Mission Work in Tibet and Manchuria
THE isolated nation of Tibetans, while doing all it can to keep out the Gospel, is still beset on all sides by various classes of missionaries. The Church Missionary Society of England has recently extended the Western China Mission to Song-pan, on the frontier of Tibet. The missionary in charge of this station (Mr. Kniper) speaks highly of the feasibility of the place as a center for reaching the Tibetan people. He says: “There are thousands of them living in villages northwest and south of the place, and by going only a few miles away from the town, Tibetan life is found as rude and simple as if there was no Chinese civilization close at hand. The opportunities for preaching are abundant, and the need is just as great as, or greater than, in the far interior. They live very unrestrained lives. The women have as great liberty as the men. One of the sons is generally a priest, and it is his duty to sit in front of the idols and read the Buddhist scriptures, the others of the family being supposed to share in the benefit.”11 OF mission work in Manchuria, Mrs. Christie writes to Woman's Work in the Far East: “The great difficulty now is, not as formerly to draw the people in, but to keep out those who would enter from wrong motives. It is but fifteen years since missionaries began to reside at Moukden, in Manchuria. On opening a girls' school it was necessary to provide everything for the scholars, but now, instead of needing bribes to send their daughters, parents are willing to pay their expenses. In every part of the province people are seeking to enter the church. The missionaries are all of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland or the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.”