MISSIONARIES FROM NORTH CHINA.
The San Francisco Examiner of September 22 contained the following interesting item:— Rev. Paul D. Bergen and wife, missionaries of the Presbyterian Church at Chinanfu, a city of 200,000 people in North China, 300 miles from Pekin, are at the Russ House. They have been in China nine years. Mr. Bergen says the Chinese do everything in a primitive way. They have a telegraph line, but it is seldom used even to transmit important information. The officials and others prefer the old way of sending by messengers. These are Manchuria horsemen, who make by relays about 100 miles a day on stout ponies of great endurance. The soldiers are armed with old-fashioned bows, and the only test for admission as soldiers is a certain skill with these weapons, and an ability to perform certain feats of strength. They are consequently in poor condition for fighting. Still, Mr. Bergen says they are braver than most people suppose. As for missionary work there Mr. Bergen says that it is in a pretty prosperous condition. "All the Protestant churches which have missionaries there," said he, "have about 10,000 communicants, and fully 50,000 more adherents. Besides these there are about 5,000 Chinese children in the schools. We also have a college in North China, with 100 Chinese students. It gives a complete college course, only the Chinese classics, like Confucius, being substituted for our classics."