service of God and man is well-nigh perfect, and the cause of missions in China has been fortunate in the number and quality of the medical men it has called forth. The very success the work of these men produced, brought in its train a danger which has continually to be borne in mind. A hospital, or a dispensary, is not of necessity, or in itself a strength to a mission centre. All depend upon the motive and efficiency of the service. Missionary societies do not start medical work as a merchant opens a shop, as a mere investment of capital looking to a profitable return; nor, on the other hand, may they view such work as a mere means of 'heaping up merit.' In the vital connection between the service and saving of the souls and the bodies of men lie the essential justification and purpose of medical missionary enterprise.

The conservation and development of the spiritual life of all who are engaged in the medical work of missions is as important as that of the clerical worker. Perhaps more so, for the field is wider and the opportunities more intimate. It is therefore of the utmost importance to our cause that medical students, trained in our schools, should have examples before them of men well equipped and fully qualified for the professional work, whose devotion to the cause of Christ is as conspicuous as their scientific attainments.

FEDERATION is once more to the fore in the second meeting of the Presbyterian Federation, which took place in Shang

The Presbyterian

Federation.

hai just after the close of the Educational Association meeting, with representatives from Manchuria, Shantung (East and West), Kiangsu, Chekiang, Canton, etc., and embracing Northern and Southern Presbyterians, Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, Reformed, etc. It is well that the different denominations should first remove the barriers that exist between the different sections of the same general denominational head, and thus prepare the way for union with other denominations. And Federal Union will gradulally be followed by organic union,-at least we believe such to be the present trend. Difficulties of speech were of course not wanting in a body composed of delegates from such widely separated parts of the country, but even these are not insurmountable, and will gradually grow less as China emerges from her past chaotic coudition into national unity.

EFFORT by means of organization, necessary as this is, can never accomptish the spiritual unity of the Church of Christ. The sympathy which is born of a sense Church Unity of common need and common service and which and Prayer. is in turn the forerunner of mutual understanding, develops best in an atmosphere of devotion. Prayer is a very practical form of service, and has been found in experience to solve, by its convincing revelation of spiritual kinship, problems which much striving and days of talk have failed to overcome. No movements towards unity in church work are likely to prove of lasting value which are not the outcome of a deep desire to realize the High-Priestly prayer of Jesus Christ. The church must approach its problems in the Master's spirit.

Is not a definite Prayer Union, having in view prayer on all topics affecting the relationship between missions of various denominations, a need at this time? Little organization would be needed for such a project, but the fact that a band of men and women had laid upon themselves the work of praying specifically in connection with all matters affecting the spiritual unity and co-operation of the church bodies at work in China, and especially in their own districts, would assuredly forward that cause. The Provincial Federation movements, now being realized throughout China, would realize the benefit of such prayer for the objects they have in view, in a marked degree.

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THE unity of Christendom will not be accomplished except under the influence of the spirit of love. Let love of the brethren continue. For this reason it is Federation and the needful for all members of Christ's Church Spirit of Love. to avoid anything in the way of mutual fault-finding and recrimination. The ideal of Robert Morrison : "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus in sincerity and truth," is the sure means to a Catholic comprehension which will carry God's people far along the road of co-operation and comity towards union.

In days like the present, when the critical method is affecting changes in attitude towards inherited traditions, and it is sometimes difficult to see whither we are moving, it becomes all the more necessary to give the spirit of Christian love full play. Nothing is gained for Christ or His cause by labelling Christian brethren whose methods of Biblical

research are of the critical order as unbelievers, or by stating of them that they are unfaithful to God's Word. Nor, on the other hand, is it in the spirit of our Master to speak of those among us who are content with the doctrines of the Fathers and the interpretation of Scripture as handed down as ignorant or obscurantist. Every school of thought has its weaknesses, and if the one we have mentioned tends to a weakening of faith, the other has not been without its failures of charity. In the kingdom of God there abideth these three : Faith, hope, love; and the greatest of these is love.

THE Sixth Triennial Meeting of the Educational Association has passed, and while some of the newspapers speak rather depreciatingly of what it accomplished, we The Educational opine that it is unwise so early to express a Association. very decided judgment, as the results which sometimes follow such meetings are far greater than was anticipated. So much depends upon the committees which have been appointed and how they do their work. Much can be mooted and discussed which will only bear fruit in the future. The following resolution in regard to a great university for China was adopted, after rejecting a resolution calling for a Christian Union University :·

Resolved, That, as Christian educators looking to the highest interests of civilization in the Chinese empire, we express the conviction that a thoroughly Christian University, with the highest standards of scholarship, the largest appliances for investigation, and the most modern methods of instruction, would prove an inestimable boon to China at this turning-point in her history. That in addition to such a University, which might serve as a model for all higher education in the empire, the size, the population of China, the eagerness of the Chinese for education is so great as to render imperative the development at the earliest possible moment of many of our existing Christian colleges in the breadth and height of their scholarship, in the increase of their faculties, and in the enlargement of their appliances for true university work.

On account of the great size of China and the general complexity of the educational problem, we are not sure that such a single great institution is the wisest thing for China, nor did all the members of the Association so declare themselves. We Ishall wait with interest to see whether and how it materializes. *

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THE recent meeting of the Educational Association was made memorable by being the first at which Chinese educators made their voices heard.

Chinese

Educators Speak. Dr. Fong Sec, M. A., read a splendid paper

on standardizing the courses in our schools, making them

as far as possible in harmony with the curricula of the Board of Education with a view to securing government recognition of mission schools. At the same time a memorial was presented from fifteen prominent Chinese educators in reference to the disfranchisement of graduates from mission colleges. This memorial is couched in courteous terms, and the writers recognize with sincere gratitude the efforts made by missionaries for the good of the Chinese. But since the year 1900" the memorial says:

The Court of China has abolished the old order of things in respect to education, but has taken no consideration of educational institutions established by missions. This has, we think, wrought considerable injury to our church, because applications for admission to our schools from those outside the church have diminished considerably since then. There has been a daily decrease, and we are losing exceptional opportunities for preaching the Gospel to converted students. It is stated that the reasons for this falling off are: Because our courses of study are irregular and not so well adapted as those prescribed by the government. That there is undue preponderance of religion or science or vernacular or national literature in our text-books; that these text-books in many instances are antiquated, ill adapted and behind the times; that our schools do not use the same text-books and that our courses of study are not correlated; and finally that our finished products are neither east nor west. Thus our students are lightly esteemed. Further and more important, our Christian students, discouraged at the prospects for improvement and advancement, turn their backs on the church, bend the knee to Confucius and voluntarily enter official institutions. Added to this is the potent fact that our government has recently disfranchised the graduates of our church schools. From these varied causes we observe these varied facts-hindrance, opposition, and trouble. The outlook for our mission schools and Christian

students and virile church is indeed gloomy. Defenceless and almost hopeless as we are, we appeal to your Association now opportunely holding its meetings in Shanghai. It is with the utmost respect, gentlemen, that we beg to offer a few suggestions that may in some small way relieve the situation.

I. Let the Chinese and foreign missionaries present a petition to the Board of Education beseeching them to place our mission schools on the same footing with government schools. 2. Let the Chinese and foreign missionaries form a joint Christian educational association for the purpose of promoting and correlating our national education and the education of our church schools.

of the Gospel.

SOME years ago a distinguished visitor asked: "What draws the Chinese to the Gospel? What specially appeals to them ?" And now the question is being put The Attraction and investigated afresh, as appears from the following: "What was it in Christianity which made special appeal to you? (Chinese) . . . Was it the sense of sin ?" The answer made to the visitor was: It fills a universal need of man, be he from West or East, the need of pardon and renewal for holiness of life. We commend the subject to our readers who may be in a position to follow up the enquiry among their own converts. Answers to be serviceable should be from thinking Christians

of some years' experience. Perhaps the majority can give no clear account of how they were drawn to Christ. Amid the conflicting emotions of the birth-hour who can say, Why and Wherefore? Nevertheless, some good lessons may be deducible from a careful and wide induction of answers, this for example, and perhaps it will be a surprising result to some. We may be led to examine afresh the Gospel as to its fundamental contents, its essential good news, and the best method of preaching it. A perfect conspectus of Chinese Christian experience, such as George Albert Coe might make, would likely explode some pet notions, and it may be revolutionise our apologetics for China.

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EVIDENCE Still keeps coming in that the revival wave has not spent its force in China. Let us rather have faith that it will go on till not a corner of the parched Revival Lessons. and thirsty land has failed to receive its quota of blessing. Nay, as a friend put it in another connection, we hope that the wave will become an everflowing and everwidening river of interest-which is so much more satisfactory than a wave which comes, passes on, and is

Nominal Chris

A few stand in doubt of this movement, wondering gone. whether such torrential confessions of sin are advisable in public. Well, judging by Manchuria, the Holy Spirit settled His own modus operandi, and has kept it up ever since. These revivals have emphatically not been "worked up" by anyone. They have come. If they had not been needed, they would not have come. We cannot choose the form. Surely the church needed to begin afresh at Pentecost, where evidently many Chinese never began, and hence this overwhelming sense of sin and need of pardon. tianity must needs go back to Calvary and Pentecost, or it will never come into the inheritance of the saints at all. Although it is still somewhat early to gather assured lessons from the revivals, we may, however, surmise this at least that many Chinese were merely argued into the church; their consciences meanwhile being asleep. But now there is a discovery of conscience according to John xvi, 7-9, and with it the discovery of the blessedness of sins confessed; "face" being thrown to the winds as Satan's device to ruin the soul.