which Christian work should be carried on at the present time.

"4. The duty of our mission in this crisis. Dr. Berry, with a staff of helpers, was early on the ground, and the work of that Doshisha Relief Corps made a profound impression on the people. Others of the mission have visited the field. Superintendent Ishii, of the Okayama Orphanage, immediately set a large number of young people at work raising funds and looking for orphans. He took fortyone of those waifs made by the earthquake to Okayama; and now at the urgent solicitation of the people of that section has opened a branch asylum at Nagoya. This work is unsectarian; but, owing to our personal relations to it, it opens a door for us to enter. Churches and individuals have lent a generous hand in various ways. The mission informally has appointed a committee to receive and disburse any relief funds sent from America and superintend charity and evangelistic work in the region of Ogaki, where we are peculiarly called to labor. It is not thought best to make a special appeal, but all are in hopes that without such appeal a few scores or hundreds of dollars may be received, which will be put to a discreet

use.

66 Misses Barrows and Talcott have volunteered most generously to spend their Christmas holidays in this region, and a small force of Japanese nurses and Biblewomen will accompany them. These should have a little money placed at their disposal, and all their expenses should be met by special gifts, so as not to draw upon the regular station allowances. It is hoped the way will open for the placing of two or three evangelists permanently in that province.

"It is a call, and an emergency call. Other missions are rising to the occasion and doing their part. There is the utmost harmony and union of effort; no clashing or narrow denominational rivalry. Not much is needed to enable us to fall into line and strike a telling blow for the broad cause of Christian missions. Only a little, but that little now."

KUMAMOTO AND KIUSHIU.

Mr. Orramel Gulick writes from Kumamoto, December 24:

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A cause for gratitude and a substantial evidence of advance are found in the facts that our Christians in this time of contributing to the earthquake sufferers have rallied their forces and are erecting a church building for themselves at a cost of $600 or $700, the larger part of which they have raised among themselves. The new building will seat about 300 persons, and will be a great advance upon the small, dark, and poorly adapted house for which they have paid about $70 rent the past year. Such a building as they will now have, humble though it may be, will be a point around which the church life and work will gather. The location is central and in the best part of the city.

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'On the ninth of October Mr. Clark, Mrs. Gulick, and myself set off for a tour to Hyuga, from which Mrs. Gulick and myself returned to Kumamoto in the early days of November, having visited every point at which we have work in Hyuga, Satsuma, and Southern Higo. Several companies of believers are without a stated evangelist, and of course the advance is but small at such points; though in two of these places leading laymen are doing well in holding Bible readings and Sabbath-schools. There are very interesting companies of Christians in Hyuga, at Takanabe and Miyazaki. And there are eight or ten enlightened Christian men in the province of Hyuga who are prepared most warmly to welcome Mr. Clark and family to their midst.

"Mr. Clark seemed much pleased, as he certainly had reason to be, with the cordial reception that he received from the good people of Hyuga. He has now for two months been seeking ing to secure a Hyuga residence passport for himself and family, as yet without avail. Perhaps he will be compelled to take a simple traveling passport such as I have, and which compels me to return to a treaty port every three

months."

SENDAI.

-

THE TOKWA SCHOOL.

Changes occur rapidly in Japan, and not seldom a bright sky is speedly overclouded. The school at Sendai called the Tokwa, which started so prosperously some five years ago, and was for a time regarded with such favor by the people, was suspended early in December owing to the decision of the Provincial Assembly to establish a new school at the public expense, thus covering the field that the Tokwa occupied. There was a long and warm debate in the Assembly over the question of establishing this new school. It was clearly understood that if it were established the native instructors, as well as their foreign missionary assistants, would withdraw from the Tokwa.

Nothing was said in the debate against Christianity, though a feeling of antagonism to the Christian faith had probably something to do with the decision. Two letters from Mr. W. W. Curtis, one written December 14, and the other December 27, illustrate the swiftness with which the outlook has changed. At the first date Mr. Curtis, after describing the action of the Provincial Assembly, says:

"There are a good many sore hearts over the result in Sendai, and the feeling is strong, though not very wide, that a great mistake has been made; yet the friends of the Tokwa feel that since the Assembly has decided in favor of a public school the only right way for the Tokwa is to withdraw from the field. The teachers were unanimous in the opinion that the sooner this were done the better for all concerned. The Japanese teachers, therefore, resigned in a body, and your missionaries, who since last summer have simply helped from outside, declined to have further connection with the school. To-day all met for the last time in the chapel: this morning, to announce to the scholars, to the most of whom it came all unexpectedly, like an earthquake shock, that the school is to be no more; and again in the afternoon for a farewell sociable.

"During the term which was just drawing to a close the school has been very

prosperous, its numbers larger than ever before and the work done most satisfactory. We have been rejoicing over the organization among the students of a Christian club of earnest workers, and the prospect of Christian work in school was most encouraging. We ask ourselves what the sudden closing of this open door of opportunity means. We cannot answer the question as yet. We are still enveloped in the dust and smoke of the catastrophe and cannot see clearly.

"We cannot think it was a mistake our coming here — the starting of this school, nor even this sudden ending of the school. We must wait and look for

the new and greater miracle' which we are assured is the divine Master's way of answering the prayers of those who trust in him. Our Christian teachers in the school seem to think it means a chance for them to take hold of more direct evangelistic work in this region, and if it be so we must soon be asking for money for this enlarged work. We trust it means a better opportunity for evangelistic work to us also.

"As I look back over the five years in which we have been permitted to labor in and through this school; and then a little further back to the time when the sainted Neesima lay upon his bed of sickness at Clifton Springs, forbidden to read or write but not to think and pray, and remember how his soul went out in yearning desire and entreaty for a school here in Sendai, and how the way was opened as by special providence for its founding when he came back to Japan; and then look down again over these five years up to the present moment I, for one, feel sure that God's hand has been in it all, and it has not been a mistake."

THE SCHOOL REOPENED.

Writing on December 27, Mr. Curtis reports most unexpectedly that the school has been temporarily resumed. It seems the students and numbers of the people are most unwilling to have it die. But the action of the Provincial Assembly, in connection with the apathy of the trustees

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The faculty were urged to take back their resignations, but their acceptance was insisted upon, with assurance that there would be no further relations with the trustees as a body. However, for the sake of the students, whose plans for study had been so suddenly suspended, and in the interests of peace and harmony in the city, we teachers finally consented, at the request of the students, to go on with the school three months more, pro

vided the management should be wholly given over into the hands of those who have been active friends of the school.

"The trustees have made over the school to Mayor Endo as a representative of its friends. He had been most prominent and most active in its interests in the recent Assembly discussions, being president of that body as well as of the board of trustees. At his entreaty, and to the joy of the students, the school was resumed last week, and will go on until next April, when it is expected to end.

But Japan is the land of surprises, and never was there greater uncertainty as to what the morrow may bring than there is to-day. Parliament has just been dissolved. Treaty revision is being talked of as one of the possibilities of the near future. What changes may come within the next few months it is useless to predict. This parliament voted to abolish the government college in Sendai, and one other of the five in the country, and the next parliament is very likely to repeal the action. It is possible that there will be a strong reaction in favor of this private school which has done good work in Sendai. If the school could be put upon just the right basis, it would be greatly to the advantage of our mission work and of the Kumi-ai churches to have it go on.

Neesima's plans and prayers might be fully realized. But before we could consent to have anything further to do with it we should want to be sure of its being on the right basis."

Mission to Mexico.
CONVERTS.

MR. WRIGHT, of Ciudad Juarez, writes:

You will perhaps remember that on the trip that I made with Mr. Olds, last June, eleven persons gave us their names in el Rancho de Refugio as desiring to be received to the church. Four of those persons are here now, having come to this place on business, and yesterday were received as members of this church. A few of the others have not given good given proof of lack of full understanding proof of their sincerity, or rather have of the principles of true Christianity. This is not to be wondered at when we remember that they have never heard more than half a dozen sermons, and have not had the advantage of visits and instructions from either missionary or native helper. Three more there have been faithful, and are patiently but anxiously awaiting for the coming of a minister to receive them in the church and to give them more instruction in the Word of God. They have borne bitter persecution bravely, and seem to be very sincere.”

Mission to Austria.

PROMISING ACQUISITION. MR. PORTER, shortly after his arrival at Prague, wrote of his great joy at meeting his former pastor, Mr. Clark, whom he had not seen for nineteen years, with whom he is now to be associated in missionary work. Of a communion service which was held early in December, Mr. Porter writes:

"The hall was packed to its utmost and the air was stifling before the service began. The hall is far too small for the growing work in this beautiful suburb. We must move soon, and this house can

be sold at quite an advance over the purchasing price when the Betanie Society took legal possession. Mr. Clark preached a sermon that was listened to with deep interest. Then four were received to membership, among them two young lawyers, whose coming means for them a sort of losing caste and for us the reception of the first fully educated men. We have those who after they came in have been trained and educated, but here are two young men ready to lead meetings and desirous of books that will give them a deeper knowledge of God's Word and more power in witnessing for him. I anticipate finding in them pleasant companions, and such are by no means easy to find here.

66 Our love-feast the annual coming together of the members of all the churches, so far as it is possible-occurred at the mother church in Prague, December 8. There were short addresses, a general good time, and the sale of all sorts of things, the proceeds of which are to help the cause of missions in China. Notwithstanding the poverty of the people quite a handsome sum will leave priest-ridden, downtrodden Bohemia to carry the light to even darker fields. Had it not been for the hum of a strange language, and tables loaded with what were to me rather strange-looking wares for a missionary collection, I might easily have imagined myself in America."

if to a daughter. But the fever raged on unabated. Her mind was unclouded till the last three or four days, when she had intervals of delirium. We all feel that a good and noble Christian woman has gone to her Saviour. She and her husband, Umcitwa, were the first foreign missionaries from the Zulus to the Zuluspeaking Matabele people, 1,000 miles inland. She was a graduate of Umzumbe Home, and had always been as a daughter to us. She was foremost and far away ahead of most of the Christian Zulus in her grasp and acceptance of spiritual things, and against her not a breath of ill-repute was ever lodged. Our loss and the loss of her presence in the Home' among the girls, and her influence in the church, over men as well as women, seem to our human eyes irreparable.

But the Lord seeth not as man seeth.' A beautiful feature of Yona's character was her complete unselfishness and modest, humble walk. The gewgaws of fashionable dress and finery, which so attract most Zulu girls and women, had no influence over her. Her sympathy with the missionaries to root out' of the band of believers all superstitious customs and immoral ways was most abiding and helpful. Her work in person is finished, but her sweet memory will ever remain 'a song' in the hearts of all who knew her. One only daughter, Amy, now an orphan, five years old, remains.”

quiet, earnest seeking after the light, from the kraal as well as from the station people. You asked me to tell you about the inquirers' classes. On Tuesday morning at daylight the bell rings and people come from all directions; some from three or four miles away. I go into the parlor, and as soon as they get together they come in

and sit all about me on the floor. After praying, I ask them to tell me for a few moments anything that they can think of that they have learned of Bible truths. After that I give them a new lesson and ask any one to pray who would like to do so. I always allow them to ask any question or speak if they wish. Sometimes we drift into very personal talks for a few minutes. I feel that many of their hearts are growing in faith and courage. In the afternoon Miss McCornack has a very interesting inquirers' class of boys and girls, conducted in much the same way. There are also many other Bible classes and meetings that the inquirers attend. A number of those who are in my class cannot join the church at present on account of polygamy and other heathen customs that are difficult to escape from. When we have done what we can, we must trust God to do with the work as he will. It is often very hard to know how to advise about such difficulties.

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At last we have a native pastor. If you knew all about our need and our difficulty in getting him, I trust you would feel as we do that he is a direct gift from God to this people. He is said to be the best native preacher in our mission. He is very unassuming, educated, intelligent, and an earnest Christian, whole-hearted in his work for the Master. For the last six months we have continually worked and prayed to get a helper for this station, and so have many other friends both in this land and in America. It seems impossible for us to get on without a native pastor. But how to make the people feel this need and do what they could to help him to come was not a very easy task. But step by step we urged them on, until they sent a cordial letter asking for Umsakwendhlu to come, promising to build him

a house; to pay some of his expenses in coming here, and give at least one-half of his salary."

AN INSTALLATION.

Of the commencement of this pastor's work, Miss Hance gives the following interesting account:

"If I tell you of the Installation,' I trust that, under the circumstances, you will not think it unorthodox. There was not one of our missionaries who could come. We hoped that Mr. Goodenough would be here, but in the morning we got a letter from him to say that he was very sorry, but it would be impossible for him to leave home. There was not a native man in the church who could be of much help in conducting such a service and make a pleasant welcome to the new pastor. As there was no other way, I had to do it myself. I asked the oldest man in the church to sit upon the platform with me. He cannot read, but he is a good old man. He had on his best coat and did his very best to rise to the occasion. We asked the new pastor to sit up there with us. There was a very large congregation. People came from far and near. To add to the embarrassing position that I was in, four Swedish missionaries, two ladies and two gentlemen, came just before the service. I could not ask them to help, as they did not know enough Zulu and only a little English. But I felt that God helped me to introduce our new pastor to the people, and to give them a little charge as to their relations and duty to him. After we had read the 'love chapter, in First Corinthians, and prayed, the old man made a little speech of welcome, which was followed by a number of speeches from men and women. I called upon three old heathen chief men, who responded very heartily in words of welcome. A number of prayers were offered between the speeches, and the young people and children sang very sweetly five or six times. At the close the pastor made a touching and earnest speech. After the meeting the church members all came to our house to lunch with the pastor and his