286 Women's Work for Home Missions. Monthly, these will be glad, for the sake of those who are not, to have us make some extracts from those able documents. Mrs. James, in her address, thus fitly alludes to the beginning of this organization just ten years ago: The times were ripe for more earnest work; our national development had forced upon the Church problems which women could best help solve. The war with Mexico had resulted in large accessions of territory, populated mainly with ignorant Romanists. The victorious termination of our civil war, following so quickly the discovery of gold in California, operated as a powerful magnet in attracting to our shores an unparalleled immigration. The millions of freedmen, for whom the government has made no provision, appealed to the Church; the Mormon problem and the Indian question confronted us. Many of these people spoke a foreign tongue, and to quote from the report of the Board of Home Missions to the General Assembly of 1879, "We saw that we must begin as foreign missionaries do on foreign shores, by the establishment of schools in connection with preaching the gospol, both of which are necessary to prepare the way for the organization of churches." "It must be a work of laying foundations. It must be a costly work, and a work of patience. The people must be found at their homes, in the streets and the fields; schools must be opened where the tuition shall be free, where the children shall hear the voice of prayer and hymns of praise, to be followed by the Sabbathschool and the public preaching of the gospel." The General Assembly which met that year adopted rules for the organization and conduct of such schools, of which the last reads thus: "The financial support of this school work shall be committed to the women of the Church as their special trust." The women of the Church accepted the trust; they had become a power in foreign missions, was it not in recompense that God opened their eyes to the need of home missions? The time had come when the more [October, thorough evangelization of our own land was necessary to the advance of Christ's kingdom throughout the world. She makes fitting acknowledgment of the able, faithful and gratuitous services of the treasurer, and adds: Latterly she has had the assistance of a daughter of the treasurer of the Board of Home Missions, who seems to have inherited her father's mathematical ability and accuracy. We take pleasure in placing before our readers this neat and deserved tribute to that daughter and father. No richer gifts are brought to the altar of Christ than consecrated" mathematical ability and accuracy." Ten years ago the annual receipts were a little over $5000; to-day over $321,000. Ten years ago we had 20 teachers; to-day we have over 300. But what of the work accomplished by our organization? Would that we could bring before you, in the order of their establishment, our schools; that we could throw upon the canvas by electric light the log hut, the low adobe house, followed by the chapel school-house, the academy, the industrial training-school and the embryo college. "Would that teachers and scholars could respond to our call; that teachers with the bloom and energy of youth, and those older in the service, could bring their scholars before us. The dark-eyed Mexican child; the Indian and colored children; the fair-haired daughter of the Scandinavian Mormon with the child whose parents left the hills of New England and the mountains of the South for Utah. We would add to the picture our schools in these same mountains of the South, and beg you to look until the picture should be photographed upon the mind, to be recalled when the work seems hard or results small. This we would follow with the intelligent faces of teachers who were once scholars, and then ask if you think the money expended in the work a bad investment. 1889.] Extravagance and Truth. The treasurer's report gives in lucid detail the figures and statements so tersely summarized above, and refers, in eloquent words, to a deficit which was found near the close of the year and to the peculiar effort made to provide for it: Nothing in all the history of this organization has brought us so near its great throbbing heart as this unexpected emergency. It was a note of alarm and uncertainty that sounded out from our office in New York, but its reverberations have been comfort and assurance, and have revealed a depth of Christian emotion amounting in some instances to real heroism. The corresponding secretary, in her report, thus refers to this deficit: The next day after it came to our knowledge we had formulated and set in operation a plan to secure the necessary funds. We called for self-denial offerings among our constituents, and already the response has been most cheering, leading us confidently to anticipate that the whole sum will soon be made good. Number of teachers and schools: Among Mormons, 287 "The rudiments of an empire vast are plastic yet and warm, The chaos of a mighty world is rounding into form," and the voice of God calls us to our part in The summary of the work, at its present shaping and moulding the destiny of this stage, is given as follows: land. Have we toiled hard in the past decade? we must toil harder in the one to come. Have we given largely in the past? we must give still more largely in the future. EXTRAVAGANCE AND TRUTH. Dr. Joseph Parker of London is quoted, in the Herald and Presbyter, as saying: The pulpit has now become another branch of book-making. The sermon has lost its individuality. It ought to be a thing that cannot be printed. A sermon that can be printed is not a sermon. A sermon is a speech, an expostulation, an entreaty, an exhortation, having its quality made up of the very personal elements of the man who delivers it his accents, his quality of mind, his enlarged sympathy and nobleness. Hence the true sermon is impregnated with elements which cannot be caught, fastened down and presented to the eye. The sermon is not addressed to the eye; it is a thunder that beats upon the ear. You are to blame, as I am, along with all our contemporaries, for the degradation of the sermon. Our contemporary justly prefaces the extract, of which we have given a part, with the remark that "it has all the intenseness and extravagance of his peculiar style, but it teaches a great truth." Are not great truths damaged and discredited by such "extravagance" in uttering them as involves untruth? 288 Our Contributed Articles-The Unlucky Lieutenant. We do not deny that there are sermons which produce admirable effects as orally delivered, which have no "power" in print. But it is equally true that some of the most effective preachers now living have their ser!mons printed, and widely circulated-some of them in more than one language—and eagerly read by tens of thousands of people. Not to mention Dr. Parker himself, certainly this is true of Spurgeon and Talmage. A half dozen Syrian men, intelligent, evangelical Christians, were accompanying their missionary from their own village to a village half an hour further up Mount Lebanon, to aid him in commencing an evangelical service there. As they walked, they [October, were talking with him of what they were reading at their homes. The missionary, turning to his American visitor accompanying him, translated their statement from Arabic into English thus: "We are reading Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Holy War, and Spurgeon's sermons.” No, Dr. Parker, the sermon whose "thunder" shakes the hearts of the strongest men blazes also with a lightning that is seen far beyond the largest possible circle of hearers. It might not be worth while to notice this bit of "extravagance," if there were not some danger of its making some young men think it possible to thunder effectively without lightning. Our list of contributed articles is unusually rich. Dr. Kendall's graphic pen (p. 283) takes the reader into thrilling scenes of long ago in the far Southwest, and (p. 312) touches our hearts with an affectionate and deserved tribute to his friend and the friend of Christ's Church and Christ's poor, A Faithful Steward. Our English correspondent, Rev. James Johnston, vividly pictures the work of the Universities' Mission in Central Africa; Dr. Knox, as eminent for wise vigor in Japan as his lamented father so lately was in New York, gives a most readable and instructive account of the educational system of that progressive empire; Dr. Hays shows us how the Great American Desert is becoming a marvel of fruitfulness and beauty; Dr. Jessup, recognizing "the powers that be" in Turkey as ordained of God, shows us how we must respect them; our missionary brethren of Persia, Messrs. Potter, Wilson, Esselstyn and Shedd, give us abundant matter for study and for concert of prayer-Progress in Persia, Work in Teheran, Intemperance in the Capital, Boys' School in Tabriz, Persecu tion in Persia, Mohammedans in Persia. Dr. Shedd shows us that both Moslems and Jews are more accessible than we have supposed, and gives great encouragement to prayer and labor for both. Dr. Poor calls our attention to Mr. Moody's schools and the great need which they are an attempt to supply; and Dr. Satterfield and Rev. S. Loomis set forth the merits and needs of the two institutions for education of colored youth over which they préside at Concord, N. C., and Chester, S. C. The shallow and silly representation that Christian missions in Asia amount to nothing, which has had so wide currency, is pulverized by Dr. Ellinwood (p. 331) in the handsome and thorough way in which he is in the habit of doing things. The trouble is that the people who need the information with which this article overwhelms the unlucky lieutenant do not read this magazine, and the folly that utters such slander is of that kind which will not depart from a man, "though thou shouldst bray him in a mortar among wheat with a pestle." 1889.] Death of Miss Ramsay-Return of Missionaries. Just as we go to press we receive through the Foreign Mission rooms from Barranquilla, Republic of Colombia, the sad intelligence of the death of Miss Addie C. Ramsay. She died of yellow fever on August 19, after a brief illness. Miss Ramsay was the daughter of Rev. James R. Ramsay, who for more than thirty years has labored among the Indians in the Indian Territory, first in connection with the Foreign Board and now under the Home Board. Miss Ramsay, after an efficient service of several years among the Seminole Indians, was appointed by the Board of Foreign Missions a missionary to Barranquilla, where she was to be associated with her sister, Mrs. Thomas H. Candor. After a special course of training with ref erence to her new position, she sailed from New York August 1, in company with Rev. M. E. Caldwell and family. The vessel touched at Port-au-Prince, Hayti, where it is supposed Miss Ramsay contracted the fatal disease. She reached Barranquilla on August 13, much exhausted by the sea voyage and not in condition to resist a malignant disease. Notwithstanding the tender ministrations of loved ones and skillful medical treatment, after one brief rally Miss Ramsay gradually sank, and expired August 19. From her ability, consecration and experience on mission ground, much was expected from her in her chosen field. But she has been called to a higher service. We commend the stricken family and the bereaved mission to the sympathy and prayers of God's people. On the 7th of September, Rev. Prof. H. Porter and wife, of the Syrian Protestant College, Beirut, sailed from New York returning to Syria after a brief absence. They leave their only child, a daughter, at school in Westfield, Mass. Mr. Day, who accompanies them, goes to join the corps of instructors in the college. 289 Miss Alfreda Post, daughter of Rev. Geo. E. Post, M.D., of Beirut, and Miss M. Mitchell, daughter of Rev. Arthur Mitchell, D.D., form a part of Professor Porter's company. Rev. S. Jessup, writing from the Foreign Mission Secretaries' rooms, of Professor Porter, says: Although he is not a missionary of the Board, we regard the college as part of our mission and the instructors as doing a part of our missionary work. The map illustrating the excellent article on "The Universities' Mission in Central Africa" (p. 301) has been prepared for us by our engraver from the map on the cover of Central Africa, the organ of the Universities' Mission. Our readers will be all the more interested in the articles in this number from the vigorous pen of Dr. Kendall, in view of the fact that, while we are preparing this number for the press, we hear of the sudden death, by apoplexy, of his brother, Rev. John F. Kendall, D.D., of La Porte, Ind. The unexpected event occurred at the home of another brother, James V. Kendall, M.D., at Baldwinsville, N. Y., where Dr. John Kendall had his first pastoral charge. We have not often seen a more graceful or a more needful suggestion than this, in the Interior, to large and strong churches with reference to smaller and weaker neighbors: But it behooves every prosperous and strong church to look around its own vicinity for some weak church upon which it may bestow a part of its financial and spiritual energy. And if the strong church has in its membership warm-hearted and levelheaded men, who came to it from a now enfeebled church, which once was their spirit The students who (a larger number than usual) have been spending their long vacation in Sabbath-school and missionary work at the West have returned with joy as the disciples did when they returned from a similar errand saying "even the devils were subject to us through thy name." They will undoubtedly enliven the monthly concerts with the rehearsal of what they have seen and done. The month of October is the month for the meetings of the synods. Nearly all of them meet between the 3d and the 21st. We have been kindly invited to share in the deliberations of several of them. We shall give ourselves the pleasure of attending as many as possible, but it is easy to see that while six of them meet on the 8th and five on the 15th and four on the 3d and four on the 10th, and are scattered from the Hudson river to the Pacific and from the Canada line to the Gulf, it is but few that we can attend. All of them will have to do with the work of home missions. Some of the weaker ones, weaker in the number of members, are great in area and great in promise. The whole country seems ready to receive the gospel, and more and more the harvest seems ripe. We can only emphasize what we have said so frequently: we need more men and we must have more money for their support. We hope the brethren will lay large plans, and pray for still more glorious harvests than we reaped last year. We remember one meeting of synod which had concluded its business and was ready to adjourn early in the day, but continued in session and almost constantly in prayer during the day for the outpouring of the spirit upon their churches; and God heard their prayers and blessed their churches with many great and powerful revivals. We need such a work of grace again and all through our bounds. In connection with the notice of Mr. Thaw's death it seems proper to say that one of the largest givers in Michigan died about the time of the General Assembly. I mean Alexander Folsom, of Bay City. The name of this good elder was heard in the General Assembly several times in connection with the large donations to this Board. The pastor has written to this Board as follows: "Our giver has been called and we miss him. He remembered you, and forty churches in Saginaw Presbytery will remember him if they know what they owe him." Mr. Folsom was a large and generous giver. We may well ask who will take the place of such men. The "Mohonk Conference" has become quite an institution. It is a conference lasting about three days. The seventh annual meeting will be held at Lake Mohonk the first week in October. Mr. Smiley, the proprietor of the Lake Mohonk Mountain House, invites a large number of friends of the Indians to enjoy his hospitality and discuss everything pertaining to the welfare of this people. We may well suppose that no annual gatherings in the past of this kind could have surpassed in interest the |