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THE KING’ S BUSINESS
sionaries and native leaders for the exten sion o f the Sunday School have stirred the Buddhists to •renewed effort to hold the children'for Buddhism. The Shinshu Sect, the strongest Buddhist body in Japan, is going to spend millions o f yen to start thousands o f Sunday Schools in its tem ples throughout the Empire in commemo ration o f the Emperor’s coronation. This is one o f many methods o f promoting their work which the Buddhists in Japan have learned o f the Christians. The apprecia tion by the Buddhists o f the importance o f the Christian Sunday School movement and the need/of vitalizing their own work is ' significant. In co-operation with public school teachers o f their own faith, the Buddhists have endeavored, at different times in the past, to advise the school children against membership in Christian Sunday Schools. At an important conference in Tokyo at the home o f Marquis Okuma, the Prime Minister, when it was suggested that in view o f the Tokyo Convention, the Chris tian Sunday Schools o f Japan be encour aged, it was pointed out by several leaders that the public schools were discouraging, because of Buddhist influence, the Sunday Schools throughout Japan, and steps were taken at once to correct this condition. — — O— ------ Sing in fine weather! Any bird can do that. Praising God when all goes well is commonplace work. Everybody marks the nightingale above other birds, because she sings when other minstrels o f the wood are fast asleep. Songs in the day may be from man, but God Himself “giveth songs in the night.” O come, let us sing unto the Lord under a cloud; let us -pour forth His praises in the fires! Let us praise Him undef depressions; let us magnify Him when our heart is heavy .—Bible Witness. -— ■— O— — 1 From Heart of Africa A God that can’t perform miracles is not a morsel o f use in the Heart o f Africa. W e need your prayers for the work here (Niangasa) and at Bambili, and that God will thrust out more laborers for these
needy regions. Pray, too, for the boys and workmen. Our weapons— Faith, prayer, the Word o f God, obedience unto death, humility—“ Not by might nor by power, but by God’s spirit.” Mr. Bernard, says Neglected Continent, is a real live missionary, one who is never “under the circumstances,” but always on top ; and whether preaching the old Gos pel in a village street, singing hymns till midnight in the smoke-blackened kitchen o f a farmhouse, on his knees praying some seeking soul into the kingdom, or on his knees over a camp-fire, seems to be always just in his element. Mr. W . Roberts says in the same paper : You will see that one parish is a big one. Llanelly, a ¿South Wales town, has about 30,000 inhabitants. What if it had only onè minister! And here we are wtih a popu lation practically as large, and yet we are the only workers. Yes, the need is great,, and I would plead all the more earnestly for your sincere and constant prayer. ^--------- O --------- Items from Many Fields “As I traveled up and down the non- Christian world, making a comparative study o f the progress o f Christ’s Kingdom in different sections o f the great harvest field,” says John R. Mott, “the conviction became clear and strong that .those mis sions which have had offered for them the most real prayer are the missions which have had the largest and apparently the most enduring spiritual success. This explains why some missions and organiza tions have had larger and more spiritual results than others, even though they have been at work in more difficult fields and in the midst o f more adverse conditions and circumstances.” A Shan, who has become interested in Presbyterian mission services in Siam, is troubled by his wife’s opposition, based on the objection that one cannot make merit in the Christian life as in the Buddhist, by offerings. The wife is no doubt theo retically correct in her opinion, but the husband, in order to show thàt one can also give as a Christian, appears each Sun-
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