THE KING'S BUSINESS At Home and Abroad
24?
Miss Gould’s marriage was celebrated in a unique and characteristic fashion by a din ner given at her expense to a thousand homeless men. This took place at the Bowery Mission in New York City .—"Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, hid to the marriage." In the territories now comprised in the Union of South Africa with Basutoland and Bechuanaland there were, in 1877, 1,936,000 natives and the Christian converts number ed 180,000—a ratio of one in ten -of the population. Today the native population is 4,544,000, the Christian population 1,145,000 —a proportion approximately of one in four. Statistics taken in the Seventh, Tenth and Thirteenth wards of New York, ex hibit the remarkable fact that the death rate among Jews 6f persons between 15 and 25 years is 2.53, whilst that of Amer ican no-Jews in the same habitat is 9.43, and of those of Irish tenants is 15.15. The death rate among Jews of persons between the ages of 25 and 65 years is 7.99, whilst that of non-Jewish native and"foreigners in the same district is 25.92 and 21.20, respectively. There are in India under commission of the Board (Presbyterian) 163 American missionaries, with a total native force of 1079. There are 55 organized churches—9 self-supporting—with a communicant mem bership of 6962; and 25,501 enrolled as cate chumens. Schools enroll 10,962 pupils; while the 8 hospitals and 13 dispensaries treated during the year reported to the last General Assembly—110,433 patients. The sum of $70,228 gold was contributed to va rious causes by the Indian Christians. China’s Millions tells of an opium-smoker named Mei, who was converted in this man ner. Sauntering along the streets of Lang- chowfu one day, he noticed a crowd gath
ered about a preaching missionary and stop ped to listen. A Chinese scholar was in terrupting with comments of extreme rude ness, but the missionary bore all with pa tience. This struck him as wonderful. “What is it that enables the foreign teacher to be so patient in spite of all these in sults?” he thought to himself. His atten tion being arrested, he made further in vestigation of the religion of the meek and ultimately gave his own heart to it. A sailor on one of our warships crept behind one of the big guns every night and prayed. For a long time he was alone. At last another jack tar joined him. Many nights they met together and prayed be hind the big gun. One of their mates— out of a number who had seen and ridi culed them—went and told the commander, thinking he might stop the daily prayer meeting. But he ordered a place cur tained off for his praying sailors, and said that no one must molest them. One by one their comrades came to them, to be ad mitted into the little prayer tent, until thirty-two converted men gathered there daily, to read God’s Word and worship Him. A missionary in Brazil was making her usual visits when she came upon a poor, ignorant, ragged woman whose face was radiant, sitting in her little thatched hut, with a copy of the Gospels on her lap and an “A. B. C.” book by her side. Wben she saw the missionary, she said, “Oh, Sen- ora, I’m an heiress. Just think of all these riches for me.” The missionary saw her labor hard to read the words, and asked, “Why do you take so much trouble to read?” The reply came, “It is His will. Just think how ashamed I would be to meet my Lord and have Him ask, ‘Did you receive the inheritance? Did you read My will?’ And I should have to answer, ‘No.’ Oh, Señora, I want to learn it by heart, for Be left it all for me.”
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs