unprejudiced, neither need we be violently partisan.

"The mission at the last annual meeting took action to organize to some degree the sporadic instruction in medicine which the missionary physicians have been giving as a department of the Tung-cho College. We are so scattered that at present it does not seem feasible for more than the stations of Pang-Chuang and Lin Ching to join in it. If it were possible for all the medical staff of the mission to join in it we could have quite a faculty, but that is impossible, and the working plans have not been developed yet.

"It was thought best at the annual meeting to invite two of my staff, those who rank as second and third assistants, to take a special course in theology. Their work has been mainly itinerating for two years now, and they have done very valuable work at the out-stations. They have received a good education at the Tung-cho school, have a good knowledge of the Bible, can talk well, and have a sufficient knowledge of medicine to treat the ordinary run of cases and do minor operations; they have always the reserve of referring serious cases to the hospital. It means a great deal to take men as well fitted as they are for the work they have been doing and withdraw them for three years. Our itinerant medical work will have to be given up until I can get more men trained.”

Japan Mission.

ARE CHRISTIANS DISLOYAL? THIS question has been sharply discussed by officials as well as people in several parts of Japan. Mr. Newell, who has recently arrived at Niigata after his furlough in the United States, writes under date of October 6:

"At Kashiwazaki I found that the superior officer of the military post had forbidden his inferiors attending Christian meetings; so the church there was deprived of the presence of several who would be glad to go.

"At Niigata, on the other hand, an

interesting case came up in connection with the Normal School. Every year one or two graduates of this school, if successful in passing the required examinations, are sent to the higher Normal at Tōkyō, the president of this school making the appointment, that is, the appointment is virtually in the hands of the president, though theoretically it is made by the governor, and based upon the examination papers. This year the man who took the highest stand was one of our Kashiwazaki Christians, a graduate last year and at present a public school teacher. The president of the Normal School, however, refused to appoint him, on the ground that Christianity was contrary to the emperor's Chokugo (the now famous edict on education promulgated just ten years ago), and sent up the man who was second best. Quite contrary to his expectations apparently, several of the members of the faculty protested against his action and carried the matter to the governor.

"The discussion became public, all the newspapers of the province blazing away at it, the three Niigata papers being two to one against the president. The discussion developed the fact that two of the school faculty were baptized Christians and two others openly in favor of Christianity, openly now, though all had been silent before! A meeting was finally held at the school at which the governor appeared and made an address in which he practically gave an open rebuke to the president, declaring that there was nothing antagonistic between Christianity and the Chokugo, that the Constitution gave religious liberty, and that the question of a man's religious faith should have nothing to do with his appointment to or preferment in office. Such appointment should be based on ability alone. He did not go so far, however, as to reverse the president's appointment this year, as it had already gone into effect, and the appointee was pursuing his studies at the higher school; but he practically gave the right of way for next year to the Christian who had been defrauded, and in the mean time he has been given the

temporary honor of promotion to a much better school than he was in before.

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'Mr. Yoshida, the defrauded candidate, is a very bright young man whom I baptized at Nagaoka five years ago, he walking all the way there from Kashiwazaki to receive the rite before he should enter upon his Normal School studies. After removing to Niigata I found him a faithful, steady Christian, and for the last two years previous to my going to America I had him regularly twice a week in special work in English. I am sorry for his disappointment this year, but on the whole much good has come out of it. The two Normal teachers, who were living very quietly before, have already both called on me since my return."

Mr. Newell also reports a meeting of the evangelists of that section of Japan, held at Niigata, at which Rev. Mr. Miyagawa was present and spoke very helpfully. His opening sermon at the conference "was all that a sermon for such a time and place could well be." His Sunday evening address, on "Present Day Evils in Japan," Mr. Newell characterizes, as "exceedingly courageous and outspoken, dwelling first upon the three points of untruthfulness, insincerity, and impurity, and closing with a fine appeal for a brave stand in Japan for the religion which takes such high ground on all these ethical questions."

of Church and State. In some things, at least, they have been as near running the church on secular principles as in running the company on religious principles. They have also felt the influence of the recent rationalistic wave which greatly cooled the faith of some of the officers of the company, resident and non-resident. Affairs have been brought to a crisis by the resignation of the pastor who went to them a year ago. The church is selfsupporting, and the Sunday I was there they held a long and interesting church meeting to consider the future. A very good spirit was shown. There were confessions of neglect of the services of the church and strong mutual promises to be more faithful in Sunday observance, Bible study, etc., in the future. The pastor withholds his resignation for the present, but I doubt if he will stay there long.

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The chief feature of this meeting was the ordination of Mr. Okubo as pastor of the Takasaki church. The candidate is a man of strong will and somewhat peculiar temperament, but no one who listened to his statement concerning his faith and life could doubt his sincerity or that the Spirit of God is a strong power in his life. He most frankly stated the unsatisfactory character of his life after he first joined the church, and acknowledged with evident feeling the power of the gospel over his own life.

"The examination, though not in very great detail, brought out clearly his faith

in the divinity of Christ because of his unique power of discerning and preaching truth; his view of redemption as the chief element of Christianity; his belief in the future life; and in the Bible as revealing the mind of God; bearing testimony to the fact that when his faith was brightest he loved the Bible most. The only hesitation in ordaining and installing was the smallness of the salary, sixteen yen, or about $8 gold, per month. The council urged the church to increase this to twenty yen. Mr. Okubo is now the only ordained pastor in Joshu, although we have four other self-supporting churches which have stated supplies.'

"Mr. Kozaki, formerly president of the Doshisha, has been employed by these Joshu churches for a month's evangelistic services with encouraging results. I spoke with him at two meetings. He is about to start a new movement in Tōkyō.

"The bukwai was followed by an inter-denominational social meeting of the Christians of three provinces which lasted through two days. This meeting, though not large, was most excellent in spirit. Indeed in the three days of meeting there was not an anti-evangelical utterance, while the earnestness was in many cases very marked. I am sure that there is good hope of better things in that district.

“I spent the next nine days in visiting those parts of Joshu which have immediate relation to the mission, speaking every night to audiences ranging from half a dozen up to one hundred. Some parts of the field are encouraging, others are decidedly otherwise. The encouragement is almost solely in the revived spirit of the evangelists.

"The tendency among the ministers is strongly conservative, and there is much greater friendliness to missionaries by members of both parties. I think the result will speedily be that conservative men will occupy the influential positions in the church. This is largely so now, and I think you and the Prudential Committee and all of us may still hope to see the Kumi-ai churches showing to the world

"Mr. Pettee presented the matter tactfully, urging as reasons for the decision: I, the scarcity of funds; 2, the scarcity of missionaries; and 3, the desire to awaken a spirit of self-reliance on the part of the churches involved. It was also intimated that the mission did not propose to work where it was hampered in its freedom and was not cordially invited to go. He said that perhaps two or three places might still be helped; that the whole responsibility for the west side was put upon the evangelistic committee, and that occasional tours would be made by the missionaries. Each place pleaded for a continuance of their relation with the mission. Each expressed its determination to keep up meetings and do what they could alone, but all felt that comparatively little could be done without an evangelist, and each place realized its financial poverty and inability to employ an evangelist alone. We wish that their side of the story could have been heard by the mission.

"Two or three things impressed us. One was the universal testimony that there have come very great changes in the sentiment toward Christianity; a great and increasing interest in Christianity outside of the churches, with prejudices comparatively slight, and a very marked and growing interest in Christianity and desire to know its teachings. All seemed to realize that we are on the eve of a great

forward movement, and that it is no time to withdraw from the fields already well occupied in view of the populousness and importance of Western Kyushu. We are abandoning great and growing cities and one of the most populous districts of Japan. Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Kurume, Ya, Nagawa, and others are not villages but cities of from 10,000 to 70,000 people with a great outlying population.

"It seems to be forgotten that though the churches in these cities are small and do not seem to grow in numbers or financial strength, yet they are the nurseries for the development of large numbers of young men and women who go forth from them as Christian workers to supply the large central churches, like those of Kōbe, Osaka, and Tōkyō. The Christians, generally, of West Kyushu are not out of sympathy with the mission, and do appreciate what is done for them. Some in Kumamoto city are the exception."

"He has placed three of his boys with us at school, two of whom have built here, with his permission, and one of the number is a candidate for baptism, much to his apparent pleasure. Last week he was quite ill, and sent for medicine, asking, at the same time, that I would send lads to thatch the house quickly, for, he said, 'I know not whether I will live or die, but if God takes me, I want to leave that house for my young people to learn "the words " in.""

The Chisamba station has been afflicted by a visit of locusts; they were ten days in passing. The boughs of the peach trees were broken by the weight of the pests, "and every tree and grassy spot was turned from green to a dark red by the covering of the locusts." They were

worse this year than they have been for the past nine years. The natives begin to ask, "What shall we do next year?"

Of the Sunday services Mr. Currie writes: :

"They have been well attended, notwithstanding that an unusually large number of the people have gone to the interior. We seldom have had at this or any other season a larger attendance at Sunday-school than we had last Sunday. In Miss M. Melville's class of infants there were forty. In Mrs. Currie's class of old women there were thirty-one. My class was never larger, and most of those present were the old men of the district, while the native teachers (seven in number) had all good classes. Most, by far, of those who attend have no connection with the station. No kind of force is used to bring them together, and they receive nothing from us outside of the school. Sometimes a waggish old mother will ask, 'Why don't you give us a bite to eat when we come?' But we answer with a smile, 'Friend, we don't pound corn on Sunday.' This is followed with a laugh, and there the matter ends.

“Some people from a distance came to discuss a case at the Ombala yesterday, but the old men told them it was Sunday; they would have to wait until next day. They were going to learn the words,' and they came and brought the strangers with them."

Mr. Currie gives an account of what he calls a "beer fight," through which they recently passed triumphantly. It is an old Umbundu custom that, at what may be termed their "corn-carrying bees," beer shall be brewed and their neighbors invited to aid in the housing of their corn. These bees often closed with a drunken dance. The wife of one of the young men at the station proposed to return to the old practice, inducing her mother and sister to join her. They brewed a large quantity of beer and called their friends to bring in her corn. There was an emphatic protest on the part of all the young people; they would not work for beer. Afterwards, when the young men had

finished their morning work, they hastened to the field of this woman, and before sunset her corn was all in the crib, "with nothing to moisten its way thither but water." They thus showed that the corn could be garnered without the use of beer.

Zulu Mission.

THE UMZUMBE HOME.

MISS SMITH writes in reference to the opening of the Girls' School at Umzumbe :

"The supply of maize for the girls' food during this year has already been largely purchased and is on hand, and so, while our government grant has been cut down from £120 to £38 this year, and we do not feel sure of where the money will come from for another year's supply, we have felt justified in taking our usual full number of girls, about seventy. We shall try to plant as large gardens as possible, and if our oxen for ploughing are not carried off by the rinderpest, which is spreading such devastation over the land, and if the locusts do not destroy the crop, or other untoward circumstances arise, we shall hope to be able to largely supply the food for another year in that way.

"The government requires four hours' manual labor daily from each pupil, and for the present we expect to devote most of these hours to the grounds and gardens. Our first spring rains have not yet come, aside from a few gentle sprinkles, but the constantly gathering clouds admonish us to prepare our grounds so as to receive the greatest benefit from the later rains.

"As I said, we have about seventy girls in the school this term. We do not look for or desire such an exciting revival among them as we had last term, but we do look for, and are pleased to see, signs of a healthy, growing spiritual life. It is by line upon line and precept upon precept which we are trying to teach them now. But another time I will write more of the religious work here in the school. A day or two ago I heard a little story of one of the Amanzimtote Seminary boys which

seemed to me very encouraging, as it was a little home incident such as often reveals more than some more public act. Like all Zulu boys he once thought it the desirable and divine plan for the women to work and the men to sit still, but when this sister was at home on a visit a short time ago, he came running down the hill to meet her and take from her the bucket of water which she was carrying. She said, 'Oh, no, thank you. I can carry it all right.' But he insisted on taking it, saying, 'It makes me feel ashamed now to see a woman carrying a heavy burden.' And later, when three of the girls were starting out on an errand, all laden with parcels, he came and tried to take them all. But the parcels were clumsy and he could not manage them, so the girls said, 'You take this heaviest one and we will carry the others.' He consented, but remarked as he did so, ' But if Mr. Cowles were here, I'd manage some way or other to take them all.'"

Western Turkey Mission.

ORPHANAGE WORK AT SIVAS. MR. HUBBARD writes from Sivas, October 23:

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"Mrs. Hubbard, with the wife of our martyred pastor of Sivas, and our colporter, left us eight days ago for a tour at Gurun and a circuit among the villages intervening. Besides the household and furnishing departments, and general mothering at the orphanages, she has the accounts for the whole establishment to keep. After closing her last quarterly account the spirit of go' came over her. I am very glad to give her the chance, but I must say that these women in their quiet, cheerful way do a heap of work that we men folks don't notice till we are left to do it all ourselves. And if any of the Board friends have an idea that this orphan work is not outright missionary work, they don't understand it. For over twenty years we have had colporters in some of these thirty villages from which our orphans are gathered. We have taken no orphans from Sivas city itself,