General Notes

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Feb 24, 1903

A ZULU church in Durban sends out every male member who is at all qualified, to conduct a gospel service each Sunday. Fifty-two meetings of one kind or another are held every Sunday.

DURING the first seven months of 1902 the Presbyterian Church sent out seventy-four new missionaries; the Congregationalists have sent out recently about twoscore, and the Methodists, through the Christian Advocate of a recent date, report fifty-two. Thus in the three denominations no less than one hundred and sixty-six young men and women have gone to the ends of the earth as heralds of the glad tidings.

A COMPLETE Bible has been published for the Eskimos in Greenland, at the expense of the Danish government. The gospel was first carried to these people by Hans Egede, the Norwegian pastor who began work in Greenland in 1721. He began the translation of the New Testament into their language, which was completed by his son. Another and improved version appeared in 1799. A revision made by Moravian missionaries was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1826. The chief translator of the Old Testament was a Moravian missionary who died in 1886.

THE following is taken from an article on “Likes, Unlikes, and Dislikes of the Chinese.” The author shows the extreme superstitious nature of the Chinamen: “Fung Shui, or good luck, depends upon many things which seem to us absurd, but which are actual verities to them. An illustration: I was called upon at one time by the Chinese officials to remove a wall around a native hospital constructed by American missionaries, because the wall faced to the south and was painted red. I was informed that a red wall facing the south always drew fire, and consequently the neighbors had complained that all the property in that section of the city was in danger of being destroyed by fire. I changed the color to blue, and had no further complaint.”

DEC. 13, 1732, one hundred and seventy years ago, the first missionaries of the Moravian Church, Leonard Dober and David Nitschmann, reached their destination, the island of St. Thomas, to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the neglected negro slaves, for whom no one had hitherto labored, and who were in a most deplorable condition. Only ten years had elapsed since the first refugees from Bohemia and Moravia had settled in Herrnhut, Saxony, and the number of members of the Renewed Church of the Moravian Brethren was only about six hundred souls. And yet, though without means and few in numbers, they undertook a mission to the benighted slaves beyond the sea. The voyage of these first missionaries occupied ten weeks. On the day on which they landed, their hearts were cheered and encouraged by the daily watchword, or text, of the church for that day: “The Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.” The outlook was certainly very gloomy; but their trust was in the Lord, and they did not falter in the least.—The Moravian.

How much opportunity and responsibility for the conversion of foreign peoples lies at the door of those who remain at home may be gathered from the statistics showing the number of foreign-born population of the United States. Truly one may be a “foreign missionary” without ever leaving America:—

Austria ........................ 276,249 Bohemia ....................... 156,911 Canada (English) .............. 785,958 Canada (French) ............... 395,297 Denmark ....................... 154,284 England ....................... 842,078 France ........................ 104,341 Germany ...................... 2,666,990 Holland ....................... 105,049 Hungary ....................... 145,802 Ireland ...................... 1,618,567 Italy ........................ 481,207 Mexico ......................... 103,410 Norway ........................ 336,985 Poland (German) ............... 150,232 Poland (Russian) ............. 154,424 Poland (others) ............... 78,854 Russia ........................ 424,096 Scotland ...................... 233,977 Sweden ....................... 573,040 Switzerland ................... 115,851 Wales .......................... 93,682 Other countries ................ 356,280

FIFTY years ago seven shoemakers in a shop in the city of Hamburg said, “By the grace of God we will help to send the gospel to our destitute fellow men.” In twenty-five years they had established fifty self-supporting churches, had gathered out 10,000 converts, had distributed 400,000 Bibles and 80,000 tracts, and had carried the gospel to 50,000,000 of the race. It would take only 160 such men to carry the gospel to the whole world in twenty years.—Christian Standard.

THIS description of one of the regular literary examinations in China is from the pen of an eye-witness: “The weather was intensely hot. Although nearly the middle of September, it was the hottest of all the year. Inside the hall, from the immense crowd, the lack of ventilation, and the blazing sun, the heat and foul air were something awful. In those two days, there had been some twenty deaths,—several of them suicides,—and any number of students were prostrated. When the signal was given and the doors opened at half-past eleven, the students came out in a steady, orderly stream, each carrying his provision-basket and bedding. All were quite exhausted from the heat and the ordeal they had come through. Most of them had a rustic air, and the proportion of old men was large. We left at half-past seven at night, and the students were still pouring out of the halls.”