967
THE KING’S BUSINESS
writes: “There is absolutely no difficulty in securing an audience in China, nor in get ting inquirers who are willing to study the Bible. The chief difficulty is lack of leader ship, and I am in considerable doubt as to how much permanent good will come from the classes unless they can be made for an adult department under the China Sunday School Union, that a greater number of classes cannot only be organized, but main tained. At many of our meetings it was ne’cessary to station men at the door to crowd people back, and try to keep: them from entering the building after it was full. In Nantungchow we held four afternoon meetings in a Buddhist temple, where we had an attendance of from 800 to 1000 men every day, though the meetings were held in January, when the weather was very cold, and with no way of heating the building. I had to keep my overcoat on while speaking,, but these thinly-clad Chinese stood and listened eagerly, in spite of the discomfort.” Some apprehension is felt regarding the recent regulations affecting Korean mission schools. An official pronouncement of March 29 reads in part : “In the educational policy of Japan it is already a recognized principle that public education should be kept separate from religion. Therefore the Governor-General, in carrying into effect the Educational Ordinance for Korea, an nounces that not only government and pub lic schools, but also private schools whose curricula are fixed by provision of law, shall not be permitted to give religious instruction or conduct religious ceremonies. , . . N,o private school which carries on impor-. tant educational work, the. curriculum being regulated by provision of .law,..shall be. al lowed to add to its curriculum religious in struction o r . conduct any religious cere monies.” Unless the phrase “important educational work” excludes mission schools, this would seem to mean that religious instruction will have no place whatever in their program,, especially as “Instruction No. 12” of. 1899
description. What would it be if now, in the depth of winter, the whole nation—or. what is left of it—were abandoned to unre lieved misery under the cruel torments that have come upon it, if no hand of help had been stretched out, no refuge found on any hospitable shore ? We shudder to think of it Yet that, and more, is the lot of half the Jewish race today, and equally for no fault of their own. "It may truthfully be said,” writes Mr. David Baron in the January issue of his ad mirable paper, “that there is no people so much affected by the present war as the Jews ; and it would be difficult to find, even in the history of this much-afflicted people, a darker chapter-than the one which is now being written in their blood.” The following, from The Standard, is- from an account of its special correspondent in Wilna: “I have returned here after vis iting the scene of the recent operations round the fortress of Ossovetz and the for mer watering-place of Driiskenniké. My soul is still filled with horror at the sights which met my 'eye, and' I shudder to think of the ravages made by the waves of troops, both of the enemy and of Russia’s own, who have passed to-and-fro over what was once a peaceful, quiet agricultural region, inhab ited chiefly by Jews, as far as villages and small towns are concerned. . . . Thou sands of people have been torn from their homes, their belongings scattered to the four winds of heaven, with no prospects, now that the winter is upon them, of adequate shelter or food.” Surely it is the day of our opportunity, every one of us, in prayer. Whatever may be our different:?3 of view or creed, we can not read our Bibles without, seeing the glo rious galaxy of promise that has .yet to.be fulfilled in the experience, of this, people, millions of whom are plunged in anguish no words can express .—Palestine for the Jews. . ... -
The. Adult Bible Class movement has en-. tered China. Of this work, Mr.- Doan, Mis-, sion Secretary o.f the Christian . Church,.
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