MISSIONARY MURMURINGS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 28, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 41.

MISSIONARY MURMURINGS.

A HANDSOME Bible is to be presented to the empress of Japan, by 500 women in Tokio and Yokohama.

THE Bible has been translated into the languages of nine-tenths of the people of the world. In the early part of this century it could only be read by one-fifth.

DURING the past year £460,000 ($2,250,000) have been given by the Church of England societies in England to foreign mission work. The Presbyterians in Scotland have given £202,800 ($184,000).

THREE thousand two hundred and forty-four missionaries are working among the Indians the United States Government is responsible for, and more than half are Roman Catholic missionaries.

IN a recent criminal case in Bellville, Ont., a boy of 18 years was called as a witness. On an examination as to the nature of an oath, it was ascertained that he did not even know what a Bible was. There are heathen at home.

IN 1871, the only Methodist meeting-house in Utah Territory was a hay-loft over a livery stable in Salt Lake City. There are now twenty-eight churches, worth nearly $300,000. Last year is said to have been a year of revivals in the Territory.

"A COLONY of Jews (now almost extinct) has been living in the interior of China for many centuries." So the Missionary Echo reports. Are they not the remains of the Tai Pings, which China tried to crush out some years ago? Sabbath-keeping Christians are often called "Jews."

THE congregation of Rev. W. H. Miller, of Bryn Mawr, Pa., supports Dr. W. J. Wanless in the Kolhapur (India) Mission. He and his wife go as medical missionaries. He was formerly associate editor of the Missionary Echo, published in Toronto, Ont., one of our brightest missionary journals.

ACCORDING to Dr. G. F. Verbeck, it cost the missionary boards, about twenty-five years ago, something like $150,000 for each Japanese convert; since that the cost has been decreasing till now it is about $40 per convert. Dr. Verbeck believes that by the end of the century it will be no more than $4.00 each.

AT present there are in connection with the Moravian Church 336 missionaries, 28 being natives. Altogether 2,300 missionaries have been sent out by the Moravians. They have training schools in England, Germany, and America. They have missionaries in 19 different centers, from Greenland and Labrador down through the West Indies (its oldest mission) to Australia, in South and West Africa, and in Central Asia. Altogether they have 29,707 communicants, 223 day-schools, with 18,280 pupils.