Morning Calm v.4 no.38(1893 Aug.)

THE MORNING CALM. No. 38, VOL. IV.] AUGUST 1893. [Price 1d. The Bishop's Letter. CHEMULPÓ: April 1893. DEAR FRIENDS, Dr. Landis and I spent a quiet Easter together here, Mr. Smart having left in the previous week to enjoy a much needed rest in Seoul. In the middle of the month I paid a flying visit to Seoul in order to perform, for the first time since I have been in the country, the marriage service. The daughter of the American Minister to Corea, a member of the Church in America, was married to the German Minister to Peking. You can imagine what a stir such an unusual event made in Seoul. I mention the fact here, however, because before they left the country I received from the Herr von Brandt a handsome present for the Mission, by which the Church of the Advent will benefit. Miss Heard was a member of the congregation worshipping in that church, and we thought we could not do better than provide a font with the money in commemoration of her residence in Seoul and her marriage. In my last letter I told you we had a visit from H.M.S. Peacock. When I was in Seoul H.M.S. Severn came to Chemulpó. Capt. Henderson paid a visit to Mr. Hillier, and we both returned to Chemulpó together. The ship made but a short stay in the port, but long enough to enable me to accept the Captain's kind invitation to go on board for a couple of days. Old shipmates amongst the men, old messmates amongst the officers, and great cordiality of welcome from everyone on board awaited me. It was just as well that she left as soon as she did. Talking over old times is not conducive to the study of Chinese. And she was scarcely gone when the Peacock returned, so that my Easter holidays have been longer than they used to be when I went to school as a boy. Mr. Warner came for S. Mark's Day, and after the celebration on the festival I gave him my blessing on his next journey, about which I shall hope to tell you in my next. He and Mr. Hodge were to start on May 1 on a voyage of exploration to the westward of Seoul, travelling in native boats as far as possible along the three rivers which mark his route. To Mr. Hodge this change will be as beneficial as it will be delightful. He has never yet been in the   country, the incessant work of the printing press having kept him in Seoul ever since his first arrival there last September. He has done his work well. Mr. Scott's new Corean Manual will be a valuable help to all future students of the language. In Chemulpó things go on as usual. Mr. Smart is availing himself of the lovely springtime to make the compound of S. Michael's as beautiful as he made that of the Resurrection in Nak Tong last autumn. All over the garden seeds are springing up. Banks have been erected in places exposed to the summer rains, and paths are marked out by means of which we now find the way, without climbing, from one part of our hill to the other. The Native School, which last month opened with four pupils, has now eight or nine small urchins, who are daily taught the rudiments of Chinese by the native schoolmaster. I have just heard from Mr. Pownall in Niu Chwang. He is very well and happy in his work—anxious, however, to know what the future of Niu Chwang is to be. I, too, shall be glad when I am able to write and tell him that I have a chaplain for the post, and sufficient funds to maintain him. Owing to my being so little in Seoul, I am unable to give detailed news of the Sisters and Mr. and Mrs. Doxat to their many friends in England. When I was there last, I called and found them very well and happy, and eager to take advantage of all the warm spring weather for their garden, which was then already beginning to look shipshape. “Those who know" say that in the summer and autumn S. Peter's Mission House will be a beautiful place. Mr. Trollope during this month has been giving much valuable attention to the work of translating from the Chinese version of the Scriptures and Prayer Book—a matter on which I shall have much to say, I hope, in the near future. The progress he has made in Chinese and Corean, and the patient industry with which he approaches every subject connected with the Mission, make it probable that our translation work (without which we are helpless) will see light much sooner than I expected when I left England. This letter, therefore, tells you little more than that by the grace of God everything seems budding and full of promise—surely a fitting characteristic for an Eastertide—a springtide letter. Whilst we daily thank Him for the surrounding peace and helpful quiet, we do not forget to pray Him to bless you all by whose prayers we are so greatly assisted. I am, your affectionate Friend,

• C. J. CORFE.

  Hospital Naval fund. THE Committee of the Hospital Naval Fund has received a letter from the Bishop, dated Chemulpó, April 10, 1893, respecting the progress and prospects of the medical part of the Mission. He writes:—"My anxieties with respect to the maintenance of the doctors of the two hospitals, in Seoul and Chemulpó, being at an end, I wish to lay before the Committee some schemes which I have very much at heart, and in the prosecution of which I shall avail myself of the fund in future.” One of these schemes is the plan of using the river systems to obtain access to the interior of the country. On this the Bishop writes:— "It is a great advantage for us to have hospitals, not only opened but provided for, in the capital and Chemulpó. The doctors, however, must needs be resident—a necessity which has now become greater in consequence of their being attached to the Consulate and Customs. There is no possibility of either Dr. Baldock or Dr. Landis travelling in the interior with any of my clergy when on their missionary tours. During the last six months our work up country has shown signs of being developed in an unexpected way. It occurred to me last autumn to make use of the river systems of Corea for the commencement of our missionary work. It is likely to prove successful; at all events, the kind reception given last autumn to Mr. Warner by the inhabitants of the numerous river-side villages on the Han—which he pursued as far as it was navigable by his sanpan—encourages me to send him on a similar journey next month to explore two more rivers. I need not tell you what a great impulse would be given to his work, or what a benefit it would be to the people who throng to see a foreigner for the first time, if a doctor could accompany him in these expeditions. Such a prospect opens up immense possibilities, for these river routes are entirely unknown to European travellers, who hitherto have confined themselves mostly to the high roads. The boat traffic with Mapó (the river port, four miles from Seoul) and Chemulpó is enormous, and our opportunities of ministering to the best interests of the people are accordingly very great. But the doctor I want for this work must be a missionary prepared to rough it as Mr. Warner roughs it—living in a small, ill-covered sanpan, and content, if necessary, with the food of the country—rice, fowls, eggs, and vegetables. “There are no other hardships of which we are aware as yet. Spring and autumn are the seasons for travelling, and these seasons in Corea give us a climate which is almost perfect. I   have never experienced anything to equal them in any part of the world. During the summer and winter he would find a welcome in our houses in Seoul and Chemulpó, and be fully occupied in helping Dr. Baldock and Dr. Landis. We have bought a native house at Mapó, which will, we hope, become the head quarters of this river work. From thence we can easily get patients to our hospitals in Seoul and Chemulpó. At my request Mr. Warner, in his next journey, is going to provide himself with small notices, which we have printed, setting forth the advantages of our hospitals for men and women, and giving plain directions how they may be found. These notices will be distributed amongst the boating and riverside population where he goes. Here, then, is a fine field for a doctor. I wish I could induce some good naval surgeon to throw in his lot with us. The Director General will have no difficulty in supplying his place, whilst to find a missionary doctor is one of my greatest difficulties. And yet the work is of the most interesting kind, the country unexplored as yet by naturalists, the people amiable, if tiresome, and, even in their unwillingness to allow certain diseases to be treated by Western skill, presenting a most interesting study. I hope that this will meet the eyes of many naval men, and that, amongst them, one or two medical men will be moved by the love of God to come over and help us.' How very fitly the H.N.F. would be employed in supporting one such man in this river work! Ignorance of the language need not deter him from volunteering, and will not deter him from setting to work at once. Mr. Warner will be always at hand, and always prove an adequate and enthusiastic interpreter. You see how anxious I am to spend your money on the object for which you are so generously giving it to me! You see, too, how anxious I am to extend the work, and, as each want is provided for, to supply the needs which open out so readily in other directions. In this way I conceive I am laying out the fund with which you have entrusted me to the best advantage." Another topic the Bishop refers to is the work of Miss L. Cooke, M.D., at the Women's Hospital in Seoul. He says:— "I have asked Miss Cooke to forward me a report for the Committee of her first year's work. I will not, therefore, anticipate what she has to say, and will only remark that the number of patients in dispensary and hospital steadily increases, and that Dr. Wiles has reported very favourably to me on Miss Cooke's difficult work. I wish, indeed, her health were equal to her zeal and her skill. For her stipend and for medicines, as also for the maintenance of three hospitals, I shall, when necessary, use H.N.F. To what extent it will be necessary to draw   on the fund for these purposes I cannot now say, but will let you know later." The report here referred to has since been received, and is as follows:— CHEMULPÓ, COREA: May 13, 1893. DEAR MR. HARBORD, I send herewith a first report of the women's medical work in Seoul, prepared at my request by Miss Cooke for the Committee of the H.N.F. I think that you and the Committee will agree with me in concluding that it is eminently satisfactory, especially in view of the following facts, which are not unknown to you, but which I repeat that the Committee may the better bear them in mind when they study Miss Cooke's report:— 1. Miss Cooke arriving just before the winter of 1891, it was impossible to begin her work until the following spring. The severity of the season and the fact that there are no native women helpers attached to the Mission (added to Miss Cooke's ignorance of the language) prevented her from making it known amongst the women of Seoul that she had come to open a dispensary and hospital for their benefit. 2. Although she does not mention it in her report, Miss Cooke was nevertheless not idle during this period of compulsory inactivity. She attended on several occasions the dispensary belonging to the American Presbyterian Mission in Seoul, at the request of Dr. Sherwood, the resident lady doctor, who thus most kindly gave Miss Cooke an insight into the kind of work which the difficult task of treating by Western methods the diseases of Corean women involved. 3. As she states, the influx of workmen to build the dispensary and hospital acted as an advertisement of her work, as soon as the disappearance of the hard frost made it possible for building operations to be commenced. 4. It is almost impossible to convey to the Committee an adequate notion of the extreme difficulty attending any work of this kind amongst Corean women. All but the poorest classes being confined strictly to the women's apartments of their houses, it was hopeless, in the then early stage of the Mission's existence, when there were no native Christians, to think of attempting any medical work by visiting women in their own houses. Even now, when Miss Cooke has made good progress in the language, she has few openings in this direction. It would be otherwise if the women of Corea were eager to avail   themselves of the advantages of Western medical skill. The reverse is, however, notoriously the case. For a long time, therefore, Miss Cooke's work, so far as we can see, must be of this tentative nature. 5. Bearing in mind the difficulty above mentioned—which is very imperfectly described—the numbers, either of attendances or of cases, mentioned in the report are, I consider, highly satisfactory. The Committee must, however, not be led away by the large figures into supposing that the work amongst the women of Seoul is proceeding either in the direction or at the rate we desire. Miss Cooke treats all who come to her; but those who come are, for the most part, women who, from their lowly positions, would be unlikely to make known to their well-to-do sisters the advantages to be derived from Miss Cooke's skilful treatment. 6. I do not presume to comment upon the report, but should like to add my high opinion of Miss Cooke's skill and her eagerness to develop the work which she has commenced for the Mission with such conspicuous success. Nor must I forget to remind the Committee that Miss Cooke is far from strong, and that her work has often been done in much bodily weakness and pain. The S.P.C.K., to whose kind support we are so much indebted for a portion of Miss Cooke's maintenance, will be glad to see both the report and this letter. If you agree with me, will you send them to Mr. Allen with my kind regards? I am, dear Mr. Harbord, yours affectionately, C. J. CORFE ENGLISH CHURCH MISSION, SEOUL, COREA. The dispensary for women and children was opened March 1, 1892, in a small house standing in the compound of the Advent Mission House, and close to a small back street. The first month the attendances of patients numbered fifty. In May the building of a small hospital, in connection with this branch of the medical work, was begun, and the unusual amount of life and activity produced by the presence of the workmen in the compound attracted a larger number of patients, the maximum attendance for one month being 180. Dr. Wiles thought it advisable to build a good dispensary also while the workpeople were still in the grounds; the house then in use was small, inconvenient for the work, and in bad repair. Its site was required for the new building, which was   begun in July; the work meanwhile was carried on in a new house near belonging to the Bishop. Dr. Wiles had previously used this new house as a hospital

[사진] COREAN TEACHER AND COREAN BOY. for two of his patients on whom he operated for cancer, as there was at the time no other building available for the purpose in this part of the Mission. Both patients were Japanese women, and made good recoveries.   In September the new dispensary was completed, and from that date the work has been carried on in it. It is a beautiful building, very well lighted, one entire side being glass windows—a rarity in Corea—which also open completely and admit a very full current of air—a necessity in Corea. The dispensary consists of three rooms: a large inner room where the patients are seen by the medical officer, also used as an operating-room; a second smaller room, used as a drug store, and where the medicines are compounded and dispensed; a third room, with a verandah, opens on a small court facing the street: this room is warmed by a kong floor, and is used as a waiting-room for the patients and their friends. The hospital stands at almost right angles to the dispensary, though quite detached from it. It consists of four rooms, all warmed in the Corean manner by a kong floor. There are three small single kong rooms and one large double kong room. They all open upon a verandah facing the hospital garden, and do not communicate with each other, each room forming, as it were, a separate ward. The whole range of the building can be seen from the dispensary consulting-room window, which is a great advantage to the medical officer. The total number of attendances at the dispensary for the year ending February 28, 1893, was 1,204. Or these, 3 were Chinese, 12 Japanese, the remainder Coreans. Twelve out-visits were also paid, all being to Corean women. The diseases treated at the dispensary were mainly as follows:— Diseases of the digestive system 150 “ circulatory system 6 Fevers 15 Phthisis 20 Scrofula 100 Eczema 80 Ophthalmia, or disease of eyes 150 Abscesses, &c. (opened) 30 Caries of teeth (extractions) 12 Diseases peculiar to women 25 Total 588 Association of Prayer and Work for Corea. JULY reports have been received from about forty-five localities; a less number than usual, as is shown by the small total of new members, and by the comparatively small receipts of money summarised in the balance-sheet on the August fly-leaf.   We shall consequently expect more reports than usual, and longer lists, in October. The General Secretary asks that during the month of August letters requiring an immediate answer, and all applications for papers, may be addressed to Miss Eva Pennell, 4 Heavitree Park, Heavitree, Exeter, instead of, as stated last month, to Mrs. Campbell Jones, who will be away from home. Letters addressed to the General Secretary will be forwarded, and answered with as little delay as possible. Friends and Secretaries who are thinking of inviting the Corean Album to attend their meetings for the Mission will be glad to hear that a fresh supply of just four dozen interesting photographs has just been received from the Rev. Mark Trollope, including some of the Church of the Advent and the Sisters’ Chapel. It is now found that the postage of the Album amounts, when it is packed, to 1s. each way, instead of 71/2d., as at first announced. In reporting the removal this month of one name from our list of Naval Secretaries, we cannot forbear to quote here words which will have been read with the deepest feeling by Bishop Corfe from the Times account of the loss of H.M.S. Victoria: "The sick were saved, Chaplain Morris being greatly Instrumental, and his devotion costing him his life.” Such words need no comment. GREAT YARMOUTH SALE. Miss Waters writes:—"By kind permission of Mrs. J. M. Baker, Queen's Road, Great Yarmouth, a Sale of Work was held in her house on Tuesday, June 6, the proceeds to be given to the S. James's Day Schools and to the Corean Mission. The sum of £10 was given to the Corean Mission. Miss Waters begs to thank the many kind readers of Morning Calm who sent her contributions for the sale. Those not sold will be kept for another sale later on for Corea." M. M. CHAMBERS-HODGETTS, Rowancroft, Exeter, July 10, 1893. Gen. Sec. The Spirit of Missions. “LET us dwell for a moment on the simplicity of witnessing for Christ. Nothing can be more primitive and simple. The word itself has a lesson: is from the Saxon witan, to know, the root of many kindred words, ‘wit,’ ‘wist,’ ‘wisdom.’ A witness needs, therefore, but two characteristics—knowledge and utterance. To know and to tell makes a witness, and hence even a little child is now admitted to our courts of law as competent to testily. And in the higher Court of Humanity—the Parliament of Man—even a little child is admitted to bear witness to Jesus and the great Salvation,   before the tribunal of public opinion; because a child can sin, can repent, can believe, and can therefore tell what he knows of salvation by faith. In fact, no testimony is more convincing than that of a guileless child. “This simplicity is in order to universality, for it brings the privilege within the range of all believers. As the Gospel is marked by its universal adaptation to man as man, so the missionary charge is peculiar for its universal adaptation to believers as believers. It requires but the least measure of capacity to sin, and whosoever can sin can be saved from sin; and so it requires but the least measure of capacity to be a witness, for whosoever can sin and can be saved can tell of salvation. We repeat, it is simple that it may be universal. This duty, this privilege, is committed to all believers, and has reference to the whole race of man. It is therefore doubly universal; all believers are to witness, and are to witness to all. All who are saved are to bear testimony, and all who are unsaved are to hear that testimony. . . . . “But this witness, which is thus simple and universal, is also experimental; and, in this sense, is not, after all, either so simple or so universal; for it demands knowledge, not that of the schools, but of the school of Christ, and is based on the high attainment of experience. It is because so few know beyond doubt—because so few reach to the certainties of spiritual things—that so few are competent to give effective testimony. There should be fixed firmly in our minds this axiom of spiritual life, that experience limits testimony. We can witness only so far as we know. Settled conviction, intelligent and immovable faith, however narrow its bounds, is indispensable to convincing others or developing faith in others. Better like the blind man whose eyes Jesus opened—to be able to say, ‘One thing I know’—than to be half confident on many things; for it is only the certainty of assured conviction that enables us to convince."—Rev. A. T. Pierson, D.D., in The Divine Enterprise of Missions. S. Peter's Day, 1893, was a great day in the history of the Missions of the English Church, two Africans—Isaac Oluwole, D.D., and Charles Phillips, D.D.—being consecrated Bishops in S. Paul's Cathedral, to work under Dr. Hill, who was consecrated at the same time as Bishop in Western Equatorial Africa. The following biographical notices of the two new Bishops are taken from the Record:— The Right Rev. Isaac Oluwole was born in the town of Abeokuta, in the Yoruba country. His father belonged to the Ijebu tribe, and his mother to the Ijesa tribe. They were both converted to Christianity a few years before he was born. He was baptized in infancy, and as soon as possible sent to the Ake Elementary School. Here, after learning to read in Yoruba, his English education began. In 1863 his father died, and Dr. Harrison, a medical missionary in Abeokuta at that time, who took great interest in him, received him into his house for training. In 1865 he was sent to the C.M.S. Training Institution for Teachers, which was then in Abeokuta in charge of the late Rev. J. A. Maser. The serious outbreak against the missionaries in Abeokuta in October, 1867, led to the removal of the   institution to Lagos. In 1871 he was appointed tutor in the institution. In this capacity he laboured till the close of 1875, when he proceeded to Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, for further studies. He finished his course in December, 1878, and had the honour of being one of the three who first graduated there in connection with Durham University. Then he was appointed Principal of the Lagos C.M.S. Grammar School, and received an invitation from the Society's Committee to visit England before returning to Lagos. He accordingly came to this country in the spring of 1879; in September he returned to Lagos. In February, 1881, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Cheetham, and in 1884 priest by Bishop Ingham. He has been Secretary of the Lagos Church of England School Board since 1879, member of the Lagos Church Committee (of which he has sometimes been Secretary) since 1884, and has also since that date been Chairman of the Yoruba Translation Committee. His ministry has generally been exercised in the different Lagos congregations since his ordination, and from 1890 to 1892 in that of S. Peter's. The Right Rev. Charles Phillips was born at Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1847, of Christian parents. His father belonged to the Egba tribe, and was one of the rescued slaves who were landed in Sierra Leone by English men-of-war in the early days of that Colony. On his father's death he was admitted into the C.M.S. Training College at Abeokuta, where he derived much profit, both intellectually and spiritually, under the tuition of the Rev. G. F. Bühler. In 1863 he was sent as a schoolmaster to the Breadfruit Station at Lagos, where he laboured under the Rev. L. Nicholson. In 1876 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Cheetham. His first charge after that was at Ebute Meta. In December of that year he was appointed to superintend the new Mission at Ode Ondo, Lagos. He was ordained priest in 1879. During his stay at Ode Ondo, where he has been since his ordination, he has had many difficulties, but his work has borne good fruit. The following singularly beautiful account of Bishop Horden, of Moosonee, is taken from the New York Spirit of Missions. It was written, as the Spirit of Missions says, by “our own beloved Bishop Whipple," from his bed of illness, to the editor of his own diocesan Minnesota Missionary:— “Lake Maitland, Florida: "March 20, 1893. "Dear Brother,—The Churchman announces that the Right Rev. John Horden, the Bishop of Moosonee, has ‘entered into   rest.' I have known few men whom I so dearly loved. Thirty-two years ago, in the dark days of our Indian Mission, the Bishop of Rupert's Land, the Right Rev. David Anderson, was present at our diocesan conference in Minneapolis. I have always believed that God sent him to deepen in my heart pity and love for the poor red men. I well remember how it thrilled my heart as I listened to the story of the trials and triumphs of the faithful missionaries of a sister Church, Archdeacon Cowley, Henry Budd, and many more. Among them he told the story of the missionary at Hudson's Bay, John Horden, who, in 1872, was consecrated the Bishop of Moosonee. "I do not know the story of his early life. His record shows that very early that life was consecrated to the service of Jesus Christ. He was a teacher in one of the English schools. He and two friends agreed to make Missions the subject of daily prayer, and if God opened the way they would devote their lives to missionary work. “His two friends had been called, and were labouring in distant missionary fields. He offered himself to the Church Missionary Society. One day he received a letter: ‘The Bishop of Rupert's Land has asked us to send out a missionary to an important field in Hudson's Bay. He tells us that if we cannot find a man in Orders, he will receive him as a candidate and go to Hudson's Bay and ordain him. The call is very urgent. The field must be occupied at once. The Bishop's letter has been delayed. The only vessel which goes to Hudson's Bay, once a week, leaves next week. We believe you are peculiarly fitted for this work. We think the missionary ought to go out a married man. If you can go we will send you.' “The call came as a voice from God. Mr. Horden was not married, but, as he told me, he thought he knew a devoted woman who was ready to devote her life to Mission work, and was ready even at a moment's notice to share his labours. They were married. It was twenty years before he saw England again. The devoted man found a vast field white for the harvest, and the officers and servants of the Hudson's Bay Company gave him their countenance and support. “The Indians far to the north have no land to cultivate, and live by hunting and fishing. They are often subject to great privation. The aged are a burden. He heard a strange story. A son and two daughters said to an aged woman: ‘Mother, the time has come for you to die.’ She said, ‘Let me smoke my pipe.’ She did smoke, and then the children put a bowstring about her neck and strangled her to death. No wonder   the missionary's heart sank within him. ‘Can these dry bones live?’ Can these like brute beasts become members of Christ, out of whom shall flow rivers of living water? In times of great dearth these men had been guilty of cannibalism. At the missionary's first visit to this degraded tribe he asked if there was any present who had killed his parent, or any who had eaten human flesh. Who can imagine his horror when a number raised their hands! But nothing daunted, he worked and prayed and wept and prayed. Hard hearts were softened, the image of Christ was seen on these sometime heathen faces, and large numbers of these wandering children of our Father were brought into the fold of Christ. “The missionaries of the north have perfected a syllabic alphabet, where a letter represents a syllable. It is very simple, and an intelligent Indian can learn to read in a week. It is absolutely necessary that these poor Christians should be carefully taught, and every spare moment of time was devoted to copying for them the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and sentences of the Gospel which would help and comfort these poor souls when on their long hunts. Few Christians are as careful as they to keep ‘the praying day.' These pieces of paper were treasures to the Indian, and were often the means of leading others to ‘the Lamb of God Who taketh away the sins of the world.’ "The Bishop had translated the Gospels into the sign language and sent them to England to be printed. The next year he waited with an eager heart for the precious books. At last the ship was announced, and he went to receive the treasure. A number of large, heavy boxes were landed. He opened one, and it was full of cast iron. His heart sank within him. ‘My books have been sent to some other Mission, and I have received their machinery!’ He opened his letters. They told him: ‘You had forgotten that while we could have your books printed in the syllabic characters there is no one in England who could correct the proof; we have therefore sent you a printing-press and a font of type.’ Strange to say, the good Bishop had never seen a printing-press. He had the boxes removed to his office, put up curtains to the windows, and made his first venture as a printer. After repeated trials the press was put together, a case was made, and each kind of type put by itself. Then the Lord's Prayer was set up, and with a beating heart laid on the press, the roller inked, the sheet struck off—it was perfect. Again and again he printed sheet after sheet.   “For days the Indians had seen the Bishop go from the office to the house, and from the house to the office, absorbed in thought, with lines of anxiety on his face, speaking to no one, and they looked on him with awe, as on one who had become crazed. All Indians have an awe and reverence for the insane as one on whom some spirit has set his mark. Judge of their joy when the Bishop rushed out with his face radiant and his hands full of the precious leaves, which he scattered to the people and said: ‘See here! see here what God has done for you!’ “For more than forty years this brave Christian hero has lived amid the solitudes of Hudson's Bay, and of him more than any man since Apostolic times has it been true, ‘He who now goeth forth bearing precious seed and weeping shall come again bringing his sheaves with him.’ “Few men have had more deferred hopes than I have in my labours for the red men. All that the malice of the Devil or the cupidity of bad white men could do has been done to hinder the work. The long history of robbery, the neglect of Government, the evil example of white men, the deadly fire water, have dragged many of this people into a gulf of misery their heathen fathers did not know. It has often happened that in the darkest hour I received a letter from Bishop Horden which quickened hope and bade me work on and faint not. I remember one letter in which he said, ‘I am rejoiced to hear good news of your Indian work. I have not had to encounter some of your trials. The influence of the few white men in the country is with me. I have only to meet heathenism, the hardness of the human heart, and God has wonderfully blessed my labours. Most of the Indians in my vast jurisdiction can read in their own language the Word of God. That tribe of which I told you such sad stories have many Christians, and these sad stories of the murder of parents and cannibalism have long passed away.’ “For some years the dear Bishop has been engaged in translating the Holy Scriptures, which he hoped to finish this winter. In his last letter to me he spoke of the good progress he had made in the work of translation, and how thankfully he looked forward to the end.* “The Bishop's children are in England with Mrs. Horden. We have no particulars of his death; it must have been with kindred far away, alone; no, not alone, for his Master, Jesus Christ, Who passed this way before him, was surely with him

• Like the Venerable Bæda. Bishop Horden could say, “It is finished!” The complete translation of the whole Bible into “Cree" had been finished just before his death.

  and guided him safely 'to the land afar off, where they see the King in His beauty.’ Easter will be dearer as we think of the dear Bishop with our own loved ones in Paradise. "I trust someone may write the life of this missionary hero, that it may kindle in young hearts the same passionate devotion to Christ and love for the souls for whom He died. "H. B. WHIPPLE, Bishop of Minnesota." The Bishop of Tasmania has written a series of letters to the Tasmanian Church News, giving an account of his recent visit to the Melanesian Mission. We take from them the following description of the annual payment of salaries by the clergy on the Southern Cross, the Melanesian Mission ship:—“There is one department of work on board the vessel which is most trying, and of which I had heard nothing till I saw it with my own eyes. It must be understood that the native teachers in the islands have to be paid their salaries once a year. Usually, for example, the Solomons are taken during one voyage, and the Banks in the next. Let me describe, then, what this process means. Months before the time of delivery the teachers have notified their wants, and the goods have been bought in Auckland and stored on the vessel. There the clergy work in the hold—hot with tropical sun and close contact with Melanesian bodies. At one of our stages I remember that we had to pay thirty-five teachers; a simple business if it meant a sum of money, but it becomes a serious business when it means payment in a multifarious collection of household necessities. The list of possible wants was portentously long. It included, I remember, shirts, axes, biscuits, soap, candles, tobacco, matches, calico, trousers, tinned meat, tea, pipes, saucepans, kettles, et hoc genus omne. (I always watched the bars of yellow soap going into the boat with the secret hope that one might go overboard and be swallowed up by a shark as a soothing pill.) How often I have felt genuine sympathy for the clergy, as on a hot and sweltering day they have emerged from the hold, having in the last few hours acted the part of a grocer, ironmonger, draper, and tobacconist. Two articles are notably absent from the list. I believe the clergy would go into fits if they were asked for either boots or stockings. It is supposed that these do not exist anywhere in these latitudes. How often have I seen (also with sympathy) these same clergy throw themselves down in the saloon to get a quarter of an hour's nap after the process above mentioned!"   The following is an account of the curious custom among the Indians of the North-West Territory of “greasing" one of their number who has not paid his debts:— "I was in the tent with some of my half-breed friends, when a man ran in and told me they were going to grease an Indian for not paying his debt; so I crawled into the large tent, which was crammed to excess, as everyone was anxious to see the greasing performed. Big fires are burning at either end of the tent, which are attended to by one Indian, who acts as general servant, and at the north end the chiefs and important guests are squatted with most solemn faces, about the centre, on one side, are the musicians (if they can be called so) and the squaws, who sing or chant. At the south side, beside the big fire, I noticed a milk-pan full of white grease. All at once an Indian jumps up on his feet and makes a speech, which is evidently accusing another Indian of not having settled a debt, and when he has finished the accused is led out and seated in front of the fire beside the pan of grease. He is asked to take off his print shirt and leggings, but he says 'No,' so the man who made the speech forthwith dives both hands into the pan of grease and thoroughly anoints his comrade with grease from head to foot, especially the face and head, and I noticed also he took care not to forget even the moccasins. When this was done a dance was struck up, and the poor fellow sat there motionless, with icicles of grease hanging from his nose, amid the jeers and laughter of everyone. Then another man comes along with a blanket, and with much ceremony it is cut in half, and he begins to wipe the face of the greased man, who is then allowed to take off his clothes, which he does, and throws them through the aperture for the purpose in the roof of the tent. He is thoroughly wiped and given a complete outfit of clothing, and then he gets up and joins the dancers, for he is now absolved from his debt after being made a public example of. Four others were greased after a similar fashion: some stripped, preferring to have their feet greased, which was the only difference. At the time one was more or less excited and amused, yet one could not help feeling sad for the poor heathen, who were so thoroughly in earnest. One must only ask God to hasten the time when they may be brought to a true faith in Him."