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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

1898.]

morning Light in Asia minok.

757

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,

1898.]

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

771

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

T?*2

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

[October

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

1898.]

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

773

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-

774

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

[October

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

1898.]

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

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

I N T E R NATIONAL DfSPAfi TM EXT.

[October

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

1898.]

] NTEKNATIOXAL DEPARTMENT.

( i (

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

INTERNATIONAL DEPARTMENT.

[October

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

1898.]

International department.

T79

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

798

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

GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

1898.]

GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

799

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-

800

GENERAL MISSIONARY INTELLIGENCE.

[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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