p. 587 | MISSIONARY MURMURINGS

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Sep 23, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 37.

MISSIONARY MURMURINGS.

It is said that medical missionaries are doing much good among the Jews in decreasing "the fanatical opposition" to missionaries.

It is reported that London alone in 1877-8 expended more on the education of the middle and lower classes by $3,750,000, than all the churches of Great Britain together gave for foreign missions.

THE Rev. Luther H. Gulick, American Bible Society's agent for China, reports that during 1888 there were added 2,225 communicant church members to the various Protestant missionary societies, and that there are now 34,555 Protestant church members in China.

REV. GRATTAN GUINNESS, of England, has stirred up Kansas on the subject of foreign missions. About a dozen of the strongest boys of the Young Men's Christian Association have offered themselves for mission work in the Soudan. The first party will go about October 1. They provide themselves with means for the work.

ACCORDING to Rev. Dr. Scudder, "the offerings made by the heathen to support their idolatry are far greater than those which are made by Christians to honor their divine Master." And this is also true of the devotees of the world and pleasure. How many men there are who gave more for alcohol, tobacco, or other useless and oftentimes ruinous habits before they made a profession of Christianity, than they now give in the same time for the cause of Christ. Let us not "love in word," "but in deed and in truth." 1 John 3:18.

"If ever I see one of these natives converted to Jesus Christ," said one of the pioneer missionaries of India, "I shall see something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have ever seen." Yet to-day there are 500,000 native Christians in that country. The work of Wm. Taylor (now Bishop) alone, struggling against every discouragement, and against the judgment, and almost against the authority, of the Methodist Episcopal Church "of the United States," laid the foundation for that which is now three flourishing Conferences, with "a Bishop of India and Malaysia" to superintend and extend the work.—Missionary Review.

THE Missionary Echo says of the American Board of Foreign Missions that "of every donation not otherwise designated, 35 per cent., upon an average, goes to the support of the four important missions in Turkey, including the Bulgarian field. Twenty per cent. goes to India and Ceylon; 13 per cent. to Japan; 10 per cent. to China; 6 per cent. to Pacific Islands; 6 per cent. to missions in papal lands—Austria, Spain, and Mexico; 4 per cent. goes to South Africa, while 3 per cent. is spent in communicating missionary intelligence, a most important feature of the work; and 3 per cent. goes to the work of home and foreign correspondence and the administration of the treasury."

WHEN William Carey, in 1786, at a ministers' meeting at Northampton, asked whether our Lord's command to go and preach the gospel, was not binding upon all Christian ministers, he was told by John Ryland, Sr., that he was a miserable enthusiast for asking the question, and that nothing could be done before another Pentecost, with another miraculous gift of tongues. Through Carey's instrumentality, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed some six years later, and in another year Carey himself was laboring in India as a missionary, and before his death, he and his associates had translated the Bible, or portions of it, into thirty-one different languages and dialects—more than the apostles were enabled to speak at the day of Pentecost.—Missionary Echo.