Morning Calm v.6 no.56(1895 Feb.)

THE MORNING CALM. No. 56, VOL. VI.] FEBRUARY 1895. [PRICE 1d.

Note.

[Up to the time of going to press we have not received a letter from the Bishop for this month's magazine.-ED.] Association of Prayer and Work for Corea. THREE new localities appear in our lists this month, namely, Hinton St. George, in Somerset, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Cornwood, Manchester, in which latter place a branch of the Association is being started by Mrs. Weir, our former Secretary at Thurlby. Mrs. Weir is succeeded at Thurlby by Miss Bettinson. The Hon. Mrs. Nelson has kindly consented to replace Mrs. C. E. York (who has moved to Portsmouth) at Gosport. We have received an account of a most successful enter-tainment held at Hinton St. George on December 31st, presided over by the Rev. Robert Dolling, consisting of a lantern lecture on Corea, delivered by Mr. Hillary, of 97 Vassall Road, the slides being shown by Mr. Love, with songs and music. The Corean costumes also were on views. Our Secretary at Newport Pagnel sends an account of a meeting held at Great Linford Manor, addressed by Mr. Trollope, who has been speaking also during December at Beccles, at Great Yarmouth, Homersfield with St. Cross, The Frythe, and other Association centres. We have received, with the January reports, the sum of ￡10. 5s. as the result of Mrs. Rudge's December Sale of Work at Basset. Special thanks are due, Mrs. Rudge says, to the Newport Pagnel Working Party, which, as well as her own working party, contributed many articles to the Sale. A fresh set of Corean women's clothes has been kindly brought home by Mr. Trollope for the Association Corea Box, and he has also given to the Association a copy of "Lumen,” Which will be sent for meetings, &c., when desired. A new edition of the Association paper on Corea will be ready as soon ns, or soon after, this Morning Calm is published, and may be had on application to the General Secretary. Copies will be sent to all the secretaries ; also the Report forms for 1895. The following corrections should be made in the list of preachers for the Mission, of which every Secretary has a copy. The Rev. Canon Warner's address should be altered to Stoke Rectory, Grantham, and that of the Rev. C. E. Cockin to Elton Rectory, Hull.

The General Secretary now earnestly asks all the Local Secretaries to look carefully through the names and accounts belonging to their localities in the four flyleaves of 1894. sent out with the May, August, and November 1894, and February 1895 numbers of Morning Calm, and to inform her without delay of any mistakes or omissions that they may find in them, in order that such mistakes or omissions may not be perpetuated in the Annual Report. Notices of any matters concerning the Mission which the secretaries wish to see recorded in the Annual Report will also be most gratefully received by the General Secretary, and must reach her before the middle of February. As the usual date for April reports will this year fall in Holy Week, which would doubtless be an inconvenient time for secretaries to despatch them, and an impossible time for the General Secretary to receive and prepare them for the printers, she is compelled very reluctantly to change the date, and to ask secretaries to be so kind as to send in their first reports for 1895 during the last ten days of March, March 20-30, instead of the first ten days of April. She hopes that this will not occasion any serious inconvenience. Any subscriptions which cannot be got in so soon should be reserved for the July quarter. The Secretary of the Children's Branch (Mrs. Goodenough) has gone abroad for three months. All her letters will be forwarded, and she will answer them with as little delay as possible.

M. M. CHAMBERS HODGETTS, General Secretary. Exeter : jan. 10th, 1895.

Society of the Sacred Mission.

It has lain some time on our conscience that, after the kindly response made last autumn to our appeal for help in furnishing our chapel, we have given no account of our doings. For that response our most grateful thanks are due first. I have, I believe and trust, thanked every donor individually. We have not quite reached the inhuman condition of needing nothing further.

There are still a few things which are outside our means, but all that is necessary for a really dignified service is there. Tiny as our chapel is, we contrive to be as much proud of it as reli-gious discipline permits, and as fond too-though religious dis-cipline imposes much more slender barriers to this emotion. Our life during the last six months has been so full of momentous changes that it is somewhat difficult at the end to speak of so many things. We have mentioned already that four new men joined the House as students at the end of August. The fifth did not arrive till October 17th. Accord-ing to our rule, all men join first with the view to being associates-that is to say, that, although they come with the full intention of giving their lives to missionary work, without marrying or receiving pay, and although they live, while in the House, under the full religious discipline, they are not members of the Society. nor in any way bound to it, when their time of residence and training is completed. These additions raised our number to fifteen, which made the House a little full till Christmas, when four men were bound to leave for Central Africa. One of these, however, failed to pass his final medical examination, and it seems probable that family reasons will now require his removal both from the work and from the Society. Although his reasons have received the full approval of the Society, it is as great a blow to us as it is to him ; all the more as he was the only one going out as a member, and, so far as we can see, the only one we can send now for some years. Mr. Smith, who has given us so much help in lecturing for two years past-in fact, I do not see how we could have gone on without him-left at the beginning of October, and Mr. Mackesy (of Keble and Ely), who has been working for some years as a priest near Liverpool, joined at the end of November. Very earnestly we hope that God will make the way clear for his remaining long with us. No man could supply more efficiently just the elements we most need.

If the loss of our Central African novice has been a blow to the Society, it is the only one we have received from God in a time which has been otherwise marked by nothing but blessing, and by a progress so rapid as to make one anxious lest its very rapidity might involve some hidden trial. Just as our friends were reading their October magazines we were holding our Annual Festival. Outwardly, it was on a smaller scale than ever, for we did not go outside our own chapel, and with fifteen House members present there is little enough room for anyone else. On September 29th the Director, before all the members, made his solemn profession of intention to give his whole life to God in the Society. On October 2nd, the Festival of the Guardian Angels, Fr. Woodward made his profession similarly before the Director. In the evening, Fr. Wainwright, of St. Peter's, London Docks, gave us a very helpful address. The first professions are a great event ; our next was the formal constitution for the Society. It is just two and a half years since we drew up our first constitution, complete in itself, however tentative. Ever since it has been growing and develop-ing as we learnt more of what we might look for in the future. On November 1st and 2nd we held the First Great Chapter of the Society, certainly small enough in actual numbers ; but it is a great gain to have things in form, and it was a great gain to have Fr. Woodward's great, and almost unique, practical experience both of missions and missionaries. The whole was thoroughly revised and ordered to be printed, and after some delay we managed to get our first copies in time for the Retreat (January 1st). Now, at last, therefore, we have a definite and recognisable system of our own. Fr. Woodward left for Central Africa as Provincial on November 15th. We hear he passed Christimas at Zanzibar. The death of Bishop Smythies will probably for some time prevent the establishment of our own special house at Magila.

Our regular December Retreat we put off to the beginning of the New Year (January 1st to the 5th) as a quieter season. It was a great rest, a time of peculiar blessings which may not be spoken of. All the men who had latest joined the House, together with one of our oldest, offered themselves to the Society, and we had the rare experience of making in the same week five novices, and one, whose time is not quite complete, a postulant. Our time has not been wholly absorbed by these things. We have even found time to play football matches-some of us for the first time in our lives. I cannot say the results are startling as an encouragement, but our numbers are scanty, our playing field a long way off, and we improved a good deal. Now that we have lost two players we cannot make up a team at all, but perhaps when next season comes round we shall get on better. Two very kind people offered us a holiday trip, and we made solemn pilgrimage to Canterbury (October 29th). A football challenge was sent to our brothers, the missionary students of St. Augustine's, and they gave us a welcome more than brotherly. The occasion has become almost historic, no two missionary colleges of our Church being known to have so met before. At the end of term a team returned the visit, but, as they were on their way home, they could not stay long, nor for the same reason could their best team play. The first match we lost by one goal to nothing, and the second was a draw.

If we look at the past, every feeling, even the abiding sense of penitence for one's own shortcomings, is overpowered in wonder and gratitude at what God has done. In the future we shall find-we may discern now-difficulties, and we must expect our share of losses and disappointments-yet we are but labourers, a very small organisation of very young, very ignorant and imperfect helpers in God's Church. She will continue triumphant whatever befalls us, and where she triumphs and Christ triumphs in her we should be content to fail, if God needs us not. Either way, in success or failure, it is well for us while we do His Will. Ad gloriam Dei in ejus voluntate. HERBERT KELLY, S.S.M., Director. House of the Sacred Mission, 97 Vassall Road, Kennington, S.W.: January 10th, 1895.

The Spirit of Missions.

"We have to protect-our position in the world makes it imperative for us to protect-uncivilised continents against civilised vice, to deliver the Gospel to every creature, to plant Apostolic churches on every shore, and to renew the loving alliance with the nations.”-The Archbishop of Canterbury. THE last annual report of the Mission of the American Church at Port Hope, Alaska, is more than usually interesting, and not Wanting in the record of the difficulties which generally accom-pany work in that region. Dr. Driggs, the heroic medical missionary at Port Hope, gives an interesting account of his school and dispensary work, and then says without the least sign that it is to be considered in any special degree a hardship : “On October 13th, 1893, during a very severe blizzard, the sea came breaking on the land, driving the natives out of the village, and forcing me to desert the Mission building. At first I did not intend doing so, but a wave burst in the door and I thought it best to leave. After an absence of seven days I returned home and found that no damage had been done to the house outside of the bursting-in of the door. Out of doors everything looked desolate. Along the ocean front the land been cut away to a considerable extent, and all the snow had been so thoroughly saturated by the ocean water and spray that none could be procured suitable for melting for household use. On the night of my return another big storm arose, and the follow-ing evening I thought it best to desert the house before I was again forced to repeat my former experience of dodging waves and wading through ice-water and slush, a performance I did not care to repeat, as I had slightly frozen my feet, and had been forced to thaw them out with snow. That night I slept alongside of a dog-sled, with a few lumps of snow thrown up as a wind-break, and then continued my trip back to the mountains, where I met some belated natives and stayed with them in a sort of brush-wood shelter, living on uncooked, frozen fish. By November 1st, there having been an abundance of snow storms and the weather being sufficiently settled, I again returned home and opened school for the second time. My first day over, I was feeling somewhat discouraged, but soon had those feelings dispelled, by striking a fresh bear track, so I knew that the ice pack could not be far off, and that the ocean would soon be imprisoned by ice. A young woman, who had been a pupil at the Mission my second year, was overtaken by these blizzards while on the cliffs on the mainland, and is supposed to have been blown off into the ocean, as she and a young man who was with her have never been heard of since. "I believe it best for the safety of the Mission building that it should be moved south-east of its present position 300 yards, on land which is three feet higher, and would place it nearer the centre of the Point, and about as far away from the ocean on either side as it could be placed. Unfortunately, there are no suitable materials procurable here, or I should risk the under-taking myself this summer.

“An urgent need of the Mission is lumber to build a perma-nent snow-entry to the house, also a large-sized wood-shed, where the wood could be stored in summer for the following winter’s use. It is not an easy matter to tunnel into these immense snow-drifts to get to my wood-pile. Each fall I have built snow-sheds for sawing the wood in, but nine months is rather too long a time for a snow-shed to prove itself serviceable, as the high winds are continually cutting the blocks of snow away, besides which a snow-shed cannot be built until there is plenty of well packed snow on the ground, and by that time the wood-pile is deeply buried. If some friend would make the Mission a gift of the necessary lumber, tools, &c, I could move the house, and build a permanent wood-shed and snow-entry. The latter is as much needed as the former, for the cold winds cut into the Mission building and make it difficult a great deal of the time even comfortably to warm the house."-- New York Spirit of Missions. The following letter from the Rev. Dr. Hine, in Central Africa, speaks for itself: - "One doesn't realise heathendom till one sees oneself what it is. And then it comes as a terrible revelation. To-day at mid-day the boys came and told me that a woman was being burnt alive at a place within sight of the house, and about two miles distant. I didn't believe it, because only the other day we had a false report of this kind brought to us, and were told afterwards that Kalanji did not allow burnings to take place here. Moreover, I looked for a long time at the place through a telescope, but could see nothing at all except a few people quietly lingering in the neighbouring shambas. However, the boys persisted it was true, that they had seen the people going to the place carrying loads of maize-stalks to burn her with, and could even then see the fire. So I set off to see for myself. When I got near the place, which was among a group of grave-trees, I saw the grass all about was in flames; but this was not remarkable, as grass fires have been all about us lately. But when I got a little nearer a sudden whiff as of burning flesh made me suspicious that the story might be true, and a little further on I saw it was. The body (of a woman, I was told) was lying on a heap of ashes, face downwards, with the charred remains of the skull and hands projecting from the end, and fastened to a small tree, the feet apparently having been fastened to another tree behind. All the flesh on face and arms had been destroyed, but the body was still burning, frizzling and spitting in the flames--a horrible sight, such as I never thought to see in my life. There was no one there, the people having gone away, I suppose, as soon as life was extinct, leaving the tire to burn itself out by itself. It was a ghastly spot; skulls and human bones lying on the ground near, and the tree festooned with the bits of calico and other similar offerings which these people make to the spirits of the dead. They told me the woman had committed witchcraft, and that she was not one of Kalanji's people, but belonged to a man named Che Luwowele, who, I think, has just entered into possession as an under-chief, in place of an old man who died some months ago. I was told Kalanji knew nothing about it, and I suppose if he had known he could have done nothing, as it was not one of his people. I, myself, probably should have been powerless, had I even known in time, but, as it was, the thing was practically done before I heard of it, and I could not in any case have reached the place in time to render any help. “Facts like these impress upon us that there is much need of a Mission to the Yaos. It brings to mind the burnings which took place at Likoma in the early days of the Mission there. May this burning here, like that of the women at Likoma, be the last that Unangu will ever see." The following letter from Father Congreve to the Cowley Evangelist gives an exceedingly interesting account of a great Hindu festival : - "I am stopping here [at Allahabad] one night on my way from Calcutta to Bombay, in order to see Fr. Goreh, now a visitor at St. Paul's College here. The Bishop of Lucknow most kindly invited me to stay at his house, and after luncheon sent us in his carriage to see the Mela, a great religious assembly of Hindus from all parts of India. This Mela is held once in twelve years ; the pilgrims encamp in the neighbourhood of the junction of the Ganges and Jumna for several days ; this was, however, the most sacred day of all, and the number of pilgrims has been greater than any other day of the festival. Imagine a concourse of from 700,000 to a million Hindus from every part of India, with every variety of dialect and costume, gathered for solemn worship of the sacred Ganges and the sacred Jumna, where the two rivers meet The gathering had all the solemnity and significance which any huge national gathering must have; one feels on such an occasion the enormous power of a nation, and they feel it themselves. But it was still more the intense spirit of religion kindling this vast multitude that made it such a solemn sight. There was the usual mixture of the trivial with the serious, as one finds it always in human nature, which can seldom sustain great earnestness for a long time, but needs to seek relief in what is trivial now and then. So there seemed to be many attractions for the less religious, or for those whose serious-ness was overstrained-booths, with little shows to feast curious eyes, at a cheap rate; a two-headed cow, &c., tom-toms and bag-pipes also expressed the festive character of the assembly. But, deeper than all this, there was one strong stream of religious reverence and desire, which carried all the multitude along with one spiritual movement. The impulse one felt to be nothing less than the desire of man seeking after God.

“The mass of the people seemed to be encamped under trees by the roadside, or along the river. The river itself was fringed with boats at anchor full of pilgrims. spending the day, perhaps several days, on the sacred water. Others reposed themselves on bedsteads, or on wooden platforms fixed in the shallow river. The principal devotion is to bathe in the water where the two sacred streams meet. As a preparation for the religious rite, every male pilgrim gets his head shaved (the Government gets a considerable revenue from the fee the barbers pay for their licence on this occasion.) As soon as he comes CHIEF BUDDHA IN POSK-HAN TEMPLE. Within sight of the sacred river, the pilgrim does puja, making nis forehead touch the earth. Then he comes down to the river and bathes ; he is baptized, his whole being has been dipped Into the Divine ; he comes out of the sacred element with a joyous consciousness that he is clean every whit, that his sins are washed away, that God has received him, that he is the friend and servant of the gods, a true Hindu. “The next great devotion is that of the processions of Fakeers, who are marshalled in several bodies, according to their separate orders or sects, as followers and disciples of certain founders of famous families of ascetics. The Fakeers are all encamped apart from the multitude on a flat and bare island in the river ; and at certain times in the day they pass from their island, and go in procession through the crowds of pilgrims on their way to bathe, and return in the saine order. So, at least, I was told, but I feel doubtful, because there was no trace on the bodies of these naked men, who passed close to us, 1,000 they say in one procession, of their ever having touched water. Their bodies were begrimed with the sacred white ash of burnt cow dung, which spreads a ghastly whiteness over the natural dark brown of the Hindu skin. Their hair, I suppose (as it was enjoined in the Nazarite's rule), is never cut from the day of their dedication ; it hangs in squalid-looking and faded tangles, or plaits, which sometimes hang about their shoulders, and sometimes are twisted round the head like a turban. Some were absolutely without clothing, except that of their matted locks; some wore only a steel chain round the waist ; some were mutilated; some had a bit of cloth round the loins. The multitude kept very good order, and left a broad lane for the processions to pass through them, The Fakeers walked rather quickly, two and two, holding each other's hands. At every few steps they sent up a shout with one voice, ‘Victory of Nana Guru!' (or whatever the name of the Patriarch Guru of their order might be). This shout went up with a thrilling fervour. There was something that made one feel afraid in the scene, in the false excitement and spiritual movement it expressed. Think of it: 1,000 men, of the same great Aryan race from which we ourselves are sprung, as capable of Christianity as we, walking naked in honour of God, whom they know not, but whom they seek to please by a life of horrible loneliness, dirt, pain, and idleness. Perhaps the saddest part of the Fakeer life is its professed selfishness. The object in life of each of these spiritual athletes is to accumulate merit for himself. Hinduism creates no brotherhood, no communion of saints. Each saint becomes a saint for his own self-exaltation.

”The Fakeers see themselves worshipped by the crowd, and you can see in their faces the foolish pride of their solitary elevation. Many of them are more boys or fourteen. Every face was ghastly with a smearing of white ashes ; a few may have had good features ; some were extremely repulsive ; there were faces that were not human, bloated and changed from the natural Hindu brown to the blackness of coal, by I know not what ascetical discipline. But 700,000 on their fellow-country men worshipped them. The moment the procession of saints had passed with their shout of ‘Victory of Nana Guru!' the people threw themselves on the ground the saints had trodden, and rubbed their hands in the earth consecrated by the feet of the Ascetics, and then wiped their faces with their dusty hands, and touched the five senses with the earth, and some put it into their mouth, and many carried away a bit of the earth from the road as a relique This was, perhaps, the most startling moment ; nobody was ashamed of this worship of the ascetics, it was no cold bowing in the House of Rimmon it was a burn-ing love of what is most sacred, man's natural love of goodness, who has not learnt where to find it. There was a full propor-tion of young men in this multitude, and I did not see any who had not had his head shaved as a preparation for the sacred rites.

"I forgot to tell you of another class of Fakeers, whose special profession disables them from joining in the processions of their brethren ; they also were to be seen at the Mela, exhibited for edification and for pice. One who for many years has sat with his arms lifted straight up over his head, till they have grown rigid, and can never again be lowered to their natural position; the finger-nails in the course of years have grown to be seven inches long, and like talons of vultures. Another who lies upon a bed of sharp nails ; another who carries an enormous weight of iron chains round his neck, waist, and ankles. When he travels by rail, the company decline to take him except as freight, and weigh him. "Among the crowds encamped above the river were several missionary tents, where there were C.M.S. missionaries preach-ing. There was also an Arya-Somaj tent and preaching, whose main object is to oppose Christ in India. We were questioning together afterwards whether it was wise to preach Christ on such an occasion as this, in the midst of a crowd in such fervour of religion. But a clergyman told us he had just heard of a pilgrim coming to the C.M.S. bookshop to buy a New Testament and Christian tracts, in consequence of the preaching of Christianity, which he had heard for the first time at the Mela. "The sad thought remains, after seeing the great national religious ceremony, that what we are doing to make the true Light known to the Indian races under our rule is so little. Such a sight as this makes one conscious of the vast capacity for real religion which belongs to these races. It is pathetic to think of the natural capacity of sacrifice for God involved in those processions of the Fakeers. What enthusiasm of the love of God and man might be kindled in men so willing to endure Hardships for love of the highest idea they have apprehended.

"A Hindu gentleman told me that in past days Indian kings have enlisted large numbers of Fakeers to fight their battles, as men more than ordinarily strong and energetic, and fit for war, through their ascetic discipline and habitual self-denial. It is saddening to see the materials of virtue and saintliness appro-priated and ruined in the service of the world and the devil.

"When we arrived at the Mela we met a teacher of the C.M.S. College, who most kindly took me through the crowds, and showed me everything. On my return to the Bishop's Lodge, the Cathedral bell was ringing for evensong. We had left 700,000 persons engaged in fervent religious service, worship-ping the river Ganges ; in the Cathedral I found only two persons at worship, who were offering a service worth more than that of all the 700,000 put together. One was a clergyman who has been a visitor with us at Cowley, the other a Hindu layman. The clergyman read the Psalms in English, the Hindu responded in his own language, while I joined him in English. The shouts of the Fakeers' Victory of Nana Guru !’ were still ringing in my ears when I came into the side chapel of the quiet Cathedral and joined in the song of the Blessed Mary. It was like passing at one step from midnight to clear morning, At Matins next day I found about thirty little Christian maidens (Miss Goreh’s orphanage) at the service in the same side chapel, singing ‘Benedicite.’ Here, in the praises of the children, was the strength of God manifested in weakness. It took four men to hold one Fakeer, wild with the frenzy of a false religion ; but here was true strength, wisdom, and joy in the hymns of Christian children: ‘the spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.’”