- keeping-. Send us the story of what you have done, dear readers.
Our Annual Worcester is not only " the heart of the commonwealth," Meeting. as its citizens love fondly to call it, but it is very accessible from places outside the Bay State. So we hope that many women from Vermont and New Hampshire, from Rhode Island and Connecticut, from Maine and New York, and places even farther away, will gather at the meeting of the Woman's Board of Missions November 13th and 14th. We need the enthusiasm which comes to the great congregation, and the touch of reality which only the returned missionaries can give to the story of their work. They will be there, heroic workers from many lands, and the message they will bring will stir every heart. We must not miss it if we have the choice. Whether we can be there or not, let our prayers help to bring the Presence without which no meeting can really attain its end.
How to Use This capital little pamphlet is a valuable, indeed, an
Gloria Christi. indispensable aid to the study of our text-book for this year. It consists of the outlines and lectures given by Mrs. Montgomery at the various summer schools, with many attractive programs, bright sugges- tions and clever new plans. It also contains a finely selected course of Bible readings, and gives a list of leaflets issued by the various Boards, which will help to illuminate our study of foreign missions and social prog- ress. This little book, by Mrs. Montgomery, price only ten cents, makes the program-maker's pathway easy, be she in city or country church, or in charge of the circle of girls.
Chautauqua and Chautauqua has long been an educational center, and Missions. now, after two years of experiment, the study of missions
is firmly established as one of its courses. In this year's course Mrs. H. W. Peabody gave morning lectures on missionary methods, followed by dis- cussions of ways of developing interest in the cause. Nearly six hundred women from nineteen denominations, and nearly as many states, registered,
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and pastors and superintendents attended also. Mrs. Montgomery gave her lectures on Gloria Christi, and many women there felt that the missionary study was the best thing of the year at Chautauqua. The management agree, and thenceforth the United Study of Missions will have its place on the programs of the Chautauqua Summer School. Those women who live too far away to reach Northfield or Winona, can find at this central point a gathering with all that is best in any summer school for mission study, with the attractions of a Chautauqua assembly added.
THE STORY OF ONE BRAHMAN FAMILY
BY JULIA BISSELL, M.D.
"IS the Doctorinbai* in? May I speak to her?" Kashinathpunt Nagarkar 1 was standing at the door of the Women's Dispensary in Ahmednagar as he spoke. He was a Brahman of the best educated type, and had for several years occupied a good clerical position in one of the many govern- ment offices in that city. So he spoke English easily, fluently, and with little of the characteristic native accent. In his flowing white drapery, shin- ing white coat of finest cambric, white turban and fair skin, he looked the typical Brahman gentleman. He was told the Doctorinbai was in, and he might speak to her. The compounder motioned, over the heads of the patients seated on the floor of the waiting room, toward the farther door, and said, " Yes, you may go right in — right in there."
Kashinathpunt hesitated an instant ; then picking his way carefully between the patients, stood at the door of the consulting room.
" May I come in? "
"Yes, please come in. I shall be ready to speak with you in a few minutes."
Again he stood waiting in respectful attitude. The scene must have been a novel one to him, but called forth no comments.
" Now if you will tell me what you wish, I can attend to it." " I wish to place my wife under your treatment."
" Would you like to bring her here, or shall I call on her at your house? " " No ; it is not so serious as that. I will bring her here. She will not be afraid, I think."
" I hope not. The patients who come here are not usually afraid. Bring her any day except Sunday, between eleven and three o'clock. We shall be glad to see her."
*Doctorinbai is the feminine form according to Marathi termination for Doctor, used only in the Marathi speaking section.
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"Very well ; I think that will be the most convenient hour for her also. Is there any fee ? "
" Yes ; we charge two annas a visit to all dispensary patients who are able to pay."
Within a few days Krishnabai came with her seven-year-old son, an only child — the only survivor of several children. The spot of red paint was on her forehead which says nothing in her toilet or devotions has been lacking that day. She showed the usual shyness in pronouncing her husband's name, when asked to do so for the sake of registration, and finally said to her boy, " Tell the lady your father's name." Her story was not long, but left the impression that here was a Brahman mother from a happy home. She and her husband lived in one of those inclosed courts* which, in the cities of India, often shelter two or more families of the same caste, in rooms leading off from a covered porch which surrounds three sides of an open square. The fourth side of this square is a high wall with the entrance to the court. Kashinathpunt's family of three were respected by their neigh- bors, and Krishnabai proved a gentle, intelligent patient. She continued to come for consultation and treatment for some months, and then, as advised, went to her own father and mother for a visit of six months at her child- hood's home, until she should have the full benefit of a change of air and scene. Her husband was more than willing to send her to her home, even at certain inconvenience to himself. " Oh, yes, they will send me home if you advise the trip," she said, referring to him in orthodox, modest style, by the plural number of the third person. " They will do everything for me."
How much Krishnabai learned of Christ and his power to save, during the weeks of her treatment, it is impossible to say. Though willing always to await her turn, she showed the usual impatience at being expected to listen to the Bible Woman's story, and. the usual indifference, also, to the message. Not once, however, did she show any unkind spirit toward those less fortunate and of lower caste than herself. The best type of Brah- man woman is self-respecting and well bred, and respects her neighbor.
Over a year from the time she left for her home Krishnabai appeared again, and this time with a dear, plump baby girl not many months old. She wore the same happy look, and seemed genuinely pleased to greet her friends of the American Mission once more. With greater care than most patients showed she had preserved the old treatment sheets, and brought them back with her. The baby, her mother's pride and delight, had not been well for a few days and was introduced with the words : " They beg
* Called wada, singular; plural, waday.
The Story of One Brahman Family
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you to give her every attention. They devote themselves altogether to her while at home." A sure proof that in some Hindu homes the daughter is not unwelcome.
The bonnie baby was perfectly well in three days, and we did not see her again for six months, when an attack of genuine malaria brought her once more. Some quinine powders soon settled the question with the malaria germ, and the family were happy again by the end of the week.
Months rolled by and plague entered the city. One afternoon a call came to see a patient who had fever. The messenger led the way to Kashinath- punt's wada. He was not there himself, but others showed us the room on the second floor, apart from other occupants of the house, where, on an improvised bed on the floor, a young woman lay, smitten with plague. There was no doubt as to the disease ; the high temperature, quick, weak pulse, shallow breathing, painful, swollen glands on the left side of the neck, the deep flush, incoherent words and exhaustion had but one meaning. Krishnabai came upstairs soon, her baby on her left hip.
44 Don't come in here," I said, " on any account."
" Why, Bai, we do not even know who she is. She is a stranger who came here two days ago for a night's lodging, on her way home. We know none of her friends. They telegraphed for her but have received no word yet."
The whole wada was greatly alarmed, and Krishnabai fairly staggered under the shock. It was no enviable duty to explain that all families in the wada must prepare to leave home and go to the plague hospital, to stay there ten days. In the meantime only the two who, impelled by the strong sense of obligation to help one of the same caste when in trouble, had volun- teered to brave the danger of contagion, should remain at the sick woman's side.
44 Bai, if we go to the hospital you will come there to look after us? We are holding to your feet only.* Here is this little one ; what will become of her?"
The mother did not burst into tears or make an outcry. 44 Fate has brought this upon us," was the conclusion reached by the company present.
The following day at the plague hospital, after visits to other patients were over, Kashinathpunt called to me to come to the bamboo shed where his family were accommodated. Krishnabai was lying on a mattress on the clean sand floor.
44 She has severe headache. I hope you can prescribe for her. We do
* " We have every confidence in you." "Hold Jesus' feet," is equivalent to our " At the feet of Jesus."
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not wish to stay here. Why should my family be brought here? We were all quite well." One could not wonder at the tone of bitterness in his voice.
Krishnabai grew rapidly worse ; the temperature rose, delirium followed, then convulsions, and finally, in her own happy home whither she was sent after the ten days were over, discharged by the British surgeon as not a case of the plague, she passed away in spite of untiring efforts. Not many days after Kashinathpunt brought the baby to the dispensary.
" Do all you can for her," he begged ; " she is yours ;" and his eyes filled with tears. "We always said she was your gift to us." Never fonder father bent over his daughter. This time, however, the baby's attack of fever did not yield, and she followed her mother to the unknown country not far away, whence no news may reach us here.
Kashinathpunt could scarcely speak of the great, sudden change that had come into his happy home. " I have no one now but my boy. My wife had great faith in you, but it was God's wish that she should not live."
The lights and shades in this short story are in sharp contrast. There are thousands of such families, and many others not so happy as this one, who need the helping hand that only women of Christian lands can give.
OSAKA AND IT5 NLLD
BY MISS ABBIE M. COLBY
Miss Colby is a teacher in the Baikwa school, and has been a missionary in Japan for nearly thirty years.
FOREIGNERS never seem to know nor to care for Osaka until they have done hard missionary work here, because it is not a comfortable place for Americans and Europeans. The whole thought here is Osaka for the Japanese, and there is no catering to foreign tastes as is done in the cities loved by tourists ; but from a Japanese point of view it is the great commer- cial city of Japan, and has been so for hundreds of years. Its largest temple is at least thirteen hundred years old, and yet its mills and factories are all modern. Murray, in his guide-book, calls it " a forest of tall chimneys," and says it is nearly eight miles square. It is built up solidly, excepting the river and canals and one very small park, on made land mostly, reclaimed from the sea, in the center of a large (for Japan) plain, which is dotted with cities, villages and mills, all tributary to Osaka ; and now those who can afford to live in the suburbs, and of late our day pupils have, some of them, come from long distances, even from Kobe, twenty miles away. In many ways conditions are changing faster than we can adapt ourselves to them,
1907}
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and telegrams and cablegrams are as common as letters were a decade ago. The Christian advance has not kept up, by any means, with the material. Many people mistake material prosperity for Christianity. In last year's statistics the population of the city was given as over one million one hundred and seventeen thousand. More than forty-six thousand women are employed in the mills, and more than forty-eight thousand men.
PAGODA AT TENNOJI, OSAKA
You might live here for months or perhaps years, and not see a trace of Christianity, especially if you did not wish to see it. In a guide-book giv en to foreigners in one of the finest foreign hotels in Kyoto, it says that " the missionaries in Osaka are very few, so tourists can easily avoid them," and most of them do. Yet statistics say that even here there are over three thousand eight hundred enrolled Christians. Many of these are most noble, consecrated, highly educated men and women, and one cannot commend their self-sacrificing work too highly ; but, as in Corinth, many are carnal and weak, and as a body they are too poor to have conspicuous churches on the principal streets, except one just built by our missionary, Mr. Allchin ; and all the much extolled self-supporting churches were started either wholly or largely by missionaries.
There is talk in America, and even among missionaries in Japan, that no
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more missionaries are needed here. This spring a visiting bishop said in a public meeting in Osaka that Japan can no longer be called a heathen nation, — a most pernicious remark from every point of view. A great deal of the talk about Japan, and the actual facts, are enough to unsettle a strong mind. A very common trouble among the foreign residents is called Japan- head, and its chief characteristic is confusion of mind, — and no wonder.
Dr. Barton says truly : "It is the easiest thing in the world to make gen- eral statements regarding any foreign country, and it is probably the hardest thing to do and not lie. I have for two months put my best effort into trying
BRIDGE AT SUMIGOSHI, OSAKA
to forget ex cathedra utterances about this country and people made by various writers of little experience and less knowledge, the most of which are only partially true, and some of which are criminally wrong."
The Japanese leaders are playing to the great nations, called Christian, and do all in their, power to win the approbation of these nations, and more praise is due to them than outsiders can estimate ; but the mass of the people are as idolatrous as ever, while great numbers have no religion. One of the old and best informed missionaries in Japan said in a sermon a month ago that thirty million of the Japanese had not yet heard of Christ.
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In all this great city are only five schools for girls above the very low- grade common schools for both sexes, the purely sewing schools, and one normal school, and two of these five are mission schools supported by English and American money and the principal American and English missionary ladies. The Baikwa being carried on by the Japanese is not classed with the missionaries' schools by many who would not send their daughters to a foreigners' school, and who do not allow their girls to step inside a Christian church. This puts a greater responsibility upon us. I am going to send you a copy of the English composition read at the last graduation. The writer was not allowed to attend church or Sunday school,
GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS, OSAKA
and all the Christian teaching she received was in the school. I advised her to tell her people the meaning of what she had written in English, and the subject was her own idea, but she refused to do so. There are many such girls in the school, and many of the Christians have been led to follow Jesus Christ by sending their children to Christian schools while yet they were haters of Christianity and missionaries.
I have been so tied up with duties connected with the school that for nine months I have not gotten out of this Osaka plain for touring work, only as my heart has gone out in my letters sent to Christians and pupils who are away from other Christian influences, and to write these letters in Japanese, I pay Miss Nirva from the money which you contribute for touring. A
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letter just received tells me that a young woman in an un-Christian home in the center of Japan is going to marry a Christian young man, the only Christian in his family, also far removed from any other Christians. Please pray for this young couple. Sometimes I pay Mrs. Hosoai or Miss Miyagawa to go to places where or when I cannot go. They are both teachers in the school, lovely Christian women, also over-driven with their own work. Miss Miyagawa also assists me in many things regularly, and even so I am driven with pupils, visitors, callers, meetings, Sunday-school solicitors for help for all sorts of benevolent enterprises, and many other things truly too numerous to mention, and the things I refuse to consider press the heaviest.
You will see that jinrikisha and car fares count up rapidly. I should prefer to walk more, but that takes up all of the time. Many people, even the pastors, have bicycles ; but Osaka is a hard place for women bicyclists, and so many, both men and women, have had serious accidents that I have never dared to venture to buy one. They are also most tempting things for people to steal. Miss Ward's locked bicycle was stolen out of a locked room inside of a high fence with a locked gate with a bell on it last Satur- day night.
When I am with the upper classes in the school I believe there can be no such sweet, dear girls anywhere else in all the world; and I wish von could see the difference between the entering class and the graduating class, especially in the upper English class. It takes fully a year for a girl to grasp the spirit of the school unless she has come from Christian influences. Other people often say, " You have an especially fine set of girls," but few of them look so when they enter. When I am in our women's meetings, I wonder if anything in America can show more growth and beauty, or rather grace, than these quiet, well-poisad, earnest Christian women. And often in the plain little churches we seem to feel the very presence of the Holy One, who was lowly and walked with the common people.
There are also a multitude of men who are not ready to be called Chris- tians, who delight in Christian books and papers, and who are trying, and are, I trust, living upright lives and helping others to do so.
Florence Nightingale said : " If 1 could give you information of my life, it would be to show how a woman of very ordinary ability has been led by God in strange and unaccustomed paths to do in his service what he has done in her. And if I could tell you all, you would see how God has done all, and I nothing. I have worked hard, very hard, that is all; and I have never refused God anything."
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Village Work in Eastern Turkey
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VILLAGE WORK IN LA5TLRN TURKLY
BY MISS CAROLINE E. BUSH
[Miss Bush has been a devoted and successful touring missionary in Eastern Tur- key since 1870, and no words can measure the extent and the blessing of her work.]
AFTER a two weeks' stay in Harpoot we made ready to go to the vil- lages on the plain again. The first was Hooeloo, about three hours from Harpoot. Our way over a very muddy road was made fairly decent by the dry weather. We were ushered into a most comfortable house, with glass windows in our room and a stove. We remained there five days. The people were cordiality itself, though I had not been there for years, and it was Miss Poole's first visit to the place. They were so grateful for our coming that they even gave the expense for bringing our baggage there and for taking it to the next village. The preacher in Hooeloo is from the Ain- tab field, a modest, gentle-spirited man, and his wife seems well-fitted for her place. They work in every way possible for the good of the people, and we much enjoyed the services which he led in morning and evening meet- ings. I wish I could picture to you the place that they call their chapel. They have had three chapels in Hooeloo. The first one was built in the very inception of Protestantism, and proved too small and on a bad founda- tion. The second was so injured by an earthquake that it had to be pulled down. The third, a new stone building, was destroyed in the massacres. After the massacres, after the people found any sort of shelter to cover their families, they built a roof over the yard of their destroyed chapel, and they have worshiped in that room ever since. It has a rough earth floor, rough earth walls, dirty timbers overhead, and very little light. The room is damp, of course. The people crowd in, almost sitting on each other at times. When a missionary preaches there, or a native pastor from abroad, or it is a communion service, the place is packed. The congregation is asked again and again to move forward until they are almost sitting on each other's laps. Nearly two thirds of the congregation are women, for many men have gone to America. These men in America 'have a society to raise a fund for the endowment for our school, and they are proposing to have a high school in the village. Our schools there are now well filled, but need to be brought to a higher grade. The girls' school is in the place that we call the chapel, which is very large and cold for them in winter. In sum- mer the place is unbearable for the services on account of the heat and dust which often is blown in over everybody and everything.
In this state of things the people are at last brave enough to set to work to build a new chapel. Where the money is to come from they do not
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know. The Sunday that we were there the names of seven committees were read off to superintend the building. There was the " Ways and Means Committee," to collect money, the "Lookout Committee," to super- intend the work generally, the " Committee on Stone," that on " Timbers," the " Committee on Sand," etc. There are five on each committee. It sounded like business and made my heart rejoice. I had long talks with the men as to how the money should be obtained, and on our return from the village a committee came up to ask our Co-operation Committee here in the city for a grant of money for the building from the Board. Our Board sends no money now for building, and we have little on hand avail- able for anything of the kind. A sum not half of what they desire and need was granted them. What they are to do for the rest is more than we can imagine, but they propose to go on in faith and hope. Miss Poole occupied the time morning and afternoon just as far as possible in calling at Arme- nian homes, and was rejoiced at the cordial and earnest desire manifested in everyone. I was able to spend a day and a half in calling at Turkish homes, visiting eight houses. These were very pleasant visits, which gave me great hope for a friendly feeling in the future.
On a bright, pleasant day we rode from Hooeloo up to Garmuri, only an hour away. It is a smaller village, and the people more simple minded. In both of these villages there is a devotion to their church services and to their preachers and schools such as we rarely see. There is quite a com- petition between the two as to their progress and standing before other places, so that the Garmuri people asked us, " How did you find Hooeloo?" And the Hooeloo people asked us the same question in regard to Garmuri, even going so far as to ask, " Which do you like better? " They have daily afternoon meetings, well attended, and three times a week a voluntary meet- ing in the parsonage, the room of which was crowded to its utmost. These voluntary meetings are very informal. There is a good deal of singing, which, to say the least, is hearty, but could not pass in the matter of har- mony. There is freedom in prayer also in these meetings. Some women have been appointed to go about in the village and stir up their sisters to earnestness and piety and to faithful attendance on the services. One of these is a blind girl, who is very devoted to Christian work. In Garmuri they have ahead}' built three chapels, the first having been burned by an incendiary, the second having been destroyed in the massacres, and the third was built after the massacres. Their present parsonage is a most comfort- able house. The story of its building stirs one's soul. It was done in the summer time when everybody was busy in the fields. The women brought all the broken bricks and mud for mortar and straw in loads on their backs
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at night, and the men worked in the daytime building. Here again I spent a day and a half in calling at eight Turkish homes. There are about thirty Turks from this village in America. I met with a welcome wherever I went. Little boys and girls in the streets begged me to come to their homes, and two families invited me to come and be their guest.
Our journey from Garmuri to Bizmishen was a notable one. We hired two animals to carry our loads, with men to take care of the animals and guide us ; but, unfortunately, the men attempted to take us by what they called a shorter way over the mountains. They declared there would be no mud, no danger, no hardship, and it would be shorter. But alas, there was the worst mud, steep hills ; the men did not know the way ; four times one of our baggage animals threw his load ; twice he ran away ; once Miss
CHURCH IN HULAKEGH
Poole's saddle came off, and we were eight hours going the distance of five. We reached Bizmishen pretty well tired and disgusted with our muleteers. The big room into which we were ushered, with its great fireplace and the native manure fuel burning brightly, was a cheery place to us. Many Biz- mishen people are in America, and they, too, are working earnestly for the establishment of good schools in the village. One school for boys and girls is taught by a girl from our college, who does beautiful work.
In this village, and the next that we visited, that of Hulakegh, there are no Turks. In Hulakegh we have an earnest pastor and his wife devoted to
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the Lord's work ; also two good teachers for the schools and a Bible reader. Though the chapel in this place was not destroyed, it has grown far too small for the great congregation that assembles there, and it is necessary to pull it down and build another with schoolrooms underneath, for the school accommodations are very unsuitable. The temptation to use wine has been very strong in this village, and has affected the church members. There has been a new rule made that no church member shall drink wine, and much of my time was spent talking with .nen who oppose this rule. The whole church is in a ferment about this matter and about the new building. The daily meetings are well attended, and there is much to encourage as well as much to cause anxiety.
We came home feeling that the needs of these three places as to houses of worship was the paramount thought in our minds. How can we expect the work to advance when such great crowds of people wish to come to God's house and worship, and yet there is no proper accommodation for them? It seems as if some hearts ought to be touched and made willing to give bountifully for such a cause.
Miss Poole and I have visited twenty-seven towns and villages since March of last year. Pray for us, that we may have strength for this great work, and the Holy Spirit's power to move souls.
EDUCATION IN MISSIONARY FIELDS
An article in the Missions Zeitschrift concerning the scope and influ- ence of "missionary school activity " is most encouraging. The writer gives facts and statistics concerning mission schools in the different coun- tries, showing that the work is widespread and full of promise. If anyone questions the wisdom of spending so much strength in teaching, this article would settle his doubts finally. What but education under gospel influence could bring about the change, seen not once or twice, but in hundreds of thousands of cases, where one meets 6< a fine gentle man, attractive in man- ners, blameless in behavior, upright in character, and yet the grandson of a cannibal."
We find at present in all evangelical missions nearly thirty thousand schools, with more than a million and a quarter pupils of both sexes. Will not all these young people make a mighty difference in the quality of the next generation ?
The writer goes on to say that besides the schools we find a long list of voluntary associations which serve an essential part in the educational work
Education in Missionary Fields
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of missions. That which in America we call university extension, has in mission fields proved itself a most useful help to those who despise or for any reason must forego systematic instruction, as well as a stimulus and and further instruction to those who have already made some progress. The chief advantage of this kind of activity lies in the almost inexhaustible variety of its forms, and in its freedom from general rules, so that it adapts itself to the most diverse ends and needs, with just the right means for each nation- ality, rank and degree of culture.
For the educated, especially in India and Japan, missionary preachers and teachers, as well as distinguished invited speakers from abroad, give lectures on scientific, ethical and religious questions. These lectures often draw great crowds of hearers, and are still further circulated through reports in the more important journals or by complete publication. For several years China has had a " mission among the upper classes," a part of whose work is to establish and to cherish friendliness with state officials, learned men and other distinguished persons, to give explanations of the " Western knowledge," to scatter prejudices, and to win ground for reform among those whose influence is strongest.
The middle and lower classes are not neglected. Not only in the cities but in the villages groups of eager learners gather in the quiet evenings to learn about Europe and America, and to gain a better knowledge of the main factors of the " Western wisdom." In other ways all possible is done to satisfy the new hunger for knowledge and entertainment ; popular libraries send out good reading matter; little museums offer a modest but instructive group of specimens with simple explanations, in proper lan- guage, attached. In many unions and societies a pure good fellowship and harmless merriment finds place ; a thing not to be despised in a surrounding where formerly wild rioting and shameless actions ruled in all assemblies. In them, too, is no lack of fruitful interest in lectures and stories of the church and the world, of human and animal life, of historical and travel sketches, in which the stereopticon plays a good part. Free discussions, also, under guidance of the missionary or pastor, give a chance for im- promptu question and answer, while now and then musical selections add to the occasion.
Most widely spread of all are the Bible classes, unions of men or women or of whole families, who come together regularly not only to read the Scriptures, but to study them thoroughly ; and many a poor little hut is a center of a rich and thoughtful life from which goes out an influence deep and strong.
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Life ana Light
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A GLIMP5L OF THE FAMINE IN CHINA
BY MRS. EVELYN WORTHLEY SITES
Mrs. Sites went to Diong-loh as missionary of the W. B. M., and we learned to know and love her through her telling letters. We do not forget her now that she has gone to another field under the Methodist Board, and that she sends us this account of a recent experience proves that she does not forget us : —
Yangtze River, China.
Dear Friends : I have just been for three weeks in the famine region. In ten days I have looked into the faces of ten thousand women, many of whom were suffering for food, not one of whom had ever been given a single morsel of the Bread of Life. No one else can tell you of these ten thousands, for I am the only white woman they have ever seen, and the only Christian woman, so I feel I must.
I have been in nine hundred homes, helping my husband examine them, that he might know who most needed relief. How I wish you might have gone with me. I do not think I ever can complain again that the color of the paint doesn't suit me, or that the skirt of a gown hangs badly. The houses were all of one order — gray mud, without floor, windows or chim- ney ; gray mud thatched with straw, with a little black hole for an inside room, where the people sleep. In some villages two feet up from the ground on the mud walls was the water line, showing where the flood had eaten away the surface, and had stood waist deep all over the plain. Many a poor little dwelling had melted to ruin, leaving only the thatched roof and crumbling remnants of wall.
Many and many a home picture comes back to me as we go steaming down the beautiful Yangtze toward my own new home. Perhaps you would not think of calling them " home scenes " if you saw them on canvas. In one I see three broken walls, roofless beneath the burning sun, and inside, on heaps of straw, five bundles of rags — the old granny, the young women, and two tiny babes, all burning up with famine or typhus fever. There is nothing for us to do but give them tickets for flour, and hope relief will come before it is too late. When the walls washed away in the flood they sold every wooden thing they had for fuel — the chairs, the table, the bedstead, and finally the straw roof ; then they had to wander in search of food, and the father died. They had just come home without him, and, sick with the long privation, had laid down to die too. Not far away is another home. A little mother stands in front, having one withered arm, and on the other a tiny babe ; and the home is only a cart, under which two naked children nestle in the straw ; a cart not their own, but just a little borrowed
A Glimpse of the Famine in China
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shelter to keep away the damp night and the heat of the blazing sun. The husband went away to seek work when their house washed down, and he has never returned. There will be long months of waiting, perhaps, before the little widow knows that she has lost him forever. For many an honest man has fallen by the wayside, like the poor fellow I saw lying dead in the road yesterday, in a faithful attempt to find food and shelter for his wife and little ones.
Another home picture I saw that day will always go with me, perhaps because of the quiet respectability of the intelligent looking young man who stood in the door ; his gaunt face showing a settled, mute despair ; his feet all red and swollen, the telltale mark of starvation. There were just three bits of furniture in the all but empty room, from which everything possible had been sold to secure a little food — an earthen vessel for cooking, a half bushel basket, and a bunch of straw in one corner. And in the corner on the straw was the little mother, all burning up with fever; and in the basket, surrounded by rags, was a tiny famine baby.
Oh, the famine babies ! As long as I live their great black eyes will stare at me out of their little wizened, old faces, that look as if they might belong to miniature men and women of ninety. I shall see the tiny, claw-like hands and limp little skeleton limbs, and shall thank God that men ever learned the art of condensing milk, so that the thousands of bright tins that have found their way to the famine region have brought new strength to thousands of wee babies who never in all their little lives had been really fed. I think I shall never see a lusty, rosy youngster in the coming months without hearing that pitiful, weak wail of these famished little ones crying somewhere in my heart.
These are the homes of the poorest, who have any homes at all. I am not telling of that vast army of the shelterless who thronged our pathway everywhere. Many of these were professional beggars ; but just as many were honest country people, whom utterest poverty had driven, to the streets. We found them tucked away under the abutments of bridges, or in the corners between houses, sick, often with the last sickness they would know. I shall not soon forget one little mother who, with her two unclad bairnies, was living under a tiny piece of matting, which made an inclosure perhaps two feet wide. The little fellows were prattling merrily enough, little knowing that the father who had gone away to get food for his children might never come back, or that the wan mother was fairly starving herself to provide bread for them. I thought of her that night in my own comfort- able bed, and wondered how she would keep those little ones warm in the chilly night dews.
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I have seen ten thousand women in ten days who have never heard of Christ. Their faces come back to me to-day, now in great companies, in the temple court, listening for the first time to that name which is above every name ; or in hungry, huddled throngs on the river bank, crying eagerly for bread, now singly, each in her own home door, lifting a silent, questioning face to mine as I enter. I see a young face all drawn with pain, as the weak young woman totters up to the bar and receives her two dollars, then falls prostrate, ill and weary, beside the temple wall. How dull it was of me to wonder what that clutching at her side meant, until she was revived by a cup or two of milk, and it dawned upon me that she was simply weak with hunger. Again I see the poor, flushed face turned toward me with a whispered " Thank you," though her eyes are almost too inflamed and diseased to open. I wonder if she had a home? She was so weak, so utterly ragged and forlorn when she crept away out of the temple gate ! God pity her ! In that heathen, heathen land man will not.
Another face recurs to me, though not turned to me for help, but to the fat, grinning idol in the temple next to our dining room. The little mother had come with her precious son, whose neck was all distorted by a hideous sore, to beseech the idol to cure him. She had sent off fire-crackers, and the priest had pounded the gong to wake up His Excellency, the idol ; and now she was burning offerings of paper money and incense, and kneeling in fervent prayer. Idolatry cannot seem folly to us after witnessing a scene like that. To her it was all cruelly real. And to those ten thousand women whom I have seen so lately, this is the most intelligent medical treatment they know. Medicines they have, no doubt. I saw a greasy frying pan containing a mixture of orange peel, reed grass, roots and other indescribable things in a sick woman's home that same morning, which, with all confidence, they assured me was the cure for her fever. I tried to see the woman, but could not ; the little room where she lay was perfectly dark, without an opening of any sort in the walls for light or air. In that home, in any of the thousands upon thousands of homes around it, one moment's intelligent medical care has never been given.
Another face will follow me longer than I wish it would. The quiet appeal of it kept me awake all one night — that Sunday night after I passed her — a ragged, poor old woman, dying, neglected, at the street corner under the blazing sun. It was a kindly face, but pinched with hunger. Not the horror of it kept my sleep from me, but the unutterable pity of it, — that the poor little life had to go out unloved at the last, even as she had probably lived unloved for years, perhaps always. What higher right have you or I to the holy and beautiful things in life — to be surrounded all our days by
*9<>7~\
A Glimpse of the Famine in China
453
comforts and loving care — that we should let thousands on thousands of poor souls like hers pass their years in misery and blindness, and then grope helplessly out into the dark?
In house after house, and village after village, I found the same food cook- ing for their midday meal — a little barley chaff stewing in much hot water, and seasoned by green weeds. My heart rose in my throat as I stirred the miserable black gruel, at the thought that in all the world of God's abun- dance any of his creatures must live on food so poor. In another great town only the well-to-do could afford chaff; the vast majority were eating the roots of weeds. It was with a sickening heart that I took the barrow ride home that night — home through the gold of sunset and the rich, fresh green of the fields. It seemed as if I had been witnessing human life at the very lowest terms a dignified old civilization like the Chinese could tolerate.
The food famine will pass away, we hope, in a measure at least. Grim poverty will gnaw at the heels of these wretched people for many a month to come, perhaps always ; but the rice crop is slowly growing, and for a time, at least, conditions will be better. But the soul famine, the same utter poverty of heart and mind that has been here since the days of Abra- ham, is not one whit alleviated. In their mental and spiritual life these sisters of ours are living on the veriest chaff and roots. To say they have never heard of Jesus Christ means so infinitely more than we at home can guess. It means that they have never once been clean. It means that their homes are full of the grime and disease of decades; that they have never known the meaning of noble human love ; that they have never in all their days been taught a song or a tale that was sweet or strong or uplifting. It means that their whole lives, filled as they are with suffering, are passed without an hour of the tender care we know. I came upon one poor mother in the hour of her greatest pain. She was utterly alone in her little black hovel — so black that peering within I could see nothing. It is not that the Chinese lack human sensibility as a people ; I know many strong, loving natures among them who have won my deep affection. But human sensibility is a dull, blind thing unlit by the love of Jesus Christ. And the loveless life, as I read it in thousands of faces, is, of all things on earth, the most bitter and hopeless and desolate.
Hereby know we love because He laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren, w But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?"
If you love yourself overmuch, no one else will love you at all.
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Life and Light
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WORD FROM UMZUMBL
BY MISS LAURA C. SMITH
Umzumbe Home, Natal, South Africa, July i, 1907.
The many dear friends who have sent us books, pictures, magazines and other gifts, ought each to be thanked by a personal letter ; but so pressing are the duties of each day, and so numerous are the friends who have come to our rescue since the loss of our home by fire last September, that strength and time utterly fail me. In the hope that many may see this note of thanks, and accept it in lieu of an individual letter, I write these few words to express my gratitude.
Our postman, who makes on foot his daily journeys of twelve miles over the rough foot-path which connects us with the railway station, has learned to look forward with apprehension to Saturdays — the day of our foreign mail — as the day when he is " killed entirely." Of course we are properly sorry for our postman, but 1 fear our grief is quite swallowed in joy as we look at the plump bag with its bulging load of letters, books and papers, and we feel that we are duly rewarded for having been good all the week.
Our bookcases, which remained to us little more than empty shelves after the fire, are now fairly groaning under their weight of books , and we have already ordered more for other books which have been promised. We have arranged and catalogued for a separate library the books which are simple enough for the girls, and we are trying to train them to love to read for themselves. I am reminded of one girl's compositions on this subject, in which she filled in the outline of " pleasure and profit of reading" given her by her teacher, by saying that those who read many books appeared to her so wise that they made her think of the old M profits."
The magazine pictures which friends have sent in such generous quanti- ties have been made into a splendid set of geography charts, illustrating the various formations of land and water, the principal products and occupations of the various countries. We hope to have enough pictures so that each of our normal pupils can make a small set for herself, to take with her wher- ever she may go to teach. The Zulu people, without books and magazines, are so ignorant of life outside of their own tiny corner of the world that these picture charts are especially broadening and helpful to them.
Several very substantial boxes have come to us by freight, which have replenished our wardrobes and brought us a thousand comforts and pleas- ures. Most of the money which was sent to my mother for us, she ex- pended to make good our losses of personal and household things ; and while mementoes and treasures of a lifetime, so suddenly snatched from us,
Missionary Letters
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can never be recoved, we are now again generously provided with the ordi- nary comforts and necessities of life. A special word of thanks should also go to the many friends who sent letters of sympathy and cheer, oftentimes tucking in some little token of remembrance.
Best of all has been the appropriation by the W. B. M. of $4,000 for a new house. I am sure that it will add years of life to each of us, and that day by day the pupils will find our tempers more sweet and our brows more smooth. To continue to live in the scattered, camping-out style of our present makeshift would be to me intolerable.
The appropriation for our new building brought the mission to a vote upon the long-discussed question of the future location of the school, and after full consideration we decided to continue upon the present site. The fact that here the work was established, and here it has grown and pros- pered, indicated the need in this particular locality ; and the present site and plant, despite its disadvantages of remoteness and isolation, seemed too desirable to abandon. Personally I greatly rejoice at the decision, for Umzumbe is very dear to me.
So we have now plunged into the- work with renewed interest and en- thusiasm. Improvements that we have long desired to make, but which would have been extravagance in view of the possibility of our speedy removal, we are now putting in as rapidly as strength and means will allow. The site of the old house has been cleared, the old bricks cleaned and stacked, and new ones are all ready to be burned, so that we expect to begin on our new building next week. We are much delighted with the plans for the house, and invite you all to come and visit us when it is completed.
Again our thanks to all our friends, known and unknown, near and far, to those who have contributed pence or pounds, to all who have helped us by loving thoughts and prayers ; to all, to all, our thanks.
MISSIONARY LETTERS
CHINA
Miss Ella J. Newton, at the head of the college for girls in Foochow, tells a story that makes emphatic the present opportunity in China : —
The present " craze " for education is pathetic, and it is a serious question how to help it, and how to hold our own against it. The demand for teachers is so great and the salaries offered so fabulous that our Christian teachers and advanced pupils are being severely tested, and probably we shall lose some of them after offering them the highest salaries we can possibly give.
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Life and Light
[ October
If only the door to Christianity were wide open we should not be so per- plexed, but the present policy of a closed mouth seems to threaten the spiri- tual life of our Christian young people. The girls of the college and boarding school have done good work the past term, and a newly opened girls' day school close by, designed as a feeder to the boarding school, has been the delight of my heart. The girls have enjoyed it so much and made such good progress that I wish I could open half a dozen of the same character.
I must tell you of a very novel thing that happened near the end of the term, on the anniversary of the putting out of the anti-opium edict. The assistant teachers and pupils of our two schools felt that they must have a part in the great celebration, and asked permission to prepare a program, issue invitations, and meet the expenses. Radical as it seemed, I really dared not refuse their request, but made the condition that they should tell me everything they were going to do. That afternoon, attended by a guard of police, the long procession, college, boarding school and day school girls, marched out of the compound gate through the main street to the Dudley Memorial Church. Two girls carried large Chinese flags, two the anti-opium banners, two the school banners, and the rest small flags. The police care- fully guarded the doors to prevent any men from coming in, and the body of the house was well filled with women and girls, invitations having been sent to mission schools and those carried on by Chinese. The program con- sisted of vocal and instrumental music and a large number of short, pointed addresses, volunteers being called for near the close of the program, and the addresses were excellent. Once during the exercises the schools rose and marched round and round through the aisles, waving their flags and singing a song of joy at the overthrow of opium. At the close, the guests were invited to the gallery and served with tea and Chinese cakes.
You can hardly think what such things mean to us after the seclusion and stagnation of years ; and oh ! how much we need wisdom to guide this new- born enthusiasm and not quench it. And then, just at the close of their happy afternoon, what do you think I did but slip on the stone path in our own yard, falling heavily and dislocating my left shoulder and breaking sev- eral bones. It did seem too bad, in the midst of examinations in both schools, the day when our most important business meetings with the depu- tation began, and when everything needed to be done all at once, that I should take such a vacation. It was a pretty serious case, but nearly all the mission were here, so we had plenty of doctors, and everything possible has been done. That was a month ago, and I have been gaining as fast as I could, but it will be a long time before I shall have full use of the arm, if it ever comes. But my right hand was uninjured, for which 1 am very thankful.
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CENTRAL TURKEY
We find in this letter of Mrs. John E. Merrill, of Aintab, a strong though unwritten appeal for more workers in a field so important : —
The Woman's Conference in Marash was largely attended and was most interesting. Reports were read from nearly all points in the whole mission field. It was inspiring to see that company of Bible women, pastors' wives and teachers. The presiding officer this year was a native woman. Papers were read and discussed on such subjects as, 44 The Training of the Will " and 44 The School in the Home." One session began with a prayer meeting, the other with a Bible reading. There was not time to do all we wanted to, but the women were free to attend all the meetings of the general conference, and so received much help and encouragement.
We are very anxious to have a teachers' training class for our village teachers. Both these ladies, Miss Blake and Miss Norton, are qualified to do this work, but they cannot under the present circumstances and the pressure of routine work. Equally important is the supervision of village work, which the Seminarv ladies have not been able to attend to. This past year I have given one lesson at the school, presided at the meetings of the Board of Managers, decided upon many matters that were referred to me, and had general oversight of the work, besides having regular turn in morning prayers and meetings and teaching the boarders' Bible Class on Sundays. I have also had all the correspondence for the out-station work, with the accounts of the Bible women and village teachers, and appointment and oversight of the same. I toured with my husband the southwestern part of the field. With the exception of Miss Blake's brief visit to Biredjik, this is the only touring of woman's work that has been done. I love this work dearly, and do not tell you all this because I am anxious to sever my connection with woman's work, but simply because I want the ladies in Boston to realize that there is great need of a third worker. I really do not know what would have been the result if I had not been able to do this work. In my opinion this outside work is the important work of the W. B. M., the Seminary being the center for it and preparing workers for it.
EASTERN TURKEY
Miss Mary A. C. Ely writes under date of June 4th and 18th. [The letters telling details of the disaster at Bitlis were late in coming; but we know that even after six months these details will be welcome] : —
The sun is not up yet, but its light is streaming over the near Koordish mountains and I can see to write, so will hasten to pen a few notes ere the bustle and many cares of the day come crowding upon me. . , ,
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Tenting on six feet of snow with lack of many things deemed necessaries, added to the mental strain undergone, did come very near paralyzing all our pens. And though regular school routine was necessarily suspended, the irregular duties in caring for our dear girls as they were gathered in the home chapel, took much of our time and diminished energies.
The first great shock which sent such a thrill of horror into many hearts came March 29th, and thirteen other shocks came the same day. It was awful. Snow was about six feet deep on a level. We pitched two tents in our garden and invited our German friends to come and occupy one. Mr. Cole and family put up a tent in a field near the boys' school. Exposure from cold and dampness was great ; for several days a heavy snow fell. Of course there was no arrangement for a stove ; we only had small braziers of coals, over which we warmed our hands while we were sometimes shiver- ing. We hardly dared to go into the house for bedding or wraps. This was Friday. Saturday was far more quiet, and on Sunday, as I was very cold, I built a little fire in the kitchen stove, and was enjoying its grateful warmth when a severe shock came. The sound of falling dirt and plaster was terrifying. I ran toward the outside door, but my sleeve caught in the handle of a small mill which is attached to a pillar in the kitchen. The suspense caused by my being forcibly hindered was agony. I was obliged to step backward before I could go forward to the door, and I shall not soon forget the agony of those few seconds. Although no wall of our house fell, one side bulged so that a mason declared it dangerous, and we had it repaired at once ; also a numbe/ of pillars placed as supports in positions deemed desirable by carpenters and masons.
We wonder as we recall the severity of the shock that far more serious damage did not result. We were not turned into the streets homeless and uncertain of a shelter, but had tents soon put up in our own garden, and ere long a good supply of warm bedding, so necessary for our comfort. . . .
It was, indeed, a trying time, but when I remember accounts I read of the terrible catastrophe at San Francisco, the disaster of March here seems small in comparison. Relief fluids have been sent, and faithful agents dis- tributed aid to the needy and distressed of all classes. My sister stamped many thousand tickets — I think 12,000 in a single day — for the poor to present to the bakers and receive a stipend of bread.
I am sorry to cause you the pain it will give you to hear that my precious sister had a bad fall about the middle of May. She was going down outside steps at the girls' school, having been to call on Mrs. Cole, when a bit of railing gave way and she fell on the pavement, spraining her left side severely, and the doctor now caring for her savs she broke the top of her
Missionary Letters
left shoulder. . . . We are now the only missionaries here. The Coles left May 22d, and the German missionaries a little later.
With hearty greetings to all who may read these lines, and earnest request for prayer. (Pray all that a new missionary may soon be found.)
INDIA
Mrs. Sibley, who has been a devoted worker for women and children for more than twenty years, writes, July 10, 1907 : —
Lately I have gone with the Bible women to many of the homes of the Hindu women. It is work I love more than any other branch of the work, though all the work is a joy and a privilege. It is good to go into the homes, Brahman, Marathi, Mohammedan and low-caste Hindu alike, and find many dear women whom we have known for fifteen or twenty years and see how happily they sit down for a quiet hour of listening to the " Old, old story." As I have watched them while the Bible women are speaking, I have recalled the women as they were when we began work among them. Then it was so hard for them to understand the simplest facts of spiritual life. They were thoughtless and indifferent, and much more interested in how many times we combed our hair, or in our sun hats and umbrellas and style of dress. Now they understand so readily and listen so thoughtfully, and as they listen their faces show that their minds and hearts are being fed. They are not avowed Christians, but they love to hear about the Lord Jesus, and their lives are changed and better. They express faith in him as the only Saviour, often murmuring as the message is being told, " Jesus only is the Saviour for all." Many of the women whom we have known during these years have passed away, and their daughters and daughters-in-law are in their places, — good listeners, too, for have they not been hearing this since they were little girls beside their mothers? The fields are whitening, the reaping time is coming ; and must we leave these dear women in the homes, the children in the schools, the farmers in the villages, and the bright young men in the towns? Surely it cannot be God's will. Patient, loving, con- tinuous work here means the coming of Christ's kingdom to these people for whom he gave himself. . . . The very difficulties we have to meet prove how much the taking of such places for Christ means to India's coming home to the Father.
Miss Mary T. Noyes, who shares with her sister the care of the girls' high and boarding school in Madura, writes : —
I don't know whether you have heard of Pastor Simon, the former pastor of this church, who was obliged to give up his work on account of being afflicted with leprosy, contracted, it is supposed, in his ministrations. He
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was living in a village nea*' Madura, and on his own account carrying on a little school, and doing much for the young men in keeping them from gam- bling and other bad habits. He has recently died, and testimonials to his usefulness in many ways and his great desire to win souls came from all sides. His family was of pariah caste, but he and his brothers have been manly, fine fellows. I enjoyed his preaching as well as that of any Tamil man I know, for he always said something new. Our present pastor is his nephew, and one of our teachers is a daughter of a younger brother — one of Dr. Tracy's best pastors. We thank God for such a family.
I feel impelled to tell you a little of the sad part of our work. Within the past few months we have heard of three girls who have been here who have gone wrong. One was here for years, and for several years has been doing good work as a teacher in a Hindu girls' school. Her father was bad, and two of her sisters, and the influence of her community was too strong for her. We did not know of the trouble until it was too late to save her. Another is an orphan sent from another mission, and during the absence of the missionary, who thought every precaution had been taken, a bad fellow got hold of the girl. The third case is the most surprising of all. After vacation a girl — a little girl not more than thirteen — was left at the gate by her brother, and instead of coming here went off with a Mohammedan. We did not know till long afterwards that the °:irl had left home to come here.
We do try to be so careful of the girls, and not allow them half the liberty American girls have, and yet it seems we are not careful enough. And yet, t I am thankful to say, that none of these were girls whom we had felt were thoroughly reliable. But we were hoping they would develop strength.
HELP5 FOR LEADERS
UNDER THE DRAGON'S BANNERS A Series of Programs on China BY ALICE SEYMOUR BROWNE
As many of our young people are to be studying China this year, these programs, prepared, at the request of one society of young women, by Miss Browne before she left for China, may be suggestive to other societies who cannot undertake a regular study.
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I. Roll Call — Chinese Manufactures and Exports i. The dragon's lair. (A map talk, showing Great Wall, Grand Canal, rivers, ports, provinces, etc.) 2. The dragon's long sleep. (Four thousand years of history, Confucian education, civilization, etc.) 3. The dragon's rude awakening. (Opium war, treaty ports, concessions, Tai Ping re- bellion, Boxer troubles, Western commerce and manufactures.)
II. Roll Call — Chinese Custo?ns
1. The incongruous congruity of the Chinese religions. (Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism.) 2. Popular superstitions. (Kitchen god, fengshui, gate gods, etc.) 3. Home and child life.
III. Roll Call — Confucius" Sayings, Popular Proverbs
1. Forces the dragon must reckon with. (Hospitals, schools, churches, mission press, commerce, railroads.) 2. How our regiment fights the dragon. (American Board work, map.) 3. The challenge of college men to the dragon. (Cambridge, England, Band, Obelin Band, Yale Mission, etc.)
IV. Roll Call — Bits of Home Alissionary News
1. The educational mission in Hartford; the dragon's strategy. 2. Fol- lowers of Confucius in the Puritan city. (Chinese mission in Boston.) 3. Celestials at the Golden Gate. (Mission work for Chinese in San Francisco.)
V. Debate — Resolved, That the Geary Chinese Exclusio?i Bill
is I n just
VI. Roll Call — Names of Missionaries in China
1. The secrets of the forbidden city — Peking. 2. The delights of a country trip. (Mode of travel, village life, etc., in North China.) 3. A day in Tung-chou.
VII. Roll Call — Hopeful Things in China
1. What missions have done for China. (Diplomacy, civilization, edu- cation, medicine, etc.) The dragon's yielding ; the educational awakening. 3. China's future and our part in it.
462
Life and Light
[ October
OUR DAILY PRAYLR IN OCTOBER
Last year the Western Turkey Mission celebrated its seventy-fifth birth- day. No human arithmetic can compute the work of these years — the homes brightened, the sick' healed, the lives uplifted, the souls led into the way of life. The reports of present conditions emphasize the problem of self-support, increasingly difficult because of heavier taxation and growing poverty; the strength of the growing educational work, with its crowded colleges and schools ; the success and far-reaching influence of the medical work, and the progress in the native churches.
The work goes on in six central stations and 92 out-stations, with 85 American missionaries and 400 native workers. The 44 churches, 13 of them self-supporting, enroll almost 5,000 members. Twenty schools, grading up to a theological seminary, give instruction to more than 8,000 pupils ; and four hospitals and four dispensaries carry on the work of healing.
Miss Patrick is president of the A. C. G. C, and is now in this country to raise funds for the institution. Misses Dodd, Prime, Griffiths and Jenkins are teachers in the college. Miss Paton has resigned, and her place is filled for the coming year by Miss Mabel Robinson.
Mrs. Herrick, for forty-six years a missionary, and always in delicate health, has done much for the native women in giving them the example of a Christian home, and in many friendly visits and ministrations. Mrs. Barnum, living in Gedik Pasha, in the heart of old Stamboul, is a constant help and support to our workers there. She visit? much among the Prot- estants, and performs many ministries of charity. Her home is a Saints' Rest for many a weary missionary traveler. Mrs. Peet has done much in day and Sunday schools, and various forms of charitable work. Mrs. Greene, with an invalid son, makes a home school for him and for ten or twelve other children. The pupils come from homes of several races and religions; and besides the studying of ordinary branches wTith music and drawing, are carefully instructed in Bible history and doctrine with hymns and prayers.
Mrs. Maiden, Miss Jones and Miss Barker carry on the important work at Gedik Pasha, a kind of city missionary, college settlement work in the
Our Daily Prayer in October
463
heart of the great swarming city. Evangelistic, charitable and educational work are combined, and could the force be increased many more would be reached with blessing. The Sunday school has 230 pupils, among them a class of 20 fine young Armenian men.
The "Collegiate Institute" at Smyrna numbers about 240 pupils, 40 of whom are boarders. It is in sore need of another missionary teacher, and we must pray earnestly that the right one may soon go to their help.
Mrs. Baldwin has for forty years given much of her strength to training the girls in the girls' boarding school in Brousa, and the love and gratitude with which her former pupils return to her must make glad these later years. Miss Powers and Miss Allen now share the care of the school, which has 33 boarders, 30 day pupils, and 33 tots in the kindergarten. Miss Allen has also had charge of the church choir, of the primary Sunday school, and of the women's meeting.
Miss McCallum, who has charge of the girls' boarding school in Smyrna, is now at her home in Canada, for her well-earned furlough. Miss Pohl has charge of the kindergarten, primary and preparatory departments ; and Miss Jillson, loaned to Adabazar for a part of the past year, is teacher of music. The kindergarten not only trains the children, but wins for the teachers entrance to many homes.
Miss Halsey trains the children and their teachers in the kindergarten, and an article in Life and Light for October, 1905, shows her with her pupils. She will be in America the coming year.
Mrs. McNaughton shares the evangelistic work of her husband, making long tours with him, and " is like the busy wife of a busy pastor here only more so."
The work and the problems of the W. B. M. I. are similar to our own, though not always identical. As we ask for ourselves grace and wisdom and power, we will ask these gifts for them.
Miss Farnham is at the head of the school for girls in Adabazar, and Miss Kinney, just returned from her furlough, is her associate. We must add a special petition for Miss Madeline Gile, who has just gone out to establish a normal department in this school.
To the great disappointment of all concerned Miss Fowle's health failed after four months of teaching, and she is now with her parents in Cesarea. Miss Riggs is a teacher in the girls' department of Euphrates College.
The school at Adabazar, largely supported and guided by native Chris- tians, numbers over one hundred pupils, and has an immense influence in the community. Mrs. Wingate adds to home cares warm interest in the pupils of the boy's school, under her husband's care. Mrs. Dodd, with her husband, is now in this country for furlough.
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Life and Light
[ October
The girls' boarding school at Talas numbers nearly eighty girls, half of them being boarders. Miss Orvis is one of the teachers, and she also makes many visits in homes.
JUST NOW
BY MRS. C. H. DANIELS
" There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
When these words are read by fellow-workers of our Board there will remain hardly more than two weeks before treasurers of Branches will close their accounts for the year. This is but a narrow stretch of time for action. Yet the figures given in the editorial department call for action. What can we do just now? May we look over the situation?
Five years ago it was agreed, after examination and consideration, that the Woman's Board needed $120,000 for its regular work, and should make that sum its aim. Natural growth in mission stations could no more be restrained than could an expanding vine in fertile soil. The Branches have loyally worked for this end, and succeeded so well in 1906 that it was possible for the first time, by the help of some extra gifts toward the last, to come up to the goal. This was a cause of rejoicing at the annual meeting in Portland. One of the last thousands, gathered in that city, made up of several sacred gifts, u in memoriam," crowned the efforts of the year.
Having touched the goal with the toe of the foot, have we not all hoped, even expected, to come clean up to it this year? Figures are unyielding. They tell us a straight story, and will not change it for our wishing. Sometimes they stimulate us to further action, and then we are able to marshal them to a better showing. The figures for the ten months of 1907, now passed, tell us that the total receipts for regular work are less than those of the same time last year by $388.16.- That, you say, is not alarm- ing ; a small sum easily made up.
Think again. Those extra sums which were raised " toward the last," in 1906, — they must be balanced by gifts in some form tin's year. We need those sums as well as the $388.16, and should call the total gain, needed just now in contributions, not less than $5,400. Legacies have been smaller for the same time by $16,300.21. This is a difference large enough to tax our cheerfulness.
The outline of need and of loss is before us; better severely simple than in detail enougli to complicate thought. The knowledge of this situation
1907}
Suggestions for Auxiliary Meetings
465
belongs to the whole constituency of the Board. In making it known the officers feel sure of eager interest and warm sympathy from all who hear. To recur to the question, What can we do just now ? May we suggest : —
1. Will you think over this condition of the treasury, putting it beside some glowing facts of which you know from the field, of which you may read in this very number of Life and Light? With your heart's devotion fanned into a flame, will you pray that the great Captain who leads our forces will lead us to victory ! Speak to him about the money. He alone knows where it is, and can move hearts to give it. Let us be a large praying band for this definite need.
2. Will you look about and see if anything is still lacking which might have been done in your church? Perhaps the young ladies' society, the children, the primary Sunday school, have not given as much as last year, and could still make up the amount. Has your auxiliary kept up to its mark? There may be new, small gifts you could secure here and there ; or you might, even in so short a time, succeed in organizing that new society you have worked for, and gather in its first offerings. In some places a suitable entertainment for missions might be quickly arranged, and a little sum be realized just now.
3. While the many might look out for gleanings, as suggested above, there may be a few among our readers who know women of wealth from whom large gifts could be asked for our work. Such requests have often been received with generous attention in the past. Possibly after thought and prayer you will be guided to such a source.
4. May there be need anywhere of a very personal application of the question, putting it thus, What can I give just now?
O Lord, take away every last vestige of pride from our hearts; pride to# come up to some mark we have set — the pride of succeeding; and fill them with pure, intense longing to bring a trophy to Jesus Christ, the great head of the church, the great head over all work for his kingdom.
SUGGESTIONS FOR AUXILIARY MEETINGS
All leaders should have the classified list of our leaflets which illustrate successive chapters of Gloria Christi. From those dealing with educational work you can easily make out a program telling in detail the history and present condition of the schools in which your Branch and auxiliary are specially interested. It'will be well also to sum up the W. B. M. schools as they appear on pages 171-175 of the annual report. Dr. Creegan's letter in our September number gives a view of some schools, which he assures us are only samples of all. The article on page 448 of this magazine shows how widespread is the opportunity to-day.
466
Life and Light
[ October
SIDELIGHTS FROM PERIODICALS
India. — The North American Review, August 2d, has a careful histori- cal study of the causes of unrest in India. Written by a former English official, it speaks understanding^ of the work of the missionaries, and the respect this has won from all classes.
Japan. — World's Work for September gives two illustrated papers on the financial burdens resulting to Japan from the recent war with Russia, and the spirit in which these are borne. The North American, August 16th, contains an article on " The Yellow Press of Japan." Rev. G. S. Eddy, of India, after attendance at the Students' Conference in Tokyo, pre- pared for The Missionary Review of the World, September, an article entitled "Japan and its Lessons."
Africa. — In the Missionary Review for September there is a character sketch of Rev. Francois Coillard, of the Zambezi. This article contains a brief reference to the labors of Mme. Coillard also.
Islands. — The improvement of conditions in Porto Rico since its occu- pation by the United States is presented by Edgar Allen Forbes, in World's Work for September. " Missionary Work in Samoa " is the subject of two articles to be found in the September number of the Missionary Review of the World. e. b. s.
Social Conditions During the last few months we have read much of the in India. social and political unrest which has stirred the great
empire from end to end, and we have feared that our missionary work would suffer in the excitement. But our missionaries have recently sent a most hopeful message. They feel that the movement is not merely one of discontent and reaction ; 14 it is rather the awakening of a great people from the slumber of ages." They say that though many educated Hindus have conceived an opposition to organized Christianity, yet they exalt the Christ as the Exemplar of mankind. His life and teaching find constant study, deepest regard and veneration, and he is more and more recognized as the perfect ideal for all men, regardless of their outward faith. Is not here and now an opportunity for gifts and prayer and service, such as has rarely been given us?
" Real growth in character comes as so many of the best gifts of God come — by the way. In doing what we believe to be God's will for us many things lie in the straight line of that fidelity. Every unselfish act makes unselfishness more possible."
Receipts
467
ANNUAL MLLTING OF W. B. M.
The Fortieth Annual Meeting of the Woman's Board of Missions will be held in Worcester, Mass., Wednesday and Thursday, November 13 and 14, 1907. A delegates' meeting will be held on Tuesday, the 12th. The meetings will be held in Plymouth and Union Churches, near each other on Pearl and Chestnut Streets.
The ladies of Worcester will be happy to entertain delegates appointed by Branches, and women who have ever been under appointment as mis- sionaries by the Woman's Board or the American Board. All such desiring entertainment are requested to send their names to Mrs. Edwin H. Marble, 18 Tirrell Street, Worcester, before October 8th. Reduction in railroad rates on the certificate plan has been granted by the New England Passenger Association from stations on their lines.
WOMAN'S BOARD OF MISSIONS
Receipts from July 18 to August 18, 1907.
Miss Sarah Louise Day, Treasurer.
MAINE.
Farmington— Desert Palm Soc., 37 00
NEW HAMPSHIRE.
New Hampshire Branch.— Miss Elizabeth A. Brickett, Treas., 69 No. Spring St., Concord. Bethlehem, Aux., 10 ; Candia, Aux., 12.50, C. R., 6; Claremont, Aux. (50 of wh. to const. L. M's Mrs. H. P. Senter, Miss Fannie Stone), 52; Green- land, Aux . 30, C. R.,6; Henniker, C. E. Soc, 16; Keene, .Mrs. Gardner C. Hill, in memory of her mother, Mrs. L. L. Hutchins, 20, First Ch., C.R.,8; Lancas- ter, Mrs. Clara Howe, 30, Aux., 15, C. R., 9; Mount Vernon, Aux., 20; Milford, Aux., 33.45 ; North Hampton, Aux., 42.65 ; Orford, Aux., 15; Penacook, Aux., 26.76; Salmon Falls, Aux. (25 of wh. to const. L. M. Mrs. Eva E. Johnson), 28, 380 36
VERMONT.
Vermont Branch.— Mrs. C. H. Stevens, Treas., St. Johnshury. Friends, 241.55; Bellows Falls, iMt. Kilburn Miss. Soc, 42; Bennington, 20; Brookfield, First Ch., A Friend, 5; Burlington, First Ch., 30; Castleton. C. E. Soc, 1; Lyndon, 24; Newport, Girls' M. C, 9; North Trov, Aux., 1 50; Randolph Center, C. E. Soc., 2; Richmond, 5; Rutland, C. R., 3.35; St. Johnsbury, North Ch., 18.53, 402 93
LEGACY.
Vergennes.— Miss M. E. Haven thro' Treas. Vermont Branch, 300 00
MASSACHUSETTS.
Andover and Woburn Branch— ■Mrs. Mar- garet E. Richardson, Treas., 22 Berk- ley St., Reading. Billerica, Aux., 26; Lawrence, South Ch., Jr. C. E. Soc, 5; Melrose, Mrs. Caliope Vaitse, 25 cts. ; Winchester, Aux., 50, 81 25
Barnstable Co. Branch.— Miss Amelia Snow, Treas., East Orleans. Orleans, S. S. Miss'y Soc, 25 00
Berkshire Branch.— Mrs. Edward Tolman, Treas.. 45 Reed St., Pittsfield. Dalton, Mrs. Z. Marshall Crane, 100; Housa- tonic, Aux., 9.15, Jr. C. E. Soc, 10; Stockbridge, Aux., 6.80; Less expenses, 6.30, 119 65
Cambridge— Friends thro' Mrs. E. C. Moore, 143 00
Essex North Branch.— Mrs. Wallace L. Kimball, Treas., 121 Main St., Bradford. Haverhill, Miss Adelia Chaffin, 20 00
Essex South Branch.— Miss Sarah R. Saf- ford, Treas., Hamilton. Cloucester, Trinity Ch., C. E. Soc, 10 ; Salem, Crom- bie St. Ch., Aux., 40, Tabernacle Ch., Pro Christo Soc, 12, Young Women's Miss'y Soc, Len. Off. 13.55, 75 55
Franklin Co. Branch.— Miss Lucy A. Spar- hawk, Treas., 18 Congress St., Green- field. Greenfield, First Cong. Ch., Prim. CI., 2 00
Hampshire Co. Branch.— Miss Harriet J. Kneeland, Treas., 8 Paradise Road, Northampton. Greenwich, Aux., 11.10; Hatfield, Wide Awakes, 2.55; Southamp- ton, Aux. (to const. L. M. Mrs. William Gunn), 25, 38 65
468
Life and Light
[ October
Middlesex Branch.— Miss Mary E. Good- now, Treas., South Sudbury. Marlboro, Aux., 11; Wellesley, Aux., Mrs. Durant, 100, 111 00
Norfolk and Pilgrim Kra7ich.— Mrs. Mark .McCully, Treas , 95 Maple St., Milton. Ea9ton, Aux., 23; Stoughton, Aux., 5, 28 00
North Middlesex Branch— Miss Julia S. Conant, Treas., Littleton Common. Ashby, Aux., 11; Fitchburg, Rollstone Ch., Aux., 22.97; Shirley, Aux., 25, 58 97
Springfield. -South Cong. Ch., 56 68
Springfield Branch— Mrs. Mary H.Mitch- ell, Treas.. 1078 Worthington St., Spring- field. Holyoke, First Ch., Aux., 39.50, Jr. C. E. Soc. 5., Second Ch., Agnes R. Allyn Memorial Fund, 20; Springfield, South Ch., Aux., Miss Carrie Lyon King, 10, 74 50
Suffolk Branch.— Mrs. Frank G. Cook, Treas., 44 Garden St., Cambridge. Au- burndale, Aux., 11.90; Dedham, Miss Mary E. Danforth, 15, Aux. (Miss Bur- gess, 100), 113.72; Dorchester, Pilgrim Ch., Aux., 11 ; Foxboro, Bethany Ch., Aux., 34; Jamaica Plain, Central Ch., Aux., 50; Newton, Eliot Ch., Aux., 235 ; Newtonville, Central Ch., C. R., 30.42; Somerville, Franklin St. Ch., Jr. C. E. Soc, 5; Highland Ch., Women Workers, 20., Prospect Hill Ch., Prim. CI., 3.50; Somerville, West, Day St. Ch., Aux., 23, C. R., 16; South Boston, Phillips Ch., Aux., 5; Wellesley Hills, Aux., 3, 576 54
Worcester Co. Branch.— Mrs. Theodore H. Nye, Treas., 15 Berkshire St., Worcester. Petersham, A. D. M., 100; Shrewsbury, C. E., Soc, 16; Worcester, Bethany Ch., Jr. C. E. Soc, 50 cts., 116 50
Total,
1,527 29
LEGACIES.
Boston.— Mrs. Helen G. Coburn, by Wm.
A. Donald, Extr.. add'l, 16 90
Williamstown.— Mrs. Cornelia A. Allis, by Rev. John W. Lane, Extr. (with ten shares West End St. Ry. Co. Pfd, to const. 48 L. M's), 211 36
Total.
228 26
RHODE ISLAND.
Rhode Island Branch.— Miss Grace P. Chapin, Treas., 150 Meeting St., Provi- dence. Chepatchet, Aux., 10; Peace- dale, Aux., 160, M. B., 5; Providence, Central Ch., Prim. CI. S. S., 10, Free Evan. Ch., Aux., 19.25, Pilgrim Ch., Aux., 50.83, C. R., 10.19. Laurie Guild, 30, Little Pilgrims, 30, Plymouth Ch., Jr. C. E. Soc, 1, Morning Stars, 56; Sayles- ville, Aux., 10; Thornton, S. S., 10.70; Westerly, King's Dau., 22; Woonsocket, C. E. Soc, 6, 430 97
CONNECTICUT.
Eastern Conn. Branch.— Miss Anna C. Learned, Treas., 255 Hempstead St., New London. New London, First Ch., r. E. Soc, 3.28, Mission Study CI., 1; Norwich, Park Ch., Aux., A Friend, 25, 29 28
Hartford.— A Friend, 20 00
Hartford Branch.— Mrs. M. Bradford Scott, Treas., 21 Arnoldale Rd., Hart- ford. Int. on Clara E. Hillyer Fund, 200; Berlin, Aux., 10., C. R., 11.20; Far- mington, Aux., 18.30; Hartford, Far- mington Ave., Ch., C. R., 63, First Ch., A Friend, 500; Newington, A Friend, 5; South Windsor, Prim. S. S..2.25; West Hartford, Aux., 55.10 864 85
Total,
914 13
Norwich.— Mrs. Bridget W. Allen, thro' Treas. Eastern Conn. Branch, 200 00
NEW YORK.
New York State Branch.— Mrs. F. M. Turner, Treas., 646 St. Mark's Ave., Brooklyn. New York, A Friend, 165 00
PHILADELPHIA BRANCH.
Philadelphia Branch.— Miss Emma Fla- vell, Treas., 312 Van Houten St., Pater- son, N. J. D. C, Washington, Ch. of the Pilgrims, Aux., 10, First Ch., Aux., 108, Mission Club (to const. L. M's Miss Charlotte Cynthia Barnum, Miss Kate M. Gibbs, Miss Gertrude See Woodin), 75, Mt. Pleasant Ch., Jr. C. E. Soc, 2.25; Md.t Baltimore, Asso. Ch., S. S., 15 ; N.J. , East Orange, First Ch., Aux., 25; Mead- ville (prev. contri. to const. L. M. Mrs. Angilene D. Downing); Newark, Belle- ville Ave., M. B., 30.10; Orange Valley, Aux., 50, C. R., 10., Jr. C. E. Soc, 4; Plainfield, Girls' I Mission Club, 25; Upper Montclair, Y. W. M. S., 75; West- field, Aux., 50, 479
FLORIDA.
7. H. M. TJ.— Mrs. Catharine A. Lewis, Treas., Mount Dora. Jacksonville, C. E. Soc, 13.60; Ormond, Aux., 8.50, 22 10
ILLINOIS.
Chicago.— Auburn Park Union Cong. Ch.,
Jr. C. E. Soc,
9 00
TURKEY.
Harpoot— Euphrates College, Y. W.C. A., 22, First Ch., Woman's Miss'y Soc, 5, 27 00
Donations,
Specials,
Legacies,
3,591 93 803 20 728 26
Total, 5,123 39
Total from Oct. 18, 1906 to August 18, 1907.
Donations, Buildings, Specials, Legacies,
82,012 92 4,131 63 3,885 11
10,152 76
Total, $100,182 42
$Irraii>rnt.
Miss LAURA M. RICHARDS, Saratoga, Cal.
JUrrasurfr.
Miss MARY McCLEES, Adams Street, Oakland, Cal.
3ff0mgtt grrrrtarg,
Mrs. E. R. WAGNER, San Jose, Cal.
Editor Jlartfir Department in Sifr and iCiubl.
Mrs. E. A. EVANS, Mill Valley, Cal.
ANOTHER NORTHFIELD
California has its Northfield ! Up in the Santa Cruz mountains, seven miles from the seashore, are four hundred acres of wild, beautiful country recently purchased and set apart for Christian gatherings after the plan of Northfield and Winona. During the opening days of August, one more vision was made real when a group of women representing several denom- inations gathered at this California Mt. Hermon to form a summer school of missions.
The auditorium is a great comfortable tent with a firm foundation, with sides to be reefed at pleasure, giving entrancing views of the mountains, and valleys and trees. One can look down upon the tops of the " biggest living things in the world." Was not that indeed a place for making visions world-wide in compass? 'Miss Laura Richards, president of the Woman's Board of the Pacific, set the keynote — " hidden with Christ in God " — in the opening devotional service, and this was followed out in Bible Studies each day. The daily Mission Study class on Gloria Christi, as well as the remainder of each morning, and the young Ladies' Round Table hour, were packed with helpful suggestions.
We had most inspiring Missionary addresses each evening. Mr. and Mrs. Cable, from Korea, made some of our pastors wish their lots were cast on the other side of the great Pacific ; and Mr. and Mrs. Price, from China, Ruk, Guam and Berkeley gave us a world-wide view.
We are to be The Mt. Hermon Federate School of Missions, Mrs. H. B. Pinney, president of the Occidental Board is Chairman of the Directors ; and Mrs. Geo. B. Smyth, president of the Pacific Branch of W. F. M. S. is our secretary.
You will all rejoice with us in this new union of forces that the kingdom of God may come more speedily here and in the dark places of the earth.
(469)
470
Life and Light
[ October
From Miss Louise E. Wilson, Kusaie, Caroline Islands: —
This is our vacation week, and we are ten miles away from home. Miss Olin and myself have our forty-one children with us here, on a little islet about two acres in size, and they are scattered around in all directions, and each one seems to be making more noise than the other, so it is not a very quiet time to write letters ; but my time has been so full that I could not get your letter written before coming around here. Now a shower of rain has come up, and they are all rushing into our shelter, so do not be sur- prised if this letter is something of a jumble. I am so glad that the girls can have this outing, for they have been very closely confined to school and other work for the past two years, without the least kind of a change. This little islet is American Board property, and in former years some of our missionaries lived here, but now we only make use of it for a few days every two months, when the mail steamer comes. Then four or five come around here to get the mail, and as they do not always come on schedule time, we have to be here a few days ahead of time or run the risk of missing the steamer. The cyclone of 1905 destroyed our native building here, and until now we have not had a place where we could bring the girls. The Kusaien king has put up a very nice shelter for them, large enough to accommodate all. It has a thatched roof, with native wood sides, made very much like a lattice door. These walls come up to within a couple of feet of the roof. This open space above the walls allows the air to circulate freely and does not make a draught. There is no floor, but clean, white stones spread evenly over where a floor might bje. Over these are spread thick mats made of cocoanut leaves, and on top of these are their sleeping mats. I should find it a rather hard bed, but they do not mind it, as they are used to sleeping on the hard floor with only a mat under them. Miss Olin and I sleep in hammocks. We plan to keep the girls here for a week. It is very much like camping out. They only have their cooking to do and spend the rest of the time in eating, sleeping, making wreaths, and enjoying themselves. We are now about a quarter of a mile away from the principal native village of the Knsaiens, and in a way they seem to feel that we are their guests. Not a day passes by but what some of them bring us baskets of cooked food, and if they had more we know they would furnish enough to keep our large family while here, as they have done in former days. It is so nice to have them all feel so friendly toward us. The Kusaiens are gentle, quiet people, very different from the other islanders of Micronesia. I am planning to go to the Gilbert Islands on this steamer, which is due here June 4, and if possible take two girls with me. One of them has been failing for two years past, and I want to get her back to her home, where I
Letter from Miss Laura Jones
471
hope she will gain her strength again. Medicine and outdoor life do not seem to help her. There is no need to send me anything in the way of house furnishing, because I have no place to put anything, and so can keep on using boxes and broken furniture until something is done, or I can go home. I am much better, but not at all well. We are sending our orders for 1907 to Mr. Tenney by this mail, and if anyone cares to send anything to help our school out it could be sent now. Secondhand shirt waists, short lengths of calico for baby dresses, writing paper, pencils, picture cards, — all are useful. With love to all friends of W. B. M. P.
LLTTLR FROM MISS LAURA JONES
(Concluded from September number} Our next stop was only twelve li farther on, which we made after some delay, but the warmth of our reception quite made up for the lost time. They had heard that the " foreign women " were coming, and the village was out in force. They had also heard that one was a doctor, so some who might otherwise have felt too lame or halt or blind to come from sheer curiosity, came to have their diseases treated. We reached the place about noon. " The multitude gathered " — what was not already waiting — and we talked " idle talk," with occasionally a little " doctrine," with the nearer edge of the crowd, till about three in the afternoon, and they would not even leave us while we ate lunch. Then I acted as gate keeper at the door of an inner court, while Mrs. Perkins held clinic until nearly dark. After we had our evening meal it was decided to hold services, the helper taking the men's and we the women's meeting. I was just getting started when the voice of the helper was heard outside the door, wishing to say a few words to me. I made my way out to find the poor man in despair over the crowd he had to deal with and couldn't. They had come to see and hear the foreigners, and they refused to come to order for a native. " Would we be too cold, or were we too tired to come to the meeting in the large yard outside?" 'Twas perfectly horrid, but fearing it might do harm to refuse, we consented, with no light but my lantern. They arranged chairs and a table against a high wall, and Mrs. Perkins and I took our places at one side, and that made the " women's side"; the helper stood on a chair at the other, and that made the 44 men's side." The dividing line extending from the table out was certainly imaginary ! They packed into that yard — men, women and children, some three or four hundred — and stared and gaped at us while the helper preached until his voice gave out. Then he asked them to go home, which some of them did, while others stayed to
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Life and Light
[ October
await further developments. We went into the inner court to " rest," and the " maddening throng" were not allowed to follow. It was now 'an opportunity for the women of the house where we stayed to satisfy their curiosity. They had behaved very well during the day, but that night they became most impertinent. The women here were not stupid, but rather ill-bred and insolent, so we urged the two girls of the family to come to the boarding school, and offered the rest a class, if they would furnish me a room in which to teach. The next morning the man of the house, wishing to send us off in style, had brought two covered carts, one for each of us. We objected, preferring one long cart, which we could pack with our bedding, and have a little comfort on the eighty U ride that had to be taken that day. They finally consented to our having the long cart, but with evident disgust for our barbaric taste. 'Twas to them as if in America one should choose a farm wagon in preference to a carriage.
This letter is long enough to take in seven months instead of seven days, but they were days full of experiences, varied and interesting to me, so I thought you might like to hear about them, too. Doesn't this glimpse of a portion of our great field full of women anxious to hear the gospel, make you realize how much we need another single lady for Pao-ting-fu ? How much we needed her while Mrs. Perkins was able to tour, and how much more now that she is not.
5TRANGL THINGS ABOUT IDOLS
In Southern India the people of one village gave their god a ride round town on a bicycle. But when a motor car came by them they fell down and worshiped it, thinking it must be a god.
In many of the temples in China the idols are presented with new shoes once a year. Especially is this true of the images in the women's temples, not because the idols wear out their shoes, however — they never budge.
It is said that a special electric car line has been built from one of the Japanese cities to the " shrine of the foxes." Here an old woman set up fox worship some years ago. The people go in the cars to this spot, where there are a great number of idols. What a strange combination — electric cars and fox worship !
In Tibet the people worship idols made of butter. They are Buddhists, and the cow is sacred. Butter made from her is worthy of deification. At their annual convocations they make^a great butter image of Buddha and prostrate themselves before it. While they worship, the image slowly melts. — Selected.
Jhrpaibrnt.
Mrs. LYMAN BAIRD, No. 9, The Walton, Chicago, 111.
Sprorbing g>frrrtanj.
Miss M. D. WINGATE, Room 523, 40 Dearborn Street, Chicago, 111.
GJrraaurrr.
Mrs. S. E. HURLBUT, 1454 Asbury Avenue, Evanston, 111.
Assistant jlrrasurrr. Miss FLORA STARR.
Editor of "Hiaaion &tubi*H."
Miss SARAH POLLOCK, Room 523, 40 Dearborn Street, Chicago, 111.
(Chairman of (Committee on "tiff anil Cinljt."
Mrs. G. S. F. SAVAGE, 628 Washington B'd, Chicago, 111.
THL BIBLL WOMAN, UYLMURA 5AN
BY MRS. GERTRUDE B. CURTIS
Karuizawa, Japan, July 20, 1907.
It was sixteen years ago, when I first came to Niigata, that I first met Uyemura San, or Gomi San, as she was then called. For the past twenty years, with the exception of a few brief intervals, she has been connected with the work and workers of the Niigata Station, first as Miss Kate Scud- der's helper, then in touring with Miss Cozad, Miss Brown or Miss Swartz, and during the past three years with me.
She is a native of the province of Ise, and was converted with her whole family when quite young through the visits of an evangelist. She was edu- cated in our Baikwa Jo Gakko at Osaka. After working with Miss Scudder she went to the Bible school in Kobe, where she graduated, and then returned to Niigata as Bible woman and missionary's helper. She was adopted some years ago by an old widow lady named Uyemura, in order to become the wife of a son in the family ; but the son refused to marry her, and left home. The mother, however, loved this adopted daughter, and remained her stanch friend as long as she lived.
This episode has saddened our Bible woman's life, and she has never married. Twice during the last four years she has adopted a child with the purpose of keeping up the family name ; but in neither case was the arrange- ment satisfactory, and the children were returned to their homes.
Uyemura San is a tiny little lady, quiet, and rather serious in her manner.
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She is very faithful in all her work, very conscientious, and very much in earnest. Her work in Niigata is in connection with the church and Sunday school and the women's society. Always prompt and regular in attendance at church and Sunday school, she is regarded as one of the pillars of the church. She has charge of the infant class, and is very fond of little chil- dren, and has a very taking way with them. On Sunday afternoons she conducts a small mission Sunday school at our Furumachi chapel.
She is one of the officers in our women's society, and in connection with this work does a good deal of calling on the women. She takes her turn in leading the meetings of the society, and occasionally gives the special talk to the women. But it is the touring in which she is most valuable and in which she is most interested. Once a month she visits three out-stations — Gosen, Nagaoka and Kashiwazaki, and conducts a woman's meeting at each place. Until six months ago we made this tour together, and I have found her a most acceptable worker among the women. Her age, and quiet, dignified demeanor place her above criticism, and permit her to tour alone, which it would not be wise for a younger woman to do.
At these out-stations the Bible woman calls upon the few Christian women in each place ; goes with the evangelist's wife, or alone, to see in- quirers; and leads the woman's meeting, which is attended by many non- Christian women and girls, for in all of these places we draw largely from the girls' high schools. At Nagaoka there have been conversions and sev- eral additions to the church, recently (especially of young women), as a result of the work done in these woman's meetings. This has encouraged us greatly in our touring work.
In Gosen a song service is held by our Bible women in the public school, where Christian songs are taught the children, a hundred or more of whom attend the service. Although the work is chiefly among women of the middle class, there are representatives of every class in our meetings — schoolgirls and young women who have recently graduated, teachers from the public schools, wives of prominent men, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, young and old, Christian and non-Christian.
As to the value of Bible women in connection with our work I cannot speak too highly. Their work is simply invaluable. Take, for instance, our woman's work as it is to-day in Niigata. There is no single lady mis- sionary now in this field. Mrs. Cobb and I are the only women here. Since Miss Brown withdrew, in 1903, I have carried on the work with my own Bible woman and Uyemura San. Since last fall Mrs. Cobb has also had a helper, a young woman graduate of a Yokohama Bible school. Mrs. Cobb has a baby a year old, and is not able to do outside work. In March
Sketches of Two African Boys
475
our baby came, and for a year at least I shall not be able to do much work outside of my home — no touring. So if it were not for our efficient Bible women the woman's work in Echigo would be at a standstill, but because of these women the work is going on uninterruptedly. My Bible woman, Mrs. Nakashima, is a woman of age and experience, with children of her own. She tours in the northern part of our field, and under my direction carries on three societies for girls, which meet weekly at our house. She also teaches in two Sunday schools, and carries out my plans for the woman's society here in Niigata, of which I am president.
Uyemura San tours in the three places above mentioned, and Mrs. Cobb's helper goes with her now, taking my place in teaching the singing and playing the organ at the meetings. Thus the work will continue to be carried on until I am again able to take my share in it.
5KLTCHL5 OF TWO AFRICAN BOYS
Mrs. Stover, of Africa, gives the following sketches of two young men — Tiago and Sameselis — who are going out to preach the Word of Christ among their own people. The native church to which they belonged raised $30 to send them off with.
When Tiago first started to come to the mission station lie would come perfectly nude, his whole body covered with different plasters, oil and grease. He was a most deplorable and disgusting sight. As the mission- aries did not allow anyone to come within the compound in a nude condi- tion, they would give him a small piece of cloth to wrap around the body. He came back several times in this nude condition, and the missionaries finally awoke to the fact that his father was using the cloth for himself or else for trade purposes. But they would have been glad to furnish these strips of cloth for years could they have foreseen what an earnest, active worker he was to become. His first work was to take care of Mr. Cotton's child ; from that he worked up into other parts of the mission work, until to-day- he is a home missionary, going out from that church with his wife and two little children, teaching his own people.
Sameselis, who gave the farewell address, was a bright lad. He came to the mission station about twelve years ago, and was Mrs. Webster's cook and general servant. When Mrs. Webster got up at six o'clock it was he who prepared the breakfast, and had it ready when she came home. When she was gone all during the day until five o'clock in the evening it was he who did all the work. Now he, with his wife and child, have gone out to the hills among his own people. It had always been his desire to go home
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to carry the gospel, which had done so much for him, to his own people. He was one of the teachers in the day school in the afternoon ; also went out to the villages to preach.
Sameselis said : " I have come to say good-by to you, my comrades and teachers in the Church of Christ. Some of you are my younger brothers, some my elders. A long time I have stayed among you. I was in dark- ness, and then I came here and went on learning from one time to another, and it was all good. God has been good to me ; now he has called me, as it was with the prophet — a voice came. 'Who will go?' and the answer, 4 Here am I ; send me.' So with me.
" I think of my own people in the flesh. They are in darkness, and I am with the Word of God, so I go to them. But I am different, for God is known to me. I thank you for your prayers and gifts. You are having a share in the work I go to do there. Do not think we will not work hard at building, field work and other things because you are giving gifts to help us. We will not be lazy. If we do not meet again here we will meet before God. We are of the same spirit in Christ and our teachers who are in America. If we do not behold their faces here we will meet them when we see God. Peace be with you."
AN INLAND JOURNLY FROM OORFA TO AINTAB
BY MISS MYRTLE M. FOOTE, TURKEY
IT is a bright, hot afternoon late in June, but a busy time at the mission house, for one of its members is preparing for a journey. The Turkish escort, well mounted, very shabbily clad and armed to the teeth with gun, cartridge belts and knife, and with a tremendous air of importance, has been* secured. The government permission has been obtained. The horse and his keeper, a Kurd, engaged to carry the box and bedding are ready. Quantities of strange edibles have been brought in by friends. A favorite for journeys is a kind of hard, dry biscuit or cracker ring slightly sweet ; also a generous supply of green cucumbers for quenching thirst. These are stored in the saddle bags with some other supplies. The supply is gen- erous, for the journey may last nearly four days ; and the first two days we pass no resting place where other provision than water is to be had, and these are very rare.
About five o'clock the party set out, led by the guard. The missionary, whom the guard respectfully addresses as Khanum Effendi (lady lord), follows him with an Armenian companion. The horse carrying box and
fQO/] An Inland Journey from Oorfa to Aintab 47?
bedding having started on a short time before, a large party of native friends goes out of the city k4 to set them on their way." About a half-hour's journey from the house farewells are said with some tears ; for although the journey is but a short one and the separation for but a few weeks, days of travel are full of possibilities. At last the crowd is left behind, and the pace quickens.
For a few hours the way passes over a fairly well graded carriage road, over which a carriage has probably never passed more than five or six times. The bare hills rise on either side almost to the proportion of moun- tains. The sun soon sinks behind them, and the air becomes pleasantly cool. With the quiet of night a calm and peace steals over the heart. Bedtime comes, but there is neither bed nor sleep for our travelers. The road has greatly changed. Now only an occasional stone bridge high in air without approach from either end indicates the presence of man.
The road now followed is only a path over the rock worn smooth and shining by numberless feet, and in some places in sight of the telegraph poles. But it is night, now, and men cannot see where the rocks are smooth and shiny, neither can the horses ; but a sudden and awful fear comes over the party that the poles are gone. The guard, who is guide as well, assures them that the poles will soon appear again. So thev move on, but no poles appear. Minutes pass; they seem hours. Steps are retraced. The party pass to this side, then to that, as the rough, rocky expanse will permit. Different plans are tried, but no poles appear. The truth must be confessed — they are lost! lost on a rough desert in the night! They may be hours from other human beings, again, possibly too near, for there is much talk of robbers.
After much consultation it is decided best to wait for daylight. The bag- gage is unloaded and the saddles loosened to relieve the horses. A suffi- ciently level spot is found on which to put up a cot bed, on which the "khanum" lies down to sleep; but sleep does not come till after a long thought of the Eye that never sleeps and a Power which is just as near in a Turkish desert as in the far-away home in America. Bandits might be near, but they know nothing of the arrival of this party, so the other mem- bers wrap themselves in their overcoats and lie down too, but with eye and ear alert for any surprise. The " Khanum Effendi " sleeps, but not for long. The gray dawn gives the signal of approaching day, and the first light must be greeted with animals loaded and mounted. No time for elaborate toilets, no water to tempt anyone to take time to wash her hands.
Led by a kind of Oriental instinct, working best by daylight, after an hour or so the telegraph poles are again sighted, and progress is made in the beaten
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path. The dry cakes taste good, and the cucumbers are a welcome substi- tute for water. Before noon the inn is reached, where the travelers were due before daylight. Former experience declares that the low, dark, close room will be infested with vermin, in which the flea variety predominates.
So it is decided to seek the shade of a kind of open porch, built of stone, as a refuge for the weary, and also to the memory of some departed Turk of wealth and philanthropy. Other pilgrims have reached there earlier, but an unoccupied corner is found. A jug of water stands near. Beware of malaria, and patronize the cucumbers still for drinking purposes. The pre- pared " chicken lunch " is brought out of the bags and a " square meal " is enjoyed. The two followers of Islam eat separately.
After a rest of about three hours preparations begin for resuming the jour- ney ; both guard and " baggage master " very docile — made so by the ex- periences of the previous night. So when the foreign " khanum " insists on traveling by daylight little resistance is offered. In the middle of the after- noon the party set out, weary and sore from the long ride, the sleep beneath the stars and the heat of the morning sun. The " baggage car" hangs be- hind, regardless of the whacks and shouts of the driver. It is not safe to get far separated from the baggage, lest it become the easy prey of bandits, so the travelers had often to stop and wait for it. Once, while waiting in the hot sun, the lady's pony quietly knelt down and rolled the rider off.
An hour or so before midnight the travelers reached the village on the banks of the Euphrates ; a village of trees and gardens, with better accommo- dations and more people. After a time of waiting the baggage arrives safely. Up to this time but one tree was passed on the whole journey, but the travelers have learned the blessing of 44 the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." An upper room is secured for the night. It is fairly light, unfurnished and very dirty. The cot is put up, and after a hurried supper the " khanum " retires. The Armenian companion spreads his bed outside the door, which has no lock, but is thus guarded.
The journey next morning begins with crossing the river Euphrates. For this purpose there are large, funny looking boats shaped like a Turkish shoe, with toe high in air and heel flat. These are backed up to the bank, and one rides on and sits there while the boat is propelled across by men working a long pole on one side. But the boat cannot go to the opposite shore, because of the shallowness of the stream on that side ; so it goes as far as it can, and there the passengers ride off and wade the rest of the way.
These curious boats cannot be induced to cross after sundown nor before sunrise, so in coming from the opposite direction it is of great importance to reach the river in season. A missionary, once returning from a long jour-
The Mardin Kindergarten
479
ney, was met here by his wife, but, alas, just too late to be taken across ! While he could see his wife on the other side, who had come a long, weary distance to meet him, he must spend the whole night in a poor miserable shed, with the river rolling between them, all because of being a few min- utes too late.
After crossing the river, the travelers passed through a pleasanter land, with an occasional stream, its banks gay with wild oleanders and with many orchards of olive and apricot. At several villages the people came out to gaze in wonder at the "khantim with only one leg," as the side position im- presses them. Fruit and cucumbers are now plentiful.
At last, just at nightfall, the castle hill and acres of Aintab gravestones appear in the distance. The journey is near its end. Oh, the joy of it ! for a welcome awaits the traveler there, also rest and quiet sleep and friends — and a bath tub. The luxury of it ! With feelings of weariness and grati- tude, of gladness mingled with lameness, the pilgrim feels that the goal was worth the cost.
'HE year just closed has been a unique year, and in some ways the hardest
1 year since my coming here. It began with the resignation of our much valued and beloved head teacher, leaving only half trained or untrained helpers to carry on the work. Three helpers worked two thirds of the day in the kindergarten, spending the remainder of the time in study. Mrs. Emerich gave us much needed and valuable assistance in the training work, the lesson in the "Mother Play," Gifts, Occupations, etc., being just what had been lacking. At Christmas time we again had a tree furnished by kind friends, who, for a number of years have gladdened so many young hearts in this sad land.
During the year we celebrated a number of birthdays, most notable among them u Khanaja FrobePs," as the children lovingly call him. Once we had an outing in the pleasant yard of the boys' high school, where the daisies grew thick and the little ones reveled to their hearts' content. On June 7th we had a picnic, intended by the director to celebrate her birth- day, unbeknown to the children ; but, on her appearance on the scene, they surprised her by singing a song composed for the occasion and by serving simple refreshments. These had been furnished by our kind landlady (Khalie) who has been most kind and helpful, always calling me her
THE MARDIN KINDERGARTEN
BY MISS J. L. GRAF
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daughter, though she is a Catholic. The children love her dearly, and those who have left the kindergarten, to her great delight, run in to greet her every morning and evening as they pass by on their way to the primary school.
The coming year will be a busy one, in that we expect seven young girls to take the course. A call for kindergartens is being sounded in our field, and we wish to be ready to respond as soon as the people are willing to assume a fair share of the support. Because of the poverty of the land it is impossible to do the work on an independent basis. Your gifts, dear friends, alone make the kindergarten and training class a possibility. Of the seven desiring to take the course, not one is able to assume the expense without help. Three are orphans ; one, a young widow with a little girl a year and a half old ; one having a father, but who married again, leaving her to be brought up by her grandmother, now an old woman ; another has a blind father ; and the last is a daughter of our school servant, who tries to support his family on a salary of $3.50 a month.
Poverty is one of the many difficulties ; others are a language containing no word for " home," nor other expressions needed to bring before the pupils some of the fundamental ideas of child culture ; not a book in Arabic on pedagogy or kindergarten principles ; a land where woman is no better than a donkey, where motherhood is a shame, where girls are a burden. But brighter days are in store for the children of our field, and you have a special work to pray and labor for the little ones of Armenia.
WOMAN'S BOARD OF THE INTERIOR
Mrs. S. E. HURLBUT, Treasurer
Receipts ^from July 10, to August 10, 1907
Colorado Illinois . Indiana . Iowa Kansas . Michigan Minnesota Missouri Ohio
Oklahoma Wisconsin Wyoming New Mexico Connecticut Florida .
377 59 1,377 54
25 00 487 43
56 95 935 09
36 42 478 70 431 94
10 17 264 43 5 00 1 60 250 00
25 00
Massachusetts China Turkey . Miscellaneous
Receipts for the month Previously acknowledged
485 12
5 00 9 50 220 75
. $5,483 23 . 49,044 15
. $54,527 38
Total since October, 1906 . additional donations for special objects.
Receipts for the month Previously acknowledged
Total since October, 1906
$543 00 1,112 86
$1,655 86
Miss Flora Starr, Ass't Treas.
9tf Me in Ubnuy only