Morning Calm v.18 no.111(1907 Jan.)

The Bishop's Letters.Ⅰ.

CHONG-DONG, SEOUL, COREA: September 17, 1906. MY DEAR FRIENDS,

My last letters were sent from Japan, and I hope that they reached the Editor in time for insertion in the October number of Morning Calm. If not, this letter will follow naturally on the last one I wrote. In that I was speaking of the work in Kanghwa Island, and I found so much to say that there was no room to speak of other places. Especially I wanted to say something of Sou Won. As a station for our Mission work it is (as you will remember) just a year old, for it is now a year ago that Mr. Bridle went down there from Chemulpo to take up what promised to be a very important work, and so far as he was able to take advantage of the openings in the neighbourhood.

The town of Sou Won is an important one--not that it is a very large place, but it is the centre of a great deal of the legal procedure of the province of Kyeng Keui in which the capital, Seoul, is situated, and it is near some of the old imperial tombs of the present dynasty, and it is also the market town for a large district round. There is a station on the new Seoul-Fusan line which is about a mile away from the town itself, from which the Japanese have just made an excellent road which passes in front of our property, and has increased very considerably the value of it. This is convenient, but it has its drawbacks, for it brings a great many visitors and sight-seers who are not always welcome, especially when the services are being held. We hope, how-ever, to enclose it with a fence this year, which will minimise the nuisance.

There is a little work being done in the town by the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in a village not far away by the Roman Catholics; but there is room for all, as we are not very close to one another, and we have not as yet had any difficulty to speak of, though one or two members of the American congregation have come to us whom we could well do without, but it is hard to drive them away. Still, Mr. Bridle has not been without his difficulties, external and internal. External with the officials who were not anxious for us to begin work there, fearing that we should interfere with them in the administration of justice or injustice. It is very hard to keep quite clear of this, but we have made it plain to our people that we are not there for such purposes, and by degrees they are learning that they must not depend on us for help. The internal difficulties are also inseparable from new work in Corea. Men join us for many reasons, some of which are quite wrong ones, and when they find out their mistake, they either leave us (which we are sorry for), though it is the best thing they can do till they learn better, or else they make a dis-turbance in the church, which is often by no means easy to deal with. However, in spite of these difficulties the work has continued to grow, and I feel that we can congratulate Mr. Bridle on the way in which he has got through the first year, and may look forward to next year with great hopefulness.

In all our work, but especially in a new work such as this, we feel the need every day of better trained men among our Christians to help us. We must rely on them to do so much of the work, and there are so few who can be relied on either in the matter of knowledge or character. In Paul Kim Mr. Bridle has had a helper who has done better than we expected, but he still requires a great deal of teaching and superintend-dence. Then with inquirers coming in as they do from villages ten, twenty, thirty, forty miles away (whom it seems wrong to send away if we can do anything for them), what is one man with one Corean assistant to do?

Mr. Bridle chose two men from his district, one of whom had been a catechumen for some time, and he has kept them by him, teaching them and sending them out to teach what they have learnt to the villages round, and especially to their own neighbourhood. Peter Kang and John Chun are both intelligent, and we hope steady; so far they have given no trouble, and we pray that they may be of real value to the Church and real evangelists to their own people as they learn more of the faith. In the preparation of these men Mr. Bridle's time is a good deal occupied, as well as in teaching those of the nearer inquirers and catechumens ; but his responsibility does not end there, for there are visits to be paid and questions to be settled in all these villages, of this up to the present he has not been able to do all that he would, but is looking forward to a good winter's work in which these visits will have their due place.

The villages in which work has begun are many of them accessible by train, which makes the work more easy to under-take, and as we get more trained men to help it will be possible (we hope) to do a really extensive work in the district, and I am especially glad that we have been able to commence evange-listic work on the mainland and to feel that we are no longer confined to the islands. If we are to take the position we ought among the Coreans and the other missionary bodies that are working out here we must try and strengthen this work as much as possible. There are other places where openings are being made for us near at hand of which I will say something in my next letter ; enough now to show that we are full of work and full of hope in spite of difficulties and occasional disappointments, and that we want all the help you can give us collectively and individually with your sympathy and prayers.

I am, yours sincerely, ARTHUR B. TURNER, Bishop.

II.

CHONG DONG, SEOUL, COREA. September 30, 1906.

MY DEAR FRIENDS, I have left Seoul and Chemulpo to the last. My reasons were twofold. One, because there is less evangelistic work going on there than elsewhere, and the other because till lately I did not quite see how our arrangements were to be made to carry on the work to the best advantage; while I did not want to write till I could tell you what they were to be. I have said before that there have been openings in the neigh-bourhood of Seoul, of which I thought we ought to take advantage. Of these openings some are in the vicinity of the capital, and some at a greater distance. There was one place especially to which I should have liked to send Mr. Gurney when he left Kangwha after Mr. Hillary's return, and for a time I seriously thought of doing so. To his disappointment, how-ever, and my own, I have decided that he will have to stay with me in Seoul. I feel that if I am to do my own work at all properly I must have someone to take off the Corean work from my shoulders, and he has just done that. He will have plenty of work to do, which I hope will console him somewhat for having to live in Seoul, which none of us care for, if we want to do what we sometimes call real missionary work. He will have charge of the Corean congregation in the capital and of the inquirers in some five or six neighbouring villages, and in addition will pay occasional visits to the district to which I had hoped to be able to send him to live, some seventy miles away.   If he had gone away it would have meant that it would have been very difficult for me to leave Seoul at all, and it would have been impossible for me to do properly the Corean work, with the numerous odds and ends which turn up daily, and at the same time to do my own work as Bishop, which necessitates a certain amount of time for letter-writing and study, which has been terribly neglected during the past year ; and further, in case of a breakdown on the part of any man in the Mission, relief would have been very difficult. So you may think of me living in the bungalow in which the Baldocks lived so long, and of Mr. Gurney in the little Corean house in which first Dr. Wiles and then Bishop Corfe felt so much at home; while I hope that the fact that I have someone on to whose shoulders I can shift some of my burdens will not make me lazy, and inclined to take too much of the ease which some people still think is the ordinary lot of a Bishop.

In addition to Mr. Gurney, we shall have Mr. Cartwright in Seoul, but he will be on the other side of the city, and will be fully occupied with the Japanese work ; for he will not only have the people in Seoul to look after, but he will also have to do a good deal of travelling, until we can get an adequate staff to undertake the work which lies to our hand in the country generally, north and south and east. I hear he was expected in Fusan yesterday, and I hope he will be here in a day or two. We have been earnestly looking forward to his return, and hope to see him looking well after his visit home, where I hear he has made the acquaintance of some, at least, of you. Mr. Mock-ridge, who (you know) came over to take his work while he was in England (in hopes that he might be allowed by the doctors to stay and work here), has had to return to Japan, and they tell him he must not come back. This is a great disappoint-ment to him and to us all, and I know that you will all sympathise with him from your hearts, for there could be no one who was more keenly in earnest or more anxious to do what he saw lay ready to his hand in this country for the Master. We are letting some portion of the old Church property at Nak Tong, but are retaining enough for houses for Mr. Cartwright and for the catechist (whom we hope will come with him), and for two ladies who we hope may come out to help him next year, and the old chapel is put to its old use. Lans Deo!

I have said nothing of the Sisters yet. Sister Nora is, of course, still in Seoul as the headquarters of the work, and I am thankful to say that her labours do not seem to have at all injured her health this year. She has just come back from a visit to Pyeng Yang, of which I hope she will give you an account when she has leisure, and of her glimpse of the great work being done there by the American Presbyterian and Episcopal Methodist Missions. Sister Isabel has had a heavy year with the work among the women in Seoul and in the neighbouring villages and in Sou-won. In this she has been handicapped seriously by the want of adequate assistance. It is harder to get women to teach even than men. She will, I grieve to say, be off for her furlough next spring, and you will see her in England by Easter. I don't quite know how we shall get on without her, but one finds that with the need God opens the way and sends the worker to prevent the work from falling to the ground; while I think it is good for the Coreans from time to time to be thrown on their own responsibility to learn to do things for themselves, They have got to do so some time, and the sooner they begin the better, though it may be that at first they will not make much of a success of it. Sister Barbara is as usual superintending her small family of orphans, and from the looks of their faces when one goes to see them there is not one miserable one among them, while the presence of a few of the older girls makes it a more hopeful and interesting task.

We are looking forward to welcoming our two new Sisters soon after Christmas, when Sister Rosalie will again have the company of Sisters at Kangwha. Miss Jephson has been very good in staying so long with her in Sister Margaretta's absence. What we should have done if she had not been here I cannot think ; but she will be leaving us then, and we can only thank her most heartily for what she has done for us, and wish her God-speed in whatever work she has to do at home ; and we who know how willing she is to work at whatever she has to do, and how zealously she does it, are sure that she will always find work to be done wherever she may be. Sister Margaretta will take up her old labours in the city and the villages round, and with Mrs. Hillary at On-sou-tong, the women's work ought to be done more thoroughly and well than we have been ever able to do it before. Sister Cecil will be there as “learn pidgeon,” as the Chinese call a beginner, and with Mr. Badcock at the head and Mr. Wilson as assistant, Kangwha will indeed be well staffed. We have to face the sad fact that Mr. Badcock may have to leave us some time next year. It was only in consideration of the difficult place that the Mission was in at the time that he made up his mind to come out again after his furlough, and leave his old parents alone at home with no one to help and comfort them in their extreme old age; and now that they are two years older and cannot have many years to live, he feels more than ever that he ought to be with them till the end comes. This is a very serious matter for us, but the fact that he will stay till next year at any rate gives us time to prepare for his departure and to think how it will be possible to get on without him, and the longer he stays with us the more capable will Mr. Wilson be of taking on his shoulders whatever burden they will have to bear.

I am just off to Kangwha, and my next letter will be written from there, and will, I hope, contain an account of Mr. Wilson's ordination, the meetings of the Prayer-book Revision Committee, and the classes for catechists that we are going to hold in the same way as last year. I am, yours sincerely, ARTHUR B. TURNER, Bishop.

III.

KANGWHA, COREA: October 8, 1906. MY DEAR FRIENDS,

How terribly fast the months run away! It seems only the other day that I was writing to you, and then I was in the thinnest things I could wear, and now I am glad of my winter clothes. The first touch of frost has come much too soon, and I fear that a good deal of the later harvest, like the beans, has been damaged badly. A few weeks ago, even days, everything was green and growing, and only the persimmon tree showed signs of autumn, and now all the fields look brown and shrivelled and all growth is stopped. However, the rice is all right, and they are harvesting it rapidly. A splendid crop, for which we are most thankful, for if it had been otherwise the condition of the people would have been very serious in view of the unsettled state of financial matters following on the reform of the currency undertaken by the Japanese. Now, however, we can look forward to a winter in which the country will have time to more or less recover itself. Naturally it must take time, and a good harvest will give the Japanese and Coreans a chance.

There is no lack of news this month. The difficulty is to know what I ought to tell you about especially. The first item in point of time is the visit of the fleet, bringing the Admiral, Sir Arthur Moore, on his first official visit to Corea, or rather to Chemulpo and Seoul. I cannot give you all the details of the round of entertainments to which he and his officers were invited. They included an audience with the Emperor, dinner parties at Marquis Ito's and at our own Consulate-General, and one given by the Corean Ministers, and ended up with a luncheon on the flagship, on which Bishop Corfe had come out to China in the spring. It was all very interesting to me personally, for one had an opportunity not only of seeing something of the Admiral himself, but also of the Japanese and Corean officials in a friendly way, when one could talk over things which one has little chance of doing at ordinary times. After the lunch on the King Alfred the Admiral was kind enough to come ashore and inspect the hospital. Dr. Weir had been taking his holiday, and the hospital was in consequence not in full working order ; but he went all over it, and he could see from that and from Dr. Weir's report what sort of work is being done there, and he showed by his questions that he took a real interest in it all.

It was a treat to us who were in Seoul to see something of our naval friends again. Since the acquisition of Wei-hai-Wei we have not seen nearly as much of them as we could wish or as we used to in the old days when a cruiser often lay in Chemulpo harbour for weeks together. We had two of our old friends to see us, Captains of the late Marine Guard, and one of them gave me the pleasure of staying with me, and the chaplain of the flagship was with us one night staying with Mr. Gurney in the little house Dr. Wiles and Bishop Corfe used to live in, but I was too busy to see as much as I should have liked of our visitors. However, they all seemed to enjoy their visit in spite of the fact that they must be very tired of the round of entertainments that they have been having in Japan. Now they have gone on to Peking, where they will see Bishop Corfe. We shall not soon forget their visit, and I hope that they will not entirely forget us.

Another caller I must not forget to mention. Bishop Corse told me that Mrs. Arthur, our Devonshire County Secretary, was on her way out, and I tried to stay in Seoul until she came, but owing to a wash-out on the Fusan line she was delayed, and I had to go off to Kangwha before she arrived. However, she saw Sister Nora and had a glimpse of Seoul before sailing for China. I was extremely sorry to miss her, and I hope that if any other of our friends from home are thinking of coming out they will give us good notice, so that we may be ready for them. It will be soon possible for any one who has a six weeks’ holiday to come out by the Siberian Railway and spend a fortnight with us. A month in the train and a fortnight here. Isn't it worth while?

Now I must say something of two events of great im-portance to us out here and therefore to you at home. First, we have had our first ordination in the Corean language. I delayed Mr. Wilson's ordination for three months that he might have a little more time for his Corean study, which has had to run concurrently with his work for the priesthood. I was quite satisfied with the papers that he did for me in both his Corean and other work, and with the reports I have received of his work generally, as well as with what I have seen of him myself, and I have great hopes that we shall have in him a most useful member of the Mission. There is no doubt that if a man comes out to such a country as this at once he has a better chance of getting hold of the language, whatever other disabilities he may suffer from in the lack of experience which he might gain by devoting the first year or two of his ministerial life to work at home. Another great advantage that Mr. Wilson has over those of us who came out ten years ago is that he attends daily the services in church, and so his ear gets more quickly attuned to the sounds of the Corean tongue, whereas then there were no services to attend, and we are also much more closely in touch with Corean life in many ways. Anyhow, I find that Mr. Wilson is able to take the ordinary services in church, and with the help of one of the old boys in the school to take a class of boys on Sunday afternoons, though of course as yet the actual teaching is done by Peter.

As to the actual ordination service, we began with English matins at six o'clock, and after that, as the service was to be in Corean, and though Mr. Wilson knew the meaning of it fairly well, yet it would not be the same to him as his own language, I read the address in English and asked him the questions at the same time. Then the bell was rung and the Corean con-gregation came in, and the rest was taken in Corean, Mr. Badcock having at my request prepared a version of the service and printed a few copies for present use. The service all went very smoothly, and the Coreans were able to follow it all and hear the answers, in which Mr. Wilson pledged himself to do the work of a priest in the Church of Christ. May God grant to him many years in which to prove by his life and conversation among them the reality of his faith and love for God and for them. As I have said before, we look for great things from him by the grace and favour of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.   I find that I have left myself little space to say anything of the other object for which I came to Kangwha. We had arranged at our conference in the spring that as our edition of the Prayer Book was sold out, it would be better to try and revise it before reprinting. The four of us who have been in the country longest set to work therefore to go through it as carefully as possible to see if we could do anything to improve and simplify it. As far as improvement goes we felt some qualms as to trying, for we all knew that Mr. Trollope was in many ways better qualified to know what was right or wrong than we were ; but at the same time we also knew that a good many things in his edition were only experimental, and experience had shown us, as it would have shown him, that certain changes were necessary, and especially perhaps in the way of simplifying some of the words and forms used which were difficult for our uneducated people to grasp the meaning of. So the Revs. J. S. Badcock, F. R. Hillary, G. A. Bridle and I set to work as soon as the ordination was over to try our hands at this extremely anxious and important task. We had three Corean assessors, but one thing we felt all through was that we wanted some Corean scholar better able to check what we were doing. I must not enter into details now, but will only say that we have finished a tentative new edition of the Holy Communion and Litany; but a good deal remains to be done to it yet. I must not close without saying how much we feel we are indebted to Mr. Badoock for the way he has carried out all the arrangements for us here.

I am, yours truly, ARTHUR B. TURNER, Bishop.

Hospital Naval fund.

JULIUS WILES, Entered into rest-November 10, 1906 R.I.P. We have been supplied with the following account of the accident which deprived the “dear old doctor,” to whom the Corean Mission owes so much, of his life :-- On Saturday, November 10, Julius Wiles started from De Vere Gardens on his bicycle about 11 A.M. in perfect   health and vigour. Riding along the High Street, Ken-sington, quietly on the near side of the road, he had just passed the Town Hall when a runaway furniture van came down a side street, and after colliding with a brougham, struck him on the right side and shoulder. To show his wonderful presence of mind, the policeman who went to his assistance stated that as soon as he was lifted up his first act was to catch hold of his right arm, which was broken, and he gave peremptory orders that no one was to touch it but a surgeon. He was first carried to a local surgery, where his wounds were temporarily dressed; but owing to his serious condition he was taken on to the West London Hospital, where he passed away most peacefully at 2.30 PM. His body was laid to rest in the Guildford Cemetery on Friday, November 16. He was, as all the early friends of the Mission know, almost, if not quite, the first of Bishop Corfe's volunteers for service in Corea. 'And in point of fact, he set foot in the country a few weeks before even the Bishop himself in 1890. From that year until 1893 he toiled patiently at the task of creating the Hospital and Medical work. This branch of the Mission, as our readers will remember, was under the special care of the Bishop's friends in the Navy, who have proved themselves the most generous supporters from the outset, both with their money and the interest they have taken in its welfare. Living very quietly in the little Corean hut which has since done duty as the Bishop's “palace” in Seoul, he gradually built up this work, contributing largely from his own pocket to the erection of buildings, and finally bequeathing the whole to the skilful hands of Dr. Baldock, who succeeded him in 1893. A persona grata to all the European community in Seoul, a loyal friend to all members of the Mission, and--best of all--a devoted and conscientious Churchman, he laid the Mission under an obligation, both by his work and example, of which it is difficult to speak too highly. May God reward him for it in the pleasant places of His own Paradise and grant him eternal rest and peace ! The appended cutting from the Times will give some ideal of his services to his country : -- “ Deputy Surgeon-General Julius Wiles, who died on  the 10th inst. from injuries received in a traffic accident, had a useful career of varied activity. The son of the Rev. Henry Wiles (Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, and for thirty-five years rector of Hitchin), he was born on July 31, 1828, and in 1844 was apprenticed to J. L. Sudbury, a Cambridge surgeon. He then went to St. Thomas's Hos-pital, and took his M.R.C.S. in 1851. He travelled for three years with the son of Lady Georgiana Fullerton, through whom he made many interesting acquaintanceships. In 1854 he joined the Army, and served through the Crimean War as medical officer, being at the siege and fall of Sevastopol and the attacks on the Redan; he was mentioned in despatches, and received the medal with clasp and the Turkish medal. Afterwards he served in the China War, 1860, being at the action of Sinho, at the capture of the Taku forts, and the surrender of Peking (medal with two clasps). He also served in the Ashanti campaign, 1874, was at the battle of Amoaful and the capture of Kumasi (medal with clasp). Apart from his British war service, he went through the Franco-German war as a volunteer with the British medical section of the Red Cross Society. In 1881 he was appointed head of the Herbert Hospital at Woolwich. He served in India, Canada, and various home stations, chiefly with the Rifle Brigade, and retired with the rank of Deputy Surgeon-General in 1883. Subsequently he went for several years on a medical mission to Korea, which he left in 1893. after doing much valuable work. In late years in London he was well known at the hospitals and elsewhere for his inexhaustible energy and interest in professional questions, his simple and independent habits, and his amiability and modesty of character.” ________________________________________

Hospital of St. Luke, Chemulpo.

Report of Third Quarter, 1906. THE summer quarter has been remarkable chiefly for two things, holidays and the question of finance. The latter is the more important, and is prominent, as during this quarter estimates for the coming year have been under consideration, and the out-look is gloomy.   Since the hospital was reopened in 1904 there have been many changes, including almost complete rebuilding, and it is only during this year that the new hospital can be said to have got into fair working order. At first the number of in-patients was small, and the foreign staff incomplete, and consequently expenses were low, and the funds available enabled the accounts to show a balance. During this year, however, the whole foreign staff has been at work, and the in-patients have steadily in-creased, until during the summer the hospital was practically full, and it several times occurred that an old patient had to be hurried out sooner than was desirable to make room for a more urgent new case. As the main expense of the hospital management is due to the in-patients, this means that much more money has been needed, and it has become evident during the last quarter that the drafts which the Bishop has been able to make on funds at home, supplemented by what can be obtained locally, will not suffice, and the year will certainly close with a large deficit. It is a source of much satisfaction to find that the end of the quarter leaves a small balance, though less than the quarter before, but this is only because large bills for drugs and dressings have not yet been presented, and the sum now owing for them cannot be far short of ￡50. This is a serious matter, and causes a good deal of anxiety for the future. Practically the whole of September was occupied by holi-days, but for a week in the middle of the month the hospital was opened during the visit of the China Squadron, and the whole time there were some ten in-patients in charge of one or other of the hospital boys, who also dressed such out-patients as required it. Unfortunately for the hospital the fleet, represented by the King Alfred (flagship), the Kent, and the Diadem, was only able to stay a few days, and most of the officers spent their time largely in Seoul, but Admiral Moore, with some of his staff, and several of the doctors and chaplains, were kind enough to call and look over the buildings, showing a considerable interest in the work. Such visits as this ought to do a great deal to keep the Hospital Naval Fund active and more than a source of income only. The figures for the quarter are 557 new cases, with a total out-patient attendance of 1,464 ; 23 cases were admitted, and the average number of beds occupied daily was 1569, and would have naturally been much larger but for the holidays, when all cases that could possibly go were sent home. Of the in-patients five died, two of whom had broken backs, one   having been six months in the hospital. Operations under anæsthetics numbered 17, and included several very severe and trying ones. The religious work has gone on fairly well, though there is still little to show for it. Books are bought by the out-patients comparatively freely, and in the afternoons there is nearly always to be heard from the ward the sound of one of the patients reading aloud to himself a Gospel or some other religious book. One small boy who has been with us a year and has learned a great deal, was to his great delight admitted a catechumen, and one older boy says that he would much like to join the Church if he could walk, and seems to be trying to learn what he can. Both John Choi and David Chun do what they can to teach and interest patients, and steady pro-gress ought now to be made. H. H. WEIR, M.A., B.M. ________________________________________

Association of Prayer and Work for Corea.

I SHALL be much obliged if fifteen or twenty readers of Morning Calm will forward me their copies, when read, to give away to the United Westminster Almshouses, where a collect-ing-box is kept, the proceeds being given to the support of Matthew, a Corean orphan. Miss Robertson-Macdonald kindly came to speak to a large Mothers' Meeting at St. Stephen's, Westminster, and created much interest. This was one feature in a successful “Missionary Week,” of which I should be very glad to give full particulars to any who wish to stir up fresh interest in their parish. A special notice has been sent out to all Londoners interested in Corea whose addresses were known to me and were not attached to any special Branch, and I hope this may be the beginning of a fresh start in some new localities. The Rev. M. N. Trollope gave an address at St. Mark's, Regent's Park, and it is hoped that the interest aroused will not be allowed to languish. A good many of our supporters came, I believe, to the Corean Stall of the Sisters' Sale at Kensington. If any of the Branches are starting Work Parties this Lent I hope they will give their energies to the production of such dull things as clothing for men and women. We had a great demand for that at our plain-clothes stall, which, unfortunately, consisted largely of children's clothing, and obliged us sadly to send away customers to other stalls ; not that I grudge any help   we are able to give to the Sisters, as I am convinced of the necessity in London for A.P.W.C. and S.R.E.M. A. working shoulder to shoulder for Corea. CONSTANCE A.N. TROLLOPE. 184 Ashley Gardens, S.W. ________________________________________ It is rather sad that we are obliged this quarter to report that one or two branches have lapsed. Mrs. Salwey has left Wokingham, and there is no one else who is able to take charge of the few members left. Miss Rusher, who kindly undertook the work at Pershore during Miss Peake's absence, feels obliged to give it up owing to press of other duties. We should be so grateful if any member of the latter branch would undertake to collect the subscriptions from those who regularly subscribe to our funds. The only other change is that, owing to the death of Miss Mackett, who was Local Secretary for many years, Miss Poyntz is now taking her place at Dorchester. On the other hand, it is very encouraging to know the number of people who took part in our day of Special Interces-sion for Corea--St. Nicholas' Day. The Bishop sent a letter, which was printed and sent round to the clergy, and also a list of Intercessions, of which 1,400 were circulated, and which proved most useful and helpful. We tried to arrange to have a continuous Intercession all day by members of the Associa-tion ; and as it was a venture this year, only the branches near London and a few others were asked to take part, with the result that sixteen branches sent in lists and about 140 members undertook different times all through the day. We hope next year to be able to arrange for all the branches to have an opportunity of taking part. We are very glad to hear that one of our members, Rev. Basil Mather, from Barnsley Branch, has gone out to take up Mission work in China. Our best wishes go with him. Some time after Easter next year the Bath Branch hopes to have a Sale of Work for Corea. The Local Secretary will be very glad to receive contributions of plain and fancy needle-work, pottery, curios, &c., at any time. I should be very grateful if any of our clergy members who are willing to preach or speak for Corea will send their names to me. The existing list is very out of date, and latterly the burden of such work has fallen on one or two, and this ought not to go on. The Association pays any expenses that may be incurred   by speakers, and, of course, hospitality is always offered. I can supply material in the shape of articles, magazines, &c., at any time, and hope to have the names of speakers from different parts of the country, as sometimes distances are so great that it is almost impossible to supply some country districts. GERTRUDE M. SECCOMBE. ________________________________________

Children's Branch of the Association of prayer and Work for Corea.

MY DEAR CHILDREN, I am not going to write much to you to-day, because I have a very pretty picture of all the orphans for you, which I am sure you will enjoy more than a letter. You have a list of all their names, and it will take quite a long time to find out Am. Phabe Zilla Amah, Mads Nami Lusia. Dar Sana, Rhod. E . нам Matthew Helen Katarina Anna Nancy, Jolie   which name belongs to each child, but I think you will be able to if you look carefully at the plan. You will see that there are two women to look after the children, and they are called Amahs. I wonder which orphan you will like best. What a big spade Matthew is holding, and little John has a very funny thing to help him to stand. We all wish these children a very happy New Year. Will you see how much you can do for them in 1907, by working for them, by giving your pennies, and best of all by remembering them in your prayers, and getting other children to pray for them too? I am very glad to know that Elaine and Dorothy are joining us now in praying every day for Corea, and that many of you in Portsmouth and elsewhere are doing what you can for the Children's Fund. I hear that some of you who live in Exeter have been sending little presents to the orphans, and a splendid box of beads has been sent to them by two little friends at Swindon; I am sure they will be very pleased with these things. With my best wishes for a very happy New Year to each and all of you, I am, Always your affectionate Friend, MAUD L. FALWASSER. Ashurst, Winchester : December, 1906.

NEW MEMBERS

Beca .-Elaine Vans, Dorothy Vaux CHILDREN'S FUND Second Instance from Children's Sale M Beckham, Childrens Harvings R.S.M. Orphan Home, Paruth, .. .Children in Eastern B acks, Porto Toul. ________________________________________

St. Peter's Community foreign Mission Association.

THE ever-growing popularity of the Corean curios was again a great source of help and profit to the Mission, and there seems little fear of the supply exceeding the demand at present. There were several novelties amongst the curios collected and sent over by the Sister-in-charge, and shown at the Kensington Town Hall on November 21-22. Perhaps the fine work in silver and iron was the most beautiful, and took the form of trays, vases, boxes, &c., of quaint shapes and lovely designs. Some Buddhist candlesticks also found immediate   purchasers, as did most of the handsome brasses. It was not surprising that the stall realised altogether ￡116, even after deducting ￡30 paid for curios, freightage, rent of stall, &c. There is a large sum for the General Fund, which has languished through the year, and sorely needed this encourage-ment to enable us to meet the Bishop's estimate of £290 for 1907. Mrs. Robertson-Macdonald and the Misses Trollope, with various helpers, most ably managed the stalls at the Ken-sington Town Hall, and we are most grateful for the many kind contributions of work, &c., provided by those whose names are given on page 38. Naturally, at this time every one's thoughts are much with the Sisters who are leaving England for Corea on December 27, and the special Intercessions offered on December 4, were mainly for the work amongst the women, which is now such an important feature of the Mission. The scheme for training Coreans as Bible-women is fairly started, and by the Bishop's request S.P.F.M.A. has added this to their obligations, in addition to the Fund for the Mission Houses and the Seoul Orphanage. All the speeches at the meeting tended to emphasise the necessity of providing native teachers who would carry on the Sisters' work between their visits to the outlying villages, and perhaps relieve them of some of the elementary teaching. The collection at the meeting was devoted to this Fund, and a list of sums subscribed will be found with the receipts of the Association. The notes of the address and sermon and of the speeches at the meeting have again been written out by Miss Cooke, and will be sent to all members of S.P.F.M.A. early in January, and to others on receipt of a stamped envelope. The offerings throughout the day amounted to £8. 10s., £5 of which was given to the Fund for Training Native Women Teachers. Similar days of Intercession and Thanksgiving were held at St. Peter's Home, Woking, and St. Peter's Grange, St. Leonards-on-Sea. Gifts Acknowledged.-- A sum of money to be spent on coolies and chairs for the Sisters' missionary journeys. Three saddles from Miss J. M. Trollope. Dolls, beads, toys, scrap-books for the Orphans. Wants.-- To Working Parties : Plenty of good, plain women's clothing for the next Bazaar Stall. SISTER HELEN CONSTANCE, Secretary S.P.E.M.A.   A Sunday at Chemulpo. DEAR MR. EDITOR, Out here in Corea our mission station at Chemulpo is always mentioned rather with a sigh, and certainly in a port such as this the work is very uphill, and we are apt to wonder whether in a place so full of evil influences any Corean can live straight. Just now, however, we are encouraged to hope that our hospital has already been the means of bringing a few of those who attend to the knowledge of Christ and at least a wish to learn more of the Gospel, and we feel confident that as time goes on, with an increasing knowledge of the language, it will be the means not only of healing many sick bodies but also of producing many good Christian men and women in this port, where more witnesses for Christ are so sorely needed. Every morning in our hospital waiting-rooms the patients are told of the twofold use of the hospital, in the men's waiting-room by John, who is the head hospital boy, and in the women's room by Eunice, our Bible-woman, who lives in the compound, and is supported by the British and Foreign Bible Society. These two sell Gospels and books and explain them to the patients, and a hospital tract is given to each newcomer. Now I want to tell you of a few results of these efforts to preach the Gospel, and why last Sunday we rejoiced in Chemulpo. Nearly a year ago now there came, amongst many others, a woman to the hospital, and whilst waiting to see the doctor she heard Eunice read and explain a portion of Scripture. I can't tell you her name because, poor thing, she has not got one, but before very long I hope she will have one given her ; however, because she was very nervous and always giggled when spoken to, we called her " Giggles," and still do so. She came the following Sunday to the Bible-class, and has hardly ever missed coming since. After three months she was made a catechumen, though there seemed little or no hope of getting her husband. About four months ago, however, she appeared at the Bible-class much excited, and more inclined than usual to giggle, and as we went to church she told me that her husband and two little boys were coming to the inquirers' service. Last Sunday, Mr. Yu, for that is her husband's name, and the two little boys were made catechumens, and when I write to you again about them I hope to be able to tell you their baptismal names. In addition to these three, a little boy who has been for more than a year an in-patient in the hospital, and   has been attending a class for boys every Sunday, was admitted to the catechumenate, and is very proud of his cross. His name is Pokneki, which means blessing and joy, and on one occasion when he was given a large Japanese paper chrysan-themum he stuck it over his bed and said it looked like the Garden of Eden. Then there was also Mr. Song, who was given his cross--he, too, was first a patient at the hospital, and after three months' steady attendance at church expressed a wish to become a catechumen. In a place like Chemulpo every new earnest member is especially a cause for great thankfulness, for the larger our little band becomes the more they should help one another to with-stand the temptations which surround them, and spread the good news which they have learnt themselves. We only have the Bishop or a priest once a month in Chemulpo, so in addition to the admissions there was a Corean baby girl baptized, the daughter of Edward, who when he was baptized himself asked to be called after the King of England !   I am sending a photograph of some of the women who come every Sunday to learn, nearly all of whom had their first lesson in the hospital waiting-room. Hoping that our many friends in England will remember us and the many difficulties of our work in their prayers. Believe me, Yours sincerely, MARGARET M. WEIR

________________________________________

Correspondence.

PYENG YANG: October 25, 1906.

BACK in Corea again. I landed at Yokohama on September 5, and found a letter from Bishop Turner telling me to stay in Japan for a week or so, and try to find a Japanese catechist, or a man who could act as my teacher, to come to Corea with me. I could find no catechist--they are far too few in Japan itself-- and the more I thought of a teacher the more I felt it was not right to take one to Seoul, for these reasons: I am away a great deal visiting Japanese settlements, and have only about two or three hours a day to spend on the study of Japanese when at Seoul, so that my teacher has nearly all his time on his hands; and the sinfulness and temptations among the Japanese in Corea are very great, far more so than we have any idea of. Of course, if we could get just the right man, an oldish man, a Christian, and of a studious nature, who could occupy himself in studying, he would be a great help; but such men are hard to find, and would usually have a wife and family to keep them at home, as it is difficult for the Japanese here to educate their children. Thus I felt I must wait until the man came forward of himself.

After twelve days in Japan I left Tokyo for Corea, and landed at Fusan on September 21, and stayed there with my people over Sunday, the 23rd. I was glad to be back, meeting the Japanese Christians again and being welcomed by them, seeing the Coreans stalking about solemnly, or sitting in the shops hob-nobbing by the hour, all quite natural, as if I had not been away at all. I was too late for Mr. Wilson's ordination on St. Matthew's Day, as the railway between Fusan and Seoul had been damaged by floods. I had been looking forward very much to being present.   On Monday, 24th, I went to Seoul, a twelve hours' journey, distance 280 miles; and the country did look beautiful--a good harvest in the valleys, and the bold bare hills everywhere, lit at sunset with glorious colours.

We got to Seoul at 11 P.M., and when I reached the Mission compound everything was shut up--a cold welcome. When at last admitted, I found that the Bishop was still at Kangwha, and the letter I had written him was lying unopened in his study. Mr. Gurney was at Chong Dong, and welcomed me next morning.

On October 1, I went to Kangwha to see the Bishop, and found him very busy, revising the translation of the Prayer Book.

I shall leave others to write about the Corean work, the need of men for that, so as to take advantage of the awakening all through the country, and the demand for teaching which comes from the Coreans themselves. Oh, you who read, will you not come and supply that demand? The Japanese here keep on increasing. At Fusan there are 20,000; at Seoul, 13,000; at Chemulpo, twenty-five miles from Seoul, there are 12,000; at Pyeng Yang, 7.000, which will be 10,000 in a year, if not more at Chinnampo, 3,000, but this town is not growing. These are the chief places, except Wonsan, on the east coast, with about 5,000. Besides these there are Japanese all over the country in groups of tens and up to 1,500 or 2,000, and we have a duty to them, too. Let me illustrate. I live at Seoul. One Sunday a month I have to visit Fusan to administer the Blessed Sacrament, three Sundays in two months to Chemulpo, and three Sundays in two months I remain at Seoul. But I am now on my way to the extreme north, Wiju, going 120 miles north-east from there to visit a Japanese family, a post office official, his wife and mother, which means four or five days’ walking each way, besides two days each way in the train. Then on my way from Wiju I must make a two days' journey to the American mines to see a Japanese Christian woman, and to visit the sixty white men there. By degrees I shall visit all the chief places to gather the few Christians together who may be in them, that they may meet on Sundays for prayer and praise and mutual comfort, trying after- wards to see them two or three times each year. That is all I can do alone ; but oh, we do want men. We should have English priests living at Fusan, at Seoul, at Chemulpo, at Pyeng Yang, and at Wonsan. It is not so much preaching that the Japanese need as the personal example, and that can be shown by those who do not know the language at all. Christianity has been preached and discussed and studied all through Japan; now the people want to be shown by example that Christ still does give to men the power to walk as He walked. They see plenty of examples of the reverse.

People at home, I found, are awfully afraid of the language, but that need deter no one. The stiffness of Chinese, Japanese, and Corean has been dinned into people so much that it is a regular stumbling-block, but it is not really very hard to acquire a fair facility. One studies away without seeming to get on, but the speaking comes; and anyway, as I said, it is not the talking that is important--it is the life, and a Christ-like man can do an infinite amount of preaching, though he may never be able to do more than speak brokenly.

I wish I could give some idea of the need of work among the Japanese in Corea, though it is unfelt by them. People here--foreigners, that is-- think that the Japanese who come to Corea are peculiarly bad. It is not so really. They are the ordinary people of all classes whom one would meet day by day in Japan. But it is true, and the Japanese themselves recognise it, that when they come here they go down hill. For instance, I think that when a Japanese first lands in Corea he or she is quite inclined to be friendly with the natives (I do not use this word in a contemptuous sense); but at once he hires a man to take his luggage to an inn, and pays his fare all right; the coolie asks for more, speaking an unknown tongue, and the Japanese finds that if he speak roughly the coolie will go away at once. This being the case, it is small wonder that the Japanese soon learn to bully, and so sink. Then the Japanese officials: They come over to help Corea, but they have not the moral fibre to withstand the corrupting influences here, and there is no public opinion to back them up. So Japan floods the country with more and more officials in every department, and still things do not improve.

Yet she really wishes to help Corea. Her sending Marquis Ito to Seoul as the first Resident-General shows that--for Marquis Ito has served his country well--he has long passed the age at which a Japanese feels that he should retire, and he is the man whom the Japanese nation delights to honour; but he is also the one Japanese whom the Coreans were inclined to trust. Japan sent the very best she could. Yes, Japan really wants to help Corea, but the people lack experience in dealing with such a problem as the conciliation and guidance of another country. They lack good, reliable instruments, and the country is flooded (as it were) with Japanese in all walks of life, whose environment causes them to sink, and who have not the stamina to fight against it.

We can help them. Through Christ they will obtain sympathy to deal with the Coreans, and moral strength to strive against sin. We can lead them; but oh, we want men.

Why does not the Church at home wake up? In olden time the Church sent missions to heathen lands, not two or three men, but they chose the best man they could as leader, sending him with a strong following. So St. Augustine came to England. What do we do? The Corean Mission has been established seventeen years, and to-day we have a bishop and six priests, besides the hospital staff and the Sisters to work among the women, though two more Sisters and three ladies are coming out shortly, two of the ladies to work among the Japanese,

When we do send men out they are young as a rule, either fresh from college or with little parochial experience, no know-ledge of human nature, and of no standing in the Church at home. They do pick up their experience by degrees, but with so little guidance for them it is a reckless tinkering with men's souls. That do which I chiefly want to draw attention, how-ever, is the fact that the Church at home is making little sacrifice in sending us out. The individual may give himself, the parents may sacrifice their son ; but is the Church, as a corporate body, giving someone to whom it attaches great value? That ought to be the spirit in which men are sent, men of learning, of experience, of knowledge in dealing with souls, men of mark in the Church. Yet when a good man does go out is it not rather, "Why does so-and-so go? he should stay at home, as he is such a good man"-a grudging of the sacrifice.

I know the need at home, that men say there are as many heathens in England as in other countries, and yet we do not gain our victories by massing all our forces at the base, but by scattering abroad. Is there no lesson for us to-day in the fact that after the day of Pentecost a persecution arose, and the disciples were scattered abroad? Also one reads much and hears much about the scarcity of candidates for ordination in England, and one who paid a first visit to England might be excused for wondering if it is not because the need for more is not felt--that is, that there are already far too many clergy in England now. There are plenty of Christians among the laity anxious, or at least willing, to help, and by using them as teachers they would learn themselves. Then, again, if more men came out to the Mission fields abroad the hearts of their friends would come too, and those who had taken little interest in Missions would become interested.

How can a man preach about Missions, their utter need, and urge men to go, without hearing within himself a still small voice whispering. "Why do you not go?" How could men in all ages have had strength to endure suffering, persecution and death, if our Master Himself had not led the way; if He had not said, “The disciple is not above his Master. If they have called the Master Beelzebub, how much more them of His House"?

Yes, I think that people at home want to see the sacrifice of the priest himself, his soul and body, and they will be ready to lead. There may be as much, or more, sacrifice in the work at home in one sense, but the going abroad is a more severe test of a man's giving up everything for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake, and it is a sacrifice which appeals to others more, and in it the Church can share as a whole, and then we can echo the stirring cry of Him who leads the way, “Follow Me."

STEPHEN H. CARTWRIGHT.

St. Michael's Day at Chemulpo.

IN spite of having no resident clergy in Chemulpo this year, St. Michael's Day was kept to some purpose. As the Bishop and most of the clergy were congregated in Kangwha revising the Prayer Book, Mr. Gurney kindly came down on Friday evening and took services. The great event of the day was the marriage of Hugo Pak, our house boy, who, with the exception of one month, has been with us ever since we have been here, and even longer, as he was engaged and set to work preparing before we arrived. His wife had been for some time in a Christian family and was admitted a catechumen on Friday evening, so that they were able to have a Christian marriage, to the great delight of everyone. Early on Saturday morning the little church was fairly filled, mostly by Christians and adherents. As at all Corean services, the chairs are removed and a white screen hung on poles down the middle to prevent men and women from seeing one another. On the right of this were a number of Corean ladies in white, with smooth white veils over their heads, and nearly in front the little bride, gorgeously arrayed in brilliantly-coloured silks, with sleeves almost to the ground, her face whitened, with a large bright red spot painted on each cheek and her eyes meekly: closed; though she was more fortunate than most Corean women, in that she had not got them fastened shut. On the left of the screen were the men, and in a place corresponding to the bride was Hugo, dressed for the occasion in full court dress, even to the gauze ears fixed on to the hat, which are intended to enable the courtiers to catch the least word falling from the sacred lips of the Emperor. How strange our marriage service must seem to Coreans used to treating their wives as so entirely inferior! After it was over we took a photograph of the party outside the church; and though the bride and bridegroom did not stand as close together as is usual in the West, yet it all helped to show that marriage is a real union. The procession then moved off home, the bridegroom in a rickshaw and the bride in a Corean chair, which, to our amusement, she shared with Katarina, Hugo's sister, and John Choi's wife, who is lame. We had not long finished breakfast when Hugo appeared, having disposed of his borrowed plumes, and besought us to be seated, remarking that this was Corean custom. He then pro-ceeded to prostrate himself to each in turn and gave us an invitation to come down later to the house which he now shares with John just outside the hospital. In due course we went, accompanied by Miss Pooley and Mr. Gurney, and were all solemnly ushered into the small women's room, eight feet square. There we sat on the floor in a row, and the poor little bride, supported on one side by her grandmother and the other by a friend, slowly prostrated herself three times to each of us, the two ladies carefully spreading out her crimson silk brocade skirt each time. Though we retired after this, all was not over, for we saw trays of food being brought in to feast all the guests, and we ourselves were not to be left out. It appeared as if tea things were leaving the house when we got back to it, and we were soon summoned again to go down, to find a Corean table placed on the central verandah covered with our best tray and tea things, though the tea and cakes were not our own, nor the sugar, of which more directly; indeed, too much. Behind the table stood the bride, and we were requested to sit down, when the bridegroom, with great delight, poured us out tea, and, to show his respect and desire to please, about half filled each cup with moist sugar. The only thing to do was not to stir it, but we were thankful to be excused Corean food. Though the wedding was over, however, the day was not, and an open-air lantern service was arranged for the evening. In the church compound is a large cross on which lamps can be hung, and which is then visible a long way. We meant to decorate this; and as the small lamps, made of bamboo and paper, which the Coreans use, can only be bought at certain times of year, the male part of the wedding party set to work and made twenty of them. As the sun began to set these were hung up, and the few which remained over were strung on a stick over the gate, inside which was an open space, where we set up the sheet and lantern. One of the men fetched two large lanterns about a yard across, with the Corean flag painted on them, and these were hung one on each gate post. Soon a fair number of people assembled, and some of our young men stood at the door asking them to come in, and assuring them that there was no charge, and even went out along the street inviting them in. We had a very beautiful set of simple coloured slides of our Lord's life and a few parables, and also a few hymns, and John Choi lectured for about two hours to a somewhat shifting audience it is true, but one in which probably a hundred people were present the whole time and another hundred for parts of it. It was all very encourage-ing; but the best part was the attitude of our Christians and some of the catechumens, who really seemed eager to do all they could to spread the Word.

The clouds are lifting, slowly it is true, but perceptibly, and we are looking forward soon to the time when Chemulpo shall no longer be a byword in the Mission, but a centre of strong and earnest life and effort for our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

H. H. W.

ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL,Chemulpo.

Extract from Letter by Sister Nora. YOU may like to hear something of what we saw in what was to us a new part of Corea during our resting time this year. Miss Jephson, who is now helping at the Kangwha mission-house, came with me. We started from Seoul by the newly opened Eni-ju railway in the afternoon of September 3; there are as yet no first class carriages, and second class on only one moming train, but as we usually travel third this did not signify; the Coreans are always quiet and well behaved, they may smoke a little more than is quite pleasant when the carriages are full, still small native pipes are perhaps less offensive than the endless Japanese cigarettes of the second class. We went slowly and deliberately, no danger from reckless speed, through rice and millet fields bordered by green hills, grey bare mountains in the distance and above them Pouk-han, the giant of this part of Corea, seemed to follow us to Song-do, showing various shapes against the deep blue sky as we wound through the valleys until at last only his triple crown was to be seen from a hill in the old capital.

We reached Song-do at 6 P.M. As 500 years have passed since the seat of royalty was transferred to the present Seoul (capital city), its ancient glories have passed away and it is only an insignificant town, its extensive Palace only a grassy mound with a few relics of carved steps left, and its walls enclosing a space so large that it is difficult to realise amongst farms and wooded hills that you are still inside a city. The streets were clean and so were the people, the women wore veil-like skirts over their heads made of white native cloth and calen-dered to shine like silk gauze, a much more picturesque dress than the green silk coat of Seoul with its sleeves hanging empty. There is no hotel, and one of the American mission-aries most kindly offered us hospitality. He and his wife were the first foreigners to live in Song-do, and began their work some nine years ago ; at first they met with a good deal of distrust and opposition, now the native Christians in the town and surrounding villages number over 2,000.

The Methodist Episcopal Mission Society, to which they belong, has built two churches, one inside the town and the other outside near the railway station; both are well attended under the care of two pastors, who also superintend the work of native catechists in various villages within some days' journey from the town. We did not see the two lady workers, who were absent at an annual conference in Seoul ; a commodious foreign house is being built for them in a large compound which will also contain their school for girls and a mission-room for the women. No medical work has been begun yet, but they are hoping to have a doctor and hospital soon. The Song-ak-sau chain of mountains to the south of Song-do is rugged and picturesque, abounding in fine waterfalls, of which one has a clear fall of about 600 feet.

We had not time to visit them but saw the "bamboo bridge," a small stone bridge across a winding river which passes through the town, and where a famous Corean legislator was murdered upwards of five centuries ago; the story goes that a bamboo grew out of the stone on which he fell, and a stain is still shown as his blood. The bridge is enclosed, and a wooden one built alongside for traffic ; tablet houses and a small temple close by are used to offer sacrifices for the spirit of the murdered man. The present Emperor built the temple as a gift to the people of Song-do who were inclined to be disaffected. Song-do used to be the centre of the ginseng trade here, now America supplies it more cheaply, and in the last four years it has nearly disappeared; we looked in vain to see it growing, the ginseng gardens with their storing sheds, &c., were there, but only beans and cabbages were to be seen in them.

We left our kind friends at Song-do at midday, on September 6, and again proceeded slowly through fertile valleys, wooded hills, and occasional glimpses of high mountains; as we went north the rice-fields gave way to beans and millet of different kinds, one very tall like brown feathers waving high above the golden undergrowth of beans and another species of millet. We reached Pyeng Yang at 7 P.M., and there was just light enough to see the long railway bridge over the Tai-tong river, on which it is built some two miles further up than the railway station. The Japanese are enlarging and improving the line, originally made in a hurry during the Russo-Japanese war, narrow and imperfect, so a good deal has to be done before it becomes part of the main line between Tokyo and Calais.

Between the station and the town wall a Japanese town is rapidly springing up, some streets already built and others marked out. Pyeng Yang is one of the oldest inhabited sites in the world, one of the walls still bears the name of Wang Kom, who belonged to a dynasty which ended before the time of King Saul. Kija, who founded the greater part of the city and laid it out in squares, came over from China with 5.000 followers about 1122 B.C., and took possession of the fertile plains round Pyeng Yang. He enlarged the town, made a fortified wall, and dug a well, the only one in the city, then saying that the town was the shape of a boat, forbade any other wells to be dug lest they should scuttle it, and had a large metal bowl placed at the bottom of his well! The city is supplied from the river by troops of water-carriers, and foreigners have tried in vain to get good water, though they have dug very deep in various places, so perhaps Kija was wiser than he seems to be!

We stayed for ten days at a quiet French hotel, the only one, picturesquely placed on the bank of the river near the Tai-tong moun, or East-river gate, and close to the principal ferry, where the Japanese had thrown a pontoon bridge during the war, which could not stand the floods or the ice. We had a fine view of the mountains and river, the latter must be more than a mile in width, but so shallow that a little above us the flat ferry boats could only cross at high tide, and half the time the people waded half-way with their farm produce, &c., on their heads and met the boats at a sandbank in midstream. We had a letter of intro-duction to Dr. Hunter Wells, of the American Presbyterian Mission, the first to commence work in that district about thirteen years ago. His house and those of the members of the same Mission occupy a hill outside the old city wall, where the Japanese troops fought and conquered the Chinese in 1895. They have a large park-like compound with picturesque houses in their own gardens. There are also a hospital, school and mission chapel, and they are now building a seminary for training native catechists.

As at Song-do, most of the mis-sionaries were away at Seoul, but those who remained were most kind and hospitable, and showed us all they could of their work. They have the largest church in Corea, built chiefly by Coreans, in a commanding position inside the city; it is in the form of the letter I, the shorter end being devoted to the women, and the longer, with a small gallery, to the men; a plat-form with a desk and American organ occupies the angle. It is built to accommodate 2,000 people, and often more than filled. Miss Best took us there on Sunday afternoon to the chief service of the day; there were about 600 women and 700 men present, besides some fifty children. Mr. Lee, the pastor of the church, conducted the service, said the prayers, and led the hymns with a trumpet, for the organ could scarcely be heard. A stirring sermon was preached by a Corean catechist, one of four whom they hope will become pastors next year. At 10 A.M. Miss Best has a Sunday School in the same build-ing, attended by 300 women and some children, and taught in fourteen classes by native Bible-women; she herself goes about to the villages teaching and superintending the Bible-women's work within a circuit of some forty miles, often up through the eastern mountains. One of the Christian villages is on an island in the river not far above the town, where the inhabitants still refuse to pay taxes, saying that their island floated down from the mountains, and they do not belong to Pyeng Yang district! The women wear nothing approaching to a veil, just a white muslin kerchief twisted round their heads with its ends so tied as to resemble small wings; the better class wear huge chip hats, resembling large beehives, of a hexagonal shape and a yard in diameter, they can only see their way by tilting them up, which they do freely, especially if there are any foreigners to be gazed at.

Miss Best took us to see the tomb of Kija, about two miles from her house on a pine-clad hill outside the north gate; it is like all Corean royal tombs, a high grass-covered mound, beautifully kept, protected by a wall, a polished granite slab in front for sacrifices, two carved stone guards, stone horses for the spirit to ride, stone tigers to hunt, and stone sheep for sacrifice. Passing on through the wood we came to a pavilion so placed as to command a fine view of town and river to the south-west ; further on, we ascended a conical hill, the highest in the neighbourhood, which was stormed by the Japanese in 1895, and when taken the Chinese ran away and left them the town. From the summit we had a magnificent bird's-eye view of the city and country from the port at Chinnampo to the high mountains on the east, with the river winding like the Rhine from the top of Strasburg Cathedral only much broader. The Methodist Episcopal Mission has a compound inside the city on the opposite side from the Presbyterians, but as the missionaries were away in Seoul we did not see or hear any-thing of their work. There is a small Roman Catholic church with schools for boys and girls and one French priest, but we could not hear of anything being done for the increasing crowds of Japanese by any of the missions.

The climate was delightful, warm and yet bracing, and only one shower of rain during our two days' stay. We left early on September 15, and reached Seoul in eleven hours stopping at nineteen places, often for a considerable time; we could only see two or three towns from the railway, but everywhere there were signs of Japanese beginning to farm, three or four Japanese cottages in a cluster. As yet the crops were all Corean, and to judge by the numbers of natives travelling from place to place, they must be gaining from the opening of the country by the new railway which was only used for traffic last summer.

NORA, Community S. Peter, Sister-in-Charge.

The Spirit of Missions.

WHAT INDIA NEEDS.--" How urgently India still needs even the civilising and humanising influence of the Gospel is shown by the statements in The Times that widows have even in the past two years been burnt to death on the funeral pyres of their husbands--instances being given in Behar, in Oudh, and in Ajmere--and that one case at least (probably more) of human sacrifice to the gods has occurred in Eastern Bengal; while the Christian Patriot, the chief native Christian organ, illustrates the inability of mere material progress to affect idolatry by mentioning a procession of the god Ganesha mounted on a bicycle, and the worship of the motor-car as an incarnation of the spirit of the age."--(Story of the Year. C.M.S.) ________________________________________ INDIAN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. --"The C.M.S. welcome the formation of the new national Missionary Society of India, designed to arouse Indian Christians to labour more earnestly for the conversion of their countrymen ; independently of the foreign societies, yet in harmony with them; every member and worker being required to be loyal to his own Church and his own denomination; men of the same Church working together, and their converts being brought into the membership of that Church; and no appeal for money to be made outside India.   The President is Sir Harnam Singh, and the Secretary is a member of the Church in Tinnevelly, which has already led the way by sending out its own missionaries to people of other tongues in other provinces." ---(Ibid.) ________________________________________ TESTIMONY OF A HIGH-CASTE BRAHMAN, TRAVANCORE.--"The Rev. F. Bower was once speaking to a high-caste Brahman, who proved to be acquainted with the facts of the Death and Resurrection of Christ. In answer to an inquiry as to how he had obtained this knowledge, he replied that it was from the lips of a Namburi Brahman. Mr. Bower goes on to say: 'He told me that a little time ago he was in a large audience com-posed of high-caste men, including a few Rajahs. Among them was a great Namburi (the Namburi Brahmans are con-sidered the holiest caste in India), whom we will call N. He appears to have been one of the best Sanscrit scholars in the Cochin State, and was also a celebrated guru. He knew a great deal about Christ, and spoke of Him with deep interest and great reverence before the whole assembly. This was, of course, a matter of no small surprise to the other Brahmans, and soon aroused their anger. Some began to contradict his statements about our religion, and accused him of being a Christian at heart. A few now began to get very excited, and one of them said sneeringly that Christ was such a low wicked fellow that even His own people, the Jews, had Him put to death in the most disgraceful and painful manner possible. An able Shastru then came forward, and spoke very strongly against our Blessed Lord and against His holy religion. This was too much for N., who was very soon on his feet, and in a very few minutes com-pletely silenced his opponent ! To use the words of my infor-mant, “No one was able to stand before him, for knowing both religions well, he immediately chopped up all that was said against Christ and Christianity.” The way in which he spoke of our Lord's life, His teaching, Death and Resurrection, made such an impression on those present that not another word was Spoken by anyone against the Redeemer or His religion. For this noble confession I fear he had to pay dearly, for on return-ing to his home he died in a few weeks in great pain, probably having been poisoned.' "—(Story of the Year. C.M.S.) ________________________________________ MISSION SERVICES AT AGRA._-- “Services for deepening the spiritual life of converts were held by the Rev. T. Walker, of Tinnevelly. A missionary wrote: The ten days have left an   indelible mark not only in my life, but in the lives of my dear Indian Christian workers. The very fact of so many hundreds gathering together twice a day for ten days was in itself intensely encouraging But more than this, lives known to me have been changed, sin has appeared in its true light, the infulness of so-called little sins or weaknesses has been felt as it never was before. The intense love, as well as intense faithfulness, with which Mr. Walker gave his addresses, won all hearts. An Indian Christian worker said that he spoke as God's great prophet, laying bare, as it were, the sins and failures of our lives, and showing us how we should walk so as to please God. Men and women have returned to their work with fresh zeal, renewing their vows to live for Christ, and for India's people who are yet outside the fold.'” – (Story of the Year. C.M.S.) ________________________________________ FEELING OF JAPAN TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY.--" The following has been received from Tokyo, Japan: A remarkable instance of the feeling of Buddhists and Shintoists towards Christians is furnished by the action of their leaders, who have decided to contribute voluntarily to the cost of rebuilding the Christian church, which was destroyed during the disturbance in Tokyo last September." -- (American Church Sunday School Magasine.) ________________________________________ "A HEATHEN nation seeking the light of Christianity has a future, a Christian nation rejecting it has none." "If ever there was a moment of hope for the Japanese nation it is the present, when with the terrible war with Russia behind her she is fitting into new patterns the broken mosaic of life in the Far East. China, Japan, and Corea all know that the past will never return, and that the future and even the present will have to be met by forces they are beginning to find insufficient. . . . But Japan is the foremost in modern progress, and her influence upon the others of vital importance. . . . A few salient points present themselves in the political outlook of the Far East. Such is the increased inter-communication between Japan, China, Corea and Manchuria, bequeathed as a legacy by the war. Ten thousand Chinese students, for example, are now at Tokyo, bringing their powerful brains to bear upon modern study, open to guidance, but perplexing Japanese authorities by their low standard of morality, a standard legislation and Western influence have done something to raise in Japan. Japanese are pouring into Corea, learning the art of rule over a   conquered land, often by mistakes, and finding, as in their own, that officialism cannot pour in life. Widespread changes are taking place in Manchuria, and there is a great influx of population, including many Japanese."—(Paper of the Guild of St. Paul.) ________________________________________ CHRISTMAS DAY IN MENGO. –" Who that took part in that wonderful service of Holy Communion on Christmas Day, 1902, when no fewer than 1,049 communicants gathered round the table of the Lord, can ever forget the thrill of emotion which surged through heart and brain, as with silent footstep the dusky, white-robed throng, in apparently endless succession, par-took of the elements of Christ's body broken and His blood shed? Surely the song of the Angelic Host had for all of us a deeper meaning! Glory to God in the highest."--(Bishop's Letter from Uganda.) ________________________________________ ISLAM AND CHRISTIANITY. – “The Rev. D. Thornton, return-ing from Cairo, described the main features of the missionary problem in relation to Mohammedanism. He stated that there are 210 millions of Moslems in Africa and the East, of whom 70 millions are in no way reached. Mohammed and the Koran are the most stubborn enemies of civilisation, liberty, and truth the world has yet known. Two-thirds of the Mohammedan world is now under the rule of Christian powers, and only one-sixth is under Moslem powers--a fact which shows the enormous opportunity which the Church of Christ possesses of reaching them. Islam is a missionary religion, and is making more numerical progress than Christianity, and unless our ranks in the Uganda Protectorate be strengthened, the pagan races will become Mohammedan. The work among the Moslems has many encouragements. All the leading strategical centres have been occupied, the whole Bible has been translated into every language spoken by Mohammedans except Hausa, while the Koran can only be understood by one-fourth of the Mohammedan world. There are converts from Islam in every land where the Gospel has been preached; in North India there are nearly 200 converts who are now engaged as pastors, catechists, and teachers, and thousands of Mohammedans are receiving Christian education. . . . The greatest task to which Christ calls His Church in the twentieth century is the conver-sion of the Mohammedan world." --(C. M. Intelligencer.)   AN INDIAN PRAYER MEETING.—“In one of Bishop Ridley's books he tells us that one moonlight night he was pacing up and down near the frozen river, and feeling just a little downcast. Difficulties had been met with, of course, some of them serious. ‘We had no converts as yet,' he says, 'and nothing less than that can give satisfaction. During that night watch I heard the sound of supplication upon the still air. I followed on, and came to a very large house on the banks of the river. On looking between two ill-fitting logs I saw about seventy Indians bowed down as one of them prayed. I listened and felt my heart beating with excitement. That was the first sign of conversion on the Skeena River. A man could not pray like that if not inspired. Returning swiftly to my house, I said to my wife, “ The Indians have a prayer meeting.” I told her, and she flung on some wraps, and we listened again. Yes; it was no dream, but a beautiful reality. That night our prayers were winged with praise. . . . That Indian town is now wholly Christian. My rotten old log palace is razed, and a fine new church stands on its site, with a battlemented tower, whence issues from the great bell in sonorous notes the frequent summons to worship God. Instead of remaining in the filthy surroundings of their old habitations, the Christians have made fine roads in the forests and many clearings, planted pretty gardens, built wholesome and well-furnished homes where prayer is wont to be made, and the whole scene is one of real beauty, bespeaking order, industry, and goodness!’ ”—(Quoted in “New Era.”) ________________________________________ THE WESTERN PROBLEM.—“It is not easy to state, with-out the appearance of exaggeration, the problems that face us as a diocese. . . . Our ancient Church is on its trial in this new land, and many thoughtful persons are convinced that in the next few years our relation to the young and vigorous nation that is rapidly growing and taking shape in our midst will be in a great measure determined. . . . Small villages and nascent towns are springing up every ten or twenty miles along the lines of the new railways. The time is not far distant before the whole expanse of what used to be called Eastern Assiniboia will be filled with an industrious and progressive population, and the opening up of land for wheat-growing is rapidly extending westward of what not long since was considered the western limit. The wonderful and varied resources of this great country are attracting an increasing number of strong, earnest men and   women, who will certainly build up strong and enterprising communities here. The grandeur of the opportunity should be our inspiration. We are confronted by a mighty tide of immi-gration which is peopling this new land with human souls. The people who are coming to us are intensely real--real in their unbelief, real in their sin, real in their opinions, real in their active worldly life--which makes a mighty power for good or evil. The newcomers must be our pillars of strength--social, political, and religious--in the future. They should be met with the story of God's love, with the beautiful simplicity of the doctrine of Christ, and the realities of a living, working Church." --(New Era.) ________________________________________ THE NEEDS OF AUSTRALIA.— “An urgent appeal has been issued, under the authority of the Primate of Australia, com-mending to the Church people the effort now being made to found a Missionary Bishopric in the North-West. The country to be covered has a coast line of 1,500 miles, and stretches inland to the border of South Australia. There are over 6,000 white people to be ministered to, besides several thousands of Japanese, Chinese, Malays, and other Asiatics, principally engaged in the pearl fishery, and an aboriginal population estimated at 25.000. It is said that these aborigines are ‘physically and intellectually the finest of the Australian blacks.’ . . . One thing is certain. The Empire and the English will have to account for their dealings with the native races, and it will not be enough to say that they are no worse for our rule; we must be able to say that they are better. “The Bishop of Bunbury tells us that it is impossible to work the North-West satisfactorily from his diocese. The area is so vast (as far as from London to Persia) and the conditions so diverse and difficult that it ought to have a bishop of its own. The white pioneers need not less, but more, spiritual care than those living in more settled conditions. . . . One district, Marble Bar, without any one to care for it, has a circumference of 600 miles. The whole field is virtually still open for the Anglican Church to occupy. The results to New Guinea of having a bishop of its own have been greater than could possibly have been believed. With a bishop in the North-West travel-ling about in close personal touch with his workers and in close personal and friendly intercourse with his people, much of the spiritual solitariness and discouragement and indifference would be dispelled, and a brighter and more hopeful day would dawn   for godliness and religion. Last year there was a little flutter of attention in England directed to ‘the miserablest people in the world,' but very little has come of it.”-(Western Australian Quarterly.) ________________________________________

COREAN EDUCATION FUND.

FROM MAY TO DECEMBER, 1936. Einbeth College Offerte J. B. Collins E n Percy Fox, E .CL 11The Miss F. Tupper, 10.: Misslith de Stare ad T , 2. 10. Currency) -BALL F fra ROSALIE M. Cos, Hon. Tran, Same Street, Gomes ________________________________________

ST. PETER'S COMMUNITY FOREIGN MISSION ASSOCIATION.

SEPTEMBER, OCTOBER, NOVEMBER RECEIPTS. S cription. in. Waddon Marte, 01. Mr. Duncan, 10. Mrs. Pultery. 1. In: Miss Nasl, Miss Janson, bd.: Miss J. Weston, 15 Min Greenly, s. 11. Miss Campain, wo Mies Deante . Mi Si Mrs. Modougall-Rawan, The Misses King, Miss I. M. Lenty, 5: Miss F t Gore, Sr. and Miss Francis, Miss Want Fox, Mr Harding, is lood-Jones, St. Mrs. Collins, 10.1 Miss Booker, Five S.P.H. Industrial Girls, s.; Niss Baker, Toal, Donati -Asos, tor: Rev. W. H. Cleaver. 41. 1. Total, t. 13. Brankos.- Os Branch, per Miss Randall 21. of St. Andrew's Hrane, per Miss F. Roberto Bacdonald. Ct. 10. Cheddar Branche per Sister-in-Charge tard. St. Leonard's Breach per Mine Tufnell, Tocal, it did Total for three months, Can. 191. M. Received for Food for Training Native Women Teachers-Suns already received or promised, 69. o. Rev. F. and Mrs L t, Cr: Anon., s. 6. Offertory at S.P. Horce Meeting December 4, 2. Total 21. 1. d. LIST OF THOSE WHO CONTRIBUTED TO THE COREAN STALL AT THE ST. PETERS BAZAAR. Miss R.Ram Misa M. CNewman, Miss Agnes Foster, Mes. 7. D. Sturges Mrs. Reid, Mis Merriman, The Sties Basild, Miss Heslog Misa Salisbury, The Mines A broke Egerton, The Kent, Miss The will . Goer, M . Jan. Mine Bethune, Min M Chilton, Miss Mattack, M E Swea , M J. Stratton, stiu E Patter, Mis E. Woodward, Ms. Piston, R. Hall, Mr. Gibbs, Mis R. J. Wils, Miss A G. Stret, The Misses Randall, Cow, Martin, M B. Gor Missgury Miss G Scott, Mr. P. Soort, Mr. D. Scott, Miss Mal Welsh, Floene Hayes M r ampton and Patients M Ascot Priory, G. Berchampstead Busch A.P.W.C Danking Part -St. Peter's Grunge, Sl Leonards-on-Sea St. Michael Home, Axbridge: Brighton, per Miss Curl St. Matthews, view , per in. Sturgesi Atharington, per is. Art ________________________________________

HOSPITAL NAVAL FUND.

Contributions for Quarter ending June 30, 1906 Rev. . Dolby, K.N. : Rev. Mandall Jacko , RN, C. Chapt. He X. T. No , RN, LT: Mise Perry A h , 15.: Rev. Sullivan, N., Rev. C A. Salisbury, C1. Admiral Sir Michal Sayur. :per Min CAN T for Women's Ward, Total 36 Contributions for Quarter ending September 30, 1906 Rev. IC Cox Edwards, R.N., Irishop Code, Miss EM Descombe, 4 Cape, S. E. Erskins, R ., . Freio Mission Gald, St. Peter's Faton Square, 155, Cape Hand Mis Hope, Cl. F. 61. "In Memoriam.H.E.C. Sr. A. J. Long, S: Rev. JS Ladis, 1.: Dr. Lordet (per), St. John's Church, Mestone, 3: Commander CW, ML Pendelth, R . Rev. E d Mrs. York, Ca. Tocal, ter