IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

ido

{•/

&T J^.

rnir

1.0

I.I

IIIIM IIIIM

■'- III 2.0

1.8

1.25

1.4

1.6

-* 6"

►

/}.

e".

<£"

f ^

■Ci

•%

Photographic

Sciences
Cor[)oration

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y 14580

(716) 872-4503

:^\^

^^ M

^9>

<^>

CIHM/ICMH

Microfiche

Series.

CIHM/ICMH
Collection de
microfiches.

Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques

1980

Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques

The Institute has attempted to obtain the best
original copy available for filming. Features of this
copy which may be bibliographically unique,
which may alter any of the images in the
reproduction, or which may significantly change
the usual method of filming, are checked below.

L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur examplaire
qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details
de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-§tre uniques du
point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier
une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une
modification dans la m^thode normale de filmage
sont indiqu6s ci-dessous.

S Coloured covers/
Couverture de couleur

□ Covers damaged/
Couverture endommagde

□ Covers restored and/or laminated/
Couverture restaur^e et/ou pellicul^o

□ Cover title missing/
Le titre de couverture manque

D
D
D
D

Coloured maps/

Cartes g^ographiques en couleur

Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/
Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)

Coloured plates and/or illustrations/
Planche?. et/ou illustrations en couleur

Bound with other material/
Relid avec d'autres documents

Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion
along interior margin/

La reliure serree peut causer de I'ombre ou de la
distortion le long de la marge int^rieure

Blank leaves added during lestoration may
appear within the text. Whenever possible, these
have been omitted from filming/
II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es
lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte,
mais, lorsque cela 6tait possible, ces pages n'ont
pas 6t6 filni^es.

□ Coloured pages/
Pages de couleur

Q Pages damaged/
Pages endommag^es

□ Pages restored and/or laminated/
Pages restaurdes et/ou pellicul^es

Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/
Pages d^colordes, tachetdes ou piqudes

□ Pages detached/
Pages dStach^es

□ Showthrough/
Transparence

I 1 Quality of print varies/

Quality indgale de I'impression

Includes supplementary material/
Comprend du materiel supplementaire

Only edition available
Seule Edition disponi'jie

Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image/
Les pages totalement ou partiellement
obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure,
etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de fagon d
obtenir la meilleure image possible.

□

Additional comments:/
Commentaires suppl6mentaires:

10X

This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/

Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci dessous.

14X 18X 22X

26X

SOX

12X

16X

20X

24X

28X

32X

mod here has been reproduced thanks
osity of:

Library of the Public
Archives of Canada

L'exemplaire filmd fut reprodult grSce S la
g6n6rosit6 de:

La biblioth^que des Archives
publiques du Canada

appearing here are the best quality
isidering the condition and legibility
lal copy and in keeping with the
:ract specifications.

Les images suivantes ont dt^ reproduites avec le
plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et
de la nettet^ de l'exemplaire film^, et en
conformity avec les conditions du contrat de
filmage.

lies in printed paper covers are filmed
/ith the front cover and ending on
e with a printed or illustrated impres-
back cover when appropria..e. All
al copies are filmed beginning on the
ith a printed or illustrated impres
iding on the last page with a printed
i impression.

orded frame on each microfiche
n the symbol -^ (meaning "CON-
3r the symbol V (meaning "END"),
ipplies.

s, charts, etc., may be filmed at
juction ratios. Those too large to be
uded in one exposure are filmed
1 the upper left hand corner, left to
p to bottom, as many frames as
le following diagrams illustrate the

Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en
papier est in.prim^e sont filmds en commenpant
par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la
dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second
plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires
originaux sont film^s en commenpant par la
premiere page qui comporte une empreinte
d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par
la dernidre page qui comporte une telle
empreinte.

Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la
dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le
cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE ", le
symbole V signifie "FIN".

Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre
film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents.
Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre
reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir
de Tangle sup6rieur gauche, de gauche d droite,
et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre
d'images n^cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants
illustrent la mdthode.

■ p

^sssssss

^N.$SS$SS

..^S^^l^^^^^^^^^^^

-*-«J«

UI? ¥il15^

WITH THE AUTHOR'S COMPLIMENTS.

Kingston, Oct. 6, 1886.
My Dear Sir,—

Acting on a suggestion made by the Foreign Mission Committee, 1 wrote the

following letters, and now, at the request of some who read them in the Daily

Mail, I have had them reprinted. Should you wish a number of copies for your

congregation, please apply (rate, five cents each, when twenty or morn are taken)

within the next ten days to J. B. Mclver, Kingston, or to

Yours faithfully,

a. M. GRANT.

"It ta

we doini

Indians,

make mo

uttermos

To sucli (

It is ui

most eut

that stat

that give

have also

no' friclil

apocryph

who hav(

Foreign J

There i

Canada e

be said tl

organized

to form o

sand peop

into two,

There \
had comn
Q^l^ec.
islands in

Tl m FOREM MISSIS OF OUR CHURCH.

No. i.-II»UTROOUCTORY.

"It takes a soul to move a body." What inspiration is there in us ? What are
we doing to lift the world higher ? Some of us have done much to degrade the
Indians, our wards. What have others of us done to better them ? We wisli to
make money by trading with the W^est Indies, with the people of China, with the
uttermost bounds of the earth. What aie we doing to Christianize the world ?
To such questions few of us can be indifferent.

It is unnecessary to ask whose is the fault that such matters have been left al-
most entirely to denominational organs. Perhaps the reason is to be found in
that state of mind which distinguishes history into "sacred and profane," and
that gives us sacred music, sacred rhetoric and sacred men. No wonder that we
have also sacred garbs, and the sacred tone, look and whine. "Oh, Jock ! are ye
no' frichted to read sic a gude book, and this no' the Sawbith day," cried the
apocryphal Scotch woman a generation ago. There may be some women still
who have a confused notion that it is not the correct thing to write about
Foreign Missions in the J\Ia!f or Ghhc.

There is a special reason for writing about them this year. In 18.34 we had in
Canada eight or nine separate and distinct Presbyterian l)odies. It need hardly
be said that nothing was done for outsiders then. By 1875 the nine had become
organized into four Chiu'ches, and the Supreme Courts of those four then united
to form one Church, which now embraces between six and seven hundred thou-
sand people. But this Church, though nominally one, has hitherto been divided
into two, so far as foreign mission wf)rk was concerned.

HOW THE DIVISION AROSE.

There was a reason for the division. The Church in the Maritime provinces
had commenced work in the foreign field long before the Church in Ontario and
Q^|5ec. It sent its first missionaries in 1846 to that New Hebrides group of
islands in the South Seas that France now longs to annex, and would annex in

spite of Austtaliu if (}i"eat Britain pennitted. Subsequently, it sent others to
Trinidad, an island with which we have some connncrcial relations. It was
warndy interested in those missions. It knew them better than it knew Western
Canada. So, while rather coldly consenting to the ecclesiastical union of 1875, it
resolved to manage its own missions. Ever since, the west has had as little,
practically, '■> do with those missions as if they had been under the management
of tlie Baptist or Methodist Church, and the east as little to do with those of the
west. When the committee in the western section of the Church had a surplus
of tiwenty thousand dollars, the committee in the eastern section had to borrow,
and of course pay interest on the aniount borrowed. When the west was paying
interest on advances, the east had a balance to credit. In a word, the union was
incomplete.

Last June, all this was changed. Tiie union wascomplete'l. And i S86, the year
when some politicians are talking secession, is the year when Presbyterians east
and west have decided on unification. To me tlie latter fact is more significant
than the former. It shows how the current is running beneatli the surface. It
shows that east and west of the Dominion know and trust each other l)etter than
they did in 187"). The union of the Methodist Chur<;h, and the transference, by
the Nova Scotia Baptists, of the theological faculty of Acadia college to Toronto,
point in the same direction. All those churches are essentially popular. No
men have their fingers more constantly on the true pulse of the people than the
ministers, elders, deacons and class-leaders of those churches. Everyone knows
that tliere is much to divide the provinces of Canada. Everyone who has read
the history of the United States knows that there were quite as formidable
divisive forces in tiiair case as in ours. Shall we show the spirit of our neigh-
bours and the spirit of our fathers, or fold our hands in cowardly despair ? That
is the question f(n' us. We have determined to become a people, and the facts I
have given show that we are actually becoming one people. LauM Deo !

UNION AT LAST.

Well, then, our foreign mission work is now one. The Church has taken to its
heart all its missionaries. The noble men who are teaching the Coolies in
Trinidad, the brave men and braver women who go to naked cannibals in the
New Hebrides to introduce civilization, to create commerce and literature, to
awaken souls to spiritual realities and immortal hopes, these men and women
will hereafter be as truly our representatives as our missionaries to India,
Formosa and the North-west. All the members of our Church, east and
west, are thereby the richer. Five foreign enterprises, instead of two or
three, every one of us is responsible for. When I give five dollars a year — if I
can give oidy so much for such a work — I can now say, there is dollar for each

enterprise. Ami having given tliat, I can add a prayer to the mite. And if I
pray, next year the nute will probably be made two mites.

Unification then has taken place. Not only so, but the Church has resolved to
signalize the fact by an advance all along the line. Last year it raised about
5557,000 in all for the worit. This year it asks for |7I,000. The increase is not
arbitrary. It is deTuande<l by success, and by the quickened conscience of the
(/hurch. Instead of six thousand we must spend fully ten thousand in the
North-west. The extension of Dr. Mackay's work demands a larger expenditure.
We are occupying four centres in Central India, where formerly we had only two.
And if the Church gives two or three thousand more than the seventy -one asked
for, we can send a colleague with the Annands to the great island of good-omened
name, Santo Kspirito.

SEVENTY-ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS.

It is a large siun. Perhaps it is one-tenth as much as is spent for tobacco in
the good city of Toronto or Montreal. It is a gi-eat sum for one hundred and
twenty thousand connnunicants to raise ! It indeed is, when we consider tha^
there are congregations, with two or three hundred members or more, that are not
ashamed to send fifty or a hundred dollars or less for this, the great work whose
dimensions and magnificence the Church in the nineteenth century is beginning
to understand. Why is it so large ? Chiefly because of our union. In 1874 we
gave one-foiirtliof the amount. Why is it so small ? Chiefly because our people
do not know the facts.

No. 2. -OUR FIRST IVIISSIOX.

Forty years ago, the Church in Nova Scotia decided to embark in the foreign
mission enterprize. Take any movement you like and trace it back to the foun-
tain-head, and you find one man there. In this case, the man was John Geddie, a
young pastor, then settled comfortably in a charge in Prince Edward's Island,
with strong convictions tluit his church, small, poor and disunited, ouglit to
engage in a foreign mission. The idea was declared chimerical by almost all the
leaders of the synod, but the man with convictions con(|ueied. About the same
time the Baptists in Nova Scotia sent a missionary to Burmah, In 1847, Mr.
Geddie met Ur. Selwyn, the great missionary bishop of New Zealand, at the
Samoas, and, writing to the home Church, he says : — "I told him what you had
done and what the Baptists had done, and remarked that Nova Scotia was the
first of the Biitish colonies to send agents of her own to heathen lands." The
bishop was struck, as well he might. Here was a man, after his own heart, who

—4—

— with liis swoet and iiol>le wife — had given up home and people, and sailed
20,000 miles away, right into his vast missionary diocese, on his own principle
tiuit "where a trader will go for gain, there the missionary ought to go foi' the
merchandise of soids." He resolved that New Zealand should be the second of
the colonies to embark in the grand work, and nol)ly he carried the resolution
into ett'ect. Hut let it never be forgotten that Nova Scotia and Prince Edward
Island were first !

THE NEW HEBRIDES.

The Church decided to establish its mission in Polynesia, and Mr. Geddie and
his colleague, after consultation with the missionaries on Samoa, chose Western
Polynesia and the island of Aneityum, the most southerly of the New Hebrides
group, as the place where they would break ground. France has long desired to
take possession of this fair group of islands, chietiy because several of them liave
very fine harbours, and the coasts ai'c almost free from reefs. Everyone, how.
ever, with any right to speak on the matter objects decidedly to the French flag
being hoisted there. The people of Australia object from every point of view.
France has already turned New Caledonia into a convict settlement, and French
convicts are not pleasant neighbours. Besides, every extension of foreign influ-
ence in those waters threatens futvire complications. The natives of the New
Hebrides object, and with even better reason than the Australians. They would
like a liritisii protectorate, but tlie cruelties with which the "revolts" of the
natives of New Caledonia have been put down, not to speak of what has been
done in Tahiti, make them dread French occupation. And hundreds of thousands
of people in (ireat Britain and Canada, who have for forty years taken the most
unselfish interest in those islands, also object on the intelligible ground of the
sacrifices they have made in their behalf. The British Uovernment is therefore
doing its utmost to explain to France that it has no moral right to send its
recidiviMas or hibitu il criminals to New Caledonia, and no right of any kind to
annex the New Hebrides.

DR. GEDDIE'S LIFE.

Anyone who desires to inform himself thoroughly of the history of our New
Hebrides mission needs be at no loss. Besides the works written on Western Poly-
nesia by the Rev. A. W. Murray, of the London Missionary Society, the Rev. Dr.
Steele, of Sydney, N.S.W., and others, we have the "Life of John (ieddie, D.D. ,'
by the Rev. Dr. (ieo. Patterson, of New Glasgow, published in Toronto. The
greater part of Dr. Patterson's work consists of Dr. Geddie's letters an<l exti'acts
from his journals, and of these it is not too nnich to say that the "style will bear
compai'ison with that of the best J<]nglish historian ;" and that "his narratives

are so siinplc and gra])hic that, while we couhl not improve them, we might
injure thorn by any change." Aa we trace his life from point to point, and see
his charaotei standing the tests of new demands, repeated disappointments,
wonderful success and heart-breaking failure, and developing into greater l)readth
and power year by year, our admiration of the man becomes so great that judg-
ment is almost suspended. He is like one of "the simple great ones" of a byg«)ne
age. It is impossible to conceive of an undertaking more difhcult, more utterly
hopeless to ordinary estimates and ordinary good men, than that to which he
gave himself. Well might the great American theologian, Dr. Charles Hodge,
say, "What T have (hme is as nothing compared to what is done by a man who
labours among a heathen tribe, and reduces their language to writing. I am not
worthy to stoop down and loose the shoes of such a man." Hut Dr. (ieddie,
during the most trying period, had none of the companionship or assistance that
almost every missionary to a savage race cmnts upon. When ho settled oii
Aneityum, he had with him a colleague and also one of the London Missionary
Society's agents, liut they left soon, and for years he was alone, among
naked, ferocious cannibals, "l,r)()0 miles from the nearest missionary brother,"
to gain their confidence, learn their language, reduce it to a fixed form, translate
the Scriptures, write catechisms, school books, hynui books, almanacs, teach
them the arts and decencies of life, showthem how to build houses, mediate be-
tween opposing ranks "of enemies armed with poison-tipped spears, heal their sick
and convince them that they M'ere not brutes, but man foi" whom C^hrist died.
All this he did.

HIS GREAT LABOURS.

His resourcefulness never failed. He never lost patience and hope. To the
last he appeare(l i man so weak, diffident and almost insignific ,nt that he would
have been overlooked by ninety-nine men out of a hundred. But tliis man
"could turn his hand to anything, whether it was to brdd a schoolhouse or a
church ; to translate a gospel, prepare a catechism or print a primer ; to adminis-
ter medicine, teach a class or preach a sermon; to traverse the island on foot, sail
round it in his boat or tiike a voyage to the adjoining islands." What he did is
summed up in one sentence, inscribed on a wooden tablet that has been placed
behind the pulpit of his church in Aneityum : "In memory of John (Jeddie.

When he landed in 1848 tliere were no Christians here, and when he

left in 1872 there were no heathen." So completely had idolatry disappeared
that when he sought for some of the old gods to bi-ing home he could find — to
quote his own words to the Canadian Presbyterian Synod— "no god on tli^ whole
island but the (!od who made the heavens and the earth."

In 1848, he found on Aneityum a French Roman Catholic Mission with about a

—6—

dozen priests ; but, partly l»ecause the natives regarded them as the precursors of
French aggression, they had nuide no headway, an<l soon after the mission was
broken up. The priests manifested tlie kindliest feelings towards the Novit
Scotiun heretic. "Our intercourse," he sanl, "has been of the most friendly
character. 'J'heir bishop has twice visited nie, and I have visited them also,
:jfore they left they invited Mrs. (k'ddie to come and get anything out of their
garden aiie wished, and she accepted the offer." A previous entiy in his journal
shows the spirit in which he bad acted. Hearing that some of them were down
with fever and ague, and that they were in need of metlicinc, he had straightway
gone and offered assistance. That spirit will always be re:;iprocated. 80, too,
Bishop Selwyn, who did not get along happily with the Samojui misHionaries, al-
ways showed the highest cdteeui for Mr. (leddie, and never missed an opportunity
of aiding the mission. In I8i)2, he brought to Aneityum the Rev. Mr. and Mrs.
Inglis, of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland, who had decided to co-
operate with the Nova Scotian mission.

HELP FOR THE MISSION.

Dr. (}eddie simply regarded Aneityum as the key to the whole New Hebrides
group, and his cry to the Church was for men to come and take possession of
every island.^ His cry was not urdieard. The Church contributed with astonish-
ing liberality, and men of faith offered themselves ff)r the work. At tlie same
time the Scottish and Australian Churches became interested in it, and every-
thing betokened general success. But tlu; ))right jnorning was sui^ceeded by
clouds. Measles, followed by dysentery, whooping cough and other epidemics,
swept the natives into the grave by thousands. On the island of Erromanga, the
people ex'-:ite<l by their troubles and the misrepresentations of white traders, who
hated those who did what they could to protect the women from their brutal
licentiousness, treaclierously murdered Mr. and Mrs. (ieorge N. (Gordon. When
the news reached Nova Scotia, James, a brother of George, tiieii in the second
year of his theological course, came forward and tendered his services to the
Church. He said that he did not consider that a man should choose his own
sphere of labour, but that it was his desire to go to the same people to whom his
brother had sought to preach the (iospel. Can the records of any Ciiurch or
country furnish a specimen of purer Christian chivalry ? James was a strong
man and did noble work on Erromanga. He felt that sooner or later he too
would have to tread the bloody path by which his brother had gone to his reward
in 1861. So it turned out. One day in 1872, ■while busy revisnig the translation
of the Acts of the Apostles, just as he had finished the story of Stephen's martyr-
dom, a native called and asked for something. As he handed it to him the
savage struck him with a tomahawk a deadly blow between the ear and eye.

his tleath. The widowed mother of tl»e (Jordoua was liviiif( in Prince Kdwurd
iHhmd when tlie news came that a neuond son had sealed I'iu tehtiniony with his
hlood on Krronumga.

OTHER LABOURERS.

Otiier nohle Canadians from the Maritime provinces- Johnston, Matliieson,
Morrif^on — have died in harness on tl»e field. Others have found tiie climate un-
suited to their constitutions and have left. But the standard of the Cross is
held up by others, and almost every island has now one or two labourers- assist-
ed by native agents -on it, except Santo, the largest and most northerly of the
group. Since 187(5 the Rev. Joseph Annand and his wife have taken Dr.
Geddie's place on Aneityuni, and now they propose to abandon their pleasant
home there, and g<i to begin work among the savages of Santo. Surely the
Church will not let them go alone. We have only to read what Dr. (Jcddie su*
fered through not having an efticient colleague by his si le to understand what
that would mean. Tlie Rev. H. A. Robertson and his wife are working with
marvellous success near where the Gordons rest. A martyr's memorial church
has been erected, a netw(}rk of schools and houses for native agents has been
established all over the island, and Krromanga bids fair to become soon as com-
pletely a Clnidtian community as Aneityum. During the last two or three years
the Church has had the opportunity of meeting with Robertson, McKenzie and
Annand, and it is enough to say that they have gained our affection and entire
confidence. Thousands in the West will now be thankful that on account of
unification their cvrntributions will go to help their work. W^e must not, how-
ever, misunderstand what Christian communities, formed out of the degraded
Oceanic negro or Pj'.puan race, mean. They are certainly not our ec^uals in
knowledge, moral tone, character or power. It would be folly to expect anything
of the kind. Dr. (ieddie never painted fancy pictures. While doing full justice
to the simple faith of the converts, and calling attention t<} the readiness with
which they sacrificed property an<^ 1i^" ^"'- '^^.'e sake of their Lord, he always said
that only those would think that anytliing i -ad been done who had seen Aneityum
as it was. "The native converts," he again and again said, "are as yet the

merest children Were the influence of the missionaiy withdrawn, they

would readily fall before temptation The intellectual and moral elevation

of a nation is not the work of a few years, Inxt of generations."

It may also be admitted that the New Hebrides group is properly a field for
the Australian churches, and that we should give our attention rather to the
North-west Indians and to the millions of China and India, that is, to peoples
who promise to be permanent factors in the history of the world rather than to

—8—

decaying races. But the New Hel)rides are sanctified to thousands of us by the
blood of our heroes and martyrs, and we surely can spare some thought and
money for a people bound to us by such ties, until at t.ny rate the Australian and
New Zealand churches are able to grapple with the whole work. At present we
are federated with Britain and Australasia at this point, and we are not willing
to break such a link. Possibly the Negrillo race may be doomed to perish ; btxt
since white men have visited their fair islands, for one benefit — we have done
them a hundred wi'ongs. For every white man murdered by the natives, a
hundred natives have been murdered by whites.

No. 3,- 9IISSION XO THK COOLIES* IN XRINIDAD.

I descrioed in my last letter the New Hebrides Missiori, pointing out that it
will always be identified witli the name of John (ieddie. Otliers who followed
in his footsteps did their duty. Tlie (Jorciuns sealed their testimony with their
blood, and a Martyrs' Memorial C hurcL in Erromanga does for their memories
what the tablet in t)ie Aneityum Church will do for the name of Geddie unto all
time. The Canadian missionaries now in the New Hebrides, tlie Robertsons,
Annands and McKenzies — I speak of them in the plural n imber, for in such a
field at any rate, wives should count — are trusted implicitly by tlie Church.
But (Jeddie was not only the creator of tiie Mission, but he — the humble, ditti-
dent, gentle hero — more than iuiy other man inspire^l oui» people in the Maritime
Provinces. He made them a Missionary Cliurch. Of course he was called
Quixotic. All men of faith are Don Quixotes to the men of sense. "We have
more to do at home than we can manage, and why then attempt work twenty
thousand miles distant," was the apparently irresistible argument. Perhaps the
best rejoinder was that gruttly made by old Mr. Sprott, of Mus(piodoboit, "We
must do sometliiug for the heathen or give up praying for them."

IN TRINIDAD.

The Church, having entered on the work, learned that it was wise to walk by
the light of the lamps of Sacrifice and Obedience, learned practically that there
is that giveth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth and yet it tendeth
to poverty. The Church giew stronger every day. The difticulties and disunion
at home gradually became less formidable ; and the synod that in 184(5 thought
itself too poor to send one man to a cheap field, soon foiind itself able to send
three or four, and in 1806 it actually decided to establish a second juission to the
heathen in Trinidad, a field nearer home but more expensive. With this mission,

~9—

too, one name will always be identified, (ieddie had become interested in the
New Hebrides by reading everything he conld lay his iianda on concerning the
martyr John Williams. John Morton l)ecome interested iii iiie Hindoo co(#lies,
working on the sugar estates, while visiting Trinidad in search of liealth. On
his retiirn home he stated the facts of the case to the synod with such clearness
that it was unanimously decided that the C^hurch was called to work thsre. I
<lo not wohder at the deep interest excited in Morton's mind. To the ordinary
Briton the Hindoo is as mucli a "nigger" as is the African. To tlie scholar he is
of the same Aryan race as <mrselves, a man of more subtle l)rain and the inheritor
of an older civilization than oiirs. Charles Kingsley, who gives such charming
descriptions of the flora, fauna and natural features of Trinidad in his "At Last,"
tells us how much he was impressed with liis first glimpse of Hindoo coolies —
landing after their voyage from India at the depot for immigrants — "this suiplus
of one of the oldest civilizations of the Olil World, come hither to replenish the
new." He puts it not a whit too strongly when he says : "One saw in a moment
that one was among gentlemen and ladies. The dress of many of the men was
nougnt but Ci acarf wi'apped around thc' loins ; that of most of the women nought
but the longer scjirf, which ohe Hindoo woman contrives to arrange in a most
graceful as well as a perfectly modest covering, even for her feet and head.
These garments, and perhaps a brass pot, were probably all the worldly' goods of
most of them just then. But every attitiuhi, gesture, tone, was full of grace, of
ease, courtesy, self restraint, dignity— of that "sweetness and light" — at least in
externals, which Mr. Matthew Arnold desiderates.

I am well aware that these people ai'e not perfect ; that like most heathen folk
and some Cliristians, their morals are by no means spotless, their passions by no
means trampled out. But they have acquired — let Hin:loo scholars tell how and
where — a civilization which shows in them all day long ; which draws the Euro-
pean to them and them to the European, whenever the latter is worthy of the
name of a civilized man, instinctively, and by the mere interchange of glances, a
civilization which must make it easy for the Englishman, if he will but do his
duty, not oidy to make nse of these people, but to purify and eimoble them."
"To do his duty" — yes, but what the planter thought of when he imported these
laborers to take the place of negroes too lazy to woik after they had been eman-
cipated, was duty to himself. Tliey came voluntarily from India, at the expense
of Trinidad. They were distributed among the estates that had a[)plied for
them, («! a five years' indentui'e of apprenticeship. Tiie i)lanter paid them the
promised wage, and is not cash payment the sole nexus l)etween emj)l')yer and
employti ? At the end of the five years they could return to Hindostan or make
their own engagements as free laborers, exchanging tlie right to a free passage
for a government grant of ten acres of land on which they might settle and bring

— 10 —

up their children as Trinidadians. VV^heii the Government of India had watched
the emigrr.tion at its start, testing its "vohmtury" character and arranging for
good treatment on the voyage ; when the planter had fulfilled his part of the
contract and the Colonial government had made tliorongh provision for the sick,
and fen(,ed tae whole movement round with regulations that made it all but im-
possible that a coolie, man or woman, could be wronged, had not all parties done
their duty ? Yes, if tlie coolie had no soul. But if he had, no.

JOHN MORTON.

•

Here, it seemed to John Morton, was the very opportunity that Dr. DufF had
desired, when his heart sank within him as he stood face to face with the massive
pyramid tf Hinduism, feeling that the teeming millions were compacted l)y the
divine obligations of caste into an oi-ganism so sacred tluit individuality was lost
as completely as if each person v/ere only a particle of sand in the great pyramid.
"Oh, that a block could be detatched from the mass and that I might have only
it to deal with, and that I might try on it the solvent of Christianity !" Here
in Trinidad M'as the detatched block, a mass numbering some forty thousand
souls, with fifty or sixty thousand more on the maiidand of Demerara, almost
opposite. For there, too, the introduction of Coolie laborers from India and
China had re-vivified industries which the al)olition of slavery had almost killed.
And the very fact that these poor people had crossed the ocean proved that they
had alieady triumphed over caste to a certain extent. They were, therefore, in a
mucli more favorable condition to hear the (lospel than if tliey had remained at
home. For, as Kingsley says, "One must regard this emigration of the Coolies,
like anything else whicli tends to break down c iste, as a probable step forward
in their civilization. It must tend to luidermine in tliem and still more in their
children the jietty superstitions of old tribal distinctions, and must force them to
take their stand on a wider and sounder ground and see that 'A man's a man for
a' that.'" Here, Morton felt, was an open door, a door by which the Church
might enter, not only Trinidad and British Guiana, but eventually India itself.
For, if successful, tne returning converts would take the good news back with
them to their homes. This hope, I may say, has already been fulfilled to a cer-
tain extent. One of Mr. Morton's first converts was Benjamin lialaram, a man
of scholarship and ability. Returning to his liome in Central India, he proved
of great assistance to our mission in Indore. He is now assisting the Rev. Mr.
Wilson to break ground in Neemuch.

RESULTS.

Morton was appointed the Church's first missionary to the Coolies. In the fall
of 1867 he sailed for Trinidad, opened a school for children and began to study

— II —

Hinihistani. Throe years latei- he was followed by Kenneth J. Grant, then suc-
cessively l)y (Jhristie and McLeod, hotli of whom have died during the past year.
Their places are tilled hy Hendrie from Scotland and John Knox Wright, who
deniitted his charge in London, Out., in order to take Mr. Christie's place.
Teachers, male and female, have also been sent from Nova Scotia to take charge
of schools. One young Chinese convert, Jacob Corsbio by name, was sent from
Trinidad in 1877 to study under Dr. Tassie at Gait. While there he was sup-
ported by the Rev. J. K. Smith's congregation, and on his return he was put in
charge of a high school in the town of San Fernando.

What have been tlie results ? To me they seem very wonderful, and proofs of
a convincing kind can be given of their genuineness. It has been an educational
mission from the outset, and it has educated >'. good many of the planters as well
as the Coolies. Morton showed liis wisdom in gathering the children into a
School at the lieginniiig. He was laughed at for his pains, but no one laughs
now. Kingsley noted the fondness of the Coolies for children. "If you took
notice of a child, not only the mother smiled thanks and delight, but the men
around likewise, as if a compliment had been paid to the whole company. We
saw almost daily proofs * * of their fondness also — an excellent sign that the
morale is not destroyed at the root — for dumb animals * * I wish I could say
the same of the Negr*). His treatment of his children and of his beasts .)f burden
is, but too often, as exactly opposed to that of the Coolie as are his manners."
The success of the mission scihools was such that the Government of the colony
agreed to assist all that could be brought ur.der its regulations ; and our mission-
aries have now forty-four schools, attended by about two thousand children. If
I were in the habit of italii:izing, I would write every word of this last clause in
very distinct italics. . .

CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURE.

Another proof of the reality of the successs is the fact that gradually the
planters took an interest in the mission and contril)uted to its extension. They
are on the ground and can judge both the men and their work. And another
proof is the great lil)erality of the Coolie converts. In 1880 the sum contributed
for the mission by the proprietoi's and converts nearly eciualled that refjuired
from the Church. The total expeiuliture for that year was a little over !$1(),()()0,
of which nearly $5,000 was raised in Trinidad. The report of the (ieneral As-
sembly in 1888 pointed out that the joint contributions of the Coolies, proprietors
of estates and other Christian men in Trinidad, "supplemented by Government
aid to schools, nuike the grand total of $10,000, a sum not far short of what was
raised for foreign missions by the Presbyterians of the Maritime Provinces at the
Union, ai.d about the half of what was raised for the same objects by the ordin-

— 12 —

ary contributions of all the congregations of Quebec anu Ontario." Another
report suggested the question, which many of us would do well to ponder — how
much would the sum amount to "if one-half of our Church meml)ers gave as the
converted Coolies of Trinidad, viz., one-tentli of their earnings to Christ's
causa" ? The expenditure of the mission for the past year was £4,200 sterling,
of which sum the Chiirch in Canada paid £1,877 sterling. The depressed con-
dition of the market for West Indian produce and a continuance of unfavorable
seasons make it likely that there will be a decrease this year in the contributions
of the native Church and of tlie planters. This remark applies not only to
'i'rinidad, but to Demerai'a, to the Coolies in wliich province the Church last
year sent Mr. John (Jibson, a graduate of Knox College. Mr. (jribson was sent
in conse(pience of a proposal from the Kirk of Scotland — which occupies the
position of an Estaljlished Church in Hritish Guiana — according to which one-
half of the salary, together with the schools and buildings, should be provided
there, and the missionary and the othei- half oi the salary be provided by ua.
He went first to Trinidad, where he spent some time studying the language and
the work, and then crossed to Demei'ara, where he received a hearty welcome
from the ministers who had applied for him. Mr. F. Crum-Ewing, of Ardincaple
castle, Scotland, has also asked for the appointnient of a Canadian missionary to
labor among the Coolies on his estate in Hritish (luiana, he offering to pay the
whole salary. The way in which the work has thus extended to Demerara is
another proof of tlie good impression that has been made on others by the wise
numagement of the Trinidad mission. It is not much to say that Morton and his
colleaguu?* have slu>wed themselves possessed of true statesmanship as well as of
true missionary spirit.

MORTON'S HEADQUARTERS.

At the outset Morton fixed upon the town of San Fernando as the centre of
the mission. There he organized the first church that lias b en formed in
America out of Hindoos — a worthy parallel to vvhat Dr. (Jeddie did when he
organized on Aneityum the first Christian Church ever formed from the Papuan
race. When Grant arrived, Morton handed over San Fernando to him and
moved on to new ground at Princestown, and when McLeod came he handed
over Princestown to him, and took up a new position at Tunapana. San Fer-
nando remains the niother church of the mission, and a most spirited congregation
it is. Besides paying all congregational expenses, it decided in 1871) to raise
£100 sterling per annum, or one-third of Mr. Grant's salary. And in last year's
report we i*ead that it agreed "at the aimual meeting to raise during the coining
year £150 sterling, or one half the salary of the missionary." "On every Sab-
bath, services are regularly held at seven out-stations, and the Word is preached

—13—

in scores of small places during the week besides. During the year 38 adults
and 39 children have been baptized, and the Communion I'oll shows 144 members
in good standing. * * Thei'c are in this district 18 schools, with a roll of 842,
and an average daily attendance of (ioT." How many of our Canadian congrega-
tions, composed of members whose ancestors as well as themselves have been
nurtured in a Christian atmosphere, containing scores of families, the property
of any one of which would buy out the whole Son Fernando congregation, can
show a record worthy to be placed beside that of the band of exiles that consti-
tutes this Coolie church in San Fernando ?

I think that I have written enough to show that the Maritime Provinces sec-
tion of our Church has good reason to thank ({od for what He has enabled it to
do in two fields so dissimilar as the New Hebrides and Trinidad, and that the
western section has good reason to be thankful that it can now take those mis-
sions to its heart and consider itsilf lesponsible for them.

N0.4.-OUR MISSIONS TO THE NORTH WEST

INDIANS.

Our North -West is a coiuitry of such magnificent distances that no name could
be expected to hold the sanie position towards it that (4eddie'8 does to the New
Hebiides and Morton's does to Trinidad. Still, the Rev. James Nisbet will
always occupy an honors I place in any history of our work in the North- West.
He was the first missionaiy sent by the western section of the Church to the
heathen, and, acting on the principle of " l)eginning at Jerusalem,' th' v sent
him to the heathen in their own land. Accepted by the Church in 18(52, and
sent to the Red River to assist Dr. Black, of Kildonan, in the first instance. 1866
found him among tiie Crees at Prince Albert on the Saskatchewai'. The Western
section of the Church was thus twenty years behind the Maritime Provinces in
commenting its foreign mission. Its interest has grown, and yet almost every
one confesses Siidly that we are <loing little or nothing compared to our ability.
The expansion of i-evenue indicates the growing interest. In 18(5") it was .$3,486 ;
in 1875 it had risen to |12,5S8, and in 1881 to .«!3."),4.34. Last year it was .«!38,881,
and I attribute as Hw reason M'hy it was not more the fact that more was not
needed. During the previous five years special be([UC8ts to the amount of nearly
$30,(K)0 had been received, and corisequently the people knew that the committee
had a balance to credit and did not need very much. That reason no longer
exists, and it is to be hoped that this year every congregation will increase its
contribution by oO per cent., for if a large balance to credit is bad, debt is infi-

—14—

nitely worse. The committee has had both experiences, and is therefore entitled
to make comparisons. It has had to pay ont about $3,000 for interest on advan-
ces in the course of the last nine or ten years.

THE PRINCE ALBERT DISTRICT.

Prince Albert is the capital of Saskatchewan territory, and it promises to be
one of the most important centres of the North-VVest. As was said at a public
meeting held lately to establish a memorial in honor of Mr. Nisbet, the town is
his memorial. The site was wisely chosen, find a white population gathered to
it, attracted not only by the other advantages it offered, but by tlie existence of
the mission. At that time it was a centre for nearly 4,000 Indians. But as
half-breeds and whites came in the character of the place changed. The l)utfalo
took the alarm, and tlie Indians moved west with the buffalo, not absolutely for-
saking their old headquarters, but coming to it for so short a time that it ceased
to be a suitable missioruvry centre. The river, soil, climate, and tlie exemption
from grasshopper visitations, all attracted Red River settlers. For a time Prince
Albert was a combined IndiaTi and English mission. But alternate services in
English and Cree proved an uns;i.tisfactory mixture, few of the whites under-
standing Cree, and almost as few of the Indians understanding English. Conse-
(juently, in 1877, three years after the death of Mr. and Mrs. Nisbet, the care of
the English-speaking population was transferred to the Home Mission Committee.

MR NISBET'S LABORS.

Though Mr. Nisbet was spared to the Indians for oidy eight years, a time, it
might be thought, just long enough to enable him to learn the language ami to
do merely foundation work, the fruit of his labors has continued, and the country
is getting the benefit to this day. He had two half-breed assistants, Mr. John
Mackay and Mr. (Jeorge Flett, both still living, now ordained ministers of our
Church, men of proved character and unfiagging zeal. The principal Chief of
the Carletou Crees was then Mis-tah-wah-sis, and he came under tlie intiuence of
Mr. Nisbet. The impression produced on liim was deeper than was at the time
supposed. When (governor Morris was nuiking tlie treaty with the Indians at
Fort Carleton in 1876, the head men introduced Mis-tah-wah-sis as the Chief of
the Carleton Crees, representing 70 lodges. When the Indians were placed on
reserves, an area of 78 square miles, about seventy-five miles north-west of
Prince Albeit, was made over to Mis-tah-wah-sis and his band. He then called
tt)gether his councillors and head men to decide what stops should be taken to
secure a teacher and spiritual guide, and the old chief himself was sent to Prince
Albert to urge Mr. Mackay to come to them. In a long conversation he referred
to the time, fourteen years before, when Mr. Nisbet began to teach him through

—15—

Mr. Mackay as interpreter. " He wished me," wrote Mackay, to tell the coin-
mittee that they wanted no other than the native who speaks their own language,
and who first taught him to know God. I am not," he continued, "working for
a day only, hut that this thing may be permanent." This was evidently the
same chief who told (Jovernor Mori'is, when the treaty was being made, that it
was not enough to give a few dollars a year ; that, if they gave up the land, his
people should be fed until they couid learn to farm, and when any unexpected
sickness or other disaster came upon them. "This is not a trivial matter for
us," in Morris's book on the " Treaties with the Indians," p. 213, Mis-tah-wah-sis
is reported to have said, " We do not mean to ask for food every day, l)ut only
when we commence, and in case of famine or calamity. What we speSk of, and
do now, will last as long as the sun shines and the river runs. We are looking
forward to our children's children, for we are old and have but few days to live."
There spoke a man fit to be chief.

MR. JOHN MACKAY.

Mr. Mackay wrote that he was willing to go to Mis-tah-wah-sis' reserve, and
the committee sent him. He moved to it in 1881, and received a cordial wel-
come. He began at onco to teach them, and so great is the advantage of the
syllabic characters, now universally used i.i teaching Indians, that at the end of
six months "in almost every house the heads of families could read and wiite
with ease in their own language." In 1882 Professor McLaren, then convener o^
the Foreign Mission, visited the reserve, and repoi'ted that the tribe were making
a promising beginning industrially, in imitation of their chief, who " had ready
to harvest about twenty-four acres of excellent wheat." The daughter of the
missionary the convener found teaching a school in her father's house, with
thirty-nine names on the roll. "Miss Mackay has received no remuneration
for her services, either from the Government or from any other source. It has
been on her part purely a labor of love." The committee, it need hardly be said,
has since put her on its list of paid teachers. And now for the fruit that the
country has leceived. When Riel sought last year to unite the half-breeds and
Indians against the whites, had Mis-tah-wah-sis declared on his side all the Crees
in the neighborhood would have followed him. But Mis-tah-wah-sis and his
brother. Chief Ah-tuck-ah-coop, of the Wood Crees, who is under the influence
of the Church of England mission, never wavered

LOYAL INDIANS.

It was a comfort to get, soon after the outbreak of the rebellion, a hastily
written letter from Rev. Mr. Mc William, of Prince Albert, with the news : "It
is much to the credit of John Mackay's mission that his people proved loyal and

— 16—

came in to Prince Albert. * * * xhe missions of the various churches have
shown the worth of the work done among them." Yes, the worth in dollars and
cents can hardly he over-estimated. We foiuul out last year that the American
calculatiim of the cost of Indian wars, say a lunidred thousand dollars per scalp,
was not very wide of the mark. If Riel had secured the Crees, the old lords of
the soil, as well as the small bands of Sioux who had lied to the neighborhood of
Prince Allieit after the Minnesota massaci'c, what would our bill have been ?
Those .Sioux we had neglected, notwithstanding warnings. Mr. McWilliam
wrote in 1884 : " I feel so strongly the reproach resting especially on us who
live here alongsitle of those poor creatmes, that I cannot help calling attention to
their case. When we are engaged in public worship on the Lord's day we quite
frequently hear the licating of their drums as they are engaged in theii' idolatrous
dances. It is pitiful to hear, after a death has occurred among then), their wail-
ing foi' those they have lost and their cries to (iods that cannot hear." They had
been there for years, an<l modein Christianity had passed by on the other side.
Surely we shall all go now and do otherwise.

• Oui- Church has done little more than commence missions in the North-West.
The Chin-ch of Rome and the Church of England were the first to enter the field.
The Methodist Church followed, and to one of its missionaries we owe the syl-
labic character, an invention so useful that, as Lord Duti'eiin put it, many a man
has got Westminster Aljbey for' less. In 1872 I had an opportunity of 'seeing
something of the work done by those C'hurches. The Rev. (ieorge Macdougal
travelled with f)ur party from the Red River to Fort Edmonton, and at many a
camp fire we dvw from him information about the various tribes and his own
experiences. What a man lie was! And how inexplicable it seems that neither
of the two (jrovernments with which our Dominion has been favored tliought of
utilizing the services of such a man in solving the Indian problem I

A CRITICAL MOMENT.

Governor Morris was the only man who appreciated how useful he might be as
a public servant. In 1874 the Iiulians between the Saskatchewan and the Rocky
mountains were threatening hostilities. A telegraph line was constnicted across
their country, parties were travelling about, connected with the Pacific railway
and the geological survey, taking all kinds of liberties, and yet the leave of the
owners of the soil had never been asked. No treaty had been made with them.
We were clearly trespassers, and the Indians felt that such high-handed action
on our part boded worse for them, and that the sooner they put a stop to it the
better. The Governor did not wait till hostilities had commenced, but acted at
once. Knowing the influence that Macdougal had with the Indians, he asked
him to go to their camps at Carlton, vSovith Saskatchewan, Battle River and the

— 17—

Eed Doer, and explain that ooniniissionors would visit them during the ensuing
suiunier to confur with them as to a treaty. The missionary was then in Winni-
peg, on his way from Ontario, with hia family, to his mission in the Rooky
mountains, beyond Calgary, but he at once gave up everything else and under-
took the duty. How he sucoeeded, hia own report, whiuli is given in "Treaties
with the Indiana," p. 173, tells. On this occasitm, too, our friend Mia-tah-wah-ais
showecl up well. When Mr. Macilougul had explained to the first camp the
benevolent intentions ot the (iovernmcnt, Mis-tah-wah-sis, head chief of the
Carlton Indians, addressing the principal cliief of the Assiniboines, said : "That
is just it ; that is all we wanted !" I have sometimes wondered what the (iov-
crnment gave to Mr. Macdougal foi- this signal service. Possibly they paid his
travelling expenses. That is always ccmsidered enough for ministers. Possibly
they did not. At any rate that was all the use tlioy made of him. There is
William Duncan, too — a man of genius, so far as the practical education of In-
dians is concerned, a superintendent of Indian affairs by Divine right — no (iov-
crnment ever thought of securing his services. And others could be named, but
what is the use ? I'arty claims the offices, and the people will have it so.

THE EDMONTON COUNTRY.

In 1872 I savv at the St. Albert mission an admirable illustration of the good
work done by the Roman Catholic missions. There, two or three thousand miles
from civilization, was a cathedral, every plank in it made with a whip
or hand-saw, Rishop Grandin's clergy house, ar.d the lioiise of the Sisters of
(Iharity. The majority of the priests and all the sisters were French Canadians.
Two years previously the settlement luimbered a thousand, all French half-
breeds. Then, the small-pox raged up and down the Saskatchewan. Three
hundred died at St. Albert. The priests and sisters nursed ihe sick, cared for
the dying, and gathered the orphans into their house. Some years afterwards I
visited in Montreal 'the vast establishment of "the grey nuns." Within the
walls are gathered every phase of weak, helpless and afHicted humanity — from
the foundling left at the gate up to the aged without sons or daughters to nurse
them, from orphanages of boys anil girls down to hospital wards filled with men
and women whose last sands of life are running out. All that work is managed
by the nuns. Enough work tiiere for the pious women to attend to? No ! They
took me to another room where their foreign missions were superintended.
Among other buieaus there was one marked, " Lac St. Albert." It was stoi'ed
with supplies of all things that such a mission might need, and at the right
moment the collection would be sent oft' to its destination. There I saw the
fountain head of that great work which we had admired under the sliadows of
the Rocky mountains. And all this was before the age of steamboats and rail-

— 18—

ways in the North-West, ami managed by women, without the aid of public
meetings, annual reports, or letters to the press. kSome of tho sisters had gone
the loiig road in canoes and carts, f>ver innumerable portages, across interminalde
plains. Otliers had remained behind to gatliur and forward supplies. All had
tlicd to the world and were living to (Jod. And there are I'rotestants who can-
not understand why such " Sisters" are reverenced !

AN EARNEST EFFORT TO BE MADE.

Though last in tlie field, our Church is now anxious not to be least. I mentioned
(leorge Flett as a second assistant to Mr. Nisbet. More faithful laborer there
could not be. He was at the (leneral Assembly when it met in London, ami the
simple eloqunnce with which he told the story of his work and app<!ale(l on behalf
of those of his own blood wno were dying without light impressed ua deeply.
His English was not faultless, but then he could beat almost every niember of
the Asseuddy in French, Cree, and I believe Chippeway tco. He has iiad a wide
field to occupy since Mr. Nisbet's death. The centie is Okanase, on the Little
Saskatchewan, where there are twenty-five or thirty families of the ('hippeway
tribe, all of them now able to raise crops enough to meet their wants, and so
Christianized that it is proposed to hand them over to the home mission of the
Church, as the foreign mission deals only with pagans. For years Mr. Flett has
been a travelling bishop, visiting the bands of Indians over two or three hun-
dred miles of country between Fort KUice and Fort Pelly. The most important
of his stations is Crow Stand Reserve, near Pclly, one hundred miles from Oka-
nase, where Mr. Cuthbert McKay has for some time tauglit scho(d and acted as
catechist An ordained missionary at tliis point would reach seven hundred
Indians. Mr. Flett is now an old man, but he has placed himself at the disposal
of the committee, to l)reak up new ground wherever his great experience is most
likely to make him most useful.

TVo. 5,— OITU MISSIONS TO THE XORXH-'WEST

INDIANS.

In the report of the Foreign Mission Conmiittee which was submitted in June
last to the General Assembly, will be found a clear statement prepared V)y Pro-
fessoi- Hart, of Wiimipeg, of the different mission fields among the Indians now
occupied by our Church. P^veryone shcmld I'efer to it who wishes to be acquaint-
ed witii details. Here it is enough to say that our agents now occupy thirteen
Indian reserves, containng a population of aljout .3,200 ; and that as the Indian
population of the Noith-VVest is about 32,000, it follows that only one-tenth of
the Indians are under the care of our Church. Professor Hart adds, "Our lal)()r-
ers should at once be increased at least two-fold." Evei-yone will say amen
provided that in no case a reserve is entered which is already occupied by aimther
body. In fact, the Christian Church should grapple with the whole field. Thg

— 19—

Church of Roino ciiiinot confer or agree to «Uvi(le work with any other Church.
Hut why should not the Provinciiil Symxl of the Church of Knghind hikI th<*
<ieneral (.'onference of tlie Methodist Cliuroii aj)()oint coinuiitteeH to meet with
our Foreign Mission, and agree to a 8\ih-diviaion of the tiehl and to co-operation
in working? Till something like thi^ is done, there will be over-lapping, waste,
confusion, neglect, and in many cases the Indian, instead of getting guidance and
needed discipline! will he distracted hy the conlliiting pretensions of CVxUin and
Short. It is ludicrous to try and convert the Indians into Roman (atholicH,
Anglicans, Methodists or I'reshyterians. They neeil simply the essence of (^hris-
tianity, and not the history or the metu{)hysics that our divisions represent to
us. If we could only weave into the warp and woof of the Indian's heing the
Ten ('ommandments and the Lord's Prayer, how thankful we wouhl he ! In
fact, every honest agent of every ('"lurcli will echo the words of our Superinten-
dent of Indian Missions, "The carving-knife has to be in my hands more fre-
quently than the Bible ;" and when most successful, he will probably make the
report that Dr. MacKay, of Formosa, made when chronicling a wonderfully suc-
cessful year, "I cannot say that we have had a revival, but we have had a great
deal of hard work."

• A VAST FIELD.

Our mission to the Indians extends over such a vast extent of country, the
nearest part of which is very far away, that it has been found impossilile to
supervise it pioperly from Toronto. The committee has therefore appointed a
special executive representing the whole North-Wcst, with its heaibjuarters at
Winnipeg, and in February, 1884, in designating the Rev. Hugli MacKay as an
additional missionary, it re({uested him to act as superintendent. He was
instructed to select a suitable fiehl as a centre, make himself familiar with the
Cree language, and then visit annually each of our missions to the Indians and
report to the committee regularly with regard to each and all. Mr. Hugh Mac-
Kay's name will probably soon be as closely identified in our minds with this
mission as Morton's is with Trinidad. When laboring as Home Missionary on
Manitoulin Island he was brought much into contact with Indians, and became
so much interested in them aiul so impressed with a sense of their need and of
their claims on us that he resolved to devote to them the service of his life. On
being appointed by the connnittee lie went to consult with the old veteran,
George Flett, at Okanase, and was charmed with him and his little congregation.
He decided then to occupy the reserves at Crooked and Round Lakes, about '20
miles north of Broadview station on the C. P. R. , as his special field of labor.
Here, on the north bank of the Qu'Appelle river, he built a mission-house and
commenced work among 900 Indians, all of them pagans, poor, ignorant, con-
scious that their race is passing away, and somewhat doubtful whether the white

20-r-

inan wishea tlieiii well or not. If a tnaii hIiouM gain the confidence of such people
in from five to ten years it would be much. Hugli MucKay succeeded to a won-
derful extent in one year. Ffe found hiH way to their hearts in the same old way
that (Jeddie iiad tried witii the Havages of Aneityuni. It is tlie way that never
fails, but only those can walk in it wlio are not c(»nsciouH of trying. Ho loved
and trusted them. He proved what his heart was by his life, and the savage, by
an instinct aa unerring uh a dog's, discerns genuine from pretended interest.
Almost his first work was to open a school in the mission-liouse for all the child-
len who were willing to (lome. During the wintci- it grew to l)e a boarding and
industrial school, and to lielp him in tiiose departments he «'ngaged u C.'hristian
Indian and his wife. He did not report this to the Committee, and it was only
last month when we met him in Toronto that we found out in the course of cross-
questioning that it was done at his own expense. "May I ask," some one said to
him, "what you pay those assistants?" "Oh, it was only for the winter months,
and they did not want much I" "But, may we ask how mucii?" "Well, it was
$30 a month for the two." How many of our congregations gave as much last
year ? Is it wonderful that the Indians should trust such a man ?

THE REBELLION.
In the springof 1 885 Kiel's rebellicm occurred. In the middle of April the Indians
sent him a message, "We regard you as our friend, and for that reason wo adviso
you to leave your home for some time, as we would not like to see anything
happen to you." He thought over the message, knowing that the Indians nieant
by it that they themselves would probably rise. He was alone. During the
night he saw a signal fire ten miles oft", and realized that a band of marauders
might come to kill and plunder. But he cast himself on the care of his Master,
and in the morning the path of duty was clear to him. "It seemed to me as if I
could hear the direction, '8tay ; there are scattered along the line of railway
many unprotected hoir.cs of tha white man. What could these families do if the
Indians near them slumld lise in I'obellion ? These Indians have little idea of
what is right, aiid they have no one to advise them but those who are tlieir
greatest enemies. Stay and exert the little infiuence you have in pei'suading
theni to remain at home.' " He did stay, and continued to go among tliem as a
friend. Here is one incident from his letters at the time: "On Friday I went
to another village, and met an Iiulian coming to see me. He had bad news. He
said they must go to war. I went with him to the village and found the women
and children gathered together, the women crying aloud aiKl saying they would
never again see those about to leave them, and the men preparing their guns,
knives and dirks ; great excitement among them all. I said to them, 'Don't go.'
They said, 'The soldiei's are coming, and will take i\s prisoners, and we would
rather fight and die on the battlefield.' I said, 'If you jiut away your guns and

— 21 —

re nain at homo there 18 no (hinder from the HohlierM ; if they tjike you they will
take me, ami I will go with you.' I waH not a little aHtr>niHluMl to wee thorn take
my a<lvice and remain at home." 'i'iie Mounted Police are ueceHsary, hut sueh a
man is worth a comi)any. The committee liave recently authorized him to
engage Mr. and Mrs. Jcmes, of Manitoidin [sland, to assist in his hoarding and
industrial school, so that he may have more time to visit the othei mission
stations. Mrs. .Jones is a thiughter of the late Rev. (»»H)rge McDoiigal, whose
name is honoied in all the churches, and if "there is nothing like blood," her
influence ought to tell. Our best Christian women are needed an)ong the Indians.
Mr. J. (J. IJui-gesB, who is teaching the school on the Sioux reserve, at the junc-
tion of the Assinihoine and Bird Tail Creek, writes: — "What a pity it is that
there are no Christian ladies (»ut here to ttike an interest in the Indian women !
I think it would do tlicm more good thin anything else." Yes, and it would do
the ladies more good than they get from a season's exhausting festivities. In the
last Quarterly Jitrieiv is an ideal sketch of the lady missionary in India, "from
the pen of no novice or enthusiast, hut of a grayduiired and experienced civilian,"
and I believe that among our poor Indians, ei^ually blessed would be her presence

and iier work : —

AN IDEAL MISSIONARY.

"To the villau'e-women the ai)i)earance ot a female evanRelist must be, as it were, the
vision of an anfiol from lioaveu ; to tlieir nututorod eyes she uppearn tailor in stature,
fairer in fao6, fairer ill Hi)eoc.h, than anythiiit; mortal they liad over dreamt of before;
l)old and foarlesH, witht) .o iiiunodesty ; imre in word ami action, and yet with features
un^ eilctl; wise, yet 0()ii(los(U'iiiliiif,' to talk to the ij,'ii(»rant and little (^hililren ; i)rnd(!nt and

Kolf-i;oiistriiined \tt still awoinaii loviui^ and toiK.a- Short as is lior h ay, she

has, as it were with .i uuifiic wand, let loose a now fountain of hoj)es, of foars and desires;
she has told them jiorhiips in faltering accents, of righteousness and judgment, «f sin,
ropoiitanoe and a froH ])ardoii throiit'h the blessed merits of a Saviour. This day has
salvation come to this Indian villaf^o."

The women of Hindostan are of a different stock and different culture from
that of the poor savages in the North- West. VV^ork among the teepees on our
plains might need to be somewhat different from work in the Mofussil. But,
wherever Cod's image has been stamped the wo.k is essentially the same. An
ideal sketch of it may well be given, for it is truly divine work. But, in its
details, it is and always nuist be hard, toilsome, lieart-breaking at times, always
repulsive to flesh and blood.

But, we have the Indian problem on our hands, and woe unto us as a people
if we do net solve it in the right way. There are three ways that may be tried.
The first is, kill the Indian. Kill him, by fire-water, starvation, rifle-bullets, it
matters not which. The second is, ])aupei'i/e him. liieed a vast mass of pau-
perism and corruption in our North -West. Give the tribes that are most sulky
most food. Let party organs make it .'i crime against the Government of the
day that any Indian — no matter what his deserts — should ever lack regular
rations. We dare not try the first way. It seems to me that we are drifting

— 22 —

into the seoond, and in tlie long run it will be found worse than tlie first. The
third way is, treat the Indian as if he had in him the makings of a man. Of
course that is "sentiment"' to all who are of the great greedy trihe. Their ex-
(^uisite witticism is that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." But to human
beings it is sense as well as sentiment, just as all right sentiment is sense. We
can make the Indians producers as well us consumers. What has been done in
one case can be done in a thousand cases, and we have seen this thing done more
than once. Dr. Wardrope, in his last report, simply echoed the mind of our whole
committee when he said, "We have, in our own experience, abundant proof that
the Indian can be Christianized and civilized."

THE INDIAN'S REGENERATION.
The third way is of course difficult. It ret^uires patience as well as wisdom
and faith on our part. The Indian will not be really regenerated in a generation.
When civilized, he will not be like the average Ontarian. Neither is the French
hnhitaii nor the Hindoo ryot, yet l)oth are very good people in their own way.
Hut he will l)e a num. To solve this problem aright, tlie (iovernment and
the Christian Churches Will need to act with more energy and fiiitlifulness
than has been shown in the past. The (iovernment must cancel the appointment
of every unsuitable agent, and appoint only married men in their places, and,
whenever it is possible, men who know something of Indian chai'acter. Inspeu-
tors must be the very l>est men the country can supply. And the superintendent
should have a great deal of power, and hold his office independently of party
changes. The country is in earnest on tliis nuitter, aiul the minister who under-
8tan<ls this will not lose his reward, whereas all who tiy to make party capital
out of it will be disappointed.

NO. 6.- OUR I»IIS$!»IO]K IN FORMOSA.

None of our foreign missions is so completely identified \vith one man's name,
and none has interested the whole Cliurcli so deeply, as the Formosan. Certainly
few missions to the Chinese have yielded such early and abundant fruit. In 1872
the Rev. O. L. Mackay landed at Tamsui, a treaty-port in northei-n Formosa,
and from that year to this lie has hastened fi-om con({uest to conquest, triumphing
ovei' obstacles any one of which would have caused ordinary men to turn back,
shrieking out " that beast of a word, imjiossible."

A few words concerning his field of labor. P\)rmosa is a lovely island in the
Pacific, lying nu)re than a hundi-ed miles from the mainland of Ch.ina. It forms
part of the line of islands wliich jirotect the Asiatic coast from the huge rollers of
the Pacific on the west, just as Vancouver's, Queen Chai'lotte and other islands
protect the coast of British Cohunbia from the same ocean on the east. It is

—23—

about half the size of Irehind, and has a population of two millions. As in the
case of Vancouver's Island, a chain of lofty mountains traverses it from north to
south, and into the recesses of these and hack to the east coast, where the moun-
tains meet the ocean, the old aboriginal inlial)itants have been pushed gradually
by immigrants and invaders from China, who mo?-e than two centuries ago
annexed the island to the empire. The population may be divided into three
classes — the Chinese, the subjugated aboriginies, called Pep-po-hoans, who have
adopted the Chinese language, dress and customs, and the uncivilized aborigines
of the eastcn region, numy of whom are cannibals, and all of whom refuse to
recognize Chinese authority, and make raids like those made by the Highlanders
of Scotland in former days on the Lowlands. The difference between the Chinese
and these aborigines is as marked as the difi'erence l)etween \is and our Red
Indians in a state of hostility.

A Roman Catholic mission was established in Formosa in 1859. In 18Hi) the
English Presbyterian Church started in the south of the island a medical mission,
which has had comiected with it some remarkable men, who have developed it
with energy and success. In 18(59 our Foreign Mission recommended that China
be chosen as one of our foreign mission fields, and in 1871 Mr. Mackay was
accepted as our first missionary to the Chinese.

That summer I happened to be in Montreal on a visit from Nova Scotia, and,
learning one evening that a missionary to China was to be set apart in Knf)X
Church, I went to the service, taking with me a lay friend. The small church in
the lai'ge city was by no means crowdetl. Sitting near the door, we could see the
form but not the features of the missionary. He was of rather less than medium
size, and spoke, as it seemed to me, hesitatingly, with somewhat of a (laelic
accent and provincial tone. We could not see the dark eyes which many thoii-
sands of us have since seen glowing with holy fire at furnace heat. We could
not estimate thepassionate intensity of faith in C(mse(iuenceof which he acts likeaii
incarnate force rather tlian a nuiu with human necessities. Neither did we know
the wide range of his knowledge nor the intellectual balance and practical saga-
city which nuikes him successful whether he is dealing with uncivilized savages
or with Chinese literati and mandarins, perhaps the most conceited and corrupt
officials in the wide world. What plummet can sound the depths of that conceit
and corruption! '• Pooi- fellow I" said my friend as we left the church, "is there
not work for him in Canada? Why shouhl he throw away his life?" 'How,
do you know that he is throwing it away ?" I took the liberty of asking. "Why, •
I have been in China, and, as the Scotchman said of the Jews, ' they winna con-
vert.' They are radically difterent fro.n us. Before they can be Christianized
they woidd need to be hatched over again and hatched tlifferent, as Mrs. Poy.ser
has put it. They will go to your schools, and learn Knglish ami anything else

. —24—

that is coinmercially of value, but they are incapable of believing in the Resur-
rection as a fact, or of taking in tht^spiiitual truths on which Christianity is
based." " Then," I answered, " they are eithei- n«)t human beings oi- ('hristianity
is not a religion for tlie world. As to what this missionai-y may do, that is an-
other thing. Perhaps we shall see."

We have seen. When Mackay landed in northern F'ormosa, fourteen years
ago, he found what Dr. Chalmers would have called " a iine field." Unbroken
heathenism, with those concomitants which no one can understand who has not
lived in a heathen country, reigned. He had no house to live in, and he had no
one to sympathize with him. He knew nothing of the speech of the people, a
language totally different from oui's in structure, and so difticult that many after
trying for years to learn it have abandoned the attampt. He rented a small
house, which the owner had intended to use as a stable, and commenced to leai-n
the language. He spent days with the l)oys herding on the hills, so as to famil-
iarize himself with the ordinary words they spoke. In two months he could use
broken sentences, and he made known as best he could the story of (iod's love to
everyone who would listen. From Tamsui he went out to the surrounding
villages, and gradiuilly crowds began to assemble round this man whom everyone
saw to be terribly in earnest. The official mind always revolts at any tiling like
excitement or anytliing unusual, and great, consecpiently, was the indignation of
the liteiati and underlings at this " led-haired devil," without red hair, who was
the author of disturbance. They could not airest him without cause, but from
six to a dozen soldiers were kept constantly watching him, sleeping outside of the
house where he chanced to take up his abode, so that he might be arrested if
there was a In'each of the peace. But he says : " When they were sick I gave
them medicines, which made them more friendly. * * * Foul placards were
posted up in many places. These repi'esented me as the Queen's agent for pluck-
ing out eyes and sending them to England to manufacture opium out of them.
My life was threatened many times, and every conceival)le ol)struction put in my
way." 13ut nothii.g moved him. He travelled barefooted over hills and moun-
tains, under torrents of rain, sleeping on the mud lloors of hovels, and in two or
three years had preached the gospel in eveiy village in northern Formosa. His
work extended from the Chinese to the Pep-ho-hoans," and from these to the
uncivilized aboriginies. Disciples gathered round him. Devoted followers
they pi-oved themselves. Again and again they shielded him from mobs at the
risk of their own lives. The populace was actuated not so much ))y dislike to
Christianity, or to the missionary personally, as by <lislike to " foreign devils"
generally — just as hoodlums in San Francisco and all over the Pacific coast think
little of Confucianism when maltreating and nnirdering Chinamen. They are
Chinese ; they work for reasonable wages and don't drink whisky ! That is

—25—

enough. The Formosans have been notoriously turbulent for generations. The
official Ciasa have a proverb, " Every three years an outbreak, every five a rebel-
lion." No wonder that in Bang-ka, a flourishing commercial town with 30,000
inhabitants, a chapel was levelled to the ground by a mob, and that several times
Mackay's life was in extreme danger. What fruit can be seen now ? Here is a

brief summary :

THE WORK DONE.

There are connected with the mission 38 preaching stations, with chapels in
which the Gospel is preached to the people of Formosa in their own language,
and a native church with 2,247 members on the roll. Two of the native preachers
have been ordained. One of these is pastor of a self-sustaining congregation.
The other is connected with a training school or college that has been erected in
Tamsui, at a cost of about $7,000, for the ediication of a native ministry. The
amount was raised in Oxford, Dr. Mackay's native county, when he visited Canada
in 1881, and presented to him at a great meeting held in Woodstock. In com-
memoration, the training school is called Oxford College. No preacher is to be
settled as ordained pastor in northern Formosa until the congregation that calls
him guarantees an adequate stipend. The object from the first has been to form
a native self-supporting Church, and, though we help now by sending mission-
aries, building chapels, hospitals, schools and in other ways, the converts have no
idea of being dependent pernumently on Canada. There are 53 elders, 42 deacons
and 38 native preachers, whose " expositions of Scripture would be creditable to
young men attending the best institutions in America." These preachers have
received a measure of medical training that fits them for giving medicines and
advice while itinerating. There are also stiulents in Oxford College, and a large
girls' school has been built in Tamsui, from funds supplied by the Woman's Mis-
sionary Society, and opened since the close of the war between China and France.
In 1880 a hospital was built in Tamsui at a cost of $3,0(X), defrayeil entirely by
Mrs. Mackay, of Windsor, who desired to perpetuate in this way the memory of
her husband. A monument this more lasting than brass and altogether more in
harmony with Christian ideas ! From twelve to fifteen hundred new patients are
admitted and treated annually in this hospital, and the resident physician of the
foreign community at Tamsui has always in the most kindly spirit given the
benefit of his services daily. No wonder that the Chinese themselves are begin-
ning to subscribe voluntarily to the support of the hospital, and that these sub-
scriptions are increasing. Has the young man whom my friend saw appointed to
his work in Knox Church, Montreal, thrown away liis life ?

A GREAT GATHERING.

Last March, a joyous celebration was held in Tamsui to commemorate the
missionary's landing there on March 9, 1872. Converts gathered from all parts,

— 26 —

men and women, old an<l young. Some old men walked five days to share in the
thanksgivings. Twelve hundred and seventy-three converts were assembled.
Oxford College and the girls' school were decorated. Arches of green boughs
were erected, Chinese lanterns hung in rows among the trees. The British flag
waved on one side of the college and the ('hinese on the other. It was a day of
gladness to the infant church. The British consul and European residents sent
their congratulations. Moi-e remarkable by far, mandarins, civil and military
officers, leading mei'chants and head men from Bang-ka and other places sent
letters of congratulation, and in other ways showed their sympathy with the
ob?ect of the gathering. A still more wonderful instance of public recognition of
his work is the way in which the Chinese authorities met his claim for damages
on accoimt i-f chapels injured or destroyed during the recent war with the French.
" General Loo," he says, " influenced by my old mandarin friend, has never
once doubted my word about the value of the chapels destroyed, and gave me
^10,000 as damages." Let us hear a word from him as to his own emotions in
reviewing the past :

" Fourteen years age yesterday (March 9th. 1872) at 3 p.m., I lauded here. All was
dark around Idolatry was rampant. The i^eonle were bitter toward any foreigner.
There were no churches, no liospit ils, no preachers, no students, no friends. I knew nei-
ther European nor Chinese. Year after year passed away rapidly. But of the persecu-
tions, trials and woes ; of the sleepless nights ; of the weeping hours and bitter sorrows ;
of the travelling barefoot, nrenched with wet; of the nights in ox-stables, damp huts, and
filthy, small, dai-k rooms; of the days with students, in wot grass, on the mountain topq,
and by the sea-side : of the weeks in savage country, seeing bleeding hends brought in to
dance around ; of the narrow escapes by sea, by savages, by mobs, by sickness and by the
French, you will never fully know."

We know enough to honor him as one of the apostles of the nineteenth century,
and we I'ejoice that (iod has given such sons to Canada. In 1880 Queen's Uni-
versity conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and among the forty
on whom that tlegree has been conferred during our histoi-y of forty-five years
there are no names more worthy than his and John (ileddie's. But it is not
honor that he seeks. He asks the Church to awake, and, seeing fields white to
the harvest, to put in the sickle and reap. Here are his words, and I think Car-
lyle in his surliest mood would have rejoiced in them : "I care nothing for
presents, &c. * * There is no sham, no romance, no sentimentalism here.
No; Imt stubborn fact."

Xo. 7. 'THE FOR9IOSA IM[ISSIO!«i. -Continued.

The success of this mission has been so remarkable that it is worth our while
to inquire into the secret of the success. It is quite clear that our relations with
the Chinese are to be multiplied. The termini of the Canadian Pacific railway
are declared to be Hong Kong and Liverpool. Our newspapers are congratulat-

, —27-

ing the country on shipments of tea for Toronto, Montreal and New York l)ein^
made via Vancouver and Winnipeg. If tea, why not other things, and the more
the l)etter. On the other hand, do the Chinese want nothing from xis? I believe
that we can supply them with much. Within the last year or two tlieir states-
men have determined on a new departure. They are casting to the winds their
old policy of exclusion and seclusion, and they seem to be specially desirous of
cultivating friendly I'elations with Britain, When three hund/ed millions of
patient, sober, home-loving toilers^-as intent on gaining their full share of the
riches and comforts of life as any people in the world — enter into the brotherhood
of civilized nations, and engage heartily in exchange with foreigners, can any
limits be set to the development of trade likely to ensue ? But there can be no
great commerce where there is no friendship between the parties. And there
cannot he friendship without knowledge. We must try to understand (me
another, and we must do justly to each otlior. From otlier points of view than
the spiritual, then, can the work of such a man as Dr. Maokay be viewed. He
is a potent factor in displacing the deep-rooted prejudices of a singularly tena-
cious people, in promoting international amity, in extending commerce and so
linking nations together by ties of common interest. All this work is essentially
Christian, for Christianity thinks of man not as a ghost but as a citixen of this
world that God made and pronounced good. We have seen that Mackay at-
tempted iin apparently hopeless task and succc led,

A MISSIONARY'S PROGRAMME,

Let us ask, what were his methods? In one of his letters he mentions four.
Here they are in brief : —

"First — Travelling and dispensing medicines,

"Second — Travelling and preaching the Gospel,

"Third — Travelling and training young men.

"Fourth — Travelling and appointing a trained helper to take charge of a cluipel
wherever opened."

In his view, "travelling" is as indispensable to make the missionary as in De-
mosthenes' opinion "delivery" is to make the orator. He follows in the footsteps
of that great missionary whom we call Master, who instead of keeping to one
place, as was the wont of ordinary teachers, raldns and doctors, "went about
doing good," from village to village, from country to city, from province to pro-
vince. The true missionary must go in and out among men, must see them face
to face, and show that he is in all things a man like themselves. Prejudices
linger long in the country, but when the peasants saw that the foreigner had the
heart of a Chinaman their prejudices got adeath-l)low. He establislied a hospital
at the outset in Tamsui, and wherever he went he dispensed medicines, pulled

B'^Miaik^

—28—

teeth by the hundred and gave advice. "Indeed," he says, "the comparatively
friendly feeling shown toward myself, ht-lpers and work I attriljute to the fact
that from the beginning when travelling amongst the people I invariably tried to
relieve bodily aurtering." Here, too, he imitated the (ireat Physician. Often
Churches have sent, even to ignorant savages, missionaries skilled in theology
and profoundly impressed with the importance of ritual, but ignorant of the
simplest clrugs or the ordinary laws of health. These messengers of good news
have seen the feeble race wither away before their eyes without knowing what to
do. "Heal the sick," he says, "not now by miraculous power, but by the power
of agencies found in depths and heights, in soils and seas, in trees and flowers,
yea, in all the stupendous wonders which the great Architect of the Universe
launched forth within and around the present abode of frail man."

A HEALER OF SOULS.

Had he confined himself to medical relief, everyone would have acknowledged
his work as good. But he had accepted the connnission to "preach the Gospel"
as well as to "heal the sick." He was therefore sneered at "as the crazy barbar-
ian." C/hinese literati are not unlike a good many Caucasian literati ! There
are men among ourselves who do not believe that Christianity is the force that
explains all that is excellent in our civilization. Why should we expect Man-
darins or ordinary Chinamen to be more discerning ? Mackay had more sense.
He had not left home to cure diseases on the surface. He knew that root work
was required. So he cries, " 'Heal the sick' and 'preach the Gospel,' until this
old empire, asleep for ages, will awake, arise and shake herself from the tilth and
dust of ignorance and superstition, and fill all the land with hospitals and
Christian institutions, and then enjoy the meridian splendour of that sun which
is now appearing above the dim horizon."

He knew that his own life hung by a thread, so he gathered the most promis-
ing youths as disciples al)Out him. These young men he trained, not by lecturing
from the professor's chair, but after the manner of the Great Teacher. Wher-
ever he went his disciples accompanied him, and received instruction as they
travelled by the road, wandered by the sea-side or sat in a chapel. He taught
them "the Bible, geography, astronomy, anatomy, physiology and history."
"Did I begin with teaching them doctrines," I once heard him say; "No, I
taught them geography." That was exactly what they needed. According to
their old ideas of a map of the world, China was a vast continent extending over
nine-tenths of the map, and all other countries were a cluster of insignificant
islands on the outskirts, inhabited by fierce, uncultured barbarians. To men
with such notions — and knowing that China had existed as a mighty kingdom in
almost unbroken continuity for twenty-five centuries, ami that for ages it had

—29—

produced historians, philosophers, poets, artists, divines, not one of whom had

ever heard of any other country — it was and is incredible that (Jod should have

sent His Son, eighteen hundred years ago, to this world to tell of His love and

to die for our sins. They liegin to be in a position to \inderstand the po88il)ility

of such a tiling when they learn that China is only a small part of the world, and

that there have been and are "more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed
of in their philosophy."

NATIVE HELPERS.

As to Mackay's fourth method, the Lord did not indeed build chapels and ap-
point trained helpers to take charge of them. The time had not come. The old
bottles of Judaism v/ere about to be broken, and the new wine of the Spii'it
would, by an alchemy the power of which is exhaustless, form for itself new
wine-skins. Organization is recjuired to preserve the spiritual and apply it for
the use of man. Mackay understands thiB,_ and so every step that he gains he
holds. "Wherever people in any locality desired further instruction, a native
helper was sent to them to follow up the work already accomplished." I have
thus explained Dr. Mackay's methods, as much as possible in his own words.
But, note, all those methods would Vje only so much clattering machinery unless
there was life behind them. And life means love. And love in such a field
meant that he should become a Chinaman. The Son of God had to become man
to save man. Paul became a Greek to save the (Greeks, and he became a (ireek
so thoroughly that he was hated as an apostate Jew with such intensity of hatred
that men, out of zeal for Jehovah, l>ound themselves })y oaths not to eat or drink
till they had killed him. The same man became a Jew to save the Jews, so
thoroughly that to this day there are Christian commentators who condemn him
for shaving his head in Cenchrea and for being at charges for the four men in
Jerusalem who had a vow on them. Mackay has become a Chinaman to save
Chinamen. He has married a Chinawoman, and an invaluable helper to him
she has proved herself. Mrs. Jamieson, wife of Rev. Mr. Jamieson, his present
colleague, says, "I cannot imagine what the mission premises would be without
Mi's, Mackay. I find her invariably the centre of a group."

INTERMARRYING WITH NATIVES.

Of course it is not implied that all missionaries to the heathen should inter-
marry with the people to whom they preach. But there is no reason why they
should not, and where there is a union of hearts it is eminently ])roper that they
should. Every true missionary must become one with the people to whom he is
sent. He nuist see with their eyes, imderstand their tastes, appreciate what
they and their fathers have <lone, and sympathize with their national aims and
individual emotions. In no other way can he make Christianity indigenous, and

—30—

no religion will ever take hold of a nation until it is racy of their own soil. This
is true of every people, and therefore pre-eminently true of a people whose roots
have struck so deeply into the past as the Chinese. There must be Chinese
teacliei'H an<l preachers, saints and martyi's, theologians and heretics, hymns,
catechisms and speculations. All thcHc will come, and I for one believe tluit the
Chinese type of Christianity will be not f)nly specific, but a species ofa peculiar-
ly downright and stalwart type. It will not pick up our cast-off clothes, l)ut
will weave its own web and cut its cloth to suit itself.

In speaking of our Formosa Missions, I have not referred to the colleagues Dr.
Mackay has had, Ijecause Dr. Fraser, Dr. Junor and Mr. Jamieson all admit
that he from the fiist has Ijeen the soul f)f the Mission. He, too, is the man who
has (piickened the interest of the Church in the cause. He would fain breathe
into us his own spirit. "By never allowing discouragement to enter our voca-
bulary, little by little we won the day," is his explanation of his success ; and
when in conse(|uence of the French invasion the work was stopped for a time,
his cry to us was "for God's sake, let tliere not be even a whisper about dis-
couragement.' Coid indeed must we be if such flaming zeal does not kindle our
hearts.

No. 8 -OUR MISSIONS IN CENTRAI. INDIA.

Our fifth Foreign Mission is our latest. Though its beginning was small, it is
already the largest and most expensive, and the character of the field is such that
we cannot expect abundant fruit at an early stage. Tlie fortress of Hinduism
cannot be taken at a rush. Sap and mine will be needed for generations yet,
and every variety of weapon in our arsenals must be used. Men of calm philo-
sophic spirit and earnest preachers in the bazaars and at the mehts ; subtle dia-
lecticians, scholars skilled in translation, high-bred ladies visiting zenanas, phy-
sicians, male and female, and Hallelujah lasses, are all at work, and who shall
say that any of them should be dispensed with ! Misses Fairweather and Kodger
were our first representatives in India. From 1874 they worked under the care
of the American Presbyterian Church, near Futtehgurh. Tlie Rev. Dr. Kellogg,
now of Toronto, was then one of the missionaries of that Church, and from him
and liis colleagues they experienced imremitting kindness. Their duties were
the superintendence of village schools taught hy native Christian women, and
the charge of orphanage and zenana work.

In 187() the Church determined to estaljlish an independent Canadian Mission
in India, and, acting on the principle of looking out for an unoccupied field, it
chose Central India, and inore particularly the semi-independent State of Indore,

—31—

ruled, uiulur the guardianship of Britain, l)y the descendant of tiiat wild Mah-
ratta chief of the last century who took the name of Holkar from his native vil-
lage in the Deccau, where he had been a herd-lK)y. Holkar siniply means the
inhabitant of Hoi. Indore has a population of three-quarters of a million, and
the capital city, also called Indore, has over a hundred thousand. There are
other semi-independent States included under tlu^ sanuj liritisli agency with a
total population of nine or ten millions. The River Nerbudda, seeond only to
tlie (Ganges in sacrudness, runs through the State, and all along its course are
holy places. The noble Vindhya range also cuts the State into two. The popu-
lation is chiefly Mahratta, with a mixture of otlier Hindoo races, while in the
mountains are to be found aboriginal non-Aryan tribes like the (ionds and IJhils.
In 1877 the Rev. J. M. Douglas started our mission in the capital city of Indore.
where he was soon joined by Misses Fairweather and Rodger. Some time pre-
viously, or immediately before the Union, the Rev, James Fraser Campbell had
lieen designated by the Syno I of the Maritime provinces as a missionary to the
Englisli-speaking natives of Madras. There, he was offered a position with a
much better salary in connection with another body ; but when ho foinul that
the Canadian Church had determined to occupy Central India, he threw in his
lot with Mr. Douglas, to give unity to our mission. Instead of working together
at Indore, however, Mr. Douglas thought it expedient that Mr. Campbell should
oocupy Mhow, a city thirteen miles distant, where the large liritish garrison
ret^uired for Central India is stationed.

BRAHMINS CONVERTED.
In 1878 two Brahjnins from the Court of Indole who, with other gentle-
men, had spent afternoons and evenings discussing religious subjects with Mr.
Douglas, announced that they wished to declare themselves Christians. On the
day fixed for tlieir baptism they were seized by tlie authorities, and afterwai'ds
l)rought before the Maluuajah Holkar. He threatened tliem with gaol, but on
aecui'ity being given they were dismissed. They escaped from Indore subse-
([uently and were baptized in (lujerat. Ever since, the authorities have placed
every possible obstacle in oui missionaries' way. Tlie schools were ordered to
be closed unless a written pledge was given that Christianity would not be
taught, and when Mr. Douglas tried to argue the point with them they met him
with the statement, which he must have found some difficulty in answering, that
in Canada the Bible is not taught in the common schools ! The Hindoos are
eager to be taught everything that has a market value. They are eager to dis-
cuss theological prolilems, and our ordinary students would likely get the worst
of the argument. They are, too, the most religious people in the world. Con-
sequently, "let anyone appear as an earnest preacher of religion in any assembly
of ordinajy Hindoos, let him even denounce old creeds, however venerated, and

;■ , i

' ■• I

—32—

he is sure of a hearing. And if to his other qualitications as a religious teacher,
he adds a character for self-denial and asceticism, he cannot fail to attra<;t dis-
ciples." So says Monier Williams, and such facts make it not at all unlikely
that the Salvation Army may gain a larger measure of immediate success in India
than any other organization. The "soldiers" dress and live like the natives and
submit to privations after the manner of fakirs. Besides, Hindoos see no more in-
congruity than David did, in "dancing before the Lord with all their might."
They like processions with drums, tambourines and waving of flags. Clearly, any
Church that hopes to gain the people of India must provide for the expression of
the religious emotions a ritual less bald than that which a severe northern taste
demands.

NATIVE BANDS, Etc.

Our native congregation in Indore evidently understands this. Already they
have commenced evangelistic labors in the villages, and in Oojain, one of the
most sacred cities in India. Narayan Sheshadri, well known in the United States
and Canada, has sent two or three of his workers to help them, but I am afraid
that some of our people would be shocked with the mode in which public worship
is conducted. I quote from one of the reports an illustrative extract :

" Gyanoba ani Bliud Bartimeus, along with Oovind Rao, form a native baud, and ex-
ercise a wonderful intiueuce wherever they go. Their singing and phiying may not be
very artistic; it is. however, very hearty, and, according to Hindo > taste, ju.st perfection.
One with his fingers plays at the same time two drums, one in his lap and the other on
the ground ; the second plays a one stringed instriiiuont somewhat like a violin, but hav-
ing a bamboo for n handle, a gourd for a body, a piece of tilo for a bridge and a brass
wire for a string ; while the third plays a small pair of native cymbals. Bliud Bartimeus
is the leader, and, from his experience as a Hindoo Hadhu before becoming a Christian,
is well qualified for the position. They sit on the ground, with the people seated b round
them, and then sing and speak alternately as long as tlieir voices hold out. It is peculiarly
native in every part, but just to that extent pleasing to the people. We also use the
same in our Sabbath services at times, with the same beneficial effect; and we hoi)e, as
the men and instruments can be obtained, to pay even more attention to this feature of
the work."

But however " mild" the Hindoo may be, however tolerant of doctrinal laxity,
however ready to accept new revelations and follow new teachers who seem
inspired with religious zeal, there is one point at which he draws the line and
keeps it drawn. Caste must not })e broken. You belong to your caste by divine
decree, and to lose it is to lose this life and that which is to come. You may be
materialist or theist, pantheist or atheist, and it matters not. You may be im-
clean, or a thief or a murderer, and ritual is all powerful to save you. But there
is no salvation for the outcast. He is driven from home, cut oft" from all share in
the paternal inheritance, cursed by the mother that bare him. You need not
believe in the gods of the Hindoo pantheon. You may accept the facts and doc-
trines of Christianity ; but to be baptized or to eat at the Lord's table is to break
caste, and that therefore you must not do.

—33—

. HOSTILITY DISPLAYED.

It JH no wonder therefore tluit wliuii tli(> Imlore (yoiirt found that tlie iniuHion
.was not satistied with intellectual sword-fence, hut pressed promising young men
to "leave all and follow Jesus," it took up an attitude of decided op|)osition.
Our missionaries were ohliged to invoke the aid of the IJritish Agent (iovernor-
(Jeneral at Indore, but as might he expected, they g«)t little comfort from that
([uarter. Zeal is an offence to the otticial mind. Besides, the British (Jovern-
ment is anxious to keep on good terms witii the feud„.tory States, and everything
like interference with domestic administrution is felt to be peculiarly offensive.
Still, as the missionaries saw clearly that the principle of religious liberty for all
Central India was at stake, they petitioiuid the Viceroy (the Manpiis of Ripon)
to have that freedom secured to them in the pi-osecution of their work which the
native authorities concede to Mahommedan and other religions ; and as a result,
they were subsequently informed by the Agent Oovernor-deneral that he would
"take an early opportunity of pointing out to the Indore Durbar the immunity
from molestation which obtains in British India in regard to missionary work."
Difficulties, however, were still placed in their path, not only in the city, but,
strange to say, in the cantcmment, and our committee found it necessary to
solicit the good offices of the Manjuis of Lansdowne, with the present viceroy,
Lord Dufferin, who acted with his usual tact and success in the matter. Now,
after a struggle of seven years, in which Rev. Mr. Campbell and the Rev. J.
Wilkie — who succeeded Mr. Douglas — have had to contend with difficulties that
required the exercise of infinite patience, g(>od temper and firmness, all opposition
seems to have been withdrawn with tlic full consent of the native authorities,
and the work of the mission is being piosecuted without interruption.

THE MISSION STAFF.
Our staff in Central India has been increased till at length it may be said to be
large enough for a time, and for the next few years attention should be given to
consolidate the work by erecting buildings and providing e({uipment of various
kinds. Four centres have been occupied, the cities of Indore, Mhow, Rutlam
and Neemuch. There are five Canadian ordained ministers and their wives, five
lady missionaries, and a large staff of teachers, catechists, Bible readers and col-
porteurs. Last (jrenerai Assembly constituted the missionaries, ministers and
representative elders of native congregations into the Presbytery of Indore.
This step is likely to lead to the extension of the work as well as to its orderly
supervision. The congregation of St. Paul's, Montreal, pays the full salary of
one of the ordained men, and if a few other congregations followed this example
the staff could easily be doubled. Two of the ladies are of that new and univer-
sally popular type in India — medical missionaries. Dr. Elizabeth Beatty was
sent out in 1884, and Dr. Marion Oliver leaves Canada this month to join her.
Three other ladies have been accepted by the committee, and these are to

—34 —

begin their mutlical HtudicH at once. Rev. Mr. TJuilder tells uh that "only
ladiuH can iiuike tlie asHanit upon the honicH of flimlooiHni and MohannnedaniHm,
as the male niiHuionarius are alinoHt entirely Hliiit out." And no ladieH can he ^o
useful as those who have studied medicine. Miss Dr. Beatty writes, "My
patients are of all claHsea, fi'om the pauper to the princess, and fi'om sweepers to
Hrahinins." Lady DufFerin has autiiori/ed her to offer a small fee per month to
native »vonien willing to l»o taught sick-nursing ; and though Hnding it ditticult
to get then) to come or to be taught tlie simplest lessons, a class has been organ-
ized, "one of whom is my iiiblo woman, who have no prejudices to conquer and
no false theories to forget, and I am training them for work in connection with
Lady Duilerin's scheme." India and China will l)e opened to the(ioapel perhaps
more through the agency of lady medical missioiuirics than l)y any other single
instrumentality.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION.

Christian education, from the connnon school to the university, is indispensable
in Indian missions. "The so-called 'religious neutrality' of the (iovernment
schools is in many cases only a misnomer for hostility to Christianity. " "We
have," writes Mr. Huilder, "a higldy intellectual and conservative race to win
over to Christianity. This is no easy task. To accomplish it and nuike the work
both successful and pernmnent, their systems of thought must l)e understood and
met by a deeper and more satisfying one ; and they must be taught to look with
hope to the future rather than to the past. What then flo we need to carry this
out ? More Chiistian men are rcijuired for literaiy work for that purpose ; and a
library has been suggested for tlieir use containing all the works needed for C(m-
sulting purposes ; schools also are required, botli primary and advanced, wherein
a tlioughtful and earnest ministry may be trained. One of the latter class
should be estal)liaiied as soon as possible. These agencies to support and supply
a large number of devout evangelical preachers woidd make our work here of an
enduring character. When the time comes to ask large tilings of the Church at
home, may we not look for a hearty response that Central India may be Christ's ?"

What a field for Christian chivalry India is ! Those teeming millions are of
our own race. They are our fellow-citizens. They have never been a nation.
Divided by language and still more by caste there is no hope of their ever becom-
ing a great people unless the power of Christianity fuses them into one. If they
become C'hristian the conquest of the world would speedily follow. From India,
Buddhism went forth as a great missionary force, and spread from Ceylon to
Thibet, from Siam to Mantchooria. From India, missionaries of the Cross will
yet swarm to hinds old and new. To the Hindoo, religion is not something
added to life. It is his life. We are now called upon to pay our debt to India.
India will hereafter repay us an hundred fold.

—35—
No. 9. -CONCLUSION.

I have Hketclied hrietiy the hiHtory, work and present ))(mition of our five for-
eign nii..J(>n8. Some juay think tliat it wouM l)e wiuer if we, like the
Methodiwt ('hurch of tlu; Dominion, concentrated our energies on two fields
instiMid of dividing them among five. Hut readers must have noticed that all
o»ir ndssions were commenced lieforo the union of 187«'», and that it would have
heon impoHsihle— even had it })een wise -to throw any of them overboard. At
present we would be no more willing to spare one of them than the mother of
five children would be willing to throw one to the wolvea or tf) the poorhouse.
Besides, the ('hurch is growing every year in mend>ership and wealth, and so tiie
niunber is becoming rehitively smaller. Even now, if we rose to anything like
the height of our power and privileges, we couhl equip ali five with that thorough
equipment which the nineteenth century denmnds. ^'or just as it would be folly
nowadays to send out troops armed with bows and arrows, or even with the
Brown Bess that won Waterloo, so docs it imply an equal waste of men to send
out missionari«'s without furnishing them with all the apphinces that a Christian
civilization ofier>» hospitals and dispensaries, printing presses and training
schools, orphanage- iid colleges. Our aim is not to convert isolated individuals,
but to inspire wit' '?w life countless and well-compactetl masses who stand face
to face with us , the first time in history. The religions that met the
spiritual necessities of these peoples in the dawn of their history, and which have
since given them cohesion and life, are evidently exhausted. It is now to be seen
whether Christianity can satisfy tlie demands of the universal reason and con-
science. C'an it (juicken the teeming millions of China and India with a new
faith that will come as an indubitable message from the living God to their
hearts ? If it cannot do tiiis, it is not what it professes to be. If it is perma-
nently rejected by the disciples of Confucius, Sakya Muni and Menu, it will not
be retained by us. May not the true explanation of its comparatively slow
progress there be that faith is weak here ? If so, what is most needed is that we
ourselves should awake from our sleep ere it become the sleep of death. In the
seventh century after Christ the crescent displaced the cross in Arabia, Egypt,
Palestine, Syria — in a word, in all the lands of the Bible. Why ? Simply be-
cause Christendom ha<l become untrue to its own fundamental principles. The
life of love, the faith in the living Christ that had sustained the generations who
triumphed over Imperial Rome " had evaporated amidst the worship of images,
amidst moral corruptions, philosophical theories and religious controversies."
How could men who substituted notions about (iod for the living Saviour in
their hearts meet in the shock of Viattle soldiers who believed that (jrod verily is,
and that man is His minister to accomplish His will (m earth ? The Mahometan
took into his heart one of the fundamental principles of the Old Testament, and

-36-

SO was stronger than a thousand who professed to believe more but really
believed nothing.

Our Church has begun work in the great enterprise of this centuiy, but it has
only made a beginning. I have rather vague notions of what the other Cana-
dian Churches are doing, and many of us would like to know more accurately,
that we may sympathize with them more intelligently. Depend upon it, such
work indicates the heart of our people Ijetter than anything else, and as one
interested in the development of our national life, I am desirous of knowing what
our place is in this respect. Little cared the courtiers in Caesar's palace
about the Jewish Church, and the name of Jesus of Nazareth was utterly un-
known to them. Of what interest were the missions of Peter and Paul to the
Senate of Rome, or even to close and profound observers like Seneca and Tacitus ?
Men of the world had enough to do with t'ae great affairs of .state. Nemo's char-
acter and doings were of infinite consequence to them. But, seeing things with
the perspective of eighteen centuries, the small has become great, and the great
infinitely little. So, too, centuries after this, when no one knows or cares who
were the Premiers of Canada or Ontario, or the leaders of the Oppositions, or the
postmaster of this or that important town, millions will be interested in what
obscure missionaries from Canada did in the nineteenth century in India and
China .

So far as our own Church is concerned, I look for an extension of the work t'*
a quickened sense of responsibility among our people generally. There are con-
gregations, and scores of individual adherents, each of whom could send out a
missionary and keep him at work as its or his representative. Why not ? Two
Christian young men start out in life with like abilities, opportunities, character.
The one gives himself to the ministry of the word at holne or abroad. The
other goes into a profession or business in which he makes liis tens or hinidreds
of thousands of dollars. The former is, ss a matter of fact, giving himself to the
Lord. The latter is not, unless he is giving for the good of men all that he has
made. The tithe was enough for the Jew. It is not enough for the Christian. But
very few ri. men will look at the matter from this point of view. They have
their "station" in life to maintain and their families to provide for. I do not
propose to argue with them, simply because the (church does not depend mainly
on them. The Church's revenue, like the nation's, should come from the great
body of the people ; and its work will extend healthily only as the tide of life
rises higher among its members all over the land. The tide is beginning to rise.
The waters are up to the ankles, some would say to the knees, comparing pres-
ent things with past, but they shall yet be " waters to swim in."

«. M. GRANT.

Queen's University, Kingtson, Aug. 21.