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government and an experience in youth of the power of divine grace, provide in themselves an assurance of future devotion. and safety for our young people. We believe therefore that it

is wise and necessary to draw attention to the growing need of work for the children of the church.

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The Young People Outside the Churcb.

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WE are learning in these years a very salutary lesson and learning it very largely as a result of past failure. It is dawning upon the church in China at last that there is a possibility of gaining the young from heathen surroundings without attracting them by means of free education in a day-school. The advance of evangelistic activity by means of Sunday schools for non-Christians is one of the striking signs of the times. The readiness with which certain missions and missionaries have attracted to themselves numbers of heathen scholars by this means should be an incentive to all who have charge of established church work to launch out into heathen Sunday school activity at once. The possibilities of such an enterprise carried on over large areas are of a nature to fire enthusiasm and capture the imagination. Much has been said of the surprise and joy with which Morrison would greet the tens of thousands of Chinese Christians gathered together for church worship week by week. What would he not feel at the sight of tens of thousands of heathen children willingly assembled week by week to receive instruction in the Gospel of God? And there is no reason why, if the missionaries of China and their helpers seriously undertook the task, we should not have a million heathen children meeting regularly in Sunday school and receiving such instruction. We suggest to our readers that they shall make a resolve to capture their portion of this million during the present year. Nothing so adds to the sense of hopefulness in relation to work as the knowledge that the growing generation is receiving regular instruction in the way of truth. The whole horizon is so inspiringly widened.

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IN his highly stimulating book entitled "The Future Leadership of the Church," Mr. John R. Mott urges parents, teachers, pastors, and all who have influence with the young, to be alert for opportunities wisely and tactfully to set before them the claims and the privileges of a life of service as distinguished from one of mere

The Life of
Service.

commercialism, or of pleasure. In this vital matter the apathy on the part of professedly Christian parents in Christian lands is appalling. Is not a like ignorance and apathy in our Chinese flocks, which are largely without Christian heredity, education, environment, mainly our own fault, and ought we not to set ourselves energetically and prayerfully to remedy it? As an aid brief sketches of earnest Christian lives, either abroad or in China-especially those of the young-may be unexpectedly influential. A young Chinese teacher in a college recently mentioned in conducting morning prayers that when a wee lad he had been profoundly impressed by a translation of Jonathan Edward's "Resolutions," written two hundred and seven years ago. It is a fine illustration of the essential immortality of high ideals.

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IN the same connection Mr. Mott states that at the Peking University in 1908 were 186 Chinese students who had signed a covenant to devote their lives to The Metbod Christian service. One of the chief causes, if of Appeal. not the chief one, was the fact that some of the. Christian teachers set apart much time through the year for interviews with the students about their lifework. Not a little of this time was spent in actual prayer with individuals regarding the special difficulties in their path. If China is ever to be regenerated the human agents must be mainly Chinese. No one is wise enough to foresee what potentialities lie wrapped in a young life. Mr. Mott says that when he was a student, Moses Coit Tyler, a distinguished professor of history, one day asked him to remain after class, as Mr. Mott supposed with reference to some class work. To his surprise Prof. Tyler merely gave him a prayer-book, inquiring whether he had ever thought of devoting his life to Christian service.

Perhaps but for those few words much of the marvellous expansion of Christian work among students the world around would have been delayed, or not have taken place at all. "A word in due season is like apples of gold in a network of silver.'

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WITH the growth and extension of Sunday school work will come the need for such adjuncts to the Literature for work as Young People's Libraries, Study AssoYoung Deople. ciations, and so on. We are reminded by a catalogue of the publications of the Chinese Young Men's

Christian Association that there is already in being a number of excellent books suitable for young people. In this connection we could wish that the Y. M. C. A. publications were issued in a cheaper form, in order that they might be more widely circulated among the young people of our schools and churches. When we are dealing with literature for children and scholars, cheapness is essential. But it is very necessary that a form of literature, which we have too little of, dealing with historical and general topics from the Christian standpoint, and yet not of the entirely hortatory type, should be prepared for use. The church needs literature of this kind as recreative rather than tuitional reading-stories of travel and adventure, especially those connected with the pioneers of the Christian message; romances having a pure aim and treating of high spiritual and ethical subjects; and biographies, interesting for their subject matter as well as from the lessons they teach; all these might do much to raise the tone of young China. Sunday schools and young peoples' classes are the natural avenue for such literary enterprises. Will not the Tract Societies, following the lead of the pioneer Religious Tract Society of London, give us a little less literature of the Catechism type and turn their attention in this direction?

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THE experience of Sunday school teachers and workers in the United States and in Great Britain has led to a general conclusion that at the very least Sunday school lessons should be divided into two coursesjunior and senior. The International Lessons

Sunday School
Lessons.

have been most successful in systematizing instruction given to children, but it has been found by experience that they need supplementing by a special course for juniors and frequently also by a special course for seniors. While therefore the International Sunday School Lessons as at present used are bound to hold the field for all middle course work—that is, for the great majority of Sunday school classes-we must look forward to the special preparation and use of a course for junior children. Dealing as we are in China with those who have no knowledge of the principles of our teaching, this becomes the more necessary. Indeed it is an essential. We are glad to know therefore that one of the tasks on which Dr. Darroch will enter as Secretary of the China Sunday School Committee is the

preparation of special courses of Sunday school literature.

He

will have the help of good work already done by some leading Sunday school workers and finds a field for enterprise 'white unto harvest.'

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Reform and Sincerity in China.

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It is not very possible to help an individual to be good in spite of his personal desire to the contrary, nor is it easy to assist a nation along the paths of moral reform whose actions are not consistent with a desire to that end. In the early part of last year a memorial concerning opium smoking was sanctioned by the Throne, which brought all officials under inspection with regard to the opium habit in accordance with Article 9 of the original regulation compiled by the Government Council in 1907. All officials were therein ordered, without distinction of rank, to give up the habit or to resign their positions. Six months, it will be remembered, was the period allotted for their reformation. A certain amount of

laxity in the observance of this was to be expected, but it was scarcely anticipated that one of the first acts of the present Regent would be to appoint to high office an official well known for his opium smoking proclivities. While this sort of thing goes on, no amount of agitation or international conference will be able to do much for China in regard to the opium or any other reform. We sincerely trust that this mauvais pas is but a temporary lapse and that the elimination of opium-smoking officials from government employ is to be rigidly enforced. If China would but realize it, thorough internal reform would put her in an impregnable position in her claims for fair treatment in all international matters. One of the first results of the conference of the Commission at present meeting in Shanghai should be an increased stringency and effectiveness in China's own attitude towards the opium evil and its habituees.

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IN the article which we reprint this month from the American Journal of Sociology certain grave charges are made concerning the failure of missionaries in China

Witbin.

Criticism from to do what they ought and might for this empire. They are charged with teaching patriotism and then standing in the way of the fulfillment of their own teaching. This criticism is so sweeping as to raise

considerable doubt concerning the value of the critic's judgment on all kindred topics. Indeed the whole article lacks discrimination. Nevertheless the author's own assertion of his Christian belief and sympathy must be accepted and he should be met on those grounds. His patriotism and that which is generally held by the consensus of Christian thought and teaching may be suspected not to agree. 'Right or wrong, my country always first,' was a leading factor in the crusade which crucified Christ and is not necessarily true patriotism. Such a form of nationalism has been at the root of many of China's woes, and if persisted in without enlightenment, will bring her still further in the dust. It is a right instinct which discourages that patriotic sentiment which serves only to increase the mutual disagreements among nations. At the same time the prevalence of an opinion that missionaries generally are not sympathetic with the legitimate aspiration of patriotic China, should lead to considerable self-examination and to a consistent endeavour to be identified in sympathy and practice with the force of nationalism which Christianity is bound to inspire wherever and whenever it is freely and fairly taught.

The Evangelistic
Association.

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A MOST important series of suggestions appears in the article contributed to the present number upon the proposed Evangelistic Association. What is therein outlined is nothing less than provision for a searching review of the whole method and application of the Christian evangel to the needs of China. That such a review is necessary and would be of the greatest benefit, circumstances show, and anything which saved evangelistic work from the 'rut' of method into which it so easily falls, and provided a permanent court of earnest enquiry and expert advice, must be most serviceable. Do the readers of the RECORDER think it is a practicable suggestion? For the proposed Association to accomplish the work outlined it must have men given up to its particular service and should bring under its working, in order to become effective, the labours of the various Tract Societies and initiate a literature of its own along the lines of missionary study hand-books and missionary apologetic. This could not be accomplished right away; the question is whether the suggestion to inaugurate an association looking to such a desirable end is, or is not, a workable proposition.

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