p. 16 | Mission Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · May 19, 1904

Mission Notes

BROTHER J. M. FREEMAN has accepted a call to work in the Orange River Colony, South Africa. Brother and Sister Chaney will take his place in Basutoland.

A CHINAMAN ordained a deacon by Bishop Cassels in January, was a Mohammedan who entered the China Inland Mission school fifteen years ago, and has finally entered the Christian ministry, with earnest devotion to the Master.

BROTHER I. G. KNIGHT reports from Bocas del Toro: “The work is progressing. We are able to reach many more people with the launch than we were without it. We hope to place a goodly number of books in the hands of the people. Dr. Henriquez, from Jamaica, has just arrived to locate with us. We trust to be able to enlarge our sphere of influence for good.”

OUR workers in Japan write that the probabilities are that the war will be confined to the disputed territory, though that of course they can not anticipate the great complications that may arise. Already prices on staples are advancing slightly, and the government is planning to increase the tax on incomes, salt, and sugar, besides tobacco and intoxicants. If the war continues long, they will suffer financially. The liability of our native brethren to military service is cause for their greatest anxiety, but the Lord has thus far worked for them beyond their expectation. Our laborers in these fields need our prayers at this time.

EVERY year a few Mohammedans are converted in India. A brother of the head Moulvi of the Deoband Mohammedan college, in North India, became interested in Christianity through reading controversial literature. On New-year’s day he and his wife and his two children were baptized in the C. M. S. church at Agra. Din Mohammed, a Mohammedan Moulvi, has been baptized at Delhi, with his wife and three children.

FROM Padang, Sumatra, Brother R. W. Munson writes: “We have an increasing interest among the Chinese, particularly among the Singkes, or China-born Chinamen. Our large front room is crowded every Sabbath with interested hearers, among them several women. Three of these have been baptized. Three others have not, but are fully persuaded of the truth. One of them in particular—a middle-aged woman of uncommon intelligence and education for a Chinese woman—is evidently in love with the blessed gospel truth. She sits for hours, and eagerly drinks in the words of truth.”

DESCRIBING their field in British Central Africa, Brother Thomas Branch says: “The country is like a garden of Eden, always green, having many large and beautiful trees, and pretty, sweet-scented flowers the whole year round. There is also a large variety of delicious fruit. Here are millions who have never heard of Jesus and his love. It is sad to see them coming and going day after day,—a people of fine physique, obliging and polite, yet living in the darkness of heathenism with all its superstition, without a Saviour, and bound about with many peculiar beliefs and customs. They believe that when one of their loved ones dies, he is joined by his father or mother, or both, who have died before, and together they enter their eternal reward. Before death occurs, the friends gather around the hut of the sick one, and carry on a low wailing, which after death is increased by the addition of six or eight native drums. This is called mourning for the dead, and the wailing, drum-beating, dancing, smoking, and drinking are kept up for nearly a week, then the dead is buried without box or coffin, simply laid in the earth. God alone is able to break this chain of sin and superstition by which they have been bound these many years, and we are willing that he should use us to his glory in this great harvest-field.”