Morning Calm v.1 no.2(1890 Aug.)

Liverpool, July 16, 1890.

DEAR FRIENDS,

On the day of my departure from England I have only time, and fortunately for me the Editor has only room, for a very few lines. Last Thursday I saw Dr. Wiles off from this port in the s.s." Parisian," and was thus enabled to express to the Committee of the Naval Fund (which held its quarterly meeting on the following Saturday) my satisfaction not only that the Mission had at last started for Korea, but that the first start had been made by the Navy. And now that he is gone I can tell you that the officer in charge of the administration of this fund-the first to begin our work in Korea-is a volunteer who gives to the Mission his large experience of over thirty years, and gives it gratuitously, refusing to be chargeable to the fund. There is a good ring about this. It is an example which is good for us to follow. I want all the workers in this mission to be volunteers, prompted by nothing but the desire to relieve the sufferings of humanity, whether those sufferings be spiritual or physical. Next I am glad to tell you that last May the S.P.G. increased our annual grant to £1,500, which enables me to ask for more men and to provide accommodation and maintenance for, I hope, a dozen men instead of the half-dozen for whom I appealed last November.

The Rev. M. N. Trollope, of St. James's, Great Yarmouth, has made his sacrifice, and follows me at the end of the year in company with two more deacons and, I hope, another priest. A kind friend has given me £50 towards the maintenance of two blue-jackets (who will help us with the printing press which the chaplains of the Royal Navy have given me), and I am now awaiting a reply from the Admiralty to a request that two seamen who have volunteered may be allowed to do what their Lordships allowed me to do last November.

Thus I am able to tell you of at least ten men who have already volunteered for this work, and who hope, please God, to be engaged in it on the spot long before this time next year. But others have also volunteered. Their need of instruction and training, however, made it impossible for me to entertain their applications until the other day, when the Rev. H. Kelly, of Queen's College, Oxford, asked to be allowed to throw in his lot with us, and consented at my suggestion to remain behind and test the vocation of these young men, who are all gaining their living by honest employment, and who, if they give up that, give up all they possess. Thus we have already become “two bands," and you will have to pray as earnestly for those whom we leave behind as for those who are to come to Korea this year. I am leaving to-day for New York, where I expect to be joined by Dr. Landis, our second doctor. With him I hope to visit some of my brother bishops in America and Canada, and tell them what we hope to do in Korea by means of their prayers and yours. But whilst I am moving away from England my letters will every month run back to you, and my affection and prayers will never leave you. When, therefore, you receive this letter join with me in a hearty thanksgiving to Almighty God for all that He has enabled us to do for Him and His Holy Church. Nor whilst we are all thankful to God do I forget to express my thankfulness to you, my children and grown-up friends, poor and rich, afloat and ashore, for your continuous kindness to me. God bless you all "you and your children." I am always your affectionate, C. J. CORFE.

Education Fund. As former Secretary of the old “Association for Intercessory Prayer for Korea," I should like in a few words to explain to those readers of the Magazine who may not be aware of it that this Association has now been merged into the one for “ Prayer and Work," and therefore I have transferred the names of the members that were on my list to Miss Chambers Hodgetts, the General Secretary, who will regard them as members of the present Association unless she hears to the contrary. I would remind them too that, as with the old, so with the new Associates, there is no subscription, but we hope that the Association will continue to interest others in the Mission and get new members to pray for it. I am now placed in temporary charge of the fund for the “Education of boys and girls in Korea" (until the Bishop's friends in Guernsey have completed their arrangments). This fund is of very recent growth, and has not yet been organised. I cannot do better therefore than to put before the readers of the Morning Calm the object of this fund, as it is stated by the Bishop in his Monthly Letter for June: "The opening of the country to intercourse with Western nations has naturally given an impetus to the study of Western literature and Western methods of thought. If we may believe what we read, the king has already done much to encourage his subjects to learn English. It is possible therefore that an opening for secular education may be affored me before anything else. If so, I want to take advantage of it immediately, and to secure as teachers those who shall be Church people, for there will be no difficulty in finding those who are not when the demand for English education does come. "During my recent visit to Guernsey a suggestion was made which seemed to meet with general approval, namely, that a fund for this purpose might very fitly be commenced in the place where I myself was educated, and with which my dear uncle, the Principal of Elizabeth College, was for over a quarter of a century connected. But the suggestion made there is capable of development, and already boys and girls of the school age, who are working for the Mission in two different parishes in London, have devoted their money to this fund. I delight to think that we are able to find work for so many kinds of workers.” This fund therefore is to provide Koreans with Christian

schoolmasters and schoolmistresses when the demand is made for secular education. Schoolboys and schoolgirls who wish to help the Bishop are accordingly invited to send a trifle o their pocket-money to me. I have already received the following contributions: Offertory, Lancing College, Shoreham, Whit Sunday From Edinburgh

EVA D. WILSON, Secretary in temporary charge of Education Fund.

Naval Fund for hospitals, korea Mission. SHORTLY after All Saints' Day last year, when Dr. Corfe was consecrated as Missionary Bishop for the Korea, a general wish was expressed by his old Service friends to help him in the arduous work to which God had called him. They wished to perpetuate the ties which for so many years had united him to seamen and marines, though he would no longer minister in our ships and barracks. And as it became known that he proposed to commence his work by endeavouring to establish hospitals in connection with his Mission, it was decided that the Navy should make this part of the Bishop's work its special care. This was the origin of the fund which is designated for brevity “ Bishop Corfe's Mission (H.N.F.).” At a preliminary meeting held December 6, 1889, the scheme was discussed, and the regulations approved at a subsequent meeting on December 21, 1889. The peculiar nature of the Naval Service-officers and men being scattered all over the world, and ever fluctuating from station to station required a special organisation, and the following was adopted : There will be a General Committee, to consist of a President, Vice-President, and as many members as are willing to join. All contributors who belong to, or have belonged to, the Royal Navy or Royal Marine Forces, both officers and men, are eligible to be members. Each member of the General Committee shall promote the object by such means as his opportunities offer, acting according to his own discretion. Obvious ways of asisting will be to interest as many others as possible on every naval station, to furnish information, and forward donations and subscriptions. Contributions will be received from any other persons, as in the analogous case of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa; but none shall be admitted on the Committees except those connected with the Navy and Marines, thus preserving the purely Service character of the fund. There will also be an Executive Committee, which will meet in London as necessary for the transaction of business, and will keep the members of the General Committee

and subscribers informed as to the progress of the work. They will remit the money collected to the Bishop as required, leaving to him complete control of its administration for his hospita's. Admiral H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh readily consented to be President of the General Committee, the Vice-Presidents of which are Flag Officers of the Navy, Field Officers of the Marines, and representatives from among the senior ranks of every line in H.M. Naval Service. The Executive Committee consists chiefly of those who, residing near London, can find it convenient to attend the meetings, which take place once a quarter. The Chairman is the Rev. J. B. Harbord, Chaplain of the Fleet, retired, who is also one of Bishop Corfe's commissaries. At the last meeting of the Executive Committee (April 12, 1890) a communication was read from the Bishop, in which he stated he had accepted the offer of Deputy Surgeon-General J. Wiles to connect himself with the Mission and to go out to the Korea for two years. He also informed us that he is now in a position to ask the Consul-General at Seoul to look for premises in Chemulpo which would be suitable for a hospital. Here Dr. Wiles will probably begin work, as the Bishop hopes to be able shortly to secure the services of another doctor for the mission house in the capital. If these premises can be procured, they would be either purchased or rented with the money provided by the Hospital Naval Fund. The contributions received for this fund up to January 18, 1890, were acknowledged as an appendix to Bishop Corfe's Monthly Letter No. 4, amounting to £150. 2s. A list of additional donations and subscriptions received up to the present time will be found in another part of the Magazine. korea. LET us take in imagination a rapid trip to Korea just long enough to gain some idea of its scenery and its climate. At this moment we shall very probably find the roads, which are always very bad, almost impassable, for summer is the time for heavy rains as well as great heat. Spring and autumn are the pleasantest seasons, winter being exceedingly cold. Provided there is no wind, we had better adopt the native hats, with brims two feet at least in diameter if we are gentlemen, broad enough to shelter our wives and families if we wish to appear high officials, with narrow cones nine inches high, and all made of split and

woven bamboo, varnished, lacquered, and perfectly weatherproof. Our umbrellas would be regarded, not as unpretentiously useful articles, but as strangely undecorated signs of great dignity and power. The hats are made in Quelpart Island, which we pass as we steam across the Yellow Sea and come in sight of the many islands of the Korean Archipelago, fringing the mainland nearly all round the peninsula. "Sovereign of Ten Thousand Isles" the King of Korea is justly called, and the naturalist Arthur Adams, quoted by Mr. Griffis, poetically describes these islands, saying: “The rough gray granite and basaltic cliffs of which they are composed show them to be only the rugged peaks of submerged mountain masses which have been rent in some great convulsion of nature from the peninsula which stretches out into the sea from the mainland. You gaze upward and see the weird fantastic outline which some of their torn and riven peaks present. In fact, they have assumed such peculiar forms as to have suggested to navigators characteristic names. Here, for example, stand out the fretted, crumbling towers of one called Windsor Castle; there frowns a noble rock ruin, the Monastery; here again, mounting to the skies, the Abbey Peak. Some of the islands ... are very lofty, and one was ascertained to boast of a naked granite peak more than two thousand feet above the level of the’ sea. Many of the summits are crowned with a dense forest of conifers-dark trees, very similar in appearance to Scotch firs.' But, beautiful as this approach may be, the first sight of the mainland at Chemulpho is by no means charming, especially at low tide, when miles of mud flat greet the eye, and the town, once reached, with the help of boats and a favourable tide, is dirty and disagreeable, though improving steadily as Japanese and Europeans settle in it. Söul is about twenty-eight miles distant from Chemulpho, and the road takes us over low hills, rice fields in the valleys, farmhouses looking down on them, the higher ground almost bare of trees or vegetation, and a background of mountains far away in front of us. "Korea is a land of mountains," says Père Dallet in his "Histoire de l'Eglise de la Corée." "Wherever you set foot," wrote a French missionary, "you see nothing but mountains. ... You have sometimes from on board ship gazed at the sea when a strong breeze was raising the waters into an infinitude of little mountains with varied forms. This is in miniature the spectacle now presented to you. You see in every direction thousands of sharp pointed peaks, of great rounded cones, of inaccessible rocks, and further off, on the edge of the horizon, yet higher moun

tains, and thus throughout the whole country. The only exception is a district which stretches out to the Western Sea, and is called the Plain of Nai-po. But by the word "plain" do not understand a broad even surface like our beautiful plains of France; it is simply a part where the mountains are much less high and much more spread out than in the rest of the kingdom.” (“ Histoire de l'Église de la Corée.") (To be continued.) The Spirit of Missions. [The article last week was accidentally broken off in the middle of a sentence.] In order to realise how important are the works of exploration which have been carried out by missionaries—and this without large resources, with no desire for popular applause or scientific prestige, but simply in the course of their ordinary work-we need only think of three recent examples. (1) There is the great exploring journey of Bishop Knight-Bruce through the almost unknown Mashonaland to Zumbo on the Zambesi, as a result of which it is proposed that Mashonaland shall be formed into a new missionary diocese. (2) Then again there is Mr. McMahon's intrepid journey into the land of the Betsiriry of Western Madagascar, never before visited by a white man. Mr. McMahon has received generous support from the S.P.G., so that he will be able shortly to return to Madagascar to begin work among the Betsiriry. (3) And last, though not least, is the attempt now being made by Mr. John Alfred Robinson and Mr. Wilmot Brooke, of the C.M.S., to reach the Sûdan by way of the river Niger. On Good Friday last they reached Lokoja, some 300 miles up the Niger; and since then they have begun the more dangerous part of their journey, the ultimate result of which (God willing) may be to bring the Faith of Christ to the sixty millions of Muhammadans of the Sûdan. But it will be at once seen that these things, and such as these, are but incidents of Mission work itself. They are but the prelude to years of laborious and unselfish labour, where every day has its own difficulties and its own work. The most precious and most devoted parts of that work, dear though they be in God's sight, can never be known to us; but there remains much which has but to be known in order to kindle enthusiasm.

To sum up and present to the reader these events of Missions, to show their working rather than to measure their fruits, to enable men and women of all classes to know the facts of this work of God, just as they can know the facts of daily life in the newspapers-such will be the work which the “Spirit of Missions” sets before itself. It will be concerned with no special society to the exclusion of others, it will not devote itself to the work done in any special country, but will seek to sum up the records of the Church's work in all parts of the world. Many hearts will have gone out with Bishop Tucker, of the C.M.S. Diocese of EASTERN EQUATORIAL AFRICA, who was consecrated on St. Mark's Day, and left the same evening for his distant work. A party oi missionaries had already left England in January for the same destination; and on May 5th a telegram was received by the Society from Frere Town, announcing that Mr. Cotter, one of the party, was ill, and asking that further reinforcements should be sent at once. The call was not in vain; by the evening of May 7th nine volunteers had offered themselves. Of these four were chosen (of whom three were then undergoing the Bishop of London's Ordination Examination), and they left on May 10th for Marseilles, to catch the French mail for Zanzibar! Four days afterwards arrived another telegram, " Cotter at rest," telling that death had already broken in upon the party whom they had started to join. The Bishop reached Frere Town on May 17th. He held an ordination on Trinity Sunday, when two of his staff were ordained priests and one a deacon; and also a confirmation at Ribe (Rabai), when over 200 candidates presented themselves. Early in July the united party set out for Nyanza, where, thanks to the Anglo-German treaty, they will be working in the midst of what is now a vast British territory. We are often asked—and by friends as well as foes—what becomes of those who are educated in the Mission schools. The question has just been answered, as far as CENTRAL AFRICA is concerned, by Archdeacon Jones-Bateman. He has made careful enquiry as to the 273 boys (most of whom were slaves) who have been educated in the Zanzibar schools during the last twentyfive years. And here are his results: 140 are professing Christians (of whom two are in Holy Orders, 32 missionary teachers, and probably more than one-half reverent communicants); 31 are of no faith ; five only have become apostates to Islam; 79 are dead, and the remaining 17 are unaccounted for, It will be seen that this is in the highest degree encouraging.

An interesting development of Missionary work is taking place in the Diocese of MARITZBURG. There are some '20,000 Tamil-speaking people in the diocese; and the Bishop has for some time been seeking for Tamil-speaking clergy in S. India, who would be willing to give up their native land to minister to these emigrants. At length Canon Booth, who is in charge of the work (which has its head-quarters at Durban), was sent by the Bishop to India to confer with the Bishop of Madras. He was in India three weeks, and was successful in obtaining several volunteers. Two of these were students of the S.P.G. College at Madras. One of them, Mr. Solomon Vedakim, had been placed in the first class in the Cambridge Preliminary Theological Examination, which denotes a high standard of proficiency; the other, Mr. Simon Vedamutthu, had been an inspector of schools, was one of the most promising students of the College, and was specially chosen for the work by the Principal, the Rev. Arthur Westcott. These two were ordained deacons by the Bishop of Madras on Sunday, March 16th, at Mylapore. And on the following Tuesday Canon Booth left India with them, together with four certificated male teachers and one female teacher. We believe that these are the first native missionaries who have gone forth from India, though it is possible that the seventy or eighty thousand Coolie settlers in British Guiana are now ministered to by clergy of their own race. Something of the same kind would be very acceptable in Capetown, where Father Puller has a large Malay population under his charge, whose wants need to be supplied. There is at present only one English priest in the whole of Assam, the Rev. S. Endle. Such a fact speaks for itself very eloquently ; and the S.P.G. has just made provision for the support of one more, at any rate. Missionary Intercessions and Thanksgivings. St. John iii. 17.-" He sent His Son, that the world through Him might be saved." GENERAL THANKSGIVING for (a) increased grants that the S.P.G. has been able to make this year; (b) new work about to be begun, through S.P.G. new grants, in (i) Korea, (ii) the Zambesi district, (iii) amongst the Betsiriry of Madagascar.

INTERCESSION for (a) priests for the dioceses of Rangoon, Singapore, Madras, North China, Bombay, Madagascar, North Queensland, Brotherhood of the Epiphany, Calcutta; (b) blessing on those who give liberally towards Mission work; (c) all missionaries in (i) discouragement, (ii) isolation, (iii) sickness, (iv) persecution; (d) new work in Zambesi district, Madagascar. THE EPISCOPATE. INTERCESSION for (a) faithful bishop of vacant see of Zululand; (b) new diocese of Calgary (from Saskatchewan), Rockhampton (from Brisbane), about to be formed; (c) all missionary bishops, holiness, wisdom, zeal. CENTRAL AFRICA. THANKSGIVING for (a) anniversary meetings; (b) solution of the difficulties with Germany; (C) restoration to health of Bishop Smythies. INTERCESSION for (a) many more priests; (b) the raising up of a native ministry; (c) blessing on and extension of the work at Lake Nyassa. EQUATORIAL AFRICA. INTERCESSION for the restored kingdom of Uganda, the Bishop (Tucker), the clergy (R. H. Walker, E. A. Gordon, D. Hooper), the native Christians. THE ARCHBISHOP'S ASSYRIAN MISSION. THANKSGIVING for God's mercy in calling us to the assistance of the ancient Assyrian Church. INTERCESSION for (a) its restoration to ancient glory ; (b) blessing on the four priests in their labour to revive holy learning; (c) the sisters who have lately joined the Mission. KOREA THANKSGIVING for (a) the Magazine; (b) blessing on the Bishop's efforts to enlist prayers, alms, and efforts; (c) the clergy (three) and laymen who have offered themselves. INTERCESSION for (a) the Bishop in his journey and entrance upon his work, guidance and strength; (b) conversion of Korea. Subjects for insertion should be sent to the Rev. G. R. BULLOCK-WEBSTER, The Palace, Ely.