at Tientsin there were Roman Catholics who could give him instruction. He, without delay, started for this city, and was directed, providentially, to the Protestant Chapel above referred to. helper has had a great and salutary influence among the women. Sometimes twenty or thirty of them will bring their needle or other work and sit in her house, while she reads and explains the He at length returned home, carrying some Scriptures. Some of them are able to read. Christian books with him. The Christians are represented as praying He appeared at Tientsin again, after several with freedom and propriety, and as engaging in weeks, with a letter signed by a number of his singing hymns with great animation and enjoyneighbours and friends, who had also become ment-if not with a strict compliance with the deeply interested in the books he had taken rules of music-with the spirit, if not with the home, and in the statements he made relating to understanding. They have, what cannot be what he had learned at Tientsin. The letter affirmed truthfully and generally of native church contained an urgent request for a native Christian members in China, an affecting and profound to go to Lou Ling and explain the books more sense of their personal sinfulness and unworthifully. It stated, also, that there was a consider- ness. They cherish an ardent desire for the able number who were desirous of receiving conversion of their heathen relatives and neighinstruction, and that the interest was widening-bours, especially of their own families. This promising to fit up a chapel and a house for the desire manifests itself in their fervent prayers in use of the native helper. public, as well as in their daily conversation and conduct. In accordance with this request the Methodist Mission sent back with the old gentleman a supply of books and one of its native assistants. The latter was absent about a month. On his return he gave very interesting and wonderful details of the serious and profound attachment of a comparatively large number to the new truths. The native helper, before the arrival of the missionaries, one Sabbath, remarked publicly on the duty of destroying every idol and instrument of superstition and idolatry. On the following day seventeen families brought their images, pictures of gods, etc.-everything they had which pertained to idolatrous worship and superstitious use-and burned them up in the presence of the native helper. The Christians living in the village go to their agricultural pursuits very early in the morning. After breakfast, about nine o'clock, they assemble in the chapel for singing, reading the Scriptures, and prayer for half an hour, and then proceed to their work again. In the evening, after supper, they meet in the chapel again for prayer, etc. The women who believe in Jesus are, as may have been inferred from the fact that eighteen have been already baptized, not nearly as reserved and retiring as respectable Chinese females usually are. They meet oftentimes in the same building with the men to hear the preaching, and seem very desirous to know themselves about the doctrines as explained by the Chinese preacher or the foreign missionary, not willing to trust to the hearsay explanations. The wife of the native The village has two schools, the teachers of which are among the converts. One of them is spoken of as being very zealous and active in his piety. It is hoped that before long more or less Christian books will be introduced into the schools. Some of the lads in the village give bright evidence that they love the Saviour. CHINA AND ITS MISSIONS. A Cursory View. We are indebted, for the facts that immediately follow, to the late interesting address of Bishop Thomson, of the Methodist Episcopal church. As a whole, China is one of the most fertile, healthful, and beautiful parts of the earth. In the province of Fokien three crops may be gathered in one season. In physical and intellectual character the Mongolian is next to the Caucasian, and the Chinese are the best branch of the Mongolian family. China anticipated Europe in many of the greatest discoveries of the world; it still rivals Western nations in some of the useful and elegant arts; it had a common school system before the Christian era; it has been a literary people from the earliest ages; its libraries contain a History of China, in fifty-six volumes, an Encyclopedia, in twenty-three, and a complete set of Chinese classics, on which more commentaries have been written than on the Scriptures. The highest honours and most lucrative emoluments of the government are bestowed mainly on its most learned minds. In the province of Fokien alone, ten thousand candidates for literary honours annually present themselves for examination. Still, the Chinese are eminently practical in their mental tendencies; they are the Anglo-Saxons of the East, and hence are yielding to the stir of modern ideas as is no other oriental nation. China never had either a slave system or a feudal one, or a pauper peasantry. Though the various provinces have different spoken dialects, they can all communicate with each other through their written language; hence, while the rest of the world can be reached with the Gospel only through more than three thousand languages, the four hundred millions of China can be reached with one! Its Religions. Its religions are, first, Confucianism. This is the established religion, and the emperor is its high priest. Its morality is pure, and it appeals mainly to reason and the moral sense; though it can hardly be called a religion, as it almost wholly concerns itself with the affairs of this life. The idolatry now connected with it is a later excrescence. Second, Tanism. Originally, its adherents were mystics, a sort of Essenes; they are now exorcists and astrologers. Third, Buddhism. This is a foreign religion, introduced since the Christian era; it has become, however, the religion of the lower orders. But even its priests know little of their own faith. It has no such hold as the Buddhism of Burmah or the Brahmanism of India. Indeed, all three of them seem ready to perish. Their different priests drink and gamble together, while their disciples find no difficulty in shifting from one faith to the other as often as anything is to be gained by it. The little hold of idolatry on the people is seen from the great and long-continued success of the chiefs in the late Chinese rebellion, one of the special aims of this wonderful movement being the destruction of idols. Its Isolation. The strength of the whole Chinese system has been its isolation. This is now gone, and China, with but a feeble power of resistance, is feeling the full pressure of modern civilization. Is China to be Christianized? Is this people, numerous beyond our power to conceive; the most remarkable, in many respects, on the face of the earth; a people that can hardly be said to have a religion, and yet only needing to have their hearts and lives subjected to Christian truth to enable them at once to take a prominent place among civilized nations; is this people, to whom God in His providence has so lately said, "Lift up your gates and the King of Glory shall come in ;" to be Christianized? Rome answers yes!-in her way. She first began her great work in the East to make good her losses by the reformation in the West; and her fresh disasters in Europe will but stimulate her work in Asia, and furnish her with all needed men. Indeed, pagan Rome never followed up more persistently from age to age her grand idea of universal conquest than does papal Rome now; and her well-trained legions never went forth with a more courageous and confident tread than do her priestly legions to-day. While she is resolved on the subjugation of the East in general, she is resolved on the subjugation of China in particular. Says Rev. Mr. Blodget, an American missionary in China, "There are 500 European priests scattered throughout the Chinese empire. They began their work in the face of danger and death, and are at the present time pressing forward with increasing zeal and prosperity. Generation after generation of these men live and die in China, that they may win the empire to the Papal Church, and their work goes on from century to century. At different times, as their circumstances opened favourably before them, they have brought large reinforcements into the field. On one occasion Moralis, a Dominican, returned from Europe with twenty-eight additional labourers." But Rome believes in political as well as religious supremacy. It is not an occasional outburst of ambition. It is a fundamental article of her creed. She may hold its assertion in abeyance, but she never abandons it. Generally she seems ready to bide her time, sometimes, however, she betrays a fatal haste. This has been the case in China and Japan, and hence she is watched with suspicion, and her progress feared, though she has paid for her rash ambition dearly with her blood, her calm and unchanged language is, and her works correspond with her words, "China shall be won to the Church.” China's Answer. Still, But to the question, Shall China be Christianized? the Chinese themselves are many of them answering very emphatically, No! To show the spirit which animates them, and which may yet burst out in bitter persecution, we subjoin the following from an address which has been lately printed and circulated in China, and posted up on its walls : “At first, when they, the missionaries, feared the people would attack them, they disseminated their principles in private; but now, in every place they are holding forth their inducements, deliberately practising their perversions in open day; trouble and disturbance pervade all quarters, and the feelings of the people are in incessant commotion. When the conflagration has commenced, where will the calamity end? If the young serpent is not crushed, what can be done with the full-grown reptile? Why hesitate or delay in squeezing it to death?" Ridiculing Christianity, it calls it absurd to suppose that Christ's spirit can impart happiness, since He was unable to preserve His own body from crucifixion; and to believe that He can distinguish the good from the bad, inasmuch as He was betrayed by His own disciple, whose character, of course, He did not know. It represents Christianity as admitting the good and the vicious alike to “the hall of heaven." It affirms that among Christians "male and female bathe in common, thus betraying an utter want of shame." These are only a part of its representations. Then, seeking to arouse the Chinese jealousy, it thus proceeds : "Hence, formerly, when this religion was introduced into Africa, they put the Africans to death; when it was introduced into India, they annexed India to their empire; and when it was introduced into Japan, they were the cause of rebellion in Japan. a “The wealth of our central flowery land is hundred thousand times that of the barbarians, and their hearts have long been yearning after it. If a speedy precaution is not taken to drive them out, we shall find, some day, our ancient civilization of several thousand years' standing supplanted by the semi-canine customs of the savage regions; a consummation much to be deprecated. "Now, since the twenty-second year of Taou Kuang (1842), these perverse barbarians have put forth their rebellious views with effrontery. They have extended their depredations to the celestial capital and other places, and yet who has come to the rescue? Now, having insolently invaded the metropolis, and inflicted a deep wound on our national existence, while no one comes to the rescue, is it likely they will fold their hands and go away? Why do we still fear their empty talk, and refrain from deliberations on a plan for their slaughter? Their country is fifty thousand le from China, beyond a triple ocean; how can the life or death of men be overruled at a distance of fifty thousand le across the ocean? "But as to those who are the victims of their deception, who have long been getting more and more polluted, till their very vitals are infected by the venom, it were insufferable to kill them without first giving them warning. Hence this premonishment is issued, that they may review their course. If they still cleave to their delusion, then let the heads of families and the village elders combine the population and arm the neighbourhoods, to seize the offenders, that they may be placed in some solitary region, or hurled beyond the seas, to take their place among the strange things of creation; for they must by no means be allowed to disgrace the central land with their various abandoned and corrupt practices." God's Answer. But we believe God answers yes to this question,-already, before the worlds began, in His grand purpose of grace; by Christ, in his last imperative commission; by His providences, in which He has been so signally preparing the way; by His spirit, in the hearts of His churches of every name, in the steady success which it has our given to the labours of the last twelve years, and now of late in a movement prompted by it, which, though local and limited in its range, evinces what may be expected when the Holy Spirit shall be generally poured out. This copious outpouring of the Spirit is now grand need, not only in China, but throughout the whole heathen world. Christian truth, as an thousands of pagan minds like seed in the earth incipient conviction, now lies in hundreds of awaiting the germinant influence of shower and sunshine. The united prayer of the church will bring down such a shower of grace as will convert the waste, howling wilderness of heathenism into the garden of the Lord.-From the Boston Watchman and Reflector. FIRST FRUITS IN FORMOSA. The English Presbyterian Mission in Formosa is becoming one of great interest. This beautiful island, called Taiouan, is in the Chinese Sea, 75 miles from the Foo-kien province. It is 260 miles long, and at least 75 miles wide. Extending through its whole length is the chain of mountains which divides its aboriginal districts from its Chinese. Its extensive plains are watered by numerous streams. Its air is pure and wholesome. It produces abundance of corn, fruit, oranges, bananas, pine-apples, guavas, and cocoa nuts. Its inhabitants use oxen for riding in preference to horses. On the western side of Formosa is the port of Ta-kao, the key to the southern part of the island. Ta-kao itself is but a village of 2,000 to 3,000 persons, but south and north there are wide tracts of country, and a large population open to missionary work. Eight miles distant is the district city of Pe-taou, with a population of 10,000 to 12,000 persons. In the main street of Ta-kao is a two-storeyed house, with a chapel, dispensary, and preacher's room on the ground-floor. The upper storey contains a large sitting-room and two bedrooms. Connected with this house is a smaller one, with a kitchen and servants' sleeping-place. Such are the mission buildings of the English Presbyterian Mission. Dr. Maxwell is the missionary. Four times daily the chapel is open for preaching to the heathen. Large and attentive audiences are drawn from various parts of the island, and from the shipping in the harbour, so that the Gospel from this place is carried far and wide. "Three converted Chinese aid the Doctor. Two are from Amoy, and the third was born again, as it is believed, in Formosa. Four male converts, named Chay, Ho, Tiong, and Ui, have lately been united in church fellowship. So far as Dr. Maxwell and Mr. Swanson (who has lately visited the island) can judge, they give indications of a real change of heart. These are the first-fruits of Formosa to Christ. Chay, the first named, belongs to the Pe-taou city, where it is hoped he may be the means of carrying the Gospel. Sierra Leone. JUBILEE CELEBRATION. THE following notices of the Jubilee Meeting of the Sierra Leone Church Missionary Association will be read with interest. They are from a letter to the Society of the Rev. J. Quaker : It will, I am sure, cheer your heart, and the hearts of our good friends in England, to hear that our Jubilee Meeting came off, on the whole, remarkably well. I say 66 on the whole," because the Juvenile Missionary Meeting in the forenoon of that day, when the Public Meeting was held, was not so well attended as in December, 1865, the meeting being held at a time when a great many of the children were absent at the Christmas The holidays. But, putting this aside, the Jubilee Meeting was indeed worthy of the name: it was overflowing, full, containing the intelligence of the colony: Government officials, officers of the barracks, clergymen of the established church, dissenting ministers, catechists, schoolmasters, and other educated persons, were all present. report gave unusual satisfaction. Both Europeans and natives have expressed a wish that it should be printed for circulation. I hope to be able to forward it to you (D.V.) next month. The bishop's jubilee sermon, preached on January 2nd, will be forwarded at the same time. It was an elaborate sermon, very good, and worthy no less of a bishop than of the occasion. As regards the contributions, the hopes and expectations of the Committee have been more than realized. The total amount raised, according to accounts now in my possession, is above £825. "This," observes the Rev. G. R. Caiger, "is not an offering to be despised from a colony of 45,000 inhabitants. Can any town be named in England, containing the same population, as to numbers, whose contributions to the Society can at all approach this?" The resolutions, proposed and unanimously adopted, are as follows: 1. That the report, of which an abstract has been read, be received, printed, and circulated; and that this meeting presents its grateful thanks to his lordship, the bishop, for his sermon preached before the Society last evening; to the President of the Association, for his continued patronage; also to the ministers, pastors, and collectors of the various districts throughout the colony, to whose untiring zeal and energy the Society has been indebted for the steadily-increasing amount of contributions realized from year to year. 2. That a review of the present advanced temporal and spiritual condition of this colony, through the instrumentality of the Church and other Missionary Societies, renders it incumbent upon every true Christian and patriotic African to pledge himself, under God, for the sustainment of a work so nobly and effectually wrought by the blood of German and English missionaries, and for renewed efforts to occupy the "regions beyond." 3. That the friends and supporters of the Church Missionary Society in this colony, while thankfully acknowledging the great success with which the Lord has blessed the Society's varied and extensive labours within and beyond the limits of this colony, for the past fifty years, and humbling themselves before God for their shortcomings and omissions, desire to record their entire dependence upon the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whose sanctifying influence can alone guide and animate the vast and complicated system of means employed by the Society, and give success to the labours of missionaries abroad to convert the heathen.-Church Missionary Intelligencer. South Africa. taken place; so that we are enabled to report an addition of above 200 persons meeting in class, the majority of whom have obtained clear evidence of the fact of their acceptance with God. Shawbury is not like the same place it was a few months ago. Though war parties are frequently out in the neighbourhood, the station remains quiet. Convinced that they were wrong in mixing up with quarrels between contending chiefs, they have resolved, I trust sincerely, to withdraw from the contest. Many of those who were foremost in prosecuting the war are soundly THE RELIGIOUS AWAKENING IN THE converted, and zealously enlisted against the com WESLEYAN MISSION. THE Rev. Edwin Gedye, of the Wesleyan Mission, writes from the Queen's Town District :— My last was, I know, an enumeration of sorrows, and was written under circumstances of great trial, we having then been necessitated to leave our station, and seek refuge from the storm of war at Clarkebury. Whilst we were delayed there, the Rev. Mr. Taylor, of California, (of whose labours and successes in this land you have doubtless heard,) passed through this country, and made a stay of a few days here. The immediately apparent success of his labours here was small, and he seems to have gone forward with the impression that the door of usefulness was not open to him here; but his preaching made an impression which did not wear off, and after his departure many were stirred up to feel that they had despised their day of visitation, and had wilfully put from them the offer of salvation. The news of the rich showers of blessing which accompanied the labours of that devoted man on the other stations throughout the country only served to deepen these impressions; and when, after the lapse of a few weeks, they were visited by two of our brethren, many were constrained to yield to be saved by grace. mon enemy of Christianity. An increased number of services are now well attended. The power from on high is often felt in our midst; and the work is spreading, not only on the station, but in various directions beyond. A spirit of enquiry is stirred up among the heathen. The chiefs seem favourably disposed to listen to the Gospel; and although all the ramifications of heathen superstition, with a vast amount of Satan's diabolical machinery, stand in the way of their accepting it, an impression in undoubtedly made; and we believe God will yet be glorified in the advancement of His work among the surrounding heathen. I have just returned from a most interesting and encouraging journey to the Tina river, and the residences of the chiefs. In that part of the circuit the Lord has given us twenty souls during the past ten days, and many others are under deep conviction. I could write many interesting particulars respecting the work, but time fails, as the post must now be sent off. The Rev. Ralph Stott, writes from D'Urban, Natal:-"I have been in several revivals within the last forty-five years, in connexion with David Stoner, Thomas Walker, Joseph Wood, Messrs. Palmer, and in Batticaloa, and have often seen glorious results; but was never in a revival which pleased me so well. There was no rant, no disorder. All was calm and under perfect control, and yet there was a power and influence which bowed everything before it. Mr. Taylor has a manly appearance, a good voice, a commanding attitude, and a good knowledge of human nature; but there is no attempt at oratory or elocution; no flights of imagination; no working on the imaginations or passions of his audience. He deals A course of special services upon which we en- in plain truth, clothed in plain language, intertered, immediately resulted in about fifty conver-spersed with a few Yankeeisms. His discourses sions during the week; and, since then, not a are logical, appealing to the understanding and week has passed in which conversions have not judgment, and, through them, to the heart. His On my return to the station a fortnight later, I found a people evidently prepared of the Lord to accept his salvation on His own terms. Humbled by their losses in war, ashamed at having, a short time previously, fallen out among themselves, and become involved in a quarrel, which issued in bloodshed and death, and convinced that they had aggravated their guilt by resisting the mighty influence which had accompanied Mr. Taylor's preaching, they were now crying to God for help. |