The Subscription Price of THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS is ONE DOLLAR per year. the Postal Union, including Canada, twenty-four cents per year should be added. Change of Address: In all changes of address it is necessary that the old as well as the new How to Remit: Remittances, made payable to George C. Thomas, Treasurer, should be made by draft on New York, Postal Order or Express Order. One and two cent stamps are received. To checks on local banks ten cents should be added for collection. All Letters should be addressed to The Spirit of Missions, 281 Fourth Avenue, New York. THE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS AN ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY REVIEW VOL. LXXIII. May, 1908 No. 5 PRAYER Prayer and the Church's Mission YER for the furtherance of the Church's Mission is one of the most weighty privileges of every Churchman. What do we hope to accomplish by our intercessions? Many things. But espe cially we may hope to give added strength to the workers at the front. From the thick of the fight he was carrying on against the evil forces of his day, St. Paul sent back to the Church in . Thessalonica the message: "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may run and be glorified." That call is being repeated to-day by every missionary. These men and women are writing in deeds of knightly service the new Acts of the Apostles. They are facing conditions vastly different in many ways, yet similar in many ways, to those faced by St. Paul. We may see a modern Corinth with its immoralities and idolatry in a Shanghai or a Benares. We may find a modern Athens with its welcome for all things novel in a Kyoto or a Tokyo. Since our friends are facing needs so similar to those of apostolic days, shall not the Church of to-day give to every call for help a truly apostolic response? Man May Use Spiritual as Well as Physical Force Bishop Westcott has reminded us that when the missionary monks, who went out from Iona in the sixth century to evangelize Britain, came to the most difficult part of their journey, the prayers of their master, St. Columba, always met them there. So it may be with us. We may not know just when the crisis is coming in some distant field, but we may be certain that prayer offered for the workers will help them through many a time of discouragement and difficulty. That is perfectly reasonable. We can flash a message of good-will over continents and under oceans because man has discovered and can control and direct great natural forces. Is it too much to expect that man, by putting himself in correspondence with God, can use the great spiritual forces of the universe for the help and comfort of his fellows? These spiritual forces, no less and no more than the forces of the physical world, are the forces of the King, and we can wield them if we will. Το neglect to use them is to limit our own influence and to withhold help from our friends. Men and the Church's Mission walls so significant of April 20th. Of the nearly 4,000 peo- A Statesman's Secretary Taft, as China is true of every other non-Christian land. Dr. Samuel B. Capen, of Boston, the chairman of the Laymen's Missionary Movement, summarized the observations of the fifty or more laymen who during the past year and a half have visited the foreign field at their own charges to acquaint themselves with the work of various Christian bodies, by saying that their reports uniformly emphasized the present need of non-Christian nations for the Gospel, the readiness of those people to receive Christian teaching, and the marked success of the work already undertaken. Mr. J. Campbell White told of the success of the Movement in arousing laymen in all parts of the country to a recognition of their privilege and responsibility on behalf of the men of other lands. Mr. Silas McBee emphasized the value of the Movement in centering the thought of men upon the living Christ and His purpose for mankind, and in leading Christians, separated into various bodies, to recognize the duty of testing the convictions that keep them apart and thus make them less effective than they would otherwise be, as they face the duty of making Christ known to the millions who do not know Him. the chief speaker, steady decrease in offerings since [T is gratifying to record that the. placed himself squarely on record concerning not merely the beneficence but the absolute necessity of Christian work in distant lands. "No man," he declared, "can study the movement of modern civilization from an impartial standpoint and not realize that Christianity and the spirit of Christianity are the only bases for the hope of modern civilization and the growth of popular self-government." With equal emphasis he declared it to be the duty of the nation to help the unfortunate people of other countries. "Every foreign mission in China," Secretary Taft said, "is a nucleus for the advancement of modern civilization." And what is true of last September was checked during The Financial March. The income for that month was about $20,000 larger than the income for March, 1907. Thus the month closed with a net decrease of only $16,000 as compared with the previous year, as against the net decrease of $36,000 with which the month began. But even with so marked a gain for one month, the Board of Missions has no assurance that the work of the year will be closed without a deficit. By the erection of new districts and by other plans for the spread of the Church, the General Convention virtually instructed the Board to in |