p. 10 | Mission Notes by T. E. Bowen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 7, 1910

Mission Notes

By T. E. Bowen

FORTY-NINE students among the natives attending the schools at the Solusi and Somabula mission farms were baptized during 1909. Many more are now receiving instruction preparatory to receiving the rite later on.

Elder J. C. Rogers reports from Nyassaland that during 1909 forty-eight were baptized. A class of seventy-five are anxious for baptism at one school, some of whom have been waiting two years, while at another school one hundred are preparing in the same manner. Surely God's Spirit is working upon hearts out in the great Dark Continent. Other sections just as propitious as Nyassaland must await the coming of other consecrated workers from the home land to take the oversight of teaching the young people so that they in turn can go out as gospel teachers—evangelists. How long must they wait?

In the quarterly record of the Christian Literature Society for China, some interesting particulars are given in regard to the new regent: “He is also easily accessible to all who have information to impart or matters of importance to discuss, and has lately announced that memorials to him must be presented with unbroken seals, so as to secure that their contents are not interfered with by the censors whose duty it is to present them. His modesty is shown by the fact that, in giving audience to his ministers, he has waived the ceremony of kneeling and prostration, and permits his councilors to sit in his presence; he has also modified the rules of conduct and privilege which were drawn up by the board of rites, refusing the dignity of the imperial yellow sedan-chair which the board had conferred upon him, preferring to move freely among the people as of old, without escort or attendant—a determination which has elicited an earnest protest on the part of some of the officials of the court, who were fearful of the consequences which might follow.”

The Chinese government has deposed the dalai-lama as head of the Tibetan government, and in an official statement explains its action on the ground that the nominal ruler had deserted the capital following an attempt by him to organize a general revolt.

At an out-school recently started near the Malamulo Mission, Nyassaland, already fifty students are enrolled, and the teacher, a native, is reported to be greatly enjoying his work. At Solusi the attendance is ninety-two, and more huts must be erected to house the students.

In summing up the account of how Japan was opened to Christian civilization, Pastor Chas. A. Bowen, in the Missionary Review of the World for July, 1909, cites the testimony of Count Okuma, given in his old age, as follows:— “Through some good missionaries at Nagasaki, I was able to get a history of the United States, and one of England. These made a revolution in my mind. I no longer wanted to be a military man. I wanted to devote my life to the destruction of the feudal system. I wanted to see all the disunited provinces of my country united under one head, the emperor. Nor was this enough. I could then see far enough to know that it was not political changes alone that we needed. Neither Buddhism nor Shintoism was equal to these new demands of our awakened country. We needed freedom in religious belief. Christianity, which had been so important in the development of the Western nations, was to be welcomed.”

The late Bishop William Taylor narrated the following: “I saw a woman who had been accused of witchcraft, and condemned to death by ferocious ants. She was bound to an ant-hill — often from ten to fifteen feet high — and kept there all day. The cries of her infant were such as to cause her release at night. The victim usually dies in two days, but this woman was bound and tortured for five days, and then driven away because ‘she was too hard to kill.’ She crawled, in a terrible condition, to the mission station, and the missionary told me she was the most pitiful sight he ever beheld. After careful nursing for months she recovered, and this woman, so terribly scarred and disfigured, was converted at my services. The recital of such scenes may seem terrible to civilized nerves, but how much more so is the endurance of them by millions of helpless human beings? Jesus Christ came to destroy the work of the devil. Pray daily that Africa shall speedily know him whom to know aright is life eternal.” It is to these poor deluded souls that we are asked to send the gospel. Truly they need our help.

T. E. BOWEN.