At Home and Abroad
boards against Christianity were removed from public places, and a convention of missionaries met at Yokohama and passed resolutions on Scripture translation and church union. Ten years ago all Protes tant Christians began to sing together the common songs of their Christian Union Hymnal. Christian character must run parallel with Christian testimony if men’s hearts are to be won. A humble man at a mis sion meeting in the Barbes 'Hall, Paris, gave account of his conversion- in the place some years previously: “I ow„ every thing to Mr. McAU. Thanks to him, I found Christ here and took courage.” Some one asked: “What did Mr, McAll speak on that evening?” “Oh, he did not speak at all,” came the reply, “it was his face. I said to myself: If religion can make a man look like that there must be some thing real in it. So I listened to the speak ers and was saved.” The work is needy beyond all telling.in the California oil fields.- Masses remain almost untouched by the Church. The so ciety of these great communities is unfa vorable to religion. Home life with its refinements is almost entirely absent. Men, men, multitudes of men meet your gaze everywhere—untouched, unreached men. The possibility for definite service is great. The writer knows of a friendly contest in our West Side Church, five miles from town, where in a few weeks the Young People’s Society had 400 members enrolled, and they still have 100 members on the roll. Armies of men are interlocked with enor mous resources and live under abnormal conditions. “But this is enough, I think, to prove that with most of the ipen who are doing real things in the world the easiest thing in the world to talk about is real religion. My friend Thomas Dreier, who likes to take the back cover off every man he meets and watch the soul go round, has tested the theory hundreds of times in some of the
In 1912 there were 948 missionaries work ing in the Protestant missions in Japan, and 1656 Japanese men and women were also in their service. Shintoism had 74,- 619 preachers and teachers on the religious side of that cult; while Buddhism’s thir teen denominations and fifty-seven sects had 180,129 priests and nuns, of whom 53,081 are residing priests. There are four Bohemian papers in Chi cago. Two of them are out-and-out athe istic. But it was -one of the latter which said editorially just after the Presbyterian settlement house had been dedicated in the midst of the Bohemian colony on the west side of Chicago: “This is a remark able religion. These people seem to be wanting to give the Bohemians something, not to get something from them.” .The trials seem at an end which the heroic Protestant Christians of Madagascar have suffered first from Romanist and then from infidel governors since France took over the island nearly twenty years ago. President Poincare, the new chief execu tive of France, has issued a set of regula tions for the churches of Madagascar which insure to the Protestants unmolested lib erty of worship in their own churches, as also in private houses for ■ communities where no churches have yet been erected! The National Association of Daily Va cation Bible Schools, of which Dr. Robert E. Speer is now president, has had in the past summer season the most efficient work of all its progress so far. In 1907, when Robert G. Bonville, the national director, was laying the foundation of the associa tion, his efforts touched four cities and re sulted in nineteen schools with 5000 pupils enrolled. Six years later in thirty-four cities and towns 215 schools have engaged the attendance of 50,000 children. Sixty years ago Commodore Perry ar rived in Yedo Bay to open Japan’s gates to westerners, which was consummated in 1854. Forty years ago, in 1873, the edict
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