Morning Calm v.3 no.24(1892 Jun.)

THE MORNING CALM. No. 24, VOL. III.] JUNE 1892. [PRICE 1d. The Bishop's Letter. CHEMULPÓ: February 1892. DEAR FRIENDS, The winter is far more severe this year than it was last. It not only began earlier with the sharp frosts, of which I told you in my December letter, but the cold is greater and the snowfall much heavier. During this month and January my thermometer has more than once fallen four degrees below zero, and 18 and 20 degrees of frost is now the rule at night. The parsonage, if small, is very comfortable, and I have abundant reason to be glad that I built it of brick and not of wood or plaster. At the beginning of the month I paid a visit to Söul, where I found everybody very well and in excellent spirits. They have had some difficulty in keeping themselves warm, owing to the scarcity of coal; here there is abundance. Last autumn the river junks ceased running earlier than usual, consequently people in Söul were taken by surprise and found it impossible, except at great expense, to get coals sent up to them from Chemulpó. Our friends have managed somehow, but were watching with a certain amount of anxiety the rapidly dwindling contents of the coal-hole. I sent up a ton, and following quickly in its wake received in every sense a warm welcome. The roads were hard as iron. At the ferry not a boat was to be seen, nor was one needed, for we walked across in the company of a string of bulls and pack-horses. I spent ten delightful days in the House of the Resurrection with Mr. Trollope, Mr. Warner and Mr. Davies, who had all settled down into their regular winter routine. The forenoons from 9 to 1 are devoted to Chinese. After tiffin they take a sharp walk for a couple of hours, coming back to their books at 4. Evensong is said at 6, followed by the Intercessions from Morning Calm. Then comes dinner at 7. Between dinner and compline there is always a general gathering in the library, which has been made the cosiest of rooms. A year ago some of my relations and most intimate friends, who thought that we were living much more uncomfortably   than I am afraid we really were, got up a fund for me which they called the “Comforts Fund." It was to be spent in stores, or something which would keep us warm. The result of their thoughtful kindness has been the purchase of a splendid stove for the library, some thick Tien-Tsin rugs and a few curtains of thick Chinese material, which are hung ingeniously about the room so as to intercept all draughts, no matter from which quarter the wind blows. I think that some of you can imagine us forming a circle round the stove on these occasions, each with a little stove of his own (and stove pipe!) held by the hand to the mouth. These little stoves pour forth a fragrant odour, stimulate conversation and warm all hearts. John Wyers frequently finds that he can safely leave the Consul-General to take care of himself, and never fails to put in an appearance at dinner two or three evenings a week. And how glad they are to see him! In this smoking circle you may be sure he is a great authority. He and I exchange many delightful reminiscences of happy days when we were shipmates in H.M.S. Alexandra; and his descriptions of lower-deck life on board ship never fail to be received with great interest not unaccompanied with amusement. The tobacco grown in Corea (where everyone smokes) is now voted to be the best grown anywhere, which is an advantage, for you can get a cart-load of it for a few shillings. They buy it in the leaf—a pound at a time—and then send for John. The stems are carefully removed and the leaves, packed together lengthwise, are enclosed in a covering of coarse sacking and then wound round closely with spunyarn, as only sailors can wind it round. I do not think you will require me to apologise for giving you this little glimpse of their family life in Söul. The persistent studying of Chinese is very trying, believe me, and it was a great comfort to me to see them adjusting the balance of both mind and body by means of their daily exercise and their pleasant home together in the library after dinner. At 9.30 the bell rings for compline and I hope I need not tell you that that does not check the flow of happiness. For we are trying to remember that the missionary is never really “off duty." I was sorry when my visit came to an end. But I had to return here to relieve Mr. Pownall whilst he went to Söul for his examination for priest's orders, about which I shall have more to say, I hope, next month. During this month the services of Miss Heathcote have been requisitioned as nurse. It was her first case in Corea. A   Japanese lady in Chemulpó, the wife of one of the Custom House officials, had a sharp attack of pneumonia, which required careful nursing. Miss Heathcote came down, and in little more than a week had the happiness of seeing her patient fairly well again. Thus, my letter this month, you see, has been all about snowstorms and frosts and the consequent staying indoors, of which there has been a good deal of late. But all is going well with us. The frost, though keen, does not freeze our affection for you nor paralyse our sense of thankfulness for the love and kindness which you continue to show to us all. Praying for God's blessing on all and each of you, I am ever your affectionate friend,

• C. J. CORFE.

Association of Prayer and Work for Corea. On the subject which is still uppermost in the minds of all friends of the Mission to Corea who were able to be in London on May 3, our Festival Day, there is little that need be said. Those of us who were privileged enough to be present at the grand morning service in St. John the Divine, Kennington, and at the interesting and inspiriting public meeting at the Church House in the afternoon, will long feel the real impetus then received in prayer and in work. We are deeply thankful for the very many who were present, and we are extremely glad to be able to refer our absent members to the full report of our joyous Festival which will appear with this month's Morning Calm. We draw the attention of members to the more than usually marked growth of our official list on pages vi. vii. viii. of cover this month. Five new Local Secretaries, and a new Vice-President! In the Rev. S. H. Berkeley, Vicar of Heavitree, Exeter, who has just been appointed a Vice-President by Mr. Brooke, the Bishop's Commissary, at the Bishop's request, the Association gains as one of its two heads in England one who, like Canon Trefusis, our first and till now our only Vice-President, has watched and greatly helped to guide and further its progress from the very first. With our work and our numbers, our requirements go on increasing. At a meeting of heads of departments held at the Vicarage, Vassall Road, on May 4, under the presidency of the Rev. C. E. Brooke, it was decided, amongst other things, that the work of the Association would be greatly helped if a printed list of   men willing to preach and speak for the Mission occasionally, within certain districts, could be compiled and placed in the hands of the General Secretary and the County Secretaries. The General Secretary earnestly appeals to Secretaries and members of the Association to volunteer for this work, and to send their names and addresses to her, defining the geographical limits within which they will feel able to respond to requests for help at services and meetings. PORTSMOUTH ORPHANAGE BRANCH. A beautiful proof of the enduring love with which Bishop Corfe and his Mission are remembered at the Royal Seamen's and Marines' Orphan Home at Portsmouth has just been received by the General Secretary, and forwarded to Corea under the care of Mr. Hodge, who is going out from Mr. Kelly's Home, in the shape of a large box of altar linen, most beautifully worked by the girls chiefly, and some parts of it, such as the Fair Linen fringe, a real work of art, and of time and patience, by the mistresses. The following is a list of the contents of the box:— Two Fair Linen cloths, 4 amices, 4 credence cloths, 4 corporals, 4 chalice veils, 4 palls, 24 purificators, and the Bishop's rochet. Miss Woodin, the Matron, writes: “I need not say every stitch has given loving pleasure to the workers. I do hope it will please the Bishop.” We are quite sure it will. M. M. CHAMBERS-HODGETTS, May 11, 1892. General Secretary. The First Triennial Festival. Our first Triennial Festival was generally felt to be an event of such great importance in the history of the Mission as to justify us in issuing a special double number of Morning Calm this month, with a full and detailed account of the various proceedings. Very many, no doubt, who were unable to be with us except in their prayers and interest will be glad of the opportunity of reading Canon Mason's sermon and the speeches at the meeting, of which we are able to give a verbatim report. We cannot but look back on the day with feelings of deep gratitude to Almighty God for its many blessings, and we are   sure that all whose privilege it was to join in this great act of thanksgiving for the many blessings which have already attended the work of the Mission in Corea, will go forward to their work and their prayer, braced for new and stronger efforts than before. There were celebrations of the Holy Eucharist in connection with the Festival in a large number of churches throughout England, and some few in America, on the morning of May 3; and there was a solemn Celebration, with procession and sermon, at 11 A.M. at St. John the Divine, Kennington, at which a large number of those interested in the Mission were present. The Processional was “Laud, O Sion, thy Salvation," and the Service was sung to Stanford in B flat and Gounod in C. The alms collected at this, and at many of the other churches, were given as the Corean offering to the S.P.G. The following sermon was preached by the Rev. Canon Mason, Rector of All Hallows, Barking:— Ps. xcvi. 10: “Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King," or, as it stands in the Bible version, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth." These words, which you have already sung in this day's service, form a versicle and response repeated frequently in the services of to-day, according to the rite which our forefathers used in the middle ages. An ancient reading, as is well known, added to them the words “from the Tree," and the whole sentence ran, “Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth from the Tree." There is no ground for supposing that the words "from the Tree" formed any part of the psalm as originally composed, or as used in the Jewish Church; but they are a true Christian interpretation of the psalm. If the Lord reigns in the moral order, it is in virtue of the Passion which expiated the sins of the guilty world; and if we are to publish with success among the nations the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, it must be through telling the story of the Cross. Christ assured mankind that, in spite of our rebellious ways, and in spite of our natural repugnance to His laws, He would victoriously draw us all to Himself; and He said that it should be accomplished by being Himself “lifted up." It would have been well for the Church if nothing had ever been read into the Scriptures, or added to them, less in keeping with their meaning than this true and pious gloss which annexes to the words "Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth” the explanation “from the Tree." The legend which is commemorated by the third of May is as follows: By the destruction of Jerusalem, and the flight of all its Christian inhabitants, the   knowledge of the localities most sacred to Christian hearts had perished. No man knew where the body of the Lord had lain in death. Constantine and his mother, Helen, determined to explore, in order that the lost tradition might be recovered. In opening the ground near the spot which was thought most likely to have contained the Lord's Sepulchre, they unearthed, so the legend ran, three crosses, and near them the title which Pilate had written upon that of our Lord's. To make sure which of the crosses was His, they applied them in succession to a dying person, and at the touch of the third she arose in health. The legend is unhistorical. Eusebius, though he speaks of Constantine's explorations, which took place in his time and within his ecclesiastical jurisdiction, does not speak of the finding of the Cross. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, some twenty years later, speaks of the finding of the Cross, but gives no particulars which confirm the legend. There can be little question hereafter that the site selected by the Imperial explorers was the wrong site, being, for one thing, actually within the city walls in our Lord's time. It has been reserved for our own age to find—not indeed the wood of the true Cross, but the true spot where it stood. No tradition dating from earlier days guided Helen and her son; but within the last few months people appear to have come upon the trace of a tradition earlier than the days of Cyril and Eusebius, which was before unknown to exist. Close adjoining that large and roomy tomb lately discovered in what must have been a garden, on a spot to which critical considerations had already pointed, has still more recently been discovered a humbler tomb, almost communicating with the first, and on the wall, in characters which appear to belong to the second century—nearly two hundred years before Constantine—it is stated that a Christian minister is buried there, and, as it pathetically adds, "near his Lord." The legend of the discovery of Constantine may, though with some reluctance, be dismissed as unhistorical; but in its spiritual meaning it has a perpetual value. The world would not be much the richer if it were known to possess still the very wood on which Christ suffered—no, not even if the wood, according to one embellishment of the story, could multiply itself, so as to fill the world without any diminution of the original. But in another sense it is a wonderful thing to find the Cross, whether for the individual soul or for a nation. The instinct which led the first Christian sovereigns of the Roman Empire to seek for the Cross, and to honour what they believed to be the Cross, was a holy instinct which calls for our reverence and our imitation. Our   age, like theirs, has been striving to bring more vividly to its consciousness the historical truth of the Gospels by researches and excavations in the neighbourhoods where Christ lived and died; and God seems to be rewarding, beyond what could have been expected, those explorations. We do not look forward to coming upon the beams of timber, or the nails, or the title near what now seems to have been the Sepulchre of Christ, but God is guiding us in many ways to a fresh finding of the Cross—to fresh realisations of its simple truth and of its inexhaustible powers, so that, in a form suited to the times, St. Cyril's hyperbolical language may prove a fact, and the world be filled with that which we are discovering. Surely the purpose which gathers us here this morning suits well with the occasion, and we may be glad that the first triennial festival of the Corean Mission should be held on the day of the Invention of the Cross. One of those things which every new finding of the Cross involves is a fresh movement to tell it out among the heathen nations. So it was in the 13th century, when the revival of spiritual religion under St. Francis and St. Dominic issued among other things in missions who reached to the Sahara and the Soudan on the south, and to China on the east, and established an archbishopric with seven suffragans at Pekin. So it was when the Reformation in Europe challenged the unreformed Churches to put forth new energies, and Francis Xavier achieved his unparalleled work in India and Japan. Coming nearer to our own time and country, the first outcome of the Methodist movement was the mission of the Wesleys and Whitefield to Georgia, Evangelicalism in the persons of Simeon and his friends did its best work in the founding of the Church Missionary Society, whose energies are still unspent, and which will, we trust, become more completely what its name pledges it to be. And now it is the turn of other movements. As yet the great awakening to catholic truth and order, to sacramental grace and beautiful worship, falls far behind in this proof of its Divine origin and Christian purpose. It is still matter for astonishment and grief how little is done by those who should be the truest Churchmen, for the spread of the kingdom of God abroad. Were it otherwise, the income of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel would not be the pitiful £116,000, which is all that its latest report can tell us of. There is very little of the true Cross in the movement if it should end in the lavish decoration of our own churches, while the cries of the perishing heathen are drowned for us by the music of cultured choirs at home.   Not such is the teaching of the psalm from which my text is taken. There splendid ritual and missionary enthusiasm are to be seen combined as they ought to be. “O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth stand in awe of Him. Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King—that the Lord reigneth, from the Tree." Our Mission to Corea is, we may humbly believe, a true outcome of the new finding of the Cross, and bears upon its forefront the signs of Him who reached His glory through suffering. In spite of the modesty with which the missionaries there refuse to be credited with sufferings, we know that theirs is not the work or the life which would suit the self-indulgent and half-hearted. They tell us, in their cheery way, that there is about as much danger and hardship in Seoul as there is in South Kensington or Chelsea; but they did not, at any rate, know that before they went, and no one knows when the present temper of the Corean rulers might change towards foreign teachers. We are well aware that every member of the Mission, from the Bishop downwards, has abandoned good prospects, of an assured and respected position, for work in which there is at least little luxury and small opportunity for those occasional dips unto home comfort which solace and refresh even ascetics whose labour is pursued in a country like our own. Emulous of their brethren of the torrid zone of Central Africa, they go forth with nothing that can be called pay for their labours, learning, as St. Paul bids, if they have food and raiment, therewith to be content; and here we cannot but be thankful, that while there is so much to discourage elsewhere in the failure of attempts to revive the disciplined common life for men, the little venture recently made under the shadow of this church, and with a view mainly to missionary work in Corea, has thus far been blessed with what appears to be signal success, so far as to have outgrown the management of the priest who began it, and to call for the help of another. Is it indeed the Divine intention that the monastic life for Englishmen should thus link itself on to missionary work abroad, and thus prove in a double way that the true Cross has been found again, after these many years of burial? There is one point in the work of the Corean missionaries upon which perhaps the mark of the Cross is more seen than in any outward hardships which they endure, or in any outward persecutions which they might be called upon to endure. You will have anticipated what I mean. It is the patience which they are called upon to exercise while keeping silence—yea,   even from those good words which they are giving their lives to declare. They have two, if not three, of the most difficult languages upon earth to learn, and practically no one competent to teach them. It gives some notion of the difficulty when we read in the Report that the missionary who is most advanced in the Chinese language has now learned about 1,000 characters. Few passages in a missionary report could be more full of genuine pathos than those in which the Bishop writes about Mr. Small—the Canadian missionary whom, with a generosity all his own, he has lent back for a while to the Canadian Church—that neither Mr. Small nor he can hope to become Chinese scholars. “We are too old," he says. This is indeed the faith and patience of the saints, as St. John the Divine speaks—to be able to give up cheerfully all that Charles Corfe has given up, knowing that he will never be able to address those to whom he is sent in the only tongue to which an educated Corean will listen, and to feel no jealousy while younger men are learning what will give them direct influence, and the Bishop makes himself truly the servant of all, turning with a sailor's dexterity to the humble tasks of building and housekeeping, to give his subordinates more time for study and devotion. Meanwhile there is a language in which this silent Mission is speaking with effect—a language which cannot well be misunderstood. It is the very language of the Cross. I do not refer to the work of the Mission Printing Press, though I observe with interest that Bishop Corfe believes it already to be most usefully engaged. I refer to the work of the two medical men belonging to the Mission, now reinforced by the two ladies whose help is so necessary if the women of Corea are to share in the benefit. Few Missions have started so well equipped in this direction, and we cannot be too thankful for what Dr. Landis and Dr. Wiles have already been allowed to do. The care for men's bodies must always accompany the care for their souls, and interpret it. The “Hospital of Joy in Good Deeds"—you note the beautiful and significant name—is a Gospel in itself. Beside the scientific skill which our missionaries bring to bear upon their dreadful ophthalmia, and all the diseases of their squalid towns, the Coreans are already learning to turn from the magic to which they had recourse before; and the kindness which devotes this skill gratuitously to them is winning their hearts and preparing them for the day when the missionaries will be able to tell them why they do all this—for love of One whose visage was so marred with suffering, more than any man,   and whose sufferings were endured that He might sprinkle many nations, and among others the land of Corea. We are not so unreasonable as to expect to have a full chronicle of brilliant victories to give thanks for on this first triennial festival. We shall not be disappointed or impatient if the next comes and no Corean Epenetus, the household of no Corean Stephanas, has yet appeared. It is getting on for many years since Bishop Scott began his work in North China, and there is little fruit as yet to be seen. And yet we cannot tell. It may please God suddenly to throw open the two-leaved gates as He has done in the other great neighbouring kingdom of Japan. Japan until within our lifetime was more closely locked against anything foreign than Corea, and now see how quickly, almost too quickly, it is taking in the message of the Cross, so that Japanese Christian doctors are asking to be allowed to work side by side with Dr. Landis and Dr. Wiles. There seems to be strangely little belief of a positive kind to maintain the ground against the inroads of Christianity. It must have been with something like a start that many of you read the other day that the great city of Seoul, the capital with its 300,000 inhabitants, contains no temples of any kind, and that, in spite of the nominal ascendency of the Buddhist religion, no Buddhist priest or monk is allowed to set foot within the town, it is said, under pain of death! The reasons for this prohibition need to be explained. It may perhaps mean that the Coreans are not naturally inclined to religion; or it may mean that they are unsatisfied with the best that has been offered them yet, and are waiting for a better. Of the city which Constantine, the alleged discoverer of the Cross, founded for his capital upon the Bosphorus, it was said by St. Austin that "God granted him to found a town, sister and daughter of Rome, in which no temple, nor any image of devils, was ever to be seen!” “That town," says Sozomen, “began to rule the world when our religion was already spread over the greater part of mankind, and it has never been polluted by altars, nor by temples, nor by sacrifices of the heathen." This was easy to effect in a new city, built by a Christian prince, but how marvellous it will be if the providence of God has reserved for Himself alone the capital of Corea, that now, in exactly the 500th year since it became the capital, it may receive for its first temples the temples of the true and living God, and welcome His ambassadors as they tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is reigning from the Tree. It was quite impossible to give a complete list of the churches   in which the Holy Eucharist was celebrated in behalf of the Corean Mission on May 3, as many of them had not replied at the time of going to press. The following is (we hope) an accurate list of those who were not included in the leaflet sent out with the May issue of Morning Calm. Heavitree. St. Michael and All Angels. Westminster St. Matthew. West Dean All Saints. Beckenham St. George. St. Just in Roseland. St. Mawes. Penzance St. John the Baptist. Torquay. St. John. Northill St. Mary. Bury St. Edmunds St. James. Folkestone SS. Mary and Eanswythe. Edgbaston St. James. Worcester St. Paul. Concord, U.S.A. Chapel of St. Paul's School. Philadelphia, U.S.A. St. Clement. Biggleswade St. Andrew. Stony Stratford St. Mary. Cripplegate St. Giles. Gainsborough. The Parish Church. Winnipeg All Saints. Clerkenwell The Holy Redeemer. Worthing St. Andrew. THE MEETING. The first General Meeting in connection with the Mission was held in the Church House, Dean's Yard, Westminster, on Tuesday afternoon, May 3, 1892, under the presidency of the Lord Bishop of Ely (Lord Alwyne Compton). The meeting was opened with prayer. The CHAIRMAN said that he did not know why he had been requested to take the chair, unless it was that he had had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Corfe not long before he left England and talking with him on the subject. Bishop Corfe then told him, among other interesting things, that in the kingdom of Corea it was a capital crime to induce a man to change his religion, and therefore the work of missionaries was one of a most serious character. The Bishop did not say that the capital sentence was always carried out, but by the law both the convert and his converter would be liable to death. Those persons who had seen the Morning Calm, the monthly organ of the Mission, would be aware that hitherto the work of the Mission had not been strictly what was usually called mission work. There had been no active attempt at the conversion of the   people of Corea. Other bodies of Christians were working in that direction, but to what extent he did not know. What Bishop Corfe had done was to begin by the establishment of medical work. The medical practice of the Coreans was in an exceedingly barbarous condition. The inhabitants looked upon all disease as some form of possession by evil spirits, and their chief idea in curing a man was to remove the spirits which possessed him. The introduction of a better system of medicine was rapidly making its way. Hospitals had been already established, and doctors had gone out and joined the Bishop, and were at work in the capital city and at some of the treaty ports. By means of this work the Mission was gaining a strong footing in the country. That fact was shown in various ways. For instance, the Government of the country had allowed them to purchase land for a hospital in a first-rate situation at a nominal price. Another evidence of the same kind was that when there was a general strike among the workmen, the workmen engaged in erecting the Mission hospital building went on with their work, notwithstanding the strike among their fellows. A printing press had been taken out for use in the Mission, and for this appliance great work had been found already. Two natives were working the press under the direction of the missionaries. A dictionary of the English and Corean languages was being printed. The work had been prepared by a gentleman attached to one of the consulates. This was a most important work with regard to the future. In addition to this the Mission was doing work in the way of education, and had opened schools which were attended by the children of the Coreans themselves, and also of the Japanese and Chinese who lived in the place. The work was being carried on very cautiously. At the present time it was not legal for foreigners to live in the country. They might get passports, entitling them to travel about the country for three months, but they could not be legally domiciled there. There were only five places in which foreigners had any legal right to live, namely, the capital and four treaty ports. Bishop Corfe hoped before long to establish hospitals in all those places. Great help had been received by him from the Navy. He had been a Navy chaplain, and had numerous friends in that branch of the public service. The hospitals would be chiefly supported by his naval friends. It was only eighteen months since the Bishop landed in Corea, and what he had accomplished represented a very fair beginning for the work. Sites had been obtained for churches and hospitals. One church had been built, and hospitals had   been built in two different places. There was much work to be done in the way of civilising the people. It was very likely that the schools would prove a most useful agency. The general practice with regard to mission schools was to give the natives to understand that if they sent their children, they must be prepared to allow them to be taught everything, including religion. (Cheers.) Admiral COLOMB moved, “That this meeting desires to acknowledge with gratitude the important work now being carried on by the Hospital Naval Fund, under the presidency of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh." He said that he supposed that the expression of gratitude was not so much to the Navy as to the power which used that instrumentality. The Hospital Naval Fund, as the Report stated, had arisen out of the friendship which the Navy had towards the Bishop. Bishop Corfe was a chaplain under his (Admiral Colomb's) command for three years, and he was bound to say that he could not conceive of any man fulfilling the position of a naval chaplain better than Bishop Corfe had filled it. If such a chaplain was to do his duty, he must be a man of very great common sense, tact, kindness of heart, and good temper, and he must also be endued with the highest possible idea of the work which he had to do. All those qualities were fully possessed by Bishop Corfe. It was his fortune to possess the gift of common sense to a degree which prevented people seeing his great earnestness, unless they knew him very well indeed. On board his (the Admiral's) ship Bishop Corfe was a power for discipline, and a friend of both officers and men. It was very hard to move the Navy in the matter of missionary work. He recollected the Bishop saying in conversation with him, "I know that if I ask them for support for missionary work, I possibly should not get a response, though I know that they will give me their support in carrying out hospital work." The Navy was perhaps a little too practical. The poetry of the sea had been a great deal knocked out of them by modern structures, and they were apt to take an exceedingly utilitarian and common-sense view of things, and perhaps, in the naval mind, missionary societies came somewhat under the category of things which were not of a common-sense character. In this case, however, they had come forward to assist. Perhaps this was due to the fact that there was no objection which they could possibly take to the manner in which Bishop Corfe had begun his Mission work. Nothing touched the semi-civilised so much as the science of medicine. The way to gain the confidence and hearts of such people was   to heal them of their diseases. The blessing of health was one which they could thoroughly understand. It might be thought that a contribution of £300 or £400 a year was a small one for the Navy to make, but it must be remembered that nearly all the men of the Navy were poor men. He did not know that they could raise so large a sum for any other purpose than that which their love to Bishop Corfe, and their approval of the practical work which he had done, had induced them to assist. But no movement of this sort could come to a head, as it had done, unless it was supported by the highest ranks in the Navy. As to the Royal Family, it was a peculiarity of them that everything which they took in hand they seemed to do well. To his personal knowledge the Duke of Edinburgh was first of all a sailor, and, secondly, a great lover and respecter of Bishop Corfe; and when it was proposed to his Royal Highness to become the president of the naval part of the work, he accepted the position with eagerness. (Cheers.) The Rev. J. C. Cox EDWARDS seconded the resolution, and in doing so he remarked that if he did not in some sense represent the chaplains of the Royal Navy, he should feel that he had no excuse for venturing to address the meeting. It was with considerable pride that he mentioned the readiness and liberality with which the chaplains of the Royal Navy had contributed a sum of something like £80, to present to Bishop Corfe the printing press, to which some reference had been made, and some other useful articles. He knew well how much the Bishop appreciated that gift. The press was likely to do a very great work for the Mission for many years to come. He once read a book which had for its title, "Are Foreign Missions doing any good?" and he was surprised to find in that work the statement that, previously to 1813, missionaries were actually forbidden in India by the British authorities; and yet within fifty years of that date the greatest statesmen in England, and the greatest governors in India, had been most emphatic in their testimony of the value of missionary work. But it was quite beside the mark for Christians to consider merely the social and civilising tendency of Missions, inasmuch as our Lord had laid it down that they were to preach the Gospel to every creature. He maintained that it was their duty to act upon that command, and to leave results to Him. Coming to the resolution, he was sorry to find that the greater bulk of the money which had been raised by the Navy consisted of donations rather than of regular subscriptions. He should be glad to see a very much larger number of subscribers. The efforts which had been made to get   together the Hospital Naval Fund must not be relaxed, or the Bishop would be left with his work on his hands, without means to carry it forward. The Rev. J. B. HARBORD, who supported the resolution, said that Bishop Corfe was still on the Navy List. The Bishop, shortly before his departure from England, said to him, “I know very well that this fund which is being organised is chiefly from my own old friends, but I wish that it shall become year by year less a personal matter and more one for the love of missions in themselves." That seemed to be the one great thought which was actuating the Bishop. As Chairman of the Executive Committee he (Mr. Harbord) could state that there would certainly be increasing demand upon the funds. During the past two years they had been fortunate enough to have as their principal medical officer a retired army surgeon, who had done the work without payment, but he would probably come home at the end of the present year, and his successor would have to be paid. Funds would also have to be applied for the payment of Dr. Landis, or his successor. The doctor was a natural linguist, and he had almost mastered the language already, and therefore the Bishop wanted to send him upon pioneer work. This would cause a still further call upon the funds. Although the balance-sheet showed about £500 in hand, the whole of that sum would be drawn upon before the end of the year. As to the contributors in the Navy, there were several of them who preferred to have their contributions put down as donations, but they had assured him (Mr. Harbord) that they would repeat their donations year by year. He believed that they might safely depend upon receiving £300 a year from the Navy, but more than that would be wanted. The amount which had been expended by the Mission in building had not been very great hitherto, for Dr. Wiles and Dr. Landis had both contributed very largely from their private means, and from the fees which they had received from their private patients. The accounts would show that all the work had been carried on economically. Bishop Corfe laid great stress upon the fact that the great work which the Navy was doing was reacting upon the men themselves, and the men were becoming a body of missionaries. He thought that the healing of the body was sometimes considered too much apart from the spiritual work of the Mission. For his own part he was constantly dwelling upon the text which the Mission had adopted as its motto, which was, “And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.” Our blessed Lord never separated the two kinds of work. It must be remembered   that although the healing of the sick in these days brought the aid of modern science into requisition, still the work was no less the work of God. (Cheers.) The Rev. T. F. MORTON said that he was Bishop Corfe's successor at the dockyard of Portsmouth, and although he did not yield to anyone in his personal love and respect for the Bishop, or in his desire for the progress of the Mission, he must say that he had been somewhat surprised to find that during the last few months Bishop Corfe had himself sent him large donations from the Corea for various objects in this country. He had sent nearly £30 to the Sailors' Home at Portsmouth, and nearly £100 to the Royal Marines' Orphan Home. He had also sent £10 for the Mission to Seamen, and large donations had been given to other institutions. As Admiral Colomb had told them, the men in the Navy were a poor lot with regard to their financial means, and he thought that before they increased the amount of the funds which they contributed to the Bishop's work in Corea, they would require some explanation of the fact of the Bishop sending such large contributions to various works at home. He hoped that he should not be understood to claim the right of dictating to the Bishop how he should dispose of his private money; but at the same time, if the Mission was in great need, perhaps it would be better to give his help to the Mission, instead of sending it to institutions at home which did not require it. (Cheers.) The Rev. C. E. YORK said that, as a naval chaplain and a personal friend of Bishop Corfe, he believed that the explanation of the fact to which the last speaker had called attention was that Bishop Corfe desired that no missionary society should absorb the whole of their interest, and that any society which was doing an honest and good work should have their support. He hoped that the tide of liberality at home would not be turned back because the Bishop had sent home some generous gifts to institutions in which he took a deep and loving interest. (Cheers.) The motion was carried unanimously. The Rev. S. BERKELEY, Vice-President of the Association, moved, "That the work of the Association of Prayer and Work for Corea, which has already been so signally blessed, deserves the continued and increased support of all Churchmen." He said that the Association of Prayer and Work really covered to a very large extent the whole ground of interest connected with the Mission. Belonging to that Association were those who were working not only for the support of the Hospital Naval   Fund, but for the support of all the other separate works that were included in the operations of the Mission. It might be well to say a few words with regard to the history of the Association. The Bishop was consecrated on All Saints' Day 1889, and within a very few days after his consecration the germ of the Association of Prayer and Work was planted. Bishop Corfe was with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the church at Addington, and the two knelt down together, and together said the three collects for Good Friday. That was the real germ of the Association, and it was this which had characterised the Association throughout. The Bishop then began to develop the Association, and he commenced by getting workers in the shape of people whom he from the first called local secretaries, whose only work for the Association, as far as the Bishop then understood it, was to get members for the Association and to interest people in the Mission. (Cheers.) The duties of the local secretaries involved a good deal of work and thought and correspondence, and they were of a very important character. There had been a great deal of misunderstanding with regard to what constituted a member of the Association, and the question had led to a great deal of inconvenience and correspondence. There was no other term than "member" applied to anyone who belonged to the Association. "Member" was a name which the Bishop had given from the very first. That which constituted a person a member of the Association of Prayer and Work for Corea was that one should pledge himself or herself to pray daily, first for foreign missions generally, and then next for Corea and its Mission and its Bishop. That was the sole obligation of membership, but it was the essential one, and no one was a member of the Association who was not openly or tacitly pledged to this daily obligation. It was not unimportant to draw a distinction between this essential condition of membership and those other excellent efforts which very often went along with it and sprang out of it. It was the Bishop's own wish that the only condition attaching to membership should be that which he (Mr. Berkeley) had stated. It was the Bishop's strong personality, touched by the grace of God, which had really given strength to the Mission and to the Association, and to all that belonged to it. Everything which the Bishop had done had been touched with that strange kind of personal sway which always characterised men who were great in any sense, but which still more characterised those who were great in the sense in which the Bishop was great. The Bishop was frank and trusting and lavish in his generosity.   It had almost made him (the speaker) laugh to hear just now a question raised as to whether the money gifts of the Bishop were right or wrong. His giving in the way which had been referred to might not appear to be common sense, but it was characteristic of Bishop Corfe, who was frank and generous and trusting, and so like a sailor in his love for loveable things. One of the great problems which had been striking people very strongly, and giving rise to a considerable amount of apprehension of late, was the difficulty of securing a right amount of interest and support for isolated missions, without robbing the great missionary societies and lessening their power of doing good. The Bishop of Corea would never think of limiting money supplies to Corea, and there was no doubt that the reason that he had sent money home was that he felt that for the present there was no need for it in Corea, and that there was a great need for it immediately somewhere else. But the secret of what the Bishop had done was that in the Association of Prayer and Work he made it an essential obligation of membership that both the large missionary institutions and the special Mission to Corea should be prayed for together. They could easily deplete treasuries of money by taking money out of one thing and putting it into something else, but they could not deplete the treasury of prayer. The more we prayed the more our prayers were increased. The more we gave of prayer the more we could give and did give of it, and the more would all the other results, money included, follow upon it. He should like to add to that part of the resolution which spoke of "the continued and increased support of all Churchmen,” the words, “in the form of daily prayer.” (Cheers.) Canon DOXAT said that he had been asked to second the resolution. He was thankful to be able to say that his wife and himself hoped to be sailing for Corea in two or three months. He knew nothing about the country except what he had read in the pages of Morning Calm. Just as one was about to start upon Mission work such as that which was carried on in Corea, he felt, perhaps as he never felt at any other time, the need and support of prayer. As one who was about to enter upon the work of the Mission, he would ask the meeting to let the words of the last speaker sink into their hearts, and to let their prayers for the work of missions throughout the world be daily deepened by such gatherings as the present. Missionary meetings were not always looked upon as sources of great strength, but a meeting such as the present, if it deepened the spirit of prayer, would be a source of intense strength. A missionary in Corea might be   helped by the knowledge of the fact that meetings such as this were held, and that prayer was being maintained for the strengthening and help of the Mission. The Bishop's working staff would be increased by the accession of five sisters who were going out. (Cheers.) The hospital work would be wonderfully strengthened by their presence. Another point which might be considered was that his own going to the Corea would be a new departure in the work, inasmuch as he would be the first married man to go out, and it might be hoped that good would be done among the Coreans by their having amongst them an example of the domestic side of a Christian home. (Cheers.) The motion was then carried unanimously. The Rev. C. E. BROOKE, Commissary of Bishop Corfe, in rising to move the next resolution, said that it might be interesting if he gave what he believed to be the last news from Corea. The Bishop in his last letter informed him that he had started for three months in the northern part of his diocese, and that he was going to live by himself for three months, in order that he might ascertain what opening there was for mission work there. When he returned in the autumn to Chemulpo he would decide as to which of his staff, if any, he would take up to the work which he hoped to start. This journey would leave the Mission-workers in Chemulpo and Seoul, and other places, very much to their own resources, as they would be without the personal guidance of their chief for a short time. But things had got into such order, and everything was going on so satisfactorily both at Chemulpo and Seoul, that he did not think that there need be any apprehension on account of the temporary withdrawal of the Bishop. They would all be glad to hear that the enjoyment of the festival to-day had been much increased to him by the offer of a doctor to go out to Corea. During the next week one of the missionary brotherhood under the very zealous and self-denying leadership of Mr. Kelly was going out to that country. The resolution which he had to move was as follows:—"That a cordial vote of thanks be given to the S.P.G., S.P.C.K., St. Peter's Home, Kilburn, the clergy who have allowed their churches for celebration of the Holy Eucharist, and the heads of the various departments in connection with the Mission to Corea, for the support and aid they have given to the Mission." This was an all-embracing resolution, and was catholic like the Mission itself. (Cheers.) There was at that time a great deal of correspondence with regard to the attitude of the great missionary societies to special missions, but one fact was worth any amount of theory, and he could state that if the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts had treated other special missions in the same liberal,   generous, and trustful way in which it had treated the Mission to Corea, any complaint with regard to the action of that venerable Society to the smaller missions was absolutely and entirely out of court. He made this statement because he was more or less the representative of the Bishop. The Bishop had insisted that the offerings of that day should be given to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and that not a single penny should be given to the Corean Mission itself. (Cheers.) The reason why the Bishop gave such an order was not that he did not want money for the Corean Mission, but because he did not wish any existing society to suffer on account of the Mission in Corea. With regard to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, that also had been most kind to the Corean Mission, and had helped it in its medical work, and had given advice to the missionaries that had gone out. The resolution included an expression of thanks to St. Peter's Home. That Home was giving the Mission of its very best—(cheers)—and it had offered some of its sisters to be sent out in connection with the hospitals. The sisters who were going out, though they had taken great pains to be up in the most scientific forms of nursing, would not have any opening for their skill in that direction, and they were going to give themselves up to other kinds of mission work. As to the heads of the various departments in connection with the Mission, what the Mission would do without the aid of those persons he could not tell. The amount of work which those ladies and gentlemen performed in various ways for the Mission was really untold. One and all of the departments were doing excellent work. (Cheers.) Admiral ROBERTSON-MACDONALD seconded the resolution. He said that having been for a number of years connected with the Sisterhood of St. Peter's, Kilburn, he could not let the present opportunity pass without expressing his gratitude that God had put it into the heart of the Mother Superior to send out some of the sisters to aid Bishop Corfe's work. Mr. C. G. N. TROLLOPE supported the resolution. He said that he was glad to have the present opportunity of personally thanking the various heads of departments who had dealings with him. He held a rather curious position in connection with the Mission, for every month the secretaries of the various funds sent him lists of their subscriptions and expenditure during the month, and, though there was an opportunity for friction occurring through mistakes, no serious misunderstanding had occurred. (Cheers.) The motion was carried unanimously. The Rey. H. W. TUCKER moved a vote of thanks to the   Rev. Canon Mason, the preacher of the morning, for the sermon which he had delivered. He said that he represented one of those societies which the gallant admiral who moved the first resolution described as not being sufficiently utilitarian to satisfy the requirements of the Navy. He traced the genesis of the Mission to Corea to the year 1872. At that time very many of the clergy knew nothing at all about Corea, but he remembered that December, 1872, was the month in which there occurred the first day of Intercession for Foreign Missions; and about that time a London merchant came to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and said, "I will give you £5,000 on the Day of Intercession if you will open new work." The committee were emboldened to send missionaries to Japan the following year, and in the year 1874 to China, and from those two missions there arose the thought of opening a mission in Corea. Ten years ago, in the annual report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel there appeared the following short passage: “From Japan to Corea it is but a step, but a step which must be taken." The way was at that time by no means clear, as there were no funds available, and certainly Bishop Corfe had not been thought of in connection with the work. But gradually the way seemed to open. Bishop Scott and Bishop Bickersteth came to the Lambeth Conference, and in communicating with the Society they suggested whether it was not possible to send a fully equipped mission to Corea. Just at that time the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel happened to be in the uncommon and unusual position of having some funds at its disposal, and it was enabled to guarantee £1,500 a year for the next six years. They did not look upon the Mission to Corea as an isolated one, but they regarded it with special interest as an undertaking which had grown out of missions in other directions. (Cheers.) The Rev. G. R. BULLOCK WEBSTER seconded the resolution. He said that they felt deeply grateful for the opportunity which they had had that day of joining together in prayer for the Mission to Corea at such a magnificent service as was held in the morning, and they felt it a great privilege that the Mission should have for its home and centre the church of St. John the Divine at Kennington, where such admirable work was being done in every way, and where the two pieces of advice which had been given to them in the sermon of that morning were so admirably carried out, namely, first, that they should worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and, secondly, that they should tell it out among the heathen that the Lord was King. (Cheers.) The motion was carried unanimously.   Mr. TROLLOPE moved, “That the thanks of this meeting be given to the Lord Bishop of Ely for his occupation of the chair, and for the manner in which he has conducted the business." The Rev. C. E. BROOKE seconded the motion. He said that the Chairman had stated in his opening speech that he did not know why he had been asked to preside. The reason he had been asked was, first, that the friends of the Mission felt that there was nobody whom they would rather have in the chair, and then next, they were especially anxious to have his lordship's presence on that occasion because of the help and assistance which Mr. Bullock Webster, his lordship's chaplain, had given to the Mission. (Cheers.) The CHAIRMAN briefly responded to the vote of thanks, and then pronounced the Benediction. The Spirit of Missions. “And let us make a little box for the poor at home, and near the place where you stand to pray there let it be put, and as often as you enter in to pray, first give your alms, and then send up your prayer. And as you would not wish to pray lifting up unclean hands, so neither do so without alms.... Only let nothing be cast into the little box which is the fruit of injustice; for this thing is Charity."—S. CHRYSOSTOM. The Annual Report of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa for 1891 has just been published, and the account it gives of the progress during the year calls for much thankfulness. Dividing the whole field into four districts—Nyasa, Rovuma, Usambara, and Zanzibar Island—the Report proceeds as follows: "PROGRESS AT NYASA. “In Nyasaland, at the central station on Likoma Island, there are now 98 on the communicants' roll as against 61 last year, and the total number of the baptized there is 110 as against 66. On the neighbouring island of Chisumulu there are now seven baptized as against one in 1890, and five of these seven were confirmed by the Bishop on his visit in August last. In addition to these he confirmed 32 candidates from Likoma, 11 from Msumba, and 5 from Pachia, these last two being lakeside schools, making a total of 55 confirmed in this branch of the work. In these lakeside schools the total number of children early in 1891 was 421, as against 259 at the same time in the previous year, and the steamer visits more than 20 lakeside villages   in its rounds. On the material side we note the erection of the first stone buildings at Likoma and Chisumulu, and also a stone house at Msumba, whilst a considerable quantity of material has been collected for the church building at Likoma, including a large number of bricks, which have been kindly prepared for us by the Scotch Mission at Bandawe. The printing department has done good work, a corrected version of St. Mark's Gospel in the Chimulawi dialect of the Nyasa language being the last thing issued from its press, having been preceded by some small books of a grammatical character, written and printed for the use of learners of the language; whilst an entirely new feature of the work is the issue of a Nyasa magazine, corresponding to the ‘Msimulizi' edited and written by our native teachers at Zanzibar. Carpentering work, too, has been established, and some of Mr. Alley's apprentices have already learned to turn out some fairly creditable results in that department. “THE ROVUMA DISTRICT. “Turning to the Rovuma district, between Nyasaland and the East Coast, the Bishop, who visited this district in June 1891, baptized and afterwards confirmed 8 men and 2 women at Chitangali, 6 men and 8 women and girls at Masasi, and at the central station of Newala he confirmed 31 men and 12 women and girls, thus bringing up the total confirmations in this district to 67. Two nice houses had been built at Newala in preparation for the ladies whom he hopes shortly to send there, and a large schoolroom for girls, with a sleeping room above. At Chitangali the station has been rebuilt by the native priest, Cecil Majaliwa, as the people had moved away from the site of their old village. The buildings are not of stone, but the church school and presbytery and another large house stand apart from the village. Two sons of the native chief, Barnaba Nakaam, teach in the school. It is noteworthy that the church was built by the natives without receiving any wages, the oil for the lamps is bought by the alms of the people, and the Christians carry it up from the coast for nothing. Thus our native priest has taught his people a lesson that has yet to be learnt by many Christians at home. “THE USAMBARA COUNTRY. "The same great principle is also working in the Usambara country. The first school, built entirely by the people themselves without any help from the Mission, was opened at Mlembule in April 1891, and it began with 48 children on the books, under the charge of a native teacher, Lewis Bondo, and his wife.   There are now ten of these outlying schools in addition to the central ones at Magila and Mkuzi, as against six in 1890; the total number of children on the books being 722 as against 330 last year, and an entirely new sub-station has been opened at Kologwe on an island in the Luvu river under the charge of Mr. Herbert Lister. The native teachers in this district have also started their magazine in the Swahili language, so that the Mission has now altogether no less than three publications in three different districts, carried on by its native converts—a fact surely sufficient in itself to silence the gainsayers of the capabilities of the African races. "ZANZIBAR ISLAND, “In Zanzibar itself there has been steady if uneventful progress in all departments of mission work, in spite of many changes of staff through sickness. Some 40 children from the schools have been confirmed during the year and several baptized, whilst seven of our Christian girls at Mbweni were married in December, some of them to go on the mainland with their husbands as native teachers. The Mission press has not been idle, several translations of standard works having been issued in Swahili during the year. The “Msimulizi,' the Mission magazine, continues to maintain its high level under the editorship of the native teachers. By the kind and generous assistance of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the third volume of the tentative edition of the Old Testament in Swahili has been printed and sent out to Zanzibar. This completes the issue of the whole Bible by the Society. They are now issuing the revised edition of the Swahili New Testament, similar in size to the original edition, and will next undertake to re-issue the Bible in one volume when the revision of the Old Testament, now in hand, is complete, and this we hope to see accomplished by the end of the present year. Archdeacon Jones-Bateman, Mr. Madan, and Archdeacon Hodgson (in England) have been working hard to secure this grand result, feeling, as Bishop Steere used to say, that all our work must be incomplete without a Vernacular Bible."