302 The North and West-Notes. [October. and Stone Mercantile Co.,' Three of the members of this firm, C. W. Wells, F. B. Stone, and Charles A. Davis, have been devoted friends of Alma College from the beginning of its life. They have for the past five years paid the endowment of two of its principal chairs. Their pledge how ever extended only over the period of five years, and that term expired with this commencement. But their interest has been so large, and their satisfaction with the work done by the college so complete, that they have expressed their determination to continue their generous gifts in the future as they have in the past." THE NORTH AND WEST: "Our Congregational friends have started an Academy at Ashland, Wisconsin. They are not so foolish as to call it a university. They do not even venture to style it a college. They choose the honest and modest word which indicates the work it is to do. They use the classic pregnant title which comes down from the days of Plato and Aristotle. It bears such dignity and worth with it that nothing equals it: This Academy is to have a building worth $30,000 and an endowment of $100,000. We mention the matter in order to provoke our people in Northern Michigan to go and do likewise. We need two or three such institutions in Minnesota. One of them is projected at Duluth in a noble fashion. Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and all our western states can get along without multiplying the booms that carry collegiate charters. One college for each synod is plenty. But we sadly need a few score of good academies, where the youth of both sexes can be inoculated with a desire for education, have it brought to their doors, secure personal attention and oversight during their formative years. Then they will be sifted, and the choice ones can go on to the higher and wider seats of culture." NOTES. EMPORIA.-The Board of Trustees of Emporia College, at Emporia, Kansas, have elected the Rev. J. D. Hewett, D. D., of Arkansas City, vice-president of the college, and the financial affairs will be committed to him. GALE. The Rev. J. M. Rogers has resigned the presidency of Gale University, at Galesville, Wisconsin, to accept the pastorate of the Presbyterian church of Manistique, Michigan. The Rev. F. A. Dalrymple, graduate of Princeton College and for the last five years a member of its faculty, has been elected president of the University and comes at once to the work. PRINCETON. Dr. H. H. Allen, the venerable principal of Princeton Collegiate Institute, at Princeton, Kentucky, for many years, has resigned that office. The Board of Trustees have chosen for his successor the Rev. J. S. Bingham, last year the principal of our academy at Ellensborough, Washington, who will enter upon the work immediately. It is proposed to add to the English and classical courses stenography, type-writing, book-keeping, etc. Dr. Allen will continue to give instructions. SALIDA.-The Rev. A. Grant Evans has resigned the pastorate of our church at Pendleton, Oregon, to become principal of Salida Academy. of Salida Academy. Mrs. E. F. Horton, W. Horton, M. D., Miss C. L. Evans, Mrs. Thomas, and Miss Edith W. Thomas, all experienced educators, complete the faculty. Salida is 7,050 feet above the sea, in one of the loveliest valleys of Colorado, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Boys or girls requiring change of climate might well be sent to this most tonic atmosphere, and, in the family of Mr. Evans or Dr. Horton, they will find a safe and pleasant Christian home. FOREIGN MISSIONS. The venerable Dr. Hepburn writing from Japan under date of July 13, gives the following valuable testimony concerning the work of Christ in that Empire: "Mission work is bearing fruit-good fruit-in all its branches; not so striking, or with such apparent luxuriance as formerly, but still substantial. The success of the Gospel in Japan is sure; it cannot fail. Some may be discouraged, but there is no need of it." [It seems eminently fitting that the following action of the Board of Foreign Missions, taken at a recent session, should be spread before the Church,] James C. Hepburn, M. D., of our Eastern Japan Mission, having in a letter of July 13, '92 expressed the belief that his work in Japan is done, he being in his 78th year and feeling the increasing infirmities of age, and Mrs. Hepburn's health imperatively requiring a change climate, the Mission, moreover, having recommended a furlough, the following action was taken : of The Board most cordially grants Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn leave of absence from the Mission. In giving its official sanction to the withdrawal of these beloved missionaries from Japan, the Board records with devout gratitude to God, its high appreciation of the honor done them, and through them the Board of the Presbyterian Church, in that they were chosen to be the first heralds of the Gospel to Japan, and that they have been permitted to witness and to have an important part in the marvelous upbuilding of Christ's Kingdom in the Empire. In addition to his labors as a medical missionary and faithful expounder of the Word of God, Dr. Hepburn has rendered conspicuous service to Japanese literature. His Japanese-English Dictionary, his Bible Dictionary in Japanese, just completed, and the Japanese Bible to which as one of the translators he devoted much of his best thought and energy, constitute an enduring monument not only of his scholarship and industry, but also of his deep affection for the Japanese. The Board expresses the hope that their return to the home land may greatly benefit the health of Dr. and Mrs. Hepburn, and that, through the Divine blessing, they may yet accomplish much for their beloved Japan by stirring up the Church in this country to a deeper sense of her responsibility and privilege with reference to that Empire. The Allgemina Missions Geitschrift has dealt as hard blows to the conceited assertion so often made, that Islam is impregnable against the conquest of Christianity. It shows that the Church Missionary society has a thousand Moslem converts, that the Rhenish Society in Sumatra has nearly six thousand and that nearly all the 12,000 converts in Java have been won from Islam. There are of late, many proofs that the too common notion that it is useless to preach the gospel to adult heathen and especially to old people is all wrong. It has been too readily assumed that the only promising work is that of gaining possession of the children and keeping them for years under instruction. The policy of the Roman Catholic Church in training up orphans is often cited as of force in this direction, but facts seem to show that a fair proportion of heathen converts have been won from among those of mature minds and some who were already aged. A recent report of Dr. Corbett of the Shantung Mission names several instances of conversion in those who had passed three score years and ten. He had given numerous reports of the same kind before. Parents and even grand-parents have been converted through the knowledge imparted to children in school. Rev. A. A. Fulton, of the Canton Mission, also gave a recent report in which he spoke of baptizing one person aged seventy-one and another sixty-five. Often the aged to whom the decline of life is made sad by the possession of false religion receive the glad tidings with special joy. during the past year. ard who [October, returned a few months since from a prolonged visit to the Missions of India, that their higher education is largely confined to sons and daughters of their native Christians, and those who bid. fair to become preachers and teachers. Christian communities in England have been somewhat startled by recent statements showing that the English training of tens of thousands of educated Indian youth, is utilized by cheap infidel publications, quite as largely as by the combined literatures of Christian Missions. We believe thoroughly in an institutional missionary policy, not in the superficial preaching of the Gospel as a witness. There must be watering as well as Planting, and it must never be forgotten that the chief work of the future must be performed by well trained native preachers and teachers. Some of these must be The last report of the North India Methodist Conference is full of inspiration for all friends of Missions. More than fourteen thousand converts have been baptized within the bounds of Conference thoroughly trained. The standard will need to be quite as high in India or Japan or China as in this country. There must be men who can grapple with all the forms of error which are so rife in all lands, but there must be others also, and many of them, who with simpler training shall be enlisted in the immediate work of These will need the winning souls. supervision, contact and constant inspiration of the Missionary. The plan of gathering these field laborers together occasionally for two or three months' training as is done successfully by our Shantung missionaries is an excellent one. In India and elsewhere Methodist Mission churches have been distinguished for their degree of self-support, and that must be admitted as one of the most satisfactory tests of the character of converts. There are different lines of missionary policy, and opinions will differ as to which is best. Each may be best in particular circumstances. Shall chief attention be given to educational measures, the work of the press, and the production of Christian literature, all with a view to broader future results? Or is that the wiser Missionary policy which while giving a fair degree of attention to general education, attaches chief importance to direct, manifold, and untiring evangelization. The Methodist Missions in India have sought immediate harvests. They have established They have established colleges, but we are informed by Mr. Wish The outlook of missions for the closing years of the century is full of interest, not wholly unmingled with anxiety in view of the ever increasing volume ef expenditure. In many lands foundations have been laid, during the last thirty, forty or fifty years; if now, the whitened harvests might be Dean Vahl, President of the Danish Missionary Society, has prepared and published some interesting Missionary statistics, in which he numbers 265 Missionary societies, European and American, African and Polynesian. He gives a total of 4,495 missionaries in 1890, native helpers 42,870, communicants 885,116. The total income reported is $11,118,797. One is disappointed at the trifling rate of increase; for example there were only ten more missionaries in 1890 than in the previous year, though there was an increase of over fifty unmarried lady missionaries. There had been a total increase of a little more than a thousand native helpers and about 35,500 communicants. The missionaries of the Church Missionary Society of Uganda seem to be threatened with serious trouble in the withdrawal of the British East Africa Company. A year ago a withdrawal seemed imminent owing to the lack of adequate government support, and friends of the Church Missionary Society contrib uted toward the expenses of the Company in the hope that during another year the government would adopt some measures which would put the company upon a sound footing. This hope has not been realized. The English missionaries have been protected in their work and have until recently gotten on well with the restored King Mwanga only because British power was represented in the country 305 and the best hopes of the local dynasty seemed to lie in that direction. It is hardly supposable that the British government will allow Uganda, so important a key to the control of the upper Nile, to pass into other hands. It would be the sacrifice of a great opportunity, diplomatically considered, and it would be a disaster to civilization. The most recent statistics of Missions in China report 1,295 missionaries, of whom 109 are physicians. Of 38 lady physicians, 36 are American. There are 520 Protestant churches with 47,357 communicants; of native helpers 1,649 are employed. The Moravian Home Churches number but 20,000 members while the actual communicants on the Mission fields number 31,480. Including baptized children the foreign membership reaches about 75,000. Surely this venerable and noble body still holds the lead as a missionary church. A new Buddhist sect is being formed in Japan which calls its system the new Buddhism. Its aim according to a statement in a recent number of The Japan Mail, is to unite the divided sects rather than to establish a new one. To restore and develop the pristine doctrines of the world religion, rather than to expound a particular system. It is seen however that the old doctrines must somehow be adapted to the spirit of the Nineteenth Century. The leaders are men who have been educated abroad, and have familiarized themselves with modern philosophic speculations. In reconciling Buddhism with modern. science they assume that Buddhism is superior to science as the whole is superior to a part. As the writer in The Japan 306 Foreign Mission Notes. [October, Mail expresses it, "While philosophy, the Mussulman quarters, and it has been science and art do not always reach the passing gradually from one quarter to same results as Buddhism it is simply be- another. We can get no reliable statistics, cause in their present imperfect stage they but judging by the number of deaths cannot attain to that ultimate truth which among the foreign and American populaBuddhism contains." Rev. S. L. Gulick in tion, the deaths among Mussulmans must an able article published in the August be mounting up to the thousands. The number of the Missionary Herald appears French consul's sister, daughter, tutor, and to regard this movement as somewhat a servant have died. Mrs. Hogberg, the formidable. He says, "It is a common wife of the Swedish missionary, is dead, saying of Japanese Christians that Bud- and their baby at the point of death. The dhism is taking Christian doctrine and son of Dr. Castaldi is sick, and the sisterdressing it in Buddhist language." These in-law of the manager of the Imperial are no doubt the most successful tactics as Bank. Yesterday I was called upon to they serve to parry the efforts of Christian bury a Mr. H. A. Vankteel, a Hollander teachers. It is the same method that has en route for Teheran who died ten hours been adopted by the Arya Somaj, of India, after reaching the city. where the whole body of Christian ethics Mary Bradford, Miss Holliday and I are with few exceptions, is being promulgated holding the fort. Dr. Bradford is fearunder Hindu labels, and on Vedic author- lessly ministering to all and visiting and ity. Thus the Christian church in its waiting upon the sick. She is a noble missionary operations seems called upon woman, with a skillful hand and brave to fight heathenism armed with its own heart. Miss Holliday has moved the girls weapons. over to the Recitation Hall of the Boys' School, and is watching over her flock with care. I am trying to minister spiritual comfort and strength to our little flock, most of whom are yet in the city. It is a time of great trial. One can scarcely pass through the streets without seeing a funeral procession or hearing the cries of mourning. Yet this is said to be light compared with some former times. Now that cholera is knocking at our own doors while sanitary science and ceaseless vigilance are doing their utmost to bar its entrance and provide for possible contingencies, we can better appreciate the situation of our noble band of missionaries in Persia who for many weeks have been exposed to the dreadful scourge with no adequate sanitary protection. With anxious hearts we have been watching the progress of the disease in that distant land as reported by cable. The latest telegraphic advice was that thus far the scourge had visited only two of the stations occupied by our missionaries, Teheran and Tabriz. From the former no recent word has been received at the Mission House; from the latter the Rev. S. G. Wilson writes, under date of August 7, that the cholera made its appearance in that city towards the end of July. The letter continues: "The first known cases were in . Dr. Our mission circle in the tents is as safely lodged as can be. We in the city are taking all precaution consistent with the work we have to do. We are lead more than ever to put our trust in the Lord, and to be grateful for continued health." Just as we go to press a cable cipher has been received. It is somewhat obscure, but there is good reason to believe that it gives assurance that up to date our missionaries are well. Let us be earnest and importunate in our prayers in behalf of our fellow laborers in Persia, that their lives may be preserved, the plague stayed, |