THE KING’S BUSINESS
788
Rev. Stephen Van R. Trowbridge, who began work as a Sunday school missionary in Cairo, Egypt, last Christmas day under the auspices of the World’s Sunday School Association, has enjoyed one of the most remarkable privileges ever granted to a Christian missionary in Moslfem lands. He was officially invited to speak before the hundreds of Turkish students gathered in the Moslem university of El Azbar. The sole study of this school until recently has been the text of the Koran, but a liberalizing process has been going on which lias intro duced western textbooks of science and lit erature into some of the classes. Mr. Trowbridge took advantage of this movement to offer in the course of his ad dresses to teach the New Testament in Turkish to any students who might be in terested in it. Astonishing to say, the au thorities of the school did not object to this proposal, and a large number of stu dents signified their desire to receive in struction. At last accounts the lecturer was arranging the schedules for the classes de manded, which are to meet in the student dormitories of the university. Mr. Trow bridge has been six years a missionary in Turkey and speaks the Turkish language fluently. “The island of Tanna in the New Heb rides, associated with the ministry of Dr. John-G. Paton, is inhabited by men with a long reputation for cannibalism and bloody warfare. They belong to the most primitive of peoples and still use the implements of the stone age. Tn spite of the suspension of trade which the- European war has occa sioned these converts from blackest heathen ism have collected, on their own initiative, and handed over to the missionary working among them the large sum of £70. This they requested should be sent to England for the widows and orphans of British soldiers.” One needs to have read the life of Dr. John G. Paton on the-island of Tanna to feel the force of the following item :
This, too, manifests the works of 'God (John 9:3) : The state of Illinois has made up a simple prophylactic package which it plans to put into the hands of every physi cian and hospital attendant in the common wealth, the purpose to be the restoration of sight 'to the thousands of children born blind. One-fourth of all cases of blindness in the United States is due to ophthalmia neonatorum, an infectious disease of the eyes of the newborn. It costs the United States $7,000,000 annually to care for those blind from this cause. The total economic loss is estimated at $1,000,000,000. But pre vention of this disease is an easy matter, consisting merely of cleaning the eyes of the infant just after birth and then dropping into its eyes a properly prepared solution of silver nitrate. The state’s prophylactic packages consist of six tubes of 1 per cent solution of silver nitrate, six needles for perforating the end of each tube when re quired and directions for use. The packages are given free at any of the 350 state board of health distributing stations. Would that as much pains to secure the spiritual vision were applied from birth! Even the eco nomic salvage would run into billions. The first set of church bells to pass through the Panama canal was a shipment of eleven big bells from the Meneely Com pany to the Los Angeles Bible Institute. The new chiming system now employed in Trin ity Church, New York, will be used for the Los Angeles bells .—The Continent. Acting under orders from Cato Sells, commissioner of Indian affairs, government agents recently seized the Bemidji, Minne sota, brewery and emptied great vats con taining seven carloads of beer into the streets. The beer, valued at $4500, flowed down the gutters and into the near-by lake. The beer was confiscated because of the fail ure of the brewery company to comply with the Chippewa treaty of 1855 as recently con strued by the supreme court of the United States.
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