Morning Calm v.4 no.37(1893 Jul.)

THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ No. 37, VOL. IV.] JULY 1893. [PRICE 1d. ________________________________________ The Bishop's Letter. CHEMULPÓ: March 1893. DEAR FRIENDS, With the end of this month spring has returned. The winter, however, has been most reluctant to leave us, and trees, shrubs, and grass are still very shy, and hesitate to put on their green clothing. Mr. Smart is busy all day in the compound digging and planting. We have invested in flower and vege-table seeds, and, if they only respond to the energy which he displays in sowing them, we ought to do well. Meanwhile, his school goes on satisfactorily; the numbers of Japanese are more than maintained ; they are increasing gradually. Last month a fresh departure was taken which will, I hope, lead to important results. In previous letters I have told you that Mr. Warner has for some time been living in a Corean house on the river bank about four miles from Seoul. He rented the house for six months at the not very ruinous figure of about fifteen shillings per month. Everything pointing to the advisability of our having a permanent mission station on the river bank, I bought a Corean house and compound, with a large field adjoining, at Mapó, just above the point in the river where the ferry crosses between Chemulpó and Seoul. The traffic at this point is very great, and from here the junks and small boats start on their journeys up and down the stream, The mission-house stands on the highest ground--at the summit of a big bluff which juts out into the river and has a magnificent view from it, commanding the river and surrounding country for many miles. On the other hand, it is very con-spicuous--a fact which, we hope, will one day be useful to us. In the compound at the back of the house are two remarkable boulders which have long been well-known land-marks, and have given to the property the name of the Owl's Crag. We shall, therefore, now be expected to develop some Wisdom! There is no doubt that this step ought to lead to very important results. We are four miles from Seoul, and yet between us and the capital the houses are almost continuous. All our surroundings   94 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ are essentially Corean, as are also the appointments of the house. I have not stayed there yet, but I am told that when I go I must bring my chop-sticks with me, or--eat with my fingers. Now that the weather is less cold, and the ice has gone from the river, Mr. Warner goes down to the bank, and, sitting in the junks, gets into conversation with the crews. He some-times meets men whose acquaintance he made up country last autumn. Mr. Davies has had the honour of being the first occupant of the new house. He went there last month with his teacher, and a coolie to cook and keep house for him. Mr. Trollope, therefore, has only Mr. Hodge and Dr. Baldock with him at Nak Tong. But I have not told you of Dr. Baldock's arrival, which is another of the important events of last month. He made a very quick passage from England--only a little more than seven weeks--and reached Chemulpó in excellent health and spirits. I took him to Seoul, where he met with a hearty welcome from everyone, and did not leave him until he was comfortably established in Nak Tong, close to the hospital, which I have since heard is full of interesting cases. It has been a fortunate circumstance that he was able to reach Corea a month or six weeks before we expect to lose our dear Dr. Wiles. All this time he is learning much from the ripe ex-perience and intimate knowledge with everything and everybody which Dr. Wiles has gained in his three years' residence in Seoul. In the middle of the month we had a delightful visit from H.M.S. Peacock. All the officers and crew were strangers to me. But we did not remain strangers long. At the request of the captain I went off to the ship to perform Divine Service on the Sunday, and had a very delightful time in the ward-room and forecastle. During that week I had an opportunity of showing many of them the church and hospital, and, I hope, of interesting them in the work we are attempting to do with the Hospital Naval Fund in this port. I am on the point of sending Mr. Warner away on another river excursion. This time to go down to the mouth of the river Han, and from thence explore two more (smaller) rivers which fall into the Yellow Sea near the mouth of the Han. He will be away, I hope, for two months, and, if Mr. Scott's manual is finished, will be accompanied by Mr. Hodge, for whom the change, after all this close confinement to the printing house, will, on many grounds, be beneficial. The Sisters are well, and (Sister Norah tells me) have already begun   THE MORNING CALM. 95________________________________________ to attack their compound with spade and rake. They have had presents of seeds, which they are busy sowing. Nurse Webster is at present down here making herself exceedingly useful to a Japanese lady who has been somewhat seriously ill. For myself, I have never been better. The regular hours of exercise, study, and rest are very helpful. I am just able to say that we are having a happy Easter, but the record of this belongs to April rather than to March. God grant that your Easter may be blessed to each one of you is the prayer of Yours affectionately, * C. J. CORFE. ________________________________________ Note. ANY readers of Morning Calm who have not yet received a copy of the second Annual Report, may have one by applying to Mr. H. Harvey, 125 Vassall Road, S.W. ________________________________________ Association of Prayer and Work for Corea. THE attention of our friends and members who have been kindly working for the Mission is called to the notices (on the back of this month's “Morning Calm” of the two Sales of Work which are to be held this month, at Stoke Newington and Hampton Court. It is hoped that, in spite of the unavoidably short notice, some contributions of useful or fancy articles (or of “rummage" for the Jumble Sale at Hampton Court) may be received. A special gift has just been made to the Mission by our friends at Stoke Newington, in the shape of a carpet for the Choir and Sanctuary of the Church of the Advent in Seoul, of the need of which Canon Doxat had informed the General Secretary. It was despatched by the Church Agency, with two kneelers beautifully worked for him by two young friends of Bishop Corfe's, at the end of May. The General Secretary expresses her regret that a few Secretaries should have found themselves unexpectedly re-moved--or in some cases replaced--in the May and June lists of Secretaries in “Morning Calm.” These were printer's errors, Which, being unprecedented in our fortunate experience with these lists, easily escaped the editor's notice in correcting the proofs. Two names, one of which has appeared from the very first,   96 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ will be missed from the July lists of Secretaries. The General Secretary has just heard of the recent death of the Rev. R. Picton, of Falstone, near Newcastle-on-Tyne ; and of Miss K. O. Wallington, of Leamington. In them the Mission loses two of its most earnest helpers. Will anyone volunteer to carry on the work they have been doing for us in these two localities? The General Secretary will be away from home from July 12th to the beginning of September. She will be grateful if applications for papers or letters requiring an immediate answer may be addressed during those weeks to Mrs. Campbell Jones (14 Carlyle Mansions, Cheyne Walk, Chelsea), who has kindly consented to attend to them as she did last summer. Letters sent to her home address will be forwarded to the General Secretary, but she asks that as far as possible all correspondence may be reserved till her return. She hopes to receive the July and October Quarterly Reports as usual. M. M. CHAMBERS-HODGETTS, Rowancroft, Exeter, July 1893. Gen. Sec. ________________________________________ Four Days at Zanzibar. TRAVELLING to England from Natal by the East Coast of Africa, the German s.s. Kaiser, by which I was journeying, gave me four days at Zanzibar, and afforded me an opportunity of seeing a little of the Universities' Mission at their headquarters. It was on Mid-Lent Sunday, March 12, that the Kaiser reached Zanzibar. Going on shore I gave my bag to a native boy and said, "English Mission,” and followed him through the narrow, dirty, stone-paved alleys of the town, which was deco-rated with palm leaves and great branches of banana trees, because only the night before the newly-appointed Sultan had brought his wife to the palace in state. Christ Church, the well-known church built by Bishop Steere on the site of the old slave-market, is just on the outskirts of the town, and the houses of the Mission and the new hospital are close by. I was fortunate in finding both Bishop Smythies and Bishop Hornby at Zanzibar. They had only arrived from England about ten days before, and so the Mission-house was very full; but I was unlucky in being a few hours too late for the Ordina-tion of Denys, who had been admitted to the office of a deacon that morning. However, I came in time for the benediction of the new hospital in the afternoon. There was evensong in English   THE MORNING CALM. 97________________________________________ at four, and a sermon by Bishop Smythies. There was a fair congregation, representing mainly the naval and consular ele-ment of the European population. Christ Church has, I suppose, been often described, and its picture must be familiar to a good many people. It is a very im-pressive church, especially impressive, perhaps, to one who had been working for more than four years in Natal; very stately in its simplicity and its lostiness--above all, in its altar, standing on the chord of the Eastern apse, raised high above the level of the body of the church, and approached by steps of black and white marble. After evensong and sermon a procession was formed, with both the Bishops in cope and mitre--"full dress uniform," as I heard a naval officer describe it, expressing his delight to Bishop Smythies at having been present at the service--and proceeded to the hospital and thence round the different wards and rooms, singing hymns in English and Swahili alternately. Collects were said at the entrance of the building and in each room, and the service ended with the blessing. The hospital is open not only to members of the Mission, but also to any Europeans who may avail themselves of it; and there is accommodation also for native patients. After the service I went out to Kiungani, about a mile and a-half from Christ Church, where is the boys' school and training college. Both Kiungani and Mbweni, the girls' school about two and a-half miles further on, are very beautiful, both stand on low promontories close to the sea, surrounded by all the luxuriance and colour of tropical foliage, and look across the glorious blue of a tropic sea, with its edging of silver sand, to the purple outline of the coast of the mainland. The whole colouring reminded me very much of the West Indies. There are about 100 boys at Kiungani, some of them re-leased slaves, others drafted from the Mission schools on the mainland. They are educated as teachers, catechists, and possible candidates for ordination, while those who have no turn for book-learning are taught handicrafts. Denys, the newly-ordained deacon, had been their head boy. They were a very merry. happy-looking lot, dressed in the ordinary native dress. Dress is a minor difficulty, but a very real one, for us in Natal and Zulu-land; the Kaffir in his raw state does not wear a sufficiency of clothing, and when his ideas turn in the direction of Christianity he wants more clothing, and consequently adopts European dress, which is the only example before him. Now shabby, ill-fitting European clothing makes the Kaffir look a miserable   98 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ being, and so externally the Christian Kaffir does not compare favourably with the raw native. Moreover, of course, we do not want to Europeanise the native. I could not help feeling how infinitely more suitable the dress of the Zanzibar people - the linen loin-cloth and the short jacket or vest-would be, but I am afraid it would not be easy to introduce it. Compline sung in Swahili in the Kiungani chapel was a great treat. The chapel itself is beautiful; like Christ Church, very simple, and depending for its effect on its good proportions, while the only colour is the marble pavement of the sanctuary and the polished marble of the altar. The chapel is compara-tively new, and has been of the greatest use in developing and strengthening the devotional side of the boys' training, and I am sure that nobody could help being struck by the intense reverence of the boys, and their hearty enjoyment of the services. It seemed all so perfectly natural and spontaneous, not in any way forced, but the outcome of religious conviction. The Swahili compline at Kiungani lives in my memory like the first com-pline I heard sung at Cuddesdon. The girls' school at Mbweni was also deeply interesting, and I was able to be present at a Confirmation held in the “shamba” church. Mbweni was originally a settlement for released slaves, and there is a little village mostly inhabited by Christians which is called the "shamba." A few of the girls were confirmed, and also some older people from the "shamba." At present the girls have no chapel, except a small, somewhat dilapidated building, but a beautiful chapel is being built. I think it has been a real privilege to me to see the little I did of the work of the Universities' Mission; our Mission work in Natal and Zululand is carried on under great difficulties, and it is very inspiring and helpful to see what is being done in Zanzibar, and the great possibilities of Mission work when it has triumphed over some of the initial difficulties and has begun to get a hold on the people. M.R.S. ________________________________________ Some Notes of a River journey in Corea. WE are frequently being reminded by our friends in England, and sometimes rather forcibly reminded by the kind but ener-getic editor of Morning Calm, that it is our duty to keep our Magazine regularly supplied with news from Corea, and most of us out here quite agree that it ought to be fairly easy to do so but somehow it is not so easy as it seems, and one rarely finds time to sit down and compose a letter such as is fit to be pre-   THE MORNING CALM. 99________________________________________sented to the doubtless critical and certainly intelligent readers of Morning Calm. We, many of us, find that we can write a very fair introduction to a letter, but that when the introduction is finished the subject-matter is very difficult to work up into its proper shape and necessary length, for the simple reason that there is so very little of it. However, we must trust that our readers will be lenient with our productions, and remember that we are still labouring to learn the difficult language, and, worse than that, the written character, which is Chinese, and that we shall be engaged in this scarcely exciting task for some con-siderable time longer. However, I was fortunate enough to be sent on a journey last autumn--up the River Han by boat--with a view to finding out something of the possibilities of navigation upon it, and I propose to offer you here a few notes from my diary. Starting from Seoul on September 1st, after a Celebration of the Holy Communion, followed by a short service, at which I received the episcopal blessing and commission to undertake the journey, together with instructions to be observed en-route, we arrived at Hang-kang, the starting-place, a little shipping village, about four miles from Seoul, expecting to find every-thing in readiness for an immediate start, as had been pre-viously arranged; but we were doomed to disappointment at the outset, for there we found the two boatmen loafing about and smoking their long pipes, intending, in true Corean fashion, to start the next day, as they had not yet cleaned all their rice for the journey. However, thinking that if I could not gain my point in this matter at the very beginning of the journey I should be at their mercy probably for the rest of the trip, I prepared to start at once, and, after a vast amount of talking and grumbling on both sides, managed to get them to make a start at two o'clock P.M., much later than I had hoped, but still better than having allowed them to wait till the next day. Coreans have very little idea of the value of time, especially when they are engaged in working for other people at a fixed rate per day or per month. When engaged in their own business, they can at times be very quick, especially if they see their way to making money, but even so their methods are leisurely, compared with those of Westerners, and apt to be very exasperating to an English temper, though we have very much to learn from them in the way of quiet patience, in the practice of which virtue some of them certainly excel. Our boat was a fairly good one. measuring about twenty feet from end to end, by about four feet in breadth. Both in the fore and after part of the boat a small   100 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ space was reserved for navigating the boat in, and the remainder was roofed over with thatch and divided into two portions, about six feet long, for the kitchen and cabin. On starting, we at once crossed the river, which was in a very flooded state, owing to the recent heavy rains, and made for shallower water, where punting poles could be used with good effect. The progress up the swollen stream was, of course, exceedingly slow, and a head-wind did not tend to improve matters at all ; the most that could be said was that we were moving along in the right direction, and there was nothing for it but to sit still and hope for better times. A little way above Hang-kang, on the left side of the river, a portion of one of the hills is enclosed with a low wall of stone. Within this sacred enclosure is preserved the spot where a female dragon alighted, which came down from heaven some-time during the last dynasty, and the place is now used for prayer, both in times of drought and flood, and here libations of wine are poured out and sacrifices offered as a propitiation of the angry heaven; the spot is considered an especially accept-able one, because of the dragon having chosen it as a resting-place. Close to it is the Buddhist Temple of Ryeng-am-sa, dedicated to the same fabulous beast. As we went along we passed several pleasure boats full of Coreans, who were passing the time with music, singing, and wine drinking, and who were usually accompanied by dancing girls, who were contributing their varied talents to the general round of boisterous pleasure. As the afternoon drew towards its close, and we were going along pretty quietly, thinking of anything but sand banks, we suddenly ran aground and were brought to a standstill with such a jerk that the “kitchen range," which was not very securely placed, suddenly collapsed, greatly to the cook's annoyance, who was preparing curry for dinner, flooding the galley with boiling water and fragments of fowl, which were, however, soon picked up and replaced in the saucepan, when operations began afresh. Soon after this we mounted the "range" on two large stones, and it caused no further trouble, though this was by no means our last bump. We anchored for the night a short way above a large village called Tonk-syem. The village is an important one, owing to the large trade which is carried on there in timber and firewood. The boatmen were, of course, very anxious to tie up and go ashore to sleep in the village itself, as they had friends there, and would probably have "made a night of it," which would have meant a late start in the morning; in addition to this, I preferred to push on a little in order to avoid the   THE MORNING CALM. 101________________________________________ shouting and noise of unloading and loading the numerous large junks which lay alongside of the landing stage, so we went on a little further, and tied up by some large floats of wood. This position, however, had its disadvantages, as we soon found out, for as soon as it grew dusk we were driven to bed by the swarms of mosquitoes, which were almost beyond description, and made sleep impossible for all of us, and it takes a good deal to prevent a Corean boatman from passing a fairly comfortable night. A bathe in the morning soon set matters right with me, and I was ready to start, but the boatmen were obdurate, and insisted on sleeping it out till nearly eight o'clock. . . . In the course of the morning we arrived at a small market town called Song-pa-chang, from which place we set out to visit the walled city of Kwang-chu. Kwang-chu is one of the four fortress cities which guard the capital, and is built on the top of a mountain; it is an important place, and is governed by a military official of high rank, called a Ryen-syan. Unfortunately, before we had begun to ascend the hill, it came on to rain, and we arrived wet through. However, we visited the governor's palace, and looked about the town a little, noticing, among other things, the large and ancient city bell, and then adjourned to an inn, where we dried our clothes as best we could, and soon turned in. Rising at 5.30, we started back for the boat, finding the roads in very bad condition, owing to the night's rain, but, when we were about halfway down the mountain, we were rewarded for all our Trouble by a beautiful view, for the mist suddenly cleared away like the withdrawal of a curtain from the plain below, and the long stretches of rice and millet fields were all at once lit up with a subdued yellow light caused by the rising sun shining down and at last penetrating the mist it was dispelling. . . . In the evening of September 4th we found ourselves at Machai, a Small village built by the river side amongst the trees. At this point the main stream is joined by another river which rises somewhere in the Keum-kang-san Range, and, flowing through the province of Kang-ouen-to, eventually throws itself into the main stream of the River Han at the place where we had now arrived Leaving this northern stream for the present, we pushed on up the main stream the next morning, and had not gone far before the river became very shallow indeed, except for a narrow channel in mid-stream, which seemed deep, but the current of which was much too swift for us to make any way against. Being unable to do any punting in the very shallow Water, we were obliged to be towed along with a long rope from the bank, the boatmen sharing the labour of towing between   102 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ them. Several of the rapids which had to be circumvented to-day caused us much delay and infinite trouble; possibly the rapids are bigger than usual because of the flooded state of the river, but they certainly make navigation very tedious, and necessitate the use of a boat which draws very little water, and which will stand a considerable amount of rough usage. With a fair wind and a sail, however, larger junks seem to make fairly good progress up the deeper channel in the middle. . . . Another day brings no change in the condition of the river, and the rapids at a place called Han Yaol are exceptionally difficult to pass. Here there are very large rocks in the middle of the stream, over which the water dashes in torrents; the left side and the middle of the river are the most affected, though it is difficult to make any way even on the extreme right, so power-ful is the current. The left bank of the river at this point is beautifully wooded, and among the trees is a very pretty sorcerer's temple, built here, probably, to propitiate the spirit of the rapid. . . . A very large trade goes on upon the river, carried on by means of junks, which bring up salt for sale, and return carrying back to Seoul and Chemulpó cargoes of rice, beans, and firewood. The trade done on the river in firewood is very considerable, the timber being brought down either in large floats or else by junk. Naturally, since no coal to speak of is used by Coreans, and as the winter is very long and cold, the consumption of firewood at the capital alone is very large, and one wonders whether the supply may not eventually become exhausted; but there are no signs of this yet, and possibly long before that time Coreans will have learnt to make more use of coal, in which commodity parts of their country are said to abound. . . . The evening of September 8th brings us to the town of Nye-chu, which is governed by an official called a Mok-sa; he, however, had died two days before our arrival, and the servants were on the look-out to requisition a boat in which to take his body down to Seoul in, and therefore most of the junks travelling up the river kept well to the opposite side, and passed the town as quickly as they could, lest it should fall to their lot to be forced to postpone their business and return to Seoul with the magistrate's body. We saw many Chinese and Japanese articles in the shops here, and were told that merchants of both nationalities occasionally come to the markets. About a mile below Nye-chu is a beautiful little Buddhist monastery, situated on the left bank of the river, and called Sin-euk-sa, in the grounds of which there are three handsome pagodas, two of them apparently ancient. Here one of the monks gave me   THE MORNING CALM. 103________________________________________ some old Buddhist books, one of them apparently a Life of Buddha, with copious illustrations. By-and-bye, when we know more Chinese, such books may be very useful to some of us, since it will be doubtless an advantage to us to be acquainted with their books, in case of being brought into controversy with any of them. Saturday, September 11th, finds us close to the borders of three provinces; we are at present in Kyen-keui-to, the province in which Seoul is situated ; at about noon we arrived at the village of Heung-ouen-chang, just below which a tributary from the Kang-ouen-to province joins the main stream. The people say that this tributary is not navigable for far, but it is marked very clearly in the map I carry as far as Ouen-chu, the capital of the province. We shall explore this on the return journey. This evening we tied up for the night at a place called Saing-kai, which is in the province of Tyeng-tyong-to. . . . The next day (Sunday) was a pouring wet day, and rain fell incessantly from morning till evening; the thatched roof of the boat was, however, rain-proof, or nearly so, and we spent a quiet day tied up by the river side. Rain ceased in the night, and we got away in the morning at 5.20, finding the river very much swollen by the rain of the previous day. Towards evening we passed the village of Kaheung-chaing, where there is a government granary, a strongly built place, in which is stored all the grain collected in the district by way of taxation, previous to its being carried to Seoul by water. Taxes are paid to the king partly in money and partly in rice, cloth, silk, and other products. . . . The next morning, after staying a short time at Mo-kyo, which is a good sized town, though without a magistracy, we passed a place called Tap-teuri, where there is a large pagoda built close by the river side, which from its shape reminded one very much of some old market cross in England. Of course there was no cross on the top, but then that only made the resemblance closer, for I have seen very few old monuments of this kind in England which have been allowed to retain their original shape, owing to the rough usage of our Christian ancestors. The next day we tied up about noon at a place called Puk-chaing, from which place I visited the little town of Tyoung-chu, which is about three miles from the river. In ancient days this little place used to be the capital of the province, but it has dwindled down very much since Kong-chu was made capital, three hundred years ago, and now there are few signs left of its former importance. It is, in fact, a walled village of a thousand houses, though it is the seat of two magistrates, civil and mili-

104 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ tary. ... The morning of September 16th was notable for its difficulties; first of all, immediately after breakfast we came to a part of the river where there was an exceptionally awkward rapid through which we were obliged to be hauled by three men with two ropes, our two boatmen remaining in the boat to work it. After this big affair there came a succession of smaller rapids, and I was not surprised to find that by noon the boat was leaking pretty badly owing to the rough usage which was unavoidable; however, we soon bailed out the water, and the men stopped the leak with a piece of rag which they forced into the crack with a knife. In the evening we tied up at a place called O-kang, where a gentleman called Kouen invited me to sleep at his house, which I was glad to do, for he was exceedingly kind; he was fifty-six years old, and had two sons, aged thirty and nineteen respectively, both of whom had children of their own. At night I occupied the same room with the father and his two sons, the former insisting on placing my mattress close to his own, that I might sleep near him, in the place usually occu-pied by his eldest son. It was very pleasant to meet with such genuine kindness among people who knew nothing of one, and who are naturally very suspicious of foreigners. (To be continued.) ________________________________________ The Spirit of Missions. “AMID the manifold pressure of the difficulties which, as we have narrated, he endured in this mission, being always strengthened by the divine inspiration he would by no means desist from the work which he had taken up. And the devotion of mind and fervour of spirit of Ebbo, Archbishop of Rheims, who had formerly been called to the same work, encouraged him not a little. For with burning zeal he encouraged him to Sow the grace of faith in those parts, and strenuously exhorted him to con-tinue in that which he had begun. And the blessed man, inspirited by his words of exhortation and ardour of soul, confidently fulfilled the duties of the office entrusted to him, nor could he be deterred by any adversity from the work which he had begun. And although innumerable were the words of encouragement of the said Archbishop, by which our father was consoled with a great joy, yet he always bore in mind especially the ad-monition which Ebbo had spoken on the last time when they conversed about the work [shortly before his death]. For when the Saint, having reckoned up the many difficulties which surrounded his work, sought his advice upon the matter and earnestly desired comfort, Ebbo, as though filled with the prophetic spirit, answered: Be assured, brother, that what we have begun to accomplish for the name of Christ will bring forth fruit in the Lord. For so is my faith, and thus do I firmly believe--nay, I know of a surety that although what we have undertaken among these nations is somewhat impeded for a time on account of our sins, nevertheless it cannot be entirely extinguished, but will bear fruit by the grace of God   THE MORNING CALM. 105________________________________________ and prosper, until the name of the Lord shall be made known to the ends of the earth This, then, was their faith, with this purpose they sought the confines of the alien races: in the love springing from this devotion they contended for the Lord, from whom also the reward of their labour they shall assuredly receive. This devotion of soul never left our lord and father, nor ceased he to pray for the healing of the nations. --From the life of S. Auskar, c. xxiv. (Perts, Mon, Germ. ii. 717). ________________________________________ The following account of the Rev. E. H. Beale, of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, Cowley, and missionary in India, is taken from the Bombay Diocesan Record :-- "Edward Hill Bcale was born on July 22, 1841, of a Gloucestershire family, his father practising as a physician in Finsbury. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, where he won many prizes, and finally an exhibition to St. John's College, Oxford. There he showed great promise, but while an undergraduate he was struck with paralysis, which caused him to relinquish his studies till 1867, in which year he became B.A., and in 1868 M.A. In 1869 he was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Salisbury to the title of Vice-Principal of the Mission-ary College (the "Mission House” it was then modestly called) of St. Boniface, Warminster, and assistant to the vicar. The Bishop, however, felt unable to advance him to the priesthood on account of his infirmity, and this was to him a lifelong trial, borne with what sweetness and patience those who knew him best can say. It was during his life at the Warminster College, preparing others for the Master's service in the Mission fields of the Church, that the call of Christ became clearer and more imperative to himself. After seven years at Warminster he resigned the Vice-Principalship in order to become a postulant, and in due course a novice of the Society of St. John the Evan- gelist at Cowley, of which community he afterwards, in 1891, although only a deacon, became by special dispensation a professed member, thus fulfilling a very dear longing of his heart. But to return. In 1877 he was sent to India, in company with Fr. Goreh, who was at that time staying in England, to join the Mission of the Society in Bombay. With the exception of a few months in England in 1887, the rest of his life was spent with loving and untiring devotion in parochial work in Mazagon, and in furthering the spread of Christ's Kingdom in Western India. As a simple indication of how he viewed his mission to this country, the Rev. Cecil Rivington, who was one of his fellow-passengers in his first journey from England, relates how, on disembarking at P. & O. Bundar, he noticed that   106 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ Br. Beale's first act was to kneel down in prayer on the shore of the land which had now become his own, an act most truly in correspondence with his after-devotion to it. Amongst the many saintly traits of character which his friends now delight to recall in him, probably none stands out so prominently in their recollection as his constant and consis-tently-maintained devotion to the Mission work of the Church. As each Annual Day of Intercession for Missions drew near, it would be sure to be he who was amongst the first to work amongst his brother-clergy for the securing of its due obser-vance. The now flourishing Mazagon Missionary Union is not the only organisation of its kind which owes its formation to his initiative : and space forbids us to tell of the manifold other ways in which his interest in Mission work was for ever ex-hibiting itself. On the very evening of his death he interested himself in the monthly meeting for missionary intercession in St. Peter's Church, which would ordinarily have taken place on that very evening, and when it was said to him, “You must be glad now that you have led us to think so much of Mission work," his simple reply was, "It was all God's leading." The nature of his last illness was such as to cause him great and prolonged suffering, but this he accepted even joyfully. When in one of the worst times it was said to him by one, “I fear you are suffering a great deal," his answer only was, "And we justly.” He obtained great relief during the last twenty-four hours of his life through an operation which was performed upon him, but which could not be effectual to his cure. He was able to speak till within ten minutes of his death, and his last words seemed to be, looking at the crucifix, "on the Cross" --though in what connection they were uttered could not be distinguished. During the day following his decease a large number of those who had known him—and to know him was to love him-frequented St. Peter's Church, where the requiem celebration of Holy Communion took place at 7 A.M., and in the chancel of which the body reposed in its open coffin throughout the day until the funeral. At the cemetery the numbers of those attending seemed larger than ever, and were indeed sur-prising to those who might readily have supposed that, whatever the high virtues of their departed friend as known to themselves, they had been too humbly exhibited to have commanded the attention of large numbers : but here seemed to be evidence that the "saintly suffering, hidden life" had signally asserted its inherent power, and won its tribute from far and near. May his example stir and animate us still !—R.I.P”   THE MORNING CALM. 107________________________________________ We take the following from the Quarterly Report of the ARCHIBISHOP'S ASSYRIAN MISSION for April : - "The senior scholars at the Urmi school are always enjoined to write to the ‘apostles’ at Urmi to let them know how their school is getting on. The following is a specimen of the letters received. They are usually in vernacular Syriac (the new language), but this teacher has waxed bold, and launched out into the classical, or ‘old' language, as becomes a mountaineer. It may be mentioned that the Syriac is excellent, and would put the Latin prose of most of our schoolboys at home to shame. It should also be said that this school was a very small and elemen-tary one. "’To the Reverend and Honoured, well-endowed priests and perfect apostles, who have been chosen and sent by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury to the need of the ancient Church of the East, Canon Maclean and Mr. Lang, and Mr. Edington and Mr. Neesan, and Mr. Jervis, preserved from harm by the Right hand which created the whole world, Amen. “‘After asking about your peace and enquiring about your good estate, pleasant and agreeable in our Lord, let it be known to your greatness that I reached - [his village] safely, and pre-served from all adverse accidents of body and soul by the power of your prayers. And now I wish to inform your blessedness about the school. At first I had seven boys, and after five days more boys came, and now I have twelve scholars. And they read as follows:-Four of them read the New Testament in the new language, and one the Psalms in the old language, and one translates. The others now are learning the letters of the alphabet. “‘Although I am in body far from your presence, yet in soul I am assuredly your servant: and continually I send my spirit to you, to repay the debt, O Lords, which I owe you. How I long for and desire the day when I shall see you! But hope is dead, and distance separates me and you. In black and white I have written to you from my thoughts. Perhaps I shall see you in that mirror which is like my eyes. Remain strong and pleasant. “‘Written [scratched] by the hands of the weak and sinful-the least of your disciples; First Canon [December], three in it in the year 1890.’ “The phrases in the last paragraph but one are surely taken out of some complete letter-writer!” Here is an extract from the speech at the Church Missionary Anniversary of Mr. J. Munro, C.B., who is now working in India

  108 THE MORNING CALM. ________________________________________ as a missionary in the districts in which he was formerly a magistrate :-- "I am not going to give you a list of the obstacles [to missionary work]. I have no doubt that the list will occur to many who are now hearing me ; but I want to say a word about one obstacle . . . . Well, I tell you that the one obstacle which I find consists of these meetings in Exeter Hall. Now, what do I mean? Don't think I undervalue these meetings. Thank God for them; they have done much good, and will do much good in future; but, my friends, it is not by meetings in Exeter Hall that India will be Evangelised. The natives in India have got a proverb among them. You know there is a fruit of which they are very fond, called a jack-fruit. They are very partial to it, but it is very heavy, and to carry it from the bazaars to their homes involves a considerable amount of labour, and you know among Orientals the tendency to do too much work is not one of their failings . . . and they have embodied this in a proverb which says, ‘Eating a jack-fruit is delicious if you can get another fellow to carry it on his head.’ You see it is thoroughly Oriental. Now we in England don't do that. We have got a proverb that says, ‘If you want a thing done, do it yourself.’ But, my friends, when we consider the way in which our opportunities for Mission work have been availed of by the Church in England, have we not some reason to suspect that we have been following the Oriental proverb and not the English one? Is not this what we say to our missionaries : ‘Go out, a few of you, one to every million of the people of India--for that is the proportion of missionaries sent out by the Church of England at large to 284 millions of Indians-go out and bear the heat and burden of the day, and come home and tell us of your victories, your dis-couragements, and your defeats, and tell us that the work is too heavy for you; that we have given you impossibly large parishes to look after, and that, though the opportunities are great, they cannot be availed of because there are no workers; and then we shall go to Exeter Hall, and we shall sympathise with you, and we shall show our interest in the missionary stories which you will tell us; but as for going out and sharing with you the labours and the trials and the disappointments of the missionary's life, that be far from us.' My friends, am I not speaking the truth? . . . . There is one little text which admits of no doubt-ful interpretation whatever, and that is, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.' And how do we in-terpret that, my friends? Do we interpret it as meaning 'go'? No, we interpret it as meaning 'stay at home and go to Exeter Hall.’"