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A  MORNING  SESSION  AT  THE  MEN'S  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION,  PHILADELPHIA 


The  cMtsstonary  cRevieHi) 
of  the  World 


Vol.  XXXI.    No.  4 

Old  Series 


APRIL,  1908 


Vol.  XXI.    No.  4 

Neiv  Series 


Published  by  Funk  &  Wagnalls  Company,  44-60  E.  23d  St.,  N.Y.   Isaac  K.  Funk,  Pres.,  A.  W.  Wagnalls,  Vice-Pies,  and  Treas.,  Robt.  Scott,  Sec'y 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 


THE  WORLD  OUTLOOK 

A  witness  of  high  character,  after 
three  years  of  travel  over  four  conti- 
nents and  the  isles  of  the  sea,  recently 
told  the  committee  of  the  Church  Mis- 
sionary Society  in  London,  that  he 
had  a  conviction,  ineradicable,  that  the 
world  is  peculiarly  ripe  for  the  Gos- 
pel. The  laborers,  notwithstanding 
fewness,  and  scattered  as  they  are, 
everywhere  rejoice  in  present  success 
and  expect  greater  things.  Peoples,  a 
generation  ago,  careless  if  not  dis- 
dainful, respond  to  evangelistic  ef- 
forts ;  and  over  extensive  areas  antip- 
athy and  apathy  are  giving  way  to 
sympathy.  A  new  spirit  pervades  the 
Orient,  with  its  half  of  the  world's 
population.  There  is  a  new  inquiry  as 
to  facts,  a  probing  of  causes,  a  concert 
of  remedial  efforts.  It  is,  he  says, 
like  the  awakening  of  giants  from 
long  sleep  and  torpor. 

Mr.  John  R.  Mott,  who  has  been 
mainly  occupied  in  world-wide  travel 
for  a  decade  of  years,  gives  fully  as 
striking  testimony  in  the  same  direc- 
tion. 

SPIRITUAL  FORCES  IN  INDIA 

.Much  more  than  is  generally  im- 
agined is  being  done  for  the  spiri- 
tual benefit  of  the  Hindu  races,  by 
devoted  Christian  civilians.  A  large 
number  of  noble  men  and  women  be- 
longing to  the  official  and  commercial 


classes,  have  gone  to  India  to  spend 
their  lives  there,  and  have  been  as  in- 
tensely earnest  and  impassioned  in  the 
propagation  of  the  Christian  faith  as 
any  missionaries  could  be.  It  is  an 
error,  says  Dr.  William  Durban,  to 
suppose  that  few  outside  the  mission- 
ary section  set  a  Christian  example  to 
the  natives  of  India  or  engage  in 
Christian  work.  Many  of  the  officers 
of  the  British  army  in  India  are  con- 
sistent and  saintly  men,  and  their 
wives  are  shining  lights  for  Christ. 
One  of  the  most  enthusiastic  advo- 
cates of  Christianity  now  in  India  is 
Sir  Andrew  Fraser,  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor of  Bengal,  who  never  neglects 
an  opportunity  for  exercising  his  per- 
sonal influence  or  for  doing  actual  re- 
ligious work.  He  is  president  of  the 
India  Sunday-school  Union,  and  last 
summer  he  presided  at  the  opening 
session  of  the  Darjiling  Christian 
Conference.  When  he  was  visiting 
Bankipore,  the  civil  station  of  Patna, 
on  one  of  his  official  tours,  he 
preached  at  the  ordinary  native  Chris- 
tian services,  at  the  Baptist  chapel. 
There  can  not  be  any  doubt  that 
Christianity  will  continue  its  forward 
march  in  India,  until,  in  the  not  dis- 
tant future,  it  will  hold  the  field  with 
dominating  spiritual  power. 

Dr.  Durban  continues :  "Only 
Christian  faith  can  hold  the  balance  in 


242 


THE  MISSIONARY  ^REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 


India  between  the  absolutely  antago- 
nistic cults  of  Brahmanists,  Moslems, 
Jains,  and  Parsees.  India  is  a  land  of 
perpetual  religious  discords.  Even 
the  Moslems  are  not  unified  in  that 
country,  as  some  persons  fancy  who 
have  made  no  study  of  the  conditions. 
Recentl  on  the  occasion  of  the  Mu- 
harram  celebration  a  fatal  riot  oc- 
curred, arising  out  of  a  dispute  be- 
tween the  Sunni  and  Shiah  sections 
of  Mohammedans  in  Bombay.  Five 
persons  were  killed  and  forty  serious- 
ly injured.  Among  the  latter  were  a 
Parsee  and  a  Hindu  who  were  merely 
spectators.  When  the  Christian  re- 
ligion wins  India  it  may  not,  of 
course,  present  a  spectacle  of  abso- 
lute unity,  but  at  any  rate  murderous 
fanaticism  will  be  eliminated  and  the 
spirit  of  peace  and  charity  will  be  un- 
derstood. 

INDIA  COMING  TO  CHRIST 
India  is  a  great  country  with  four 
times  the  population  of  the  United 
States  and  more  being  born  every  day 
by  natural  birth  than  by  spiritual  birth 
and  yet  there  are  many  encouraging 
signs  that  India  is  awakening*  to  a 
sense  of  her  need  of  Christ.  It  is 
the  Christian  Church  at  home  that  is 
holding  back.  Some  of  the  signs  of 
progress  are : 

1.  Modern  Protestant  Missions  in 
India  were  reborn  with  the  new  India 
which  followed  the  Mutiny.  In  the 
year  185 1  there  were  15,000  Protes- 
tant Christians  in  all  India.  In  1890 
there  were  648,843.  The  census  re- 
turns for  1900  show  978,936.  These 
figures  furnish  ground  for  hope,  reso- 
lution and  thanksgiving. 

2.  Missionaries  worked  among  the 
Telugus  thirty  years  to  win  twenty- 
five  converts ;  they  then  baptized  2,222 
converts  in  one  day,  and  8,691  in  six 


weeks.  There  are  now  50,000  Telugu 
Christians. 

3.  To-day  a  hundred  thousand  na- 
tives in  India  are  ready  to  cast  away 
their  idols  and  profess  Christ,  if  there 
were  teachers  ready  who  could  give 
them  Christian  training. 

4.  The  position  occupied  by  those 
who  come  out  as  followers  of  Jesus 
Christ  marks  another  advance.  Years 
ago  they  were  despised  as  the  off- 
scouring  of  the  earth ;  to-day  in  many 
places  they  enjoy  the  confidence  of 
their  neighbors. 

5.  Education  for  women  and  girls, 
the  coming  home-makers  of  India,  is 
making  rapid  progress,  and  is  encour- 
aged by  intelligent  and  wealthy  na- 
tives. Large  sums  have  been  given 
to  medical  education  for  women. 

6.  The  record  of  medical  and  mis- 
sionary work  in  the  past  twenty-five 
years  is  marvelous. 

7.  Every  hospital  and  dispensary, 
every  visit  of  a  physician,  and  every 
prescription  given  is  an  object-lesson 
of  the  power  and  influence  of  Chris- 
tian love.  An  Indian  paper  comment- 
ing on  a  successful  operation  per- 
formed by  a  woman  physician,  said : 
"The  age  of  miracles  is  not  passed,  for 
Jesus  Christ  is  still  working  miracles 
through  women  physicians." 

8.  Missionary  work  among  the 
Moslems  in  India  seems  hopeful.  The 
immobility  of  Islam,  has  sustained 
many  a  shock  from  which  it  is  trying 
vainly  to  recover. 

9.  The  number  of  converts  from 
Islam  is  an  earnest  of  the  great  work 
which  lies  before  Christian  mission- 
aries, and  a  proof  of  the  way  in  which 
God  has  owned  what  has  already  .been 
done. 

10.  There  is  a  remarkable  decay  of 
superstitious  rites  and  practises.  The 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 


243 


widow  no  more  burns  on  the  funeral 
pyre  of  her  husband ;  and  the  children 
are  no  more  flung  into  the  Ganges  by 
superstitious  mothers.  The  Rajputs, 
who  were  formerly  the  chief  sinners 
in  the  practise  of  female  infanticide, 
are  now  working  in  ( )udh,  for  its 
banishment. 

II.  A  society  has  recently  been 
formed  in  India  for  the  protection  of 
children.  This  is  destined  to  exert  a 
great  influence  over  the  present  and 
future  life  and  character  of  India.  It 
aims  to  prevent  the  public  and  private 
wrongs  of  children  and  the  corruption 
of  their  morals,  and  to  take  action  for 
the  making  and  enforcing  of  laws  for 
their  protection. 

ANOTHER  WITNESS  TO  KOREA 
Just  now  this  former  Hermit  na- 
tion is  the  cynosure  of  all  eyes.  Pro- 
fessor Harlan  P.  Beach,  of  Yale  Uni- 
versity, who  has  been  traveling 
through  the  Orient,  says  he  has  seen 
no  such  sights  anywhere  as  in  Korea. 
"When  it  comes  to  eagerness  for 
Christian  learning,  Koreans  again  ap- 
pear in  the  van,  eclipsing  apparently 
the  Christians  of  Uganda.  One  con- 
stantly hears  of  conferences,  normal 
institutes,  inquirers'  classes,  etc., 
which  would  drive  American  pastors 
distracted.  Yet  the  people  are  hun- 
gry for  them  all,  and  it  is  the  only 
way  in  which  the  small  force  can  be- 
gin to  overtake  their  work.  If  you 
ask  the  missionaries  how  they  keep 
out  of  the  grave  or  insane  asylum 
with  all  this  pressure,  they  will  give 
you  replies  of  which  this  is  a  speci- 
men :  'We  don't  keep  out  of  either,  as 
the  death-rate  and  invalid  list  is  ex- 
ceedingly serious.  Yet  remember  that 
we  do  not  have  to  look  up  work  as 
you  do  in  America ;  we  do  not  have 
to  get  in  the  shafts  and  pull  along 


a  lazy  membership,  but  they  pull  and 
inspire  us ;  success  is  a  perpetual 
tonic;  and  God  is  manifestly  with  us 
and  we  know  that  I  le  is  in  us  also.'  " 

In  1883  a  Xew  York  financier  gave 
his  check  for  $6,000  to  start  a  mis- 
sion in  Korea.  In  a  public  meeting 
recently  he  announced  that  it  was  the 
best-paying  investment  he  had  ever 
made.  Now  is  the  time  for  Christian 
men  and  women  to  make  other  paying 
investments — to  lay  up  treasures  in 
heaven  and  at  the  same  time  to  save 
lives  of  men  and  women,  children  on 
earth.  Two  thousand  five  hundred 
were  baptized  in  Korea  last  year. 
RELIGIOUS  TOLERATION   IN  RUSSIA 

Pastor  Fetler,  the  Russian,  who 
recently  visited  England,  belongs  to 
the  Baptists  of  the  Baltic  Provinces, 
and  had  much  to  say  as  to  the  bitter 
persecutions  endured  by  his  family 
for  both  political  and  spiritual  rea- 
sons. Last  summer  he  undertook 
evangelistic  work  in  Russia,  purpos- 
ing to  begin,  if  possible,  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  country,  making  Moscow 
his  headquarters.  The  success  he  met 
with  is  one  of  the  proofs  that  in  all  the 
darkness  of  the  situation  in  the  Mus- 
covite dominions  there  is  at  least  one 
gleam  of  light.  The  edict  of  religious 
toleration  which  was  at  first  regarded 
with  skeptical  scorn,  appears  to  have 
been  issued  by  the  Czar  with  a  sin- 
cere purpose  in  view.  Pastor  Fetler 
is  at  work  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Baptist  Pioneer  Mission  and  sends 
word  that  he  has  witnessed  since  he 
commenced  his  mission  fully  1,400 
conversions,  of  which  182  were  regis- 
tered recently  in  a  single  fortnight. 
He  has  gone  to  St.  Petersburg,  and 
is  holding  Sunday  meetings  in  the 
palace  of  the  celebrated  and  devout 
Princess  Lieven. 


244 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


THE  KONGO  SITUATION 

It  is  announced  that  King  Leopold 
has  at  last  yielded  to  pressure  and  his 
fears  of  intervention,  by  England  and 
America  and  has  agreed  to  turn  over 
to  Belgium  the  control  of  the  Kongo 
Independent  State.  The  reports  of 
American  and  British  consuls  so  fully 
substantiated  the  charges  made 
against  Leopold's  administration  that 
the  governments  of  these  two  civilized 
nations  demanded  reform,  with  a  hint 
that  unless  something  adequate  were 
done  in  this  direction,  they  would  take 
the  matter  in  their  own  hands. 

According  to  the  agreement  be- 
tween Leopold  and  the  Belgian  Gov- 
ernment, the  King  turns  over  the 
crown  domain  and  crown  foundation 
lands,  while  Belgium  agrees  to  as- 
sume Kongo  obligations  amounting  to 
$21,000,000  and  to  continue  large  an- 
nual payments  of  revenues  which  will 
keep  the  King  himself  from  dire  pov- 
erty !  To  Prince  Albert  also  are  to 
be  paid  $24,000  a  year  and  $15,000 
to  the  King's  daughter,  Clementine. 
The  King  has  also  decided  to  pose 
as  a  philanthropist  by  including  in  the 
agreement  a  special  payment  by  the 
government  of  $10,000,000  in  fifteen 
annual  payments  for  the  construction 
of  hospitals,  schools  and  other  insti- 
tutions. 

It  is  stated,  however,  by  the  Kongo 
Reform  Association,  that  the  terms  of 
annexation  are  entirely  inadequate  to 
correct  the  abuses.  No  stipulation  is 
made  for  the  restoration  of  land  or 
its  produce  to  the  natives,  or  for  the 
reduction  of  the  extortionate  labor  tax 
which  involves  incessant  slavery.  No 
provision  is  made  for  the  abolition  of 
commercial  monopolies  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  free  trade  as  provided  by 
the  Berlin  Act.   Other  weak  points  in 


the  agreement  make  it  doubtful 
whether  this  control  by  Belgium  will 
adequately  change  the  situation  of  op- 
pression. The  strongest  point  in  its 
favor  is  that  it  will  be  possible  for 
the  British  and  American  Govern- 
ments to  treat  directly  with  Belgium 
for  the  correction  of  evils.  Mean- 
while the  conditions  in  the  Kongo 
State  continue  practically  unimproved. 

PROGRESS  OF  MOHAMMEDANISM  IN 
WEST  AFRICA 

From  the  Gold  Coast  Colony  and 
from  Ashantiland  come  continued 
reports  of  the  steady  progress  of  Mo- 
hammedanism. In  Nsaba,  Gold  Coast, 
the  propaganda  is  so  strong  that  the 
followers  of  the  False  Prophet  feel 
greatly  encouraged.  One  of  them,  a 
native  fanatic,  approached  one  of  the 
missionaries  of  the  Basel  Society  and 
told  him,  that  if  he  would  not  ac- 
knowledge Mohammed,  he  would  be 
killed  within  two  years  and  six 
months.  Every  follower  of  Moham- 
med is  eager  to  fight  for  him  and  feels 
himself  high  above  the  heathen 
negroes,  who,  he  thinks,  will  soon  be 
punished  and  destroyed  by  his  God 
who  sent  the  great  earthquake  of  No- 
vember, 1906,  as  a  warning  for  all 
unbelievers.  From  some  stations  in 
the  Gold  Coast  Colony,  come  reports 
that  Mohammedans  are  settling  in  in- 
creasing numbers,  from  others  that 
Mohammedan  houses  of  prayer  have 
been  opened.  In  Ashantiland  large 
settlements  of  Mohammedans  have 
been  opened  and,  strange  to  say,  these 
Mohammedans  sell  amulets  and 
charms  to  the  heathen,  while  they 
teach  Mohammedanism  and  state  that 
they  serve  the  same  God  as  the  mis- 
sionaries. It  is  said  that  only  two 
Ashanties  have  accepted  Mohamme- 
danism thus  far,  but  many  wear  al- 
ready the  Mohammedan  garb. 


SIGNS  OF  THE  TIMES 


245 


THE  PROGRESS  IN  THE  TRANSVAAL 

The  Transvaal  Colony  in  South 
Africa  contains  a  population  of  more 
than  one  million  and  a  half  upon  its 
112,000  square  miles.  About  one 
million  of  these  are  still  fetish-wor- 
shipers, altho  the  Wesleyan  Method- 
ists of  London,  the  Berlin  and  Her- 
mannsburg  Societies  of  Germany,  the 
Mission  Romande  of  Switzerland,  and 
the  American  Board  have  been  at 
work  there  many  years.  A  writer  in 
Dcr  Missions-Frcuiid  gives  an  in- 
teresting account  of  the  progress  of 
the  Gospel  in  the  colony.    He  says  :  . 

The  Berlin  Missionary  Society  has 
been  at  work  in  the  Transvaal  Colony 
since  i860  and  employs  at  present  35 
missionaries  upon  48  stations.  Much 
work  remains  to  be  done  there.  Espe- 
cially in  Northern  Transvaal  heathenism 
still  prevails  and  the  sunlight  of  the  Gos- 
pel battles  against  the  dense  fog  ascend- 
ing from  the  depths  of  fetish  worship. 
Unbroken  heathendom,  however,  is  not 
to  be  found  in  any  part  of  the  colony. 
The  times  of  serious  torment  or  bloody 
persecutions  of  native  Christians  and  the 
missionaries  are  past.  It  is  well  known 
that  the  powerful  government  severely 
punishes  all  attacks  upon  Christian  con- 
gregations and  their  teachers,  and  that 
it  now  and  then  interferes  energetically 
with  heathen  usages.  Last  year,  when 
the  blacks  arose  in  rebellion  in  Natal, 
some  anxiety  prevailed,  for  had  they  suc- 
ceeded, a  rebellion  would  have  broken 
out  in  the  Transvaal  also  and  might  have 
caused  great  harm  and  damage.  But  the 
rebellion  in  Natal  failed,  and  the  Trans- 
vaal remained  quiet. 

The  number  of  native  Christians  in 
Northern  Transvaal  within  the  sphere 
of  work  of  the  two  German  societies 
is  estimated  at  one  hundred  thou- 
sand, and  that  many  heathen  are  still 
found.  In  some  places  these  are  hard 
to  reach  with  the  Gospel  on  account 
of  their  great  indifference  toward  the 


Christian  doctrine  of  sin  and  the 
atonement.  In  other  places,  and  they 
are  in  the  majority,  there  is  great 
readiness  among  these  heathen  to  hear 
and  to  believe.  Missionary  Hoff- 
mann of  Mphome,  Northern  Trans- 
vaal, writes : 

I  made  a  visit  to  the  mighty  heathen 
underchief  Mossuane.  The  spectacle 
which  I  saw,  will  never  be  forgotten. 
The  heathen  chief  and  thirty  or  forty  of 
his  heathen  subjects  were  erecting  a  little 
church  for  his  people  who  were  desirous 
of  learning.  There  was  great  rejoicing 
among  these  heathen  upon  our  arrival, 
for  the  chief  had  expected  me  and  begged 
for  a  teacher  for  many  months. 

These  heathen  people  are  thus  will- 
ing to  listen  to  the  teaching  of  the 
Gospel,  and  Christ's  cause  makes 
rapid  progress. 

A  WORTHY  RECOGNITION  OF 
MISSIONS 

One  of  the  cheering  signs  of  the 
times  is  found  in  the  increasing  num- 
ber of  articles  on  missions  in  non- 
religious  newspapers  and  magazines. 
A  striking  illustration  appears  in  The 
World's  Work,  which  contains  in  re- 
cent issues  articles  by  Edgar  Allen 
Forbes  upon  medical  and  educational 
missions,  with  excellent  illustrations 
to  add  to  the  impressiveness  of  the 
text.  Of  the  second  article  these  are 
the  opening  sentences : 

"If  a  man  in  quest  of  material  for 
an  American  exhibit  were  to  sail  out 
of  San  Francisco  Bay  with  a  phono- 
graph recorder,  he  would  come  up  on 
the  other  side  at  Sandy  Hook  with  a 
polyglot  collection-  of  records  that 
would  give  the  people  of  the  United 
States  a  new  conception  of  their  part 
in  the  world's  advance  toward  light. 
His  audience  might  hear  a  spelling- 
class  recite  in  the  tuneful  Hawaiian 
tongue  or  listen  to  Moros,  Tagalogs, 


246  THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

and  Igorrotes  reading  from  the  same 
McGuffey's  Reader.  A  change  of  rec- 
ords might  bring  the  sound  of  little 
Japanese  reciting  geography,  or  of 
Chinese  repeating  tlie  multiplication 
table  in  a  dozen  dialects.  Another 
record  would  tell  in  quaint  Siamese 
the  difference  between  a  transitive  and 
an  intransitive  verb,  or  conjugate  the 
verb  'to  be'  in  any  one  of  the  lan- 
guages of  India.  One  might  hear  a 
professor  from  Pennsylvania  lecturing 
on  anatomy  to  a  class  of  young  men 
in  the  ancient  kingdom  of  Darius ;  or 
a  voting"  woman  from  Massachusetts 

J  o 

explaining  the  mysteries  of  an  eclipse 
to  a  group  of  girls  in  Constantinople ; 
or  a  Princeton  man  telling  in  Arabic 
the  relations  between  a  major  and  a 
minor  premise.  Manual  -  training 
teachers  would  recognize  the  sound 
of  hammer  and  plane  from  the  head- 
waters of  the  Nile  and  of  the  Eu- 
phrates, the  ring  of  an  anvil  on  the 
southern  slopes  of  the  Himalayas,  or 
the  hum  of  a  circular  saw  on  the 
Kongo  or  the  Niger.  And  when  the 
audience  had  listened  to  all  this  and 
'My  Country,  'tis  of  Thee,'  in  Eskimo 
and  in  Spanish,  the  exhibit  of  Ameri- 
can teaching  would  have  only  begun." 

ASSISTANCE  FOR  THE  IMMIGRANTS 

As  a  people  we  are  coming  slowly 
but  steadily  to  see  and  perform  our 
duty  to  the  hosts  of  die  foreign-born 
who  are  pouring  in  upon  us,  both  for 
their  sakes  and  our  own.  The  latest 
movement  relating  to  this  great  mat- 
ter is  seen  in  the  recent  organization 


[EW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 

in  Boston  of  the  North  American 
Civic  League;  with  such  men  of  high 
standing  in  Church  and  business  cir- 
cles as  President  Rothwell  of  the 
Board  of  Commerce,  Bishop  Law- 
rence and  Archbishop  O'Connell.  The 
Boston  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation was  prominent  in  the  matter. 
The  League  will  place  in  the  steam- 
ships, cards  and  posters  in  different 
languages,  containing  valuable  infor- 
mation. It  will  act  as  a  clearing-house 
for  all  societies  engaged  in  immigra- 
tion work,  discover  and  guard  against 
the  agencies  which  seek  to  convert  the 
immigrant  into  a  dangerous  citizen, 
find  employment,  where  possible,  for 
the  deserving,  direct  different  races 
to  those  sections  of  the  country  where 
they  are  most  likely  to  become  self- 
supporting,  and  assist  them  in  reach- 
ing their  destinations.  Cooperating 
with  the  government  officials  and  pa- 
triotic societies,  the  League  will  try 
to  instruct  the  immigrants  in  princi- 
ples of  good  government,  and  to 
found  a  corps  of  foreign-born  men  of 
high  character  who  will  assist  in  these 
various  enterprises. 

Well  does  The  Congregationalist 
suggest:  "The  fact  that  last  year 
brought  to  this  country  more  than 
1,000,000  immigrants,  of  whom  eight- 
een per  cent,  were  Protestant,  twelve 
per  cent.  Hebrew  and  sixty-six  per 
cent.  Roman  Catholic,  shows  the  need 
of  a  movement  to  prevent  this  for- 
eign invasion  from  becoming  a  burden 
and  a  menace,  and  help  make  it  a  real 
blessing  to  this  land." 


BOARD  OF  FOREIGN  MISSIONS  AND  ARABIAN  MISSION,  R.  C  A. 
REPORT  OF  VISIT  TO  THE 

Church  of  daiais  of  ££l&A*i2£„/jZ^/^^£-**3^ 

by  jfH  J^Ai^A^&d^fcs     Date  -   &  Z.f  J>£_ 


l.   The  Church. 
I.    Does  it  have  regular  Missionary  Meetings? 
1.    How  does  it  collect  its  missionary  offerings ? 


Missionr-^* 


3    Does  It  coo  tribute  to  the  Arabian  M  isslon  1   

a    Is  there  a  Mission  study  class?.-  ^i^ku-U  cJL&s*4£>4 

IX  Th.  Sunday  School 
I.    Wtoat  Mi-^iooary  Instruction  is  gi- en  ?    V"  ca/Nrv'^. 

.L#*3y(u^<s«*s£*-f-         "Ai    e^t^-^*^jf^C-      g.   What.  If  any.  crlti 
I  offeriogs'roade  and  to  what  objects? 


..    How  are  the  offeriogs'roa  


3.    Is  there  a  Missionary  Committee? 

HL   The  Young  PeopV.  Society, 
I.    Does  It  have  Missionary  meetings? 
a.   Does  It  contribute  to  o 

IV.  Gea«iL 


I.    What  other  organisations  give  to  Porelgo 
Ia)  6-w*~C4  P^a-ty  &&X^JtsL  

J.  Is  the  -Own  Missionary"  or  "Own  Parish"  plan  adopted? 
j    What  is  the  supply  of  Missionary  Books  ?  BS— <J  • 

4    How  largely  do  our  Missionary  Periodicals  circulate ? 


5.  Did  you  Impress  the  Importance  of  Missionary  I 

6.  What  services  were  held  during  this  visit  > 

7.  What  immediate  results  apparent?  VVVtV*>A*(^'CJ 


jtHyytC<h<o.V-t    ?  nvKjd+yt^m  

9.  What  recommendations  have  you  to  make  for  increasing  Interest  > 

-Jk*flU±J±*^J*d^-V  

10.  Give  names  of  some  leading  men  in  the  church  : 

 ^vt^^AvVC  W  ,a£2  .... 

Jfc]  (g^ac^ft*A^->   

 —  (2L-  V^K^h  V/isi^trJL. ..  .  

 cu^ 


Any  other  remarfca  may  be  written  oe  the  other  tide  of  this  1 


AN  IDEAL  MISSIONARY  CHURCH  REPORT 
(Prepared  by  Dr.  S.  M.  Zwemer  for  the  Christian  Intelligencer.) 


RELIGIOUS  STATISTICS  FOR  1907 


According  to  Dr.  H.  K.  Carroll's  figures  in  The  Christian  Advocate,  the 
gain  in  Churches  in  1907  is  more  than  double  that  of  1906,  but  the  gain  in 
Churches  is  nearly  2,000  less  and  in  communicants  over  300,000  less  than  that 
of  the  previous  year.  The  Roman  Catholic  denomination  report  over  11,000,- 
000  members,  while  Sadlier's  Catholic  Directory  reports  the  Roman  Catholic 
population  as  13,890,353,  the  number  of  priests  as  15,093,  with  8,072  churches 
and  4,076  missions. 

The  following  table  shows  the  ministers,  churches,  communicants,  and 
relative  gains  or  decreases  (*)  : 


Denominations 


Grand  Total  in  1907. 


Adventists    (6  bodies)  

Baptists    (14  bodies)  

Brethren  (River)   (3  bodies)  

Brethren  (Plymouth)    (4  bodies)  

Buddhist  (Chinese)   

Buddist  and  Shintoist  (Japanese)  

Catholics    (9   bodies)  , 

Catholic  Apostolic   

Christadelphians   

Christian  Connection   

Christian   Catholic  (Dowie)  

Christian    Scientists   , 

Christian  Union   

Church  of  God  (Winebrennarian)  

Church  of  the  New  Jerusalem  

Communistic  Societies   (6  bodies)  

Congregationalists   , 

Disciples  of  Christ  

Dunkards   (4  bodies)  

Evangelical    (2  bodies)  

Friends  (4  bodies)  

Friends  of  the  Temple  

German  Evangelical  Protestant  

German  Evangelical  Synod  

Jews   (2  bodies)  

Latter-day  Saints  (2  bodies)  , 

Lutherans    (23    bodies)  , 

Swedish  Evangelical  Mission  Covenant, 

Mennonites   (12  bodies)  

Methodists  (17  bodies)  , 

Moravians   

Presbyterians  (12  bodies)  

Protestant  Episcopal   (2  bodies)  

Reformed  (3  bodies)  

Salvation  Army   

Schwenkfeldians   , 

Social  Brethren  

Society  for  Ethical  Culture  

Spiritualists   

Theosophical  Society  

United  Brethren   (2  bodies)  

Unitarians   

Universalists   

Independent    Congregations  , 


SUMMARY    FOR  1907 


1,569 
38,279 
173 


15,891 
95 


1,348 
104 

1,336 
201 
499 
130 


5,923 
6,673 
3,337 
1,503 
1,466 
4 
100 
974 
301 
1,952 
8,040 
355 
1,240 
41,893 
129 
12,723 
5,197 
1,999 
4,765 
6 

17 
10 


2,168 
594 
728 
54 


161,731 


Grand  total  in  1906  1  159,430 


2,544 
55,294 
98 
314 
47 
9 

12,731 
10 
63 
1,340 
110 
668 
268 
590 
144 
22 
5,941 
11,307 
1,159 
2,666 
1,075 
4 
155 
1,262 
570 
1,328 
13,169 
351 
701 
61,518 
119 
16,478 
7,779 
2,596 
1,016 
8 
20 
5 

748 
72 
4,359 
473 
910 
156 


210,199 


205,985 


3  cn 

8  % 

o  .a 

u  8 


NET    GAINS    FOR  1907 


99,298 
5,224,305 
4,239 
6,661 


11,645,495 
1,491 
1,277 
101,597 
40,000 
85,096 
17,500 
41,475 
8,200 
3,084 
699,327 
1,285,123 
121,705 
173,641 
122,081 
340 
20,000 
237,321 
143,000 
398,000 
2,022,605 
46,000 
61,690 
6,660,784 
17,199 
1,821,504 
830,659 
430,458 
28,000 
740 
913 
2,142 
150,000 
2,607 
289,652 
71,200 
52,621 
14,126 


32,983,156 


32,355,610 


4 

259 


622 


10 


23 
f480 
96 
48 


10 


300 
168 
10 


381 
*1 
18 
*61 
*45 
992 
1 


45 
676 


282 


18 
197 
59 
25 


35 


135 


1,946 


556 
212 
33 
33 


10 


*79  | 

8 

3,414 

5  | 

9 

200 

8  | 

*67 

*3,210 

2,301  |  4,214 


4,201  1,901 


It  will  be  interesting  to  compare  these  figures  with  the  statistics  of  mis- 
sionary work  as  given  in  the  Missionary  Review  for  January,  1908. 


WHAT  ARE  THE  LIMITS  OF   CHRISTIAN  TOLERATION? 


EDITORIAL 


One  of  the  conspicuous  signs  of  the 
times  is  the  new  attitude  of  tolerance 
toward  those  who  differ,  especially  in 
matters  pertaining  to  religion.  The 
era  of  bitter  controversy  and  conflict 
has  been  abruptly  followed  by  one  of 
concession  and  compromise,  whose 
watchword  is  that  charming  word, 
''charity,"  which  is  made  to  cover  a 
multitude  of  doctrinal  sins.  Even 
Coleridge's  paradox,  that  "the  only 
true  spirit  of  tolerance  consists  in  our 
conscientious  toleration  of  each  other's 
intolerance,"  is  out  of  date;  and  those 
are  now  considered  illiberal  and  dog- 
matic, who  show  any  intolerance  even 
as  to  errors  which  they  may  regard  as 
vital  and  fundamental.  This  whole  at- 
titude of  liberalism  seems  to  demand 
a  careful,  prayerful,  review.  There 
may  be  rocks  ahead. 

One  curious  and  suggestive  episode 
in  Hebrew  history  stands  unique  and 
solitary.  When  the  respective  adher- 
ents of  David  and  Ishbosheth — the 
rival  claimants  for  the  kingdom — were 
struggling  for  the  possession  of  Gib- 
eon — the  new  seat  of  the  Tabernacle 
after  the  fall  of  Nob — a  contest  took 
place  which,  in  character  and  issue, 
has  no  parallel  even  in  the  combat  be- 
tween the  Horatii  and  Curiatii,  four 
hundred  years  later. 

Abner,  as  Ishbosheth's  champion, 
proposed,  to  save  effusion  of  blood, 
that  twelve  picked  men  from  each  of 
the  contending  hosts  should  meet  in 
battle  and,  as  representatives,  decide 
the  issue.  David's  captain,  Joab,  ac- 
cepted the  challenge ;  and,  when  the 
selected  Judahites  and  Benjamites 
rushed  madly  at  one  another,  all  of 
them  fell  together.    The  Benjamites, 


famous  as  left-handed  (Judges  xx  :i6), 
would  naturally  seize  the  heads  of 
their  opponents  with  the  right  hand, 
while  running  them  through  with  the 
left;  the  men  of  Judah,  as  dexterous 
as  the  others  were  sinistrous,  would, 
exactly  similarly,  use  the  left  hand  to 
lay  hold,  and  the  right  to  wield  the 
sword,  and  so  they  all  fell  simultane- 
ously. 

This  quaintly  tragic  combat  is  a  par- 
able of  many  a  historic  battle  waged 
with  tongue  and  pen.  It  is  hard  to 
say  on  which  side  the  final  advantage 
lies,  because,  on  both  sides  something 
has  been  gained  and  lost;  while  both 
parties  were  contending  for  the  mas- 
tery, neither  fully  secured  it.  They 
were  swayed  by  different  motives, 
used  different  methods,  and  aimed  at 
different  ends.  Each  got  an  advan- 
tage, but  only  at  the  cost  of  yielding 
something,  and  hence  there  was  a  sur- 
render even  in  securing  success.  Nei- 
ther completely  vanquished  the  other, 
but  both  had  gains  offset  by  losses. 

Never  was  this  more  strikingly  ex- 
emplified than  in  some  modern  theo- 
logical and  ecclesiastical  adjustments. 
A  religious  "Tribunal  of  the  Hague" 
seems  already  in  sight  where  all  con- 
flict and  controversies  are  to  be  settled 
by  compromise;  and  whether  this  is 
on  the  whole  to  be  welcomed  as  an  un- 
mixed good,  is  what,  perhaps,  it  be- 
comes us  to  consider. 

For  the  first  three  centuries  the 
world  and  the  Church  were  arrayed 
against  each  other  with  mutual  hos- 
tility. It  was  believed  that  they  were 
so  essentially  at  war  that  their  oppos- 
ing principles  and  tendencies  were  ir- 
reconcilable:  those  who  belonged  to 


248 


THE  MISSIONARY^  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


Christ  expected  to  be  hated  of  all  men 
for  His  Name's  sake.  Under  Constan- 
tine  the  world  and  the  Church  were 
wedded  in  a  State  Church,  with  the 
emperor  at  its  head.  The  via  cruris 
became  the  via  lucis,  self-denial  was 
displaced  by  self-indulgence ;  the  con- 
fession of  Christ  became  the  signal, 
not  for  the  cross  but  for  the  crown, 
and  many  thought  the  millennium  had 
dawned.  The  Church  won  the  world 
and  disarmed  opposition;  but,  mean- 
while, the  world  captured  the  Church 
and  leavened  it  with  secularism.  The 
world  became  more  churchly,  but  the 
Church  vastly  more  worldly,  remind- 
ing of  the  experiments  in  "endosmose" 
and  "exdosmose,"  where  two  liquids 
on  opposite  sides  of  the  membrane  so 
intermingle  as  that  each  loses  its  indi- 
vidual qualities  and  assimilates  with 
the  other. 

There  are  many  other  examples  in 
history,  and  they  are  multiplying  fast 
in  these  days,  of  the  abatement  of  op- 
position by  a  mutual  concession.  This 
is  especially  exhibited  in  the  domain 
of  politics,  where  it  seems  to  be  a  set- 
tled maxim,  that  "if  you  can  not  get  a 
whole  loaf  you  are  to  be  content  with 
half."  Even  such  a  man  as  Gladstone, 
with  high  ethical  ideals  and  orthodox 
religious  views,  justified  compromise 
on  the  ground  that  it  was  impracticable 
to  carry  out  in  the  political  sphere  the 
strict  principles  of  truth  and  honesty; 
one  must  do  the  best  he  can  with  the 
elements  he  has  to  confront. 

The  bearing  of  this  matter  upon 
mission  work,  and  in  fact  upon  the 
whole  conflict  of  Christianity  with 
heathenism  and  skepticism,  is  of  im- 
mense importance.  Some  of  us  can  not 
avoid  a  profound  misgiving  that  there 
is  a  peril  in  union  that  may  be  worse 
than   in   separation,   and   that  some 


peace  may  be  bought  at  the  price  of 
purity — a  daubing  of  a  falling  wall 
with  untempered  mortar,  a  yielding  of 
what  is  vital,  a  sacrifice  of  truth.  It 
is  quite  possible  in  some  forms  of  mis- 
sion work  to  overcome  opposition  by 
eliminating  what  arouses  antagonism, 
or  by  virtually  assimilating  Christian- 
ity to  heathenism.  Roman  Catholi- 
cism has  won  more  than  one  victory 
over  Buddhism  by  simply  investing 
Buddhistic  rites  and  customs  with  a 
new  name,  leaving  its  essentials  un- 
touched; and  there  is  a  strong  move- 
ment now  in  favor  of  allowing  polyg- 
amy among  heathen  converts,  if  it  ex- 
isted before  conversion,  and  tolerating 
ancestral  worship  as  a  mere  form  of 
reverence  for  parental  authority,  etc. 

Two  marked  manifestations  of  this 
tendency  toward  toleration  may  be 
mentioned  as  examples :  one  a  recent 
course  of  lectures  delivered  in  India 
by  a  theological  professor ;  and  the 
other  a  work  of  fiction  from  the  pen  of 
a  prominent  evangelist,  preacher  and 
author.* 

The  lectures,  delivered  in  India  and 
Ceylon,  are  on  "The  Witness  of  the 
Oriental  Consciousness  to  Jesus 
Christ."  In  the  dedication,  the  lec- 
turer announces  himself  as  one  "who 
believes  in  the  unity  of  the  human 
race,  and  who  looks  with  reverence 
on  the  India  of  the  past,  with  afTection 
on  the  India  of  the  present,  and  with 
ardent  expectation  on  the  India  of  the 
future."  In  the  opening  lecture  he 
proclaims  his  "affection  and  admira- 
tion for  brethren  of  other  faiths,"  and 
his  appreciation  "of  the  qualities  of 
the  Oriental  consciousness,"  and 
"their  potential  value  for  the  higher 
interpretation  of  the  Christian  relig- 

*  Barrows'  Lectures,  1906,  Charles  Cuthbert  Hall. 
A  Prophet  in  Babylon,  W.  J.  Dawson, 


I9o8]      WHAT  ARE  THE  LIMITS  OF  CHRISTIAN  TOLERATION? 


ion."  He  thinks  "the  East  marvel- 
onsly  qualified  to  be  the  interpreter  of 
the  Christian  mysteries ;"  he  addresses 
his  Indian  hearers,  appealing  to  their 
"tolerant  and  discriminating  minds," 
"as  a  friend  returning  to  friends,  with 
whom  he  has  taken  sweet  counsel  be- 
fore, and  on  whose  broad  and  catholic 
friendship  he  now  depends."  He  does 
"not  consider  that  the  hereditary  di- 
vergencies of  racial  and  religious  tra- 
dition offer  the  slightest  impediment 
to  fellowship,"  etc.  The  following 
paragraph  may  be  quoted  in  full : 

My  Brethren  (if  I  may  have  the  honor 
to  address  you  in  that  term  of  blended  af- 
fection and  respect),  I  have  set  before  you 
in  outline  the  purpose  that  brings  me  the 
second  time  to  India.  The  prospectus  of  my 
argument  is  in  your  possession.  You  know 
my  heart.  I  have  kept  nothing  back.  Be- 
cause you  are  what  you  are,  possessors, 
through  a  proud  and  ancient  ancestry,  of 
that  most  rich  treasure,  the  Oriental  con- 
sciousness, I  bring  to  you  a  treasure,  rich, 
profound,  sacred,  worthy  of  your  ancestry, 
worthy  of  yourselves.  I  ask  you  to  examine 
it  in  relation  to  yourselves,  looking  upon  it 
as  an  instrument  through  which  you,  gen- 
tlemen of  the  East,  may  discharge  an  in- 
calculable service  for  the  whole  world. 

This  sounded  so  much  like  flattery 
that  the  lecturer  himself  felt  con- 
strained emphatically  to  disclaim  any 
such  intention ;  but  it  is  conciliation 
carried,  as  many  think,  to  the  extreme. 
With  every  page  of  the  opening  lecture 
this  attitude  of  almost  homage  toward 
the  "Oriental  consciousness"  becomes 
more  conspicuously  prominent.  He  se- 
lects four  elements  which  contribute  to 
this  "consciousness" — "The  contempla- 
tive life ;  the  presence  of  the  unseen ; 
aspiration  toward  ultimate  being;  the 
sanctions  of  the  past."  We  quote 
again : 

You  have  been  Orientals  since  the  dawn 
of  the  world.  Continue  to  be  Orientals  for- 
ever, till  the  world's  last  twilight  closes  in 


the  final  darkness.  Cling  to  the  contem- 
plative life :  your  glorious  heritage,  your  pe- 
culiar strength.  It  has  given  you  elements 
of  personality  of  which  the  West  stands  in 
need  and  shall  one  day  come  seeking  at  your 
hand.  It  has  given  you  repose,  gentleness, 
patience,  gravity,  noble  indifference  alike  to 
material  possession  and  material  privation, 
eternal  remembrance  of  the  things  that  eye 
hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard,  which  God 
hath  prepared  for  them  that  love  Him. 

You  are  aware  that  the  immemorial 
thought  of  India  emphasizes  the  reality  of 
the  invisible  absolute,  while  to  some  extent 
admitting  the  distinction  of  the  individual 
soul  and  its  phenomenal  environment,  but 
regarding  it  under  the  terms  "Maya"  or 
"Avidya."  .  .  .  Without  going  into  this 
very  interesting  subject,  which  I  have  the 
greatest  desire  to  investigate  further  under 
competent  Eastern  guides,  my  purpose  in 
referring  to  it  at  all  is  to  point  out  that 
the  age-long  tendency  of  Indian  thinking  to 
clothe  itself  in  the  various  forms  of  mon- 
ism, has  overspread  the  East  with  a  most 
solemn  and  impressive  sense  of  the  presence 
of  the  unseen.  It  is  not  strange  that  the 
East  has  been  historically  the  birthplace  of 
every  one  of  the  great  religions  of  the 
world,  and  the  natural  fountain  and  origin 
of  the  world's  religious  experience.  That 
this  religious  experience  has  undergone 
stages  of  development  with  which  I  per- 
sonally could  not  be  satisfied,  as,  for  ex- 
ample, in  some  of  the  forms  and  phenom- 
ena of  animism,  which,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  seem  to  me  to  have  been  greatly  in- 
fluenced from  non-Aryan  sources,  is  not  a 
matter  germane  to  my  present  purpose.  I 
wish  to  testify  that,  as  I  come  into  the 
East  once  more,  I  am  more  than  ever  con- 
scious of  the  fact  that  here  the  presence 
of  the  unseen  is  realized.  That  fact  is  in- 
herently sublime.  It  bears  witness  to  the 
indestructible  seed  of  divinity  within  the 
finite  soul.  It  is  the  refusal  of  man  to  be 
put  off  with  the  husk  of  physical  existence, 
because  the  eternal  wheat  of  immortality  is 
his  portion.  May  the  day  never  come  when 
the  East,  inebriated  with  the  wine  of  mod- 
ern culture,  and  dazzled  by  the  appliances 
of  modern  civilization,  shall  move  from  her 
high  seat  of  vision,  forget  her  prophets  of 
the  invisible,  barter  her  great  inheritance  in 
the  unseen  and  bow  down  before  the  per- 


250 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


ishable  idols  of  this  present  age,  the  tin- 
consecrated  gods  of  a  passing  hour !    .    .  . 

I  speak  with  emotion  of  that  element  of 
sublimity  in  Oriental  consciousness  which 
1  have  called  eastern  reverence  for  the 
sanctions  of  the  past.  I  do  not  discuss  at 
the  present  moment  whether  in  all  re- 
spects your  past,  great  as  it  has 
been,  should  be  permitted  to  control 
your  present  as  much  as  your  reverence 
allows  it  to  do.  I  do  not  raise  the  question 
here  of  how  far  "the  shadow  of  the  future," 
as  Mr.  Kidd  calls  it,  may  be  invoked  to 
fall  upon  you  even  as  already  it  has  fallen 
upon  us.  But  one  thing  I  affirm  with  con- 
fidence and  with  admiration  which  I  do 
not  seek  to  disguise  :  the  sublimity  of  that 
element  in  the  eastern  mind  which  tena- 
ciously, proudly,  reverently  esteems  its 
great  inheritances,  treasures  its  ancestral 
classics,  keeps  faith  with  its  forefathers,  sits 
unwearied,  after  three  thousand  years,  at 
the  living  springs  of  its  primeval  hopes.  If 
the  watchword  of  the  West  is  Progress, 
the  watchword  of  the  East  is  Faith! 

These  extracts  suffice  both  to  allow 
the  lecturer  to  speak  for  himself,  and 
to  illustrate  the  remarkably  concilia- 
tory tone  of  this  whole  series.  Such 
catholicity  and  charity  are  charming; 
but  may  they  not  be  misleading?  Is 
not  Christianity  essentially  intolerant 
of  all  heathenism,  even  the  most  re- 
fined and  cultured?  Whatever  may 
be  said  of  the  "sublimity  of  the  Ori- 
ental consciousness,"  one  thing  is 
sure :  it  does  not  prevent  these  In- 
dians, whom  the  lecturer  salutes  as 
"brethren,"  from  drawing  their  popu- 
lar creed  from  V edic  hymns,  in  which 
there  are  no  higher  conceptions  of  sin 
than  a  failure  to  address  praises  to  the 
elementary  deities,  or  gratify  them 
with  oblations ;  and  these  were  hear- 
ers who  believe  in  "endless  transmigra- 
tions of  souls,"  and  are  "philosophic 
atheists,"  and  yet  have  enough  deities, 
such  as  they  are,  to  supply  "a  million 
for  every  day  in  the  year." 


It  is  also  a  universal  fact  that  idol- 
atry and  immorality  are  allied.  No- 
where has  idol  worship  prevailed  with- 
out that  strange  worship  of  sex  that 
sanctifies  even  prostitution  as  a  sur- 
render to  the  gods.  The  subject  does 
not  allow  of  fair  treatment  in  these 
pages;  but  India  is  no  exception  to 
this  universal  fact ;  and,  in  view  of 
the  awful  exaltation  of  a  cow  and  deg- 
radation of  woman,  this  praise  of  the 
Oriental  consciousness  seems  at  best 
one-sided.  If  the  Bible  is  true  and 
Christ  and  His  disciples  were  not  in- 
tolerant and  fanatical  dogmatics,  there 
is  "no  salvation  in  any  other,"  and  In- 
dia can  find  eternal  life  only  in  the 
one  "Name  given  under  heaven  among 
men  whereby  we  must  be  saved." 

In  the  work  of  fiction  to  which  ref- 
erence is  made,  the  author  has  por- 
trayed in  colors,  sufficiently  vivid,  the 
failure  of  the  Church  to  realize  the 
great  mission  to  the  masses  of  man- 
kind in  the  great  cities.  There  is  no 
denying  the  great  gulf,  apparently 
fixt  and  so  far  unbridgeable,  between 
the  Church  and  the  poor,  the  outcast, 
the  working  classes.  The  few  cer- 
tainly fail  to  reach  the  many.  The 
more  spiritual-minded,  both  in  the 
ministry  and  in  the  membership,  la- 
ment as  undeniable  the  alienation  of 
the  multitudes  from  the  house  of  wor- 
ship. It  is  not  needful  to  enter  upon 
this  matter ;  the  facts  are  substantially 
as  the  writer  puts  them.  The  serious 
question  is  his  proposed  remedy. 

The  book  suggests  "A  League  of 
Service,"  in  which  "all  who  love  unite 
in  behalf  of  all  who  suffer."  The 
conception  is  ennobling  and  inspiring, 
and  the  way  in  which  it  is  supposed 
to  be  embodied  in  action  commends 
itself  to  the  heroic  element  in  all  un- 
selfish souls.     But,  with  all  that  is 


lOOcSJ       WHAT  ARE  THE  LIMITS  OF  CHRISTIAN  TOLERATION?  251 


good,  the  same  excess  of  liberalism 
appears.  'Flic  main  characters  in  this 
story  are,  for  the  most  part,  those 
w  hose  faith  has  been  singularly  shaken 
and  who  have  been  led  or  driven  into 
more  liberal  views.  The  whole  trend 
of  the  story  is  toward  the  elimination 
of  dogma  from  Christianity,  and  the 
substitution  of  unselfish  ministry  to  all 
who  have  need,  in  its  place.  Those  here 
held  up  to  admiration  and  imitation, 
have  found  themselves  defenseless  be- 
fore destructive  criticism  and  have 
become  heretical,  but  redeemed  even 
heresy  by  loving  and  self-denying 
service.  The  "League"  which  is  to  take 
the  place  of  the  worn-out  and  virtu- 
ally defunct  church,  is  not  to  be  called 
a  church,  nor  to  have  creeds,  forms  or 
subscriptions.  Its  law  is  to  be  free- 
dom ;  its  condition,  service.  It  is  to 
unite  all  who  love  humanity  in  the 
common  service  of  humanity.  It  is  to 
be  a  society  of  equals.  It  will  worship 
Christ,  but  neither  as  God  nor  man ; 
rather  as  a  living  presence  in  all  men, 
making  all  men  divine.  It  will  attract 
everybody,  for  it  will  include  every- 
body, and  be  based  on  universal  ideas. 
And  to  make  the  author's  new  decla- 
ration of  independence  more  explicit, 
the  only  creed  is  to  be  love,  and  the 
only  test,  service.  The  appeal  is  "alike 
to  Catholic  and  Protestant,  to  Unita- 
rians and  Trinitarians,"  and  "would 
not  exclude  the  Buddhist  and  the  Mo- 
hammedan" ;  it  would  embrace  men  of 
no  fixt  religious  creed  who,  neverthe- 
less, "admit  the  principle  of  altruism 
in  human  conduct."* 

Again  these  citations  must  suffice ; 
but  they  compel  us  to  face  the  issue, 
whether  those  who  call  themselves 
Christian  disciples  are  to  surrender  all 
creeds,  and  join  in  a  league  of  unsel- 
*  pp.  133, 183, 245. 


fish  service  with  all  who  will  join 
them  on  the  basis  of  pure  altruism ! 
Whether  doctrine  is  to  be  considered 
as  of  no  consequence,  and  deportment 
to  be  the  criterion?  Whether  our  faith 
— in  the  sense  of  a  system  of  belief — 
is  to  be  allowed  almost  any  limits  of 
unrestraint,  only  so  that  love  consents 
to  serve  unselfishly  all  who  suffer  or 
have  need? 

This  is  no  ghost  of  fancy  but  a  pon- 
derous and  substantial  reality — this 
new  and  widely  advocated  theory  of 
Christian  life.  It  will  not  down  at  our 
bidding,  and  we  must  make  up  our 
minds  as  to  our  position  on  the  ques- 
tion which  is  imperatively  demanding 
an  answer. 

Is  there  ground  to  fear  that,  while 
thus  avoiding  the  Scylla  of  intoler- 
ance, we  are  running  perilously  near 
the  Charybdis  of  laxity?  There  is  an 
element  of  sentiment  in  humanity  to 
which  unselfishness  appeals.  But  the 
noblest  service  to  God  and  man  is  the 
fruit  of  faith,  not  of  unbelief.  To 
count  it  a  matter  of  indifference  what 
one  believes,  provided  he  is  sincere,  is 
to  make  it  no  longer  worth  while, 
either  to  search  after  truth  or  to  obey 
it  when  found.  Right  and  truth,  and 
wrong  and  error,  are  eternally  allied, 
and  no  human  policy  can  reverse  these 
relations.  It  can  never  be  a  matter  of 
no  moment  what  a  man  holds  to  be 
true.  We  are  to  "hold  fast  the  form 
of  sound  words  with  faith  and  love, 
which  are  in  Christ  Jesus."  Such  lec- 
tures as  we  have  instanced,  addrest  to 
the  heathen,  make  inconsistent  a  Gos- 
pel message  that  makes  salvation  to 
depend  on  the  acceptance  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Such  a  "League  of  Service," 
however  noble  as  a  philanthropic 
measure,  can  never  take  the  place  of 
the  Church  which  its  founder  declared 


252         '        THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

built  upon  the  confession  of  Himself 
as  Christ  the  Son  of  the  living  God. 
While  the  New  Testament  remains  our 
guide,  our  love  for  all  men  must  not 
blind  us  to  their  doctrinal  errors,  nor 
to  the  danger  they  involve.  Salvation 
prepares  for  service.  Men  need  first 
of  all  to  be  saved  from  both  their 
errors  of  belief  and  their  iniquities  of 
life;  then,  built  upon  Christ  as  the 
Savior,  the  Son  of  God,  the  Lord  of 
life,  faith  in  Him  makes  ready  for  a 
service  in  His  name  that  is  not  the 
product  of  a  capricious  impulse  or  a 
transient  sentiment,  but  a  principle  of 
life  as  unchanging  as  God  Himself. 

If,  as  Mr.  Dawson  contends,  the 
Church  has  failed,  possibly  the  remedy 
lies  not  in  substituting  for  it  a  League 
of  Service,  but  in  a  return  toward 
the  primitive  beliefs  and  practises  that 
made  the  Apostolic  Church  the  great- 
est league  of  service  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  If  the  idols  could  be  put 
away — the  idolatry  of  music,  architec- 


I  EW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 

ture,  oratory,  and  estheticism  gener- 
ally ;  if  money  and  culture  and  rank 
could  be  less  the  standards  which  at- 
tract homage  and  foster  caste;  if  sel- 
fishness, with  its  love  of  ease  and  love 
of  novelty  could  be  displaced  by  a 
Christlike  self-denial,  and  devotion  to 
eternal  truth ;  if  prayer  were  more 
cherished  as  the  great  motive  power  in 
holiness  and  service ;  if,  in  a  word,  the 
Spirit  of  the  living,  loving  God  could 
have  in  His  own  house,  more  liberty 
to  work  unhindered,  so  that  He  could 
do  His  mighty  works — it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  the  lost  dynamic  of  the  pul- 
pit might  be  restored,  and  the  lost 
hold  of  the  Church  on  the  common 
people  regained.  While  we  are  look- 
ing about  for  a  substitute  for  God's 
imperial  institution,  it  may  be  well  to 
inquire  whether,  by  proper  repentance 
and  retracement  of  steps,  we  might 
not  find  in  the  way  of  new  conformity 
to  His  pattern  also  new  enduement 
with  His  power. 


BATTLE  HYMN  OF  THE  CHURCH 


To  be  sung  to  the  Tune  Zion ;  8s.  7s.  &  4s. 

BY  REV.  J.  FORD  SUTTON,  D.D 


Hark,  the  tread  of  coming  millions 

Marching  on — the  hosts  of  God; 
Coming  from  the  isles  and  nations, 
Ransom'd  by  the  Savior's  blood. 
Hear  them  shouting! 
"He  hath  wash'd  us  in  His  Blood!' 


Soldiers  of  the  cross,  long  waiting 
For  the  coming  of  this  day — 

Toiling,  weeping,  watching,  praying- 
Courage  take  and  march  away! 

"We  have  triumphed!" 
Soon  you'll  hear  our  Captain  say. 


God  His  promise  is  fulfilling 
To  His  well  beloved  Son; 

Heathen  nations  to  Him  giving, 
For  a  heritage,  His  own. 

See  them  coming! 
All  to  worship  at  His  throne. 


When  the  long  retreat  has  sounded, 
And  our  Chieftain  leads  the  way, 

By  His  conquering  host  surrounded, 
To  the  realms  of  endless  day; 

Then,  how  blessed! 
To  have  fought  to  win  the  day. 


Christ  is  seeing  of  the  travail 
Of  His  loving  waiting  soul 

In  the  triumphs  of  the  Gospel 
Over  mcxi,  from  pole  to  pole. 

Hear  their  praises! 
Like  the  voices  of  waters  roll. 


Hallelujah!  Hallelujah! 

Hallelujah  to  the  Lamb! 
All  in  Earth  and  all  in  Heaven 

Sound  the  praises  of  His  name! 
Mighty  Savior ! 

We  will  conquer  in  Thy  name- 


WEALTHY    HINDUS    GOING    TO    A  MELA 


WHERE  SINS  AR 

BY    MRS.    MARGARET  DEX 

Or  rather  where  people  believe 
they  are  washed  away.  There  are 
a  number  of  places  in  India  where 
Hindus  congregate  for  ceremonial 
bathing,  at  certain  times  and  sea- 
sons in  great  throngs.  Sonpur,  in 
the  province  of  Bengal,  is  the  scene 
of  one  of  these  great  melas.  From 
every  village  and  town  they  come 
on  foot,  by  horse,  camel  or  elephant- 
back  ;  in  the  richly  caparisoned 
"rath"  of  olden  days,  or  in  "dan- 
dies," ox  carts,  "ekkas"  (horse  cart 
for  one),  and  thousands  by  rail,  sit- 
ting crammed  together  in  the  box  cars, 
hanging  on  the  sides,  if  allowed ; 
begging  permission  to  sit  on  the 
floor  in  first-  and  second-class  cars, 
(but  paying  only  third-class  fare), 
anyway,  anyhow,  on  to  the  mela ! 
\t  every  station  we  saw  dozens, 


WASHED  AWAY 

XG,    MUZAFFARPUR,  INDIA 

and  sometimes  hundreds,  left  be- 
hind on  the  wide  platforms,  shout- 
ing and  struggling  to  the  last  to  gain 
entrance  to  the  jammed  cars,  those 
inside  vociferously  ordering  them 
off,  pushing  them  from  the  steps, 
and  all  hauling  and  mauling  until 
the  last  chance  was  gone. 

And  what  a  medley  to  the  sight 
as  well !  Umbrellas,  brass  and 
earthen  cooking  vessels,  (some  of 
the  latter  breaking  occasionally), 
sticks,  the  inevitable  "hooka,"  rolls 
of  bedding,  screaming  children, 
strings  of  frightened  women,  each 
holding  to  the  garment  of  the  one 
in  front ;  garments  of  red,  yellow, 
purple,  green,  white  and  blue,  sweet- 
meat and  "pan-supari"  venders,  "tea- 
water"  men,  "cold-ice"  sellers,  all  in 
one    tumultuous    mass,    calling  to 


254 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


friends,  shouting  their  wares  or  their 
gods,  begging  for  places,  beseeching 
alms,  abusive,  pleading;  in  discom- 
fort, chilliness,  hunger,  illness — even 
death  sometimes,  on  to  the  mela ! 

How  they  gazed  at  our  party  of 
six,  settling  comfortably  for  the 
night,  in  a  small  compartment  re- 
served for  us  by  the  railway  officials. 


TAKING   A    DRINK    WITHOUT    BREAKING  CASTE 


It  must  have  been  difficult  for  them 
to  understand.  And  when  they  ar- 
rive at  the  mela,  most  of  these 
scenes  repeat  themselves ;  dust, 
noise,  crowds,  animals,  worship, 
buying  and  selling,  crude  amuse- 
ments, sincerity,  sins;  and  every- 
thing very  barefaced  and  manifest. 

The  people  were  bathing  all  along 
the  banks  of  the  Gunduk  river,  but 
the  more  religious  traveled  on  foot 
four  miles  to  the  junction  of  the 
Gunduk  and  the  Ganges,  determined 
to  reach  the  most  holy  stream  for 
their  yearly   ceremonial  purification. 

We  hired  a  small  boat  near  the 
great  red  bridge  which  spans  the 
Gunduk.    The  bridge  has,  on  either 


side  of  the  rails,  footpaths,  solid 
with  human  beings,  and  as  we 
floated  down  to  the  junction,  we 
watched  this  living  stream  on  the 
bridge,  and  the  bathing  throngs  in 
the  water.  People  were  mixed  up 
with  plunging  elephants,  horses, 
buffaloes  and  cattle.  The  water  was 
indescribably  filthy,  but  the  bathers 
dipt  it  up  in  their  hands  and  quaffed 
it  as  the  nectar  of  the  gods.  One 
said  it  tasted  like  milk.  It  surely 
exceeded  it  in  consistency.  At  one 
place  a  dense  crowd  was  ascending 
and  descending  to  and  from  the  spe- 
cial temple  of  Shiva,  which  conse- 
crates this  place  and  is  the  particu- 
lar lodestone  drawing  the  people 
here  yrear  after  yrear. 

Near  the  temple  was  a  long  line 
of  fakirs.  The  more  correct  name 
is  sadhu,  when  applied  to  Hindu  re- 
ligious or  holy  men.  They  are  filthy 
and  loathsome  in  the  extreme,  en- 
tirely naked  save  for  a  tiny  strip 
of  cloth ;  their  faces  and  bodies 
smeared  with  ashes  and  manure,  and 
around  their  necks  strings  of  dirty 
prayer-beads.  Their  hair  was  matted 
with  cow  dung  and  various  designs 
in  colors  disfigured  still  more  their 
vile  faces.  Near  the  bridge  we  saw 
one  man  buried  in  the  earth  up  to 
his  neck,  his  face  made  more  hid- 
eous by  being  daubed  with  tumeric 
powder,  and  the  protruding  head 
looking  like  that  of  a  dead  ghoul, 
but  for  an  occasional  opening  of  the 
evil  eyes.  A  little  further  on,  an 
arm  extending  from  the  earth,  the 
remainder  of  the  man  being  buried 
in  some  way;  the  fingers  held  a 
string  of  beads  and  manipulated  it 
industriously. 

Around  all  these  loathsome  crea- 
tures an  admiring  crowd  collected. 


W11ERK  SIXS  ARK  WAS  1 1  KI)  AWAY 


These  beings  with  "features  fell, 
brought  to  the  soul  wierd  thoughts 
of  hell,"  and  yet,  to  those  poor  gaz- 
ers, this  travesty  of  holiness  repre- 
sented the  apex  of  religious  thought 
and  endeavor.  Now  and  then  a  rush 
through  the  crowd  would  he  made 
by  a  group  of  devotees  shouting, 


And  what  makes  the  special  sanc- 
tity of  this  temple  and  this  image 
of  Shiva? 

( )ur  pundit,  from  whom  we  take 
lessons  in  Urdu  and  Hindi,  who  spoke 
in  English,  and  is  fairly  well  educated, 
saw  nothing  incongruous  or  foolish 
in  the  story  he  gave  of  the  origin 


A    HINDU    FAKIR   IX    HIS    WEIGHT   OF  CHAINS 


"Ram,  Ram,  Sita  Ram,"  as  they  ran 
to  the  river. 

The  Shiva  temple  had  a  door 
scarcely  three  feet  wide,  and  the 
people  were  crushing  in,  a  solid  mass 
of  living,  breathing  fanaticism. 
Most  of  them  carried  aloft  a  little 
brass  vessel  full  of  Ganges  water, 
and  endeavored  to  pour  it  out  be- 
fore the  idol.  Some,  failing  this, 
threw  the  water  high  in  the  air,  and 
those  upon  whom  it  fell  were  grate- 
ful for  the  sanctifying  drops.  A 
stream  trickled  out  from  the  tem- 
ple from  the  abundant  libations  and 
made  a  very  miry  place  in  the  road 
over  which  myriads  of  feet  were 
treading,  as  the  people  sought  their 
"god." 


of  this  especial  festival  at  this  partic- 
ular shrine.  Here  is  his  story :  "The 
temple  is  in  honor  of  Shiva  and  the 
image  or  god  in  it  has  not  been  placed 
there  by  man  or  consecrated  by  man. 
The  name  of  the  god  is  Harihar  (  pro- 
nounced 'hurry-hur') .  Hari  is  one 
of  the  forms  of  Vishnu  (the  preserver 
in  the  Hindu  Triad),  Har  is  one  of 
the  forms  of  Shiva  ( the  destroyer  ) . 
Shiva  was  here  invoked  by  Vishnu. 
A  long  time  ago  here  was  a  forest 
and  wild  elephants  roamed  ;  and  one 
day  one  came  to  drink  water  in  the 
river  and  an  alligator  caught  hold  of 
him  by  the  leg  and  tried  to  drag  him 
into  the  river.  A  struggle  ensued.  At 
last  the  elephant  became,  of  course, 
helpless,  and  feeling  himself  placed 


2;6 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


April 


in  great  danger,  called  out  to  Vishnu 
for  help  with  all  the  sincerity  of  his 
heart,  and  so,  of  course,  Vishnu  hav- 
ing mercy  for  him,  came  and  released 
him  out  of  the  mouth  of  the  alligator 
and  killed  the  alligator.  And  for  the 
memory  of  the  event  Vishnu  invoked 
Shiva,  and  Shiva,  of  course,  in  a  man- 


is  'He  who  dwells  in  every  heart.'  But 
these  crowds  know  nothing.  Only  the 
educated  ones  know.  These  simply  run 
from  habit,  calling  'Ram,  Ram,  Sita 
Ram.'  This  name  includes  Ram  him- 
self and  God  in  any  form  because  it 
is  apparent  that  he  who  dwells  in 
every  heart  is  Ram."    This  was  not 


A    BIBLE    COLPORTEUR    SELLING    BIBLES    AT    A    MELA    IN  INDIA 


ner  became  fixt  there  and  made  the 
spot  an  inhabitable  place.  No,  of 
course  that  is  not  all,"  the  pundit  con- 
tinued, "Vishnu  ordained  that  who 
ever  will  come  and  offer  Ganges  water 
to  Shiva  will  be  thought  to  be— what 
shall  I  say  ?  Ah,  to  be  meritorious ! 

"The  reason  some  call  out  to  'Ram, 
Ram,  Sita  Ram,'  is  that  Ram  is  an 
incarnation  of  Vishnu  and  Sita  was 
his  wife.  Altho  the  names  of  God 
are  innumerable,  yet  of  all  the  names 
Ram  is  the  most  effective.  It  comes 
from  the  root  Ram  (pronounced 
'nan)  and  the  meaning  of  this  root 


very  lucid,  but  the  pundit  did  not 
know  it. 

"Why  do  these  crowds  go  every 
year?  Do  they  go  for  worship?  This 
year  there  were  more  than  two  million 
pilgrims,  according  to  railway  tickets 
purchased  and  other  counting;  why 
do  they  all  go?"  I  asked.  "Most  of 
them  go  for  the  purpose  of  mela,"  he 
answered,  "that  is,  to  see  and  hear  and 
buy  and  sell.  The  thing  is,  there  are 
pilgrimages  and  worship  which  men 
do  from  imitation,  but  there  is  merit 
only  to  the  few  who  do  it  from  the 
heart." 


1908] 


WHERE  SINS  ARE  WASHED  AWAY 


257 


"Does  any  one  teach  these  multi- 
tudes?" I  asked.  "Nobody  teaches 
them,"  he  answered,  "that  is,  no  one 
has  made  it  his  especial  duty  to  teach 
them.  Who  is  to  care  for  that?  The 
government  does  nothing.  The  rich 
men  are  also  ignorant  and  how  can 
they  do  anything?  Yes,  there  are 
a  few  religious  teachers  who  instruct 
some  of  the  people.  Only  a  few  of 
those  fakirs  are  real  fakirs.  Most  are 
only  beggars.  They  put  ashes  on  as 
a  sign  that  they  are  holy  men.  Yes, 
they  are  highly  respected,  of  course, 
in  India.  If  a  great  Rajah  comes  in 
grandeur  he  will  not  be  respected  and 
reverenced  so  much ;  but  if  he  puts 
on  ashes  and  filth  he  will  receive  many 
obeisances,  for  he  comes  as  a  holy 
man. 

"Yes,  most  of  the  fakirs  and  sad- 
hus  (sod-hoos)  are  bad  men."  This 
and  much  of  his  talk  being  in  answer 
to  questions  from  me. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  think  there  are  good 
ones  among  them.  There  is  one  man 
at  Hajipur,  Lakshman  Das,  who  is 
a  true  holy  man.  The  holy  man  at 
Benares  also — I  have  forgotten  his 
name;  he  is  now  dead." 

I  told  him  that  I  had  seen  Sri  Swa- 
my  Bhaskar-anand  Saraswati  at  the 
monkey  temple  in  Benares,  and  also 
his  marble  image  there.  I  admitted 
that  he  was  probably  sincere  and  good 
in  a  way.  But  what  good  has  he 
done?  In  what  is  the  world  any  bet- 
ter for  his  having  lived?  Admitting 
that  he  sat  in  contemplation  of  what 
Is  good  for  years  and  years,  was  it  not 
an  intense  selfishness  to  care  for  his 
own  salvation  alone?" 

But  the  pundit  could  not  see.  Ah, 
that  is  the  test;  what  good  has  this 
religion  done?  With  its  high-sound- 
ing talk  among  the  lettered  few,  about 


astral  planes,  mahatmas,  sadhus,  and 
similar  visionary  nonsense,  taken  up, 
alas,  by  some  western  people.  A  few 
may  gasp  and  gaze,  but  what  of  un- 
selfishness, purity,  or  philanthropy  can 
it  show?  What  good  have  these  few 
barefooted  Brahminical  Theosophical 
"OM,  UM,  OOM"  people  done  for 
their  land  or  their  people?  Alas,  that 
among  them  are  some  English  women 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  "swamies"  in 
Benares,  delving  for  truth  with  the 
muck-rake,  while  the  real  vision  of 
glory — the  coming  of  Christ  to  India, 
is  before  them,  if  they  but  lift  their 
eyes. 

"To  the  poor  the  Gospel  is 
preached,"  the  test  now  as  then,  of 
the  real,  the  divine  religion.  With  it 
comes  the  uplift  of  the  poor — the 
"making  many  rich" ;  schools,  hospi- 
tals, hope,  salvation,  love.  This  dark 
picture  of  the  mela  is  a  picture  of  the 
best  that  these  people  have. 

Oh,  for  Truth's  great  electric  to  re- 
place these  feeble  rushlights  of  devo- 
tion, which  but  serve  to  make  manifest 
the  dense  gloom  around. 

What  man  cares  for  these  souls  ? 


"THUS  SPEAKETH  CHRIST  OUR 
LORD  '*  * 

Ye  call  me  MASTER  and  obey  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  LIGHT  and  see  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  WAY  and  walk  not, 
Ye  call  me  LIFE  and  desire  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  WISE  and  follow  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  FAIR  and  love  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  RICH  and  ask  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  ETERNAL  and  seek  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  GRACIOUS  and  trust  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  NOBLE  and  serve  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  MIGHTY  and  honor  me  not, 
Ye  call  me  JUST  and  fear  me  not, 
If  I  condemn  you  blame  me  not. 

*  From  an  old  slab  in  the  Cathedral  of  Lubeck, 
Germany. 


THE  BIBLE  IN  INDIA 


BY  THE  REV.   H.  U.  WEITBREC 
Missionary  of  the  Church  Missionary  Socie 

India  is  a  focus  of  the  world's  re- 
ligions and  a  land  of  ancient  Scrip- 
tures. It  is  the  home  of  Brahmanism 
with  its  Yedas ;  the  motherland  of 
Buddhism  and  its  Tripitaka,  and  still 
shelters  a  fringe  of  Buddhist  adher- 
ents in  the  northwestern  Himalayas. 
A  fifth  of  its  population  consists  of  the 
followers  of  Islam  who  hold  to  the 
Koran  as  the  uncreated  word  of  God. 
It  retains,  in  the  South,  one  branch  of 
an  ancient  Church — the  Syrian — which 
has  kept  a  primeval  translation  of  the 
Bible  for  more  than  a  millennium :  and 
a  shrunken  community  of  Jews,  using 
the  Hebrew  Old  Testament,  which 
their  forefathers  brought  over,  per- 
haps two  thousand  years  ago.* 

But  India  is  also  a  land  of  illiteracy. 
Even  now,  after  half  a  century  of  sys- 
tematic education,  out  of  the  283,  000,- 
000  people  (excluding  Burmah)  only 
fourteen  per  cent,  of  the  males,  and 
one-half  per  cent,  of  the  females  are 
in  any  sense  literate;  and  the  Brah- 
mans,  who  form  only  five  per  cent,  of 
the  population,  include  seventeen  per 
cent,  of  the  literate  class,  a  fact  which 
throws  no  small  light  on  the  earlier 
history  of  their  supremacy.  What  the 
illiteracy  of  India  was  before  Chris- 
tian missionary  pioneers  made  the  first 
beginnings  toward  popular  education 
we  can  only  conjecture.  Those  at- 
tempts, long  since  overtaken  by  the 
resources  of  the  State,  once  roused  to 
its  duty,  yet  still  providing  an  appre- 
ciable portion  of  the  education  of  the 
land,  resulted  in  making  the  Indian 
Christians  the  best-educated  part  of 

*  I  refer,  of  course,  to  the  Syrian  churches  in  the 
native  States  of  Iravancore  and  Cochin,  and  to  the 
three  synagogs  of  black,  white  and  yellow  Jews  in 
the  city  of  Cochin.— H.  U.  W. 


T,  PH.D.,   D.D.,   PUNJAB,  INDIA 
Chief  Reviser  of  the  Urdu  New  Testament 

the  community  (Brahmans  not  ex- 
cepted) and  paved  the  way  for  the 
work  of  the  Bible  in  India. 

India  is  also  the  land  of  many 
tongues.  They  are  variously  counted, 
but  Dr.  C.  H.  Grierson,  author  of  the 
Indian  Linguistic  Census,  estimates 
143  languages,  differing  from  each 
other  no  less  than  French  and  Span- 
ish, belonging  to  three  great  families — 
the  Aryan,  the  Dravidian,  and  the  In- 
do-Chinese ;  the  first  spoken  by  some 
220,000,000,  the  second  by  60,000,000, 
the  third  (again  excluding  Burmah), 
by  about  3,000,000. 

To  the  teachers  of  the  earlier  re- 
ligions of  India  this  Babel  of  lan- 
guages made  little  difference  so  far 
as  their  sacred  Scriptures  were  con- 
cerned. Throughout  their  history  the 
holy  books  of  the  Brahman,  the  Bud- 
dhist and  the  Moslem  have  remained 
veiled  from  the  common  people  in  the 
obscurity  of  a  sacred  tongue,  San- 
skrit, Pali  or  Arabic,  and  their  teach- 
ers have  been  content  to  pursue  the 
primitive  method  of  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian catechists,  whom  Papias  de- 
scribes as  translating  St.  Matthew's 
Hebrew  record  of  the  Sayings  of  our 
Lord,  "each  as  he  was  able."  But  the 
Gospel  is  the  religion,  not  of  the  let- 
ter which  killeth,  but  of  the  Spirit 
which  giveth  life,  and  from  the  first 
it  has  appealed  in  its  records  to  the 
universal  consciousness,  causing  men 
to  hear  in  their  own  tongues  the  won- 
derful works  of  God.  The  evangel- 
ists have  given  us  the  words  and 
works  of  Jesus,  not  in  the  Aramaic 
which  he  spoke  (save  a  few  frag- 
ments), but  in  the  Greek,  which  would 
reach  the  greatest  number  within  and 


THE  BIBLE  IN  INDIA 


259 


without  the  Church.  But  after  a  very 
few  generations,  Latin-  and  Syriac- 
speaking  churches  had  multiplied,  and 
the  second  century  saw  translations  of 
the  Bible  made  for  them,  so  that  the 
message  had  gone  forth  in  the  three 
languages  which  proclaimed  at  once 
the  accusation  and  the  dignity  of 
the  crucified  Christ.  Thenceforward 
through  all  its  history  the  Bible  has 
done  its  chief  work  by  means  of  trans- 
lations. Of  course,  there  have  been 
three  groups :  the  early  versions,  such 
as  those  already  mentioned,  which 
sprang  from  the  missionary  activity 
of  the  early  Church  ;  the  great  Euro- 
pean versions  of  the  Reformation  pe- 
riod, at  once  the  cause  and  the  result 
of  a  spiritual  and  intellectual  revival 
of  Christendom ;  and  the  systematic 
Bible  translations  of  the  modern  age, 
again  connected  with  the  missionary 
work  of  the  Church  in  that  portion 
which  bases  belief  and  practise  upon 
an  open  Bible.  The  translation  and 
dissemination  of  the  Bible  in  the  world 
has  become  an  activity  which  can 
brook  no  mere  opportunism,  but  must 
insist  on  taking  a  complete  survey  of 
the  condition  and  needs  of  the  entire 
race  for  whom  the  message  is  in- 
tended. And  this  necessity  has  pro- 
duced great  organizations,  the  Bible 
Societies,  whose  work,  if  it  is  to  be 
efficiently  executed,  demands  fervent 
zeal  no  less  than  technical  ability.  In 
India  we  have  a  typical  theater  of 
their  operations,  displaying  every  vari- 
ety of  religion  and  culture. 

To  describe  the  wTork  of  the  Bible 
in  India  is  in  effect  to  describe  the 
operations  of  the  British  and  Foreign 
Bible  Society  in  that  country.  A  cer- 
tain amount  is  also  done  in  the  way  of 
circulation  by  the  National  Bible  So- 
ciety of  Scotland,  while  the  Baptist 


Bible  Translation  Society  represents 
the  earliest  translators  of  the  Seram- 
pore  Mission.  American  missionaries 
sometimes  act  as  secretaries  to  the  lo- 
cal auxiliaries,  notably  the  Rev.  T.  S. 
Wynkoop,  secretary  of  a  most  pro- 
gressive branch  at  Allahabad,  of  whom 
more  hereafter.  The  American  Bible 
Society  has  now  and  then  given  a 
grant  in  aid  toward  the  production  of 
some  version,  but  it  has  not  (so  far 
as  I  know)  worked  systematically  in 
India. 

The  work  of  the  British  and  For- 
eign Society  (established  at  home  in 
1804)  was  first  organized  in  India 
by  the  establishment  of  the  Calcutta 
Auxiliary  in  181 1,  and  one  of  its  ear- 
liest undertakings  was  to  print  and  cir- 
culate the  epoch-making  Urdu  trans- 
lation by  the  great  Henry  Martyn, 
which  he  completed  in  the  same  year, 
and  of  which  he  wrote :  ''Your  design 
of  announcing  the  translation  as 
printed  at  the  expense  of  the  British 
and  Foreign  Bible  Society  I  highly  ap- 
prove. I  wish  to  see  honor  put  upon 
so  Godlike  an  institution."  Since  that 
time  other  auxiliaries  have  been  estab- 
lished in  Madras,  Bombay,  Allahabad, 
Lahore  and  Bangalore,  under  the  con- 
trol of  local  committees  who  raise  a 
certain  amount  by  subscriptions  in  In- 
dia, but  mainly  financed  by  the  liberal 
subsidies  in  cash  and  books  which  the 
parent  society  sends  out.*  The  circu- 
lation is  carried  on  through  the  cen- 
tral depositaries,  aided  by  branches  in 
the  more  important  cities  and  by  col- 
porteurs widely  scattered  throughout 
the  land,  and  also  by  a  staff  of  Bible- 
women  who  carry  on  the  slow  and 
difficult  work  of  circulating  the  Scrip- 

*  The  expenditure  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
vSoeiety  on  its  branches  in  India  for  1904  (exclusive  of 
printing  Indian  Scriptures  at  home)  was  ,£"9,496;  that 
of  the  Scotch  Bible  Society,  ,£"2,065. 


2(3o 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


tures  in  the  Zenanas.  At  the  Decennial 
Conference  of  1902  it  was  reported 
that  during  the  previous  decade  over 
6,000,000  copies  of  the  Bible,  New 
Testament  and  portions,  had  been  cir- 
culated in  sixty  languages  and  dialects. 
During  1904  the  copies  circulated  wrere 
as  follows : 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  664.578 
National  Bible  Society  of  Scotland  198,774 
Baptist  Bible   Translation  Society 

(issues)    58,000 

Total  for  1904    921,352 

To  appreciate  what  this  dissemina- 
tion of  the  Bible  means  we  must  con- 
sider to  what  extent  the  languages  of 
India  have  been  reached  by  the  Bible 
translator.  Excluding  Burmah,  the 
lists  of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible 
Society  show  that  out  of  143  Indian 
languages  only  43  as  yet  have  the 
Bible,  in  whole  or  in  part.  But  of 
these,  eleven  represent  the  great  na- 
tions of  India,  thus : 

Bengali,  viz.: 

Hindu*    21,000,000 

Musalmani*   ...  23,000,000  44,500,000 

Gujurati   10,000,000 

Hindi,  viz.: 

Western   39,500,000 

Eastern    21,500,000 

Bihari    37,000,000 

Rajasthani   11,000,000  109,000,000 

Kanarese    10,500,000 

Malayalam   6,000,000 

Marathi   18,250,000 

Oriya   9,500,000 

Panjabi,  viz.: 

Hindu*    7,000,000 

Musalmani*  ....  10,000,000 

Western    3,250,000  20,250,000 

Sindhi    3,000,000 

Tamil   16.500,000 

Telugu   20,000,000 

Total  population  with  ac- 
cess to  the  Bible   267,500,000 

But  the  impression  conveyed  by 
these  figures  requires  modification: 
(1)  Of  the  twelve  languages  enu- 
merated nine  have  the  whole  Bible, 


*  These  are  only  rough  estimates. 


while  Hindu,  Panjabi  and  Sindhi  have 
only  the  New  Testament  complete 
and  portions  of  the  Old  Testament. 
(2)  But  it  will  be  noted  that  three  of 
them  are  subdivided,  viz. :  Bengali, 
Hindi  and  Panjabi.  In  the  case  of 
Hindi  this  division  is  racial,  in  that 
of  Bengali  it  is  religious,  and  (tho  it 
happens  that  almost  all  the  speakers 
of  western  Panjabi  are  Mohammed- 
ans) with  Panjabi  it  is  both.  In  each 
of  these  languages  there  is  a  standard 
version,  representing  the  original 
Sanskrit  language;  in  the  Musalmani 
dialects  of  Bengali  and  Panjabi  only 
Scripture  portions  are  extant.  (3) 
In  Hindi  the  language  of  modern  lit- 
erature is  based  on  the  western  dia- 
lect, and  in  this  we  have  the  whole 
Bible,  while  in  the  other  great 
tongues  of  the  Hindi  area  only  begin- 
nings have  been  made.  (4)  In  this 
list  Urdu  is  not  mentioned  at  all,  tho 
it  is  the  most  widely  spread  language 
of  India,  being  the  language  of  lit- 
erature and  culture  wherever  Moham- 
medans dwell,  and  the  medium  of 
education  and  administration  and  gen- 
eral intercourse  over  an  area  of  North 
India  with  a  population  of  not  less 
than  100,000,000.  But  it  is  grammat- 
ically based  on  western  Hindi  and 
therefore  included  under  it  in  the 
enumeration  given. 

These  remarks  will  serve  to  show 
the  complevity  and  vastness  of  Bible- 
translation  work  in  India,  especially 
when  wre  remember  that  there  are 
eight  more  languages  whose  speak- 
ers number  from  one  to  two  millions. 
Of  these  Kashmiri  has  the  whole 
Bible;  Pashtu  and  Kol  the  New  Tes- 
tament; while  Malto  and  Gond  have 
portions.  Pashtu  (1,250,000)  and 
Tibetan  (under  100,000)  represent 
much  larger  populations  beyond  the 


iyo8J  THE  BIBL1 

frontiers  of  the  Indian  Empire,  and  as 
a  matter  of  faet  we  know  that  the 
Christian  Scriptures  to  some  extent 
reach  those  populations.  Scriptures 
also  go  in  the  languages  of  India 
(chiefly  Urdu  and  Hindi  and  Tamil) 
to  Demerara,  Australia,  South  Africa, 
the  East  African  Protectorate,  and 
other  countries  where  the  Indian  la- 
borer, soldier  or  trader  emigrates.  We 
may  assume  that  the  literates  of  In- 
dia, about  15,000,000 — all  read  one 
of  the  principal  languages  above  enu- 
merated and  this  shows  to  what  ex- 
tent the  Bible  is  so  far  accessible  to 
the  peoples  of  the  empire. 

In  this  polyglot  mission  field  the 
work  of  translation  and  revision  of 
Biblical  versions  is  constantly  going 
on.  The  last  two  years  have  seen  the 
completion  of  the  revision  of  three 
great  translations,  the  Old  Testament 
in  Hindi,  and  the  New  Testament  in 
Telugu  and  Urdu ;  also  the  beginnings 
of  new  versions  in  Brahui  for  the  tribe 
of  that  name  in  Baluchistan,  and  Balti 
for  a  mountain  tribe  of  northern 
Kashmir,  both  Mohammedan.  Broadly 
speaking,  the  Indian  translator  does 
not  have  to  encounter  the  difficulties 
of  which  we  hear  in  the  case  of  sav- 
age tribes  whose  idea  of  feasting  is 
intoxication  on  beer,  and  who  call 
love  a  preference  for  half-putrid  meat. 
We  have  to  do  with  languages  pos- 
sessing a  grammar,  a  character,  and 
more  or  less  of  a  literature.  Yet  even 
so  the  different  atmosphere  of  thought 
in  which  they  have  grown  to  maturity 
often  enough  presents  puzzling  prob- 
lems of  a  special  kind,  besides  those 
which  always  attend  the  transference 
of  thought  from  the  mold  of  one  lan- 
guage to  that  of  another.  Before  il- 
lustrating this,  however,  let  me  give 
a  very  brief  indication  of  the  way  in 


I  IN  INDIA  261 

which  the  work  of  Biblical  translation 
in  India  has  developed. 

Before  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  only  sporadic  transla- 
tions had  been  made :  a  Tamil  New 
Testament  by  the  Dutch  missionaries 
of  Ceylon,  in  1688,  followed  by 
another  by  the  Danish  Missionary 
Ziegenbalg  of  Tranquebar  in  1715 ;  an 
imprinted  Telugu  version  in  1732,  and 
a  Hindustani  (Urdu)  translation  of 
the  New  Testament  by  the  German, 
Schultze,  of  the  same  mission :  with 
attempts  at  portions  in  Bengali  and 
Hindustani  by  a  Doctor  Thomas  and 
a  Mr.  Hunter — these  constitute  the 
whole  record.  But  in  1793  arrived 
William  Carey,  who,  while  still  a  cob- 
bler, had  taught  himself  Hebrew, 
Greek,  Latin  and  French,  and  that 
because  "his  heart  burned  incessantly 
with  a  desire  for  the  salvation  of  the 
heathen,  and  his  mind  was  filled  with 
the  idea  of  being  some  day  a  trans- 
lator of  the  Word  of  God  into  the  lan- 
guages of  those  who  still  sit  in  dark- 
ness." In  1799  he  was  joined  by 
Ward,  the  printer,  and  Marshman,  the 
second  linguist,  and  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Danish  flag  in  the  city 
of  Holy  Rama  (Serampore-Sri  Ram- 
pur)  a  work  was  begun  by  this  trium- 
virate which  resulted  by  the  time  of 
Carey's  death  (1834)  in  the  publica- 
tion of  the  whole  Bible  in  six  Indian 
languages,  besides  Chinese;  of  the 
New  Testament  in  twenty-three  other 
languages ;  and  of  portions  in  ten 
tongues  more.  The  work  was  accom- 
plished at  a  cost  of  £91,500,  of  which 
the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Soci- 
ety contributed  about  £30,000,  and  the 
translators  (who  subsisted  on  a  pit- 
tance while  they  were  receiving  lib- 
eral salaries  for  linguistic  work  from 
the  government)    with  their  Indian 


262  THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

friends,  over  £5,000.  The  enthusiasm 
excited  among  the  home  congregations 
by  the  work  of  the  three  was  such 
that  it  became  necessary  to  stop  the 
contributions,  and  the  esteem  in  which 
the  linguistic  work  of  the  missionaries 
were  held  in  India  contributed  not  a 
little  to  form  the  public  opinion  which 
brought  about  the  removal  (in  18 13) 
of  the  prohibition  of  missionary  effort 
by  the  East  India  Company.  In  the 
nature  of  the  case,  it  was  impossible 
that  the  bulk  of  this  work  should  be 
other  than  pioneering;  the  most  co- 
lossal industry  could  not  give  the  nec- 
essary supervision  to  the  Indian  help- 
ers engaged  on  all  these  versions.  A 
certain  number,  like  the  Multani,  have 
never  come  into  practical  use  at  all ; 
others,  like  Dr.  Marshman's  Chinese, 
have  been  principally  useful  as  a  basis 
for  the  work  of  successors,  but  sev- 
eral, especially  the  Bengali,  Oriya  and 
Sanskrit  hold  the  field  to  this  day,  of 
course  after  needful  revision. 

While  Carey,  Marshman  and  Ward 
were  engaged  in  their  great  underta- 
king, there  arrived  in  India  another 
scholar,  trained  under  different  con- 
ditions, possessing  the  highest  dis- 
tinctions which  an  English  university 
could  confer,  but  moved  by  the  same 
consuming  zeal  for  the  conversion  of 
the  world  to  Christ,  which  burned  in 
them.  Henry  Martyn  arrived  in  In- 
dia in  May,  1806,  as  a  chaplain  of  the 
East  India  Company  by  appointment, 
yet  a  missionary  by  vocation,  without 
neglecting  his  pastoral  charge.  If  the 
eyes  of  the  Serampore  brethren  were 
directed  to  the  Far  East,  so  that  they 
included  Chinese  in  their  great  scheme 
of  Bible  translation,  Henry  Martyn 
looked  also  westward  in  his  desire 
for  the  conversion  of  the  Moslem. 
He  had  made  studies  already  in  Ara- 


[EW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 

bic,  Persian  and  Urdu  (or  Hindu- 
stani). This  latter  was  the  speech  of 
Mohammedan  rule  in  India,  formed 
by  grafting  on  Hindi  a  Persian  and 
Arabic  vocabulary  and  idiom,  and  on 
this  language  first  he  laid  his  hand 
for  Christ  as  being  the  key  to  unlock 
for  the  immense  Mohammedan  popu- 
lation of  India  the  teachings  of  the 
Law,  the  Psalter  and  the  Gospel, 
which  their  prophet  declared  to  be  in- 
spired. When  Carey  found  that  a 
well-equipped  scholar  was  ready  to 
take  up  the  work  in  the  three  great 
Moslem  languages,  he  showed  equal 
good  sense  and  Christian  feeling  in 
leaving  them  to  him.  Martyn  seems 
to  have  begun  work  immediately  after 
his  arrival ;  at  any  rate  in  less  than 
two  years  (March,  1808)  the  first 
draft  was  completed  and  sent  to  schol- 
ars at  Calcutta  for  criticism.  During 
the  following  three  years  it  was  fre- 
quently revised,  and  in  1810  the  Urdu 
version,  together  with  one  in  Persian, 
was  finally  submitted  for  the  approval 
of  critics.  The  Urdu  was  passed  and 
sent  to  press  in  181 1.  The  Persian 
was  rejected,  as  too  full  of  Arabic,  and 
in  the  same  year  Martyn  left  for  Per- 
sia to  perfect  it,  and  on  the  way  home 
thence  laid  down  his  life  at  Tocat  in 
Asia  Minor.  Two  years  after  his 
death,  in  181 3,  the  Urdu  New  Testa- 
ment was  published,  the  whole  edition 
having  narrowly  escaped  destruction 
in  the  fire  which  destroyed  the  Seram- 
pore Press  in  1812,  and  in  181 5  the 
Persian  appeared.  Both  these  ver- 
sions have  undergone  revision,  the 
Persian  once,  and  the  more  widely 
circulated  Urdu  three  times,*  but  in 
both   instances   Martyn's  translation 

*  The  last  revision  of  the  Urdu  New  Testa- 
ment took  place  from  1893  to  1904  and  has  just 
issued  from  the  press. 


Til  l<:  IHIiLI-   I  X  INDIA 


263 


forms  the  basis  of  the  subsequent 
ones,  as  Tyndale's  does  of  other  Eng- 
lish versions  down  to  the  revised  edi- 
tions of  1881  and  1884;  and  that  al- 
tho  Martyn  had  only  begun  to  read 
these  languages  in  1805,  and  to  come 
into  contact  with  speakers  of  them 
since  1806.  True,  iie  shape  and  pol- 
ish of  the  language  which  he  used 
he  owed  largely  to  his  excellent  as- 
sistants, but  he  had  to  determine  the 
tone  and  temper  of  the  work,  and  its 
faithfulness  to  the  original.  This  he 
did  with  the'  help  of  that  Spirit  who 
once  worked  in  the  miraculous  gift  of 
tongues  and  still  inspires  His  serv- 
ants to  mold  the  languages  of  men 
to  convey  His  message. 

India  has  seen  no  more  such  giants 
of  polyglot  industry  or  geniuses 
of  linguistic  perception ;  but  a  vast 
amount  of  laborious  accuracy  and 
keen  discrimination  has  been  put  into 
the  eleven  greater  and  thirty-two  less- 
er versions,  which  are  from  time  to 
time  being  further  polished  and  per- 
fected ;  and  the  most  encouraging 
feature  of  these  undertakings  is  the 
increasing  share  being  taken  in  them 
by  indigenous  Christian  scholars. 

The  difficulties  of  translation  have 
been  referred  to  as  they  present  them- 
selves in  India.  Foremost  among  these 
we  should  place  the  generally  wide 
difference  between  the  language  of  lit- 
erature and  that  of  popular  usage. 
The  accepted  style  of  writing  is  in 
many  cases  so  different  from  that  of 
speech  that  the  rendering,  on  which 
one's  literary  assistants  insist,  may  be 
quite  unintelligible  to  the  average 
reader,  without  such  professional  ex- 
planation as  he  is  accustomed  to  in 
the  case  of  his  own  religious  books. 
The  grammar  of  a  great  language  like 
Bengali,  when  the  first  translators  be- 


gan their  work  was  not  even  recog- 
nized in  its  own  identity,  but  as 
Sanskrit  grammar,  modified  by  usage. 
In  fact  prose  writing  was  little  devel- 
oped in  any  of  the  Indian  languages 
a  century  ago,  and  while  the  lack  of 
a  lucid  and  dignified  expression  of 
thought  in  prose  form  was  one  of  the 
difficulties  with  which  biblical  trans- 
lators were  confronted,  the  develop- 
ment of  such  a  style,  not  without  in- 
evitable errors  in  the  process,  was  not 
a  little  set  forward  by  them.  Having 
found  the  right  medium,  the  trans- 
lator has  to  face  the  fact  that  the  lan- 
guage he  deals  with  is  far  less  toler- 
ant of  involved  sentences,  whether 
relative  or  dependent,  than  the  Greek, 
and  much  less  capable  of  pregnant 
brevity  than  the  Hebrew.  Moreover, 
as  he  is  rendering  into  contemporary 
speech,  he  can  less  readily  employ 
obscure  literalisms  than  one  who  has 
at  his  command  a  supply  of  archaic 
religious  terms,  and  he  therefore  has, 
on  the  whole,  to  translate  more  freely 
than  the  scholars  who  produced  the 
great  versions  of  the  West.  All  the 
more  is  he  called  upon  to  answer  the 
difficult  question:  What  terms  or 
phrases  enshrine  specifically  biblical 
conceptions  or  teachings,  and  there- 
fore must  be  transverbated  into  the 
speech  of  India,  as  a  Christian  en- 
largement of  her  world  of  thought, 
and  which  will  exercise  their  true 
force  by  freer  translation?  Thus  to 
translate  literally  a  phrase,  albeit  im- 
portant, such  as  "lusts  of  the  flesh," 
is  only  to  bewilder  the  reader  who  will 
understand  by  it,  if  anything,  a  cra- 
ving opposed  to  vegetarianism  ;  but  the 
phrase :  "Abide  in  Me,"  despite  its 
strangeness,  must  be  retained  to  ex- 
press the  specific  Christian  truth  of  a 
mystical,    yet    personal    union  with 


264 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


April 


Christ.  Or,to  take  a  fundamental  term 
such  as  "conscience,"  it  is  probable 
that  none  of  the  current  Indian  terms 
which  express  the  moral  sense  have  at 
all  fully  the  connotation  of  syneidesis 
(dweiSfldis),  and  hence  in  the  speech 
of  educated  persons  the  English  word 
is  freely  used.  Still  it  has  hardly  at- 
tained a  sufficiently  firm  hold  in  gen- 
eral speech  to  be  safely  used  in  a  book 
intended  for  the  generality ;  and 
hence  in  one  of  the  most  recent  re- 
visions (the  Urdu)  the  form  kdnshans 
has  been  introduced  only  into  the  mar- 
gin for  the  sake  of  intelligent  readers. 
Some  of  us  may  live  to  see  it  in  the 
text. 

What  of  the  effect  of  the  Bible  in  In- 
dia? In  the  Christian  Church,  through 
divinity  schools,  boarding-schools,  Sun- 
day-schools and  Bible  classes,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  ordinary  ministrations  of 
public  worship,  I  believe  that  the  Bible 
is  being  taught,  if  anything,  more  sys- 
tematically than  in  home  lands,  and 
in  the  higher  teaching  the  critical 
problems  of  the  day  have  to  be  faced. 
Among  agencies  for  outsiders,  besides 
those  strictly  connected  with  the  Bi- 
ble Societies,  the  foremost  rank  must 
be  assigned  to  the  mission  schools  and 
colleges.  The  pressure  of  govern- 
ment examinations  (essential  condi- 
tions for  the  obtaining  of  grants  in 
aid),  the  frequent  weakness  of  staff, 
reenforced  by  the  natural  disinclina- 
tion of  non-Christians,  make  this  in- 
struction less  effective  than  it  might 
and  should  be ;  yet  for  all  this,  the 
Scripture  teaching  thus  has  reached, 
and  is  leaving  millions  of  minds,  re- 
moving the  prejudices  that  spring  of 
ignorance,  raising  up  religious  and 
moral  ideals  before  unknown,  and  pre- 
paring one  here  and  another  there  to 
receive  and  follow  Him  of  whom  the 


Scriptures  tell.  This  work  is  very 
effectively  supplemented  by  the  sys- 
tematic distribution  of  English  Scrip- 
tures through  the  agencies  of  the  Brit- 
ish and  Foreign  Bible  Society  to  uni- 
versity passmen  and  graduates.  Year 
by  year  when  the  examinations  are 
over,  every  matriculate  who  applies  is 
presented  with  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke 
and  the  Acts;  every  B.  A.  graduate 
with  the  New  Testament,  and  every 
M.  A.  with  the  whole  Bible.  During 
1904,  1,644  Bibles,  2,536  New  Tes- 
taments, and  3,238  Gospels  and  Acts 
appear  to  have  been  thus  distributed. 
In  the  course  of  the  study  of  English 
language  and  literature,  the  most 
widely  followed  subject,  the  students 
already  come  across  so  much  of  bibli- 
cal histor}'  allusion  and  ethics  that 
their  minds  are  in  a  measure  prepared 
to  understand  the  sacred  volume.  At 
the  annual  prize-giving  of  the  For- 
man  Christian  College  in  Lahore  one 
of  the  prizes  provided  by  a  former  stu- 
dent for  proficiency  in  Sanskrit  con- 
sists of  copies  of  the  Bible  and  the 
Vedas.  A  Hindu  assistant  surgeon 
publishes  a  pamphlet,  "Precepts  from 
Holy  Bible,"  in  which  he  gives  ex- 
tracts from  the  Scriptures,  in  order 
to  prove  his  thesis  that  the  higher  con- 
ditions of  civilization  and  morality 
which  obtain  in  Western  lands  have 
their  origin  in  the  teachings  of  the 
Bible,  and  he  invites  others  to  make 
similar  extracts  from  the  Koran  and 
the  Vedas.  One  of  the  most  eminent 
judges  of  the  Bombay  High  Court, 
still  a  nominal  Hindu,  was  accus- 
tomed to  teach  his  wife  English  by 
reading  the  New  Testament  with  her, 
and  he  himself  loved  it  and  read  it  in 
his  dying  hours.  At  a  reception  of 
new  members  into  the  Brahmo  Samaj 
each  neophyte  was  presented  with  a 


THE  BIBLE  IN  INDIA 


265 


copy  of  the  "Brahma  Dharma"  (a 
handbook  of  the  sect),  the  "Imitation 
of  Christ"  and  the  New  Testament. 
In  the  report  of  the  Maras  Auxiliary 
Bible  Society  we  find  a  Hindu  gen- 
tleman giving  Rs.  73  (over  $24)  for 
the  year,  and  "a  Mohammedan  secret 
disciple  of  Christ"  sends  Rs.  5.  As 
the  Hon.  Sir  Andrew  Wingate  said 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Calcutta  Aux- 
iliary in  1900: 

Who  can  road  the  pleadings  of  the 
social  reformers  on  behalf  of  the  daugh- 
ters and  sisters  of  Indian  gentlemen, 
condemned,  while  yet  of  tender  age,  to 
the  sad  life  of  Jephthah's  daughter,  and 
not  recognize  the  awakening  voice  of 
conscience?  Others  may  persuade  them- 
selves that  this  active  pity  for  suffering 
is  a  revival  of  altruistic  Buddhism,  or  the 
outcome  of  the  theology  of  long  neg- 
lected Sanskrit  texts;  but  we  recognize 
the  teaching  of  the  Bible,  and  tho  these 
be  but  the  first  blades  of  the  coming  har- 
vest, yet  we  are  sure  that  they  are  true 
corn  of  seed  that  has  never  failed. 

As  for  conversions,  these  fall  into 
two  classes:  There  are  the  mass 
movements,  primarily  of  a  social  na- 
ture, which  have  led  large  numbers, 
generally  of  the  deprest  classes,  to 
seek  for  admission  into  the  Church  of 
Christ.  On  the  other  hand  there  are 
the  conversions  of  individuals  and 
families  going  on  here  and  there  over 
the  country,  as  the  result  of  personal 
conviction.  The  history  of  the  lat- 
ter is,  as  often  as  not,  the  history  of 
Bible  reading,  sometimes  without  any 
other  teacher ;  and  now  and  then 
groups  of  families  are  found  prepared 
for  the  evangelist  through  the  read- 
ing and  study  of  a  single  Gospel.  The 
great  task  and  problem  of  the  former 
kind  of  adhesions  is  the  "teaching 
them  all  things  whatsoever"  the  Sa- 
vior has  commanded  His  disciples,  as 
recorded  in  Holy  Writ.    The  congre- 


gations in  which  this  work  has  been 
most  thoroughly  done  are  those  in 
which  the  despised  outcast  has  come 
up  to  and  above  the  level  of  his  proud 
.  Hindu  or  Moslem  neighbor,  and  be- 
come a  means  of  blessing  to  his  Chris- 
tian brother  of  higher  origin.  In  the 
case  of  individual  conversions  the 
names  of  brethren  in  the  ministry  and 
helpers  in  the  Gospel,  to  say  nothing 
of  others,  recall  to  one  the  power  of 
the  direct  message  of  the  Word.  One, 
now  passed  away,  a  pundit  learned  in 
Hindu  lore,  casually  met  with  the 
Sanskrit  Xew  Testament  and  began 
reading  it  from  the  first  page.  He 
was  arrested  by  the  genealogy  as 
pointing  back  to  a  more  ancient  his- 
tory and  his  inquiries  procured  him  a 
copy  of  the  Old  Testament.  This  he 
studied,  and  was  able  to  recognize  the 
thread  of  Messianic  prophecy  and  its 
fulfilment  in  Christ  before  he  ever  re- 
ceived instruction  from  a  missionary. 
Some  time  after  his  baptism,  when  he 
was  preparing  for  the  ministry  in  our 
Lahore  Divinity  School,  some  one 
spoke  in  derogation  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  unnecessary  to  the  Christian 
faith.  He  warmly  objected:  "The 
Old  Testament,"  he  said,  "first  led  me 
to  Christ."  Another  of  these  men, 
still  living  and  working  with  us,  was 
a  Moslem  student  in  a  village  mosque, 
to  whom  his  teacher  gave  a  Xew  Tes- 
tament, left  with  him  by  an  itinerating 
missionary  after  a  controversy  in 
which  the  Moslem  thought  that  he  had 
gained  the  victory.  The  youth,  fired 
by  his  teacher's  example,  wished  to  be 
trained  as  a  missionary  of  Islam,  and 
the  study  of  the  Xew  Testament  was 
to  prepare  him  to  meet  the  padres  in 
argument.  But  it  resulted  in  his  con- 
version to  the  Gospel,  of  which  for 
many  years  he  has  been  a  minister  and 


266  THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

missionary.  In  the  course  of  work 
among  his  former  fellow  believers,  the 
most  effective  method  of  controversy 
which  he  hit  upon  was  this.  Being 
challenged  to  a  disputation  by  a  mau- 
lawi  (Moslem  minister),  he  arranged 
that,  under  the  chairmanship  of  a 
Hindu  gentleman,  each  champion 
should  bring  his  Scriptures  and,  ta- 
king one  principal  topic  of  religion 
at  each  session,  should  expound  for 
lit  teen  minutes  in  turn  the  teach- 
ings of  his  book  on  that  particular 
subject,  such  as  the  divine  attributes, 
forgiveness  of  sin,  sanctification,  etc. 
Several  meetings  were  held,  but  it  was 
found  that  the  supply  of  matter  from 
the  Koran  on  such  topics  had  a  way 
of  running  short,  and  when  the  sur- 
plus time  was  adjudged  to  the  Chris- 
tian expounder  the  Mohammedan  was 


[EW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 

forced  by  his  supporters  to  withdraw ; 
an  object  lesson  as  to  the  character 
of  the  two  books. 

Such  are  a  few  fragmentary  im- 
pressions, mostly  gathered  from  expe- 
rience of  the  last  thirty  years,  of  the 
work  of  the  Bible  in  one  part  of  the 
foreign  mission  field  only.  They  may 
serve  as  a  sample  of  what  it  is  doing 
in  four  hundred  tongues  all  over  the 
globe.  The  work  of  rendering  the 
Scriptures  into  these  many  tongues 
and  adjusting  its  message  to  the 
thought  of  other  nations  is  the  com- 
plement of  that  which  is  the  aim  of  a 
sincere  Biblical  criticism,  that  seeks 
to  interpret  the  Bible  to  the  conscious- 
ness of  our  age.  In  both  cases  the 
life  and  light  which  the  Bible  con- 
tains is  vindicated  in  the  hearts  and 
experience  of  seekers  after  God. 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 

BY  DELAVAN  L.  PIERSON 


It  was  a  sight  worth  going 
many  miles  .  to  see  and  one  long 
to  be  remembered  when  over  two 
thousand  men  from  Presbyterian 
churches  in  the  Eastern  States,  gath- 
ered in  the  Academy  of  Music,  Phila- 
delphia, morning,  noon  and  night,  for 
two  days  and  a  half  (February  n- 
13),  in  the  interest  of  Foreign  Mis- 
sions. This  convention  can  scarcely 
fail  to  mean  much  in  the  awakening 
of  a  missionary  spirit  in  the  Church 
at  home  and  in  the  extension  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Christ  in  foreign  lands. 
Great  electric  signs  on  the  City  Hall 
and  Academy  of  Music  blazed  out  a 
"Welcome  to  the  Men's  Foreign  Mis- 
sionary Convention,"  with  a  giant  key 


symbolically  offering  them  the  free- 
dom of  the  city.  The  delegates — all 
men  and  two-thirds  of  them  laymen, 
including  doctors,  lawyers,  teachers, 
business  men — came  from  eight  East- 
ern and  Central  States,  and  some  from 
the  South  and  West.  The  roll  of  the 
Convention  showed  1,441  men  regis- 
tered as  delegates,  37  as  missionaries, 
40  as  speakers,  75  as  visitors,  and  a 
considerably  larger  number  was  in 
attendance.  Apparently  every  Pres- 
bytery in  the  East  had  its  representa- 
tives and  more  than  thirty  men  were 
present  from  the  Southern  Church. 
The  first  one  to  send  in  his  registra- 
tion fee  was  a  colored  brother  from 
New  Jersey.    Three  noticeable  fea- 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 


267 


lures  were:  the  absence  of  women,  the 
infrequency  of  clerical  coats,  and  the 
non-appearance  of  the  collection  plate. 

The  Convention  was  planned  by 
Mr.  David  McConaughy,  the  efficient 
District  Secretary  of  the  Presbyterian 
Board,  and  was  carried  to  a  success- 
ful conclusion  with  the  help  of  an  ac- 
tive committee  of  arrangements,  of 
which  Rev.  C.  A.  R.  Janvier  of  Phila- 
delphia, was  chairman. 

The  great  Academy  of  Music  was 
decorated  with  a  huge  colored  map  of 
the  world,  made  for  the  Ecumenical 
Conference  in  1900  at  a  cost  of  over 
$400.  In  various  conspicuous  places 
were  appropriate  and  epigrammatic 
mottos  and  texts : 

"This  is  the  victory  that  overcometh 
the  world,  even  our  faith." 

"No  interest  in  missions — the  only  ex- 
planation either  inexcusable  ignorance 
or  wilful  indifference." 

"Unless  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  OF  ALL, 
He  is  not  Lord  AT  ALL." 

"It  is  the  mission  of  the  whole  Church  to 
give  the  whole  Gospel  to  the  whole 
world." 

"The  Yellow  race  in  place  of  being  a 
yellow  peril,  may  become  a  golden  op- 
portunity." 

"Jesus  Christ  alone  can  save  the  world, 
but  Jesus  Christ  can  not  save  the  world 
alone." 

"We  can  not  serve  God  and  Mammon, 
but  we  can  serve  God  with  Mammon." 

What  the  Omaha  Convention  did  in 
the  West,  the  Philadelphia  Conference 
is  expected  to  do  in  the  East,  to  arouse 
the  Church  to  deliberately  accept  the 
responsibility  of  its  share  in  the  evan- 
gelization of  the  world. 

The  conception  of  the  Convention 
was  itself  impressive,  from  the  fact 
that  the  interest  which  brought  these 
men  together  was  none  other  than 
Foreign  Missions.  Ten  years  ago  it 
would  have  been  impossible  to  have 


induced  anything  like  that  number  of 
men  to  come  to  such  a  conference. 
The  interest  and  enthusiasm  of  the 
Convention  were  never  on  the  wane, 
but  from  the  very  beginning  of  the 
meeting,  when  the  first  clear  note  of 
enthusiasm  was  sounded,  the  high 
level  of  intense  interest  was  fully 
maintained. 

The  presiding  officer  was  Rev. 
George  Alexander,  President  of  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions,  and  the 
addresses  were  by  some  of  the  strong- 
est speakers  in  the  Church.  These 
men  had  one  object:  to  stir  the  Pres- 
byterian men  of  the  United  States  to 
a  fuller  realization  of  the  present  con- 
ditions in  the  non-Christian  world  and 
the  opportunities  and  obligations  of 
Christian  men  to  carry  forward  the 
campaign  for  the  conquest  of  the 
world  for  Christ.  The  Convention  was 
not  called  to  ask  for  money  and  no 
collections  or  subscriptions  were 
taken. 

The  program  was  divided  into  ten 
sessions  and  conferences.  The  Call  of 
the  World  was  presented  by  Dr.  Ar- 
thur J.  Brown  and  John  R.  Mott. 
The  Response  of  the  Church  was  given 
by  Dr.  Wm.  H.  Roberts,  Moderator 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  by 
representatives  of  other  denomina- 
tions. The  present  needs  of  the  hour 
were  voiced  by  missionaries  and  lay- 
men direct  from  the  various  fields  and 
the  demands  of  the  future  were  ably 
advocated  by  Dr.  Howard  Agnew 
Johnston  and  William  T.  Ellis. 

Mr.  John  R.  Mott  spoke  on  "The 
Urgency  and  Crisis  in  the  Far  East." 
He  stated  his  belief  that  Korea  would 
soon  become  a  Christian  land,  if  the 
Church  did  her  duty  and  made 
a  thrilling  appeal  for  China,  claiming 
that  there  was  the  greatest  opportu- 


268  THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

nity  that  has  come  to  the  Church  in 
years.  The  plastic  condition  of  China 
makes  it  imperative  that  the  Church 
should  enter  in  now,  so  that  when 
China  crystallizes,  she  may  be  Chris- 
tian. In  the  next  ten  years  the  spir- 
itual future  of  China  will  be  deter- 
mined. 

The  "Call  of  the  Present  Oppor- 
tunity," came  from  many  missionaries 
with  the  same  voice :  the  pagan  re- 
ligions are  losing  their  grip;  unless 
Christianity  embraces  its  opportunity, 
it  will  be  atheism  or  indifferentism  in 
the  immediate  future.  Very  striking 
were  the  words  of  Dr.  Zwemer  on 
the  great  Mohammedan  world.  "Not 
long  ago  it  was  truly  said  that  one 
could  hardly  find  a  Mohammedan  con- 
vert the  world  over,  now  they  are 
numbered  by  the  thousands.  Moham- 
medans themselves  are  beginning  to 
realize  that  their  religion  will  not 
square  with  twentieth  century  ideas, 
and  here  is  our  opportunity." 

Dr.  Zwemer  stated  the  importance 
of  the  Mohammedan  world  in  the  fol- 
lowing forceful  terms  :  ( i )  Because  of 
its  strength.  The  immense  number  of 
adherents,  about  230,000,000,  scat- 
tered through  many  countries  and 
speaking  different  languages.  Among 
these  people  are  to  be  found  concep- 
tions in  their  faith  closely  akin  to 
Christianity  to  the  extent  that  much 
is  to  be  found  in  common  with  the 
Apostles'  Creed.  In  this  faith  is  to 
be  found  the  "backbone  of  conviction" 
which  makes  it  strong.  To  these  may 
be  added  the  strength  of  caste  and  the 
strength  by  virtue  of  thirteen  hundred 
years  of  deep  root  in  their  science,  art, 
literature  and  life. 

(2)  Because  of  its  weakness.  This 
religion  is  weak  in  its  inner  life.  It 
is  weak  because  it  is  anti-Christian 


[EW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 

and  has  no  essential  deity  of  a  Christ. 
It  is  weak  because  hopeless,  having 
given  no  hope  to  the  great  masses.  It 
is  sensual,  pandering  to  low  passions. 
It  possesses  low  ideals,  for  [Moham- 
medanism had  to  be  "white-washed" 
to  suit  the  twentieth  century. 

(3)  Because  of  its  condition.  Great 
changes  are  in  progress,  the  Moham- 
medan countries  are  open  and  Islam 
is  on  the  defensive.  Our  advantage 
lies  in  the  fact  that  the  Church  has 
the  weapons,  not  carnal ;  holds  stra- 
tegic points  in  Mohammedan  lands 
which  she  will  never  give  up,  and  has 
the  inspiration  of  those  who  began  the 
fight. 

The  call  was  also  sounded  from 
South  America,  Korea,  China,  India, 
Africa  and  other  lands. 

[Missionaries  were  followed  by  re- 
ports of  men  who  have  recently  cir- 
cled the  globe  in  investigating  on  the 
mission  fields  the  works  of  these  mis- 
sionaries. 

Edward  D.  Sturges,  of  Scranton, 
claimed  for  himself  the  letters  F. 
M.  D.  (Foreign  [Mission  Devotee) 
and  D.  D.  (decidedly  devoted).  He 
said  he  had  been  reconverted  in  Ja- 
pan. A  Christian  Japanese  shop- 
keeper told  him  he  had  to  keep  open 
on  Sundays  for  American  and  British 
travelers  and  then  seriously  asked  him 
if  there  were  many  Christians  in 
America.  "The  world  will  be  con- 
verted when  the  Christians  in  the 
United  States  are  converted,"  said 
Mr.  Richard  C.  Morse.  Our  mission- 
aries are  overworked  men.  A  bad 
business  policy.  We  need  twenty  per 
cent  more  men,  to  hold  our  own  on 
the  mission  field.  Xo  fault  can  be 
found  with  the  missionaries,  no  fault 
with  our  secretaries,  the  fault  is  with 
us,  who  are  withholding  the  means. 


iqo8J  THE  PHILADELPHIA  MISSIONARY  COXVEXTIOX 


269 


Mr.  Morse  stated  that  "there  are 
over  15,000  missionaries  in  the  world, 
assisted  by  nearly  100,000  native  help- 
ers. These  occupy  32,000  mission  sta- 
tions. Up  to  date  1,500,000  heathens 
have  been  converted  to  Christianity 
and  there  are  1,000,000  more  about 
to  become  communicants.  The  rate 
of  progress  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
200,000,  or  14  per  cent  of  the  total 
number  of  conversions,  were  made  in 
1907."  This  is  against  a  2  per  cent 
increase  in  the  churches  in  the  home 
field. 

Ex-Governor  Beaver  made  a  mili- 
tant speech,  calling  attention  to  the 
fact  that  the  Great  Captain  has  given 
the  order  to  move  forward.  "The 
Church  has  been  loitering  on  the  skir- 
mish line  of  missions  for  one  hundred 
years,  and  its  duty  is  to  delay  nc  lon- 
ger, but  plunge  into  the  battle.  Is 
the  Presbyterian  Church  doing  its  full 
work  for  missions?  No.  The  or- 
ganization is  all  right,  but  it  is  noth- 
ing but  a  skeleton  of  dry  bones  un- 
less there  are  wise  and  energetic  men 
and  women  behind  it.  Shall  this  skel- 
eton move  and  live  ?  That  is  the  ques- 
tion. YVe  have  been  letting  dead  men 
and  live  women  do  the  work.  We  are 
short  on  the  legacies  of  these  dead 
men  this  year.  Live  women  are  do- 
ing much,  but  live  men  haven't  taken 
the  places  of  the  dead  men." 

On  Wednesday  afternoon  the  Con- 
vention divided,  the  Sunday-school 
superintendents  and  workers  meeting 
under  the  leadership  of  Rev.  Geo. 
Trull,  to  consider  the  best  means  of 
training  the  children  in  the  knowledge 
of  missions  and  awakening  their  in- 
terest. The  pastors  met  in  Chambers- 
Wvlie  church  and  discust  practical 
methods  of  keeping  churches  alive  in 
mission  interest.    The  meeting  in  the 


Academy  was  for  laymen  only,  but 
the  audience  seemed  as  large  as  at 
the  other  sessions.  This  conference, 
was  led  by  David  McConaughy, 
the  Secretary  of  the  Forward  Move- 
ment, and  considered  "Men's  part  in 
leading  the  Church  as  a  whole  to  ful- 
fill its  mission."  Many  excellent  sug- 
gestions came  both  from  the  platform 
and  the  floor.  "Have  a  regular  rule 
to  give  a  two-minute  summary  of 
events  for  each  field  at  each  mission- 
ary meeting."  "Have  a  statement  of 
missionary  progress  at  each  brother- 
hood meeting."  "Our  pastor  reads 
each  Sunday  the  list  of  missionaries 
on  the  missionary  calendar  for  that 
week."  "Every  Church  that  takes 
hold  of  the  foreign  field  will  take  care 
of  the  home  field." 

On  Thursday  Gov.  Beaver  con- 
ducted a  conference  whose  theme  was 
"The  only  Organization  Called  for : 
the  Church."  "The  call  of  to-day  is 
not  for  new  societies  but  for  the  or- 
ganization of  the  Church  itself  as  a 
missionary  society.  Every  church 
should  have  a  missionary  committee, 
representing  every  interest  in  the 
church,  and  it  should  be  the  business 
of  this  committee  to  further  in  every 
way  the  missionary  interest  of  the 
whole  Church."  Methods  of  stirring 
up  this  interest  were  brought  out  in 
a  conference  conducted  by  Dr.  A.  L. 
Phillips,  of  Richmond,  Va.  "The  ig- 
norance of  the  men  of  our  Church  of 
missionary  literature  is  deplorable."  A 
call  for  a  show  of  hands  revealed  the 
fact  that  few  in  the  audience  had  read 
three  books  on  missions  in  the  past 
year.  But  more  than  one-half  had 
read  the  missionary  magazines  or  leaf- 
lets of  the  Church.  "Those  who  criti- 
cize the  missionary  books  and  other 
literature  as  being  effeminate  and  dry, 


2/0 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


simply  do  not  know  anything  of  what 
they  are  talking-,"  said  Dr.  Turnball 
Lee. 

J.  Campbell  White,  Secretary  of 
the  Laymen's  Movement,  spoke  on 
"An  Adequate  Business  Basis  for 
World  Evangelization."  He  quoted 
the  remark  of  a  man  who  said  that 
he  would  rather  save  a  million  men 
than  a  million  dollars.  He  emphasized 
the  fact  that  (i)  our  greatest  needs 
are  spiritual;  (2)  our  greatest  oppor- 
tunities are  spiritual;  (3)  our  greatest 
forces  are  spiritual  and  (4)  our  great- 
est values  are  spiritual.  These  facts 
show  the  following:  (1)  We  have  an 
adequate  spiritual  basis  in  the  com- 
mand and  promises  of  Christ.  (2) 
We  must  have  an  adequate  force  of 
workers.  The  call  for  one  missionary 
for  every  twenty-five  thousand  people 
in  the  foreign  field  is  the  general  opin- 
ion of  the  necessary  force,  this  mission- 
ary to  have  native  helpers.  For  the 
Northern  Church  the  foreign  field  is 
twelve  times  larger  than  the  home 
field :  for  this  greater  support  was 
needed.  At  the  present  rate  of  work 
it  will  take  one  hundred  years  to 
reach  the  people.  If  this  Church 
should  give  $200,000,000  for  100,000,- 
000  people  in  this  generation,  it  would 
only  mean  two  dollars  for  each 
heathen.  A  man  in  Baltimore  has 
given  in  twenty  years  $100,000  to  an 
unoccupied  field  in  India,  with  the  re- 
sult that  there  are  there  to-day  fifty 
thousand  converts.  The  reason  why 
Christianity  does  not  possess  the 
world  is  because  Christ  does  not  pos- 
sess the  Christians. 

W.  T.  Ellis,  of  the  Philadelphia 
Press,  gave  his  views  on  the  "Su- 
preme Opportunity  of  the  Hour,"  as 
one  of  the  many  business  men  who 
have  traveled  in  the  East  to  investi- 


gate missions.  His  views  represented 
a  consensus  of  opinion  among  bus- 
iness men  and  are  therefore  worthy 
of  especial  mention.  He  quoted  the 
saying  of  Emerson  that  the  "world  is 
one  neighborhood,"  and  emphasized 
the  fact  that  we  should  try  to  make 
it  so  by  telling  of  Jesus  Christ,  so  that 
the  neighborhood  would  become  a 
brotherhood,  for  "neighborhood  with- 
out brotherhood  is  a  curse."  There  is 
a  yellow  peril  to  be  reckoned  with  if 
we  do  not  take  it  in  hand  now.  There 
is  no  short-cut  remedy  to  do  away 
with  "unbrotherliness,"  no  way  but 
the  pure  old  Gospel.  The  world  does 
not  want  to  be  a  brotherhood,  but  the 
world  needs  to  be.  There  is  a  great 
world-crisis  and  God  creates  a  force 
here  to  meet  a  need  yonder.  The 
movements  in  different  parts  of  the 
world  may  suggest  the  stately  step- 
pings  of  Him  who  makes  history. 
Civic,  political  and  religious  revivals 
in  America ;  social  reforms,  liberalism 
and  other  movements  in  England, 
suggest  that  America  and  England 
and  the  Orient  share  in  the  "divine 
concatenation  of  events."  Unrest  in 
Portugal ;  restlessness  in  France ; 
mobs  in  Germany ;  departed  glories  of 
Spain ;  Vatican  troubles  in  Italy ;  con- 
ditions in  Morocco ;  disasters  in  Rus- 
sia ;  call  these  what  you  will,  yet  may 
it  not  be  the  Spirit  of  God  at  work 
among  the  nations?  So  Egypt,  Tur- 
key and  India  have  come  to  the 
crisis.  China  is  waking  up.  In 
five  years  China  has  progressed 
more  than  in  three  thousand  years  of 
previous  history.  China  is  going  the 
western  way  and  wants  the  western 
weapon  and  western  wisdom.  She 
has  a  deep  hostility  to  the  Westerner 
and  the  task  of  Christendom  is  to  put 
the  spirit  of  brotherliness  into  China. 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 


271 


This  Convention  gave  evidence  of 
several  important  things.  It  showed 
that  the  men  of  the  Church  are  be- 
ginning to  awake  to  the  fact  that  the 
missionary  work  is  a  campaign  in 
which  the  women  and  children  should 
not  do  the  major  share  of  the  work. 
It  showed  that  intelligent  laymen  who 
visit  the  foreign  fields  come  back  rilled 
with  enthusiasm  for  the  tremendous 
need  and  glorious  opportunity  pre- 
sented in  the  empires  of  the  East. 
They  are  also  stirred  with  admiration 
for  the  noble  men  and  women  who 
are  enduring  hardships  while  devo- 
ting themselves  to  the  advancement  of 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  at  the  frontier 
and  for  the  character  of  the  native 
Christians  whose  consecration,  spiri- 
tual insight  and  liberality  put  us  to 
shame.  The  Convention  also  brought 
to  light  the  comparatively  meager  sup- 
port that  the  great  Presbyterian 
Church  is  giving  to  this  world-wide 
work  and  the  danger  that  lies  in  neg- 
lecting to  take  advantage  of  the  pres- 
ent opportunity,  this  opportunity  is 
evident  in  the  open  doors  the  recep- 
tive attitude  of  the  nations  who  are 
giving  up  their  old  religions  and  are 
beginning  to  see  the  advantages  of 
Christianity. 

The  Church  is  taking  a  forward 
move  and  experience  has  proved  that 
the  missionary  spirit  and  generous 
missionary  gifts  helps  to  build  up  the 
Church  at  home  as  well  as  to  extend 
the  Kingdom  of  Christ  abroad.  If  a 
church  would  be  self-supporting  and 
have  a  healthy  life  and  growth  it  must 
not  stagnate  with  self-interest.  The 
Church,  like  the  Christian,  is  intended 
to  be  a  channel  rather  than  a  cistern. 

The  following  plan  was  one  pre- 
sented in  a  leaflet  distributed  at  the 
Convention ; 


MODEL  MISSIONARY  CHURCH 
Platform 

The  WHOLE  CHURCH,  a  Missionary  Society, 
to  give  the  WHOLE  GOSPEL,  to  the  WHOLE 
WORLD,  according  to  Christ's  command. 

Organization 

r.  The    SESSION,    an    Executive    Committee  to 
carry  out  this  platform. 

2.  AGENCIES. 

The  Sunday-school  a  Missionary  Society. 
The  Women's  Missionary  Societies. 
The    Young    People's    Missionary  Committee. 
The  Brotherhood  Missionary  Committee. 
Any    Other    Societies    Needed    to    Enlist  all 
Classes. 

3.  The   MISSIONARY   COUNCIL,   made   up  of 

one  representative  from  each  of  these  branches 
of  the  Church  life  to  help  the  Pastor  unify 
and  push  the  work. 

Methods 

EDUCATIONAL. 

Missionary  Literature. 
Missionary  Library. 
Monthly  Concert. 
Sermons,  Address. 
Missionary  Study  Class. 

FINANCIAL. 

Giving  an  Act  of  Worship  according  to  the 
Rules   of   Three    (1    Cor.   xvi:    2.)  (Indi- 
vidual,   Systematic,  Proportionate.) 
Use  Subscription  Plan. 

Assume  a  Definite  Sum  for  the  Work  Abroad 
as  we  do  for  the  Work  at  Home. 

INSPIRATIONAL. 

The  Visit  of  the  Missionary. 

The  Missionary  Rally,  Convention. 

The  Sending  forth  of  a  Son  or  Daughter  from 

the  Church. 
The  Missionary  Consecration  Meeting. 

What  will  be  the  permanent  results 
of  this  Convention  can  not  be  fore- 
told but  there  are  many  indications 
that  the  men  were  deeply  stirred  by  a 
new  vision  of  Christ  and  the  work  to 
which  he  called  them.  Many  exprest 
a  determination  to  return  to  their 
churches  and  there  use  their  influence 
for  a  new  forward  movement  in  the 
great  campaign.  The  Presbyterians 
are  responsible,  according  to  the  new 
division,  if  they  accept  Federative 
principles,  for  one  hundred  million 
people  in  foreign  lands.  On  the  clo- 
sing day  the  Convention,  after  a  full 
discussion,  unanimously  adopted  the 
following  resolutions : 

We,  men  of  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  the  United  States  of  America,  thank 
God  for  the  command  of  Christ,  deter- 
mining forever  the  highest  mission  of 
His  Church,  the  evangelization  of  the 
world.     We  are  grateful  for  the  share 


2/2 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


He  has  given  us  in  this  work,  grateful 
for  the  larger  share  He  now  offers  us, 
and  grateful  that  the  work  is  making  the 
workers  one  at  home  and  abroad,  as 
shown  by  spiritual  fellowship  and  prac- 
tical cooperation. 

Recognizing  the  urgency  of  present 
conditions  and  our  corresponding  re- 
sponsibility, we  plan  and  propose  as  fol- 
lows: 

(1)  That  accepting  the  definite  conclu- 
sions of  the  Omaha  Convention  as  de- 
fining our  specific  part  in  the  world's 
evangelization,  and  moving  toward  the 
six  million  ($6,000,000)  dollars  stand- 
ard there  established  and  knowing  the 
immediate  demands  of  the  world-field, 
we  now  set  ourselves  definitely  to  the 
task  of  raising  at  least  two  million  ($2,- 
000,000)  dollars  during  the  coming  year. 

(2)  That  to  this  end  each  Synod,  Pres- 
bytery and  individual  church  assume  im- 
mediate and  specific  organized  responsi- 
bility to  raise  its  full  share  determined 
by  its  ability,  none  limited  by  but  all 
surpassing  if  possible,  the  standard  set 
by  the  Omaha  Convention. 

(3)  That  we  urge  upon  the  men  of 
each  church  the  duty  of  gathering  and 
giving  information  concerning  the  prog- 
ress of  missions,  using  the  means  pro- 
vided by  the  Church  and  all  other  means 
that  will  make  the  information  definite 
and  inspiring. 

(4)  That  believing  the  Holy  Spirit  will 
do  through  us  even  more  than  we  ask 
or  think  in  Christ  Jesus,  our  Lord,  we 
solemnly  renew  our  faith  in  united  un- 
ceasing, definite  prayer,  and  suggest  that 
in  unison  with  other  bodies  the  noon 
hour  of  each  day  be  a  time  when  all 
men  may  appeal  to  the  throne  of  God 
for  the  speedy  evangelization  of  the 
world. 

One  of  the  noticeable  features  of 
the  convention  was  that  it  seemed  to 
be  dominated  by  a  spirit  of  prayer. 
Again  and  again  during  the  delibera- 
tions pause  was  made  for  prayer. 
There  was  a  realizing  sense  of  our  in- 
sufficiency for  these  things,  save  us 
the  instruments  of  the  Spirit. 

That  the  Convention  made  a  marked 
impression  on  the  delegates  no  sym- 
pathetic Christian,  who  felt  the  pulse 
of  the  body,  can  doubt. 

"It  is  a  second  Pentecost,"  said  a 
Xew  York  pastor,  as  he  left  the  Acad- 
emy, at  the  close  of  the  conference. 

"I  asked  my  people  last  Sunday  for 


an  advance  of  twenty  per  cent  on  their 
gifts  for  foreign  missions,"  said  an- 
other New  York  pastor.  "I  shall  go 
back  to  them,  in  view  of  this  meet- 
ing, to  make  the  advance  fifty  instead 
of  twenty  per  cent." 

These  expressions  from  such  men 
of  wide  experience  and  calm  judgment 
show  how  deep  was  the  impression 
made  upon  the  sixteen  hundred  men, 
who  for  three  days  had  sat  in  confer- 
ence, listening  to  burning  speeches  on 
the  call  and  the  crisis  fronting  the 
Presbyterian  Church  to-day. 

Dr.  Chas.  B.  Chapin,  of  Rochester, 
calls  attention  to  the  following  sig- 
nificant facts  and  truths  brought  out 
at  the  various  sessions,  i.  c,  1.  Phila- 
delphia gave  such  a  cordial  welcome 
and  reception  that  all  were,  as  one 
man  said,  made  D.D.'s — "delighted 
delegates."  2.  The  prayer  life  and 
spiritual  part  of  the  Convention  were 
emphasized  by  three  "Quiet  Hours," 
as  well  as  by  a  prayer-room  set  apart 
for  intercession  and  open  at  all  hours, 
of  the  day.  3.  Every  delegate,  it  is 
safe  to  say,  got  such  a  world-vision 
as  he  had  never  had  before.  4.  Mis- 
sions is  the  greatest  enterprise  on 
earth,  and  that  from  the  social,  edu- 
cational, political,  commercial  and  re- 
ligious side, — indeed,  from  every  side 
and  from  all  sides.  5.  The  next  ten 
or  twenty  years  will  mean  more  to  the 
Orient,  to  our  own  country,  to  the 
kingdom,  to  the  world  than  any  sim- 
ilar period  since  the  time  of  Christ. 
6.  It  is  pitiful  that  the  Church  is  so 
ignorant  of  and  oblivious  to  this,  the 
opportunity  of  the  centuries.  7.  In  or- 
der to  meet  this  crisis,  we  must  work 
foreign  missions  upon  a  radically  dif- 
ferent plan  and  scale ;  we  must  do 
bigger  things  in  a  bigger  way.  8.  To 
the  Presbyterian  Church  has  been  as- 


THE  PHILADELPHIA  MISSIONARY  CONVENTION 


^73 


signed  100,000,000  of  heathen  souls 
to  evangelize  in  this  generation.  9. 
This  can  be  done,  but  it  is  a  man's  job. 

Rev.  James  II.  Taylor  says  of  this 
Convention:  "Its  value  can  not  be  es- 
timated. Such  contagious  enthusiasm, 
and  such  valuable  information,  when 
let  loose  upon  individual  churches 
must  prove  fruitful  of  good  things. 
How  the  heart  of  Carey  would  have 
throbbed,  and  the  pulse  of  Samuel  J. 
Mills  quicken,  and  the  flush  on  the 
dying  face  of  the  lonely  Martyn  pass 


away,  and  the  soul  of  Judson  rejoice, 
if  they  could  have  seen  such  a  sight 
as  this  Convention.  But  better  still, 
the  very  face  of  the  Master  Himself 
shows  approval,  as  He  sees  men  at 
last  listening  to  a  commission  first 
given  to  men  to  perform,  but  which 
for  centuries  men  have  shirked,  but 
now,  may  it  be,  are  anxious  to  obey 
the  orders  of  the  Captain  of  Salvation 
who  said:  "Go  ye  into  all  the  world 
and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  crea- 
ture." 


A  MEN'S  MISSIONARY  SONG 

Written  for  the  Men's  Missionary  Convention  in  Philadelphia 


BY   THE   REV.  H. 

Onward,  army  of  God. 

To  victory,  not  to  defeat! 
Yielding  your  blood-won  ground 

To  error  were  sad  escheat; 
Bugles  of  Truth  should  never  sound 

The  sorrowful  note  of  retreat! 

Forward  in  Jesus  name! 

The  column  must  not  fall  back! 
Answer  the  challenge  of  foes 

By  charge  of  a  fresh  attack. 
Soldiers  of  Christ,  forbid  the  shame 

Of  letting  the  vanguard  lack. 

Forward  in  Mercy's  name, 

True  to  the  Master's  will, 
To  win  Him  a  hostile  world, 

By  rendering  good  for  ill; 
Seeking  to  help,  not  to  hurt. His  foes, 

To  rescue  and  not  to  kill. 


c.   MCCOOK,  D.D. 

On  to  the  fields  of  strife! 

Clad  in  your  robes  of  white, 
Bearing  the  Red  Cross  badge 

Into  the  thickest  fight; 
Healing  the  wounds  of  the  hurt  of  sin ; 

Mending  the  Wrong  with  Right! 

'Forward,  gleaners  of  love! 

After  the  bands  of  war; 
Soothe  with  the  balm  of  Peace 

Spirits  that  Hate  would  mar, 
Pointing  the  eyes  of  dying  men 

To  Hope's  unsetting  star. 

Speed  with  your  aiding  arm 

To  wrecks  of  humanity, 
Broken  by  many  a  storm, 

Adrift  upon  life's  rough  sea! 
Brightening  Night  with  the  Beacon  Light 

Of  blest  Immortality. 


THE  LUXURIOUS  LIFE  OF  A  MODERN  MISSIONARY 

IN  INDIA 


BY  ALBERT  EHRGOTT, 

President  Roosevelt'  once  said :  "A 
missionary  is  one  who  squares  his  life 
with  his  profession."  Allowing  wide 
latitude  for  his  intelligent  circum- 
spection, he  could  not  know  the  full 
import  of  his  own  commendable  ex- 
pression. 

The  cursory  visit  of  even  the  most 
sympathetic  and  well-informed  trav- 
eler does  not  give  one  a  comprehen- 
sive knowledge  of  missions  and  mis- 
sionaries. One  must  dwell  on  the 
field  and  be  in  the  work.  Residence 
in  the  Oriental  climate,  amidst  the  na- 
tives, in  touch  with  their  lives,  reveals 
more  to  the  square  inch  in  experience 
than  one  can  learn  to  the  square  mile 
by  reading. 

Much  of  the  romance  of  missions 
has  passed  away.  Slow  ships,  poorly 
equipped,  the  minimum  of  sympathy 
at  home  and  the  maximum  of  opposi- 
tion abroad  toward  the  missionary  en- 
terprise, hardships  of  pioneer  work  on 
the  field,  meagre  communication  with 
the  homeland,  and  other  trials  were 
especially  peculiar  to  missionaries  in 
the  days  of  Carey  and  Judson.  The 
results  of  their  arduous  endeavors,  the 
increased  popularity  of  world-wide 
evangelization,  and  the  advance  of 
civilization  have  combined  to  reduce 
these  difficulties.  Many  remain  which 
a  true  missionary  may  not  count  a  sac- 
rifice, but  which  are,  nevertheless, 
"thorns  in  the  flesh." 

The  Sun  and  Rain 

The  sun  is  just  as  hot  now  as  in  the 
days  of  primitive  missions.  The  in- 
tense heat  and  blinding  brilliancy  of 
the  sun  in  the  Orient  can  not  be  imag- 
ined by  the  uninitiated.    Insanity  and 


RANGOON,  BURMA. 

death  are  the  penalty  of  undue  expos- 
ure. In  many  places,  for  half  the 
year,  a  cloud  rarely,  if  ever,  hides  the 
incessant  direct  rays  of  the  tropical 
sun.  However  gratefully  the  rainy 
season  is  ushered  in,  its  long  continu- 
ance of  several  months  brings  mildew 
on  garments,  bedding  and  books,  so 
that  it  soon  wears  out  its  welcome. 
One's  whole  system  longs  for  a  breath 
of  the  bracing  air  of  the  West.  The 
atmosphere  is  depressing  and  stifling. 
One  truly,  earns  his  bread  by  the  sweat 
of  his  brow. 

Insects  and  Reptiles 

Even  a  short  residence  in  the  Ori- 
ent gives  a  taste  of  some  of  the 
plagues  which  afflicted  Pharaoh.  Pests 
of  flying  and  creeping  things  invade 
the  premises.  Lizards  on  the  walls, 
ants  in  bed,  garments,  food — every- 
where; crows  by  day  and  bats  by 
night ;  mosquitoes  at  all  hours ;  other 
insects  fluttering  in  hosts  about  lamps, 
or  feasting  upon  linens ;  rats  and  white 
ants  become  veritable  ''book-worms." 

The  Servant  Question 

In  America  one  meets  the  "servant 
question,"  but  in  the  East  the  servants 
are  a  necessary  evil  rather  than  an  un- 
comfortable luxury.  Climate  and  cus- 
tom are  inexorable  in  their  ruling 
concerning  the  use  of  servants.  Free 
American  democracy  can  not  compre- 
hend the  rigidity  of  the  Oriental  caste 
system.  A  cook  is  a  cook  and  will  do 
nothing  more ;  the  water-carrier,  the 
nurse,  the  sweeper,  is  each  a  separate 
office,  and  that  settles  it.  It  is  impos- 
sible to  combine  these  offices  in  one  or 
two  servants.  Each  clings  to  his 
sphere  with  tenacious  stubbornness. 


T9o8|         THE  LUXURIOUS  LIFE  OF  A  MODERN  MISSIONARY 


275 


The  management  of  these  necessary 
servants  almost  drives  one  to  nervous 
prostration.  As  a  rule  they  are  heath- 
en devotees  who  pilfer  and  lie  without 
scruple.  Everything  must  be  kept  un- 
der lock  and  key  and  doled  out  from 
meal  to  meal.  One  wishes  that  he 
might  dispense  with  these  servants 
and  perform  the  work  himself.  The 
intense  heat,  fixt  custom  and  more 
important  duties  of  the  missionary  ab- 
solutely forbid  this,  and  every  cent 
of  expense  for  household  servants  is 
paid  out  of  the  missionaries'  small 
personal  funds. 

It  costs  more  to  live  on  the  same 
plane  in  Rangoon,  for  instance,  than  in 
Boston,  New  York  or  any  other  Amer- 
ican city.  The  variety  of  food  within 
reach  of  a  missionary's  means  is  not 
so  diverse  as  a  casual  visitor  may 
think.  Lack  of  appetite,  due  to  the 
climate,  and  monotony  in  menu  dis- 
count the  enjoyment  of  meals. 

Sickness  and  Death 

"  There  are  times  when  the  luxuri- 
euce  of  tropical  vegetation  loses  its 
charm.  A  man  hot  and  nervous  with 
fever  is  apt  to  look  on  the  country 
as  a  vast  burying  ground  and  every 
palm  as  a  monument.  Sickness  fre- 
quently overtakes  the  missionary,  for 
from  the  beginning  the  climate  is 
against  him.  He  is  compelled  to  de- 
pend upon  reserve  strength  stored  in 
his  own  system.  Health  broken  be- 
yond repair  is  often  the  result,  if 
death  does  not  come  to  his  relief. 


Isolation 

The  isolation  to  which  a  foreign 
misionary  is  frequently  subjected  is  no 
inconsiderable  privation.  Christianity 
is  considered  an  intrusion  among 
heathen  systems. 

The  depression  of  heart  due  to 
surrounding  immorality,  superstition 
and  ignorance  increases  rather  than 
wears  away  by  longer  residence  among 
such  people. 

Separation,  by  half  the  globe,  from 
the  homeland  and  loved  ones  is  no 
luxury.  Words  are  cold  and  almost 
meaningless  to  tell  the  heart-sorrow 
following  the  announcement  by  letter 
a  month  after  the  death  of  a  loved 
one  at  home. 

What  has  been  said  applies  to  the 
ordinary  missionary  life  abroad.  The 
farther  he  is  removed  from  the  centers 
of  civilization  the  more  aggravated 
are  the  inconveniences.  This  is  not  a 
complaint  but  a  confession.  A  true 
missionary  minimizes  sacrifice.  The 
joy  of  the  Lord's  service,  the  joy  of 
lives  saved  and  transformed,  the  joy 
of  association  with  fellow  missionaries 
overtop  all  these  adverse  experiences. 

If  the  word  sacrifice  is  used  at  all 
it  is  when  circumstances  compel  him 
to  abandon  his  chosen  field  of  labor 
for  which  he  has  a  passion. 

It  would  be  good  if  a  number  of 
home  pastors  could  live  long  enough 
in  the  midst  of  the  heathen  world  to 
understand  its  social,  physical  and  re- 
ligious atmosphere. 


TWO  WEEKS  IN  TENTS  IN  INDIA 


BY    GEORGE    SHERWOOD    EDDY,    KODAIKANAE,   SOUTH  INDIA 


We  have  spent  two  weeks  out  in 
tents,  preaching.  There  were  alto- 
gether about  20  workers ;  catechists, 
teachers  and  theological  students.  We 
divided  up  into  small  bands  each  day, 
going  out  in  the  morning  to  the  more 
distant  villages,  and  in  the  evenings  to 
villages  nearer  by,  reserving  one  party 
for  the  magic  lantern  to  preach  in  the 
largest  town  of  the  neighborhood  in 
the  evening.  We  could  thus  reach 
nearly  a  score  of  villages  with  from 
500  to  1,000  hearers  every  day;  treat- 
ing patients  medically,  selling  scrip- 
ture portions  as  we  went,  and  trying 
to  make  the  Gospel  known  in  every 
village. 

At  our  first  tenting  place  we  concen- 
trated our  efforts  every  evening  upon 
one  particular  village  which  seemed 
hopeful.  On  the  last  night,  as  we 
preached  in  the  moonlight,  with  the 
villagers  sitting  about  on  the  ground, 
after  four  or  five  short  addresses,  I  rose 
to  "pull  in  the  net."  We  had  shown 
them  the  power  of  Christ  to  save,  and 
the  utter  lack  of  Hinduism,  which  had 
trampled  upon  them  as  poor  outcasts, 
not  even  allowing  them  to  enter  its 
sacred  temples.  At  the  close  of  the 
meeting  I  said,  "How  many  of  you 
will  to-night  break  away  from  the 
awful  power  of  caste  and  accept 
Christ,  whom  you  admit  to  be  the  true 
Savior?  Turning  to  the  headman, 
whose  heart  had  been  deeply  touched, 
and  who  was  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  Christ,  I  said,  "My  brother,  will 
you  not  stand  to-night,  and  accept 
Christ  once  for  all?"  It  was  a  mo- 
ment of  intense  suspense  and  of  moral 
struggle  for  the  old  man,  for  he  was 
not  sure  if  any  one  would  follow  him, 
and  it  was  not  a  light  thing  to  step 


out  from  his  past  and  break  all  the  ties 
of  kindred  and  of  caste  and  stand 
alone  for  Christ.  Slowly  and  bravely 
the  old  man  rose  silently,  and  folded 
his  arms.  A  hum  of  astonishment 
went  through  the  company,  who  had 
not  believed  that  he  would  take  the 
step.  After  a  pause  another  arose,  and 
then  two  young  men :  four  in  all. 
There,  in  the  moonlight,  we  wrote  out 
a  document,  and  the  old  man  signed, 
promising  (1)  to  break  forever  with 
idolatry,  (2)  to  attend  Christian  wor- 
ship and  to  place  himself  under  Chris- 
tian instruction,  and  (3)  with  God's 
help,  to  lead  a  holy  life  as  a  true 
Christian  from  that  moment.  With 
trembling  and  uncertain  hand  the  old 
man  wrote  his  name,  and  the  three 
others  followed.  The  village  deserted 
them,  and  they  were  left  to  stand 
alone,  bearing  persecution  in  their  own 
homes,  and  receiving  the  cold  shoul- 
der from  the  villagers,  who  had  prom- 
ised to  follow  if  they  led  the  way.  The 
old  man  has  ever  since  been  standing 
firm. 

In  another  village  we  preached  one 
morning  to  a  company  of  villagers  as 
they  stood  about  listless  and  indiffer- 
ent. The  crowd  gradually  melted 
away,  but  one  man,  with  riveted  gaze, 
seemed  to  hang  upon  our  words.  He 
had  been  prepared  by  previous  in- 
struction on  the  part  of  our  catechist. 
Finally  turning  to  him  I  said,  "My 
brother,  will  you  not  accept  Christ  to- 
day?" As  he  trembled  on  the  brink 
of  the  great  decision  to  break  away 
from  the  whole  community  and  stand 
alone,  to  be  cut  off  from  everything, 
and  perhaps  be  persecuted,  he  finally 
said,  "If  three  men  will  join  me,  I  will 
come  to-day."   Then  I  said,  "God  and 


TWO  WEEKS  IN  INDIA 


277 


three  men  would  enable  you  to  take 
the  step,  but  is  not  God  alone 
enough?"  Then  he  said,  "If  two  men 
will  come,  or  if  even  one  will  join  me, 
I  will  come  out  to-day."  For  half  an 
hour  he  clung  to  the  hope  of  one  more 
man,  but  he  finally  decided,  "Yes,  God 
alone  is  enough;  I  will  trust  Him 
against  everything."  And  there,  in 
the  dust  of  the  village  street,  caring 
not  who  saw  or  heard  him,  he  knelt 
with  me,  and  gave  his  heart  to  Christ, 
conscious  of  God's  presence  alone.  I 
wrote  out  the  same  three  conditions, 
which  I  asked  him  to  sign.  He  could 
not  write,  but  made,  with  the  pen,  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  with  the  clear 
conviction  that  it  would  cost  him 
everything,  he  chose  a  new  name, 
"Courage,"  and  left  for  his  day's  work 
in  the  fields,  a  new  man  in  Christ. 
J  low  ignorant,  how  dirty,  how  low  in 
the  social  scale  he  was  I  can  find  no 
words  to  describe,  but  this  I  know,  a 
ray  of  light  had  entered  that  dark 
soul,  and  in  that  light  he  has  walked 
all  the  days  since.  His  own  wife  re- 
fused him  food  for  a  time ;  the  people 
have  stood  against  him,  but  he  has 
clung  to  Christ,  and  he  has  remained 
faithful.  It  doth  not  yet  appear  what 
he  shall  be. 

In  our  last  preaching  station  we 
baptized  two  boys,  who  had  been 
studying  in  our  Christian  school.  A 
messenger  reached  us,  saying  that  an 
old  man,  lying  at  the  point  of  death, 
who  had  been  serving  as  the  priest  to 
the  local  village  demon,  had  sent  for 
us  to  give  him  Christian  baptism.  He 
had  long  known  the  truth,  but  he  had 
not  had  the  courage  to  cut  off  his  only 
source  of  livelihood  and  stand  alone 
against  the  united  oppression  of  the 
village.  The  old  man  and  his  wife 
gave  clear  evidence  of  faith  in  Christ. 


He  chose  for  himself  a  new  name, 
"Faith,"  and  his  wife,  "The  servant 
of  Jesus."  And  there,  as  we  were, 
hot  and  dusty  from  the  long  journey, 
and  dripping  with  perspiration,  we 
knelt  by  the  bedside  in  our  shirt- 
sleeves for  that  solemn  baptismal 
service.  His  son  and  daughter  had 
been  baptized  a  short  time  before. 
Within  a  few  days  the  old  man  died. 
Then  persecution  began.  "Ah,  yes," 
they  said,  "our  god  has  killed  him 
because  he  became  a  Christian."  They 
refused  to  come  to  his  funeral  or  to 
help  bury  him,  and  with  all  the  effect- 
ive ingenuity  which  the  cruel  system 
of  caste  can  bring  to  bear  upon  a 
helpless  individual  or  family,  the  vil- 
lage turned  against  them.  Their 
grain  was  taken  up  by  the  roots  from 
their  field  and  transplanted  into  the 
field  of  a  neighboring  Hindu.  Their 
relatives  refused  to  eat  with  them  or 
to  visit  them.  They  were  told  they 
could  no  longer  grind  their  grain  in 
the  village  mortar,  they  could  expect 
no  more  help  in  their  work  in  the 
fields.  Their  house  might  remain  un- 
thatched  in  the  rains ;  they  might  sink 
or  swim,  live  or  die,  as  best  they 
could.  The  village  passed  them  by  in 
cold  silence.  But  through  tears  and 
much  tribulation  this  little  family  has 
stood  bravely  now  for  months,  coming 
out  with  shining  faces,  and  growing 
stronger  as  they  stand  alone  in  this 
new  individual  life  in  Christ,  which 
has  been  crusht  out  for  centuries  by 
the  caste  system. 

You  tell  me  that  these  people  are 
outcasts,  that  they  have  nothing  to 
lose  and  everything  to  gain ;  that  they 
are  "rice  Christians."  Yes,  they  are 
"rice  Christians,"  and  so  would  you 
and  I  be  in  their  place.  Tell  me,  my 
friend,  if  you  had  no  hope  of  ever 


278 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


getting  a  meal  of  rice  from  one  year'? 
end  to  another;  if  yon  remained 
crnsht  as  an  outcast  under  the  system 
of  Hinduism,  left  dirty  and  degraded, 
sunken  and  superstitions,  and  yon  and 
your  posterity  had  no  hope  of  get- 
ting an  education  or  of  rising  in  the 
social  scale  unless  yon  embraced 
Christianity ;  and  further,  if  denied 
access  to  all  the  holiest  temples  of 
I  [induism  because  yon  were  an  out- 
cast, doomed  to  the  degraded  slavery 
of  demon  worship — if,  I  say,  hun- 
gry in  body,  ignorant  in  mind,  dark- 
ened in  spirit,  you  could,  by  embrac- 
ing Christianity,  so  improve  your 
physical  condition  that  you  could  actu- 
ally eat  rice ;  that  your  children  could 
get  an  education  and  that — in  Christ 
— you  could  find  the  heavens  opened 
with  new  and  infinite  possibilities  for 
endless  advancement,  would  you,  too, 
not  become  a  "rice  Christian?"  If 
you  think  it  is  easy  for  these  outcasts, 
go  and  try  to  convert  them.  We  give 
them  no  rice  save  what  they  earn  by 
honest  labor,  and  rice  and  education 
seem  to  them  as  nothing  as  compared 
with  the  bitter  cross  of  being  ostra- 
cized by  friends  and  relatives,  with 
no  visible  hope  of  marrying  their  sons 
and  daughters  nor  of  receiving  human 
aid.  Xo,  the  persecution  which  they 
receive  is  an  unanswerable  evidence 
that  these  are  not  "rice  Christians." 

In  one  village  we  preached  without 
immediate  fruit,  but  a  little  later  I 
was  sent  for  by  a  group  of  high-caste 
people  who  wished  to  come  out  for 
Christ.  We  met  in  the  private  house 
of  the  only  Christian  in  a  town  of  5,- 
000  people.  But  to-day  there  is  a 
church  in  that  house  of  some  20 
souls,  for  several  high-caste  families 
came  out  that  day  for  Christ.  Only 
this  week  I  was  called  to  that  village 


to  investigate  the  persecution  and  the 
boycott  which  the  villagers  were  in- 
stituting against  them.  The  Hindus 
had  been  going  from  house  to  house 
to  urge  the  villagers  to  refuse  them 
water,  to  refuse  them  fire  and  to  boy- 
cott their  shop,  which  they  had  done 
most  successfully. 

Two  days  later  I  was  called  fif- 
teen miles  away  to  a  little  destitute 
village  of  fifty  souls,  who  have  just 
come  over  to  us  in  a  body.  The 
village — so  called — consisted  of  a 
dozen  little  huts  of  mud,  each  ten  feet 
square,  with  leaking  straw  roofs  in 
this  season  of  pouring  rain.  Their 
well  was  full  of  muddy  water  in  a 
stagnant  pool,  darker  than  the  coffee 
and  milk  upon  your  breakfast  table, 
and  the  whole  village  of  fifty  souls 
did  not  occupy,  in  its  huddled  collec- 
tion of  little  kennels,  more  space  than 
the  single  house  you  live  in.  And  here, 
with  these  poor  souls  I  stood,  trying 
to  bargain  with  the  high-caste  Hindus 
for  a  small  piece  of  ground  at  any 
price,  upon  which  we  might  build  a 
school,  and  with  the  hope  of  future 
progress  to  these  people.  But  there 
stood  the  caste  people  of  the  neigh- 
boring village  with  one  mind  against 
us,  bitter  that  these  people  should  be 
allowed  education  or  should  be  torn 
from  their  degrading  slavery.  Lying, 
deceiving,  plotting  against  us,  ready 
to  burn  the  straw  roofs  from  over 
their  heads,  if  necessary — there  stood 
the  combined  power  of  heathenism  and 
its  caste-system  against  us.  And  with 
us  stood  fifty  people  as  ragged,  as 
dirty,  and  as  ignorant  as  ten  centuries 
of  Hinduism  could  make  them.  Last 
week  they  were  "Pariahs,"  but  to-day 
they  bear  the  name  of  Christians,  sons 
of  God,  heirs  of  the  future,  the  hope 
of  India. 


SAMOA  —  HEATHEN  AND  CHRISTIAN 


BY  REV.  I 
Missionary   of  ih 

Samoa  (meaning  the  family  of 
Moa),  is  the  native  name  of  a  group 
of  islands  extending'  over  267  miles 
of  ocean.  The  German  flag  waves 
over  the  larger  and  western  islands 
of  Upolu,  Savaii,  etc.,  while  the 
stars  and  stripes  are  seen  in  the 


A   SAMOAN  GIRL 


eastern  portion — on  Tntnila  and 
Manna.  The  United  States  have  a 
fine  land-locked  harbor  and  naval 
station  in  Tntnila. 

If  was  to  Samoa  on  his  homemade 
little  Messenger  of  Peace  that  Will- 


n.  DAVIES,  M.D.* 

London   Missionary  Society 

iams  of  Erromanga  carried  the  first 
native  teachers  from  Tahiti.  The 
early  missionaries  who  began  to  re- 
side in  Samoa  six  years  later  labored 
most  assiduously  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  three  things.  These  were 
the  translation  of  the  Scriptures,  the 
training  of  a  native  ministry  and  the 
education  of  the  young.  They  also 
devoted  a  fair  share  of  their  time  to 
the  healing  of  the  sick,  which  has 
proved  a  valuable  auxiliary.  Most 
of  them  had  some  knowledge  of 
medicine — a  few  a  considerable 
amount — and  afterward  duly  quali- 
fied doctors  followed. 

The  Samoan  translation  of  the 
Scriptures,  after  three  careful  revi- 
sions, is  unsurpassed  for  accuracy  in 
the  South  Pacific.  There  is  also 
quite  a  little  library  of  books  in 
Samoa,  commentaries,  Bible  diction- 
ary, educational  manuals,  etc. 

The  institution  or  college  at  Ma- 
nila during  its  sixty-two  years  of  ex- 
istence has  been  an  untold  blessing. 
It  has  trained  some  1,200  for  the 
native  ministry,  who  combine  the 
duties  of  pastors  and  schoolmasters, 
besides  giving  higher  education  to  a 
number  of  youths.  Of  the  youths 
many  have  become  native  pastors 
and  others  have  filled  important  po- 
sitions in  their  islands.  Not  only 
has  Manua  furnished  pastors  and 
schoolmasters  for  Samoa  itself,  but 
numbers  of  its  students  have  carried 
the  marvelous  light  into  dark  places, 
such  as  New  Hebrides,  New  Cale- 
donia, Loyalties,  Nine,  Tokelau,  El- 
lice  and  Gilbert  Island,  and  scores 


*  Dr.  Davies  was  for  over  thirty  years  connected  with  the  Samoans  and  later  spent  nearly  three 
years  on  Niue  and  in  visiting  the  London  Missionary  Society  Mission  in  New  Guinea  and  elsewhere. 


28o  THE  MISSIONARY  RE 

are  working  in  New  Guinea  today. 
Our  high  school  at  Leulumoega 
gives  a  good  three-years'  course, 
combining  with  general  education 
industrial  pursuits.  • 

The  high  schools  for  girls  at  Pa- 


CHIEF  OF   MANUA,    SAMOA,   AND   HIS   WIFE,  BOTH 
CHRISTIANS 

pauta,  Upolu  and  at  Atualana,  Tu- 
tuila,  are  doing  a  most  excellent 
work. 

At  every  mission  station  there  is 
also  a  preparatory  institution  for  the 
brightest  youths  and  young  men 
from  our  village  schools. 

In  every  village  is  a  school,  where 
systematic  examinations  are  carried 
on  by  the  English  missionary,  and, 
with  the  exception  of  the  salaries  of 
the  European  agents,  all  these  col- 
leges and  schools  are  self-support- 
ing. Self-support  is  inculcated  all 
over  Samoa  and  our  out-stations. 

Christian  Endeavor  Societies  also 


IEW  OE  THE  WORLD  [April 

are  flourishing  and  there  are  5,000 
members  of  the  International  Bible 
Reading  Association. 

One  special  characteristic  of  our 
Samoan  churches,  and  the  same  is 
true  of  our  South  Sea  mission  as 
a  whole:  They  are  missionary 
churches  and  so  they  are  alive. 

It  was  a  high  chief  of  Samoa, 
on  questioning  one  of  the  early  mis- 
sionaries as  to  what  was  then  hap- 
pening in  Britain,  who  was  the  orig- 
inator of  the  first  missionary  meet- 
ing in  that  group.  Hearing  from  his 
missionary  that  in  that  very  month 
Christian  people  in  England  would 
meet  in  London  to  hear  about  God's 
work  in  foreign  lands  he  pleaded 
hard  for  a  May  meeting  in  Samoa. 
This  was  held  in  the  month  of  May 
and  was  a  most  enthusiastic  gather- 
ing of  3,000  persons.  Since  then  the 
May  meeting  has  been  held  annual- 
ly— not  always  in  May — but  some- 
times as  late  as  October  or  Novem- 
ber, altho  the  people  still  call  the 
annual  missionary  meeting  the  May 
meeting. 

Never  were  the  Samoans  more 
generous  in  their  offerings  for 
heathen  lands,  or  more  liberal  in  the 
support  of  their  native  pastors  than 
at  the  present  time.  How  many  de- 
voted men  and  women  have  given 
more  than  money — for  they  have 
hazarded  their  lives  in  carrying  the 
Gospel  of  Christ  to  dark  lands.  The 
story  of  South  Sea  Island  evangelists 
and  martyrs  is  a  fascinating  chapter 
in  the  history  of  modern  missions. 

In  the  Memorial  Church  at  Vat- 
orata,  New  Guinea,  the  writer  recent- 
ly saw  a  brass  tablet  with  eighty- 
seven  names  inscribed  of  those 
who  had  laid  down  their  lives  for 
Christ  in  that  dark  land.    And  of 


[9o8] 


SAMOA— HEATHEN  AND  CHRISTIAN 


28  i 


600  men  and  women — native  evan- 
gelists from  the  South  Sea  Islands 
— no  less  than  half  have  died  in 
New  Guinea,  and  still  there  are  of- 
fers of  service.  At  the  end  of  1905 
in  my  charge  on  the  steamer  John 
Williams  for  location  in  New 
Guinea  were  eighteen  couples.  In 
December  last  nearly  that  number 
went  again.  These  were  from  Cook 
Island,  Nine  and  Samoa. 


and  "there  he  preached  the  Gospel." 
By  the  labors  of  native  agents, 
superintended  by  ourselves  and  dur- 
ing the  past  forty  years  in  the  places 
mentioned,  not  less  than  25,000  have 
been  won  over  from  heathenism  in 
connection  with  the  Samoan  mis- 
sion. 

Niue  was  called  Savage  Island  by 
Captain  Cook,  because  its  heathen 
people  resented  the  intrusion  of  a 


The  part  natives  have  played  in 
introducing  Christianity  to  their  is- 
lands.— Three  of  these,  known  per- 
sonally to  the  writer,  were  the 
means  of  introducing  Christianity 
into  the  Tokelau,  Ellice,  and  the  five 
southern  islands  of  the  Gilbert 
group. 

Quite  recently  I  met  in  the  Cook 
Island  Elikana,  who  with  others  on 
that  memorable  voyage  of  eight 
weeks  in  a  canoe,  drifted  over  1,200 
miles  of  ocean  to  the  Ellice  group 


foreigner,  and  "came  upon  him  like 
wild  boars."  Niue  fekai,  or  Niue 
the  fierce,  it  was  named  by  politer 
natives  of  other  groups  because  of 
the  rough  manners  of  the  inhabi- 
tants. 

Niue  tokotaha  it  was  called  by  its 
own  people  because  of  its  isolated 
position  in  the  vast  Pacific  Ocean. 
Lying  there  solitary,  280  miles  from 
anywhere,  has  made  the  island 
somewhat  unique  in  its  customs  and 
the  people  almost  a  race  by  them- 


282 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


selves.  The  Niueans,  like  the  Sa- 
moans,  eastern  Polynesians  and  Ha- 
waiians,  are  of  the  Malayo-Polyne- 
sian  race.  They  are  more  industrious 
than  the  Sanioans,  whose  climate 
and  soil  furnishes  everything  edible 
in  tropical  profusion.  Niue  is  a  very 
rocky  island;  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago  the  active  males  began  to  go 


5,500;  to-day  4,000  may  be  found 
always  on  the  island. 

These  are  all  church-goers  and 
among  them  are  nearly  1,600  church 
members.  Ineffectual  attempts  have 
been  made  by  Roman  Catholics  to 
obtain  a  footing,  but  the  whole 
island  is  still  attached  to  the  London 
Missionary  Society. 


away — a  few  as  sailors,  but  the  many 
as  laborers  to  guano  islands  and 
other  places. 

At  present,  not  being  well  satis- 
fied with  the  ungenerous  New  Zea- 
land rule,  they  are  increasingly 
leaving  in  order  to  obtain  the  higher 
wages  they  receive  elsewhere.  This 
is  the  most  serious  aspect  of  Niue. 
It  has  meant  physical  and  moral  de- 
terioration and  the  introduction  of 
new  diseases  which  have  sapped  the 
physical  vigor  of  an  energetic  peo- 
ple.   Formerly  the  population  was 


The  writer  found  the  people  of 
Niue  kind  and  loving,  altho  not 
polished  in  their  manners  like  the 
Samoans.  What  indeed  must  they 
have  been  in  heathen  times  when 
Williams,  at  the  great  risk  of  his 
life,  tried  unsuccessfully  to  land 
teachers  on  Niue !  A  number  of 
years  passed  and  then  a  native 
named  Peniamina  who  had  heard 
the  Gospel  story  in  Samoa  carried 
it  to  his  own  island,  but  with  little 
success.  He  was  followed  by  native 
evangelists  from  Samoa ;  but  of  all 


1908] 

these  the  highest  place  must  be 
given  to  Paulo,  whose  memory  is 
still  fragrant.  There  are  two  spots 
on  Niue  which  should  be  immortal- 
ized. At  the  village  of  Mutalau  is 
the  tomb  of  Paulo ;  five  miles  south- 
west at  Tuapa  is  the  grave  of  one 
of  his  devoted  converts.   How  Paulo 


283 

Master  he  would  win  Niue  for 
Christ.  Joined  by  other  Samoan 
teachers  he  worked  on  and  when  the 
first  resident  missionary,  Rev.  W.  G. 
Lawes  (now  Dr.  Lawes)  arrived, 
congregations  were  gathered  all 
over  the  island. 

The    "noble    brothers"  Lawes, 


SAMOA— HEATHEN  AND  CHRISTIAN 


SCHOOL  AND  CHURCH  AT  ALIFI,   NIUE,  SOUTH  SEA  ISLANDS 


overcame  opposition,  how  he  in- 
duced the  people  to  make  roads  and 
to  build  places  of  worship  and  how, 
having  served  his  generation,  "he 
fell  on  sleep"  is  a  record  which  is 
kept  in  heaven,  and  is  well  worth 
keeping  by  the  Church  on  earth. 

The  dying  request  of  the  devoted 
convert  was  to  be  buried  in  the  spot 
referred  to;  and  why?  It  was  be- 
cause on  that  spot  his  spiritual 
father  one  day  stood,  and  planting 
his  staff  in  the  ground  with  a  sub- 
lime faith  and  undaunted  courage, 
resolved  that  with  the  help  of  his 


aided  by  their  devoted  wives,  have 
done  splendid  work  on  Niue.  The 
elder  Dr.  Lawes,  before  he  was 
transferred  to  New  Guinea,  and  dur- 
ing his  eleven  years'  residence, 
translated  the  New  Testament  and 
some  of  the  earlier  books  of  the  Old, 
besides  with  his  versatile  genius  do- 
ing many  other  things.  His  brother 
has  completed  the  translation  of 
the  whole  Bible  and  is  full  of  labors 
to-day.  Their  own  native  ministers 
have  been  trained  by  the  brothers 
Lawes.  When  the  complete  edition 
of  the  Bible  arrived  three  years  ago 


284  THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 


the  writer  was  scarcely  able  to  get 
a  meal.  The  people  were  clamorous 
to  purchase — with  good  English 
money — the  new  Bible. 

New  and  improved  places  of  wor- 
ship are  being  erected  all  over  the 
island.  As  in  Samoa,  the  Niueans 
put  up  their  own  churches,  ably 
support  their  native  pastors,  but  this 
does  not  prevent  them  from  giving 
very  generously  for  the  work  in  dark 
lands,  and  no  village  surpasses  Mu- 
talau  for  its  gifts.  Recently  Mu- 
talau  gave  in  one  year  £59  ($295) 
for  "dark  lands"  and  for  their  pas- 
tor £69  ($345).    A  very  warm  in- 


terest was  manifested  last  August  in 
heathen  New  Guinea  when  six  couples 
were  set  apart  to  break  up  new 
ground  there. 

As  one  looks  back  over  forty  years 
there  is  abundant  cause  for  joy  and 
thankfulness.  But  the  work  needs 
consolidation  and  strengthening  in 
many  places.  Above  all,  in  New 
Guinea  there  is  much  need  for  all 
the  help  the  South  Sea  Island 
churches  can  give  by  sending  their 
devoted  sons  and  daughters  to  unite 
with  New  Guinea  Christianized  na- 
tives in  carrying  the  Gospel  to  the 
regions  beyond. 


lb 

■1 
s 

Work 
ssiona 

istiani 
Vorkei 

Societies 

1% 

St 

British  

5,140 

7 

12 

2,226 

5 

20 

5,o74 

5 

*9 

{American  Societies) 

American  Board,  Boston  

566 

7 

14 

Baptist  Missionary  Union.. 

54^ 

8 

26 

Methodist  Episcopal  Church 

808 

9 

11 

889 

3 

18 

NATIVE  WORKERS  IN  MISSION  FIELDS 

BY   REV.   J.   S.   CHANDLER,  D.D.,   AMERICAN    BOARD,  INDIA 

The  native  worker  is  the  prime  fac- 
tor in  the  work  of  any  mission.  A  for- 
eign missionary  without  fellow  work- 
ers belonging  to  the  people  for  whom 
he  labors  is  shorn  of  the  strength  that 
his  task  demands.  The  band  of  native 
workers  creates  the  atmosphere  in 
which  he  gains  familiarity  with  the 
people.  He  and  the  people  learn  to 
know  each  other  largely  through  the 
medium  of  these  fellow  workers.  In 
general  they  are  his  joy  and  comfort, 
for  they  are  faithful  to  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  and  therefore  faithful  to  the 
mission  and  to  the  people.  Abraham 
Lincoln  said  the  Lord  must  love  the 
common  people  because  he  made  so 
many  of  them.  So  we  may  say  that 
missionary  bodies  must  love  their  na- 
tive fellow  workers,  they  secure  so 
many  of  them. 

The  following  table  shows  how  gen- 
erally they  are  to  be  found  in  all  the 
missions.  The  last  column  also  shows 
the  proportion  of  communicants  to 
workers,  both  foreign  and  native: 


All  the  societies  of  Europe  and 
America  are  represented  on  the  field 
by  12,440  missionaries  and  70,305  na- 
tive workers.  The  average  number  of 
native  workers  to  each  missionary  is 
therefore  not  less  than  five. 

Of  the  four  largest  American  soci- 
eties one,  the  Presbyterian,  has  less 
natives  on  the  average  to  each  mission- 
ary than  the  average  of  all  the  soci- 
eties or  than  the  average  of  the  other 
large  American  societies.  But  they 
have  the  largest  number  of  foreign 


icjoSJ 

missionaries,  and  a  larger  income  than 
the  Congregational  or  Baptist  soci- 
eties. 

On  the  other  hand  the  other  three 
of  the  American  societies  have  more 
than  the  average,  viz. :  seven,  eight, 
and  nine,  respectively. 

Many  of  the  missionaries  are  mar- 
ried couples,  and  in  these  cases  the 
associated  native  workers  will  average 
from  ten  to  fifteen  for  each  missionary 
couple. 

This  band  of  native  fellow  workers 
comprises  all  or  most  of  the  following 
groups,  viz. :  ordained  pastors,  cate- 
chists  or  evangelists,  teachers,  and 
Bible  women.  Each  band  is  organized 
in  connection  with  its  mission,  or  sta- 
tion, to  conduct  the  work  most  effi- 
ciently. 

In  the  early  days  of  missions,  espe- 
cially those  to  peoples  dense  in  num- 
bers and  in  ignorance,  but  few  natives 
were  available  as  workers,  and  they 
were  men  of  very  modest  education 
and  attainments.  If  they  were  faith- 
ful and  willing  to  learn,  the  missionary 
could  depend  upon  them  for  important 
service  in  reaching  the  people  and 
teaching  them  the  Gospel  story.  But 
it  was  incumbent  on  the  missionary  to 
keep  in  close  touch  with  them  for  the 
sake  of  their  own  intellectual  and 
spiritual  growth.  Often  the  mission 
itself  would  prescribe  lessons  for  them 
to  learn  with  their  individual  mission- 
aries and  then  recite  before  the  whole 
body  of  the  mission  at  its  general 
meetings. 

The  next  step  was  the  establishment 
of  schools  to  train  promising  children 
in  the  branches  necessary  for  mission 
work.  Primary  schools  created  a  de- 
mand for  grammar  and  high  schools, 
and  these  for  theological  seminaries 
and  colleges;  and  with  the  establish- 


es 

ment  of  a  system  of  education  the 
quality  of  men  available  for  mission 
work  was  constantly  improving,  un- 
til the  need  of  lesson  classes  dimin- 
ished or  ceased. 

While  this  process  was  going  on  in 
the  mission  organization,  the  few  con- 
verts were  increasing  and  being 
organized  into  congregations  and 
churches ;  and  soon  the  necessity  arose 
of  ordaining  some  for  the  pastoral 
care  of  the  churches.  These  ordained 
pastors  represent  the  highest  fruit  of 
the  spiritual  work  of  missions.  They 
are  the  associates  and  companions  of 
the  foreign  missionary  not  only  in 
church  work,  but  in  the  training  Of 
the  lower  classes  of  workers. 

The  schools  for  girls  have  always 
been  as  necessary  as  those  for  boys, 
not  only  to  elevate  the  women,  but  to 
train  mistresses  for  girls'  schools,  and 
Bible  women  to  work  among  non- 
Christian  women,  and  intelligent  wives 
for  the  men.  But  it  was  difficult  in 
some  places  to  get  girls  to  study,  and 
some  missionary  ladies  used  to  give 
a  cup  of  rice  to  each  girl  that  would 
come  to  Sunday-school  in  the  hope 
of  getting  some  of  them  interested 
enough  to  come  to  the  day-school. 
Gradually  that  state  of  things  passed 
away  and  enough  would  come,  without 
being  paid  for  it,  to  fill  the  schools. 
But  for  years  young  men  preparing 
for  mission  work  preferred  unedu- 
cated wives  to  educated  ones,  because 
they  feared  that  education  would  not 
help  them  to  be  obedient  to  their  hus- 
bands. Then  one  mission  voted  that 
they  thought  it  so  important  to  have 
workers  with  educated  wives  that  they 
would  consider  an  uneducated  wife  a 
bar  to  promotion  and  increase  of  sal- 
ary. This  did  something  toward  the 
increase  of  education  among  the  girls, 


NATIVE  WORKERS  IX  MISSION'  IT  ELDS 


286 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


but  not  very  much.  In  that  mission 
the  tide  has  been  completely  turned  by 
the  discovery  on  the  part  of  the  young 
men,  that  educated  girls,  can,  by  teach- 
ing, earn  a  salary  even  after  they  are 
married.  Now  educated  girls,  espe- 
cially those  trained  as  teachers,  are 
sought  after.  They  are  not  always  to 
be  had,  for  educated  girls  have  learned 
to  have  a  mind  of  their  own,  and  to 
appreciate  the  opportunities  of  doing- 
good  without  getting  married,  at  least 
until  the  man  of  their  choice  appears. 

On  the  whole,  the  result  is  that 
many  of  the  pastors  have  found  for 
their  companions  true  helpmeets  and 
coworkers  instead  of  being  married  to 
ignorant  and  inefficient  women. 

These  are  the  men  and  women  who 
are  coming  to  the  front  in  the  Chris- 
tian work  of  the  mission  fields.  They 
are  the  counselors  and  friends  of  the 
missionary  as  well  as  of  the  Chris- 
tians ;  they  are  the  best  representatives 
of  Christianity  to  the  non-Christian 
multitudes,  and  illustrate  its  power  to 
develop  spiritual  life  and  character  in 
the  individual,  and  unite  men  of  di- 
verse training  and  advantages  into  one 
brotherhood.  It  is  the  joy  of  the  mis- 
sionary to  let  them  increase  while  he 
decreases.  All  missions  are  not  in  the 
same  stage  of  progress  in  this  matter, 
but  it  is  the  goal  for  all. 

But  at  present  the  main  body  of  na- 
tive workers  is  made  up  of  men  and 
women  of  moderate  training  and  small 
salary,  who  need  contact  with  the  mis- 
sionary, or  native  pastor,  at  periodical 
times  to  receive  suggestion  and  in- 
spiration. They  easily  get  into  ruts, 
and  it  does  them  great  good  to  come 
together  every  month  for  a  couple  of 
days  to  report  their  work  and  have 
seasons  of  conference  and  prayer  with 
one  another  and  with  their  leaders. 


In  the  Madura  Mission  of  South 
India  these  workers  are  not  only 
brought  together  every  month  in  each 
station  to  meet  with  the  missionary 
and  pastors  of  that  station,  but  every 
September  they  all  come  together  in  a 
central  place  with  all  the  missionaries 
and  pastors  for  a  series  of  conferences 
extending  through  several  da  vs. 

Many  of  them  live  apart  from  their 
fellows,  in  a  kind  of  settlement  work, 
with  their  families  as  the  only  edu- 
cated Christians,  and  in  some  cases  as 
the  only  Christians,  in  the  midst  of  a 
Hindu  and  Mohammedan  population. 
Little  by  little  they  gain  the  confidence 
of  the  people.  A  school  is  started  and 
the  work  seems  prospering,  when  sud- 
denly one  or  two  young  men  of  the 
school  decide  to  become  Christians. 
Immediately  there  is  turmoil  and  bit- 
terness. It  ends  by  the  expulsion  of 
the  lads  from  their  homes  and  even 
from  the  village,  and  the  breaking  up 
of  the  school.  The  result  seems  to  be 
the  gain  of  one  or  two  lads  with  the 
loss  of  a  school  and  the  confidence  of 
the  community.  It  may  take  years  to 
win  back  that  lost  prestige,  and  usu- 
ally the  worker  has  to  be  transferred 
to  another  place  and  another  sent  to 
rebuild  the  school.  But  if  the  young 
converts  prove  faithful  they  are  worth 
the  loss.  In  a  village  where  three 
brothers  came  out  as  Christians  one 
backslid  under  the  pressure,  but  the 
other  two  remained  firm  and  were 
driven  away.  Of  those  one  has  pushed 
his  way  through  the  mission  schools 
and  become  a  successful  pastor,  min- 
istering to  a  parish  containing  seventy 
small  congregations.  The  school  that 
was  broken  up  at  his  conversion  has 
been  reestablished  for  many  years, 
and  the  relatives  that  drove  him  out 
are  now  friends ;  and  if  other  conver- 


NATIVE  WORKERS  IX  MISSION"  FIELDS 


287 


sions  occur,  as  they  surely  will  in  time, 
the  new  converts  will  not  be  perse- 
cuted as  he  was. 

While  many  workers  are  gained  in 
this  way,  others  are  the  children  of  a 
previous  generation,  even  of  those 
who  themselves  became  disciples 
through  tribulation.  It  is  a  joy  to  see 
the  families  thus  coming  into  Christian 
work. 

One  Bible  reader  of  the  earlier 
time,  whose  salary  was  but  $2  a 
month,  sent  three  boys  to  the  mission 
schools,  and  by  the  greatest  economy 
and  self-denial  kept  them  there  until 
they  could  become  teachers.  One  re- 
mains a  teacher,  another  is  a  theolog- 
ical instructor,  and  the  third  is  an  or- 
dained pastor,  all  faithful  workers. 

An  old  watchman,  with  the  same 
income,  did  the  same  with  his  family, 
and  now  one  is  a  prominent  catechist, 
two  are  pastors,  and  a  daughter  is  a 
Bible  woman ;  still  another  was,  until 
his  death,  a  useful  teacher.  Thus  in 
the  family  of  that  poor  watchman  were 
raised  up  workers  for  each  of  the  four 
classes  mentioned  in  this  article. 

These  faithful  coworkers  with  the 
missionary  are  not  only  the  medium 
for  reaching  non-Christians ;  they 
are  looked  up  to  by  the  members  of 
their  congregations  as  models  in  clean- 
liness, courtesy,  piety,  and  charity.  It 
gives  every  faithful  man  and  woman 
among  them  an  honorable  and  inspir- 


ing position;  and  when  the  people  are 
in  trouble  from  their  non-Christian 
neighbors,  in  sickness  and  death,  in 
poverty  and  prison,  they  turn  to  their 
"helpful  minister,"  as  he  is  called. 
Many  such  workers  will  surely  have 
every  sentence  of  commendation  men- 
tioned in  Matthew's  gospel  uttered  to 
them,  viz. :  "I  was  hungry,  and  ye 
gave  me  to  eat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye 
gave  me  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and 
ye  took  me  in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed 
me  ;  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me ;  I 
was  in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me." 

The  position  of  these  workers  in 
every  mission  is  of  the  utmost  im- 
portance. They  ought  to  be  better 
paid  and  able  to  maintain  their  fami- 
lies in  a  more  self-repecting  way.  On 
the  other  hand  there  ought  to  be  more 
of  them.  In  the  Madura  Mission  dis- 
trict there  are  3,000  villages  and  only 
524  of  these  have  Christians  in  them. 
The  workers  number  about  one  for 
each  village  with  Christians  ;  whereas 
many  more  villages  would  welcome 
them.  Thus  the  missions  are  between 
the  two  needs,  of  better  paid  workers 
and  more  workers,  which  grind  them 
down  as  between  upper  and  nether 
millstone.  A  large  trust  fund  of  mil- 
lions, like  the  Rockefeller,  Sage,  and 
other  funds  in  this  land,  is  urgently 
needed  to  secure  good  wages  and  small 
pensions  for  the  70,305  native  workers 
of  all  the  missions. 


INDIA:  A  NATION  IN  THE  MAKING* 

BY  W*.   M .  ZUMBRO 
President  of  the  American  College,  Madura,  India 


There  are  many  things  to  indicate 
that  the  people  of  India  are  slowly 
finding  themselves,  are  coming  to 
their  own.  Everywhere  there  is  fer- 
ment and  a  murmur  of  discontent. 
The  cry  "Bande  mataram!"  (Hail 
to  the  mother  country!)  is  heard 
throughout  the  land,  and  "swaraj" 
(home  rule)  and  "swadeshi"  (home 
country  )  have  become  words  of  magic 
to  conjure  with.  What  does  it  all 
mean?  Briefly  and  fundamentally  it 
means  this :  A  new  nation  is  about  to 
be  born. 

There  are  three  dominant  notes  in 
the  murmur  of  discontent,  one  polit- 
ical, another  industrial,  and  the  third 
religious  and  social.  During  Christ- 
mas week  of  1906  Dadabhai  Xaoroji, 
a  Parsee  gentleman  of  Bombay,  for 
some  years  past  resident  in  England 
and  formerly  a  member  of  the  British 
Parliament,  in  the  course  of  his  presi- 
dential address  at  the  opening  of  the 
twenty-second  session  of  the  Indian 
National  Congress  insisted  upon  the 
right  of  the  Indian  people  as  British 
subjects  to  govern  themselves  and 
asked  that  this  right  be  realized.  There 
were  nearly  10,000  delegates  and  vis- 
itors present,  and  the  address  was  re- 
ceived with  a  tumult  of  applause.  The 
members  of  the  Congress  belong  for 
the  most  part  to  the  "Moderate"  par- 
ty. They  maintain  an  attitude  of  con- 
fidence toward  the  British  Govern- 
ment and  believe  that  in  the  end  they 
will  gain  what  they  ask  by  persistent 
agitation.  They  do  not  on  any  account 
wish  the  guiding  hand  of  the  British 
Raj  to  be  withdrawn,  for  they  know 
full  well  that  the  people  of  India  are 
not  yet  ready  to  take  the  government 
into  their  own  hands.  There  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  an  "Extreme"  party, 
led  by  such  men  as  Bal  Ghanghadar 
Tilak,  of  Poona,  Bipin  Chandar  Pal, 
of  Calcutta,  and  Lala  Lajpat  Rai,  of 
Lahore,  who  openly  assert  that  it  is 


useless  to  continue  to  ask  the  govern- 
ment for  what  they  want,  that  to  do 
so  is  to  play  the  part  of  beggars,  and 
that  the  thing  to  do  is  to  take  by  force 
what  they  can  not  get  otherwise. 

How  India  is  Governed  To-day 

In  order  to  understand  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  demand  for  a  larger 
measure  of  self-government  it  is  nec- 
essary to  have  in  mind  just  what  part 
the  people  of  India  now  have  in  the 
administration  of  their  own  affairs. 
The  Indian  Government  has  two  cen- 
ters, one  in  England,  the  other  in  In- 
dia. The  home  government  is  vested 
in  a  Secretary  of  State  for  India,  who 
is  a  member  of  the  British  cabinet,  as- 
sisted by  an  under-secretary  and  a 
cabinet  of  fifteen  members.  No  In- 
dian gentleman  has  ever  been  a  mem- 
ber of  this  cabinet.  In  India  the  gov- 
ernment is  vested  in  a  Viceroy,  or 
Governor-General,  appointed  by  the 
Crown,  and  acting  under  the  control 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  for  India. 
He  is  assisted  by  a  council  of  five  ordi- 
nary members,  and  when  the  council 
acts  as  a  legislative  body  there  are 
from  ten  to  sixteen  additional  mem- 
bers, half  of  them  being  "non-official." 
None  of  the  ordinary  and  not  more 
than  four  of  the  non-official  members 
of  the  Viceroy's  council  are  Indians. 

The  empire  is  divided  into  prov- 
inces, the  six  most  important  of  which 
are  Bombay,  Madras,  Bengal,  the 
United  Provinces  of  Agra  and  Oudh, 
the  Punjab,  and  Burma,  each  under 
a  Governor  or  Lieutenant-Governor, 
and  each  with  a  council.  These  coun- 
cils are  modeled  after  the  Viceroy's 
council  and  have  official  and  non-offi- 
cial members.  Indians  may  serve  only 
as  non-official  members.  These  In- 
dian members  may  take  part  in  the 
discussions  and  vote  as  do  the  Eng- 
lish members,  but  they  are  always  in 
a  hopeless  minority  should  any  ques- 


*  From  the  American  Monthly  Review  of  Reviews. 


INDIA:  A  NATION  IN  THE  MAKING 


289 


tion  conic  up  in  which  there  is  a  clash 
between  the  interests  of  the  rulers  and 
the  ruled. 

For  administrative  purposes  these 
provinces  are  divided  into  districts,  of 
which  there  are  in  all  250,  each  dis- 
trict having  its  own  department  of  ad- 
ministration, justice,  public  works, 
health  and  sanitation,  and  police.  Usu- 
ally, tho  not  always,  the  heads  of 
these  various  departments  are  Eng- 
lishmen. On  the  other  hand,  far  and 
away  the  larger  number  of  govern- 
ment positions  are  held  by  the  people. 
Out  of  over  114,000  positions  carrying 
a  salary  of  $300  or  over  per  year  97 
per  cent,  are  held  by  Indians. 

The  Industrial  Situation 

The  second  note  of  discontent  is  in- 
dustrial. In  October,  1905,  on  the  day 
that  Lord  Curzon's  order  for  the  par- 
tition of  Bengal  went  into  effect,  a 
large  crowd  marched  through  the 
streets  of  Calcutta,  flags  and  banners 
flying,  and  later  went  to  the  temple  of 
Kali  where,  in  the  presence  of  the  god- 
dess, they  took  a  vow  that  they  would 
no  longer  buy  foreign  goods,  espe- 
cially English  goods,  the  penalty  to  be 
that  they  would  give  of  their  blood  to 
Kali.  Thus  began  the  Swadeshi 
movement.  As  a  movement  to  boy- 
cott foreign  goods  it  is  a  failure,  but 
as  an  attempt  to  revive  and  reorganize 
the  waning  industries  of  the  country 
is  is  exerting  a  most  helpful  influence. 

In  India  the  industrial  situation  is 
critical.  There  are  many  reasons  for 
this.  Scientific  and  industrial  educa- 
tion has  been  almost  wholly  neglected, 
and  save  among  the  Parsees  the  edu- 
cated classes  have  held  themselves  en- 
tirely aloof  from  industrial  pursuits. 
This  leaves  the  industries  in  the  hands 
of  the  ignorant  and  conservative 
classes,  who  neither  invent  new  or  im- 
prove old  methods. 

The  result  is  seen  everywhere.  Take 
agriculture :  The  population  numbers 
about  300,000,000,  in  a  territory  half 
the  size  of  the  United  States,  so  that 
the  problem  of  getting  enough  to  eat 
is  serious.  The  methods  and  imple- 
ments of  the  farmer  are  of  the  most 


primitive  kind.  The  plow  consists  of 
three  crooked  sticks  fastened  together. 
A  large  part  of  the  land  which  might 
be  cultivated  is  uncultivated  because 
the  farmer  has  not  found  out  the  way 
to  cultivate  it  with  profit.  In  1903-4 
the  following  conditions  prevailed  with 
reference  to  agriculture  :* 

Acres. 

Total  area,  British  India  only  554,536,000 

Forest    67,104,000 

Not  available  for  cultivation  138,352,000 

Current  fallows    36,870,000 

Cultivable  waste  other  than  fal- 
lows   103,391,000 

Net  area  cropped    208,817,000 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
net  area  cropped  is  only  about  37.5 
per  cent,  of  the  total  area,  while  there 
is  over  18  per  cent,  of  the  total  area 
left  waste  which  is  capable  of  cultiva- 
tion. 

The  disastrous  effects  of  this  neg- 
lect of  industries  by  the  educated 
classes  is  also  seen  in  the  decadence 
of  the  industrial  arts.  The  artisans 
still  work  under  the  old  hand  regime 
where  the  work  is  done  at  home  in- 
stead of  under  the  modern  regime  of 
the  machine  and  the  factory.  How- 
ever cheap  labor  may  be  in  India,  it 
is  no  longer  as  cheap  as  a  machine, 
and  the  artisan  is  being  driven  to  the 
wall.  From  the  earliest  periods  of  his- 
tory up  to  very  recent  times  India  had 
held  high  rank  in  the  trade  of  the 
world,  having  been  a  large  producer 
of  commodities  that  were  highly 
prized  in  general  commerce.  Since 
1834,  when  the  East  India  Company 
was  deprived  of  its  monopoly,  there 
has  been  a  large  increase  in  the  com- 
merce of  India,  the  exports  rising 
from  a  total  of  $50,000,000  in  that 
year  to  over  $580,000,000  in  1903-4. 
But  the  exports  during  the  early 
period  consisted  largely  in  manufac- 
tured articles,  while  to-day  they  are 
largely  raw  materials.  Textiles,  once 
an  important  export,  now  far  exceed 
all  other  imports,  amounting  to  two- 
thirds  of  the  whole.    Cotton  grown  in 

*  Statistics  taken  from  the  "Statesman's  Year 
Book,"  1907. 


290 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


the  country  can  be  shipped  to  England, 
spun,  the  cloth  woven  on  the  looms 
of  Manchester,  sent  back,  and  sold  in 
the  bazaars  just  a  little  cheaper  than 
the  native  artisan  can  sell  the  cloth 
woven  on  his  hand  loom. 

Not  only  are  the  old  industries  de- 
clining-, but  the  new  economic  wants 
that  are  developing  are  being  supplied 
by  articles  imported  from  abroad 
rather  than  manufactured  at  home. 
About  65  per  cent,  of  the  population 
is  engaged  in  agriculture.  When  the 
rains  fail,  as  so  often  happens,  the  peo- 
ple are  face  to  face  with  famine  con- 
ditions, a  situation  which  might  be 
greatly  relieved  by  the  organization 
of  new  industries. 

Caste  exclusiveness,  suspicion,  and 
lack  of  business  integrity  make  it  as 
yet  impossible,  save  among  the  Par- 
sees,  for  the  people  of  the  country,  to 
any  considerable  extent,  to  organize 
commercial  enterprises.  Some  years 
ago,  in  the  city  of  Madura,  a  num- 
ber of  Indian  gentlemen  thought  they 
would  build  a  cotton-spinning  mill  to 
spin  the  cotton  grown  nearby.  A  con- 
siderable amount  of  capital  was  sub- 
scribed, but  when  it  came  to  actually 
paying  in  the  money  to  start  the  build- 
ing no  one  would  do  it,  and  so  they 
bought  their  wives  and  daughters  new 
jewels  instead. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  the  reason 
for  the  present  industrial  depression 
is  to  be  found  in  the  excessive  burdens 
of  taxation  which  the  people  are  com- 
pelled to  bear.  In  answer  to  this  it  is 
perhaps  sufficient  to  cite  statistics 
from  government  records  gathered  by 
the  editor  of  The  East  and  West  and 
published  in  the  June  (1907)  num- 
ber of  that  magazine.  These  data 
show  that  in  the  ten  districts  of  the 
Bombay  Presidency  investigated  the 
annual  assessment  averaged  from  a 
little  over  50  cents  to  $1  per  capita, 
while  the  assessment  varied  from 
about  16  to  50  cents  per  acre,  accord- 
ing to  kind  of  soil. 

Social  and  Religious  Discontent 

The  third  note  of  discontent  is  so- 
cial  and    religious.     Recently  "His 


Holiness,  the  Guru  of  Shirali,"  called 
a  "Mahasabha"  or  great  council  of 
the  Saraswat  Brahmins,  for  whom 
His  Holiness  is  the  spiritual  head,  to 
consider  measures  whereby  to  over- 
come the  increasing  tendency  of  the 
people  to  resort  to  foreign  travel.  Ac- 
cording to  His  Holiness'  interpretation 
of  the  Shastras,  foreign  travel  is  for- 
bidden, and  he  is  consequently  much 
exercised  by  the  growing  tendency 
among  his  people  to  condone  such 
travel.  The  Guru  has  stood  firm  and 
has  issued  bull  after  bull  condemning 
those  who  have  returned  after  such 
voyages,  and  has  forbidden  the  ortho- 
dox to  have  any  intercourse  with  them 
on  their  return,  but,  in  the  language 
of  a  writer  in  the  Indian  Social  Re- 
former, "the  rising  spirit  will  not 
down."  The  heart  of  India  remains 
deeply  religious,  but  the  intelligence 
of  India  is  demanding  that  what  has 
been  long  outgrown  shall  now  be  dis- 
carded. Just  as  to-day  the  tools  of 
industry  are  antiquated  and  ineffi- 
cient, so  also  many  of  the  social  con- 
ventions, religious  beliefs,  supersti- 
tions and  practises  belong  back  in  the 
days  of  Greece  and  Rome.  In  the 
name  of  their  holy  religion  the  priests 
forbid  foreign  travel,  remarriage  of 
widows,  the  attainment  of  mature  age 
before  marriage,  intermarriage  and 
interdining  between  the  different 
castes  and  sub-castes,  and  plant  them- 
selves athwart  every  effort  made  to 
introduce  reforms  imperatively  needed. 

England's  Attitude 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Eng- 
land means  to  do  the  fair  thing  with 
India,  sometimes  slowly  perhaps  and 
rather  grudgingly  in  some  matters, 
not  infrequently,  when  the  interests 
of  India  cross  those  of  England,  as 
in  the  matter  of  an  import  duty  on 
English  textiles,  sacrificing  the  for- 
mer to  the  latter,  but  yet  in  the  long- 
run  determined  that  India  shall  have  a 
square  deal  and  when  the  time  comes 
a  government  of  her  own. 

The  fact  that  unrest  exists  is  no  dis- 
credit to  England ;  rather  it  is  the  best 
possible  testimony  to  the  excellence  of 


INDIA:  A  NATION  IN  THE  MAKING 


291 


her  work.  As  Mr.  Morlcy  said  in  his 
budget  speech  of  a  year  ago,  "Every 
one, — soldiers,  travelers,  and  journal- 
ists,— they  all  tell  us  that  there  is  a 
new  spirit  abroad  in  India.  Be  it  so. 
How  could  you  expect  anything  else? 
You  have  been  educating  the  people 
for  years  with  western  ideas  and  lit- 
erature, and  you  have  already  given 
them  facilities  for  communication  with 
one  another."  Probably  nowhere  in 
the  world  is  there  a  more  efficient, 
upright,  faithful  body  of  men  set  to 
rule  a  country  than  is  to  be  found  in 
India.  Sympathy  with  the  ruled  there 
may  not  always  be,  misunderstandings 
there  are  a-plenty,  and  the  Britisher 
is  too  often  inclined  to  look  with  proud 
disdain  upon  the  people  over  wrhom  he 
exercises  lordship,  but  he  can  not  be 
accused  of  neglect  of  duty,  inefficiency 
or  graft. 

England  is  fully  aware  that  a  new 
situation  has  developed  and  is  prepar- 
ing to  meet  it.  Lord  Minto  has  al- 
ready appointed  a  committee  to  con- 
sider whether  the  time  has  come  to 
give  India  some  form  of  representa- 
tive government.  This  committee  has 
made  its  report,  and  the  government 
recommendations  based  on  it  have 
been  sent  home  to  England,  but  until 
the  reply  of  the  Secretary  of  State  has 
been  received  it  will  not  be  made  pub- 
lic just  what  the  recommendations  are. 
Meanwhile,  Mr.  Morley,  in  his  last 
budget  speech,  proposes  the  following 
changes  in  the  administration  of  the 
Indian  Empire  :  ( 1 )  The  establish- 
ment in  India  of  an  advisory  "Coun- 
cil of  Notables";  (2)  a  substantial  en- 
largement of  the  Legislative  Councils 
in  India,  both  the  Governor-General's 
Council  and  the  Provincial  Legislative 
Councils;  (3)  the  nomination  by  the" 
Secretary  of  State  for  India  of  one 
and  perhaps  two  Indian  gentlemen  to 
be  members  of  the  Indian  Council  in 
London.  The  latest  information  is 
that  Mr.  Morley  has  already  intro- 
duced into  the  British  Parliament  leg- 
islation looking  toward  the  bringing 
about  of  these  changes. 

It  is  evident,  however,  that  the  In- 
dian Government  is  much  concerned 


about  the  present  unrest.  Around 
Lahore  certain  agitators  like  Ajit 
Singh  have  been  inflaming  the  people 
by  seditious  speeches  and  inciting  to 
open  revolt,  seeking  especially  to  influ- 
ence the  Sikhs,  many  of  whom  are  in 
the  army.  On  May  7  a  warrant  was 
issued  for  the  arrest  of  Ajit  Singh  and 
Lala  Lajpat  Rai.  The  former  es- 
caped, tho  he  was  taken  later,  but 
Rai  was  arrested  and  without  trial  de- 
ported to  Rangoon  "for  reasons  of 
state."  A  considerable  portion  of  the 
native  press  has  of  late  been  publish- 
ing scurrilous  attacks  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  it  became  imperative  to  put 
down  with  a  firm  hand  such  proceed- 
ings. Thousands  still  die  of  plague, 
and  agitators  played  upon  the  super- 
stitions of  the  people  by  tales  of  the 
British  officials  causing  plague  by 
putting  poison  in  wells.  May  10, 
of  last  year,  was  the  anniversary 
of  the  breaking  out  of  the  great 
Sepoy  Mutiny  at  Meerut,  and  as 
that  day  drew  near  a  rumor  was 
started  that  on  this  anniversary  Lala 
Lajpat  Rai  was  intending  to  march 
on  Lahore  with  an  army  and  begin  a 
military  movement  against  the  gov- 
ernment. To  prevent  this  a  consid- 
erable detachment  of  soldiers  was  hur- 
ried to  the  city  and  prompt  meas- 
ures taken  to  prevent  what  it  was 
feared  might  be  a  serious  uprising. 
There  was.  some  rioting  at  Rawal- 
pindi, near  Lahore,  two  or  three  vil- 
lages were  burned,  and  some  mission 
property  destroyed,  but  later  informa- 
tion gives  little  evidence  to  show  that 
an  armed  uprising  had  been  seriously 
contemplated. 

Who  are  the  People  of  India? 

The  population  of  India  is  made 
up  of  a  multitude  of  races  and 
tongues  gathered  from  many  lands, 
representing  many  creeds,  divided, 
discordant,  oftentimes  hating  each 
other,  and  until  recently  doing  all  that 
they  could  to  prevent  assimilation  into 
one  people.  There  are  the  aborigines, 
now  driven  back  into  the  forests  and 
mountain  fastnesses;  the  Dravidian, 
who  came  into  India  long  before  the 


292  THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


coming  of  the  Aryans  and  for  a  time 
occupied  nearly  the  whole  of  the  pen- 
insula, tho  later  driven  southward ; 
the  Aryan,  who  came  ,  down  through 
the  northwest  pass  about  2000  B.C., 
and  who  at  once  asserted  and  has 
since  maintained  his  superiority  over 
the  other  races ;  and  the  later  comers, 
Jew  and  Arab,  Scyth,  Tatar,  and  Mo- 
gul, each  maintaining  so  far  as  possi- 
ble his  separate  life,  and  refusing  to 
blend  with  his  neighbors. 

And  yet  these  divergent  peoples  are 
being  drawn  together  and  fused  into 
one  nation.  The  Hindus  and  Moham- 
medans have  for  centuries  been  ene- 
mies, and  yet  Surendra  Nath  Ban- 
ner ji,  a  Bengal  Babu,  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  Swadeshi  movement,  addressing 
the  Mohammedans  at  their  great 
Bakra  Id  festival,  said:  "We  are  no 
longer  Hindus  and  Mohammedans,  we 
are  Indians,"  a  sentiment  which  would 
have  been  impossible  five  years  ago. 

No  people  can  unite  to  form  a  na- 
tion unless  they  have  a  common  lan- 
guage. This  India  has  never  had,  the 
last  census  giving  as  many  as  sixteen 
different  languages,  each  spoken  by 
from  3,000,000  to  90,000,000,  while 
more  than  160  minor  dialects  are  rec- 
ognized. A  century  of  English  rule 
has  made  possible  a  common  language. 
English  is  now  the  language  of  in- 
struction in  all  the  high  schools  and 
colleges  throughout  the  empire;  it  is 
also  the  official,  as  it  is  fast  becoming 
the  commercial,  language.  A  visitor 
from  America  who  may  happen  to  at- 
tend the  National  Congress  will  per- 
haps be  surprized  to  see  the  10,000 
or  more  delegates,  splendid  fellows 
from  all  over  the  empire,  holding  dig- 
nified conference  over  the  various 
problems  that  present  themselves,  but 
he  will  be  still  more  surprised  to  find 
that  the  proceedings  are  all  conducted 
in  English,  the  only  language  that  is 
common  among  the  delegates. 

What  part  are  the  Indian  people  ta- 
king in  their  own  regeneration?  The 
national  organization  and  development 
of  Congress  is  the  best  thing  that  In- 
dia has  yet  done  of  her  own  initiative 
to  prepare  for  self-government.    It  is 


not  an  official  body  and  has  no  official 
standing  with  government,  but  by  it 
public  opinion  is  being  formed  and  a 
new  national  spirit  created. 

India  is  alive  to  the  need  of  indus- 
trial reorganization,  and  there  is  com- 
ing an  insistent  demand  for  scientific 
and  industrial  education  to  supplement 
the  exclusive  literary  and  philosophic 
education  of  the  past.  Young  men  in 
increasing  numbers  are  going  to  Ja- 
pan, to  Europe,  and  to  America  to 
study  agriculture,  engineering,  applied 
arts,  and  sciences.  A  young  high-caste 
man  from  India  has  recently  been  ta- 
king a  course  at  Pratt  Institute  and 
studying  among  other  things  the  pro- 
cess of  soap-making,  an  unheard  of 
thing  in  the  past  and  significant  for 
the  future.  Mills  built  by  native  capi- 
tal are  found  in  Bombay,  Bengal,  and 
elsewhere,  tho  aside  from  what  has 
been  done  by  the  Parsees  there  is  not 
much  to  the  credit  of  the  Indian  people 
in  the  way  of  organized  industries. 

As  to  their  religion,  various  at- 
tempts have  been  made  to  reform 
Hinduism,  but  with  little  success,  as 
the  Hindus  themselves  admit.  The 
Brahmo  and  Arya  Samaj  movements 
have  done  something,  but  they  do  not 
increase  as  one  might  expect  them  to. 
Movements  like  the  Young  Men's 
Hindu  Association  accomplish  noth- 
ing. The  priests  are  frequently  cor- 
rupt and  immoral.  Moreover,  Hindu- 
ism has  no  way  by  which  to  help  the 
low-caste  man.  A  few  years  ago  a 
Brahman  official  to  whom  the  Madras 
government  gave  the  important  duty 
of  writing  the  "progress  report"  of 
the  presidency  pointed  out  that  "from 
a  Hindu  standpoint  there  was  no  hope 
for  the  social  amelioration  of  the  out- 
cast within  the  pale  of  Hinduism. 
There  is  but  one  way  for  them  to  rise, 
and  that  is  to  accept  either  Moham- 
medanism or  Christianity."  The  edi- 
tor of  the  Christian  Patriot,  comment- 
ing on  this,  says :  "No  Hindu  has 
ever  challenged  that  statement  made 
in  a  public  report  of  government." 
The  Christian  community,  tho  small, 
numbering  only  about  one  per  cent  of 
the   population,   is   admitted   on  all 


INDIA:  A  NATION'  IN  T1IH  MAKING 


293 


1 90S  I 

hands  to  have  an  influence  out  of  all 
proportion  to  its  numbers.  It  is  the 
only  community  that  has  the  hope  of 
the  morning  in  its  heart,  and  in  it 
the  Gospel  which  it  preaches  lies  the 
future  of  India. 

What  part  is  America  taking  in 
this  work  of  creating  a  new  India? 
Nothing  so  far  as  political  influence 
goes,  and  practically  nothing  commer- 
cially, for  America's  trade  with  India 
is  insignificant,  amounting  in  1905  to 
$7,547,938  worth  of  exports  and  $53,- 
238,000  of  imports.  The  only  way  in 
which  America  is  directly  influencing 
India  is  through  her  missionaries. 
There  are  about  1,100  American  men 
and  women  engaged  in  mission  work. 
They  have  gone  out  with  a  few  simple 
things  packed  away  in  their  trunks,— 
the  Bible,  a  school-book,  a  few  tools  and 
implements  of  industry, — and  with  the 
American  idea  of  a  fair  chance  to  all 
and  a  helping  hand  to  the  one  who  is 
in  need,  they  have  scattered  out  into 
the  cities  and  villages  and  out-of-the- 
way  places  and  there  they  have  set 
themselves  to  the  task  of  helping  in 
the  redemption  of  India.  Wherever 
they  have  gone  they  have  organized 
schools,  and  in  the  school  is  crystal- 
!ized  much  of  the  best  that  America 
has.  The  following  table  indicates  the 
amount  of  educational  work  carried  on 
in  India  by  the  American  missionaries  : 

No.  Pupils. 

Primary      and  secondary 


schools    3,542  127,302 

Colleges    9  3,387 

Theological  seminaries    7  183 

Industrial  schools    17  1,759 

Medical  schools    3  18 

Kindergartens    15  507 


In  addition  to  this  a  considerable 
number  of  the  159  newspapers  and 
magazines  now  published  in  India  are 
published  by  American  missionaries. 
It  is  a  small  work  that  they  are  doing 
compared  with  the  much  larger  work 
of  the  English,  but  it  is  something, 
and  something  too  for  which  India  is 
grateful,  and  all  the  more  so  because 


there  is  no  possibility  of  political  in- 
terest back  of  it.  Already  India  is 
sending  some  of  her  choice  sons  to 
America  to  study  American  institu- 
tions and  methods  of  industry,  and 
soon  many  more  will  be  coming  for 
the  same  purpose.  Some  of  the  Amer- 
ican schools  and  colleges  in  India,  like 
the  American  college  at  Madura,  are 
trying  to  reorganize  their  work  so  as 
to  offer  scientific  and  industrial  train- 
ing, for  which,  however,  a  larger  in- 
come is  imperative. 

India  has  splendid  achievements  to 
her  credit  in  the  past.  The  Empire  of 
Asoka  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  pre- 
Christian  empires,  and  the  pillar  and 
rock  inscriptions  of  the  Asokan  era 
form,  according  to  Rhys  Davids,  one 
of  the  most  important  of  any  age. 
Two  of  the  four  great  world  religions 
had  their  birth  in  India,  and  the  sacred 
books  of  the  Hindus  exceed  in  volume 
those  of  any  other  faith.  Nor  have 
they  been  wanting  in  other  literature. 

Where  is  there  in  all  the  world  a 
gem  of  architecture  equal  to  the  Taj 
at  Agra  as  it  stands  alone  in  its  own 
exquisite  garden  on  the  banks  of  the 
Jumna,  the  finest  monument  in  the 
world  to  the  most  beautiful  of  senti- 
ments, the  love  of  man  for  woman? 

Still  greater  achievements  await 
India  in  the  future.  No  definite  plan 
of  reorganization  by  which  the  people 
will  have  a  larger  part  in  their  own 
government  has  yet  been  agreed  upon. 
Perhaps  the  plan  that  would  be  most 
popular  there  would  be  for  some  mem- 
ber of  the  royal  family  of  England  to 
become  the  permanent  Viceroy  and  es- 
tablish his  own  court,  with  a  legislative 
assembly,  one  branch  of  which  at 
least  should  be  elected  by  the  people. 

While  there  are  possibilities  of  seri- 
ous difficulty  in  the  future,  there  seems 
good  reason  to  believe  that  the  pres- 
ent discontent  is  but  the  normal  sign 
of  healthy  growth,  and  that  out  of  the 
womb  of  the  past  a  new  India  is  be- 
ing born  fairer,  brighter,  truer,  no- 
bler than  anything  that  the  past  has 
ever  known. 


THINGS  OUT  OF  PROPORTION  IN  INDIA 


BY.    MRS.   JOHN    H.  WVCKOFF 
The  American  Arcot  Mission  in  South  India 


India  is  a  land  of  surprizes,  and  you 
may  notice  some  of  them  on  your 
very  first  journey  in  the  land.  The 
proportion  of  water  to  sand  in  one 
of  the  vast  river  beds  the  train  has 
to  cross,  is  an  instance :  it  has  taken  a 
bridge  half  a  mile  long  to  span  it, 
but  the  stream  of  visible  water  there 
is  surprizingly  small,  and  as  the  hot 
months  wear  on,  may  become  invisi- 
ble. At  the  same  time,  the  glossy 
greenness  of  the  banian  trees  that 
shade  the  highway  seems  to  be  en- 
tirely out  of  proportion  to  the  wither- 
ing heat  of  the  sun.  The  size  of  the 
washerman's  donkey  is  sadly  dis- 
proportioned  to  the  vastness  of  two 
bundles  of  clothing  being  taken  to  or 
from  the  river  bed,  where  they  are 
cleaned  by  being  beaten  flail-fashion 
on  a  smooth  stone — and,  alas !  the 
number  of  buttons  that  return  to  you 
is  also  staggeringly  small  compared 
with  those  you  know  were  sewed  on 
before  that  vigorous  treatment ! 

Another  incongruity  that  constantly 
obtrudes  itself  on  your  notice  is  the 
amount  of  clothing  vs.  jewelry  every- 
body wears.  There  is  an  inordinate 
love  of  self-adornment  in  the  people — 
high  and  low,  old  and  young,  male 
and  female.  A  naked  baby  of  two 
months  will  have  its  fat  little  wrists 
stiff  with  bangles  and  wear  a  string 
of  beads  round  its  neck.  In  rich  fam- 
ilies, the  boys  from  two  to  five  years 
of  age  will  be  in  full  dress,  when 
wearing  only  silver  anklets  and  brace- 
lets and  a  stiff  necklace  of  gold  wire, 
with  perhaps  some  silver  ornament  on 
the  string  inevitably  worn  around  the 
loins.  Their  sisters,  in  addition,  will 
have  ears  and  nose  more  or  less  dec- 
orated, and  multiply  the  bead  chains 
and  bangles,  and  their  fond  parents 
think  any  further  clothing  a  super- 
fluity for  such  babies.  This  passion 
does'  not  decrease  with  age  nor  disap- 
pear with  extreme  poverty.    .    .  . 


It  is  a  cause  of  much  crime  in  the 
land,  for  often  little  children  and 
women  are  murdered  for  the  jewels 
they  were  wearing.  Moreover,  it 
keeps  a  vast  amount  of  capital  out  of 
circulation.  Ninety  million  pounds 
sterling  is  the  sum  computed  to  be 
thus  tied  up  for  senseless  display  in 
the  past  70  years  that  might  have 
been  expended  for  the  comforts  and 
necessities  of  life.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  India  is  poor? 

Does  this  concern  the  problems  of 
the  missionary,  you  ask.  Yes,  when 
he  has  to  fix  the  salaries  of  his  agents, 
who  feel  too  poor  to  afford  twenty- 
five  cents  a  year  for  a  book  or  a  little 
magazine,  and  yet  can  supply  their 
daughters  with  nose  and  ear  jewels 
and  bangles,  silver  toe-rings  besides ! 
or  when  an  agent  with  a  kind-hearted 
supporter  in  this  land  writes  a  pa- 
thetic appeal  for  help  to  feed  his 
family  better,  receives  direct  a  Christ- 
mas gift  of  $10,  and  spends  it  all  in 
substituting  gold  for  brass  in  his 
wife's  ears ! 

You  are  more  familiar  with  an- 
other of  the  distortions  of  heathenism 
that  comes  from  the  undue  exaltation 
of  man  above  woman ;  but  you  do  not 
realize  the  ruinous  outcome  of  this 
sentiment  as  we  meet  it  in  a  hundred 
ways.  In  the  man,  arrogance  un- 
bounded, and  self-gratification  the  one 
purpose  of  his  life ;  in  the  woman, 
enslavement  of  body  and  mind.  The 
baby  boy  is  the  one  who,  if  he  lives 
to  perform  the  funeral  rites  for  his 
father,  saves  his  father's  soul  from 
hell ;  so  he  is  a  little  brown  god  from 
his  birth,  growing  up  undisciplined 
and  uncontroled.  As  a  little  boy,  he 
may  beat  his  mother,  unreproved. 
Small  wonder  that  as  a  young  man 
he  beats  or  kicks  his  little  wife,  if  he 
so  chooses,  for  any  slightest  cause; 
for  she  is  given  over  to  him  body  and 
soul — there  is  no  possible  appeal — 


*  From  the  Bombay  Guardian. 


TlllXGS  OUT  ()1<  PKOl'OKTIOX  IX  IXDI A 


295 


public  sentiment  is  all  on  his  side, 
applauding  his  ability  to  rule  his  own 
household.  Of  course,  she  may  never 
speak  his  name,  nor  eat  till  he  has 
finished  his  meal,  nor  sit  in  his  pres- 
ence ;  that  is  a  matter  of  family  eti- 
quette. "Yes,  surely,  I  have  beaten 
my  wife,"  confest  a  good,  earnest 
Christian  man,  "I  had  to  beat  her 
till  she  learned  not  to  answer  back." 
But  it  takes  more  than  two  genera- 
tions to  counteract  that  which  has 
been  bred  in  the  bone  for  centuries. 

( )h,  how  the  subject  of  woman's  dis- 
abilities looms  up  with  more  and  more 
terrible  distinctness  as  you  see  into 
the  heart  of  heathenism  !  Books  about 
her  wrongs  have  been  written,  which 
all  will  do  well  to  read  who  still  have 
a  faint  idea  that  Hinduism  is  a  re- 
ligion sufficiently  well  adapted  to  the 
Hindus  to  be  let  alone  by  outsiders. 
The  treatment  it  accords  to  its  child- 
wives  and  child-widows  is  of  itself 
enough  to  brand  it  as  satanic.  Com- 
pared with  all  others,  surely  they  are 
the  deepest  wronged  who  are  given 
over  in  infancy  to  the  passions  of  bru- 
tal, wicked  men ;  or  who,  when  the 
husband  dies,  are  branded  from  baby- 
hood through  life  as  the  murderers 
of  their  husbands,  for  which  uncon- 
scious sin  no  misery  is  too  great  a 
punishment,  no  ignominy  undeserved, 
no  mitigation  allowed,  no  atonement 
possible.  And  the  greatest  sinners  in 
this  respect  are  the  Brahmans,  who 
exalt  themselves  as  gods,  but  thrust 
down  a  widowed  daughter  or  sister 
to  the  lowest  hell,  even  disfiguring 
her  appearance,  so  that  all  the  world 
may  know  her  at  a  distance  and  avoid 
her  as  they  would  the  plague.  Is  it 
not  a  miracle  that  out  of  this  lowest 
pit  of  man-invented  suffering,  should 
have  been  raised  up  one,  who  has 
rescued  2,000  and  more  of  the  de- 
spised widows  and  famine  castaways, 
and  is  bringing  them  into  the  light? 
The  success  of  the  work  of  the  Brah- 
man widow,  Pandita  Ramabai,  is  out 
of  all  proportion  to  the  means  em- 
ployed, and  is  only  to  be  explained  as 
you  recognize  in  it  the  hand  of  God. 


We  can  touch  only  lightly  upon 
some  of  the  other  disproportions  that 
especially  appeal  to  mothers.  The 
mad  haste  to  get  their  little  daugh- 
ters married,  over  and  above  any  de- 
sire to  see  them  physically  or  men- 
tally fitted  for  the  responsibilities  of 
life,  is  inexplicable  to  all  of  us.  And, 
again,  their  consuming  desire  for  chil- 
dren is  most  pathetic.  ...  I  have 
seen  them  in  the  blistering  April  heat 
walking  three  miles  around  a  sacred 
rock,  with  clasped  hands  as  if  in 
ceaseless  petition,  touching  the  earth 
at  every  step ;  and  my  heart  ached 
with  the  hopelessness  of  their  reme- 
dies, and  the  cruelty  of  the  public  sen- 
timent and  the  priestly  dictum  that 
prescribed  such  remedies. 

"How  can  they  be  so  ignorant  as 
to  do  such  things!"  you  exclaim;  but 
you  only  ask  it  because  you  do  not 
yet  appreciate  the  proportion  of  dark- 
ness to  light  in  that  land,  nor  the  as- 
tonishing power  wielded  over  the 
masses  by  the  priests,  who  prescribe 
these  senseless  remedies  and  keep  up 
the  unholy  feasts,  with  all  the  imbe- 
cilities of  idol-worship.  They  are  the 
emissaries  of  the  Prince  of  Darkness, 
and  there  is  an  army  of  several  mil- 
lions of  them,  many  of  them  wander- 
ing about  as  sacred  beggars,  fright- 
ening the  simple-hearted  with  their 
pretended  powers  of  cursing  those 
that  oppose  them,  and  fostering  su- 
perstitious fear  of  gods  and  devils 
alike.  Alas,  that  in  India  morality 
should  seem  to  be  in  inverse  ratio  to 
the  profession  of  religion  and  that 
these  leaders  of  the  people  should  be 
the  greatest  hindrance  to  the  spread 
of  the  light !  For  the  stupendous  fact 
remains,  that,  with  all  tlie  change  that 
the  last  100  years  of  missionary  effort 
has  brought  about ;  with  all  that  Prot- 
estant countries  with  their  91  mission- 
ary societies  have  thus  far  accom- 
plished;  with  all  that  the  British 
Government  with  its  magnificent  edu- 
cational system  has  yet  done  ;  only  22 
per  cent  of  the  men  and  but  two  and 
a  half  per  cent  of  the  women  of  India 
can  read !    You  have  put  too  vast  a 


296 


THE  MISSIONARY  .REVIEW  OE  THE  WORLD 


[April 


burden  upon  us,  your  agents,  in  that 
distant  land.  You  have  given  us  a 
field  to  work  of  whose  extent  you  can 
form  no  adequate  idea.  One  foreign 
missionary  to  500,000  souls !  Is  that 
the  proportion  the  Christian  Church 
desires  to  maintain?  My  husband 
had  a  parish  of  2,500  Christians,  and 
tho  he  had  three  assistant  ministers, 
yet  as  his  congregations  were  scat- 
tered over  an  area  of  500  square  miles, 
they  did  not  reduce  his  work  to  such 
proportions  that  he  could  rightly  com- 
pass it,  for  those  Christians  were  scat- 
tered in  fifty  different  villages,  and 
among  them  were  forty  schools  which 
he  had  to  manage  and  maintain.  Then 
think  of  the  8oo  villages  with  their 
thousands  of  souls,  where  the  Gospel 
can  be  only  occasionally  preached,  and 
which  are  dependent  on  him  for  the 
Bread  of  Life.  Now  add  to  these  la- 
bors the  duty  of  supervising  the  work 
of  your  neighboring  missionary  who 
is  obliged  to  take  his  furlough,  and 
some  serious  responsibility  for  the 
whole  mission,  like  the  treasurer's  or 
secretary's  duties,  and  then  tell  me  if 
your  expectation  of  results  from  your 
foreign  work  is  not  sadly  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  force  you  send  to  work 


it.  At  the  least,  can  no;  the  Church 
supply  the  place  of  those  who  have 
fallen  in  harness? 

Dr.  John  Scudder  died,  another 
missionary  withdrew,  and  no  one  has 
been  sent  to  fill  up  the  ranks  again, 
their  fields  being  divided  up  among 
the  remaining  missionaries  already 
overburdened,  so  that  now  their  re- 
sponsibilities are  cruelly  out  of  pro- 
portion to  their  strength,  and  demand, 
as  one  of  them  wrote,  "full  days  and 
nights  of  work."  Is  there  no  way  to 
come  to  their  relief?  I  know  I  am 
addressing  a  noble  band  of  workers 
who  are  presumably  giving  a  large 
part  of  their  time  and  thought  and 
means  to  these  problems — indeed,  who 
have  given  their  all  to  God  to  be  used 
by  Him  as  He  directs — but  the  pro- 
portion of  those  who  are  interested  in 
this  work  is  small,  compared  with  the 
larger  number  who  do  little  or  noth- 
ing to  extend  the  Redeemer's  kingdom 
in  the  regions  beyond.  Not  in  a  carp- 
ing nor  fault-finding  spirit,  but  in  a 
spirit  of  tender  love,  do  I  urge  any 
who  may  be  indifferent  or  lukewarm 
to  "come  to  the  help  of  the  Lord,  to 
the  help  of  the  Lord  against  the 
mighty." 


THE  STUDENTS  OF  RUSSIA* 

BY   BARON    PAUL   NICOLAY   OF  RUSSIA 


The  Russian  student  world  does  not 
represent  a  compact  homogeneous 
mass  of  Russians,  but  reflects  the  vari- 
ety of  different  nationalities,  which 
form  144,000,000  inhabitants  of  this 
Empire  and  of  its  one  hundred  or  more 
languages  and  dialects.  This  is  espe- 
cially apparent  in  the  western  univer- 
sities, in  Yoorieff  (Dorpat)  for  ex- 
ample, where  the  Polish,  German,  Let- 
tish, Esthonian,  and  Russian  students 
form  distinct  groups,  the  last  com- 
prising, besides  "great"  and  "small" 
Russians,  a  number  of  Jews,  and  of 
dark-faced  Armenians  and  Georgians 
from  the  Caucasus.  These  groups 
are  not  on  friendly  terms  with  each 
other. 


It  is  impossible  before  a  correct 
census  has  been  taken,  to  give  an  ex- 
act estimate  of  the  number  of  students 
in  the  eight  universities  and  about 
thirty-six  high  technical  schools  for 
men  and  in  the  ten  or  eleven  higher 
institutions  for  women ;  but  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  number  has  of  late 
greatly  increased,  having  risen  in  St. 
Petersburg  from  14,600  in  1905  to 
29,500,  including  about  8,400  women. 
The  total  for  all  Russia  can  not  be 
below  64,000.  The  students  are  con- 
centrated in  a  few  great  centers, 
thereby  making  access  for  work  among 
them  easier.  All  the  universities  and 
almost  all  the  high  technical  schools 
are  non-residential. 


*  From  The  Student  World,  New  York. 


icjo8J 


THE  STUDENTS  OF  RUSSIA 


The  distinctly  Russian  class  of  stu- 
dents produce  on  a  foreigner  an  im- 
pression that  is  not  prepossessing. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  dandies 
in  the  capitals,  they  are  mostly  ex- 
tremely poor  and  crowd  into  the  uni- 
versities without  financial  means,  in 
hope  of  finding  work  or  lessons  to  live 
on,  and  many  are  almost  starving.  A 
foreigner  will  also  be  struck  by  their 
unruliness,  lack  of  restraint,  unrelia- 
bility, lack  of  enterprise  and  of  perse- 
verance, and  the  more  than  loose  way, 
in  which  they  regard  the  very  worst 
forms  of  sin.  The  sense  of  good  and 
bad,  of  right  and  wrong,  seems  to  be 
obliterated  to  a  terrible  extent. 

But  much  must  be  said  in  favor  of 
these  students,  to  make  up  for  these 
dark  outlines.  Russians  are  an  emo- 
tional people,  quick  to  feel  and  to  act 
under  impulses,  open  to  the  worst  and 
to  the  best  and  highest  influences.  You 
will  hardly  anywhere  find  more  warm- 
hearted, generous,  unselfish  people, 
once  you  have  won  their  affections. 
They  are  willing  to  spend  and  be  spent 
for  a  cause  they  have  espoused.  A 
woman  student,  living  on  fifty  shillings 
a  month,  used  to  give  twenty  to  her 
social  democratic  party.  "What  do 
you  do?  What  do  you  sacrifice?"  is  a 
usual  question  put  to  a  Christian  com- 
rade. Should  not  this  quality  be  en- 
listed in  the  cause  of  Christ? 

One  of  the  most  interesting  prob- 
lems for  study  is  the  religious  attitude 
of  the  students.  With  a  few  excep- 
tions, they  consider  themselves  free- 
thinkers, but,  strange  to  say,  the  innate 
religiousness  of  the  Russian  race 
shows  itself  even  in  their  very  irre- 
ligiousness.  The  very  fanatical  zeal 
of  the  anti-Christian  propaganda  they 
carry  on,  the  way  they  grope  after 
something  that  will  fill  the  emptiness 
of  their  souls,  the  number  of  suicides 
committed  for  purely  ethical  reasons, 
and  the  way  they  respond  if  something 
seems  to  meet  their  needs — are  both 
expressive  and  impressive.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten,  that  tho  they  usu- 
ally reject  Christianity  in  its  Biblical 
form,  consideiing  it  to  be  a  fable  of 
the  past — they  have  never  had  the 


297 

Gospel  put  before  them  in  its  simplic- 
ity and  power.  Few  Russians  have 
read  through  even  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Neither  should  it  be  forgotten, 
that  for  many  reasons  the  bulk  of 
Russian  students  have  drifted  so  far 
from  Christianity  and  have  imbibed 
such  a  lot  of  false  teaching  of  every 
kind,  that  it  will  need  slow,  patient, 
plodding  work  to  win  a  greater  num- 
ber of  them  for  the  Christ  of  the  Gos- 
pel. This  wrork  must  be  done  on  Scrip- 
tural, evangelical,  interdenominational 
lines. 

There  is  no  doubt,  that  new  and 
mighty  forces  for  evil  and  good  are 
now  at  work  in  Russia.  A  change  is 
visible  even  in  the  political  attitude 
of  students ;  many  have  been  disap- 
pointed in  their  political  ideals  and 
are  now  more  accessible.  "We  have 
learned  much  during  these  years  in  the 
way  of  political  agitation,"  they  say, 
"but  we  have  not  had  time  to  think  for 
ourselves."  New  tendencies  are  show- 
ing themselves  also  in  the  moral  and 
religious  realms.  Crude  materialism 
is  losing  ground,  and  although  theo- 
retical pessimism  is  swaying  great 
numbers  and  even  monism  is  taking 
a  more  definite  form,  yet  Christian  ten- 
dencies, however  vague  and  feeble, 
are  being  felt  more  and  more.  Pro- 
fessor Bulgakoff,  in  Moscow,  a  for- 
mer ardent  Marxist  and  atheist,  is 
putting  Christianity  to  the  front  wher- 
ever he  can.  Religious-philosophical 
societies  are  making  their  appearance, 
and  much  is  spoken  about  Christian- 
ity. It  is  a  gladdening  fact  that, 
among  the  students,  who  have  come 
from  the  ecclesiastical  seminaries,  and 
who  are  commonly  regarded  as  the 
most  hardened  of  all,  we  find  men  in 
whom  the  better  knowledge  of  the 
Gospel  has  prepared  the  ground  for 
real  service  for  Christ.  They  can  be- 
come our  best  helpers. 

Xew  spiritual  breezes  are  visibly 
blowing  over  Russia ;  an  awakening 
of  Christian  thought  is  visibly  taking 
place ;  outward  restrictions  and  hin- 
drances have  mostly  been  removed. 
Xow  is  the  time  to  press  on  with  all 
our  might. 


298  THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD  [April 


EDITORIALS 


THE  WAYS  OF  PRAYING 

Some  time  since  we  indicated  seven 
different  ways  of  giving:  "The  selfish 
way,  equal  way,  proportionate  way," 
etc.  It  has  often  occurred  to  us  that 
the  word  of  God  hints  many  ways  of 
praying  also,  and  their  mention  may 
show  their  defect  and  necessary  lack 
of  prevailing  power.    For  instance : 

1.  The  formal  way — when  prayer 
is  a  mere  form  of  words,  with  little 
or  no  heart ;  or  when  it  is  simply  due 
to  the  force  of  a  habit  which  has  lost 
its  real  motive  power. 

2.  The  hurried  way  —  hastening 
through  it  as  a  disagreeable  and  irk- 
some duty — a  duty  indeed  but  not  a 
delight,  and  to  be  dismissed  as  quickly 
as  may  be. 

3.  The  selfish  way — when  the  real 
motive  is  to  consume  the  coveted 
blessing  upon  ourselves — in  some  way 
to  promote  our  own  selfish  advantage 
or  pleasure. 

4.  The  impulsive  way — praying  as 
the  feeling  prompts,  and  when  we 
feel  so  inclined — without  any  definite 
plan  of  prayer  in  our  lives,  or  devout 
habit. 

5.  The  faithless  way — with  no  real 
dependence  on  the  promises  of  God, 
or  confident  expectation  of  receiving 
what  we  ask  or  seek. 

6.  On  the  contrary,  there  is  the 
thoughtful  way,  seeking  to  meditate 
upon  God,  and  intelligently  under- 
stand both  the  nature  of  prayer  and 
the  good  we  seek. 

7..  The  earnest  way — with  the  at- 
tention of  the  mind  and  the  desire  of 
the  heart  absorbed  in  asking,  with  a 
determination  to  persevere. 

8.  The  trustful  way — coming  in  the 
spirit  of  a  child ;  first  believing  that 
God's  promises  justify  prayer,  and 
then  that  we  are  coining  to  a  Father, 
both  able  and  willing. 

9.  The  consistent  way — that  is,  liv- 
ing as  we  pray,  and  so  walking  with 
God  as  to  be  in  the  way  of  blessing, 
and  by  fellowship  with  God  inviting  it. 

10.  The  spiritual  way — so  cultiva- 
ting acquaintance  with  the  Holy  Spirit 


that  He  can  and  does  breathe  in  us 
first  the  desires  we  breath  out  in 
prayer. 

]t  is  easy  to  see  why  we  so  often 
fail,  and  how  we  may  succeed. 

THE  HOPE  OF  MISSIONS 

Isaiah  xlii:  1-7.  This  is  one  of  the 
great  central  passages  of  all  prophecy. 
The  Messiah  is  here  set  forth  as  the 
servant  of  Jehovah,  upheld  by  His 
Almightiness ;  His  elect,  the  object  of 
His  delight,  the  subject  of  His  Holy 
Spirit's  unmeasured  indwelling  and 
outworking. 

His  special  mission  is  to  the  Gen- 
tiles. "He  shall  not  cry,"  as  in  help- 
less grief,  nor  "shout,"  as  in  boast- 
ful glory;  but  perform  His  service  in 
the  quietness  of  a  divine  confidence 
and  certainty  of  result. 

"The  bruised  reed"  and  "smoking 
wick"  seem  to  refer  to  the  golden 
candlestick,  whose  branches  were 
called  reeds ;  and  so  regarded,  this 
verse  may  refer  to  the  Church,  which 
even  in  periods  of  spiritual  decline, 
He  does  not  forsake.  When  its 
branches  are  "bruised"  He  does  not 
utterly  break  them  off  ;  and  when  its 
lamp  burns  dim,  He  does  not  quench 
it,  but,  by  patient,  loving  discipline, 
heals  schisms,  repairs  breaches,  and 
breathes  new  life  into  the  expiring 
flame,  so  that  the  light  may  shine  clear 
and  far. 

The  fourth  verse,  open  to  a  similar 
construction,  may  be  translated,  "He 
shall  not  burn  dimly,  nor  be  bruised ;" 
and  this  makes  the  thought,  through- 
out, beautifully  consistent. 

Christ  finds  His  Church  with 
branches  bruised  and  lights  dim,  and, 
by  corrective  judgments,  makes  it  ca- 
pable of  a  powerful  testimony  to  the 
truth.  We  are  to  look  up  from  a 
fallible,  imperfect  body  of  disciples  to 
an  infallible  and  perfect  Head  and 
Lord,  who  can  not  be  bruised  and 
broken,  nor  can  His  light  ever  become 
dim  or  be  extinguished.  He  shall  cor- 
rect His  Church  by  chastening  judg- 
ments,  and  by  punitive  judgments, 


EDITORIALS 


299 


1908] 

destroy  the  wicked,  and  set  up  His 
throne  upon  the  earth :  and,  for  His 
law,  the  isles  shall  longingly  wait  and 
Ethiopia  shall  stretch  forth  imploring 
hands. 

God  has  called  Him  to  be  the  Justi- 
fier,  and  holds  His  hand  and  keeps 
Him;  He  has  entered  into  a  covenant 
with  Him,  which  is  as  sure  as  the 
word  and  oath  of  God  can  make  it. 
Christ  shall  be  the  light  of  the  Gen- 
tiles, tho  the  Church's  lamp  may,  at 
times,  seem  to  be  going  out  and  its 
testimony  almost  quenched.  He  shall 
open  blind  eyes,  release  imprisoned 
souls,  and  visit  those  in  the  shadow  of 
death. 

W  ithout  claiming  this  as  an  exact 
and  scholarly  exegesis,  careful  study 
of  the  Hebrew  will  satisfy  the  student 
that  the  drift  of  this  paragraph  is  not 
ordinarily  apprehended.  The  grand 
hope  of  missions  is  here  shown  to  be 
the  infallible  covenant  of  God,  not  the 
golden  candlesticks,  but  He  who 
"walketh  in  the  midst''  of  them — not 
the  efficiency  and  energy  of  human  or- 
ganization, but  the  power  and  grace 
of  the  living,  risen,  glorified  Christ. 

The  word,  "judgment,"  occurs  here 
in  three  conspicuous  connections ;  and 
always  calls  attention  to  Divine  energy 
of  action.  God  invites  the  coopera- 
tion of  His  people,  but  is  not  depend- 
ent upon  it.  He  can  work  in  His  own 
way — and  sometimes  by  mighty  judg- 
ments He  both  brings  an  unfaithful 
Church  to  see  her  duty,  and  a  rebel- 
lious world  to  bow  and  submit  to  His 
law.  The  whole  outline  of  the  work 
missions  is  suggested  in  this  passage 
in  Isaiah ;  as  also  of  missionary  his- 
tory and  the  Divine  philosophy  of 
missions. 

A  conspicuous  change  in  prophetic 
terminology  occurs  at  the  fifty-third 
chapter,  "The  servant  of  the  Lord" 
is  a  phrase  which  occurs  frequently, 
up  to  the  eleventh  verse,  referring  to 
the  Messiah,  who  represents  the  true 
Israel,  the  Holy  Seed  of  God,  the  in- 
destructible germ  which  assures  con- 
tinuity to  Israel's  life,  the  restorer  of 
moral  order. 

But,  tho  this  title  occurs  nineteen 


times  in  the  previous  chapters  (xli  to 
liii),  after  the  eleventh  verse  of  this 
chapter  it  disappears:  "My  righteous 
Servant  shall  justify  many"  Now  his 
work  as  servant  is  done ;  He  has  suf- 
fered the  just  for  the  unjust  to  bring 
us  to  God;  has  justified  many  and 
made  them  "servants  of  Cod:'  They 
now  take  up  the  work  He  has  laid 
down,  and  "fill  up  that  which  is  be- 
hind in  his  afflictions.''  And  so,  after 
this,  as  in  chapter  liv :  17,  we  find  the 
new  phrase,  "servants  of  the  Lord" — 
plural — which  occurs  ten  times  from 
chapter  liv:  17  to  lxvi :  14.  He  who 
is  "the  seed  of  Jehovah''  now  sees 
His  own  seed  and  it  is  numerous.  The 
"Servant  of  God,"  thus  multiplied  a 
thousandfold,  (Rom.  v:  15-19),  ceases 
to  suffer,  and  in  the  former  sense,  to 
serve ;  and  His  spiritual  offspring  take 
up  the  service  and  suffering  for  His 
sake.  They  go  into  all  the  world,  as 
witnesses  to  testify,  and,  as  martyrs, 
to  die,  for  Him  and  His  cause ;  until 
He  comes  again,  and  then  service  and 
suffering  are  merged  into  triumph 
and  glory,  and  the  new  heavens  and 
earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteous- 
ness, take  the  place  of  this  sin-cursed 
and  sorrow-stricken  world ;  and  chaos 
is  once  more  displaced  by  cosmos. 

STUDENT  VOLUNTEERS  IN  CHINA 

The  Student  Volunteer  Movement 
has  taken  root  in  China.  Revival 
services  were  held  in  Peking  two 
years  ago,  and  a  good  many  Uni- 
versity students  were  laid  hold  of. 
Sixty  of  them  united  in  a  pledge  to 
work  for  the  salvation  of  their  fellow 
countrymen  —  a  student  volunteer 
band.  Their  leader,  Mr.  Chen,  a  tutor 
in  the  Peking  University,  told  the 
story  of  this  company  of  volunteers 
and  the  work  they  have  done  and 
have  in  view  to  a  meeting  of  mission- 
aries at  Pei-ta-ho,  a  health  resort  on 
the  Gulf  of  Pechili. 

Last  summer  forty  of  them  spent 
their  summer  vacation  preaching  in 
the  country  mission  stations,  services 
much  appreciated  at  every  center  they 
visited.  This  year  forty-seven  have 
given  their  vacation  to  the  same  work. 


300 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OE  THE  WORLD 


[April 


Mr.  Chen  and  another  of  the  band 
are  at  present  visiting  the  Protestant 
Colleges  of  Shantung,  seeking  to  in- 
terest other  students  in  the  movement. 

PRACTISING  VIRTUE 

The  Chinese  "practise  virtue"  on 
the  8th  day  of  the  12th  moon,  laying 
up  merit  against  the  future.  Donors 
advertise  their  intention  of  thus  prac- 
tising virtue ;  if  the  day  ends  and  no 
one  applies,  the  supplies — consisting 
of  a  weak  soup  which  has  been  kept 
ready  to  serve  out  to  applicants  for 
twelve  hours — are  fed  to  the  pigs ! 

THE  MONUMENTS  TO  MISSIONS 

The  late  Henry  M.  Stanley  had  a 
garden,  at  his  home  in  Birbright,  laid 
out  to  represent  Africa.  A  narrow 
little  brook  represented  the  Kongo, 
branching  at  one  end  of  the  garden 
to  illustrate  the  Zambesi ;  a  small 
waterfall  to  remind  him  of  Victoria 
Falls,  and  a  little  lake  to  call  to  mind 
the  day  when  he  first  looked  cn  Vic- 
toria Nyanza  and  the  source  of  the 
Nile.  Probaby  the  idea  was  suggested 
by  the  park  at  Blenheim  where  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  planted  acres  of 
trees  to  represent  the  position  of  con- 
tending armies  in  his  main  engage- 
ments, so  that  every  spring  might 
hang  out  leafy  banners  and  blossoms 
of  triumph  to  commemorate  his  vic- 
tories. Many  a  retired  missionary  or 
explorer,  by  some  such  device,  might 
recall  the  scenes  of  his  earlier  labors 
or  travels. 

But  he  needs  no  such  memorials. 
His  Master  rears  to  him  monuments 
of  another  sort — souls  renewed,  a  new 
literature  created,  churches  formed, 
and  missions  planted,  and  schools  and 
medical  institutions — to  make  the  des- 
ert blossom  as  the  rose,  and  transform 
the  deathshade  into  a  valley  of  light 
and  bloom — to  displace  the  thorns  and 
thistles  by  the  planting  of  the  Lord 
and  trees  of  righteousness  that  He 
might  be  glorified — this,  tho  it  may 
not  appear  so  conspicuous  to  the  eyes 
of  men,  is  his  true  memorial,  and  will 
witness  to  the  humility  and  fidelity 


of  Christian  service,  when  the  pyra- 
mids crumble  to  dust,  and  the  monu- 
ments of  brass  and  marble  crumble. 
We  have  only  to  do  our  work  and 
leave  to  our  Master  our  reward. 

THE    PERSONAL    ELEMENT  IN 
MISSIONS 

A  careful  comparative  study  of  mis- 
sionary biography,  and  of  the  life-work 
of  those  who  have  been  the  feeders 
and  supporters  of  missions  at  home, 
reveals  nothing  more  clearly  than 
this,  that  the  degree  of  real  power 
wielded  for  Christ  depends,  not  on 
wealth,  rank,  culture  or  genius,  but 
on  the  measure  of  close  personal  fel- 
lowship with  God,  and  in  Him  zvith 
other  fellozu  workers,  and  fellow  help- 
ers to  the  truth.  Conspicuous  for- 
evermore  stand  out,  even  from  their 
fellow  missionaries,  such  as  Schwartz, 
Carey,  Judson,  Livingstone,  Duff, 
Bowen,  Hudson  Taylor,  Henry  Mar- 
tyn,  Fidelia  Fiske,  Dr.  Baedeker,  in 
the  foreign  field;  and  Chalmers, 
Fleming  Stevenson,  George  Muller, 
John  Wilkinson,  Pennefather,  Charles 
Hodge,  Lord  Radstock,  at  home ;  and, 
in  every  case,  this  prominence  is 
solely  due  to  this  element  of  personal 
relation  to  the  Lord. 

Accordingly  the  following  docu- 
ment has  a  wide  bearing.  Dr.  John 
R.  Davies,  of  Philadelphia,  who  gives 
it  to  the  press,  says: 

The  original  was  placed  in  my  care, 
shortly  before  his  death,  by  a  parish- 
ioner, David  Brainerd  Williamson,  a  son 
of  Rev.  Alexander  Williamson,  one  of 
the  signers,  who,  leaving  Princeton  Sem- 
inary in  1822,  went  as  a  missionary  to 
the  Indians  in  the  Southern  States,  ri- 
ding upon  horseback,  in  the  discharge  of 
such  duties,  more  than  four  thousand 
miles.  Afterward  he  was  the  devoted 
pastor  of  churches  in  Indiana,  dying  at 
Corydon,  in  that  State,  July  14,  1849. 
More  than  eighty-five  years  have  passed 
since  this  covenant  was  written,  the  men 
who  signed  it  having  long  since  entered 
into  rest,  but  its  message  is  of  perma- 
nent value.  The  depth  of  its  piety,  the 
sweetness  of  its  spirit,  the  Christlike 
character  of  its  purport  makes  this  doc- 
ument, yellow  with  age,  crumbling  into 
fragments,  a  word  in  season  in  times 
like  ours,  when  internal  and  manifold  in- 
terests tend  to  make  both  the  man  in 


EDITORIALS 


301 


the  pew  and  the  man  in  the  pulpit  self- 
centered  and  forgetful  of  the  brother- 
hood of  believers  with  whom  he  wor- 
ships and  works  in  the  Kingdom  of  God. 

Theological  Seminary, 
Princeton,  September  23,  1822. 

"Let  brotherly  love  continue,"  is  not 
only  the  divine  command,  but  it  is 
exactly  the  feeling  of  our  hearts.  Hav- 
ing been  providentially  brought  into 
the  same  class  in  this  seminary,  and 
having  enjoyed  a  long  and  very  pleas- 
ant friendly  intercourse,  we  feel  de- 
sirous to  perpetuate  the  attachment 
and  have  therefore  resolved  to  give 
and  accept  this  written  pledge  of  it. 

We  have  to  confess  to  God  and  to 
each  other  our  intercourse  as  students 
has  not  been  so  spiritual,  so  marked 
with  mutual  usefulness  as  from  our 
character  and  employments  it  should 
have  been ;  yet  as  we  do  each  one 
hope  to  be  pardoned  by  the  Savior,  so 
we  do  now  severally  ask  forgive- 
ness of  each  other  for  everything 
which  has  been  said  or  done  that  was 
offensive,  or  in  any  way  inconsistent 
with  that  tender  regard  for  each  oth- 
er's feelings  and  character  which  was 
mutually  due.  And  we  do  severally 
forgive  sincerely  and  from  the  heart 
every  offense  and  do  now  each  one 
over  the  faults  and  failings  of  his 
brother  spread  the  veil  of  Christian 
charity  and  affectionate  fraternal  for- 
getfulness. 

And  as  we  are  about  to  leave  this 
beloved  retreat  and  to  separate  finally 
it  is  probable  as  to  this  world,  we  do 
mutually  offer  and  accept  a  sincere 
affectionate  and  disinterested  Christian 
friendship  which  will  last,  we  fondly 
hope,  throughout  eternity.  We  pledge 
ourselves  to  love  one  another,  "to  be 
kind  to  one  another,  and  to  endeavor 
as  far  as  possible  to  promote  each 
other's  happiness  and  usefulness ;  and, 
also  that  we  will  be  faithful  in  coun- 
seling and  admonishing  one  another 
in  regard  to  everything  which  our 
duty  to  God  and  to  each  other  re- 
quires us  to  notice. 

And  now  may  the  blest  Jesus 
who  will  not  be  ashamed  (we  humbly 
hope)  to  call  us  brethren,  give  to  our 


covenant  I  lis  approbation  and  I  lis 
blessing,  and  when  the  separations  of 
time  are  over,  unite  us  again  as  a  band 
of  worshipers  in  heaven,  together 
with  our  dear  departed  brethren  who 
we  trust  have  gone  before  us  to  that 
place  where  we  hope  to  be  permitted 
to  see  his  face  and  celebrate  his  praises 
forever.  Amen. 

(Signed) — George  Potts,  Michael 
Osborn,  Charles  Clinton  Beatty, 
James  Douglass,  John  Hudson,  Hugh 
Wilson,  Holloway  W.  Hunt,  Thomas 
Kennedy,  Moses  P.  Harris,  Augustus 
L.  Chapin,  Alexander  Williamson, 
John  Breckenridge. 

THE  ADVANTAGE  OF  LATTER-DAY 
SAINTS 

Luther  compared  the  writers  of  the 
Old  Testament  and  the  New  to  the 
two  men  who  carried  upon  a  staff, 
between  them,  the  branch  with  the 
huge  cluster  of  Eschol  grapes.  They 
were  both  bearing  the  same  precious 
fruit ;  but  one  of  them  saw  it  not.  The 
other  saw  both  the  fruit  and  the  man 
who  was  his  fellow  carrier.  Hebrew 
believers  could  not  see  the  full  scope 
and  value  of  the  truth  they  were  bear- 
ing for  the  world,  but  Christian  believ- 
ers see  it  all,  and  how  it  was  given 
in  outline  and  shadow  to  those  of  the 
elder  economy.  Augustine  said  "The 
New  Testament  is  enfolded  in  the  Old, 
and  the  Old  is  unfolded  in  the  New." 
Both  are  indispensable  to  mutual  com- 
pleteness. 

Somewhat  so  is  it  as  to  workers  in 
missions.  Those  who  went  before  and 
only  foretold  the  triumphs  of  these 
latter  days,  bore  their  testimony  but 
saw  not  how  it  was  fulfilled  in  his- 
tory, perhaps  themselves  understood 
not  the  message  they  bore.  We  who 
are  permitted  to  engage  in  the  work, 
not  only  have  our  eye  on  the  old  Tes- 
tament prophecies  and  promises,  but 
are  permitted  to  behold  the  gathered 
fruits  of  missionary  labor — the  grow- 
ing fulfilment  of  the  long  deferred 
hope.  We  have  the  double  inspiration 
and  encouragement  of  the  Word  of 
God  and  the  Work  of  God. 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELLIGENCE 


INDIA 

How  Wonderfully  India  Has  Changed 

The  Hindus  and  Mohammedans  of 
Cumbum,  India,  united  with  the 
Christians  in  giving  a  welcome  to 
sixty  missionaries  of  the  American 
Baptist  Telugu  Mission,  who  met 
there  in  conference  December  27, 
1907,  to  January  2,  1908.  Along  the 
road,  for  four  long  miles  the  road 
was  spanned  with  gay  arches,  on 
which  "Welcome,  Welcome,  Wel- 
come!" was  inscribed  over  and  over 
again.  On  one  of  the  arches  was  to 
be  read:  "Hail,  Preachers  of  Truth!'' 

India  Missionaries  in  Conference 

There  are  104  missionaries  con- 
nected with  the  India  mission.  The 
year  just  closed  has  been  one  of 
steady  progress.  A  few  stations  re- 
port a  considerable  number  of  bap- 
tisms : 

Sooriapett,  387  ;  Nalgonda,  220 ;  On- 
gole,  215;  altogether  there  were  2,132 
adult  baptisms  within  the  mission,  of 
whom  about  one-half  came  from  the 
non-Christian  community.  The  num- 
ber of  caste  people  baptized  num- 
bered 44,  which  is  12  more  than  last 
year  and  nearly  three  times  as  many 
as  any  preceding  year. 

In  spite  of  the  hard  times  and  semi- 
famine,  much  progress  has  been  made, 
and  quite  a  number  of  the  142  or- 
ganized churches  are  wholly  or  almost 
self-supporting.  The  Indian  Christians 
alone  gave  last  year  nearly  $400  to 
the  Telugu  Home  Mission  Society, 
which  was  an  increase  of  $66  on  the 
year  before.  The  spiritual  tone  of  the 
churches  is  good,  and  while  there 
have  been  some  defections,  discipline 
is  well  exercised. 

The  continued  hard  times  have  a 
disastrous  effect  on  the  schools,  partic- 
ularly those  in  the  country  hamlets. 
The  college  at  Ongole  has  had  a  pros- 
perous year  with  over  300  students, 
of  whom  more  than  half  are  Chris- 
tians. The  mission  maintains  a  high 
school  at  Kurnool  and  two  at  Nellore, 


one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls.  The 
plans  and  estimates  for  the  Jewett 
Memorial  Church  at  Ongole  have 
been  sanctioned  and  it  will  be  built  at 
once  at  a  cost  of  about  $8,000. 

Torrid  Heat  in  India 

A  missionary  writes  feelingly  as  fol- 
lows concerning  what  he  and  thou- 
sands of  other  Europeans  are  com- 
pelled to  endure : 

How  the  sunshine  does  scorch  down  to- 
day !  A  welcome  breeze  from  the  west  had 
made  the  night  hours  unexpectedly  tolera- 
ble; and  after  sunrise,  the  breeze  became 
a  wind,  which,  while  one  was  in  it,  despite 
the  dust  it  raised,  was  like  Lazarus'  finger 
allowed  to  be  dipt  in  pitying  coolness  and 
waved  to  and  fro  over  poor,  condemned 
souls.  But  in  the  Bazaar  street,  or  along 
the  narrow,  evil-smelling  pathways  between 
the  village  huts,  where  the  walls  shut  off 
the  wind,  the  heat  sprang  up  and  choked 
one,  while  on  the  open  spaces  often  the 
wind  was  forgotten  because  of  the  sun  burn- 
ing down  from  above,  and  the  all-prevailing 
glare  beating  in  from  every  side.  Hard- 
baked  fields,  unseamed  yet  by  the  plow  for 
the  most  part,  all  bare  and  bleached— and 
this  should  be  the  time  of  sown  seed  up- 
rising in  fertile  greenness,  struggling  with 
the  wilful  weeds  as  to  which  shall  own  the 
soft,  wet  earth. 

A  Refuge  from  the  Torrid  Heat 

Kodaikanal  has  become,  in  a  pecu- 
liar sense,  the  missionary  center  of  In- 
dia. It  is  a  beautiful  mountain  re- 
treat in  South  India,  between  7,000 
and  8,000  feet  above  the  sea,  and  pos- 
sest  of  a  unique  climatic  charm.  Dur- 
ing the  last  two  months  no  fewer  than 
309  missionary  adults  came  to  this 
place  for  rest  and  recuperation.  They 
represent  25  missionary  societies  work- 
ing in  at  least  4  provinces  of  India, 
and  are  members  of  8  different  nation- 
alities. It  is  wonderful  how  much  of 
a  unifying  power  this  sanitarium  pos- 
sesses as  it  warms  up  in  fellowship 
and  amity  these  many  polyglot  Chris- 
tian workers  of  India.  And  it  is  not 
too  much  to  claim  that,  during  the  last 
twenty  years,  many  of  the  movements 
which  have  made  for  organized  union 
and  fellowship  in  this  great  land  had 
first  their  origin  in  suggestion,  discus- 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELLIGENCE 


303 


sion,  or  organization  at  this  mountain 
retreat  in  the  heart  of  the  Madura 
Mission.  1  know  of  nothing  which  is 
better  for  the  missionary  force  in  In 
dia  than  to  be  thus  able  to  meet  at  this 
and  other  centers  for  prayer  and  for 
conference  concerning  the  problems 
which  confront  them  and  to  cultivate 
the  spirit  of  love  which  is  necessary 
wisely  to  solve  them. 

PR.  J.  P.  JONES. 

A  Hideous  By-product  of  Hinduism 

Rev.  J.  P.  Jones  writes  in  the  Ad- 
vance as  follows:  "There  are  at  least 
5,000,000  religious  mendicants  who  are 
entirely  non-productive  and  live  upon 
the  people  of  the  land.  A  few  of  them, 
doubtless,  are  sincere  and  are  seeking 
after  communion  with  God.  But  the 
vast  majority  of  them  are  lazy  and 
rotten  to  the  core.  Their  life  is  known 
to  be  utterly  worthless,  and  they  are 
morally  pestiferous  in  their  influence 
upon  the  whole  community.  It  is 
known  that  they  have  entered  this  pro- 
fession because  they  are  too  indolent 
to  support  themselves  by  honest  work. 
And  yet  the  people  accept  them  as  rep- 
resenting the  highest  type  of  piety  in 
the  land.  Even  the  poorest  among 
them  would  give  their  last  morsel  to 
these  worthless  men.  And  even  when 
such  offerings  are  not  voluntary  there 
are  very  few  in  the  community  who 
would  dare  to  refuse  an  offering  to 
these  religious  mendicants,  because 
they  are  so  ready  to  invoke  the  most 
dreadful  imprecations  upon  those  who 
decline  to  give  anything  to  them. 
And  there  are  few  things  that  an  or- 
thodox Hindu  dreads  more  than  the 
curse  of  a  religious  ascetic. 

Europeans  as  Hinderers  of  the  Gospel 

In  The  East  and  The  JJ'cst  the 
Bishop  of  Southampton,  formerly 
Bishop  of  Bombay,  writes  as  follows : 

European  society,  viewed  as  a 
whole,  is  materialistic  and  unspiritual. 
The  life  is  not  religious.  This  is  in- 
comparably the  saddest  feature  in  the 
life  of  our  people  in  India.  Large 
numbers  of  them  forget  their  religion, 


and  neglect  any  systematic  attention 
t<>  its  duties.  There  is,  no  doubt,  a 
small  minority  who  are  consistent  and 
exemplary  in  their  attendance  at 
church  services  and  their  observance 
of  Sunday  as  a  sacred  day.  But  that 
is  not  the  case  with  the  majority.  I 
think  of  a  Sunday  at  Poona !  The 
station  is  full  of  soldiers  and  civilians, 
and  the  upper-class  Europeans  during 
the  rains.  There  is  only  a  moderate 
attendance  at  church  at  the  eight 
o'clock  service,  and  the  official  ele- 
ment is  feebly  represented. 

Medical  Missionaries  in  India. 

The  January  issue  of  Medical  Mis- 
sions in  India  gives  the  name,  medical 
qualification,  society  and  address  of  313 
medical  missionaries  in  India,  this  large 
total  representing  an  increase  over 
the  previous  year  of  12.  A  separate 
list  of  nurses  contains  124  names,  an 
increase  of  26.  Accompanying  this 
issue  of  the  journal  is  a  carefully  ar- 
ranged monthly  prayer  cycle  of  medi- 
cal missionaries  and  nurses,  which 
must  form  a  very  sacred  link  between 
workers  widely  separated  by  distance, 
and  divided  in  a  sense  by  creed,  but 
all  following  in  the  footsteps  of  One 
who  went  about  doing  good  and  heal- 
ing. 

Is  There  Hope  for  India? 

Have  we  yet  really  grasped  the  su- 
preme problem  of  India?  Rev.  A. 
C.  Clayton,  a  missionary  in  the  Mad- 
ras district,  writing  in  regard  to  the 
recent  census,  has  some  words  which 
may  be  helpful  in  making  clear  the 
difficulties  which  face,  and  which  in 
God's  mercy  are  being  overcome  by, 
the  presentation  of  the  Gospel  of 
Christ.    He  says : 

Hindus,  Mohammedans,  Buddhists, 
demon  worshipers,  and  the  like,  make 
a  boast  of  291,000,000,  while  in  all  In- 
dia and  Burma  there  are  scarcely  2,500,- 
000  native  Christians,  most  of  them  very- 
humble  folk  gathered  from  the  outcast 
classes.  .  .  .  But  when  it  is  remem- 
bered that  thirty  years  ago  the  2,500.000 
were  only  1,250,000,  there  is  cause  for 
confidence. 


304 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


Isabella  Thoburn  College 

This  well-known  Christian  institu- 
tion in  Lucknow  has  had  phenomenal 
results  during-  the  past  year  in  the 
government  university  examinations. 
In  the  B.  A.  examinations  the  num- 
ber of  candidates  sent  up  from  the 
provinces  was  375,  and  in  results  Miss 
Lucy  Bolton  of  this  college  heads  the 
list.  In  the  first  arts  examination  a 
total  of  641  candidates  went  up,  and 
Dorothy  Bolton  of  this  college  heads 
the  list.  In  the  entrance  examination- 
a  total  of  1,367  candidates  went  up, 
and  among  this  number  12  scholar- 
ships #were  to  be  distributed  in  order 
of  merit.  Two  were  given  girls  of 
this  college.  Of  the  sixteen  scholar- 
ships in  the  middle  school  examina- 
tion of  27  girls,  5  came  to  the  stu- 
dents of  this  college.  The  director  of 
public  instruction  says  that  the  Isa- 
bella Thoburn  College  continues  to 
excel  in  examinations. — Christian  Ad- 
vocate. 

A  Bishop's  Visit  to  a  Zenana 

''The  Mohammedan  branch  of  the 
Zenana  Mission  has  been  working  in 
Calcutta  for  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
but  little  is  known  about  it,  because 
its  work  is  'purdah.'  Lately  the  Bishop 
of  Calcutta  desired  to  see  some  of  its 
activities,  and  the  most  elaborate  pre- 
cautions had  to  be  taken  before  his 
episcopal  zeal  could  be  gratified.  The 
houses  he  visited  are  a  secret.  Why? 
Because  some  of  the  girls  in  them  are 
unmarried,  and  ignorant  persons 
might  perhaps  imagine  that  the  eyes 
of  the  Bishop  rested  on  the  pupils  of 
the  missionaries.  All  that  the  Bishop 
really  saw  were  verandas,  and  chairs 
and  tables.  The  doors  were  closed, 
the  half-open  Venetians  were  covered 
by  heavy  curtains,  and  inside  the 
houses  the  pupils  of  the  missionaries 
read  the  Bible  for  the  edification  of 
the  Bishop,  who  placed  his  fatherly 
ear  to  the  purdah.  Afterward  a  mis- 
sionary offered,  on  behalf  of  the  ladies 
of  the  house,  iced  lemonade  and 
cigars,  also  neck  ornaments  for  the 
Bishop's  Mem  sahib.  The  needlework 
done  by  the  pupils  was  shown  to  the 


Bishop,  together  with  their  copy- 
books, drawing  and  arithmetic.  Then 
the  Bishop  and  his  chaplain  departed, 
and  the  pupils  came  on  to  the  ve- 
randa and  asked  if  the  Bishop  had 
enjoyed  the  tarnasha,  and  an  old,  old 
woman  confest  that  she  had  lifted 
a  little  bit  of  the  curtain  and  'had  seen 
the  Bishop !'  " 

CHINA 

Radical  Resolutions  on  Reform 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  fact  in 
the  last  year's  record  is  the  serious 
attempt  which  is  being  made  to  abol- 
ish, as  far  as  possible,  the  distinction 
between  Manchus  and  Chinese;  that 
is,  the  difference  in  dress,  in  social 
status  and  official  standing  between 
the  ruling  caste  and  the  subject  Chi- 
nese. Some  time  since,  the  Empress 
Dowager  issued  a  decree  allowing  the 
intermarriage  of  Chinese  and  Man- 
chus, hoping  thereby  to  consolidate 
the  two  races.  Later,  at  a  meeting 
held  in  Peking  of  members  of  the 
grand  council  and  presidents  of  the 
ministries  of  state,  ten  resolutions 
were  adopted  to  be  submitted  to  the 
throne,  of  which  the  following  were 
the  most  important: 

1. — Abolition  of  useless  Manchu  garri- 
sons throughout  China  proper. 

2-  — Appointment  of  both  Manchu  and 
Chinese  to  all  posts  throughout  the  Em- 
pire, without  favor. 

3-  — Alteration  of  dress  by  Manchu 
women  and  girls,  as  far  as  possible. 

4-  — To  allow  Manchus  to  become  mer- 
chants and  do  business  in  the  same  way 
as  Chinese,  so  that  they  may  support 
themselves  and  their  families  without 
depending  upon  their  military  pay,  which 
will  be  gradually  abolished  during  the 
next  ten  years. 

5.  — To  encourage  intermarriage  be- 
tween Manchu  and  Chinese  officials. 

6.  — To  enlist  both  Manchus  and  Chi- 
nese for  military  service  hereafter,  with- 
out distinction. 

7.  — To  inflict  severe  penalties  upon 
Manchu  or  Chinese  authorities  who  at- 
tempt to  create  barriers  between  the 
two  races. 

A  Year's  Progress  in  China 

In  reviewing  the  imperial  edicts  pro- 
claimed in  1907,  the  Chinese  Recorder 
for  January  suggests  as  follows :  One 
is  tempted  to  say,  with  a  sigh  of  hope 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELLIGENCE 


305 


deferred:  "It  is  the  same  old  story — 
much  of  promise  on  paper."  But  this 
is  not  the  whole  story.  Anti-opium 
reform  bulks  large  in  fact;  a  consid- 
erable advance  has  been  made  in  put- 
ting constitutional  reforms  into  prac- 
tise (tho  perhaps  not  much  more  than 
reorganization  can  be  claimed  as  yet ; 
and  that  not  very  extensive  in  point  of 
territory)  ;  sincere  efforts  to  adjust 
the  political  relations  of  the  mission- 
ary propaganda  have  been  made,  if 
only  from  an  instinct  of  self-protec- 
tion ;  and  the  enlightened  policy  of 
sending  young  men  to  study  in  Eu- 
rope and  America,  as  announced  in 
edicts  of  recent  years,  is  proceeding 
more  intelligently  and  with  more  care 
and  zeal  than  ever,  since  the  return  of 
the  five  ambassadors.  According  to 
Dr.  [Morrison,  correspondent  of  the 
London  Times,  there  are  now  420 
Chinese  students  in  schools  and  col- 
leges in  America  alone. 

Substantial  Christian  Progress 

Rev.  E.  J.  Lee  writes  in  the  Spirit 
of  Missions:  The  growth  of  the 
Church  in  China  is  very  much  like 
that  of  the  banyan  tree,  whose  branch- 
es drop  roots  and  so  become  themselves 
centers  of  support  and  nourishment, 
from  which  the  tree  continues  to  grow 
and  spread.  Our  work  in  Anking 
branched  out  to  Taihu  and  took  root 
there.  Taihu,  in  her  turn,  has  sent 
out  several  branches,  which  are  tak- 
ing root,  and  one  of  these  is  Hsiu- 
tsang.  We  have  here  a  constituency 
of  about  80,  only  two  of  whom,  how- 
ever, have  been  baptized,  the  others 
being  most  of  them  in  the  beginner's 
stage.  The  Christians  have  recently 
bought  a  house  for  the  mission  and 
are  fitting  it  up  gradually  as  they  are 
able. 

Three  Thousand  Miao  Converted 

Mrs.  S.  Pollard,  of  China,  in  a  re- 
cent meeting,  said :  I  suppose  you 
have  all  heard  of  the  wonderful  re- 
vival among  the  strange  Miao  aborig- 
ines of  the  province  of  Yunnan.  We 
didn't  go  to  the  Miao  people.  They 
came  to  us.   We  did  not  like  the  looks 


of  them  at  first.  They  were  not  too 
clean.  We  were  inclined  to  be  suspi- 
cious of  them.  \Ye  did  not  under- 
stand them,  and  they  did  not  under- 
stand us.  We  thought  that  they 
might  have  some  ulterior  motive.  But 
it  is  four  or  five  years  since  they 
came  to  us,  and  we  have  not  found 
any  ulterior  motive  yet.  They  came 
to  us  in  swarms,  and  filled  our  kitch- 
ens and  bedrooms,  and  every  room 
in  the  house.  They  brought  their 
own  food,  and  slept  on  the  floors. 
We  had  Miao  everywhere.  When 
their  food  was  exhausted  they  went 
away  for  more,  but  while  they  were 
away  others  were  coming.  We  did 
not  know  a  word  of  their  language. 
There  was  no  use  to  give  them  Chi- 
nese books.  It  would  be  like  giving 
French  books  to  English  children. 
But  we  set  our  wits  to  work,  and  re- 
duced their  language  to  writing.  Then 
we  got  blackboards,  and  taught  them 
their  A.  B.  C.  They  were  so  deeply 
interested  that  they  kept  us  up  until 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  teaching 
them.  At  last  we  decided  to  go  to 
them.  We  did  so  and  they  have  ac- 
cepted Christ  by  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands. You  should  see  them  making 
bricks  and  building  chapels  and 
schoolhouses  and  studying  their  les- 
sons, and  pointing  others  to  Christ. 
They  are  beginning  to  teach  other 
tribes.  About  3,000  of  them  have  pro- 
fest  conversion,  and  ten  of  them  are 
training  as  Christian  workers.  They 
have  erected  five  chapels.  All  this  in 
the  last  four  years. — Christian  Herald. 

The  Blind  Boy  Who  Saw  Jesus 

Dr.  Griffith  John  writes :  "We  had 
in  our  church  at  Hankow  a  blind  boy 
who  wras  generally  called  Blind 
Hwang.  When  about  sixteen  years 
old,  his  father  came  to  one  of  our 
chapels  and  heard  the  Gospel  for  the 
first  time.  He  wa^  touched,  came 
again ;  and  at  length  confest  faith 
in  Jesus,  cast  away  his  idols,  and 
joined  the  church.  Later  he  brought 
this  son  as  a  candidate  for  member- 
ship. I  asked  him  if  he  loved  Jesus, 
and  he  said,  "I  do."  "But,  vou  are 


3o6 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


blind  and  have  never  seen  Him." 
"True,  but  I  see  Him  with  my  mind's 
eye."  1  asked  him  to  pray  with  me, 
and  he  offered  a  beautiful  prayer. 

He  entered  the  blind  school  of  the 
Wesleyan  mission  and  learned  to  read 
and  write.  He  also  learned  basket- 
making.  Later  still  he  went  to  Pe- 
king where  he  learned  music,  and 
finally  returned  to  Hankow  to  engage 
in  Christian  work.  So  wonderful  is 
his  memory  that  he  has  memorized  the 
entire  New  Testament  and  the  hymn 
book. 

KOREA 

What  It  Costs  to  Be  a  Christian 

Mrs.  A.  M.  Nisbet,  of  the  Presby- 
terian Mission,  writes  from  Chunju: 

The  Koreans  are  a  bright,  intel- 
ligent people,  and  possess  a  good  deal 
of  steadfastness  of  purpose.  I  used 
to  think,  before  I  came  to  the  mission 
field,  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
danger  of  the  natives  professing  to 
accept  Christ  because  of  ''the  loaves 
and  fishes."  But  I  find  it  very  dif- 
ferent. It  costs  something  to  be  a 
Christian  here.  You  know  at  home 
the  line  between  the  Church  and  the 
world  is  such  a  narrow  little  path  that 
it  is  hard  for  us  always  to  tell  on 
which  side  some  of  our  friends  are 
walking;  it  is  not  so  here.  Take  the 
one  thing  of  Sabbath  observance. 
Every  five  days  there  is  a  big  market 
at  Chunju,  to  which  the  farmer,  mer- 
chant, mechanic — every  one  comes 
and  brings  what  he  has  to  sell.  A 
man  makes  more  on  market  day  than 
on  the  other  four  doubled,  generally. 
Of  course,  every  few  weeks  market 
day  rolls  around  on  Sunday.  Now  a 
Korean  Christian  not  only  has  to  give 
up  one-seventh  of  his  income  (by 
keeping  one  day  sacred  from  barter 
and  trade),  and  so  suffer  the  jeers 
and  sneers  of  his  neighbors,  but  some- 
times that  day  is  market  day,  which 
means  a  big  pecuniary  loss.  Yet  last 
Sabbath  market  day  Mr.  Nesbit 
counted  the  heads  of  more  than  1,000 
men  and  boys  in  our  Sabbath-school. 
It  meant  something  for  them  to  be 
there. 


Koreans  as  Givers 

In  some  of  the  Korean  churches  it 
is  customary  to  make  offerings  of 
time  as  well  as  of  money,  each  mem- 
ber stating  how  many  days  during 
the  year  he  will  devote  to  evangelis- 
tic work.  A  Bible-class  in  Seoul, 
numbering  450,  pledged  themselves  to 
give  2,200  days  this  year.  In  Pyeng 
Yang,  men  and  women  who  had 
passed  through  the  fire  of  experience 
and  were  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost, 
resolved  to  visit  every  house  in  the 
city.  They  not  merely  invited  peo- 
ple to  attend  the  meetings,  but  in  the 
power  of  God,  told  of  the  Savior's 
love  for  the  lost  sinner.  Many  hun- 
dreds prof  est  faith  in  Christ,  and  the 
ingathering  in  the  various  churches 
continues.  A  missionary  society  has 
been  formed,  and  five  men  have 
already  been  appointed  native  mission- 
ary evangelists.  The  spirit  of  sacri- 
fice and  self-denial  is  manifest  every- 
where. Men  and  women  traveled  on 
foot,  over  rough  roads  through  moun- 
tainous country,  distances  of  120 
miles,  to  study  the  Bible  for  two 
weeks  so  as  to  have  the  truths  made 
clearer.  How  these  Koreans  do  love 
to  study  the  Bible !  They  put  to 
shame  many  in  our  home  churches. 
One  woman  sold  some  of  her  hair 
that  she  might  come  to  Pyeng  Yang 
to  study  in  the  Bible  Institute.  Par- 
ents deny  themselves  that  their  chil- 
dren may  go  to  school,  and  they  find 
great  joy  in  their  sacrifice. 

JAPAN 
Chinese  Students  in  Japan 

In  the  Student  World  Mr.  John  R. 
Mott  gives  some  very  striking  facts 
regarding  the  number  and  condition 
of  Chinese  students  in  Japan.  During 
his  visit  to  the  Imperial  University, 
in  Tokyo,  six  years  ago,  he  found  not 
to  exceed  twenty.  Two  years  later 
the  number  had  increased  to  500,  and 
the  next  year  to  2,000,  and  in  the 
spring  of  1907,  according  to  the  esti- 
mate of  the  Chinese  ambassador, 
there  were  not  less  than  15,000  Chi- 
nese in  the  educational  institutions  in 
Japan.    Owing  to  the  action  of  the 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELLIGENCE 


307 


1908] 

Chinese  government  by  which  politi- 
cal agitators  and  those  who  had  iden- 
tified themselves  with  the  revolution- 
ary propaganda  were  eliminated  and 
the  attitude  of  the  Japanese  educators 
in  discouraging  the  coming  of  short- 
term  students,  the  number  has  de- 
creased until  there  are  about  10,000. 
From  Szechwan  province,  which 
stands  before  the  gates  of  Tibet,  600 
students  have  gone  to  Tokyo,  and 
from  Hunan,  the  last  province  to  ad- 
mit missionaries  to  residence,  1,250, 
the  largest  number  from  any  one 
province.  Air.  Mott  says :  "In  the 
history  of  the  world  there  has  been 
no  such  extensive  migration  of  stu- 
dents from  one  land  to  another  in  so 
short  a  period.  Here  we  find  several 
thousand  young  men,  who  have  come 
out  from  the  proudest  nation,  the 
most  conservative  nation,  the  most  se- 
cluded nation,  aptly  called  the  AValled 
Kingdom,  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  their 
conqueror  in  order  to  learn  the  secret 
of  her  progress  and  power." 

Japanese  Independence 

Says  an  exchange :  How  steadily 
and  efficiently  do  those  Japanese  Con- 
gregationalists  run  their  own  affairs ! 
The  recent  report  of  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  Kumi-ai  churches  at  Osaka 
sounds  much  like  that  of  any  assem- 
blage of  our  churches  in  this  country. 
They  disenst  the  pensioning  of  retired 
ministers,  the  raising  of  a  church 
building  loan  fund,  modifications  of 
traditional  Congregationalism  —  note 
that  word  traditional ;  they  ordained 
two  ministers  and  pledged  1,150  yen 
($575)  for  continuing  evangelistic 
missions  in  various  cities,  and  actually 
talked  about  engaging  in  real  foreign 
missionary  work,  by  which  they 
meant  efforts  in  behalf  of  other  races 
in  other  lands.  Already  they  have 
established  at  Seoul,  Korea,  a  Ku- 
mi-ai church,  and  are  beginning  work 
at  Pyeng  Yang.  But  when  it  comes  to 
comparisons,  they  outstrip  us  in  their 
spiritual  harvests,  for  these  ninety- 
four  Kami-ai  churches  baptized  over 
2,000  persons  during  1907.  More 
than  half  of  their  churches  are  now 


self-supporting,  and  they  raised  for 
home  expenses  and  missionary  work 
over  [8,000  yen  ($9,000).  Even  the 
laymen  are  organizing  an  auxiliary, 
and  the  women,  too,  are  holding  an 
annual  meeting  of  their  missionary 
societies.  Yet  these  Japanese  breth- 
ren have  not  outgrown  their  affection 
for  the  American  Board,  and  a  vote 
of  thanks  was  passed  for  what  it  has 
done  thus  far  for  Japan. 

NORTH  AMERICA 
World-Work  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 

According  to  John  R.  Mott,  recently 
returned  from  a  tour  around  the 
world:  Tho  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  has  been 
at  work  for  only  about  half  a  genera- 
tion, there  are  now  stationed  at  pivotal 
positions  over  70  foreign  secretaries, 
representing  8  nations  and  over  20 
Christian  bodies.  They  are  a  picked 
body  of  men,  and  they  have  raised  up 
nearly  as  many  native  secretaries.  The 
latter  are  the  hope  of  the  movement, 
for  it  is  the  policy  of  the  Association 
to  develop  the  native  branch  of  the 
work  rather  than  the  foreign.  The 
proportion  of  young  men  in  these 
Eastern  countries  who  are  becoming- 
Christians  has  been  steadily  increas- 
ing, and  this  is  particularly  marked 
among  the  educated  classes.  Among 
those  who  have  been  reached  are  Gov- 
ernment officials  and  students,  as  well 
as  men  with  money  power ;  and  the 
observant  traveler  will  find  there  the 
beginning  of  a  Student  Volunteer 
Movement  in  these  countries. 

Missions  and  Pennsylvania  Students 

A  very  interesting  consequence  of 
the  Men's  Missionary  Convention  in 
Philadelphia,  was  a  mass-meeting  of 
the  students  of  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  on  Wednesday  evening, 
which  was  addrest  by  Robt.  E.  Speer, 
J.  Campbell  White,  and  W.  B.  Smith, 
at  which  nearly  one  hundred  men  vol- 
unteered to  join  classes  for  the  study 
of  missionary  topics.  Several  years 
ago  Joseph  McCracken,  the  famous 
full-back  of  the  University  team  or- 
ganized the  "University  Mission  in 
Canton,  China,"  which  has  since  been 


3o8 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


supported  by  the  alumni  and  students 
of  the  University,  and  for  which  a 
number  of  the  best  men  the  University 
has  turned  out  have  volunteered,  and 
are  now  in  active  service  in  China. 

Secretary  Taft  and  Foreign  Missions 

The  Laymen's  Missionary  Move- 
ment has  arranged  for  a  Men's  Meet- 
ing in  Carnegie  Hall,  New  York,  on 
April  20th,  at  8  P.  M.,  when  Secre- 
tary Taft,  Silas  McBee,  Editor  of 
The  Churchman,  John  R.  Mott  and 
J.  Campbell  White  will  speak.  There 
will  also  be  presented  a  preliminary 
report  of  the  Laymen's  Commission 
which  has  been  making  a  personal  in- 
vestigation of  foreign  mission  fields, 
this  year.  Over  sixty  prominent  lay- 
men of  all  denominations  are  mem- 
bers of  this  Commission.  Secretary 
Taft  has  seen  much  of  mission  work 
in  the  Philippines,  and  in  other  parts 
of  the  Orient ;  he  will  speak  of  his 
observations  of  the  work,  and  of  the 
interest  of  the  nation  in  the  missions 
of  the  Church.  Admission  will  be  by 
ticket  only.  A  limited  number  of  tick- 
ets will  be  allotted  to  each  denomina- 
tion. Men  wishing  to  attend  from  a 
distance  should  apply  for  tickets,  with 
stamped  envelope  for  reply,  to  Lay- 
men's Missionary  Movement,  i  Madi- 
son Avenue,  New  York. 

The  meeting  in  Carnegie  Hall  will 
be  in  the  nature  of  an  international 
meeting  of  the  Movement.  Men  will 
be  present  from  all  parts  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  Canada. 

Cooperative  Missionary  Service 

Missionary  service  is  the  especial 
bond  of  unity  with  which  the  Presby- 
terian Federation  has  sealed  its  organi- 
zation. This  "Council  of  the  Reformed 
Churches  in  America  holding  the 
Presbyterian  System,"  held  its  first  ses- 
sion in  the  Marble  Collegiate  Church, 
New  York,  some  weeks  since.  It 
is  composed  of  the  American  Presby- 
terian Church,  the  Southern  Presby- 
terian Church,  the  Reformed  Church 
in  America,  and  the  United  Presby- 
terian Church — four  of  the  seven  de- 
nominations that  were  signatories  to 


the  earlier  "Charlotte  articles  of  agree- 
ment." The  delegates  of  the  new  body 
decided  that  they  must  define  a  sphere 
for  useful  work  if  they  were  to  vindi- 
cate the  existence  of  their  organiza- 
tion. As  given  in  The  Interior  (Chi- 
cago), missionary  service  was  the  ac- 
tivity chosen. 

"Two  committees  were  appointed — 
one  on  cooperation  in  foreign  mis- 
sions, the  other  on  cooperation  in 
home  missions.  These  committees 
brought  in  strong  reports.  In  foreign 
missions  joint  action  was  proposed  in 
the  maintenance  of  colleges,  theologi- 
cal schools,  and  hospitals,  in  the  prep- 
aration and  circulation  of  Christian 
literature  in  native  languages,  in  pub- 
lic protest  against  the  immoral  in- 
fluence of  many  commercial  represen- 
tatives in  non-Christian  lands,  and 
especially  in  the  now  almost  wholly 
neglected  ministry  of  the  English- 
speaking  populace  of  the  port  cities  of 
missionary  countries.  In  home  missions, 
conferences  among  the  denominational 
boards  on  similar  features  of  their 
work  were  recommended.  Joint  pub- 
lication of  literature — especially  Sun- 
day-school periodicals — was  recom- 
mended as  practicable  economy.  Warn- 
ing was  voiced  against  the  danger  of 
multiplying  duplicate  agencies  in  Sun- 
day-school missionary  work.  The  sub- 
ject of  young  people's  nurture  was 
marked  as  an  important  theme  of  con- 
ference and  combined  advance.  But 
the  most  emphatic  and  important  prin- 
ciple which  the  Federation  adopted 
under  this  head  was  its  record  of  the 
conviction  that  the  'principle  of  co- 
operation should  be  applied  as  far  as 
possible  to  work  among  the  colored 
people  of  our  country.'  A  permanent 
committee  on  work  for  colored  peo- 
ple was  named  besides  the  one  on  gen- 
eral home  missions." 

The  Forward  Movement 

During  the  past  few  months,  Rev. 
Charles  H.  Pratt  has  enlisted  68 
churches  in  the  Forward  Movement  in 
the  southeastern  portion  of  the  Assem- 
bly. Most  of  these  are  small  churches. 
They  gave  to  foreign  missions  last 


icjo8J 


GFNERAL  MISSIONARY  I  NT ELL1  GENCE 


year  $3,339.  They  have  recently  sub- 
scribed on  the  Forward  Movement 
plan  $15,450.  Mr.  Pratt  is  now  visit- 
ing the  churches  in  the  Presbytery  of 
Florida.  Rev.  F.  A.  Brown  has  re- 
cently visited  the  churches  of  the 
Presbytery  of  Palmyra  in  the  interest 
of  the  Movement.  Thirty-eight  serv- 
ices were  held  and  13  churches  en- 
listed in  the  Movement  in  25  days.  Mr. 
Brown's  next  itinerary  is  in  the  Pres- 
bytery of  St.  Louis. — Christian  Ob- 
server. 

Church  Growth 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  from  the 
Presbyterian  records,  the  fact  that 
about  fifty  churches  report  over  1,000 
members  each,  and  eight,  over  2,000 
each,  Bethany  Church  of  Philadelphia 
leading  with  about  4,000.  More  signif- 
icant is  the  fact  that  eighteen  have  re- 
ceived on  confession  100  or  more  each, 
and  in  this  list,  the  first  church  of 
Seattle  leads  with  613,  and  Bethany 
follows  with  294,  and  Kankaka  with 
269.  •  Such  phenomenal  growth  is 
worth  studying.  Especially  do  we 
commend  the  Seattle  and  Bethany 
churches  as  pursuing  methods  worthy 
of  consideration  and  emulation.  Pros- 
perity in  these  cases  is  no  accident,  nor 
is  it  the  result  of  sensational  methods. 
There  is  a  way  of  sowing  that  invites 
abundant  reaping.  Why  not  have  a 
congress  of  churches  to  study  success- 
ful methods  of  soul-winning? 

Large  Gifts  to  a  Splendid  School 

More  than  $100,000  was  subscribed 
in  a  few  hours  last  week  by  prominent 
women  of  New  York  City  at  the  home 
of  Miss  Helen  Gould  for  the  Ameri- 
can College  for  Girls  at  Constantino- 
ple, which  was  destroyed  by  fire  two 
years  ago.  Miss  Gould  visited  the 
school .  last  year.  She  influenced  Dr. 
Mary  Mills  Patrick,  president  of  the 
college,  to  come  to  America  to  rep- 
resent its  needs,  and  it  was  at  a  lec- 
ture given  by  Dr.  Patrick  that  the 
money  was  raised.  Miss  Gould  con- 
tributed $10,000,  Mrs.  Russell  Sage 
$10,000,  Miss  Grace  Dodge  $10,000, 
John  H.  Converse,  of  Philadeplhia, 


$10,000,  while  a  society  woman  of 
Boston  pledged  $50,000  with  the  un- 
derstanding that  her  name  was  not  to 
be  mentioned. 

Fifteen  nationalities  are  enrolled  in 
the  institution,  and  it  is  the  only 
college  for  women  in  the  Western 
Levant.  The  college  language  is  Eng- 
lish, but  French,  German,  Latin,  An- 
cient and  Modern  Greek,  Armenian, 
Bulgarian,  Slavic,  Turkish,  Persian 
and  Arabic  are  taught  by  26  profess- 
ors of  the  best  ability  and  of  different 
nationalities.  The  largest  number  of 
students  has  been  197,  and  the  stand- 
ard of  scholarship  has  been  constantly 
raised,  so  that  the  diploma  of  the  col- 
lege is  accepted  in  at  least  two  Euro- 
pean universities. 

A  Model  Missionary  Sunday 

For  at  least  eighteen  years  the  sec- 
ond Sunday  after  the  Epiphany  has 
been  observed  by  the  congregation 
and  Sunday-school  of  the  Church  of 
the  Holy  Apostles,  Philadelphia,  as 
"Missionary  Sunday."  All  the  offer- 
ings on  that  day  are  sent  to  the  Board 
of  Missions  without  designation.  The 
first  service  of  the  day  is  a  celebration 
of  Holy  Communion,  especially  for 
the  officers  and  teachers  and  scholars 
of  the  church  and  chapel  Sunday- 
schools.  In  addition  to  the  usual 
morning  and  evening  services  there 
is  a  special  service  in  the  afternoon 
for  the  younger  people,  following  the 
form  suggested  in  the  leaflet  issued 
by  the  Board.  These  figures  show  an 
interesting  growth  in  the  amount  of 
the  offering  of  the  congregation : 


1890,  $2.50 

1891,  339 

1892,  492 

1893,  730 

1894,  727 

1895,  755 


1896  $992 

1897,  1,027 

1898,  1,099 

1899,  1,058 

1900,  1,146 

1901,  1,296 


1902, 

1903, 
1904, 
1905, 
1906, 
1907, 


£1,785 
4,392 
4,213 
4,599 
6,183 
6,139 


In  making  preparation  for  the  offer- 
ing, emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  fact 
that  every  baptized  person  is  a  mem- 
ber of  the  missionary  society,  so  that 
the  responsibility  and  privilege  of 
sharing  in  the  enterprise  becomes  a 
personal  one. — Spirit  of  Missions, 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OE  THE  WORLD 


[April 


A  Protest  Against  the  Laymen's  Movement 

To  those  acquainted  with  the  gen- 
eral feeling'  among-  the  officials 
charged  with  the  duty  of  promoting 
missions,  it  is  not  surprizing  that  a 
somewhat  vigorous  protest  has  been 
made  against  the  exclusive  policy  of 
the  Men's  Missionary  Movement, 
which  exerts  itself  in  behalf  of  for- 
eign missions  alone.  Such  a  protest 
has  been  voiced  by  Dr.  Henry  L. 
Morehouse,  secretary  of  the  American 
1  iaptist  Home  Missionary  Society  and 
one  of  the  most  prominent  missionary 
leaders  of  the  country.  The  protest  is 
based  upon  the  fact  that  at  a  recent 
meeting  of  the  executive  board  of 
the  Movement,  it  was  definitely  de- 
cided that  nothing  but  foreign  mis- 
sions should  be  included  in  its  work. 
Dr.  Morehouse  considers  this  decision 
to  be  "an  almost  inconceivable  blun- 
der for  good  men  to  make  in  this  day 
of  unparalleled  opportunity  and  need 
at  home."  He  points  out  that  such  a 
decision  sets  up  anew  the  artificial 
barriers  between  home  and  foreign 
missions  and  he  goes  so  far  as  to  call 
upon  the  men  of  his  denomination  to 
refuse  to  accept  any  such  limitation 
of  their  missionary  interest. — Cumber- 
land Presbyterian. 

SPANISH  AMERICA 

Mexico  Religiously 

Mexico  is  said  to  be  the  most  pro- 
gressive of  the  Latin  American  re- 
publics. The  census  of  1890  reports 
a  population  of  13,545,000.  Thirty- 
eight  per  cent,  of  the  population  are 
Indians,  hardly  civilized,  and  forty- 
three  per  cent,  mixed  blood.  Among 
the  religions  are  Roman  Catholics, 
numbering  over  13,380,000;  Protes- 
tants, over  40,000;  Jews,  8,900,  and 
other  religions,  about  62,000.  The  last 
available  report  shows  38,864  profess- 
ing Christians,  of  whom  20,638  are 
regular  communicants.  The  total  num- 
ber of  missionaries  is  given  as  216, 
with  680  workers,  including  men  and 
women.  There  are  116  stations  and 
outstations. 


Grejwt  Loss  to  British  Guiana 

Says  The  Mission  Field:  The 
death  is  announced  of  Miss  Anna 
Maria  Austin,  of  the  Duffryn  Mis- 
sion, Essequibo,  British  Guiana, 
who  for  63  years  had  been  engaged  in 
missionary  work  among  the  Indians. 
She  was  known  among  the  Indians 
as  Tete,  i.  c.  "Great  Mother."  She 
was  the  last  surviving  daughter  of  the 
Rev.  William  Austin,  who  was  for 
59  years  vicar  of  St.  John's  parish, 
Essequibo.  Mr.  Kirke,  in  his  book  en- 
titled "Twenty-five  Years  in  British 
Guiana,"  says  of  her:"This  exemplary 
woman  has  lived  for  years  surrounded 
by  the  gentle  Indian  people,  whose 
children  she  has  taught  to  read  and 
sew,  whose  wives  she  has  protected 
while  the  men  were  away  fishing  and 
woodcutting.  She  has  been  a  sort  of 
protecting  goddess  to  these  poor  peo- 
ple, and  her  sole  recompense  has  been 
their  love  and  devotion." 

A  Hero  of  Chili 

One  of  our  former  missionaries  in 
Chili  tells  the  interesting  incident  of 
the  conversion  and  self-control  of  one 
of  the  prominent  evangelists  working- 
there  to-day,  an  ordained  member  of 
the  Presbytery  of  Chili,  and  in  charge 
of  the  church  at  the  Port  of  Taltal, 
together  with  working  in  the  interior. 
This  man  was  a  Chilian  Tortilero.  He 
carried  or  wheeled  his  cakes  and  spe- 
cial bread  along  the  streets  crying  his 
list,  going  from  door  to  door  among 
the  poorest  people.  After  his  conver- 
sion he  was  always  ready  to  testify 
for  Christ,  even  to  those  who  were 
the  most  outspoken  enemies  of  the 
Gospel.  He  was  always  ready  to  take 
part  in  public  service.  His  tongue, 
however,  often  got  the  better  of  him, 
either  when  driving  a  bargain  with  a 
wrangling  customer,  or  in  his  ten- 
dency to  exaggerate  in  his  testimony 
of  the  things  pertaining  to  the  Gos- 
pel. At  such  times  he  voluntarily  im- 
posed upon  himself  a  gag.  He  claimed 
it  was  so  easy  to  lie,  and  so  natural 
in  his  business,  also  that  his  inclina- 
tion   to    magnify    facts    seemed  so 


KJ08J 

inborn  in  him,  that  in  no  other  way 
could  he  control  himself  or  satisfy  his 
own  conscience;  so  he  willingly  im- 
posed this  punishment  upon  himself. 
He  frequently  wore  this  gag  for  an 
hour,  sometimes  for  two  hours,and  oc- 
casionally for  six  hours  at  a  time,  and 
thus  forced  his  memory  to  help  him 
overcome  his  besetting  sin.  Finally, 
he  won  the  victory  over  himself,  and 
was  always,  after  this,  composed, 
happy,  radiant  and  deeply  spiritual, 
altho  frequently  under  the  fear  of  ad- 
verse criticism,  the  subject  of  scorn, 
hatred,  and  open  opposition. 

JOHN  TIMOTHY  STONE. 

EUROPE 
Missionary  Enterprise  in  England 

We  are  accustomed  to  think  that 
ours  is  the  country  of  bold  underta- 
kings and  that  new  schemes  in  mis- 
sions, as  in  other  matters,  are  apt  to 
originate  here.  Behold  the  daring  of 
our  cousins  across  the  sea,  who  are 
preparing  to  hold  in  London  next 
June  a  great  missionary  exhibition,  to 
be  called  "The  Orient  in  London." 
How  large  and  elaborate  this  presen- 
tation of  missionary  work  will  be  may 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  the  esti- 
mated expense  is  $35,000.  The  rep- 
resentation of  missionary  scenes  will 
be  both  artistic  and  realistic.  One  of 
the  promenades  of  the  exhibition  is  to 
represent  an  Eastern  street,  with  the 
various  courts  lining  the  roadway.  Mr. 
Moss,  who  managed  the  Romsey  Pag- 
eant which  charmed  England  recently, 
has  been  engaged  to  present  for  this 
exhibition  a  pageant  entitled,  "Dark- 
ness and  Light,"  representing  the  con- 
trast between  heathenism  and  Chris- 
tianity. Ten  kindred  societies  are 
expected  to  have  courts  or  stalls  at  the 
exhibition. — Missionary  Herald. 

Livingstone's  Life  Reviewed 

A  Livingstone  Memorial  Meeting 
was  recently  held  in  the  Senate  House 
at  Cambridge.  The  Registrar  of  the 
University  spoke  as  one  who  was 
present  at  the  famous  lecture  deliv- 
ered in  1857,  of  which  the  direct  out- 
come was  the  founding  of  the  Univer- 


31  1 

sities'  Mission  to  Central  Africa. 
"He  never  saw  any  man  whose  ap- 
pearance told  its  own  tale  as  Living- 
stone's did."  The  lecture  was  "a  series 
of  notes  on  Africa  and  on  the  open 
path  for  commerce  and  Christianity 
which  he  had  been  permitted  to 
make."  Livingstone  apologized  for 
his  language  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  "spoken  the  native  languages  of 
Africa  for  seventeen  years;"  but  no 
eloquent  peroration  could  have  been 
so  effective  as  his  closing  words :  "Do 
you  carry  out  the  work  which  I  have 
begun.    I  leave  it  with  you." 

Livingstone  and  Cecil  Rhodes 

It  may  seem  almost  profane  to  put 
the  two  names  in  the  same  category ; 
but  in  connection  with  the  meeting 
just  mentioned  the  Scottish  Review 
has  ventured  to  say : 

"There  have  been  two  men  in  Afri- 
can history  during  the  past  century 
who  deserve  to  be  called  men  of  des- 
tiny. One  was  Livingstone,  and  the 
other  was  Rhodes.  Of  the  two,  the 
first  was  far  the  purer  and  nobler 
type.  The  career  of  the  great  mis- 
sionary is  stained  by  no  crimes 
and  marred  by  no  blunders.  But  both 
had  certain  qualities  in  common.  Both 
were  robust  optimists,  believing  that 
in  time  the  desert  could  be  made  to 
blossom  as  the  rose.  Livingstone  be- 
lieved in  the  possibilities  of  the  dark 
races,  and  in  the  value  of  contact  with 
the  best  civilization.  Rhodes  dreamed 
of  an  Africa  where  white  and  black 
could  live  in  harmony,  with  equal 
rights. 

"Both,  again,  had  practical  good 
sense.  They  saw  the  economic  needs 
of  the  country,  the  necessity  of  routes 
and  highways  of  commerce ;  and  they 
grasped  that  cardinal  fact  that  civil- 
ization, if  it  is  to  last,  must  pay  a 
dividend.  Both,  finally,  had  imagina- 
tion. Rhodes  could  see  beyond  the 
bare  leagues  of  bush  to  a  country  of 
cornfields  and  homesteads,  and  Liv- 
ingstone could  discern  in  the  lowest 
savage  the  promise  of  something  to 
be  shaped  to  noble  ends.  Faith  and 
imagination  on  a  grand  scale,  com- 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELL1GKXCK 


312 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


bined  with  a  clear-eyed  perception  of 
present  needs — this  is  the  equipment 
of  the  pioneer;  and  Livingstone  must 
rank  among  the  greatest  pathfinders 
of  the  British  race." 

A  Missionary  Jubilee 

It  may  not  be  generally  known  that 
at  the  present  time  there  are  about  90 
women's  missionary  societies,  most  of 
them  of  comparatively  recent  date. 
Until  1858  there  were  only  3 ;  but  in 
that  year  a  fourth  was  founded,  which 
is  now  celebrating  its  Jubilee — the 
Women's  Auxiliary  of  the  Wesleyan 
Missionary  Society.  It  cooperates 
with  the  Society  in  India,  Ceylon,  and 
China,  devoting  itself  to  work  that  in 
these  lands  only  women  may  do. 
Twenty  thousand  girls  are  receiving 
Christian  teaching  in  its  schools ; 
80,000  patients  were  treated  last  year 
in  its  hospitals ;  thousands  of  women 
in  zenanas  and  pariah  huts  are  under 
religious  instruction,  and  a  great  num- 
ber through  its  industrial  work  have 
been  saved  from  starvation  and  still 
worse  evils.  Because  the  harvest  is 
greater  than  the  workers  have  strength 
to  reap,  a  Jubilee  Thanksgiving  Fund 
of  £20,000  is  being  raised,  to  be  spent 
on  the  better  equipment  of  the  hospi- 
tals (now  10  in  number),  the  schools, 
on  converts  and  rescue  homes,  on 
training  Bible-women  and  women 
doctors,  and  in  augmenting  a  small 
pension  and  sick  fund  for  disabled 
women  missionaries. 

London  Society's  Campaign 

An  important  circular  has  been  just 
issued  in  regard  to  the  special  cam- 
paign of  the  London  Missionary  So- 
ciety during  the  year. 

In  view  of  Dr.  Wardlaw  Thomp- 
son's unanimous  election  to  the  Chair- 
manship of  the  Congregational  Union, 
it  has  been  widely  felt  that  his  year 
of  office  should  be  celebrated  in  all  the 
churches  of  the  denomination  as  pre- 
eminently a  missionary  year.  The 
object  aimed  at  is  to  carry  out  a  cam- 
paign for  the  definite  purpose  of  in- 
forming and  inspiring  the  churches, 
and  special  emphasis  will  be  laid  on 
the  spiritual  side  of  the  campaign. 


Among  the  methods  to  be  adopted 
will  be  (1)  The  visitation  of  the 
churches  by  a  number  of  ministers. 
(2)  Simultaneous  mission  lasting 
from  November  15  to  22.  (3)  The 
systematic  study  of  foreign  missions 
and  the  promotion  of  study  classes  in 
all  the  churches.  (4)  Conferences. 
(5)  The  preparation  and  circulation 
of  missionary  literature.  (6)  Special 
prayer  throughout  the  year. 

Independent  Catholic  Movement 

This  movement  is  making  rapid 
progress  in  France,  where  a  great 
change  has  taken  place,  the  large  ma- 
jority of  the  people  favoring  the  action 
of  the  Government.  Three  years  ago 
some  hundreds  of  priests,  through 
reading  the  New  Testament,  formed  a 
combination  with  a  view  to  establish- 
ing themselves  and  their  congrega- 
tions on  new  lines  "los  von  Rom."  In 
consultation  over  a  proper  man  to 
lead  them  on  with  advice  and  exam- 
ple, they  decided  upon  M.  Meillon, 
the  converted  priest  at  the  head  of 
the  Paris  Mission  of  Protestant  con- 
verts. This  talented  successor  of  the 
lamented  Abbe  Courneloup  entered 
fully  into  the  spirit  of  the  movement, 
and  accepted  the  choice  of  himself  as 
a  leader  in  counsel. 

The  claims  of  300  priests,  and  300 
congregations  willing  to  be  led,  came 
so  powerfully  upon  his  soul,  zealous 
for  the  promotion  of  the  Gospel  light, 
and  truth,  and  salvation,  that  he  has 
resigned  the  charge  and  employment 
of  the  Paris  office  and  has  concen- 
trated his  time  and  talents  to  these 
congregations  called  by  Government, 
*' Associations  culturvelles."  They  are 
banded  together  in  a  league,  and  these 
are  some  of  their  pronouncements : 
Separation  from  Rome ;  establishment 
on  the  basis  of  the  Gospel ;  absolute 
independence  to  be  the  right  of  each 
Church,  yet  federation  of  all;  election 
of  trustees  by  and  their  own  Associa- 
tions only ;  perfect  liberty  as  to 
Rome's  dogmas,  and  substitution  of 
French  for  Latin  in  public  worship ; 
loyalty  to  the  Republic. — Mission 
World. 


I(jo8|  GENERAL  MISSIONARY  [NTELLIGENCE 


Swedish  Evangelical  National  Society 

The  Fosterlands  stiftclscns  is  the 
oldest  of  the  Swedish  Missionary  So- 
cieties, having  celebrated  its  fiftieth 
anniversary  in  1906,  and  also  the 
largest,  having  expended  $161,717  for 
its  work  in  1906.  Its  spheres  of  ac- 
tivity are  in  East  Africa  and  in  India. 
In  East  Africa  its  missionaries  are 
at  work  among  the  Gallas,  the  inhab- 
itants of  Abyssinia,  and  the  heathen 
inhabitants  of  the  Italian  colony  of 
Eritrea.  The  work  among  the  Gallas 
is  most  encouraging,  while  great  dif- 
ficulties have  to  be  overcome  in  Abys- 
sinia, where  the  jealousy  and  the  in- 
trigues of  the  priests  just  at  present 
seem  to  make  aggressive  missionary 
work  impossible.  In  Eritrea  the  work 
makes  rapid  progress.  According  to 
the  report  for  1906  the  Fosterlands 
stiftelsens  employed  in  East  Africa  42 
Swedish  and  58  native  workers  upon 
14  stations.  The  36  missionary 
schools  were  attended  by  858  pupils, 
while  125  baptisms  increased  the  num- 
ber of  native  Christians  to  1,122. 

The  Swedish  work  in  India  is 
among  the  Hindus  and  was  being  car- 
ried on,  in  1906,  by  52  Swedish  and 
95  native  workers  upon  8  stations. 
The  24  missionary  schools  were  at- 
tended by  768  pupils,  while  79  bap- 
tisms increased  the  number  of  native 
Christians  to  1,243. 

The  Society  also  supports  Seamen's 
Missions  in  a  number  of  foreign  sea- 
ports. 

RUSSIA 
Good  News  from  a  Dark  Land 

In  a  marvelous  manner  God  has  re- 
cently opened  the  door  into  the  great 
empire  of  Russia.  A  few  years  ago 
one  of  our  German  preachers  went 
over  the  northern  frontier  into 
Kowno,  Russia,  and  now  we  have 
there  a  flourishing  circuit.  One  year 
ago  we  appointed  the  Rev.  Hj.  Salmi 
to  Saint  Petersburg.  He  reports  150 
conversions.  A  few  months  ago  we 
transferred  the  Rev.  Geo.  A.  Simons, 
a  young  man  of  brilliant  parts, 
from  the  New  York  East  Conference 
to  take  charge  of  this  vast  field  of 


150,000,000  souls.  He  writes  with  en- 
thusiasm of  what  has  already  been 
done  and  says  that  there  is  a  great 
opening  for  us  everywhere  in  Russia, 
but  especially  in  the  south.  He  says: 
"I  could  place  50  men  immediately  if 
I  had  them.  We  must  put  a  man  down 
in  Moscow,  the  heart  of  Russia." — 
Western  Advocate. 

The  Papacy  Smitten  in  Italy 

An  apparently  reliable  statement 
has  come  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  A. 
Robertson,  of  Venice,  which  informs 
us  of  the  present  ecclesiastical  state 
of  Italy.  In  this  paper  we  are  told 
that  "the  tables  in  Italy  are  entirely 
reversed."  The  Pope  is  saved  from 
actual  violence,  at  the  hands  of  the 
people  of  Rome,  by  the  hated  Italian 
bayonets  only.  A  great  cry  was  sent 
up  by  the  Church  for  what  France 
has-  done  in  confiscating  its  property. 
But  in  Italy  "All  property  has  been 
taken  from  them.  The  Papal  Church 
does  not  possess  a  stone  of  building 
in  the  land,  or  an  inch  of  Italian  soil. 
It  can  not  hold,  it  can  not  build,  it 
can  not  inherit  property.  It  is  a  ten- 
ant at  will.  Formerly  the  schools  were 
entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  priest- 
hood. "Now  no  priest,  no  monk,  no 
nun,  no  sister  is  permitted  to  be  a 
teacher  in  any  national  school — all  the 
teachers  of  these  schools  are  laymen 
and  laywomen.  Education  in  Italy  is 
national,  secular,  compulsory,  free  and 
lay.  The  children  of  Italy,  during 
school  years,  must  attend  the  national 
schools ;  before  and  after  that  term 
priests  and  nuns  are  at  liberty  to  teach 
them.  And  the  conditions  prevailing 
in  these  schools  have  been  subjected, 
on  complaint,  to  a  government  inves- 
tigation, with  the  result  that  shocking 
revelations  of  immorality  were  made. 
As  a  consequence — "the  government 
has  closed  many  clerical,  infant,  and 
high-class  schools  and  many  priests 
and  sisters  are  in  prison." 

"The  attitude  of  the  people  to  Prot- 
estantism is  manifestly  friendly.  The 
gospel  of  Christ,  preached  in  all  its 
simplicity,  is  well  received  and  the 
halls,  where  services  are  held  always 


3*4 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


crowded.  Dr.  Robertson  tells  us  that 
the  fields  are  white  for  the  harvest  and 
that  "at  the  present  moment  Italy  is 
open  to  the  Gospel.!" 

MOSLEM  LANDS 
Gospel  Work  in  Asia  Minor 

Dr.  J.  K.  Greene  writes  as  follows 
to  the  Missionary  Herald: 

Asia  Minor  is  the  center  of  Turkish 
power,  with  its  population  of  some 
13,000,000  Turks  and  of  5,000,000 
Greeks,  Armenians,  Europeans,  and 
others.  The  Turkish  peasants  are  a 
patient,  hard-working  people,  and 
from  them  is  recruited  the  main  body 
of  the  Turkish  army.  The  Greeks  and 
Armenians  are  for  the  most  part  tra- 
ders and  artisans.  Eighty  years  ago 
American  Christians  began  to  cast  the 
Gospel  leaven  into  this  Asiatic  mass. 
The  missionaries  whom  they  sent 
sought  to  revive  the  Eastern  churches 
by  a  fresh  presentation  of  Christ  and 
of  his  teachings.  What  response  has 
been  made  to  such  teaching? 

The  response  is  found  in  spiritual 
fruit;  in  the  organization  of  123  evan- 
gelical churches,  with  14,276  members 
and  50,000  adherents.  These  churches 
have  formed  five  associations,  inclu- 
ding one  of  Greek  Protestants,  and  to 
them  belongs  the  solution  of  all  ques- 
tions touching  the  government  and 
spiritual  growth  of  the  churches. 
Many  of  these  churches  have  been 
self-supporting  for  years,  and  in  1905 
the  native  payments  for  religious  and 
educational  purposes  amounted  to 
$111,351.  In  1906  the  total  gift  of 
the  Board  to  the  20,000  Protestants  of 
the  Central  Mission  was  but  $1,430, 
while  the  gifts  of  the  people  amounted 
to  $24,200. 

The  Syrian  Protestant  College 

Of  the  death  of  Morris  K.  Jesup,  of 
New  York,  the  New  York  Sun  says: 

Nowhere  will  Morris  K.  Jesup  be 
more  sincerely  mourned  than  on  the 
extreme  eastern  shore  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean under  the  side  of  Mount  Leb- 
anon, where  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing educational  institutions  in  the 
world  owes  much  of  its  remarkable 


development  to  his  energetic  financial 
administration  and  constant  fostering 
care.  We  refer  to  the  great  modern 
English-speaking  university  at  Beirut, 
formerly  styled  the  Syrian  Protestant 
College. 

This  school  of  civilization  surprises 
every  new  beholder.  Having  pre- 
viously entertained,  perhaps,  some 
vague  idea  of  a  "college"  in  which  a 
handful  of  native  youth  sit  at  the  feet 
of  the  local  missionary,  .  .  .  the 
visitor  discovers,  generally  to  his  im- 
mense astonishment,  what  the  Beirut 
institution  really  is.  He  finds  a  thor- 
oughly organized  and  perfectly  crys- 
tallized university  with  a  faculty  of 
80  or  more  accomplished  and  eminent 
men,  and  nearly  1,000  students  from 
all  parts  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  from 
the  Greek  Islands,  from  Egypt,  from 
the  Sudan,  from  Persia,  from  India, 
from  the  very  heart  of  Arabia,  pursu- 
ing both  academic  and  professional 
studies  under  physical  and  intellectual 
conditions  precisely  similar  to  those 
obtaining  in  any  American  college  of 
equivalent  importance. 

The  strictest  of  Wahabite  Mussul- 
mans from  Nejd,  the  most  orthodox 
of  Jews,  the  fastidious  Hindu,  the 
usually  intolerant  Christian  of  the 
Oriental  churches,  the  Maronite,  the 
Druse,  the  Sunite  and  the  Shiite  are 
found  together  in  the  college  library, 
helping  each  other  in  the  use  of  ref- 
erence books,  or  on  the  football  field 
amicably  and  even  fraternally  com- 
mingled in  the  fiercest  of  rushes,  pre- 
cisely as  is  the  case  with  the  more 
homogeneous  population  of  Amherst 
or  Princeton  or  Dartmouth. 

AFRICA 
A  Jubilee  Contribution 

The  Church  Missionary  Society  has 
received  a  check  for  £256  17.?.  6d.  It 
came  from  Onitsha,  on  the  Niger,  and 
is  the  thank  offering  of  the  Ibo  Chris- 
tians there  for  the  blessings  of  the 
Gospel,  which  they  have  enjoyed 
since  1857,  when  Adjai  Crowther 
planted  the  first  teacher  among  them. 
This  special  jubilee  effort,  moreover, 
has  not  been  made  at  the  cost  of  the 


GLNKRAL  MISSIONARY  I  NT  KLL I G  KNCK 


315 


fund  which  helps  to  support  the  na- 
tive agencies ;  on  the  contrary,  the 
contributions  to  that  fund  by  the  sev- 
eral congregations  are  larger  than  the 
year  before  in  every  case.  These  West 
African  converts  are  an  example  of 
liberality.  The  Abeokuta  Christians 
celebrated  their  pastorate's  anniver- 
sary at  the  same  time  as  those  at 
Onitsha  kept  their  jubilee,  and  we 
read  of  an  annual  meeting  lasting 
from  10  A.  M.  till  4  P.  M.,  and  of  an 
income  of  nearly  £1,000. 

A  Good  Report  From  the  Kongo 

The  Washington  Herald  reports  the 
following  interview  with  the  Rev. 
Motte  Martin,  missionary  at  Luebo, 
on  the  Kassai  river : 

Rev.  M.  Martin,  missionary  of  the 
American  Presbyterian  Kongo  Mis- 
sion, who  has  recently  arrived  from 
his  field  of  labor  in  the  Dark  Conti- 
nent for  a  vacation,  said  that  he  would 
rather  work  among  the  Kongo  natives 
than  anywhere  else.  "The  natives  are 
very  bright  and  learn  quickly,''  said 
Mr.  Martin,  "and  they  have  a  child- 
like confidence  and  respect  for  those 
placed  in  authority  over  them.  When- 
ever fights  occur  between  rival  vil- 
lage chiefs  we  step  in  between  them, 
tell  them  to  stop  instanter  and  they 
obey.  We  ask  them  to  listen  to  rea- 
son, and  then  wre  explain  to  them  the 
folly  of  fighting.  Finally  they  prom- 
ise to  be  good,  and  shaking  hands  the 
two  chiefs  go  their  respective  ways 
reconciled.  They  regard  the  white 
man  as  incalculably  above  themselves — 
something  like  a  demi-god.  Anything 
wTe  tell  them  they  are  quite  willing 
to  do. 

Progress  of  Civilization  in  Central  Africa 

The  future  capital  of  Central  Africa 
arises,  where  German  engineers  are 
forcing  the  giant  powers  of  the  falls 
of  the  Zambesi  River  into  the  service 
of  man.  A  five-storied  "Grand  Hotel'' 
writh  all  the  comforts  and  luxuries 
of  a  modern  hostelry  has  been  erected 
in  the  center  of  the  beautiful  Peace 
Park,  while  a  great  Zoological  Garden 
is  being  laid  out  not  far  away.  Upon 


Livingstone  Island,  situated  in  the 
wide  river,  important  buildings  and 
pleasure-grounds  will  be  erected,  and 
soon  a  large  modern  city  will  be  upon 
that  spot  where  Livingstone  saw  the 
grand  falls  for  the  first  time.  Did 
he  dream  of  the  future !  It  is  scarcely 
possible  that  he  could  hope  for  that 
which  now  has  become  a  reality.  Where 
once  he  stood  alone,  the  groaning  and 
puffing  of  the  steam-engine  is  heard 
incessantly.  The  "Cape  to  Cairo 
Railway"  has  its  tracks  across  the 
fields,  and  a  railroad  bridge  crosses 
the  foaming,  roaring  falls.  The  place 
which  Livingstone  reached  under  al- 
most unbearable  hardships  and  diffi- 
culties, can  now  be  reached  by  the 
world-traveler  while  he  enjoys  the  lux- 
uries of  a  modern  railroad-train.  What 
a  change ! 

The  Race  Problem  in  South  Africa 

Says  the  British  Statesman:  One  of 
the  most  interesting  features  of  con- 
temporary politics  in  South  Africa  is 
the  contrast  between  the  treatment  of 
the  native  and  colored  races  in  Cape 
Colony  and  in  the  other  three  Col- 
onies under  the  British  flag.  In 
Xatal,  in  the  Transvaal,  and  in  the 
Orange  River  Colony,  there  is  an  al- 
most unanimous  feeling  among  the 
white  colonists  against  the  admission 
of  the  colored  races  to  any  kind  of 
political  equality.  In  Cape  Colony,  on 
the  other  hand,  white  politicians  of 
all  parties  are  apparently  resolute  to 
maintain  the  right  of  the  colored  races 
to  exercise  the  parliamentary  fran- 
chise. This  fact  is  all  the  more  strik- 
ing when  we  remember  that  many  of 
the  prominent  politicians  in  Cape  Col- 
ony are  Dutch  by  descent,  and  have 
probably  inherited  the  prejudices 
against  the  colored  races  that  are  so 
marked  a  characteristic  of  the  Boers 
of  the  Transvaal  and  of  the  Orange 
River  Colony.  Yet  the  Afrikander 
Bond  in  Cape  Colony,  representing 
the  Dutch  population,  is  quite  as  em- 
phatic as  are  the  members  of  the  Pro- 
gressive Party  in  favor  of  the  colored 
franchise.  The  explanation  is  very 
simple.    The  colored  franchise  exists 


3^ 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


in  Cape  Colony,  and  has  existed  so 
long  that  the  native  vote  has  become 
an  important  factor  in  contested  elec- 
tions. 

Ingathering  in  Livings  ton  ia 

Rev.  Dr.  Laws  gives  glad  tidings  of 
ingathering  in  the  Livingstonia  Afri- 
can Mission  of  the  United  Free 
Church  of  Scotland.  Fifteen  male 
and  6  female  adults  were  baptized 
one  morning,  51  probationers  were  re- 
ceived, and  338  received  the  commun- 
ion of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Seventeen 
native  teachers  have  volunteered  for 
active  Christian  work. 

ISLANDS  OF  THE  SEA 

The  Busiest  Woman  in  Malaysia 

Bishop  Oldham  writes  home: 
Among  the  many  activities  of  our 
women  missionaries  in  Malaysia,  none 
commands  my  entire  respect  more 
than  a  little  Tamil  girl's  school  and 
orphanage,  conducted  by  Mrs.  Pykett, 
the  wife  of  the  principal  of  our  great 
Wood  Anglo-Chinese  School  of  Pe- 
nang. 

Mrs.  Pykett  is  a  very  busy  woman 
and  seems  to  be  able  to  bring  about 
results  with  very  little  machinery. 
This  orphanage  has  no  separate  build- 
ings, teaching  staff,  etc.,  but  in  the 
small  buildings  and  on  the  lower  floor 
of  her  own  home  this  good  lady  has 
gathered  a  score  of  girls  whose  out- 
look for  life  would  be  very  dreary 
indeed  without  her  help.  These  she 
is  training  as  household  servants.  The 
English  residents  in  the  land  prize 
Mrs.  Pykett's  girls  as  among  the  best 
trained  domestics  to  be  obtained.  Any 
of  them  who  are  old  enough  and  suf- 
ficiently advanced  can  be  placed  at 
once,  at  good  wages.  The  girls  are 
taught  to  read  their  own  language, 
and  many  of  them  are  devout  Chris- 
tians. Indeed  it  would  be  difficult  for 
any  girl  to  pass  under  Mrs.  Pykett's 
influence  without  this  result. 

Besides  this  school  and  the  care  of 
her  own  home  and  children,  of  whom 
there  is  a  "quiver-full,"  Mrs.  Pykett 
has  a  refuge  home  for  unhappy  wom- 


en of  the  street,  and  has  succeeded 
far  beyond  the  usual  in  this  work, 
in  which  she  receives  some  help  from 
the  Women's  Foreign  Missionary  So- 
ciety. 

MISCELLANEOUS 

Judson  a  Typical  Missionary 

Judson  never  for  a  moment  fal- 
tered in  his  purpose.  The  prospects, 
he  said,  were  "as  bright  as  the  prom- 
ises of  God."  He  was  willing  to  wait 
seven  years  for  the  first  convert,  and 
when  friends  at  home  grew  impa- 
tient, he  wrote,  "Give  us  twenty-five 
or  thirty  years  more,  and  then  inquire 
again."  He  lived  to  baptize  many 
scores  of  Burmans,  to  know  of  thou- 
sands of  converts  throughout  the 
country,  to  translate  the  whole  Bible 
into  Burmese,  and  then,  as  he  sought 
a  little  rest  and  some  relief  from  his 
sufferings,  he  fell  asleep  on  the  open 
sea,  and  rests  beneath  the  waters  that 
cast  their  spray  against  the  rocky 
coast  of  his  boyhood  home  in  New 
England  and  lave  the  tropical  shores 
of  Burma. 

OBITUARY 

Mrs.  J.  T.  Gracey,  of  Rochester 

It  is  with  deep  sorrow  for  the  af- 
flicted husband  and  family  that  we 
record  the  death  of  Mrs.  Gracey,  the 
beloved  wife  of  our  coeditor.  Mrs. 
Gracey  was  a  power  in  mission  work. 
For  some  years  she  was  a  missionary 
with  her  husband  in  India  and  when 
reasons  of  health  compelled  them  to 
return,  both  gave  themselves  with 
rare  devotion  and  power  to  the  ad- 
vocacy of  missions  in  the  home 
churches.  Mrs.  Gracey  was  for  many 
years  a  secretary  of  the  Woman's 
Missionary  Society  of  the  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  and  has  been  since 
its  inception  secretary  of  the  United 
Women's  Mission  Study  Committee. 
She  was  a  writer  and  speaker  of  rare 
ability  and  was  greatly  beloved  by  all 
who  knew  her.  Children  rise  up  to 
call  her  blessed.  The  loss  of  her  coun- 
sel and  friendly  fellowship  will  be  felt 
more  deeply  than  words  can  express. 


GENERAL  MISSIONARY  INTELLIGENCE 


317 


Jacob  Chamberlain,  of  India 

Rev.  Jacob  Chamberlain,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  of  the  Reformed  Church  Mis- 
sion, one  of  the  ablest  and  noblest  of 
the  missionaries  in  India,  died  at 
Madanapalle,  on  Monday,  March  2. 
He  was  born  at  Sharon,  Conn.,  April 
x3>  1835  '  graduated  from  the  West- 
ern Reserve  College  of  Ohio  and  from 
the  Theological  Seminary  of  Bruns- 
wick, N.  J.,  in  1859.  In  December  of 
that  year  he  went  to  the  Arcot  Mis- 
sion of  Southern  India  as  an  evan- 
gelist. He  had  resided  in  India  ever 
since,  during  except  four  vacations 
which  he  spent  in  this  country.  For 
some  years  Dr.  Chamberlain  has  been 
suffering  from  ill  health.  He  was  a 
hard  worker  and  a  well-known  writer. 
His  books,  "In  the  Tiger's  Jungle"  and 
"In  the  Cobra's  Den"  have  been  and 
are  deservedly  popular.  At  the  time 
of  his  death,  Dr.  Chamberlain  was 
working  to  complete  his  Telugu  Bible 
Dictionary,  one  volume  of  which  has 
been  put  through  the  press.  No  one 
man  can  take  his  place  in  India. 

S.  W.  Siberts,  of  Argentina 

Word  has  been  received  by  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  of  the 
death  at  Buenos  Ayres,  Argentina, 
March  3,  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel  W. 
Siberts,  Dean  of  the  Methodist  Theo- 
logical Seminary  at  that  place.  Dr. 
Siberts  had  been  a  missionary  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  South 
America  since  1898,  and  for  more 
than  twenty  years  previous  to  that 
time  was  a  missionary  in  Mexico.  He 
was  graduated  from  Iowa  Wesleyan 
University  and  the  Boston  University 
School  of  Theology. 

Lord  Overtoun,  of  Scotland 

The  death  of  Lord  Overtoun,  on 
Saturday,  February  29th,  leaves  one 
of  the  greatest  gaps  in  modern  Chris- 
tian beneficence,  which  we  fear  will 
not  soon  be  filled.  He  was  but  sixty- 
four,  but  had  left  a  deep  and  ineradi- 
cable impression  on  the  Scotsmen  of 
his  generation.  He  was  at  once  a  suc- 
cessful merchant  and  a  winning  evan- 


gelist, a  county  magnate  and  a  modest 
citizen ;  he  was  in  spirit  a  peasant 
and  in  rank  a  peer.  11  is  philanthropy 
was  proverbial  and  his  benefactions 
multitudinous  and  discriminating.  To 
him  Mr.  Moody's  Mt.  Hermon  school 
owes  its  commodious  Overtoun  Hall; 
and  his  sympathy  with  world-wide 
missions  put  him  practically  among 
missionary  workers.  During  the  re- 
cent crisis  of  the  United  Free  Church, 
it  was,  humanly  speaking,  owing  to 
him  more  than  to  any  other  one  man, 
that  the  Church  weathered  the  storm 
that  swept  away  by  one  decision  of 
the  Flouse  of  Lords'  Commission,  the 
bulk  of  all  its  property  holdings.  He 
put  his  fortune  at  the  Church's  dis- 
posal till  a  more  -equitable  adjustment 
could  be  secured.  He  was  a  pupil 
of  the  late  Lord  Kelvin — when  in  the 
university ;  and,  after  graduation  en- 
tered into  his  father's  business,  and 
became  ultimately  the  head  of  the 
largest  chemical  works  in  the  country. 

He  followed  his  father's  lead  also 
in  not  allowing  his  business  to  absorb 
him.  In  fact  his'  heavenly  Father's 
business  always  had  a  prior  claim.  He 
was  from  youth  a  Bible  teacher ;  and 
his  adult  class  at  Dumbarton,  which 
he  taught  for  nearly  forty  years  grew 
to  600  in  membership.  He  main- 
tained in  his  native  place  for  many 
years,  a  Bible  woman,  a  Scripture 
reader  and  a  trained  nurse ;  and  the 
institute  with  its  gymnasium,  reading 
rooms  and  baths,  and  the  fine  public 
park,  shortly  to  be  opened,  were  both 
his  gifts.  Mr.  Campbell  White  was 
powerfully  influenced  by  Moody  when 
he  visited  Britain  in  1874.  His  mu- 
nificent gifts  for  religious,  philan- 
thropic, municipal  and  missionary  pur- 
poses, were,  in  the  aggregate,  very 
large ;  and  it  was  especially  in  recogni- 
tion of  these  that  in  1893  he  was  nom- 
inated for  his  peerage  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. Tho  a  member  of  the  House 
of  Lords,  he  has  taken  no  active  part 
in  its  affairs.  He  leaves  no  family, 
but  probably  no  man  in  Scotland  was 
more  loved  or  would  be  more 
lamented. 


FOR  THE  MISSIONARY  LIBRARY 


In  Korea  With  Marquis  Ito.  By  George 
Trumbull  Ladd,  L.L  D.  8vo,  463  pp. 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  New  York, 
iyo8. 

The  title  of  this  work  is  most  ap- 
propriate. It  reads  like  a  lawyer's 
plea  in  behalf  of  the  Japanese  domina- 
tion of  Korea.  It  takes  advantage  of 
every  possible  argument  to  clear  -  Ja- 
pan, but  makes  no  admissions  what- 
ever to  the  other  side.  It  is  clear  cut 
and  definite  in  its  statements,  but  it  is 
to  be  regretted  that  we  could  not  have 
had  a  more  unprejudiced  presentation 
of  the  case.  It  is  evident,  however, 
that  Prof.  Ladd  looked  through  Japa- 
nese eves.  The  American  public  has 
been  informed  almost  wholly  from 
prejudicial  sources  on  both  sides  of 
this  controversy  and  the  conclusions 
reached  have  been  so  contrary  that 
thoughtful  people  will  have  to  confess 
to  some  degree  of  bewilderment.  In 
the  present  volume  the  evil  that  Japan 
may  have  done  in  Korea  is  belittled  or 
excused  and  the  good  is  magnified.  On 
the  other  hand  every  weakness  of  the 
Korean  is  painted  in  strong  relief  and 
only  occasionally  is  there  a  faint  note 
of  commendation.  An  indication  of 
the  method  of  the  author  is  seen  in 
the  fact  that  he  quotes  largely  what 
Prof.  H.  B.  Hurlbert  has  said  in  a  re- 
cent book  in  criticism  of  the  Korean, 
but  omits  entirely  all  reference  to  his 
conclusions  that  are  commendatory. 
This  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the 
book  is  a  special  plea  wTith  a  special 
purpose. 

Prof.  Ladd's  views  about  Protestant 
mission  work  in  Korea  do  not  agree 
with  those  of  other  travelers.  He  be- 
littles the  genuineness  and  the  disin- 
terestedness of  Christian  missions  and 
charges  missionaries  with  trying  to 
discredit  the  Japanese  regime  in  Ko- 
rea by  letters  written  to  their  friends, 
and  by  their  description  of  the  facts 
to  travelers.  Dr.  Ladd  charges  the 
missionaries  with  unreasonable  antip- 
athy against  the  Japanese,  not  men- 
tioning the  fact  that  before  the  late 
war  all  Americans  in   Korea  were 


wholly  commendatory  toward  the  Jap- 
anese. We  may  well  look  for  the  rea- 
son for  this  sudden  and  complete 
change  of  feeling.  The  missionaries  are 
seeking  to  keep  out  of  the  controversy 
in  order  that  they  may  not  become 
entangled  with  politics.'  In  this  they 
have  been  following  the  .explicit  ad- 
vice of  all  diplomats  the  world  over. 
Apparently  from  Dr.  Ladd's  showing, 
the  Japanese  demand  that  the  mission- 
aries give  up  their  neutrality  and  come 
out  boldly  in  Japan's  favor,  irrespec- 
tive of  their  consciences.  Mission- 
aries can  not  well  be  prevented  from 
stating  their  views  in  private  cor- 
respondence whatever  the  result  may 
be.  On  the  whole  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  the  practically  unani- 
mous consensus  of  opinion  among  two 
hundred  missionaries  is  worth  some- 
what more  than  the  opinion  of  one 
man  who  spends  two  or  tiiree  months 
in  the  country  and  is  the  guest  of  the 
Japanese. 

Prof.  Ladd  also  speaks  slightingly 
of  the  effects  of  Christianity  upon  the 
Korean,  and  maintains  that  the  re- 
markable work  in  that  land  is  with- 
out a  firm  basis.  Other  travelers 
judge  differently  and  seem  to  be  bet- 
ter supported  by  facts.  The  self-sac- 
rifice, the  loyalty,  the  fellowship,  the 
thirst  for  education,  the  scriptural 
eagerness  of  the  Korean  Church  are 
all  proofs  of  the  genuineness  of  the 
work. 

"Where  The  Book  Speaks/'  or;  "Mission 
Studies  in  The  Bible/'  By  Rev.  Archi- 
bald McLean.  i2mo,  241  pp.  Flem- 
ing H.  Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1908. 

Twenty  studies  of  Bible  themes  in 
their  relation  to  Foreign  Missions  by 
one  wrho  knows  both  and  has  seen  the 
inside  working  of  the  missionary 
problem  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
Altho  not  the  first  book  on  this  sub- 
ject, it  is  the  best  we  have  yet  seen 
on  the  Bible  as  a  missionary  book. 
Epigrammatic  in  style,  interestingly 
written,  and  with  good  exegetical  skill, 
the  book  is  strong  from  beginning  to 


1908  J 

end.  There  is  material  here  for  a 
score  of  missionary  sermons,  and  the 
pastor  will  find  this  volume  most 
useful. 

What  the  missionary  idea  is  in  the 
Old  Testament — How  the  Church  is 
a  Missionary  Institution — The  signifi- 
cance of  the  Great  Commission,  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  of  the  Macedonian 
Call,  and  of  a  New  Testament  Church 
in  Relation  to  Missions.  Such  are 
some  of  the  topics  treated. 

There  is  often  a  sermon  in  a  sen- 
tence, e.  g. :  "Small  giving  is  the 
curse  and  shame  of  our  day."  "God 
is  not  a  beggar  asking  alms,  he  is  a 
preferred  creditor."  "The  world  will 
never  be  won  to  Christ  by  gifts  from 
our  pin  money."  ' 'Christ  does  not 
ask  for  the  broken  fragments  that 
have  remained  after  we  have  eaten  to 
satiety."  "He  does  not  ask  for  our 
cheese-parings  and  pork-rinds."  "The 
Apostles  evangelized  the  Roman  Em- 
pire without  a  choir  or  pipe  organ." 

All  of  the  chapters  are  so  good  it 
is  hard  to  make  a  choice.  One  of  the 
best  pieces  of  missionary  exegesis  is 
the  chapter  on  the  call  from  Mace- 
donia. It  is  unfortunate  that  because 
there  is  no  index,  it  is  impossible  to 
tell  exactly  where  the  Book  speaks. 
A  full  index  of  Scripture  passages 
should  have  been  added,  and  one  would 
like  to  see  references  for  the  authori- 
ties quoted. 

Mankind-  and  the  Church.  By  Seven 
Bishops.  Edited  by  H.  H.  Montgom- 
ery, D.D.  8vo,  398  pp.  $2.25  net.  Long- 
man, Green  &  Co.,  London  and  New 
York,  1907. 

This  book  is  upon  an  unusual  plan. 
Its  aim  is  to  estimate  the  contribution 
of  great  races  to  the  fulness  of  the 
Church  of  God,  by  giving  the  personal 
witness  of  Bishop  Stone- Wigg,  among 
the  Papuans;  Archbishop  Xuttall, 
among  the  Negroes  of  the  West  In- 
dies ;  Bishop  Awdry  in  Japan  ;  the  late 
Bishop  Hoare  in  China ;  Bishop  Lef- 
roy  in  India,  among  the  Moslems :  and 
Bishop  Mylne,  among  the  Hindus. 
This  volume  is  thus  seven  in  one,  the 
center  of  unity  being  the  main  pur- 


319 

pose  to  show  how,  from  these  various 
sources,  proceed  streams  tributary  to 
the  church  life.  An  elaborate  introduc- 
tion by  Dr.  Montgomery,  formerly 
Bishop  of  Tasmania,  upon  the  Church 
of  the  Far  West,  adds  value  to  the 
book,  and  is  by  no  means  the  least  of 
its  attractions. 

The  demand  of  the  day  is  for  the 
testimony  of  experts,  and  one  hesitates 
to.  criticize  the  views  of  writers  who 
in  their  individual  spheres  are  obvi- 
ously competent.  With  some  of  the 
opinions  exprest  we  may  not  fully 
accord,  but  the  writers  have  earned 
the  right  to  be  heard,  and  have  ex- 
perience which  enriches  their  testi- 
mony. We  have  been  specially  inter- 
ested in  the  analysis  of  racial  character 
found  in  these  pages,  and  the  out- 
lines of  the  different  religious  sys- 
tems, as  for  example  those  of  Japan 
and  China,  and  the  characteristic  fea- 
tures of  Islam  and  Hinduism.  There 
is  much  here  to  interest  the  student 
of  mental  and  moral  philosophy,  as 
well  as  the  student  of  Christian  mis- 
sions. Many  of  the  strange  notions 
and  practises  of  other  peoples  find  here 
an  illumining  exposition.  The  book 
is  not  to  attract  the  common  reader, 
but  it  will  interest  thoughtful  men 
and  women,  who  want  to  add  to  their 
stock  of  information  on  great  ques- 
tions of  ethnology  and  the  adaptation 
of  the  Gospel  to  the  world.  These 
discussions  obviously  aim  at  fairness — 
presenting  the  whole  case,  from  both 
sides,  as  Bishop  Lefroy  does  in  the 
case  of  Islam,  giving  Mohammedan- 
ism credit  for  all  that  is  good,  while 
with  judicial  impartiality  exposing  its 
defects,  or  as  he  says,  "its  merits  and 
failures."  It  is  not  expected  that  every 
reader  will  agree  with  the  writer — 
probably  such  agreement  would  be  im- 
possible without  the  writer's  observa- 
tion and  point  of  view ;  but  all  such 
testimony  tends  to  promote  intelligent 
and  moderate  opinions,  and  no  one 
will  close  this  book  without  the  deep- 
ened conviction  that  Christianity  sup- 
plies to  man  what  no  other  religious 
system  can  furnish,  and  is  incom- 
parably superior  to  them  all. 


FOR  T1IF  MISSIONARY  LIBRARY 


320 


THE  MISSIONARY  REVIEW  OF  THE  WORLD 


[April 


The  Heathen  Heart.  By  Campbell  X. 
Moody,  missionary  in  Formosa.  i2mo, 
3s.  (x/..  net.  Illustrated.  Oli pliant  An- 
derson &  Ferrier,  Edinburgh  &  Lon- 
don, 1907. 

This  is  an  account  of  the  reception 
of  the  Gospel  among  the  Chinese  in 
Formosa — a  modest  volume  of  250 
pages.  The  author  himself  says  the 
central  chapter  is  the  fourth,  "Christ 
crossing  the  Threshold  of  the  Heathen 
Heart."  He  says  that  there  are  sev- 
eral ways  in  which  Chinese  are  won 
over  to  Christ ;  by  the  study  of  the 
Xew  Testament ;  by  the  actual  exor- 
cism of  demons,  which  seems  to  be  a 
common  experience  in  China ;  by  mon- 
otheism ;  and  by  the  purity  of  Chris- 
tian life  as  seen  in  those  who  exhibit 
it. 

Their  faith  is  of  a  very  simple  sort. 
They  take  everything  literally,  and  ex- 
pect their  newly  found  Jehovah-God 
to  shield  them  from  harm  even  in 
temporal  things.  Hence  when  a  pig 
dies,  or  a  child  or  a  crop  fails,  there 
is  risk  of  relapse  into  heathenism 
through  their  keen  disappointment. 
They  need  constant  care  and  instruc- 
tion, till  they  get  more  adequate  ideas 
of  the  real  character  of  Christianity, 
as  to  what  salvation  is,  as  to  the  char- 
acter of  a  justifying  faith  and  the  dan- 
ger of  reliance  on  works,  etc. 

There  are  certainly  marvelous  trans- 
formations seen  in  gamblers,  opium 
smokers,  and  victims  of  lust.  Fear  is 
more  frequently  a  motive  than  love.  In- 
deed the  Chinese  ideas  of  love  are  very 
defective.  It  too  often  means  to  them 
kind  treatment,  or  condescension  to 
inferiors.  They  also  crave  external 
signs  and  place  on  them  undue  em- 
phasis. Teaching  as  well  as  preaching 
is  needful,  that  thoroughly  scriptural 
conceptions  may  prevail.  Only  a  true 
knowledge  of  the  Word  of  God,  in  its 
spirit  as  well  as  letter,  can  make  in 
China  or  anywhere  else,  steadfast 
and  intelligent  disciples.  Mr.  Moody 
strongly  takes  ground  against  the 
modern  notion  of  an  undogmatic 
preaching.  He  thinks  that  to  sweep 
all  doctrines  away  would  seriously 
complicate  all  the  problems  met  in 


Formosa,  and  that  the  condition  of 
tilings  there  may  find  a  very  close 
forecast  on  the  apostolic  age — that  the 
needs  are  similar,  the  dangers  simi- 
lar, and  the  remedies  similar.  The 
other  chapters  treat  of  Formosa  un- 
der Japanese  rule;  of  the  character, 
conduct  and  religion  of  a  heathen  peo- 
ple; and  give  graphic  accounts  of 
some  Chinese  converts,  portraying  al- 
so the  difficulties  of  missionary  life, 
and  the  lamentable  lack  of  an  adequate 
missionary  force.  Some  one  has 
called  this  the  "most  illuminating  book 
on  missions  he  has  ever  read."  This 
we  regard  as  excessive  use  of  super- 
latives, but  it  shows  that  to  some  minds 
it  must  appeal  as  especially  helpful. 

NEW  BOOKS 

With  Marquis  Ito  in  Korea.  By  George 
Trumbull  Ladd,  D.D.  Illustrated.  8vo, 
477  pp.  $2.00.  Charles  Scribner's 
Sons,  Xew  York,  1908. 

Missions  to  Hindus.  By  Bishop  Mylne. 
i2mo,  189  pp.  Longmans  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1908. 

China's  Centennary  Missionary  Confer- 
ence Records.  8vo,  823  pp.  $2.50,  net. 
American  Tract  Society,  New  York, 
1908. 

The  Future  of  Japan.  By  W.  Petrie 
Watson.  8vo,  389  pp.  $3.50,  net.  E. 
P.  Dutton  &  Co.,  New  York. 

Foreign  Religions  Series.  Edited  by  R. 
J.  Cooke.  121110,  6  vols.  40  cents  each. 
Eaton  &  Mains,  New  York,  1908. 

Heathenism  Under  the  Searchlight.  By 
Wm.  Remfry  Hunt,  F.R.G.S.  i2mo, 
267  pp.  ss.  Gd.  Morgan  &  Scott,  Lon- 
don, 1908. 

Breaking  Down  Chinese  Walls.  By  El- 
liot I.  Osgood,  M.D.  i2mo,  217  pp. 
$1.00  net.    Fleming  H.  Revell  Co.,  1908. 

Man's  Day.  By  Philip  Mauro.  i2mo, 
152  pp.  3s.  6d.  Morgan  &  Scott,  Lon- 
don, 1908. 

The  Wonderful  Story  of  Uganda.  By 
J.  D.  Mullins.  (Second  edition.)  Il- 
lustrated. i2mo,  235  pp.  is.  6d. 
Church  Missionary  Society,  London, 
1908. 

The  True  Church.  By  Rev.  Allen  M. 
Dulles,  i2mo,  320  pp.  $1.00  net.  Flem- 
ing H.  Revell  Co.,  New  York,  1908. 

Maintaining  the  Unity.  Report  of  the 
Eleventh  International  Evangelical  Al- 
liance Conference.  i2mo,  400  pp.  Re- 
ligious Tract  Society,  London,  1908. 


Us*