Testimony of a Tract. F i f ty years ago a child gave a penny to the missionary box. A little tract costing just one penny, was bought with it, and some one gave it to a young man, the son of a Burmah chief. He traveled two hundred and fifty miles to learn to read it. The Christian teachers taught him, and God gave him a new heart. He went home and preached to his people, and now there are fifteen hundred Chris- tians living in that neighborhood who would probably be heathen still but for that penny tract.—Selected. J. Hudson Taylor, the founder of the great China Inland Mission work, was converted through a little traet he found in his f a t h e r 's library when he was fifteen years old. Carelessly he picked it up to while away the time, but eighty miles away his mother was agonizing for his conversion, and before he laid down the leaflet he was rejoicing in the knowledge of sins forgiven. This "M i s s i o n" has carried the Gospel into eleven immense provinces in interior China, and sus- tains over 600 missionaries. Surely that tract did a great and lasting work! Jerusalem, January 6th. The Jewish question is now facing the Constitutional Government in Turkey as it never has done before. Although the admission of Jewish colonists from Russia, the Balkan States, Austria and Persia seems tp be sanctioned by consti- tutional principles, still self-preservation is a motive more potent than equality. The inhabitants of Palestine are beginning to see the reason why. Russia has ¿town such intolerance of the descendants of Abraham. Thousands and tens of thousands of Jewish colonists are already settled on the fairest lands of Palestine. Helped by rich capitalists in Europe, they build comfortable homes and establish flourishing colonies. Large portions of land round Lake Tiberias have been bought up from poor natives and converted into prosperous domains. The Plain of Sharon, between Jaffa and Lydda, is one vast garden, owned and tended by Jewish skill and labor. The Hauran, one of the most fertile wheat districts in the world ,is being gradu- laly sold to Jewish syndicates. The Ghor (Valley of the Jordan), which.two years ago belonged to Abdul Hamid, who was in communciation with Jewish capitalists for its sale when his dethronement took place, is now being bargained for, and will soon become Jewish property. To say that Jaffa and Jerusalem are Jewish towns is only saying the bare truth. Towns like Ramoth-Gilcad, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Gaza, where a few years ago no Jew dared show his face, have now their Jewish quarters and synagogues. Zionism in Europe has, indeed, been working with a will.—Things to Come. MESOPOTAMIA. In the dominions of the Turk the Jews are not persecuted, and enjoy liberty, though not political power. Under the new regime they are permitted to live in Palestine, and numbers of them own and occupy land there. It is understood that the Turkish Foreign Minister has proposed to the Jews that they should form a colony in Mesopotamia. The land has a climate suited for Europeans, and lies within two great waterways, which, as appears from the report of Sir William Willcocks, who has been employed by the Turkish Government to survey it, can with little difficulty be adapted for transport. It is a land beautiful in situation and abundant in natural resources, its products including fruit of all sorts, honey, wax, gall-nuts, cotton, tobacco, raw silk, pearls and rubies, gold and silver, copper,- lead and iron, saltpetre, sulphur and bitumen, coal and marble. It is on the direct road to the East, between Egypt and India, and the opening of the Trans- Srberian Railway in the north, the Bagdad Railway in the South, and its un- rivalled facilities for internal transport by canals and rivers, will enable the plentiful natural resources of the country to be developed and will raise it to a high degree of commercial and political importance. A Jewish commission has been sent to Mesopotamia to report as to the advisability of colonization.—Trust- ing and Toiling. PALESTINE REPEOPLED. An Influx of Jewish Colonists.. (From the Correspondent of The Standard, London.)
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker