than kill them. I now know right from wrong. I hope the great Father will not punish me for what I did when I could not help it. I was like a man mad.' I prayed with him and for him, and applied the Word of God to his case as well as I was able. I trust he is truly penitent,and determined, withGod's help, to lead a new life. He is by no means a repulsive, but rather a kind and be nevolent-looking man, and one of the last I should have thought had been a cannibal." Such are the terrible lengths to which our poor fallen human nature will go, when left to itself, without the light which alone can really control and restrain us! We conclude with a pleasanter picture. Our Missionary tells us here of Ready Listeners. "July 2-We wished, and very much tried, to reach the Big Island yesterday evening, but were unable. We there fore encamped a few miles below it, and arrived here this morning about four o'clock. A great number of Indians were present, and I went to invite any who felt disposed to attend at the Fort. Our engraving shows you some of the difficulties which our Missionaries have to conquer in carrying on their great and blessed work. The rivers are the roads of the country. Sometimes the travellers glide along happily and smoothly, when the stream is deep and the wind favourable. They can then hoist their sail, and speed onwards pleasantly and successfully. But often the wind is contrary, and the stream shallow and full of sharp rocks and dangerous currents. These are the Rapids, of which we so often read, in the rivers of North-West America. Frequently the crews are obliged to land their cargo. Each man stands up in the boat, and, grasping a long pole, pushes the boat along over the perilous waters with hard labour and watchful care. If once they slacken their efforts, the strong stream catches the boat, the head swings round, and they are swept down the rapid, if not dashed to pieces on the way. What a picture we have here of all work for God in this fallen world, so full of difficulty, toil, and trial! The stream of evil is strong. We must struggle hard against it. We know this by experience. If we cease to strive and watch and pray, we shall soon make shipwreck of our faith, or, at least, bring ourselves into much trouble and danger. So, too, it is with the Missionary. Missionary work is hard work. Let us never forget those who are toiling abroad. It is a WORK of faith, and LABOUR of love, and PATIENCE of hope" (1 Thess. i. 3) that our brethren have undertaken. We can aid them by our prayers. Let us often bring their cause before the Throne of Grace. Our intercessions will not be in vain. Our brethren will enjoy the gracious breath of the Holy Spirit, speeding them onwards happily and pleasantly; and we shall feel that we, too, have had our share in each message of "good news from a far country;" for whilst they were labouring abroad, we have been helping by prayer at home. Subscribers and Collectors of one Penny a week are entitled to a copy of this Paper free. CHRISTIAN FRIENDS GOD is plainly calling us by the voice of His providence to China. Many of you have very likely had sons, or brothers, or friends in the British army, that has lately been employed there, and all of you must have read or heard something about the recent campaign. This is not the place to speak of the rights or wrongs of our quarrels with the Chinese. Perhaps both sides were to blame, as is generally the case in quarrels; but the upshot of all has been, that now China has been made to feel and believe what she hardly believed before-the strength and skill of the nations of the West; and she must have learnt that they are not to be despised. Our Armstrong guns have crumbled to pieces the walls of their forts, and hundreds of Tartar soldiers have been hurried by their bullets to a violent death, when miles away from the mouth of these cannon, so deadly and so sure. Our soldiers have sacked and destroyed the emperor's summer-palace, close to the capital, Pekin, and the walls of the town itself have been in our possession. It seems to be quite plain that China can no longer shut herself up from the rest of the world, or refuse to have any thing to do with "outside barbarians," as she was pleased to call all other nations but her own. But now the question comes, If China is to be thus freely open to us, on what terms are we to be? There must be a sore and angry feeling on the part of the people, and shall we wonder if fear and suspicion take in their minds the place of contempt? They may feel that they cannot help dealing with us, and are obliged to sell us their tea and silk, whether they like it or not; but this is very different from that friendly and trustful acquaintance that we should wish to see. What are we to do? cannot lay down the course for Her Majesty's Government. We cannot put a stop to the traffic in opium, evil as it We is. We cannot make all the soldiers of our army, nor all the sailors of our merchant ships, just and kind and Christian in all their dealings. What, then, are we to do? "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of Him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace!" (Is. lii. 7.) We must multiply our Missionaries there. It is not the first country where they have been peacemakers, not only between man and God, but between man and man; and China is included in the command, "Go ye into ALL THE WORLD;" and Missionaries to China have a share in the all-conquering promise, "Lo, I am with you alway." We do not hide from you, Christian Friends, the difficulties of a Mission to China. Nay, rather, we bring them to your notice that you may use for us that weapon which can overcome the very greatest, and can move the Hand that moves the hearts of all. "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you." (2 Thess. iii. 1.) Our wars and fightings with China have raised up no little hindrances, as we have just said; but look at some of the others. Only see how vast is the field. At least half the heathen in the world are to be found in the Chinese empire. If we did as much for the Chinese as we do for other nations of idolaters, we ought to have 170 Missionaries among them instead of 8, and spend on our China Mission 100,000l. a year, instead of 60007. There are 400 millions of people in China. It is hard to conceive of so great a number. If a continual stream of them were to leave the country, at the rate of 100,000 a-day, for ten whole years, at the end of the time there would be more people left there than inhabit the British Isles. How are we to reach this enormoumultitude? O Lord, give the word, and great shall be the company of the preachers. Then again the Chinese are far more unlike us than any other people are. They wear white for mourning. Their compasses are made to point to the south: instead of the north. They write straight down from the top to the bottom of the page, instead of fron right to left. Every thing about themtheir way of thinking, their food, their dress, their manners and customsall seem most strange to us. They were a civilized people, clothed in silk. and drinking tea out of those beautiful half-transparent tea-cups, which we still call China, when the inhabitants of England were naked savages, who stained their bodies blue. They made canals, and printing-presses, and spectacles, and mariners' compasses, and gunpowder, many hundred years before they were known in Europe, and yet they have never advanced any further. See them, as our picture represents them, bowing down with foolish ceremonies before senseless images, tinkling their little bells, puffing the incense-smoke from their censers, counting their beads while they mutter their unmeaning prayers, knocking their heads against the floor, and then going forth to their daily business, without having gained any holiness or happiness: no better fitted for this life; no better fitted for heaven hereafter! Pity them, Christian friends. Praise Him who hath made you to differ! These poor heathen go round and round in the same track, always coming back to the point from which they started-no wiser or better than their forefathers centuries ago. They are sunk in the vilest of sins. They murder their female infants. They lie without a blush. They care little or nothing about the life to come.. And yet they are quite satisfied with themselves; they are settled on their lees" (Jer. xlviii. 11); they think that they "have need of nothing, and know not that they are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." (Rev. iii. 17.) What can reach these people? Nothing but the preaching of the Gospel, with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. We English people have outstripped them, just because the Gospel has been given to us. We have advanced along the straight line of Christianity, "forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forth to those that are before;" while they have been only going round and round, as we said, in a circle; never making any real advance. Pray for poor, dead, helpless China, without hope and without God in the world. "Come from the four winds, O Breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live!" There is another difficulty in the language. It costs a Missionary five years' hard work to master it. The pronunciation is very difficult. As you raise or drop your voice in speaking a word, you change the meaning of it, and thus you may talk nonsense, or excite a laugh, when you wish to be most serious. The writing, too, is very difficult to learn. Each mark does not stand for a sound, as in use? yung. 用 This written language, too, is generally different from the spoken, so that many a Chinese learns to read the mere sounds for these symbols, without understanding the meaning. Very, very few fully understand what they read. But in the midst of these difficulties, there are bright spots to encourage us. The sleep of ages seems to be broken now. The West and the East must now meet together. That wonderful rebellion of the Tae-pings, which threatens to shake the old system of things to pieces, is still going on within the empire. Such different accounts have been given of their faith and practice, that it is difficult exactly to form an opinion with regard to them. But we know that they destroy the idol-temples on every side; they profess to be guided by Christianity, though, in their ignorance, they have mixed errors with it; and they are ready to receive Christian teachers, and to listen to them. We may surely still hope great things from the Tae-pings. Then, too, nowhere have we a more devoted band of Missionaries than in China, small though it be. The Lord is beginning to own their preaching at Ningpo and round about. They are introducing an English alphabet among their scholars, with every hope of success; and a body of native helpers is being raised up for them. These native teachers are fond of expressing their meaning by figures. One, for instance, whose name is Song-sin, was preaching to the people about the Ten Commandments. He compared them to a carpenter's measuring rule, with ten divisions, by which God measured the "longs and shorts" of men's hearts; and then he showed them how they came short of each one, and so were guilty and condemned. Another, named Bao, wished to show them the folly of trusting to their prophet Confucius for salvation, and their need of a Saviour without sin;-one who is at once perfect God and perfect Man not an imperfect, sinful man like themselves. See," said he, "there is a man fallen into that deep well! How is he to be helped out? If another man, who has fallen in there himself, tries to help him, of what use will this be? The two will struggle in vain, and at last sink down in the deep mire. No: a man must come who is outside the well: he must let down a rope to him who is perishing there within it, and thus he will be able to rescue him from death. So," said he, "you must have a sinless Saviour to pluck you forth from the mire of sin." How valuable are such Christian natives, who understand their countrymen so thoroughly; who have been heathen themselves, and so know best how to put the Gospel before those who are heathen still. May their numbers be greatly multiplied! It is still, you see, the day of small things, but we are not to despise it. So it was once in Sierra Leone and Tinnevelly, and what hath God wrought there! We must send our Missionaries more fellow-labourers, and you must help us, Christian friends. Practise the great secret (Matthew ix. 37, 38), and the men will be sent. Perhaps one may be your own young minister, but you will spare him for Christ and for China. Hear the earnest appeal that comes from our brethren at Ningpo : "We do then, on behalf of the perishing millions around us, earnestly call upon our friends at home-who, by the very act of sending us forth, have virtually guaranteed, that when necessity calls for it we shall not be left unaided-now to send forth the needed help to us. We warn them against being influenced by mere worldly views, as though the time for doing any thing for China on a large scale had not yet come." Shall our cry for help at this critical juncture of our work be raised in vain? However discouraged and disappointed by the past, we still confidently hope and pray that it will not, and must not, be so. We still have faith in God, that He will not abandon His own work, but will, ere long, in answer to prayer, thrust forth many labourers into this vast harvest-field. The believer's confidence, in the midst of all the overturnings in this country, is, that an Allwise and Almighty Hand is directing and controlling all, and that such an end will eventually be brought to pass as will elicit the admiration and praise of all His people. Meanwhile, let His faithful servants be up and doing. Let them confidingly co-operate with Him in those things which they know to be distinctly His will. Let them now be sharers in the tears, and labours, and prayers of the Son of God, that hereafter they may be participators in His glorious triumph over the whole earth." Subscribers and Collectors of one Penny a week are entitled to a copy of this Paper free. |