This

the wife of a brother raised her hand. She is a priest's sister and was long distressed to know whether to follow husband or brother. Afterwards another young married man and a boy of fourteen years expressed their purpose. young man has now returned to the village, where he steadily follows Christ, having brought his bride into the way' with him. Of the others mentioned above, Dr. House has since received to communion the father of the babe and the priest's sister, and also married the young fellow, whose betrothed had ceased opposing him, and promised to follow the gospel with him. And on Dr. House's visit he also called for decisions after the sermon, and six responded at that time.

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We wonder at the fact that during this calendar year there have been fiftyseven accessions on confession in our field, surpassing all previous records (if I mistake not) in our mission's history. This has been in spite of war and excitement and our inability to tour nearly so much as other years. It is the Lord's doing and is marvelous in our eyes.' Of these accessions twenty-five were in the first half year and thirty-two in the second half year. Only ten of them were in the old Razlog field, and these all in the large Bansko church. But little Murtino took the palm with eleven, and was followed by Monospitovo with nine, and Strumnitza with six. Our brother Kimoff, who has charge of all three places, with their total of twenty-six additions, certainly has cause for joy."

of the eight already have situations in view as teachers. Their Christian characters and experience are much more satisfactory than the last classes have been. The financial outlook of the school, too, is hopeful. The payments have been prompt and the number of beneficiaries is small. We are hopeful that we shall be able to pay our current expenses. Miss Sheldon and I are very busy, and our crowded quarters are sometimes very hard to bear. But we are very well.

room.

"Yet we have a doleful tale to tell. Winter came on very early and with unusual severity. There was a heavy fall of snow in November, and our chapel fell, so that nothing was left but a heap of ruins. The boys' school is (or was) under the chapel, and there were sixty or seventy boys there, but not one was injured. We are so thankful for this great mercy! Our people sent a request to the Gregorians to allow them to hold their services in their church. No answer was given for several days, so our services were held in our kindergarten room, which is a good-sized We all sat on the floor, and the congregation was accommodated by this arrangement. After a good deal of red tape the question of allowing us to hold our services in the Gregorian church was referred to the bishop. He replied by requesting our people to rent a room, and they (the Gregorians) would pay the rent. Of course his offer was refused. The people took up a special contribution and raised 700 piastres ($30.80). This was sufficient to put a roof on the schoolroom, and the school was again in session after a vacation of only a little more than a week. Now that there is no hope from the Gregorians, the people have enlarged the schoolroom by taking down the walls between the recitation rooms. The whole expense has been about fifteen liras."

The need of a new church is most imperative. Miss Farnham reports that the people, should they make a great effort, might give 200 liras. Five of the trustees promise to give twenty liras each, but the church cannot be built for less than 1,000 liras ($4,400), and in these times of dis

"It takes a hard hammer to break a flint. Some suffering must have seemed necessary to a merciful God to break the hard crusts of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism - the strongest nonChristian religions of the world. But it seems to have produced an effect. During the twenty-two years since I came to India there never has been a time when the people listened as attentively as now. Preaching in the open air, with stereopticon pictures, has always drawn good audiences, but I never have seen such seriousness as now. No questions are asked for the purpose of diverting attention, and there has been no attempt at ridicule. As I was preaching one evening recently, the two leading men of a village sat near me. They had always been unfriendly, and had sometimes seemed to oppose our work from malice. Their quiet attention and friendly remarks that evening quite surprised the Christians who had known them. The distribution of grain from America, and other help to the most needy had stopped the mouths of opposers.

twenty persons had died of starvation. There were friends who would have sent them help if their condition had been made known. The plague has also shown the natural heart. The language of the first chapter of Romans is not too strong to describe it. Parents can disown their children, or shut them in the house, lock the door and run away, leaving them to die.

"The root of evil,' which James speaks of, grows strong by the bedside of the dying. Bribery and theft in the hospitals are going on continually when the European officer is not close at hand. A family where slight fever appears, being of high caste, are more afraid of the segregation camp than of the plague. They go to a native assistant in a government hospital who is willing to give a certificate that will exempt them from inspection, in consideration of a fee, which is said to be several hundred rupees. A rich man dies of a common disease, and the custom is to bury before any one in the house can take any food. As the funeral procession moves out it is stopped by the police, who accuse them of concealing the nature of the disease, and threaten to take them to a magistrate. But a bribe of 700 rupees removes all obstacles to the burial. Native overseers on government relief works appoint a time for the people to return a part of their wages. European officers are not ubiquitous and cannot always prevent it.

"Such things are a suggestive commentary on the demands of this people for self-government, and also on the too frequent remark in America that the religion of these people is good enough.

"The plague is spreading and may cover a large part of India. It may have been this disease that troubled the Philistines before they returned the ark. Few healthy Europeans are attacked, and they work as doctors and nurses in plague hospitals with little fear. All schools in plague districts are closed by government orders. The effect on trade and business is most paralyzing. Cities are depopulated, trade is blocked by quarantine, railway

passengers are examined and stopped, if signs of fever are found. Medical certificates are required to get railway tickets from infected towns, cotton and other mills are stopped, and the material prosperity of the country suffers indescribably."

South China Mission.

A STEADFAST BELIEVER.

DR. HAGER, among the many incidents connected with a tour in the country district, reports the following:

"At Hoi Hau Fau I had the pleasure of baptizing two adults; one of these was our chapel keeper of last year, while the second is a young student, an only son, whose father is in America. Both the mother and the grandparents do all in their power to keep him from taking this step, and come to our chapel to make an uproar. First comes a deputation of friends, then the grandfather and grandmother, and last of all the mother, with a number of women. The grandmother sprains her foot in trying to come to the chapel; the mother declares that she has not eaten anything for several days, and that if her son becomes a Christian she will starve herself to death. With pointed finger she asserts that our chapel keeper has been the cause of all this, and that he has bewitched her son. These scenes are enacted the evening before and again on the morning of the day set for the communion. At times the uproar and confusion were something fearful, and on the whole the Christians were very much excited. Finally the grandfather seizes the grandson and attempts to force him to leave the chapel, at which I interfere and ask the young man if he wishes to return with his grandfather. To which he replies, Not unless I am baptized.' Seeing that the young man's presence at the chapel caused such an outburst of illfeeling, I baptized him, having previously examined him, and told him to go home with his grandfather. One word from me sent him along willingly with his relative, while all the pleadings, scoldings, and warnings of friends had not the least effect upon him. When the grandfather

seized him and tried to drag him along he only wept but did not move to go. After going home he was surrounded by a whole crowd of women who warned him not to become a Christian, whereupon he told them he was already baptized. When the time for the communion arrived, I sent a young man to call him and he came without being hindered by friends. relatives thought that this becoming a Christian required his leaving them, and when they saw that this was not the case they felt easier."

North China Mission.

EAGER LISTENERS.

His

MR. CHAPIN writes from Lin Ching: "I have just returned from another trip to Tung-Ch'ang-fu. That city is likely in the future to demand a good deal of our care and attention. It is too early to say anything as to results, but on this occasion we were received and listened to in a way which was very gratifying to preachers of the gospel who have been wont to see many turn away in contempt. I might also add that there are a few who enroli themselves as inquirers, but as they probably belong to the second group of persons mentioned in the parable of the sower, we do not allow ourselves to get into a glow over results at present.

"The chief features of this visit were the daily, almost hourly, preaching. We opened the chapel in the afternoon to an audience that listened quietly and respectfully. This audience was mostly composed of people from the town, many of them those who came regularly to hear, but a goodly number were from the surrounding villages. In the evening the crowd was larger, filling the hall completely. Among these we noticed those who came night after night, and showed in many ways that they were genuinely interested. It was a harder crowd in which to keep order, but there was at no time anything approaching rowdyism such as disgraces gatherings of a similar nature in Christian lands; and that under the eye of a policeman.

"Preaching thus five hours a day, we

found to be wearing to the flesh, so for the helper's sake, who had not spared himself, we went off to Ch'ing P'ing, where there are five or six inquirers. Attending the fair at this place, we could not but notice the difference in interest between the two cities. It might be compared to stepping out of a hothouse into the arctic snows. At the same time the men who come forward and seem desirous of accepting the truth at Ch'ing P'ing appear to be more genuine than these of the Fu city. At both Ch'ing P'ing and Po Ping, another shire town twelve miles from the former place, we are trying to rent premises, realizing that there is little

ope of keeping these sheep together unless there is a fold for them where they can meet for Sabbath services and for regular fastruction, but thus far without success.

Among the men who sought us out in tung Chang was a man who lives twelve miles this side of that city. He is an pium user, and for that reason, perhaps, w the more interested, hoping that he might secure in this way our help to break at the use of the drug. Be that as it may, he showed a rare knowledge of the gospels for a man who had never received instruction in them. Nor does he stand alone, for at two other places this year I have met men who had received a knowledge of the truth from reading the Bible, or portions of it."

Mr. Perkins speaks of his work at Lin Ching:

The especial feature of my work this year is the large number of calls made upon me by young men from the two or three leading schools of the city. While their chief interest has been about foreign affairs, an English education, etc., yet they in several instances have read one or more gospels, and have listened respectfully to straightforward presentations of the claims of the Christ. I believe that in not a few cases the genuine assent of the mind has been secured, but to reach the will is another matter. The Chinese are living, religiously, in a swamp, and people in a swamp seldom move rapidly, even when know they ought to."

ADDITIONS.

PERSECUTION CHECKED.

Dr. Smith wrote from Pang-chuang, January 1:—

"We held our Christmas general meeting a week ago, and our new chapel was crowded. We received fifteen to the church on profession, and seventeen on probation, making a total for the year of new members 107, and of probationers 137. The reports from all over the field were most encouraging, and one incident was especially so.

In a small village, called Mao Wang Chuang, there has been some persecution for three years, especially at Christian weddings and funerals. The old mother of a probationer died, and there was a serious row, with threats of violence if a Christian service was insisted on. Fires were set, and the leading member there was put in fear for his property, if not of worse things. Finding that matters were hopeless of adjustment otherwise, Dr. Porter and I saw the district magistrate and got him to issue a proclamation expressly for this case, as well as to arrest the leaders in the trouble. They speedily came up here to get a settlement, and came completely to our requirements, one of which was that the leaders of the trouble should be the managers of the Christian funeral; that is, taking the external arrangements, by which means all opposition would be extinguished. The funeral was held in the presence of 2,000 people, giving the native pastor and helpers good opportunity to preach. We also required them to sign a paper which bound them to be responsible for any trouble which might in future arise between the 'Jesus Church' and outsiders, and a copy of this agreement, with a petition of request for the dismissal of the case, was filed at the district yamen. It is next to certain that this will make any revival of the trouble in all that region an impossibility, as every one dreads to have his name registered in the yamen."

VILLAGE WORK.

MISS RUSSELL, of Peking, reports a visit made at several country stations, in

many of which she found a most promising work. We give her report of two of these out-stations. Of Ping Ting, a market town to which a helper had been sent to sell books, she says:

"I was there two days, and certainly my faith had not been strong enough to believe that in so short a time there would be such results. This is an entirely new place not one where helpers and booksellers had been over the ground in past years. There are now five nice men who are anxious to come into the church, besides a number who are interested. The women were very friendly, and a number of them promised not to forget to pray every day. They asked over and over again, 'How do you worship the true God?'

I Can it be he loves and cares for such poor creatures as we are?' 'My room is so small he will not want to come and dwell with me, will he?' Yes, this is all true; I know it is, for as I listen my heart warms and expands.' Such and many more were the remarks made by them.

The last night I was there the five men with the helper came to my room at the inn, and we had such a good prayermeeting. One of the men is a physician of note there and a man of influence in the town.

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Another visit was at a new village, and at the home of a woman who was here in my station class last year. Her old mother is seventy-three years old, and has for a good many years been a faithful worshiper of Buddha. Night after night, summer and winter, she would spend half the night on the cold, damp bricks, reciting over and over the classics she had learned at a temple. If fleas or mosquitoes disturbed her while praying, she did not dare move. If cramped with the cold, faint or sick, she dared not make a move till she had gone through the classic. 'What did you do all this for?' she was asked; to which she replied, To get peace of heart. I was seeking the true door or road of life.' Did you get peace? Did you find the door of life?' No, no,' was the answer; 'my heart is still heavy, and I have no hope.' She went on to say

that when her daughter told her about Jesus, and how he loved us, she had given up her worship of Buddha. As she listened to the words about the true God who loved her, and the blessed Christ who died for her, she said, 'Yes, this is the truth. It was what I was seeking for and now have found. I know in my heart what you say is true. Tell me how to pray.' She has promised to come to the station class, and I know the blessing she seeks will come to her."

Shansi Mission.

A VILLAGE PRAYER-MEETING.

MR. WILLIAMS writes of Tun Fang, an out-station of Taiku, where the Christians have, of their own accord and in their own way, established a school and are manifesting a most progressive spirit. Mr. Williams says:

"The Christians at this place, although holding membership in the Taiku city church, have regular Sabbath services in their own village. There is an unusual spirit of good fellowship both among themselves and with us. Some time ago, while making a short tour among the villages in that section, we arrived at this place just after dark. Passing along the main street in search of the village inn, we came to the store of Mr. Wen, out of the open door of which there suddenly rushed five or six men, scarcely recognizable in the dusk, who surrounded us, one seizing my horse by the bridle, and another that of helper Wang Chung, and dragged us in, not listening to our protestations, which I confess were rather weak.

"To my great surprise I found seventeen church friends gathered together for their weekly prayer-meeting, which they had themselves started, and at which no foreigner had ever before been present, and which our unexpected arrival found them faithfully sustaining. After the meeting, in which many heartily took part, a warm supper was most hospitably prepared and served. One horse was cared for on the place, and the other taken home by a neighbor. The next morning