meeting that will be held this year. The world moves and the Indians are moving with it. We call attention at this early date to the direction of the General Assembly that the Sabbath preceding Thanksgiving day in the month of November be set apart for the purpose of gathering all contributions of the children in the Sabbath-schools for the school work of this Board. We shall probably call more particular attention to it. next month, but we hope the Sabbathschools, and especially the superintendents, teachers and pastors in all of the churches, will remember this and be ready for the call when it comes. We have 793,442 Sabbath-school children. We think teachers and schools who propose to use mite-boxes or other devices cannot begin to make their arrangements too soon. The Executive Committee will be glad to furnish mite-boxes, circulars and anything else in their power to help forward the good work. Rev. Thomas Marshall, late synodical missionary of Missouri, was in our rooms a few days ago on his return trip of sixteen months journey around the world. He looks rugged and ready for work. The letters of Rev. Mr. Frazer and Rev. Mr. Lowe have a bearing on the New Mexican work as presented under the head of Monthly Concert. It will be well to read them in that connection. 291 This magazine from time to time gives many sketches of home missionary fields which give the resources of the country and the opportunities for settlement, all of which have a bearing on the filling up of the country and the necessity for missionary work, Sabbath-schools and churches. The two letters in this number from Rev. W. S. Peterson and John B. Pomeroy, of the Black Hills country, in that new presbytery of the Black Hills, are full of interest on these points. How remarkable it seems that just now, when this country is attracting attention, the sale of the Sioux lands to the government should take place by which railroads can reach that country more directly, along which a new population will go in something after the style of the late new settlement of Oklahoma. How providential it seems that in the neighborhood of the great treeless plains God should have made such a wonderful deposit of coal as is described in Mr. Peterson's letter. We must provide for the great incoming tide of human beings. We have only just heard of the death of Stephen Torrey, at Honesdale, Pa. We wonder that we have seen nothing in the newspapers about it, and we presume something will be prepared by his friends, for the story of Stephen Torrey's life and labors in his presbytery and in the work of home missions has never been fully told. It is a fruitful story and ought to be well told. He did a great work for home missions in northeastern Pennsylvania. We hope to know more in due time. FOREIGN MISSION MISSION NOTES. BY THE SECRETARIES. If any reader of the present number of THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD wishes to gain a strong, deep sense of the difference between the freeness of the gospel which is set forth in the great commission and in the dissemination of the word of God, as contrasted with the repression and narrow bigotry which pertains to the Koran, 292 Death of Rev. J. F. Crossett. let him read the last portion of Rev. J. L. Potter's article on "The Work in Teheran." The uproar created by the sale of a single copy of the Koran to an infidel is a fair index of the spirit of Islam, and it affords a clear indication that, except so far as Mohammedanism is guarded and upheld by force, it must always be a loser in the conflict with Christianity. Letters from Bangkok, July 9, bring news of the serious illness of Mrs. Dr. Hays, and fears are expressed that she may not recover. DEATH AT WORK.-In a letter from Rev. T. H. Candor of Barranquilla, Colombia, S. A., August 1, he says that an epidemic of black measles had prevailed, causing nine hundred deaths in three months out of a population of thirty thousand. Had there been suitable medical aid at hand but few deaths need have occurred. The schools and religious services were much thinned out for the time. None of the mission families, nor even of the Protestant families, were invaded by death. A Christian physician is greatly needed at that place. BUILDINGS NEEDED.-There is also an urgent call for the means to provide a building suitable for schools and for a missionary's residence. The people in time will doubtless build their own church, but they worship in the school-rooms at present. REV. J. FISHER CROSSETT. The State Department at Washington has received from the American legation at Pekin a report of the death of this earnest and devoted man, who died June 21 on board a steamer bound from Shanghai to Tientsin. Mr. Crossett was for a number of years a missionary of the Presbyterian Board, and was looked upon by the Chinese with something approaching worship, owing to his great simplicity of character and his complete devotion to his work. Failing somewhat in health, he became the subject of partial mental aberration, his mind taking the direction of intense self-exaction and a [October, morbidly-sensitive conscience. He withdrew from the mission, and was sent home with a hope of restoration to health. His mental balance was partially restored, but his great eccentricity rendered it necessary that he should work upon his own lines and should reject anything like regular support. He even went so far as to restore to the Board considerable amounts of what he had already received, which amounts, however, were handed over to his wife, who, left en tirely without support from him, was greatly in need of it. The impossible conditions in which Mr. Crossett lived rendered it absolutely necessary that he should live alone, and many times he has been rescued by brother missionaries from extreme suffering and privation. His influence over the Chinese would have been great in any case as a simple result of his devotion to their welfare; but to the Oriental mind anything that is morbid and savors of ascetic rigor comes to be regarded as well-nigh superhuman, and elicits a respect bordering on worship. So far as we know, all the missionaries in Pekin, whether of our own or other boards, have sympathized with Mr. Crossett in his work. While they could not share his views or his methods, they have held themselves ready at all times to aid him as far as possible. All men who have known him, native or foreign, will mourn the loss of one of the noblest and most self-sacrificing men of his time, and will sympathize deeply with his wife, who while utterly unable, after various attempts, to accompany her husband in his peculiar work, has continually cherished him in her heart and sustained him by her earnest prayers. We gladly append the tribute which our American minister, Mr. Denby, has sent to the department at Washington: Mr. Crossett's life was devoted to doing good to the poorest classes of Chinese. He had charge of a winter refuge for the poor at Pekin during several winters. He would go out on the streets the coldest nights and pick up destitute beggars and convey them to the refuge, where he provided them with food. He also buried them at his own expense. He visited 1889.] Italian Campaigns in Abyssinia. all the prisons, and often procured the privilege of removing the sick to his refuge. The officials had implicit confidence in him, and allowed him to visit at pleasure all the prisons and charitable institutions. He was known by the Chinese as the "Christian Buddha." He was attached to no organization of men. He was a missionary pure and simple, devoted rather to charity than proselytism. He literally took Christ as his exemplar. He travelled all over China and the East. He took no care for his expenses. Food and lodging were voluntarily furnished him. Inn-keepers would take no pay from him, and private persons were glad to entertain him. It must be said that his wants were few. He wore the Chinese dress, had no regular meals, drank only water, and lived on fruit, with a little rice or millet. He aimed at translating his ideal, Christ, into reality. He wore long auburn hair, parted in the middle, so as to resemble the pictures of Christ. Charitable people furnished him money for his refuge, and he never seemed to want for funds. He slept on a board or on the floor. Even in his last hours, being a deck passenger on the El Dorado, he refused to be transferred to the cabin, but the kindly captain, some hours before he died, removed him to a berth, where he died, still speaking of going to heaven, and entreating the bystanders to love the Lord. This man taught the pure love of God and goodness. He completely sacrificed himself for the good of the poorest of the poor. He acted out his principles to the letter. He was as poor and lived as plainly as the poorest of his patients. On charitable subjects he wrote well. The ideal to him was practical. Let this American then be enshrined in the annals of men who loved their fellow men. [Mr. Crossett was one of my most beloved pupils in Lane Seminary. He was a good man.-H. A. N.] 293 which is an increase upon the total population of eight years ago. The native population has risen to 16,000 at Massowah, 20,000 at Otumlo, and as many more each at Monkullo and Zaga. Around the walls of Arkiko are the clustering cabins of 16,000 natives. Altogether in the Italian possessions there are 90,000 people, where ten years ago there were only struggling villages and wretched wandering hordes of Arabs. Stable government and relief from the incessant strifes and unheard-of exactions of the native chieftains have proved attractive to the people. What a comment is all this upon the theory that Islam is better than the rule of Christian nations for Africa! Why then do these wretched tribes which have been harassed and decimated by the half-fanatical and half-predatory wars of El Mahdi and Osman Digna flock thus to the shelter of a European power? The Italian is not the best form of Christian influence that we could name, but it is far in advance of the holy standard of El Mahdi. A letter from Rev. B. C. Henry, D.D., dated July 6, gives an account of a recent outburst of hostile feeling in Canton toward all Christian missions, though it was checked before anything serious resulted. The difficulty was as follows: At the Roman Catholic foundling home, under the care of Chinese Sisters of Mercy, a large number of infants, many of them in a dying condition, are received and baptized. The death rate is so high that a man is almost constantly employed to carry the little bodies away for burial. The man was watched by certain people, who soon discovered that the suspicious packages which he carried away in baskets contained the bodies of infants. He was followed back to the Roman Catholic premises, and the old malicious slander was revived that the foreigners were kidnapping children in order to extract their eyes and their vital parts to be used in making medicine. Complaints were conveyed to the provincial judge, a guard was set and the man was arrested near one of the city gates, when his packages were opened and found to contain the bodies of six or eight infants which 294 Epidemic in Hainan-Death of W. Thaw. he was carrying out for burial. The news of this arrest and discovery spread apace over the city, and people were found by the score who could swear that they had seen the marks of violence on the children. The district judge before whom the affair came for review decided that everything should turn upon the condition of the bodies, which were accordingly examined. No marks of violence appeared, the case was dismissed, and the excitement was partially allayed. This, however, did not satisfy the ignorant masses. Placards were secretly posted up, and a plan was laid for an uprising to murder the Christians. But meanwhile the British consul telegraphed to Hong Kong for a gunboat, which soon appeared on the Hainan has been visited during the heat of summer by epidemic disease. Remittent fever and dysentery had already made serious ravages when cholera appeared, especially among the students connected with the prefectural examinations. Over two hundred students from one of the thirteen districts are said to have died, either in the city of Kiung Chow or while fleeing to their homes. Dr. McCandliss, from whom the tidings come, says, "Of the deaths among students of other districts I have no certain information, but every one attacked by the disease seems to die. The missionary circle have been spared thus far, and very few if any deaths have occurred among the Christian converts." The reasons for these exemptions are to be found in the sanitary regulations instituted and in the timely application of remedies. [October, Senor Altamiro, a Mexican of high literary attainment, who has been assisting Dr. Greene in the publication of El Faro, the spirited semi-monthly paper of our Mexican mission, having recently been appointed consul-general to Spain, has taken occasion, in bidding adieu to Dr. Greene, to pay the following tribute to the paper which has been so successfully carried on for some years in connection with our work. He speaks as follows: One source of regret to me in leaving this place is my separation from all of you and from our beloved Faro (Lighthouse), a name to which it is justly entitled. Believe me that among the many periodicals with which I have been connected during my long life as a writer, none, not even my own, have afforded me such pleasure and satisfaction as the Faro; this be cause of its pure Christian tendencies and because of its usefulness. Believe me, also, that among my confreres, no one has been to me so good a friend as yourself. Another heavy loss has fallen upon the cause of missions in the death of Mr. William Thaw, of Pittsburgh. He was a large contributor for every good work. He was a broad-minded supporter of education in his own land and a stanch friend of home missions, and yet his heart was large enough to include also the cause of the benighted millions in other lands. Mr. Thaw was a plain and unostentatious man, living simply and without the least disposition to display. His chief delight was to do good. He gave to the great organized departments of church work and to objects outside of his denomination, and he had also an attentive ear for every chance call that seemed meritorious. Many a western college and many a poor but worthy student has received his timely help. He did not give because he could not avoid it, and he never seemed nervous and impatient at the frequent calls, but was always ready to supplement his regular gifts in cases of deficits and special needs. The cause of religion and humanity mourns when such men die. We look back upon many illustrious names of our Chris 1889.] Meetings of Presbyteries-Shantung Mission. tian laymen who have been a blessing to their generation. Mr. Thaw was one of the most generous and the most unostentatious. Who will fill these vacancies? Many of the presbyteries are to meet in October. We hope they will remember the action of the General Assembly, which recommended presbyteries and churches to adopt more thorough measures for raising their due proportion of funds for the work of foreign missions. No other cause so imperatively demands a system as this. The work is far away and does not, like home objects, constantly appeal to the eye and the heart. It is not a part of the work of the home presbyteries and under their care. It is the one cause to be most easily overlooked and forgotten. Therefore it is the more necessary to take it up on principle and place it beyond the danger of oversight. The Assembly recommended that the presbyteries ask the churches to pledge certain amounts. They can at least aim at certain amounts. They can give with calculation and specific purpose, and not on the haphazard plan which too largely obtains. We would like to see it tried. The presbytery is a good place to start it. Our brethren in the Shantung mission, after finishing up their work of distribution to the famishing, are able to look back upon the services rendered with much satisfaction. In many respects it has been a strange episode in their missionary life. It has not been without danger, and that fact was realized from the first. It was impressed upon them by the fact that there lay far to the westward the remains of the martyr Albert Whiting, who in a former famine sacrificed his life by a fever contracted during his work. One of the Baptist missionaries has suffered severely, though not fatally, during the recent distress from the same cause. Sometimes the missionaries were kindly received by the magistrate of a district and hospitably entertained in his yamen. At other times they were obliged to content themselves with such rude quar 295 ters as a deserted court in a dilapidated Chinese village. "It was hard work," says Rev. W. P. Chalfant, "trudging about the village streets and lots day after day, especially as the more distant hamlets lay from ten to fifteen miles from our headquarters; but the work was done at last, and we had twenty-five thousand mouths' upon our roll." Meanwhile, the Board is making this year an unusually large reinforcement of the Shantung mission. Six men, four ordained ministers and two physicians have been sent to that mission, five of whom are married. Besides these, two names have been added to the force of lady missionaries. Including wives, thirteen will be added to the roll. The Shantung has been the most fruitful of our missions in China. It is one of the most promising and accessible of the eighteen provinces, and is peopled by a stalwart race. The province contains a population of nearly twenty-nine million, or nearly one half the total population of the United States. The present number of missionaries at work under the Presbyterian Board is thirty-four, of whom sixteen are ordained, three are physicians, and the remainder are wives of missionaries and unmarried ladies. This with the arrival of the new missionaries would make a total force of fortyseven. The number of communicants last reported is two thousand two hundred and sixty. We commend this missionary band. to the prayers of the Church, that they may be so blessed in their work that great multitudes shall be brought to Christ. |