Mission Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Sep 14, 1905

AT the Wesleyan Missionary Society Girls’ School at Galle, Ceylon, ninety per cent of the pupils are Buddhists when they enter. But conversions are taking place among them. Very few of them stay three years or more at the school without becoming true Christians. Little by little such leaven is sure to work in the whole community.

A STUDENT in the Presbyterian mission in the French Kongo, Africa, tells how he does it. “I have a little bag,” he says, “and into this I put the Lord’s money as soon as I receive it. When the Sabbath comes, my bag never fails me.” The two essential points of this African’s practise are: (1) A part of all money gained must be given to God; (2) the Lord’s money must be put by itself as soon as received.

IN the American Board’s Foochow mission is a native worker of ability who could instantly double his salary if he would leave the mission and accept a place in the custom-house. His classmates went into government service, and get almost twice as much as he does. One day lately, this Chinese worker helped an English evangelist by translating his address, and did it so well that a gentleman in the audience gave the translator ten dollars as a token of his pleasure. The Chinaman took the money, but gave it to the evangelist. “He needs it,” he told a friend, “more than I do.” This incident contradicts the statement sometimes made that converts in China are all “rice Christians.”

WHY the work is so ineffective in Arabia, is the question among missionary societies at work there. The experience of a missionary physician laboring there partly solves the problem. He required help in his work, and being unable to secure a Christian from the home land, he tried a Mohammedan. Later he found that the Mohammedan watched and secretly threatened any inquirers who seemed to be really moved by the gospel, so that almost all his efforts were lost. Another difficulty is the danger of travel. None can travel except in a caravan, escorted by troops. A missionary recently making a tour through the country attached himself to a caravan which had a guard of two hundred soldiers, yet the first night twelve camels with their loads were carried off from camp by brigands.