Preparation for the Gospel
By C. E. H.
Of the events taking place to-day, none is more noticeable and important than the opening of the old heathen nations to the advance of the gospel. Two mechanical means which are necessary to give the Word of God to the people are the printing-press and the agencies for transportation. These inventions are usually among the first introduced into those countries just emerging from the darkness of heathenism. They create a demand for education, and thus prepare the way for reading and studying the Scriptures. As a typical illustration of the way in which modern methods are taken advantage of, we note the following from the October number of the North American Review:— No nation on earth excels Japan in proving that “education is the cheap defense of nations.” Japan has given Korea, where there was no public provision for education, a system of manual training, common and high schools, and commercial, industrial, agricultural, and medical colleges, having already appropriated over $250,000. In the Industrial Training Institute at Seoul, six lines of modern technical training, from weaving to engineering, are established. Where public hygiene was unknown, one half of the people dying of smallpox, and syphilis being almost omnipresent, Japan has introduced water-works, hospitals, and other means of preserving life, her appropriation to date rising above $6,000,000. In communications, besides a railroad traversing the entire country, with branches planned, and soon to connect with the systems of China and Russia, wagon roads are built or contracted for at a cost thus far of $750,000. . . . The model farm or experiment station is making, for the first time in Korea, a study and application of seeds, crops, and fertilizers, to test the ability of the peninsula, not only to raise cotton, but also other staples, thus far unknown. The Forestry School has established three model forests, providing for this purpose $145,000. Three more of these forests are to be started, and denuded Korea will be reforested.