Morning Calm v.5 no.54(1894 Dec.)

THE MORNING CALM. No. 54, VOL. V.] DECEMBER 1894. [PRICE 1d.

The Bishop's Letter.

SEOUL: September 1894. DEAR FRIENDS,

The same quiet prevails in Seoul and Chemulpó, and has prevailed since I wrote a month ago. Our affairs, consequently, go on peacefully and regularly. The first part of the month I spent at Chemulpó, where my chief difficulty was to resist the temptation of paying frequent visits to the many English war-ships which from time to time were at anchor in the harbour. Every one was very kind, but I had to confine my visits, for the most part, to the Sundays, and so managed to give a good deal of time every day to Lumen. And now, having gone through it, I have come to Seoul to see if I can be of any use to the Sisters and Nurse Webster in their study of it. Up here I find everything going on as usual. St. Matthew's Hospital, indeed, is still closed, but we have received permission from the Consul-General to reopen it, and I hope that in a very few days all will be going on there as usual. The Centurion came over from China with the fleet, and by the kindness of the Admiral a passage was given in her to Miss Cooke, who suddenly arrived last Sunday evening.

Happily we had had twenty-four hours' notice of her expected arrival, and so were able to clear her hospital and house of their occupants, and to have everything ready for her when she arrived. The men patients are now in the Parsonage close by, and Dr. Baldock, who spends his time between the two hospitals, is occupying a room in the house in which Dr. Wiles used to live. This is convenient for him. It is close to the Parsonage, and close to the Consulate-General, where he has medical charge of the Marine Guard. The numbers of women patients in Miss Cooke's dispensary have increased greatly, so that there is little fear of her having nothing to do. In her absence Sister Margaretta has been regularly attending the dispensary, which is thronged daily. Last week she had as many as seventy applicants in one day. It is encouraging to Miss Cooke to know that during her involuntary absence the medical needs of the women have not been neglected by the Mission, and that, on her return, she finds everything running smoothly, and ready for further development.

She is greatly improved in health by her visit to Niu Chwang. The visit which she intended to make to Peking had to be given up for a variety of reasons. And so we have her back a month sooner than we expected. The sisters are well, though they have not escaped the complaints which are usually in the air during our hot Corean summer. But the lovely autumn weather with the cool nights is doing wonders for us. The printing press is as busy as ever. Mr. Hodge seems to keep his men going all day long, and they seem all the better for it. We are just going to add foreign book-binding to our small stock of trades. Dr. Landis, who has himself picked up some knowledge of it since he came to Corea, has kindly offered to teach some of our Corean apprentices. Thus we shall in time be able not only to print, but to bind our books. Mr. Davies is busy, and, during my absence, has had the charge of the Church of the Advent. Mr. Warner is at Kang Hoa, living in his river house, which I am glad to say is at last complete. He is organising classes for Bible reading, which means Lumen reading, and will, I hope, be able to do something in the way of preaching. But we all have to go very slowly and be thankful that we can go at all. We have called his mission-house St. Nicholas, so that now both my schools are represented, in name at least, in this country. From the Doxats I have not heard very recently, but Miss Cooke brings me excellent news of them. They are well and happy, though they have had a wet and trying summer in Niu Chwang. Did I tell you in my last that Lay Sister Lois was going to Chefoo to undertake a case of nursing? She left early in the month in H.M.S. Pigmy. The Caroline brought us back our old friend Mr. Hillier, who has been to England on leave and now resumes his post in Corea. Glad as we are to see him again, we are sorry to lose Mr. and Mrs. Gardner, who have been very kind to us all during their short term of office.

I have no war news to give you. You probably know far more than we do. Here, with the telegraph lines entirely in Japanese hands, we are dependent upon them for everything in the way of news. Their news—even their official despatches—we have long since learnt to estimate at their true value. It is terrible to think how much harm Japan has done to Corea in the name of civilisation during these few weeks since the officials threw off the mask and gave up saying that the soldiers had come only to protect the Japanese Minister. As to the Chinese, they are in the north. We never see them here. Perhaps it is as well, for we should fare badly if the fighting came near us. So that you are to understand we are all well and happy, and working just as we worked before the war, only I think we are working a little harder. Where we shall get coal from for the winter, and wood and food, are questions to which we now can find no answers. But the winter is a long way off yet, and we are not anxious. Nor need you be on our account. Mr. Trollope and Dr. Landis have translated into Corean the prayer for the King. I am going to have it printed, and hope that soon we shall use it in church—amongst ourselves, I mean. It will help to familiarise us with the sound of Corean during the time of prayer. As yet I do not think that any of us have heard—still less used—a prayer in Corean. And this prayer is, under the circumstances, not at all a bad prayer to begin with.

Have us always in your prayers, and believe me, Your affectionate C. J. CORFE.

Association of Prayer and Work for Corea.

The changes in the Association staff this month are rather more numerous than usual. At Southsea Mrs. Carr, who has worked for Bishop Corfe's Mission from its very first start, has been compelled by ill health and the pressure of other duties to give up, in name, and at least for the present, the post of Local Secretary. She will not, however, cease to help us very truly and unfailingly, and her place at Southsea has been very kindly taken by Miss MacEwen. In Herefordshire Mrs. J. R. G. Taylor, Local Secretary for Hereford, now appears also as the County Secretary, which post she will no doubt fill as ably as she has filled the former one. But her predecessor, Miss Bourne, has, we gladly add, by no means deserted us. As Mrs. William Twining she now appears as Local Secretary for Westminster, and she also keeps charge of her old locality (Bromyard) until a resident successor has been found. In Hertfordshire we report with regret that Canon Liddell, having gone to another county, has resigned the Local Secretaryship at St. Albans. We are very grateful for all he has done for the Association, and we know that we may count on his continued interest and help. He leaves a good number of members behind him, and Miss Evelyn Toulmin has very kindly undertaken to succeed him as Secretary. In this county also the County Secretary has the satisfaction of reporting a new Branch—at Hertford, where our first Secretary, Miss Louise Provost Elliott, is already, we hear, enlisting a considerable number of new members. Besides Mrs. William Twining, London, we are glad to say, has gained a new Secretary in Miss Wigram, in the S.E. district.

Miss Edith Little, Local Secretary for Leeds, reports that at the annual meeting of the Chapel Allerton Missionary Union, held on Wednesday, October 31st, at 7.30 P.M., the chief speaker was the Rev. M. N, Trollope, just returned from Corea. Last year at the same meeting the chief speaker was Mrs. Bishop, then about to start for the same country. The Vicar opened the meeting, and stated that the Chapel Allerton Missionary Union now numbered 180 members, and had contributed £144 to Foreign Missions during the past year. Mr. Trollope then gave an address on the work in Corea, an account of which is given in the Chapel Allerton Parish Magazine. Amongst the other Association centres to be visited by Mr. Trollope will be Portsmouth, where he will speak on December 4th, at a meeting arranged for by the Rev. E. A. Ommanney, and the Rossall Mission, Manchester, where he will preach at three services on Advent Sunday, December 2nd. December 6th will be duly kept at Yiewsley (as, we hope, in many other places), and there will be special services and a lantern lecture given by the Rev. H. H. Kelly. Our lantern slides are being used during November for lectures and addresses in the neighbourhood of Sunderland by the Rev. C. F. Fynes-Clinton, and near Thoresway by the Rev. E. C. Corfe. At Christchurch, on October 18th, a lecture on Corea by C. E. Cooper, Esq., was largely attended, and others are going to be given by him elsewhere during the winter. Lectures on Corea (for which the Corean album or costumes have been of use) have also been, or will be, given by Rev. Sydney J. Peake at Ladock, in Cornwall, on November 2nd; the Rev. E. C. Corfe at Farnham on December 5th; and in Guernsey by Rev. H. Swinburne, and in North Devon by the Rev. R. W. Oldham, during November and December—all these in connection with S.P.G.

We are asked to state that the address of the Rev. Raikes Bromage (Missionary Stamp Depôt) will be for the future, 32 Gladstanes Road, West Kensington, S.W. He writes that “old issues of English stamps 1840 to 1870 are very much wanted, either used or unused. Embossed envelopes and postcards should be sent whole."   The total number of members of the Association reported in the November Flyleaf should have been 93, instead of 95, as two of them had been already entered in the May Flyleaf. M. M. CHAMBERS-HODGETTS, Exeter: November 11, 1894. Gen. Sec. Parcels for the Corean Stall in the St. Peter's Associates' Bazaar on December 12th and 13th are to be sent, not to Miss Graham as in former years, but to Miss Helen Wildy, St. Peter's House, Kilburn, London.

The Spirit of Missions.

“THERE exists in the soul of the meanest, and most degraded, and most stupid of the human race, a divine spark, the direct gift of the Creator, which spiritual intercourse with the Personal and Risen Christ can fan into a flame of goodness. No man is hopelessly bad; he has within him the seeds of goodness, if only the waters of life, conveyed by a loving and sympathetic hand, and the sudden illumination of his environment, brought about by the words of his Master and the prayers of a true servant of God, permit it to germinate and bring forth fruit one hundred fold. He may be ugly in features, filthy in his dress, rude and coarse in his utterances, still there is in him a possibility of salvation which discriminates him from the intelligent and beautiful animals which gather around him, and who live only to perish. There is a sweet reasonableness in the recorded words of Christ, a sweetness and a light which no thoughtful man, if he can be brought to think, can resist. Still there is one thing higher than the written Word, which retains the flavour of ancient days, of forgotten surroundings, narrow views, and physical ignorance: that thing is the living, eternal, all-powerful Word of God in the heart of each one of us, ever fresh and ever new, adapted to the environment of every century and every country, every degree of knowledge or non-knowledge, every round of the ladder of social culture or non-culture. Christ lives for ever, and is renewed in the same, yet seemingly different, outward form and conception by the Chinese, the Indian, the Negro, the Redskin, the Kanaka. It is not the perquisite and monopoly of the good Christian of the English middle-classes to know Christ as He is, and as He deigns to reveal Himself to the poor benighted intellects of man in his deepest degradation."—Dr. R. N. Cust.

The announcement of the resignation of Bishop KNIGHT. BRUCE follows very close after that of Bishop Hornby, and from the same cause—such inroads have been made upon his constitution by the African fever that his return to Mashonaland would have been fatal, and so would have meant nothing but hindrance to the work which he has at heart. He has made a name which would have been famous among the explorers of the nineteenth century, even were the fact forgotten that his pioneer work was done largely single-handed. He will have the prayers of very many that he may be spared long to do good work in our own land. The following is part of a very interesting letter by a priest in England, which appears in the October “Occasional Paper" of the Association of Prayer and Work for QU'APPELLE:— "As it has been our privilege during the passing (not yet past) year to meet with and receive into our home two of the clergy from the diocese of Qu'Appelle, and to be quickened into interest in the work of the Church abroad by the simple story of their lives, aye, and perhaps yet more by the pathos of their worn and patient faces, it seems incumbent on us to try and transmit, if only in feeble measure, this interest to such readers as have not shared our privilege. “One of these had come home on sick leave, suffering from insomnia and general exhaustion. He has three churches to serve, respectively twelve, fifteen, and thirty miles from him. The last, he said, he had not yet been able to discover! In addition to sleeplessness he was still suffering from frost-bite in the feet. He lives entirely alone, cooking, cleaning, mending and darning for himself. At times, as when the one laundress of the settlement had influenza, he has had to add his own washing to his many cares. Of course he has to groom his own horse, and he has made some of his own furniture. After his long and cold journeys he returns home to find the contents of larder and store-room all frozen, and the first thing is to light the stove and thaw the food. Milk is bought by the pound in Assiniboia, and instead of a pint of milk, a ‘chunk of milk' is asked for. But sometimes there is no time to groom and feed the horse, light the stove, thaw the food, and then cook it, between the return home from a long journey and the hour of service in his little church close by, and as the congregation cannot wait, the food must. Then there are young settlers living in lonely shanties on the prairie; these fall sick, and there is no one to nurse them but the clergyman, and nursing typhoid patients day and night had been the main cause of this young priest's shattered condition. Even the sea-voyage did not restore sleep; only with the shores of Old England did he recover it, and then the strained, anxious, and weary look in his eyes remained. Perhaps, however, to many a woman's heart the appeal that would have gone home most would have been the unconscious one, ‘When I have darned my socks I cannot wear them, they are so full of lumps.' "I picked up an appeal of Bishop Anson's out of a wastepaper basket,' was his answer to the inquiry how he came to volunteer for Qu'Appelle. 'I wrote to the Bishop's Secretary and offered myself. He said they could not take more men then; however, I meant to go, and so I went.'

"Another, lately returned to the diocese after a successful appeal in England for help for his parish, had meant to offer himself for work in Central Africa. But one day, talking with a friend or an acquaintance, the subject of the work in Qu'Appelle was mooted. ‘The Bishop wants some one who can minister to a colony of Hungarians,' was casually remarked. 'I can do that,' said the young priest, a good linguist and the son of a Hungarian officer; and so his sphere of mission work was determined. And to this little colony he has faithfully ministered, and it must have been a touching sight when the Bishop held a Confirmation amongst them, and their clergyman stood by translating the service as it proceeded to his little flock as he stood by the Bishop's side.

“This devoted man at one time lived thirty miles from a town, and he described to us most graphically how one winter, the severity of which was exceptional, the snow was so deep and lay so long that all intercourse with the town was cut off. At last all the provisions of the colony gave out. Nothing was left but the animals which they could kill for food. The young clergyman and his servant boy (who had volunteered to go out with him from the old country to share his hardships) determined to make an effort to reach the town and procure food for the colony. At six in the morning, having given away his last loaf of bread, they started, laden with the commissions and money of the little settlement. Till eleven that night, without tasting food, they struggled through the snow, three or four hours of the time being spent in digging out their horses. When they reached their journey's end they were so exhausted that they could not eat. Food purchased, the same weary and exhausting journey had to be accomplished to reach home. "How strong the bond between priest and people can become in these far-off places we can easily imagine. The man who not only ministers to us in sacred things, but who is ready to watch day and night by our sick bed, or to hazard his life to obtain for us the necessaries of life, must be endeared to us by a thousand tender but strong ties. 'Life is,' indeed, 'a system of compensations.' And when such as these come amongst us and ask us to raise for them, say £200, a sum given without hesitation for the decoration of a single room, or for a small drawing for our already well-covered walls, it is marvellous how we hesitate and give it with a niggard hand, out of our comforts and our abundance. We cannot take up the cross ourselves as these men do, it is too heavy for our shoulders. Can we not at Ieast ease their burden a little, by offerings of our money, who patiently and uncomplainingly, after returning to the comforts of our homes and lives, set their faces 'steadfastly' like their Master, to return to the cold and nakedness and hardships of their adopted country, like good soldiers of Jesus Christ? C. C. L." "Our readers will notice that no less than three of the papers in this number are by native clergymen—one in South Africa, one in India, and a Karen of Burma. Such reports are in themselves significant. The mere fact that there are hundreds of natives in holy orders in lands where a few generations back there were no native Christians, and that these are working with us for the conversion of their fellow-countrymen, and write encouraging us by describing what they do, is a fact to make us feel how mightily the Word of God is growing and prevailing."

Mission Field for October, 1894.

The Church Missionary Intelligencer for November contains an article by Dr. Henry Martyn Clark on "Some Results of the late Mohammedan Controversy," which records some most remarkable developments in North India, which seem to show that Mohammedanism there is being shaken to its roots. Referring to a previous article on the same subject, he goes on: "The unique interest then aroused has during the past year steadily widened and deepened. . . . So far from dying away, the inquiries and energies aroused are to-day keener and more active than ever. The way in which it has all come about is as wonderful as it was unexpected, for in one sense we owe it all to the Mohammedan champion himself. It will be remembered that this person, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, concluded with a prophecy. A direct revelation from God was vouchsafed him—within fifteen months, counting one month for each day of the discussion, the Christian opponent, Mr. Abdullah Athim, would die. His death would thus be a direct evidence sent by God to the truth of Islam—His decision, in fact between rival creeds. He uttered imprecations against himself in painful abundance, some horrible, others grotesque, should the prediction fail. In a later revelation, as I am informed, he was good enough to include me with Mr. Athim as one of the doomed unless we both repented and became true believers—that is to say Mohammedans. Those who live in our enlightened homeland, and know not the ways of the East, can have no conception of the immense force and effect of this solemn and categorical declaration amongst the masses in this dark, superstitious, ignorant country. The Mirza showed a ready wit, a profound understanding of human nature, and withal no little shrewdness. Worsted in argument, by one bold, effective act he appealed to the bar of God. He saw before him an old, feeble, ailing man. Two Indian hot weathers, a cold weather deadly to the feeble, two sickly seasons, were embraced in the ‘prophecy.' While by the better class of Mohammedans the statement was regarded with disgust, it sent a thrill through the whole heart of Islam in India. It is impossible to express the hold it has taken on the public mind. It is a plain, clear issue; it is no longer a war of words, or a drawing of distinctions—a sign from heaven is to be vouchsafed: ‘Yea, God Himself shall decide in this controversy.' It has been the theme of converse, of close attention during the past year. From Madras to Peshawur, through the length and breadth of broad India, thousands upon thousands of men have been watching, with thoughts intent on the far northern city, where Islam had thrown down the wager of battle, and where God Himself would decide.

"As I write, the days are swiftly speeding by, and the crisis is now intense beyond words. A bare month is all that remains, and the heavens are still as brass. The anxious thought of Mohammedan hearts is, Will the sign come—will Islam be vindicated? In the Mirza's mosque at Qadian prayer is offered all day long and far into the night, with crying and tears: 'O God, save Islam! It is the hour of darkness. Let not Thy faith be put to shame—let the sign be given.' What a pathetic picture it is of zeal, but not according to knowledge—of children crying in the night, worshipping they know not what! Small things show how greatly the Mohammedans are losing heart. One produced consternation at a public meeting by announcing to his co-religionists that he had seen Mr. Athim in a distant city, and not only was he looking very well, but in addition ‘he had grown fat.' Another had had a special revelation in which Mohammed had announced to him that the Mirza was a liar and deceiver; he had displeased God, and Mr. Athim would not die but live. The evident pity of it is that Mohammed did not make this announcement for the benefit of his followers fourteen months ago." To the article the Editor appends the following significant note:—"The fated day has, of course, now long since passed. Writing on September 1, Dr. Clark mentioned that a thanksgiving service had been arranged to be held on the 6th, the day after that fixed by the Mohammedan Moulvie for the death of Mr. Athim and of Dr. Clark.” We have mentioned but one of the remarkable events recorded in this article. It goes on to tell how the Rev. Dr. Imaduddin Lahiz has been engaged in writing against Islam, and above all by his translation of the Koran into simple idiomatic Urdu, which has been the means of showing it up to Hindu-speaking Mohammedans for the first time in its true light. And the result has been to arouse a spirit of candid inquiry, which has already produced a large number of conversions to the Christian faith. The following interesting information about work in NASSAU is from a private letter by a priest at work in that diocese:— “You are good enough to say that you would like to know something about our people. I will try and give you a brief account of them, which I hope may be interesting to you. First, I ought to explain that the Bahamas are a group of islands separate from the West Indies proper, being the first land Columbus sighted in 1492. “After Columbus and his successors had depopulated the islands of their original inhabitants (Caribs), the islands came into possession of the English, and by them were settled and worked for cotton, pineapples, and other products, labour being supplied from Africa by the slave ships. When the emancipation took place some fifty odd years ago, there was, in these islands, a population of over 20,000 African people, just learning the elements of civilisation and religion. Fifty years of freedom, free education by the Government, and religion taught in various forms have, as you can well imagine, wrought a vast change in the character of the people. They now form the majority of the population, being 40,000 black people to scarcely 2,000 white people in the whole colony, consisting of 365 islands. Our present race are descendants of the third and fourth generations from the old imported slaves. Here and there one comes across an old man or woman who can tell you all about slavery days; but to the majority slavery is but a tradition. Our people all talk English—that is, ‘coloured’ English. They dress as we do, and in all respects are outwardly on a level with the agricultural class of people in England; and for intelligence, capacity for learning, shrewdness, and earnestness in religious matters they will compare favourably with the country people of England. In features and physique they are true Africans, with woolly heads, thick lips, broad noses, and they have all the emotion and excitableness, superstition and credulity of the Eastern race. I suppose we represent now what the Central African Mission will, under God's blessing, be able to show in fifty years' time. But I must hasten to qualify this statement. Our people are Europeanised—the C. A. Mission aims at civilisation and religion on African lines, which is right. Our people inherit traditions from slavery of the worst kind. Their white owners forbade marriage amongst the slaves, forbade religion, and passed laws forbidding the black man to testify in a law court as evidence, and paid a man to stand at the church door with a whip to keep the black people out. No wonder, then, that when slavery was over there was a reaction, and for many years there was veritable heathenism, plus white man's vices learned, for the Church to cope with. We still have a hard fight to wage with old traditions, and though our people do show great signs of improvement and advance, yet there is a vast amount of practical heathenism to fight with. The one African trouble is still with us, viz., instability, and, as it seems to us sometimes, an impossibility of realising the sinfulness of sin. But on the whole we can afford to be hopeful of the future. They are eager and willing to learn, and ready to obey, and when they fall it is not so much from downright wickedness, but rather from that natural defect common to all emotional black races. Now you will, perhaps, like to hear something of how we work amongst the people. At the risk of being egotistical, it will be best for me to describe my own work. In this diocese—that is, the diocese of Nassau, Nassau being the town of the colony where the Government is, and the seat of the Bishop—each island is a parish. Nineteen of the largest islands are inhabited entirely by black people, the white people living in the city of Nassau. My own parish is called All Saints', and it is the whole island of Andros, being 120 miles long and 60 broad. I have a population of 6,000 people scattered along the northern shore of the island, in some thirty odd villages. All the villages are on one side of the island, and owing to its being so cut up by creeks and outlets to the ocean, there are no roads through the land—all our travelling has to be done in boats along the waterway inside the reef amidst rocks, sandbanks, shoals, &c., which make it very difficult and dangerous travelling. We have 1,400 Church people, 540 communicants, and 9 churches built, 4 more in course of building, Sunday schools and day schools. Each station has a catechist—a black man—who carries on a service weekday and Sunday, and keeps Sunday school. I have to travel up and down the 120 miles in my little Mission yacht. We have no shops in the island; all we want in the way of provisions we get from Nassau, 70 miles across the ocean. There are a few white settlers on the island now, who have only come within the last three years to cultivate a new plant for the manufacture of ropes. As I am a doctor and a magistrate as well as a priest, I find plenty to do on my travels, there being no doctor on the island. You can hardly imagine how primitive we are, no horses, no sheep or cows, no carts, nor, indeed, any signs of civilisation. The villages are clusters of little white rock-built houses all over the bushes, and the land is frightfully rocky and in many parts barren. The chief occupation of our people is sponge fishing. Some 300 vessels and boats are employed in fishing sponges and carrying them to the Nassau market in return for stores and provisions. Consequently very little cultivation is carried on, and that only by the women, who, of course, do not go sponge fishing, or, as we call it here, 'sponging.’ The greater part of the people are professedly Baptists. This is because our Church did not begin work amongst them directly after the emancipation; the Baptist Society did. But, oddly enough, after some years' work amongst the people, the Baptists left them almost, and the people, clinging to that form, the only one they knew, managed to mix it up with a lot of heathen customs and superstitions they learnt from their African fathers. We have now an active Mission of a Bishop and 19 priests, and in the whole colony we have as the result of some 30 years’ work 17,000 Church people. We work on strict Church lines, having open discipline in the Church, which is necessary for our people. But alas! we are so little known. Partly because we are modest! and partly because West Indian Missions have not the romance about them that African and Indian Missions have. We have no lions and tigers, snakes and slavery and heathenism, and only a thorough hard work of building up in the faith thousands who would become heathen again if left alone, as in the case of Hayti. Yet we have our sea adventures, hairbreadth escapes, in perils truly of waters, having to be months and months on the sea up and down. I have told you nothing of our work at the headquarters of the Mission, of our schools, my wife's work amongst the women, of our church-building schemes and many other things." Here is an account of a dinner party to which the staff of the Archbishop's Mission to the ASSYRIAN CHRISTIANS were recently invited:— "Soon after the arrival of the last batch of missionaries the members of the staff received a general invitation to dinner from the Bishop of the diocese. It may afford an interesting glimpse of the genius of the language if I mention that this meal (which should, perhaps, more strictly be described as supper) is called by the Syrians acolrumsha, i.e., the evening meal, but in speaking the first part of the word is suppressed, and the word becomes rumsha—pronounced with a slight breathing before the initial letter! At first we were asked by word of mouth, through Mr. Browne, who was then spending a short time at Urmi; but on the morning of the event we received the following formal document. I cannot reproduce the exact form of the monogram consisting of the first two letters of the name of Almighty God which a Syrian never omits at the head of a letter, with three dots above it and one below, in reference to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, but the rest of the letter I will give word for word:— “’Bidding "’To the Reverend Apostles, Peace. "’You will kindly give yourselves the trouble of being with us to-night. We will eat together supper in Persian fashion, and will drink a little wine to the health of the Reverend Mr. Browne. Let not one of your company be absent; even your cat leave not behind. You will make us glad. "’Your lover, Yaku, "’GAURIEL, BISHOP.' "Perhaps I ought to explain that Yaku (James) is the Bishop's baptismal name, Gauriel (Gabriel) his hereditary name as Bishop of Urmi, assumed on accession to the See. "Shortly before 7 P.M. we sallied forth, duly habited in cap and gown (except the cat, who preferred to remain at home), accompanied by two servants carrying large paper lanterns of the ordinary Japanese type, but quite grotesquely huge. We soon reached the Episcopal residence (perhaps it would be a little misleading to call it a palace!), and were met at the door by several deacons who attend our school, and were called by the Bishop to do honour to his feast by acting as servants. They took off our shoes on reaching the entrance of the guest room, an apartment of considerable size, where the rest of the company were assembled, and we were received by Mar Gauriel with a hearty ‘Shlama lochon' (‘Peace be with you’), to which, of course, we duly answered, ‘B'Shaina Aboona’ (‘In peace, little Father')—the proper mode of addressing one's bishop! Then there was much handshaking and exchanging of peace with the dozen guests who were invited to meet us, whilst we made our way discreetly to the other end of the room. I say discreetly, because as the feast was set out on the floor extending nearly the whole length of the room, it was necessary to move warily to avoid treading on the viands. The Bishop took his place as host at the head of the 'table,' placing us on either side of him, squatting or kneeling, of course, upon the floor. The Bishop then took off his fez, a sign that grace was about to be said, and as all the guests except ourselves were covered—some wearing the tall black Persian hat which the Shah has made a familiar object of our native shores, others the fez or the turban, or the two combined—they all followed his example. Bending forward over the food—not without risk on our part of falling on our faces among the dishes—the Bishop blesses the food: all present make the sign of the cross, the Lord's Prayer is said, and almost before the Amen has been uttered the Bishop, replacing his fez, bows to his guests and says, ‘Thank you,' to which all respond, 'Thank you,' or ‘Peace.' Next he tells us that our presence purifies his house, and probably that his house and all it contains is ours—which sounds extremely generous, but of course really means nothing beyond the fact that he is pleased to have us for his guests, and wishes to assure us of his hospitable intentions. He then presses upon us a liqueur glass of arak, the native spirit, and, taking a little himself, he drinks our health, or rather our love, as the Syrian phrase Habochon means. We rejoin, Haniloch (‘may it be pleasant to you'). And with such agreeable speeches we settle down to the serious work of the evening.

"It may not seem a very serious thing to eat a dinner, but I would ask any reckless critics who are tempted to raise the question whether ‘serious’ is a legitimate adjective in this connection, to do two things before pronouncing an opinion: first, to take their next meal on the floor, and secondly, to arrange to eat (without, of course, knives and forks) the same kind of viands one has set before one out here! These are almost as difficult to describe as to digest. In front of each person there is a large oval sheet of bread, roughly about a foot and a-half by a foot in dimension, very much like a limp sheet of coarse brown paper and scarcely thicker. Upon this is placed a basin of meat (generally unutterably tough) in gravy, and by it another bowl of boiled rice, with which all kinds of curious seeds are mixed, rather suggestive of peppercorns and carraway seeds. Innumerable little plates or saucers fill up all available space upon the tablecloth, containing pickles, such as mixtures of cabbage, capsicums, sliced onions, and celery in vinegar, or a gruesome-looking compound which does duty for cheese, and other unknown quantities. You dip from the bowls of meat with a wooden spoon, generally about as big as a tablespoon, or if you are very orthodox you gaily tear off pieces of your bread and skilfully help yourself with your fingers to bits of meat by means of them, tearing off a fresh morsel of bread for each mouthful. Several courses of meat follow one another, including the inevitable chicken, or ‘little cock,' as the Syrians generally call it. This bears but the faintest trace of resemblance to the Western bird of domestic

[사진] DISTENSARY, NAK TONG: SOUTH ASPECT. (Taken from Hospital Verandah.)

consumption, and partly from being suffered to live till within an hour or so of being eaten, and partly, probably, from a total indifference to the duration of its mortal existence, as well as from mode of cooking, it is tasteless, stringy, and altogether uninteresting. The next course was goose, at the Bishop's dinner a rather special delicacy, which, however; answers pretty much to the description of the ‘little cock,' save for the apple sauce that went with it. The Bishop himself, of course, eats none of these carnal dainties, as flesh in all forms is denied him. He has a considerable quantity of omelette, boiled eggs, spinach, onions, sour cabbage, potatoes, and perhaps other vegetables put before him in a large bowl. These are all very good, and are provided also in other dishes, separately, for the guests; but the Bishop, who is the soul of hospitality, presses those sitting near him to dip into his dish. The wine of the country, the pure juice of the grape, red and white, is passed freely, but partaken of frugally, and by none more frugally than by the Bishop.

“Excellent fruit is handed round towards the end of the meal, including melons, grapes, quinces, apples, and pears. Then a small glass of sweet but very good coffee, after which grace is said, and long pipes are produced. Presently a waterpipe, somewhat of the construction of the Turkish nargilet, is produced, and with much ceremony is handed round, strictly in order of precedence, to all guests in turn. I am thankful, however, to say that non-smokers are readily excused, and give no offence by politely refusing the ‘inspiring weed.’ Just before nine o'clock all guests ceremoniously but hastily decamp, for without an order from the Governor it is not lawful to be out in the city after nine. As it is we hear the clock of the Americans strike the hour before we reach our door, and are suspiciously eyed by some disreputable-looking villains, who turn out to be the night guard. The air of eminent respectability, however, imparted by our caps and gowns, and the general sobriety of our appearance, seemed to reassure these worthy representatives of the Shah, and they did not put us into the city gaol, as I believe they might have done (and stranger things do happen in Persia), but graciously allowed us to reach the Mission House unmolested."

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