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THE KING’S BUSINESS
pray;” said another; “my father says that prayer is nicht mehr modern’’ (no longer up to date). An ultimate consequence of modernism, indeed! A frica is far, far bigger than you think.. Give me the whole of India and in it goes. Now the whole of China and in it goes. Plus India and China give me Australia and in the three go easily. And still Africa, my Africa, like Oliver Twist, asks for more. So we will put in Europe. And even then I have what I believe the Van derbilt’s call ■marginal millions. And yet you hear people speaking as if while you were in Central Africa you could live the life of a sort of week-ender, and just run out to see your friends the Joneses or the Robinsons .”—Dan Crawford. R ev . J ohn W . B utler , D. D., of Mexico City, writing to the Missionary Review , says: “ The Bible has always been and still is a prohibited book in Mexico. If now and then it is found on sale it is at a price so exhorbitant and unreasonable as to' be be yond the reach of the common people. The only edition o f the Bible ever printed in Mexico was offered to the public at $150 a copy. W e have known Cases where the Bible distributed or sold by the American Bible Society has been forcibly taken from the people by the priest and recently one was burned on the streets of the third larg est city of the country.” I t will not surprise a reader to learn that after sixteen years of evangelism by the Methodist Mission in Guanajuato, Mexico, of 500 converts only fifty remain, on ac count of Roman persecution. It is more remarkable that in Quebec at a recent Cath olic festival the clergy “ requisitioned” the militia to join their procession in the face of government prohibition of armed troops in civil processions; and that citizens wno "would not bare their heads to the passing dignities were driven from the streets by the police. But it will surprise them to know that in a Catholic section of Missis-
bellows beside him and reads aloud while blowing the fire and waiting for the iron fo get hot. His wife was at first opposed to his meddling with this strange doctrine, but has quite come over since she is no longer beaten by a husband in his cups! I nto a little Japanese basket a praying band in Brookline, Mass., began in 1828 to drop contributions for mission work in the Sun Rise Kingdom, whenever a door should open. After several years the sum set apart equalled $600, to which the American Board added a like sum. In 1869 the fund with interest reached $4,104.23, with which the first two missionaries to Japan were fitted out and sent to the field. A c r im in a l tribe , the Donga Erukales, exists in India. Their parents, like Fagin, in Oliver Twist, train them to thieve. They must steal skillfully before they are per mitted to marry. They seem wiser in their generation than many parents are whose children marry before they learn to make “ an honest living.” The Government is get ting after the Dongas with police and mis sionaries; the latter will prove most suc cessful in the long run. T he West China Religious Tract Society has issued a tract which represents two hearts,—one black, one red. Scripture quo tations explain the regeneration of the heart. This tract is having a great run. In one section of the province of Szechuen 65,000 copies have been circulated. No sooner is an edition printed than it is exhausted and requests are made for more of them. Finan cial help to the society would aid in its still greater circulation. A G erman mission magazine prints the written replies ’which a German school teacher received from his children when asking them in the religion classes about prayer. Many reported that they had never prayed or heard a prayer. “W e have a gen tleman lodger who says that praying does not help anybody,” wrote one. “ I don’t
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