His cause. His heart is deeply in it. He is now and henceforth expecting until His enemies shall be made His footstool. We cannot doubt His presence in this enterprise any more than we can doubt our existence. For His sake, then, we ask His people not to withdraw their hands. The world belongs to Christ. If we are His true followers we must do our utmost to bring it under allegiance to Him.

INTERDENOMINATIONAL COURTESIES IN CHINA.

BY REV. A. H. SMITH, D.D., P'ANG CHUANG, CHINA.

[The members of the deputation to China were privileged in listening to the story here told from the lips of the native pastor, Chia, at P’ang Chuang. This pastor, as reported by Secretary Judson Smith, "stands six feet in height, is very erect, with an ample chest, free gestures, and a speaking face. His story was dramatic in the highest degree.'']

In the P'ang Chuang station of the North China Mission of the American Board a case of persecution arose, many years ago, about a man who was an adopted son, but who, in consequence of becoming a Christian, declined to worship at the ancestral graves. As sons are adopted largely for this very purpose, his course naturally excited criticism. But the true intent of it was not the re-establishment of the burning of paper, but the transfer of the land to another member of the clan, who was old, poor, and obstreperous; in China an infelicitous combination.

The magistrate decided that if the convert would not worship at the graves himself he might send his son instead, who happened also to be an adopted one. This did well enough for a nominal settlement, until the son himself became a Christian, when the legal prosecution was renewed by the old "uncle." This continued for some years, but in the summer of 1896, when a Mohammedan magistrate took over the seals of the county, he decided that either the worship must be renewed or the grave land given up. A Chinese law-suit involves everybody who can be dragged into it, and one of the outsiders thus entangled was Mr. Chu, a strong and steadfast Christian, who had been chosen as a deacon-colporter by the votes of all his brethren in the church. As he declined to give his consent to this illegal transfer of the grave land to a man to whom it did not belong, Mr. Chu incurred the wrath of the Mohammedan official, who could not comprehend how one could be so "obstinate as not to conform to the customs of the land, and whose angry inquiry was, "Why do you not conform, as I do?"

Acting as his passion dictated, the magistrate had Mr. Chu beaten 450 blows, although the plaintiff himself was beaten only 100 blows. The rights of Chinese to follow the rules of the Christian religion, agreeably to treaties, did not figure in the case at all. To the prompt visit of the missionaries in charge the magistrate had only to say that his ruling was correct in every detail, and that he would not reverse it even if his head were taken off. As this was in an important sense a test case, it was taken to the Consul, who, upon examination, promised to press it, and did so with much apparent vigor. But the course of Chinese legal procedure is slow and tortuous, involving in

this case transmission through three or four Yamens, or official bureaus, in two provinces. Every one of the officials would do his best to block the case, and the result was that nothing was done. The average Celestial is no match for the Anglo-Saxon in energy, but in pertinacious obstructiveness he is unrivaled, except by the Turk. The only outcome was that the Consul, after more than a year of delay, sent a dispatch enjoining the missionaries to withdraw all opposition, and to be on affectionate terms with everybody. Meantime the natives had become much disheartened over the total defeat of their shepherds in their efforts to protect their flock, and over the cruel punishment of the leading member for no offense at all. Yet owing to the firm stand taken by Mr. Chu, not one of them fell away, and on the contrary, several were added to the church, some of its youth being in mission schools, one of them taking the degree of Hsiu Ts'ai, or Flourishing Talent, at the prefectural examinations. The Mohammedan magistrate tried to get the young man's degree taken from him for not going to the Temple of Confucius, but, through a quarrel with the superintendent of education for the county, failed. During the past winter the German invasion of Chiao Chou threw the Chinese government into a condition of profound alarm. The former anti-foreign governor of Shantung was not only removed, but degraded, and his successor was straitly enjoined to settle up all cases which were pending with foreigners, lest worse might follow.

Acting probably on this hint, our Mohammedan magistrate began to manifest symptoms of a desire to cultivate our acquaintance. He had engaged as a sort of chaplain a Moolah with whom for many years we had been on good terms. Through this man's son the first advances were made, but they sufficed only to excite the suspicion of the staff of Chinese helpers, who, knowing the Chinese traits, saw only some dark design ambushed. To the missionaries it appeared otherwise, and it was by them that negotiations of an intricate character, ostensibly without the knowledge of the magistrate, but in reality through one of his official secretaries, were set on foot. When it was evident that there was a disposition to reverse the previous decision, a list of demands was formulated, adapted to test the reality of the magistrate's intentions. It was asked that the graveyard in dispute be restored to its owner, on his complaint that the "uncle" had cut down and sold all the trees, contrary to the magistrate's previous orders, and yet had paid no taxes. It was required that this old man should be publicly reprimanded; that the sureties appointed at the last trial should be obliged to set out fifty cypress trees, replacing trees removed; that the prime instigator of the protracted troubles should also be reprimanded and punished; that the magistrate should remove any difficulty in the renting of a chapel in the District city - difficulties of his own creation; that he should issue a clear and strong proclamation, of a tenor agreed upon, stating the rights of the Christian religion, and that one of the missionaries should be present in his Yamen when the case was re-heard. To the latter clause some objection was taken, and it was arranged that a native pastor should attend instead. It might be mentioned, incidentally, as an illustration of the ways necessary in dealing with Orientals, that the proviso for a foreign missionary to attend was inserted expressly to be

altered, thus saving the "face" of the magistrate to that extent, and giving us what we really wanted. All these conditions were promptly met, and within a few hours the warrants had been issued, served with great and with repeated urgency, the case re-heard, the land restored to the Christian, who was complimented by the magistrate on his "filial piety" (the very quality in which he had been held to be deficient), the guilty persons reprimanded, and two of them punished in a very mild way, all in the presence of Pastor Chia, who, by his skill and tact in carrying through this unexampled case, won the respect of outsiders and still more so of his Christian friends. All this took place during the brief visit of the deputation from the Board to the P'ang Chuang station, and the dramatic effect culminated on the Sunday of the Quarterly Meeting assembled to greet Secretary Smith, Colonel Hopkins, and President Eaton, when the native pastor told the story at length to an audience of four or five hundred Christians, who were filled with gratitude and thankfulness for the mercy of the Lord manifested at such an unlookedfor time and in such an unexpected way.

Mohammedans and Congregationalists are now fraternizing in the P'ing Yuan County of Shantung, thanks to the Lutheran Germans in distant Chiao Chou; and if this great and ancient province is to come within the "sphere of influence" of any Continental Power, we would much prefer that the Power should be Germany rather than France or Russia.

LETTERS FROM THE MISSIONS.

West Central African Mission.

AN INTERESTED CHIEFTAIN. PREVIOUS letters from Mr. Currie at Chisamba have spoken of the chief of Ciyuka, who has manifested great interest in the preaching services and in the study of the gospels. Mr. Currie again. writes of him, under date of March 18:-

The chief of Ciyuka is still with us. Over a week ago he took one of the young men and went to his Ombala. While away, he tore down two spirithouses, etc., and threw them into the river.

The mixture of white clay, meal, etc., with which they are accustomed to mark an offering, to indicate freedom from guilt and appease the spirits, he also threw away. The emblems of his heathenism he brought to us as proof of what he had done. You never saw such a collection of dirty rubbish. Yet the man claims that he paid a heap of money for them. This done, he divided

Western Turkey Mission.

Central Turkey Mission.