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1. Victoria, Empress of India. 2. Wilhelmixa, Queen of the Netherlands.
3. Musafer-e-dix, Shall of Persia. 4. Abdul-Hamid II., Sultan of Turkey. 5 . Tsaitien Hwaxoti. Emperor of China. 6. Nicholas II., Czar of all the Russias. 7. Felix Falre, President of France.
THE
Missionary Review of the World!
Vol. XXI. No. 10.— Old Series.— OCTOBER— Vol. XI. No. 10.— New Series. THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
BY REV. SAMUEL M. ZWEMER, P. R. (i. S., BAHREIN, ARABIA. Missionary Of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America.
Islam dates from 622 A. 1)., but the first missionary to the Moham- medans was Raymund Lull, who was dragged outside the town of Bugia and stoned to deatli on June 30, 1315.' He was not only the first missionary to the Mohammedans, but the first and only Christian of his day who felt the extent and urgency of the call to evangelize the Moslem world. He was a martyr like Stephen, and worthy of so great a cause. f Had the spirit of Raymund Lull filled the Church, we would not to-day speak of very nearly two hundred million unevan- gelized Moslems. Even as Islam itself arose a scourge of God upon an unholy and idolatrous Church, so Islam grew strong and extended to China on the east and Sierra Leone on the west, because the Church never so much as toucht the hem of the vast hosts of Islam to evan- gelize them. The terror of the Saracen and Turk smothered in every heart even the desire to carry them the Gospel. When the missionary revival began with Carey, the idea was to carry the Gospel to the heathen. Henry Martyn, first of modern missionaries, preach t to the Mohammedans; he met them in India, Arabia, and Persia; his controversial tracts date the beginning of the conflict with the learn- ing of Islam. The tiny rill that flowed almost unnoticed has gathered volume and strength with the growth of missionary interest, until in our day it has become a stream of thought and effort going out to many lands and peoples. Never were there so many books written on the subject of Mohammedanism as in our day — never was the Eastern question, more pressing, never the whole situation so full of anxiety, and yet so full of hope. Time and tide have changed marvelously since Dr. Jessup wrote his little classic in 1879.J A single glance
* This periodical adopts the Orthography of the following Rule, recommended by the joint action of the American Philological Association and the Philological Society of England :— Change d or ed final to t when so pronounced, except when the e affects a preceding sound.— Publishers.
tPeroquet, "Vie de Raymund Lull," 1067. Low. "de vita R. L " Halle, 1830. Helf- ferich, "Ray. Lull." Berlin, 1858. k; His Life and Work." Dublin University Magazine. Vol. LXXVIII, 43.
X "The Mohammedan Missionary Problem." Rev. H. H. Jessup, D.D.
722 THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY. [October
at the map there given to illustrate Islam, shows how the unity and power of Moslem empire have been broken, and what God hath wrought for the Kingdom of His Son. When that book was written there were no missionaries in all Arabia, Tunis, Morocco, Tripoli, or Algiers. Christendom was ignorant of the extent and character of Islam in Central Africa; little was known of the Mohammedans in China, and the last chapter in the history of Turkey was the treaty of Berlin. The problem has greatly changed; old factors are can- celed and new factors have appeared. But we can still say with the writer: "It is our earnest hope and prayer that this revival of interest in the historical, theological, and ethical bearings of Islam may result in a new practical interest in the spiritual welfare of the Moham- medan nations. It is high time for the Christian Church to ask seriously the question whether the last command of Christ concerns the one hundred and seventy-five millions of the Mohammedan world/' Let us face the problem, and the key to its solution may be found.
L THE PRESEXT EXTENT OF THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD.
Looking at the table, which is on the opposite page, we see that it is both geographical and chronological. It tells when and where Islam came and saw and conquered. Its present extent embraces three continents ; from Canton in China to Sierra Leone in West Africa. In Russia they spread their prayer-carpets southward and turn to Mecca : at Zanzibar they look northward ; the whole province of Yunnan, in China, prays toward the setting sun, and in the wide Sahara they look eastward toward the Beit Allah and the Black Stone ! Mohammed's word has been fulfilled : " So we have made you the center of the nations that you should bear witness to men."' *
Arabic is the language of the Koran, but there are millions of Moslems who can not understand a single sentence of Mohammed's book. They speak Russian, Turkish, Persian, Pashtu, Baluchi, Urdu, Chinese, Malay, Swaheli, Ilausa, and yet other languages. And not only is there this diversity of language, but an equal diversity of civilization in the Moslem world of to-day. The Turkish effendi, in Paris costume, with Constantinople etiquette ; the sim])le Bedouin of the desert; the fierce Afghan mountaineer; the Russian trader; the almond-eyed Moslem of Yunnan, Chinese in everything but religion; the Indian mollah, just graduated from the Calcutta university; and the half-clad Kabyle, of Morocco — all of them profess one religion and repeat one prayer. There is vast difference in the stage of cul- ture reaclit by Mohammedans. This important fact has often been ignored and, sometimes, supprest. It is one thing to affirm a fact concerning the Mohammedans of Syria or Egypt, it is quite another
* Surah II, section 2, Sale's " Koran." pp. 16.
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724 the Mohammedan world of tu-day. [October
to assert the same of Moslems in Java or China. You must change your predicate. Syeed Ameer Ali, the learned barrister of Calcutta, who poses as the defender of Mohammed, would hardly recognize Tippoo Tib as a brother, tho he met him beside the Kaaba. Mos- lem populations must be weighed as well as counted, otherwise we will be led far astray by mere statistics. And yet " God hath made of one blood all the nations;" civilization is only the raiment that covers a common humanity. All Mohammedans have souls and are sinners. Put it as you will, and classify as you please, we stand before nearly 200.000,000 Mohammedans, our brothers and sisters. This is a conservative estimate, and based on the best authorities possible.*
Now by considering the chronology of the chart, we find that these millions have been, almost without exception, for centuries shamefully neglected in the work of evangelizing the whole world. A compari- son of the two columns of dates is very humiliating.
Islam was a missionary religion from the very start, and continues so to this day. We may say it has had, like Christianity with its apostolic, medieval, and modern missions, three great periods of aggressive growth. The dates given when Islam entered the different lands where it now is predominant maybe gronpt into three divisions of time. That immediately after Mohammed's hegira from A. D. 622-800; a later period under the Ottomans and Moguls ; lastly, the modern missionary revival from 1700-1800.
During the first period, the apostolic age of Mohammedan mis- sions, the sword carried Islam throughout all Arabia, Syria, Persia, Egypt, North Africa, and by more peaceful means into Canton and Western China. All these regions had received the Mohammedan faith, and it had become deeply rooted before the year 1000 A. D.f Christianity was put under tribute and oppression, as in Asia Minor, or entirely swept away, as in Arabia itself, by the tornado-power of the new religion. J;
Afterward came the fall of Constantinople and the rise of Turkish power. This was the second chapter of Moslem conquest. Afghan- istan, Turkestan, Tndia, Java, and the Malay archipelago became '■ converted." And lastly we can chronicle the modern missionary efforts of Islam by the apostles of the Koran from Cairo's university, or the Muscat apostles of the slave-trade. Their work was in Eussia, the Sudan, Sokoto. and West Africa. In following these paths of conquest on the world map, it is of interest to note that Islam never
:' The population <»f the Moslem lands given in the chart is taken in nearly every instance from •• The Statesman's Yearbook for 1898.11 In the case of China a more moderate estimate was taken, as found in the " China Mission Handbook, for 189G."' The population of the Sudan, Arabia, the Sahara, and other African regions is not yet accurately known. In India the Moslem population seems to be slowly but steadily increasing.
+ C R. Haines' '"Islam as a Missionary Religion. v London: S.P.C.K , 1889. A valuable list of authorities is given, and the book itself is a marvel of accuracy and condensation.
i Thomas Wright, ' Early Christianity in Arabia." London, 1855.
1898.]
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OP TO-DAY.
725
crost the great oceans, but for the most part traveled by land; Japan, Australia, South Africa, and America were not reaoht. Nor has Islam ever made progress in any land where Protestantism was dominant.
The Mohammedan methods of mission work, that can be seen in all this wonderful conquest, are three: the sending of embassies, the power of the sword, and colonization by intermarriage. The last method was always coupled with the slave-trade, partly as cause and partly as effect, and won for Islam nearly all of North Africa south of the Barbary States. China is a striking example of other methods. When Mohammed's maternal uncle, Wahab al Kabsha, went as an envoy to China, as early as G28 A. D., the camel's nose entered the tent. Another embassy was sent in 708. In 755 four thousand Arab soldiers were sent by Calif Abu Jafir to succor the Chinese emperor against the Turkish rebels, and, as a result, these soldiers were estab-. lisht in the principal cities of the empire, and given a multitude of Chinese wives. Lastly we have the wild savages of the province of Yunnan all "converted" to Islam when the Mongol emperor appointed Omar from Bokhara their governor. To-day more than twenty million Moslems in China testify to the efficiency of these methods.*
Another fact evident from the chart is that Islam had rooted itself for centuries in every land before modern missions came to grapple with the problem. The Church was ages behind time, and lost splendid opportunities. Christian missions came to Persia one thou- sand years after Islam entered. In Arabia and North Africa twelve centuries intervened. In China Mohammedanism had eleven hundred years the start, and only this year has a beginning been made to evan- gelize that part of China. f In Java only four Jiundrecl years elapst before work began for these half-pagan Moslems, and it is not strange that here we find many converts. About one-third of the Hausa- speaking peo]^le of North Africa are Mohammedans. Prior to the Fulah conquest, about the beginning of the present century, they were all pagans; Islam is even now making conquests west of the Niger. And practically the whole of this field — long since white for
* P. D'Abey de Thiersant, " La Mahometisme en Chine." 2 vols. Paris, 1878. Chinese Recorder, Vol. XX, pp. 10-08. T. W. Arnold, " The Preaching of Islam " London, 1896. See especially the valuable chronological chart at the end of the latter book.
t The India Witness states: '"A number of British and German friends are subscribing to support a new mission to China. This new enterprise, to which we wish complete success, will have its headquarters in Kashgar and Varkand, two cities of Chinese Turkestan, and the work is to be carried on not among the Chinese, but among the Mohammedans, who are in a large majority in that district. The new mission is interesting in that it is an attack upon China from the West. Two German missionaries, accompanied by a doctor and a native Christian, will arrive in Kashgar next spring, and begin work. It may be added that the British and Foreign Bible Society is at present printing the four Gospels in the dialect of Chinese Turkestan, and that in all probability they will be ready before the new mission gets settled at Kashgar."
72 G THK MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DA'Y
the harvest — has been untoucht by missionary effort. Yet Charles Henry Robinson writes in his book, " Hausa-land : "
Although Mohammedanism is making very slow, if any, progress in the Hausa States, it has recently made rapid progress among the Yorubas, who inhabit a country to the west of Hausa-land, which has for its capital Lagos. Its introducers are for the most part Fulahs — that is, the same tribe to whom the Hausas were indebted for their con- version to Mohammedanism at the beginning of this century.
The fatalism attributed to Mohammedans is not one-half so fatal- istic in its spirit and operation as that which for centuries has been practically held by the Christian Church as to the hope or necessity of bringing the hosts of Islam into the following of Jesus Christ. There may have been reasons in time past for this unreadiness or unwilling- ness, such as political barriers and fear of death from Moslem fanaticism. To-day we cannot plead such excuse. There has been no foreign missionary among Moslems who died for proclaiming the truth, in all this century of missions. Nearly all the political barriers against missionary occupation have fallen. Read it on the chart, and proclaim it upon the house-tops, that three-fourths of the Moham- medan world are accessible to the Christian missionary — accessible in the same way as are all non-Christian lands, opening to the golden keys of love and tact and faith. Of two hundred million Moham- medans, only eighteen million are directly under Turkish rule. Under Russian rule there are 10,861,000; under Dutch, French, and German rule, 2-1,580,000; while British rule or protection extends over nearly sixty-six million Mohammedans — a population as large as that of the United States. And yet men speak of Mohammedanism as if it were synonymous with Turkey, and of this missionary problem as if it could be solved by bombarding Constantinople.
Looking at the table from another standpoint, there are to=day only 41,500,000 Moslems under Mohammedan rulers, i. e., in Turkey, Persia, parts of Arabia, Afghanistan, and Morocco ; while there are 99,552,477 under nominally Christian rulers, and three-fourths of this vast number are subject to the Protestant queens Victoria and Wilhelmina. Well may Abd-ul-Hamid II. tremble on his tottering throne for his califate, when two " infidel women " hold the balance of political power in the Mohammedan world. This is the finger of God. And it does not require the gift of prophecy to see yet greater political changes in the near future pregnant with blessing for the kingdom of God. The deadlock of inactivity in the Levant can not last. The reaction will surely lead to action when the tem- porary revival of the proud, menacing spirit of the old sword- fanaticism has done its work. But the failure to act for Armenia when the hour was ripe, may cost the powers of Europe a still larger Eastern question. The editor of the official organ of the Barmen
[October
1898.]
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
72:
POLITICAL POWERS OF THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD.
Under Turkish rule: Europe 2,000,000
Asia..... 12,000,000
Arabia 3,000,000
Tripoli 1,000,000
18,000,000
Under other Moslem rulers: Arabia 5,000,000
Persia 8,800,000
Afghanistan .... 4,000,000
Morocco 4,995,000
22,795,000
Under the Chinese Emperor 20,000, 000
Under African chiefs, etc 30,400,000
Under Christian rulers: Roumania, ete 1,187,452
Greece 24,165
Russia 10,861,000
Baluchistan and [ndia.57,821,164
Malaysia 15,000,000
Egypt and Zanzibar.. -9,118,775
Tunis and Algiers 5,284,291
99,290,847
196,491,847
728
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
[October
Mission, which has had so much success among the Mohammedans in Sumatra, writes :
We have often been forced to observe that the whole Mohammedan world is connected by secret threads, and that a defeat which Islam suf- fers in any part of the world, or a triumph which she can claim either really or fictitiously, has its reflex action even on the work of our mis- sionaries in the Mohammedan part of Sumatra. Thus the recent mas- sacres in Armenia have filled the Mohammedans in this part of Sumatra with pride. They say to the Christians, " You see now that the raja of Stamboul (that is, the sultan of Constantinople) is the one whom none c an withstand; and he will soon come and set Sumatra free, and then we shall do with the Christians as the Turks did with the Armenians." And it is a fact that a considerable number of Mohammedans who were receiving instruction as candidates for baptism have gone back since the receipt of this news.
And this leads us to consider, next:
II. THE PRESEXT CONDITION OF THE MOHAMMEDAN AVORLD.
Libraries have been written on the origin, character, and history of Islam, the Koran, and Mohammed. Views differ widely, extremes often meet, and authorities conflict when we examine the question, e. g. of Mohammed's preaching, or the influence of the Koran on the lives of its readers. The apologies for all that is evil or incongruous in the system have been many and yet wholly insufficient to prove its integrity or truth. The result of a century of critical study by European and American scholars of every school of thought seems to be that Islam is a composite religion. It has heathen elements ; wit- ness the Kaaba, the Black Stone, and endless superstitions and prac- tises that find their origin in pagan Arabia. It has Christian ele- ments, such as its recognition of Christ and of the Xew Testament, without the cardinal doctrines of 'the atonement and the incarnation . It has Jewisli elements. These are so numerous and have had such influence as to form the warp and woof of Moslem tradition and often the very texture of the Koran itself.* The Old Testament as inter- preted by the Talmud, is the key to many otherwise obscure words, ideas, and stories found in the Koran. And the entire Moslem ritual is an Arabic translation of Judaism as it existed in Arabia. Like Judaism, Islam glories in its grand doctrine of the unity of God. But altogether too much has been made of this part of the Moslem creed. There is abundant proof to show that monotheism was well known in Arabia before Mohammed's day. The name of Allah, for the one supreme deity, occurs even in the pagan poets. Moreover, there is no salvation in mere monotheism. "Thou believest that God is one, thou doest well, the devils also believe and tremble." The
* "• Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch," London, 1874, and the unequaled essay of Abraham Geiger's. '• Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthum iibergenommen ? " Preis- schrift for LTniversity of Bonn. 1833.
730
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OP TO-DAY.
[October
Mohammedan world holds this supreme truth in unrighteousness. It has not made them free. Fatalism binds back everything that seeks progression ; formalism has petrified the conscience ; social life is corrupt and morals are rotten.* The Rev. J. Vaughan, of India* says : " However the phenomenon may be accounted for, we, after nineteen years of mixing with Hindus and Mussulmen, have no hesi- tation in saying that the latter are as a whole some degrees lower in the social and moral scale than the former." A veteran missionary in Syria says of the Moslem population that " truth-telling is one of the lost arts, perjury is too common to be noticed, and the sin of sodomy so common among them in many places, as to make them a dread to their neighbors/' " By their fruits ye shall know them."
The five pillars of the Mohammedan faith are all broken reeds by the solemn test of age-long experience ; because their creed is only a half-truth, and its "pure monotheism " does not satisfy the soul's need of a mediator and an atonement for sin. Their prayers are formal and vain repetitions, without demanding or producing holiness in the one that uses them.f Their fasting is productive of two distinct evils wherever observed; it manufactures an unlimited number of hypocrites who profess to keep the fast and do not do so, and in the second place the reaction which occurs at sunset of every night of Ramadhan tends to produce revelling and dissipation of the lowest and most degrading type. Their almsgiving stimulates in- dolence, and has produced chat acme of social parasites — the dervish or fakir. Finally their pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina and Kerbela are a public scandal even to Moslem morality, so that the " holy cities " are hotbeds of vice and plague-spots in the body politic.
It has often been asserted that Islam is the proper religion for Arabia. The Bedouin now say : " Mohammed's religion can never have been intended for us ; it demands ablution, but we have no water; fasting, but we always fast; almsgiving, but we have no money; pilgrimage, but Allah is everywhere. 99 Islam has had fair trial in other than desert lands. For five hundred years it has been supreme in Turkey, the fairest and richest portion of the old world. And what is the result ? The Mohammedan population has decreast ; the treasury is bankrupt ; progress is blocked; "instead of wealth, universal poverty; instead of comeliness, rags; instead of commerce, beggary — a failure greater and more absolute than history can else- where present.'' \ In regard to what Islam has done and can do in Africa, the recent testimony of Mr. .Robinson is conclusive. Writing of Mohammedanism in the central Sudan he says:
Moreover, if it be true, as it probably is to some extent, that
* Hauri, " Der Islam in seinem Einfluss auf das Leben seiner Bekenner." Leiden, 1881. t See article on " The Koran Doctrine of Sin, 11 Christian Intelligencer (New York), Sept. 2, 1896.
% Cyrus Hamlin's " Five Hundred Years of Islam in Turkey.*' 18S8.
1898.]
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
731
Mohammedanism has helpt forward the Hausas in the path of civiliza- tion, the assistance rendered here, as in every other country subject to Mohammedan rule, is by no means an unmixt good. Mohammedan progress is progress up an impasse; it enables converts to advance a certain distance, only to check their further progress by an impassable wall of blind prejudice and ignorance. We can not have a better proof of this statement than the progress, or, rather, want of progress, in Arabia, the home of Mohammedanism, during the last thousand years. Palgrave, who spent the greater part of his life among Mohammedans, and who was so far in sympathy with them that on more than one occa- sion he conducted service for them in their mosques, speaking of Arabia, says: "When the Koran and Mecca shall have disappeared from Arabia, then, and then only, can we expect to see the Arab assume that place in the ranks of civilization from which Mohammed and his book have, more than any other cause, long held him back."
But it is not only indisputable that Mohammedanism is a hopeless system as regards civilization; it is hopeless for the soul. Whatever may be the opinion of those whose theology includes a larger hope and a second probation, to the evangelical friends of missions and "the children of the Kingdom " Islam falls, with heathenism, under Paul's category — " tvithout Christ, without hope." The awful sin and guilt of the Mohammedan world is that they give Christ's glory to another. Islam, in its final result, as well as in its essence, is anti- Christian.* Christ's name and place and offices and glory have been usurped by another. Mohammed holds the keys of heaven and hell. Whatever we may think of the caricature of Christ in the pages of the Koran, it so influences the Moslem world that the bulk of Moham- medans know extremely little, and think still less, of the Son of Mary — that Son of whom it is written, " Neither is there salvation in any other."
III. THE OUTLOOK FOR THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD.
Nevertheless, there are certain hopeful signs to the eye of faith in this very hopeless system that ends in such social stagnation and spiritual death.
First of all, the great Mohammedan world is no longer a unit, either politically or religiously. As regards temporal power, we have already seen how that is and lias been steadily disappearing. The illustrious califate is hopelessly a thing of the past. Islam has no acknowledged pope. Since the Wahabee reformation at the begin- ning of this century, the increasing hatred for Ottoman rule in Ilejaz and Yemen during the last decade, and English supremacy in Oman and the Persian gulf, all of Arabia looks to Mecca for a new calif, and not to Constantinople for the old one.
Spiritually, the Moslem world seems to stand on the tiptoe of expectation. The mahdi in the Sudan ; the religious orders of the
* See the masterly exposition of this idea in Koelle's " Mohammed and Mohammedanism " London, 1889.
732
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
[October
Sanusiyah in Morocco and Tunis;* the revolt against traditional Mohammedanism in India, and the rise of the Babi movement in Persia, all these indicate a stirring among the dead bones. Babism f alone is such a wonderful phenomenon that we are not surprised to learn that it already has 800,000 adherents, and spreads wider and wider. There is much that is sad in the new teaching, hnt it has opened the door to the Gospel as nothing else has done. Some one writes concerning its influence:
It is computed that in many towns and villages half the population are Babis. This is a clear indication that the people of Persia are already, in large measure, wearied with Islam, and anxious for a higher, holier, and more spiritual faith. Almost all through the country the Babis are quite friendly to Christians. The rise of this faith is in a large measure due to the spread of the Gospel, the best of their doctrines are borrowed from it, while they openly reverence our Scriptures, and profess to be ready to reject any opinion they may hold when once proved to.be con- trary to the Bible.
Fifty years ago it might have been said with much truth of the Mohammedan world, spiritually, that it was "without form and void, and darkness upon the face of the deep." To-day we can add " The Spirit of God moves upon the waters." What else is it when there comes news of an ever-increasing demand for the printed Word from every mission-station in Moslem lands ? What else is it when two learned Indian Mohammedans devote their time to writing a commentary on the Bible from a Moslem standpoint? What else is it when first-fruits are being gathered in even the most unpromising fields of labor among Moslems ?
Not only is the soil being prepared for the sowing of the Word, but that Word — the good seed of God — has been translated and printed in nearly every Mohammedan tongue. The Arabic Bible will prove stronger in this holy war than any blade of Damascus ever was in the hand of the early Saracens. For Persian, Afghan, Chinese, Malay, Hausa, and Russian Mohammedans that Word of God is also ready in their own tongue. The Arabic Koran is a sealed book to them — since it may not be translated — but the Bible speaks the language of the cradle and the market-place. In this we can see a wonderful providence of God, giving the Church such vantage ground in the coming conflict that even her enemies acknowledge victory certain.
As regards the present status of missionary effort in Moslem lands, the bare statement of the chart must suffice. There is no room here for adequate treatment of the subject. The reports of the various societies that work chiefly or largely among Moslems tell the story of
* See Indian Witness for March 11, 1898. Article by Rev. E Sell.
+ "The Bab and the Babis." E. Sell. Madras, 1895. " The Episode of the Bab." E.G. Browne, of Cambridge.
1898.]
THE MOHAMMEDAN WORLD OF TO-DAY.
733
trial and triumph. Especially worthy of study is the story of the North African Mission, of the Church Missionary Society in the Punjab, and of the Dutch in Java. In India many hundreds of the followers of Islam have publicly abjured their faith and been received into the Church. Half of the native clergy in the Punjab are from among the Moslems. In the Malay Archipelago there are thousands of converts. And yet even in these most promising fields the laborers are sadly few.
Rev. E. A. Bell of the M. E. Church writing from India says : Here is a great door — sixty millions of Indian Moslems, for whom all too little has hitherto been done. In the Madras Presidency are two million Mohammedans, and there are only two missionaries at work for them, both in the city of Madras. In Mysore are 200,000 Mohammedans, and in Ceylon 200,000 for whom no ordained missionary is at work. Mis- sionaries to Hindus are numbered even by the hundred in these territor- ies, but scarcely one of them knows even the language of the Mohamme- dans, Hindustani.
At the Lambeth Conference held in London 1897, the special com- mittee on foreign mission work called attention to " the inadequacy of our efforts in behalf of Islam." '' Until the present century very little systematic effort appears to have been ma.de. As regards the work of the present century there have been the efforts of magnificent 'pioneers, but we need something more; we need continuous and sys- tematic work, such as has been began in the diocese of Lahore and some other parts of India."
" Inadequacy " is too weak a word to express the shameful neglect of duty in carrying the Gospel to the Mohammedan world.
There was a thousandfold more enthusiasm in the dark ages to wrest an empty sepulcher from the Saracens than there is in our day to bring them the knowledge of a living Savior. There is no Peter the Hermit, and no one girds for a new crusade. We are playing at missions as far as Mohammedanism is concerned. For there are more mosques in Jerusalem than there are missionaries in all Arabia; and more millions of Moslems in China than the number of missionary societies that work for Moslems in the whole world ! Where Christ was born Mohammed's name is called from minarets five times daily, but where Mohammed was born no Christian dares to enter.
America entertains perverts to Islam at a parliament of religions, while throughout vast regions of the Mohammedan world millions of Moslems have never so much as heard of the incarnation and the atonement of the Son of God, the Savior of the world. The Holy Land is still in unholy hands, and all Christendom stood gazing while the sword of the Crescent was uplifted in Armenia and Crete, until the uttermost confines of the Moslem world rejoiced at her apathy and impotence.
Is this to be the measure of our consecration? Is this the extent
734 HOW AHD-UL-H A MID II. BECAME THE GREAT ASSASSIN. [October
of our loyal devotion to the cause of our King? His place occupied by a usurper and His glory given to another, while the Church slum- bered and slept ; shall we not arise and win back the lost kingdom? Missions to Music, its are tlie only Christian solution of the Eastern question, "Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son." God wills it. Let our rallying cry be, Every stronghold of Islam for Christ! Xot a war of gunboats or of diplomacy, but a Holy War with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Let God arise and let His enemies be scattered. " Father, the hour has come, glorify Thy Son."
HOW ABD-UL-HAMID II. BECAME THE GREAT ASSASSIN.
Few monarchs have been so variously understood as Hamid II. At t lie beginning of his reign, in 1876, he was regarded as weak and visionary: a wilful despot, without any principle of administration to guide him, and in deplorable ignorance of the real condition of his empire. Those who had access to him uniformly reported him a man of fascinating personality.
After 18 years of despotic rule, in which the poverty and misery of the empire slowly increast, he burst upon the world as the " Great assassin of the Bosphorus ! " To those who have followed his course, the explanation of this malign transformation is not so difficult. He does not regard himself either as an assassin or a persecutor.
The guiding principle of his administration of power is that of Pan-Islamism. He probably borrowed it from Russia, whose Pan- slavism is known to the world. As the czar of Russia was reducing all his subjects to his Slavic church, so would he, Abd-ul-Hamid II., reduce all his subjects to Islam. It was absurd; but not to his view. He evidently resolved to do it by making it for the interest of every raya in the empire to become a Moslem. In the days of the great sultans, thousands every year entered into the "true faith," and became most loyal and faithful subjects, both in peace and in war.
The first fact that seems to have excited his attention and indig- nation was the great number of rayas, chiefly Armenians, in govern- ment employ. They rilled the under offices of the customs, of the jmblic works, of the arsenal of construction, of the powder works. They were consuls in European ports; they were employed largely in all the departments of the interior.
Abd-ul-Hamid would change all this. These Armenians should all leave their places, unless they would become Moslems. If they would enter Islam, they should retain their places, with promise of promo- tion. He did not doubt that there would be a large number who u v would choose the "true faith 99 and an honorable living. He was dis- appointed and indignant. Almost to a man, they received their dis-
1898.] HOW ABD-UL-HAMID II. BECAME THE GREAT ASSASSIN.
735
missal, often involving want and distress; but they would not abandon their faith.
The higher officers complained that the Moslems substituted were ignorant, careless, and incompetent. He would change this also. Since then, it has been his constant care to build up Turkish schools everywhere, and to destroy ray a schools.
But he saw that more effective measures must be taken. The mode of assessing and gathering the taxes, in Turkey, is such that the sultan can tax any one to death if he chooses. This oppression was brought upon the Armenians, in the most cruel manner. Many thousands were unable to pay the amounts demanded, and were thrown into the vilest prisons, where human life is generally short. Petitions for relief were humbly sent. This has always been the privilege of every Turkish subject. But now, the petitioner was seized and pun- isht, and the ear of the monarch was closed against his suffering subjects. But it was always said to them, " Become Moslems and you will be free, and your taxes will be adjusted." A few poor villages yielded, to escape starvation. But the conversions were too few to satisfy the sultan, lie looked for thousands, and found only scores.
But he could easily strike a heavy blow and escape responsibility, using the Kurds as his instruments. They have always been robbers. It has been the policy and the interest of the Turkish government to repress them if they descended into Mesopotamia. Hamid II. with- drew all repression in such manner as to give them carte-blanche. They were not slow to use it, and still they remembered that a village wholly annihilated can not be there to rob next year. And yet, all along up to 1893, villages were robbed and burned, and those who escaped were left in utmost poverty. During all this period of increas- ing persecution, the Armenians were continually exhorted to escape it all, and secure peace and salvation by accepting the "true faith." As before, a few villages yielded through fear of starvation, and were left in safety and quiet, with an imam to teach them how to pray in Arabic.
Doubtless these conversions were multiplied when reaching the sultan's ears; but he was far from satisfied. He would use severer measures, and offer them Islam or death.
The Koran here stood right across his path, for it forbids the forcible conversion of ray as. While they pay their taxes they are to be exempt from persecution.
Russia craftily helpt him over this obstacle. She sent in the " Hunchagists," or "revolutionists," Armenians with Russian pass- ports, and therefore safe from arrest, to stir up the Turks to the bar- barities they have committed. Altho the Armenians, as a people, would have nothing to do with them, Hamid used them to accuse the whole Armenian nation of being rebels, and, therefore, justly doomed
736 now ABD-uii-HAJtiD ii. became: the great AssAssiN. [October
to destruction. lie prepared and armed the Kurds to cooperate in this pious work. Everyone who would confess "the faith" should be spared, the rest should be destroyed.
The bloody work began at Sassoon, in September, 1894. The world knows the awful history. The Armenians, filled with consterna- tion, stood by their faith, and suffered tortures and death by thou- sands and tens of thousands. Christian Europe lookt upon the awful scene of an ancient, innocent, and loyal people under torture and deatli in all revolting forms; upon women outraged and murdered, and little children put to extremest torture in presence of their mothers, and not an authoritative word was spoken in their behalf ! With infinite patience and firmness they submitted to die rather than betray Christ!'
Not less than 100,000 thus suffered. More than 000,000 were driven from their homes to live like beasts of the field. Doubtless another hundred thousand and more died from cold, nakedness, starvation, and typhoid fever during the years 1894-1897. Not only Russia, but Germany, to her everlasting disgrace, forbade any inter- ference, and Abd-ul-IIamid was thus protected while he converted or destroyed the Protestant and Gregorian Armenians.
The insurrection in Crete, and the consequent movement of the Greeks, drew the attention of the sultan to that laudable work. From some mysterious source he had money enough for the war and acconi- plisht officers from the German empire— and poor Greece is under his heel! What he will next do depends upon his great neighbors.
We can now ask what he has accomplisht by this persecution and attempted conversion of the Armenians.
1. He has failed of securing any great number of conversions. A few villages have apostatized, waiting for better times.
2. He has inflicted a deadly blow upon the peace and prosperity of his empire. He has driven many thousands of his most useful sub- jects from his dominions. Altho the Armenians have a strong attach- ment to their native land, they abjure a government that denies them every right of humanity.
3. He lias destroyed many millions of property, in the form of buildings, churches, schools, workshops, tools, and all the animals used in agriculture and transportation, as oxen, horses, donkeys, mules carried away. The German traveler, Lepsius, after long researches in the regions of massacre, reports 2,-19:] villages plundered and destroyed, also 508 churches and 77 monasteries.
4. He has ruthlessly destroyed the property of missionaries, and that account he has still to settle with our government.
5. To sum up the whole, he has driven two and a half millions of his faithful subjects into flight or despair, killed one hundred thou- sand with unspeakable torture, another hundred thousand by cruel exposure; has broken up all their industries, has taken from them all possibility of paying taxes, and has written his name in history as the " Great assassin of the Bosphorus!"
1S!)8.] THE UOSPKL IX PERSIA. 737
THE GOSPEL IX PERSIA.*
BY REV. W. ST. CLAIR TISDALL, M.A., JULFA, ISFAHAN, PERSIA. Missionary of the Church Missionary Society.
Persia is noteworthy as one of the few countries in which the attempt to stamp out Christianity was at last, after many centuries of intermittent but at times most ruthless persecution, crowned with fatal success. The heathen emperors of Rome knew by bitter experi- ence the difficulty of such a task. But alas! where the Roman emperors failed, the shahs succeeded. The once numerous and flourishing church of Persia was finally entirely destroyed, after an existence of many centuries. Not the slightest trace of it now remains save in the pages of Roman, Greek, Syrian, and Armenian historians. They have preserved to us many names from the Persian army of martyrs, whose courage and faithfulness even unto death are recorded for the comfort and encouragement of their spiritual posterity only now to be born. We may well believe that even in Persia the blood of the martyrs will yet, spring up from the ground and bear an abundant harvest of souls won for Christ.
THE UEGINNINGS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS.
If we pass over the futile efforts of the Roman Catholics in the loth and 17 th centuries, when they founded missions at Tiflis, Tabriz, Erevan, Samokhi, Gori, New Julfa, and oilier places, we find that the first attempt in recent times to spread the knowledge of Christ in Persia was that made by Henry Martyn in 1811. The version of the New Testament, to the preparation of which he dedicated the last year of his busy and devoted life, is still circulated in the country, and lias borne much fruit, tho it is now being gradually superseded by the far superior version made by Dr. Bruce.
To the Presbyterian Church of America is due the honor and privilege of having made the first really prolonged and in any measure successful attempt to win Persia for Christ. American missionaries occupied Urmi (Oroomiah) in 1834, and from that center they have extended their work to Tabriz, Salinas, Mosul, and many other places, some of which lie beyond the boundaries of the Persian Empire. These stations (alas that circumstances should have recently com- pelled some of them to be abandoned!) are comprised under the appellation of the " Western Persia Mission.'" Their ".Eastern Persia Mission " was founded in 1835. The work in Teheran, the present capital, was begun in 1872. Since then steady progress has been made year by year. Hamadan and Eesht have been occupied, and the Apostolic method of itinerating and preaching the Word everywhere
* The spelling of proper names is not entirely that of the author, hut generally follows the Review system.
738 THE gospel ix persia. [October
throughout the whole country, as far south as the 34th parallel of latitude where the district assigned to the Church Missionary Society begins, has been faithfully and diligently carried into operation.
The work of the Church Missionary Society in Persia began in 1869 with a visit from the Rev. (now Dr.) Robert Bruce, who, on his way to resume the work he had long carried on in the Punjab, tarried for a time at Xew Julfa, near Isfahan, and found so much encourage- ment from the spirit of religious inquiry manifested by Persians anxious to find a faith higher, purer, and more soul-satisfying than
" — "1
!
LOOKING OVER THE ROOFS OF ISFAHAN.
Islam, that he remained there, busily engaged in the work of revising Henry Martvn's Persian translation of the Xew Testament. Xot long after his arrival nine Moslem converts privately received baptism at his hands. Many Armenians also, leaving the Corrupt Gregorian Church, joined the Protestant Church of England. This, however, Dr. Bruce did not permit, until every effort to work in harmony with the Gregorians and to bring their church back to the simplicity of the Gospel had failed. The great famine in 1871, through the aid which the liberality of European Christians enabled Dr. Bruce to afford to the sufferers, served in some slight degree to open the door for the entrance of the Gospel. But assistance was given, as far as funds allowed, to all in need without distinction of race or creed. In
1898.]
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
739
1875 the Parent Committee of the Church Missionary Society formally adopted the Persian mission which Dr. Bruce had begun, and in the same year the British and Foreign Bible Society commenced work from the same central station. Bagdad, tho in the Turkish Empire, was occupied as a station of the Church Missionary Society Persia Mission in 188:3. In the present year, after much itinerant preaching of the Gospel throughout the country, work has been definitely taken up at Kirnuin and Yezd, while preparations are being made to occupy other important cities also throughout the whole of the country south of the 34th parallel.
The Roman Catholic mission to the Armenians at New Julfa, tho recommenced some sixty years ago, is now once more in a moribund condition. They have also newly establisht missions at Teheran, Tabriz, Salinas, and Oroomiah, but the only other societies of any importance that share with the American Presbyterian and the Church Missionary Society missions the work in the Persian Empire, are the American and the British and Foreign Bible Societies, the London Jews-' Society, and the Archbishop of Canterbury's Assyrian Mission in Azarbaijan. The last named association, tho connected with the Church of England, unfortunately can not be in any true sense called a Protestant mission. Its members carefully refrain from making any effort whatever to reach Mohammedans, and in fact state publicly that they have no intention of evangelizing them. The mis- sion has been started "for the purpose of protecting the old Nestorian Church from the Roman Catholics on the one side and the American Presbyterians on the other." It is needless to point out that this sad breach of the comity of missions serves very materially to add to the obstacles, already sufficiently numerous, with which our American brethren have to contend in preaching the pure and simple Gospel of Christ to the people of that part of the country. The Roman Catho- lics in like manner confine their efforts to the task of proselytizing the members of other churches, while the Jews' Society is fully engaged in work among the Jews. But as the total number of pro- fessing Christians in the Persian Empire probably does not exceed 75,000, and as the Jews hardly amount to more than about 20,000, while Mr. Curzon estimates the whole population of Persia at nearly 9,000,000, it is evident that any agency that confines its attention to the non-Mohammedan population can hardly hope, at least for many years to come, to do very much in the way of winning Persia for Christ.
The great mass of the population are Shiah Mohammedans, tho the numerous and increasing Babi-Bahai sects already number many hundreds of thousands of adherents, and in fact are by many compe- tent judges estimated to comprise almost 1,000,000 of the people. It remains then to inquire what is already being done and what should
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
[October
be done in order to bring- all these millions out of darkness to the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ.
Not a few people in Europe and America even now venture to assert that the attempt to convert the Islamic world to Christianity is an entirely hopeless one. Islam has in our age of sciolism found many warm champions, more especially — not to say exclusively — among those who have never devoted any really earnest study to the subject. Doubtless in many such cases " the wish is father to the thought." Any one who lias taken the trouble to investigate the sub- ject with any care, must be aware that from the time of Henry Martyn to our own day, a very large number of individual cases of conversion from Islam to Christianity have taken place. The paper on " Chris- tian Efforts among Indian Mohammedans/' which the Rev. Dr. 'Imadu'ddin of the Punjab (himself an eminent Moslem convert) drew up for the " World's Parliament of Religions,'' held at Chicago some years ago, contains a long list of distinguish^ converts from Islam in India, and this is of itself sufficient to refute the above assertion of the enemies of Christian missionary effort, if it really needs any serious refutation.
CONVERTS FROM ISLAM.
With reference to the effect of Christian missions upon Islam, we may say what Galileo did to those who in his day as ignorantly denied the earth's motion, e< I feel it move.'' The present writer has been privileged to labor for Christ among Hindus as well as among both Sunni and Shiah Moslems, and is therefore enabled by his own personal experi- ence to assert that Islam, far from occupying the impregnable position claimed for it by its ill-informed admirers of the dilettante type, is in reality, alike on its intellectual, its moral, and its spiritual sides, per- haps the most vulnerable of the great religions of the world. In India the attempt to defend Islam by argument has, even in the opinion of its own champions, so hopelessly broken down, that Indian Moslems, finding their position untenable, now endeavor not to prove that their own faith is true, but that Christianity is false.
The only effective protection of Islam in Persia in our own time, if we leave out of consideration the ignorance of the people which it has produced and the bigotry which it has fostered, is the sword. In accordance with the religious law of the land (that contained in and based upon the Koran), which no secular ruler has the right to alter in the very slightest degree, any Moslem who may become a Christian is ipso facto doomed to death, and his Christian instructor renders himself liable to the same penalty. In ancient times, as we have already seen, the Church in this, as well as in other lands, was from time to time exposed to fearful outbursts of persecution. But after some years of suffering, it was always permitted to enjoy a cpiiet breath-
1898.]
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
741
ing-time, wherein to nerve itself and brace its energies to continue the struggle. But this is not the case under Mohammedan rule. From Mohammed's time to our own the death penalty has ever hung in terrorem over the head of every one, man, woman, or child, who under any Mohammedan government dares to embrace the Gospel of Christ. This was very plainly stated by the grand vizir of Turkey in 1843 in an official letter to Lord Ashley.
"The laws of the Koran," he said, "compel no man to become a Mus- sulman, but they are inexorable both as respects a Mussulman who embraces another religion, and as respects a person who, having of his own accord publicly embraced Islam, is convicted of having renounced that faith. No consideration can produce a commutation of the c apital punishment to which the law condemns him without mercy."
Altho Lord Aberdeen's decisive action in the matter, caused by the martyrdom of two persons who, having been forced to accept Islam, had recanted and returned to Christianity, compelled the Sublime Porte to issue a document promising to prevent for the future " the execution and putting to death of the Christian who.is an apostate/' yet the law of Islam regards such a decree as null and void, being contrary to the express command of the most mercrful God contained in the Koran.* It is hardly necessary to point out that the same religious law obtains in Persia also. Hence the proclamation of religious liberty, made by the late shah some six years ago, had to be explained away, and thus virtually withdrawn very soon afterward. Accordingly when, after the imprisonment and murder of Mirza Ibra- him at Tabriz, in 1893, Sir Frank Lascelles had an interview on the subject with the Sadr-i-A'zam or Persian premier, " the latter quoted to the British minister the old Persian or Mohammedan law, which made Mirza Ibrahim, merely by renouncing Mohammedanism and professing the Christian faith, liable to the death penalty. The Sadr- i-A'zam exprest his surprise that he had been placed in prison instead of being promptly executed."
Such facts as these serve to account for the comparatively small number of Moslems in Persia, who have as yet had courage to confess Christian baptism. Yet there have been such converts in perhaps every single station of the American and of the Christian Mission Societies mission in this country. A few examples of these will serve to show the courage and zeal which such newly-won disciples of the Master sometimes display, tho for obvious reasons we withhold their names.
In the neighborhood of New Julfa a few }Tears ago a young Persian
woman named S , after receiving baptism and enduring with
exemplary patience much brutal ill-usage for her faith, was obliged to
" Whosoever of you shall apostatize from his religion, then he shall die. and he is an infi- del." Surah ii. v. 214.
742 the gospel in persia. [October
flee with her infant to the mission-house for protection from a mob intent upon murdering her. Even there she was not safe, for the whole of Isfahan and its environs was stirred up against her. The chief muj tabid of the city encouraged a huge mob to proceed to Julfa and take her by force, in order to put her to death. Alarmed by the popular excitement, the prince-governor sent repeated orders for her surrender, and at last compelled the acting British consul, an Armenian, to insist on her being handed over to her enemies, tho that official in the writer's hearing said that she would undoubtedly be murdered in the street at the very door of the mission-house, as soon as she was given up. Only when he saw that the missionaries were quite resolute in their refusal to surrender her and her child on such condi- tions, and that they were determined rather to die with her in the threatened attack on the house, than to hand her over to the tender mercies of her enemies, did he at last consent to take her under his own protection, lie at once handed her over to the chief eunuch of the prince's andarun or harem, obtaining the prince's written prom- ise to protect her. Even then she was by no means out of danger, for the mujtahid three times sent to the prince to demand that he should surrender her for execution in accordance with the law of the Koran; but the prince on one excuse or another managed to avoid compliance. lie himself, afterward informed the acting consul that, hoping to get the girl to deny her faith in order to save her life, he informed her of the mujtahid's demand for her blood, and said, " But you are not a Christian, are you ? you have not been baptized ?" To use the prince's own words, when relating the incident he said, "I think she must be mad; for, when I said that, instead of denying her faith, she lifted up her eyes to heaven and then boldly replied, ' Yes, I am a Christian, and I have been baptized/" It is a cause of thankfulness that her life was spared, and that she now enjoys greater liberty. Nor is she by any means the only Persian female convert who has suffered brutal scourging and incurred the most imminent danger because of her open confession of faith in the Crucified One.
Under similar circumstances an aged mollah, who had been bap- tised, was most cruelly bastinadoed and for some time imprisoned before being expelled from his home. " But/' he told us after- ward, " I hardly felt the blows, because my heart was full of joy at being called upon to suffer for my Savior. I knew that these tor- tures were but a proof of that Christ had accepted me as His own." A Kurdish convert of the American mission, now engaged in assisting the writer in translating the Gospels into the Kirmanshahi dialect, was assaulted by his own father with a knife and by his mother threatened with poisoning for becoming a Christian.
These are but a few of many instances to show how converts bravely risk a cruel death for their faith. Such first-fruits of Persia
1898.]
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
to Christ give us hope of an abundant harvest in the future, when the Church of Christ awakens to the duty of striving in real earnest for the conversion of the Mohammedan world.
THE PRESEXT PROTESTANT MISSIONS.
The work of the American Mission among Xestorians, Armenians, and Jews has been largely owned of God. They have now no fewer than twenty-nine fully organized churches (four of them entirely self-support- ing), 188 native workers, 142 schools, 3,285 pupils, and over 2,400 commu- nicants. At the four hospitals of the Eastern Persia mission more than 16,000 patients were treated during 1897, and over 14,000 others at the five hospitals and disx>ensaries of the Western Persia mission during the same time. They have five central stations and eighty-seven out-stations (in spite of recent reductions), and a staff of sixty American missionaries, while no less than 287,040 pages of religious literature in the Syriac, Armenian, and other languages proceeded from their press during the year.
The Christian Mission Society mission is of much later date and much less fully manned. Hitherto we have had only one station in the Persian Empire, that at New Jnlfa, tho we now hope to extend the work to other places, and have even begun to do so. Our fourteen male and female missionaries (including wives), aided l>y thirty -eight Armenian assistants, are at work. AW; find the Henry Martyn Memorial Press very useful in the preparation of Persian tracts and other non-controversial works. In our two schools we had 419 pupils in 1S97. At the Julfa hospital and its two dispensaries last year 342 in-patients were treated, and no fewer than 21,520 visits from outdoor patients were received.
The British and Foreign Bible Society circulated 4,810 Bibles and por- tions in Persia during 1897, in spite of the prohibition of the colporteurs' work during some months. Itinerating tours have been undertaken as far as Kirman in one direction and Bagdad in another, none being more zealous in this work than Bishop Stuart.
The American Bible Society's agents have carried the Scriptures throughout the whole of their district, from Mosul as far as Herat.
Women's work for women has been carried on incessantly, with a zeal and devotion beyond all praise, by the ladies of each of the different missions. Such steady work in many different forms is gradually leav- ening the country with the Gospel, and we already hear that the mollahs say that their faith is in danger of overthrow.
Iii spite of all this, and much more that might be written on the subject, the question arises, "Are we Protestant missionaries in a po- sition to state that, if the work continues to be carried on under present conditions, Persia will, humanly speaking, be won for Christ within a reasonable time ? Are the attempts now being made to reach the large Mohammedan population of the country at all adequate to the requirements of the case ? " It is sad to be compelled to return a decided negative to such questions, yet no other can be given. Xo adequate effort to evangelize Persia at large has yet been made, and what has been accomplish t is little indeed in comparison with the stupendous task still before us. Much seed has been sown in many
;44
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
[October
places, but all that lias as yet been done is hardly more than a prepara- tion for the accomplishment of the duty which God has entrusted to us to do. We have gathered in the first-fruits, but the time of harvest is not yet.
Many, ami great difficulties, remain to be overcome before we can say with the beloved disciple, "The darkness is passing away and the True Light already shineth " in Persia. The view which American missionaries of experience take of the situation may be seen from the following passage,* which embodies much which they have written on the snbject in recent years.
A direct and exclusive Moslem progaganda [or rather a free and full proclamation of the Gospel to the Mohammedans throughout Persia] is at present an impossibility. It would result in the expulsion of the missionaries from the country. On such grounds the government acted in its demands for the withdrawal of the German missionaries from Oroomiah a fewT years ago. . . A bold and exclusive assault upon Islam in Persia would result in many martyrdoms. . . . Yet there can and must be a resolute attempt to evangelize the 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 Mo- hammedans falling within our Persian field. . . . But the fact remains that nothing is being done for the evangelization of the Moslems com- mensurate with our present opportunities. At present we have freedom enough to do vastly more for them than we are doing.
The Church Missionary Society mission, tho incidentally seeking to influence both Armenians and Jews, yet recognizes that the one great object of its existence is the evangelization of Moslems. Unfortunately the representatives of the British Foreign Office in this country, tho willing to do their utmost to protect the missionaries in the enjoyment of their rights in other respects, show no inclination to encourage them in this matter. Xo less than three times during 1804 was the present writer, when secretary of the C. M. S. mission in Persia, informed by the British minister that "the condition on which missionaries are allowed to reside in Persia is that they do not proselytize among Mussulmans/' Xeedless to say, in each instance the condition thus stated was in writing firmly rejected in the Master's name. The American missionaries in former years experienced much the same treatment, tho it is a matter for regret that a less reso- lute answer was at first returned. Taking all these facts into con- sideration it is not to be wondered at that as yet no very large number of- Moslems in Persia have openly confest Christ in baptism.
Yet even in this, the most important part of the work, results have not been wanting, as we have already seen. An American missionary of long experience writes to me from Teheran :
Multitudes, in the course of the 26 years since this station was opened, have acknowledged in personal conversation with us the force of Ohris-
* Vide Mr. Speer"s Report presented in 1897 to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (pp. 20-22).
1898.]
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
745
tian truth as prest upon their attention. I believe I can point to a score or more who have privately confest to me their faith in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, but who are yet, like Joseph of Arima- thea, disciples in secret for fear of their enemies.
Every C. M. S. missionary also, who lias been for any length of time in the country, can confirm this statement from his own personal experience of a similar kind.
Tlie Babi or Bahai movement, which is so widespread throughout the land, tho in large measure founded upon Pantheistic ideas derived through the early Gnostics from Indian teaching of the kind embodied in the Bhagavadgita, yet owes what it contains of the good and true to the circulation of Persian Christian literature, more especially the Bible. These people themselves are in most instances bitterly hostile to Islam, and most cordial in their reception of Chris- tian missionaries and colporteurs, who visit them on itinerating tours. Even the mollahs in not a few towns and villages are friendly, and in some cases even recommend their people to purchase and read the Bible. Wherever a missionary goes, he finds large numbers of Persians ready to visit him for religious discussions, and in this way many Moslems every year hear at least some part of the Gospel message. Almost every missionary, as soon as he learns in any degree to speak Persian, is kept busy seeing inquirers who come for definite Christian teaching, often with a view to receiving baptism. The great mass of the most hopeful and most earnest inquirers are from the Babi or Bahai community, tho not a few are Moslems. At
LN THE AMi.KJ.UA>' IH&SiXU^" HOSPITAL AT TEHERAX.
746
THE GOSPEL IN PERSIA.
[October
an ordinary Sunday service in Persian in a mission church or chapel it is not at all an uncommon thing to find at least 40 or 50 Persians present who have come to hear the Gospel preaclit, and whose close and earnest attention to the Word as read and spoken leaves little to be desired.
Medical missions have proved to be a most important means not only of establishing friendly relations with the people, but also of bring- ing them under definite Christian teaching. Whatever other depart- ment of mission work as at present conducted may have to be given up, the experience of perhaps all laborers in this field shows that the medical mission department should not only be retained, but largely extended, for as an evangelistic agency it would be hard to exaggerate its value and importance. The preparation and circulation of a Persian Chris- tian literature is being undertaken by the C. M. S. especially, and this agency will doubtless have far-reaching results in the near future. The simplicity, copiousness, and elegance of the Persian language render it a most useful instrumentality for the diffusion of a know- ledge of the truth.
NATIVE AGENTS IN PERSIA.
But the history of Christian missions in all lands and in every age shows clearl}7 that no country has ever yet been won for Christ solely through the efforts of foreign missionaries. It was not until the Saxons of England and the Celts of Ireland themselves sent forth teachers to men of their respective races, that Christianity finally pre- vailed in Great Britain and in the sister island. What, therefore, is the great desideratum at the present time in Persia is the raising up of an indigenous Persian church,, which will give the Gospel to the country at large. The only question is how this result is to be obtained. I am convinced that the work will not be done, humanly speaking, by the present Oriental churches. These are in such a low state spiritually, so corrupted with superstition, ignorance, and idolatry, so addicted to the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors to the Mohammedans, and to the abuse of them among themselves, and so convinced of the hopelessness of endeavoring to convert their Moslem oppressors, that, in their present state at least, they must be regarded as hindrances rather than helps to the evangelization of the country. Every attempt to revive and reform these decayed churches has hitherto failed, tho congregations of Protestant converts have been in many places gathered out from among them. But even these converts, as a rule — tho there are some noble exceptions — have little zeal for the work. And even when they have the requisite zeal, their manner of life, and their difference of language, dress, etc., render them, in the opinion of Persians, as much foreigners as are Europeans and Ameri- cans. The only difference is that the former are despised foreigners,
1898.]
'THE GOSPEL IX PEBStAi
r4?
while the latter are respected. On the other hand the prospect of forming large and permanent Persian churches in the cities and vil- lages, which are under the direct control of the mollahs and majtahids, seems at present a remote one. What then is to be done ?
That noble and devoted missionary, the late Mack ay, of Uganda, has well said that a special effort should be made to gain over to the Gospel the strong races of the Asiatic and African continents, in order through them to win their fellow-countrymen for Christ. The result of this policy is visible in the case of the Waganda, who are undoubtedly one of the strongest races in Africa, They bid fair to become the evangelists of a large part of that dark land. In Persia there seem to be only two strong races, the Kurds in the American part of the field and the Bakhtiyaris in that of the 0. M. S. Fierce, cruel, and bloodthirsty th<> they be, they are nevertheless men in a sense in which the average Persian can scarcely be said to be worthy of that appellation. They are far less bigoted Moslems, too, than are the inhabitants of the rest of the country, and in many cases they know little of the faith which they profess. Over them neither the mollahs nor the government have much influence. If they could be won for Christ — as by God's grace they could, if the proper men were sent to them — these warlike tribes, Persians, and yet not degraded Persians, might be the means of making the Christian faith honored through- out the land. Among them, too, by the Holy Spirit's agency, might be raised up devoted and courageous workers, who would go forth and preach the Gospel far and wide. But as yet little, if anything, has been done to reach these fierce but brave and trusty races. Would it not be well for Christian missionaries, while continuing their efforts for the evangelization of the other part of the country, and j)resenting the truth as it is in Jesus to Moslems, Jews, and nominal Christians alike, to make a special effort to bring into the fold these fine and war- like tribes ? Should Persia ever be divided up between those two European nations which are rivals for the empire of Western Asia, the Kurds and the Bakhtiyaris will undoubtedly flock to their respect- ive standards, and form the most valuable and trustworthy material for the formation of their native regiments. Why should Ave 7iot strive in like manner even now to make them soldiers of Christ, and thus win Persia for the l\edeemer ?
748
PRAYER IN THE TIGER JUNGLE.
[October
PRAYER IN THE TIGER JUNGLE.
BY THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF.
"O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come." — Psalm lxv : 2.
In that charming book, "In The Tiger Jungle/'* by that master of missionary narratives, Rev. Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, of Madanapalle, India, there is a most beautiful and impressive instance of answered prayer, which suggests again the thought so often emphasized in these pages, that an encyclopedia of prayer might be gathered, if the scat- tered instances of God's remarkable dealings could be brought into one volume. Of course, it is not meant to suggest that the whole body of Christian history is not a volume of testimony on this subject. But in many cases the answers to prayer can be traced only by a believer, for they are realized in the plane of faith and not of sight, and can be seen and known only .to those who live on that heavenly level, as when Augustine's mother, Monica, besought God that her wayward and skeptical son might not go to Rome, where his tempta- tions would be so much the more seductive; nevertheless it was the going to Rome, which led to his being sent as teacher of rhetoric to Milan, where he heard Ambrose, the bishop, by whose preaching and personal influence he was converted. God denied the spoken prayer of Monica that He might grant her heart's desire. So there are many prayers which in form are not granted that in fact they may be, by the fulfilment of that deeper yearning, of which the request is the mis- taken exjn'ession. And so, we repeat, many an answer is found in an apparent silence or refusal. Disappointment becomes " His appointment " — and the trusting soul living in the high plane of faith finds an answer in that high altitude, tho on a lower level none is to be seen.
Dr. Chamberlain himself frankly says of one of his remarkable experiences: "I do not give this as a sample of what usually occurs on our preaching tours. God does not often lift the veil; He bids us walk by faith not by sight. We often meet with opposition, or worse still, with indifference. We often wail with Isaiah, ' Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?' But now and then God sees fit to raise one corner of the veil and let us see what may occur in scores of scattered villages, of which we shall for the first time learn when we meet those redeemed ones in the land where all is known." f
But, to return from this digression, the instance here given of prayer, answered in a very obvious and recognizable manner, en- courages faith to trust where no such obvious and visible answer is
* Fleming H. Revell Co. t P. 54.
LS98.]
PRAYER IN THE TIGER JUNGLE.
749
given; for the answer is as sure in every case. It would not be well for the discipline of faith to have the interposition of Goxl always so manifest, we should walk too much by sight, if we had the seen to depend on ; and it is the hiding of God's power behind apparent disap- poinment and failure that trains faith to uniform and undoubting trust.
Dr. Chamberlain graphically tells how in September, 1863, nearly thirty-four years ago, he was going on a long pioneer journey into Central India, where no missionary had ever before gone. It required a tour of twelve hundred miles on horseback, and four or five months time, and was fraught witli great }ieril, from jungle fever, and still Worse jungle tigers. But this heroic missionary fortified himself by the command, "Go ye unto all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature;" and by the accompanying assurance, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age." Duty called and the promise was the shield of defense. The crisis of the journey is the point with which we are now mainly concerned. The travelers had reacht the farthest northern point, up among the mountain gonds (or khonds), who for centuries offered human sacrifices, and they had turned to go back by another route. They expected to find a govern- ment steamer, when they struck the Pranheta River, an affluent of the great Godaverv. But the heavy torrents of the monsoon had made the Godavery a stream of tumultuous waters, three miles wide. The steamer, in attempting to stem that fierce current, had broken its machinery and could not come to their aid. There was now no way out of their trouble but to march through the seventy-five miles of that deadly jungle, dare its fever and the tigers, and at the foot of the second cataract, reach the next steamer.
We pass by all the adventures of Dr. Chamberlain and his party, deserted by the whole party of coolies, armed guard and all, in the midst of an uninhabited district. AVe shall not stop to describe his desperate but successful efforts to get across the wild flood of the Godaverv, and his new start with another force of coolies, as the new caravan struck once more into the jungle, amid perils and exposure so great that only by intimidation could even those hardy men be compelled to go forward. At last a new and seemingly insurmountable obstacle lay in their way. Two huntsmen crost their track, from whom they learned that the backwater of the Godavery flood, thirty feet higher than usual, had made unfordable the affluents beyond which lay their only safe resting-place for the night. And to their inquiries the answer was returned, that there was neither boat nor raft nor any floating material to make a raft, whereby to cross to the knoll, where they had purposed to encamp. The party were even then standing in the wet and mud, as they surveyed their hope- less plight. The royal guides and native preachers, who were in the
750
'HAYEK IN THE TIGEK JUNGLE.
[October
party, were disheartened and at their wit's end; and the fierce hungry roar of the tigers could be heard about them as the night began to fall.
At this point, Dr. Chamberlain rode apart to commit the whole case to Him who hath said:
("all upon me in the day of trouble !
I will deliver thee And thou shalt deliver Me.
This was the substance of that prayer on the greatest strait of his life:
" Master, was it not for Thy sake that we came here ? Did we not covenant with Thee for the journey through ? Have we not faithfully preaeht Thy name the whole long way ? Have we shirkt any danger, have we quailed before any foe ? Didst Thou not promise, ' I will be with thee ? ' Xow we need Thee. "We are in blackest danger for this night. Only Thou canst save us from this jungle, these tigers, this flood. 0, Master, Master, show me what to do!"
An answer came, says Dr. Chamberlain, not audible but distinct, as though spoken in my ear by human voice: " Turn to the left, to tlte Godavery, and you will find rescue."
It was a mile to the river. Its banks were all overflowed, and there was no village within many miles, nor any mound or rising ground on which to camp. So said the guides. Again, the leader of this caravan rode apart, and lifted to God another prayer; and again came that inner voice, unmistakable in its impression on the spiritual senses/ then supernaturally on the alert, "Turn to the left, to the Godavery, and you will find rescue." Again he consulted his guides, but only to meet new opposition. It would take half an hour to make the experiment of reaching the river bank, and they would only lose just so much precious time, and have to come back to the jungle after all, leaving themselves so much less time to press forward to a bluff six hours further on, and it would be lark-man-hoar, and then — the tigers!
With the deeper darkness of despair falling on the whole com- pany, again Dr. Chamberlain rode apart for prayer. Once more that inexplicable inner response, heard only by that praying soul, came with thrilling distinctness. "It is God's anstoer to my prayer \" said Dr. Chamberlain. " I can not doubt. I must act, and that instantly."
And so he called a halt, and, against all remonstrance, commanded the column to wheel about sharp to the left, and take the shortest way to the river. Only the sight of that fourteen-inch revolver in the leader's baud sufficed to turn that column toward the Godavery 's flood. To the native preachers who lookt up into his face as tho to ask a solution of these strange movements, Dr. Chamberlain could only respond, "There is rescue at the river." The word went round among the coolies; M The dhora has heard of some help at the river."
1898.]
PRAYER IN THE TIGER JUNGLE.
751
He had, indeed, heard of help, but it was all as much a mystery to him as to them what that help was to be. And yet the peace of God possest him. Anxiety was somehow gone, and in its place a strange, intense expectancy.
Just before reaching the river, Dr. Chamberlain cantered ahead, all his senses keenly observant. And as he emerged from the dense undergrowth of bushes, there, right at his feet, lay a lartje Jiat-boat, tied to a tree at the shore — a large flat-boat, with strong railings along both sides, with square ends to run upon the shore. It had been built by the British military authorities in troublous times, to ferry over artillery and elephants, but it belonged at a station high up on the north bank of the Godavery.
Two men were trying to keep the boat afloat in the tossing cur- rent.
" How came this boat here ? " said the doctor.
They, taking him to be a government official who was calling them to account, begged him not to be angry with them, and protested that they had done their best to keep the boat where it belonged, but declared that it seemed to them possest. A huge rolling wave swept down the river, snapt the cables, and drove the boat before it. Despite their best endeavors, it was carried further and further from its moorings into the current and down stream; they said they had fought all day to get it back to the other shore, but it seemed as tho some supernatural power were shoving the boat over, and an hour before they had given up, let it float to its ])resent joosition, and then tied it to a tree. Again they begged that they might not be punisht for what they could not help.
Dr. Chamberlain, who was clothed with full authority to use any government property required on the journey, took possession, of course, and astonisht the whole party who now came in sight, with a means both of safety and transportation, which no human foresight could have improved. " Who"— says the grateful missionary pioneer — " who had ordered that tidal wave in the morning of that day, that had torn that boat from its moorings, and driven it so many miles down the river (and across from the north to the south bank), and that had thwarted every endeavor of the frightened boatmen to force it back to the north shore, and had brought it to the little cove-like recess, just at that point where we would strike the river ? Who, but He on whose orders we had come ; He who had said, 4 1 will be with you; 3 He who knew beforehand the dire straits in which we would be in that very place, on that very day, that very hour; He who had thrice told me distinctly, ' Turn to the left, to the Godavery, and you will find rescue ? ' I bowed my head and in amazed rever- ence, thankt my God for this signal answer to my pleading prayer.''"
This answer needed no watcher high upon the mountain top to see
752
MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR.
[October
the divine interposition. Not only the native preachers reverently said, "God has heard our call in our trouble and delivered us;" but the guides and even coolies were struck dumb with amazement that the "dhora" should know of that boat beino- there and come right out upon it. They were certain that they had no knowledge of such a rescue, and that they could not have found it.
Dr. Chamberlain closes his sketch of that pivotal and critical day with these solemn words:
"Nothing can equal the vivid consciousness we had that day of the presence of the Master; nothing can surpass the vividness of the cer- titude that God did intervene to save us. Some who have not tested it may sneer and doubt; but ire five know that God hears prayer."
MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR,
BY REV. G. E. WHITE, MAKSOVAN, TURKEY.
The great block of land known as Asia Minor constitutes the core of Turkish territory. The Ottoman government has valuable posses- sions in Europe, but their loss up to the walls of Constantinople would be, like the amputation of fingers or toes, inconvenient, but not destructive to life. The same is true of Turkish territory in North Africa and elsewhere. But to lose Asia Minor would be like cutting out the heart.
Asia Minor is much larger than Italy or Spain, about equal to the area of France. It yields excellent crops of fine wheat, resembling the " No. 1 hard" of Minnesota, besides other staple grains, tobacco, cotton, rice, and hemp. If rotation of crops could supersede the sys- tem of frequently leaving the land fallow, if improved methods of agriculture could be introduced, and railways built to carry off the surplus, Asia Minor might easily take a foremost place among the great producing and exporting regions of the world.
This country has been swept by successive waves of conquest and colonization more than almost any other portion of the globe, and each has left its deposit in the conglomerate of the inhabitants. Six prin- cipal races are now to be distinguisht, each almost as separate from the others, as from Americans, viz., Turks. Georgians, Circassians, and Kurds, who are all Mohammedan, and the nominally Christian Armeni- ans and Greeks. Missionary work is chiefly among the two last named.
POLITICAL CAUSES OF DISCORD.
Because of her natural resources and for political reasons Asia Minor has been an apple of discord among the European nations. Russia is nearest and has the most at stake. She might easily add to
1898.]
MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR.
753
her territory by moving up a step from Batoum and Kars, at the east- ern end of the Black Sea, or by stepping over the Slav principalities at the west England has been Russia's most determined foe to such aggressions, but there are signs that England's front is changing. English ship captains passing through the Red Sea are often heard to remark that some time England will attach Arabia. If she does, Ave shall have an interesting answer to the question whether she can con- quer it, for while Asia Minor has been often swept by conquering hordes, a foreign army has never yet penetrated far within the deserts of Arabia. Since 18G0, when the massacre of six thousand Christians in the Lebanon led France to show her power in Syria, French influence has been in the ascendant in that province. But now Russian emis- saries are laboring to connect the existing Oriental churches in Syria with the Russian Orthodox Church, which indicates that Russia docs not intend to spare Syria to France, should a division take place. German capital has constructed a railroad 300 miles long up Che back- bone of Asia Minor, from Constantinople to Angora, with a branch thrown off to Conia, the Iconium of Paul. It was reported in Berlin recently that another concession had just been granted, by which Ger- man capital would construct a railway from Alexandretta, at the south- east corner of Asia Minor, up into the interior, to effect a junction with the existing line, which would be extended from Angora to meet it, and would ultimately be pusht on to Bagdad, where water com- munication is establisht with the Persian Gulf. If these railways air thus built, it will be understood that Germany is strengthening the hands of Turkey to keep the Russians out.
The Turks conquered the Armenians by the sword, and have held them till now only by virtue of their superior fighting qualities — for there is no discount on Turkish soldiers; they are splendid fighters. Several causes, however, have operated within the last decade to make the Armenians very restive under the Turkish sway. One was, the independence of Greece and of the Balkan principalities earlier in the century; another, the sixty-first article in the Berlin treaty of 1878, pledging European assistance in securing reforms in their govern- ment; further, there has been considerable general dissemination of the ideas of liberty and progress. Some influence must be attributed to the perverted results of missions. Education is dangerous to ty- ranny. The Bible inculcates justice and equality before the law. The missionaries themselves take great pains, and often personal risks, in uniformly urging Armenians to remain loyal and quiet under the ex- isting government, to " fear God, and honor the king/' The English also come in for a share of the responsibility, for expressions of sym- pathy with the Armenians by such men as Mr. James Bryce, M. P., and the late Wm. E. Gladstone, were understood by them to mean that England would surely aid them, if they took the first desperate
r5'4
MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR.
[October
chance in a struggle with the Turks. Finally, Russian Nihilists, work- ing in secret, fomented disturbance.
The Armenian hotbloods formed themselves into a secret revolu- tionary society, the " Hunchagists." They were favored more or less by a considerable party among the Armenians, who devoutly hoped t hat the hour of their deliverance was near. Thus the Hunchagists were enabled to work in secret from the officials, and they carried as high a hand as they dared, with the object of proving to the European powers that Turks could no longer govern Armenians. The story of their doings has never been fully written; perhaps the time may come when it will be given to the world.
THE TURKISH MASSACRES.
The Turks were exasperated ultimately beyond the bounds of their patience. They are by religion fatalists, and, therefore, have no real sense of moral accountability. They turned upon the Armenians indiscriminately, and cut them down in the series of massacres, two to three years ago, in which, on a conservative estimate, 70,000 persons lost their lives in the manner narrated in the press, and several times that number were left penniless, on the verge of starvation. The per- petrators of these deeds will be held responsible at the bar of public opinion, of history, and of a just God.
The misery of the surviving Armenians beggared description or exaggeration, and the response made by Western Christians in their behalf is one of the finest testimonials to practical Christian brother- hood. The American missionaries were in danger at the time of the massacres (a bombshell exploded in the house of one), but none of them fell, and no one left his post. They were made the chief almoners of the one million dollars for relief that past through the central mission treasury at Constantinople, as, indeed, their reports of the destitution were partly instrumental in securing the gifts. They gave directly to the needy, or more commonly gave, without sectarian preference, through the committees of the Protestant con- gregations. It is a pleasure to testify that, while part of the money passing through Oriental hands so often clings, to the fingers, while sharing in relief work with several Protestant committees, I never knew of a dollar misappropriated. I may also add that while 5,000 persons in the Marsovan field were aided, we did not know of any death that the use of a little money might have averted.
ARMENIAN RELIEF.
Soon industrial enterprises partly took the place of giving out- right. Pug weaving, gingham manufacture, and various forms of needlework were started in several cities to tide over leading industries of those regions temporarily prostrate, and to furnish work. In some cases funds have been turned over five to fifteen times, recovered from
756
.MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR.
[October
the sale of the product on the common market, and then devoted to the support of orphans Meantime these relief industries have indirectly somewhat aided in the reorganization of usual business enterprises, and in most places they have now come to an end, because the rising tide of business renders them no longer necessarv.
In some of the worst devastated regions the people were helpt to rebuild their burned houses; one ox apiece was given to farmers who had no team: seed-wheat was furnisht those who had none: the sick were treated free: implements were given to artisans, and yarn was distributed to weavers, the object being in each case to enable a man to earn his bread instead of receiving it as a dole. This, and much more, was due to agents of the Red Cross Society who visited the country, and to Germans who came there to reside.
A later phase of relief was the gathering of -4,000 massacre orphans into a score of orphanages, funds being largely provided from Europe, and several persons from Germany or Switzerland now share with missionaries in supervising of the orphan homes. While some of the Armenian ecclesiastics dreaded to have wards of the nation come under missionary influence, lest it be made a Protestant propaganda, the people, as a whole, are full of gratitude for the care taken of their little ones, and are grateful for the Christian training which missionary supervision will insure. Many of these children saw one or both parents killed, witnest scenes of horror from which it would seem that human spirits never could recover, and shared in privations sufficient permanently to weaken their systems. But a great change has been wrought by the good homes and comfortable beds, the plain but abundant and wholesome food, warm clothing, and happy lives that they now enjoy. Each orphanage usually has a house-father and mother, teachers, cook, and such other service as is required. These persons are all Armenians, and have thrown themselves into this labor of lore with faithfulness and zeal as rendering glad service to some of Christ's little ones. And the children respond to their influence in remarkably obedient, well-ordered lives. They make rapid progress in study and character. They often say in effect : " In my village I knew nothing of the Bible or of Jesus, save His name, and no one told me it was wrong t<» lie or steal or use bad language, but when I came here I learned about Jesus and His love to me, and how could I. help loving Him ?" Many give the best evidence of childish conver- sion. As they grow old enough they are learning trades — shoemaking, gingham or towel weaving, etc., besides the art of neat housekeeping, in the hope that each one in time will return to his relatives with a good common-school education, a trade by which he can live, and thoroughly grounded in Christian character. Some diamonds may be lookt for among them, who will shine for Christ in that dark land.
Turkey politically is quiet to-day, tho it is impossible to tell when
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morning Light in Asia minok.
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one storm may be followed by another. The Armenians, humiliated and decimated, have spewed out the revolutionist, and the apathetic Turks have settled down into very much the same relation with the Armenians as before.
But it should be remarkt that the Armenians have shown wonder- ful recuperative power since the massacres. They are not des- troyed as a nation; they have not disintegrated. The writer recalls a town where sixty-four men were killed, one for every third Armenian house in the place, and not a woman or a child among them. The agony of fear for months was so great that many could not endure it, and went to other towns. Yet by degrees they crept back, reentered their looted houses, and reopened their empty shops. Only t wo families can be said to have disintegrated, and this is but a representative case. The blow, awful as it was, was no more staggering than other
nations have sometimes suffered in time oi war, ana nave recovered. The Armenians were long ground between the upper and the nether millstone of contending Roman and Parthian; later they were ground in the same way between Byzantine and Persian; they were trodden down by Tamerlane-; for centuries now they have lived on the verge of destruction. But God has kept them, it must be for some good purpose, not yet fully revealed. The faults commonly charged to them are such as are fostered in a subject race. They belong, like our- selves, to the Indo-European family of men, speak a language distantly akin to our own; have no Savior but Christ, no sacred book but the Bible. They stretch out appealing hands to us for sympathy and help.
PROTESTANT MISSIONS.
In the land whose current history we have been sketching, mission- aries have lived and labored for many years. The first representative of the American Board entered the Levant in 1819, being especially commissioned to Jerusalem. For a dozen years the first pioneers were occupied in tours of investigation, learning the native languages, and other preliminary work. By 1831 acquaintance had been made with the Armenians, who proudly claim to have been the first nation to accept Christianity. But the Armenian, like the other early Oriental
?58 MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR. [October
churches, soon settled down to a ritualism that illustrates the form of godliness without the power. When the first station designed especially to work for them was opened at Constantinople, in 1831, efforts were made for fifteen years for the Armenian Kational, or Gregorian Church, "if possible by reviving the knowledge and spirit of the Gospel to reform it." But the wine-skins of old form could not contain the new wine of fresh evangelical doctrine. The Armenian hierarchy cast out of their flock those who exhibited evangelical ten- dencies, and drove them to the organization of the Protestant Church. Thus in 1S4G the first four Protestant churches in the Ottoman Em- pire were organized under the imperial sanction, with a membership of about one hundred, representing a Protestant constituency of about 1,000. By the middle of this century the evangelical work among the Armenians was fairly inaugurated.
Three out of twenty missions of the American Board cover as thoroughly as possible all Asia Minor and the adjacent territory on the East. Such has been the success of these missions, and such the need of the great world, that this region has been left in comity to the agents of the one society, except that there are a few representatives of the Disciples at work. Scotch Presbyterians also maintain missions to the Jews in a few of the great cities, and the Bible societies will be mentioned in a moment. There are forty American gentlemen, most of them ordained, and half of them chiefly engaged in education in order to evangelization. There are half a dozen physicians and three or four occupied with publication. Besides the wives and mothers, often the most useful missionaries, there are some sixty lady teachers. These Americans are groupt in 1-1 stations as their residences,
frequently visit- ing, besides other places, 265 out- stations, places where native agents regularly labor. There are 50 schools of high grade with 1,300 students, 300 of common g r a d e with over 17,000 in attendance, 2 0 orphanages with 4,000 chil- dren, a total of over 22,000 "of the princes of
TOURING IN TURKEY.
Near a guard house on a mountain pass.
1898.]
MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR.
the provinces" under instruction. The Sabbath congregations number over 30,000, the Sabbath-schools over 25,000, the church members over 11,000, the avowed Protestants over 48,000. These results are made possible only by the faithful labors of 800 native preachers and teachers, men and women with whom it is a pleasure to work.
EDUCATIONAL WORK.
As the years advance greater stress is laid on the Christian value of higher education. Kobert College, at Constantinople, independent of but originally growing out of missionary effort, Anatolia College at Marsovan, Aintab College, in the city of the same name, and Euphrates College, at Harpoot, are clearly in the lead in the educational field where they are, and they have the influence that comes with such leadership. The faculties are chiefly composed of competent native gentlemen, many of them having pursued studies in Europe or America, and as influential over their fellow-countrymen outside the schools, as over the students within. These colleges maintain a curric- ulum fairly corresponding to that of American institutions, English being the college language. Mathematics, the natural sciences, history, political economy, mental and moral philosophy, are among the branches taught. Bible instruction is made prominent. The majority of the students pay their college bills, as they do in this country. A few receive aid, either direct or in compensation for service in the indus- trial departments. The students are receptive, responsive to Chris- tian influence. Many of the graduates, in at least one case more than half of them, are preaching or teaching in Turkey.
Missionaries to the end are foreigners. They can rarely touch the heart in preaching as they could at home. But the relation of teacher and pupil is very close. As was recently remarkt in the Review of Reviews: "The wealth of every nation in the last resort is to be measured in the character and quality of its young men and women/' French Catholics with their free schools have great numbers of chil- dren under their tuition, but God has given the distinct lead in college education in Asia Minor to Protestant American schools, and it is one of the most hopeful omens for the future. Gregorian Armenians and Orthodox Greeks recognize the quality of these schools, and gladly entrust their sons to them for the sake of the moral and religious training given, no less than for instruction in books. These schools have never been so crowded, nor has the collection of tuition ever been so easy, as since the massacre shockt people into a better sense of the investments that pay in this world.
Turkey is not up to coeducation yet, but colleges for girls at Scutari, a suburb of Constantinople, Marash and Harpoot, with such high-grade boarding-schools as are found in many places (as well as high schools for boys), provide an education for young women corre- sponding to that for young men, and provide competent teachers for the girls of Turkey.
Another branch of education is the theological, instruction designed to prepare men to preach being given at four places. As the students usually all learn English, the treasures of English books are unlockt to them to aid them in bearing fruit among the churches. While the
760 MORNING LIGHT IN ASIA MINOR. [October
number of students is not so large as one could wish, better educated and more"7Jonsecrated young men are coming forward for the minis- try than at other times.
The publishing department at Constantinople issues books designed to help the people to read and understand the Bible, including such educational works as are not otherwise provided, commentaries, Sunday-school lessons, stories, and other useful books. They also publish papers in Armeno-Turkish, Greco-Turkish, and Armenian, which, besides nourishing Protestant Christians, find their way into many homes all over the empire, where the Gospel is never preach t by any other agency. Akin to this is the grand work of the American and the British and Foreign Bible societies. The Levant agency of the American Bible Society distributes annually nearly 80,000 Bibles or parts in more than 20 different languages. The entrance of God's Word giveth light.
*< MEDICAL MISSIONS.
Livingstone used to say, " God had only one Son, and He gave Him to be a medical missionary.*' Five or six stations have medical mis- sionaries, with dispensaries and more or less in the way of hospital facilities. Medical missions often remove prejudice, for when a man is sick, lie will usually seek the physician from whom he has most hope of hel-p. Every hospital is an evangelizing agency, because of the character of the doctors and nurses in charge.
No mention has been made of Protestant work among the Greeks, as separate (from that among Armenians, but it is sometimes said that Christian work is not national, but international. The north and west coasts of Asia Minor have been from time immemorial almost as Greek as Greece itself, and in recent years some of the new and bright evangelical work has been among members of this live young race. The Greek Evangelical Alliance, with headquarters at Smyrna, is an earnest, active home missionary society for the Greeks of Turkey.
But all Christian work ultimately finds its goal as its source in the Christian Church. When a country contains an evangelical church, under the divine guidance governing, supporting, and propagating itself, then missionary work will be done, and not till then. Perhaps one can not now be sure what the future course of the Gregorian Church will be. Its creed is quite satisfactory. If extraneous mat- ters, like picture worship, could be chopt off, if the clergy could be men fitted to be spiritual leaders, if Christian character could be elevated above Christian ceremonial, the millennium would be at hand for Armenians. There have been many gracious signs of the Spirit's use of this church, especially since its people were chastized with the besom of massacre and plunder. Xone would rejoice more heartily than the American missionaries, if this ancient Church were to be- come new in the Spirit of Christ again. Meantime the existing Protestant churches are also disciplined, purified, and growing daily in strength.
Evangelical work in Asia Minor is as bright as are the promises of God. In proportion as existing agencies and methods represent the Gospel, thev are assured of ultimate success. Difficulties exist, to be solved in Christian wisdom and fraternity; discouragements, for those who care to dwell upon them. But in the language of the motto of Anatolia College — Anatolia meaning Asia Minor — "The Morning Cometh."
1898.]
BABISM — THE LATEST BE VOLT FROM ISLAM.
761
II.— MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
BABISM— THE LATEST REVOLT FROM ISLAM.1
The founder of this cult was born in Shiraz, Persia, in 1819. His name was Mirza Ali Mohammed, but he called himself at first "Bab el Din," the Gate of the Faith, afterward "Xatek," the Point. He claimed to be a personal manifestation of the deity, and is described as a man of benignant countenance, dignified bearing, charming person- ality, and markt eloquence. His ethics were pure, and nc charges of insincerity have been brought against him. He met his persecutions and sufferings with courage, patience, and unselfishness. Hence the influence that he has exerted in a land where such virtues are rarely met.
In 1843, after a pilgrimage to Mecca and a prolonged meditation in the Mosque of Kufa, the reformer returned to Shiraz with a journal of his pilgrimage and a new commentary on the Koran. For severely c riticising the mollahs he was forbidden to preach and was confined to his house. Here he systematized his doctrines, and instructed a very rapidly increasing circle of disciples.
Missionaries were sent into various countries and the followers of Bab became so numerous and so confident of success, that in 1848 they took up arms and declared their leader to be universal sovereign. Suc- cessful at first, they were soon crusht ; the Bab was imprisoned for eighteen months, and in 1850 was put to death after the failure of many persistent efforts to induce him to retract. His death, however, seemed to inspire his followers with new zeal, and again rallying, they recognized Mirza Yahya, who was but sixteen years old, as the Bab. He assumed the modest name, "Eternal Highness." In 1852 three of his followers attempted to assassinate the shah. This led to a fierce persecution in which many cf the Babists were put to death with horrible tortures. Since then the Babists have been a secret sect principally in Persia, but extending into India and Turkey, and even into England and the United States. While various claims are made as to their strength, no definite numoers can be given.
Even this recent and comparatively small sect is not united. The schism arose over the successor to Mirza Ali Mohammed. The Bab assumed the position of a John the Baptist in the new dispensation. After him was to come one who would make known a fuller revelation. He chose eighteen disciples, called the " Letters of the Living," who with himself as the Point constituted the sacred hierarchy of nineteen. Within this circle were two brothers, or half brothers, Mirza Yahya (Sub-i-Ezel) and Mirza Hussein Ali of Nur, who is known as Beha, both of whom claimed to be the successors of the Bab. The former rankt as fourth among the prophets, rose to be chief after the death of the Point, and for about fourteen years was nominal head of the Babists, altho his rival took the most prominent part in the affairs of the order.
In 1867 the latter suddenly claimed to be "He whom God shall Mani- fest," and summoned all the Babists to acknowlege him as their supreme and sole chief spiritual adviser. The majority did so, and thus Beha, who has been called the Christ of the Babists, took the place of the Bab, and is regarded by his adherents as being superior to the latter. Mirza
* From a paper read before the American Society of Comparative Religion, by the Rev. A. H. McKinney, Ph.D.. and publish! in The Pulse.
7f)2 MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT, [Octobg]1
Yahya resisted Beha's pretensions, and, altho exiled to Cyprus, retained a small following. A hymn in praise of Bella nine times contains this refrain:
The temple of God's glory is none other than Beha : If thou seekest God, seek Him from Beha.
Investigators declare that the Bah was sincere in his denunciation of the evils of his times, and that, as Mohammedanism was a revolt against the religious degradation of its early days, so Babism is a recoil from the iniquities of a debased Mohammedanism, as well as an attempt to ele- vate the state.* It is not altogether a new cult, but a selection from what is good in Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, and Parseeism. It is eclectic enough to embrace within its succession of apostles such names as Moses, Zoroaster, Mohammed, and Jesus. It is the natural fruitage of the speculations of those who recoil from the conception of a personal supreme being, and take refuge in Pantheism.
How was it possible for the Bab to gain a following so quickly, and for his doctrines to retain such a hold on a considerable number of people ? The answer to these questions will be understood when two facts are clearly in mind. First, the Persians have long had a belief that the new imam would arise with a pure doctrine and peace for men. The Bab declared that he was the expected one. Giving due credit to the teachings of those who had gone before, as his claims were accepted he became more pretentious, assumed the title Natek, i. e., Point, and taught that he was the focus in which all preceding dispensations would con- verge. Secondly, like John the Baptist, he declared that he was to be succeeded by one greater than himself. This left open the way for the assumptions of Beha, who was the Christ of the Babists. And as there is always the expectation of a coming one, when the leader dies, there is continually a hope that his successor will be the long-expected one, and enthusiasm is constantly kept alive, while the iniquities of the religious systems by which they are surrounded give inspiration to those who are longing for a pure culture.
THE BOOKS OF BABISM.
The sacred writings must be studied before Ave can even begin to have an inkling of the doctrines and practises of the Babis.t These writ- ings may be roughly divided into four classes:
I. The writings of the teachers of the Bab, Sheykh Ahmad Ashai, and Haji Seyyid Kazhu, from whom the prophet derived the germ of his doctrine.
II. The writings of the Bab himself, which are : 1. A journal of his pilgrimage to Mecca. 2. A commentary on the Sura Joseph, which is a mystical and often unintelligible rhapsody, containing as many chapters as the original Sura in the Koran does verses. 3. The Beyan (meaning utterance or explanation) is the Bible or Koran of the Babists, and con-
* In 1^03 II. Cottrell wrote in The Academy, vol. 47, p. 220 : " I have personal and intimate knowledge of the present leaders of the Babist movement in Persia, the four sons of the late Mirza Hussein, who are political prisoners in Akka, tho the shah within the last twelve months has repealed the penal laws against the sect, and is now very friendly. These princes have a large library of books, written by their father, on the peculiar doctrines of the sect, which aim at nothing less than the reconciliation of Buddhism. Christianity, and Mohammedanism. The father, in his will, directed his sons to transmit to all the sovereigns of Europe copies of certain of his works, accompanied by an autograph tatter."
t For the collection, collation, and translation of tliese works we are under great indebted- ness to Professor Browne, of Cambridge.
1898.]
BABISM — THE LATEST K KVOLT FROM ISLAM.
7G3
tains all the later utterances of their founder. These include prayers, commentaries, scientific treatises, etc., altho originally the word was confined to verses. There arc three Beyans ascribed to the Bah — two written in Arahic, and one in Persian. The chapters are arranged in groups of nine'een, which number plays an important part in this system.
III. The writings of Mizra Yahya, which are of especial interest, in- clude: 1. Kitahu 'n-Nur, the Book of Light. 2. Ruh, or spirit, in twenty- six chapters, each having a special title. 3. A volume of letters.
IV. The writings of Beha: 1. Ikan (assurance) assigned to the Bab, and said to have been enlarged in 1862 by Beha. It is in Persian, and the only book of the Babists that is printed. It is not for sale, but is given by Babists to those whom they think they can trust. 2. Lawh-i-Akdas (Most Holy Tablet) is the longest and most complete of the treatises of Beha, after he had put forth his claim as " He whom God shall Mani- fest." It purports to have been revealed "because Beha had at different times received letters from believers asking for instructions as to con- duct, etc., which were now epitomized so as to be accessible to all." It records the rules of the system, but gives no new doctrines. It deals with fasts, festivals, prayers, places of worship, pilgrimages, burial of the dead, rules for inheritance, and the advancement of civilization. 3. Lawh-i-Nasir is a defense of Bella's claim to be the one foretold by the Bab. 4. Alwah-i-Salatin (Letters of the Kings) are thirt y epistles to the King of Persia, the Pope of Pome, the King of Paris (Napoleon III.), the Emperor of Russia, and Queen Victoria, et al., in which strong pleas are made for tolerant' treatment of the Babists, and explanations of their doctrines are given with exhortations to accept the truth.
DOCTRINES OF BABISM.
I. God is one unmanifested, undifferentiated, unknowable essence. Nineteen mystically expresses the name of the Deity, and represents the manifestations of this essence. Nineteen times nineteen or three hundred and sixty-one gives the total of the manifested universe. All beings are emanations from the Deity. While Babism has borrowed from Chris- tianity, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism, it is Pantheistic in its doctrine of God.
II. Transmigration seems to be taught in the Beyan, but the Babists deny that they hold it, and the explanations offered are so philosophical, that space can not be given to them here.
III. Absorption. All beings will finally be absorbed into Deity.
IV. The Coming One. The Deity consists of nineteen prophets who incarnate the divine nature. First in order of importance comes the Bab, then next in order his forerunners, Mohammed, Jesus, and Moses. The Bab was to be succeeded by one who would complete the partial rev- elation made by him. Beha assumed the office of this coming one, known as "He whom God shall Manifest," and, having added to the revelation already given, died May 16th, 1892, to the great sorrow of his disciples, and was succeeded by one of his sons. As the coming one might be lookt for at any time, or might delay his coming for loll or 2001 years, he is always expected by the faithful, who, in their gatherings, leave a vacant chair for him, and all rise from their seats when his name is mentioned.
V. A Millennium is lookt for by the Babists.
VI. A Universal Religion, which is Babism, is to ultimately prevail.
764
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
[October
Efforts are to be made to convert others to this faith, but no violence is to be used, and under no circumstances are any to be put to death. What an advance is this teaching over the Mohammedan belief and practice in the same connection!
VII. Sotcriology. Babists insist on the dogma: "We know nothing whatever of our state after death, God alone knows it." Nevertheless, when Beha died in 1892, his son wrote: "The Sun of Truth hath bidden farewell to this earthly sphere, and now shines with a brightness wmich waneth not in the regions of Might and Glory." They believe in a judg- ment and in a future life, as the inner or essential body survives the death of the elementary body. There is no hell after death, but belief is heaven, and unbelief is hell.
PRACTISES OF BABIS.
I. Prayers are prescribed for three times a day for individuals. Con- gregational prayers, except those used in the burial of the dead, are abolisht. So far as missionaries can learn there seems to be but little praying except on set occasions.
II. Fasts. For the nineteen days of the last month of the year a daily fast, from sunrise to sunset, is enjoined for all, except the young, the sick, the infirm, the aged, and travelers.
III. Festivals. There are two great festivals. 1. The anniversary of the manifestation of the Bab. 2. The anniversary of the manifesta- tion of Beha, which is the principal festival of the Babists.
IV. Prohibitions. These are numerous and excellent. They include prohibitions against murder, polygamy, concubinage, adultery, slander- ing, backbiting, mendacity, the use of wine and opium, theft, traffic in slaves, praying in the street, ill-treatment and overlading of beasts, and the use of images or pictures in places of worship. According to Rees the doctrine of legal impurity, which has done so much to keep Asiatics apart, is not admitted.
V. Injunctions. The following virtues are enjoined upon all: Hos- pitality, kindness, courtesy, charity (including brotherly love and cour- tesy to inferiors), forgiveness of enemies, education, cleanliness, marriage of all, tithes.
YI. Recommendations. The following are commended: Pilgrimages, the use of pleasant perfumes, the adoption of one language and one character by all mankind, and the abolishing of the veil.
VII. Regulations. The laws of inheritance, the laws of divorce, and the ceremonies connected with the burial of the dead are regulated. Asceticism is discountenanced, and generous living encouraged.
The following is a summary of the reforms proposed by Beha:
1. Abolition of religious warfare.
2. Friendly intercourse among all sects.
3. Recommendation of one general language, but permission to study others.
4. Support of any king who protects the faith of the Babists.
5. Cheerful conformity to the customs and laws of the land in which Babists dwell.
6. Promise of the " Most great Peace."
7. No restrictions as to dress.
8. Recognition of the good works and devotions of Christian priests.
9. Confession of sins to to be made to God only.
10. The Bab's command to destroy certain books is abrogated.
11. Study of helpful sciences and arts commended.
12. All must learn and practise some craft or profession.
13. The "House of Justice " to supervise the affairs of the commonwealth.
14. Pilgrimages no longer obligatory.
15. A republic is desirable, but kings need not cease to exist.
1898.]
SOMETHING ABOUT PORTO RICO.
SOMETHING ABOUT PORTO RICO.*
COLONEL W. WINTHBOP, U. S. A.
The island of Porto Rico, or Puerto Rico (Rich Port), is the fourth in size of the Greater Antilles, being exceeded by Cuba, San Domingo, and Jamaica. It is situated nearly in the center of the Archipelago of the West Indies, between the seventeenth and nineteenth parallels of north latitude, and the sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh meridians of longitude. The island, in shape, is an irregular parallelogram, being a little under 100 miles long by about one-third of that distance broad. It is some 270 miles in circumference, and contains about 3,(500 square miles. (Some- what less than the area of Connecticut.)
Unlike its neighbors, this fortunate island has scarcely been disturbed by internal disorders. The movement in favor of a republic, which began in 1820, was checkt, without bloodshed, through the vigorous and
From The Literary Digest.
NATIVE HOUSES IN PORTO RICO.
judicious action of the able Governor tic la Torre. When, more recently, in 1867, an insurrection, in sympathy with that of Cuba, was initiated against the Spanish Government, its projectors were so terrified by an earthquake that they were induced to postpone their adventure, and a fresh rising in the following year was easily supprest.
The surface of the island is broken and hilly. A low mountain ridge traverses it from east to west, ranging nearer the southern than the northern coast, with spurs extending northward. Of this ridge the highest elevation is El Yunque (The Anvil), a mountain rising from the table-land of Luquillo to a height of 3,700 feet above the sea, and visible to vessels some sixty miles off the coast. The country has two markt features — the many wTooded ravines descending from the mountains, through wrhich course streams of bright water falling to the sea; and intersperst with these ravines, extensive stretches of natural meadow- land, which serve as pasture to herds of wild cattle.
The climate is healthful for the tropics. The constant running streams, with the absence of stagnant water, doubtless contribute to purify the atmosphere. The island, well aerated throughout, is appre-
* Condenst from The Outlook.
766
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
[October
ciably cooler and more salubrious than are the larger Antilles, or than the majority of the lesser Windward Islands, which have been termed the graves of foreigners. The mountain valleys, especially from Novem- ber to April, enjoy a delightful climate which has been likened to a per- pel ual spring.
In the rainy season at the north of the island a sea breeze blows from 8 A. M. to 4 P. M., in the absence of which life would hardly be tolerable near the coast. The rains, which are frequent and plentiful in May and June, come down in August and September "with the fury of a deluge." On the southern coast there is much less rain ; sometimes none at all even for ten or twelve months.
It is in August and September that the climate at the north is least healthful, especially for foreigners. Fever, dysentery, and scorbutic diarrhea are then to be guarded against, and a change to the mountains is desirable. These are also the months of the hurricanes which have in some years proved so destructive and ruinous in their effects. "This dreadful scourge," writes Colonel Flinter,* "which often visits the West Indies, may be considered as a great drawback to the planter, and is a great deduction from the value of West Indian property."
Porto Kico is eminently an agricultural island. It is favored with a soil of unusual fertility, made up chiefly of a clay mixed with peroxide of iron or marl. The abundant supply of water keeps the soil productive; even in the southern districts, where the rain is less and the ground seems parent, water may be found by digging a foot and a half or two feet beneath the surface. The hills and valleys are luxuriant w7ith ver- dure; the mountains are green to their tops and cultivatable at any height. Good timber, suitable for houses or ships, is abundant — a result owing in a measure to a wise prevision of the government early in the century, when it was formally ordered that " three trees should be planted for every one cut down." Among the native trees the royal palm has been perhaps the most useful, not only on account of its wood and its fruit, but also for its leaves, which furnish thatching for the cabins of the poorer classes. The mahogany-tree has yielded valuable timber for export. The plantain and the banana-trees have furnisht food for thousands. Among the shrubs, the coffee-plant, grateful to sight and smell, with its glossy leaves and jasmine-scented white blossoms, grows almost spon- taneously. The tobacco-plant yields a product not much inferior to that of Cuba. Sugar-cane is cultivated with profit, and best in the hot, arid regions of the south, where other crops requiring more moisture would not flourish. A considerable capital, English and Spanish, is invested in sugar plantations, Ponce being the centre of this commerce. A cotton remarkable for its length of fibre, tenacity, and whiteness is produced, and its culture might with advantage be largely extended.
The exports from Porto Rico have consisted mostly of sugar, coffee, tobacco, molasses, rum, honey, indigo, cotton, mahogany, cattle, mules, and hides. According to the most recent authority, t " latest returns " exhibit the three principal exports as follows: Sugar, 54,861 tons ; coffee, 16,884 tons; tobacco, 1,807 tons. The sugar export has declined, having once nearly doubled the above quantity.
* An English officer in the military service of the Spanish Government, who in 1834 pub. lisht "An Account of the Present State of the Island of Puerto Rico,,, is still the best authority on its topography and its development.
t "The West Indies," C. W. Eves, London, 1897.
1898.]
SOMETHING ABOUT PORTO RICO.
767
The island also produces, in lesser quantities, flax, ginger, cassia, rice, and maize, with citrons, lemons, and oranges, and other fruits, which might well be made articles of commerce. Several banks of fine salt are workt by the government.
A late authority * mentions that gold has been found both in lumps and dust in the beds of streams; adding that iron, copper, lead, and coal, have also been detected. The coal, however, used on the island, comes almost exclusively from Great Britain. Other main items of the British trade are cottons, woolens, jute for coffee-bags, metals, and rice; and codfish are supplied from the British colonies to the estimated value of £95,000. From the United States have heretofore been imported flour, grain, butter, lard, furniture, lumber, and staves for sugar hogs- heads and rum puncheons.
THE PEOPLE AN J) THE GOVERNMENT.
The population of this densely-peopled island is about S00,000 (three- eighths of them negroes). Eves states it, under date of 1897, at 813,937. A series of fortunate circumstances, in combination with a sagacious gov- ernment, has contributed to impart to the people a quality superior to any other of the West India Islands. In the first place, they have alw ays been a purely agricultural people. Then, at an early period, the crown lands of the island were divided among the natives, who thus became a community of small proprietors, to which was given a new consistency and stability on their being formed into a body of disciplined militia. Further, the island has not suffered to the same extent as its neighbors from the curse of slavery. The slaves were permitted to purchase their freedom on easy terms, and they have borne but a small proportion to the mass of the inhabitants. Thus, in 1873, when slavery was finally abolisht, there were but few unemancipated persons left in the province. Valuable settlers have also come from San Domingo, Venezuela, and elsewhere. As a result, Porto Rico is one of the few countries of tropical America where the whites outnumber the blacks; and, it may be added, where the males outnumber the females.
There has thus also been insured for Porto Rico a peasantry of free laborers — an industrious and self-sustaining population. Even the poor white Xivaro of the mountains or the interior is no burden upon the government, but, with his cow and horse, his acre of corn or sweet potatoes, his few coffee plants and plantain-trees, he lives, with his fam- ily, an independent and happy existence. All the rural laboring classes, with entire simplicity of manners, unite in a frank cordiality and genuine hospitality to travelers and strangers.
The most popular vice appears to be gambling, especially in the form of cock-fighting. t There are no beasts of prey, no noxious birds or insects, no venomous snakes or reptiles to disturb the life of the inhabi- tants. There are, indeed, no indigenous reptiles, no monkeys, and few birds. Rats are numerous and destructive, especially on the sugar plan- tations.
Porto Rico has been governed on the same plan as the other Spanish * Rectus, "Universal Geography,*' Vol. XVII., London, abt. 1891.
t The Roman Catholic religion prevails in Porto Rico as in other Spanish colonies. It is characterized, as usual, by intolerance, ignorance, and superstition. The Methodists (North and South), the Baptist Southern Convention, and the American Bible Society are planning to begin work there.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
[October
islands. A captain-general, with the rank of lieutenant-general, was the civil governor, and the head of the army as well as of the highest tribunal — The Court of Royal Audience. The island outside of San Juan, is divided into seven military departments, under the authority of sep- arate commandants, with headquarters at Bayamon, Arecibo, Aguadilla, Mayaguez, Ponce, Humacao, and Guayama, respectively. Alcaldes, appointed from San Juan, administer the civil affairs of the towns. The highest ecclesiastical dignitary is a bishop, resident at the capital.
The resources of the government were derived principally from the customs; a lesser revenue accrued from licenses for lotteries, public gambling-houses and cock-pits, r charge on the lands granted by the government, and taxes on certain sales and on stampt paper, and some minor items.
THE TOWNS AND HARBORS.
Besides the capital, there are some sixty or seventy towns and consid- erable villages in the island. Of these the most important are Ponce and Arecibo, each with a larger population than San Juan (that of Ponce being about 35,000 to 40,000, while that of San Juan is estimated at 25,000), Mayaguez (also larger than the capital) and Aquadilla, on the west coast; Fajardo and Humacao, on the east coast; Guanica and Aroyo on the south; and Pepino and Cayey in the interior. Aquadilla is especially important as a rendezvous for communication and trade with Havana. Its extensive and safe harbor has a depth of 11-15 fathoms. The best harbor, however, which is, moreover, readily defensible, is that of Guan- ica. Jobos, also on the south coast, has a good harbor, available as an outlet to the rich agricultural sugar district of Guayama. Other ports furnishing a shelter during a large part of the year are those of Maya- guez, Salinas de Coamo, Anasco, Cabo Rojo, and Bahia Honda.
Among the more attractive villages or smaller towns may be specified Yubacao at the east, Toabago, in an "extensive and beautiful valley on the north coast, fronting the capital on the opposite side of the harbor," »nd Aybonito, on a table-land of the southern mountains, " enjoying a cool and delightful climate." In the country near Ponce are thermal baths serviceable for invalids.
San Juan, the capital of Porto Rico, stands on a tongue of land reach- ing northwestward from the main land. This tongue is, in fact, an island, being a coraline reef and separated from the main by lagoons crossed by bridges and causeways. The harbor is entered by a narrow channel, where a pilot is required. At the point of the tongue is the Morro Castle, or citadel, behind which rises the city, which has been described as a "minature Cadiz."
The city is scarcely more than half a mile long by one-quarter broad.* It is very compact, with six principal streets and five cross streets. These streets are narrow and steep, but the town contains good public buildings, the most interesting of which is the carefully preserved Casa Blanca, built in 1525 as a residence for Ponce de Leon, the first governor.
* The population of San Juan is estimated at 20,000 and most of the people live on the ground floor. The negroes and poorer classes are crowded together in the most appalling manner. In one small room whole families reside. The ground floor of the whole town reeks with filth. There is no running water in the town and the entire population depends on rain water. There is no drainage system. Epidemics are frequent and the whole town is alive with vermin, fleas, roaches, mosquitoes, and dogs.
1698.]
RELIGION IN RUSSIA.
769
This, the oldest house in San Juan, is now occupied by the engineer corps. The other houses of the city are of all colors except white, and have flat roofs where rain-water is caught in cisterns, and the residents sit to enjoy the cool evenings. These houses have iron balconies, shutters, and jalousies, but no glazed windows and no chimneys, The site is a fairly healthy one, but subject to the visitation of the yellow fever, by which, however, foreigners are more liable to attack than natives.*
RELIGION IX RUSSIA. +
BY FEDOR ZAKARIXK.
The Russian associates religion with all his acts, both public and private, and the feeling he has in doing so, seems to have preserved its primitive simplicity. Stop before a shop in the evening, at the time of closing. Observe the clerks, silent, in a row, like onions, while the mas- ter, for the last time, noisily adjusts the massive padlocks of the front door. That done, every one takes off his hat, makes the sign of the cross several times, and prays the God of the czar to shield them from misfortunes, especially from burglary and fire.
At the corners of the streets, in the crossways, the passages, and the bazaars, including even the Jewish quarter, you see chapels with gilt domes, or simple images, before which are burning the sacred fires. The vestal of the place, an old sexton, with a rough beard, watches with scrupulous care the comings and goings of the passers-by. Every moujik uncovers respectfully before the holy images, and makes the sign of the cross three times, from right to left, according to the Greek rite.
There are, in the whole empire, more than sixty thousand churches or chapels of importance. Constantly, on the vast Russian plains, you see against the sky the profile of a temple on the horizon. The number of the clergy of these temples is considerable; the more, because mis- sionaries selected from them overrun the distant parts of Russia, in order to convert to the Orthodox religion the peoples still lingering in idolatry.
Still more courageous apostles carry afar, even to Abyssinia, the Orthodox faith. Russia supports an Orthodox bishop, even in the United States. Despite the activity of this prelate, however, it does not appear that Orthodoxy gains much ground over the various forms of worship among which the Yankee population is divided. The Russian mission especially deplores the lack of native priests, acquainted with the country and understanding the needs of a population so different from that of Russia. To accomplish this object, Bishop Nicolas has undertaken to found seminaries; after a course of studies extending over several years, the best pupils will finish their instructions in Russia. That is the way in which he hopes to recruit a native clergy.
According to the terms of an imperial ukase, every religious festival implies the closing of all shops and places of trade until midday. There
* There are 470 miles of telegraph and 137 miles of railway in the island, besides 170 miles under construction. There are also 150 miles of good roads.
t Translated and Condenst for The Literary Digest from Le Correspondant, Paris.
MISSIONARY DIGEST DEPARTMENT.
[October
has even been discussion of the question whether it would not be proper to prevent the iron-factories' fires from being heated on Sunday. It will be readily understood what a disturbance such a prohibition would cause in metallurgy. Every one knows that the great furnaces must burn without interruption.
The Orthodox Church celebrates, with great solemnity, the anniver- saries of the imperial family. Te Deums are sung to celebrate the provi- dential escape of the sovereigns from the catastrophe of Borki, and the anniversary of the emancipation of the peasants. In" return the emperor manifests the greatest solicitude for the clergy. In the month of March, 1893, his majesty issued orders for the amelioration of the situation of the unfortunate popes of the interior of the Empire: "I shall be quite happy," he said on this occasion, "when I shall reach the point of giving an assured support to all the country clergy." In consequence of this declaration, the Holy Synod invited the head of each diocese to celebrate a Te Deum of thanks, with prayer, on his knees, asking for long life for the emperor and all the imperial family.
Pigeons multiply about the churches; they choose a domicile above the entablature, and nestle among the acanthus-leaves of the capitals of the columns, soiling, at liberty, the gold of the image-stands, the sconces, and the porches, just as the pigeons of Venice soil the flag-stones of St. Mark. In Russia the pigeon is sacred. The people regard it as the sym- bol of the Holy Ghost, and will never consent to use it for food. One is hardly authorized to admit that, in the shadow of the night, opportunity may tempt some famished dvornik without prejudice. Doubtless the case is not the same with the Jews, who, with interested solicitude, pro- vide shelter for the pigeons above their sordid stalls. We may suppose that the smell of roast pigeon perfumes the rear of more than one shop on the Sabbath Day. Moreover, if the pigeons treat the churches like conquered edifices, they have no more respect for the visage of the great Catherine, the horse of Peter the Great, the helmet of Nicolas, or the shoulders of Souvaroff.
One of the most curious spectacles to be seen in Russia, is the arrival of the pilgrims at the Laura of Kieff. This town, the "Russian Jerusa- lem," one of the oldest in the empire, had four hundred churches not long after the epoch when Saint Vladimir introduced Christianity into the country. These were nearly all burned in an immense conflagration at the beginning of the eleventh century. Did the Laura, one of the four quarters of the Kievo-Petcherskaya monastery — the chief establish- ment of its kind in Russia — survive this disaster ? Was it erected more recently ? I do not know; but at any rate, it is the rendezvous of a great number of Russians (350,000 every year) who flock thither at certain times of the year. They arrive in long files, leaning on sticks with their wal- lets on their shoulders, from all parts of the vast empire. Some of them come five hundred leagues and more, from Archangel and Orenburg, begging from door to door the black bread which they dip in the fetid water of the marshes. These unfortunate creatures live in deplorable hygienic conditions; every year death mows down their crowded ranks. Happy are those who die on their arrival at the holy place. Happy are those who return to their country; for pilgrimage to the Laura, or the Russian Mecca, gives them, in the eyes of their brethren of the Orthodox Church, the same respect as the Hadjis have among the Mussulmans,
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III.— INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
EDITED AND CONDUCTED BY REV. J. T. GRACEY, D.D.
Christ's Methods of Missionary Work.
REV. WILLIAM N. BREWSTER HING-HUA, CHINA.
Never before in this "century of missions," has the subject of mis- sionary methods occupied such a conspicuous place as now.
The books upon the subject of mission methods are multiplying, and some of them are of great value. But there is no book that approach- es the New Testament for value in this respect. There we have the methods and principles that have the sanction of divine authority. The problem is for us to interpret these principles and adapt them to present conditions. The object of this article is to do this in regard to one important passage in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter xxv. verses 31 to 46 inclusive. In this familiar pas- sage Christ pictures the solemn assize, when all men shall receive their just recompense of reward.
The whole race is then to be di- vided into two great classes, the one to stand on the right hand, the other on the left; to the one the invitation "Come," to the other the fatal word "Depart." The ba- sis upon which this division is to be made is of supreme importance to every soul. In this vivid descrip- tion Christ gives us a brief account of a conversation between the Judge and persons of these classes, that is pregnant with meaning. It is a matter of astonishment that these words seem to have had so little weight or influence in direct- ing the policy of the great army of Christian workers, who all profess to believe that they are steadily marching toward that judgment seat.
It has often been noted that Christ here speaks only of the sins
of omission, and some have erro- neously inferred that the sins of commission will not be prominently considered at the Judgment. But that is a very unreasonable, and not at all necessary inference from this passage. Christ was speaking to His disciples, not to the multi- tude. He would naturally describe to them as representatives of the Church, what kind of judgment would be past upon His professed followers. The outbreaking blas- phemer, and worldling, will not be surprised at his sentence, as these people are represented to be. Those who hear the fatal "Depart from .Me," and wonder why, had been accustomed to count themselves as among His followers, who would hear the glad invitation, "Come, ye blessed of My Father."
It is fair then to assume that an analysis of these sins of omission, and of the works which will be re- warded, will give us some practical suggestions as to what lines of Christian work will be favored with God's special blessing, both here and hereafter. Nor is it illogical to assume that these principles will apply as well to Christian work in heathen lands, as to that in Amer- ica or Europe. And perhaps this analysis will shed some light upon the question, why progress has been so slow and unsatisfactory in not a few foreign fields; slow espe- cially when compared with the ex- tent of the task undertaken, to "disciple the nations." It is a sig- nificant fact that Christ does not rebuke these people for not having preacht and taught in His name. This does not necessarily imply that this line of Christian work is of no importance; but rather that these profest disciples had not omitted this duty. This line of
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work is being carried on with great diligence and skill, in nearly all Protestant mission fields. There is practically no difference of opinion as to its importance, as holding the chief place in the work of evangel- izing the nations. But our conten- tion is, that in the light of this and many other passages of Scripture, it is a fundamental and fatal error to give it almost exclusive posses- sion of all the work and occupy the time and strength of nearly all the workers, as it has done in most mission fields for many years.
The reward to the "blessed of the Father," is to be given to those who have ministered "to the least of these Christ's brethren," in one or more of five different ways.
1. Food. " I was a hungered and ye gave Me meat; I was thirsty and ye gave Me drink."
2. Shelter. "I was a stranger and ye took Me in."
3. Clothing. "I was naked and ye clothed Me."
4. Medical aid. "I was sick and ye visited Me."
5. Help to the vicious and crim- inal classes. " I was in prison and ye came unto Me."
It is flying into the face of all accepted laws of exegesis to spirit- ualize these words away, into mean- ing simply going about among poor, sin-cursed, poverty-stricken humanity, speaking words, and dis- tributing tracts of comfort and ex- hortation. Such methods of Scrip- tural interpretation, if carried to their logical conclusion, and applied to the whole Bible, would make it all an allegorical myth.
If the leaders of the mission movement will calmly, and with unprejudiced mind, face the teach- ing of this, and scores of other pas- sages of Scripture, and modify and add to their methods and plans of work so as to follow the inevitable conclusions that must be drawn froni them, the twentieth century
would see such triumphs of the Cross in heathen lands, as have not been dreamed of by the most ar- dent and hopeful among them.
But how can these five lines of Christian philanthropy be carried on upon anything like a large scale in heathen lands ?
1. Food. " I was a hungered and ye gave Me meat." The half fam- isht condition of millions of people in India and China is becoming bet- ter understood of late by the Chris- tian nations. The great Indian famine has done much to call atten- tion to it. The illustrated papers have made the harrowing spectacle real. The general Christian public has responded nobly to appeals for aid; and missionaries on the field have rendered invaluable service, in honestly and equitably distrib- uting the relief sent. It is the tes- timony of missionaries, that this practical aid in time of acute dis- tress, has been of great value, in opening the hearts of the people to receive the Gospel. But the fact is. that in these densely-peopled hea- then lands, the chronic state is one of semi-famine for at least one- fourth of the population, and hun- dreds of thousands die of want every year.
Has the Christian public, that has been so moved by the brief famine of India, nothing to do with this perpetual famine that has en- tailed many times more misery during this generation, than that terrible scourge from which India is just recovering ?
If I have succeeded in securing the attention of any of the mem- bers or secretaries of mission boards at this point, I think I hear a chorus of critics object. "If we begin to give out rice to the hun- gry people of India and China, we woidd soon exhaust our resources, and have a great crowd of 'rice- Christians,' who would leave us as soon as our 'daily ministrations
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ceast. Surely our last state would be worse than our first." And many of the missionaries on the field object even more emphatically to any mission work that ministers to the temporal wants of the peo- ple, fearing that they will then fol- low Christ for "the loaves and fishes." Very well, what if they do ? They did in Christ's time, yet that did not deter Him from multi- plying the loaves and fishes once again, when He saw the multitudes ready to faint with hunger. Jesus helpt the people over the existing emergency. He did not do it to show His miraculous power, and thus prove His divinity. He dis- tinctly states the reason: "I have compassion upon the multitudes."
Oh, for more of this divine com- passion among the ambassadors of Christ ! the spirit of the Master, who could not look upon suffering with indifference. If we have that pitying love, we will find ways of relieving want, that to these be- nighted heathen will seem no less divine than the display of His mi- raculous power. The next day when many of them came to be fed again, when they were where they could buy if they wisht to, He did not repeat the miracle, but took the opportunity to preach one of His most spiritual sermons, ex- horting them "to labor not for the meat that perisheth," and that " the flesh profiteth nothing." Let us learn of Him, follow His meth- ods, and trust Him with the re- sults. .
The objection above stated is well taken, if that were the only way to feed these hungry multitudes. But it is not.
Free distribution of food is allow- able only in acute emergencies, and should seldom, if ever, be long con- tinued and habitual. But if we children of the light will only be as wise in our generation as the chil- dren of the world, and put into our
work the same amount and quality of brains that successful business- men use, we will find many ways of helping the underfed millions in heathen lands to a sufficiency, without taxing the treasuries of the missionary societies, but rather lightening their burdens; the peo- I)le will be reacht in far larger numbers than ever before; the na- tive Christians will be more spirit- ual, self-support more rapid, and above all the divine instructions for carrying on this work will be followed.
To illustrate: the insufficient sup- ply of food in this densely-peopled part of the Fuhkien Province in southern China, is due in great part to insufficient and uncertain or irregular water supply for irri- gation. Where the scarcity is greatest is in regions dependent upon wells. The Chinese know nothing of the use of suction pumps. Water is laboriously drawn from Avells for irrigation by long sweeps. They can not be used in wells over twenty feet deep. In many places it is thirty or forty feet to the wa- ter. They have no way of lifting the water so far, and such fields are not worth more than one-tenth the value of the land that is low enough to be irrigated.
I have priced two pieces of land, both under cultivation, and as far as soil is concerned not essentially dif- ferent, and not more than 200 yards apart; the dry land was held at $20.00 an acre, and the wet land at $200.00. Yet the only real differ- ence was perhaps fifteen feet in elevation, which the people with their crude appliances were unable to overcome. It is easy enough to see that the introduction of appli- ances for irrigation, so common in the western States of America, would be a great blessing to the people, and in the long run a source of actual profit to the one who suc- ceeds in doing it. But to accom-
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plish this is Hot the simple matter it would seem'at first sight to be.
These machines are c omplicated and liable to get out of order, and certainly will need repairing. It is necessary to have a skilled machin- ist who will patiently and laborious- ly teach a few Chinese young men how to use western tools, how to set up a windmill, and how to run it, and repair it. In short, if we M ould add to our school for boys, a department of Industrial Mechan- ics, in charge of a skilled and con- secrated Christian machinist, with- in two or three years it would be more than self-supporting, and multitudes of formerly half-fam- isht Chinese would rise up and call us blessed. This is not an isolated instance. The same principle will apply in nearly all localities in the heathen world. In one place it is poor cultivation, shallow plowing that keeps down production; in an- other fertilization is not under- stood; another, wasteful appliances for gathering or preparing for mar- ket. All these keep down produc- tion to the point that causes the half-starved condition of a large per cent, of the population in all heathen lands.
It is within the power of the Christians of America and Europe to do much to relieve this condition. Hundreds of consecrated intelli- gent laymen would gladly come to the foreign mission field to do this work, if the way were opened for them by a broader xiolicy being adopted by the missionary socie- ties.
2. Shelter. ''I was a stranger and ye took Me in." A stranger, whom no one welcomes, and none cares for : the helpless ones, the blind, the maimed, the deformed, the lepers, the superfluous girl- babies, the orphans. Oh the cruel- ty, the heartlessness, the selfish- ness of heathenism ! None who have not witnest it, can realize it.
While something has been done in these lines, yet it has received but scant favor from mission boards except in rare cases ; and it has been left too generally to the un- certain and irregular efforts of in- dividual benevolence. It is prob- able, that if the missionary societies would take up this line of work upon a large scale, commensurate with the needs, and carry it upon practical industrial lines, employ- ing skilled and consecrated lay workers of both sexes to conduct it, that the sympathies of great numbers of people who are now giving little or nothing to missions, would be so stirred, that the neces- sary means would be forthcoming. The moral force of such institutions in all parts of the heathen world would be incalculably great. They would stand as perpetual and un- answerable witnesses to the mis- sion and spirit of Christ.
In our haste to build up self- supporting churches in heathen lands, have we not too generally neglected these helpless classes, and thus failed in a measure to repre- sent our compassionate Savior to the Christless nations ? Let us read again, and ponder well His words. "When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind : and thou shalt be blessed : for they can not recom- pense thee ; for thou shalt be re- compenst at the resurrection of* the just."
3. Clothing. " I was naked and ye clothed Me." The savage races know nothing of the use of cloth- ing from a sense of modesty. But the moment these savages accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, the sense of shame is developt, and as the demoniac was soon clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of the Master, so the savages of the South Seas, and of Africa have been clothed and transformed by the power of Christ. What is
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true of the naked savage tribes, is partially true of all heathen races. Even the Japanese, who boast of their attainments in civilization, are notoriously and shockingly immodest in dress.
Then, great masses of the poor in heathen lands are scantily clothed, because of their extreme poverty, as well as indifference to the claims of modesty. The missionary to the naked savage finds himself driven to consider this problem at once, and imports cloth for his people, until the natural channels of trade supply it. But in the semi-civilized, great heathen countries, especially in China, the enormous amount of labor necessary to making the clothes of the common people, has much to do with the insufficient supply. The common clothing of the Chinese is mostly cotton. The women make the cloth, spinning it, one thread at a time, with a small hand-spindle, and then weaving it in a clumsy wooden loom. A woman can not earn more than one cent a day spinning this cotton yarn. The introduction of modern appliances to spin and weave this cloth opens an unlimited field for mission industrial enterprise, which would make mission work self- supporting and be an incalculable benefit to the people. This is not an untried experiment. The Basel mission in India, has had spinning and weaving factories for years, and conducted them with prac- tical German thoroughness; having skilled laymen in charge. They have won a high reputation all over India. These industrial factories are not only self-supporting but support the entire educational work of the mission. And it is the testi- mony of Mrs. Osborne, of the Mis- sionary Training School of Brook- lyn, from whose account the above facts are taken, that "It was here I saw the most comfortable native Christian homes."
. . .) ■
If the mission boards of Amer- ica would carefully study and learn the lesson of these practical but far-seeing and devoted German missionaries, there would not soon be another chorus of wailing from the missionary offices, "Relieve us of this burden of debt ; " and a host of consecrated, skilled laymen would soon be in all these great mission fields, laboring to receive the blessing reserved for those to whom it shall be said, "I was naked and ye clothed Me."
4. Medical aid. " I was sick and ye visited Me." The missionary societies have done more work along this line than any of the others indicated in this passage. The Church at home and in foreign lands has been having a great awakening of recent years to the fact that "saving souls" does not mean saving disembodied spirits. Our Lord's example, in ministering to the sick bodies of men, is more fully realized and followed now, than in any age since the days of the Apostles.
China and Africa furnish now the great field for medical mission work. China is an especially in- viting field. The Chinese are slaves to medicine. Yet their native nia- teria medica is perhaps the most vicious on the face of the earth. There has been for the past twenty years or more, a rapid breaking down of the intense prejudice against all things foreign. And now that the interior is sure to open within the next few years, this change will be far more rapid than ever before.
If the mission boards would take advantage of this change, and start medical work in many centers, by wise and careful management they would become largely self-support- ing in a short time. There can be no reasonable doubt of this. Let the hospitals be commodious, but less expensively built than many
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that liave been put up in the past; let the rich be required to pay well for the services rendered them; let the medicines be sold, instead of given away; let medicines be sold in small packages, with printed in- structions as to their use, to be taken to distant villages, and used as needed in the family; and the mission to the sick could be ex- panded indefinitely. Many people in America will give to this class of Christian work, who do not take much interest in the ordinary evan- gelistic lines. If special appeals were made by the societies for this important branch of work, it would doubtless meet with very hearty response. But instead of this, we recently saw an appeal from a sec- retary of one of the leading socie- ties, for young men to go to China, which ended with this chilling sen- tence: "Teachers and doctors need not apply ! " This is not the time to retreat from advanced ground already taken, but to push forward t <j ward the fullest possible attain- ment of the blessing contained in the words of the Judge and Re- warder of all good: "I was sick, and ye visited Me."
5. Help to the vicious and crimi- nal classes. "I was in prison and ye came unto Me." The idea nat- urally prevails in mission circles that the heathen are so bad any- way, that the best we can expect, is to reach and save only those who are already feeling after the light. Yet this was not Christ's method. He went not only to those who needed Him, but to those who needed him most. The prisons in heathen lands, except when un- der the government of a Christian nation, are places of indescribable filth and misery. In China they add to the agony of the surround- ings, periodical torture by the at- tendants, to extract money from the poor prisoner. The cruel bar- barity of the treatment of prisoners
in China, is simply indescribable. As far as I have been able to learn, no attempt has ever been made by Christian missionaries, to have these barbarous customs changed. It might be of little immediate use, as far as actual achievement is con- cerned, but the mere attempt would result in a great spiritual blessing upon all who had a share in it. And the agitation would in time bear fruit. In the meantime, some mission work in the prisons would be permitted, and it would be appreciated by the poor unfor- tunates. Experience in visiting and praying with a few Christian men, imprisoned under false charges, has shown that the bless- ing of Christ is indeed upon this kind of work.
But in this class also Avould be included the vicious and criminal classes who are out of jail, as well as those in it. The thieves, the pirates, the harlots, the opium- smokers, and drunkards, have the same claim upon us, as they had upon our Master, when He preacht and ministered unto them in Gali- lee. He was so much among them that His enemies tauntingly pointed at Him the finger of scorn, and said, "Behold the friend of publicans and sinners ! " Alas, that in our day, our critics have so little occasion to repeat the reproach, which should be our highest glory !
In China every station should have its Opium Refuge, where with prayer, and faith, and love, and skill, scores could be saved every year from the chains of this fearful habit. Every missionary who travels about much, in this part of China at least, finds him- self constantly solicited by these poor wretches, with the piteous question, "Can you help me break off this opium habit?" It is idle to tell him, "Go and believe in Jesus," without helping him to
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break it off, by a short time of iso- lation from the poison, and from his old companions, while under wise, skilful, end loving care. Not a little has been done in this line by the medical missionaries, but it is indeed little when compared with the stupendous needs, and too little in proportion to other lines of work carried on.
But it is objected, "The treasur- ies are exhausted, and the present force of missionaries can not take up these new lines of work without neglecting the work already started."
To this we would reply, "Christ requires of His people no impossi- ble tasks, and if He has laid this upon us as a part of our duty to our fellow-men, it is not for us to stand looking at the Bed Sea before us, and Pharaoh's host behind us, and impotently cry, "We can not," but in reverent faith accept God's high commission to "6r0 forward;" the waters will part be- fore us. The Church has the money; there are hundreds of well equipt holy men and women, who are ready to go carrying blessing, and life, and light to the heathen world.
Men of faith wonder why the conquest of the world is so slow; men of the world tauntingly re- mind us, that after this century of missions, there are more heathen in the world to-day than there were one hundred years ago. Some say, "God so intended it. The world will go on getting worse and worse, until the Second Coming of our Lord." Others piously say, "We must not trouble about re- sults; but leave them with God."
Would it not manifest more faith in God, if we honestly faced the fact that our achievements do not fill out His promises, and fearlessly examine into the cause of our par- tial failure ?
We have let prejudice and prece-
dent direct our plans, instead of the example and instructions of our Great Teacher. Shall it be forever so ? The Church at home is waking to the great truth that, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many;" and that, "The disciple is not above his Master, nor the serv- ant above his lord; " and that this "ministering" is not unto disem- bodied spirits, but to the bodies, as well as to the minds and souls of men.
This truth is as real and vital to the evangelization of the heathen, as to that of the more favored un- believers in Christian lands.
A Missionary Sanitarium in India.
BY JACOB CHAMBERLAIN, M.I)., D.I).
Kodaikanal is, perhaps, of all the sanitaria of India, the one most ad- vantageous for, and the one most patronized by missionaries. It is about 7,200 feet above the sea, on the summit of the Palani, orPulney Mountains, which separate the fertile Madura district of the Madras presidency from the native kingdom of Travancore. " The Pulneys," as they are called, are some 40 miles long by 20 broad, and are a part of the mountain range, reaching from near Cape Comorin up to the north of Bombay, parallel with the sea of Arabia, and from 20 to 60 miles from its shore, and known in geographies as " The Western Ghats." The Xilgiris and Mahableshwar are the more northern high elevations of the same mountain range.
Half a century ago two of the missionaries of the Madura mission of the A. B. C. F. M., whose sta- tions were near the base of these almost precipitous mountains, de- termined to accomplish their diffi- cult ascent, to visit and preach to the few mountaineers, and see what
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the climate might be, and whether it were not possible to have a sani- tarium thus near them, in which to take refuge sometimes in the burn- ing heat, or when ill, and thus avoid perhaps, an absolute breakdown and an expensive journey to the homeland for restoration.
Finding some of the hill people who had brought their wares to the periodical market at the mis- sion station at the foot of the mountain, they induced them to pilot them, and carry for them a small amount of necessities up the difficult foot-path utilized by the mountaineers. On reaching the summit they found a natural basin, whose bottom was about 6,900 feet above sea-level, with numerous springs of excellent water bursting out of the sides of the hills that surrounded the basin, whose round and grassy summits were 7,300 to 7,700 feet above sea-level, and on whose sides were groves of forest trees.
Choosing a site in a grove 100 feet above the little brook, fed by all these pellucid springs, they erected a simple hut, with thatcht roof and "wattle and daub " sides, and spent some days in it, testing the climate, exploring the hills, and preaching to the people they found in the few mountain hamlets. It were interesting to trace the ex- periences they had and their efforts to find a feasible coolie-path or bridle-road, up which coolies with loads, and ponies with riders, and donkeys with packs could come; suffice it to say that ere many years had elapst, by the aid of the dis- trict government officials, a pass- able coolie, ghat, and bridle-path zigzaging up 12 miles from the foot had been constructed, and a dam built, at small cost, across a narrow spot, turning the little brook into a beautiful lake, three miles around at the water's edge, into which fish were speedily introduced, and a
few inexpensive houses had been erected by the Madura mission- aries and the government officials of the district, who appreciated for themselves, and especially for their wives and children, the boon of having within a night's journey a change of temperature from 100° in the shade on the plain, to 60° or 06° by the little lake on the moun- tain.
This was the origin of the now well-known sanitarium of Kodai- kanal. For many years its in- accessibility to all but those in the adjacent districts militated against its growth, for a journey of 350 miles by bullock bandy from Ma- dras across the scorching plains to the foot of the mountains would prove too much for many an invalid, who might otherwise be saved and restored by its invigorating climate; and other sanitaria more readily accessible were patronized far more. Now, however, there is a railway from Madras to Tuticorin, near Cape Comorin, passing within 32 miles of the foot of the mountain, from which bandies (covered carts) drawn by relays of trotting bullocks bring one by night in from 6 to 8 hours to a little traveler's bunga- low at the beginning of the ascent, whence starting before daylight one can come up in a chair or dooly borne by 8 coolies, or can ride up on a scrubby country pony, mak- ing the 12 miles' climb, including the 100 zigzags, in 5 or 6 hours.
Houses, built of stone found in abundance on the spot in broken masses as tho already quarried, with red clay as mortar, have been erected among the trees on all the hillsides around the lake, and have been steadily creeping up from near the lake level until now the tops of the hills, 7,300 and 7,500 feet high, are utilized as building sites. The government astronomer kindly in- forms me by a note to-day that the government reckoning of the
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height of Kodaikanal is 7,209 feet above sea level, which I take to be the mean height of the residential portion of this mountain resort. The great government observatory for India now erecting is on a hill 7,700 feet high, overlooking the lake from the west.
It is singular that nearly all the great sanitaria of India, north and south, are at practically the same elevation above the sea : Simla being 7;11G, Darjeeling7,l(>8, Oota- camund 7,271, Kodaikanal 7,209; while Mussorie, Nynee Tal, Ma- hableshwar, Coonoor, and The She- varoys are a few hundred feet lower.
Kodaikanal has less non-mis- sionary visitors than other great sanitaria. Simla is the summer capital of the viceroy, Darjeeling of Bengal, Nynee Tal of the north- west provinces, Mahableshwar of Bombay, and Ootacamund of Ma- dras, and hosts of government offi- cials with their -families accompany the governors there, and other Europeans swarm those places. In them all, and in others also, large and increasing numbers of missionaries too are found each season, obtaining a new lease of life for more vigorous work on the plains.
Kodaikanal, however, is a smaller and more quiet place. There is less of fashion; it is less expensive; it is more restful. Its climate is less damp than many of the hill sta- tions. Being nearer the equator, in latitude 10' 15" north, its climate va- ries but little in different seasons of the year. The thermometer 100 feet above the lake never goes below 40° in the cold months ; it never rises above 76° in the hot months. In January and February frost is seen on the shores of the lake, but never 100 feet above. In April and May, the hottest months here, I have not seen the mercury above 75° nor below 60°, varying thus less
than fifteen degrees night and day, week in and week out. Essentially the same as the temperature during the hot months of the year, might be said of nearly all the great sani- taria of India. There is not the real tonic effect of frost upon the system. It does not build one up who is much run down as a winter in the temperate zone does ; but an occasional change to one of these sanitaria is exceedingly helpful in preventing the utter break-down that has wreckt many a promising missionary career too near its be- ginning.
Missionary societies have come to appreciate the economy, both in health to the missionary and in money to their supporters, in hav- ing a sanitarium where their mis- sionaries, jaded by months of in- cessant work in touring, preaching, school work, looking after the sick, working up more and more in the languages of the people, and, what so burdened the Apostle Paul, "the care of all the churches," could come for six or eight weeks of respite both from heat and from wearing work, and recuperate the worn physical and mental powers. It prolongs the years of service, it saves the lives of experienced mis- sionaries, and prevents the neces- sity of so rapidly replacing them by novices. It forestalls the cost of many a long sea journey to the native land to save a life that would otherwise be sacrificed.
The "American Board," the leader in this wise movement, has been so convinced of this, that for more than thirty years it has provided a sufficient number of houses, inexpensive but comfort- able, so that every member of their large Madura mission can find room here through April and May, the two most trying of the eight hot months of the year. These houses are then rented, as far as possible, during the remaining hot months,
rso
to others, usually the families of government and railway officials and European business men, and thus the expense of keeping up the houses is mostly met, and there is no drain on the contributions of the home churches for missionary pur- poses. Other missionary boards and societies are fast falling into line in affording these facilities, considering it in the interest of the truest economy to do so.
A missionary census of Kodai- kanal completed to-day shows that there have come up so far, and are now in Kodaikanal, 170 missiona- ries, with 02 children, or 232 in all, of missionary families, represent- ing fourteen different missionary societies, American, British, and German ; in numbers the English being first and the Americans a close second; the Germans, Swedes, Australians, and Canadians being fewer.
It is not for a simple ' ' play spell " that all these missionaries come up; some indeed come so run down and ill that they must have abso- lute rest. Others come for change and recuperation with work, which they are able to bring up with them. The going over and valuing of hundreds of examination papers of the missionary colleges and schools whose spring term closes as their principals and teachers come up for the vacation, or the yearly examination papers of our national assistants who, each in his own village, carry on Biblical and theo- logical studies through the year ; the bringing up of arrears of corre- spondence and accounts; the pre- paration or revision of vernacular tracts and books ; with young mis- sionaries, the more vigorous study of the language ; important com- mittee work, that can be done better here than in the whirl of work below ; these and other matters de-
[October
mand a good portion of the time of all who are able to work.
There is another most important advantage here to the isolated mis- sionaries coining from scattered stations, who have little means of spiritual uplift through the year, except in private study and in the closet.
Every year there is held Jiere, in May, a four days' convention for the deepening of spiritual life, to which we look forward with joy as one of the chief blessings of our sojourn. This year it was held May 7th to 10th inclusive, and was under the stimulating leadership of Dr. W. W. White, of Mr. Moody's Biblical Institute, Chicago, who has been giving two years of ex- ceptional service to the young men of India. At each of our two daily sessions it was grand to see the earnest, joyous countenances of the missionaries that filled the Ameri- can mission church, while we to- gether considered the themes Christ, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and seemed to participate in the promised "fulness."
This wreek the annual Kodaikanal missionary conference meets for three days, for discussing impor- tant missionary problems, prepara- tion for which has been made throughout the year. The sessions close with a united missionary breakfast in a grove, at which above 150 missionaries will be pres- ent and partake together of food physical, and intellectual as well, in the after-breakfast speeches, and draw closer the bonds of missionary comity and loving friendship ere, next week, most of us go back to our more or less solitary stations, with new vows of consecration to Him who has given us so much of joy and uplift on these, His delec- table mountains, for His glorious service.
INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.
1898.]
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
781
IV. -FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY.
BY DELAY AN L. PIER SON.
Turkey,* Persia,+ Arabia.* Russia and Siberia,^ Greece,! Mohammedanism,' The Greek Church.**
Russian Progress and Missions."
Russia is a mighty power, and is leaping more and more to the front. Her recent advance in China lias been rapid and marvelous. What- ever may he the impelling motives in her Eastern policy, she has cer- tainly come into an enlarged area of control, and must be reckoned among the dominant factors in the determination of the future of the oldest empire of the world. As she goes forward on her aggressive career, it becomes an important
* See also pp. 60 (Jan.); 125 (Feb.): 734. 758 (present issue).
New Books: " Impressions of Turkey.'* Win. Ramsay. LL I).: "Every-Day Life in Turkey." Mrs. Ramsav: "The Conversion of Armenia." W. St. Clair Tisdall.
Recent Articles : 'The American College for Girls at Constantinople." New England Magazine (Mar.).
t See also pp 11, 55 (Jan.); 737. 701 (present issue).
New Books: Persia— Western Mission." S. G. Wilson: '•Persian Women."' Isaac Malek Yonan; Secretarial Report, R. E. Speer.
X See also p. 721 (present issue).
§ See also pp. 919 (Dec, '97); 530 (July); 769 (present issue).
New Books: "In the Land of Tolstoi " (Famine and Misrule). J. Standling and W. Reason: " In Joyful Russia:" " Sidelights on Siberia." J. Y. Simpson.
Recent Articles: " Russian Humanity. " Cosmopolitan (Dec. "97); "Catholic Exiles in Siberia." Appleton's (Jan.); "Coming of the Slav." Contemporary (Jan.); "Exiled Christ in Christian Russia." Arena (Mar.): "Awa- kened Russia." Harper's (May): "The Czar's Empire." Ha rjx r' a (June): "The Holy Season in Russia," Chautauquan (April); ''Baptist Exiles at Gerusi," Baptist Missionary Mag. (Aug.); "The Scundists." The Missionary (Aug.); "The Convict System in Siberia." Harper's (^ug.).
I! New Books: "The Isles and Shrines of Greece," S. J. Barrows.
Recent Articles : "The Regeneration of Greece," Cosmopolis (Aug.).
t See also p. 721 < present issue).
New Books: " The Bible and Islam." H. P. Smith: "Mohammedan Controversv." Sir Wm. Muir; "The Preaching of Islam," T. W. Arnold: "Mohammedanism: Has it a Fu- ture ?" C. H. Robinson.
Recent Articles: " Babism and the Babs." New World (Dec . '97>; "Islamism," Progress (Mar. 6, :98): "Teachings of the Koran as to Bible." C. M. Intelligencer.
** See also pp. 769 (present issue).
r\ The Presbyterian. Philadelphia.
question, what effect will her dominance in the East have upon the mission work of Protestant nations, and especially in Man- churia, which has recently come under her egis.
Great Britain has devoted hoth men and money, to a large degree, for the conversion of that vast province. The Preshyterians of Ireland and Scotland are much in- terested in their various missions there. They feel that they have much at stake in view of the cer- tain advance of Russian domina- tion over, and in, that region, and are much exercised over the prob- able outcome. From Russia's past policy little can he expected in the way of evangelical liberty. The Greek Church is as intolerant as the Roman Catholic. Russia per- mits no change of creed, unless for its own benefit, within its domain. It is true that the growing power of the Stundists is forcing the czar to a larger toleration than hereto- fore, hut the Greek hierarchy is op- posed to even this qualified tolera- tion, and curbs and represses as far as circumstances will permit. It may be that the widening empire, with its varied religious faith, may develop a more liberal govern- mental policy, but it is hard for the "leopard to change his spots." Accordingly our brethren of Great Britain are looking upon the situa- tion with sadness and dismay, and see scarcely a ray of hope gilding the horizon. [Russian policy in her colonies has, however, been more lenient than that pursued at home, and it is not expected that foreign peoples under Russia's sway will be forced into the Greek Church.]
FIELD OF MONTHLY SURVEY
[October
The Evangelical Greek Church.*
The Greek Evangelical Church has not been unfavorably affected by the general excitement (of the Greco -Turkish war), except that the financial embarrassment has rendered it more difficult to sus- tain and extend our work.
The services at Athens have been largely attended, and the attitude toward the evangelical movement has been improved, since it became apparent, during the national struggle, that those connected with it are not wanting in patriotism, as their enemies had formerly repre- sented them, charging them with being false to their country in changing their religion. .
At Yanina the pastor was im- prisoned on the baseless charge of being connected with the organi- zation hostile to the government. Through the good offices of the British ambassador at Constanti- nople, he was releast after a month. This imprisonment, of course, interrupted his regular work : but the time was not lost, as he had new opportunities to bear testimony to the truth ; and gained friends, not only among the prisoners, but also among the Turkish guards and officers, so that Bible readings begun at that time have been continued since, the good effect upon the conduct of the prisoners being recognized by the officials in charge.
From Yolo, Serais, Salonica, and Patras we have encouraging re- ports. There has never been any regular preaching in the last, but through the efforts of successive Bible colporteurs, an interest has been awakened, and a few have declared themselves evangelical. In addition to the grants to the army, the number of Scriptures
sold throughout the country last year was greater than for many previous years, showing a con- sciousness of some spiritual need which can be met onlv by God's Word.
Persian Notes.
The outbreak at Ilamadan against the Sheykhee sectarians is but another illustration of the growing intolerance of the Mo- hammedan leaders. Hitherto the Sheykhees, tho regarded as strain- ing the ordinary interpretations of the Islamic creed to support some peculiar mystic views of their own, have been allowed to worship in the same mosques along with the so-called orthodox believers. But the present spirit of Islam is more and more insisting on absolute uni- formity of belief. Hence the in- creasing persecution, as reported of the Babees, M ho are an outgrowth of the Sheykhee creed tho now far removed from its mild form of heresv.
* These notes from Dr. Kalopothakes. re- cently appeared in the Quarterly Register. ■nonthly organ of the Presbyterian Alliance.
At a dinner given the last Fourth of July in Teheran, Persia, at the United States; Legation, by Mr. and Mrs. Hardy, British Minis- ter Sir Mortimer Durand and Mrs. Durand were the only guests beside the American missionaries. Mr. Hardy proposed a toast to President McKinley, of whom he spoke briefly but fittingly, and then added a beautiful tribute to Queen Victoria, whose name was coupled with the president's in the toast. Sir Mortimer responded very feel- ingly and eloquently, thanking Mr. Hardy for having done Lady Durand and himself the compli- ment of permitting them to be one with the Americans on that occa- sion, and referring tenderly and forcibly to the growing feeling of amity and good-will between the two nations, a feeling which he truthfully asserted he had for many years striven to promote. His eyes filled with tears and his lip trem- bled as he spoke. All present knew that every word came from his large and true Christian heart. Lady Durand is a worthy coad- jutor of this really noble repre- sentative of Great Britain and faithful servant in the Church of Christ.
1898.]
EDITORIAL, DEPARTMENT.
783
V.— EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
Two most interesting events now are attracting much interest of Christian people, and of not a few unbelievers on this side the sea. First, the second Zionist Congress at Basel, which opened on Sunday, August 28, and second, the amazing proposal of the Russian czar for a general disarmament, which was issued on the 24th of the same month.
At the Zionist Congress about 500 delegates were assembled from all parts of the world, even as re- mote as India and America. The parent and leader of the present movement is Dr. Th. Herzl, editor of the Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, whose work on "The Jewish State "' graphically treats of the political martyrdom of the modern Jew, and advocates the purchase of Pales- tine and the organization of a neu- tral state, under protection of the leading powers. This book led to the Zionist Conference of last year at Basel, where from 200 to 300 took part, and largely the commanding minds among the Jews. That con- gress went so far as to indorse the effort to secure legally a home in Palestine for Jews who can not or will not assimilate with existing environments.*
Dr. Herzl maintains that the only way out of their misery lies through Zionism ; he upholds the legitimate right of the Jews to Pal- estine, and says that Turks are con- vinced of the loyalty of the Jews. Dr. Nerdau, of Paris, vice-chair- man, in speaking of the general position of the Jews, says that in Russia it is awful, and in Galicia dangerous. England's glorious
*On September 9th the Turkish Legation in Washington issued the following statement: "The entrance into Palestine is formally prohibited to foreign Israelites, and, con- sequently, the Imperial Ottoman authorities have received orders to prevent the landing of immigrant Jews in that province."
asylum for dismist people is now closed for poor Jews, and in Amer- ica, anti-Semitism is growing.
As to the czar's proposal, it is simply amazing, and seems incredi- ble. A document having such pos- sible relation to the religious history of the race, as well as the progress of missions, ought to have a permanent place in this Review. The following is the communica- tion which Count Aluravieff, on the 24th of August, handed to all accre- dited foreign representatives at the Court of St. Petersburg :
The maintenance of general peace, and a possible reduction of the excessive arma- ments which weigh upon all nations, present themselves in the existing condition of the whgle world, as the ideal towards which the endeavors of all governments should be di- rected. The humanitarian anil magnani- mous ideas of his majesty, the emperor, my august master, have been won over to this view. In the conviction that this lofty aim is in conformity with the most essential inter- ests and the legitimate views of all powers, the imperial government thinks that the present moment would be very favorable to seeking by means of international discussion the most effectual means of insuring to all peoples the benefits of a real and durable peace, and, above all, of putting an end to the progressive development of the present armaments.
In the course of the last twenty years the longings for a general Appeasement have grown especially pronounced in the con- sciences of civilized nations. The preserva- tion of peace has been put forward as the ob- ject of international policy. It is in its name that great states have concluded between themselves powerful alliances; it is the better to guarantee peace that they have developt in proportions hitherto unprecedented their military forces, and still continue to increase them without shrinking from any sacrifice. All these efforts nevertheless have not yet been able to bring about the beneficent re- sults of the desired pacification. The finan- cial charges following an upward march strike at public prosperity at its very source. The intellectual and physical strength of the nations, labor and capital, are for the major part diverted from their natural application and unproductive! y consumed.
Hundreds of millions are devoted to ac- quiring terrible engines of destruction which, tho to-day regarded as the last word of science, are destined to-morrow to lose all
784
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT.
[October
value in consequence of some fresh discov- ery in the same field. National culture, economic progress, and the production of wealth are either paralyzed or checkt in their development. Moreover, in proportion as the armaments of each power increase so do they less and less fulfil the object which the governments have set before themselves. The economic crises due in great part to the system of armaments <) outrance and the continual danger which lies in this massing of war material, are transforming the armed peace of our days into a crushing burden which the peoples have more and more diffi- culty in bearing. It appears evident, then, that if this state of things were prolonged, it would inevitably lead to the very cataclysm which it is desired to avert, and the horrors of which make every thinking being shudder in advance.
To put an end to these incessant arma- ments, and to seek the means of warding off the calamities which are threatening the whole world, such is the supreme duty which is to-day imposed on all states. Filled with this idea, his Majesty has been pleased to order me to propose to all the governments whose representatives are accredited to the imperial court, the meeting of a conference which would have to occupy itself with this grave problem. This conference would be, by the help of God, a happy presage for the century which is about to open. It would converge in one powerful focus the efforts of all the states, which are sincerely seeking to make the great conception of universal peace triumph over the elements of trouble and discord. It would at the same time cement their agreement by a corporate consecra- tion of the principles of equity and right, on which rest the security of states, and the welfare of peoples.
The matter of general surprise is that such a proposal should ema- nate from the most subtle and ag- gressive power in Europe, in view of the recent movements of Russia in China, etc., the ninety million roubles granted by imperial ukase for army expansion, the new order s issued for armed cruisers, torpedo boats, battleships, etc. But it is said that the czar hates militarism and is sincere in his desire to abate the horrors of war and the cost of standing armies, and is ambitious to shine in history as the Educator, as his grandfather did as the Emancipator.
Certainly, whatever the motives leading to such a proposal, it is a
time for all who love universal peace and all the blessings which follow in its train, to pray for God's seal on the proposal. This is all the more significant at a time when such vigorous efforts are making to organize an Anglo- American alli- ance.
The general opinion, however, is that the czar's scheme is doomed to failure owing to the selfishness and naturel suspicion of European powers.
All who have kept any track of the great work among Italian soldiers will be grieved to learn of the death of Cav. Luigi Capellini, minister of the Evangelical mili- tary church at Rome, an account of whose service to Christ appeared in our August number. He was a mighty man of valor.
We would call the attention of our readers to the new feature of the International Department. Dr. Gracey will there undertake to con- duct an Information Bureau on all topics bearing on the subject of missions of general interest to our readers. Questions should be sent to him at 177 Pearl Street, Roches- ter, N. Y., and, if of importance and general interest, will be care- fully answered.
Books Received.
Every-Day Life in Korea. Rev D. L. Gif- ford. 12mo, 231 pp. Illustrated. $1.00. Fleming H. Revell Co., New York and Chicago.
Korean Sketches. Rev. James S. Gale. 12mo, 256 pp. Illustrated. $1.25. The
same.
Fellow Travelers. Rev. Francis E Clark. l2mo, 288 pp. Illustrated. $1.25. The same.
What the Bible Teaches. Rev. R. A. Tor-
rey. 8vo, 539 pp. $2.50. The same. Meet for the Master's Use. Rev. F. B.
Meyer, B.A. 16mo, 121 pp. The same. Select Northfield Sermons. R. E. Speer,
H. W. Webb-Peploe, and others. 16mo,
128 pp. The same. Our Indian Sisters. Rev. Edward S tor row.
12mo, 256 pp. Illustrated. Three shillings.
The Religious Tract Society, London. A Brief Narrative of Facts relative to the
Miiller Orphanages. James Wright. l2mo,
75 pp. Paper. James Nisbet & Co.,
London.
1898.J
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
785
VI. — GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
EDITED BY REV. D. L. LEONARD, D.D.
Extracts and Translations Prom Foreign Periodicals.
BY REV. C. C. STARBUCK.
A Remarkable Career.
by G. APPIA.
(Journal des Missions Evangel iques.)
From St. Paul's time till now the whole history of missions demon- strates the importance of personal activity and consecration. Permit me to cite, at some length, an ex- ample chosen from the Russian Church.
Last July seventy adventurers were arriving in one of the ports of North America, to place in sure hands the eight or ten millions of gold which they had gathered in Alaska. Forthwith there began the exodus of one, two, some say five hundred thousand seekers of gold, who are already demanding a railroad to cross the polar plains. We might perhaps have Relieved that for this once the thirst of gain had outrun the loving zeal of mis- sionaries. It would be a mistake. Nine missionary societies have been laboring in Alaska for several years, and we often rediscover there the traces of the apostolic man, who was the first to bring the Gos- pel to these frozen regions.
Ivan Popoff, son of the sacristan of Irkutsk, was, at the opening of this century, a poor little orphan, whom an uncle, poor himself, had kept from perishing, but without being able to give him more than a slender pittance. Being, when small, admitted anagnostes, or reader of the church, he had to re- peat, in a sonorous silver voice, the portions of the Gospel appointed for each Sunday. Admitted to the
seminary, the young pupil would forget his hunger in devouring books of philosophy, of magic, of theology, and in developing his re- markable mechanical aptitudes, constructing clepsydras and port- able dials, and doing every kind of manual work. As priest of Our Lady of Irkutsk he soon distin- guish himself by his devotedness. The bishop wisht to appoint him almoner of the Russo- American Fur Company. Ivan, whose name as priest was Wenjaminoff (son of Benjamin) refused, but a traveler having described to him the spiri- tual desolation of the Aleutian is- lands, he felt himself seized "and as it were constricted in his heart," took leave of his wife, and went to establish himself among the Aleuts in Unalaska.
There the sun and clear sky were to be seen but some twenty days in the year, fogs were continual; vol- canoes thundered, and there were bellowings sometimes of the sea, and sometimes of terrible earth- quakes. The Russian missionary, a man of iron constitution, of gi- gantic stature, was affrighted at nothing, put his hand to every- thing, and seemed to revel in diffi- culties. He had already publisht the New Testament in the language of the Buriats; he forthwith ap- plied himself to the study of the Aleutian language, and to the translation of the Scriptures. After having built the first church in Unalaska, he past over into Alaska, resumed the same work, and soon gained the hearts of the Indians by his charity and his care of the sick.
Feeling that he alone was not equal to his task, he repaired to St. Petersburg and Moscow, to lay the claims of the work before the Holy
786
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
[October
Synod, and especially before the metropolitan Philarete, who gave him his best help, comforted him on the death of his wife, and ad- vised him to enter a monastic order under the name of " Innocent."
Returning to Alaska, Innocent was chosen bishop, then archbishop of the immense diocese of Kam- chatka, the Kurile, and the Aleu- tian Islands. You might then have seen him traversing alone the fro- zen stretches of Bering's Strait, lying at length in his sledge drawn by dogs, sometimes not falling in with a human dwelling for twenty- five days together, inspiring by his mildness and devotion to the popu- lations of these polar regions a pro- found attachment, mingled with ad- miration. His coffin-shaped sledge, drawn sometimes by reindeer, sometimes by dogs, traverst all the country.
Often he had to cross the sea in all seasons. Once he was detained at sea twenty-eight days, without seeing the sun a single hour. Food and water began to fail; the crew had to be allowanced, and water found by melting the snow hang- ing to the sails. Innocent was without ceasing on the bridge him- self, spreading the sails, watch- ing over the rations, keeping up the courage of his men, a veritable St. Paul upon the sea. In the Sea of Okhotsk, during the Crimean War, he was made prisoner by the English, who treated him with the greatest consideration. Some years later it became necessary to give him two coadjutor bishops. Chinese and Mongols respected the Chris- tian faith as represented by such a man. It was then that there came upon him a stroke as unexpected as undesired, the summons to the post of a metropolitan of the Greek Church. Philarete, of Moscow, had designated him as his successor. The former little orphan-cantor, the Alaska missionary, humbly ac-
cepted the new dignity, and became during his six remaining years one of the chiefs of the Greek Church, holding that see which, tho in rank the third of Russia, yet as repre- senting a former patriarchate, may be rather accounted the first. As he was breathing his last, in 1878, he was heard to murmur: "Is there not something more to be done ? " Assuredly, his activity and his success had proved the im- portance of the personal factor and of entire consecration for all the soldiers of the missionary army. — Translated by C. C. Starbucl:
Miscellaneous.
— Erasmus has fared hardly be- tween Catholics and Protestants. The latter have sneered at him, be- cause he did not join himself to Luther, ultra-predestination and all; the former thought, not with- out reason, that if he did not join the Reformation, he paved the way for it. Yet if both sides had listened more attentively to him, the great schism might have taken place all the same, but it would have been on both sides more hu- mane and less fiercely self-satisfied. Erasmus preacht a simple, but not a shallow or unfruitful Chris- tianity. We are glad to see that he was not, like Luther, indifferent to missions. Says The Chronicle : " Erasmus, in his treatise on 'The Art of Preaching, ' issued early in the sixteenth century, called upon the Christians of his age to pray for the evangelization of mankind. Lamenting the decay of the Chris- tian religion, and that it is now confined to such narrow limits, he goes on to say: 'Let those, then, to whom this is an unfeigned cause of grief, beseech Christ earnestly and continuously to send laborers into His harvest. What, do I ask, do we now possess in Asia, which is the largest continent — when Pal- estine herself, whence shone the
1898.]
EXTRACTS AND TRANSLATIONS.
Gospel light, is ruled by heathens ? In Africa, what have we ? There are surely in these tracts barbarous and simple tribes, who could easily be attracted to Christ, if we sent men among them to sow the good seed. Christ orders us to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers, because the harvest is plenty, and the laborers are few.' "
— We note that at the head of the Roman Catholic celebration, at Florence, of Savonarola's martyr- dom, stands a cardinal. We sup- pose this to be Alphonso Capece- latro, the present eminent arch- bishop of Capua. He is an Ora- torian, and the Oratorians, next to the Dominicans, are peculiarly de- voted to the memory of the martyr. Capecelatro is thought by many not unlikely to be the next pope. In that event he would probably initiate Savonarola's canonization. Several popes have contemplated this, but the Jesuits have never been friendly to the project. Now, however, they seem to be giving up their opposition. The present pope, by giving free access to the Borgia secrets, has rendered it impossible to defend the character of Alexan- der VI. any longer. It is worthy of note, that at their foundation the Jesuits defined the limits of obedience to the pope in Savonaro- la's exact words, tho probably quoted from an older source. Say the constitutions: " Obedience must be rendered to the pope, and to other superiors, so far as is consis- tent with charity," which is the technical Catholic term for su- preme love to God, and equal love to man. In a manner Savonarola is canonized already, as his por- trait has stood on the walls of the Vatican for nearly four hun- dred years among the fathers and doctors of the Church.
Since writing this we find that the celebration of his martyrdom
was attended, in a separate service, by seven cardinals and twenty- seven archbishops and bishops.
— " It is a curious thing, but there is a missionary chimera exactly op- posite to the chimera of mere civi- lization. Instead of separating civi- lization from Christianity, the majority of missionaries confound the two. They can not conceive Christianity except under the ex- terior aspects of the society in which they have grown up. They thus precipitate the collision be- tween the requirements of the Christian life and the pagan habi- tudes before the regenerated indi- viduals are sufficiently robust to sustain this struggle, and to come out victors. They go even so far as needlessly to provoke conflicts with national usages to which Christianity is essentially indiffer- ent."— Prof. F. II. Kruger in Jour- nal des Missions.
— Professor Kruger remarks that thus far no missionary society has a history so richly fortified by doc- uments, so detailed and so reliable, as the Netherlands Society, founded at Rotterdam in 1798, the first free association for this end on the Con- tinent.
— Buddhism is far enough from its end in Japan. There is one temple for every 540 persons, one priest for every 400. Buddhist wor- ship in Japan is computed to cost $10,000,000 a year.
— We are pleased to acknowledge the receipt of a number of the Bra- zilian Bulletin, organ of Mackenzie College, Presbyterian. It is very interesting, various, and animated, dignified and temperate in tone, aiming at raising the intellectual tone of Brazilian religion, but with- out laying itself out to proselytize. Brazil, probably, will remain Cath- olic, but such colleges as Mackenzie may well be as elevating and
GENERAL. MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
[October
strenghtening to it, as Robert Col- lege has been to Bulgaria. Such a publication, by contrast, increases the disgust felt with some others (not in Brazil), whose intemperate virulence, professing to do the work of Christ, is really doing the work of Antichrist.
— The Church Missionary Intel- ligencer for July has a leading ar- ticle, entitled: "The 'Policy of Faith ' Forty Years Ago." It proves by abundance of facts and figures that "so long as the policy of faith was boldly followed, the Lord hon- ored the society, raising up the men, and providing the means. But so soon as the committee were frightened by deficits, and began to retrench in oneway or another, the blessing was withheld, and both the men and money failed.
"Whence came the revival? God's own remedy was resorted to — united and definite prayer, not for money, but for men. In 1872 came the Day of Intercession, orig- inally proposed by the S. P. G., and especially designed as a day of prayer for laborers. The result was immediate. In the next few months both the S. P. G. and the C. M. S. received more offers of ser- vice, than they had received in as many years previously. And what of the funds ? In the very next year, 1873-4, the C. M. S. income reacht by far the largest amount ever known up to that time.
"Then came a period of enlarged operations in many parts of the world. The next four years saw the East Africa, Palestine, China, Japan, and Northwest America missions greatly developt and ex- tended; also some of the agencies in India; and Persia and Uganda be- came fields of new missions. But in 1878-80 there were fresh financial troubles, and men were again kept back. In 1881 recovery was re- sumed, and in the next six or seven
years there was quiet and steady progress.
"In the autumn of 1887 there was initiated — or rather, as these facts show, revived — what is now called the 'Policy of Faith,' and the net number of missionaries (not includ- ing wives), after deducting deaths and retirements, which was 230 in 1872, and 309 in 1887, is now 777.
"Not another word is necessary."
THE KINGDOM.
— Over the door of one of Dr. Barnado's homes in London there is this inscription: " No destitute child ever refused admission." The directors say that this assurance has been literally fulfilled.
— Rev. E. W. Stenson has workt forty-seven years in South Africa without ever having before this year been home, or even seen Grahamstown or Capetown.
— Bishop Penick writes in the Southern Churchman; " Amid all of the deeds of heroism done, none perhaps stands more glorious than the story of our great hero, ' Schereschewsky,' as it was told by one of the oldest and most honored members of the Mission- ary T7nion. He is pictured as un- able to speak plainly from a stroke of paralysis, unable to walk save by leaning his hands upon the shoulders of his wife ; unable to write, save with one finger, on a typewriter ; and yet laboring on through long years thus afflicted, this man has given the Bible to the Chinese, perhaps in one of the best translations that has yet appeared and is there now supervising its publication."
— Rev. L. C. Barnes recently gave a most interesting and suggestive address with this as the theme : Napoleon and Carey, a contrast, and in which the Consecrated Cobbler is shown to be verily greater than the Conqueror.
1898.]
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENT K.
789
— The Euclid Ave. church of Cleveland has undertaken to sup- port its own missionaries. This will require the raising of its pay- ments to the American Board from $231 to $1,500 a year, independent of the Woman's Board or the Christian Endeavor Society.
— A writer in the London Mis- sionary Chronicle estimates the number of Congregationalists in Great Britain and the colonies at 1,000,000. "During the past twenty years," says he, "these churches have sent into the mission field 317 missionaries. Were the Polyne- sians to have acted in the same pro- portion, they would have sent during that period 12 missionaries, while as a matter of fact, they have sent 250, or twenty times as many.*'
— At the last Presbyterian Assembly Dr. Pentecost said that in the division of responsibility among denominations 10,000,000 of the population of this country, and 160,000,000 in heathen lands, would fall to the lot of Presbyteri- ans, and added that on the less than 500,000 of Greater New York who would, according to the pro- posed ratio, fall into the Presby- terian "sphere of influence," the Presbyterian Church spent last year $777,365, or about the sum she spent on the 160,000,000 that fall to her in the foreign field.
— The early disciples furnish three types of Christian steward- ship— Barnabas, who gave all he had ; Ananias, who kept back part of the price ; and Judas, who stole all there was. Here is eulogy for every saint and philanthropist like Daniel Hand, the Barnabas of our time. Here is denunciation for every Christian plutocrat who has smuggled the spirit of Judas into this Christian age. Here, finally, is apology for Ananias. He stands for all the Christian disciples whose
record is that of keeping back part of the price. The benevolent schedule, in its mildest sense, is the damning indictment of Chris- tianity. The immense disparity between abilities and activities is a startling sign of the times, and yet Ananias is not altogether blaniable. He is, for the most part, living up to his light. The rank and file of our churches have been educated in what may be called the casuistries of benevolence. The first duty of Christians is to emphasize the fun- damental doctrines of Christianity. Benevolence will never result from sentimental religious awakenings. In general, this is the most reli- gious age in the history of the Church. Life is more abundant now than ever before. What it needs is arousal. It is time that we should raise up a generation of givers, for the world irreligious is laying the challenge of gifts at the threshold of the Church. — Rev. C. 11'. Hiott.
— If giving were as systematic as getting, the religious and benevo- lent needs of the world woidd be readily met. The few do not give at all, the many their spare change, and the very few a specified amount. When men are putting aside a certain proportion of their incomes for food, clothing, housing, doctor's bills and other so-called necessities, how many ever pause to think of religion as one of the necessities ? How many ever give it the dignity of being counted among the essen- tials of life and happiness ? And yet people who have never had a thought of it in their minds in the time of personal sorrow turn to it, even then without a thought of their distress, if it were not there to minister to them in the crisis. Wise business men who provide for every other emergency that may arise in their lives, who consider their children's schooling and estab-
TOO
lishment in business and social position, avoid persistently, almost obstinately, the question of religi- ous obligation. — Univ ersalist Leader.
— The ( 'h u rch Econom ist has re- ceived a letter from a suburban pastor to the state superintendent of the Congregational Home Mis- sionary Society in Illinois, which contains the following interesting item of "church work:" "An effort was made to raise money for the home missionary cause and one of his parishioners started in to raise his tithe in the lines of poultry economics. He promist a week beforehand that all the eggs his hens laid during the week he would give to home missions. The letter states that this man was getting three eggs a day up to that time, and that 'the daily average for that week was twelve ; ' and he says, ' the best of it is that the hens do not know that the week is up, and they are still following the high standard.'"
— The church of Kusaie, one of the Micronesian islands, has less than 100 members under the care of a native pastor. At one of the missionary meetings in the girls' school the topic was India, and a few members of the church were present, and were deeply toucht by the stories of starvation and suffering among our India mis- sions. They askt if they might take the papers and pictures con- cerning the famine-stricken suffer- ers, to show them to their friends. Nothing more was heard from them until just before the sailing of the Morning Star for Honolulu, when several appeared at the mission premises to say they had taken up a collection for India, to be sent through the American Board. They brought $20 in money, and a package of tols (native cloth) which has since been sold for $20 more.
[October
Forty years ago these people were naked savages. — Missionary Her- ald.
— The Presbyterian Board owns and operates 6 printing presses in the foreign field. The press at Shanghai, which stands in the very front rank of similar presses throughout the world, printed last year 50,550,953 pages, while that at Beirut printed 19,611,303. The former has 700 volumes in the ver- nacular on its catalog, while the latter has about 500 volumes. The total of pages printed last year by the 6 presses was 77,041,938.
— The bicycle is destined to render important service in mis- sionary work. In Great Britain it is regarded as part of the mis- sionary's outfit. According to the Belfast Witness, "four-fifths of the departing missionaries take a machine with them when they go abroad."
— These figures well illustrate in what numbers the heathen are transferring themselves to Chris- tian lands, or within easy reach of the Gospel. In California and other States are found some 100,000 Chinese, .in Singapore 120,000, in Peru 50,000, in Hawaii 20,000, with 15,000 Japanese ; in Natal 53,000 Hindus, 54,000 in Singapore, 15,000 in Trinidad, 10,000 in Fiji, etc.
WOMAN'S WORK.
— In Moody's Chicago Bible In- stitute 1,038 women have been students during the thirteen years of its history.
— These are the words of Bishop Newman of the Methodist Church : "There is nothing in the services of the church that breaks up the fountain of my nature and stirs the depth of my soul so much as when I consecrate these deaconesses to the Master, for I consecrate them to a life of suffering. There is all there is of it — not their own suffer-
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
1898.]
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
79i
ing, but the suffering of others ; theirs for the Master in this regard. Henceforth you are to go forward where the sick are to be cared for, where orphans are to be watcht over, where the sinner is to be re- claimed. You have given yourself a glorious mission ; it is a conse- cration to a life of suffering. And to-day you leave the world, its pleasures and its honors, and before God and His holy angels and this congregation, you consecrate your- selves to this life of suffering. God be with you ! "
— An urgent invitation has come to Mrs. Mary H. Hunt to visit Japan next year to introduce scien- tific temperance instruction into the public schools of the empire. Until lately the minister of edu- cation, upon whom so much de- pended, was not approachable — was in fact anti-foreign, but Hon. Hamo, former president of the Imperial University, now holds that office and is moist desirous of introducing Western methods and teaching. The door is open — they want the text-books on temperance phys- iology used in this country and they are waiting for a leader.
— The number of American Pres- byterian women laboring on the foreign field is 426, of whom 241 are wives of missionaries, and 185 are single, 20 of the latter being medical missionaries, and the remainder teachers and evangelists.
— This is the record of progress made by the Women's Missionary Association of the Scottish Free Church : At the close of 1887 the staff of its European missionaries numbered 32, 20 in India and 12 in Africa, and these were assisted by 187 native Christian women. Since then such an adv ance has been made that the society has now 65 Euro- pean missionaries — 41 in India and 2 1 in Africa. With these are asso- ciated nearly 400 native Christian
workers, while 11,000 girls and women are undergoing regular instruction.
— Mrs. Andrew Murray writes from South Africa of Wellington Seminary : " We have now nearly 200 young women and girls living in our school homes, besides which we have lately begun an Industrial School for poor girls, which is mainly a work of faith, having no support but free gifts beyond a cer- tain sum given by government — £12 for each girl and some help toward salaries of the mother and teacher. We have already 27 girls training as mother's helps, dress- makers, laundry workers, and shop attendants. We hope in time to make the institution self-support- ing."
— Certainly no woman in the United States has done more for the relief and comfort of the sol- diers than Helen Gould. She is devoting her entire time to the work of the Woman's National Relief Association, of which she is president, with headquarters at the Windsor Hotel. Miss Gould left her beautiful home on the Hudson early in July, shortly after the battle of Santiago, and came into the city, where during the unpre- cedented heat she has been working night and day, collecting money, buying supplies, distributing them among the hospitals, fitting out relief ships, and doing other work which one would think ought to be done by the government. She has sent 3 shiploads of ice to Santiago at her own expense and is now hav- ing 2 more loaded with cargoes of 3,000 tons each. She has fitted out 1 relief ship at her own expense, has personally visited and inspect- ed all of the hospitals within the limits of Greater New York at which soldiers or sailors are lying, and if they have not been furnisht with every comfort that money
792
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
[October
can buy it is not her fault. She sent a check for $100,000 to the president, as will be remembered, at the outbreak of the war, and those who are familiar with her work in the hospitals believe that her ex- penditures have not been less than $50,000 up to date. — Chicago Record.
— Mrs. Addis lately died in India at the age of 90. When 4 years old she was taken by Mrs. Judson to Burma, and remained with the family for ten years. Her hands embroidered the cover to the Bible which Dr. Judson took to Ava to present to the king. Her earliest missionary work was, as a child of ten, to teach some poor men and women the Burmese alphabet. For 30 years she did excellent work as a missionary's wife at Coimbatore. Since 1870, when her husband died, she has kept a Bible and tract de- pository at Connoor, and a shop where mission goods from all quarters have been sold. In that time she collected for the Madras Bible Society over 10,000 rupees.
AMERICA.
United States. — Among the start- ling events attending the progress of the late Spanish-American war must be set the conference of mis- sionary societies as to a united and cooperative plan of campaign in carrying the Gospel into the West Indies and the Pacific Isles. All unseemly rivalry and tres- pass are to be avoided as irrational and unchristian. Cuba is to be ap- portioned among 7 denominations which wish to enter ; Porto Rico among 3, and the same number are to receive an allotment in the Phil- ippines. Behold how good and pleasant, etc.
— A new "Self-supporting and Self-propagating Industrial Mis- sion " for Africa has been lancht, with a secretary in Newburgh,
New York, and treasurer in To- ronto. A plateau in Nyassaland has been chosen as the field, reacht by ascending the Zambesi and Shire. To start the work and carry it on for 3 years $12,000 are sought, and 2 suitable men as pioneers.
— The Swedish-American Luther- ans raised $6,297 last year for foreign missions, and the United Norwegian church $12,000, the lat- ter working in Madagascar.
—Again let Mr. D. O. Mills be set down among missionaries, who to his New York Hotel No. 1, so complete in all its appointments, and so marvelously moderate in its charges for rooms and board, has added No. 2 possest of the same features. And may his tribe in- crease !
— The Rev. H. B. Frissell, princi- pal of Hampton Institute, in a recent publication says: "The North and South are working to- gether for the negro, for whose education the latter has given, in taxation, since 1870, about $60,000,- 000, and the former in donations, about $25,000,000. About $1,000,000 a year comes from the North, and over $3,000,000 yearly from the Southern States for negro schools."
— Hon. J. S. Sherman, chairman of the Indian committee, in a speech at Hampton Institute re- cently, said: "Thirty-five years ago there was hardly an Indian in the United States in school. To- day, outside of the five civilized tribes, we have 20,000 Indians in school, more than 5, 000 in industrial schools like Hampton and Carlisle, and 20,000 heads of families living in houses." A new building now being erected at Hampton for the teaching of domestic science will give Indian and colored girls better opportunities for learning trades and all branches of housekeeping than they can find elsewhere in the
1898.]
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
793
country. Already among her 500 Indian students who have returned to their tribes, Hampton can point to many home-makers who are cen- ters of light and civilization in their little communities.
— Alaska has 10 Presbyterian mission stations, 8 Greek Catholic, 5 Roman Catholic, 1 Moravian, 4 Episcopal, 3 Swedish Evangelical,
2 Methodist, 1 Baptist, 1 Congrega- tional, and 1 Quaker ; upward of 40 in all.
South America. — During the last
3 years the American Bible Society has expended $229,543 in Latin America, and of this amount $144- 038 went to South America. Dur- ing that time 302,437 volumes of the Scriptures were circulated in the same countries, of which 196,682 volumes went to South America. Last year the society sent colpor- teurs to Ecuador, and in 5 months one man sold in Guayaquil 2,000 volumes, of which 000 were com- plete Bibles. Every copy was sold, the proceeds amounting to $1,068.
— Sixty years ago the civil author- ities of Ecuador banisht the agent of the American Bible Society at the request of the Bishop of Quito. Eleven years ago a cargo of Bibles was refused entrance into the coun- try through the same influence. Now, however, since the recent revolution, which has brought re- ligious liberty, the American Bible Society has again been able to en- ter, and without let or hindrance circulates the Word of God, and even the president has bought a Bible.
— In a recent issue of El Callao, a leading paper in Peru, attention is called to a friar who is going about the suburbs of Linares advertising himself as a "redentor de almas " — redeemer of souls — at 50 pesos a head. "He has redeemed sc many poor souls," says El Callao, "that
15 to 20 million dollars have been collected."
— The women of Antofagasta, Chili, have banded together and formed a society, the object of which is "to raise woman to the position she deserves, and which God gave her at the creation." Among the rules are these: All con- versations or discussions on poli- tics, religion, or lineage, are strictly forbidden in the society's halls ; also the members when attending the meetings must be scrupulously c lean and wear dresses of "elegant simplicity," avoiding any extrava- gant display, and quite in keeping with the age and rank of the wearer.
EUROPE.
Great Britain. In the August Mission Field (S. P. G.) the mind of Rev. R. H. Walker is in "per- plexity" as he notes how the Stu- dent Volunteers, and the Dissenters generally are full of zeal in pushing the Kingdom, and he queries as follows: Is Christ divided, we might ask with St. Paul ? Is it the will of our Head and Chief Captain that Baptist, Presbyterian, Wes- leyan, and other forms of Chris- tianity should be reproduced in Asia and Africa ? Is the strife among Christians and the conflict between the Anglican and Roman churches to reappear among con- verts of other races ? Even in In- dia, where, perhaps, as it is under English rule, we are quietly believ- ing that the Church of England must be well to the front, we are of - cially told by the Bishop of New- castle that 12 American non-Epis- copal societies are gaining upon the Church of England. In 1881 the 12 American societies had 119 mission- aries, 86,145 converts, 32,797 com- municants; the Church of England had 144 missionaries, 180,681 con- verts, 40,990 communicants. In 1891 these numbers were: for the
794
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
[October
12 American societies, 186 mission- aries, 151,430 converts, 61,544 com- municants; for Church of England, 203 missionaries, 193,603 converts, 52,377 communicants. The gain is very evident, and it means that the vague form of Christianity which they represent is being more ar- dently propagated than that which we believe to be the better way.
— The variety and extent of the Mildmay Missions is something surprising. These are but a frac- tion of the names which represent the work: Deaconess House, Train- ing House, Nursing House, Memo- rial Home, Memorial Cottage Hos- pital, Convalescent House, Or- phanage for Girls, Bible Flower Mission, Victoria Park Medical Mission; 14 London missions in all and 7 country missions, be- sides 3 medical missions abroad, in Malta, Jamaica, and Palestine.
— The Salvation Army celebrated its 33d anniversary recently. Gen- eral Booth reported that in the spring of the present year the or- ganization possest 15,019 officers attacht to 6,231 corps and outposts. There were also 33,662 local officers and voluntary officials, 14,500 bandsmen and 1,647 officers en- gaged in social work. This social work shows 86 women's homes with accommodation for 1,754 and
I, 227 inmates; the total number admitted during the 12 months was 4,769. There are 15 prison- gate homes, 15 farms, 108 slum- posts, 28 food depots, 101 night shelters, with accommodation for
II, 307; 38 workshops, 14 children's homes, and 24 other social institu- tions.
— J. Hudson Taylor is arranging for a forward movement in China, in the form of a special itinerant evangelistic band, composed of con- secrated young men, who are will- ing for Christ's sake to devote 5 years of their lives to itinerant
preaching in specified districts, without marrying or settling down until after his period of service. Two evangelists and two Chinese helpers will usually journey to- gether, preaching and selling Scriptures and Gospel tracts, and returning after a time to the cen- tral station, where the missionaries will pursue their Chinese studies, and the native workers will receive systematic Bible teaching.
— Since Dr. Barnardo's Homes were establisht in 1866, 33,368 boys and girls, from babyhood to an average adult age, had been rescued. There are now 86 separate Homes connected with the institutions, and 24 mission branches, spread all over the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands, and far away in Canada. Up to date 9,556 boy and girl emigrants have been sent to Canada and the colonies, of whom over 98 per cent, have succeeded in the struggle for independence.
— The Friends' Mission in India has now 850 orphans under its care, of whom the greater proportion are famine waifs. £4 per annum will support one of these little ones until they can earn their own liv- ing, and funds are urgently needed for this object. At Seoni Malwa 37 of the older boys recently made their public confession of faith in Christ.
— The Missionary Record of the Scottish United Presbyterian Church for August gives these fig- ures, relating to missions in Man- churia, which include the work of the Irish Presbyterians, as showing the "enormous advance : "
|
May 1897. |
May 189 |
|
|
Pastor |
.... 1 |
1 |
|
Elders |
17 |
27 |
|
Deacons |
171 |
294 |
|
_ 104 |
181 |
|
|
Members (adult |
i 5 788 |
10,255 |
|
Candidates |
__ 6 300 |
9,442 |
|
Schools _ |
59 |
64 |
|
Scholars— Boys |
.... 334 |
626 |
|
Girls |
157 |
306 |
|
Collections |
Ts. 15.667 |
Ts. 52,645 |
|
£261 |
£877 |
About Is. 8d. (40 cents) per member.
1898.]
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
795
The Continent. — Early in July there was celebrated at Halle, in Germany, the bicentenary of the founding of the famous Francke Orphanage, founded by Auguste Hermann Francke, a man who has probably exercised as strong an in- fluence upon the religious life and activities of the past two centuries as almost any other man. Coming under the influence of Spener, the Pietist, he was more efficient, and his practical power was even greater. He was noted as a philan- thropist and as an educationalist. His orphanage was the nucleus of a remarkable group of educational institutions, and at the time of his death, in 1727, there were over 2,000 children in his various schools. In addition to this Francke was in a great degree the founder of mod- ern missions. It was to him that Zinzendorf largely owed the im- pulse that started the Moravian missions, and it was an intimate friend of his who inaugurated the Danish Tamil mission. It was after his death that Wesley visited Ger- many, but the influence of the Halle school upon him was most markt. — Independent.
— The last annual report of the Berlin City Mission states that 47 missionaries, 10 young ministers, and 10 deaconesses were at work during 1897. Regular services are held in 13 large halls distributed over the city. A little pamphlet containing a sermon, a hymn, and two prayers are distributed by vol- unteers, every Sunday to about 70,000 people, who are unable to attend church. Several religious Sunday papers have been issued in large editions. A special branch of the work is the care for releast prisoners and to lend a helping hand to prostitutes, 855 of the latter having been under the care of the deaconesses, of which number 152 have been saved. Among the latter
were : one girl 11 years old ; two, 12; four, 13; eleven, 11; twenty- eight, 15 ; thirty-six, 16 years old. The cost of this work was but 177,- 000 marks ($44,250).
— The 16 German missionary societies (of which the Moravian, Basle, Berlin, Rhenish and Her- mannsburg are the 5 largest) have work at 471 stations and outstations, with 751 European missionaries, 121 ordained natives; about 110,000 communicants, 70, 000 in the schools, and an income of nearly $1,000,000.
— The Naples Society for the Pro- tection of Animals has done good work during the past year, as the following statistics will show : — Carts, to which more animals were attacht, 41,330; of which the load was diminisht, 13,117. Confis- cated : Sticks, 35,374 ; stakes, used for beating, 4,930; spikes on curb- chains, 1,162. Convictions: Work- ing in an unfit state, 2,848 ; beating, 1,595 ; over-loading, 768. Of the drivers convicted for beating during the last two years, 13 had knockt out their animals' eyes, and 4 had beaten their horses until they fell dead in the street. — London Chris- tian.
ASIA.
Islam. — The agency of the Amer- ican Bible Society for the Levant comprises three countries, Bulga- ria, Turkey, and Egypt. Its gen- eral depots are at Constantinople, Beirut, and Alexandria. The to- tal issues through these depots last year were 79,204 Bibles, Testa- ments, and parts of the Bible. The total issues for the last 40 years amount to 1,600,983 copies. The total distribution during the last year in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Egypt has been 59,258 Bibles, Tes- taments, and parts of the Bible. The agency has employed 15 men who have been engaged exclusively in this work, and 23 men who have combined other business with this.
TOG
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
[October
It has assisted correspondents to employ 49 men, who have com- bined with Bible distribution other work conducted with the missions.
— The Hon. Oscar Straus, who goes again as United States Minis- ter to Constantinople, is said to have learned to read in a Baptist Sun- day school in Georgia. Altho a Hebrew, we may be sure he will warmly befriend Protestant mis- sions in the sultan's dominions.
— From the Missionary Herald we learn that one of the theologi- cal students at Marsovan, Turkey, recently went as a guest to the home of a Greek priest, to which he was invited by the son of this priest, this son being connected with Ana- tolia college. After a time the student was invited to preach in the Greek Orthodox church, and he began to labor with the people day by day. Tho there were not more than 1 or 2 Protestants in the place, the student made such head- way that he was invited to return and labor in the village during the long summer vacation. The inci- dent illustrates the breaking down of the wall of separation between those who bear the Christian name in the Orient.
— A letter from Tabriz, Persia, where a hospital room in memory of the late Theodore Child has been equipped by his friends, says that everything, down to the screws and the tools used to put the hospital appliances into place, has to be taken from England and America, as such objects are unknown in Persia.
— An English missionary in Per- sia, in speaking of mercy and love as the fruits of Christianity, describes the state of affairs in Per- sia, where there are no hospitals, no dispensaries, and no lunatic asylums. The treatment of insane people is thus described : ' ' The
poor lunatic is chained, his feet fastened in the stocks, is constantly beaten and half-starved, with the idea that if badly treated, the devil will the sooner leave him. And then, as a last resource, when the friends have grown tired of even this unkind care of their relatives, the lunatic is given freedom in the desert. His hands are tied behind his back, and he is led out into the desert, and is never heard of again. There are no homes for the blind and crippled, and none for the in- curable, in this land."
India. — It is impossible to repress a smile on reading a complaint sent by some Hindus to the officials at Bombay concerning the desecra- tion of their temple, and the lacer- ation of their feelings because of this fact. It seems that a woman doctor had entered the temple in search of cases of plague. That the religious sensibilities of this people are very acute, will be seen from the following quotation from their petition, which says: "The lady did not comply with our re- quest, and against our most serious remonstrances entered into the temple and desecrated the same, and rendered it unfit for worship and for other religious purposes for which the same was establisht. By the aforesaid unlawful conduct of the said lady, your petitioners and their coreligionists have suf- fered considerable mental afflic- tion, and their religious sensibility has been rudely and unnecessarily disturbed. Your petitioners fur- ther state that the efficacy of the said temple as a place of worship and religion having been destroyed by the desecration aforesaid, it will cost a considerable sum of money to celebrate the ceremonies and perform the religious rites neces- sary to purge the said temple from its desecration aforesaid, and to make it available again as a place
1898.]
GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.
797
of worship and religion, altho not in its pristine state."— Missionary Herald.
— The missionaries at Panhala had been diligent in evangelistic itineration. In one village no cart could be obtained for the baggage of the evangelistic party. On being askt why they had no carts, the people replied: "We worship the goddess of carts, and she would be angry if we kept any." "What do you do when you yourselves need a cart?" "Oh, we hire one from another village."
— The King of Nepal, the moun- tainous independent state north from Bengal, lost his queen. She had been terribly pitted by small- pox, and committed suicide in dis- gust at her loss of beauty. The king, in his anger at her death, first revenged himself on the doc- tors— flogged them and cut off their right ears and their noses. Next he rounded on the gods. He set loaded cannon in front of the im- ages, and ordered the gunners to fire. The men, in terror of the gods, refused to obey. Some of them were killed by order of the irate monarch, and then the can- non were discharged. Down fell the gods, tne whole pantheon being destroyed.
—The Tibetan Mission Band, under the lead of C. Polhill-Turner, now occupies 2 important stations on the confines of the great closed land, viz., Songpan and Dachienloo, and is on the point of opening a third station at Batang, a town of considerable size and importance on the road to Llassa, and just on the frontier ; whilst, as soon as re- enforcements can be obtained, a fourth station at Atentze, south of Batang, might also be opened.
China. It is painful to observe how the Chinese people are ignored in the political changes now affect- ing their country. The rulers of
the West speak of markets, of territory, of "the open door," of forts and ports, of districts of in- fluence ; but the living men and women, some four hundred millions of them, are treated as a negligible quantity. This selfish, materialis- tic way of dealing with countries is too common among statesmen in all ages ; but a change will come in the case of China, for its people are too numerous, too powerful, too intelligent, to be dealt with as slaves. The West will have to reckon with them as men sooner or later. The presence and diffusion of the Gospel in the land is in itself a guarantee that the human ele- ment will in time be considered more precious than commerce; and commerce will not be thereby in- jured, but improved. — John Thom- son.
— According to Bishop Graves : " The greatest lack of the Chinese is in the region of the moral and spiritual. Without religion as the living exercise of a spiritual con- viction, they are grossly material- istic. Their society, their art, their books, are alike in this, that they are fast bound by the things of sense. Through the thick cloud which hides the spiritual from their eyes hardly a gleam of the beauti- ful, the eternal, seems to find its way. Nothing is more saddening than the lowness of tone that per- vades all Chinese writing, and is universal in Chinese social life. The two wrords that most con- stantly strike the ear are ' cash ' and ' rice.'' It is a type of the tone of thought of the people. High or low, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, they live for the things of this world only. One will live long in China before he meets men who are thinking high and pure thoughts or living for the good of others. One finds in the best Chinese writers plenty of wit and
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wisdom, of clever things set down in perfect literary form ; but he will not find the great thoughts that move the world, the high aspiration and beauty and sincerity of the writers who have been formed under Christian civiliza- tion."
— The English Wesleyans of Wu- chang report that "the most astonishing increase has taken place in the region through which the river Han flows. At Tsaiten and Kao-chia-tai theworkhas been carried on by native colporteurs, supported by a grant from the Upper Canada Religious Tract So- ciety. Six miles above the latter village a work has sprung up in a town notorious in time past for its utter indifference to the mission- aries who from time to time visited it. There are now 3 centers where weekly services are held, where twelve months ago there were no signs of a movement toward Chris- tianity. Instead of a weakling church of a dozen members, con- tributing practically nothing to the church expenses, we have now 60 or 70 baptized members. There are as many on trial, and the local expenses are very largely met by local contributions."
— "The missionaries at Chang-te- fu have been kept very busy for some weeks," writes one of the Honan staff, "with the number of visitors, chiefly students writing in examination in the city, so that in three days over 600 called. But a market in the north suburb in- creast the pressure, so that in one day there were over 1,800, besides women and children. Books were freely distributed among the stu- dents. At the recent prefectural examinations, the literary chancel- lor astonisht the candidates by say- ing that at the next provincial ex- amination they would be required to have some knowledge of mathe-
[October
matics and kindred sciences. A few days ago, 6 B.A.'s called to in- quire if we could secure for them a teacher qualified to instruct them in these new subjects."
AFRICA. — Rev. Mr. Wilson Hill writes in the Church Missionary Gleaner: "The chief of one of the biggest towns (on the Upper Niger) has begged us to go and teach them. He has twice sent a messenger the long journey, but we could only give the one answer that we have to give to all invitations, to all en- treaties, ' We have no one to send, and can not come ourselves.' 1 Just one ! ' I do not know the number of the invitations we have had from Basa towns to send one teacher, ' just one ! ' They say it so persuasively. But the work we have already in hand is more than enough to engage all our care and attention."
— There are 11 missionaries con- nected with the Southern Presbyte- rian mission, 7 men and 4 women. During the year 4 communicants were added to the church at Ibanj, 47 at Luebo, and 12 at Dombi, mak- ing 63 in all. This gives a total of 169 members.
— The statistics of the South African Conference show the re- markable progress made by the Methodist Church of South Africa. The English membership is 5,882; on trial, 388; in junior classes, 796; total, 7,066. Native membership, 46,024; on trial, 22,156; in junior classes, 10,948; total, 79,128. The total membership is 86,194, being a net increase on the year of 6,182. Eight years ago the total member- ship was 43,510; that is, the mem- bership has practically doubled since 1890.
— There is a remarkable increase of population in British Central Africa, since the protectorate was
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establisht. Formerly the country was desolated by constant inter- tribal wars. The stronger peoples raided the weaker, killing thou- sands every year, and carrying thousands more into slavery. The poison ordeal was frightfully com- mon. On the slightest charge of witchcraft sometimes an entire village was compelled to drink the poison, with the result that the majority died. A missionary has described how he has seen rows of corpses lying outside a village, killed by the poison, and left there to be devoured by the hyenas. But all this is now changed. The ad- ministration have subdued and removed most of the turbulent chiefs. They have forbidden the poison ordeal under the heaviest penalties, and now almost through- out the protectorate there is a sense of security. Villagers, who had taken refuge in marshes, and inaccessible ravines, are returning to the open country, and on the very warpaths of their old enemies arc building villages, and hoe- ing gardens. The introduction of liquor is forbidden, so that British Central Africa is saved from the greatest curse of South Africa. — Donald Fraser.
— Several years ago an Arab slave ship was captured north of Zanzibar, as it was seeking to trans- port some slaves from the Galla country, including a large number of children, to the Asiatic coast, and 64: of these freed children were sent to Lovedale to be under Chris- tian training, in the hope that some of them might ultimately return to their native country bearing the message of the Gospel. It is now reported that of the 64 who went to Lovedale, 12 have completed their course of study, of whom 10 have been trained as eachers or ar- tisans. Many of them have made profession of their faith in Christ.
— That the work done at Uganda is genuine is proved by the fact that when Bishop Tucker recently visited a populous district some 200 miles from Uganda, where no English missionary ever had pene- trated, he found the king already baptized and with a Christian church at his capital. Native evangelists had visited the tribe and made many converts.
— Along the banks of the Zam- besi and Lower Shire, there is a large and rapidly increasing popu- lation, left almost entirely to the missionary effort of the Jesuits. These French fathers put Protes- tant missionaries to shame by the heroism of their work. They have gone into the country for life, with no expectation of returning home again. They have chosen some of the most unhealthy and dangerous localities for their parishes, ignor- ing death if there are souls to seek. They have now a mission station at Shupanga.
ISLANDS OF THE SEA.
— Some painful charges are being brought against the conduct of the Dutch Government in Java. It is said that a dread is felt of the emancipation of the Javanese, of whom there are over 20,000,000, and that, in consequence, their evangel- ization is discouraged. One can hardly believe it to be true, but this was stated lately at a missionary conference held in the island, that "all native officials must be Mo- hammedans," and that "if one of them becomes a. Christian, he is at once removed from his post." Chris- tian missionaries, it was added, are prohibited from working in Netherlands India without the gov- ernment's permission, but "no restriction whatever is placed on the movements of Mohammedan propagandists. "
— The Rhenish Missionary Society has lost one of its pioneer mission-
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[October
aries in Sumatra, P. H. Johannsen. An extract from one of his letters describes the extraordinary change which has taken place in the Suma- tran mission-field in his lifetime. This change is largely owing to his own labors. For 20 years he gave the greater part of his time and work to the training-college for native teachers, and the healthy growth of the Sumatran mission is largely due to the cooperation of the 160 Batta teachers and the 20 ordained pastors whom he had trained.
— The American Bible Society has taken an advanced step in respect to Bible distribution in the Philippine Islands. In view of the prospect that these islands may soon be opened for new forms of Christian work, the secretaries were authorized to request the Rev. John R. Hykes, the society's agent for China, to visit Manila, to in- quire into existing facts and condi- tions, as a help to prompt and vig- orous action in case there should be fit opportunities for circulating the Scriptures. To meet the expenses incident to his journey and to pre- liminary work, an appropriation of $1,000 was made. It was also de- cided to inaugurate Bible work in Porto Rico at the earliest moment, and to resume the operations in Cuba which were suspended two years ago.
— The Australian Methodist Mis- sionary Society is supporting a mission in New Guinea with 4 male missionaries, 4 female missionaries, 24 teachers, 35 school-teachers, 30 local preachers, 28 class leaders, 193 native members, 165 probationers, 1,414 Sunday-school scholars, and 9,318 attendants on worship.
— Mr. Wardlaw Thompson says : "It is still the stone age in New Guinea. Cannibalism here is hardly dead yet. It was rather a shock to us, on our first visit to the first mis-
sion station, to be introduced to a girl who had been taken possession of by the police at a cannibal feast with a human bone in her hand, which she was picking with enjoy- ment."
— Rev. G. W. Lawes, in speaking of advancement in New Guinea, says: "After 22 years, although much still remains of heathenism, a great and manifest change is ap- parent. From East Cape to the Fly River in the west, covering a dis- tance of 700 miles, are many centers from which light is being diffused, while 90 churches are dotted like lighthouses along the coast. The appearance of the people has changed — the wild look of suspicion has gone. The Sabbath is observed even in many heathen villages, while 1,350 men and women are pro- fest followers of Christ."
— The friends of temperance will rejoice to know that a complete and successful system of prohibition obtains in Fiji. The rum manufac- tured at the sugar factories has to be sent elsewhere, as any one giving intoxicating liquor to a native is fined £50 and imprisoned 3 months. This penalty is doubled for each re- peated offense while in the colonies.
— The New Hebrides may not be- come a university center, but most of the world's universities had a smaller beginning than has the New Hebrides Training Institution for native workers, teachers, preachers, etc., of which Rev. Dr. Annand has charge on Tangoa. It is quite a family institution, as many of the students are married, and their wives are with them. These also are taught by Mrs. An- nand and Mrs. Lang, and together with their husbands learn some of the ways of civilization. Writing in January, Dr. Annand says: ' ' The number of students in attend- ance is 65, wives 21, children 10, equal to a family of 96."
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